[Peace] How to locate AWARE table - turning the facts on their heads

[Ricky Baldwin]

I'm sorry, but once again, this is not the whole story.  There was a publication that the group decided not to endorse, then labeled by Carl as a product of "members of AWARE" with clear intent to mislead the public and antagonize the majority in AWARE who disagreed with him.  

There followed a disagreement about the tactics employed at one event with Candidate Obama - several people being "rude" (including me) but only Carl's behavior being widely questioned in the group and in the wider activist community.  There was also some disagreement about the leaflet Carl handed out, and this became compliocated becaue some people like me had no problem with the leaflet or necessarily with the behavior at the event but with what followed in AWARE meetings. 

Finally during an attempt to discuss these questions, Carl became belligerent toward a couple of people but mostly notably toward Carol who was trying to facilitate a very difficult meeting and let everyone have a chance to speak.  Repeated attempts to mediate by a few members were then lumped together with those who disagreed with the leaflet, behavior at the event or behavior at the meeting, sometimes labelled as "corecive harmony" or even "racist" (Carl's term).

In the longer term quite a few people have one after another given up the attempt to get along, at least well enough to focus on AWARE's very important mission and found the climate too hostile and no longer worth their time.

To refer to this situation as an example of the much-whined about "coercive harmony" is either ironic or a very bad joke.  The shoe has mostly been on the other foot in my opinion.

Ricky



"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn

--- On Mon, 8/31/09, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:

From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace] How to locate AWARE table at Sweetcorn Festival
To: "Robert Dunn" <prorobert8 at hotmail.com>
Cc: peace at anti-war.net
Date: Monday, August 31, 2009, 2:43 PM

Ah, rudeness! The sin against the holy spirit of American politics, viz. Coercive Harmony!*

The Great AWARE Schism of 2005, in which a number of important AWAREists left the organization and walked no more with us, was occasioned by their conviction that some members of the group had been "rude" to the new junior senator from Illinois when he held a rally in town by suggesting that he was not really opposed to the war.

(For my account of the G.A.S., see "Illinois Anti-Warriors and the Attractive Senator" <http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook09292005.html>; note that the newly-appointed SC justice John Roberts is unaccountably referred to there as "Rogers": perhaps the soon-to-be chief justice was confused with TV's Mr. Rogers, owing to the resemblance of the person who appointed him to King Friday XIII.)

--CGE (who was thoroughly instructed as a lad that a gentleman is never unintentionally rude -- though he proved a poor student, and no gentleman)

_______________
* Nader, Laura. 1995: "Coercive harmony - the political economy of legal models," Department of Anthropology, U. of California, Berkeley; 25 pp.  Nader, professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, describes "basically a movement against the contentious in anything, and it has very strange bedfellows, from people with various psychiatric therapy movements, Christian fundamentalists, corporations sick of paying lawyers, activists who believe we should love each other.  We are talking about coercive harmony -- an ideology that says if you disagree, you should really keep your mouth shut."


Robert Dunn wrote:
> my favorite moment of AWAREs table was when Wayne Johnson rather loudly talked about his desire to make bombs in his home! Sorry Wayne, the local GOP did not find that too funny, plus your being extremely rude to our 103rd State Rep candidate. AWARE, please be aware, ( no pun intented that Wayne Johnson is not to be trusted. He has been banned from IlliniPundit, the local GOP banned him! Maybe for AWAREs reputation, you guys should follow suite!
> 
> Robert Dunn
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:19:32 -0700
> From: jencart13 at yahoo.com
> To: peace at anti-war.net
> Subject: [Peace] How to locate AWARE table at Sweetcorn Festival
> 
> Easiest way for me to locate the table was to find the ticket booth with the pointy purple and white top (taller than everything else), and then walk East a scant half block on Main while looking to my Right... and seeing the flapping shirts and AWARE awning, etc.  --Jenifer
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. Click here. <http://www.windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery>
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace
_______________________________________________
Peace mailing list
Peace at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/attachments/20090831/d9eda7e7/attachment.html