Years in the future, when I'm asked when I became an anarchist, I'll be able to point to this paragraph in an incredibly powerful and moving piece by Laurie Penny titled Inside the Whitehall Kettle:
They want to make you uncomfortable, and then desperate, putting your route back to warmth and safety in the gift of the agents of the state. They decide when you can get back to civilisation. They decide when the old people can get warm, when the diabetics can get their insulin, when the kid having a panic attack can go home to her mum. It's a way of making you feel small and scared and helpless, a way for the state's agents to make you feel that you are nothing without them, making you forget that a state is supposed to survive by mandate of the people, and not the other way around.
I'm being more than a bit hyperbolic. I'm not an anarchist, and I doubt very much that I'll ever actually be one. At the moment, I'm more afraid of the callousness of the average citizen than I am of the malicious strength of my government (or the governments of our Western European allies); and I don't see that changing any time soon - though I do recognize that a lot of that has to do with my own personal level of privilege. However, I have an ambivalence that is swiftly heading toward distrust when it comes to police and police action, especially large scale police action at the behest of the state. Any state.
There is something terrifying and immobilizing about recognizing how little recourse we as people have against our governments - even those that claim to be representatives of "the people", that large nebulous group that is always being trotted out with rhetorical flourish to assail or support a political point or a politician's plans and ambitions.
What enrages me the most about this particular incident is who this form of oppression happened to. These weren't seasoned and hardened political warriors. These weren't "professional" protesters. These were children - teenagers the age of or younger than my sisters. This is a group with little political capital, because they have yet to be able to vote. This is the group whose political activism we as a global community should nurture and encourage and recognize as being key to our good future.
What the British police did to these teens, who took the chance to try to make their voices heard and their presence felt, is despicable. The message they imparted was loud and clear - Sit down, shut up, and take whatever lumps we as a government decide to give you. Do not organize. Do not become politically active.
This is how states create apathy. This is how states destroy idealism. This is how states betray their citizens.
This past weekend, my boyfriend and I went down to Washington D.C. to be a part of Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. We left early in the morning, got delayed due to traffic, arrived after the rally had started, and then proceeded to mill around the outer edges, searching for things like a spot where we could hear the PA system clearly, he could see the jumbo screen, and also some port-a-potties. Only one of those goals was a clear victory, and I'll leave that a mystery. We ended the day at a TGI Fridays with perhaps the best food of all the TGI Fridays in the world. Or I could have just been really hungry. The world may never know.
We also left pretty happy with our rally experience.
And then I came home, and listened to Best of the Left, a podcast consisting of the best clips from left-leaning media shows. And the host of BotL and the hosts of Citizen Radio took a bit of an opposing view to the the rally, and what it was supposed to engender among its participants. They came away from what Jon Stewart had said and from the written mission statement feeling as though the rally was anti-activist. I, well, did not have that reaction.
Let me start out by saying that the messages I get from media? Sometimes are not the messages media is trying to give me. FernGully is a prime example of this. The movie's message is ostensibly about conservation efforts and protecting nature. What I took away from the film at age 6ish was: never trust a man. And I tell you, I stand by that reading of the film because every guy except Batty was a jerk to Crysta and a liar besides. But that answer did surprise my mother, who was really anticipating that first, clearer, idea.
So, I'm going to break this down into three sections: what I thought the rally was about before I got there; the impressions I had of the rally while it was happening; and what I took from it later when I watched Jon Stewart's closing remarks on the computer machine.
When I first heard about Stewart's rally, I wanted to go for the simple fact that I wanted to combat the numbers that other television show host got for his rally. This rally could have been about how good cheese is, and I would have been there. However, what it was about seemed pretty cool on its face.
What it seemed to be about was two ideas: (1) anti-sound bite. Signs loaded onto the Rally to Restore Sanity site supported this first hypothesis, by saying things like, "If you only recite talking points, how can we have a conversation?(#14)" and "Signs are an impractical medium for discourse (#18)". (2) anti-demonization. This one can pretty much be summed up by the supposition that "the only time it is appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person actually is Hitler. Or Charlie Chaplin in certain roles".
I personally don't think either one of those positions is anti-activist. It may take more to make activist work flamboyant. But I don't even think that is true. It may make activist work less media-friendly, but maybe we can work to change the media. So, before the rally? Very little to suggest anti-activist tendencies.
During the rally, I couldn't hear much nor see anything that was happening on the stage. But what I did see were the people around me. And those people were polite, funny, and seemed to be having a good time. The signs they had created supported both of my original hypotheses, except for one that said on one side, "An Open Mind is the Devil's Playground" and on the other, "Fix the Metro System". That sign seemed to be a product of muddled messaging. On the other hand, the sign, "War is the Answer* (*As Long as the Question is Who Sang "Low Rider)" was witty and to the point. Also, what I saw was a whole bunch of groups handing out stickers and fliers for their causes. So, that didn't seem anti-activist.
Afterward, when I watched Stewart's closing address, I was left with those same two thoughts on the day.
It isn't that we shouldn't hold strong values and opinions. It is that those values and opinions ought to be based in fact and reported to others with civility. It isn't that we should compromise those values and opinions. It is that we have to live in a world where actual compromise is necessary to survive. It is that we have hair dressers and family members and friends and coworkers who are going to disagree with us, sometimes vehemently and sometimes on a lot of different topics, and we have to recognize that they are human and probably not evil. We have to recognize that just like we don't want to hurt the country, they probably don't want to either.
One of the things that resonated with me was the idea that this was a rally for people who normally don't go to rallies, because they don't have a hell of a lot of time to devote to any cause let alone a multitude of causes.
I have the time to devote to a cause. But I don't have the opportunity to shape my life so I only talk to people I agree with or so that I live my life fully in line with my ideological beliefs. I work with people I have fundamental political and social disagreements with. And I, for the most part, like them. They push me farther to my ideological extreme, but I can disagree with them and still not think of them as Hitler.
That is what I took away from the rally. That having a principled stance is good, but that as Americans we must recognize that those on the other side are also just people. That they are trying to make the world "better", even though their idea of better is diametrically opposed to our own.
So, it's been nearly a month since I first heard episode 184 of Real Time with Bill Maher. And let me tell you, this was the episode that made me think, "Maybe I shouldn't be listening to Bill Maher at work". Because I was spitting mad. You wanna know how mad I was? Well, I'll let Madeline Kahn take it away:
That reminds me: I should probably buy Clue at some point.
So, what got me so worked up? Bill Maher's discussion of anti-religious sentiment in the "Liberal Media" with S.E. Cupp. Because nothing makes me more pissed off than the assertion that any media is anti-religion. Because, as an atheist, I can point out to you pretty damn quickly how not anti-religious media, in general, really is. Bill Maher is a somewhat less than stunning example of actual anti-religious sentiment in today's media, less than stunning both due to his anti-religion as well as the application of his anti-religion in his anti-religious arguments. So, first part of the conversation that had me responding to Cupp, out loud, in a cubicle, at my Very Religious place of work. So, hold onto your hats, folks, because this is going to be a doozy of a long post. Aaaaaaaand, start:
BILL MAHER: Let me give you your examples. This is the - I'm reading the - this is the end of your "A Decade of Lowlights From the Liberal Media".
S.E. CUPP: Yeah.
MAHER: These are your first three examples: Here's Joy Behar, she's tal - and this is one of your examples - she's talking about -
[Talking Over Each Other]
CUPP: And she's a friend.
MAHER: evolution. She said -
[Talking Over Each Other Again]
CUPP: I do her show.
MAHER: "You have to teach both. Darwinism is not some kind of religious fervor. Teach both." So she's for teaching both Darw-
CUPP: No. What she said was that teaching Creationism to kids should be akin to child abuse.
MAHER: No. She said you have to teach both.
CUPP: She said that facetiously.
MAHER: Well, that's interest that you can divine that.
CUPP: She said on The View - she said on The View that teaching Creationism should be -
[Talking Over Each Other AGAIN]
MAHER: Darw-
CUPP: child abuse.
