Jonathan Chait is right, sorry

Jonathan Chait's much-discussed New York magazine piece titled Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say created such a spectacle throughout the lefty-internet last month, I momentarily believed there might be a real live discussion about it. SALON appeared to be collectively in shock, and printed Chait-hate pieces every hour for awhile, it seemed. There was a lively hashtag-debate that said it all: #Chaitgate. There are still periodic Two-Minute Hates being blasted at Chait for daring to express this opinion; it was a scandal.

Yes, a SCANDAL.

Free speech, free inquiry, demanding the Left explain the disgusting, ineffectual witch-hunting and open provocateur behavior of the past few years... is now regarded as a SCANDAL. Sit down and suck it up, obedient left-leaning androids, or go join the Right. (And you know, I think lots of disgruntled free-speech-purists indeed might choose to do that, but now I am getting ahead of myself.)

Most of the response to Chait was the same response I got when I mentioned Engels in an old Tumblr discussion: White hetero privileged guy! Bleat, bleat, bleat, WHITE HETERO PRIVILEGED GUY!

That's the response.

That's their WHOLE REPLY. That's IT.

None of these self-appointed "social justice activists" [1] (aka SJWs) actually explain WHY or HOW Chait's piece radiates or replicates whiteness or maleness, as (for example) James Baldwin or Kate Millett did in their social criticism. That requires actually engaging with the text. To some of the SJWs, the words of certain genders or races are automatically inferior and do not even rate direct replies. (And what does THAT remind me of? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.) In a recent discussion, I deliberately centered old people in my responses [2] and asked what SJWs thought when a certain historic event occurred (I was fully aware most hadn't even been born yet) and they instantly became furious. Thus, we see, some groups are worthy of being "centered"--and some are clearly not. [3]

In other words, if I just mindlessly bleated "you're young! you're young!" to END a discussion, in this same fashion? I'd be laughed at. It doesn't work for everybody, only for those with properly-trendy identities. (PS: Many young Jews are learning that in social justice circles, they do not have a trendy identity, as Christians also do not.)

From Chait's piece:

After political correctness burst onto the academic scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it went into a long remission. Now it has returned. Some of its expressions have a familiar tint, like the protesting of even mildly controversial speakers on college campuses. You may remember when 6,000 people at the University of California–Berkeley signed a petition last year to stop a commencement address by Bill Maher, who has criticized Islam (along with nearly all the other major world religions). Or when protesters at Smith College demanded the cancellation of a commencement address by Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, blaming the organization for “imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” Also last year, Rutgers protesters scared away Condoleezza Rice; others at Brandeis blocked Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s-rights champion who is also a staunch critic of Islam; and those at Haverford successfully protested ­former Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who was disqualified by an episode in which the school’s police used force against Occupy protesters.

At a growing number of campuses, professors now attach “trigger warnings” to texts that may upset students, and there is a campaign to eradicate “microaggressions,” or small social slights that might cause searing trauma. These newly fashionable terms merely repackage a central tenet of the first p.c. movement: that people should be expected to treat even faintly unpleasant ideas or behaviors as full-scale offenses. Stanford recently canceled a performance of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson after protests by Native American students. UCLA students staged a sit-in to protest microaggressions such as when a professor corrected a student’s decision to spell the word indigenous with an uppercase I — one example of many “perceived grammatical choices that in actuality reflect ideologies.” A theater group at Mount Holyoke College recently announced it would no longer put on The Vagina Monologues in part because the material excludes women without vaginas. These sorts of episodes now hardly even qualify as exceptional.

Trigger warnings aren’t much help in actually overcoming trauma — an analysis by the Institute of Medicine has found that the best approach is controlled exposure to it, and experts say avoidance can reinforce suffering. Indeed, one professor at a prestigious university told me that, just in the last few years, she has noticed a dramatic upsurge in her students’ sensitivity toward even the mildest social or ideological slights; she and her fellow faculty members are terrified of facing accusations of triggering trauma — or, more consequentially, violating her school’s new sexual-harassment policy — merely by carrying out the traditional academic work of intellectual exploration. “This is an environment of fear, believe it or not,” she told me by way of explaining her request for anonymity. It reminds her of the previous outbreak of political correctness — “Every other day I say to my friends, ‘How did we get back to 1991?’ ”

But it would be a mistake to categorize today’s p.c. culture as only an academic phenomenon. Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate. Two decades ago, the only communities where the left could exert such hegemonic control lay within academia, which gave it an influence on intellectual life far out of proportion to its numeric size. Today’s political correctness flourishes most consequentially on social media, where it enjoys a frisson of cool and vast new cultural reach. And since social media is also now the milieu that hosts most political debate, the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old.

It also makes money. Every media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media industry beset by insecurity. A year ago, for instance, a photographer compiled images of Fordham students displaying signs recounting “an instance of racial microaggression they have faced.” The stories ranged from uncomfortable (“No, where are you really from?”) to relatively innocuous (“ ‘Can you read this?’ He showed me a Japanese character on his phone”). BuzzFeed published part of her project, and it has since received more than 2 million views. This is not an anomaly.

In a short period of time, the p.c. movement has assumed a towering presence in the psychic space of politically active people in general and the left in particular. “All over social media, there dwell armies of unpaid but widely read commentators, ready to launch hashtag campaigns and circulate Change.org petitions in response to the slightest of identity-politics missteps,” Rebecca Traister wrote recently in The New Republic.

For sure, let's not forget the wages of sin: blogswarms, mass defriendings, social isolation, flaming, the spreading of inaccurate rumors, doxxing, streams of sicko emails, etc etc. This shit has real-life consequences. (I once got this treatment over ONE QUESTION--not even a statement!-- in a post.) It is disgusting, evil, bullying behavior, and there is NO DEFENSE from anyone who imagines themselves about social justice. Social justice is not about threatening to torture people, in case you didn't know.

Chait continues:

Social media, where swarms of jeering critics can materialize in an instant, paradoxically creates this feeling of isolation. [Hanna Rosin commented] “You do immediately get the sense that it’s one against millions, even though it’s not.” Subjects of these massed attacks often describe an impulse to withdraw.

Political correctness is a term whose meaning has been gradually diluted since it became a flashpoint 25 years ago. People use the phrase to describe politeness (perhaps to excess), or evasion of hard truths, or (as a term of abuse by conservatives) liberalism in general. The confusion has made it more attractive to liberals, who share the goal of combating race and gender bias.

But political correctness is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism. Indeed, its most frequent victims turn out to be liberals themselves.

And this is a major reason why its wrong--this demand for perfection is never directed at the enemy. It is always directed at other leftists and allies.

In this way, it is counter-productive and makes the Right stronger. As Chait says,

Under p.c. culture, the same idea can be expressed identically by two people but received differently depending on the race and sex of the individuals doing the expressing. This has led to elaborate norms and terminology within certain communities on the left. For instance, “mansplaining,” a concept popularized in 2008 by Rebecca Solnit, who described the tendency of men to patronizingly hold forth to women on subjects the woman knows better — in Solnit’s case, the man in question mansplained her own book to her. The fast popularization of the term speaks to how exasperating the phenomenon can be, and mansplaining has, at times, proved useful in identifying discrimination embedded in everyday rudeness. But it has now grown into an all-purpose term of abuse that can be used to discredit any argument by any man. (MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry once disdainfully called White House press secretary Jay Carney’s defense of the relative pay of men and women in the administration “man­splaining,” even though the question he responded to was posed by a male.) Mansplaining has since given rise to “whitesplaining” and “straightsplaining.” The phrase “solidarity is for white women,” used in a popular hashtag, broadly signifies any criticism of white feminists by nonwhite ones.

