It's amazing how people turn themselves into pretzels trying to justify things said by their friends or their favourite political party leaders that they would go apeshit over if said by anyone else.
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Heather Mallick's Column
Wed, 2008-09-10 15:55
#52
M. Spector
Wed, 2008-09-10 15:58
#53
Does anyone remember that yanquisard who called us "frozen hillbillies"?
Wed, 2008-09-10 16:12
#54
Boom Boom
For some reason, I'm reminded of this Facebook group that I stumbled across:
[url=http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30448546335]Gun-owning, Bible Believing Women Against Sarah Palin[/url]
excerpt: I own a gun. I believe the Bible contains all things necessary to salvation. And I believe Sarah Palin being elected VP is the worst thing that could happen on Nov. 4th. So, so much for stereotypes about who will support Sarah Palin!
Wed, 2008-09-10 16:16
#55
quote:
Originally posted by Sineed:
[b]If I were to call, say, one of my clients at the methadone clinic "white trash," it would be hurtful and offensive. But Heather is taking this pejorative and turning it on its head to apply it to someone who is potentially a heartbeat away from the presidency; [/b]
Actually, no she didn't. She used it to describe the people she figures might vote for Palin, not Palin herself.
quote:
She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.
And even when people use that term to describe rich white people like Palin, it's still classist, because the reason it would be an insult is because it would mean that person is no better than a poor, uneducated person.
Wed, 2008-09-10 16:20
#56
ElizaQ
quote:
Originally posted by Boom Boom:
[b]For some reason, I'm reminded of this Facebook group that I stumbled across:[url=http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30448546335]Gun-owning, Bible Believing Women Against Sarah Palin[/url]
excerpt: I own a gun. I believe the Bible contains all things necessary to salvation. And I believe Sarah Palin being elected VP is the worst thing that could happen on Nov. 4th. So, so much for stereotypes about who will support Sarah Palin![/b]
I've stumbled across a few similar places where similar sentiments are mentioned. I don't link to any because to be truthful they aren't so nice in many regards. She's not universially loved without critique in the realm the what you'd loosely call the rural Christian Right.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 16:22
#57
M. Spector
quote:
Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
[b]Does anyone remember that yanquisard who called us "frozen hillbillies"?[/b]
Is that а propos of John Doyle calling S. Palin an "Alaska hillbilly" (a term Mallick
wishes she'd "had the wit" to come up with first)?
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 16:31
#58
quote:
Ironic racism is not allowed on babble. Yet you defend classist, racist terminology directed in anger at another babbler as being "sarcasm".
I agree. If one type of "ironic racism" is not permitted, the same should apply to "white trash." Assuming Malick meant to be ironic.
Wed, 2008-09-10 17:01
#59
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]Is that а propos of John Doyle calling S. Palin an "Alaska hillbilly" (a term Mallick
wishes she'd "had the wit" to come up with first)?
[/b]
Indirectly, I suppose.
I don't have the patience to do a rabble search on him, but this yahoo (I don't remember what he called himself) was pretty funny in displaying his ignorance of Canadians while berating us. He was banned within a couple of weeks of appearing here, if I remember correctly.
Wed, 2008-09-10 17:22
#60
Heather's mistake was in choosing a crude caricature of life in the U.S. Heartland, instead of doing the research to find the nuances that make a real difference in understanding the variety of social life there.
As Joe Bageant explains (from the persepective of a long-time resident):
[QUOTE]
Life is about work for the American redneck. By redneck, I mean all kinds of rednecks, not just southern ones, ranging from Polish and Hungarian stock rednecks of the Appalachian coal country to the Scandinavian ones of the logging Northwest. In the South and the Midwest there are even Jewish rednecks who drive muscle cars and brawl and love country music. For all these people work is an obsession and has been for generations stretching back to the textile mills, the homesteads of the West and Midwest, the immigrant labor mines of West Virginia and Colorado and Montana, the subsistence farms of the South. The forbears of today’s rednecks were people for whom not working meant their families would starve. Literally. So the work ethic is burned into their genetic code.
(Incidentally, I am not talking about white trash here. I am talking about rednecks, the difference being that rednecks work themselves to death and will never accept a handout. White trash folks do not have the same hang-up.) In the redneck mind, lazy is the worst thing a person can be -worse than dumb, drunk or mean, worse than being a liar and a jailbird or crazy. The absolute worst thing that a redneck can say about anyone is: “He doesn’t want to work,” which is generally followed by “Hell, I don’t want to either, but I have to.” By the same logic, educated liberals who have time to read, who in fact read so much that they join book clubs, are suspect.
