Poster Ravi just made some good points in his recent post here and I think it is a good topic for discussion and debate.
Since I was a young girl growing up in a poor family in Communist Hungary, I was constantly told “It can’t be done”, “It’s not possible”, “It’s unimaginable”, etc.
People thought it was a crazy idea for a young girl to play chess. They thought it is impossible for a female to earn the Grandmaster title the same way men do. They also thought that it would be unimaginable for a girl to qualify for the “Men’s World Championship”.
I proved them all wrong, haven’t I? I became the first woman to break many barriers and I re-wrote history. Since then, many more women have followed my footsteps and my sister Judit surpassed my accomplishments and took some of them to the next level.
But this is not only about the gender or age issues. It is about a MENTALITY!
I do NOT believe in the words “I can’t”, “It’s not possible”, “It can’t be done”, etc.
I FULLY BELIEVE in “It can”, “It will be done” or “When there’s a will, there’s a way”. This is how I live my life by. I constantly try to make things better. I constantly try to make myself better.
I made my fame in chess as a player. I made enough history already. I could have walked away into the sunset and I would have accomplished more than enough in a lifetime.
But it is never about me. I care about chess. I care about my children. I care about the society. I care about the next generation. This is why I decided to run for the USCF Executive Board. I am sick and tired of people saying this is how the USCF is and no one can change that.
I want to change it! I will change it one way or another! Many destructive politicians have bombarded me with lies, professional and personal attacks. I am willing, ready and able to take any political bullets they want to shoot at me. The status quo simply does NOT work. Things have to be changed.
What is your take? Can things be changed? Can I stop the political destruction in chess? Or do you think that I am wasting my time trying to save the USCF?
of course things can be changed! It will be difficult to clean up, but the USCF can be salvaged as long as responsible people like you and your team are elected. the difference is (in my opinion) current USCF folks are power-hungry and greedy, while you actually want to better chess. Keep up the good work!
I would never bet against you Susan.
Reading this reminded me of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandella. They said the same to them. But they stood there with love in their hearts and all the barriers came tumbling down.
You have what it takes Susan. I know everyone is going to vote for you. “They” know it too. “They” are afraid of you because no one like you has come along to oppose them.
Always choose Love and you will win. Well Love will win. Love is the only power there is. All other power is but an illusion.
Guns and bombs do not win in Iraq. Love would win there. But our leaders have chosen to try to win with guns and bombs and hatred. For certainly it is hatred to kill your brother.
Here is how to do it. When you need to make a decision, never think you already know the answer. And definitely never use your intellectual mind to reason out an answer. Rather feel love inside of yourself and ask that love what to do. You will be guided by the one and only real force there is. Believe and trust in the Love that is inside of you and the world will transform itself in your presence.
Remember Susan, You are Love. You are Love walking through the Valley of Tears that is this world. And in your presence the world shall awaken to knowing that Love is all there is.
yes, you are wasting your time… unless you are stubborn and persistent enough to beat those stubborn people in USCF. I hope you are!
You can and you will and you’re the one who can do it. We’re with you all the way. Let’s throw all them chess politicians out the door.
“It can”, “It will be done” or “When there’s a will, there’s a way”.
Susan, you have truly become Americanized with that attitude and carry the spirit of America’s forefathers.
Bravo!
david chortles:
“Guns and bombs do not win in Iraq. Love would win there. But our leaders have chosen to try to win with guns and bombs and hatred. For certainly it is hatred to kill your brother.”
Love will win there, but when your brother, a Sunni, kills his cousin, a Shiite, not because of a crime, but because of what he believes, then where is the love? The Sunni-Shiite conflict (that is what it really is there, no doubt) is a demostration of won-ton religious hate, and is taught and bred into them as children. Our leaders have very little to do with the centuries of hate that pervades that society.
Hard to change hate into love when the teachers preach nothing but hatred to those who believe something different.
Here is something I just wrote on the michigan chess forum:
It always seems to me that the USCF feels the world owes them something. They expect to get much for so little effort. When they realize that what they stand for doesn’t sell itself, things will happen. You have to swallow your pride, make sacrifices, and aggressively persue what you love. The state of well being we all want to see is not going to fall into place on its own
Dear Susan,
I agree with other bloggers, if there is anyone who can cleanup the augean stables of USCF, it is you and I have no doubt in my mind that you *will* do it. We all support you in this regard.
I also agree with David, who said we need more love here, not hatred. There can be differences on how to do certain things, but the differences and personalities themselves should not become so big that we begin to overlook why we are here in the first place.
What makes the United States a great country is her people and the constitution. Similarly I think there is a need to relook at the constitution of the USCF and change it so that the future of chess in the US becomes the highest priority of those who hold the offices.
