David Kaufman, the blogger who spews nonsense posing as intellectual thought on his website Transracial, and the guy behind this statement, fancies himself a grassroots activist. Which is why he’s, ahem, launching The December Project, with a goal “to get 1 million people to contact their representatives by December and let them know they want DADT to end,” though he provides no infrastructure, and no instructions beyond linking to Senate.gov and House.gov for contact information.
How Kaufman will count each person? No idea! How he’ll spread the word? No idea! How we’ll know when to start ignoring Kaufman? Some idea!
Brian NYC
I guess he knows the secret: 1 million emails will change a politicians mind. But, I don’t think he was supposed to tell everybody, because now the Christians will send a million emails, too. Damn.
Same Crap
Is there anything anyone does ever that queety doesn’t deride as an exercise in futility?
The negativity is becoming a awful parody of itself.
andy
I actually like david immensely even though we often don’t agree. He’s a writer who isn’t always preaching to the choir which is Rare in todays media market place.
mark
In the dictionary under douchefag is Kaufman’s picture.
Sleazy clown decided to slam Pam Spaulding…oh I don’t think so!
DillonS
And yet if it was Davey Wavey Queerty editors would be creaming themselves right about now. This man may be equally irrelevant but he doesn’t have a nice chest.
Brian NYC
I actually like when Queerty points out silly endeavors, but I also like Davey Wavey’s partial nudity.
MissLaWanda
Ugh, again, this is so racist.
Brian NJ
This blogger is very old school. Support the Democrats! Support Obama! Write your congressman! That is so pre-2006, when the Democratic Party did not CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. So, now that they made it, they have to deliver to us to continue getting support. No more rallies, letter-writing campaigns. We have written enough fucking letters — they get it. They just don’t want to DO it. That is why we have to be tough on the government and demand action.
I am not going to continue to bottom for Obama while he has shown a clear propensity to let Rahm Emanuel and Joe Solmonese put us off the Administration agenda until some future date. Obama’s beliefs are not enough, he has to be willing to swing a bat for us, and we have to be willing to swipe at the government and turn up the heat in return for our loyalty. They work for us.
wondermann
Funny, you call him a sad blogger, but Queerty is full grammar mistakes, half-truths and foolishness on tap. Please don’t kid yourselves.
Tim W
@MissLaWanda: Please many of us have a real issue with this guy because he attacked Pam Spaulding who last time I checked was African American.
NG
With all due respect to Tim W, while I also find some disagreement, with David Kaufman, I became a fan of his because he had the courage to criticize Pam Spaulding, who indeed try to play herself at David’s expense. And it had nothing to do with her being black, it had everything to do with her badly timed commentary.
And with respect to his project, It would be unfair to criticise his project without giving him, and it, a chance to make it work. No one gets mad at other bloggers who initiate letter and e-mail campaigns bitching about Dr. Phil and ignorant radio shock jocks, I’m just saying.
Mark in Indiana
This fellow has such a hate-whitey vibe that I think it’s a gas that anyone has the nerve to call his critics racist–but that’s the new screed in the Obama era–if you don’t like a black guy you’re just a dirty naughty racist.
Ok, count me in. This guy is a jerk. Fire Away.
Same Crap
@Mark in Indiana: I don’t think you’re a racist but you do have a chip on your shoulder.
DEREK WASHINGTON
What’s so bad about trying ANYTHING? If 500 people are inspired to do something, FABULOUS! Kudos to Kaufman!
Btw, a lot of my fellow “activists” HATE Queerty. Of course, most of them have no sense of humour about themselves (which I point out to much consternation, when apropos.). I love Queerty because it is SO bitchy. It’s fun, like SPY Magazine back in the day. You guys do have to check your facts a little better, your report on the Tn “Secret Retreat” had me sipping Champagne when I was swigging generic Vodka from a bottle.
Btw, why is Pam Spaudling such a sacred cow round the Gay universe? I have no opinion of her one way or another, but, I’m not getting why she can’t seem to be criticized. We ALL can stand a little criticism, makes our skin tougher for the real battles.
Keep up the Snark Queerty!
wondermann
Pam is not God. She is flawed like the rest of us. It’s scary to see how folks blindly follow her every word.
Brian NJ
I don’t think followers of Pam’s House Blend are the blind following type. They read her because she delivers independent analysis, and do not do so out of fashion or blind faith in her opinions. I think she asks hard questions and provokes discussion.
There are so many in the gay community that follow blindly, but neither Queerty, Pam or gay Americablog are websites that people should visit if they do not appreciate critical reasoning skills.
