Burningbird

Use the board, Luke

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 24, 2003

What’s the best way to get a man to fall over? It isn’t by hitting them with a board, and hoping you have enough strength and they have enough vulnerability to fall over. It’s by finding the board that they’re leaning against, and then pulling it away.

I wrote that in a comment to the “Beating Swastikas into Nose Rings” post, and it forms a good introduction to this one. What I was saying, in effect, is that you if you want to get people to change, you have to bring about change using language they can understand and accept – not batter at them repeatedly with concepts both confusing and threatening.

To use ‘Nazi’ to describe Bush’s use of media today will not cause Middle America to suddenly come awake and decide that Bush’s actions are a threat to our way of life. There is too much baggage associated with this word for it to be used effectively, as either comparison or possibility of threat. Tommy Franks introduction to the possibility of the Constitution being discarded and martial law being put into effect based on terrorist actions does far more for invoking the appropriate concerns and responses than a thousand uses of ‘Nazi’ and ten thousand uses of ‘Fascist’.

(Some would say my battering the bandwidth with continued exhortations about inequality of women will not lead to change among those that dominate our immediate environment – primarily white middle-aged (over) educated men. I would agree, but frankly, I’m not trying to get these men to change; I’m just trying to sour the milk for the ‘boys only’ milk-and-cookie fests. I’ll leave it to others to use the girly-girly approach to get these men to change.)

That’s why I so admire David Brooks recent op-ed at the New York Times. Brooks writes:

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn’t just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

The most pugnacious opposition to same-sex marriage in this country will come from the Fundamentalists, the Christians who have a deep and abiding belief in their faith, and, unfortunately, an equally deep and abiding set of rules to govern how we all should act. They have already started their campaign with claims that homosexual marriage will be the destruction of home and family, and the door to promiscuity and sin.

Brooks, who understands these people’s language, has couched this issue in terms they can not only understand but accept: that gay marriage, rather than leading to promiscuity will enforce a standard set of behaviors as regards sexuality on all people in this country – straight or gay. He’s found the board on which the fundamentalists have based their battle, and pulled it away before there war was even begun. Absolutely brilliant.

Every gay woman or man in this country, and every straight woman and man in this country who believes in equality regardless of sexual orientation should send this man roses. Instead, at least within weblogging, we’re treated to an exhibition of virility that, if pooled into liquid form, could scent every tree between me and China.

Glenn Reynolds and others respond to Brooks’ statement:

Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations.

Reynolds responds with:

Actually, I had quite a few years like that before I was married, and I consider it a good thing, though I’m quite happy to be married now and wouldn’t have wanted to live that way forever. (But I think that one reason that I’m happily married now is that I did live that way for quite a while first). But I agree with David Brooks that gay marriage is a good thing, and actually strengthens traditional values rather than harming them.

What Reynolds said, paraphrasing him is, I agree with Brooks, but I don’t want you all to think I don’t like sex. I like it. I like it a lot.

Later, when he’d received several emails condemning his free-spirited ways, Reynolds wrote:

Yeah. But my point was that to arrive at what is, in fact, the kind of marriage that Brooks describes (except perhaps for the “I am you” angle, which seems a bit creepy to me), I had to pass through the kind of conduct he deplores. Only I think that I couldn’t have the one without the other. I’m deeply suspicious, frankly, of people who assume that all sex outside marriage is somehow depraved or corrupt or instrumental. Perhaps they are projecting, or perhaps they are just ignorant. It certainly seems to me – as I indicate above – that sex is to some on the right what violence is to some on the left: something seen as so dangerous, and so powerful, that if it is not kept entirely in check, it is sure to go completely out of control. I regard both kinds of thinking as misguided.

From there, the issue then became a matter of ’sex’ rather than equality, with Stephen Green (VodkaPundit) writing:

But some people don’t like sex. Or at least they don’t like it when unapproved couples are doing it in unapproved ways at unapproved times under unapproved auspices. Those are the folks who sent the InstaPundit a “surprising amount of hatemail” over the weekend.

Glenn always struck me as the kind of blogger who wouldn’t get a whole lot of hatemail —reasoned, calm, and often sympathetic on hotbutton issues. Yet a simple admission that ‘ gasp! ‘ he enjoyed his not-asexual single days gets his inbox filled with angry letters. And I’m not going out on a limb here, guessing that those angry people probably agree with the good professor on a lot of things. Just not about sex.

Lest you think this is a boy’s only milk-and-cookie fest, Reynolds also referenced Beth Green who wrote:

Sex is the greatest thing ever. Trust me, facing a year without Nerdstar around sucks beyond imagination, missing out on our sex life is a big part of why. I spent a few years celibate by choice – being so not by choice is the worst.

This was not about sex. Not really. This was about communicating for change using the tokens of language the intended target will understand. Brooks didn’t tailor his op-ed to the stud muffins among the warbloggers – he was trying to reach out to those most opposed to gay marriage, using a shared form of communication. For once I must agree with Andrew Sullivan when he writes about Brooks, He leaves me awed..

Brooks’ also wrote:

When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote.

He’s right on again – many in this country who are for gay marriage, or against Bush’s re-election for that matter, tend to use our terms and concepts in attempts to communicate our fears and worries to those unlike ourselves. We use ‘Hitler’ in comparison with Bush to reflect each man’s use of fear to obtain and keep power; and ‘Nazi’ in comparison with the Bush Administration to reflect the manipulation of media to control viewpoints of events. No matter whether we are just expressing our viewpoint (elegantly), or trying to invoke in others our own fears, the use of these ‘loaded’ terms works effectively, and consistently, only with those most likely to share the same internalization of these terms. Outside of this sphere of common understanding, the opposite reaction can, and does, occur.

I read the essays written by both sides of the fence and am struck again and again how many skilled pro-Bush journalists use terms and scenarios that would be identifiable by the so-called masses, with appropriate hooks to same. I compare this with their anti-Bush compatriots who tend to use recitation of the same facts, over and over, speaking with such intense ernestness about the evil of Bush that they are literally left puzzled and frustrated when people don’t immediately respond with, “Of course. You’re right.”

(For a demonstration of the conservative journalistic ability to adapt brilliantly, like ideological chameleons, see Sam Schulman’s Gay Marriage – And Marriage.)

But before I end this, I did want to assure one and all that, yes, I like sex, too. A lot.

(Thanks to wKen for the -Pundit links.)

Just Shelley Photography

Vertigo

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 23, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Today was cold but clear and I had to get out of the house or implode. Exploring around at the Missouri State Parks site I discovered a park not far from my home that I hadn’t been to before — Castlewood State Park. It was only 20 minutes away, 30 if I obeyed the speed limit, and it promised wonderful views of the Meramec.

During the drive I thought about this last week, and it seemed as if it was a tough week, or at least, it felt like a tough week. Do you know that feeling you get when it’s Saturday and you wake up feeling emotionally evaporated? I felt that way yesterday, and it was only Friday. I needed a walk, but not on paved roads and elegant little paths — I wanted to push myself to the limit.

(Of course, my current limit isn’t much beyond elegant little paths these days. But I wanted to find a new limit.)

After parking at Castlewood, I found the trailhead and looked up the hill and knew I’d found what I was seeking.

About half way up, tired from both the sudden steep climb and trying to keep footing on dead leaves layered over loose shale and wettish clay, I stopped by the side of the road to see if I was truly having a heart attack, or if I just needed a breather. However, instead of standing there panting my life away, I fooled around with my camera, taking pictures of other hikers and trail bikers. “See”, my actions told the people passing by. “I’m not standing here because I’m out of shape and any second I’m going to keel over in exhaustion. I’m a photographer, taking photos. And my face is always this red.”

I never knew how handy it was to have a camera with you until I used it for a prop during my uphill breaks today. However, if I had carried my full photographic gear instead of just my little digital, I’d be dead now and you’d all be fussing with your blogrolls, removing my link.

