The Other McCain

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

Where Feminism Comes From

Posted on | July 25, 2014 | 21 Comments

Earlier, I quoted a Canadian feminist blog about “how bullies and abusers function” and then — having “set the hook,” as a fisherman might say — reeled off the history of the Brett Kimberlin case, without getting into the specific issues the Canadian feminist was talking about, which are interesting enough that they deserve their own post.

At issue is a new Canadian “progressive” web site called Ricochet (which is not to be confused with the established American conservative web site called Ricochet). The hardcore (but not lesbian) Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy explained her problem:

I could not and would not support any platform, publication, or organization involving an allegedly abusive man. And unfortunately I had been provided with information from more than one source that one of the men who co-founded Ricochet had been accused of abuse. . . .
When I learned that this man would be a founder and editor at Ricochet, I was livid. . . . I couldn’t name names but I knew full-well that the information circulating around this particular man had been communicated to many in the progressive community, yet he was still being allowed a position as some kind of leftist leader. No one was holding him to account.

(Yeah, Americans had a similar problem with a guy like that once. And now feminists want to elect his wife our next president.)

People who were willing to trash me publicly, simply because they disagreed with my feminist politics, were unwilling to cut ties with or call out a man who had been accused of abuse. . . .
I know these kinds of men. I lived with one. After I left him and began to tell my community about my experiences with him, he also threatened to sue me.

Now, here is where Meghan Murphy’s story takes an interesting sidetrack. She told the story of that relationship in October 2013:

When I was 26, I had what I sometimes call a quarter-life crisis. In typical 20-something form, I thought what I needed was to escape city life. To get closer to nature and eschew technology or some crap.
I subletted my apartment and hung around on some of the little islands off the coast of British Columbia. . . .
I lived in a tent for the summer. I stopped shaving my armpits and made a bunch of ugly hemp necklaces. I learned to play Janis Joplin songs on my guitar and read a lot of Anarchist pamphlets. . . .

(Everybody’s rolling their eyes at this part of Meghan’s story, but when I was 26, I was playing in a rock-and-roll band and dating strippers. Which isn’t the same as living in a tent and reading Anarchist pamphlets, but does show that 26-year-olds do crazy things that aren’t necessarily an indicator of their future.)

When I first met Dan, he seemed fun and smart, but he was 20 years older than me which, to a 26-year-old who’d only ever slept with men relatively close in age, seemed gross. . . .
He hung around the cafe, took me to local parties, and pretty much became my chauffeur. I hate to admit that I felt I was the one taking advantage of him. I felt I was the one in control.
This is, of course, the trouble with not having real power in this world. We take what we can get. Women learn they have power because men desire them, but it isn’t true. . . .

(Meghan: Your obsession with power, and your belief that women can never have “real power” — because patriarchy! — is the result of looking at the world through an ideological prism. But never mind that right now. Let’s talk about sex, eh?)

I slept with him one night after too many drinks, regretted it immediately and then regretted it even more when, about a month later, I learned I was pregnant. I scheduled an abortion, but suffered a rather traumatic miscarriage a week before my appointment. Dan took care of me while I recovered that week, bedridden and high on OxyContin, prescribed for the pain. Looking back, I see our relationship as one forged through a kind of trauma-bonding. . . .

(Oh, for crying out loud, Meghan, you’ve been reading Dee Graham, haven’t you? It’s probably only a matter of time until you’re screeching that PIV is always rape. But anyway . . .)

I quickly became dependent on Dan. But he was smart. He was able to engage in debates about the things I was interested in -– politics, feminism, progressive movements. He aligned himself with lefty causes and with women’s rights. He believed himself to be a progressive guy. I believed it, too. . . .
He made a point of telling as many people as possible about the thousands of dollars he’d donated to the local women’s anti-violence group. He would identify as a feminist and then talk over all the women in the room.

(Never trust a guy who makes a point of bragging what a huge feminist he is. Guys like that are psychologically defective.)

Eventually his true nature began to show through his carefully crafted persona, but he was a master manipulator and somehow I always ended up believing that either his behaviour would change or that his blow-ups were my fault. . . .

