The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Essential Feminist Quotes: ‘Lesbianism and Feminism Have Been Coterminous’

Posted on | September 29, 2014 | 36 Comments

Left to right: Judith Butler, Bonnie Zimmerman, Diane Richardson

“Is there some commonality among ‘women’ that preexists their oppression, or do ‘women’ have a bond by virtue of their oppression alone? Is there a specificity to women’s cultures that is independent of their subordination by hegemonic, masculinist cultures? . . .
“Is the construction of the category of women as a coherent and stable subject an unwitting regulation and reification precisely contrary to feminist aims? . . . To what extent does the category of women achieve stability and coherence only in the context of the heterosexual matrix?”
— Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

“[Charlotte Bunch’s 1972 manifesto] ‘Lesbians in Revolt’ argued one powerful and uncompromising principle: because sexism is the root of all oppression and heterosexuality upholds sexism, feminists must become lesbians and lesbians must become feminists if we are to effect a revolution. . . . To state that feminists must become lesbians assumes that lesbianism is a matter of choice and conviction, not biological conditioning or sexual behavior. Moreover, lesbians must also become feminists, that is, they must ground their sexuality in a political discourse if any social change is to occur. . . .
“Lesbian criticism of any and all varieties was constructed by flesh and bone lesbians starting in the early 1970s. For us, feminism was not a distinct discourse that spoke ‘for’ lesbians but an epistemology used by lesbians to speak for ourselves. . . . I believe it can be shown that, historically, lesbianism and feminism have been coterminous if not identical social phenomena.”
— Bonnie Zimmerman, “Confessions of a Lesbian Feminist,” in Cross Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits of Alliance, edited by Dana Heller (1997)

“Heterosexuality is a category divided by gender and which also depends for its meaning on gender divisions. . . .
“The view that heterosexuality is a key site of male power is widely accepted within feminism. Within most feminist accounts, heterosexuality is seen not as an individual preference, something we are born like or gradually develop into, but as a socially constructed institution which structures and maintains male domination, in particular through the way it channels women into marriage and motherhood. Similarly, lesbianism has been defined not just as a particular sexual practice, but as a form of political struggle — a challenge to the institution of heterosexuality and a form of resistance to patriarchal relations.”
— Dianne Richardson, “Theorizing Heterosexuality,” in Rethinking Sexuality (2000)

Many people wrongly believe that the anti-male/anti-heterosexual ideology that prevails within Women’s Studies curricula doesn’t have any real impact on the larger culture: “That’s just a bunch of academic eggheads talking to each other. Who cares?”

However, many students are clearly internalizing these radical feminist theories. Critiquing a popular song by Meghan Trainor (“All About That Bass”), University of Pennsylvania junior Katiera Sordjan condemned the dance hit because “it sends a very problematic message . . . framed in the views of the ever-present male gaze”:

Girls shouldn’t have to justify their body types by pointing to what men find attractive. Women also have various sexualities that should not have to be constrained by heteronormativity or a stereotypical view of what femininity should be.

The idea that women are generally heterosexual and therefore wish to be viewed by men as attractive — well, that’s “very problematic” for any college student who has paid attention in her Women’s Studies classes, and who therefore can’t enjoy a Top 40 song because the lyrics are “constrained by heteronormativity.” Or how about Texas State University sophomore Brandon Sams?

Heteronormativity is a detrimental concept and bias that asserts that all people fall into distinct and complimentary genders — man and woman. Many people wrongfully adhere to heteronormativity, which has historically been the impediment to gendered progress and feelings about sexuality. These falsely idealized institutions need to be questioned, indicted and convicted for their problematic manifestations. Heteronormativity also asserts that these purported two genders have naturally determined roles in life. Therefore marriage and sexual relationships, among a multitude of other things, are only befitting for people within these two genders.

Your idea that “men” and “women” are valid categories, and have natural roles? That’s an “impediment to gendered progress”!

Feminism and the gay rights movement are basically the same thing — “coterminous,” as Bonnie Zimmerman says. She is not an obscure fringe figure, but one of the most influential feminists in America, as her biography at San Diego State University makes clear:

Dr. Zimmerman became a founding member of the Women’s Studies College at SUNY Buffalo in 1970, where she created and taught numerous courses in women’s studies, women’s literature, and feminist theory. In 1978, Dr. Zimmerman accepted a position as a temporary lecturer at SDSU’s groundbreaking Women’s Studies department — the first Women’s Studies program in the country. As her career bloomed, she went on to become a professor and eventually chair of the department, and came to be recognized as one of the nation’s top lesbian scholars. Dr. Zimmerman became especially known for her published articles, the best known of which, “What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism,” has been anthologized in the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Dr. Zimmerman has published extensively, including the books, Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia; The New Lesbian Studies: Into the 21st Century; Professions of Desire; Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature; and The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction, 1969 to 1989. She has also been an active member of the Modern Language Association and the National Women’s Studies Association, of which she served as president in 1998 and 1999. From 2003 until 2010, she was associate Vice-president of Faculty Affairs, having previously served as the chair of the university senate. Dr. Zimmerman has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Most Influential Faculty Awards in English and Comparative Literature in 1982, and in Women’s Studies in 1985, 1990, and 1999. She was also the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and Emily Toth Award in 1991, as well as the Positive Visibility Award from GLAAD in 1996. Her contribution and service to the university have been recognized in such honors as the Alumni Award for Outstanding Faculty Contribution to the University in 2003, and the Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award in 2004.