There’s time to think on a hike like this and my thoughts soon turned to the topic most on my mind lately, my impulsiveness and my temper — my passion, as the kind would call it. Yes, I also thought about weblogging, and the people I’ve met weblogging, too; both friends and foes, though at times, I’m not sure which is which. I thought about the discussion this week here and over at Misbehaving, by Gina and others, and how the topic was on being woman and invisible but the conversation ended up focusing on ‘look at me’ men.

We are too easily baited, too easily derailed, no, I am too easily derailed, slipping on these discussions as easily as I slipped on the rocks today. A mistake we/I make is to be defensive about our/my writing. If we believe what we write, we let it stand on its own — we don’t have to justify it, we don’t have to defend it, we don’t even have to debate it unless it gives us satisfaction and enriches the conversation. When we respond to criticism with ‘I meant to say…’, and it’s not true because we really did say what we wanted to say, then we’ve lost the high ground. No matter how outrageous or provoking the writing, the only one who can truly prove it false is the writer.

On the other hand, though, sometimes the high moral ground is lonely, and you think to yourself, “Pick your battles”, because it would be good to have others there fighting with you. The risk with this is that at some point you may find you’re no longer the one doing the picking and your high moral ground is reduced to a pebble in the ground that wouldn’t trip even the ungainly such as myself. What a conflict: we want to speak what we perceive is ‘the truth’, but we want to please. Rarely do the two go hand in hand.

These were the thoughts on my mind as I pushed my way uphill, cheeks billowing like a blowfish, forcing thoughts out between great gulps of air. When I reached the top I had to push all these thoughts aside and focus on the trail. It led along a bluff 250 feet above the river floor, and though the leaves were gone and the ground dry, the rocks were numerous and I had to watch my footing because there was little room for error. Particularly since this trail was literally at the bluff’s edge at times, and I suffer from vertigo.

Remember those scenes in that great Hitchcock movie, “Vertigo”, when Jimmy Stewart would be overcome with his fear of heights? That spinning that would kind of make you feel sick? Unlike Jimmy, my vertigo isn’t crippling, though I cannot for the life of me walk to the edge of a cliff. I can and will walk along a bluff, but I have to push myself just to go out onto an outcropping.

When I reached my first outcropping and saw the view, I had to take some pics. I found a tree to lean against because when I would look through the viewfinder, I would get dizzy and start to lean forward, and slip about. But this bluff was just the first of many; there was one outcropping after another, each with a view better than the one before, and I found that my vertigo actually got a bit less with each occurrence. I started out leaning against a tree, but towards the end of the trip, I could actually push myself out to within a couple of feet of the edge and look down at a passing train below and snap one quick shot, feeling enormously pleased with myself.

(Before grasping behind me for something secure to hold on to because I was frozen to the spot, and ended up grabbing this poor little twig in the dirt and almost mauling it out of the ground just to get back on to the path.)

The wind was gusting today, at times, and at the top, looking down at river below and feeling the sun and experiencing the beauty, I’m glad I did push myself to hike today, though my foot is paying for it tonight. Every time you push yourself beyond your edge, you’ve created a new edge, and how can you not feel good about that?

I left my hike for later in the day, as I usually do, and there were few people about when I stood at my last bluff and watched the sun starting to set. I hiked alone and though sometimes I wish I had someone to turn to and say, “Isn’t it marvelous”, I’ll still hike, though I may choose different paths.

I write as I hike, alone, and not always looking for the easiest path, or the one most comfortable and secure. When I am finished though — walk or words — I feel good, though this is a poor word to use to describe the experience. I also feel lonely at times, too, like today while still feeling the glow from going that close to the edge, but wishing I had a hand to hold on to instead of that poor little twig.

Same with my writing — I wish with all my heart that I could write of lightsome things and beautiful dreams and could find my way into all your minds and hearts and pull your secret words out and publish them here so that you’ll all universally love me. Then my words would never have to sit here on this page, alone. Perhaps, like my hikes, what I need is to find a different path.

