Never let it be said that we ignore our newbies. Since several saw fit to impugn my dedication to the advance of People of Gender, I thought it would be justified to lay out a few basic principles of anarchofeminism, such as it is.
To critique patriarchy is to move necessarily in the direction of anarchy, since the state is finally patriarchy manifested as a political economy, yet there remains a propensity among many, perhaps most, feminists of my acquaintance to view the ascension of this or that woman to a position of importance and influence within the state apparatus as a general good. Thus it is taken, with caveats, as a sign of progress that Condoleeza Rice is the Secretary of State, or that Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, or that Hillary Clinton is a prominent contender for the Presidency of the United States. In reality this isn't advancement, but retrogression. It's like claiming J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn as examples of queer advancement.
TGGP recently reminded me of a classic Spooner article called ""Against Women's Suffrage." A brief excerpt:
If the women, instead of petitioning to be admitted to a participation in the power of making more laws, will but give notice to the present lawmakers that they (the women) are going up to the State House, and are going to throw all the existing statute books in the fire, they will do a very sensible thing[.]Yet there remains a belief that the mechanics of political power and broader admission to the political process are necessary precursors to gender equality. The truth is that women will never be equal in the nation-state. To agitate for the bait-and-switch comforts of Title IX psuedo-equity is to ask for a more comfortably furnished cage.
As a proponent of queer rights, I have long found myself at odds with soi-disant queer activists who persist in believing that judicial and legislative remedies will for the basis of sexual equality. There are certainly queer radicals and anarchists, as there are feminist radicals and anarchists, but we are in the substantial minority, especially when compared to the political-activist class. Queer agitation for "gay marriage" is a perfect example of ideological fecklessness: admission to a state-run, mutual-contractual obligation doesn't constitute advancement toward sexual equality, unless of course you accept that the ne plus ultra of equity and justice consists of a series of enumerated state grants to individuals.
In the interests of its own stability, our state has occasionally consented to extend participatory rights to women, racial minorities, sexual minorities, etc. This should not be confused with "progress."
59 comments:
I add that nearly every member of the House and Senate, Judiciary, and Executive branches which oversee the current adventures does NOT deserve a claw repeatedly inserted in the rear. They deserve a claw repeatedly inserted in the rear plus a black canvas bag over the head, while having water poured on it, while being chained in a crucifixion position, while dogs bark and bite at them. Every single day for 5 years or so. Then released to find their homes in ruins, their families dead, missing, or in other countries, and their country firmly seated in the resting place their navigation now directly points.
i once drove a dear friend to tears while arguing against her potential vote for the hillster. she and i agreed that on the issues hillary was far to the right and far too willing to choose her positions from the blowing wind. the potential vote would be cast, i was informed, because she's a woman.
of course i took the bait, probably too eagerly. we were drunk. she cried.
blah blah blah.
so my question is this; was she crying because she's a woman or was she just pre-menstrual?
Thanks for saying HI!
While being allowed to behave like straight white males is a ridiculous target to strive for, I don't see how that makes rape any funnier.
Maybe I'll just try pulling my head out of my ass, after all, I agree with the points presented in both this and the other post.
All I wanted was a Pepsi.
obamabot as replacement for "Friend Of Digby" = comedy gold
I am not sure this comment exactly dovetails with your point, but something about it seems pertinent. I always find it peculiar when people ask me what it's like to practice law as a woman. To me, that's like asking what it's like to breathe as a woman. To think about it seems absurd to me. In the same way, it seems absurd to me to rejoice that some woman has reached a position of power as if it has any bearing on anything.
There's a strong argument to be made that gender equality is incompatible with agriculture. Paleontologists are only now beginning to appreciate the wrenching changes wrought on human psychology by the simple act of throwing some seeds on the ground and staying put.
There's an even stronger argument to be made that words like "equality" and "power" have subtly different meanings for women and men. Like a drunken sea captain, the closer the gender-equality movement gets to its goals, the more its double vision creates navigational problems.
There's a "stronger argument" to be made that "gender" is incompatible with agriculture, or any other version of human advancement.
Agree completely that Hillary, Condi and Pelosi are not examples of "progress," whateverthefuck that is.
Agree Hillary and the rest of our political class are for the most part soulless monsters.
Still don't think you should joke about a woman getting raped because of a comment she made. Leave that crap where it belongs.
No, it's not that - that "that's Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Nineties" - that whole idea of decade packages. Things don't happen that way...No, that, that packaging of time is a journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important events and important ideas. I defy that. Time is an enormous, long river, and I'm standing in it, just as you're standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me - and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world.
I'm digging the Spooner. thanks.
The reification of gender in the supposed pursuit of its deconstruction is a quite extraordinary thing. Well, we all reveal our biases, eventually.