MAHER: I have it - yes she did. She said, "Darwinism is not some kind of religious fervor thing. You want your children to go into the world being ignorant? That's child abuse". Yeah, it is.
CUPP: I-I-I don't think that's true. I think and-and-and-
[You Know The Drill, Right?]
MAHER: That's not an anti-religious statement.
CUPP: the majority of the people who teach their kids Creationism because it's a nice Christian allegory I don't think are guilty of child abuse.
I'm going to stop here, for a second. Because Cupp's argument here is bullshit, but what truly makes it crap is that last line: "the majority of people who teach their kids Creationism because it's a nice Christian allegory". She flips the argument on its head. She changes what Creationism is. Creationism, as something that is taught in schools, is not an allegory. It is being taught as fact, or at the very least a theory at least on par with Darwinism. Allegories are what Aesop used. Allegories are fictional stories we can cull wisdom or understanding from. I don't have a problem with allegories. I love allegories. I have a problem with people insisting their religious doctrine be taught in public schools.
Here's my problem with Creationism. It isn't that some people believe it, though I do weep for the state of the world when people can turn that much of a blind eye to scientific fact. It is that a segment of the population wants to insist that their version of the world be codified as scientific truth. It is that a bunch of powerful, bullying people want to push their vision of the world as it was formed onto every child in their community.
If a parent wants their child to believe that the world was created in seven days, that human beings have always been as we are now, and that the earth is significantly younger than any scientific test has led us to believe, they are welcome to teach their child that. Within the comfort of their own home. Or in their church. Or both. But they do not have the right to have that belief imparted within the confines of a public school in the guise of science. That isn't anti-religion. It is pro-education. It is pro-understanding. It is pro- "You can teach your child whatever the fuck you want outside these walls". For S.E. Cupp (who I keep wanting to call "C.E. Cupp", for some reason) to call Joy Behar's remarks anti-religion is either a fundamental misunderstanding of religion (in which case, I think she wasted a lot of money on her Masters in religious studies), or purposefully misconstruing "religion" with "Christian Fundamentalism". And that's because there are plenty of Christians who do offer up Genesis as an allegory, but don't believe in Creationism and do believe in the Theory of Evolution. Some of those Christians, I have even met.
And here's how not anti-religious the media is: whether or not she was being facetious, Joy Behar said "they" should teach both - and I'm assuming the "they" are the schools. No. The schools, and the teachers who have gone to institutions of higher learning in order to teach science at public schools, should teach the theory of evolution. Stop. They should explain what "theory" means in scientific terms. And if parents want their children to hold a differing view, they can either pull their children from those classes when evolution is being taught and teach them whichever theory of life on earth floats their boat, or they can allow their children to be taught evolutionary theory and then also teach them whichever theory of life on earth floats their boat. But that is the parents' responsibility. And, frankly, I find it quite ludicrous that after all the screaming the Right does about parental responsibilities, they want to foist this one off onto public institutions.
And, onward:
MAHER: Okay, the second one you quoted is John Meacham, the editor of the -
CUPP: Newsweek.
MAHER: Newsweek. We have - he's a religious guy.
CUPP: Yes, he is.
MAHER: He doesn't like -
CUPP: The cover of Newsweek declared the death of Christianity - on Easter [laughs disbelievingly].
MAHER: Are you kidding me.
CUPP: It's preposterous.
MAHER: Jesus or Mary is on the cover of Newsweek or Time, like, every other week [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: I subscribe to Newsweek. This is pretty accurate.]. If Jesus had an office on Sunset Boulevard and you walked down the corridor, he'd have his magazine covers on every wall!
...
CUPP: But Bill - one of those - one of those - one of those stories -
MAHER[Talking Over Her]: You're crazy.
CUPP: was saying that you can actually read - if you read the Bible correctly - it actually supports gay marriage. I mean, it's one thing to show these covers, but come on!
MAHER: Well that's - you're picking out one little raisin in a giant piece of bread, there, lady.
Stopping again, because as much as I now love the phrase "picking out one little raisin in a giant piece of bread", this here highlights Bill Maher's mediocrity in actually winning arguments.
First, declaring the death of Christianity isn't anti-religion. At most, it can be anti-Christian, and only the most arrogant fuck would dare insinuate Christianity=Religion. Secondly, it isn't anti-religious to believe that a religious text can be read in a different way than the dominant view. That'd be like someone being anti-Shakespeare because they wrote an analysis alleging Antonio is gay in The Merchant of Venice. It is profoundly pro-Christianity to look to the Bible for guidance, and find helpful answers within. Lisa Miller's Newsweek article, the one Cupp refers to, makes several salient points, most notably:
Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.
In other words, Newsweek and Lisa Miller aren't anti-religion. They're just arguing against a certain tenet of certain people's religion. Miller's argument is very much rooted in her reading of religion itself (and she's not alone). So, what Cupp is arguing isn't that the media is anti-religion; just that it is anti-the-Right's-religion-of-choice. Because it isn't even anti-Christian. It may argue against the tenets of Fundamentalist Christian belief. But that isn't the long and short of religion.
Once more, into the breach:
[BREAK in the RELIGIOUS TALK]
MAHER: Let me get back to the premise that the liberals and the media are anti-religion. The pre - the things I talk about, are questioning, "Is faith good? Or that prayer doesn't work. That's the things I say. It's just me and a couple of cartoons -
CUPP [Interrupting]: No! You're so wrong!
MAHER: Who are saying that.
CUPP: No!
MAHER: Tell me one other person in the media -
[Talking Over Each Other]
CUPP: I'll tell you! I will go down.
MAHER: who ever questioned whether faith was good or prayer worked. Brian Williams?
CUPP: No.
MAHER: Keith Olbermann?
CUPP: I will go - I will go -
MAHER: Katie Couric?! None of them.
CUPP: Ohmygod! I can give you those examples right now!
MAHER: Tell me -
CUPP: Chris Matthews - Chris Matthews said -
MAHER: Chris Matthews is a devout Catholic!
CUPP: Chris Matthews said that Sarah Palin and Michael Steele praying on big decisions isn't normal. Rachel Maddow said that the National Day of Prayer infringes on her right to religious freedom.
MAHER: It does.
CUPP: Keith Olbermann called pro-lifers religious jihadists. I could go on.
MAHER: That's not - they're not questioning the essence of religion. This is a country that worships religion.
CUPP: Of course they are, Bill. Of course they are.
And there endeth the religion discussion.
And here is where Cupp is oh so very wrong. Well, maybe not about Chris Matthews; but even I, disliker in the extreme of Chris Matthews, is going to assume that what Cupp said and what Matthews stated probably doesn't meet up eye to eye. And I'm not even going to try to argue that Keith Olbermann never compared pro-lifers to jihadists, because I'm pretty sure he did. But there is a difference in criticizing the religious and how they practice their religion - like, by harassing pregnant women seeking abortions and celebrating the deaths of abortion providers or by claiming God has provided you with the answer - and being anti-religion. To equate the two is to wrap the religious in the protection of religion, because criticizing them and possibly how they demonstrate their religiosity is to suddenly become anti all religions, everywhere. And that is a ridiculous standard.
As for Rachel Maddow's position, I am pro-religion, including but not limited to gospel music, religious architecture, and church signs that say things like, "Now Open Between Easter and Christmas", "Our Sundays Are Better than Baskin Robbins", and "A Bible in the Hand is Worth Two on the Shelf". I'm a fan of the screed put by the philosopher Lennon, that being "Whatever gets you through the night, 'salright, 'salright". Unless what gets you through the night is telling me how to get through my night, because I've been getting through my night for 24 straight years fine and dandy. But the National Day of Prayer is something that makes me very uncomfortable, because it does infringe on my right to religious freedom. It is a day encouraging people to pray, and that doesn't just alienate me as an individual; it makes those with my beliefs alien. It makes us other. And for a people who are already pretty thoroughly othered, it is a bit of a blow to have an entire day dedicated to something that does that by my government. The government I voted for. And it comes down to one truth:
The absence of the mention of God is not the same as denying the existence of God. It merely gives those of us who do not believe a bit of breathing room.
Cupp, as an atheist, is choosing to defend the monolith of Christianity, and the section of Christianity that is Evangelical at that, for whatever the reason. But while the proof she pulls out may indicate that there are those on the left who disagree strongly with Evangelicalism, that there are those on the left who are anti-Evangelical, she has no evidence of anti-religious sentiment on the part of the Left or the media - again, aside from Bill Maher. Ironically, due to her constant defense of Christianity's privileged position in media matters, she herself is anti-religious, because she is anti-religious plurality. She is only pro-Evangelicalism. Hopefully, the next lefty she tussles with will point that out to her, and will point out that other sects of Christianity also exist. Because Cupp doesn't seem to recognize that fact.
Remember when Speaker Pelosi walked arm and arm in a Civil Rights March across Independence Avenue, from the House buildings over to the Capitol. In three years, I have never seen Nancy Pelosi cross the street the way that you saw in that picture. They deliberately went through that crowd, perhaps to try and incite something.
They faked - they were trying to provoke an incident. There's no reason to walk above ground to get to the Capitol building from their offices. There's tunnels underneath with trains, subways, and so forth. They're purpose - send the Congressional Black Caucus to walk over, send Pelosi over there with a big gavel, trying to provoke an incident.
Listen, I know the three people listed above can in no way really be described as serious people in search of an honest debate on the issues. But one of the things I found so interesting in their various statements was how close these come to some classic rape apologia statements - you know, the ones that go, "She shouldn't have been there", "Did you see how she was dressed?" "She obviously wanted it", etc.
I especially find it interesting how the act of crossing the street, whether or not Speaker Pelosi does so often, is deemed indefensible here.
There is something happening in this vision of reality that seems to claim any and all negative actions taken against a person should be that person's responsibility. Even if all she did was cross a street when a bunch of protesters were out there showing their might.
There is something else that I find strange here as well, and that is this idea that not allowing a protest to effect your actions - or to not respond in the manner desired by the protesters - is suddenly a call to incite violence.
If Michelle Bachmann is right and Nancy Pelosi truly never has "cross[ed] the street the way that you saw" before, then what she seems to have been doing is creating a demonstration of her own. Not a show of force, no matter what Limbaugh and Beck think about her big gavel. But a demonstration of determination, a demonstration that she and those with her were not going to be bullied or be shamed for what they saw as a necessary vote for needed legislation - no matter how much they wanted/didn't want that was left out/put in the bill.
In effect, Nancy Pelosi seemed to be giving a clear message to the protesters, and to those people like Beck and Bachmann. That message was that she was proud of her accomplishments and her vote, and she was not going to be scared underground because there were people above ground who didn't like it and who didn't want to see her walk to the Capitol Building.
Frankly, it was a message that she deserved to walk up to that particular building in the light of day just as much as they deserved to demonstrate outside that building in the light of day. That she and her rights weren't dissolved simply because this group didn't like her and her ilk very much.
And if that very action was seen as a provocation, if hanging onto a giant gavel that was first used when Medicare was passed while walking was a horrible indignity those protesting and those commenting favorably on the protests, then the problem lies more with them than with her.
She was just, you know, doing her thing. Walking along. Being proud.
Too often, doing your thing, walking along, being proud, carrying a giant gavel is used as an explanation for someone else's actions.
Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when it comes to someone like Nancy Pelosi and the passage of healthcare, and think back on that giant gavel. Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when someone is walking down a street, and recognize that simply the act of living is in no way something that prompts an angry, violent response.
There are the things Nancy Pelosi talks about, when she brought up her experiences in 1970s San Francisco, that could be used, by some, as a balance, a sort of, "You're all hypocrites" and "the Left talks about provocations to violence too, so she shouldn't have walked there".
For the record, Pelosi has said, "I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance... ...But again, our country is great because people can say what they think and believe. But I also think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause."
And a person could claim that Pelosi is simply getting hit from the Right with essentially the same stick she advocates for here. I don't think so, though. Because there is a difference between walking to a place you have to go anyway, and speaking in such a way that could incite violence. There is a difference between carrying a comically large gavel, and, say, a blogger who urges his readership to break DNC office windows in an attempt to avoid a larger - armed - conflict.
I happen to agree with Pelosi's statement. I'm a free speech advocate, but I also believe in a speaker's responsibility - along with the responsibility of the rest of us to call out speech we find to be unsavory. I am a fan of verbal self-restraint, though that may astonish anyone who has heard me babble for any length of time. I'm a fan of recognizing the power your words hold, and realizing the effect those words may have on an audience. I'm not a fan of the government making that line, and forming those distinctions.
I started this out by making allusions between rape apologia and what these three right-wing people said about Speaker Pelosi's march on the Capitol Building. But what I find interesting is that in these cases, it isn't merely that there are more often than not marginalized bodies involved. It is the weirdly fatalistic viewpoint. In rape apologia, a lot of the criticism comes down to Doing Something While Female. And in this, there may be more than a little of Being Speaker While Female.
But there is also this idea that we should beware of waking the foul Beast. Because the Beast cannot be controlled, should not be expected to control the urge compelling violence. All we can hope to do is not anger the Beast, to not draw the Beast's attention to us, to creep around as quietly as we possibly can and make as few waves as possible, lest we attract the Beast's attention. And if you do? If you awaken the Beast, if you are attacked or hurt or raped? It is obviously your fault. Because the Beast is nothing but a force compelled to action. To hold the Beast accountable would be foolhardy, and besides, only those people stupid enough to not follow Teh Rules get attacked. There's never this compulsion that maybe, just maybe, we should do something about the Beast itself. That maybe walking to work, even if there are angry people afoot, shouldn't be something that can be used to scold someone for provoking some sort of negative action, should that negative action arise. But no.
"Look at Rachel Maddow. She comes at me on the basis of emotion. She demonizes me. I don't want conservatives to win on the basis of emotion. If we lower ourselves to the level they operate on, we hurt ourselves and our arguments."
I happen to think Rachel Maddow's initial response to this is top notch, that being:
I was trying to do my work. But then that pops up in my Google Alert, then I read it and I become alternately so blindingly enraged and then hysterically upset and then inconsolably morose and then hyperactively giddy and then happy and then sad and then mad and then happy again that I couldn't make sense of any of the facts that I was gathering. All of which I was trying to read through the tears of joy and anger and anxiety that I just can't control! Can't you tell I'm falling apart right now? So I promise - hold on, I'm getting emotional about this promise. I promise that tomorrow, I will gather myself and offer a full analysis of today's Tom Coburn news.
But, probably given that Rachel Maddow runs a newsish show where she discusses things that are actually happening out there in the world and then giving her opinion about that stuff, she didn't really delve into what the fuck just happened there. So, being that I don't have a newsish show and just this little blog, I'll do that.
First things first: there is the belief out there that women are emotional. I know, shocker. There is the belief out there that being emotional makes women less capable. Double shocker! There is this belief that by being emotional, women are therefore also irrational. Crazy, right? Who'd ever think that?!
Truth is, I think most people believe that. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not full on, full frontal "woman=emotional=irrational=unreliable=bad! men=logical=rational=reliable=good! men≠women!"
But it is there. And it is there because it is all around us. It is there when we talk about hiring a good worker, or hiring a woman. It was there during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, when someone made the comparison between having a heart surgeon who'd had to struggle to get where he is, or the best surgeon one could find, even if that surgeon had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The idea that the first (the guy (or girl) who had to work really hard) could beget the second (that guy could be the best because he had to work so hard) is missing.