(Proving my point.)

He dominated every conversation and would practically foam at the mouth if anyone disagreed with him. He made excuses as to why he had a pattern of dating much younger women. . . .
At 47, he had all but retired. . . .
He’d memorized pseudo-therapeutic language, impressing women who were accustomed to men who were emotionally disengaged.
He was also always the victim. In past relationships and in life. He was “struggling,” he always said. He described the 10 years of his life spent as vice-president of A&R at a large record label as akin to serving time in a war. . . .

ALARM BELLS! RED FLAGS! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Sweetheart, anybody who knows anything about the music business will tell you: Never trust a record company executive. To compare those people to jackals would be an insult to jackals. To say that somebody spent “10 years of his life . . . as vice-president of A&R at a large record label” is like saying he spent 10 years peddling heroin to teenagers or writing speeches for Mitch McConnell.

Anyway, to continue Meghan’s story about that sociopathic creep Dan:

Explanations of his life were full of holes. . . . He would tell me about women he’d dated or slept with, and then months later I’d learn these stories were lies. He’d laugh it off: “Oh I was just joking about that.”
Through the year and a half we were together, we broke up constantly. The nonstop lying and mind games made me feel crazy and insecure. . . .

(Yeah, you were so “crazy and insecure” that you spent your summer living in a tent and reading anarchist pamphlets.)

I’d hear all sorts of stories from others -– sometimes about him cheating with other women, even younger than me. When I’d ask him about what I’d heard, he’d track down the people who ratted him out, threatening them and spreading rumors around the island that they were crazy and out to get him. Everyone was out to get him for some inexplicable reason.
I left him temporarily after he backhanded me across the face one night. . . .
One woman I’d told, a friend, I’d thought, responded: “Oh but you two were fighting, weren’t you?”
Well, yes. If you call being screamed at, called a “fucking cunt,” and then smacked across the face “a fight,” then yeah. I guess we were fighting. . . .

Well, you can read the rest of that. My point is, this is where feminism comes from — women hanging around wretched amoral “progressive” scumbags who treat women like dirt. And the weird thing is, Meghan Murphy already knows this:

I have a healthy and well-founded mistrust for the male left. . . . The radical feminist movement quite literally was launched, back in the 60s, in response to women’s disappointment in the New Left, who continually ignored and treated our sisters as second class citizens. Women tried to join the fight for equality and liberation only to learn that their own liberation didn’t count.

You can read the rest of that, too. The problem with the Left is that it is composed entirely of three kinds of people:

  1. Emotionally damaged and/or mentally defective losers desperately hoping that politics can solve their problems;
  2. Crackpot intellectuals craving world-historical significance, or at least a regular TV gig and a book contract; and
  3. Clever hustlers trying to score some action.

All of these people have bad motives, which they cannot admit. If they told the truth — “I hate successful, happy people because my mother dressed me in ugly clothes and kids made fun of me in school” — nobody would pay attention to them.

Dishonesty therefore becomes routine and habitual to leftists, and whenever leftists get together, the clever progressive hustlers prey upon the emotionally damaged losers who can be counted on to blame their misfortunes not on the individual creeps who screwed them over, but rather on some large, abstract “social injustice.”

Idiots willing to fight for Social Justice as volunteers are victims of professional leftists who get paid to fight for Social Justice. But if the idiots ever wised up to the hustle, there wouldn’t be a “progressive” movement at all. So the chumps just keep on chumpin’ . . .

 

Category: Feminism, Progressivism

‘This Is How Bullies and Abusers Function. … They Will Stop at Nothing to Silence Their Victims’

Posted on | July 24, 2014 | 26 Comments

Why does this seem so familiar to me?

She said this man had sexually assaulted her. Shortly thereafter she published a post detailing her account. The post was circulated widely among the progressive community. He had his lawyer contact her and demand she remove the post. He threatened to sue her if she spoke of the allegations publicly. She took the post down.
As you’ve probably gathered, I still don’t feel I can “name names” with regard to the alleged perpetrator. I have no doubt that I, too, would be threatened with legal action. . . . This is how bullies and abusers function. With threats. They will stop at nothing to silence their victims and to maintain their positions of power. They need to control the discourse. They are looking out for number one — always.