If a person who is accused of bias attempts to defend his intentions, he merely compounds his own guilt. (Here one might find oneself accused of man/white/straightsplaining.) It is likewise taboo to request that the accusation be rendered in a less hostile manner. This is called “tone policing.” If you are accused of bias, or “called out,” reflection and apology are the only acceptable response — to dispute a call-out only makes it worse. There is no allowance in p.c. culture for the possibility that the accusation may be erroneous. A white person or a man can achieve the status of “ally,” however, if he follows the rules of p.c. dialogue. A community, virtual or real, that adheres to the rules is deemed “safe.” The extensive terminology plays a crucial role, locking in shared ideological assumptions that make meaningful disagreement impossible.

Read the comments, boys and girls. There is NO argument about the accuracy of ANY of these outrageous stories of censorship.... just a torrent of self-satisfied white guys streaming forward to brag that they can "handle it" and aren't "threatened" the way Chait is. There is absolutely NO discussion about whether this mode of "take no prisoners" discourse is decent or self-destructive behavior for the Left to engage in, just that THEY are cool about it all. Chait's piece provided the perfect opportunity for a veritable TORRENT of strutting, unbridled narcissism from the "social justice activists" -- as they all congratulated each other for not being like him and not agreeing with him... or if they did agree with him, they tried to make it sound like they didn't.

I have been so upset by the invasion of the Left by these fascist wannabes, that I have lost considerable sleep over it. I have considered not bothering at all, leaving the net entirely to the bullies. Only my sheer stubbornness keeps me coming back.

And I know I am not the only one. Chait reports--

“It seems to me now that the public face of social liberalism has ceased to seem positive, joyful, human, and freeing,” confessed the progressive writer Freddie deBoer. “There are so many ways to step on a land mine now, so many terms that have become forbidden, so many attitudes that will get you cast out if you even appear to hold them. I’m far from alone in feeling that it’s typically not worth it to engage, given the risks.” [Michelle] Goldberg wrote recently about people “who feel emotionally savaged by their involvement in [online feminism] — not because of sexist trolls, but because of the slashing righteousness of other feminists.”

And is that what we want the Left to be? The land of the Thought Police?

How on earth can we arrive at solutions if we are not allowed to discuss anything?

~*~

As one on liberal talk radio in the most conservative county in the USA, I can't use esoteric internet political in-group terminology and expect the local Baptists to understand me. Further, as an older person, I frequently use unfashionable or antiquated words. This crime alone, in the current hyped-up politically-correct climate, is enough to get a well-meaning but unsuspecting newcomer savaged [4], as I have witnessed numerous times. Once the social justice police have applied the Mark of Cain, it means anything the stigmatized say (or any political event we report on) is either attacked relentlessly or totally ignored. Remember the early internet, where people argued for days at a time? Where minds were actually CHANGED? (and mine was one, so I know) Well, that's all over now. Many once-lively, fun places are now just battlegrounds where no ideas or nuance can be seriously developed or mulled over [5]. For example, the once-exciting FEMINISTE blog is now mostly a place for trans women to police cis women for various ideological crimes; a blog that once might have hundreds of comments per thread, now routinely gets 3-10 per thread, if that. Reddit calls the political correctness situation "Metareddit Cancer" (since it has spread to the moderators). And as Chait reminds us, this phenomenon now extends to powerful news organizations; The New York Times and CNN both censored the Charlie Hebdo cover with the drawing of Mohammed, showing themselves to be craven cowards, and giving the terrorists exactly the censorship they demanded. (No negotiation with terrorists, huh? Major news organizations excepted!)

I have become so upset with the Left in this regard, I could barely summon up the strength to blog... I've simply entered my snarky comebacks on Tumblr, enjoyed the cute animals photos (the main reason Tumblr exists) and grumbled. It is Chait and his guts that made me decide to speak up here, now that the smoke has cleared.

He's right. The Left is becoming a cartoon of itself.

And another thing... a message I got from a sister Tumblrite, after another of the fabled arguments in which I was told how dumb I am, how wrong, how bad, please go away. Remember how I once said Women's Movement pioneers are mostly shit on, while Civil Rights pioneers are lauded and praised as precious? (And I wonder what that's like?)

I really don't understand so much about this epidemic of self-righteousness and narcissism (which is what I think characterizes so much of the most extreme PC babbling), and began chatting with another feminist who had some amazing insights (and shall hereby remain anonymous).

She certainly inspired some deep thinking here at DEAD AIR:

The social justice sector may skew younger, because the ethos of instant moral certitude and endless identity-gazing would appeal to adolescents, the profusion of stupid neologisms less offensive to eyes and ears that haven’t known much discourse. It helps my sanity to bear in mind that a lot of these people are 9th and 10th graders who’ve never had a moment of real-world political activity (or offline interaction with the identity communities they claim to represent, for that matter) in their lives. What’s more, many of them probably never will. Because it is a subjective enterprise conducted primarily by those who are privileged to endlessly indulge their subjectivity.

For many reasons, “social justice” cannot be equated with what we would have once called the radical left. I’ve been thinking about your comments on sabotage and agents provocateurs. Sadly, I think very few of them are being paid or otherwise extrinsically motivated. I think most of it is organic and sincere, which is worse.

For the past week or so I’ve been coming across posts warning white people away from police brutality protests because “it’s not about you,” accompanied by extensive instructions for all the self-examination white people should do it rather than join the movement. What a brilliant trick that would be from a deliberate saboteur! But horribly enough it’s absolutely sincere - SJWs who don’t understand that it’s not “about” any of the protestors; who honestly mistake mass protest for an arena for the elaboration and display of identities. Which again, suggests less than robust experience with actual protests.

The emphasis on subjectivity and invisible ideological purity is, I’m sure you realize, the reason they attack people who are “on the same side” - if your subjectivity isn’t PERFECT, you aren’t actually on the same side. They are for the most part just too dumb (or less uncharitably, too naive) to comprehend the opportunity that the endless goalpost-moving and ratcheting up of standards creates for those who are up to no good.

And here is where I remind everyone that there are still wars going on. Obama is seeking further war authorization as we speak. Here is your golden opportunity to GET OFF YOUR DERRIERE and start a real live anti-war movement, instead of a pretend-movement on Tumblr.

Let me know when you are ready for real politics. As long as this extended silliness continues, I will treat it as the mindless din that it is.

I have serious work to do.


~*~



[1] I put quotes around the term since this is what they call themselves, even though as I have pointed out before, the vast majority have actually done NO activism at all. (Asking for a resume is a good way to shut them up and call out the hypocrisy.) "SJW" is nothing more than a label and requires no one do anything risky in real life, otherwise we wouldn't have 2-3 wars going on at once, apparently without missing a beat or noticing this imperialism enough to even remark about it on their extra-special SJW sites... let alone actually attempt to, you know, STOP THE WARS.

[2] Social justice activists habitually claim they are "centering" this or that oppressed group and therefore do not have to argue with any political criticism on the opposite side of the divide. So, I decided to use this tactic myself as an old person, and re-center baby-boomer experience.

And I guess you know how well THAT went over.

[3] I was told that I am too old to be on Tumblr, and that it is automatically "suspect" (!) when any older person is there. Also: "ageism is not a thing"--yes, I swear, these two statements came from the SAME PERSON. But in short, treating old people like shit is still fine, same as it ever was. Somehow, age has not entered that sacrosanct category of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and all the other social justice status-labels.

[4] It has been deemed "racist" to use the word "savage"--even as a verb. I tell them: stop doing it, I'll stop using the word. What other words do you prefer? Barbarism? Bullying?

I am committed to bringing back the word McCARTHYISM.

[5] When I asked some critical questions of anti-sex-work feminists, it was assumed (with a nasty, snarky vibe) that I must think sex work is fabulous and great. Um, no, I don't, I just think sex workers need basic protections from arrests and harassment. It was then decided that I must believe women are "empowered" by sex work (language I don't even use!) ... In short, SJWs assume everyone is sharply PRO or CON (meaning: their very limited version of PRO and CON positions, usually a rehash of what they've seen on CNN or something)...they never see political positions as evolving, undecided, nuanced, changing, learning... which is where the vast majority of people live out their political realities on a day-to-day basis.

The SJWs live on Planet Certainty, and most people don't. Further, most people aren't sure they want to live there.

And on that note, let me clarify: JUST BECAUSE I AGREE WITH JONATHAN CHAIT ABOUT THIS SUBJECT, does not mean I agree with everything he says about everything. It seems obvious and ridiculous to have to say such a thing, but in the climate we are describing, it is required. If you like a blog post, its obvious you must love the author and love everything they say (see above)-- so you are accountable for something they wrote in 2006 too.

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: transphobia revisited

Unfortunately, the ongoing brawl over the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (herein known by its nickname, Michfest) continues on for another year.

Each year seems more contentious than the last. Increasingly, there are pro-trans demonstrations at festival, featuring t-shirts emblazoned with "Trans Women Belong Here". QueerFatFemme believes that women should attend specifically to protest the omission of trans women, and believes someday the rules will change, as they eventually evolved to include BDSM and "chem-free space" -- neither of which were initially greeted with kindness. (NOTE: Trans women have attended the festival since its inception, even performing/working there, despite the official rule excluding them. Trans women were already an integral part of Michfest BEFORE the rule became "official" -- so this exclusion can also be viewed as an EXILE.)

This year--in response to a petition--Lisa Vogel, Michfest co-founder/owner of festival land, issued a very confusing statement. She seems to be winking at the presence of trans women, as long as they properly keep their heads down and shut up about it. One might even read the statement as green-lighting the admission of trans women in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" fashion. Vogel's statement reads, in part:

The Festival, for a single precious week, is intended for womyn who at birth were deemed female, who were raised as girls, and who identify as womyn. I believe that womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a lived experience that constitutes its own distinct gender identity.

As we struggle around the question of inclusion of transwomyn at the festival, we use the word intention very deliberately. Michigan holds this particular lived experience of womanhood as honorable, meaningful, unique and rich. Our intention has always been coupled with the radical commitment to never question any womon's gender. We ask the greater community to respect this intention, and to value the complexity and validity of every gender identity, including that of WBW. The onus is on each individual to choose whether or how to respect that intention.

Huh?

~*~

This whole fiasco seems emblematic of the stand-off between radical feminists and trans women, and it makes my head hurt. We should all be getting along, dammit. I often find trans women to be instinctively feminist, due to their unique experiences, and I want them in our ranks. However, lots of radical feminists don't. Further, the two groups seem singularly obsessed with pissing each other off, creating endless Tumblr pages/blogs dedicated simply to trashing the other side. And these hate-blogs (as Mama Moretti commented here) get TONS of hits, every time they are updated.

Some people spend all their online-time enumerating why the other side is not just wrong, but EVIL. Some people, frankly, seem driven nearly insane over it.

I recently wrote about the incident at Portland State University during the recent Law and Disorder Conference, in which trans activists attacked a Deep Green Resistance display table for selling literature they deemed transphobic and unacceptable (I still don't know specifically WHICH BOOK they were selling that set everyone off)... and I expressed my disapproval of their tactics, which included destroying books, marking people up with magic-markers and throwing burritos. Even though I have written here (at great length) of my crazy-Yippie past (and similar tactics *I* have engaged in), I wrote that I now know (as a radical living in possibly the reddest state in the South) what it is like to be the hapless person on the other end of that behavior... and I have grown to believe that these types of tactics are NOT very effective, even if they are great fun and feel deliciously self-righteous. I think these tactics may even do HARM to a cause, sometimes even bringing sympathy to those who are attacked and accomplishing the opposite of what we intended.

The excitable gang over at Feministe became very angry with me; they wrote several enthusiastic posts announcing that I am a Bad Person and saying "fuck you"--which I found even more alarming. Obviously, discussing long-term strategies and points of agreement is no longer even considered an acceptable goal; the war has advanced to the point that there can be no efforts at Detente that don't appear to be "pandering" to one side or another. (sigh)

And Lisa Vogel's strange, ambiguous statement certainly did not help the situation.

~*~

Still, I gotta wonder, is Michfest (a throwback to feminism's Golden Era) an event that trans women truly want to attend? Most women *I* know have not even heard of it (or are only peripherally aware of it) and show absolutely no interest when you tell them about it. Why is this such a big deal to trans women--just because its off limits to them? (I no longer want to attend, for instance, although I did attend way back in the aforementioned Golden Era.) Why does THIS PARTICULAR EVENT matter so much, when there are plenty of other places/events that are also off-limits to them?

Why do trans women care so much what radical feminists (specifically) say about them?

Why do radical feminists believe trans women (specifically) are such a threat? (And before you answer, "because they believe they are men!"--keep in mind, they seem FAR more aggravated by trans women than they are by men. Many of these hate-blogs do not even write much about feminist political issues, but only cover an issue like abortion when trans women say critical things, or declare it isn't as important to them as radfems believe it should be.)

I admit: I don't get it. And the longer the war continues, the less I get it. It strikes me as patently bizarre.

Yes, the old hippie is pleading for peace. I fully expect to be pilloried, but blessed are the peacemakers.

Buddha told me this would be rough.

~*~

The newest salvo fired at the radfem faction is THIS rather disturbing 2008 Philadelphia Gay News story by radfem Victoria Brownworth. This is OLD news, so at first, I wondered why the trans faction was dredging it up at this rather late date.

Then I read it.

Ohhhh my goodness.

I confess, I was pretty upset and disgusted. This is bad. Like, really really bad. Cristan Williams writes at TRANSADVOCATE:

The reason I chose to do this article is that Brownworth, a self-identified radical feminist, has written extensively about power, privilege, the need for acceptance, boundaries and the well-being of kids. Yet here – even though she felt it was “creepy,” “wrong” and even though she also felt “anxious” about it – she asked this kid to have access to his genitalia (if you believe what she wrote in 2008).

If the power roles were reversed and it was an adult pre-op transwoman who came across a vulnerable 15/16 year old cisgender girl with an illicitly obtained genital body modification, would RadFems (or anyone for that matter!) view it as being okay if the transwoman gained access to the girl’s genitalia for a peek? What if the transwoman then discribed the girl’s genetalia in detail – down to what her cliterous looked like – in newsprint and/or on the internet? What if the transwoman, five years later, tweets that she felt “creepy/wrong” about it but nevertheless defended her actions by saying that the girl asked the transwoman to do it? What would happen? What would be said about that situation?

Take the trans issue out of this. If this was an adult cisgender woman and a vulnerable 15/16 year old cisgender boy with an illicitly obtained genital piercing or tattoo, we all intuitively understand that it’s inappropriate for an adult to deliberately gawk at the kid’s junk while they’re nude, much less detail what the kid’s genitals looked like in print or the web! Yet because it’s transkid, nobody has said anything for FIVE YEARS!

