> Message: 7
> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:36:46 -0600
> From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Chip Berlet on Hustler
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID: <43A86B5E.DAE2EE5D at ilstu.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>
> Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> > For the Record:
> >
> > I do not support censorship.
> > I do not support "protecting" women from pornography.
> > I do not think there is an established link between pornography and
> > crime.
> > I do not think viewing erotic images hurts people.
> > I do not think reading erotic text hurts people.
> >
> > I think Hustler reflects a male supremacist viewpoint.
> >
> >[clip]
> > think that writers who write for Hustler are making a mistake because
> > they are giving an imprimatur to a male suppremacist organ (you should
> > pardon the pun).
> >
> > I think this is bad politics. I think this is not a wise way to build a
> > progressive coalition. I will not write for Hustler. I urge other
> > writers to not write for Hustler. [clip]
>
> And immediately after
>
> Gar Lipow wrote:
> >
> > On 12/20/05, Chip Berlet <c.berlet at publiceye.org> wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > To clarify the Hustler issue, I seek gender equality and fairness and
do
> > > not think Hustler reflects such a system. While I do not support
> > > shutting down Hustler, or even expending much energy protesting it, I
> > > think that writers who write for Hustler are making a mistake because
> > > they are giving an imprimatur to a male suppremacist organ (you should
> > > pardon the pun).
> > >
> > <snip>
> >
> > And that is what you have not supported. In what sense is Hustler a
> > male supremacist organ in a way that the NY Times is not?
>
> Gar could not conceivably write this (placing the burden of proof on
> Chip) except for the fact that pro-pornography has long been established
> as THE PARTY LINE, THE ACCEPTED DOGMA on the left, and anyone who even
> remotely questions that dogma is immeidately ganged up on.
>
> Carrol
>
Oh, what a bunch of mullarkey this is!!!
Oh, so antiporn feminist "leftists" are always ganged up on whenever they state their case, Carrol??
Yeah, right.
I guess that explains why Nina Hartley is on every major left zine, website, and blog as the pioneer of modern feminism. Oh, wait, I forgot..she couldn't even defend her profession and her life's work in CounterPunch without the "anti-dogmatic" antiporn Left ganging up on her and slamming her to the ground: http://www.counterpunch.org/020220055hartley.html http://www.notforsale-book.org/Articles/Goff_Hartley.html http://www.stangoff.com/index.php?p=2
Or how Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! is literally reaping the benefits and the praise of inviting Larry Flynt in for an interview:
http://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pageamygoodman.html
Or the loving arms that were spread toward Flynt when he offered support to an antiwar protest movement last year...really:
Or the sudden and rapid conversion of the great Noam Chomsky to pro-sex radical feminism..or not:
http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entr...erview_context/ (Scroll down to the Chomsky entry titled "The Hustler Interview")
Or the depth and breath of pro-porn advocacy in such fine Left outlets like Z-Net, AlterNet, Left Hook, In These Times, The Nation...shall I continue, Carrol???
I believe that you may have confused "anti-censorship" with "pro-porn"...most of the Left may be opposed to the use of state censorship in supressing porn (which, BTW, most of the major players in the antiporn "feminist" movement are NOT opposed to when it serves their interests, BTW), but thete's hardly a "party line" in support of porn's right to exist. In fact, most ot the majority of the major Left intellectuals are far more prone to be against free sexual expression than for..and mostly this is due to the predominance of the MacKinnon/Dworkin line on porn as objectification/degradation of women and precursor of rape than anything else. Most of the original sex radicals who fought this ideology head on were basically ran out of the movement by the mid 1980s. There has been a countermovement amongst some genuiine liberals to reaccount pro-sex, and sex radicalist feminism within progressive politics (including the work of people like Nadine Strossen and Susie Bright, but for the most part they have been kept at bay...which is why it has been libertarians (and a few libertarian conservatives) which have been left to fill the gaping hole in pro-sex activism.
The only dogma I see here, Carrol, is the projection of your fears about sex ual radicalism on others who happen to disagree with you.
Anthony http://redgarterclub.bravehost.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RedGarterClub