Really, I do.
But since I didn’t participate in the big meta meltdown over the last few days, I’m only learning now from scribes’s lament that some long established members of this community have said they were planning to leave. One of them is Supersoling, who I met at the the September 24, 2005 antiwar march in DC. We were the two Booman attendees who brought American flags to that rally, so that gave us a connection (though he was better prepared than I — he at least had a flagpole — my son and I had to improvise with the help of some other bloggers to find cardboard tubing and tape to fashion makeshift poles on the fly before the march began).
I can’t say I know him well. I don’t really know his life story, but having looked into his eyes, and spoken to him briefly, and read his diaries here at Booman Tribune, I see a man who had been deeply scarred by life, but who has come back from those experiences and been re-energized and recommitted to fighting the good fight against the multiple tyrannies we face in this country.
The tyranny of King George, sure, but also the tyranny of the lapdog media which has enabled these monstrous wars and mismanagement of the public trust by Republicans, the tyranny of pseudo-patriotism on the right which is based on hatred, prejudice and fear, and which lashes out to demonize and marginalize true patriotic voices, and the tyranny of cowardice, despair and apathy which reigns over so many of our fellow Americans, including sadly, many Democrats.
He is one of the best advocates for progressive values at Booman Tribune, and one of the strongest voices against the madness that has enveloped our country. I am proud to call him my friend.
Alohaleezy, I know less well, because we have never met face to face, though I have seen the pictures she has posted of herself here, and read her diaries. Most of all, however, I have taken encouragement from her many comments to my front page stories and also in my diaries here before I was given the opportunity by Booman and Susanhu to take up this valuable blogospheric real estate to blather about my particular obsessions and petty grievances.
Leezy has always been someone who offered me support for whatever I wrote here, and I am not the sole beneficiary of her inspiration. Many other writers have been blessed by her comments in the threads to their diaries. If one can claim to divine a person’s soul through mere words alone, than she has a great big one, large enough to encompass this entire community with her compassion, empathy and enthusiasm for what we do, and for the causes we support.
I do not understand why these good people feel they must leave this community, if indeed that is what they both plan to do. It isn’t really important that I know why. Because what I am about to say, I hope, will override whatever reason may exist in their minds for such a sudden and unexpected departure.
I would ask, no beg, both Supersoling and Alohaleezy to stay and continue to remain a part of this community. I need their support, their passion and their fearlessness, and you do to, whoever you may be who is reading this right now. I don’t care what disagreements may have surfaced, or harsh words exchanged, or ill will created, because I believe with all my heart that Booman Tribune, this online community of like-minded souls is, in a very real sense, a family. All families have their disputes, their falling-outs, their grudges and their angry words which the minute they are uttered the speakers wish they could stuff them back inside themselves and make time reverse itself.
Yet good families persevere, despite these many difficulties and misunderstandings, because they love one another. I don’t mean to suggest that we here at BT are a traditional family by any means, but in so many respects we function as one, even though most of us will never meet anywhere outside the screens of our computers. And yes, I love the people who are brave enough and passionate enough and caring enough to come here and share a little bit of their souls with each other every day. And that means I love you, Supersoling and Alohaleezy.
And so as a brother, and if you are truly planning to take leave of this place, I ask you both to reconsider that decision. Do not become prodigals. Do not let hasty words or slights become the wounds that turn you away from the many here who rely upon your spirit and your strengths.
I’m a big believer in the power of forgiveness. So please, forgive those with whom you have crossed verbal swords, just as I would ask your antagonists (and I do not know who those could be, nor do I need to know) to forgive you also. If we are progressives in the true sense of that word, than we must believe in the power of forgiveness and of redemption.
Please. Stay.
With the greatest sincerity,
Steven D