Awful, just awful. I was genuinely disturbed that Brownworth thought it was ever acceptable to exploit this child in this manner. I hope someone can locate this young person (named Devon, who would now be 20 or 21?) and affirm that he is okay.

Regarding this story, Brownworth's various replies to her critics are ... off. Just off. Strange. A lot like Lisa Vogel's bizarre non-statement. It is as if these radfems don't really believe they are dealing with human beings or something. Brownworth seems actually taken aback that you would ask her about it.

Meanwhile, as we speak, the radfems line up and obediently back up Brownworth, even in an instance when she was OBVIOUSLY very wrong.

(sigh)

It all just makes me so ashamed.

Saturday with the Duke, meditations on fat...

I dunno why I watch reruns of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in McLintock! (1963)... because I am a glutton for punishment?

The movie amazes me in its "playful" but violent sexism; the way the music goes all cutesy flutes-and-piccolos-and-pipes when he is chasing her around and eventually forcibly carries her up the stairs, Rhett Butler-style. She is still issuing orders to her black servant as he carries her backwards to the second floor, to have his way with her. Now, I ask you: is that cute or what?

I have written here before of how uncomfortable I am with the old movies I am simultaneously addicted to. I have also written of how common it is, in these old films, to find something horrifyingly reactionary right next to something progressive. In McLintock, John Wayne takes up for the beleaguered Comanche Nation, who get thoroughly shit on in no uncertain terms. As a kid, I remember watching this movie; it was my first real education regarding Native American rights (or lack of them) and what had actually occurred in the Old West. Remember, we were all raised on "bad Indian" history lessons, and the whole truth was not presented to the masses until Dee Brown's landmark bestseller, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.(1970) [1] My mother read passages of the book out loud to us, with an incredulous tone in her voice. Most of us had no knowledge of the history of broken treaties and lies; our history books unambiguously portrayed the Indians as bloodthirsty killers that needed to be 1) wiped out or 2) converted. Ironically, the same movies that slandered the Indians, also reminded us that they were human beings, they had their own ways. The movies, then, were subversive.

And so, we get a movie that tells the kids: The Comanches got messed over. And then, the same movie joyously-endorses spanking grown women; it famously winds up with bitchy Maureen getting turned over John Wayne's knee for some good old-fashioned discipline, as the wild-west crowd (who hate these uppity red-headed broads from back East) cheer him on. (Stefanie Powers, the Duke's daughter, is also spanked by her boyfriend, while the cutesy flutes play on in the background and Dad chortles delightedly.) Lots of talk about manhood in this movie, and what it means to be a man. For George Washington McLintock, not surprisingly, manhood is some heavy patriotic assignment from God Almighty. (The Comanche, too, proclaim they will not take charity from whites, which is for the widows and orphans; they are MEN and will die like warriors.) This movie is a whole tutorial in manhood, and the proper place of MEN, even as it extends empathy to the indigenous people... but wait, not all of them. The MEN. The Comanche males are given a voice here, but their concerns are all about their vanquished manhood, not the fate of their tribe and nation. (And does anyone believe that? Sounds like more John Wayne, doesn't it?)

I watch this stuff to look for progress, since it sometimes appears that there is none. But watching this, I assure you, there is!

And another thing, common to old Hollywood westerns: The horses look sick and overworked. At the end credits, I didn't see any such, "No animals were harmed during the making of this picture," and highly doubt they could make that claim.

:(


~*~

The Fat Wars in Feminist Blogdonia rage ever onward. The Feministe "Fat and Health" thread nearly blew up feminist Blogdonia. There is currently an "answer post" by Zuzu, titled "Fat and Health, A Response" with another accompanying endless thread. This time, no "fuck yous" and so on (as I wrote back on September 3). It's most decidedly a love-in, as everyone blows kisses to Zuzu for restoring order and assuring everyone that there is no connection between fat and... well, apparently anything.

But as I read the piece, a few things jumped right out at me.

I have been wondering why I don't understand what is being discussed, exactly, and I think the light is dawning. Once again: class and age.

Question: Is this how a lone black woman feels when they enter a room and all the white women are talking about how they fix their hair? Uncomfortable, disconnected?

And here it is: I don't know what lots of these fat women are talking about, and it's time I came right out and said so.

Example, Zuzu says weight and eating are not connected. Of course it is. For me, it certainly is, and for the hundreds (thousands?) of people I have talked to about fat on my job, it most assuredly is. I hear about bad food choices due to no time for preparation (the appearance of the home-microwave and the incidence of increasing obesity are a definite correlation!), no places to exercise, no time to walk anywhere (not even into a building from the lower parking lot), no opportunities for fitness at all. In the thread, folks assure us that changing this state of affairs is good, and yet at the same time, tell us that obesity is okay. But both realities can't be true; the first situation has in fact CAUSED the other.

Zuzu claims Monica's original post seemed to highlight the "moral failings" of fat people. Then I got it, at least some of it: If you admit that food makes people fat, then people are bad for eating too much food. Therefore, food doesn't make people fat, since we have to be nice to everyone, and that is regarded as a rude thing to say. (It's a lot like Chris Prentiss' approach to addiction at his classy Malibu treatment center: His first step is to NOT call you an addict and make you feel bad.)

Being fat is no moral failing. Being an addict or alcoholic is ALSO not a moral failing (yes, I just compared them).[2] Oppressive, harried, breakneck-paced modern capitalist American life works on us all in different ways; I don't know anyone who emerges totally unscathed. Some of us smoke pot to relieve stress, some of us exercise or do yoga to relieve stress, some of us eat to relieve stress, some of us drink vodka to relieve stress, some go to BigPharm to relieve stress, some come to me and ask for herbs to relieve stress.

The common element? The stress. Where is all the STRESS coming from? Hm. Let me guess.

In my case, I can easily eat a lot, and I love food. In my prime, I could have been in one of those bizarre eating contests on TV; I have the capacity to pack it in as fast as any of those guys. I can take in amazing amounts of food. [3] Everyone in my family could also eat amazing amounts, and did. And we were all fat. If anything, we should have been lots bigger.

And you know, I will not shut up about that fact, simply because the Fat Acceptance Police have decided that truth, my truth, is the enemy. It is true. And you know what? I also know that my family ate MORE because they were fucking exhausted all the time, and that is the truth, too. But I read precious little about the relationship between hard work and appetite in that thread. I think most of those women are (like Zuzu) well-educated, elite professionals (which is why I found the chorus of "fuck yous" in the first thread, so surprising).

~*~

And the term "fat shaming" keeps annoying me. What is all this "fat shaming" I keep hearing about? What exactly is "fat shaming"? Why is anyone ashamed? Seriously, I'm asking. Why are self-defined feminists complaining about being ashamed of their size? How can you be ashamed without your consent? The task is to NOT BE ASHAMED--not to rearrange reality so fat is actually a good thing, so there is nothing to be "ashamed" of.

In addition, all the fuss about doctors blew my mind. Maybe because I have worked for so many (and listened to them and transcribed their meandering, solipsistic, often silly nonsense), they don't automatically command my respect or impress me much. (M.D. = Medical Deity, but not to me.) All this fear of going to doctors to avoid some arrogant bullshit? (My experience has shown me that many actually specialize in arrogant bullshit, so I am usually impressed when they don't act like that.) But AVOIDING the doctor for this reason? You gotta be kidding me. It's YOUR money; if you are in the USA, you are paying for this shit! They work for you. Why are you putting up with this stuff?

Examples, for your edification:

:: When one doctor said to me, lose weight, I gave him my standard reply: I didn't come here for that, thanks. "Well, that's my opinion," he said, and I said, "Duly noted." He didn't press the issue.

