Matthis on leadership; Oh, woe is me!

The Huffinton Post must be sucking canal water for diarists these days. Our old buddy and recent contestant in our stolen valor tournament, Matthis explained to the brainless hippies in his typically verbose manner why there are no leaders of the OWS protests;

Being a leader in a movement I saw as plagued with too much leadership and not enough initiative on the ground, I tried simply to be an example of revolt. If anything, I hoped to use my position to assert new ideas and radical tactics. I tried to promote individual autonomy while myself pushing the bounds of acceptable dialogue to create a new cognitive space from which to organize; one not in service to a flag or a political party or a specific ideology, but exclusively to the values they all claim to monopolize.

While this approach made me stand out, ironically, as a leader, it also ‘learned’ me a powerful lesson: leaders are targets, and certain interests in this country know little ethical restraint when striking at them to strike at the movements and ideas behind them.

To be a leader on the left in the U.S. is to invite incredibly harsh scrutiny, and oftentimes harassment. From the state, from the populace, from the opposition and sometimes even from those you thought to be your friends. To stick one’s head up in a movement now-a-days is to beg that it get beaten down. Part of this ‘whack-a-mole’ practice is broader human tradition. Part is a matter of intent.

Yeah, when you’re a leader, you probably shouldn’t be an immoral piece of shit liar…I guess he didn’t want to admit that in his wordy treatise on a subject about which he knows nothing.

Matthis was forced out of the IVAW because he went against the mjority of the group’s actual veterans, he lied about the extenet of his service and his reasons for resisting the war. I guess he still wo’t admit his own failings to himself, so we have to keep reminding people.

Thanks to another nameless ninja for the link.

Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Occupy, Shitbags