Potholes in a cul-de-sac

There have been a few emails flying around of late by p3 members about the ‘future direction’ of the blog, etc. So I thought I would put my response, and start the debate, right here on the p3 blog, where it should be.

For instance there has been a suggestion that we blog about “identifying common areas of concern among ideologically diverse people. For example, even if a straight Pole has a moral issue with gay Poles -- well, they both have to use the same roads, bridges, parks, administrative services, trams, etc,” This is, apparently, an attempt at forming a ‘pothole politics’ and “identifying common areas of concern among ideologically diverse people.”

Excluding the bit about e-democracy – whatever that means – this sounds a bit like the manifesto of my dear friend Lech Kaczynski when he was running for mayor of Warsaw. Perhaps we should rename p3, PiS3?

I’m sorry, but I am just not interested in making common cause with bigots, nationalists and religious cranks. In a country where gays don’t even have the same rights as skinheads to march in protest down the same potholed streets of Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow, winging about the state of the roads seems rather petty to me.

I can tell you from first hand experience of being on these marches that when you are having eggs, bottles and rocks thrown at you by these trogs, the last thing on your mind is the lamentable state of Polish highways.

If you are bothered about the state of the roads in Poland then I highly recommend that you engage politically with real and basic human rights struggles in Poland. And I promise that if you do, then you won’t even notice the potholes under your feet, or the colour of the rubbish bins that the skins are throwing at you.

But it is true that all the good blogs have a quite narrow and well defined area. And I am into making that area on p3 more clearly defined.

But I must remind everyone where this blog is coming from. The story of how p3 was born has been dealt with by Kinuk and Gus elsewhere. I’ll just say that the idea came over a few drinks after Gus and I met the first time, when we were talking about our common passion of blogging. So the meeting of the bloggers came before the idea of the blog. P3, therefore, is really just a continuation of the conversations that we have at these gatherings.

At the moment p3 is about whatever the members want it to be about. If you would like to make the thing more focused then I would like to be part of that discussion.

But as far as ‘pohole politics’ is concerned, you can count me out.

ps. Big respect to Dezso for nominating p3 in the “New Blogs’ category in the Fistful of Euros ‘Satin Pajamas’ blog awards.