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Open Thread with Marutaro

tigtog

Marutaro, aka The Cutest Hedgehog In The World, features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

A hedgehog lies face-up on a chalkboard where cat ears, tail and footprints have been drawn around it
Marutaro the hedgehog portrayed in cat mode | via Neatorama

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

93 thoughts on Open Thread with Marutaro

  1. Many trans women I know speak of transition – at least hormonal transition – as a “second puberty”. And so far they seem to be spot-on. I find it to be relieving in many ways, though. I’ve been a lot more emotionally sensitive lately and I’m starting to find it easier to cry. One of the most painful parts of my trauma is the inability to cry, so anything that helps me become more expressive, even while sad, is really helpful for me.

    In fact, every single emotion of mine that I can identify has intensified over the past couple of weeks. The times I feel angry, I feel a lot angrier than usual, but in a cathartic, healing way rather than in a self-destructive way as usual. Things are becoming easier to cope with. I’m also taking care of my body more than ever before. These days I engage in nothing but rest and self-care. I understand that there will be some rough times in the near future, but I am gaining the ability to sit back and just tell myself “I’ll deal with it when it comes”.

    All of this emotional stuff just goes to show that turning 20 does not, in fact, make me stop being a teenager! I turned 20 on the 19th, and I already feel that it’s going to be another turbulent year, all things considered. I just hope that at least this year will involve a lot of transition – both literally and figuratively, if you know what I mean. I’m hoping that my decreasing dysphoria will help emotionally prepare me for things like telling the family I’m transitioning.

  2. Happy Birthday, Ally! And all my best wishes for a wonderful year to come.

    Yes to the crying at the drop of a hat. That was the first noticeable effect of HRT for me, well before I started perceiving any other changes. And I was someone who had hardly ever been able to cry since I was a small child.

    1. TMI:

      I’ve also noticed changes with my chest size already, despite being on a low dosage. I had to buy some sports bras recently in anticipation of further growth since I’m starting to fear the possibility of people easily perceiving me as trans.

      1. I’ve always been reluctant to engage in “TMI” discussions of the physical aspects of my transition here or in any other public forum, but I will say this: I continued to work as a guy (although for the last part of it I spent most of the rest of my life as myself) for 4 1/2 years after I began my medical transition, for reasons I won’t go into here. Most of the visible physical changes happened in the first two years or so. I never tried wearing a sports bra or anything like that to conceal what was happening, because I was afraid people would see it under my shirt. Instead, I was able to conceal everything by wearing a tight T-shirt, and a loose shirt (button-down, because lawyer!) over it. In the winter, I wore sweaters that were too large for me. The same with the visible changes in the lower half of my body through fat redistribution: I always wore pants a couple of sizes too large.

        Not an attractive look at all, but I really didn’t care at all what people thought I looked like as a guy. And it worked. The only person who ever noticed that I had breasts was my son, because it felt different to hug me. One of the things that led him to realize that I was trans well before I actually came out to him.

  4. Content note: Generalised discussions of TERFs and cissupremacy, doxxing and harassment.

    So, has anyone had any experience tackling TERF and cissupremacist pages on facebook? I don’t want to link any specific pages involved here, because at the moment some of them are posting info about a trans woman I know personally, and I don’t really feel like it spreading further than it already has, but the harassment is getting to be a serious fucking problem in my facebook community on top of all the predictable hate speech.

    When I’ve reported these kinds of pages before facebook just messages me saying they don’t violate community guidelines despite having all the predictable arguments on them around trans women who are attracted to women.

    1. Not with TERF’s and cissexism, but back in 2007 or maybe 2008 when I did a podcast for the Skeptic Society, we did an episode on Holocaust denial. Following that I got really involved with attacking Holocaust denial pages on the web. I had to stop after a few months because it was causing me far more stress than it was worth. I hope you have more fortitude than I did. Good luck.

  5. It was with a hell of a lot of anger and despair that I learned about the plans of the Ontario provincial government to “review” the status of people with disabilities on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Plan). They’ve started sending out forms to those receiving benefits, which are to be completed by a doctor and then reviewed by the ministry to determine eligibility. Recipients can have their benefits cut off if they don’t return the forms in the specified time frame, or if the doctor in question doesn’t provide enough information on the form.

    They’re doing this for one reason and one reason only getting as many people of disability benefits as possible and getting them into the work force, even if they are unable. In other words the Ontario government has decided it will be the arbiter of who is (and who isn’t disabled).

