A Cheezer Loyalist Defends the Group, Attacks Mean Mister Brownsville

"Fuck you, Jim! You were one of us and you betrayed us. We were Cheezmeh and you left us when you didn't need us anymore. How dare you call us a cult. The only cult I see is your cult of personality. You will fail! Goodbye Jim, or should I call you Jim Jones. FUCK YOU!"


     The above anonymous comment was received on my blog "Mean Mister Brownsville", conveying anger over a perceived betrayal of a social activist group and wishing me failure.  This opens the door for more elaboration on the time line and rationale of our departure from Brownsville Cheezmeh.
     Nena and I did work with and as part of Cheezmeh on Fly Frontera, and the Jessica Tetreau and John Villarreal commissioner races.  Our participation was willful and voluntary, based on what we thought of as a clear understanding of certain issues.  In late July Erasmos Dragustinovis came down from Austin for a meeting of the group at Denny's.  He gave a speech detailing the group's accomplishments so far, but also outlining a new initiative, the recall of Commissioner Melissa Hernandez-Zamora.  No vote was taken on this course of action, but no one publicly objected either.  A member donated the money necessary to purchase a CD of voters in the third district.
     On the evening of August 3, Nena and I talked for several hours about the recall, finally deciding that neither one of us were comfortable with it.  We did not want to be part of ruining someone's life, especially without clearcut evidence of wrongdoing that could be effectively communicated.  Nena was particularly bothered by Erasmos' statement "We're going to recall them one by one until they start listening to us."  That seemed to be a power trip, basing the action on "not listening" instead of improprieties.  The morning of August 4, I inboxed Erasmos of our decision.  We wanted to conscientiously step aside on this one effort while retaining the right to rejoin the group on a cause of action we could support.   Actually, there was somewhat of a precedent within the group for bypassing certain actions while retaining membership.  Some in the group chose not to work for John Villarreal because of his close friendship with the Hernandez's and that seemed acceptable.
     The reaction we received was very different and swift.  On August 4, minutes after I shared our position with Erasmos, he declared on the Brownsville Cheezmeh page that he was contemplating shutting down the page.  He also defriended me on his personal Facebook page.  I retain all our messages back and forth from that day and since.  When I attempted to reason that other group members had been allowed to conscientiously refrain from certain causes, yet retain membership, he stated that they did so before the start, not jumping ship in the middle of battle.  At that point, to my knowledge, no documents had been presented to the city secretary.  No signatures had been garnered.  I'm not sure any of this has been done since.  But really, changing one's mind is not a radical concept.
     Erasmos will likely have a different spin on this, but I've endeavored to carefully lay out the sequence of events.