There's this thing with prejudice - all kinds - that make it hard for those of us who consider ourselves to be good people to recognize it within ourselves. It isn't just that we cognitively know that prejudice is bad and we are good, and thus we can't be prejudiced, though that's definitely a part of it. It is that in order for us to recognize our own prejudices, we have to be able to recognize when our most reflexive thoughts contain prejudice. That's extraordinarily difficult to do. It is incredibly difficult to puzzle out if you find some woman emotional because she is, in fact, being overly emotional - or if it is because we are conditioned to see women as emotional, as attacking on the basis of emotion alone. And when we're confronted about our underlying assumptions, whether by friends or by articles or by blog posts, it is essentially difficult to accept that what this other person is saying may be correct. Because what we thought felt so natural and so right, and what that other person is saying - that calling women you don't know emotional and attacking on the basis of emotion - is both historically and inherently sexist - is so foreign and so obviously wrong. Plus, it probably feels like a personal attack, because you, good person that you are, would never say something prejudiced. Because doesn't that other person know this is just how the world is?
Because of that, I don't think Tom Coburn is consciously eliciting the dog whistle of "women, crazy, huh?" But that doesn't mean his remarks aren't fused with the premise that a woman's actions are borne out of emotionality, and that emotionality is bad. It doesn't mean that he is playing a really old hand of sexism, and it doesn't mean that because he's ignorant of that (because to him it is just true), his remark isn't sexist. It doesn't mean it doesn't play into the grander metanarrative about women, and their intellectual oomph.
I'm totally stealing this from a friend of mine, but I'm going to do that whole shebang ten thing. I'm doing it because at first I wondered what books, if any, helped influence who I became - how I became who I am. As much of a bibliophile as I am (and I am), the writers who most influence my actual perceptions of reality tend to be on that TV machine. Books tend to be an enjoyable escape, because as much as I love Pride and Prejudice and James Thurber, I'm pretty sure they have not formed the very backbone of who I am. But then, I thought about the books I've read. And then I wondered how I would whittle that list down to ten. So, away we go:
WaitingforGodot - Samuel Beckett. I found Waiting for Godot in high school. It was my first, aside from Whedony works, exposure to that wide world of existentialism. I loved it. There are lines in works, moments, that blow your mind. In the first act of the play, Vladimir's ponderings about the two thieves mentioned in the Gospels was that moment for me:
VLADIMIR: But all four were there. And only one speaks of a thief being saved. Why believe him rather than the others?
ESTRAGON: Who believes him?
VLADIMIR: Everybody. It's the only version they know.
The play wasn't necessarily introducing anything new to my life: I was already an atheist, I already was suspicious of metanarratives, I was already bemused and intrigued by the absurd. But it was the dream-like quality of the play, and the follies of the various participants, the obvious allusion to an absent, if not outright fictional, god, that really struck me.
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand. Now, years later (YEARS), I've come to the conclusion that I've read this book all wrong, that the philosophy Ayn Rand was expounding probably wasn't what I took out of it, and that all those people who were like, "Oh, The Fountainhead is awesome!" probably got the wrong idea about what I'm about, politically, ethically, and philosophically. And plus, there's that whole rape apologia thing surrounding Roarke and Dominique that makes the book fairly unsavory for me. Don't get me wrong, after reading The Fountainhead I had a period where I read up a lot on Ayn Rand. I knew she was a dogmatic free market capitalist, I knew she was all about the individual. I knew she was if not the than pretty close to it quintessential "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, cuz I'm not giving you one of my dimes" person. And yet. When I read The Fountainhead, I... ...not missed, but pretty much overlooked a lot of that. What I took from the book was, in no particular order, architecture=cool, selfishness=awesome, looking to society for vindication=stupid idea. All of that? I was totally down with. And then, no more than a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that the scene I'd always thought meant "to do charity work for society's praise is just stupid" probably was meant to be expanded to "to do charity work at all is just stupid". So, The Fountainhead influenced me greatly. But I took from the book, "Act selfishly. Actions solely to please others will end up, in the long run, being unworthy of your time and energy, and will get you down in the process". I took, "Do the right thing, even if others look down on you for it, even if doing the easy thing will bring you short term praise and success". But, for me, doing the right thing isn't really about a totally free market capitalist system. It may be about making pretty buildings. I'm not totally sure yet.
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys. I was going to put The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir here, because I love that book, because it intersected my feminism and my existentialism well, and because it was a lightbulb moment for me, a moment where what I had previously felt was brought into sharp relief via words on the page. But. The Second Sex, although I love it for articulating a matter that had long danced at the back of my skull, didn't really change who I am. It simply gave me another tool to utilize when I myself already knew and tried to explain to other people. Wide Sargasso Sea did something else. One, it made Jane Eyre, a book I have always despised, palatable. Two, did something The Second Sex did not. It took me beyond myself. It was like "The Yellow Wallpaper" in its gradual destruction of its protagonist. It taught me a new way to critique existing works. And, pathetically enough, it brought the issue of race in Jane Eyre into the equation. It was a book that was (I think) better written than the book it was inspired by, and it made me recognize other ways that original text failed, by fixing that failure. By illustrating the other voices in the world we would never recognize if we merely stuck to what is in the accepted literary canon.
A Wrinkle in Time (series) - Madeline L'Engle. I would be remiss if I were to leave this book, and the subsequent books, off my list. Much like The Fountainhead, it occurs to me years later that I again culled something from its pages the writer did not intend, though in this instance it was a bulwark for my atheism. A Wrinkle in Time, having reread it, is an extremely spiritual - and outwardly religious - book. You'd think I would have gotten that from Many Waters being about two characters meeting Noah and interacting with Seraphim, but my obliviousness (and the fact that a majority of my religious education comes from musicals) blocked that reading entirely. Instead, I took from it themes of interdependence, of looking at problems and people through love and not hate and fear, and that being weird was a pretty cool thing to be. That, and the knowledge and the first dimension is a straight line, and the second dimension is a square. Beyond that, Meg Murray was (and is) one of my favorite girl/women characters. She preceded Buffy by about a year. She was so awesomely real, strong and yet flawed, it was incredible. I should also mention that I could recite the entirety of the book A Wrinkle in Time until a couple of years ago, and I could still probably do a couple of the more major passages.
West With the Night - Beryl Markham. My father gave me this book when I was in 6th grade. My copy has the note he wrote to me, explaining why he was gifting it to me specifically, on the inside cover. That alone may explain why this book makes the list. My father introduced me to a lot of books - among those, The Fountainhead. And those all had personal reasons behind his love of them, and wanting to share them with me. But Beryl Markham and her story captured my dad, and made him think of me. So, I read it. And if this were merely a list about books that influenced me because of how well they were written, West With the Night would also make that list:
How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. I should like to say, 'This is the place to start; there can be no other.'
But there are a hundred places to star for there are a hundred names - Mwanza, Serengetti, Nungwe, Molo, Nakuru. There are easily a hundred names and I can begin best by choosing one of them - not because it is first no of any importance in a wildly adventurous sense but because here it happens to be, turned uppermost in my logbook. After all, I am no weaver. Weavers create. This is a remembrance - revisitation; and names are keys that open corridors no longer fresh in the mind, but nonetheless familiar in the heart.
This book, and Markham, however, make the list because she is an inspiration. The first woman to fly east to west, from England to Nova Scotia. She is attacked by a lion as a girl. She is a one time (literally, one time) horse racer. She is the first licensed woman horse trainer in Kenya. And although I still have that note in the book, I'm in awe that she made him think of me, still strive to be as cool, as confident, as ground-breaking as Markham herself was.
On the Road - Jack Kerouac. Yes, it is enormously cliche. And yet. I loved the book. It probably helps that I read it on a long train ride, so it felt like I was actually a part of Kerouac's philosophy and adventure. On the Road is why I spent the summer and the semester of my '50s class obsessed with the Beat and the Beat Generation.
Redesigning the American Dream: Gender, Housing, and Family Life - Dolores Hayden. Every so often, a book comes along that makes me think, a la Chicken Run, "But we've always been egg farmers. My father, and his father, and all their fathers, and they was all..." And then the author fairly hits me on the head and says, "And wouldn't it be so much better if we looked at why, and what that's done for us, and maybe try to do X?" This book is that. This book is when I started thinking about how the structure of our lives and our environments shape our lives and our expectations. How we are, essentially, coveting little boxes on the hillside that are all the same. And how we can maybe go along making a different world, if we'd just change our expectations regarding neighborhoods and soccer moms and mini vans.