    According to OCAP this is all part of a broader, global attack on PWD; the results of which can be seen elsewhere:

    This is a very serious attack. There is a whole international move to undermine social benefits for disabled people that this is part of. In the UK, a Work Capability Assessment has been put in place that has been used to deem tens of thousands of people ‘fit for work’ and cut them off benefits. Severely disabled people, in some cases, even the terminally ill have been robbed of their income in this fashion and forced to scramble for the lowest paying jobs on offer. The reviews that are now being implemented in Ontario are part of this trend and, if they are able to take these measures, we can expect further attacks on even greater numbers of disabled people. The Government has placed new powers and responsibilities in the hands of the President of the Treasury Board to ensure that cost saving measures are found. ODSP will be a key target for this new ‘Minister of Austerity’ and the attack is only beginning.

    I have already started the application process for ODSP and currently only work pt, because my particular disabilities, physical, mental and cognitive, make working full time very bad for my overall health. And I know several other people who will be affected by this as well. Well at least this attack is being met with organized resistance. And I am definitely getting on board.

    1. This is terrible. Are the Liberals trying to save face in the light of all the spending scandals by making cutbacks? Why not aim for salary caps for government workers, instead of targeting people recieving ODSP? Oh, right, because that might affect THEM.

      And we can’t have that, of course.

    2. @Niall –

      That sucks. It makes me question the decision of voting for Wynne. I will fess up to this at the get-go. She graduated from the grad school I’m going to, there’s a picture of her on the first floor, and her graduating thesis is in a repository on the second.

      That and, the whole thing with strategic voting to keep conservatives out of the OPP really takes its toll on voter sanity.

      To be honest, Ontario’s neoliberal slide actually started with Bob Rae’s NDP in the early 90s, when the welfare rate was no longer kept up with market inflation. Every one of our provincial parties have a record of axing provincial welfare. It seems like the human rights gains that were being made the past are now being rolled back and no official venue allows any dissent.

      I too have been inside the disability system in the past. I feel for you.

  6. So a couple weeks ago, I had a shitty experience where I got ripped off by a 10 minute oil change place (Pro Oil Change) and I wrote a blog on it and posted it on their Facebook page. Some other people who had crappy experiences took it upon themselves to post as well.

    I also posted a negative review on a local business directory.

    Now, the oil change page has deleted all of their negative comments (oddly enough, with the exception of my link to my blog) and there has been an influx of people who just loooooooove them. To add to that, the local directory has removed my review without any explanation. It was not at all slanderous or threatening or vulgar, just negative. I’ve now written to the local directory and posted to THEIR Facebook page (making sure to screencap this time) so I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.

    In better news, I am on holidays for two weeks. Yay!

    It’s just frustrating, because I hate being ripped off and I would just like someone to be held accountable for it.

  7. [CN – disordered eating, could be triggering]

    So, despite the fact that most of my PTSD type stuff is under control, I have been restricting. It’s mostly just skipping meals when no one is around to notice. The downside of living alone, I suppose. Being home sick all week with the shingles hasn’t helped, because at least when I’m working, we all sort of take lunch together, and that’s one meal that’s difficult to skip. I’ve lost a couple of pounds. Also, my kitchen is a mess, because I can’t deal with the aftermath of when I have eaten. I can’t look at dirty dishes right now, the evidence that I was “weak” and gave in and ate something.

    I put ‘EAT’ on my to-do list for the day three times to see if that will help.

    The thing that’s weird is that I don’t feel particularly anxious or upset about anything. I don’t feel depressed. This is the only symptom that’s coming up. On the other hand, it makes some sense in the context of the last few months. My body has not been my friend, what with the broken leg and its limitations and the shingles.

    And I know I triggered myself by watching documentaries about anorexia, and I feel so stupid for having done that. I knew it was a bad idea, and I did it anyway.

    On an up note, I have been procrastinating less, and I have been writing and studying more. At least there is that. The shingles seem to be clearing up. The skin from my burns is peeling off, and there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage underneath.

    1. I managed to eat twice today, and loaded the dishwasher. Pretty damn proud of myself.

      And trying to squash this feeling that I’m just looking for attention.

        2. I agree with tigtog. I like you and am glad to know that you’re working on taking care of yourself. And I don’t think watching the documentaries was stupid. I think that after the year you’ve had, it’s a really normal reaction–or at least it would be for me–to engage in some self-destructive behavior. You’re not stupid for doing that, you’re just a human being responding to bad stress.

    1. “The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism” is such an asshole subtitle. Substitute in “The dispute between [loosely associated bigots] and [anyone else]” and it becomes obvious to anyone that it’s a ridiculous dichotomy. I thought the New Yorker swung towards not-jerk on the jerk scale.

      1. Even the word “transgenderism” is itself a word TERFs use, to make being trans sound like it’s a religious or political belief, like Lutheranism or Marxism.