What Professor Zimmerman says about the radical lesbian vision of Charlotte Bunch — “sexism is the root of all oppression and heterosexuality upholds sexism” — is echoed in Judith Butler’s description of women’s “subordination by hegemonic, masculinist cultures,” whereby the identity of women is formed “in the context of the heterosexual matrix.”

Professor Butler should need no introduction. Her biography at the University of California Berkeley notes among her honors the Andrew Mellon Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in the Humanities as well as the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Cultural Ministry. Her book Gender Trouble is one of the most widely assigned texts in Women’s Studies (currently ranked No. 6 bestseller in the “Gender Studies” category at Amazon).

The feminists who are saying these things are not marginal figures within academia. They are among the most prestigious and influential professors in the field of Women’s Studies, among whom there is widespread agreement that heterosexuality is “a socially constructed institution which structures and maintains male domination,” to quote Professor Diane Richardson. She has been head of the department of sociology and director of the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies at Newcastle University in England, also holding visiting fellowships at Columbia and Harvard universities. She and her colleague Victoria Robinson are editors of Introducing Gender & Womens Studies, a widely used textbook in Great Britain.

What you see consistently in the writings of Women’s Studies professors are a set of core ideas: Women are oppressed by men; heterosexuality is the context within which that oppression occurs; and “gender roles,” the expression of common beliefs about the nature of men and women, are necessary to the system of male supremacy (patriarchy) that employs the “heterosexual matrix” to controls women.

Oppression, domination, patriarchy, male supremacy, gender roles, heteronormativity, the male gaze — this is the rhetoric of radicalism, describing the anti-male/anti-heterosexual worldview promoted by Women’s Studies programs at our colleges and universities.

In the two university newspaper articles quoted earlier, both students used the words “problematic” and “heteronormative” together. Why is this? Professor Stevi Jackson, Director of the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York in England, provides a clue in her 1999 book Heterosexuality in Question:

[L]esbian feminists began, early in the 1970s, to mount an attack on heterosexuality as a patriarchal institution.
My focus here is on feminist critiques of heterosexuality . . . I am particularly interested in problematizing heterosexuality from within and hence in the ways in which straight feminists have engaged with — or distanced themselves from — this project. . . .
I am situating myself within this narrative as a heterosexual feminist, although that label is in some ways problematic; like others in the same position, I would not want to define my feminism by my heterosexuality. . . . [I]t is impossible to live within a patriarchal society as both a feminist without being aware of contradictions . . .

This is amazing: Although identifying herself as heterosexual, Professor Jackson is “problematizing” her own sexual preferences, because it is “impossible” for her as a feminist to ignore the “contradictions” between her political theory and her sexuality.

Heterosexuality is inherently problematic from a feminist perspective.

Here we return to a basic point that has been confirmed in my research for the “Sex Trouble” series about radical feminism, namely that the theories promulgated in Women’s Studies programs are fundamentally incompatible with heterosexuality. There is a reason, after all, why Carmen Rios said she became a “raging lesbian feminist” after enrolling in Women’s Studies, and why she called these programs “Lesbo Recruitment 101.”

Most people believe feminists are wrong about heterosexuality being “socially constructed” and lesbianism being “a matter of choice and conviction,” so what happens when young heterosexual women at colleges and universities are indoctrinated with the feminist worldview? If they are unlikely to become lesbian, neither will they ever be able to find happiness in a normal life of men, marriage and motherhood.

Taught to view men as their oppressors, and to consider marriage and motherhood the negation of their own identities, how can these women reconcile their feminist beliefs with their own heterosexuality? As Professor Jackson admitted, they can’t.

Feminist theory, you see, tells heterosexual women that their attraction to men — their normal sexuality — is both inauthentic and contrary to their own best interest. Insofar as any heterosexual woman adopts a feminist belief system, therefore, she must hate her male partners (who are oppressing her) and hate herself for her own weakness, being unable to resist this male oppression.

Of course, God help any guy stupid enough to date a Women’s Studies major. One shudders to imagine the feminist’s boyfriend constantly forced to apologize: “I’m sorry for having a penis!”




 

 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

‘My Hypothetical Daughter’

Posted on | September 29, 2014 | 133 Comments

Emily Heist Moss (@EmilyHeistMoss) is the type of young feminist who inspires readers to ask, “Stacy, how do you find these idiots?”

