[lbo-talk] Booing Manning Marable

kelley at pulpculture.org kelley at pulpculture.org
Mon Mar 15 20:29:04 PST 2004


At 10:53 PM 3/15/2004, Chuck0 wrote:
>Art McGee wrote:
>
>>5. Fuck Mitchel Cohen.
>>6. Fuck the NY Green Party.
>
>Hey Doug,
>
>Is it OK now for people on the list to tell other people to go fuck
>themselves?
>
>Isn't it a double standard to allow these comments while getting on the
>case of other list members for insults which are milder than this?

I've never observed Doug getting on anyone's case for using foul language. In fact, he's gotten on other people's case who've complained about it. Of course, I haven't seen every post Doug's written. In general, I think Doug tolerates a great deal of name calling and insult -- although I'm hard pressed to see how "fuck Mitchel Cohen/the Green Party" is an insult worse than Chuck Grimes' 'fuck'm" directed at aggressive xtians (to which Doug responded, at the time, "Amen."

And frankly, I don't see a whole lot of difference between using the third person interrogative--where you talk to the whole list (imagining the list to be your ally/audience while addressing the specific points made by a specific person (Oxford debate tradition form of insult because dog knows, it would be stooping low to actually talk _with_ someone with whom you disagree) and typing "Fuck you if you don't like that." (What, were you afraid to single out the _direct_ insult _at_ people on this list, Chuck? Oh, wait, the politely insulting way to say it would be, "I suppose chuck is afraid to single out the _direct_ insult.")

What Doug has objected to are epithets that have a very divisive history: cop, traitor, etc. Those are words that are used for the most vile of reasons and they have a long, sad history of being used to divide and bring ruin to those of us on the left.

Kelley



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