"The America we have today is the result of liberalism."

Steve Gilliard has a great rant on What To Do Next:

We use our tools against the GOP and will split them and win. The Bible Thumpers will always be with us, and after a while, people get sick of them. They did in the 20's and they will now. The GOP has one fucking thing holding them together, power. In 2007, a lot of fiscal conserrvatives are going to find their nominess for president are a high grade of wacko, like Rick Santorum. People who are too crazy to win, but because the Jesus freaks control the GOP street game, they will have to decide what to do. Just like we listened to Jim Carville four years too long, the GOP will curse the name of Karl Rove for letting the Jesus freaks think the GOP is God's Own Party. Personally, I plan on handing them anvils and watching the fucking bubbles hit the surface.

It's a thousand words or so that will stiffen your spine.  I gotta love anyone who calls Peter Beinart a "fucking asshole licking PNAC ass like a prison punk." 

Comments

[emma goldman]

Though, really, I could do without the pussy/bitch name-calling. Someone can say "fuck" to his/her heart's content and not bother me in the least, but the sex-based name-calling that equates female with weak and/or less desireable gets on my nerves.

[Mithras]

Yeah, I know what you mean. To the extent that Steve's language reflects his political point, it's that we need to be more viscerally aggressive and take back some of the psychological power we have handed the right. It's hard to know what else to say in the course of a profane rant like that that will have the same effect - the kind of locker room "hell yeah" that he was going for. That may actually make it worse, not better - the locker room excludes women, it dehumanizes them, it certainly doesn't invite them in.

It would be preferable to have political discussions that didn't attach "weak" to "woman", but that language is already out there and it's powerful. I try not to use it here, myself, just like I don't call people faggots to denote weakness. But for some people - not intellectuals, not especially concerned with the effect of language, but people who we might be able to sway to vote for good candidates if we can reach them - that kind of language is normal. And to them people who find such language offensive are - if men - weak and effete or - if women - doctrinaire and humorless - the parody of liberals. And both of those things have been exploited by the right.

[Emma Goldman]

Yeah, I know all that, and, really, I'm pretty openminded about cursing in general--I curse like a longshoreperson, for one thing--but I'm just tired of the gendered/sexed namecalling. (I actually wrote a post about this a few weeks ago but am too lazy to go find the link.) The way I think about it, it's not okay for you to insult someone by calling him a pussy and then want to get some pussy, you know? How come it's only an insult until you want some, I always ask. And, really, I don't think it's necessary. I think it's every bit as possible to reach the people he's apparently trying to reach without doing that. And you know what? If it's not possible? If you have to insult women to make the point? Then that means we're in even deeper shit than I thought.