The short answer is that feminists are herd animals, who aggregate around certain online watering holes, so that wherever you find one zany Gender Studies type, there are sure to be many more. Thus while I was reading an article by Chelsea Bock, I noticed in the sidebar an article by Emily Heist Moss with this eye-grabbing headline:

To The Men Who Try To Have Condom-Free Sex

If crazy were silver, Emily Heist Moss would be the Comstock Lode, and the feminist blog Role/Reboot would be a Nevada mountain, but we’ll have to take these metaphors one at a time, beginning with Ms. Moss’s complaints about the hook-up lifestyle:

You know that thing when you’re about to have sex with someone and you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy and fun things are happening and you anticipate more fun things are coming and you’re in this groove and then, instead of the telltale ripping of a condom wrapper, or the brief pause when he sits back on his heels to assess and discuss the protection situation, he tries to slip it in like you won’t even notice?
And you, upon realizing what the moron down between your legs is doing — or rather, neglecting to do — you hear in your brain that screeeeeeeech like tires slamming to a halt because instead of warm and fuzzy you feel confused and indignant. You feel overlooked, irrelevant to this bodily conversation you were excited to get going just seconds before. You feel, suddenly, like just a hole, and not a person with opinions on the subject of contraception, with aspirations for a baby- and disease-free future, with a 50% stake in what’s about to go down.
Do you know that feeling?
If you have been so lucky as to avoid it, pat yourself on the back, cross your fingers, and continue whatever rain dance you’ve been performing that keeps condoms falling from the sky and conscientious partners in your bed. Because the rest of us? Man, we are sitting out here in the cold and it sucks. . . .
When I polled the Internet about their experiences, I got bombarded with stories of the bareback-pressurers, “Don’t you trust me, baby?” whisperers, and the worst offenders, slip-it-off-mid-coitus-no-condom-ninjas. The issue is so widespread that it seems obvious it’s not a question of a few bad apples, but rather a persistent misunderstanding of the rules of engagement. . . .

You can read the whole thing. I’ve quoted Ms. Moss at such length to avoid any accusation that she is being quoted out of context. This is how it is with feminists: If you try to briefly summarize their bizarre beliefs, you will be accused of distorting their meaning; on the other hand, if you quote them at length — unfair! You’re infringing their copyright on lunatic gibberish. But I digress . . .

What Ms. Moss seems to be saying is that when she picks up a random stranger for an exercise in meaningless hedonism, she is shocked — shocked, I tell you! — that these semi-anonymous creeps do not always heed her “rules of engagement.” But what do “rules” mean between two amoral fornicators? On what authority does Ms. Moss, an avowed atheist, base the rules for her loveless couplings?

Well, consent, you see. Starting in the 1960s, a coalition of bohemian perverts, porn merchants and civil libertarians fought a grand crusade to vanquish any vestige of morality from our laws governing sexual behavior, replacing it with the “consenting adults” standard. It was no longer sufficient, said these judicial and legislative modernizers, to say that something was wrong and therefore should also be illegal. According to the new regime, concepts like “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “evil,” “vice” and “virtue” had no useful meaning.

You could do absolutely anything, sex-wise, so long as the participants were “consenting adults.” Now all arguments about sex boil down to disputes about two things: Who is an “adult” and what does “consent” mean? I’m pretty sure that if the forces of Progress and Equality continue in the direction they’ve been going recently — because the logic of their argument is consistent — those who refuse to consent will be accused of a hate crime, the legal age of consent will be abolished, and deviants will then organize to demand the “right” to have sex with unborn fetuses. (“Pre-natal sexuality”? Who are we to judge?)

Anyone who thinks we have reached rock bottom on our long slide down the slippery slope simply hasn’t been paying attention. A commission in Germany recently recommended the legalization of incest, a “reform” too late to benefit the multigenerational incestuous clan in Australia where uncle/brothers were habitually sodomizing their sister/nieces before the police finally raided the place. Meanwhile, in England, gangs of Pakistani pimps were raping and prostituting working-class girls as young as 11 while local Labour Party officials looked the other way.

Amid this increasingly frenetic worldwide carnival of sordid sexual atrocities that the advocates of Progress and Equality have let loose upon humanity, you see, Emily Heist Moss is complaining that some of her “friends with benefits” are trying to sneak a bit of unprotected friction into their casual couplings. This is a Major Issue, OK? And if you disagree about the relative importance of her problems, you’re just a hater.

The venue in which Ms. Moss made this complaint deserves critical scrutiny. Here’s how Role/Reboot began a few years ago:

In 2009, Role Reboot co-founder Fran Rodgers was asked to teach a course on Women’s Movements Past and Future at Tufts University. Fran wanted to make sure that her course was relevant to a younger generation, and enlisted Morra Aarons-Mele as her partner in developing the course. . . .
As they prepared the college course, however, Fran and Morra realized that with every new reading they were moved to act, and began to feel a sense of awakening and responsibility to help create change among men and women. . . .
Fran asked her daughter Nicole to help. . . .
Nicole wanted to bring a feminist sensibility to modern debates without relying too heavily on second-wave authors and discussions. Eventually, the three women determined that what they wanted was an online space for thought leadership about how gender roles are changing . . .