:: Another time: The good doctor kept pressing the issue: lose weight, lose weight, "blah blah blah would be better if you lost weight, blah blah blah," I stopped him, carefully looked him right in the eye and said, "About the weight? I. Have. Heard. You." and made it very clear, any more weight-blather would be VERY UNWELCOME. He stopped.

:: Another time, when asked by a doctor in the first five seconds (the health matter was totally unrelated): "Don't you think you should lose weight?" I asked him, "Don't you think you should want me to pay for this visit?" That always strikes right to the heart of the matter, I've discovered, for just about everyone (in the USA, anyway).

In another words: BE A BIG GIRL, Jesus H. Christ, what the hell happened to feminists? It used to mean you were a PROUD BITCH who didn't TAKE NO SHIT.

When I read "fat shaming" I think of little orphan-waifs weeping and blowing their noses after someone calls them fatty. That was me as an 11-year-old, but I grew out of it. By the time I was 13, whenever these asshole boys would scream "Fat Ass!" at me out the windows of cars, I gave them the finger and told em what I thought of their manners in no uncertain terms, which is even more unprintable than my usual rants. As a young feminist, just discovering the Second Wave, I loved cussing them out and actually regarded it as my FEMINIST DUTY, since I didn't know any other feminists besides my mother. (I decided they needed to hear it!) And my mother had given me permission to use the nastiest words of all, for the boys who yelled at me. My joy over my newly-expanded vocabulary easily eclipsed any upset I may have had over being called "Fat Ass!" (Sometimes, I would even come home disappointed no boys had yelled anything, so eager was I to try out the Forbidden Vocabulary.) Mostly what I noticed was how I would get wolf-whistles AND "Fat Ass!" --sometimes in the very same day. I realized, this was proof of men's inferior, confused sensibilities, they can't even decide if I am supposed to be attractive or not, poor saps. Tsk tsk. My feminism got stronger and stronger.

"Fat Ass!" used to piss me off a lot, but never made me ashamed. [4]

Moral of MY story: Good God, girls, show some gumption!

I am very tired of the whole VICTIM CHIC, and yes, I am aware of how damnably libertarian that sounds. The libertarians in my readership (quite a few) are likely chuckling in delight.

~*~

Another thing I thought of was the Bernard conference, wherein the Second Wave officially imploded. And it imploded over orthodoxy/dogma, the particular dogma being SEX:

Perhaps the most famous confrontation in the lesbian sex wars occurred in 1982 at a conference at Barnard College in New York City. Organized under the title "The Feminist and the Scholar IX," the conference brought together a diverse group of feminist thinkers and activists to consider the complex relationship between pleasure and danger.

Local radical feminists deemed some of the topics offensive and attempted to shut the conference down, claiming it promoted anti-feminist values. Protesters handed out leaflets describing individual speakers as sexual "deviants." Clearly, sexuality had become a deeply divisive issue, even as the focus on such issues as s/m, pornography, and censorship obscured other feminist and lesbian issues related to sexuality.

I remember when Samois, the lesbian SM group, was kicked out of the San Francisco Women's Building, simply for existing.

According to Second Wave dogma, rape fantasies were an invention of male porn, women didn't really have them. No woman actually enjoyed BDSM, more male fantasies, more lies about women. "Porn tells lies about women!" was a picket-sign often held by WAP in various late-70s/early-80s demonstrations against movies (including one of my favorites, the extremely politically-incorrect DRESSED TO KILL). If it was in porn? Then you can count on it NOT being true. No women enjoy stripping, sex work, fetishes, blow jobs, anal sex, or any of that stuff. [5] Butch/femme lesbians are reactionary, and they need to wise up. Etc. The Barnard conference laid all of this bare, as some women stepped up and said, "Well, I, ummmm, kinda like some of that stuff and think we could even have some feminist versions," and the Second Wave just freaking blew up. KABOOM.

My friend asked me, "Are garter belts going to destroy feminism?" and I laughed my ass off. I never dreamed it would be true.

And now, we come to Third Wave dogma: Fat Acceptance, or Else.

It is amusing that the Third Wave even HAS dogma... mostly they have defined themselves in direct opposition to the Vicious Nun Vibe of the Second Wave: Hey, come on in! We love everybody!

Wow, I guess it turns out that they DO have some dogma, lurking in the rafters, huh? (LOL-gotcha!) And now, they are imploding from the nuclear reaction of people questioning THEIR dogma. Deja Vu all over again. (And as I wrote previously, the disintegration of the coalition, right on schedule.)

It is fascinating to me that BOTH of these dogmas are about a denial of women's appetites:

Second Wave: WOMEN DON'T LIKE BDSM, WE ARE LADIES! We aren't bad girls with bad fantasies and sexual desires! Sex is dirty!

Third Wave: FAT WOMEN DON'T GET FAT FROM EATING, WE ARE LADIES! We aren't bad girls who eat more than our share and have cravings! Food is gross!

Note the similarity.

As I said during the first Feminist Inquisition: I like the Sex Pistols, I like DRESSED TO KILL, I secretly-think all manner of politically-incorrect sexual thoughts. I am not nice. I like sex.

And now I will reprise: I like ice cream, I like cake, I secretly-wish I could eat enormous amounts of cheese with no gastronomic or caloric consequences. I am not nice. I like food.

And the house comes down!

It makes you wonder: How strong was the house to begin with?


~*~



[1] I can't imagine a history book of this kind making the bestseller lists now.

[2] And as regular readers of my blog know, I don't consider addiction a moral issue AT BASE, but a health/psychological issue.

[3] It takes an average of 8 minutes for your brain to get the "satiety" message, that you are "full". One of the secrets of eating contests, is to pack as much food in before you get that message, when you simply can't eat anymore. One interesting theory is that some folks get that satiety message "late"; most of the people in the eating contests can go up to 12-15 minutes before they feel the "stop" impulse. Maybe this is key to obesity, too: if you only get X amount of minutes to eat at work or school and you pile it all in at once, you are probably eating far more than you really need, but your brain doesn't get the chance to tell you. One of the major things I have learned is to STOP PERIODICALLY and WAIT for the damn message. For me, takes about 15 minutes, almost twice the length of a 'normal' (haha) person. I am convinced this is a huge part of how increased weight happens in our time-is-money culture.

Also, stress while eating creates indigestion problems, and is a large contributor to acid reflux. Acid reflux medications slow digestion WAY DOWN (causing weight gain, water retention and constipation) and make the problem worse. DIGESTIVE ENZYMES ARE SUPERIOR TO NEXIUM, ET AL., please try some instead of the deadly BigPharm concoctions, I guarantee you won't be sorry (speaking from experience now).

[4] I also loved the look of surprise on their faces: Sweet, blond, innocent 13-year-old Hayley Mills look-alike (only bigger), suddenly erupts into obscene invective... they just looked slack-jawed and stunned.

I loved it and felt very powerful.

[5] I can actually recall in one feminist newspaper (probably OFF OUR BACKS, but I won't swear to it), they brought in a battered-women's advocate/activist, to "refute" an SM practitioner. (?!?!?) Do you believe?!?

[6] One commenter very big on Fat Acceptance was BStu. I checked out this person's blog and the first thing I see is a Notes from the Fat-o-sphere Feed informing me that Judy Freespirit has died. I met her in San Francisco decades ago, one of those very charismatic feminists you simply never forget, and I am saddened.

RIP, dear Judy.

Fat chance!

I am persona non grata over at FEMINISTE these days, which is probably a good thing. After reading THIS THREAD, I once again wondered what planet I was on.

