...the third major class of response, that of embracing the stereotype, of taking it on as a kind of costume, and even pushing it farther than the left themselves. I knew a noted spokesman for one of the major conservative media organizations who used to appear at public lectures with two heavy-set young men standing at either side of the lectern wearing camo fatigues and sunglasses, thus turning himself from conservative spokesman into Benito Mussolini. This same kind of behavior can be found at all levels of the movement from comment threads all the way to the top. Rush indulges in it all too often. Ann Coulter has made a career of it. While definitely a crowd-pleaser, it is, in the end, self-defeating. These stereotypes were constructed by the left for a reason -- to manipulate the public at large, ignorant of political subtleties and unfamiliar with doctrine, into certain visceral reactions to conservatives and their ideas. They were created to destroy conservatives. Why play along with them?Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are playing into liberals' hands by feeding conservatives red meat on a daily basis and making millions of dollars off it. I like to imagine Coulter and Limbaugh reading this, becoming guilt-wracked, and returning to the sober, Cambridge Union Society mode of discourse they used to do, back when it was all about the music.
Mainly I want to know who the Mussolini guy was. I'm guessing Michael Fumento.
Oh, give Dunn credit for offering the brethren practical Alinksy-fu lessons:
Calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" merely generated sympathy for her. Turning her into a clown uncertain what to do with a condom if one was handed to her would have shut the whole campaign down in short order. (How about the Facebook "Sandra Fluke Condom Support Group"?)The next four years are going to be awesome.
Maybe he thought Public Enemy was a conservative media organization. "Fear of a black planet? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter."
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that, if I were a woman, I wouldn't be certain what to do with a condom. They're for men, contards.
ReplyDeleteThe Sandra Fluke Condom Support Group didn't really take off until they changed their name to Maroon 5.
ReplyDeleteNo but seriously, Dunn is right that attacking Fluke as a "slut" caused a backlash of sympathy. He then comes to the unusual conclusion that righties should have amended that to "slutty moron."
Turning her into a clown uncertain what to do with a condom if one was handed to her
ReplyDeleteHow exactly does someone transform a person so that they are confused by common objects? This sounds like some sort of spell from Harry Potter fanfic, where Draco uses the Confundum Condomnum for some bareback "dark arts" with Harry.
Unfortunately, it really is true that the serious backlash only came as a result of Limbaugh saying "slut". The jillions of wingnuts who falsely claimed something along the lines of "Sandra Fluke testified she's having so much sex she can't afford birth control" mostly went without censure.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to play a game of all-night naked Quidditch with this comment.
ReplyDeleteLet me get this straight, because all joking aside, I still don't get it an hour later. They're really going with "the chick who wants free birth control is a virginal prude"? Aren't these the sort of folks who think Purity Balls are a cool thing? Or is my mistake to assume there's an actual rational explanation?
ReplyDelete(Slightly off topic, perhaps, but its because of all the Alinski)
ReplyDeleteI just got an image in my head of a 70s cop-show situation called "Alinski!", in which the hero and his rookie partner (a young conservative wracked with guilt) cruise the mean streets, outsmarting mainstream conservatives who just want to help the community. Near the middle of every episode, they get called in to the community organizing precinct house and the "lieutenant" says "You're a loose cannon, Alinski! You're off the case! Turn in your rule book and your sarcasm!"
It needs work.
The thing is, where there's a condom being unwrapped, usually there's a second person ready to help you figure it out how to roll it on.
ReplyDeleteA highly motivated second person; and if he's too stupid to help, think twice, ladies.
Staple the first three pages onto one of your old spec scripts and send it to Ben Shapiro at BigDeadHollywood. That boy's dumb enough you could probably sell him his own socks.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that Dunn and his ilk have consistently failed to grasp: ridicule is not just a strategy. Many of the right-wing characters subject to ridicule invite it.
ReplyDeleteI could probably rest that case on the utterances of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock and all their supporters, but, hell, if you sound like an emotionally traumatized eight-year-old with mommy and daddy and cultish religious issues while running for an office that presumes stability and maturity as prerequisites, you're probably going to be made fun of.
But, Dunn--as with so many other American Stinker bloviaters--mistakes causes and symptoms. The left didn't create Coulter and Rush and the veritable flood of right-wing assholes that have swamped the public media. Right-wing money did. Manufactured outrageousness and obfuscation are right-wing signature behaviors and have been ever since reactionary fussiness and priggishness became ineffective. The fact that the Birchers became objects of ridicule almost as quickly as they appeared was not lost on the rich loonies that have been funding this forty-year-long media war, and they've paid good money to ensure that their attack dogs remain in the public eye.
If there's a stereotype in play, it's because every nutjob with a grudge and a strong desire to wear an armband has helped to reinforce it. Dunn seems not to realize that a healthy chunk of the right doesn't have a fucking clue who Everett Dirksen was, but they damned sure know--and love--proto-fascists such as Limbaugh.