This is from Role/Reboot’s mission statement:

We’re a group defined mostly by what we are not. We’re not the Cleavers or Ozzie and Harriet (nor do we want to be). We don’t aspire to the status quo. We’re forward thinking, creative, and counter-cultural. We’re concerned about deeply embedded “traditional” roles and expectations that often dictate how we structure our lives. We’re creating our own rules. We’re naturally a big-tent movement for anyone trying to live a life free from unhelpful “shoulds.”
While others rally for “New Normal,” we will continue to champion the ideal of “No Normal.”

They aspire to a world in which there are no norms. Who is Role/Reboot co-founder Fran Rodgers? A bit of investigation discovers that Mrs. Rodgers’ life has followed a familiar “gender equality” script: Get an elite education and marry an enterpreneurial Alpha Male so that the heteronormative patriarchy can then fund its own deconstruction (cf., Mike Huffington and Arianna, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, etc.). Role/Reboot is all about postmodern narratives that challenge the discourse of the sex/gender binary, as Judith Butler might say. The site might as well be called “Slouching Toward Androgyny.”

One of the obvious problems with this subversion of gender norms — or, rather, a problem that should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t been drinking the radical egalitarian Kool-Aid — is that masculinity and femininity work, and androgyny fails, when it comes to the crucial social task of reproducing the species. Which is to say that, in general, when viewing cultures in terms of population demographics and over the course of time, traditional sex roles are associated with higher fertility, whereas androgyny is typical of societies that have become decadent and entered demographic decline. This can be demonstrated both historically and in comparing contemporary population groups.

Ceteris paribus, populations typified by what feminists call “male supremacy” (what anthropologists call “normal human behavior”) exhibit reproductive vigor while androgyny (or what feminists call “gender equality”) is typical of population groups with below-replacement fertility levels. Feminists simply have not recognized how their advocacy of the Contraceptive Culture must ultimately doom their movement to failure and, insofar as our nation embraces feminism, so also is our nation doomed. This has been explained by numerous authors. You can read Mark Steyn’s America Alone or Jonathan Last’s What to Expect When No One’s Expecting for timely discussion of these issues. Yet it’s really just common sense, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to understand why the birth rate in Yemen is higher than the birth rate in Denmark, why Orthodox Jews have large families and secular Jews do not, or why Oklahoma Baptists have more babies than Massachusetts liberals. Culture influences demographics and vice-versa, but while decadent intellectuals may dominate elite culture, demographics is a matter of simple math, and no amount of complex academic theory can change a basic fact of nature: The future belongs to the fertile.

What anyone could discern from facts, logic, tradition, common sense and elementary arithmetic, however, eludes the minds of those who have been indoctrinated into the beliefs of the intelligentsia. Thus we return to another Emily Heist Moss column:

On Choosing My Own Last Name
At 18, I added my mother’s last name to my signature. . . .
When I first changed my name, people thought it was a joke, that “Heist” was some sort of badass moniker, like “Danger,” that I gave myself to look cool on the Internet. . . .
My mother’s last name is Heist and she, like many in her cohort of second-wavers, kept it when she got married, even in the face of wedding day second-guessing from my traditionally-minded grandmother. . . .
When I was in college, probably with the assistance of a heavy load of consciousness-raising gender studies classes, I realized that my signature felt incomplete. Particularly because my parents were divorced, I wanted the name I put on things I was proud of to reflect both sides of my history. . . .
But what if you get married?! Oh how the naysayers love the What Ifs. What if you marry a hyphenated dude?! You can’t hyphenate forever! You wouldn’t do that to your kids! That’s just cruel! 
Is it? Maybe, if you think burdening children with complicated answers to simple questions is cruel. But is it any crueler than explaining to my hypothetical daughter that Daddy’s last name was more important than Mommy’s because he’s a man? Is it crueler than telling her that someday, unlike her brother’s, her identity will probably be considered dismissable, negotiable, non-essential? Is it really any crazier than what we do now? Disappearing one parent’s past into the other parent’s because… chromosomes? Because…tradition? Because…convenience? . . .
But what will I call my children?! Who knows . . . I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Uh, you mean if you get to it, don’t you, Ms. Moss?

There is tremendous irony in her hypotheticals, you see. Is hooking up with random dudes likely to lead to marriage for Ms. Moss? If she can’t even convince them to put latex on their weenies, how does she expect to persuade one to put a ring on her finger? Given how adamant she is about contraception, what do you think the odds are against her ever having that “hypothetical daughter”?