You can read the whole thing, in which a feminist condemns her fellow feminists who have evidently taken the side of the man (who we can infer is an influential progressive) accused of assaulting a woman. It’s kind of like the Feminist Presidential Knee Pad Brigade that rallied around Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

However, that isn’t the only reason this seems so familiar to me: The wrongdoer who uses threats and lawsuits to silence those who speak truth about his wrongdoing? Yeah. Very familiar.

“I have filed over a hundred lawsuits and another one will be no sweat for me. On the other hand, it will cost you a lot of time and money . . .”
— Brett Kimberlin, Oct. 10, 2010

Nearly four years have passed since the convicted bomber made that threat to Patrick “Patterico” Frey, and some nine months have elapsed since Kimberlin sued more than 20 defendants — including Patterico and myself — in a ridiculous $2 million federal lawsuit that John Hoge dubbed Kimberlin v. the Universe, et al.

Bullies “will stop at nothing to silence their victims . . . They need to control the discourse,” and we should not forget the victims.

“Brett C. Kimberlin schemed to elude justice with a series of bizarre plots designed to murder, maim and rob his enemies, create havoc at Speedway and discredit the chief government prosecutor.
“These plots occurred as lawmen followed the trail of the man who terrorized Speedway with bombs in 1978. . . .
“Kimberlin seemed to be the only one with a possible motive — to distract police attention from the Scyphers murder and delay or halt their quiet investigation of him.”
— R. Joseph Gelarden, “Bizarre plots planned by Speedway Bomber; Kimberlin case a maze of murder, deceit,” Indianapolis Star, Oct. 18, 1981

The murder of Julia Scyphers is still officially unsolved, and there is no statute of limitation for murder. What caused Kimberlin to make his legal threat to Patrick Frey was a post in which Frey discussed Kimberlin’s history as a convicted bomber, drug smuggler, perjurer, and suspected murderer. In response to Kimberlin’s lawsuit threat, Frey repeatedly asked Kimberlin “to specify anything in my post that you claim is false.” Kimberlin never did so, and the obvious inference is because he can’t: Every word is true.

Honest people should never let a liar intimidate them into silence.

If you’re new to this story and are wondering why investigators said Brett Kimberlin had “a possible motive — to distract police attention from the Scyphers murder,” it involved a young girl. And we know about Kimberlin’s enthusiasm for young girls:

Not all the songs on his album — which Mahern characterizes as minimally produced and “pretty much Brett” — have political overtones, which in some respects may be unfortunate: While tracks like “Life’s a Bitch (For a Government Snitch)” and “Who’s Next” (a song about unfounded sex crime accusations) have a definite edge to them, others, like “Waiting to Meet” and “Teen Dream” (both about having sex with teenage girls) are lacking in subtlety and tend to make one squirm. But this is exactly what Kimberlin wants.
“I say things a lot of people are afraid to say. Yeah, ‘Teen Dream’ is about fucking a teenage girl. Every guy who’s seen a good-looking teenage girl has thought about it. I’m talking about that lecherous quality that every man, though he won’t act on it, has.”

Kimberlin was a 41-year-old recently released federal convict in 1996 when he proclaimed his desire to have sex with teenage girls.

In July 2013, Brett Kimberlin’s wife filed for a domestic protective order against her husband, which I described at the time:

