Just wondering why my comment from Aug. 1 is still in moderation.

Mainly because there are other things in my life beyond getting back to comments. To say I’ve been busy would be an understatement. August has also had its own special twist- spending time with family in from out of state simply took precedence.

As I said in my comments policy:

Sometimes it’s me, not you. Again try not to take it personally. Doubly so in that sometimes I’m on the computer a great deal, other times it may be quite some time before I get back to it.

Additionally, you said something in your comment I actually wanted to find a little time to write to. Again, see my policy:

I also have a life, which means even though I may be BURNING to get to your comment, it may take some time.

As I have time, I will be writing towards a few things here or more generally ARD related, but this coming week also looks to be a busy one.

1. Take it up with the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“You got yours . . .” came the call from protest organizers.

“I want mine!” shouted the marchers.

2. When you go out on a public street and participate in a publicly advertised political demonstration photographs can be taken by anyone, from tourists to the Philly papers. You and others participating in the ARD clearly failed to understand that your participation in such was at public event, not something in any way private.

The events would fall under the general category of a “newsworthy event”. Our photographs and video were taken from public sidewalks of an internationally advertised public political event. My political criticism based on what I saw is just that, political commentary.

Perhaps the committee organizing this year’s ARD failed to explain to those with little to no political experience what the potential ramifications of participating in such an event could mean, (i.e. potentially be photographed, written about etc) but lack of political experience, lack of clue on the part of participants, or lack of ARD organizers explaining what should be obvious, is an internal issue to the ARD and its participants.

3. I know quite well what the law is pertaining to such in Philly, the ARD being the third event I covered in some of these venues (Independence Mall and at the Convention Center) in the past decade.

Holding signs or not holding signs is not the issue.

You want me to bump the numbers of people at the convention center by two? Sure fine, whatever. Granting you an ‘extra’ two, or five or (to pull a wildly inaccurate number out of my back pocket) even 100 would still not change the basic facts of the matter: the numbers were small, the low numbers made the effort and the cause itself look weak, and by 12:45 the vast majority of people had already left the convention center, sign holders or not. Yes, there were a few stragglers, but again, the bulk of the people spent less than 1/2 an hour outside the convention center.

First- As a chant leader, I assure you that we yelled, “You’ve got yours, We want ours.” I can’t account for the misquote, but I’m certain those 2 lines are what caused me to lose my voice.

Second- you took photos of me without my permission and posted them on the internet. I call that stalking.

Third- One photo is of 2 of us talking to a legislator. If we stopped to talk, by law, we had to drop our signs. Period.

As I have stated previously, “mass action” strategies (i.e. those dependent upon large numbers of Bastards converging on one place at one time in vast numbers) strike me as unrealistic at this point, certainly without years of educational groundwork long before such. I don’t believe there are “mass action” numbers of Bastards about to come out of the woodwork for any event.

Instead, I advocated refocusing efforts and resources on the strategy that does have a proven track record, the roll up one’s sleves difficult local state by state work. (Speaking of in the U.S. anyway.)

This is not to take away from the real work that gets done legislatively state by state but the public isn’t getting the message.

Focusing upon educating the general public is key to, for example, a statewide referendum, as in Oregon. But statewide referendums are tactics that only work some places, under specific circumstances, and are incredibly expensive, in many states, prohibitively so. Such may also have marked a moment in time, external circumstances have changed greatly over the past decade.

In other places, the focus is instead going to have to be on working with those who hold a gatekeeper capacity.

As for what strategy I personally advocate going forward? There is no one size fits all, each state has its own history, it’s own circumstances, and it’s own personalities with their own motivations.

No matter where we work, Bastards are always going to be a small minority, forced into the position of asking not merely a majority, but more often than not legislators, (some number of whom are adopters themselves) to restore our access. Our strategies moving forward are going to have to reflect those realities.

Events such as the National Coalition of State Legislators annual meeting are all about the wine and dine, they’re about the swag, and the private parties, they’re about who has genuine power to both put legislators into office and push them out. Bastards will never have the resources nor the power to play that game. Being a mere “annual presence” at such drains resources and efforts better spent elsewhere.

So to recap, strange as it may seem, educating the general public, while always worth doing, oftentimes does not have to be the primary goal. The general public does not have the power to restore records to us. (Even with the statewide referendum, it eventually came down to a court to make the final decision.) Nor will the general public ever remove legislators from office or put them in based upon the single issue of restoration of OBC access to adopted people.

That said, if you going to go out in public and do for example, a ‘rally’ and ‘march’ and interact with the general public in an educational capacity, Bastards would do well to have a clear (and legible) message, and have signage pertaining to OBCs that from a distance won’t be mistaken for the “birthers” and the current wingnut flap over President Obama’s birth certificate.

Per my comments policy I will be letting some through as I find time to write in response to them. (Responding to others, however, are tasks considerably lower on my priority list, somewhere right below ‘alphabetizing my sock drawer by colour,’ yeah, not likely.)

In any case, there will be more on this thread as I find time and inclination.

Funny you should say that. A long time ago after dealing with a relationship involving borderline personality disorder, a wonderful book was recommended to me that saved my sanity: I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, by Jerold Kreisman. Oddly relevant, don’t you find? yeah, Mike’s analysis was spot-on too but when I said what would turn it around I didn’t mean going back but what would put the fight back on track with the goal of mass impact. What is lacking? $$? the will? the means? leadership? Realize these are open-ended questions to the point of silliness. Just asking. This is not to take away from the real work that gets done legislatively state by state but the public isn’t getting the message.

