Promises, promises

I will be back at it tomorrow. Lots of personal stuff going on, some of it hard, some of it not - real life has an unfortunate way of interfering with blogging - but, paraphrasing Doctor #3, we'll do what we always do: improvise.

I've - as it seems I keep doing - been thinking more about what I want to accomplish here. The whole idea of this for me was to contribute something, to have it be something worthwhile for, of use to, others. I don't know if I'm achieving that or not. My readership is small but appears to be faithful - at least that's what the data seems to say. So I assume you find some worth in this. (Of course, maybe you're just coming for the Jeopardy! answers.)

Back in 1991, someone wrote me in response to the first issue of what I call the "independent" print version of Lotus (previously, it was either a, or part of a, group's newsletter), chiding me for preaching to the choir and saying I should be trying to appeal to the moderate reader. I wrote back in part:

As for "Lotus" itself, it's an example of advocacy journalism, and its audience is indeed those who in a broad and general way agree with its point of view. It's aim is to rouse and inspire, to provide background and analysis intended to put a context to ethical judgments and thereby spur action. I know your remarks about it were meant kindly, and I thank you for your concern. But I must note that the words you used to describe it ("fringe" and "marginal") are words of dismissal in the American political lexicon, which defines "truth" as something invariably found in the "center." Frankly, I reject any standard which equates advocacy with irrelevancy and "objectivity" with never reaching a conclusion. As Jim Hightower is fond of saying, "the only things found in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos."

I haven't changed my mind or my goals. I don't know that I'm exactly preaching to the choir, but I surely am addressing members of similar congregations. I make no bones about, and offer no apologies for, that. The question I'm always asking myself is if what I'm doing has any role in inspiring others to write a letter or make a phone call or send a contribution or talk to a neighbor or go to a meeting or lobby an official or boycott a product or walk a picket line or refuse to pay war taxes or take part in a sit-in: resist somehow, refuse somehow, renew somehow. If yes, then it matters. If not, I should be doing something else.

For the moment, I expect I will keep at it. After all, what else can I do?