It is close to the end of this story, and the end of my hike. I was near the end of the bluff and tired, very tired. A rule of hiking is always go hard going up, easy coming down. What this means is to climb up the toughest part of the trail, because you have better balance and you use your stronger muscles when you walk uphill. You want to save the easiest part of a trail for descent, because descent isn’t much more than a controlled fall.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find to take me down hill at the end of the bluff, but I was fairly sure it would be the easier walk because of the location of the trail head where I started. And I was right, and pleasantly surprised to find a set of wooden steps zigzagging all the way down to the bottom. Best of all, I could use the guardrails on the sides of steps and use my arms to bear some of the weight because at this point I was limping rather distinctly.

The guardrails were worn smooth after years of helping other walkers climb up or down, and at the end was a tunnel under the tracks to the path along the river. When I got to the bottom, I met a party of mothers and daughters out for a walk who obviously were not familiar with the path and had started from the opposite direction. As they were about to start climbing the steps I called out asking if they were familiar with the path, but they didn’t hear me, chatting among themselves. I thought to warn them of what lay ahead, but sometimes people just have to find these things out themselves.

Besides, they had hands to hold at the top if they got tired.

Diversity

Oh Boys? Boys! No fighting now

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 22, 2003

Dvorak’s on the loose again blowing blogs out of the water but this time he’s better prepared, or at least he reads a bit more thoughtful. And fancy! He didn’t mention cats once.

Among others, Steve Gillmor takes him on with:

I’m not sure who John is referring to when he bemoans “the emergence of the professional blogger working for large media conglomerates,” but I’ll list a few of the original blog voices who I’ve grown addicted to over the last few years.

Doc Searls, Ray Ozzie, Dan Bricklin, Dave Winer, Dare Obasanjo, Jon Udell, Mitch Kapor, Adam Bosworth, Tim Bray–I’ll stop before I forget too many superb minds who’ve created unique voices that add immeasurably to conversation of this emerging Net-based platform.

Darn, son! I wish you had continued. After a page or two, you might have reached a woman’s voice in there among all these Men of Repute.

(I think I preferred the times when the discussion was about cats. At least some of us have girl cats.)

You know, I’ve been reading too many Important Male Journalists and other anachronisms this morning – I’m suffering from testosterone overdose. It’s left me feeling pugnacious and quarrelsome. Off for more hiking and we’ll see if we can’t find that sweet tempered poetic Shelley with her pretty pictures among nature’s joys today. At least the rocks I meet in my hikes, I can kick.

Political

Beating Swastikas into Nose Rings

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 22, 2003

Recovered from the wayback machine.

I’ve been visiting some weblogs lately where the discussion ranges about the ominous similarity between the Bush administration’s use of PR and spin doctoring and the Nazi’s use of the same before the WWII – with some implications of the awful consequences of said actions on gullible ne stupid populace.

(I’d link all the gentlemen having this discussion but have a suspician that doing so would peeve some of them so I exercised the better part of valor and leave them unlinked – but not out of disrespect.)

This discussion is based, in part, on the assumption that the American voters are both blinkered and easily led – just say the magic buzz words, and we’ll react on cue, like Pavlov’s dogs. More so: Pavlov’s dogs were assumed to be intelligent.

Here’s a flash for you: The American people are not stupid. We may be conservative, or frightened, or insecure, and this combined with our beliefs may make us rigid or gullible at times, but we are not stupid. Nor are we especially self-centered, or no more so than any people in any part of any country on this earth. The only reason that the American people are getting so much attention right now is that the American government is the power, the Bitch with the Pull if you will. However, fifty years ago it was Germany and Japan. About two hundred years ago it was Britain, and about two thousand years ago it was the Romans. Throughout the ages there have been people who have used their superior arms to invade or control, and they’ve usually been led by a man (or a woman) who knows how to use PR effectively. But that does not make the people being led, stupid.

This ability to play on people’s fears or to people’s vanities in order to dominate or invade was not invented by Bush. It was not invented by the Nazi’s, either, and stop giving them so much credit. It was not invented by Napoleon, or Alexander the Great for that matter. It was not even invented by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, or King Soloman.

