From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Inconsistency re CO boycott
Date: 16 Nov 92 12:03:30 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <38887@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura
Creighton) writes:

Laura writes as though the only ideas of merit were those
she advances.  The discussion of relevant issues she finds
worthy of scorn, scorn sufficient to trivialize the cares of
others sincerely expressed.  She's serving notice that
thinking aloud is disallowed.

>Jess doesn't have any concrete proposal as to how this
>boycott will work.  It would just be nice if it does.  Let
>me count the expressions:

I wrote about things I thought need to be considered.  If
you don't want to consider them because you think the whole
idea is cracked, say so and advance your own "concrete"
proposals.  Impugning the motives of others -- even if you
were right, you understand -- doesn't cut it.

>>Even when
>>people have proposed "outright" boycotting of anything and
>>everything associated with Colorado, I think they actually
>>mean a selective program.

>(but if they don't -- who cares?-- and besides, a change of
>skiing to Vermont rather than Aspen, doesn't hurt anybody,
>because who cares about skiing anyway?)

I defer to your greater wisdom, which "if they don't"
suggests you have.

>>I don't think anyone features hurting our
>>own any more than the minimum necessary to reach objectives
>>that (I would say, indisputably) need to be reached.

>Yep.  somebody else out there is deciding what is ``the
>minimum necessary''.

A relevant and valid concern, surely, is who decides what
and to what end.

>>I certainly care, and I know lots of others do too, about
>>what could happen to our friends there.  But it seems to me
>>inevitable that even if we are as selective and careful as
>>possible, some injuries (casualties of an ideological war,
>>after all) will take place.

>Too bad you live in Colorado.  You've got so many jerks who
>voted for OC-2 that I'm sure that you are all volunteering
>to to be ideologically injured and ideological casualties.
>In this war, for *your rights*, defeated by OC-2, you have
>to be `ideologically injured' and an `ideological casualty'
>to get them.

You apparently don't agree that it *is* an ideological war.
It's your take, not mine, to trivialize the injury that has
resulted and will result.  I think they're real enough.  You
rearrange a text exactly like Pat Buchanan.

>Fine and wonderful amount of caring for friends when you
>would just relegate them to the `casualty' pile.

Excuse me, you don't have a monopoly on caring, Laura.

>>It doesn't necessarily indicate indifference that one might
>>still advocate boycotting.  In the real world, you do what
>>you can, you do what you think you have to do, in spite of
>>such things.  Naturally, one tries to be aware and
>>sensitive; there's no point in using dynamite when a scalpel
>>will do the trick.

>But if people are screaming that it won't fix the problem,
>but will kill their businesses, you awarely and sensitively
>stuff cotton in your ears?

No, you are going to listen, think as best you can, and come
to a personal decision.  If you have a better way (short of
thinkspeak, I mean), trot it out.

>>I don't know for sure, but I think skiing is
>>one of the largest, if not the largest, tourist business in
>>the state.  If absolutely no one went there to ski,
>>thousands and thousands of people, about 10% of them our
>>own, would be thrown out of work in short order.

>Great.  you are advocating boycotting of skiiing whether or
>not it is the largest, or one of the largest industries of
>the state.  No need to research that.  If it turned out to
>be a tiny industry, you can always say ``ooops'' to those
>out of work.

Where did I advocate?  Did I start my sentence with "if" or
not?  Since skiing won't turn out to be tiny industry, I
think you're dislocating your shoulder getting your arm
around to your back.

>How the heck can you organise a boycott without knowing
>this?`

I thought we were discussing a boycott, not organizing one.

>Even assuming that you are correct -- how are these no-shows
>to let the state know that the reason they are not there is
>because of OC-2

The usual ways.  Anything wrong with that?

>If gaypeople were 60% of the population, this boycott,
>targetted, might work.  We're not.

You're saying boycotts never work.  You're wrong.  They are
always a minority tactic.  They don't always work, but they
have worked many, many times.  Enough times that discussing
it seem to me worthwhile.

>>The pain of discrimination is real.  Unquestionably the pain
>>of fighting it is also real.  We can (and I think should)
>>take what steps we can to minimize what the military people
>>call collateral damage; but it can't be prevented completely
>>without sacrificing the entire campaign.  What's at stake,
>>namely our freedom and our very lives, is too important to
>>resist with only half a heart.

>Let the Gaypeople in Colorado rot under `colateral damage'.
>People like me who live in San Francisco aren't suffering
>now, and all the hell they go throw will make life nicer for
>me.

Well, I *am* suffering now and I don't intend to let people
tromp over me without a protest, whether the people reside
in Colorado, Wisconsin, or San Francisco.

>>The individualism of "it's my money" is subordinated, in
>>my view, to the larger social goal.

>Sounds to me that Maureen's social goal is that she might
>not have any money and any job either.

Maybe you should read the history of the Montgomery bus
boycott and see what it cost the people who supported it.
Then go ask them if they thought it was worth it.

>Let's all go support `gay rights' while Maureen is
>unemployed.  Doesn't that image bring bile to your throat?

Yes it does, but so does the hate amendement, which isn't a
"gay rights" issue.  Trot your better idea right out here,
pal.

>``Boycott Colorado'' is a bucn of out-of-towners feeling
>good about themselves when they did piss-all to defeat OC-2.

What arrogance.  You haven't the slightest notion about what
people outside the state (apart from you) did or didn't do
to defeat CO-2, but you entitle yourself to put it down.

>I sent $50.  

Good.

>That's close to piss-all.  But at least I have
>the idea that the people who fought OC-2 are real alive
>brothers and sisters, not some damn abstraction to be
>sacrificed.

Of course, there's no purity to beat ideological purity.
You are, as all the world knows, the only person on the
whole planet who has "real alive" friends they could
possibly care about.

>If I thought a boycott would work, I would back it, but,

But since you don't, you will pillory anyone who even
mentions it.  I get it: thought suppression.

>like a union, collect dues from those who boycott Colorado
>which we could pay to those friends whose businesses go
>under.  And I'd help with an outreach project to convince
>those that live in Colorado that this will work, and it is
>worth toughing it out.

Of course, no one considering a boycott would have arrived
on their own at any idea like sending the cost of an aborted
ski trip to NLGTF or a PAC or a relief fund.  Those who have
suggested exactly that were out-of-towners dicking around.

>But I have no indication that it will work.  So it is just
>out-of-towners dicking around with self-righteous games
>again..

You think all the self-righteousness is out here, huh?

-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
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Newsgroups: soc.motss,soc.bi