What the hell happened to feminism? Has it become all about not hurting people's feelings? No wonder we are stuck with the likes of Nikki Haley and Sarah Palin.

Back in the day, feminism SPECIALIZED in hurting feelings. If you came away from a feminist meeting and your feelings weren't hurt, by God, you hadn't been paying attention! And now, lots of boo-hooing every time someone dares to speak openly and offers a controversial position. Speaking openly is OPPRESSING people, all by itself. Just by posting your opinion on a blog, you are OPPRESSING PEOPLE, didya know that?

Yes, it's our old friends, the FAT ACCEPTANCE MOVEMENT, dictating how we should feel wonderful about our copious, fleshy mounds of fat: FEEL GOOD, GODDAMYA!!! And if you don't, they are gonna FLAME YOU and BLOGSWARM you and GANG-PILE YOU, until you holler uncle... (or AUNT in this case, since we are discussing feminism).

I was trolled and belittled by the Fat Patrol in this thread, and subsequently very dramatically de-linked by a whole bunch of "feminists" in short order (that old phrase "herd of independent minds" just popped into my head, for some reason). So, I guess I can say whatever I like now.

And what I think is: these people are self-important, narcissistic bullies. Even on a thread in which I talk about my own pain, and my accompanying fear that I won't be able to WORK because of knee-pain (you know, my livelihood? The way I actually earn a living?!) --I was attacked for daring to say that. (Luckily, most of these "feminists" don't actually do much political activism in real life; besides the mass-tantrum/de-linking, there haven't been many repercussions, as there might be if they actually DID something.)

I know, you are thinking, wait, I thought feminism was about self-accceptance? And becoming capable and strong and alla that good stuff? Ha! You don't know jack. Online feminism of the blogular variety is increasingly all about belly-aching and declaring how "triggered" you are by every damn thing in the world.

The post, by a writer named Monica, titled "Fat and Health"--which was a good title, I thought--was attacked over and over for daring to reference the BMI (Body Mass Index). As readers here know, I was initially alarmed by my own weight when I cracked the "obese" category at long last, and my BMI shot up past the 30-mark. For me, the BMI was a wake-up call, and I found it helpful. No, it doesn't explain everything about a person. I do hard work, can lift more weight than many guys (she bragged) and I am sure my BMI is higher than the average woman my age, since I have muscle... the women in my family always looked like strapping farmhands with big bones and broad shoulders (evolutionarily chosen to pull plows, one assumes), rather than petite ladies-of-leisure. I have no illusions that I could ever look like a model, or even a "thin" person... but my knees must hold me up, since I intend to work from now on in my chosen field. My ability to work and my livelihood, like most working-class people, is directly connected to my health and fitness. And like most working-class people, I have NO CHOICE... although it sounds like many of these women in this thread DO have a choice. Apparently, fat doesn't interfere in their work and it's of no immediate consequence in their lives. It is something to be celebrated, period. My question: Do you work for a living? Do you do physical work, as most of us in the world must? Because if you don't, I guess whether your knees collapse and can't sustain you for 8 hours, is of no importance.

But you know, I don't like the desk-workers of the world telling me what my priorities must be. (To the desk-denizens: What if I told you carpal-tunnel syndrome is simply nothing to worry about? Would you resent my arrogance in making such a pronouncement?) Do you understand that the rest of us must work, in that case? Why do you want us to work in pain? Just for the sake of political correctness?

I didn't think Monica's post was fat-shaming and fat-hating, but then, I didn't think my post was either. I wanted to give Monica a heads-up: Hey, I wasn't even allowed to write about my OWN obesity without the Fat Acceptance Police trying to run me out of Blogdonia, so I know what they're gonna do to you, girlfriend.

A prize quote from the comments:

I hate this post. I hate you for writing it. I pretty strongly hate feministe for posting it.

I hate most of all the way it tempts us fatties into to going down a self-destructive path of good fattie/bad fattie, and one that is also destructive to other fat people. What I ate today is none of your business...

Actually, what you ate IS my business, since I subsidized it through farm subsidies, and it was probably packaged in a detrimental way to hurt the planet. (Likewise, what I eat is also your business.)

Tangential issue: If you ate animals, it is also my business, since I care about the animals and seek to make it harder and more expensive for you to eat animals, satisfying your palate with cruelty and pain. Meat-eating is also destroying the planet. That makes food everyone's business, since we all live here.

It is also my business how you fuel your car and how you get from one place to another. It is my business how you treat your kids, since they will grow up and impact the world *I* live in. We don't live in a vacuum, although capitalism (through worship of 'privacy' and 'brands') likes to continually assure us that we do, so they can sell us more and more stuff that we won't share with the people we don't know living right next door to us.

But even more than that... notice the "I hate you for writing it"--there is no polite, civil disagreement in Feminist Blogdonia these days. Everything has been ratcheted up a notch. Disagreement is now hate. At the time we can least afford it.

More prize quotes:

what the fuck is this post

what the fuck are your responses to people’s legitimate anger about the legitimately douchey and wrong things you said in this post

...

SO WHAT if some fat people are unhealthy.

SO WHAT if science could prove (with actual solid proof here, not just vague anecdotal evidence and wishful thinking) that being fat correlates directly with unhealthiness.

So what if one given fat person is fat because of “too many donuts” or “not enough exercise.” So what if they then have to use a stroller or wheelchair or mobility aids, or develop health problems or have to stay at the hospital.

It’s ok to be unhealthy.

It’s ok to be disabled. Because, underlying all those criticisms about fat, is also an underlying criticism about disability, particularly when it’s being perceived as a choice.

Oh, bullshit.

Fat, by itself, is not a disability. Indeed, fat can CAUSE disability, which is an issue for those of us who have to work; as we see, this person obviously doesn't. (And if you do work for a living, can I ask how your co-workers will feel when they have to carry your workload while you are hospitalized, et. al.? Will you be interfering with their days off, desired shifts, vacations and suchlike? Of course you will. And do you care about that?)

In case you didn't know, there is a new sheriff in town, and he ain't particularly nice. (You know the sheriff has got his problems too/And he will surely take them out on you) [1] Your health care is going to be paid for by me, and a bunch more people lots more intolerant than me. And yeah, the masses of people paying for government-run health care might just disagree with you a wee bit, if they/we are the ones paying for your hospital stay brought on by "too many donuts"... know what I'm saying? See reference to privacy and capitalism, above. You don't live in a vacuum. Your choices directly impact me and mine impact yours. Otherwise, why vote, why recycle, why bother?

More winning comments:

Fuck you, Monica. Fuck your arrogant tone and FUCK your dismissive attitude.

Gets right to the point!

All these college kids, and it seems not a single one learned to debate properly, reduced to redneck comments like FUCK YOU. Well, at least I didn't waste a half-million dollars and come out more stupid than when I went in...for which small mercies I am grateful.

who the fuck are you that I need to defend my size, my eating habits, and my exercise regiments to, regardless of how healthy or unhealthy they may be.

She'll gobble up as many animals as she pleases, thanks! (What's really bizarre is how many of these comments claim to BE FROM vegans and vegetarians, using the same arguments the carnivores routinely use: My food choices are my business.)

And finally:

Wow, never have I seen such disrespect towards a guest blogger- especially after the Feministe editors were very specific in advance that diverse perspectives would be offered.

Yeah.

This is the way it is on the Left right now, the Glenn Becking of America. We are eating our own; we are devouring the coalition whole.