Og saw that Nu had more meat and fertile women than he did, and he desired these. He told some of his people that Nu wanted their women, and scared them. He told others that they were strong and invincible, and flattered them. He then convinced all of his people to go to war so that he might have this meat and screw these women. Og, you might say, is the inventor of tools used to propagandize war and greed used by men like Bush and the Nazis. Og is also the inventor of brutality, genocide, persecution, fear, avarice, and the death of hope.

We’ve had these traits from Og all along. We know this. We don’t need a swastika to be reminded of this, and the consequences. We are not stupid.

Once we’ve established that the American people are no less intelligent than spider monkeys, dolphins, and Jorge, the bartender at that cute little place on the beach in Spain, we can proceed to have conversations that are not based on assumptions about players following stereotypes – current or past.

Political

First Off assume Kucinich is not the great salvation…

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 22, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I wanted to get that out of the way, to establish a tone if you will. I mistakenly signed up for something on a Kucinich site a long time ago and have been spammed consistently ever since with fund raising pleas and other support noises for this particular Democratic candidate.

I respected Kucinich for being one of the few congress people to vote against the war in Iraq, but the more I hear from him the less my respect grows because he wasn’t against the war in Iraq specifically – he was following a leftist agenda that’s as old, and yes, as stale, as a moth-eaten pair of bell bottom Navy jeans.

I have news: Kucinich hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the nomination. Even if he did, I wouldn’t vote for him, as he believes we should just pull out of Iraq, right now, leaving the country to disintegrate as it will. Oh yes, under the UN, and I imagine we’ll leave some money on the dressar as we go, but by gol, we’ll bring out imperialist butt home and promise to be good.

We started this war. We didn’t want it, but we got it. We can’t just leave right now and have someone else clean things up. Kucinich is so two-dimensionally liberal, why bother listening to him speak? Just create a “Leftist” Ken doll with a string that when pulled, plays:

“Hi, I’m Dennis Kucinich. Want to be my friend?”

Oh I know he’s a good man, and he cares. I admire his putting the links to the Diebol tapes up on his Congressional web site. I admire him advocating that voting machine code should be open source and available to one and all, just like the code controlling the comments to this weblog. Howver, this essay isn’t about Kucinich, title notwithstanding. Or only about Kucinich. This is about assumptions and stereotypes, cookie cutter liberals and molded conservatives.

Just when you make assumptions about the American people, any people really, they have a tea party and you know you’re in trouble.

I’ve noticed with Kucinich supporters that they have an assumption that those who disagree with them are either right wing conservatives, usually with a lot of money, poorly educated racist whites in southern states, or Democrats selling out for power. Otherwise, you wouldn’t disagree. How could you? The man’s voice rings out so clear on all these issues. You know exactly where he’ll stand on any of them without even having to ask him. What’s not to love about the perfect ideologically left candidate?

Recently Jeff Alworth at Open Source Politics wrote a story about gay marriage and courage based on the recent Massachusetts high court ruling. Extracting key exerpts from Jeff’s writing (and yes, out of context – go read the whole thing if you want to double-check my use of the quotes):

The Democrats have had a fairly easy go in ‘03. Bush’s policies are corrupt, unjust, or incompetently-executed; Republicans in the House and Senate have been so partisan they’ve done everything but call the cops on the Dems. Oh, sorry, they’ve even done that. So staking out territory hasn’t been fraught with much in the way of ideological confusion.
…
At Open Source Politics we’re doing our best to be Democratically impartial. But this is one of those issues where the rubber meets the road for me. If candidates do the math before taking a stand on an unpopular issue, I think we have to call them on it – particularly if it’s a failure to protect the civil rights of a small minority.
…
What we need in response is someone with the courage to stand up for the rights of all Americans, however few, and also to stand up to Republicans who play the game of wedge politics. This election’s going to be about courage. We should be happy Massachusetts ruled on this; it gave us a chance to see into the hearts of the candidates. Lions or lambs – you be the judge.