The estranged wife of progressive activist Brett Kimberlin says he has been “mentally abusive” to her, claiming in a Maryland court that Kimberlin has been “threatening” her and trying to get her fired from her job at a Montgomery County daycare center.
Tetyana Kimberlin, 32, sought a domestic protective order this week, saying her husband had “been going by my work and telling my employer I am going to be arrested,” and that Kimberlin, 59, “had me arrested before on false charges.”
Brett Kimberlin was convicted in 1981 for a weeklong series of Indiana bombings and sentenced to 50 years in federal prison, but served only 17 years. While imprisoned, Kimberlin became briefly famous during the 1992 election campaign by claiming to have once sold marijuana to then-Vice President Dan Quayle. Kimberlin is now director of two progressive non-profit groups, the 501c3 Justice Through Music Project and 501c4 Velvet Revolution.
“He told me if I will try to take my kids with me he will hurt me and I will see what will happen to me,” Kimberlin’s Russian-born wife wrote in her petition for a protection order, a case that was heard Tuesday in Silver Spring, Maryland. “He tells my 14-year-old about his plans about me and what he is going to do with me.
Kimberlin has “been calling me terrible names … telling my children that I am mentally ill,” his wife wrote, saying she had been separated from him for seven months and now has a boyfriend, who also appeared in court Tuesday.

T. Kimberlin v. B. Kimberlin Petition for Protective Order 7.9.13 (OCR) by AaronWorthing

He was “abusive … threatening,” Kimberlin’s estranged wife told the court and, because of my reporting on this story, I’m one of five defendants he sued for $1 million in Maryland state court (Kimberlin v. Walker, et al.) in addition to the $2 million federal lawsuit.

The last time I updated readers on Kimberlin’s “lawfare” harassment was more than a month ago, on June 20, when the Perjuring Pro Se Pipsqueak sent two letters to the judge in the federal case, and since then, my co-defendants Aaron Walker and John Hoge have kept their readers updated on proceedings, while I have been remiss.

Earlier this month, a judge in the state case granted our requests for summary judgment on the majority of Kimberlin’s claims, so that basically it’s now just a defamation case. Kimberlin’s failure to adequately comply with defendants’ discovery requests — you can see some of his non-responses here and also here — will probably be enough to get the rest of the case tossed out.

The judge in the federal case granted Kimberlin’s motion to amend his lawsuit for the second time. There have been a number of motions to dismiss this amended complaint. Click here to read the motion to dismiss filed by the lawyer for my co-defendants Twitchy and Michelle Malkin, if you want to get an idea of the numerous flaws in Kimberlin’s claims. This week, Kimberlin engaged in “abject stupidity” in the federal case, filing a “sealed” motion for an injunction; depending on how the judge reacts to the plaintiff’s idiotic gesture, it’s possible there will be more to say later.

Given how Kimberlin has boasted, in his October 2010 e-mail to Patrick Frey, that the purpose of his litigation is to “cost [defendants] a lot of time and money” to defend themselves against his meritless complaints, the courts should not only dismiss his lawsuits with prejudice, but also impose strong sanctions against Kimberlin, so as to discourage this infamously mendacious menace to society from ever again harassing honest law-abiding citizens in this manner.

There will be a hearing in the state case in two weeks, at which we have reason to hope that the judge will grant summary judgment, dismissing the remaining counts of Kimberlin’s worthless lawsuit.

In the meantime, please keep my family and me in your prayers and remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

“Hit the Freaking Tip Jar!”




 

Category: Feminism, The Kimberlin Files

HORROR IN IRAQ: Islamists Order Genital Mutilation for All Females

Posted on | July 24, 2014 | 77 Comments

#YesAllWomen are targeted by Muslims for savage butchery:

Militant group Islamic State has ordered all girls and women in and around Iraq’s northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), the United Nations said today.
The “fatwa” issued by the Sunni Muslim fighters would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Jacqueline Badcock told reporters in Geneva by videolink from Arbil. . .
FGM, the partial or total removal of external female genitalia, is a tradition practised widely in many African and Muslim countries and often justified as a means of suppressing a woman’s sexual desire to prevent “immoral” behaviour. Worldwide, more than 130 million girls and women have undergone FGM.

Will American feminists take time away from their servile partisan duties to the Democrat Party to notice this? Probably not.

Feminists don’t care if Muslims amputate little girls’ clitorises. No, feminists save their hate for the real enemy: Republicans.

UPDATE: Now a Memeorandum thread with reports by the BBC and the UK Guardian. Strange to say, the feminist blog Jezebel has actually taken notice of this Muslim atrocity. We’re sure that Amanda Marcotte will write about this predictable butchery in Iraq, just as soon as she can figure out how to blame it on Republicans.

