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.

---

White trash has roots as a racist term (ie whites that associate with blacks) and is also classist.

quote:

---

Palin was not a sure choice, not even for the stolidly Republican ladies branch of Citizens for a Tackier America. No, she isn't even female really. She's a type, and she comes in male form too.

---

She is wrong on a lot of things and has been loose with the truth, but she is definitely female. I find it incredibly offensive when people make the comment " she is not really female" or "he is not really black" based on politics. Ugh.

The original thread on cbc.ca has some commentators saying they will complain to the CBC ombudsman about this column.

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Ghislaine ]

quote:

---

White trash ... is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American cliché of authenticity. The semiotics are pure Palin: a sturdy body, clothes that are clinging yet boxy and a voice that could peel the plastic seal off your new microwave.

Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.

---

quote:

---

Did anyone else find parts of this column incredibly offensive?

---

If you are looking for offensive try checking out Palin's response to Obama's victory over Clinton.

words I'd rather not repeat

As far as the comments on the CBC site it looks like someone must have linked the article to freedominion or something as the spittle-flecked, reactionary rantomatic generators seem to be in full force.

God knows what's happening to John Doyle for having called Palin an Alaskan hillbilly, but I am getting hundreds of emails from the American south. My husband vets all my email for death threats and he comes in with my coffee in the morning, saying "The consensus in West Virginia is that you are a f------ c---. In the Caroliinas, however, you are a lonely lesbian. The coffee this morning is organic fair trade Costa Rican." Then he laughs quietly to himself in his British way.

quote:

---

From Mallick's column:
What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?

I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I'm not the one preaching homespun values but I'd destroy that ratboy before I'd let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HeatherM:
Hi fellow babblers
Thank you for being so civilized, even if you disagree. I called Palin "white trash" (why? because she is white and she is trash, and she thinks raped incest victims should bear their dad's baby, don't get me started ...)

---

Fine. The term does have racist and classist undertones however.

quote:

---

Is there really a Bob Jones of Bob Jones University? He wants to meet me, I take it with an AK-47 in his hand.[/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ghislaine:

Why did you write that she is not female?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
I have a close friend who gave birth to the daughter of a rapist. I will have to inform her that Heather Mallick wishes her fine and loving daughter was never born.

---

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: contrarianna ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
I have a close friend who gave birth to the daughter of a rapist. I will have to inform her that Heather Mallick wishes her fine and loving daughter was never born.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ghislaine:
Did anyone else find parts of this column incredibly offensive?

---

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.

quote:

---

The original thread on cbc.ca has some commentators saying they will complain to the CBC ombudsman about this column.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by remind:

For what? Giving her opinion?

---

Any woman who freely chooses to bring a child to birth, regardless of who the father is, deserves to be respected. The daughter of my friend knows full well the stigma of being the daughter of a rapist -- there are people who have taunted her for being born, and she had known people who have especially degraded and trashed her white-skinned mother for her free choice. Mallick has clearly demonstrated that if a woman does not freely choose as mallick would have chosen, then that woman deserves to be trashed for her free choice.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
"I called Palin "white trash" (why? because she is white and she is trash, and she thinks raped incest victims should bear their dad's baby"

Any woman who freely chooses to bring a child to birth, regardless of who the father is, deserves to be respected. The daughter of my friend knows full well the stigma of being the daughter of a rapist -- there are people who have taunted her for being born, and she had known people who have especially degraded and trashed her white-skinned mother for her free choice. Mallick has clearly demonstrated that if a woman does not freely choose as mallick would have chosen, then that woman deserves to be trashed for her free choice.

Get it?

---

No that's not what Mallick is saying at all. I don't like the phrases either but that doesn't mean that she's saying that.

She is saying that she thinks Palin is not good (trash) because PALIN thinks that no woman should be given the choice. PALIN wants to make it illegal for women to have any say in the matter, no matter what their end choice is. So your friend would not have even had the ability to make any choice whatsoever. It would have been made for her by somebody else.

Mallick has brought down a once respectable movement to a gang of schoolyard bullies who tease, taunt, and degrade those who do not hold the same political view 100% of the time.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
Contrarian said: "your alleged friend's daughter has a choice whether or not she wishes to carry her rapist's fetus to term."