Members of the “Adoptee Rights Coalition” (the organizing committee who put on the this year’s ARD) and other individual participants in this year’s ARD have come home from Philly and proceeded to lash out at me. Apparently they haven’t anything more important to be doing.

So fine, plenty more examples to add to that ‘from the wisdom and maturity department.’

I’m going to take one post to go through, some of the comments in the aftermath on Kali’s blog post, If you see this girl, run for your life! and the post itself, as it’s a microcosm of the broader trend.

While at various points in the following blog and comments ARC individuals express a willingness to entertain the possibility of working with Bastard Nation at some point in the future, doing so overlooks the past history, such as this comment from Joy (who is on this year’s ARC) from last year on Marley’s blog in which Joy insists:

“… there is no way we are touching them [by which she is referring to Marley Greiner, Bastard Nation, and myself] with a 10 foot pole next year, we have learned our lesson. Next year… we are not letting them near us.”

If anyone wants to know why I didn’t pick up a sign and join in, there’s your answer, Joy herself told us we were not to participate.

Perhaps Joy forgets her own words when she writes things like this, (see comment 3) this year:

I think it would be great to join forces with BN and if they are ever involved in any type of action would be really curious to hear about how I could support it.

She may not remember, but I certainly do. Clearly, within days after last year’s ARD, at least one of this year’s organizers had made it abundantly clear that Bastard Nation and I, were unwelcome.

So on to the ARC, in their own words, Kali Coultas’s post and its remarkably fictional comment thread.

Initially she had copied the childhood picture of me from my blog and added it to the top of her entry. We (my partner and I) have since disabled her ability to utilize the stolen image.

Kali herself, (so called “founder” of this incarnation of the the ARD) calls me “crazy,” a “brat in pig tails,” and a “bitch” she goes on to accuse me of trying “to sabotage the protest” and “slaughter” ing those who participated in the ARD, “bitching”, “complaining” etc. and then goes off on a tear about Bastard Nation, (who of course have been busy working legislatively, just ask anyone in close enough to have a clue.) She accuses both BN and myself of “playing naughty”.

She repeats the lie that I was “asked to leave the committee” last year, insisting she has “a record of” such. Likewise, I have the time and dated emails to show we (my partner and I) resigned voluntarily. (I received personal e-mail from Kali 7 minutes prior to my resignation, nothing in it to indicate I was no longer a part of the organizing committee nor had been “asked to leave”.)

Kali then laughably insists:

Our time will come when we’re face to face and you know, i’ll have an Adoptee Rights sign in my hand.

This from a so called “founder” who can’t even be bothered to show up for her own event in Philly.

The thread, likewise is full of ARD coalition members and others describing me as everything from “stalking,” “trashing,” a “baby-cry-baby,” “pathetic,” a “freak,” “poison,” being “unstable” insisting that I am “anonymous” (what part of my about page don’t certain people understand?) and that I should

“just to keep her opionons to herself and keep her mouth shut.”

etc.

All alongside some rather amusing wishful thinking:

“It’s a pretty safe bet that BLC has been ousted from other groups and organizations because she is a loose canon.”

(which has never happened, not even with ARD. Again, we resigned voluntarily.)

Meanwhile, Joy, who is another ARC person, appears to believe I’m somehow steering policy for Marley and thereby Bastard Nation, and thus my writings and actions are to her mind at least “done with the endorsement of BN”:

Please no one forget that BLC is the executive director of Bastard Nations, “policy girl” any obscuring of the fact that this was not done with the endorsement of BN motivated by jealousy, is naive.

This is a rather remarkable mis-interpretation of Marley’s personal blog post from last year in which she referred to me as “Theory Girl”. It takes her a while, but by a comment further down, she does however correct herself, only to go on to further bad mouth BN, accusing it organizationally of “mudslinging:”

Again, I am talking about the leadership and the leadership’s closest minions.

(If she thinks I’m some kind of “closest minion” of BN she really is delusional.)

As Mike pointed out she goes so far as to think I was sent by BN to “stalk” them:

“… BN bailed, that was their choice. I mean obviously they are so busy with, with, with, well something I am sure. Not too busy to send nutter BabyCakes to stalk the protest. “

Then she turns around to insist:

you know not a single person from our org. has dirted their efforts,

How about this, that Joy herself posted to AltAdoption after last year’s event in New Orleans:

“HEY THANKS BN from the protest… thanks for trying to sabotage the protest pre and post protest…. “

Only to back and forth throughout the single comment to the point of whiplash:

Like I have said before, I would be happy to support BN in any proactive effort they were involved in.

…I don’t want to be associated with people who make random ad hominem attacks on people they don’t know.

The infighting hurts us all though, no question about it. Too bad that is what your leadership has to offer. It would be wonderful if we could join forces

This kind of irrational, let’s work together/you’re scum I don’t want to be associated with ping pong is enough to make any rational person tune out.

Far simpler to simply look at the actions and raw words.

Joy herself attacked BN two days after last year’s event in New Orleans on alt adoption. Now she wants to pretend no one has ever “dirted their efforts” (referring to BN.) She uses pretty words to pretend to being open to working together, even while telling us

there is no way we are touching them

The problem with people like this is that you never know which side of their mouth they’re going to speak out of next.