Nothing Newport News said was incorrect but you bring up some very valid points as well that fill in the gaps left in his explanation. Several years ago "activism" was all the rage here and it seemed ever few months another self appointed advocate would emerge declaring himself to be standing up for the rest of us, whether we wanted him to or not, and representing our position, whether he ever asked what we thought our position was or not. That is also in part why activism as it has been done here over 15 years has failed. I purports to represent the group but none of the self appointed advocates ever thought they had to ask the group what we wanted, or if in fact we wanted anything done in our name. I used to get pretty roundly put down on here and more than once I was told by some sacred cows of the board to essentially shut up since these people were proposing to do things in our name. Apparently that should excuse the fact it was monumentally stupid and anyone pointing that out was the bad guy. There is so much I wish I could discuss about this but it isn't possible. I would only say it disappointed me how some here were willing to let others self destruct out of some hope they personally might benefit from it and would put down anyone who warned of the self destruction to the individual activist. It was a sickening thing to witness and it is in part why these things have failed, common sense and reason did not prevail, emotion and magical thinking did for a time, then the brick wall of reality got in the way and people were hurt or lives were in some cases destroyed. I only hope most of us have learned form that. |