``It wasn't the words, it was the tone and imagery that bothered....Chuck Grimes' personal issues with women and his barely concealed hostility toward them as a group because of his particular experiences just doesn't register..'' Kelley
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This is interesting. I don't think I've ever written anything about women that was hostile to women as a class. I usually don't write about women at all, and the posts in question were no exception. I was writing about men.
So, I had to reflect on what the various threads that have come spinning off of my rant against Rightwing masculinity were really about.
Why was Carrol so worked up? Why did Chip breeze in out of the blue? What got Kelley started? I thought I was actually channelling some of Kelley's dick-o-meter rants. My attack on a certain kind of masculinity that I see celebrated by the Right---which is what I thought I was doing shouldn't offend women and certainly wasn't gay bashing. It should have sounded like the opposite of either one. So, what's this about?
But it was the above quote that made it click. Kelley and I have done our rounds together, but the issues have almost always had to do with men, not women. I half remember once something Kelley wrote about her step-mother and violence. That was the key. The issue is violence, not gender. Kelley's problem with me isn't my hostility toward women. It's my hostility.
That's what is going on here. Aggression and violence. That's the real issue, and the real dynamic. That's what got Carrol, Chip, and Kelley going.
And it's true. I am a violent person. In fact, I had to quit my job two months ago because I was feeling the need to beat the shit out of a former work buddy. Well, give it a good try anyway. He had about about half a foot and maybe ninety pounds on me. He had turned into the shop bully and I wasn't going to take any shit from him. It was getting serious. He had been pushing everybody in the shop around for months, and then he started in on me. The last day I worked, I came within a hair of swinging on him. I threw a leg rest at his work bench instead. He had tuned me up good. So I quit.
I live in a violent world. I always have, except for a few years in nice, nice middle class and college. Working in shops and in places like Oakland puts the edge on. It is almost impossible to get out of a truck and knock on a door without keeping that edge ready. It's always there and it doesn't go away when I get home. It has to be constantly controlled in all kinds of strange games with other men and authority, especially cops. Cops live for this kind of thing.
I am not sure why my visceral hatred of the Right, just about everybody in the current US government, or on the news should bother Carrol, Chip or Kelley, but it does. I guess, it's like living next door to a violent criminal. You never know when the crazy asshole will jump the fence and start pounding on your door. What can I say? This is e-mail. You're all safe. I know who my enemies are and none of you are anything like them. I consider you all e-mail friends. People I like to read and occasionally argue with.
Still there is room for doubt. I admire some of the terrorists. I admired the tough, skinny, rag covered guys in Afghanistan, with that burning eyed look. That's a scary look. That's something wild. Maybe its just some nutritional deficiency. Whatever it is, it's scary.
I knew from mountain experience, US troops could never go after these guys and get them on foot. You can't air drop on a mountain over twelve thousand feet and start running and fighting. So they bombed them instead.
Anyway I admire the Iraqis, especially the back yard mechanics who support the fight. Half of Baghdad must be back yard mechanics. I cheer every time I see a Humvee or an SUV burn. They positively exude smug authority, empire, oppression, bullies. They are begging to get torched.
I hate the US military, I hate the cops.
I rise to the bait every time. Wave a smug authoritarian bully in front of me, and I get an adrenaline rush.
It's physiological so it isn't courage. I can feel it in my armpits, my crouch, and especially my wrists. Fight or flight. So, yes my politics are hard wired to my dick. Truthfully I don't know why this works the way it does, but it's there.
So, let's talk about violence and authority. Okay, gender is in there somewhere. Only from my perspective it has nothing to do with women. It is somehow the opposite of anything to do with women. My provisional theory is Carrol, Chip and Kelley were feeling some splash over or something like it. That was not the intention, so I apologize. I am sorry. Perhaps this isn't the place to vent against the Rightwing.
Charles wrote something about male supremacy. Maybe that's it. Except my adrenaline wiring says, kill the Alpha male. GWB and the Right are smug authoritarian, imperialistic, oppressive, bullies....all alpha male characters who drive Humvees and SUVS...ergo...my physiology says kill them all.
CG