Either that, or the pursuit of the deconstruction of gender stubbed its toe really hard on something that didn't require reification after all.
I, for one, am pro-vagina.
I'm anti-idiots who focus on a fantastical rape joke involving an extinct animal as the rapist when one of the three major candidates for President is advocating NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST. Fuck you, cb, you myopic twit.
A vagina is a terrible thing to waste.
Progress should never be confused with progress, it only leads to confusion among the Proggels.
the potential vote would be cast, i was informed, because she's a woman.
I've had countless similar exchanges. It must not occur to these people that voting for a candidate simply because of their sex is the definition of sexist, and thus hypocritical. That is, if People of Gender even have the capacity for sexism, which I guess they don't.
heh. anon 3:20 sees your outrage and raises you more outrage.
lol.
call!
Well I'll differ midly. I do not, in fact, think that there's a problem with what the dirty europeans call "positive discrimination." Privileging blacks over whites or women over men as a response to systemic discrimination is not objectionable to me. So long as all other things are relatively equal, I'm for it.
It is, instead, the idea that voting for a woman candidate, or a black candidate, or a queer candidate, within the context of the American imperium, and particularly for the presidency, constitutes anything like affirmative action or positive discrimination, to which I object. Given the choice between a dude or a woman of similar qualifications for city council, I would likely choose the woman because she is a woman. But the operations of the American hegemon obviate such considerations when talking about the various psychopaths running for the high offices of the land.
did I mention the peekaneese?
did I mention the peekaneese?
Agreed: the "struggle for equality" as practiced in the west is a mug's game.Now if we can ban women from the stadia and arenas of the land,except in their natural role as cheerleaders, then we can return to some semblance of order.
you started out that way
you'd do anything to stay
and keep your money boys
made of silver and gold
and keep your pekinese,
turkish cigarettes
and your lighter that looks like a gun
so you marry your daddy
with a different name
that's sex and dying in high society
-X
i'm through with letting the men ruin this country. i say it's time we let the women start ruining this country.
(which makes me wonder if it's not just all a spelling-based neurological hiccup.)
Strange, no one's ever asked me what it's like to be gay, but have no problem inquiring about my lifestyle to be sadly disappointed and robbed of purient interest.
heh. anon 3:20 sees your outrage and raises you more outrage.
I fold. That dude's got deeper outrage pockets than me, and more of a willingness to use the caps lock. I know when I'm out of my league.
I'm out, too, cb. Now that I know that our attempt to provoke a more civil discussion failed to prevent the annihilation of the Iranian people, I am flush with shame.
IOZ, I think it's reasonable to state that having a woman lead the American imperium raises, however slightly, the status of women within that imperium. The psychopath in charge looks like me! Small cause for rejoicing, but not no cause at all.
And of course, thanks for the gentle newbie welcome.
Hey, so how about this: Hilary gets fisted by Bigfoot? Is that cool with you near-sighted cretins who, again, it must be e-shouted, are ignoring the fact that the woman having imaginary, impossible rape wished upon her is openly and staunchly advocating for the NUCLEAR FUCKING HOLOCAUST OF IRAN. You MORONS. You FUCKING MORONS.
Honestly, the fact that the previous entry has, like, 15 posts of people uttering some variation on "A rape joke? Well I never!" when former First Lady and one of the three candidates for President of the United States Hilary Clinton has made it clear she would nuke Iran to the point that it would be obliterated if they launched a nuclear attack on Israel would be astounding to me if were not for the fact that the other two would swear on a stack of bibles they'd do the same thing, and no one even bats an eyelash. Honestly, when the fuck were our politicians all replaced with supervillians?
Readers of this site ought to get a mordant chuckle out of this.
-- sglover
seeing as how we're talking about the claw of the dinosaur and not the phallus, i'm not sure we're even talking about rape per se so much as manual violation.
i mean come on guys, let's call a spade a spade, and let's also call a deinonychus talon anally violating a female dead-ender presidential candidate advocating the nuclear holocaust of an entire nation of people a deinonychus talon anally violating a female dead-ender presidential candidate advocating the nuclear holocaust of an entire nation of people.
IOZ, your intra-queer dispute was referenced by Keith Preston here and I just thought he was grasping at straws when I first read it.
For the counter-argument against Spooner on suffrage, we can oddly enough cite John Lott. The practical effect as long as men do have the right to vote but women do not is to ensure that politicians representing one group's interest are in office while others are not similarly represented.
But IOZ,
As a "proponent of queer rights", don't you think it all - the promotion of minority rights - begins with mutual respect?
The point to the admittedly nose-in-the-air critics of your invoking the R word is that it denigrates ALL of us - men and women, queer and straight, etc., etc..
