[at-l] Open Mike For Doyle

[saunterer@jimbullard.org (saunterer@jimbullard.org)]

As someone who wasn't there, it is this response that is lacking 
context.  I was there.  I stayed (uncomfortably) through the whole thing, 
wondering what this had to do with ALDHA or the AT and why the MC didn't 
pull the plug on the mic.  He didn't just read the thing dispassionately, 
he performed it with feeling.  I assumed it was out of (embarrassed) 
respect for his standing as a founder of the organization that he was 
permitted to do such an extraordinary and tasteless thing.

Freedom of speech does not extend to delivering political tirades in 
inappropriate places.  Would you advocate that Warren Doyle should have 
been allowed to do the same at one or more of the 9/11 memorial 
services?  In a sense it would have been more relevant there than at the 
Gathering since both the service and his rant were responses to the same 
event.  Freedom of speech does not require the rest of us to listen.  To 
paraphrase and old saying 'your freedom of speech ends where my ear 
begins'.  I'm open to political debate but there is a time and a place for 
such discussion.  That wasn't it.

I agree that the trail is no stranger to counter culture but you can walk 
away from such things on the trail and still be doing what you went there 
for.  We didn't go to the Gathering (at least I didn't) to hear a bad bit 
of doggerel damning our country.  I'm as capable of finding fault with this 
country as the next guy but I'm here to tell you, in context, that Warren 
was out of line.

sAunTerer

At 04:06 PM 1/17/02 -0500, RoksnRoots@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 1/17/02 2:20:50 AM Eastern Standard Time, Snodrog5@aol.com
>writes:
>
>
> > It's always a reach when someone presumes what a deceased author would
> > write in today's world. That was then. This is now.
> >
>      *** I have no direct knowledge of what Doyle said at the Gathering. I
>did, however, attend one of his readings at the '92 Gathering and know that
>he deals from an allegorical deck as his style. It kind of deals in a
>Trail-like magicality that is somewhat true to the on-Trail atmosphere. After
>all, the Trail is not unfamiliar to counter culture.
>
>      Let me preface that a relative of mine stayed home sick that day from
>the WTC while all her colleagues were killed. I doubt I would receive such a
>speech well myself at the time, and no doubt it was ill-timed if not wrong
>all together. I didn't hear it.
>
>
>      However, I'm always leery of group attacks on anything. Especially with
>the short-sighted shut-offs of otherwise perspective viewpoints. Especially
>when they are unaccompanied by exactly what was said and what it meant in
>context.
>
>      With that in mind I would vote to keep Warren's mike open even if he
>made a mistake. The man has AT tenure and deserves some leeway. I would
>automatically serve as an abstaining vote as long as this trend exhibited
>above continues to seek a shutting down of Trail institutions for nascent
>political ease of comfort and personal empowerment...
>
>     I'm actually more startled by persons who would violate the free speech
>principals this nation fights over in order to be on the inside. "We're so
>righteous and pure that an attack gives us the excuse to dispense of the
>constitutional freedom of free speech we're killing over." This nation never
>stood for that, and I hope the Trail doesn't either...
>
>        BJack, don't burn the stage because you were offended by the play...