Regards,
Ravi Kulkarni
The image that I have from outside of the United States of the USCF is frankly bad and it is based on the news that I read in internet: it is not well promoted the school chess, you have few tournaments, the sponsors abandon you, you don’t know how will you pay the national championship neither how to send your olympic teams to compete, the internal battles are really dirty and there is a general bad reputation. That is my summary.
Susan, is always good to try to improve the things… but I am not able to tell that you are not wasting your time in this case.
I will explain it:
If the bad image that I see is the same that would see an American sponsor, you have very serious problems.
I wonder if you will be able to solve them from a structure that doesn’t seem to work or you will need to create a new association to do it.
My answer to your question is: “I don´t know if the UCSF must be saved,then i am not sure if you are actually working in the right way or just wasting your time with a finished structure”
Just think about that.:)
Somebody ought to take the negative view on this debate topic, if only just for balance. However, in addition to that, I fear that things can go wrong far too easily. Reading David’s post above demonstrates that.
Susan will never win the election by just loving everybody. It will take hard work and hard work not only on her part but on the part of the rest of us as well.
Just because a person has succeeded in other areas does not mean that he/she will succeed in politics. Thomas Marshall (a Vice President of the US) summed it up when he said, “Have you ever seen a business mogul enter politics? Pitiful, just pitiful.”
Now Susan has been working hard, as she reminded me elsewhere. Still, one does not have to look too far to see what can go wrong.
Item: People get complacent and don’t vote, assuming that Susan will win, anyway.
Item: People will only vote for Susan and leave the rest of the ballot blank, not knowing who the other people are.
Item: People will vote for Susan and spread their remaining votes among the other candidates while Susan’s opponents concentrate their votes among their candidates.
Item: (from the two items above) Susan goes on the Board but has only a minority of votes to support her proposals from among the other Board Members.
Item: She obtains a working majority on the Board but the Delegates (remember them?) frustrate her reforms.
All of these items need to be addressed by her supporters and not just shrugged off.
A really good essay that is pertinent to this debate is by Winston Churchill in his book “Great Contemporaries” on Lord Roseberry. He considered Roseberry to be the greatest mind in British politics but he was a failure because he just couldn’t master the art of compromise.
To really get an idea of the mindset, not just of the leadership, but of many of the members, I invite you to go to the USCF forums and scan the thread “Two Bills” started by a certain Max Burkett. Skip over the attacks on Susan. What is noteworthy there is the mindset that the rules they are discussing can’t be changed and certainly not by Susan Polgar and even if she were to get on the Executive Board to change them, the Delegates would have to ratify that change and they for certain never would. Whether the rules they discuss are good or bad for the USCF, they shrug off. It is the mindset they all seem to have: that’s the rules, good, bad, or indifferent, and change is out of the question.
Also note this: as of just 48 hours ago, did anybody think that Susan would have sustained two separate defeats – and defeats of such magnitude as those? Okay, Susan herself wasn’t directly affected but the principles she’s standing for certainly have been.
Summary: my point in all of this is that nobody should take this thing for granted.
Jack Le Moine said “Also note this: as of just 48 hours ago, did anybody think that Susan would have sustained two separate defeats – and defeats of such magnitude as those? Okay, Susan herself wasn’t directly affected but the principles she’s standing for certainly have been.”
Actually, I think Jack is mistaken here. There’s more going on than some people realize.
You might ask, why did the person suspended from the USCF forums vote AGAINST lifting his own suspension? (and failed) Why hasn’t he posted since the suspension was lifted?
Other steps are being taken, and NOT by the USCF EB. The problem with the EB taking action against one of its own members is that this could be “spun” as a political move. What happens when/if this guy is reprimanded or censured by a relatively non-political group – a committee appointed by the delegates, not the EB?
My feeling is that momentum is building to restore the USCF’s tarnished image. As long as we all keep working (and Jack is right on this point — we can’t be complacent) there will be some major changes in the USCF.
If you do get elected (and I hope so!) I would suggest trying to do many small things well rather than one huge thing.
Consider:
1. Making sure all future elections are conducted well so we don’t get another ballot fiasco.
2. Make sure all financial committements of the USCF are either bid out openly or at least passed with formal minutes so that we can see which board members voted for or against.
3. Have regular published meeting minutes of the board – this could go as a summary in Chess Life and in full text on the web.
4. It is a shame that this is only major chess nation not to control its own championship. Consider restarting it but get the quality and prestige back up – invite the top 10 men and women players and have add two men and two women at open slots which can won through tournaments like the US Open or World Open. But stick with a plan for a number of years (3-4) in a row ideally in the same locale – familiarity with the venue can make organization easier each tme. Then gradually build on it.
I believe the biggest question is whether or not the USCF is a lost cause. I have no doubt that Susan Polgar will do good thing on the USCF board. The question is whether or not the ship that is the USCF has already taken on too much water, and no matter how much you try to bail it out, it is still too late.
