[Boston-editorial] idea to discuss on Sunday

[Matthew Williams]

Well, I got thinking about the criticisms of what people/groups have 
done as a result of the exchange that happened after the big anti-war 
protest. A lot of people were attacking Boston Mobilization in a way 
that seemed completely over the top and counter-productive to me. Yes, 
they made some mistakes, but the charges that they were deliberately 
undermining the movement seemed irresponsible to me. I guess I would 
say that we ask people to keep their criticisms of groups' and 
individuals' actions to a "you made these mistakes", constructive 
criticism level unless they can show through examples that a particular 
group or person is *consistently* acting in a harmful way and is 
therefore genuinely bad news. In the case of WWP, there are websites 
documenting this. If a group or person is really being consistently 
problematic, it shouldn't be that hard to list a number of examples. -- 
Matt

On May 13, 2005, at 9:53 AM, Jonathan D. Proulx wrote:

> On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 07:04:36PM -0400, Matthew Williams wrote:
> :I agree that implementing it would be difficult, which is why I 
> suggest
> :enforcing it with a light hand. I think the distinction you make, Jon,
> :between "your idea is stupid because ..." and "you're stupid because
> :you have this idea" is a useful one. I would also want to hide things
> :like, "you are an enemy of the movement because you're a liberal", as
> :opposed to substantial critique of liberal ideas.
> :
> :One problem area I can foresee is when people want to make a critique
> :of the way an individual or organization behaves. All of us, for
> :instance, seem to have issues with Workers World Party/ANSWER/whatever
> :they're calling themselves now. How do we distinguish between a
> :legitimate critique and a nasty attack?
>
> That's true as well, how's this phrasing:
>
> Stays:
> <group> is an enemy of the movement because it <supports|has done|is
> 	doing> ...
>
>
> Goes:
> <group> is an enemy of the movement.
>
> you are an enemy of the movment because you <belong to |sound like>
>     <group>.
>
>
> If people like Matt's idea perhaps we should start a section on the
> Wiki to hammer out a policy/set of examples.  Once we have something
> we all agree on we can turn it into a page on the site that we can
> link to form our "keep it civil" admonition.
>
>
>