As I said in this post, it will reach a fever pitch, culminating in the ousting of Obama for a hard-core conservative, and the Left will be "in exile" for about a year, maybe two. I hope it isn't any longer, or that could mean Major Trouble.

This isn't the time to say "fuck you" to each other, you ignorant prats.

But I guess you'll find that out soon enough, the hard way... and the way I had to learn, also.


...

[1] Warren Zevon, Mohammed's Radio

[2] Don't forget Greta Christina: Open Letter to the Fat Positive Movement.

More on Israel, Gaza, antisemitism and Armageddon

Although I have written before about having a "black" first name, I have never before written about having a Jewish last name, as I did for over 6 years.

I loved the combination, which made everybody just stare at me... and this was before Whoopi Goldberg became famous, using a similar fun name.

As I have written here, my father and I never got along, and I was therefore happy for the opportunity to dump his name. At age 19, I married a Jewish man, and decided it was my golden opportunity. I changed it as fast as I could. I didn't think twice. Good riddance, I thought, and I have never regretted it. [1]

I liked the double takes I got, from my African-American-associated first name, coupled with the Jewish last name. People would just *blink*--and it was fun and exotic to me.

At first, anyway.

I won't give the name here, but I will say the kind of name it is: Steinberg, Seinfeld, Silverman, Goldstein, Rosenthal. There isn't any question what kind of name it is. [2]

I like to think I catch on quick; it took me no time at all to figure out that there was significant negative fallout from having a Jewish surname. And I was totally unprepared for it. After all, I didn't grow up with the name. Who knew?

In school; on the job; in the Philadelphia airport or the Pittsburgh Greyhound depot; in a doctor or dentist's office; in an argument with some activists in D.C.... and countless other instances I have undoubtedly forgotten. The name would get exaggerated for effect: STEIN-BERG, dragged-out, an unexpected emphasis on the syllables, a certain weird facial expression... showing unmistakable surprise, quickly followed with barely-disguised contempt. A narrowing of the eyes, an unexpected glare or coldness from one who had been friendly only seconds before hearing the surname. In one instance, a superior who engaged in an ongoing, deliberate mispronouncing of the name in endless variations, virtually daring me to correct him.

I learned.

Therefore, let me assure you, I would never argue, in a million years, that antisemitism isn't real or is not a force to be reckoned with. In fact, over the years, I have repeatedly had to argue with skeptical, enlightened-liberal gentiles that YES, IT IS.

And so, in the giant monster thread over at Feministe (the first of a several-part series), I was more than willing to listen to David Schraub's analysis of how Israel's attack on Gaza, of which I have been very critical, must include an analysis of antisemitism.

Unfortunately, I don't think he made the case very well. Which isn't to say he isn't right.[3]

~*~

I moved south in 1987, where there are far fewer Jews than there are in the north, apart from certain long-standing enclaves in the cities (Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta)[4] and retirement areas (Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head). As in the movie Norma Rae (wherein Sally Field suddenly blurts out "You a Jew?"), there can be a free-floating hostility to Jews for reasons nobody can really explain. (In Norma Rae, she adds "I never met a Jew before! I thought yall had HORNS!") Since there has been so little previous interaction, the antisemitism is mixed with general xenophobia. Jews are regarded as weird strangers with strange ideas, and usually liberals.

But not always.

In moving to Greenville, South Carolina, I learned I was moving to a smallish southern town that had elected a Jewish mayor back in the 70s. (Max Heller)

You say what?! I was stunned; certainly, there are plenty of northern towns and cities that can't make that claim. At my first area gig, I learned that wasn't odd at all... local Baptists often regard Jews as special and 'chosen'...after all, they are Jesus Christ's own relatives. And from then on, I discovered a whole fundamentalist Christian cult around Jews and Jewishness, that I had not known existed.

This cultish devotion permeates modern Protestant evangelical theology today. It is most obvious in the whole LEFT BEHIND [5] cult, but is also apparent in the feverish obsession with eschatology in general.

And let me be very clear: this theology prizes the state of Israel, almost as much as it does the USA.

Israel is the crucial cornerstone of this theology. Without Israel, Christian end-times prophecies simply can not happen. Making sure these events DO happen, is regarded as one of the charges to fundamentalist and evangelical Christians; something they have literally conflated with The Great Commission.

Conservative writer Rod Dreher, back in 2002:

It may sound strange, but it's true: Aside from Jews, the strongest American supporters of Israel are Evangelical Christians, many of whom fervently believe God has granted the Jewish people a divine right to rule over historic Palestine. At times like the present, when the Jewish state is largely friendless in a hostile world, the Israelis depends on the backing of this politically potent bloc of American voters to exhort Washington to look favorably upon its interests.

"I think it would be fair to say that Evangelical support for Israel and its legitimate security interests has been paramount to Israel's support in Congress and in many administrations, second only to the Jewish Committee itself," says Republican political consultant Ralph Reed. "The Jewish community has played a strong role in keeping the Democratic party strongly pro-Israel, and Evangelicals have played a similar role among Republicans."

In 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then prime minister of Israel, was not falsely flattering an Evangelical audience in Washington when he said to them: "We have no greater friends and allies than the people sitting in this room." Indeed, as Columbia University religion scholar Randall Balmer puts it: "Evangelicals have been very charitable, to say the least, toward Israel, because they believe the Jews are the Chosen People of God, even though they failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah. They believe that God's promises to Israel are still good, and that any nation that doesn't line up with Israel is against God."

In this climate, to hold the opinion that Israel is out of line to attack Gaza, is to attack Christianity itself. (As one who took that position a couple of weeks ago, my subsequent emails are a testament to that very strong conviction.)

Thus, when I criticize Israel, I criticize the wedding of Christian theology to government... the unholy union of Church and State, which I think is unfailingly catastrophic for both Church and State, as history has repeatedly shown us.

I am very, very disappointed in David Schraub and other liberal apologists for Israel, who look the other way when this is pointed out to them.

My comments directed to Schraub (blogger at The Debate Link) during the Feministe brawl, echo my exasperation that the conversation remains focused on Israelis vs. Palestinians, overlooking that sticky issue of WHERE THE MONEY TO MAKE WAR COMES FROM in the first place. I was pretty much ignored by people (including Schraub) who don't want to look at that... and having just had a long and convoluted conversation with a fundamentalist Christian who wears a Star of David (really), I am then astounded to go to a thread wherein people say things like "Jews are hated by most"... say what?!?

The juxtaposition of these world-views (my daily-existence here in hyper-Baptist upstate SC/the version of reality reflected in the thread) makes me dizzy. Erasure does that to people. I finally get it: This is New York, the East coast, the West coast, people with highfalutin educations talking. They have no idea what's going on out here. Clueless as hell. They don't even know the lyrics to "Our God is an awesome God"--I should not be surprised. These were the people who were slack-jawed at Sarah Palin's rise; these are the people who argue about Gaza at elite cocktail parties, not with people of faith.

But you know, when you count the votes, they start to add up. There are a lot of us that don't live on the coasts. There are a lot of us who don't even go to fundamentalist churches, yet can give you the 1-2-3 of apocalyptic events, right after the Rapture. It's just osmosis. Of course we know. We know what the Book of Revelation says, what the antichrist is supposed to do, what the Tribulation will involve. This is second-nature if you live in certain corners of the south; how do you avoid hearing about it? I am Catholic, and I was officially told that the End of Days would be, you know (dismissive wave of the hand) a long time from now. I have never heard a single Catholic sermon on the End Times, unless it's to warn you to stop obsessing about it. (My priest, whom I have criticized here before, actually told people in our parish to stop reading the dopey Left Behind books, unless they properly understood it was all fiction.) Everything I know about the Rapture, was communicated to me via Bible tracts, personal conversation, radio, TV, emails, and numerous intense sermons delivered face-to-face.

