Monday, January 24, 2005

Linkage and All Queers

Summerisle over at Times of Hate, Times of Joy brings up some interesting points while discussing socialist rhetoric and how to move forward, and tells us that a vision of the possible future should be presented. I can't say that I agree 100% -- part of anarchy is allowing different world-views to come into being -- but, it would certainly help when I'm trying to explain anarchy to someone. Rather than using vague concepts, I would have all the answers and convince them and they'd become anarchists and everyone would live in (mostly) peace and harmony.

Of course, in doing so, they would have a preconceived notion of anarchy that was caused by me, and might act coercively to ensure that their own notion was implemented... and possibly be the only notion implemented, which also isn't right.

Hmm. It might be late. Well, regardless.

Last week, at the All Queers Meeting, there was some drama. Note that this is all second-hand. I've heard two people's stories, which means I see two sides to the whole thing, though there are, of course, many more. Basically, there was a more conservative element present which felt threatened by the more radical element that was also present, who felt threatened by the more conservative element, and instead of everybody listening to one another (which they are still not doing, and instead are gossiping), each side blamed the other for being who they are (basically) and got all angry.

Never mind that the meeting was an 'All Queers' meeting, not an official group meeting, and that anything decided would be carried out by whoever felt like carrying it out, and (most importantly, because this is something that the 'more conservative' side didn't seem to understand) no one was obliged to participate (which is the basic valid point I gathered from the radical side).

Meanwhile, the radical side seemed to be unaccepting of the desires of the more conservative side to work on outreach to the, um, 'even more conservative' (ie, queer republican) elements in the community. While I sympathize with the radicals in that they don't want to be around people whose basic outlook on life includes segregation and hate (I wouldn't, either), there are a lot of people who are 'republican' or what have you that aren't. And, again, it was an 'all queers' meeting, and that implies everyone who calls themselves queer, even the conservative ones (which is a couple of basic points from the conservative side).

Note that my use of 'radical' and 'conservative' throughout this post is to refer to the two main protagonist/antagonist groups that have emerged, and should in no way imply that I am not a radical.

In other news... Things are going well with Steve. Things are going well in general, except that I have a lot of homework. And I promise to write more, but it's now almost 12:30 so I'm going to bed.

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