Sunday, April 11, 2004

A Beautiful Mindset: The Left Attacks from the Right

By Mickey Z.

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  1. David Corn’s treatment of real journalists like Gary Webb undermine the Nation’s credibility ((literally & globally)).

    Regarding Barbara Bush’s role in war; Emma Goldman put it like this as she writes about the propping up of the man to do the dirty work:

    [Passage from LIVING MY LIFE]

    Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco were record-breaking in the size of our meetings and the interest shown. In Los An eles I was invited by the Women’s City Club. Five Hundred members of my sex, from the deepest red to the dullest grey, came to hear me speak on “Feminism.” They could not excuse my critical attitude towards the bombastic and impossible claims of the suffragists as to the wonderful things they would do when they go political power. They branded me as an enemy of woman’s freedom, and club-members stood up and denounced me.

    The incident reminded me of a similar occasion when I had lectured on woman’s inhumanity to man. Always on the side of the under dog, I resented my sex’s placing every evil at the door of the male. I pointed out that if he were really as great a sinner as he was being painted by the ladies, woman shared the responsibility with him. The mother is the first influence in his life, the first to cultivate his conceit and self-importance. Sisters and wives follow in the mother’s footsteps, not to mention mistresses, who complete the work begun by the mother. Woman is naturally perverse, I argued; from the very birth of her male child until he reaches a ripe age, the mother leaves nothing undone to keep him tied to her. Yet she hates to see him weak and she craves the manly man. She idolizes in him the very traits that help to enslave her—his strength, his egoism, and his exaggerated vanity. The inconsistencies of my sex keep the poor male dangling between the idol and the brute, the darling and the beast, the helpless child and the conquerer of worlds. It is really woman’s inhumanity to man that makes him what he is. When she has learned to be as selfcentered and as determined as he, when she gains the courage to delve into life as he does and pay the price for it, she will achieve her liberation, and incidentally also help him become free. Whereupon my women hearers would rise up against me and cry: “You’re a man’s woman and not one of us.”

    Posted by Kap from  on  04/11  at  12:17 PM

  2. Wonderful to start steamrollin’ this Sunday!  I hope other editors follow Mark Hand’s example here...and post this piece immediately.  It epitomizes the ABB ‘bominations, which --with the Bushorrors-- will bring us down...unless we stop them all on the street level.  Yes, let’s spread the word regarding all matters that keep progressives from...progressing.  Much applause for Mickey...and for Kap too.  Best, Richard I

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  04/11  at  12:33 PM

  3. It’s interesting too, because I recall a month ago seeing David Corn on Fox News. And while, the interviewer seemed annoyed, Corn basically seemed stragetically placed. He was asked all the right questions. As if we’re watching some grand production of the mass media.

    What does one do when conspiracy is policy? Truth tellers are shunned; yes. However, I think we have do have one advantage: hyprocity is easy to turn into humor. So whatever agenda they may have, the fact remains, they neither laugh nor cry...which seemingly omits the Other from tapping into the collective unconscious (which is infitinely stronger).

    If you can’t make a man cry, the least you can do is make him laugh…

    Posted by Kap from  on  04/11  at  07:15 PM

  4. Keep the Kap comments coming!  Shaw said that if you’re gonna tell someone the truth you had better make them laugh...or they’d kill ‘ya.  Mick is sooo good at that.  Insightful stuff, Kap...Oxy.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  04/12  at  09:38 AM

  5. Right on, Mickey Z!  I, for one, was shocked to hear Condi Rice state “Unfortunately, we were not on a war footing” or something like that. I, for one, do not feel that was ‘unfortunate’.  I really don’t feel we should be on a ‘war footing’ even now.  Moneys should be allocated toward teachers, living wages, maintainance of jobs here, Unions..etc.etc.  Good call on the right-wing a jenda that’s being foisted on us.  As Richard Oxman stated when the anti-Iraq march’s date was being changed:  “we” are allowing the Right wing to control the field, adjenda, timing, etc.etc.
    Dave

    Posted by DAve Stewart from  on  04/12  at  10:49 AM

  6. Thanks for being in on this back and forth too, Dave.  Just want to bounce off of two remarks above. One, I believe Mickey was in on that dating horror (along w my Sylvie).  More importantly at present, most people on the Left do not pause to consider how horrible it would be if our schools --as presently constituted-- rec’d more money.  Yes, they sd. get the $$$ in lieu of the military.  Yes.  But...it’s too easy to forget what a horrible job they’ve been doing...providing the fodder for the cannons, etc.  Kind of like it being easy to forget the work at hand --for ABBers-- if Kerry replaces Bush.  Best, Oxy