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge - Jean-Francois Lyotard. I don't mean to sound like a braggart, but I have an exceptional memory for words. Not names, and not faces, and definitely not tasks I was assigned two minutes ago, but words. Sometimes, that means I can quote what I want out of a book or television episode from memory alone. Sometimes that means I know exactly where to find the exact line I'm looking for in the book or episode. Believe me when I say, I can give you none of this work back. I couldn't even really remember the name of the book, just the author. Maybe it's because it was originally written in French. All I can say is that it has deepened my personal understanding of the world. Lyotard writes about the totalitarian nature of the metanarrative, and about the worth of the more democratic micronarrative. And, as I discovered in my quest to discover which book made the micronarrative something I believe in and agree with, I discovered something else. Before college, I was someone who believed in a reachable, objective truth. I hated anything that touched upon relativism with a passion (that may have been due to all of the moral arguments against my atheism starting with, "If you don't believe in God, there is no moral structure. And if there is no moral structure, then nothing can be immoral"; I'm just saying, those religious zealots trying to convert me kind of fucked me up). And yet, now I still despise moral relativism, and am passionately for micronarratives. Wha?! The answer, as I discovered, also lies with Lyotard. He postulated that there is an objective truth that we humans shall never fully understand. Which is basically my position. High five to Lyotard.
Full Frontal Feminism - Jessica Valenti. I was thinking about putting one of my favorite authors of all time, a Mr. John Steinbeck, on this list. But then I decided he is more of a Jane Austen type of person in my life: a writer I would not willingly live without, but one who has not had a profound influence on my being - aside from making me more of a snobbish reader than I was prior to picking up Cannery Row in high school. Instead, this spot goes to Jessica Valenti. It's like this: I was raised in a feminist household, so Full Frontal Feminism wasn't introducing me to anything I hadn't heard of before. But it was witty and well-written, and so not academic. And since I was reading Lyotard, I deserved some not quite academic-but-progressive reading. And if it had just been that, this book would not be on this list. But Jessica Valenti is the founder and an editor of feministing.com. And feministing led me to other, more substantial feminist sites, which then led me to womanist sites, which then led me to reading multiple blogs daily. And eventually, that led us all here. Without Full Frontal Feminism, I may never have gotten to this particular place.
The Short Stories of J.D. Salinger. I am one of the few people I know who did not appreciate the angst of Holden Caulfield in their own teenage years. One of those other souls is one of my 17 year old sisters, so maybe that inability to be charmed by him is genetic. Because of that, I avoided Salinger's short stories like the plague. I was wrong to (incidentally, my mother was the person who told me I would enjoy them). The first one I ever read was "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". From there, I was hooked. I quickly gobbled up "Franny and Zooey", and then moved on to the rest of "Nine Stories", and then to "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". I loved the style of writing, the restless and unsatisfied nature of it, the people populating these stories being genuine in a way I'd never felt was true for Holden, and yet all quietly broken. Perhaps more than the short stories and the people yearning to live a life of meaning within them, it was Salinger's ability to retreat from public life that makes these stories precious to me. Salinger managed to both give me, in all, 13 stories I prize. And then, he articulated my belief about writing when he said, "I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." I write, a lot. Some of that writing is here, the nonfiction stuff, the stuff that is separate enough from myself to share with both the people I know and potentially the people I don't who manage to stumble upon it. But my fiction is all my own.
And there it is: my list. Hopefully, in ten to twenty years, some of those books will have been bumped down the influence chain, with other books taking their place. I'm looking forward to the John Kenneth Galbraith memoirs possibly doing that.
Another letter that kind of needs nothing but itself:
My US flag now flies upside down as a protest of unacceptable, unconstitutional injustice when representatives did not represent the people they were supposed to represent.
I have lived under 17 presidents, since Woodrow Wilson. I don't know that I will see anothe r [sic]. Our present president's style is to stride purposefully to the lecturn, jut his chin out, FDR style, and with much rhetorical skill, tell us what we want to hear but rarely see. This is proven. Think of his campaign and presidential promises, not of his charm. I don't want my descendants to have to wonder at and ruefully pay for my mistakes.
JIM LEHRER: Let's go to another dispute, the so-called Al Qaeda Seven. Liz Cheney and her group criticized some justice department lawyers, because they once represented some Guantanamo detainees. Where do you come down on that?
DAVID BROOKS: Ah, well, I think the ad, which sort of accused whose values do they have - do they have Al Qaeda or Taliban values, I thought it was tremendously unfortunate. I mean, it's just part of a long range of corrosive language. And to be fair to Liz Cheney, if you Google "Taliban" and "Liz Cheney", millions of people have called her a member of the Taliban and made similar charges.
You know what mentality I have always hated? Since elementary school hated? The idea that just because someone once picked on you, once kicked your lunch box, once pushed you down, once cut you in line, once made your life hell, it somehow gave you license to do the same. In elementary school through high school, the idea was as soon as you got to the exalted grade of the kids who were picking on you, you could then pick on the kids who occupied the grade you were in now. It was, and is, a stupid idea. Picking on the freshman as a senior does nothing to the senior who picked on you. It just continues a cycle of meaningless and ridiculous abuse, for no other reason than because you had to deal with it and you refused to be the last one.
It is a simple-minded, mean mentality. It depends on making someone else a victim in order for the former victim to be the victor, to feel powerful.
It is an immature philosophy and displays a distinct lack of empathy. It is also what David Brooks suggests we use in order to "be fair" to Liz Cheney.
Brooks is probably right; any other week, if you were to Google "Liz Cheney" and "Taliban", you would probably garner a lot of hits comparing the two. Right now, though, most of the hits are about the ad itself and Brooks' defense of Cheney. In a normal week, a lot of those would be malicious. Most would be blatantly false. I'm saying "a lot" and "most", because I'm sure there are also pages ripping apart those other pages and defending Cheney.
You know what else? I'd bet my teeth that none of those people calling Liz Cheney a member of the Taliban are from the Department of Justice. You know, the people Liz Cheney is now directly comparing to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Funny thing, that. Funny how the school mentality can still be defended by those well into their forties when employed by people getting toward the middling of their own fortieth decade.
There is no "being fair" to Liz Cheney when she blatantly uses her non profit to disseminate the exact same tactic being so egregiously used against herself and her own father.
There should only be condemnation for so spectacularly failing to progress past the idea that passing along this sort of mean-spirited and completely baseless accusation to a whole new wave of victims. David Brooks thinks there is some sort of balance that has been reached here: Liz Cheney was attacked by someone, so she gets to attack someone else with that as part of her excuse. Sorry, but no. And that sort of rationalization calls Brooks' own assessing skills into question as well.
The other thing that gets me is how neither Jim Lehrer nor Mark Shields makes this argument; Shields should have mentioned that the DoJ lawyers probably weren't the ones slandering Liz Cheney all over the interwebs. And then he should have mentioned that even if they were, that still does not excuse Cheney's sinking to their level.
Because that is the other very real issue here. When has it become appropriate in the public discourse to pull what is essentially a "I know you are, but what am I?" smack down? This is beyond concerning. This says that somehow, no one progresses past elementary school (a thought I've often had and feared, and now discover may be the abject truth of the matter). And that? Is unacceptable.
Making excuses for Liz Cheney, calling an ad tremendously unfortunate instead of calling it out for what it is - a baseless, fear-mongering attack ad - does not make one a member of polite society. Couching one's statements and one's bets doesn't make one the better person.
And, no, the ad in question doesn't sort of accuse. It does accuse, full stop. The fact that Brooks can't even make that statement without waffling, and the fact that no one corrects him, makes me worry.
I find it hard to believe that you’d be seeing this level of right-of-center enthusiasm if Obama had postponed cap-and-trade, avoided taking over GM, compromised more significantly on the stimulus, and taken the incremental route to health insurance expansion that Reihan Salam discusses here.