You need a reading and comprehension refresher course. I never said that my friend's daughter gave birth to the rapist's child.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
Mallick has clearly demonstrated that if a woman does not freely choose as mallick would have chosen, then that woman deserves to be trashed for her free choice.

---

You choose.

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

And I see we have another example of sexism with our newest whitest knight running to Palin's rescue trying to deliver and ALL women from us bad feminists, who give feminism, a bad name apparently.

Oh, the guilt, the shame, the horror...

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: remind ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:

I disagree with Palin's stand of compulsory birth, but I disgree more deeply with Mallick's highly degenerate and offensive behaviour towards another woman.

---

What I do find very questionable about what she wrote is the idea of parents considering teenagers who are past the "age of consent" as their chattel. It is none of her parents' f-ing business whom a 17-year-old chooses to sleep with. God knows we've all made mistakes in that regard. Oddly, in that Heather resembles Sarah Palin.

I chanced to hear some of "The Stafford Show" after "Leafs Lunch" on the internet today. Even if by accident, and even if hearing these yahoos encourages my inner hick to reach for the shotgun and blow up my computer real good, it's occasionally interesting to hear what the looney-tune right-wing fringe, (a.k.a. "The Mainstream Media") has to say.

Guess, what? Mike and his sidekick were talking about our Heather today. Mike said she's insane, although characteristically, he wasn't bothered by questions of sexism or classism, two issues which rate far lower in importance than the heartbreak of psoriasis or pattern baldness in his books.

He also said she should be kicked off the taxpayer-funded CBC and get a real journalism job; one where she would have to answer to advertisers. Mikey has a point there, anyone who strays from the message that liberal-capitalism in all its glorious manifestations is the Lord's work ought to be unemployed.

There really isn't room for unfettered thought in the arena of public opinion. It's just bad for business.

You can be sure that I would have slapped Palin's hand in that instance of her banning a book. You assume that I am a supporter of Palin in every instance -- your presumption is erroneous. Yes, I habituate several "right wing" sites because, unlike the left, I support their premise that the Human Rights Commissions in Canada are gagging free speech above and beyond what the Victorians did in their day.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wally Keeler:
She sucks federal taxcock and swallows it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
That last comment was unnecessary and offensive. I don't think it is fitting on Babble to have a Rabble columnist subjected to overt misongyny.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M. Spector:
You don't, however, seem to have any problem with babblers accusing each other of a white-trash debating style.

---

The term "white trash" is not only classist, which is obvious, but racist as well. And I don't mean "reverse racism" either. 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.

White trash, as opposed to the usual plain old trash.

What "white trash" means.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:
I didn't see that at the time or I would have said something.

The term "white trash" is not only classist, which is obvious, but racist as well. And I don't mean "reverse racism" either. 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.

White trash, as opposed to the usual plain old trash.

What "white trash" means.

A way to insult poor people with low education and no prospects. (Complete with the racist assumption being that you have to differentiate the WHITE "trash" from all the rest of the "trash".)

---

quote:

---

Only a fool would seek to expunge from the English language all references to the colour black, out of a combination of ignorance and white liberal guilt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:
I like Heather, and get what she means about "Palin" being a manufactured product.

What I do find very questionable about what she wrote is the idea of parents considering teenagers who are past the "age of consent" as their chattel. It is none of her parents' f-ing business whom a 17-year-old chooses to sleep with. God knows we've all made mistakes in that regard. Oddly, in that Heather resembles Sarah Palin.

Though teenagers must have access to sex education and contraception, including abortion.

---

I agree with your last line, lagatta, but I am totally with HM on the "ratboy" comment. It's more complicated than the idea of teenager as chattel -- and yes, as the mother of two daughters who are not yet but will in a few years be teenagers, everything that has a big effect on their lives has a huge effect on mine.

I might have agreed with your assessment before I had kids, but now I just don't see it through the same lens. It's different remembering what it felt like to be a teenager and knowing what it feels like to be responsible for someone else.

quote:

---

I didn't know that parents had the right to dictate who their 17 year old daughters have sex with...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:
I didn't see that at the time or I would have said something.

The term "white trash" is not only classist, which is obvious, but racist as well. And I don't mean "reverse racism" either. 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.

