[lbo-talk] Thoughts on Palin and Sexism

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sat Sep 6 17:49:28 PDT 2008


``The central image of evil that runs through this list is The Uppity Woman -- who must, whenever she appears, be crushed by overwhdlming blasts of contempt...'' Carrol Cox

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Well, you have accused me of this sort of thing before and I didn't like it. First and foremost, it isn't true or an accurate characterization of me or the list. It is a personal rebuke with the tone of political correctness and moral superiority that tends to piss me off. In face to face arguments I have had sexism as a rhetorical position thrown at me as a tactic to evoke a violent response. That trick has worked once too often, and I figured it out, seen it coming and learned to chill with it.

Now it is directed at the list as a general proposition, so I don't take it as personally as I did before.

So I had to think through why that was your perception, and how you came to it.

Since the above quote is a form of psychological perception and not a political statement, I'll indulge a psychological analysis of it. There are basically two different things going on at the same time. The first and most notable part is that you and no doubt others only see one part of a conversation---what is posted on LBO. The problem is that most of these posts are directed at the DNC and RNC speakers---that is the other half of the conversation---and the other half, I am almost certain, is something that you haven't watched or read.

Now you haven't seen Clinton's speech and didn't watch the sort of sleazy theater Clinton and Pelosi cooked up to smooth over Clinton's bruised ego. Why ego rather than politics? Because Clinton and Obama have no political differences on anything of substance. The whole campaign was a personality show, and it turned out that Clinton was very much like her husband, thin skinned, easy to offend and short tempered. Obama by constrast was a much smoother character in this personality battle.

The second part of this psychoanalysis it more difficult to explain. I use very violent and hateful rhetoric now and again. For some reason you and others have conflated some of that into a speech act equivalent to violence against women. Again what you don't see is the other half of those conversations, which is all the mostly coded hate speech coming from the Right---oftened coded hate speech against women and minorities. In these rants, I am addressing the Right, not LBO. One has to chose safe places to vent these days--and I occasionally vent here.

I'll explain. You need to watch Sarah Palin's speech to see what a hate filled and loathing brightness she projected, and what enthusiastic crowd cheering this rhetoric and public personnae evoked. It really was like watching something from the Third Reich mass rallies. Palin proved her `toughness' or her so-called ability to govern, explicidly with a violence against and hated of all liberal and tolerant political positions (most certainly reproductive rights and the environment), coupled with a Christian morality laced vehemency and viciousness that was quite appalling. The only other speaker who superceded Sarah Palin's public contempt, was Mit Romney, who evoked a call and response trick for the cheering crowd to complete his sentences, all loaded with violence, hatred, and contempt of liberalism.

Really Carrol these people are getting dangerous. What I was watching all week was the uber alles of a white male identity populism. Sarah Palin's public personnae is a great icon for that white male identity populism. What was going on in the RNC this week was a mass hate rally. I've watched almost all these conventions since they were televised, and I don't remember ever having seen such nastiness celebrated as party unity and will to win (except Chicago of course). This one was over the top. It should have had a KKK rally video to complete the effect. What do you think Hockey Mom is code for? (Answer. Klan Bitch, with extra whitener added.)

I think, the Republicans think they are going to lose and the prospect of losing next November has brought out their lowest and only common denomenator: hatred, bigotry, violence and most of all contempt for constitutional goverment, and at least half of the US public.

So the reactions you read here on LBO reflect something of the oceans of hatred the Right has conjoured up for a whole week of public tv viewing pleasure. I can assure you, you have rarely seen the kind of undertow of viciousness through smilying eyes and speechifying on populist themes:

``Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a `community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco...''

Now that doesn't sound too terrible, does it? Well, you need to have watched Palin's delivery. The obvious text themes are the elitism of the Democrats, the two faced nature of their politics, their disrepect for hard working Americans, and their moral failings that laugh at our Christian God and our Christian America and our Christian families, just like yours and mine. Any other kind of family doesn't count as a family.

Somebody else probably wrote her speech. Maybe not. It's a rework of her speech in Dayton the night she accepted the VP from McCain.

What you can't see is not only the delivery, but the whole mood of the place, the themes in its theater, the violently hatefilled xenophobic nationalism of the video they played on 9/11, or the echoing hate rhetoric of Romney's speech, or the white identity nationalism so evident in the crowds.

These theatricalities and the long history of Rightwing positions and rhetoric on women's rights, reproductive rights, children, abortion, religion, schools, environmental issues, etc are the composite mythos of the Republican Convention that formed the backdrop or ritualistic envelop to Palin's speech and her evident warm reception. You can only see the implicit violence, bigotry, hatred, and rage when you take in the whole stage piece with its political history.

So, then it is certainly no surprize to me, ``Why Sarah Palin Incites Near-Violent Rage in Normally Reasonable Women'', where we read:

``When Palin spoke on Wednesday night, my head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull. And I'm not the only one! I had simultaneous IM conversations with many friends, who said things like, `she seems like a fucking monster' and `this feminist wants to murk that idiotic cunt'...''

Now Shag writes: ``wow. what a piece of shit this was. i can't even begin to describe what a turd i think this jessica character is..''

Chill, Shag. Think about it. What's going on here?

What I think is going on is pretty simple. Jessica (author of the blog quote above) had the same reaction I had, but for slightly different reasons. I suspect that Jessica X reacted to the undercurrent of inner trechery against women's rights by a woman who holds public office and has power to do something about her opinions.

I can see that and feel it to some extent, but I didn't get a rage flash over it. I got my rage flash a few days before at the Ohio speech. By the time St Paul rolled around I was mostly over it. You can call Jessica X's post sexist hate speech if you want, but that doesn't really capture its meaning, motivation, or underlying politics.

Palin and the Right openly promise to destroy and dismantle as much humane and tolerate domestic policy and law as they can. The only real check on their potential power to do so, is a rightwing supreme court, and the proven spineless Democrats.

I am certain that Palin will concentrate on domestic policy almost exclusively, where she will continue to dismantle any checks left on big oil, the environment which in the West means privatizing as much federal and state land and resources as possible. Most of these are already lost causes and the Democrats are arguing over the details.

Where can Palin do the most damage? Break new ground so to speak? Start thinking about Palin in terms of human reproductive rights and allied policies in healthcare and education.

So, what is the source of violence against women here? Jessica's transparently sexist rant (or mine), or Sarah Palin who has the will, the intent, and the power?

There's more. The West, and western politics in particular has a very nasty track record especially over water, land, and Native Americans. The image of Sarah Palin hunting wolves or shooting moose has its own mythological meanings out here---very hate filled stuff, with special loathings all its own---that have nothing to do with women per se.

Hunting and fishing rights, land, water, mining, and logging rights have a strong tradition out here and intersect a lot of history of imperialism and white-european abuse, which is a regional form of racism that goes almost un-noticed by most people. This mythos goes along with contempt for the environmental movements and global warming orgs, all those tree hugging, chardonnay swilling, cheese eating French surrender monkeys...

I think Sarah Palin fully intended to be read this way, and in my library, that's a whole shelf of western style hate speech on the environment, water, land, Native Americans, any hint of multi-culturalism, and certainly us old gringo radicals who participated in some of these movements back in the day.

What the hell kind of people kill moose to get a hamburger, or hunt wolves from helicopters? Nasty people. The same kind of yahoos who rode the railroad out here and kill bufflo by the millions in order to immiserate the Native American tribes who depended on open ranges and natural herds. NRA and KKK types, Rambos, all the non-girly men of the Right and their mans-man women. These are people you and me and most of us here don't want anywhere near political power.

CG



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