Boy, this sounds familiar. All this March business, the finger-pointing, the zingers. I have to confess I read this stuff and I get a headache - like a real, serious headache - right behind the eyes. Understanding both sides of the argument doesn't seem to help, either, because it is the same conflict that has always existed, like a record skipping.
To begin with, the criticisms Michael Petrelis has put forth seem couched in this "we're hip and down with the word on the street and so we know what is really going on and it is all youzguyz fault for trying to organize in secret so we are going to do everything we can to destroy you because we know we are right and ours is the only opinion that matters because we are hip and inclined toward anarchy and opposed to any process we have not thought of first." ( Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh School of Community Activism. )
And then there are the oldsters who have tried to hold "open process" meetings that get hijacked by the DGs ( personal political vexations who shall remain nameless – everybody knows at least one ) resulting in an extraordinarily complex hodge-podge of a dozen peoples' individual pet peeves – finally accepted only because those running the meeting are trying to move forward to the next item on the agenda so, to stop the filibuster, things get agreed to that, in retrospect, seem absolutely ridiculous.
My favorite example of this is from the '93 March when the national committee had to agree to include, in the March platform, that transgendered prisoners in the penal system would be guaranteed their hormone treatments - as part of the March's officially stated goals. ( ??? ) When I read this I was completely sympathetic with the organizers who no doubt had the platform meeting held hostage by a group of DGs demanding that this and other rather obtuse concessions be made or they would walk-out and declare the proceedings invalid.
I will never forget reading the quiet commentary by someone who was in that meeting – I can't remember his name – someone many would consider mainstream ( a.k.a. "The Enemy" ) who said matter-of-factly that "this" ( referring to the hormone treatments and a few other similarly questionable March platform planks ) was something our enemies would latch onto and use against us "for years to come." He was absolutely 100% right. They ( the Right ) did latch onto it and it was probably ten years before it stopped being routinely brought up and quoted as a central part of the "Radical Homosexual Agenda." So much for the virtues of inclusiveness.
( NOTE: It's a lot less painful to aim the gun at your temple instead of your foot. It's also faster. )
Having sat/suffered through so many of these meetings I fully understand the pressures of "inclusion" and the great strain it puts on people who sincerely want everybody involved but are loathe to having the clear/obvious goals of the undertaking become muddled by accommodations accepted for the sake of accommodation. All so that the DGs won't go out and hold a press conference, flood the blogosphere and/or tell all their compadres to boycott the event and protest against it at every opportunity. Given this reality it is completely understandable why these somewhat-radical-but-appreciably-more-practical activists try to organize these things seemingly in secret, why they become top-down instead of driven by grass-roots dynamics.
The truth of the matter is this grass-roots thing only works if everyone can agree on a very small set of priorities that they will all staunchly promote to get their respective constituency groups on board. When liberals try to do this they must contend ( and compete ) with nearly everyone's broader interests. When gay liberals try to do it every manner of personal grievance and childhood hurt becomes part of the muddy mix, as well. It is pretty much impossible to do this type of organizing in a community where everybody has a chip on their shoulder.
The christianatics are so lucky to have such a specific list of people and things to hate that everybody can be united and kept in line. Also, because the structure of organized religion is top-down, there is none of this calling for up-from-the-bottom activism that characterizes virtually all liberal political undertakings. If the christians have "differences" they almost never air them in public because the price of ruining the perception of unity is too high.
The ever-elusive-egalitarian process is only viable if those organizing these things include the mainstream sort of volunteer who has a pretty simple goal for her/his involvement and is not encumbered by so many other issues that their true focus can no longer be clearly determined. If enough of that sort of person also have a seat at the table the opinions of the DGs will still be represented -- but in proportion to their percentage of the population, not to the exclusion of all else.
But, just as with politics in general, it doesn't work that way. Mainstream people rarely volunteer ( at first ) in sufficient numbers so the more strident people at the grass-roots level end up doing all of the fighting and sacrificing all of their time. They also do most of the work - especially in the beginning - keeping these endeavors afloat until everyone else decides to get involved. Given this it is no wonder why they feel entitled to hold sway at these meetings and why they resent it when those top-downers who put these things together seem like they are trying to steer the dynamic away from them.
Which brings us all back to the future... what is happening right now between the Cleves, Jacobses and Petrelises and God-knows-who-all-else is only the opening act of an opera that has been performed before - an epic disaster if it is pursued under the present circumstances. Just one more reason why this type of "activism" has run its course and should not be revisited. If Petrelis thinks he can organize things so much better let him gather an angry band of radicals and stomp off to the capitol at the time of their choosing and let them do whatever it is their process decides is OK to do. And Cleve's folks should do the same. Forget trying to organize everybody together. Not because that isn't an admirable goal but because it is no longer possible. ( If it ever was. )