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  04/12  at  03:22 PM

  7. To follow on Richard’s education point, it’s crucial to avoid wasting time fighting battles not worth winning. If the corporate-owned politicians want to dismantle PBS, let ’em. It’s time to create our own independent media. They want to end the NEA? Fine. It doesn’t take money to create art, it takes balls. The Food and Drug Administration is being weakened? It won’t matter to anyone engaging in a healthy lifestyle that involves vegetarianism and (so-called) alternative medicine. They’re challenging affirmative action? Great. Why would any progressive female or “minority” want access to all that corruption anyway? There aren’t ramps at your local Burger King? That’s good news for the disabled people who choose to avoid corporate-sponsored death burgers. City University of New York is raising its tuition? Hey, since when did the U.S. educational system offer anything worth paying for?

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  04/12  at  05:00 PM

  8. This is wonderful stuff, I have to write.  By the way, I have home-schooled both of my kids since birth and not used the School system for precisely the reasons you state about...and I did read the Counterpunch about the ‘recruiting’ taking place.  I guess I was just trying to think of a ‘benign’ place to put the MONEY we’re wasting...but now that I think of the massive lies taught there (and the knowledge that when faced with that decision I opted for far less material goods in order to have two humans - my kids- that I could talk with).....well, I can think of other places to say the money should go to.........like how about funding shelters for homeless and giving a monetary base for ALL people so they don’t have to steal or eat at Burger King to survive...or co-ops to lower organic food prices/provide instruction to people on how to eat.
    I have dropped out of the dietary lifestyle primarily because I feel, like Malcolm X, that what you spend money for you support..(and then my health got better, etc.)
    I don’t think it is wrong to feel exhiliration as I learn to think...I realize how things are going and read CounterPunch...I guess I can only explain my ‘happiness’ at the fact that there are others who think along the same lines.
    I can only hope that what has happened to me will also happen to others...either slowly or by leaps.  Whatever, it is great to feel some sort of ‘not being in this alone’.
    Dave

    Posted by Dave Stewart from  on  04/12  at  06:40 PM

  9. And while we’re at it, let’s remind everyone --motivating them-- to move toward our getting our hands on the $$$ that the Super Rich are hoarding or investing in disgusting schemes...and get it more evenly distributed. And let’s remind everyone not to get caught up with the negatives of any plan that might allow for a) waste, b) fraud, c) uneven distribution, d) free lunches, etc.  As all that’s going on now...you shouldn’t get distracted by such arguments.  This is for starters.  As per Mickey’s ON piece, let’s go for health care universally paid for by the SRich.  Get your ducks in a row so you can easily speak to people who think they’re getting enough of the pie and/or (more promising) people who’ve given up on accepting the tiniest of shares. Behind it all, keep in mind that this will not work as a national movement; it must be int’l in scope and deep with feeling for all of humanity.  It must entertain the possiiblity of people changing lifestyles.  Nay, that’s probable, isn’t it?  People who are willing to make such changes should become fast friends...making a private commitment with you...to do damage to this system in a very positive way. Best, Oxy

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  04/12  at  08:02 PM

  10. I find Mickey’s comments to be quite daft in the end...this same line of arguementing can be taken farcical (and dangerous) levels…

    If people so desire to have equal access (via affirmative action for instance) in respect to being indoctrinated into the current educational system, they should very well have it. Ultimately it’s not your determination as to whether it is, or is not worth fighting for. Going to an institution of ‘Higher’ (or lower) eductation doesn’t necessarily have to be exercise of conformity either - exactely the opposite for many people. 

    Likewise for the rest of your points (i.e. As long as some people ability to poison thier bodies in the manner of thier choosing, everyone should access to do so.) If you don’t see it as an urgent or worthy fight...fair enough, move on…

    Posted by BruceA from  on  04/12  at  08:57 PM

  11. Bruce, this is not about “moving on.” Press Action is a website dedicated to social issues and my comments are presented with that in mind. An open-minded reading of those comments would make it clear that I am offering my opinion in the hope that those perusing this site might be provoked to see the situation in a different light. Personal attacks like “daft” and “farcical” do nothing to promote debate. As for defending one’s right to “poison” their body, fine. I am not mandating anything here...but I’d strongly suggest you consider the global ramifications of the system that makes such poisons available and such rights possible. (I can elaborate on that further if need be.)


