[Vision2020] The state of this forum

[keely emerinemix]

Joan is absolutely right -- it's too bad that something so hideous has 
outraged so many people of different political and theological stripes, but 
maybe that's what it took.

I have hope for Moscow and for Vision 2020, but I think that hope will only 
be realized once we come to understand the depths of some people's 
viciousness, dishonesty, and delight in hurling invective.  Good people 
often disagree about many things, and stay good people.  But there are those 
who remove themselves from the ranks of "good people" and seem content to 
wallow in filth.

We're not intolerant for pointing that out, and people who refuse to aren't 
enlightened.  They're oblivious.  And, to paraphrase my favorite T-shirt, if 
you're not outraged, you're not only not paying attention, but you're 
contributing to the mess.

keely emerine mix


From: Joan Opyr <joanopyr at earthlink.net>
To: Vision2020 Moscow <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Subject: [Vision2020] The state of this forum
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:25:52 -0700

Dear Visionaries:

I certainly understand Linda's impulse in calling for an end to this forum 
in its present unmoderated form.  Over the many years that Vision 2020 has 
been in existence, we've been plagued by the likes of Edna Wilmington, Faul 
Ottomaticks, Stigmatta X and a host of other frauds, fakers and fools.  The 
soulless monster who posted this morning is a direct descendent of these 
trolls, and he or she has rightly been condemned by the entire list -- left, 
right and center.  It seems to me that we are as close to universally united 
as we will ever be in our collective disgust and horror that anyone would be 
so thoughtless, so cruel, and so grotesquely inhumane.

I wasn't able to access my email this morning (because I somehow managed to 
download the Welchia virus, God help me), but my phone began ringing off the 
hook within five minutes of the posting of that message.  People were 
outraged.  They wanted to vent and to speculate and to talk about what we, 
as a community, can and should do in response.  Strangely enough, Linda, 
this has given me renewed hope for this forum and for this town -- I heard 
about this email before I actually read it.  A great number of people cared 
enough to get on the telephone and begin calling one another to talk about 
what ought to be done in response to this atrocity.  Everyone -- and I do 
mean everyone -- wants to know who did this.  We all want this person 
rounded up, routed out, and publicly identified and shamed.  This says to me 
that there are very definite limits to what we, as a community, consider 
acceptable and unacceptable.  More importantly, we are, for the first time 
in a long time, united.

I'm sorry it took a vicious troll to bring us together, but together we are, 
and perhaps we can take comfort in that.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com

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