Leaving aside the outrageous assumption that we Democrats or Liberals or what have you have not had to face some pretty serious ideological dilemmas this year, Jay boils this race down into the most simplistic of terms – we expect our candidates to demonstrate courage, and if they don’t, we’ll call ‘em on this. More, in comments to the post, Natalie Davis writes:

Do you think it is right and just to deny equality – LEGAL EQUALITY – to anyone for politics or any other reason? Do you feel OK with asking people to table their fight for equality – to continue to do without the basic equality too many hets take for granted each and every day – for the sake of elections or politics or expediency or the superiority (ha) of the Democratic Party or for any other reason? If so, all I can say is … wow. And weep.

Bottom line: I will not vote for any candidate who does not support my legal equality. Period. Any candidate who does not support the equality of all her or his potential constituents is, IMO, not fit to serve in a land that claims (mendaciously, alas) that everyone is equal. If that makes me a one-issue voter, so be it. This one issue happens to be so damned massive that it dwarfs all others.

Herein lies the heart of those dilemmas that Jay blithly assumes we’ve only just now had to face. Herein is when one person’s courage is another’s cowardice, and when stereotypes are going to bust apart into little bits and my greatest fear is that the only one left standing at the end will be George W Bush.

I have gays who are friends, and I have gay readers who I cherish and respect, so it becomes extremely sorrowful for me to have to say that the Massachusetts ruling this last week on gay marriage was about the worst thing that can happen at this time. I know that I’m going to be universally ostracized from the ranks of the True Liberals for making this statement.

I wrote in comments:

Natalie, I agree that Gays should have all the rights that Straights have. And they’re not going to get them. This Massachusetts ruling will about guarantee it.

I can’t think of any act more likely to get a constitutional amendment passed specifically stating that marriage is for straights only, than seeing two guys or two women walking down the aisle in Mass, getting legally married.

This decision coming at a time when all three seats of government are ruled by conservative, religious, Republicans is about the worst thing that can happen for my gay friends. Just type “constitutional amendment” into Google news and read the story.

Here’s a scenario: Let’s say Dean wins the nomination. Dean supports civil unions, but he won’t come out and support gay marriage. Tell me: if someone like Dean doesn’t support your concept of complete equality, Natalie, and your concept of courage, Jeff, what are you both going to do? Vote the Green Party? Kenneth’s demographics and projections will probably say Yes.

Might as well hand the country to Bush with a bow and say, party down son. We’re sticking with our principles.

I’ve supported full rights for gays for years, but I can’t this year at all costs – not when issues of this nature threaten to tear apart whatever fragile alliance of voters must exist in order to insure Bush is not re-elected. In comments another person, Kenneth, states that elections are not based on issues in this country, but make no mistake – I see the upcoming election as being nothing but an issues-based election. And the more issues such as gay marriage that arise, the more we risk having Bush for four more years.

I have one and only one goal in this upcoming election – to do whatever I can to insure that Bush and his cabinet is not handed an unfettered four more years in office. To me a Bush unconstrained by worries of re-election is a thought too horrible to behold. I will sacrifice anything to achieve his losing the presidency, including the respect of people like Jay or Elaine, with their demanding and finite and constricted ideologies, or worse: the friendships of my gay acquaintenances who are hurt by my words.

So don’t put me into one cookie cutter or another and think that I’ll link hands with my liberal brothers and sisters and sing around the campfires of left goodness, assuming that my decisions are so simple and clear-cut that I don’t struggle with moral delimmas daily in my quest to see Bush dethroned.

And would someone please stop pulling that Kucinich’s doll’s string? It’s beginning to annoy me.

(Thanks to David W for link to Copyfight for link to the links to the memos. I guess Dan Gillmor’s also linked the page that links the pages. A bit surprised, though, that none of you didn’t test the links first before you wrote that they were posted on Kucinich’s server. Too bad we don’t have the semantic web – it would have checked for you.)