[END QUOTE]
Palin is a redneck, and appeals to rednecks.
John Doyle is also being lazy in simply classifying Palin as "Alaskan Hillbilly". That's something out of an earlier time, a Lil' Abner creation from the Ozarks or the southern Appalachians.
And I hope that nobody will see Bageant as guilty of anything more than bringing light to opaque - and clearly sensitive areas - of liberal thought. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
----------------------------------------------
farmpunk with his take on Bageant's Deer Hunting With Jesus:
[QUOTE]
Farmpunk
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12955
posted 06 September 2008 12:07 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bageant writes nothing like HST. That's jacket copy fluff.
Some of Bageant's racial commentaries will not go over well with babblers, George. Accept that.
[END QUOTE]
You warned me, three or four times, and I'm now a believer, farmpunk. Yessirree bob! But I'm still surprised as hell.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 17:36
#61
I think that Mallick could have used "redneck", but she was going for an extra amount of contempt, the one rednecks have for WT if I follow Bageant's analysis. Could she have unconsciously been trying to insert her critique between the two groups, kow-towing to the redneck vote? A difficult trick to achieve when wearing a pearl necklace. More simply, she was really speaking to her own group, trying to wean pundits away from Palin's draw. It's somewhat trickier to try and warn the people away from a populist when you're heads and shoulders above their class.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 17:41
#62
If she also says that Alaskan Hillbilly sounds good, what makes you think that she knows the difference (to the people who are involved). I believe she is an honest writer and would not have misrepresented the "thinking" (if one can use that concept about people that Bageant says are truly unread and ignorant) of the people themselves.
Wed, 2008-09-10 17:59
#63
Urban, educated people work too. Some of them are privileged, but more and more of us are doing freelance, temporary or contingent work. I spend the whole fucking day reading (on the screen, dictionaries, reference works). Reading can also be work.
I don't think being hard-working is the reason for the deep suspicion of "intellectuals" in US culture. People work just as much in other countries - in poorer countries they have to work harder still - but there is not the same degree of anti-intellectualism.
And I have a lot of working-class relatives (working class in the traditional sense, such as garment workers) who wear pearl or gold necklaces whenever they can. But the poor dears are urban, so I guess they aren't the "heartland"...
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:05
#64
I don't read misrepresentation. Mallick's an awesome column, reaching into all kinds of unexplored places where we progressives fear to tread about what drives our opposition. But it still fails on a level I can't quite grasp but which her choice of insults illustrates.
Andrea Dworkin is one of the few North-American writers who has tried to describe, understand and touch our failing at countering how women are suckered by the Right into a self-destructive politic - something Mallick also summarizes brilliantly. Dworkin went as far as to actually attend a Republican Party convention, where she was almost mobbed, an experience she recounts in her book [url=http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/RightWingWomenAbortion.html]"Right-Wing Women"[/url]. She positions that failing in the male Left's obdurate misogyny and sexual self-interest, esp. around the issue of abortion.
quote:
GV: ...I believe she is an honest writer and would not have misrepresented the "thinking" (if one can use that concept about people that Bageant says are truly unread and ignorant) of the people themselves....
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:09
#65
Frustrated Mess
She's real, she has guts, and she speaks her mind strongly and forcefully. Good for her. The Left is so busy parsing every freakin' sentence it's paralyzed and useless and its issues are eroding by the second. The failure of the left is the failure of the left to quit fucking naval gazing.
Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled eating of your own.
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:14
#66
Ahem, right.
If you read, and try to understand what's going on in the world, you don't fall into any of those categories.
[QUOTE]
What’s needed, he adds, is “for someone to say out loud: ’ Now lookee here, dammit! We are dumber than a sack of hair and should ‘a got an education so we would have half a notion of what’s going on in the world.’ Someone once told me that and, along with the advice never to mix Mad Dog 20/20 with whiskey, it is the best advice I ever received. But no one in America is about to say such a thing out lout because it sounds elitist. It sounds un-American and undemocratic. It also might get your nose broken in certain venues.”
[END QUOTE]
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:31
#67
quote:
When someone says that someone is "white trash" there is an assumption in that phrase. An assumption that "trash" usually isn't "white" and therefore when it is, the phrase needs to be qualified.
So if I say that John McCain is an Old White Fool is there an assumption that anyone who is not old and white is also a fool?