As you've seen with these two threads, even a seemingly "harmless" use of the term leads to unregenerative discourse involving anal vs. vaginal penetration.
C'mon boys and girls, let's keep our eyes on the ball. We have an Election to win and a country to save from the Rethugs!
FOD (Friend of Digby)
hehehe
"FOD" said penetration
that should get a rise out of our "mr.fundamental"
What everyone seems to have missed in this important discussion is that Hillary is supposed to be digitally raped by a dinosaur *in the ass*. This is, then, a homosexual rape fantasy, assuming on the one hand that 'Deinonychus,' like 'Adam,' is a generic reference to the biological specific with an inferred gender; and on the other hand, that Hillary's aggressive PR has been successful, and she is now identified even by her critics as a man.
Summing up, it's not the feministas who ought to be pissed off by this execrable reptilian fantasy, it's the queers. I believe IOZ is one, ergo self-hating.
IOZ, I know you linked to Twisty a little while ago. Have you ever communicated with her, either tellyfone or e-mail? I am a major fan of both of you, and I don't think you're that far apart - the claims that this site is anti-feminist don't work for me. Would you two consider linking each other? (BTW, I thought you were going to link to Doghouse Riley. Wassup with that?)
Friend of Digby,
If you really wanted to save this country, you'd be running the Spitzer/McGreevey ticket.
la confidential pantload: Twisty Faster would personally castrate, with her bare fingernails, any jackass who made a rape joke.
It's funny to see the people here hyperventilating about "OMG YOU THINK RAPE IS WORSE THAN NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!!1" Gee, fellas, you know that making a rape joke about Hillary isn't actually going to do anything to protect Iran from getting nuked, right? And you know that criticizing someone for making a rape joke about Hillary isn't going to magically get Hillary elected so she can nuke Iran? So there's no actual dilemma between condemning rape jokes and condemning Hillary? We can, marvelously enough, do both at the same damn time.
And what's more, criticizing rape jokes is the more important of the two. Politicians decide who to nuke, and (not to burst the bubble of our precious blog-host) no pol is going to read or care about anything written here. Nobodies rape, and even more nobodies make excuses for and enable rape, and a handful of nobodies read this blog. So a rape joke here is actually likely to do some damage, because it'll reinforce the nobodies' dismissive attitudes towards rape. While all IOZ's rage about nuking Iran isn't going to do a damn bit of good.
anonymous at 8:47,
I'm glad Twisty anointed you to speak for her, although she can certainly speak for herself - and far more eloquently than you.
And somebody count - cause I sure won't - the reptition of "rape-joke" in this post?
Yep, people who read a blog are going to be like "Gee, IOZ made a completely ridiculous rape joke involving an extinct animal and Hilary Clinton. I guess that makes it okey dokey for me to go out and commit an actual rape against a random woman! Thanks, IOZ!"
anon at 8:47, you are truly a fucking moron of the highest order. Yes, tons of potential rapists read BLOGS, particularly this blog, and all they needed was the faggot running the joint to make a dinosaur rape joke, and boom, instant justification! You are soooo right!
Please kill yourself.
Psst, anon at 10:03: if you actually read the comment you'll see it said rape jokes encourage people to excuse and trivialize rape, not that rape jokes were some sort of instant trigger for committing rape.
And, yeah, no rapist ever reads blogs. It's a little known fact that committing rape prevents you from ever connecting to the Internet, you see. Especially to blogs written by fags--that's like rapist kryptonite, dudez.
Werewolf, I suspect many rapists read blogs. I don't think any dinosaurs do.
Thanks to IOZ, tggp, la confidential pantload, and all you who love the freedom to comment here as much as I do, I say this:
Thanks to y'all - but mostly to IOZ - I finally know what I am.
I can now proudly call myself a "Radical Absolutionist"!
(Sure beats lib, con, et. al.)
So I say: rape, pillage, plunder away; argue your pov with passion or snark.
Keep those comments coming dewds & dewdettes. You never know who out there, judged "too stupid to live" by some, might just benefit from a little spilled wisdom here.
Any harm in that??
Mike
So a rape joke here is actually likely to do some damage, because it'll reinforce the nobodies' dismissive attitudes towards rape.
It's true. Before these last two threads, I would have been enraged at the thought of a woman being violated with a dinosaur fossil. Now...eh. Booooor-ing!
I love how anon-847 seems to think male genital mutilation is acceptable punishment for a rape joke. But, imaginary sexual violence against men is A-OK, n'est ce pas?
I also love how "criticizing (dinosaur) rape jokes is ... more important" than criticizing Clinton for wanting to nuke Iran. Yes, because Clinton -- who probably has a 20% shot of becoming president -- would never actually have the opportunity to use nuclear weapons as Commander in Chief. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, wander the earth, raping human women all the time.
