At some point today I will try to put together a proper links post, since I have a hugenormous accumulation of links to deal with. But I have to get my head around this first: according to Jason Sanford, who got it from the SFWA Bulletin, Michael Chabon has joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
On the one hand, how cool is that? On the other hand, given SFWA’s recent and rather public string of cock-ups, and the disillusionment that seems to have pervaded large parts of the sf-writing community as a result, it seems downright surreal to see someone joining the organisation out of (I assume, since I can’t imagine that he needs to do it) principle.
vector-bsfa.com 
The SFWA has been around a long time, has had many eminent members and of course at times done some very good stuff for their members.
Recently, there has been some quite bad PR and stuff occurring but many organisations go through periods of mis-direction and poor stewardship. If Chabon and hopefully others join and I note he wants ‘active’ membership, then this can only be a good thing.
Change can only occur from within.
One wonders despite your negativity, how many authors are actually still members, and more, how many may perceive the cock ups as attempts to at least look after their members, albeit misjudged.
I am sure there are methods for the membership to convey unhappiness its a shame we don’t get to see that, for the sake of balance.
J
It seems to me that the membership, or portions of it at least, has been expressing its displeasure for quite some time. In the wake of the most recent copyright scandals many members of the SFWA stated that they planned to let their membership lapse, and the support for John Scalzi’s bid to become SFWA president indicates that there is a segment of the SFWA that is quite unhappy with the direction the organization has been headed in.
Finally, while I certainly agree that change can only come from within, that was presumably what Charles Stross was thinking when he agreed to try to clean up the mess left by the copyright fiasco, and we all remember how that worked out.