So I Was Stupid...

[lydamorehouse]

...and actually got into it on the internet with one of my liberal friends who was posting about how "camping trips are the new safety pin." 

I am, however, very exasperated.  

Apparently, I need to be very clear that I never thought safety pins were a good idea, nor do I necessarily believe the idea of the "camping" network is either. Both are flawed, not particularly well thought out ideas. BUT what both of those things represented was a sincere desire to do some good, to try to organize something in response to a grievous harm done to the nation. 

The decision happened Friday, y'all. Here it is Monday and already the left is tearing into the well-meaning white ladies telling them that their ideas are stupid and wrong and nothing more than virtual signaling and/or doing more harm than good. And, yeah, the idea might have been flawed. There are already organizations doing the "camping trip" work. There are lots of actual risks to picking up people and transporting them across state lines. There are groups who are marginalized who still might not have access to the in-crowd. All of this is true. 

What I'd wish, however, is that we could give a flawed idea more than three fucking days to germinate before we decide it's useless or harmful. I wish people didn't get such an adrenaline rush from tearing things down. I wish people would put as much energy into actually making a community work that they do in piling on people. 

What I found most ironic about the fight I foolishly waded into is that IMMEDIATELY my personal response to the crisis was called into question. It's been THREE FUCKING DAYS, but people demanded to know what work I'd done. Why did I think going to a protest was anything more than exercising my white privilege? Have I lead through action or should I sit and listen to other voices? Why do I think I have any authority in this matter? 

You know what the truth is? I don't have answers. I don't know what should be done. I am still reeling from the blow. Yeah, I expressed exasperation at the immediate need to tear down something that only just started and that was probably ill-informed (and obviously stupid) of me, but holy shit people, what have I done? What have you done? NONE OF US HAS HAD MUCH TIME TO DO ANYTHING and that's kind of my fucking point! So, why are we wasting time pointing fingers when we should be figuring out what we should be doing????

Ugh.

I should know better.

Comments

[mtbc]

I'm sorry. You're making complete sense to me.

[lydamorehouse]

Eh, I don't really need sympathy. I just needed to vent somewhere that was neither Facebook nor Twitter. But, thank you, regardless.

[mtbc]

It's definitely good to have a place to vent!

[jon_chaisson]

I mean, that's been my issue as well. I get the rage, believe me. I'm just as full of it right now. But what was really pissing me off this weekend was the immediate blame of The Other Party. Fine, they're not perfect, they're making mistakes, they're not as strong as we want them to be, they're asking for financial help to, y'know, DO what you want them to do. But it's an uphill f*cking battle through multiple obastacles against a highly (and gleefully) abusive entity, so blaming the one doing the fighting in public for Not Doing It Right is doing absolutely nothing.

Oof. *wearyface emoji*

[lydamorehouse]

Oof sums it all up for me, too.

[kore]

....yeah, after the wilfully context-dropping ranting against the people singing "God Bless America" with the Uvalde family members and people blaming Ginsburg for not retiring when Obama could replace her and blaming Obama for not codifying Roe when he had a supermajority....I just felt very tired. I'm so tired of liberals doing the circular firing squad.

[lydamorehouse]

Hard same.

I just... it's tiring.

[naomikritzer]

Was discussing the circular firing squad metaphor with my older child and said "WHY will people not TURN AROUND and AIM THEIR GUNS at where the ACTUAL ENEMY is?" and Francis says, "well, they're further away so they're harder to hit," which is so spot on, you know? This is exactly why the circular firing squads are so popular.

[lydamorehouse]

I accidentally went back to that thread just now to see how vilified I have been, and HOLY SHIT.

Whelp, lesson learned, I'd say!

[kore]

HAH, that's brill. That's totally it.

[marahmarie]

The Ginsburg debate is almost willfully stupid- with her replaced while she lived a 5-4 majority would be the case and the liberal end of that would be the 4 so I'm not sure that'd make things any better.

[hrj]

I wish we progressives would embrace the ability to support each other without requiring a completely aligned agenda. And it's nothing new. I coined the personal shorthand of "portmanteau politics" back in the '80s when people acted like being a feminist and a lesbian also required one to be vegan, anti-porn, and all manner of otherwise unrelated things. I do *get* that it's frustrating to see people who ought be natural allies tripping over unexamined privilege and -isms. And there isn't a calculus for whether the harms of portmanteau-ism outweigh the harms of unexamined allyship. But, dammit, our enemies aren't wasting their energy on cutting each other down and that's one of the reasons they're doing so well.

[lydamorehouse]

Yes, THIS. Exactly.

[cynthia1960]

I totally agree that our totalitarian theocratic patriarchal enemies are benefiting from our spending our energy cutting our own allies to bits. I think we need a process that allows us to work with people we are aligned with when there is fail that grows out of privilege and unexamined -isms.

I'm not sure I'll be around to see it, but my reading of history has me thinking that our enemies are going to fall prey to this same phenomenon eventually; their factions are staying aligned right now in order to pick us off. Once we're gone? One obvious splinter point in the US is going to be when the authoritarian fundamentalist Protestants figure they don't need to keep those horrible authoritarian "idol-worshiping papists" around. I have no love whatsoever for the US Catholic hierarchy, but my bets are on them getting their asses handed to them on a plate. Same thing is going to happen with the LDS.

