I'll say it and put it on the carpet... Some of our gay bloggers and activists played a decent role in the Republican win last week.
They can't deny it. After all they did in order to hold Obama and Dems accountable, their actions took on a powerful negative effect. I will highlight a few of these actions from the past 2 years:
- Showtime! Ever since Obama was elected, several folks were all over CNN, MSNBC and the internet, dooming Obama's actions on the LGBT community. Dan Savage and Dan Choi, could be found any news outlet, pushing a lot of their anger, but never offering many solutions.
- Blog, Rant, Blog- Pam Spaudling, John Aravosis, David Mixner and journalist Kerry Eleveld spent the majority of their blogs or posts about Obama/Dems failing at everything Gay. In fact, they blogged more negative posts on Obama/Dems than positive. After a while, a faithful reader of their work would be convinced that Obama hated Gay people. I'm not saying they should be all roses and unicorns about Obama, but they could have at least threw a dog a bone.
- Boycotts- There were at least 3 DNC boycotts, trying to make gays close the gAyTM. It didn't really work, but it did send the message to everyone that was watching.
- Attacking within. There were so much infighting within our activists. Without strong leadership, everyone with after everyone. The usual target was HRC. In fact, the online Town Hall meeting of LGBT bloggers spent most of their time attacking HRC and yet, STILL not putting out many solutions.
- getEQUAL- They could have been great, but their breakout performance left many confused and bitter. I hope they will get better in time.
- Confusion/Half-truths/partial stories - John Aravosis was a puppetmaster. He basically spat out a lot of foolishness, that critical thinking person could easily see through. However, his popularity allowed him to manipulate many folks into believing in his crap. Only a few LGBT activists and writers called him out, only a few.
- No accountability on the quality of the info spewed out by some LGBT bloggers/activists. And if you challenged them, you were attacked by many of their drones.
- Presenting the LGBT Civil Rights movement as a quick fix. If anything, the Civil Rights movement in the 60s should have taught us that this will take time.
- Not educating ourselves. I believe some us took a lot info for granted and not challenge the validity of the content or the credibility of the writer.
We really did a number on ourselves, we really did. And instead of claiming that it didn't happen, we need to own it, so we can move forward and not go down this path again.