White trash, as opposed to the usual plain old trash.

What "white trash" means.

A way to insult poor people with low education and no prospects. (Complete with the racist assumption being that you have to differentiate the WHITE "trash" from all the rest of the "trash".)

---

Didn't that guy who may soon become Sarah Palin's son-in-law call himself a redneck?

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
Back to stalking people are you. Go get a life. You seem to know how to write sarcasm why can't you understand it?

---

Ironic racism is not allowed on babble. Yet you defend classist, racist terminology directed in anger at another babbler as being "sarcasm".

In Wally's case, though, it was clear trolling, whereas Heather and kropotkin have a history here of being progressive, positive contributors to our forums and our web site, so obviously a different approach is needed when we or our allies say something problematic, right?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:
All right, guys. Calm down. I wasn't getting you in trouble, kropotkin, I was just saying that I think that the term "white trash" is really problematic, whether people are using it for humour, sarcasm, anger, justified outrage or whatever. In case people thought I was being inconsistent in having a problem with Wally's overt sexism, but not having a problem with "white trash". I definitely do have a problem with it.

In Wally's case, though, it was clear trolling, whereas Heather and kropotkin have a history here of being progressive, positive contributors to our forums and our web site, so obviously a different approach is needed when we or our allies say something problematic, right?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:

The term "white trash" is not only classist, which is obvious, but racist as well. And I don't mean "reverse racism" either. 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.

White trash, as opposed to the usual plain old trash.

What "white trash" means.

A way to insult poor people with low education and no prospects. (Complete with the racist assumption being that you have to differentiate the WHITE "trash" from all the rest of the "trash".)

---

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; someone who used her position as governor to exercise a petty vendetta; someone who forbids sex ed for teens; someone against abortion in all cases.

Heather is not using this term strictly as a pejorative. She's using it as a cultural critique.

When Heather speaks of "white trash," she is pointing to a damaging aspect of American culture. She enlarges on this more eloquently than I can, but basically it's that part of America that's proudly anti-intellectual, bigoted, hypocritical, falsely and manipulatively sentimental, xenophobic, war-mongering, and socially regressive.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sineed:
Heather is not using this term strictly as a pejorative. She's using it as a cultural critique.

When Heather speaks of "white trash," she is pointing to a damaging aspect of American culture. She enlarges on this more eloquently than I can, but basically it's that part of America that's proudly anti-intellectual, bigoted, hypocritical, falsely and manipulatively sentimental, xenophobic, war-mongering, and socially regressive.

And that's why so many people are pissed off at Heather: she's not just insulting Palin, but a lot of Americans.

---

Gun-owning, Bible Believing Women Against Sarah Palin

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sineed:
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;

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boom Boom:
For some reason, I'm reminded of this Facebook group that I stumbled across:

Gun-owning, Bible Believing Women Against Sarah Palin

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!

---

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 ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
Does anyone remember that yanquisard who called us "frozen hillbillies"?

---

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:

---

Ironic racism is not allowed on babble. Yet you defend classist, racist terminology directed in anger at another babbler as being "sarcasm".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M. Spector:
Is that à propos of John Doyle calling S. Palin an "Alaska hillbilly" (a term Mallick
wishes she'd "had the wit" to come up with first)?

---

Indirectly, I suppose.

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.

----------------------------------------------

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 ]

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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.

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 ]

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.

---

quote:

---

A difficult trick to achieve when wearing a pearl necklace.

---

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 ]

[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 ]

quote:

---

"Pearl necklace"? Does such blatantly sexist language have a place on babble?

---

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.

---

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?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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?

---

Grow up.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:
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?

---

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.

---

[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!

quote:

---

Originally posted by remind:

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.

---

quote:

---

Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Ever wonder why the left never succeeds in Canada?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jacob Two-Two:

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.

---

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 ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HeatherM:
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.

---

Why not just have your husband delete it unread rather than revel in it?

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 ]

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.

---

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 ]

----------------------------------------

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 ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jester:

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.

---

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.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jacob Two-Two:

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.

---

Then we have to question whether that is, in fact, the job or the intent of the writer.

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.

---

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.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:

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 ]

---

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 ]

[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]

------------------------------------------

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.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jester:
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.