Of course there's a rational explanation! A proper woman would never talk about her hoo-hah, the ladybits, all that stuff down there. It's still 1952 in large parts of Wingnuttia, and the Pill hasn't even been invented yet. Neither have homosexuals. When Ms. Fluke spoke up, she voted herself off the Island of Ladies, and since she obviously isn't a man, she must be a...a fallen woman! Loose the hounds! Slut! Slut!
ReplyDeleteThey're just fine with the hate. A couple of 'em have realized that Limbaugh's sales job probably delivered more votes to Obama than Romney. That's the only thing they have a problem with. They'd accuse Fluke of selling crack to Girl Scouts if they thought it would stick.
That's right, my righty pals. Your problem is that you need to be more elegant when you criticize your stupid, ignorant opponents. Keep on that track, and you'll be fine!
ReplyDeleteYou have to feel sorry for these guys. They've seen how "queer" and "nigger" have been reclaimed, and are having a hell of a time doing the same with "dipshit".
ReplyDeleteFree Bollywood hot News, Bollywood Top Hot Actress and Hot Desi Girls Beautiful hot Pictures.
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These stereotypes were constructed by the left for a reason
ReplyDeleteBut...you just acknowledged that the behavior was real. Therefore not a "stereotype". And therefore not "constructed by the left". So your entire statement is a fabrication, but there I go constructing a stereotype.
"(B)ack when it was all about the music," pure brilliance!
ReplyDelete"Turning her into a clown uncertain what to do with a condom if one was handed to her would have shut the whole campaign down"
ReplyDeleteAnd how were they going to do that? Hold her down and drain her brain cells until her IQ was as low as theirs? Have Michelle Malkin pretend to be her and stamp her foot and shake her curls?
[I can't figure out how to get Sylvester back in the right place. Guess I'm just an uncertain clown....]
It's a fabrication, first, because even when this poor, befuddled character is trying to explain to himself why the electorate rejected the right, his kneejerk reaction is to blame the lefties. It's their fault that conservative assholes are the way they are. As if Rush Limbaugh is such a moron that he couldn't possibly see he's being played by the left, that he's falling into their trap by behaving the way they want him to. Second, Dunn's got such an ingrained belief that conservatism cannot fail, only be failed, that he's unwilling to admit that people didn't just respond negatively to the invective, but to the message, as well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the greatest existential terror a conservative can feel stems from people seeing through the victimhood bullshit and seeing them for the bullies and assholes that they are, which is why this dimbulb is working ever harder to portray right-wing, world-class bullies as victims of the left.
it's not an assertion that could withstand the slightest scrutiny, which is why it's front and center at American Stinker.
Calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" merely generated sympathy for her.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't any of them understand that it showed that they were not decent people?
To be fair, I am completely mystified about how a condom could be used to alleviate the gynecological symptoms that caused Fluke's friend to be prescribed birth control.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right? The word "merely" rather suggests that she didn't deserve sympathy for being publicly and obscenely defamed by a multi-millionaire asshole as a form of "entertainment" for millions of in-bred fuckheads.
ReplyDeleteInstead of doing the proper democratic thing and stepping up to offer rebuttal to an argument they disagreed with, they resort to ad hominem attacks on a young citizen exercising her free right to advocate for an issue personal to her, Dunn still seems to think attacking this powerless young woman was the proper thing to do--just don't go so far as to generate sympathy for her.
I guess its true that Bad Guys never think they're the Bad Guys, do they?
I was never sentimentally affected by Hillary Clinton's run for the White House, though I did identify with her as a woman d'un certain age and intellectually I was excited by her historical role. But when I saw Sandra Fluke speak at the DNC I cried. Unironically. She was so beautiful and vivid and adorable--she was both my daughters. And every attack on her was felt, by me certainly, in the most personal way, as though it were a direct punch in the gut.
ReplyDeleteWe've had to endure years of Reaganite triumphalism, and then post Bush maudlin and demanding weeping victimology by holy rollers and frothing mouthed lunatics about getting their feewings hurt by atheists making fun of them. We've had to endure the tyranny of the offended, the permanently fragile "R" chromosomes whose belief in their angry g-d requires total submission not just from the believers but from the entire society and NOW they want to try to ratchet it back, just a tad, in order to get over on the nuts and sluts on the left?
If they are aiming at (some) older white people they can just knock it off right now. No, merely calling her an incompetent unable to put the condom on her boyfriend would not have been an effective counter-argument to her testimony about how her friend lost an ovary due to the intransigence of her University's health plan co-ordinators. But if they want to go the giant puppet route and wear pink feather boas while protesting the fema camps they can go right ahead.
aimai
"(How about the Facebook "Sandra Fluke Condom Support Group"?)"
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Except that this is just another way to say Fluke is a cock-hungry slut.
Also..."Condom Support Group?" It's not even a good joke/insult. The whole point is that she's a big slut, get it? So what's the likelihood this BIG OL' SLUT won't be able to handle a condom?
Way to step all over your own joke, winger.
"The Sandra Fluke Condom Support Group didn't really take off until they changed their name to Maroon 5."