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:36
#68
I found George Victor's Joe Bageant quote (what's the source, by the way?) interesting; he's describing where I come from, although I'd never describe...well...most of my family as "rednecks."
quote:
A difficult trick to achieve when wearing a pearl necklace.
"Pearl necklace"? Does such blatantly sexist language have a place on babble?
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:38
#69
FMs comment on the exchange in this thread:
[QUOTE]
Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled eating of your own.
[END QUOTE]
Could the chief interlocutor please round out this rather catchy comment, "flesh it out" for this cannibal?
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:42
#70
Dworkin makes me a bit ill. Not because she was a "radical feminist" (with all that implies good and bad) but because she was profoundly self-destructive and it really comes out in her writing.
Her anti-sexual stuff gives me the creeps, much as I've rebelled against male entitlement in that milieu.
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:42
#71
The "source", Al, is there in the book lounge, right next door.
Have a boo. You'll find there's a standing invitation in that thread for just such comments.
Prove farmpunk wrong! [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:44
#72
I dunno, he usually does that all by himself.
[ed.]
Ok, after skimming through that thread I have to apologise to Farmpunk.
I agree with some of what he said over there, although I disagree with his generalisation of babblers as being fans of "academic" writing. I have three degrees, and I detest that pompous fluff.
This is dead-on, though:
quote:
The strongest parts of the book are when Bageant writes about the dissconnection between the people who live in small town America and the political class\elites and the economic reality of smaller town life. It reminded me of how some babblers, myself included, have written about how and why the NDP has little rural Canadian presence.
Over on Enmasse we had a Toronto Nude Em (he bugs people here, too) telling us western hayseeds how stupid we were for feeling alienated by the down-east urban focus of the NDP.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:46
#73
quote:
"Pearl necklace"? Does such blatantly sexist language have a place on babble?
I don't think this indication is sexist, although I will stand corrected if women tell me so. I wrote it as an indicator of Mallick's class and could have written, "Not a easy trick to achieve when you are an acclaimed broadcaster."
Wed, 2008-09-10 18:59
#74
quote:
She's real, she has guts, and she speaks her mind strongly and forcefully. Good for her. The Left is so busy parsing every freakin' sentence it's paralyzed and useless and its issues are eroding by the second. The failure of the left is the failure of the left to quit fucking naval gazing.
Exactly. Palin is a vicious lying openly racist fanatic who is poised to be the Vice President of the world's most powerful country and people are concerned that we might have somehow insulted those who are brutishly ignorant and dangerous as she is?
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:05
#75
Ah, okay. So if we don't like Condi Rice and Colin Powell, then we'll just call them the n-word, shall we?
And if we don't like Palin's female supporters, we'll just call them all a bunch of stupid cunts. That's okay, right?
I saw a whole bunch of dumb cunts at the Republican convention cheering on Palin. Man, what a bunch of rich bitch whores, huh?
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:06
#76
In reponse to NRK: Yup. Insulting the people whose vote you're trying to sway is - if only that - bad politics.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:13
#77
That was the problem with the incessant "Bush is a moron" stuff that ran throughout the last eight years. True or not, it was calling all his supporters morons too and only served to make them defensive and less open to the message of how bad his presidency is.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:20
#78
quote:
In reponse to NRK: Yup. Insulting the people whose vote you're trying to sway is - if only that - bad politics.
Is it Heather Mallick's intention; to sway the opinion of vicious bigots with entrenched fanatical attachment to reactionary ideologies? I would think more her intent is to expose dangerous small minded reactionaries for what they are.
quote:
Ah, okay. So if we don't like Condi Rice and Colin Powell, then we'll just call them the n-word, shall we?
Sorry but that is purely unimaginative and gratuitous relativism. This is clearly not the same thing and you know that.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:21
#79
Frustrated Mess
You are not going to sway their votes unless you a) agree a woman is subservient to a man; b) the earth is only 10 thousand years old and Darwin is a tool of Satan, and; c) climate change is a hoax to prevent us from our God given right to use up every damned last drop of oil.
Grow up.
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]Ah, okay. So if we don't like Condi Rice and Colin Powell, then we'll just call them the n-word, shall we?And if we don't like Palin's female supporters, we'll just call them all a bunch of stupid cunts. That's okay, right?