Really? Are you sure, Mr. Douthat? Because considering the amount of "Obama is gleefully bringing us to the end of the world!1!11!!1!!" expressed in some corners of the cable news channels and in the blogosphere, and how that has continually happened since the man first began making real headway in the polls en route to becoming president, I call bullshite on this. I'm not going to say that all of the right-of-center enthusiasm is due to race; I think a lot of it is due to fear of The Other - the same thing that made John Kennedy a suspicious figure in 1960.
In other words, what is energizing the Right and the Far Far On the Fringes Right isn't the fact that Obama is a liberal. It is that they perceive him to be an Ultra Liberal, one step behind being a socialist, Marxist, atheist; the truth of the matter is that Obama is left-of-center, but far more interested in reaching centrist solutions than he is in making the world in his Liberal image. The man is a compromiser. That is the reason the single payer proponents didn't even get a seat at the table when the healthcare discussion began. That is the reason he has tried to woo people like Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe. That is the reason he chose to simply bail out the banks, instead of using their teetering as the reason to break them into smaller entities; or initializing a government take over as liberaler economists like Simon Johnson (formerly of the IMF and current blogger at The Baseline Scenario) said was the only solution not guaranteed to fail (he later admitted his error on This American Life, after being called on it by one Adam Davidson). This could just be a crafty political move; but in truth, I think Obama hangs by the adage that the best solution is the one that leaves everyone at the table a bit grouchy.
So, what is energizing the Right isn't Obama, but the specter of an Obama that doesn't truly exist. For a long time now, I've pretty much thought that since Obama is going to be seen as Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal by swaths of those on the right and those who just don't like him very much (unless the reason for not liking him lies in the fact that he isn't, actually, Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal), he should have just gone hog wild and been that liberal hero of which the left has often dreamt. But that just isn't who he is; or, at the very least, it isn't how he has chosen to govern. And really, Mr. Douthat, if you think that Obama's liberalish impulses are what is causing the huge upswell on the Right, how do you explain this:
What’s really killing the Democrats, and what’s likely to hurt them the most come next November, is the growing enthusiasm gap — and its implications for candidate recruitment, fundraising, turnout, and all the rest.
If Obama really was the liberal candidate the left had dreamed of and the Right is using as a boogeyman, then there would be no enthusiasm gap. The progressive base would be just as enthusiastic about getting out the vote as the right is now. The problem is, again, that Obama just isn't that guy. He was never that guy. He is a capable guy; an inspiring guy; a guy who has acted as a change agent just by being elected, due to his heritage. I'll bet dollars to donuts he's going to be a great president. But he isn't the liberal's dream. And so, the liberal, knowing this, isn't too excited. The progressive isn't going to get comprehensive banking reform; isn't going to get a Public Option; isn't going to get a dismantling of a broken healthcare system; isn't going to get supports for the middle class; isn't going to get a bill that doesn't start out already compromised; is upset by the Stupack-Pitts Amendment; and is pissed that Don't Ask, Don't Tell still has not been repealed.
Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal or isn't liberal enough - though I would definitely prefer if the man were to enact policies that were inherently more liberal, myself. It is how the world perceived him, and how part of that world perceives him still.
Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal and if he'd only moved incrementally, he wouldn't have a backlash. It is that people like Sarah Palin are the idols of the Right; and their prescriptions tend to be, "Do nothing. Wait. Repeat".
Obama's problem is that the only people who seem to be riding high right now are those in banking, when the conventional wisdom is that banking is what brought the world to its economic knees, when banks are still foreclosing on houses and turning ordinary people out into the streets.
Mr. Douthat, you say,
I think it would behoove liberals to give serious consideration to the more direct explanation — namely, that some of the anti-Obama backlash has to do with Americans discovering, after an enormous Democratic sweep, that they preferred liberalism much more in theory than in practice.
I say, helping maintain the status quo, in terms of the banks especially, isn't a particularly liberal philosophy. You say some of the anti-Obama backlash is due to people figuring out they don't really like liberalism. I say the anti-Obama backlash is because the guy didn't turn out to be the messiah. I say, the anti-Obama backlash is because ordinary people still don't feel as if their interests are being served, and yet they see bankers walking away with million dollar bonuses. And what they see is the status quo in politics, the status quo on Wall Street, and the status quo in the big firms where the hot shots make the money. And the only people who are not reaching that status quo is what they see as the ordinary citizen.
Democrats were swept into Congress as much because they weren't Republicans as because they were Democrats. Democrats had to prove, and prove quickly, they were different than the Republicans, that they weren't beholden to the same moneyed interests, that they could make a difference and that they would make a difference for the average citizen. Democrats are, I'm sad to say, failing that test. More than not liking big proposals, I'm willing to wager the ordinary American citizen doesn't like big proposals that dawdle in the halls of Congress, not getting passed and then becoming progressively worse until they pass with absolutely no one happy, or just fade away.
But really, Obama's real problem, the real reason there is an enthusiasm gap, is because it is frickin' hard to govern. Especially when the other side won't play. And so, it is infinitely easier to work up enthusiasm when your side is out of power - because you don't have to make compromises and can tell tales about how much better your side would be handling things without having to offer proof. Meanwhile, the other side is stuck actively making and eating the head cheese. Which, honestly, is much, much harder to be happy about.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know what, I'll tell you something, and we'll get to this over time. It came up in the Hillary campaign. And that is this: women in the workplace have to have what's called a professional manner. Men have a little more history in the workplace, in certain work places, and they have a little more, uh, range in the way they presents themselves. Women are expected to perform professionally. An attorney, a doctor, you want to see a game face to some extent, right? And now, when they get into politics, they're-they're expected to do a lot of grabbing and holding and baby kissing, and a lot of it, sort of - intimate exchanges with total strangers. An availability for intimate exchanges. Like, come up to me, grab me, you know what I mean? And if you show any kind of, uh, guardedness or what you call in the workplace professionalism, you're cold... ...So, what we're finding out now is it's harder!
Okay, so I'm not the world's biggest Chris Matthews fan. Scratch that. I strongly dislike Chris Matthews. I think the man is, simply put, an ass. Or, a jackass.
Which is why my first impulse upon hearing this was to say (to myself, while I was alone in my car), "REally, Chris? Women in politics are maligned for maintaining the professionalism they need to acquire in order to succeed and progress in a number of business environments? Who'd have thunk?!" The second was, "We're finding that out NOW?! You f***ing JACKASS!"
The "finding out now" part is where Matthews was downgraded from getting it half right to getting it a quarter right. Because, seriously, those of us in the know have known this for years. Hell, I'm 24 and I've known that for at least half of my life.
This whole post, actually, could be about how this remark may be Matthews obliquely offering contrition over his continually stated negative opinion about Hillary Clinton in during the 2008 presidential race, his remarks about how she was "cold", how she was "sharp", etc. And that would turn into a post about how much I ha... strongly dislike Chris Matthews. Especially when I get to the part where he's talking to Rachel Maddow as if this is some grand revelation he's letter her on, when I'm pretty sure this ain't news to her.
But instead, I'm going to talk about where Matthews got it right, and where he got it wrong.
He's right. He's absolutely right that women have to perform in a certain way, act in a certain way, in the work environment - especially certain types of work environments - in order to get ahead.
He's wrong if he thinks that is the only negative women face. If a woman isn't cold, then she is ineffective - in the workplace, and I'll bet on the campaign trail. Lest we forget the reaction Secretary of State Clinton arose from varied political corners when she had the audacity to tear up in New Hampshire. Some (Andrew Sullivan) called it a calculated, crass effort to gain voter sympathy. And anti-feminist to boot. Some asked if we wanted a woman who cried dealing with our enemies. There is very few ways women can win without being critiqued for how they express (or don't) their femininity.
What Matthews is also wrong about is why (white) men are allowed more expression in the workplace. It isn't because they have been there longer; it is because they are automatically seen as competent. Women (and let's face it, minorities of any stripe) have to prove they are competent. Them's the facts, Jack.