My guess is that both her imagined marriage and imagined children will remain hypotheticals. All those “consciousness-raising gender studies classes” tend to foster anti-male attitudes that are incompatible with marriage. A casual hook-up is one thing, but how many guys want to marry such a ranting fanatic? Even if there were some masochistic male willing to marry her, however, does anyone think Ms. Moss’s feminist consciousness is compatible with motherhood? Abortion is the most cherished sacrament of feminism; it’s impossible to imagine that monomaniacal advocates of baby-killing actually harbor any shred of natural maternal instinct. Yet such is the logic of feminism that we are expected to take seriously what Ms. Moss says about hypothetical marriage and hypothetical child-rearing, and anyone who expresses skepticism as to her authority in these matters . . .

Well, you’re just a hater.

Defining disagreement as hate, so that anyone who does not share their worldview is morally inferior, feminists create the kind of echo-chamber feedback loop we see in totalitarian states or inside paranoid apocalyptic doomsday cults. The possibility that the dictator’s ideology is wrong, or that the cult leader is not divinely inspired — these alternatives must be rejected by the True Believer, and only the voices of True Believers can be heard inside the echo chamber. People who become part of these types of movements typically don’t recognize the nature of the systemic bias built into the information structure that shelters movement members from facts or logic that contradicts the movement’s ideology. Over and over again, intelligent and well-meaning people who join such movements become disillusioned when they encounter the Thought Police who enforce rhetorical conformity. Eventually, therefore, as the honest followers become disgusted and walk away, the movement is more and more composed of followers who are too stupid to understand what’s wrong with their belief system, and who do not recognize that the movement’s leaders are selfish, dishonest or just plain crazy.

Feminism is like Jonestown or North Korea, but the totalitarian cult vibe inside the movement is never apparent to True Believers like Emily Heist Moss. They continue parroting the belief system, continue upholding the truth of their ideology, and reject all negative feedback as “hate.” Nothing else can explain why Ms. Moss is willing to humiliate herself by publishing lunacy like this:

What Sex Counts As ‘Real’ Sex?
. . . Penis-in-vagina sex is not on the menu for same-sex couples for obvious reasons. By putting a premium on this one particular sex act as the only one that “counts,” we are implicitly suggesting that the other ones count less. Think about your LGBTQ friends; is your sex more important, more special, more “real,” than their sex?
If it is true for same-sex couples that sex can still occur without a penis penetrating a vagina (and it can, obviously, just ask them), what’s so different about straight couples? Just because you have the specific parts capable of penis-in-vagina doesn’t mean that you must use them in that specific way. If doing the things your gay friends would call “having sex” with your partner gets you going, why wouldn’t you call that “having sex” too?

Do you see what I mean? Ms. Moss insists that the way we talk about sex and think about sex must be changed, lest our “LGBTQ friends” get the impression that we believe there is something “important” or “special” about “a penis penetrating a vagina.”

When you put this weird “LGBTQ” sympathy in the context of her increasing antipathy toward males — those selfish jerks who refuse to wear condoms when their (unimportant) penises are penetrating Ms. Moss’s (non-special) vagina — perhaps you see why I say the odds are that her “hypothetical daughter” will remain strictly hypothetical.

Yes, it’s Patriotic Androgyny for the Equality Warrior!




 

 

 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.29.14

Posted on | September 29, 2014 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Hong Kong Democracy Protesters Defy Calls To Disperse

A police van stranded in a sea of protesters

Major pushback against Beijing’s efforts to restrict democracy
Schools, banks closed as HK paralyzed by protests
Riot police pull back as protesters jam the streets
Taiwan’s President voices support for protesters

Indian Media Praise Modi’s “Rocking Speech” In New York
Send India some tourists, Modi tells Indian-Americans
Modi meets Netanyahu, discusses defense ties

Kurds See Turkey As An Obstacle In The Fight Against ISIS
Despite Erdogan’s suggestion that Turks may start taking part in military operations against ISIS



POLITICS
Obama: Intel Agencies Underestimated Rise Of ISIS

“Because nothing is ever *my* fault.”

Also blames intel for overestimating morale, quality of Iraqi army




Lawsuit Could Scramble Kansas Senate Race Again

GOP Says Obama Needs To Recall Congress For Military Force Vote

Ernst, Braley Spar Over Immigration In Iowa Senate Debate

Senator Barrasso (R-WY) Warns Against Lame Duck Holder Replacement



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Drops On Strong Dollar: WTI $92.95, Brent $96.75
Asian Stocks Hit Four-Month Low As Hong Kong Seethes, Dollar Shines
Lenovo Finalizes Purchase Of IBM x86 Server Business
Six Years After AIG Bailout, Trial Asks: Was It Legal?
Economists Slash Q3 Forecast But See Growth Ahead
EU To Accuse Apple Of Illegal Tax Deal With Ireland
Windows 9 Free For Windows 8 Users?
Smuggled iPhones Not Finding Many Takers In China
Say Ello To My Little Friend!
BlackBerry Shows Signs Of Recovery With Smaller Quarterly Loss
Oculus CEO: The Heart Of VR Will Always Be Gaming