---

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.

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.

Why are Repubicans so better at Being Nasty

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 ]

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.
[END QUOTE]

-----------------------------------------

In your familiar, trenchant style, FM, you may have touched on a reason for the tendency to endless consideration of diddly squat.

And avoidance of central questions like "Can James Lovelock's science be trusted?"

But enough for tonight. I'm quite crestfallen, and just doing a late night ramble because I don't think I could sleep, anyhoo.

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HeatherM:
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. . .

---

You must forgive them, Heather. Remind yourself that these people, and they are people, have been bred and led to think in the narrowest of terms possible. Republican policies have dumbed-down those living in the deep south and old Republican strongholds(at one time, ultra-conservative Democrat strongholds). Former William F. Buckley protege, Michael Lind(Texas), said that intellectual conservatives realized that the right in the U.S. were only united as long as there existed a common foe, namely the New Deal socialism in their country since the collapse of laissez-failure capitalism, and the red menace. Other than surrounding the wagons for those two causes, the right is basically a group of disunited and fractious religious extremists and rich people who don't want to pay their taxes while actually enjoying the protections, private property laws, and freedoms provided them by the state.

For lack of a proper instruction manual on political conservatism, right-rightist intellectuals like Buckley wrote odes to political conservatism essentially resembling Marx's manifesto in concept and rough outline except aiming in the other direction. Lind said U.S. conservatism was born of the deep south, and it was originally based on religious revivalism and racism. And it still is.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timebandit:

On reflection, I'd have a lot less difficulty than you'd think.

---

I'm still laughing, and I've read every post since this.

quote:

---

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.

---

My only quibble with this statement is that these sanctimonious parsons (or is that parsimonious sanctons?) are trying to lead us to this sterile land right here, right now.

quote:

---

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.

---

quote:

---

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'.

---

Heather did not call people "stupid, useless..."

She did say that Palin and her base are

quote:

---

is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American cliché of authenticity.

---

Frankly I think she's being gracious in her description. The point I'm making is your unlikely to win over her base but by exposing them for who they are you would encourage others not to be associated with them. Of course the true corporate elite probably have even more contempt for this group but will always depend on their support.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
[QB]
Heather did not call people "stupid, useless..."

She did say that Palin and her base are

---

Sorry I apologize for not making it clearer it's late. I wasn't suggesting that she did. I was responding to the more generalized discussion about talking about the more generalized 'them.' The ones you refer to convincing to disassociate with.

quote:

---

Frankly I think she's being gracious in her description. The point I'm making is your unlikely to win over her base but by exposing them for who they are you would encourage others not to be associated with them. Of course the true corporate elite probably have even more contempt for this group but will always depend on their support.

---

And I was agreeing with your point. I just don't think that exposing them this way is always going to resonate and come off the way you would expect. It may to us, because we 'get it', I get it. There are people that totally 'get it.' The question is whether the ones you want to 'get it' will or look at it as something else.

quote:

---

Heather actually had the courage to expose Palin and her ilk for what they are and she is now suffering the consequences in the form of death threats. You might think she would deserve some credit and support for that.

---

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Suspicion about 'getting it': Could it be that we of the intellectual, educated, relatively well-off Left are starting to "lose it" at seeing the Republicans and the Conservatives with good chances of being relelected despite some of the most reactionary, destructive politics ever? Are we turning against the people that our narative says we are supposed to be helping because it doesn't seem to work, i.e. the moderate Right not regularly replacing the not so moderate one? Do we merely see the problem as their resisting our perspective, enlightened as it is supposed to be? What else could we understand about the situation and are *we* resisting?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Suspicion about 'getting it': Could it be that we of the intellectual, educated, relatively well-off Left are starting to "lose it" at seeing the Republicans and the Conservatives with good chances of being relelected despite some of the most reactionary, destructive politics ever? Are we turning against the people that our narative says we are supposed to be helping because it doesn't seem to work, i.e. the moderate Right not regularly replacing the not so moderate one? Do we merely see the problem as their resisting our perspective, enlightened as it is supposed to be? What else could we understand about the situation and are *we* resisting?

[ 10 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

---

Now you argue with this guy. I leave you to it."