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Dear Court of World Opinion,
We are writing to you on behalf of one of our members. We are an organization of retired, soon-to-be-retired and occasionally-murdered-by-the-ungrateful world leaders and political activists, a fine group one and all - you wouldn't find a person alive who would say otherwise. We are known as FIENDS (Former International Elite Now Deteriorating Slowly).
Among our unfortunately passed on number are to be found Stalin, Tito, George Lincoln Rockwell, Ceaucescu and Margaret Thatcher. We are concerned that you may be overly harsh to our dear, beloved and very sick General Augusto Pinochet (it is our concerted opinion that he is about as sick as a person can be).
It is true that it is generally held he was a very bad boy between 1973 and 1990. He concedes that he can see why murdering Salvador Allende, is predecessor, may have been ill-advised, but he was provoked by the affrontery of a democratic election. As to the countless murders, disappearances, firings and expulsions, he contends they were necessary in order to protect the life, security, economic well-being and sovereignty of Chile's citizens and that, furthermore, he was driven by his envy of Stalin to emulate a few of that gentleman's policies with perhaps more vigour than was absolutely necessary under the circumstances. He is very sorry - you will not find a more sorry individual than Auger (our affectionate nickname for him).
Furthermore, he finds it somewhat disconcerting that he has been accused by all of these anonymous, protected individuals. Why did they not come forward at the time so he could deal with them effectively? It seems somewhat unfair; in any case, some of them could hardly be certain that DINA (the General's assistants in ensuring order and the running of trains on time) was involved, since, as they testified, they were blindfolded.
The General would also like to claim that it was his military background that led him to such excesses. Had he not joined that organization, risen through its ranks and been well trained in dehumanizing techniques of torture and violence, he would never have overthrown the government. He can hardly be held responsible for the existing Army culture, can he?
In closing, gentlemen and ladies, do not lock this man up for the rest of his life. Permit him to live out his days with such fellow sickies as former Nazi concentration camp officials and the lovely, well-heeled Imelda Marcos.
Truly,
FIENDS
(Note from the Pitiless Court of World Opinion: In a follow-up letter, FIENDS acknowledged that they had erred - Dame Thatcher is not dead - for which they were sorry. They also asked that, with appropriate modifications, similar considerations be given to Chretien, Reagan, Bush, Milosevitch, Yeltsin and castro - those of us in the Court generally hold that some of the same considerations should be given to those individuals).
I was twenty when I met my first drag queen. To my eternal shame, it was at a Hallowe'en party, so I assumed it was a costume and responded in a campy, teasing manner. However, by my recollection, and that of the personage in question, I was playful, not mean, and acted in accord with my politics and theories, such as they were at the time.
Since I haven't done too well on the imagined/real response axis on topics like suicide, family deaths and relationships, I'm glad to be consistent and/or dogmatic about SOMETHING.
Some of my admiration and respect for queens may come from envy, oddly enough. While I believe anyone should be able to dress and act as s/he wishes, even drag is subject to the law of diminishing returns. In short, it is not for nothing that I once attended a trannie show as Gertrude Stein, since I cannot pull off 'femme' to save my life. I have no inner diva, unless you count Nico or Patti Smith. My wrists seem incapable of limpness, and I walk like a bulldyke in a china shop. It is my lifelong curse to come off as butch *sob*. The irony is that I'm quite bookish and am afflicted by a frame large beyond my actual superpowers, and it gives me a chuckle to be told I could 'pass' (as human? If only...).
But I also learned history, so I know that my right to be a 'manly fag' was earned for me by drag queens at stonewall in 1969. The organizers of stonewall 1994, or of the Montreal Pride Parade a few years later, should have been reminded of this, given their efforts to exclude queens and portray the current gay movement of white, middle-class, married fags as some eternal, ideal state (a group way more likely to be worried about breaking an exquisitely buffed nail than the average queen I know...). Of course, that's all part of the growing gentrification of people who believe in reforming the system rather than overthrowing it...they start to think that looking like the ememy will endear themselves to him...actually, it makes it a little more likely that the movement will splinter even more, and wrapping yourself in a wolf stole in the middle of the pack isn't going to fool even the most dim-witted running dog for long; it will, however, prevent your real allies from recognizing, or even getting to, you.
Even though I probably look more like him, both to myself and to others, Andrew Sullivan has nothing to say to me, or, at least, nothing I will take to heart. The likes of Joan Jett Blakk or Vaginal Davis are my heroines, because they dare to be who they WANT to be. No-one is going to read them as women...but, then, in my idealistic estimation, no-one should be read as his or her gender...at least not in some exclusive way that assigns roles and limitations based on pre-conceptions and convenient, divide-and-rule regulations. If I want to be nellie, I'll do it in this body and with my clothes, thank you very much - that's what I learned from queens. I mean, at stonewall, queens ripped up fire hydrants and smacked cops - now, would the kind of 'lady' these police have in mind do that? (Perhaps they should...but we're dealing with an inner image, not a reality here...).
The person who runs the gay phone line in Prince Edward Island was/is a drag queen, and I figure it takes real clit to be a drag queen in Charlottetown - and, having briefly met him once, he would not 'pass' either...
As to the queen I met that fateful pagan night, she was the first person I met who knew about the Runaways and the Dead Kennedys and had their records in her collection (she had one or two cliched records a la Donna Summer or Diana Ross, but so do I (Ross, not Summer)) - and it was thanks to the likes of her that I kept an eye out for queer punk stuff, and stumbled across a tiny item in the organ-of-queer-respectability XTRA about Pansy Division, which started me down the road of uniting my punk leanings with my sexuality. And, of course, Jayne County, who I wish I'd known about when I was younger, taught me that you can be crude as hell and still brilliant (I used to be such a prude) and that microphones can make a good weapon in the right hands (on so many levels).
From queens, I've learned to be a more self-respecting and confident person and learned to stop looking for approval from straights and gays alike (I mean, some approval and support would be nice - I'm not denying that - but I won't die if Mr. Corporate Cocksucker doesn't like me...I'm not too fond of him either).
So remember - the Queen in England is an agent of evil - but the Queen in your neighbourhood might be a goddess, and teach you how to do the fire-hydrant swing that could save your life or start the revolution.
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