I'll give Matthews credit where credit is due: he's teetering on the edge of a rather big revelation, namely that there is actually sexism in the world and it affects women in politics - just like it affects women everywhere else. I'll give Matthews that credit because I actually think he's made a fairly large step. When he says, "we're finding out", I think he means "I'm finding out". Unless he thinks a lot of his brethren are on the cusp of this realization as well. I hope so.
I'm not going to go into Senator Harry Reid's comments regarding the electability of then-Senator Barack Obama. But what I am going to talk about is the "double standard" talk emanating from some members of the GOP.
There is no damned double standard. Why? Well, for one, in order for it to truly be a double standard, the parties would have to be on equal footing. Guess what? They're not.
There is a long-standing tradition within the GOP to use dog-whistles, in their ads and in their robocalls. Like the Willie Horton ad, used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Like the poll calls in 2000 asking South Carolina voters if they would be less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child, based partially on the fact McCain and his wife had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Ronald Reagan used the specter of the "welfare queen" in order to win the support of white America.
Then there is this: the person Harry Reid is being most compared to on an individual level within the GOP camp is Trent Lott. Lott, who said that had Strom Thurman been elected president, the country would be in a better place, that we wouldn't have all the problems we have now. Some nice remarks for an elder statesman's birthday? Perhaps. But the question becomes, better for whom? For the African-Americans who were left out of Thurman's America? No. It would not be better for them at all.
And that's what it comes down to - policy decisions and reaching out to a minority community. I'm not going to say that the Dems don't house racists. I'm not going to say that the GOP is totally bad on issues of race and the Dems are totally wonderful. What I am going to say is that the GOP has continually made a home for itself in the high places, and have perpetually attacked policies that are designed to help minorities in our nation. Sometimes, out of a sense of political theory, but just as often it seems that it happens out of bad faith.
So, they don't get the benefit of the doubt when one of their members runs his mouth. So, they don't get the cushion that comes with having an amiable history with the community in question. So, they get hammered harder because there is no trust there. There is no sense that these guys are trying to do right, that they've stumbled and fallen because they're idiots and not because they just don't care.
That's why there is no double standard. Because, in general, the GOP and the Democratic Party start from two entirely different ledges. And to wipe that clean in an effort to win some scant political support is from the preschool pool of political wisdom.
We rely on gay-rights groups to battle it out alone for marriage rights in Maine. We expect feminists to secure abortion rights in health-care reform legislation. We look to the NAACP to effectively respond to racist statements about Obama. And yes, those groups will work hard for those goals. But when they fall short, they are not the only ones to blame. It's fair to look at the entire progressive coalition and ask the hard questions about our movement: What's the use of having a community, a coalition, if you aren't going to fight for each other?
As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a “sexting-related suicide,” it’s much more accurately referred to as a “slut-shaming suicide.” Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself — the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.
...even though we tend to believe that children this young are living in their own little fantasy universe in which the actions of adults are only momentarily relevant, this study makes clear that children live in the adult world as well, where diet-talk, body-bashing, and constant, constant hand-wringing about what we look like affects them, and quite deeply, too.
Harry Potter is a bit of a sore spot for me. How much I loathe books can be expressed by the formula L = TP, or Loathing equals Terrible (how terrible it is), times Past (how much effort I put into it when I used to like it). So for that reason, Twilight, whose P is zero, also has an L value of zero–doesn’t matter how bad it is, I don’t happen to give a shit. As it happens, Harry Potter is no slacker in the T department and has the highest P of any book series in existence. You do the math.
So without further ado, I present “Things that come to mind as examples of the twisted sexuality in Harry Potter.“
An article on Forbes.com cites research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research’s numbers on the subject: of the games on current generation consoles, female characters star in only 3% of games, versus 46% with male protagonists (the remaining are games with a customizable lead character or none). In action games specifically, it’s 3% female, 51% male, and if you venture into shooters, it drops to an abysmal 1%-73%.
Penner never spoke publicly about his motives for transitioning back to Mike. But when Penner chose to “detransition”—when he stopped identifying outwardly as Christine Daniels—several experts weighed in on the latest development in Penner’s public persona. According to psychologists, most transgender people who choose to “detransition” do so as a result of external pressures resulting from their public gender transition, and not because they no longer internally identify as transgender.
Runners Up, Beck and Orly Tates Limbaugh. Gretchen Carlson has just complained, "If you're a conservative woman, you get more attacks than if you have a liberal's point of view". Well, Beckerhead and Limbaugh have evened that out in a hurry. Each speaking of Senator Mary Landrieu, and each called her a whore. Beck - "We're with a high class prostitute, that's what we're with". Limbaugh - "That may be, folks, may be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution. And she's bragging about it. Mary Landrieu." Well, he's an expert. So the next time I say something about Michelle Malkin being a bag of mashed up meat with lipstick on it and I'm called sexist by conservatives because I used the word "lipstick", even though every week on the football show I use the exact same phrase about men, only I don't say "lipstick", and "lipstick" was the one word punchline to a joke by Sister Sarah Palin, just remember, Beck and Limbaugh call a sitting US woman Senator a, quote, "prostitute", and not a single conservative woman has as much as disagreed with them. Ms. Carlson, where's your umbrage now, ya fraud?
I'd love to spend this time, here in this space, unpacking Glenn Beck's statement about Senator Landrieu. But instead, I'm compelled to use it to unpack Keith Olbermann's, because if I don't, when I want my umbrage I may be called a fraud (quelle horreur!).
Lesson the First: This isn't grammar school. Little Johnny punching Mark and getting away with it doesn't negate the fact that you pushed Rob down.
Or, your sexist statement stands alone.
So, for instance, if you compare a woman to a mashed up bag of meat with lipstick, that is still a problematic statement even if some other assholes call a different woman a prostitute. Both statements are bad. Okay? There is no, "Well, he said something worse and no one from that side called him out on it, so I'm totes in the clear!!!" Dude, you're so not in the clear. What you are is a bit of a dunderhead if you are figuring your sexism by the standards of the other side. Do they have political reasons to call you a sexist, and to not call out the sexist actions of the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world? YES! Does that automatically make them wrong? NO! And to absolve yourself of any wrongs based on the fact that Gretchen Carlson of Fox-freakin'-News (and who, incidentally, has "legs" pop up as a popular Google search when you start typing in her name, which kind of sums up a lot) hasn't called some other anchor on her own network out on his sexist bullshit doesn't make your sexist bullshit any less bullshitty or sexist! It just doesn't. And to justify your own sexist remark because the other side is hypocritical is ridiculous.
Lesson the Second: When friends agree with antagonists, the antagonists may have a point. I understand why someone might not want to take the Right's cries of "Sexist" seriously. These are the people who complained that Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin was sexist, and who had problems with Newsweek not photoshopping a Palin cover. Frankly, the Right calling "sexist" is about as believable as that boy who kept crying "wolf".
Gretchen Carlson wasn't the only one saying the sack of meat comment was sexist; Megan Carpentier called it misogynistic. On the Air America blog. You know, that beacon of conservatism. Alternet got in on the action, which is, as you know, one of the havens for those on the Right. Shakesville also got down to business. Which is practically the National Review! Oh, and me. I'm a regular Barry Goldwater.
So, yes, when the Right cries 'sexist', we all have the right to be skeptical. But when the people who are generally pretty good on feminism and calling out sexism expressed by all sides are saying that a comment made was not only sexist but also misogynistic, then the appropriate response is to actually think about it. To mull it over. To ponder. And to maybe use the next time a conservative or Republican or Fox News Anchor says something sexist as an opportunity to own up to your own fuck up and to challenge those on the Right to call out all sexism when they see/hear it and not just when it happens to the conservatives. Challenge them to not be hypocrites.
Lesson the Third: There is no double standard here. Other places, maybe. But not here.
This one may be hard to wrap the mind around, I know. It kind of seems to fly in the face of "fair is fair". And, frankly, it probably deserves its very own post. But here we go.
