Sometimes I think people need to read more carefully (and I do include myself among people).
It is McCLEARY'S JOB as OUR ADVOCATE to advocate on our behalf. Hello! She is doing that job VERY POORLY, and has been doing it very poorly for a long time. She needs to be called out on it, and that's what we are doing here.
I very carefully stated that I wasn't suggesting that she couldn't be "called out". I said that doing it so publicly and in the manner demonstrated on this thread is not likely to encourage other people to want to help us.
If I were a journalist, advocate, politician, or philanthropist thinking about getting involved is the issues surrounding ME/CFS and I read Kim McCleary's pathetic efforts at energizing support for this disease I'd assume that ME/CFS wasn't really all that serious and that it wasn't worth my time, money, or effort to get involved.
I didn't (and don't) argue this point, either. So if we don't think Ms McCleary is representing us properly , like it or not, it becomes
our job to represent ourselves, at least until we get the situation changed. Are we representing ourselves well? If we want somebody to replace Ms McCleary, are we at all concerned about how the best candidates are going to perceive how we treat our current advocate? Do they need to wonder if they don't do things exactly the way we want that they will be publicly trashed by the patient population?
If you were a journalist, politician or experienced philanthropist, chances are, you would have seen such politics before!
Yes, and most of them would run like mad. Very many of them don't like getting involved in internal strife.
Bottom line: Vince Lombardi had something relevant to say about this.
"Praise in public, criticize in private."
BTW, this is more about making the boss (the patient population) more successful than it is about protecting the feelings of the employee (Ms McCleary).
I've said all I have to say on this point. We can agree to disagree.