Only time will tell. I truly believe that this might be the last chance to save the USCF short of it self-destructing and a new organization rising from the ashes.
Susan, all credits to you, I wish you good luck in achieving what you are cheering for. However, also having grown up in the communist Hungary, I can’t but notice the picture at the original post – it seems that part of you learned too much about the way things were represented there.
I believe in the love you have in chess. Love in anything changes everything.
This might not be a popular view, but; of course the USCF is worth the time to ‘be saved’.
This whole tone frustrates me. The USCF leadership is democratically elected by the membership, so some of the problems that USCF has are due to us. Furthermore, if we don’t like the way that it is run; it is our responsiblity to educating ourselves and electing leaders who can promote positive change.
If you believe that the majority of the general USCF members are decent and honest folk, then, yes, it should be ‘saved’.
Just my frustrated take,
Gregory
I agree with Gregory, 100%.
It must be frustrating for people like Gregory that work for the USCF as volunteers, getting little recognition for all the hard work they do, to hear people talking about “the USCF” this way.
I think guys like Gregory deserve a HUGE thank-you from the USCF members. (Gregory, BTW, is on the USCF College Chess committee)
When people talk about “the USCF” they usually:
1. Don’t take any personal responsability for the current situation. The USCF is run by the members and volunteers, for the most part. Honestly, if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem — at least passively.
2. Talk about politicians that run for the EB as if THEY were the USCF. They AREN’T. The represent only a tiny part of the organization as a whole. There are a lot of hardworking volunteers and employees that try their best to make the USCF the best possible organization.
3. Talk about the EB members as if they are all the same scoundrels. I can say with some assurance that there ARE good, honest people on the EB. It’s just not 100%. As examples, consider Joel Channing (current EB member) and Randy Bauer (former EB member). OF COURSE, there are negative examples as well. But that’s something that’s up to us, as members, to fix by voting for the best candidates in the upcoming election.
4. Completely neglect all the other good, honest “politicians” that really care about the USCF and chess and work very hard to help the organization: the vast majority of the 125 elected delegates and the alternate delegates. These people volunteer their time, pay their own way to the meetings, work on committees and in workshops, etc., usually with almost no recognition at all.
Please, when you have negative things to say about “the USCF” — think about being a little more specific. There are only a handfull of individuals out of the entire membership that I have a problem with. Please try to keep this in perspective.
Just have some perspective on what you are trying to do is all. Kasparov is trying to a similar thing in Russia by opposing the Putin Oligarchy. Just because he is right or has been World Champion does not make success inevitable. Putin is as committed to winning as Kasparov and his enemies have a habit of disappearing.
Furthermore, identify some concrete goals other than STOPPING THE POLITICS. Politics and politicians have been around since the beginning of mankind, they are not going away. Politics is the life blood of western society and democracy. Like it or not it is the way we get things done. Stopping the politics is not a goal, however encourage polite conversation, debate and limiting personal attacks is.
After the USCF is “cleaned up” and you depart the board who will keep it clean? Or will it drift back to its current state given the vagaries of human nature. Just another reality check. Look how “messed up” FIDE is.
Finding sponsorship, fixing the website, fixing the magazine, balancing the budget, publicizing chess are are all good goals. However, the idea that you will stop the politics is not really a goal or one you are likely to prevail on.
Just my two cents…
“I became the first woman to break many barriers and I re-wrote history.”
I never understood why people use the cliche “re-wrote history.” History is just that and cannot be changed, unless we’re in an Orwellian novel. The past is all well and good, but it’s time to think about the future.
Susan, I hope your campaign is not just lofty promises. If you do win, you’ll be called on them. Let’s can the cliches, and focus on some action.
Susan,
You wrote:
What is your take? Can things be changed? Can I stop the political destruction in chess? Or do you think that I am wasting my time trying to save the USCF?
I see this as a chicken-egg problem. Where one should know, which one was before the other. Specifically, does USCF became what it is, because the popularity of chess went down, or the popularity of chess went down because of (at least partially) USCF. I don’t really know the answer to this question, but I think it critically determines whether you are wasting your time, or about to do something very valuable. I mean, imagine that after the invention of the lightbulb somebody would have tried to save the “Candlemakers Association” (I just invented this name). I am not trying to compare chess with the candle, I am just trying to point to a concept.
If on the other hand USCF actually hampers the popularity of chess, obviously you can do some great things.
——————————-
Even 50 years ago, chess, bridge, go, backgammon were about the only intellectual games people could play. Today kids are growing up multitudes of quite challenging computer games and other activities. Chess must compete with those and it won’t be an easy task to make it as popular as it once was.
Gabor
It’s probably fair to characterize me as one of Sloan’s most vociferous public critics.
But from the outset, I’ve believed that the problem is not Sloan himself. The chess community has unfortunately been long familiar with extremely intelligent people who act asocially & who are largely unable to control this aspect of their conduct.
