From Orcinus via Nine Pearls, Altmouse I mean Qu'Emu I mean oh just take a guess, ANYWAY, viddy:
Why are you all so NASTY to her, y'all? DAMN. She DOESN'T LIKE IT. and there's NO CAUSE. none whatsoever! She's not like other people! She can't stand pain, it hurts her! no, do NOT bring up Jessica Valenti! no, not even as a one-sentence tentative partial answer as to why y'all don't like her! that is SO UNFAIR, and a character assasination, to bring that up. It's not part of what we were talking about! It makes her look bad! You are undermining her point, by bringing that up out of context! And old blogwars are so BORING and BESIDE the point, all she was TRYING TO DO is ask WHY all these liberal bloggers are VICIOUS and UNFAIR and NASTY toward her, and you RUINED IT. You are all such BASTARD PEOPLE.
...seriously, you gotta watch that shit. the body language alone. hoo boy.
on edit: Lawyers, Guns and Money has more commentary. good times.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
19 comments:
Did that ever catch Garrance-Ruta off guard. It's hard to know what to do when someone freaks out on ya for speaking the truth, but G-R still should have been prepared, after all she is talking to Althouse.
On the other hand G-R was so reserved and reasonable while Althouse is screaming at her about being mean and nasty. Who is mean and nasty? LOL
ROFLMAO...what I love is she openned door for the question then SNAPPED when it was asked. Woohoo.
I love how she goes on for like two, three minutes about how she DOES NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. NO.
god, she's got a mean petulant little mouth, hasn't she?
...no. who??
Ahem! Have we all forgotten about this so quickly?
Teh Crazy
I had a flashback of that thread as soon as I watched the interview. She totally snuck up and hit poor Garrance-Ruta with a Venti-sized cup of Teh Crazy.
Can one of you please get Althouse some weed so she can chill the hell out before she tries to interact with the humans on this planet?
yeah, poor G-R is right. and thank you: that was exactly it. that sort of poleaxed expression. which is EXACTLY the point of those peoples' behavior. as eli notes above, there's that telltale little smirk: she wasn't out of control, in fact; she knew exactly what she was doing (well, insofar as anyone that unconscious ever knows exactly what she's doing). that's what Coulter and ilk do, too. the exact content of what they're saying, as in an -argument- in any Earth logic sense, is not the point; the point is to stun the opposition into silence or at least submission. Works good, too. I'm in the process of going into more depth about -how- and -why- that works, above (to be posted as soon as i get a chance).
This is sort of telling, i thought:
******
Some of us writing political blogs started because we had a burning passion to say something to the world and some of us like right-wing legal blogger Ann Althouse, er, didn't:
Unlike a lot of other political bloggers, I started blogging with a distinct lack of interest in politics. My first post about a presidential campaign, back in January 2004, the first month of my blog, was purely an accident. I was reading The Isthmus, our free alternative newspaper here in Madison, Wisc., when I ran across a chart comparing the Democratic candidates for president.
Because I had the longtime habit, inherited from my grandfather, of reading out loud whatever little things in the newspaper happened to catch my attention, I said: “Hmm. ‘Little known fact: at 59, Wesley Clark has only 5% body fat.’ ”
My son Christopher, who was used to finding himself on the receiving end of this habit, came back with: “Should it be: ‘Wesley Clark is 5% body fat?’ ”
That cracked me up, and, instantly making the transition from old family habit to new blogging habit, I posted our little interchange on my blog. I didn’t care at all whether I was helping or hurting Clark’s campaign for the Democratic nomination. I had merely encountered something that amused me at the time. I wasn’t aiming to become a political pundit. That blog post had more to do with my interest in the rhetoric of dieting, the subtleties of language and my son’s sense of humor than with politics.
--New York Times (TimesSelect membership required)
There's a multitude of things I find unbelievable about this passage. First, that this incident was what motivated her first blog post. Second, that a political blogger admits to "a distinct lack of interest in politics." Third, that she finds this cute or funny or...I don't know what. Fourth, that the NY Times actually published this shit. Other than that, it's brilliant.
You know what bothers me? And nobody brings this up, but as I remember, Boobiegate was being way overplayed at the expense of WhiteBloggergate, and I remember a long conversation about it and how Jessica was going to be weighing on on it as soon as she got done with her problems with Ann and I don't recall that happening, really. Liza was left to swing on her own and everyone was busy coming up with reasons why we were all blowing it out of proportion and using racist attacks against people of color for pointing out the messed-up priorities of white bloggers.
Remember that?
And now, nobody wants to talk about "blog flame wars" because they're not productive. Which blog flame wars do you think they mean, do you think? Well, which ones aren't they talking about and still really haven't made any changes to their modus operandi and their messed-up priorities.
Everyone comes to the rescue, and I'm not speaking about you, Belle, cause you're dealing with the other issues, but everyone else screaming about what a bad, bad person Ann Althouse is continues to ignore the past and that there were other just as important things (and really, I think we can get some agreement that they were more important things at the time just because there was more of it, but let's not say one was worse than the other because I don't want to get into ranking) going on that the time.
It sure is convenient we've forgotten all that.
No, I'm not saying this well, because my memory is poor, but I remember a very different environment and yes it's a shame that this is happening and it shouldn't be, but come on. Can anyone help me understand why this is so important and the other stuff that sure seemed important at the time, that I remember engaging with a lot of you for the first time (under a different name which I don't use anymore, not online anyway) and we all agreed there was serious messed-up-ness going on.
Those problems never went away, we're continuing to deal with them and certain parties are continuing to not want to talk about them and this focusing on Ann Althouse is just marginalizing what happened even more.
