CHOOSING FRIENDS WISELY

A group in which I was an organizer and board member for seven years has, effectively, told me go intercourse myself. I had the temerity to object to the rabid rightwing bile of one of the other members, you see.

Seven years.

Any number of street protests.

Two years ago someone was outraged that I was even a board member, because, apparently, I was a Gentile who was well-trained in Talmud-criticism or something. Why, she was utterly furious that anyone even listened to me. That, she avered, was precisely what was wrong, and it was for that very reason that she had quit the group in a huff many years before I even joined.

That particular comment was made on a mailinglist which didn't last very long.
The list had been called into being to keep activists across the Bay Area connected, and to more effectively coordinate at a time when it had become more urgent than ever to do so.
Several other people on that list had their own unique instabilities, and it fell apart in recrimination and quarrelling. Entertaining in its own way, but a complete and rather repulsive waste of time.
Despite the very best of intentions.

I got attacked several times on that list.
Good thing I can defend myself, because few others did.


Fast forward to September of this year.
After several incredibly offensive e-mail screeds about President Obama and the Democrats, I de-subscribed from the mailinglist for the board. After seven years. Seven rather long years. And any number of street protests.

The reactions ran the gamut from "oh well" to "go intercourse yourself". Along with several which indicated that they were keenly interested in hearing more hatespew about the President and his party, and really rather despised balance and nuance.
Mostly silence, though. If silence can be said to blither.

Seven years.


The cause is still worthwhile. More so than ever. But its proponents are, with only few exceptions, ineffective and offensive dunderheads, insecure about themselves, with issues, and incident-prone.

One of them asserted, a few years ago, that he wanted someone in his foxhole whom he could rely on to cover his back.
It's a pithy remark, and peculiarly appropriate to the political environment in the Bay Area, where our cause is not popular. Unfortunately, the current loyalists have done their damnedest to disenchant anyone who seeks a balanced and nuanced approach, and we find ourselves less than marginalized.


I myself am largely inspired to apathy at this point.
Not just because of other activists' personal insecurities, issues, and incidents. And not because the silent majority presently on the board seem to agree with the vocal few who have told me and others like me to go intercourse ourselves.
Mostly, probably because I cannot see myself feeling entirely safe in a foxhole with biased, irrational, immature, and unreliable emotional cripples.


You know, I just don't feel part of it anymore.
Good luck with the cause, rabbosai.
It's still worthwhile.



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