 

 

Category: Feminism, Iraq, Islam, Terrorism

Bring Back the Firing Squad

Posted on | July 24, 2014 | 71 Comments

Joseph R. Wood III was 30 when he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Debbie Dietz, 29, and her father, Gene Dietz, 55, in Tucson in 1989. Because our legal system has been encumbered by federal court concessions to the “rights” of murderers, it took 25 years to impose justice on this cowardly hateful killer. Also, because of concessions to the Murderers’ Rights Movement, effective methods of capital punishment — the noose, the firing squad, the gas chamber, the electric chair — have been outlawed, replaced by lethal injection drugs, so that those who callously take human life can be dispatched in a “humane” manner. Except when it doesn’t work that way:

A condemned Arizona inmate gasped for more than an hour and a half during his execution Wednesday before he died in an episode sure to add to the scrutiny surrounding the death penalty in the U.S.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m., one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started. . . .
Family members of Wood’s victims said they had no problems with the way the execution was carried out.
“This man conducted a horrifying murder and you guys are going, ‘let’s worry about the drugs,'” said Richard Brown, the brother-in-law of Debbie Dietz, who was 29 when she was killed in 1989. “Why didn’t they give him a bullet? Why didn’t we give him Drano?”

Shoot ’em. It was good enough for Gary Gilmore.

UPDATE: Did Joseph Wood deserve a “humane” death?

Wood, who was said to have assaulted Debbie during their relationship, walked into Dietz and Sons Auto Paint and Body Shop and shot 55-year-old Gene in the chest.
Then, as a desperate Debbie tried to phone for help, Wood grabbed her round the neck.
The Arizona Daily Star reports that witnesses heard him tell his her “I told you I was going to do it. I love you. I have to kill you, b****” before also shooting the 29-year-old fatally in the chest.
When police arrived Wood turned his gun on officers, prompting them to open fire and shoot him nine times.

Too bad the cops didn’t finish him off then and there.

 

Category: Arizona, Crime

Democrats: The Party of Theft

Posted on | July 24, 2014 | 22 Comments

It’s not merely that they steal money from taxpayers. Democrats are just generally dishonest and untrustworthy:

Senator John Walsh of Montana took most of a 2007 final paper required for his master’s degree from the United States Army War College from other sources without proper attribution. Mr. Walsh copies an entire page nearly word-for-word from a Harvard paper, and each of his six conclusions is copied from a document from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace without attribution.

This revelation of Walsh’s defective character is only regarded by Democrats as problem because it might cost them an election:

Walsh was appointed to the Senate five months ago to fill Max Baucus’s vacancy; it’s not impossible to win as a Democrat in Montana, as both Baucus and Jon Tester can tell you, but it’s difficult as a short-term incumbent in a political climate that’s trending GOP. The rosiest polls for Walsh right now have him trailing Republican Steve Daines by around seven points. The bleakest polls have him down 20 or more. (The RCP average has Daines by 12.5 points.)

Somebody ought to write a book about this.

 

Category: Corruption, Democrats

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.24.14

Posted on | July 24, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
US Pushes Truce As Gaza Fighting Rages On

Netanyahu clearly unhappy about having to waste time on Kerry

No statements from Kerry or Netanyahu after meeting
US lifts ban on flights to Israel; death toll hits 700
Red Cross van attacked by civilians in Gaza
Hamas resists Kerry’s attempts at Gaza cease-fire deal



Netherlands Mourns As Malaysian Airlines Victims Return Home
Royals, PM meet families at airport; day of national mourning declared

Typhoon Matmo Spares Taiwan
Plane attempts landing in tail of typhoon; crash kills 47



POLITICS
Senator John Walsh (D-MT) Busted For Plagiarism

Following Biden’s example?

