>snitsnat wrote:
> >
> > LOL. This is from a conservative:
>
>The web searches for conservative idiocies that so many leftists indulge
how many leftist do that -- exactly? 1? 2? 10? 100? 11892? Do _I_ normally do this? Gimme a flippin' break.
It came of the Politics e-mail list, which has been around since 1981 or so. Jesus.
Speaking of which Thomas Seay wrote:
><<It's an excellent instance of what Chip's talking
>about -- and Carrol,
>too.
>The right creates a phantasm for us and then we end up
>spewing about it
>right along with them, never asking whether it's true
>or not, how
>widespread it is. etc. So, now everyone's lined up
>against PC -- and no
>one's bothered to find out if there really are plenty
>of feminists who
>support such an argument.>>
>
>Well, I never said that the use of "Herstory" was
>widespread. However, the story of "terrorist = dirt"
>reminded me of it. That's how all of this began.
>
>Of course the Right makes caricatures of the Left and
>Political Correctness. The Left makes its own
>caricatures of the Right. Hey, it's fun to simplify
>and dehumanize!
>
>-Thomas
Sorry. "it's" refers to the previous 'graph where I discussed what I found on the 'net. I was replying to Doug, not you. HAd I wanted to flame you for something like that, I would have flamed you to your "face" by replying to your post and naming you by name.
I don't think there's an equivalence between left cariacatures and the right's. Repeatedly, on another list, we are told that democrats = lefties. When the people on that list are told that Barbara Boxer or Kkklinton or Billary aren't lefties, they snort. They think it's a real laff riot to hear that Dean isn't much of a lefty.
When you talk about how democrats don't object to capitalism/free market, they snort even harder. They don't recognize fine distinctions among the left. Maybe they are weird repubs and conservatives, but I'd say that the frequent occ. of same rhetoric with Horowitz, Limbaugh, Nat Rev, etc. indicates that it's part and parcel of rightwing ideology.
I don't think there's one active reader of LBO who's unaware of the difference between a paleocon, a Rockefeller republican, a christian rightwinger, a libertarain rightwinger, etc. If they made a swipe at cons and were called on it, I'm pretty sure everyone here would be able to recite diffs among cons. It's news to these guys that a lefty would be embarrassed to be called a liberal democrat. I don't think they know that people mock pwogs. One guy there seems to think another woman on the list (not on this list) is lying when she says lefties are disillusioned by greens because of Nader.
Gramsci described why it happens this way. Others have talked about how people in power don't have to study the enemy. They don't have to understand the world of their servants and underlings. The underlings, though, they have to understand their world and the world of the rulers. Any group that's marginalized experiences this. They have to in order to survive.
Saw the same thing in academia. The lefties in a team taught course could understand the rational choice economists' perspective. They could recite it as if it were their own. then, they'd turn around and criticize it. The rational choice economist? He just never got it. He's always plead that he just didn't understand anything we were saying. To him all the criticisms could be taken care of by just recognizing that rational choice economics wasn't perfect in practice for lack of money, time, etc to measure everything. Theoretically, though, nothing wrong with it. He didn't have to understand the left perspective. He did have to because his way of thinking ruled. It was natural, normal, right.
So, lefties may engage in caricatures, but I don't think it's fundamental to our very ideological structure to do so. It seems to me that mischaracterizing the democrats/etc is a crucial foundation upon which rightwing ideology is built.
Maybe someone more familiar with the twists and turns of rightwing thought can correct my observations.
Also, to Gar. I wasn't clear enough. In my offlist to pugliese and Thomas, I pointed out that I didn't agree with either the claim that history was sexist and can be shown to be so etymyologically or the claim that history is problematic because of the more general sexist use of man, mankind, his, etc.
I added in my offlist, however, that it had been very important to me to see people use non-sexist language because it shaped how I thought about what I might do with my life. I don't, however, think that the word person or history and human should be changed because they send the message: man. nor do i think we should use hir and womyn.
Kelley
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin