The disability/prostitution thread, and discussion about topics being derailed by various folks who do not toe the party line, whatever it may be, and how depressing that is, has got me thinking about how feminism and other of my causes have got me involved with people who share my view on some issues, but blow my mind with their radically opposite views on others.
I have, at times, found myself allied with faaaaaaar right right-wingers, anarchist libertarians, born again Christians, population control obsessed atheists, etc. Because we agreed, at the time, on certain points, about certain issues, sometimes for the same reasons, most of the time for dramatically different ones.
I have seen boards blown apart by angry disagreement, I have seen and participated in splitting of board and creation of private boards, and let me assure you - those boards blow up eventually too.
Then what you have is all this energy split off and fragmented everywhere, and people aren't talking to each other or listening to each other, and change becomes much, much harder to make.
And then you think, damn, I wish so and so were still here because while she is a fucking freak who believes [insert whatever radical view you want], she is really good at this or that and even better at thinking about something else, I wish I could ask her, but alas I can't because we disagreed too violently about whether thongs should be banned because they contribute to urinary tract infections.
Radical women of all kinds have planted seeds in my head - at the time I mocked them, and then find years later I have come round to their view, or at least part of it.
Do you, too, find it really disconcerting when you are, perhaps briefly, perhaps for a long time, on the same 'team' as your ideological enemies?
Do you find it really difficult when you disagree strongly with people on your 'team?'
Do you, like me, feel the most weird when you are on the same side but for totally opposite reasons?