At least a quarter of his master’s thesis at Army War College lifted from other authors without attribution

FEC Chairman Warns Publishers His Colleagues Are Eager To Regulate Them

Federal Judge Strikes Down CO Gay Marriage Ban But Orders Stay

Investigators Gain ObamaCare Coverage, Subsidies Using Fake Identities

Glenn Beck Takes To The Theaters To Attack Common Core

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) Becomes One Of Obama’s Harshest Immigration Critics

Criminal Probe Of Cuomo Administration Urged



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Up As US Inventory Falls: WTI $103.14, Brent $108.11
Red China Manufacturing Hits 18-Month High
Wall Street: S&P 500 Hits Record High
American Apparel Names New Board Members, Stock Rises
Facebook Poised For Record Highs After Quarterly Gains
Malone: Tech Companies Unlikely to Bid For Time-Warner
Money Funds Embrace SEC Regulations To Escape Fed Controls
Apple’s OS X Yosemite Beta Available Today
Microsoft Tops Revenue Forecast But Profit Falls Short
Amazon’s First Phone May Fire Up Smartphone Market
Twitter Employees Mostly White, Male, & Nerdy
Social Networking’s New Twist: Getting Paid To Post
Sprint Teams With Google To Offer Apps For Business
SQL Injection Opens Door For WSJ Database Hack



SPORTS
Dodgers Bats Go Silent As Pirates’ Liriano Takes Command

LA starters Kershaw, Greinke and catcher Ellis watch fro the dugout in the ninth

1-7 lefty shines in second win as Bucs romp, 6-1


Angels Beat O’s On Bases-Loaded Walk In 8th


Tigers Acquire Rangers Closer Soria


Cespedes Goes Yard Twice As A’s Top Astros 9-7

Bumgarner Posts Zeroes For 8, Giants Beat Phillies 3-1

Colon Not Quite Perfect, But Mets Win Anyway 3-2

Twins Top Tribe Again, 3-1

Bubba Wallace Cleans Up At Eldora Truck Race

Braves Strike Early And Often, Crush Fish 6-1

Nats’ Late Rally Falls Short, Rockies Snap Skid With 6-4 Win



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Inquest Rules Peaches Geldof Died From Heroin OD

Found dead among clutter of syringes in April

Tests found codeine, methadone and morphine in her blood

“Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Mandatory Fun” #1 On The Charts Thanks To Viral Video Buzz

Behind The Scenes With Sony Pictures’ Problems, Part I

Naya Rivera Marries Ryan Dorsey

WGAW Final Board Candidates

Zoe Saldana Expecting


Joseph Morgan Marries Persia White In Jamaica

Mirielle Enos, Alan Ruck: It’s A Boy!

Portia de Rossi Cast In “Scandal” Season 4

Blake Lively Answers 73 Questions In Vogue Video

Kris Jenner Posts Strange Topless Pic With Daughters

Coming Soon: The Intimate Collection From Britney Spears

Robin Thicke And Paula Patton’s House For Sale

Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood To Star In HBO’s “Westworld”

Aviva Drescher Explains Leg-Throwing Incident

Cissy Houston Responds To Lifetime Biopic Of Whitney: “Please Let Her Rest”



FOREIGNERS
Japan June Exports Slide In Warning Sign For Economic Outlook
Australian Dollar Gets Double Lift
60 Dead In Iraqi Bus Attack
Indonesian Court With Corrupt Past Looms Over Presidential Vote
Trojan Horse Report Criticized As “Politically Motivated Offensive”
Cameron To Review Arms Export Licenses For Russia
LibDem MP Ward Apologizes For Gaza Rocket Tweet
UN Sec-Gen Alarmed As Rockets Found In Gaza School Go Missing
Spanish MEP Tables Resolution Accusing Indian PM Modi Of Racism
Meriam Ibrahim Leaving Sudan For Italy Today
Bangalore School Chairman Arrested Amid Child Rape Flap, Released On Bail



BLOGS & STUFF
Michelle Malkin: The Left’s Dark Money Managers – Meet Philip Gara LaMarche
Twitchy: Perry Warns Obama About Hollowing Out National Guard
American Power: Jews Flee France Amid Worst Anti-Semitic Violence Since Holocaust
American Thinker: We Sent Back Elian
BLACKFIVE: Plagiarizing Senator Claims PTSD Made Him Do It
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: YouTube Video Displeases Glorious Leader
Conservatives4Palin: Governor Palin Endorses Joe Carr For Senate
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, July 23
Jammie Wearing Fools: Corrupt Cuomo Scuttles Investigation Into Corrupt Democrats
Joe For America: Investigators Find IRS Hard Drive Backups, Noose Tightens
JustOneMinute: A Double Top-Secret Incentive, Or, The Invisible Carrot
Protein Wisdom: I Hope You’ll All Forgive My Extended Absence
Shot In The Dark: Every Parent A Felon
The Gateway Pundit: Hamas Complains – Their God Changes The Course Of Our Missiles
The Jawa Report: And Now A Moment With The Religion Of Peace
The Lonely Conservative: Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) Cares About Veterans As Much As He Cares About Farmers
This Ain’t Hell: DoD – America’ Day Care Center
Weasel Zippers: CNN Poll – Only 18% Of Americans Say They’re Better Off Under Obamacare
Megan McArdle: Obamacare Takes A Body Blow


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Category: Live at Five

Radical Lesbian Feminism: Coming Soon to a Public School Classroom Near You?

Posted on | July 23, 2014 | 27 Comments

“Can it be valid to conceptualize ‘girls’ as having certain personal attributes universally in common, except perhaps their youth relative to women? In grappling with this question, we need not to lose sight of the fact that, however different, girls’ actions are oriented toward the same or similarly structured objects that construct their bodies’ social meanings, values, and challenges as gendered. . . . Social rules and practices surrounding menarche construct gender as a principle both for division of labor and for compulsory heterosexuality, thus constituting girls in a relation of growing vulnerability to boys’ and men’s appropriation.”
— Susan Laird, “Befriending Girls as an Educational Life-Practice,” Philosophy of Education, 2002

“It has been the political policy of lesbian feminists to present ourselves publicly as persons who have chosen lesbian patterns of desire and sensuality. Whether as individuals we feel ourselves to have been born lesbians or to be lesbians by decision, we claim as morally and politically conscious agents a positive choice to go with it: to claim our lesbianism, to take full advantage of its advantages. This is central to our feminism: that women can know their own bodies and desires, interpret their own erotic currents, create and choose environments which encourage chosen changes in all these; and that a female eroticism that is independent of males and of masculinity is possible and can be chosen. We claim these things and fight in the world for all women’s liberty to live them without punishment and terror, believing also that if the world permits self-determined female eroticism, it will be a wholly different world.”
— Marilyn Frye, Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983)

Last week, I mentioned that the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is pushing to introduce “gender studies” to the high school curriculum, “creating innovative spaces for young people to engage in feminism and activism, equity, and social justice in today’s classrooms.” The symposium on this AAUW program featured Ileana Jiminez, a lesbian English teacher from New York. What this indicates is that the radical theories of feminist academics are ultimately destined for the K-12 classroom — and any parent who objects can expect to be condemned as a sexist homophobe.

Consider the phrase “compulsory heterosexuality.” This phrase entered the feminist lexicon via an influential 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” which I discussed at length in April. Rich’s essay, asserting that heterosexuality is not natural for women, but rather is imposed as a condition of male supremacy, has been widely anthologized and incorporated in Women’s Studies curricula.

The phrase turned up in a Google search I did, appearing as the title of a book chapter, “Compulsory Heterosexuality as Mis-education.” The author speaks of “the psychological damage inflicted [on gay adolescents] by years of bearing witness to, or experiencing, anti–lesbian and gay prejudice in countless forms”:

They are the product of a lifetime of learning in the hegemonic ideology of heterosexism.
In practice, heterosexist ideology is instilled through numerous mechanisms. Family members initiate children into heterosexist ideology almost from birth, teaching acceptable gendered conduct as well as uneasiness with cross-gendered behaviors. This education is reinforced and expanded by religious institutions, peer groups, and the media . . . By the time children have reached first grade, they have already compiled a significant amount of data about what it means to be gay in a heterosexist society, even though much of what they have learned may well be incorrect, born of fear and prejudice rather than factual information. Schools are in a unique position to correct much of this misinformation at an early age before it ripens into anti–lesbian and gay prejudice and violence.