You know the old saw about academic politics? “They fight so hard because the stakes are so small.” Trust this refugee from the ivory tower: academic politics seem monumentally important in comparison with those of a national board game association.
It’s beyond my comprehension why someone like former USCF President Dr. Leroy Dubeck would endorse a person such as Sloan, or why another former USCF President & current Board member, Don Schultz, would have regularly routed “political” leaks to Sloan (pars pro toto). I think it is more than fair to hold the people accountable who have exploited Sloan for base motives & used him as a tool to weaken USCF.
If Sloan were to have as little political support as the other organized paranoids in USCF (whose number only seems to be legion), there would be no more “Sloan problem.” May he live a long, healthy, and reasonably happy life.
I think Susan’s campaign is worth the effort, but would again advise her that there is no shame in losing the battle to reform USCF. It may turn out that USCF has been irreparably harmed by three decades of pointless infighting, little of which can be directly attributed to Sloan. A failure to respect other people seems to be central to the USCF culture.
Chess is a wonderful recreation in itself, and a wonderful tool for teaching our young friends. We can’t have fun, we can’t teach effectively, if we ignore ethical values.
Great discussions everyone. I particularly liked Jack’s posting. I agree that it is not as simple as winning as an individual. You also have to ensure that you have enough support to carry through your reforms. One great thing about internet is that you can spread your message far and wide without much expense. How about it folks? We all could try to work together to ensure that enough good people get elected this year.
BTW, how do I access the forums on uschess.org? I tried this link but I don’t see all those “interesting” discussions there:
http://www.uschess.org/forums
Regards,
Ravi Kulkarni
If Susan succeds in keeping Sloan from being on the board, that by itself will be a great contribution to saving the USCF.
Count me in agreement with Tanstaafl and Gregory.
Ravi
I believe that USCF members have to register (with member ID & PIN from mag label) to gain access to the “USCF Issues Forum,” and that the email address provided must = the email of record for USCF.
Only after logging in can one see the forum.
I reposted a piece from the USCF Forums on Susan’s Chess Decisions blog. It concerned what happened today that distinguished Susan from the opposing candidates. The address is: http://uschess.blogspot.com/2007/01/contrasting-differences-in-philosophy.html.
I here some generalizations about what the uscf has done but what are the specific things wrong with the uscf. in order to do a proper evaluation without taking sides I would have to hear what violations the uscf has commited and what could be done to correct them. apparently the same things are going on with fide in terms of chess politics. i also am wondering how does the fide influence decision making in the uscf. one thing that I would want done is get rid of that rating system and use the elo rating system of fide.
wolverine
The same thing happen regard person with phisicall disabilities.It is a question of mentality of the peaple.
many peaple think that if you’re disabeled you couldn’t play as who is not a disabeled.
This is a wrong idea,that MUST BE CHANGED.
Of course NOT ALL DISABELED could became chess champions but,every singular case must be individually evalutate.I Belive that if you are phisically disabeled with a disability not too big YOU COULD PLAY AND WIN however.
When the Polgars sisters beginned to play all the peaple laughed and told :”it is Impossible”.
But now nobody could laugh anymore.
ALL THING IS POSSIBLE.
Today,i tell:If you have a phisical disability you could however became a strong International chess player,despite your disability.
Today mostly tell:it is impossible.
I Hope tomorrow nobody will tell so.
At the same time science must be work seriously for solve all the phisical problems of everybody.So one day disability will disappear.
I substain,and i love Polgar Sister with all my hearth.They’re my “Sisters”.
Susan and her sisters fight,is my fight too,for a best society in every sence.We are one things.
When i was a baby nobody could immage that one day i would take the most higer level of studies in Italy,and that my interest would be International Politics,history,Geopolitics Philosophy and that one day i would play chess.
Today where i live NOBODY COULD,put in doubt my preparation in my specialized fields,i am very near to reach higer level of studies.
With chess despite my potentialities i had less fortune.However it is not too late.For demonstrate that even if you are not professional chessplayer,and if you are disabeled you reach however acccetable and good international level.
Of course i could not paragonate my chess ability,with the incredible ability of Susan and her sisters,this is impossible.But if one day i will reach a fide Rating and a good international Level,it will be demostrate once time more,that Susan has full reasons in his fight.
My personal chess targets,are of course much more modest,less impressive respect the 3 fantastic sisters,because it is necessary be realist,but the idea that i brought foward is the same of the Polgars.
The prejudicies,of every type are only a mental barrer.Mental Barrer must be destroyed in every field for improve the society.The ideas that i have are at this regard very similar.
Your fight is My fight too.I will play,of course not only for Italy,and Europe(my country),but for killed the barrers of prejudice,and ignorance
Kisses
Antonio
Susan to save us all…
Amen