And as I attempted to tell the intrepid David Schraub: These people are all 100% pro-Israel. Schraub talks about "gentile privilege"--and then refuses to see that the backing of Israel by these Christians, is part and parcel of that privilege.

On the tumultuous thread in question, I wrote:

And I believe an understanding of fundamentalist Christian prophecy, (The Book of Revelation, Armageddon, The Rapture and Tribulation, the antichrist, false prophets, et. al.) is necessary to understand exactly why many Christians will gladly pay any amount of money necessary to do what they believe is crucial to Israel’s survival, which of course means mowing down the heathens and infidels that surround it. No questions asked… I mean, that IS part of the prophecy…you know that, right?

I’m amazed at how many people don’t.

The Southern Baptist Convention (to name only the largest denomination that subscribes to these prophecies) has over 16 million members and more than 42,000 churches. And this isn’t counting the Sarah Palin Pentecostals and countless other fellow-traveler denominations. Now, imagine all those votes, from very politically active people, deciding where the money goes.

Do you see now?

And then David replied:

Daisy: I’ll be talking somewhat about the role Christians have been playing in constructing the norms of philo-Zionist discourse in America a little bit in parts III and IV (short answer, I think what they’re doing is horrific), but the better discussion would be found in my post Can Zionism Be Defended by Proxies?

And if you go to that linked post, you basically get David saying, Wow, we wish the wacko Christians wouldn't use us like that...

You sure?

Rod Dreher again:

...tens of millions of Protestant Christians (though not all Evangelicals) [believe in the Rapture], and they tend to back Israel with an uncritical fervor that exceeds that of even some American Jews. The Israeli government tapped this deep, unlikely vein of support in the 1970s, and has assiduously courted these Christians for a generation — especially because many self-described "Christian Zionists" back Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as part of God's prophetic plan. One of the leading Christian Zionist organizations is the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, a nondenominational Protestant group (without diplomatic standing) which established a presence in the Israeli capital in 1980.

"We're trying daily to encourage the Israeli people," says Susan Michael, director of ICEJ's Washington office. "The Israelis are very depressed. We want to let them know that they have friends who understand the battle they're in."

Esther Levens is a Jew and a Kansas Republican who founded an ecumenical group called National Unity Coalition for Israel, a network of over 200 Jewish and Christian congregations who pray for, donate to and lobby on behalf of the Jewish state. She chides American Jews for being "a little short-sighted" in not properly valuing the efforts Christian conservatives make for Israel.

What is David Schraub saying to Esther Levens and her friends? Anything?

I replied, in part:

David–no offense, but I found a lot lacking in that post you linked to. I’ll be writing more about this myself, because I think it’s a major paradox that needs illuminating when we discuss these issues.

If you want to discuss “gentile privilege”–then understanding that the present agenda has little to do with you, and everything to do with the gentiles, is a necessary first step. You don’t seem ready to do that, since this discomfiting reality disturbs you. Of course, the gentiles will use Israel as the gentiles see fit. That’s what privilege is.

FACT: Zionists are actively collaborating with hard-line fundamentalist Christians, who seek to bring about the conditions necessary for the Second Coming. Period. You don’t get to tell them to back off. They have the privilege, remember? They are calling the shots; you have helped to create a monster. What are you going to do about that, besides pointing at Rick Warren and Mike Huckabee and going “Ew!” –? (PS: They don’t care what you think, they have a prophecy to fulfill.)

You have reminded me of the joke about the southern Baptist preacher who was asked if he believed in infant Baptism.

“Are you kidding?” he said, “I’ve SEEN it done!”

…

“Can Zionism be defended by Proxies?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve SEEN it done!”

Of course, this whole discussion is far from over, and Part II up already, titled Anti-Semitism and Subordination Part II: The Myth of Jewish Hyper-Power...in which Schraub writes:

Folks talk about the way the Christian Evangelical community defends Israel. But as far as I’m concerned, their defenses are anti-Semitic too – the glee they hold at the prospect of Israel being the front-line of the “clash of civilizations” is taking pleasure in Jews dying for their cause.

No, their defenses are not textbook antisemitism... again, Schraub doesn't live here, and has obviously never spoken to these people he thinks he knows.

It is IDEALIZATION of Jews that marks the Evangelical approach, the idea that they are the Chosen People and can therefore do no wrong. [6]

The dominance of the Christian narratives amongst the defenses of Israel considered acceptable in the global sphere isn’t proof of Jewish power, but Jewish irrelevancy. Our voice gets superseded by Christian speakers who claim to be speaking on our behalf, but in fact are articulating a vision of “pro-Israel” that is very hostile to Jewish interests (this is one of the reasons I find groups like AIPAC allying with such speakers to be utterly unforgivable).

How is supporting Israel hostile to Jewish interests? In my humble opinion, that appears to be THE major Jewish interest right now, as evidenced by Schraub's whole series.

~*~


By coincidence, I wrote some of this when I was exhausted from cleaning up a huge mess of Acai berry juice, cheerfully flung across the floor of the store where I toil... by a 3-year-old ball of energy, a human pinball he was, bouncing off the walls and into the produce bins.

"Zion!" his mama kept calling, sternly, "Zion!"

Zion's beleaguered mama was wearing Quiverfull clothes and had five or six other energetic children to tend to.

In short, I very much doubt his name was a reference to THE MATRIX.




~*~



[1] I have been married three times, and I have had three last names. This, of course, echoes my mother, married four times, with four names. She always told me, if you want to be cool, you have the right to use all of them together, just as the Hollywood media has sometimes referred to my idol as Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Warner Fortensky. Sometimes, I like to put them all together like that, just to see how it sounds. It makes me sound either like a floozy or worldly, can't decide which.

(Since Liz was married to Richard Burton twice, does that mean we should repeat "Burton" twice? Do any of you Miss Manners fans know the answer to that one?)

[2] Lots of jolly fun at THIS WEBSITE... where you can find out the ethnic derivation of names, and where in the world they are concentrated. My maiden name, for instance, is most concentrated in Waimate District, New Zealand and Leeds in the UK.

This website is as addicting as Hershey's Kisses and you will eventually end up entering every name you know.

[3] Other participants in the thread asked why we had to talk about antisemitism, specifically. What about the concurrent hatred of the people under attack? Are we discussing hatred of Palestinians also? I think this is an excellent point, never sufficiently addressed by Schraub. In any event, I am putting this question on the back-burner for now, to better address my subject. But I do want to acknowledge the importance of this point, and underscore it here.

[4] For those who don't know about the lynching of Jewish factory-owner Leo Frank in Atlanta in 1915, educate yourselves.

[5] The co-author of these billion-selling books, Tim LaHaye, is a famous alumni of Bob Jones University, frequent subject of this blog.

[6] I find this whole sentiment to be reminiscent of the ancient claims about the Merovingian monarchs, recently popularized by the novel, The Da Vinci Code. The concept was that the Merovingian kings of France were actual descendants from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. If this were true, of course, overthrowing them would have been 'blasphemous' and impossible. (This is likely one reason that the royal family never debunked the rumors, even as they regarded themselves as devout Catholics.)

The Evangelical concept that Jews are "Jesus' family" and (as I once heard a local preacher say) have "His actual blood running through their veins"--seems based on the mystical idea that Jews are holy simply by virtue of being related to God Himself. And if Israel is their ancestral home, then Israel is holy, too, and must be defended at all costs.