People love to point out Queerty’s typos, but it is the quality to ask journalistic, critical questions and give hard-hitting analysis that is where the value is.
The typos on queerty hare really a hallmark of the un-fashionable, which is the cuddly bunny of independent thought.
Chitown Kev
Well…as as regular contributor to Pam’s House Blend and as a severe critic of David Kaufman (though I occasionally agree with him) I’ll chime in here.
By the way, I do agree that Queerty’s editorial standards when it comes to it’s “reporting” and political commentary ARE poor. In fact, it drives me crazier than the racism of some of the posters but I digress…
@DEREK WASHINGTON:
I agree with you that Queerty’s bitchiness is a huge part of it’s charm for me. I call Queerty “the shit-startin’ blog” but again I digress…
While Kaufman occasionally has a point as to the racist and racially ignorant nature of the GLBT blogs, he’s actually no better…his accusations against the LGBT blogs (in which he named Queerty and Pam’s House bland in particular) were false on their face. He tends to cherry pick a comments here and there, not follow up on accusations (as he did against Joe Jervis) and basically reduces himself to the same name calling that he derides. And I have seen for myself how he traffics the homophobia of a few black homophobes on his columns at the Huffington Post, calling any black gay person who dares criticizes the president as a “Homo-Tom.”
Now I am not claiming that I am immune from the criticism myself.
His rhetoric toward the gay community and the coddling of the black community does no one any favors (and I am a critic of both of my communities, as is Pam Spaulding.)
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
What’s the big fucking deal? If Kaufman is able to get even a few thousand emails/calls to Congress it is better than doing nothing. If he gets his million, well that should be something that we all celebrate. Why take after him over a specific project attempting to further the cause of ending DADT? How can that, in of itself, be offensive to anyone in the LGBT community? I for one certainly hopes he succeeds on this mission.
Kaufman’s other missions, though, well, rip him a new one. Queerty reposted his Huffington Post rant against other gay blogs and gay rights groups regarding how the LGBT community should, in his humble yet idiotic, opinion be continuing its full support for everything Obama. I and many others posted some pretty angry responses to his lunacy.
Kaufman is a classic example of the failure of our much-in-need-of-reform political system. Like many of his counter-part wingnuts in the Republican Party, Kaufman is a Democrat who happens to be gay. In contrast, I and his detractors, are gays/lesbians who just want to enjoy the same rights and privileges as everyone else and join political parties that we believe best advances our rights.
Sure Obama is better than the last guy; but that doesn’t mean we, LGBT, should applaud ever-present and on-going governmental support of discrimination and bigotry.
Chitown Kev
@Mike in Asheville
I’m even OK with the fact that Kaufman “is a Democrat who happens to be gay.”
But you can’t simply spew any type of garbage and name calling (i.e. calling Pam Spaulding ” her haughty Carolina highness” or calling David Mixner an unrepentant “bigot” simply for his opposition to Harold Ford) and you can’t scapegoat gay bloggers (who are not “gay leaders”) and then comeback and expect many of the same people to follow you. The messenger, in this case, chokes off a good message.
I think Kaufman might do better in rallying those who were receptive to his message to the cause.
Nelson G
@Chitown Kev:
Bloggers scapegoat and attack other bloggers all the time, especially those they find threatening to their lifestyle and agenda.
Some equality advocates have even waged blacklist campaigns against other bloggers and activists.
Pam, Mixner, and David Kaufman, for that matter, are not infallible.
There might have been a time in which, yes, criticizing Pam Spaulding and or David Mixner would be viewed as an infamnia but those days are long since over. They’ve left too many bodies and people are starting to notice.
Chitown Kev
@Nelson G:
Of course, you’re right.
I remember when I was taking a break while I was working in Maine and I was looking at the Blend. One of the workers from HRC noticed that I was looking at the Blend and she went on a 20 minute hrangue about how awful that Pam Spaulding was always trashing HRC, for example.
Of course, some of us that volunteered for No On 1 were trashing the HRC people solely for being from HRC…
Baby, no one eats their own like teh gheys!
And of course, no blogger is infalliable.
I do admit that Pam Spaulding is my favorite, though, not simply because we both have the “black gay “thing going and not simply because we think somewhat similarily on the issues (though we have disagreed at times) but there’s more than superfical resemblences in our individual backgrounds. There’s a real affinity there, at least on my part.
Then again, as Derek said, Queerty does have a tendency to bring out the bitchy queen in me.
But you can’t just demonize damn near the entire LGBT blogosphere (which Kaufman did) and then return to said blogosphere and expect to be acknowledged as a leader not a week or two later.
I mean, you can but…good luck with that.