ReplyDeleteI would like to be a slut--moronic or otherwise--with this comment.
It really wasn't very long ago, in female years at any rate, since "Are you a 'scow-ooooowned woooo-man" was thrown at Anita Hill during the mass sausage fest attack on her for being brought in to testify against Clarence Thomas. If I could have one thing in this world it would be for Obama to put Anita Hill on the Supreme Court. Maybe I should take a leaf out of the right wing playbook--as written by Erick Erickson and Ace of Spades--and mail Clarence Thomas a whole lot of pubic hair?
ReplyDeleteIf it's not about Sandra Fluke, Shapiro's not interested. I swear, I think the boy has a crush on her. Every column he writes seems like the written equivalent of dipping a girl's braids in the inkwell.
ReplyDeleteThe last two paragraphs of Dunn's epistle:
ReplyDeleteLeftist control of the conservative image is no longer acceptable. In the first
decade of the 20th century, the Russian socialists split into two
warring factions. The smaller one -- nearly miniscule, as a matter of
sheer numbers -- adapted the name "Bolsheviks" (the "majority" party)
and forced the name "Mensheviks" (Guess?) on the much larger opposing
faction. Twenty years later the Bolsheviks controlled Russia, and the
Mensheviks were on their way to the Gulag.
Conservatives must seize control of their own image, or risk becoming the Mensheviks of the 21st century.
Sweet jesus is this a revealingly insane political metaphor.
Student: JR Dunn
ReplyDeleteInstructor: (Ghost of) Bob Haldeman
Essay: "Conservatives and the Dark (heh heh) Art of Image Manipulation"
Grade: F. Did not use "Truman and the Demon-RATS lost China" reference as previously instructed.
Also: It's almost as if the writer of "Dark Art of Image Manipulation" has never heard of Rupert Murdoch (or has alienated Murdoch by begging for a job in public).
ReplyDeleteI, too, have two daughters approaching college age, and so also feel these sorts of incidents on a personal level.
ReplyDeleteMy pride in young folks taking part in democracy I hope goes beyond my personal connection, but either way, I don't apologize for having empathy--it's what sets apart humans from these creatures on the right. (how's that for extreme rhetoric?)
Hopefully all this Alinskyite ridicule will marginalize poor Mr. Dunn because it would be an electoral calamity for The Left if the Republicans were to heed his call, or worse yet, put him in a position of responsibility in their communications operations.
ReplyDeleteHis idea to purge the party of traitors is an obvious, if somewhat counterintuitive one. But the cold hard facts indicate that the only way to grow the party is by kicking out the relatively moderate wing and allowing only the true believers to participate. How else to attract more moderates in the general elections? You can see how well that worked for the American communists. They continually threw off their CINO factions such as the Trotskyites, Stalinists, Socialists, Wobblies, et. al. throughout the mid 20th century only to win a landslide election in 1964 on through the Honolulu Hitler's two "victories" early in the 21st.
And were the Republicans to follow his advice on owning the stereotypes, their electoral dominance would be assured for at least 1000 years. George Allen most certainly would have won had he handed out pictures of monkeys with mohawks to diffuse accusations of racism in the Macaca affair. Just think what would have happened had they aggressively distributed pictures of Obama eating fried chicken in a watermelon patch. He would have been lucky to carry Massachusetts and we'd all soon be living in a health care and retirement free paradise.
But no, as Mr. Dunn says, the Republicans, and I believe he's speaking of himself here as exemplar, need to shed their image of being simpering twits. Tall order, I know, but his article is like a shiny beacon to light the way. Let's just hope no one in the party heeds it.
And "Alinsky-fu" reminds me of Joe Bob Briggs.
ReplyDeleteHi praise indeed. Thanks.
It's almost as if the author is utterly unaware that millions upon millions of words have been written on such topics as brand management, public relations, and brand positioning. Of course, this presumes that one is able to translate concepts from one field--the physical market we all participate in--and move them to another: the fabled "marketplace of ideas" that is our polity. It's not dark, and I wouldn't call it an art, either: not when the local university's business school will give you a degree in the subject.
ReplyDeleteOr, to riff on one of last week's inspired comments: when your shit sandwiches aren't selling, changing the font on the labels probably isn't the solution.
There is nothing they would not do to not consider what a woman is saying about women's bodies. Their condom "solution" to birth control is just another way of putting a man figuratively in charge of women's health and sexuality which is what they're literally trying to do.
ReplyDeleteThrough the hysterical slut-shaming of Sandra Fluke the Pugs and their Penises have been objectifying all women through her while laying claim to our reproductive systems, and proclaiming themselves the judges of every woman's sexuality. It wouldn't be hard to believe that everyone of the slut-shaming bastards has raped their girlfriends and/or wives.
Well, you can understand why they were so eager to use Sandra Fluke as a distraction. The core argument was over whether or not organizations could engage in religion-based discrimination against people of other faiths while still receiving truckloads of federal money. Theocracy isn't an easy sell. Unlike moral disgust.