They're all riddled with authoritarian racist patriarchal heterosexist crap, but unless they are ok with having regions where one faction has sway (like UT, and the other mountain states where the LDS is really major) they're going to rip each other to bits insisting that their own particular rules need to be applicable everywhere.

[lydamorehouse]

Well, I hope you're right, though I am not fond of the vision of the future where our side is gone.

[cynthia1960]

Trust me, neither am I! What's going on right now is fueling the worst sort of dystopian nightmares. Even my best dreams right now really suck.

[dreamshark]

What exactly do you have against safety pins?

[lydamorehouse]

The Safety Pin thing was from many, many years ago.

[sabotabby]

I'm sorry you went through this.

But also, this is the most cathartic post I've seen in awhile.

What I'd wish, however, is that we could give a flawed idea more than three fucking days to germinate before we decide it's useless or harmful. I wish people didn't get such an adrenaline rush from tearing things down. I wish people would put as much energy into actually making a community work that they do in piling on people.

This this this. Like, I'm not getting into it with people about the stupid Handmaid costumes. I don't love them. I get the critiques. I think it's a bit weird too. But I do not think it's our biggest problem right now, I don't think Margaret Atwood was the most racist author to ever live, and if this is what is some liberal white woman's gateway into effective activism, I'm actually okay with that. It's a pop culture reference that normies recognize and it's quite visually impactful.

Right now I'm going stir-crazy because the intersection of covid and disability has basically sidelined me for the past three years, plus I'm in Canada so there's not much I can do besides give money to NARAL and play whack-a-mole with the ideologies who want to bring this shit up here. But I'm bored af with the left's tendency to tear down anyone who wants to help even a little. Done with it.

[lydamorehouse]

Yes to all of this, except, of course, the part where you're in Canada. :-)

[kore]

OMFG, I feel the way about the Handmaid's costumes the way I did about the pink knitted hats. Not something I would ever do personally? simplistic? some dodgy overtones? Yeah, yeah. But it pops VISUALLY (which was a big fucking reason for the hats to be PINK, so people could be counted), it's immediately recognizable, it's simple, it's easy for regular people to do, and the media loves it. That is all IMPORTANT in this day and age. There's a reason the Handmaid look took off globally and the Left is really fucking stupid if they don't capitalize on that in ads and stuff. Atwood doesn't seem to mind.

[sabotabby]

The left needs some fucking strategic thinking.

[marahmarie]

The one thing it fails at so hard. What it really needs are R converts who know how to meme and talk and write and sell and show nerve and let this thing roll.

[naomikritzer]

It's not even white ladies! The camping network stuff is coming from a wildly diverse group of mostly older (50s and up) women who have not, in fact, done a ton of activism beyond sending money places (which most of them have been doing, and are continuing to do).

The thing that boggles my mind tbh is the people convinced that you'll endanger everyone who might come to you for help if you say anything at all on social media that sounds in any way like "I am pro-choice and live in a state with legal abortion, if anyone finds that useful knowledge in the future." Are you taking a risk yourself? Sure, maybe. Are the anti-choice people going to stake out your house to spy on people staying in your guest room? No, because no one has enough volunteer power to stake out THAT MANY HOUSES. This is the essence of "safety in numbers." They cannot spy on all of us. They cannot prosecute all of us. Facebook can't even kick all of us off the site, because ffs if they lose the Boomer women they'll have no users left.

I will note, I have a friend who's an actual advanced practice nurse who does abortions and while she sympathizes with my actual concerns about "camping network" stuff (specifically, I'm worried about desperate women staying with strangers who then are not safe to stay with) she is also really not sanguine about the abortion funds being able to get people what they need. She says the ones in her area engage in some really counterproductive gatekeeping and there's going to be a place for informal networks.

[naomikritzer]

(The safety pin stuff was white ladies and really turned on white saviorism. The "if you want to come to my house" is absolutely not, especially since for MOST PEOPLE they are actually saying this TO THEIR SOCIAL NETWORK. I have a bunch of online friends in the south. I want them to know they can talk to me if their kid needs help.)

[lydamorehouse]

Yep, this is all reasonable.

Thanks to this ridiculous argument this morning, I have actually been pondering if there is more that I could or should be doing. I found a few organizations I felt I could donate to that seem to be doing good work. I would like to do some actual work, but it's unclear what, in Minnesota, I can actually do. There aren't even a lot of protests planned here because we are all still--for the moment--legal.

This is why I GET the whole 'camping' impulse. It feels like putting a candle in the window. Something that isn't much, but feels like it could be a beacon in the darkness. This is why I wish that people didn't feel the need to immediately teardown an idea that is, honestly, only at most a few weeks (a month? When was the leaked memo?) old. No one has had much time to really process this, and already new shit is being dropped from the Supreme Court.

Fuck. This feels like Trump's first 100 days all over again, only worse.

[kore]

This is why I GET the whole 'camping' impulse. It feels like putting a candle in the window. Something that isn't much, but feels like it could be a beacon in the darkness.

I like that way of putting it. It reminds me of how people got sneered at for changing their social media icons -- yeah, that can be "internet slacktivism" or whatever, but it's being powered by an important urge, the wish to step up, show solidarity, be counted. In Ye Oldene Dayes that was buttons and badges on shirts. We want to encourage people to step up, not mock and squash them for it.

....man, Trump at least had some brakes on him at the very beginning, like with the Muslim ban and how lawyers showed up at the airports and lawyers began immediately suing and sanctuary cities began making plans. There's no brakes on the fucking Court, which is why McConnell wanted it.