Carl writes:
> Heretofore I thought achieving the revo would mean a long tiresome
slog.
What did I post that made you think I did not believe that the struggle was a long, tiresome slog? All I am saying is that to burden oneself with useless theory makes the slog just that more difficult and that more tiresome.
Why should we burden ourselves with what is not needed? You might look at the Diamond Sutra, especially what the Buddha says about the raft.
Charles writes:
> However, it is for women to say what you say here, not for me , as a man,
to say. Wouldn't be correct for me , nor other men, to criticize women's sexist
speech/behaviors/attitudes.
Why?
What possible good is gained by permitting sexist speech/behaviors/attitudes to occur without being challenged?
Nathan wrote:
> Defending contraception and defending abortion and defending the right of
anyone to have consensual sex with any other consenting adult is something
that is at a high plain of basic individual human dignity.
> Do we really want to argue that the right to a sex toy is on an equivalent level
of basic human dignity? I don't think so.
Maybe because you haven't spent much time with many SM activists.
Being a sadist or a masochist, a dominant or a submissive is as deeply involved with a person's individual human dignity as her sexual orientation.
> It's not that I won't make fun of the law and argue for its legislative repeal,
but it seems a recipe for discrediting other more fundamental rights to make
the right to sex toys a constitutional right.
What we are talking about is the right of sexual self-expression, one of the most basic rights a person has.
> I think courts are generally there to oppress people and overturn progressive
legislation, destroy Reconstruction, delay New Deal reforms, and gut affirmative
action laws.
But they can also be tools to help. Gay marriage came through the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. Civil unions came through the Vermont Supreme Court giving the Vermont legistlature an ultimatum.
> The problem with courts is that no amount of effective organizing or arguments matter
if a judge wants to overturn a law they don't like. As Bush v. Gore showed, in the end,
it's about a 5-4 majority (or whatever on a particular court) using its power to override the
decisions of the population as a whole.
But right now the population as a whole wants to make queers into second class citizens with no rights. Legistlatures are not on queers' sides.
> The reason I oppose Griswold, Roe and Lawrence is that I think they were
mostly irrelevant-- contraceptive rights, abortion rights and gay rights had advanced so far
by those court decisions that they were hardly radical advances.
How did I miss all those advances in gay rights? I must have been asleep. In how many states do I have the right not to be fired because I am queer? In how many states can I get married? In how many states am I assured of being able to visit my lover in the hospital without interference?
> So the more courts say they should defer to the elected branches, the better.
The better to oppress you with, my pretty.
Chuck G writes:
> 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.
But does behaving like an Alpha male in order to get rid of the current Alpha male solve anything or does it merely replace one brand of smug, authoritarian oppression with a new one -- kinder and gentler perhaps, but decidedly still Alpha?
Chris Doss writes:
> The Pet Shop Boys will present a new soundtrack for
"Battleship Potemkin" in London's Trafalgar Square.
A film by a queer artist with a score by queer artists. Finally got it right.
Dennis writes:
> Marx analyzed that hierarchy -- i.e. figured out why market societies are run by
markets -- but he didn't invent it. If anything, Marx is *truer* today than ever before,
simply because so much more of the world has been commodified (peasants have
become wage workers, industrial society has spread everywhere, etc.).
Okay, I got that. But didn't he predict that by now capitalism would have self-destructed? It seems he was a good analyzer, but a poor prognosticator.
I think his analysis is fine, but I still do not see the benefit of replacing one hierarchy with another when one of the problems is hierarchical arrangements in the first place.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister