[lbo-talk] Re: Sexuality Under Seige, or What Else is New?

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Sat Jul 31 09:08:02 PDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>

Nathan Newman wrote:
>Yes, you can make the distinction, but do you trust William Rehnquist to
do
>so? People keep making intellecutal arguments about distinctions, while
>ignoring the basic question.

-I've said a bunch of times that I think liberals have relied for too -long on litigation to protect basic rights, most prominently with -abortion. I was reacting mainly to the dismissive way you treated the -right to buy a dildo or a butt plug.

So you think the right to advertise the sale of dildos as sexual stimulants is of the same priority as protecting the right to have an abortion? Because I was only dismissing the idea that these rights were equivalent.

Maybe it's that I'm in the middle of writing a report dealing with the fact that large numbers of workers are coerced by poverty and lack of government enforcement into working for less than minimum wage, often far less, so that the right to advertise the sale of dildo in Alabama just doesn't rank as a major outrage in my book. And odes to keeping the government out of our private business just sounds pretty hollow as I read conservative opponents of the minimum wage also wailing about the oppressive state.

F----- George Pataki vetoed an increase in the minimum wage to $7.15 per hour, yet everyone on the list-- many of them New Yorkers-- think the outrage worth expending bandwidth on is the Alabama decision.

My dismissiveness is that I think the priorities, political and constitutional, of a chunk of the left is out of kilter. That part of the left prefers to highlight issues like the right to advertise dildos, which is inherently going to piss off potential progressive allies, while spending relatively little time talking about issues like the minimum wage, where something like 80% of the population support's the progressive position. It's not that we shouldn't fight the hard fights, but the rightwing is smart enough to fight broad politics on their most popular issues like tax cuts, then use their winning of power to pass the rest of their agenda. A lot of the left seems incapable of any discussion of tactics and strategy, and proceed to insult even people who agree with them on goals if they want to discuss better tactics for victory.

Nathan Newman



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