General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Women only: Regarding the use of the term 'girls' to describe women. [View all]Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)After reading the first 280 posts, my opinion was that D used the site 'rules' in a very lawyer-like way, adhering to the letter of the law, while violating the spirit zealously. (Just an opinion. I can provide no links). He seemed to bring old axe-grindings to this OP. The way each side of this 'sexism vs. censorship' argument approaches the other, to debate the issue, is colored by past disagreements that I missed, and have no part in. The multi-thousand post-ers here have a history, and they know where the other ''side's'' bodies are buried, thread-wise.
Red's post was really a kind of caucus call. I like the idea of people who are already on the same page, more or less, getting together to hash out and refine their idea. My opinion of DU itself was that it was a kind of caucus of progressive dems, and I started looking in on it due to a referral from Al Franken and Sonoma State's Project Censored, in the mid-2000's -- not enough to know the personalities, just enough to pick up good Dem info, on a lot of issues. But DU is too bulky and unwieldly to serve as a single caucus currently. And my offer of an e-mail caucus to D was sincere. If rq had ulterior motives, and really wanted the poll\caucus to go the way it wound up, then my hat's off to her as a brilliant strategist and tactician. She may be, but I think she is also honest and above board.
Red's OP title wasn't 'Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them', (but if it was, I might still have looked in, just to laugh. Not to get mad, just to get an enjoyably happy laugh). I snuck in because I wanted her opinion, and the opinion of DU women that wanted to caucus on the issue. As long as I didn't vote or pipe up, I couldn't see the harm of looking in and listening to the caucus, because I wasn't spying on it to report back to an anti-woman OPE conspiracy group. I figured if I didn't make my presence known, it wouldn't bother them. I had no disagreements with any women on the post about how they should self-appelate, because that would be a bigger sexist offense on my part than me calling that woman a 'girl'. Like I'm in charge of telling her what to think about herself and her life.
I was honestly curious to hear their opinion, (and D didn't appear to be. He was not helping me hear women's opinions, anyway. He was kind of getting in the way. All perfectly legally). I already knew I wanted her opinion, so when red posted me (#321), on her own OP thread, prefaced with the title 'Not that you asked my opinion', it was easy to ignore how great a person she was showing herself to be, and I just started typing reams to D. I caught myself (3.5 hours later) and went back to edit my response to her, but I had ignored her real nobility due to unreflective sexism. It's true.
D had a similar blind spot in his initial response to me (298). His 4th para constitutes affordable daycare as a 'woman's rights' issue, but it's a labor and working families issue. That statement is not for the purposes of pointing at him and yelling 'sexist!', but it shows how being blind on one issue can adversely affect effectiveness on another issue. Because he didn't see women's equality on the affordable child care issue and in the workforce, a good Dem like him isn't thinking to back labor and social justice org's struggle on the issue effectively. He's actually hurting labor by misconceiving this issue, and I'm a labor guy. I'm just allied with Women's Equality. I'm not asking him to help set up a day-care for my labor union sisters and brothers, or lobby Congress, or anything. On this issue, it would be helpful if he just changed his mind.
RQ's info on post 384 (Khnet Shroedingers rapist), her freethoughtsblog link in 386, and her sig-line links are all excellent reading. (The stfufauxfeminists link in her sig-line may be more of a general recommendation, or there was a specific post on that site that just got bumped down due to daily updates, I'm unsure.) Red's 384 should be one post south of our current location (this post), if you're interested and haven't read it. Somehow, this o.p.'s consideration of 'how do we see ourselves' and 'how do we see others' turned into a battle against perceived 'p.c. language censorship thought police' and 'censorship of porn'. In reality, it was just a request to consider or reconsider how we think and what we say to other people.
I recall the Meese Commission on Pornography, Flynt vs. Falwell, the 'obscenity' indictment against Lenny Bruce, and any OP you make on any of those would attract my avid attention. There is something wrong about an alliance between any kind of Women's rights activists and Meese, Falwell, Dobson, Flynt. Similar to when Civil Rights leader Malcolm X had his mind in pawn to the system, when he was backing Elijah Muhammed. Muhammed was in bed with klan and nazis at the time, and also the Hunt family. (EM's Hunt family connections were why the 'chickens coming home to roost' comment by Malcolm upset Elijah so much.) Farrakhan definitely did help kill Malcolm, and his people are in bed with aryan skinheads, klan, and nazis. Malcolm changed his mind about hating whites and backing a Black hate leader who was in bed with organized white power haters of Blacks. So the gov bumped him off, using their bad guys that infiltrated the NOI, and the movement was already so thoroughly infiltrated that the gov could count even leaders like Elijah M and Louis X as pro-gov agents. (When I say gov, I'm talking intel, not LBJ. And you referenced my own quirky OPE before, but my viewpoints can't possibly compete, in lunacy terms, with the 'flying saucers and bean pies' of the NOI.) When I see a Woman's rights person on the same page as nazi freaks like Meese, Falwell, Dobson, and Flynt, I think they are either good people like Malcolm whose minds are in pawn to the system, due to outrage at huge injustices, or they are bad gov infiltrators into a good Rights cause, trying to warp or de-rail that cause, and getting paid.
That doesn't describe red or sea, or any of the Women's Equality posts that I have read here. I agree with them on the op issue, and haven't ever had that many women simultaneously happy with me before, (without it being a result of me leaving their general vicinity.) My opinion on censorship and porn doesn't involve a desire to regulate your behavior in any way, I just know why I favor self regulation and an economic boycott. I'm willing to discuss with you, any time, Pat Califia's Meese Commission coverage (of the Becker and Levine split with Dworkin and MacKinnon on the issue): http://cultronix.eserver.org/califia/meese/
One last piece of 'purity of our precious essence' for you. Everyone around here knows that Falwell was a swine-like nazi, that opposed everything DU stands for. But Mark Lane, the lawyer for Flynt vs. Falwell, was also bush family friend John Hinckley's lawyer, and also Jim Jones' lawyer, when Congressman Ryan was investigating Jonestown. Ryan's assassination in Guyana was quickly followed by the assassination 9 days later of two other San Fran area elected officials, Moscone and Milk. (Mayor Moscone had been forced, well before the Jonestown massacre, to appoint Jones as the head of the SF Housing Authority. I wonder what George and Harvey were talking about and working on right before Dan White ate all those twinkies. Maybe, possibly, staffing or housing issues.)
So the ostensible sides in Flynt v Falwell are 'freedom of expression' vs. 'morality'. The gov was on both sides of that court case, so they couldn't lose. A real 'heads they win, tails normal people lose' coin toss. They want us to tear each other apart fighting for one of their leaders or the other.