I also love how we're all a collection of "nobodies." You endear me to your good cause, Anon-847!
Have you (the general you) ever read Vice magazine?
Where you have solid, well-argued reasons for basically doing nothing, the writers/readers of Vice have vapid, poorly-articulated reasons for basically doing nothing, and the predictable result is that nobody does anything.
The system is at least as unaffected by the decision to not participate in it as by the decision to try to change it through activism.
Which leaves me, once again, hopeless.
It's true. Before these last two threads, I would have been enraged at the thought of a woman being violated with a dinosaur fossil. Now...eh. Booooor-ing!
Boring, hell. After the last two threads, my odious mentality has been inflamed so much that the idea is absolutely hot.
Time to see if deinonychusrape.com has been registered yet.
People, come on! No one is suggesting that the she be raped by an ancient reptile!
It's an ancient bird
And what's more, criticizing rape jokes is the more important of the two. Politicians decide who to nuke, and (not to burst the bubble of our precious blog-host) no pol is going to read or care about anything written here. Nobodies rape, and even more nobodies make excuses for and enable rape, and a handful of nobodies read this blog. So a rape joke here is actually likely to do some damage, because it'll reinforce the nobodies' dismissive attitudes towards rape.
First, let me say that I do think it's possible to be coming at this in good faith from either point of view. I don't think all the anti-dinorape-joke people are totalitarians-in-training, but I don't think people who roll their eyes at the reaction are immoral monsters either.
That said...you do realize that all this argument has done is to ensure that we will all remember a dumb joke for far longer than we would have otherwise? It wasn't even ha-ha funny; no one would have thought twice about it if it hadn't become a lightning rod for all this outrage.
I think it was said earlier in the thread - you're giving the word far too much power (and credit to do harm, for that matter). This really doesn't seem much different to me than people who would try to insist with a straight face that Looney Tunes cartoons cause kids to drop anvils on each other's heads, stick dynamite down each other's pants, or step off a cliff while thinking that they won't fall as long as they don't look down.
I'm 35; in my time, I've seen women degraded and objectified in everything from movies to art to porn to rap and metal music, and none of it has moved me one bit closer to thinking that it would be cool or permissible to forcibly penetrate a woman against her will. I can brush off the dinorape joke as nothing while telling an acquaintance of mine to shut his stupid fucking mouth for saying of an attractive woman walking by, "Man, I'd love to fucking nail the shit outta that bitch!" Context is everything, to state the obvious. See the difference?
Speaking of ass-rape, what do you guys think of Irreversible's attitude toward wogs, bitches and fags? Michael Blowhard and Chip Smith see the movie as xenophobic, but I don't. It's portrayal of homos is pretty revolting though.
First, let me say that I do think it's possible to be coming at this in good faith from either point of view.
Nah. Anyone with a fingernail's breadth of "good faith" knows that "raped by a deinonychus" is a classic example of comic hyperbole, not an incitement to violence. The border between denunciation and wankery is about a hundred miles north of this joke.
On the upside, there have been vows to go wank elsewhere, so that's a plus.
Best. Thread. Ever.
Sorry, IOZ, gotta disagree. The infamous Giant Sammich thread at Sadly, No! was even better - they Photoshopped a huge submarine sandwich into the hands of a fat fuck wingnut named Dafydd ab Hugh (or some pseudo-Welsh name like that), and all fucking hell broke loose. Husky folks with pent-up years worth of hurt feelings. The Twisty Faster-types jumped all over that one as well. Hundreds of comments long. Sheer identity politics pandemonium. If I remembered the date and post title, I'd link it. (Anyone who does remember, feel free to help out here.)
Can I just interject here, that I for one, hope Hillary wins!
I really think the 30%'ers heads would explode, which alone would be worth it.
The right-wing media train would be put on full throttle.
And she would probably nuke someone, just to show she has cojones.
Isn't that the Moore's Law version of IOZ's wants and dreams. If you want deconstruction, Vote For Hillary!
If she does get the Democrat[ic?] nomination, there will have to be some serious slimy manueverings from the Clinton camp. I can't wait. Bring it on, Hill-babe!
I thought the kindly Monsieur got in the best last. word. ever. As it should be.
But, then, the coda....
"Sheer identity politics pandemonium".
I'm taking that one to work this fine, fine, Monday.
TT
has anyone throughout the entire history of the internet ever stopped and thought upon reading something: "wait. this could be a trap." ?
:-)
Hey Mr. Fun - you gonna give away the code to the safe, too? Sheesh!
right - like anybody'd believe me if I told them.
internet.
pshaw!
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