I saw a whole bunch of dumb cunts at the Republican convention cheering on Palin. Man, what a bunch of rich bitch whores, huh?[/b]
Bull. Whatever the origins of the term "white trash" it is different from the contemporary meaning which usually encompasses people like Palin who have a streak of racism:
quote:
“So Sambo beat the bitch!”This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
[url=http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-w... are the supporters you want to sway?[/url]
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:28
#80
Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
While you are all debating small delicate things about whether I am a nasty piece of work and should I receive your guarded approval or limited hatred, here's what I'm up against, out of hundreds of racist, women-hating, sick emails I received today on my website, admittedly almost entirely from Americans.
[email protected]
Message: So you don\'t like Sarah Palin you ugly slut? Fuck you, you liberal piece of shit. I\'ll bet your cunt smells like rotten meat. You are one ugly cunt. I\'d love to punch you right in your chops and knock every tooth out of your head. Come see me bitch! I have something for you. Something all liberal pieces of shit need. Fuck off and die you fucking cunt!
Now you argue with this guy. I leave you to it.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:29
#81
I think we're presuming there are people existing between the two extremes of "us" and "them", otherwise why bother talking about these things at all? Let "us" be us and "them" be them and never the twain shall meet.
The only motive for trying to expose "them" is the existence of people who are to some extent open to "their" message, but still not impervious to reason. You won't reach these people by insulting them.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:32
#82
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
[b]
What I found really offensive was having a Stephen Harper picture up, with his thumb up, on the rabble main page. Though one could choose to take it as his giving approval for Mallick's words, I suppose.[/b]
[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/jesteronomy/CARR1QCL.jpg[/img]
![http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/jesteronomy/CARR1QCL.jpg[/img]](http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f192/jesteronomy/CARR1QCL.jpg[/img]){kind=link}
Here's a better picture of our Steve, remind. No thumbs.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:33
#83
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
No. The left can't succeed 'cause its far to busy developing a clique of puritans who one day will lead absolutely no one to the land of anti-septic sterility.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:33
#84
Timebandit
quote:
And if we don't like Palin's female supporters, we'll just call them all a bunch of stupid cunts. That's okay, right?
On reflection, I'd have a lot less difficulty than you'd think.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:34
#85
quote:
Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
It has nothing to do with the guy who sent you that e-mail. The left doesn't succeed in Canada because powerful, wealthy, corrupt interests are aligned against us. They have no culture besides a culture of greed and privilege, but they do use cultural differences to drive wedges between people who should have common interests against them. You do their work for them when you smear people with broad brushes.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:38
#86
Timebandit
quote:
Originally posted by Jacob Two-Two:
[b]It has nothing to do with the guy who sent you that e-mail. The left doesn't succeed in Canada because powerful, wealthy, corrupt interests are aligned against us. They have no culture besides a culture of greed and privilege, but they do use cultural differences to drive wedges between people who should have common interests against them. You do their work for them when you smear people with broad brushes.[/b]
Oh, come on! The quibble factor has something to do with it. We're all so busy parsing the language that the elephants in the room often don't get dealt with.
Sometimes strong language is the most appropriate, effective and conveys the best meaning.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Timebandit ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:43
#87
[QUOTE]
Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
While you are all debating small delicate things about whether I am a nasty piece of work and should I receive your guarded approval or limited hatred, here's what I'm up against, out of hundreds of racist, women-hating, sick emails I received today on my website, admittedly almost entirely from Americans.
[END QUOTE]
-------------------------------------
I just said you should read Bageant for a more nuanced description of the folks voting for Palin in Heartland.
Otherwise, I love you still. Always have. Always will. [img]cool.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:46
#88
quote:
Originally posted by HeatherM:
[b]Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?
While you are all debating small delicate things about whether I am a nasty piece of work and should I receive your guarded approval or limited hatred, here's what I'm up against, out of hundreds of racist, women-hating, sick emails I received today on my website, admittedly almost entirely from Americans.[email protected]
Message: So you don\'t like Sarah Palin you ugly slut? Fuck you, you liberal piece of shit. I\'ll bet your cunt smells like rotten meat. You are one ugly cunt. I\'d love to punch you right in your chops and knock every tooth out of your head. Come see me bitch! I have something for you. Something all liberal pieces of shit need. Fuck off and die you fucking cunt!Now you argue with this guy. I leave you to it.[/b]
Why not just have your husband delete it unread rather than revel in it?
You make a good living with your schtick, much like Anne Coulter and Mark Steyn so,the level of vituperative emails is a measure of your success.
