So over at Bilerico Project, I wrote a piece that questioned GetEQUAL's ideas. It started with an article with one of their directors talking about protesting President Obama. Well, I thought it was silly of them to waste all that money and resources attacking him and leaving our enemies home free.
After my post hit, they got mad at me. I didn't care, I knew they would. However, during this back and forth, I learned a lot about dealing with these folks.
- They use quotes from civil rights leaders like they are spells. I felt like I was Nancy from "The Craft" getting some binding spell thrown on me.
- If you question their tactics or strategy, then you are insulting them in a Klingon kind of way. It's blasphemy to question GetEQUAL's skills. If you read some their responses, they claimed they were insulted. Personally, I thought those parts were funny.
- They love using GetEQUAL as their middle names. A bit cult-ish, but if I could, I would put Louis Vuitton as a middle name.
- If you quote one of their leaders/directors from any media, disregard it. According to GetEQUAL, you have to 2nd guess that statement and find one of the members to clarify it. Basically, if I'm told to 2nd guess your leadership, then that spells DISORGANIZATION.
- A bunch of angry activists doesn't ensure leadership.
- They suffer from the worst case of tunnel vision.
- GetEQUAL has protested the president more than any of our opponents.
- In fact, they have staged sit-ins and interruption to our biggest allies, but to our enemies, they just shouted outside of their events. EX: They protest outside of Rick Perry's prayer event. It seems they show our enemies a little more respect.
- They gave me so much flak, but no answers.
- They need strong leadership to keep them in line. If they don't get it together, they will be gone in 5 years.
3 comments:
"GetEQUAL has protested the president more than any of our opponents." This may be true, but it has been effective.
I joined members of the Ohio GetEqual gang in Oct. 2010 to protest DADT in Columbus, OH at campaign rally for our governor in which the President and First Lady were in attendance. We set up a couple of big signs and made sure everyone noticed us and saw the message. The President had no idea we were there of course, but all 35,000 attendees to the rally filed by us over the course of 2 hours. That's a lot of exposure!
Did this one event lead to the repeal of DADT? Of course not, but in the aggregate with all of the other demonstrations it sure did. That's undeniable. There is nothing wrong with "protesting" the good guys to try to make changes for the better.
As an aside, I just looked at my blog post from that event and saw a pic of myself. OMG. I weighed 220 back then. Today I weigh 163, and the difference is very noticeable. Ugh.
The funny part about all this is I've never heard of them before.
While I'm all for holding politicians feet to the fire, I think in some respects GetEqual is going down the wrong path.
Go after the representatives and senators who oppose us most. Make their lives interesting and/or uncomfortable. Occupy their offices, get in their face.
But what you describe above I've seen play out on the state and local level here in RI.
I have been active with the mainstream group which lobbied like crazy, and with another where we went out and protested the bigots.
The latter is sort of useless. It feels really good to shove it back in the bigots face, but the lobbying pays off.
Post a Comment