From: Al and Masha Sten-Clanton 
Subject: Re: ACB Washington Connection (fwd)
On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Andy Baracco wrote:
> 
> 
> Hello Mr. Gashel. I found your description of your legislative strategy
> regarding the Gordon amendment to be most enlightening and informative.
> I'm curious as to why you didn't post it behind my posts so the list
> members could make a direct comparison of points of view. Is that because
> it is your position that the membership should simply lock step and that
> they are not capable of thinking for themselves? When are you going to
> stop this war mentality? We are not living in the 1960's, and waving the
> bloody shirt is getting kind of old. Regardless of the total membership of
> the organizations that make u the organized blind movement, those numbers
> are pitifully small when compared to all of the interest groups competing
> for the collective legislative ear. I do not think that we earn any
> political currency by arguing with one another. I wonder how long it will
> take for you to come to realize that. I think that you have heard from
> several of the list members that they want, and feel that they deserve to
> hear different viewpoints. What do you fear by allowing that to happen.
> Many of your comments obviously spring from fear. Hey, Jim, what are you
> afraid of?
> 
> Andy Baracco
> 
> 
> 
Andy, my own thoughts are these.
I've had my own reasons to be quite cynical about our outfit, and this
utter nonsense about your messages being "disruptive" sure doesn't allay
that cynicism.  Still, I would not assume that Jim's failure to present
our organizational strategy for handling the Gorton amendment in this
listserv meant he was hiding it.  It very probably means he was busy
implementing it, along with strategies for dealing with the other items on
his considerable task list.  (I suspected and even hoped that our people
would adopt the strategy Jim set forth, by the way.)
The notion that your ACB posts were "disruptive" apparently is based on
the fear that we who read and write here may go off half-cocked and screw
things up.  Any of us might, of course, do something that others regard as
screwing up things.  I doubt that your posts would increase the likelihood
of that, given how much noise was already being made about the Groton
amendment.  I don't advocate the proliferation of messages from ACB, but I
was glad to have what we got on this subject:  it was on topic and not
fundamentally in conflict with our own views.  (If there had been a
conflict, that would have been interesting in its own right.) I think the
whole amendment is a bad idea, but I would be careful not to express this
general view speaking as a Federationist:  ACB often paints with too broad
a brush, I think, and probably makes needless enemies in doing it.
Also, I think it is not sensible to urge that we all just stop arguing
with one another and present a big, happy, superficialy united front to
the larger world.  I think this perspective is often an excuse that people
in government and elsewhere use to avoid thinking logically about what we
say.  I believe that the differences between our two organizations are
fewer than they were even in recent years, but some specific differences
remain, and there's one overriding difference:  we espouse an explicitly
equalitarian, integrationist philosophy of blindness, whereas ACB either
refuses to espouse a philosophy or defines its views in contrast to our
own.  I think we could do better at infusing our policies with our
philosophy, but at least we have a sensible one to infuse into them.  And,
although it seems to me that some of our people are prone to making
simplistic attacks on ACB, some of ACB's attacks on us are as venomous as
a cobra and contain about as much logic as a bullet-riddled motherboard.
We've deserved some of its attacks, such as when we got involved in that
"electronic fence" business instead of either standing fully by or
honorably recanting our position that blind people can handle subway
platforms safely without extra gismos.  On the other hand, ACB folks had
no business accusing us of not caring about the people who died from
falling on subway tracks; they had no business dismissing our view that
longer canes would help a lot; they had no business depicting the subway
platform as a dark and dangerous place for us poor, pitiable Mr.  Magoo
clones without the strips of truncated domes.  Unity is indeed desirable,
but only if we're all going in the right direction.  I claim no corner on
truth, but I believe strongly that the NFB's philosophy of blindness
points us in the right direction, and I won't set a different course for
the sake of apparent unity.  (Of course, I will set a different course if
I become persuaded that this one is inherently wrong.)
Well, I thank you for reading this.  Please know that I don't mean it to
be hostile at all, just a statement of some views that I hope you find
worth considering.
Al
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