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:52
#89
quote:
Originally posted by HeatherM:
While you are all debating small delicate things about whether I am a nasty piece of work and should I receive your guarded approval or limited hatred,
That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think, Heather? I didn't see anyone here call you a nasty piece of work or say they hated you, except for one newbie troll that I banned for being such a misogynist pig.
quote:
here's what I'm up against, out of hundreds of racist, women-hating, sick emails I received today on my website, admittedly almost entirely from Americans.[email protected]
Message: So you don\'t like Sarah Palin you ugly slut? Fuck you, you liberal piece of shit. I\'ll bet your cunt smells like rotten meat. You are one ugly cunt. I\'d love to punch you right in your chops and knock every tooth out of your head. Come see me bitch! I have something for you. Something all liberal pieces of shit need. Fuck off and die you fucking cunt!Now you argue with this guy. I leave you to it.
Why would we want to do that? I wouldn't engage someone like that at all. Clearly there's nothing to say to someone like that, you just stay the hell away from them.
I'm sorry, but words matter. Excluding language matters. Maybe not to people who aren't being excluded by it. They have the luxury of rolling their eyes and calling it "political correctness" when they are called on using excluding language. Because it doesn't affect them. It doesn't dehumanize them.
I'm sorry you have received hate mail. I know how it feels, having received some of it myself through my work here on babble. People have called me horrible things, both here and throughout my life at various times, but that doesn't give me a free pass to call working class or poverty-class and undereducated people "white trash".
Does this make me the reason the left never goes anywhere? Well, sorry, but "left" to me doesn't mean dehumanizing the already marginalized.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 19:57
#90
quote:
Oh, come on! The quibble factor has something to do with it. We're all so busy parsing the language that the elephants in the room often don't get dealt with.Sometimes strong language is the most appropriate, effective and conveys the best meaning.
I agree, but strong language doesn't have to feed into stereotypes or alienate the very people we're hoping to reach. It's satisfying when we're talking amongst ourselves, but if we're really trying to change minds, I don't believe it gets the job done.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:02
#91
quote:
I think we're presuming there are people existing between the two extremes of "us" and "them", otherwise why bother talking about these things at all? Let "us" be us and "them" be them and never the twain shall meet.The only motive for trying to expose "them" is the existence of people who are to some extent open to "their" message, but still not impervious to reason. You won't reach these people by insulting them.
Exactly so does it not make sense to expose Palin and her base for the corrupt dangerous fascists that they are intent on brutal foreign occupation, violation of human rights and torture as well as a continued assault on marginalized and impoverished communities domestically or do we go along with the image of Palin as a plucky hockey mom.
There are those that know Palin as she is and adore her for it and there are those who are buying into the soft pedalled image. I think it makes sense to make the latter group more aware of the reality.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:11
#92
[QUOTE]
There are those that know Palin as she is and adore her for it and there are those who are buying into the soft pedalled image. I think it makes sense to make the latter group more aware of the reality.
[END QUOTE]
----------------------------------------
By doing what. Telling them about a world with which you are familiar?
Well, come to think of it, that's what Bageant says is "the liberal way."
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:16
#93
Timebandit
quote:
Originally posted by jester:
[b]Why not just have your husband delete it unread rather than revel in it?
You make a good living with your schtick, much like Anne Coulter and Mark Steyn so,the level of vituperative emails is a measure of your success.[/b]
Where do you get the sense of reveling?
Honestly, I think this is uncalled for and just plain nasty -- I've been reading Heather M's columns for years and I've never seen anything even approaching the provocateur poses that Coulter and Steyn use. I think the comparison is way out of line.
As is to say, that such a malicious response represents success. That's just creepy.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:19
#94
Timebandit
quote:
Originally posted by Jacob Two-Two:
[b]I agree, but strong language doesn't have to feed into stereotypes or alienate the very people we're hoping to reach. It's satisfying when we're talking amongst ourselves, but if we're really trying to change minds, I don't believe it gets the job done.[/b]
Then we have to question whether that is, in fact, the job or the intent of the writer.
Frankly, what you're suggesting is a Sisyphian task. You can't reach people who have no interest in being reached.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:24
#95
ElizaQ
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
There are those that know Palin as she is and adore her for it and there are those who are buying into the soft pedalled image. I think it makes sense to make the latter group more aware of the reality.
It does make sense but not by calling people stupid useless, ignorant schmucks in the process. For one it doesn't work. I means I know that whenever someone tries to explain my wrongness of thinking by referring to me as a elitist, commie pinko, over-educated asswipe doesn't exactly make me to open to what they're saying.
