It looks like one of the UUA trustees is boycotting GA because of the ID requirements for entering the convention center.
Here’s a question for those boycotting GA: Do you think everyone should boycott GA? Is the ID requirement so egregious that all UUs should cancel GA themselves by voting with their feet and not showing?
If so, please tell me how, as specifically as possible, the cost to the association—financial or otherwise—from not having GA would be worth it.
A lot of essential business goes on at GA. (Is the ID situation more important than electing a president, for example?) How would canceling GA deal with this controversy more effectively than other means, ones that could be pursued during GA?
Or what if enough people boycotted to render GA useless? What would you, as a boycotter, say to the people who showed up to find themselves at a dead-in-the-water GA? Too bad, so sad?
More succinctly: What if there were real world consequences to your boycott? Because there would be significant negative consequences to your fellow UUs.
And if it isn’t worth canceling GA over, why are you boycotting? Isn’t it just an ineffectual social justice tantrum then? Protest is easy when you know nothing will come of it.
Someone just mentioned to me that it would be far more effective if 4,000 GA participants showed up and refused to show their ID.
Effective in what sense? They would stand around the parking lot until they went home or until someone got cranky and started some sort of minor violence, at which point the cops would break it up.
I’m pretty sure that the Department of Homeland security is much less interested in our religion conference than people seem to think.
It would be effective if it publicly embarrasses the port authority or some such to the point that they back down. I think it would need to be played out ahead of time.
Right. I don’t think they’ll actually be checking IDs. They’ll probably just put on a half hearted effort. They’d have to have dozens and dozens of workers to be able to get thousands of people in and out of the convention center in a timely manner.
(((It would be effective if it publicly embarrasses the port authority or some such to the point that they back down. I think it would need to be played out ahead of time.)))
Heh. Again, the port authority is not imposing this regulation, the Department of Homeland Security is. And if you think a few thousand people standing around in the sun and chanting impresses DHS, you need to come visit me in DC for a few weeks.
Trust me, they’ve seen it.
Heh. Fair enough then.
I won’t be attending GA for other reasons, but there are a couple of things I think should be pointed out.
1. Election of the new UUA President happens in 2009(in Salt Lake City), NOT 2008.
2. GA would still happen, there just might not be enough delegates to vote. Anything not voted on this year would be tabled ’til next year.
I do think there is a way to boycott without causing all hell to break loose. Whether it makes sense would be up to each individual’s conscience.
Ah. I assumed we voted a new president in this year because the candidates have websites up and all that—but that was just an example.
Kim, my point is that folks should not boycott based solely, or maybe even primarily, on their conscience. There are real world consequence to other UUs they must consider. If their boycott were widespread enough to render the 2008 useless, they would hurt a lot of people who invested in their time, money, and energy to participate in GA. Those people would then deserve to get an apology and explanation from a lot of people.
Sometimes consciences are wrong.
Chutney,
My argument is that even with a boycott, GA would be neither useless nor meaningless.
If there weren’t enough delegates, any business that required a vote would wait until 2009. In terms of the UUA budget, it would stay at 2007-2008 levels.
Most of GA is taken up with workshops. None of those would be cancelled unless the presenters decided to boycott. (my guess is that they won’t be boycotting)
I don’t there will be many who won’t come to GA because they are boycotting. (I actually think the location is more a detriment than security issues) But even if there is a sizable number, I don’t think it would render GA useless or meaningless.
Another thing you need to know is that ID’s are checked on the little hotel vans that take you and 14 other people to the convention center. You don’t show your id, you get off the van so the people who don’t mind showing their id can get where they are going. If you hold things up, it’s no skin off anybody’s nose except the other people in your van.
I don’t think of myself as boycotting GA 2008 (though maybe that’s what it amounts to). This situation just gave me one more (big) reason not to go. Now that a group I’m working with to coordinate programming at GA has decided to postpone the event until 2009 (because of this Port/ID issue), it’s just a no-brainer for me.
Personally, I don’t feel strongly about whether others go. I understand my feelings about it aren’t necessarily well-reasoned; they have to do with what I feel comfortable with, and what I’ve learned about societies that give up their civil liberties (e.g. they are always able to rationalize it to themselves). I see it as a personal sentiment that I (fortunately) share with half a dozen others that I’ve been working with.
“Or what if enough people boycotted to render GA useless?”
Ummm, not to be cynical or anything, but GA is pretty useless already. There is simply no way that we need to meet every year — every second year would be plenty (and there are lots of denominations much bigger than ours that meet biannually), and I believe we could get away with every four years without any real harm. But since many of the delegates who attend GA tend to be GA junkies, it has proved to be impossible to get them to consider voting to hold GA less frequently.
The United Methodists meet annually by conference (generally a state or half a state) and then nationally every four years. And it seems to work fine.
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Well, as ChaliceChick says, it’s not the convention center that is imposing this ID thing, it’s Homeland Security. So why take it out on GA and the convention center?
On the other hand, I’m boycotting Florida for several reasons having nothing to do with GA. I’m not crazy about Salt Lake City either. Where’s the next one? (2010)
Kim, GA 2010 is in Minneapolis. For my part, I’m looking forward to SLC; probably because it’s only a 90 minute plane ride or 11 hour car ride away – and it is a DRY heat.
Salt Lake city is the only city i’ve ever been in where I had a bad experience just walking down the sidewalk — some guy grabbed at my crotch. I have never been bothered like that in any other place I’ve been, so I have the impression that Salt Lake is a particularly gross, sexist, immoral city. I may go to GA in Salt Lake, but, frankly, I will be more frightened than I was in New York or London or San Francisco or Boston….etc.
Kim – wow, that’s pretty shocking. I’ve visited SLC three times and never experienced anything even remotely close to that. I found people there to be very polite.