Can someone help me with this, please? I keep seeing this being brought up elsewhere and I want to say something but I don't know what to say, but that it's reached here, where I come to not have to deal with the burying of liberal racism and harm to people of color allies who are pointing out problems in good faith and being attacked for doing so and that continues to go on and it never got resolved that I know of.
Am I the only one who vaguely remembers this all happening?
Maybe I am the one who just isn't getting it, but goddamn, I swear there is something Not Right going on.
well, they who?
yeah, i agree, there's a deafening silence when it comes to the other shit. it's a big problem. that still doesn't change that in THIS instance, it's Althouse who's being an epic fuckwit, however. and it's really very little to do with Jessica at this point.
i admit that sometimes it is nice to all be able to agree on -something;- in this instance, that godDAM but that woman's an emu. it doesn't solve the underlying problems, no, but...hey, schadenfreude is an indulgence, too.
yeah, T-Rex is weighing in and swinging away, and i won't read him because he still pisses me off so much; and yeah, irony alert, same as in many similar instances (*coughyesihavesomespecificpeoplein mindcough*). but you know: the enemy of my enemy is still a fuckwit.
anyway, as i've been trying to get at above: it's actually not entirely unrelated: the common denominator for all of this, as i see it, is blind worship of power for its own sake--yeah, even at the petty-ass level of "attention in the blogosphere" and so on--and pathological narcissism, personal and structural. The problem with the instances you note is people not attending to the beam in their own eye; it still doesn't mean that their isn't a beam at least as big, not just a mote, where they're pointing.
"yes, and" not "either/or."
so, no, I don't see the focusing on Althouse as a sinister distraction in itself, if that's what you're asking. it's a sin of omission. it's still a sin.
"their"="there", goddamit
oh, and as for "not wanting to talk about blog flame wars," the only one i know using that line right now is Althouse, which is kind of hilarious in that she actually talks about nothing but; she's just angry because she can't control the conversation.
that shit happens a lot, it's true, but rarely -quite- that blatantly, much less on camera, which is why people are gathered 'round and passing the popcorn.
so, point being, there's actually no "rescue" going on at THIS point; it's mostly just, gather round and watch the self-demolition spectacle. the only reason the Jessica thing is coming up again is because the interviewer brought it up in -one line- in response to AA's plaintive, "why don't they LIKE meeeee?" y'know , just sort of a -factual- thing, like, well, here's how -I- understand it--
and that by itself set her off! for minutes on end! which, you know: my -goodness,- what a performance! that's all, really.
but like, (i'm being -classic- right now, i know), when Gerard van der Leun made fun of Jane Hamsher for her -breast cancer,- I said something about it. I still haven't forgotten the crap Hamsher pulled, and i said so, when someone tried to imply that i was running to her rescue. Same with the business where Mr. Catholic decency went after Amanda Marcotte (admittedly I was more enthusiastic about the cause when they went after Melissa as well, but then I am as God made me). It's not about that. It's about: sometimes, seriously horrid behavior needs to be noted even if it -is- directed at someone you can't stand, and/or whom you've called out hirself for bad behavior previously, which still hasn't been acknowledged. It's not about, I'm now this person's bestest friend, all is forgiven, I'll never bring up that other shit again; it's that, right NOW, this other shit is seriously egregious and ought to be remarked on, because it's the right thing to do.
even in this case, where a lot of people are understandably going, o for god's sake, why even give her the attention?? you're just feeding the troll;
but, y'know, she -is- a bully, lightweight though she is, and "just ignore her, dear" doesn't work.
Now you have to go see this one, Belle: Another ridiculous Ann Fuckwit movie
I hear ya, DI. And I for one don't intend to just let the Clinton luncheon, Burqa thing, or any other racist incidents just drop down the memory hole. It's not that I am "out to get" any of the people involved, but it is because it has never been resolved. They only think it's been resolved because the other clueless white people rallied around them and they got us to shut up momentarily. Anytime it is useful for me to bring it up as a good example of white privilege and institutional racism, I will.
I agree with Belle though that this post does not take away from that issue. I empathised and sympathised with Jessica over the breast nonsense while at the same time being enraged that everyone was ignoring the Clinton luncheon whiteout, including Jessica. Two wrongs don't make a right in my book. I would have prefered to have Jessica, among others, also show some empathy and sympathy for POC struggles. I can't make someone else do the right thing, I can only do it myself.
I empathised and sympathised with Jessica over the breast nonsense while at the same time being enraged that everyone was ignoring the Clinton luncheon whiteout, including Jessica.
Maybe it's just me and based on the blogs I read (and don't read), but I remember there being a lot of attention paid to both the breast thing and the Clinton white-out thing.
depends who you're talking about. among the small-to-medium blogs, yes. among The Big Blogs, not so much. or y'know, there was a lot of defensiveness.
to be fair Jessica did actually mention it. she still...could do more. but, i don't put her in the same category as Hamsher and that ilk. even Amanda annoys me a lot more, but that's subjective, i expect. I know others have more or a beef with her, J.
Well yes, over at FDL we did have the white boy telling the black girl to mind her betters. So I guess the big blogs did pay some attention to the blogger lunch, but I was sort of meaning that they thought it was wrong that only one token black dude was invited (Oliver Willis) but he couldn't go and maybe there should have been more effort to be inclusive considering this is supposed to be the liberal big tent party.
Yes there was some attention, telling POC to shut up and go away, and that we're just jealous, and don't know how to write, and we're ruining the fond memories of kissing Clinton ass by bringing this up, etc, but that isn't exactly what I or other POC were looking for in the empathy department.
god, you're so PICKY.
Post a Comment