Plus it totally CONFIRMS the narrative thats been cleverly set up between the 'elites and everyone else'.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:25
#96
al-Qa'bong:
[QUOTE]
Ok, after skimming through that thread I have to apologise to Farmpunk.
I agree with some of what he said over there, although I disagree with his generalisation of babblers as being fans of "academic" writing. I have three degrees, and I detest that pompous fluff.
This is dead-on, though:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The strongest parts of the book are when Bageant writes about the dissconnection between the people who live in small town America and the political class\elites and the economic reality of smaller town life. It reminded me of how some babblers, myself included, have written about how and why the NDP has little rural Canadian presence.
[END QUOTE]
-------
You should try to absorb the whole enchilada, al.
The kerfuffle that took place a few minutes ago is a wonderful demonstration of why, as people keep saying, "words matter", but they have to involve more than bits picked out of space because they look good, or somehow resonate with earlier accepted orthodoxy.
I found farmpunk's prediction about babblers' relectance to wrestle with those awful concepts beyond amazing. Why is it assumed that coming to understand how other people live and think we are going to be contaminated?
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:30
#97
RevolutionPlease
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]I'm sorry, but words matter. Excluding language matters. Maybe not to people who aren't being excluded by it. They have the luxury of rolling their eyes and calling it "political correctness" when they are called on using excluding language. Because it doesn't affect them. It doesn't dehumanize them.
...that doesn't give me a free pass to call working class or poverty-class and undereducated people "white trash".
Does this make me the reason the left never goes anywhere? Well, sorry, but "left" to me doesn't mean dehumanizing the already marginalized.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ][/b]
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
I normally enjoy Heather's work, please just take it as constructive criticism HM.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: RevolutionPlease ]
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: RevolutionPlease ]
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:35
#98
So do I!
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:39
#99
Jester:
[QUOTE]
Why not just have your husband delete it unread rather than revel in it?
You make a good living with your schtick, much like Anne Coulter and Mark Steyn so,the level of vituperative emails is a measure of your success.
[END QUOTE]
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You are obviously not a regular reader of Heather's. She writes with a sensitivity that I find in few others - albeit sometimes using language that few would dare.
Your suggestion, jester, that she "revels" in such drool, is itself something beneath contempt, an embarrassment to this board, and warrants your expulsion.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:45
#100
quote:
Originally posted by jester:
[b]Why not just have your husband delete it unread rather than revel in it?You make a good living with your schtick, much like Anne Coulter and Mark Steyn so,the level of vituperative emails is a measure of your success.[/b]
a) It's offensive for you to say that Heather is "much like Anne Coulter". It's a personal attack and not allowed here.
b) It's beyond offensive for you to imply that Heather somehow deserves to receive abusive and threatening hate mail because of what she writes, or to tell her that she "revels" in it.
Take a week off.
Wed, 2008-09-10 20:48
#101
ElizaQ
quote:
By doing what. Telling them about a world with which you are familiar?
George thank you. I've been struggling trying to put something to words which is still a bit airy in my mind but this makes it a bit more clear.
This is part of the problem in communicating.
I found this when I was searching around for USian reactions to this article. I found parts of it relevant.
[url=http://ambivablog.typepad.com/ambivablog/2008/09/why-are-republicans-so-... are Repubicans so better at Being Nasty[/url]
quote:
Why are Republicans so much better at this game? (Maybe the Dems need to hire Michael Reynolds? They have, but not on a national scale.) Especially when Democrats pride themselves on being the party of smart people?1) Wrong kind of smarts. Democrats don't have anything like the Republicans' grasp of people's basic emotions and the symbolism that connects to them. That feels insincere to people who have the luxury of dispassionate reasoning, and it is. But it works. Humans are symbolic animals. We don't perceive our own closest interests objectively. We perceive them through symbols that provoke strong, survival-level emotions. It takes a lot of education to deceive yourself that you've risen above that.
2) The Republicans always adopt the perspective of the underdog -- and not a long-suffering, help-needing underdog, but a proud and defiant one. Opposing that is a no-win proposition. Obama, too, knows the prejudices of his audience ("bitter . . . clinging to gus and religion"), but his audience is above looking down, not below looking up. So if he were to take a half-truth about Palin (her own biographical family dysfunction, e.g.) and combine it with the prejudices of his audience, he would come out basically calling Palin trailer trash, like Heather Mallick does. And boy, would that backfire.
[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]