Past imperfect

To steal from my favorite movie, we might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.

That's what I was thinking as I edited this week's Metro Weekly cover story on Butch Merritt, a self-described spy on the D.C. gay community back in the early '70s days of the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance. It's tempting to read these historical pieces and think only of how much worse it was for gays and lesbians just a few short decades ago, and how much better we have it today. Back then people had to worry about the government spying on them, tapping their phones, turning friends and acquaintances into government informants....

And then we're full circle back to these heady days of the Bush/Cheney surveillance nation and the hydra-headed war on drugs.

Not to worry, I'm not about to spend 1,000 words on another libertarianish rant -- yet -- but I do think it's important to read a story like this with an eye on the present. It's too easy to decry the past transgressions of government as paranoid and overreaching while dismissing the current transgressions as necessary evils.

Comments

[lgbtfriend]

Hi, congratulations for your blog from Spain, I posted the entry " Past imperfect" on my blog http://lgbtworld.blogspot.com/,
Best regards,

Lgbt Friend