A short 'lil rant

I just posted this on alt.zines. There's a little (well, a lot) of backstory to this but basically, there's been a rather hostile debate on this newsgroup between the ULA and those folks who seem to oppose, well, everthing the ULA does. Here's my attempt at an Olive Branch between these two groups:

The bulk of the review page is
> wrtten by "members" or "supporting members" of the ULA! (hence, all my
> self-congratulatory, self-impressed and self-exaltation references).
> Your shenanigans seem far more thought-provoking than your words.

Actually, if you want to get totally fucking technical there were 4 reviews by non-ULAers and 3 by ULAers and one of the "ULAer" reviews was from Owen Thomas. Are you really going to tell me that as independent as Vlorbik is, he's going to be soft on the ULA?


> You guys are fun, however.

Yeah, that's the coolest part of it.....but I'll stop here. These posts never seem to get anywhere. It seems, though lines in the sand have been drawn, we're all basically on the same side. The more zinesters and independent writers continue to fight like this the more we can expect watered down mainstream crap to dominate our art/entertainment/information sources.

It seems like neither side is willing to truly listen. I joined the ULA because I saw them fighting the good fight, speaking out and promoting ALL kinds of zinesters and independent writers in their publicity. I think that if anyone is busting his ass to promote all sorts of independent literature/arts it's Karl Wenclas. No one I've EVER met has had as much undying love for literature; something very few people care about anymore.

Something that should be cared about.

So that's where I'm coming from in all this. But I realize that I might have closed off some valid points from Dan or others simply because I'm so entrenched on the ULA side of the debate. But please realize that ya'll have probably been doing the same thing.

So I propose this for all parties involved: Lets hold off on any sort of debate with each other until we can agree to honestly keep open-minds and listen to ther other folks point of view. If there's to be any dialogue at all.

I mean, has this debate (over the last three years of the ULA) ever gotten anywhere?

--Pat