Men and women face some different obstacles in society. Not totally different obstacles, obviously. But there is a false equivalency going down if you think you can just automatically say the same thing about a woman you have about a man, if you gender it up with a bit of lipstick.
Note, here, that comparing a football player, a man who has been tackled and in some cases pummeled in the pursuit of his sport, to a mashed up bag of meat could very well be a valid, if grossly insensitive, statement of fact. However, the difference between a football player who has been out on the field of play and a woman who writes and talks for a living (two things that very rarely lead to constant physical interactions) is not a little one. And that's not even taking into consideration Megan Carpentier's point about the rate of domestic violence against women in this country.
So, I'd rather be unpacking Glenn Beck's statement about Mary Landrieu, about how he called her a prostitute, how he called this prostitute "what" instead of "who", about how bad that is. How that is bad because prostitutes, as one of the more marginalized groups, are often stripped of their humanity. I'd rather be talking about how Mary Landrieu securing aid for a state ravaged by a storm whose destructive force was at least partially the fault of the Army Corp of Engineers and whose people were left pretty much high and dry by the federal government being called a prostitute is (a) deliberately fostering ignorance about how the Senate (and politics in general) works, and (b) obstinately refusing to recognize that she wouldn't have needed that kind of aid if we'd taken care of her state in the first place. I'd rather talk about how when men broker deals for plane parts to be made in most of the 50 states, it is good politics (until it isn't), but when a Democrat - not even a liberal - works to make the system work for her constituents she's just a whore for the money.
But no. Because liberals I'm aware of keep saying self-righteously assholish things. Liberals I like. Liberals I generally agree with. And then I have to spend my ride into work fuming. And then when I get home, I have to write these long-winded posts in order to not be seen as a liberal equivalent of Gretchen Carlson.
Four days ago, my friend linked an article, with the comment, "David Brooks at his best". It was David Brooks' column The Rush to Therapy, part of which said,
A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.
There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.
This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.
Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.
The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.
It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.
And I was unsettled and mulling over the specific, but unarticulated, contrary notion that David Brooks was, actually, very wrong. Luckily for me, I've got Jonathan Turley on the same page. While on The Rachel Maddow Show on November 12, Turley said this:
There are plenty of people who act out of rage. If you take away a few of the aspects of this case, you would have a typical disgruntled worker shooting. We have, with these shootings all over the country, where people are disturbed, disgruntled, and isolated, and they come in and they shoot people in their work place. Now, some of them are perfectly unhinged and they will latch onto religious views or political views, but what they're really acting out of is mental illness.
That doesn't deny any action of evil. What it does do is say, "Your war narrative may not be the most salient point. It is just the most convenient one, and the one that will let you sleep most soundly tonight." What it does say is, "Evil does not lurk only in the hearts of men we see as not like ourselves. It can be in any one of us, and so none of us are truly safe." What it does say is, "Religious convictions may not be the ignition of this deadly passion. It may just be the vehicle this particular person chose to take".
What bothers me about David Brooks' article is that assertion the politically and morally immature nation is the nation that stops before stomping in like gangbusters and making assertions and assumptions without gathering all of the facts. For my money, it is the nation that has matured in both its political and moral arenas that disallows the presumption of one metanarrative over the perhaps more on point micronarratives.
What also bothers me about Brooks' piece is how these discussions of how the metanarratives impact how violence is dispersed are only prevalent when the provocateur is someone other than a white, Christian man. When the perpetrator is a white, Christian man, the assumption is that this case is an isolated incident that has no greater baring on society. That this person is a sport, that his actions have nothing to do with our own metanarratives. We can still see those acts of violence as actions of evil just fine. And by seeing them as actions of evil, we manage to separate them from our person.
it’s only the occasional story in the print media or on the radio that will note how very much like other American mass-murderers Hasan truly is: a native-born American man, aged 13-60, who has difficult relationships with peers and co-workers, and especially with women. (Not coincidentally, a lot of these killers are strongly invested in traditional gender hierarchies and see themselves as at odds with modern American women, who think they can make their own decisions about whom they’ll date or spend time with.)
I'm all for examining how systemic beliefs parlay into actions, violent or otherwise. I'm all for examining how those systemic beliefs and images and messages influence how we as a people react to actions, violent or otherwise. I'm a big believer in systemic influences, both positive and negative. And yet, we can't lose sight of the individual either, and how the individual's own maladies (or lack thereof) influence how much that message takes hold, and how it is expelled upon the world.
The thing David Brooks seems to be missing is that the idea we should hold off on saying, "Islamic extremist!" in this case isn't simply (or even) to stop the swells of people in Middle America from going on murderous rampages of their own. It is an effort to better ourselves, to look beyond our minute fairy tale beliefs in good and evil and how that good and evil is displayed, and search for deeper and more concrete answers. It is an effort to elevate ourselves, both as individuals and as a society, beyond the prejudices that say "if someone has a funny name and dark skin and reads out of a different book than mine, that book must be the source of the problem". It is in an effort to become a more politically and morally mature nation, a nation that does not see every act of violence perpetrated by someone in the category of Other as stemming from reasons wholly separate from acts of violence perpetrated by someone not in that category. That we can work to reasonably suss out where the act of violence stems from, understand what could have been possible catalysts, recognize those catalysts, and still understand the actions as being evil and the actor of creating evil. Because an action borne out of social maladjustment can exist within the possibility of evil just as much as an action borne out of religious extremism can. To deny that, to deny the want to assess alternate possibilities under the cry of it being a denial of evil is, I think, in itself an act of an immature nation.
So, the run down for minorities gaining the rights the majority enjoys seems to be this:
Exist.
Find some people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.
Hopefully, this will end with some of those people deciding that you're right, and you do have the right to exist with the same rights as the majority.
Some of these people will now become allies.
You and your allies find some more people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The whole premise is based upon needing to demonstrate why you should be allowed to be something more than a second-class citizen, until the good people of the majority grow comfortable enough with you to grant you the rights denied to your predecessors.
The whole premise is based upon making it clear to those around you that you deserve to have access to the same rights and liberties as those who have never had to justify their existence in this kind of instance.
Or, in other words, the minority has to prove that its members are just as good, as human, as full of citizeny goodness as the majority.
Here's my problem with this whole deal. Chances are, large swaths of the majority have had to go through this song and dance themselves. There is only a small sliver of the population who has never had to justify themselves in the "I'm as good as you" way. And yet, we all just keep on dancing.
Here's my other problem with the whole deal. The problem with democracies is that the democratic process does not translate into justice, or equality, or the pursuit of happiness. All it means is that the majority gets their way; and the majority can be, at times, a bunch of assholes. Even when whole huge swaths of said majority also belong to any number of minority groups as well. I love my democratically elected republic government, and I would not trade it for any other form. But a pure democracy (or democratic republic) isn't the sole basis for the just or free society. For that, there need to be safe-guards.
I don't truly know how to articulate it; but luckily, someone else did (in talking about women's rights):
Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they're just privileges. And privileges can be taken away.
Those who don't have to rationally discuss whether or not they should have the right to wed are privileged. That privilege will probably never be taken away. And yet, it isn't a right. Because what those for marriage equality want aren't special rights, but rights to the same damn thing. And the thing standing in their way isn't anything more or less than other people's prejudices. Those prejudices aren't based in justice, aren't based in the philosophy of the American way. They are based in the undemocratic, anti-justice stance that just because this privilege of mine has rarely been challenged or questioned and is simply accepted as matter-of-fact that I have an intrinsic right to decide whether or not you get the same consideration.
That isn't to say that we shouldn't fight injustices by trying to convince other people that our path is the best. But it is to say this: democracy and justice don't just go hand in hand. Sometimes, the democratic process is used to deny justice to groups of people. Sometimes our judicial system does the same thing. But often in American history, it isn't the will of the majority that pushes forward the cause of justice, of equality, of a more perfect union. It is the actions of the few. They are the actions of presidents, of courts, of those who push the unwilling masses forward - because the balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority is a tenuous one, and one that must be guarded jealously.