SPORTS
J-Zim No-Hits Marlins To Close Out 2014 At Nationals Park

Wilson Ramos and Kevin Frandsen congratulate Jordan Zimmerman

Fifth no-hitter in franchise history, but first for the Nationals


Backup Quarterbacks Taking Center Stage In The NFL

A’s Clinch Wild-Card As Gray Shuts Out Rangers



Smith, Ravens Excel At Panthers’ Expense

Tigers Clinch AL Central With Shutout Of Twins

Kenyan Shatters World Record At Berlin Marathon

Cardinals Clinch NL Central With A Little Help From Reds

Rodgers Throws 4 TDs As Packers Whip Bears 38-17

Houston Falls To Mets, But Altuve Claims Batting Title

Royals Beat White Sox 6-4, Will Face A’s For Wild Card

Jays Fall To O’s 1-0



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
J-Lo, Leah Remini Rear-Ended By Drunk Driver

Lopez and Remini #thebronxcameout

Neither actress hurt; drunk driver sped away but caught by police, charged with DUI, hit & run


Human Rights Lawyer Marries George Clooney

Robin Williams’ Life Celebrated At San Francisco Tribute



Randy Jackson: Take Half My Fortune And Make It Your Own

Eric Church & Wife Expecting Second Baby

LiLo: “It Could Have Been A Disaster – But It Wasn’t”

Unspeakable Armenian And Rapper Husband Dubbed “Fashion Flu”

Adrian Peterson Cleared Of Sexual Assault Charges

“Sopranos” Star Discovers Artwork Worth Millions

Kendra Wilkinson Admits She Ignored Hank Bassett’s Issues

Leaked Nudes Of Rihanna, Gabrielle Union Surface

John Galliano Says He’ll Be Making A Big Comeback



FOREIGNERS
Indo-Israel Ties On The March
Deaths Mount In Japanese Eruption As Volcano Smolders On
Ashraf Ghani Takes Oath As New Afghan President
US-Led Strikes Hit Grain Silos In IS-Held Territory
UKIP On The Rise In Ulster
Five Terrorists Killed in Khyber Valley Blast
Cambodia To Accept Refugees From Australia “On Voluntary Basis”
Radical Burmese Cleric: Buddhism Under Jihad Threat
Car Bomb Kills At Least Fifteen At Rebel Base In Yemen
Spain To Challenge Cataloonies’ Referendum Call
Ukraine Truce Hangs In The Balance



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: Poll Says Three-Quarters Of Americans Don’t Trust Obama’s “No Ground Troops” Pledge
American Thinker: Un-Common, Not Core
BLACKFIVE: Trailer Talk, Featuring Barack Obama
Conservatives4Palin: Governor Palin Meets Meriam Ibrahim At Values Voter Summit
Don Surber: What They Said When Alberto Gonzales Left
Jammie Wearing Fools: Homeland Security Moving To Tackle Nonexistent Climate Change
Joe For America: Democrat Congressman Calls Benghazi Security Officers Liars
JustOneMinute: Why Not The Best?
Protein Wisdom: Kevin Williamson Tells Lena Dunham “We Really, Truly, Do Not Want To Be Involved In Your Sex Life.”
Shot in The Dark: Trulbert! Part XIII – The Shrieking Of Autumn Leaves
STUMP: Public Pension Watch – New Jersey? They’re Screwed
The Gateway Pundit: Second Oklahoma Muslim Threatens To Behead Co-Worker, Says He Represents ISIS
The Jawa Report: Oklahoma Imam Claims US Muslims Live In Fear of Beheading
The Lonely Conservative: New Medicaid Enrollees Having Trouble Finding Doctors
This Ain’t Hell: Boots On The Ground
Weasel Zippers: DNC’s Donna Brazile Calls For Scrapping Constitution To Save America From Conservatives
Megan McArdle: How The Poor Can Afford To Live In New York


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Category: Live at Five

The Republican Direction Is The Same Tired One As The Democrats; Just Slower

Posted on | September 28, 2014 | 73 Comments

by Smitty

As is generally the case when reading purported conservative writers
like Brooks and Noonan, one wonders: what part of “Progressivism is
played out” do they not understand? Noonan in the WSJ:

But put aside the word “nationalized.” Shouldn’t the Republican Party make it clear right now exactly what it is for and what it intends to do?

Here the views of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and much of the Washington-based GOP election apparatus have held sway. If you are explicit in terms of larger policy ideas, you just give Democrats something to shoot at. Don’t give them a target. ObamaCare, the foreign-policy mess, the IRS—these are so unpopular they’re more than enough reason to vote Republican. Don’t give voters a reason not to!