ReplyDeleteTurning her into a clown uncertain what to do with a condom if one was
ReplyDeletehanded to her would have shut the whole campaign down in short order.
I continue to be amazed at the cluelessness about contraception, and women's demand for being able to control their own bodies. Condoms do not equal oral contraception.
Yes, certainly, in this idiot's scenario, Ms. Fluke surely would not know what to do with a condom if one was handed to her, because her goal was to gain access for women to the kind of hormonal medical benefits that oral contraceptives provide.
"So, let's see. I open this package and put this thing on some guy's dick. How's that help my endometriosis?"
I believe the technical term for that person, as explained in training, is "the second banana".
ReplyDeleteBalloon animals make everything better.
ReplyDeleteIn these guys' minds, that's the sum total of the concept of women's reproductive health. "Here, little lady, put this on your husband's dick, if he'll let you, and you should be fine."
ReplyDeleteIts a good example of how conservatives think contraception is ONLY for slutty women to use, and only for the purpose of not getting preggers. They are completely ignorant of its other uses and benefits, like preventing disease, treating cysts, fibroids, etc. etc. and so on. To them, anyone using a contraceptive can only be a: SLUT!!!11!
ReplyDeleteYes, and someone needs to remind him about the Moral Majority.
ReplyDeleteLemme get this straight: Here we have wing-nuts, who reside in an entirely fantastical, imaginary "reality" created and sustained for them by their masters' manipulation of language and exploitation of emotion, being called by one of their own to be better at manipulating language and exploiting emotion.
ReplyDeleteCreating a fake Facebook page for Sandra Fluke would turn *her* into a clown? Uh-huh.
What's the metaphor here? Pinocchio yearning to be a real boy? Or four-year-old Susie patiently instructing her stuffed animals how to ask for the sugar at the tea party?
And while I haven't thought of Howell Heflin in years, it wasn't that long ago that genuine throwback Dixiecrats still haunted the halls of the upper chamber. "Yessir, that one's a player ON MY TEAM." ::headdesk::
ReplyDeleteWas definitely interesting to see how all-powerful this guy's imaginary left is. Alinsky-fu indeed.
ReplyDeleteHm. If contraception has these other uses, maybe it should be called something else? "Contraception" means "against conception." It does not mean the use of estrogen for other purposes. (Understand: I'm not against using estrogen for other purposes.) A condom or a diaphragm is a contraceptive device, but it won't do diddly against cysts or fibroids. So part of the trouble here appears to be confusion among proponents of contraception about their own terminology.
ReplyDeleteDuring the '80s, my university did a lot of safe-sex education (UConndom Week was started with a condom balloon launch and a giant jar of condoms were available in the library), so I actually knew how to use a condom before I ever got anywhere near a penis.
ReplyDeleteDuncan, just because it has an off-label use doesn't cancel out its primary purpose. Do we stop calling Tums an antacid just because it's sometimes taken as a calcium supplement?
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, why on earth should we hide the primary purpose of contraception and give the wingnuts a rhetorical victory? It's a very popular purpose, given that 98% or so of all women use it at some point in their childbearing years no matter what their religious leaders feel about it. Men like it, too, since they don't really want to have mouths to feed they can't afford.
People need to grow the fuck up and recognize that adults fuck, and that contraception is a responsible thing to do and a legitimate medical expense.
Early in my sexual life, I had to teach a couple of boyfriends how to use a condom. They were older than I was, and hadn't had the fear of AIDS drilled into them like I had; moreover, they'd both been married for some time before getting divorced and dating in the new, post-AIDS environment where they couldn't just expect me to be on the pill and be done with it. Since I insisted on a condom, they had to deal.
ReplyDeleteI will say that it's quite possible to put one on inside out, if you let your new-to-condoms boyfriend take care of it on his own, and the results are not pretty.
A condom or a diaphragm is a contraceptive device, but it won't do diddly against cysts or fibroids.
ReplyDeleteShorter Duncan: What do you mean a condom is also used to prevent STDs? It's called a contraceptive device!
Chris Farley did a terrific Howell Heflin back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI think gleenisw's quote is very revealing--how would it "shut the whole campaign down in short order" to make fun of her? Do they think that the parodies and attacks on Rosa Parks for being a lazy bitch "shut down" the Civil Rights movement? What do they think the "campaign" was for? They seem principally angry with her for stepping all over their chosen narrative that the real issue was religious freedom for old white guys--so do they think that her "campaign" was simply some kind of reverse "win the morning" campaign which the Obama campaign should have abandoned after its shock value was over? I guess what I'm asking, in a serious vein, is whether the real problem is that they simply refuse to recognize that political things are political when it comes to things that make them uncomfortable or which don't serve their economic or cultural masters.
ReplyDeleteSandra Fluke represented a constituency, roughly half the country, that wants to pay for health insurance that insures health. They turned to the government, and to the public, because the free market in health insurance doesn't exist or doesn't work for them/us. But these boobs seem literally unable to grasp that this is a legitimate political act, referencing legitimate political issues--testifying before congress is a serious thing, undertaken for serious reasons. You do it in propria persona but you represent others.
