On Mon, 1 Aug 2005, Joy Catherine Slater wrote:
> Was the point of people voting for "none of the above" to hold off until
> Patton's appeal goes through and is reinstated?
> Or was the point to keep from having a DST in the hopes that it force
> higher-ups to continue to pay attention to us and our situation and that
> we support our DST's decision?
First, a quick reminder of how all of this started:
This began as an issue of officer misconduct from the top of the club; everything else has followed from that.
Personally, Jason was perhaps the best superior officer I've worked under in this organization. And he was slaped away for nothing more than disagreing with someone whose ego is easily bruised.
The only reason I wasn't also unjustly punished was because I didn't check (and comment) in the approvals database that day; my thoughts on this "notification" item are the same as Mike's and Jason's. Currently that app sits at "pending low", where it has been for over 110 days. Alex has not made a comment, or responded to my comments, for over 100 days.
I refuse to let our domain be kicked around for that. I'm prepared to vote None of the Above in a dozen more elections if it comes to that. Call it a protest if you will: a sit in, the exercising of the only rights the MST hasn't decided to discount (hooray for the sacred cow of Democracy).
Jason and Struass' removal was unjustified -- that's my opinion. That it be effective immediately was clearly unjustified given the guidelines of the Camarilla -- that's a fact. That they be barred from office for a year places their crime -- disagreing with a higher officer -- as more severe then "continued unwanted sexual advances".
Yes, electing a DST now is a horrible thing to do (back to my opinions here). It sends the message that, yes, we'll let this foolishness be swept under the rug; that, yes, whatever you say Mr. "I can do whatever I want in this club"; that, yes, we're afraid of you "sir"; that, yes, we'll be good now.
No. No I won't. Call it childish, call it short-sighted, but no, I'm not gonna be kicked around like that. It's my club just as much as theirs, and I'm going to do everything I can to let them know that.
At this point, my term as VST ends in a month; Jason's term as DST would have been ending soon; neither of us, I think, was ever interested in another term. It doesn't /really/ matter then who the officers actually are or what the council decides. This is about the message and about who controls this club. And *I* think it's the members.
Now, what, they're threatening to desanction all our VSSs? Like you said, who hasn't heard of this story? It's the capital-d Drama of the day; everyone knows. A lot of folks probably think we're a bunch of stupid, infighting, drama-queens. But a lot of folks have had their own experiences with being pushed around by the higher-ups in this organization, so there's a lot of sentiment against "them" too. Desanctioning VSSs won't solve any problems, and will make others worse. It will only draw them more negative attention, and bring us more supporters. They aren't stupid, they won't desanction anything. Oh, sure, they want us to _think_ they will, because if we cave in then their whole problem goes away. Just how I want Alex to *think* I'm going to remove Collins application that started this all. If he comes back to the table and talks, I "win". If I actually remove it, I suffer the chance of being kicked out of office myself. As this goes on, it's a chance I'm more and more willing to take.
--
Dale Sheldon,us2002033985,PA008D,VST:R
dales@mistergone.com
"Politics sucks in real life; I prefered when we only pretended to be jerks
to each other on alternating weekends."