I've been in this group for quite a while. I believe I'm the oldest person in this group, which in itself means nothing. But I have the scars on the back of my head from stitches needed after being clubbed as a 14 year old at the Presidio 27 protest. I vomited from tear gas during the Days of Rage. I've been an old school Berkeley leftist my whole life. I'm multiracial from a time when there weren't many of us, when drunk WWII vеts felt free to voice their racist insults to a 10 yеar old and his mother and I'm crushed to see that return, but no one ever promised me real change in my lifetime and I'm committed to the struggle. The most important person in my life transitioned from female to male and we are still each other's most important person so no one has the right to tell me a fucking thing about gender and intimacy. My father landed on Omaha Beach and marched across Europe to Berlin but ignored the racism of his parents to marry my mother. And she ignored the racism of her parents as well, and they were both disowned. I was in the San Francisco State film dept and part of the early wave of critical theory when terms like queer identity and gender fluidity were first put forth and I'm proud as an artist that we were among the first to break that ground. No one's written that history but that is precisely why Linguistics is as gay as it is now, from people like me in English and Film departments sitting in graduate seminars tearing apart the very concepts of identity and gender. I watched too many friends die from AIDS, a horror few of you can comprehend. You can't make an argument about racism, imperialism, class conflict, US hegemony or sexism that I probably wouldn't agree with. You have nothing to say to me about fascism, I've seen it first hand. I'm something like a lapsed Buddhist. And I no longer feel welcome in this group because I won't claim I'd pick up a gun and shoot someone in the face.Yes, you have righteous anger, as do I. You talk a hard game but have you really picked up a gun? No, of course not. I have. And I put it down. Because I learned the real struggle is harder. Certainly harder than harsh rhetoric directed at those who aren't as black block as you. You have at least gone out and broken some windows, haven't you? No, probably not. But you put stickers on your laptop! Yes, I know, real Nazis are out to kill us. And they actually do have guns. Talk to me when you have real scars to compare.
The lack of mercy exhibited here lately, including by the mods, outweighs any possible enjoyment of the intellectual pleasures of such a smart group. I'm disappointed in you Julian.