So, the public schools are to be enlisted to counteract this “fear and prejudice” of “heterosexist ideology”? What kind of lunatic gibberish is this, and who wrote it? This is from Rethinking Sexual Identity in Education, a 2004 book by Susan Birden, and it was originally her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Oklahoma’s College of Education. Birden expressed her gratitude to her mentor:

While all my committee members have been engaged and helpful, I owe a life-long debt to my committee chair, Susan Laird, for she has been not only an advisor, but also a mentor of the highest caliber. A brilliant scholar, her expertise in guiding me through this entire doctoral process has been a testament to her great skill as an educator. From her comments on my first seminar entry, written some seven years ago, to her comments on the final draft of my dissertation, she has guided me through a maze of philosophic thought, nurturing my interests, pressing me to think more broadly, challenging me to think more specifically. Through it all she has demonstrated profound patience with my leaming, a committed focus and respect for my interests, accomplishing it all with the good humor of a “liver” of life. Susan Laird is both a fierce warrior and a kind soul.

Go read Birden’s dissertation, and you will find it is crammed full of quotes and citations from an all-star lineup of lesbian feminists — Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Janice Raymond, Charlotte Bunch, and on and on. Which brings us back to the question of exactly what the hell is going on in the University of Oklahoma’s College of Education, where Professor Susan Laird supervised this dissertation.

In addition to her position in the College of Education, Professor Laird has been a member of the faculty of the department of Women’s and Gender Studies since 1995. And her 2002 journal article, “Befriending Girls as an Educational Life-Practice,” is worth careful study. This eight-page article has 33 footnotes and cites numerous lesbian feminists, including Audre Lorde, Janice Raymond, Judith Butler and Marilyn Frye, the latter an author whose works I’ve quoted as examples of the anti-male/anti-heterosexual themes that have become commonplace in academic feminism.

“Fucking is a large part of how females are kept subordinated to males. It is a ritual enactment of that subordination which constantly reaffirms the fact of subordination and habituates both men and women to it, both in body and in imagination.”
–- Marilyn Frye, Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983)

“Men have been creating ideologies and political practices which naturalize female heterosexuality continuously in every culture since the dawns of the patriarchies. . . . Female heterosexuality is not a biological drive or an individual woman’s erotic attraction . . . Female heterosexuality is a set of social institutions and practices.”
— Marilyn Frye, Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism, 1976-1992 (1992)

Professor Laird cited Frye (although not these passages) in her 2002 Philosophy of Education article about “befriending girls,” an article which begins by relating the plot of a novel in which the young female protagonist “responds . . . with shock upon discovering this teacher who so generously befriended her is lesbian, but feels a new compassion that challenges [her] to unlearn her own heterosexism.” Did I mention that Professor Laird teaches in the College of Education, and that the title of that article is “Befriending Girls as an Educational Life-Practice”? 

Yeah, Oklahoma, OK.





 

Category: Education, Feminism

ObamaCare: Fake It and Take it

Posted on | July 23, 2014 | 20 Comments

“Healthcare reform” as a massive fraud on taxpayers:

Undercover government investigators were able to obtain thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies under ObamaCare using fake identities, according to findings presented to Congress on Wednesday.
The probe by the Government Accountability Office has raised fresh concerns about the ability of the sprawling health care program to prevent or intercept costly fraud schemes. In the case of the GAO investigation, 11 out of 12 applications submitted using “fictitious identities” were accepted, resulting in subsidized health coverage.
“For each of our 11 approved applications, we paid the required premiums to put policies into force, and are continuing to pay the premiums. For the 11 applications that were approved for coverage, we obtained the advance premium tax credit in all cases,” the report said.
According to the GAO, the total amount for these credits was $2,500 monthly, adding up to $30,000 a year.

How’s that Hope and Change workin’ out for ya?

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

 

Category: Health Care
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