Small Protest at Biden Tribute

At the same time, how do you motivate a group such as ours which is so adamantly opposed to organization or cooperation?

If you think about it, even coming out of the closet requires more than a little rebelliousness, since America is so homophobic and tries to keep us all in the closet. So from our very first public identification as being members of this community, we're bucking the majority. This would work to our advantage if we could do it as a group, sort of to synchronize our rebellion. However, it seems as if we never get to that stage. We internalize all that homophobia about how GLBTs are so bad that we take that rebellious impulse and direct it at each other-we spend more time tearing each other down than on defending each other or trying to protect our community from harm.

I'm jealous of other minorities, where you're born into a family that is just like you. I mean, it would be so much easier to organize if from day one we looked up at our parents and realized that GLBT people had a duty to support each other the way family members do, and that, no matter what differences we may have internally, we close ranks and stand up for our kin when outsiders attack them or us.

why do we have such a hard time with the idea of mutually ensured survival?  

My dad was a steelworker
My mom was a kitchen girl
and that's why
I'm a socialist.
-from an old song I used to hum to myself

That is one thing that is unique about the gay civil rights movement though. Our community cuts across all lines of race, class, etc.  

And also our greatest strength.

A thousand fires lit is better than four.

http://www.dyssonance.com  Breaking all the rules...

Sure it makes great poetry. And there are a million failed causes that produced beautiful poetry. I don't want ours to join them.

Like the later posters have said, if you read that comments section, you'll get the image the rest of the world has of us: they won't take us seriously, because we won't takle ourselves seriously.

How exactly is a mob of bitchy prima donnas all hogging the spotlight to attack itself anything other than a circus?

Case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Here is Camille Paglia, harping on about how irresponsible we GLBT people are for demanding our rights when there are so many more important things.

Paglia is no different than a million other GLBTs I've met-ready to turn on her own kind in a heartbeat, contrarian for the sheer joy of being contrarian. The sort of person that will look at a person who makes a good point, and attack them because, no matter how good the point was, she feels it is her duty to show them that they don't know everything. Even when thay weren't claiming to know everyhing, they were just making a point.

I'm not too surprised her girfriend left her. I wouldn't wish Camille Paglia on my worst enemy. Just imagine waking up every morning next to someone who will stab you in the back for no other reason than to show that she can.

If this were an Aesop fable, she'd be the scorpion hitching a ride on the frog that is the GLBT community.

And yet, those thousand flames you extol are all the scorpion; we're only burning each other, instead of those who threaten us. Matt Sheppard died 10 years ago; why is it that 10 years later we still can't get a hate crimes bill passed? Because we keep kneecapping each other, that's why.

My dad was a steelworker
My mom was a kitchen girl
and that's why
I'm a socialist.
-from an old song I used to hum to myself

Let each one be a forest fire.

A thousand candles is pretty bright, but only in concentration.

And yeah, we are beating on each other -- haven't ya noticed that gay men gnerally like, well, men, and lesbian women generally like, well, women, and bisexuals get in there and like both and make it more complicated and then you have those trans folk where you never know what kinda sex you are gonna have and...

its kinda built into the mix.

We need to be out in force in the local communities, making noise not via protests and by marches but by creating initiatives and trying to submit laws and doing over and over and over again.

We need to run for office ourselves, in order to claim that one in ten seat position so that we can say to those who would keep denying us "screw you" and get it done.

http://www.dyssonance.com  Breaking all the rules...

That said, I think we accomplished something, and I made some contacts that I think will lead to better protests in the future.

Trust me the power Dem structure has and will notice.  Sure the DNC found a bunch of "Uncle Toms" to give them money but lets see what happens next time.  This is gonna take time and constant pressure.