Dems to shoot at; conservatives to vote for: WDATPDIM?
Noonan cites the old trope

The cliché is that
Republicans are old, white, don’t like women or science, are narrow,
numeric and oppose all modern ways. The cliché probably isn’t as
powerful as it used to be because the president has made so many new
Republicans, but it’s still there.

And why won’t it die? Look at the low points in this year’s primaries:

Why would the Republican Party want a radiologist like Milton Wolfe in office, somebody who might speak credibly in favor of market reforms for healtchare? Somebody who might insist the actually GOP do something to offend the clerisy, like sending ObamaCare repeal legislation to #OccupyResoluteDesk? Nah, lets just keep a deadwood incumbent in place instead. Somebody ‘reliable’. Like in those banana republics we used to laugh at. Those rubes in the base are supposed to get the hint and just play along. This is a Progressive country now, heading in the direction of Old Europe; the legacy Constitutional features,
Pat Roberts may yet cling to power in Kansas for example, the Bill of Rights, are being steadily pecked away at,

and will eventually collapse in a “Too old; didn’t read” tweet.

Speaking of ‘reliable’, how about that Mississippi miss? Why not blow away any GOP pretense of credibility by completely jacking up a runoff vote? Those far gone
conservative ISILs will shut up, lay by their dish, and vote GOP–what other choice do they have? It’s like this: the GOP interest in
balancing the books, reforming taxes, Thad Cochran reached for the brass knuckles in the Mississippi primary

limiting government, and restoring power to the states hasn’t been more

than pro forma posturing since Reagan. Today’s GOP is just not substantially different in its commitment to Progressivism than the Democrats; what differences you can point to are of style only. Yeah, it’s a bit of a shame that small donors are going to have to be rooked into contributing to campaigns,
John McCain is rumored to ponder another 6 years fronting the legislative thrash band “Zombie Warhorses” only to discover that they were being shamelessly used,

but isn’t that the essence of politics? At least, that’s what I got out of the last Brooks column I formally laughed at.
Mark Levin says that it’s time to nominate another Reagan for 2016. The 2014 GOP doesn’t seem to care fig #1 about the future, reform, the base, or anything other than keeping the elite in power.
What’s the point of the Republican Party if it can’t nominate anyone other than Ward Cleaver, unless his name rhymes with “Tush”?
Now, it is certainly the case that not voting is unacceptable. You’re all paying customers, directly or indirectly. Let’s get out and vote. Keeping the Tea Party pressure up on the deadwood is still the most reasonable way to affect change. I will say that if there is one political scalp to covet, it’s John McCain’s. Start saving aluminum cans now, and hope that Arizona puts forth a credible conservative challenger, because I’d love to donate to anyone capable of sending that warhorse out to pasture.

Category: Republicans

Brother of the World’s Youngest Blogger: “The Economy Stinks”

Posted on | September 28, 2014 | 18 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

On ‘Feminist Men’ and Unicorns

Posted on | September 28, 2014 | 40 Comments

Chelsea Bock (@ChelseaCristene) is a young feminist writer and community college English instructor who came to my attention because of a blog post she wrote about E.J. Levy, but that’s another story for another day, or maybe later today. Anyway, curiosity led me to check Bock’s Twitter feed, where she was RT’ing stuff from the Good Men Project and #HeForShe and Autostraddle (!), and I was like, “Oh, I know this type. Trying to save males from their own sexism.”

In essence: You guys don’t know how to be men. Let me tell you how.

Sweetheart, you’re a unicorn hunter.

You’re chasing something that your theory tells you must exist somewhere — the Feminist Man — even though every previous claim to have found one turned out to be like the Piltdown Hoax. Bill Clinton was supposed to be the Feminist Man; it turned out his commitment to equality could be summarized in two words: “Blow me.” More recently, the unicorn hunters claimed that Professor Hugo Schwyzer was the Feminist Man, until it was revealed that he was in fact a dangerous psychotic with a habit of banging his community college students. Perhaps you see the pattern here.

If you’re a womanizing sociopathic narcissist on the hunt for some easy action, being a Feminist Man is definitely your gig.

One gets the idea, generally, that these unicorn hunters are perfectionists doomed forever to be disappointed with actual men, none of whom is ever going to fit the unrealistic requirements of being the Feminist Man. Do they want Ashley Wilkes or do they want Rhett Butler? Or is the problem that the Rhett Butler types are rare and usually not interested in the type of woman who says she wants a Feminist Man? When you get to the bottom line, really, you recognize that this is a personal problem for a certain group of disgruntled women, and not a problem that easily lends itself to one of those personal-to-political issue platforms.

Adulthood involves accepting that the world is what it is, and not wishing you could live in an imagined utopia. Make a choice: Do you want to grow up, or do you want to be a ToysRUs kid?