As soon as these guys hear about human needs, they hear human weakness, and they go on the attack. All the more true when it is female, or immigrant, or non white issues. They literally can't see what the fuss is all about, and imagine its some childish game.
aimai
I have to say, I was so glad during those hearings that she was a professor and was addressed as "Professor Hill." I don't think I could have taken it had I had to hear Howell Heflin call her "Miiiiiizzzzzzzzzz Hill."
ReplyDeleteIts almost as if they haven't heard about Lee Atwater. Now: in sensoround.
ReplyDeleteaimai
Wrong again, Duncan--condoms protect against STDS and, among other things, cervical cancer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what's the deal with the Holy Roman Empire?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I used to think it was just awful tasting gum.
ReplyDeleteAll paths lead to glory when the punchline is "Herp derp".
ReplyDeleteThese stereotypes were constructed by the left for a reason -- to manipulate the public at large, ignorant of political subtleties and unfamiliar with doctrine, into certain visceral reactions to conservatives and their ideas.
ReplyDeleteI see. So, say, we on the left create a stereotype like, "conservatives are generally boot-licking authoritarians who feel a collective need to punch down, they loathe women and minorities and gays and find appallingly small minded things funny for reasons that are usually found in DSM-IV case studies" and then they go about proving the stereotype is more of a truism, carefully falling into the trap we set while the sheeple fall for it because they are unfamiliar with the nuances of Objectivism and the subtleties behind "we need to give more money to rich people".
Wheels within wheels! There is no end to our Alinsky-fu and they are going crazy trying to figure out the source of its mystical power.
If only Republicans has spent months loudly and repeatedly claiming that birth control pills and condoms were basically the same thing. That would have made Sandra Fluke look stupid.
ReplyDeleteUh... yeah...
The first thing that popped into my head when I read the two-guys-in-camo thing was Louis Farrakhan with the Fruit of Islam behind him.
ReplyDeleteLIBERAL CONTROL HEADQUARTERS
ReplyDeleteAgent 86: Chief I've devised the most devious plan ever.
Chief: I hope it's better than your idea to give away Santorum toothpaste at CPAC.
Agent 86: Much. You know those absurd wingnut stereotypes we manufactured to make conservatives look bad? How about we find a way to make conservatives actually choose to become their own caricatures, thus validating our own creations!
Agent 99: Max, it's perfect! But how will we make conservatives freak out to the point where they do something so stupid?
Agent 86: Would you believe electing a black guy as president?
Chief: Hmm, I buy it but only if we make him a muslim from Kenya, too.
Agent 86: Brilliant. They'll be lining up to appear every bit as racist, misogynist and insane as we make them out to be. We'll fool everyone!
Agent 99: Oh Max, you're so Smart!
The idea of trying to pretend that a Georgetown Law grad couldn't figure out how to use a condom is so batshit insane that it sounds like something that Kevin DuJan from Hillbuzz would come up with. Back in '10, when teabaggers were making big gains in campaigns across the nation, DuJan had brilliant ideas such as trying to associate Christine O'Donnell with Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched (because Samantha was a good witch) and trying to ratfuck Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign for the Senate in Alaska (in which she was concerned about getting people to spell her name correctly) by coming up with some goofy alternate name that Alaskan voters might be tricked into writing in. And then there's his ongoing efforts to convince people that Obama and Rahm Emanuel are habitues of a gay bathhouse in Chicago, something he's been flogging for years and is crazy enough to have gotten the attention of WND's Jerome Corsi when things were looking really desperate for Romney.
ReplyDeleteI just went to his site to see if he had any new madness that he was trying to promote, but aside from some half-hearted voter fraud bullshit, there are lots of posts filled with rambling, chatty stuff. I stopped at this bit in the middle of a post about "Black Wednesday", aka the day when gays supposedly get drunk enough to go home and face their families:
My parents don’t speak to me because I am gay…but this doesn’t make them bad people.
...and then it wasn't fun any more.
She might be too stupid to convince a rapist to use a condom. Ain't that a knee slapper.
ReplyDeleteAnother triumph for Conservapedia as a source of information!
ReplyDeleteEven so, Comic Sans probably didn't help.
ReplyDeleteMy parents don’t speak to me because I am gay…but this doesn’t make them bad people.
ReplyDeleteY'know, if you been at the table for half an hour and you haven't figured out who the mark is...you're the mark.
Santorum toothpaste at CPAC sounds brilliant!
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't we think of that!?!?!
~
When telling jokes, do you end up getting lost, stepping on your dick and then putting your head through your sister-in-laws TV? You may be a Republican intellectual.
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to get the full Kevin DuJan experience, check out his election liveblog thread. Highlights: blaming hackers for his political website being busy on election night, "Believe in the Cleve", and "I am visualizing every saint, angel, and soul I’v ever known swooping down from Heaven to make the numbers go up and up and up for a President Romney".
ReplyDeleteis it possible that a comment be a tour de force?