    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  04/12  at  09:19 PM

  12. Mickey, your articles are always a special treat and present complex problems other people complicate with their inane explanations of them in a light of sanity.  You’re exactly right about wasting time and energy fighting battles not worth winning, and that, like all your prolific observations, are a gift unique and inimitable to your vision.  Thanks for sharing. 

    With all due respect, I have no idea what Kap is talking about.  What Emma Goodman had to do with this article and its thread of comments, other than Kap’s anomalously invoking her, I haven’t a clue.  As for his babbling in his second comment, someone want to reconcile my esteem for Richard and his thoughts and poetry at this sight, with his encouragement of such babbling?

    Lousy day y’all; turning into a lousy week, into a lousy month into a lousy

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  04/12  at  11:48 PM

  13. Personal attacks?? I was responding viscerally to your arguments, not to you personally. Honestly I’m sorry if my comments were a bit heavy-handed and you took them as such. (But I will say that there is certainly an abundance of very definite and nasty ‘personal attacking’ going on in the articles/comments of this website. So why so sensitive to what I’ve said?)

    Ultimately I fully comprehend your argument (i.e for instance why should we spend time arguing whether gays should or should not be in the military, when we should be actively focused on trying abolish or vast y curtail the size, scope, and function of the military in general, etc!) The idea attaining a ‘equal-oportunity’ machine gun killer state…

    But your argument against affirmative action functions solely on the assumption that the modern university, as an entity, functions almost exclusively as a diploma factory and or training center for the architects of global capitalism and hegemony (i.e. allow ghetto Johnny into college so he too may one day become and uber capitalist.) And no doubt much of this is in fact true to a degree, I’m not denying that, but it is oversimplifying things a fair fair bit. There’s still a REAL education, and good people, to be found at these places if presumably one enters under that assumption, and not simply see it as a stepping stone toward the ubiquitous ‘career.’ (I’d hazzard the guess that many of us reading websites like this one have had university contact either as a student or even in some proffessorial compacity.) Even MIT, still THE choice school for future techno-killers in training, can also be responsible for producing the radical student group spearheading the active anti-dnc protests in Boston. I’m sorry, but I think its worthwhile to defend – not as an institution to indoctrinate minorities into patriarchy (although this will happen at times – the oppressed becoming the oppressor), but rather to make things just a bit more even after decades of historical discrimination and ongoing economic deficiencies, while simultaneously ‘bettering’ universities exponentially in obvious ways. By your argument, why allow into universities at all – traditionally the exclusive haven of the elite white male – minorities or even women? And seeing that the American electoral system is/has always been corrupt and beyond simple ‘reform’ wasn’t the push for universal suffrage a complete waste?  But in the end, you personally can still condemn the electoral system while still using your vote (and encourage others to vote for Nader as well) hollow the act may be. Yea, I’m stretching a bit, but I think I have a point…

    The NEA - I certainly don’t find the idea of it utterly worthless – just the opposite in fact. Whether it needs to be radically overhauled in practice is up to debate, but I do find the idea of state funded art to be of fairly essential importance. Film (which is certainly near and dear to my own heart) for instance IS indeed…

    Posted by BruceA from  on  04/13  at  02:30 AM

  14. It would be good if Bruce could get down to helping us understand what he’s doing, what he’s involved with.....  For Tracy, it sounds like you’re having a hard time. I’m sorry if I contributed to that.  Re Kap’s comments, rather than go back to figure out what I complimented that requires “reconciliation,” perhaps we can leave it all at...chalk the “problems” up to --perhaps-- my misuderstanding what Kap was saying...what he was about.  Will that work for now?  Best, The Ox

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  04/13  at  11:00 AM

  15. It was unfair of me to rip into Kap and I apologize.  As soon as I made my post, I went back and looked at his comments and realized I was wrong.  The first was an apt look at the psychology of the killer in the monkey suit in the Oval Office.  The second was a bit muddled, with perhaps a typo or two, but mistakes hardly felonious nor unknown to me.  Mea culpa.  Moreover, I thought his recent piece on Chomsky was very witty and well-written.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  04/13  at  10:20 PM

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