[lbo-talk] Ellen Willis dies

Jesse Lemisch utopia1 at attglobal.net
Thu Nov 9 23:09:27 PST 2006


These people are not dealing with the large reality that the internet has vastly changed life and death. The first announcement of Ellen Willis's death came to me at 9:05 Wednesday morning. This is a public list. How long do people think is a decent interval? Five minutes? An hour?

This is in no way an argument for saccharine obits, or against critically assessing a person's work, and god knows I haven't held back with anybody on that front. Really, would you start at the moment of death? During terminal illness? What a vile gang, pretending to some kind of liberalism or even radicalism, and fully partaking of the meanness of the times.

Jesse Lemisch

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwayne Monroe" <idoru345 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 8:07 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Ellen Willis dies


> Jesse Lemisch:
>
>
> These posts are so amazing that they cry out to be
> forwarded to feminist listservs. Is there any rule
> against that, or are these posts, as I assume, public?
>
>
> ..................
>
> In some circles, such forwarding is considered bad
> form. Of course, that doesn't prevent it.
>
> The archives are quite public.
>
>
> ..
>
>
> These sorts of 'discussions' never end well do they?
>
>
> The Outraged never gives his or her debating opposites
> the benefit of the doubt, choosing, instead, to
> interpret everything they say as being only more
> evidence of perfidious motives and imaginings.
>
> In this case, it's the alleged disrespect of Ellen
> Willis, in past conflicts it was Stalin or racism or
> religion or alleged support for the Weather
> Underground 5,000 years ago or...
>
> So now Jesse, you've assumed the role of Melville's
> Ishmael, who "alone, survived to tell thee..." You're
> the singular voice of defense for feminism, adrift on
> a churning sea of "male rage". This rage apparently
> feeds on hatred of women like an H-bomb fuels itself
> on deuterium.
>
>
> At no point, I suspect, will you sit back and consider
> that maybe, what people - including, mind you,
> feminists such as Bitch - are saying (that the issue
> wasn't attacking Willis as a feminist thinker but
> questioning the idea that obits should be crafted only
> from sweetness) is actually what they mean.
>
>
> Come to think of it, that's the really "amazing" part
> of this thread.
>
>
>
> On the plus side, your implied accusations of
> anti-feminist thought allow me to add to the litany of
> Satanic service I first compiled here:
>
>
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-September/020857.html>
>
>
>
> .d.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she
looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
>
> Raymond Chandler
>
> ......................
> http://monroelab.net/blog/
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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