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm pretty sure they knew what a condom was, they were probably just trying to determine whether condom use was a deal breaker.
ReplyDeleteY'know, Howell Heflin's excuse, if he needed one, was that he was too dumb to breathe. The guy I wanted to slap upside the head because he was smart enough to have known better was Joe Biden.
ReplyDeleteWe must have used the same gas station restroom years ago. I'll never forget the laugh I got when I read "This gum tastes like rubber!" scrawled on the condom machine.
ReplyDeleteI click through and the first thing is him hyperventilating about Obama relieving election day tension by playing basketball, a piece of presidential trivia so well traveled it's hard to believe a dude who runs what purports to be a political blog wouldn't know it. And then he tries to give a weekday afternoon basketball game a sexual connotation.
ReplyDeleteKevin DuJan, please never stop being who you are.
The main justification for opposition to oral contraception by the fundigelicals is that some of them prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, otherwise known to them as "a baby", into the uterine wall. The reluctance of pro choice advocates to lay down a bright line and say "Look... a fertilized egg is NOT a person, and a blastocyst is NOT a baby" only encourages these people to push the envelope in the choice discussion.
ReplyDelete..and then it wasn't fun any more.
ReplyDeleteThere is something sad about DuJan ... there are times when he gushes out 1000s of words a day and other times when he disappears for weeks or even months, leaving the blog in the charge of some hapless crony who tells inquiring commenters that "Kevin's sick and needs your prayers". It's not hard to guess that his manic phases are followed by serious meltdowns, some of which have played out in public on the site. I could feel sorry for him, if he weren't just such a nasty little pissant.
I do recall the "Bewitched"/O'Donnell thing which was kind of a hoot, but his weirdest attempt at starting a meme/rumor was the mansion in Hawaii that Chicago banksters were supposedly buying for the Obamas when the Dems -- inevitably according to DuJan -- lost the election. He really pimped this one out which seems strange. Why would you be tempted to vote for Romney if you thought Obama would be rewarded for his loss with a luxury home in a tropical paradise? I always thought DuJan started that one just to keep in practice.
Well, you DO know what sort of people like to play that there "Basketball", don't you? Our man Kev is probably as good at basketball as he is at putting on condoms.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's the thing. If he had just gone with the racial implications, I would have been like "ho-hum, it is a wingnut". It's working the gay in that makes it special.
ReplyDeleteI continue to believe that one of the biggest missed opportunities in L'Affair Fluke was the - repeated - failure of anyone in the debate who had a megaphone to point out that the majority of all the "sluts" who use contraception are, in fact, married women. The importance of that was in pointing out to men as well that they had a stake in protecting access to contraception, since I'm pretty sure that the majority of married men are concerned about not having more children than they can support. Maybe I'm just being naive, but I can't help but believe that quite a few men, even the white ones who lined up to vote Republican in droves, might have quite a big problem with being told that from now on, if they wanted to have sex with their wives, they could either come up with the cost for the pill out of pocket, get used to wearing a condom every time, or accept that they were going to have additional children they didn't want or couldn't afford so their slutty wives could be punished for being fertile Myrtles with vaginas they have the temerity to share with their husbands. Also, my guess is the majority of men would have an issue with their wives and girlfriends being described as sluts, which is essentially how the right framed the whole thing - if you're a woman who has sex, you're a slut. Even the most hardcore bigoted Buford would take issue with someone calling his mama a slut. But no one bothered to point out to the mens that this is what was going on.
ReplyDeleteIn large part, the right succeeded in making this a "woman's issue" when in reality, access to contraception is an issue that affects men and families as well; in the future, that should be hammered home.
Seriously. Especially because the very institution that Fluke was trying to get contraceptive coverage from -- at her own cost, mind, since the student plan is not subsidized at all by the university -- has been required by law for a decade to provide contraceptives to its employees as part of the benefits package it offers as part of their compensation.
ReplyDeleteThey knew what it was, they just had never been required to use one. Until they met me.
ReplyDeleteKevin DuJan, please never stop being who you are.
ReplyDeleteFixed it.
Honestly, I thought the insinuation here was that Sandra Fluke was a lesbian, and therefore utterly bewildered by the lowly condom.
ReplyDeleteI'm still shocked that no one on the right seems to have considered going with this tack. A "man-hating dyke," would push a lot more wingnut buttons than a mere "slut."
My fevered imagination is already conjuring up a Republican fantasy porn film where Sandra gets it on in a hot strap-on scene with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then gets abducted and "tamed" by Paul Ryan. This results in Sandra's embrace of supply-side economics... and an inevitable pregnancy. ("Oh, Paul... we'll name him Ayndy.")
Saul Alinsky! Slowly I turned.. step.. by step.. inch..by..inch..
ReplyDeleteBeyond accepting that we women have sex and do so for our pleasure; choosing whether or not we conceive and having the ability to space pregnancies allows us to have agency in our lives, to limit the number of children we do or don't have (for the benefit of all), and to live longer lives in better health. It also costs our society a lot less than pregnancy and impoverished children.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about sex. It isn't really about religion. It's about men having control over women. Whether misogyny is dished out by religious nuts or secular men (and women) who hate women makes little difference. The central issue here is not sex but autonomy and equal rights.
Thanks for that Hunky Jimpjorps. I like the rising tide of panic in the comments offset with calming made-up shit like Don’t listen to exit polls. Remember that Republicans generally don’t talk to pollsters after voting.
ReplyDeleteThey don't! They never do,OMG OMG, we're doomed!
Exactly, zuzu, that was my point. Why pretend that it's not about contraception, even if the Pill has other uses? (Being a fag, I confess I'm ignorant about the details, though unlike a lot of straight boys, I'm not squeamish about them; do hormones used to control cysts etc. have to be labeled and prescribed as contraception? The Right would just see that as a loophole to let loose women commit birth control sub rosa, of course.) And pointing to those other uses, which may have been justifiable since most likely the old straight boys in Congress probably knew nothing about it and didn't want to, still seems to me have been disingenuous. The issue was birth control, and women's reproductive autonomy, and I doubt that talking about its other uses was going to impress the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. They're perfectly willing to let women die in the service of doctrine.
ReplyDeleteI'm with JennOfArk here. Contrary to Dunn's claims, liberals do a pretty damned poor job of framing issues for the media and PR; the Right does it better. Perhaps No One Could Have Foreseen that the Right would pick on Fluke's testimony as they did, but at least they could have reacted better. As Jenn said, most women who use contraception (and, she might have added, abortion) are married and are already mothers. For some reason, pro-choicers have mostly failed to hammer this point home. KatWillow seems to have missed it too.
The same thing happened with the Todd Akin mess. Hardly any of his pro-choice critics bothered to counter him by saying that a woman shouldn't have to be raped to get an abortion. They let him set the terms of the debate in terms of the rape exception, which was a red herring. Suppose Akin or Mourdock backed down and said, okay, I'll let women who've been impregnated by rape have abortions, as long as they pay for themselves. Would that have been a victory? Letting the Right frame the debate, as consistently happens and not just in women's issues, is a defeat.
Cthulhu, you people are dumb. No wonder abortions and contraception and sexual health generally are under siege.
ReplyDelete"As soon as these guys hear about human needs, they hear human weakness, and they go on the attack."
ReplyDeleteGreat point. Now: why? What's the opposite of projection? Reaction formation? Whatever. In any case, I think they attack need because they're marinated in the self-pitying feeling that *their* needs constantly go unmet.
And why? Because, whether via ignorance or fear or naivete or bad upbringing, they've bought a bill of goods about worshiping the strong. "Admire your manly heroes," they've been told. "Admire the fictional, macho cartoons of Jesus and Reagan and John Galt, and their strength will be yours." Implicit in that is, "--and, by all means, ignore your own inner experience. Ignore your fears. (They mean nothing, and are just manifestations of weakness you can transcend via will.) Take pride in refusing to know anything about yourself. And therefore, of course, sneer at 'empathy'."
This not only sets them swimming upstream against every important social and cultural movement of the last hundred years, but leaves them feeling unfairly victimized. "Hey, I ignore MY needs like I've been told--how come liberals get to take theirs seriously? And have them met?" They're not just politically resentful, they're existentially resentful.
Yeah. You make a stupid, nonsensical initial point about the "proper" labeling of contraceptives as if that's why abortion rights are under siege — but we're being dumb.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you don't know what Fluke said in her testimony. She said that contraceptions and birth control were, in fact, a public health issue overall. She said she uses contraceptives and that they also have other uses.
As far as the "no one stands up for contraception or fucking" line you seem to be taking, I must have been listening to an entirely different debate -- one where people said "of course women and men have sex and should use contraception, in fact, the reasons the insurance companies throw it in for practically nothing is that it saves them money."
Moreover, your point about the RCC hierarchy is meaningless. Obviously there's nothing, at all, you are going to say to the Roman Catholic Church that will make any difference whether they would support contraception in any case. There are, however, plenty of other people who might like to know there are many different health care concerns addressed by contraception and that it should be available. The people who support family planning, sex ed and sexual health issues are already onboard -- other people have different motivations or need additional rationales to give their tacit support of the health benefits of contraceptives.
And of course the Democrats missed a chance to be "better" on the abortion issue -- they are Democrats. But I'm not sure that they were trying to do anything but alert people in Missouri and Indiana who would be otherwise "pro-life" types that Murdock and Aikens were even too extreme for them. It was an electoral play in two Red states, not ripe ground to stand on the principle of choice.
Mr. Jimpjorps is my father. You can call me El Hunksterino.
ReplyDeleteDuncan, you're moving the goal posts. This is what you said: Hm. If contraception has these other uses, maybe it should be called
ReplyDeletesomething else? "Contraception" means "against conception." It does
not mean the use of estrogen for other purposes.
