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11/26/2008

Well our opponents do accuse us of being too PC...

by Jeremy Hooper

200811260845Yesterday afternoon, when telling you about a virtual town hall that the leaders of "No on 8" had scheduled for that evening, we aired a personal grievance regarding new media technology and the campaign's failure to utilize it. Well, it seems that the campaign was (a) listening to us and (b) had a strong desire to bear out our claims, because when we tried to tune in to the town hall so as to bring you coverage this morning, we learned that they had chosen to use a technology that COMPLETELY SHUT OUT MAC USERS! No, we're not joking.

So this morning, rather than discuss what was said at the meeting, we will instead try and shake yet another negative feeling about our organized leadership's failure to fully understand the power of the internet. And we won't be the only ones. Andy Towle was also shut out, forcing him to change his morning coverage plans:

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Hosts Online Town Hall for Windows Users [Towle]

Jim Burroway also missed out:

No On 8’s Answers Charges of Incompetence With Incompetence [BTB]

As did Queerty, where site editor Japhy Grant was eventually able to access the town hall via a phone, but only after first having to dedicate ink to the techno-bumble-futz:

Live Blogging The No on Prop 8 Campaign's Virtual Town Hall [Queerty]

And there were countless others, like our buddy Mike Tidmus, who rather than provide their thoughts of the matter at hand had to instead shake their heads in disbelief.

Now, this might seem like a little thing to you. But to us, it's indicative of so much more. In this little LGBT bloggy community that we have going on here, there is an extremely sizable (and growing) audience. Many of us dedicate more time than is good for out health to this cause, not because we are salaried or because it is our best route to fame, but rather because we are passionate. We regularly put life plans on hold and extend our workdays so that we can follow every development on the landscape as they play out. And yet here we have multi-employeed organizations and groups with power structures and loads of financing who fail to understand BASIC technology concepts like, oh, NOT SHUTTING OUT A MASSIVE PORTION OF POTENTIAL LISTENERS OF THIS HEAVILY MAC-USING COMMUNITY! Did no one even stop and ask the "Is this Mac Compatible question?" because it would have been among the first out of our mouths!! And besides being annoying, this failure is also particularly ironic, considering that Apple actually put money in the "no on 8" coffers!

Alright, we're done bitching for now. But seriously, national organizations and leaders: You're going to have to get on board this techno-train with a realization that it's powerful, effective, and not going away. We're ready to help. We have tried to help. But for you to tap into rather than turn a blind eye towards the power of new media, you're going to have to (a) pinpoint that we live in a changed media world, and (b) return our emails.

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Your thoughts

I suspect they wanted to minimize the people demanding answers for their incompetence.

Posted by: RainbowPhoenix | Nov 26, 2008 9:12:26 AM

Jim Key (LAGLBC Communication director) was very nice to return my not-so-nice email to him last night...he too has a MAC at home: Here is his response.

I'm as frustrated as you are - I actually consulted with a number of tech consultants and none were aware of a service that could webcast a conf. call with 8 participants and offer chat capabilities for participants. I certainly didn't want to do the meeting via text.

Someone finally referred me to Live Meeting, but the rep there didn't tell me me until hours before the meeting that participants would have to download software and never mentioned the Mac compatibility problems. Of course, we wanted to have as many participants as possible and at home, I am a mac user - I know how frustrated I would be.

We will, however, have a link to the recording very soon - as soon as it's available, I'll send it to you.

My apologies -
JIM

.... but as you say..they certainly did not plan that very well, apparently electing to be seen as 'important' talking heads rather than using a chat room type meeting we all could have attended. Shall we presume they WILL do a better job in the future??

Posted by: LOrion | Nov 26, 2008 12:25:51 PM

Oh, sorry here is his email. [email protected].

Posted by: LOrion | Nov 26, 2008 12:26:52 PM

It pissed me off when Lori Jean says crap like 'we have to wait until the court decision before we do anything for fear of them punting it to the initiative process' and that '2010 may be too soon to try to get a something on the ballot.' BS! The deadline to get the ball rolling is roughly January, 2009. That gives us plenty of time to come up with language, etc. Get your heads out of your asses and get to work, damnit, or get the hell out of the way so that someone with some freakin' cahones can! Or, maybe they want to draw this out...they ARE employed in the jobs they have simply because we're still unequal. Maybe they want to keep it that way a while longer for their own job security? Ugh, I'm just so frustrated by all this ineptitude!

Posted by: Chris | Nov 26, 2008 12:58:47 PM

I was able to listen in to the meeting last night (I'm still on a PC), and I can tell you I was not horrible impressed.

Right from the get go, it sounded like they were attacking the community. Their first reason that No On 8 failed was that they did not receive enough capital from the get go. It's odd that they neglected to mention it was not in No On 8's agenda to reach out to the community for that money until later, but that's neither here nor there.

I was also less than happy about their attack on the Kindergarten teacher that had students present at her wedding. It was their belief that action presented the Yes On 8 campaign the final fodder they needed. Never mind that they did not couteract the attacks well.

I wrote up my thoughts on another issue with teachers and marriage equality at the link below, but it's the same thoughts I had on the above issues:

http://www.imjustgaying.com/2008/10/teachers-and-pledges-fuck-yes-on-8.html

Overall, it did not serve much to answer the real questions of what next. It served mainly as their attempt to alleviate their own sense of responsibility.

However, the Reverend Eric Lee had quite a few good thoughts and ideas on ways to engage ethnic minority groups for future fights. For my money, his comments were the only ones that truly highlighted a potential learning moment and provided some direction for the future.

Posted by: Dickie | Nov 26, 2008 9:49:01 PM

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