It seems that Chelsea Bock doesn’t like making choices. It’s possible to read between the lines of her writing and social media output. Did I mention that she RT’d an Autostraddle article? Yes, but what I didn’t say was that the article was about Bisexuality Awareness Week. And the subhead on her article about E.J. Levy? “There is no right or wrong way to be queer.” Also there’s this on her blog, Gender on the Rocks:

I do speak from a different point of view because I believe that we are all innately bisexual — just by varying degrees. And after this, I will definitely be writing more on queer theory in the future.

So you can be excused for thinking that maybe — just maybe — Chelsea is keeping her options open. Or maybe that she doesn’t have any really exciting options on her personal horizon. (We can imagine her Craigslist ad: Female, 26, seeks human of any gender willing to make exclusive romantic commitment to someone who is profoundly ambivalent about her erotic preferences.)

Sometimes if you can’t choose between men and women, what you’re really choosing is . . . cats. Lots of cats.

Feminists are not at war with men. They’re at war with human nature. Their demand for “gender equality” is like Hitler’s demand for the Sudetenland, where a compromise — “Peace for our time!” — is merely an invitation to further aggression. If there is such a thing as a Feminist Man, he probably looks a lot like Neville Chamberlain.

 




 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

The American Spectator Folds Like A Cheap Tent, And Other Signs Of The End Times

Posted on | September 27, 2014 | 20 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


One of the more disagreeable things I saw on Facebook this week (and, having a number of acquaintances who report crap from ThinkProgress and similar founts of stupidity, that’s saying something) was this post by Ken White at Popehat pointing out that the American Spectator had surrendered, horse and foot, to the Dread Pro Se Litigant And Alleged Pedophile Brett Kimberlin. My reaction, like Ken’s, boiled down to “WTF? You had the balls to play gadfly against the Clinton Administration, but caved to a petty jerk like this?” Well, that’s one less stream of alerts and fundraising e-mails to clutter my in-box. Semi-related: editors at Wikipedia are trying to flush The Federalist down the memory hole on account of their butthurt over Sean Davis’ exposure of their hero Neil DeGrasse Tyson as this decade’s Dan Rather.


On Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno announced that a division headquarters would be heading for Iraq to coordinate the efforts of the advisors, intel weenies, increased Embassy security forces and other ground troops sent to assist in the fight against the Islamic State. I could have sworn we were told there would be no boots on the ground. In related news, the family of the first female fighter pilot in the UAE disowned her Thursday after she took part in air strikes against IS forces in Syria. Oh, and that Khorasan group Obama was bragging about bombing earlier in the week? Didn’t actually exist. On the ground, Syrian Kurds in Kobane want weapons, not “humanitarian aid.”


Here at home, former Congressman Jim Traficant died of injuries from a tractor accident. You can tell he was a conservative Democrat by the kind of obituaries he’s getting from the Drive-By Media. In riot-torn Ferguson, the Justice Department has ordered police to take off bracelets indicating support for accused fellow officer Darren Wilson. The NYT is visibly hoping third-party candidates derail the GOP’s drive to retake the Senate this fall. In the recent outbreak of workplace violence in Oklahoma, it seems the suspect was canned for arguing in favor of stoning women, and that he was connected to both terrorist imam Anwar al-Awlaki and the Boston bomber’s mosque. But rest easy, there’s no connection to Islam here, right?


Speaking of boots on the ground, T.R. Fehrenbach’s This Kind of War‘s Kindle edition is on sale for $1.99. The early chapters dealing with America’s rapid demobilization after World War 2 and unreadiness for the Korean War seem especially pertinent these days, as Fate seems intent on dragging President Obama and the rest of us back to Iraq, kicking and screaming.


Category: American Spectator, Books, Iraq, Military, Syria, The Kimberlin Files, Turkey

FMJRA 2.0: Fire Escape

Posted on | September 27, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Essential Feminist Quotes: ‘Rapists Serve All Men by Enforcing Male Supremacy’

FMJRA 2.0: Midnight Rider

Thoughts on Ideology

The Vichy GOP Thinks Tea Parties Should Just Shut Up & Fall In Line, Or Something

Rule 5 Sunday: Levitation

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.22.14

Another Community Organizer? We Need That Like Additional Cranial Ventilation

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.23.14

Dilbert Panel Or U.S. Foreign Policy Summary? You Make The Call

The Incoherence of Liberal Feminism

Brooks Threatens Gore’s Grip On “The Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Read”

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.24.14

Historian Erupts: ‘I Will Not Be Lectured to by a Public School Girl Like You!’

Now That Is A Subtle Lie

Arrest in Hannah Graham Case

Special Request

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.25.14

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.26.14

MUSLIM CONVERT BEHEADS WOMAN IN OKLAHOMA TERROR ATROCITY

Top linkers this week:

  1.  Batshit Crazy News (18)
  2. Regular Right Guy (8)

Honorable mention: A View from the Beach, which had four valid links and one to last Friday’s books & Qwerkywriter post.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery!


Category: FMJRA Award
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