So you're arguing that we should call contraception something else if it has other purposes, even if its primary purpose remains contraception. You also lump together barrier methods such as condoms and diaphragms with oral contraceptives and hormonal contraceptives delivered non-orally -- you know, the kind of contraception which requires a prescription and thus is the only type relevant to a discussion of insurance coverage of prescription medication -- possibly because you can't be arsed to care about it since it doesn't affect you or your health or your bodily autonomy.
The point Fluke and others make is that regardless of your position on contraceptives qua contraceptives, prescription hormonal methods also treat a number of medical conditions such as the kind of ovarian cysts her friend had, which being left untreated due to not being covered by Georgetown's plan, resulted in the loss of her ovary and the diminishment of her fertility. The position of Georgetown and other Catholic-run institutions which do not have a primarily religious purpose is that allowing students to pay out of their own pockets for coverage of prescription medication which may be medically necessary to treat health-endangering conditions is an assault on their religious freedom. Yet these same institutions provide their employees, as part of their compensation package (and thus using institutional funds) with health insurance which covers prescription contraceptives for ANY purpose. Because they are required to by the laws of 28 states, including California and New York. Those laws only cover employee plans, however, and do not require student plans to follow the same rules -- even though the students pay 100% of the cost of their own health insurance and the employee plans are subsidized by the employer as part of their compensation package.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2012/february/10/npr-contraception-rules-in-force-for-years.aspx
But thanks so much for mansplaining contraception to me.
This from a guy who thinks that condoms are an issue here.
ReplyDeleteAnd because the central issue is autonomy and equal rights, it made perfect sense in the House Republicans' minds to have a sausagefest discussing the issue.
ReplyDeleteI felt sorry for this poor schnook, for a minute, after reading this line "My parents don't speak to me because I'm gay..." but then I reconsidered. He's not known for his accurate reporting. Maybe they stopped speaking to him because he's, you know, Kevin DuJan. I'm kind of with them on that one.
ReplyDeleteaimai
They may not have used the phrase, but wingut cartoonists definitely went to the well of stock 'ugly man-hating feminist' drawings whenever she came up.
ReplyDeleteI stand by my joke, because funny, but I don't really assume those partners of yours were complete dolts. I guess they'd be dolts to refuse your help. OK ... if the guy stands there going soft shouting "NO I CAN DO DIS MYSELF," then you've got trouble.
ReplyDeleteIf contraception has these other uses, maybe it should be called something else? "Contraception" means "against conception." It does not mean the use of estrogen for other purposes. This is exactly what SANDRA FLUKE did when she testified. And she was called a whore and a slut by someone who obviously didn't hear her testimony or understand if if he did hear it.
ReplyDeleteYour heart is in the right place, but you could study up on the art of Argumentation. My husband spend a week or so studying the subject, and he isn't a lawyer! I never argue with him, its hopeless.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the RCC pretty much the last vestiges of the Old Roman Empire? "Pope" instead of "Emperor". Oh how they must long for the days when a man could order his wife to "expose" a baby HE didn't want.
ReplyDeleteWell, Li'l' Ricky has already started hinting about 2016 (ohpleaseohplease), so it's not necessarily too late.
ReplyDelete"I am visualizing every saint, angel, and soul I’v ever known swooping down from Heaven to make the numbers go up and up and up for a President Romney".
ReplyDeleteSo no one he knows is still alive?
...and suddenly, the condom was on.
ReplyDeleteWe need a salesman who could replicate human appearance without demonstrating any human emotion, like Romney or Hymie the Robot.
ReplyDeleteA good enough metaphor is the newly-elected Ronnie Raygun asking to "see the War Room," just as in "Dr. Strangelove."
ReplyDeleteIIRC you just have to click on your generic silhouette head. Disqus (or somebody) will ask if you want to upload an image and that starts you and Sylvester on your way.
ReplyDeleteI've got to disagree, satch, I have never heard a pro choice person cede the argument and say a blastocyst or a mere fertilized egg is some kind of baby. In fact pro choice people are usually very clear about maintaining proper terminology like blastocyst, fetus, etc.. But you can't win the term war against the people who take 1984 as their manual of style.
ReplyDeleteWell, he got the lube on the inside. I wondered what was taking him so long.
ReplyDeleteYou mean Viggo Mortenson?
ReplyDeleteOr Peggy Noonan, as long as you kept her away from the Bushmill's Irish Whiskey.
ReplyDeleteHi, as someone who works in the reproductive rights community, I'd just like to say that most of what you're arguing is either shit we're already doing or basically a terrible idea. But that's for your condescending, admittedly under-informed lecture on how we're all doing it wrong.
ReplyDelete"How exactly does someone transform a person so that they are confused by common objects?"
ReplyDeleteI believe one method is to sign them up for the GOP, as those guys have been seriously confused about how objects as common as NUMBERS work for many years now.
Most Popular and Famous Vehicles, Latest Speed Cars, Sports Cars Info and Pictures.
ReplyDeleteworldlatestvehicles.blogspot.com
"(How about the Facebook "Sandra Fluke Condom Support Group"?)"
ReplyDeleteLast I heard, it was the gentleman's responsibility to support the condom.