When someone almost literally pisses on you, what do you do?

(10AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The blogs are full of what GLBT people need to do for their own benefit.

So, you tell me.  What should we do?  

We have been insulted.  We have been denied.  We have been delayed.  We have had our feet stomped on.  We have been quite literally laughed at, not even an exaggeration, by the President of the United States.  We have had the murder of our people called odious while the President breakfasted with those who engineered what could very quickly become mass murder.

As if our lives are a joke.

Then the argument goes, you vote for and support that person, or candidates who support that person, or people who support them, on the grounds that the other person could be worse.

Setting aside the utter deliberate and cruel nastiness of this situation, I want to ask you, the Docudharma community, what we should do.  And I don’t ask this without asking you to exercise your empathetic muscles.  I want you to think, move, stretch.

Put yourself in our place.

It’s not the insult — it’s what flows from the insult.  You could live with it if you got the insult, but you got good things to compensate.  A victory is a victory, even if it accompanied by a jeer, like Obama’s Axelrod saying of the GLBT court victory that he still didn’t support gay marriage.

And this is not about taxes.  This is about lives.  People.  

And then we are urged to be rational, cold blooded, non-spiteful, and calculating about this state of affairs.

But, see, we are being laughed at, and we are not the only ones.

Something is rotten in Denmark.  And GLBT people are, have been, and were used as a field weapons test for this very tactic.  THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT US ANYMORE.  This is against not only us, but immigrants, environmentalists, women, anti-BP activists, black activists, rule of law advocates, economic justice advocates, energy advocates, and others.

Do not come to us and talk about the visceral, visceral hatred why you cannot vote or do X, if you advised us to do the very same thing.

They are learning how to treat you like fools by experiencing what it is like to treat us like fools.  And by blackmailing us, they are gauging the effectiveness of blackmailing you — not about the size of your 401K.  About your whole life.

And I think, you know, it might be livable to be blackmailed about taxes.  This kind of political blackmail, the kind that goes, vote for us, or the puppy gets it, is about a lifetime of discrimination.

In that kind of situation — please, think about yourself and put yourself in my and our place .. you don’t want to not vote for the people doing this to you, you want to kill them.  And they want you to vote for them.  I’m not advocating violence, I’m talking about feelings.

And we are being asked to vote for them, the people who ask for, nay, DEMAND, our votes, our money, and our support.  The people we want to, quite literally, and non-jokingly, strangle, with our bare hands.  And not only them.  Them and everyone with them, apologizing for them, knuckling under to them.  And there is no shame.  Not even embarrassment.  They can fail you and not advance you, then act like you are the guilty party for you not getting even modest progress when what you asked for what your basic human rights.

Beyond this, what are the practical dimensions of such a thing?

Are the servile ever rewarded?  Do you honestly think, if we lick the boots of people who laugh at us, kick us, destroy our careers, spit on us, piss on us, lie to us openly, and demand we not notice and continue to give to them, we can somehow gain something by so doing?

I am reminded of the character Wormtongue, who, despite being an every loyal and obedient servant to the Wizard Saruman, was hated and despised by him, and got nothing but kicks, ever afterward.  Because he was a servile traitor who betrayed his own people.  Even Saruman hated and despised him, because he was the kind of person who could never be trustworthy, ever, because Wormtongue would always do the thing that would get the result benefitting Wormtongue and not anybody else.

Let me ask you, in the most coldblooded way — is this YOUR future, too?

Imagine someone who got you evicted from your house, shit on your carpet, raped your cat, trashed your car by keying it and covering it in manure, spit in your face, and slapped you.  You are angry, but he says, hold on, if you don’t tell everyone I’m a wonderful guy, some other guy is going to come along and literally maim you and feed you to the dogs.  And the people you might want to protect and agree to this in order to protect are saying, do it, do it, do it?  Do it for the Greater Good!

Even if you did what such a person asked, could you ever respect yourself again?

And beyond this, you know, the people who are saying, do it, do it, do it, will be screaming at you over the self same thing 6 months from now because the same thing was done to them?  And then, their concerns will be so much more important, because it’s not you and your people, it’s the survival of the planet.  Or some such thing.

Why would you not want to kill a do it do it doit-er?

There is some point when the insult becomes the thing.  There is some point when the insult becomes something you CANNOT LET PASS.

Or not?  Can you really, in good conscience, ask a GLBT person to vote for the party that betrayed him, knowingly and laughingly, over and over again, for 40 years?  His entire lifetime?  On the grounds it is good for you?

And, should he agree to your wishes and do as you ask, should you not despise him for being a traitor to his own people as Saruman despised Wormtongue, even if he did your bidding?

At least be honest about this.