    2. Ugh, that. Yeah. Been involved in a bit of a debate on the Facebook over that one. Let me tell you, people are depressingly predictable.

    3. I know I can be really imperceptive, but when I read the article I saw it as an expose of TERFs and I got nothing but an anti-TERF vibe from it. The extensive quoting of Sheila Jeffries makes her position looks so ludicrous as to be irrelevant, the ‘poster-childing’ (a word I just made up,) of Heath Atom Russell is shown as the typically nauseating tactic it is, and Sandy Stone gets the final word, providing a perfect riposte to the unnamed software engineer in the previous paragraph in the previous paragraph who says“if you’re identifying with women, shouldn’t you be empathizing with women?” by both empathizing with the radfems and still demanding inclusion.

      1. I can assure you that the author’s intent, regardless of how you read it, was transphobic, from the title on down. There’s a podcast of a radio interview she gave in which she was openly hostile towards trans women. If you read it contrary to her intent, then that’s a good thing, but remember that people like that believe every word of what transphobes like Sheila Jeffreys say.

      2. The extensive quoting of Sheila Jeffries makes her position looks so ludicrous as to be irrelevant

        Yep, that’s pretty much what quoting Sheila Jeffreys does. I’ve tried to explain to people that there’s no way for me to summarise or even misrepresent Jeffreys in a way that makes her seem worse than her own words do. Still, as DonnaL said, there are a number of people who take what she says 100% seriously, no matter how gratuitously awful she looks from the outside.

  9. Actual conversation (I’m spending Eid with family today):

    Dad: As a young 20-year-old man, you should be active and healthy.
    Little sister: …a man?
    Dad: Of course he is. What, you think he’s a woman?

    Also, my brother recently read Janet Mock’s latest book Redefining Realness, and when he asked my dad to read it, my dad just said “Transgender is just a way of getting attention.”

    Fuck you, dad.

    1. Not sure if this is helpful right now, but your siblings sound awesome. I hope they make a dent in your dad’s stubbornness. Hugs, if it helps.

  10. Sick of hearing about the 2 whole Americans with Ebola. Over 600 liberians have died, but omg 2 Americans have it!! God CALLED them to help those poor, incompetent savages so its sooo noble of them to risk their Very Important American lives over there. I guess god never calls anyone to help on reservations. Oh wait. They’ve already been force fed Christianity, so there’s no need.

  11. Question of the day: What kind of GD textbook that’s required for a GD class does not have a GD glossary in it?

    I know there are a lot of professors who hang out around here. Would you ever assign a textbook without a glossary? Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?

    1. Wait, what’s GD? It’s hard for me to say whether I would or not, since the courses I teach don’t usually work from textbooks.

  12. Out of curiosity I was wondering what Feministe’s readers think about what’s happening at Shakesville over the shakesvillekoolaid site. I remember going to the latter after seeing some commentators here mention it, but as I’ve never commented (or really followed) Shakesville I haven’t been reading the tumblr regularly.

    1. I was disappointed that some Feministe posters I respected were participating in a site of that sort. But I’m rather glad I now know, as it’s something I will keep in mind when reading various discussion points. So although it made me sad, I consider it, at the end of the day, a good thing, as I wouldn’t have known what the standards those posters were willing to walk past were.

      1. I’ve written both here and there (today) what I previously found icky about the site, but I’ve fully bought into the idea that people who were callously triggered and shown very little regard deserve a place to vent. Aside from voicing their displeasure in what is, for them, a safe space and one-off instances where they’ve tweeted at or flagged comments on Shakesville, what exactly is causing you to lose respect for various persons?

        1. PrettyAmiable, I’m jumping in on this question you’ve asked M.Aud, because while I haven’t lost respect for any particular person in this thread yet I confess that for me some of the content/behaviour in SKA’s threads has crossed a line into a toxic standard which I am not willing to walk past.

          I see the major problem being that as part of the reaction against Shakesville’s restrictive moderation practices SKA is unwilling to engage in moderation hardly at all. This has made much of the site a cesspool of spiteful mockery that is allowed to stand on the basis that dissent is encouraged on SKA, and this core of spiteful mockery makes SKA far more than just a place to vent or call-out or dissent re Shakesville. I find the doubtmongering about various disabilities particularly disturbing, especially from people who claim to care about intersectional feminism.

          I don’t support sites dominated by spiteful mockery*. I don’t support it when they’re directed against Ann Coulter or Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton, and I don’t support them when they’re directed at Melissa McEwan either.

          * in the past I have at times indulged in spiteful mockery when calling-out contemptible behaviours. I regret eliding the two – cheap shots degrade discourse and make it too easy to dismiss legitimate criticism.

        2. I haven’t yet brought it up there, but the Ana Mardoll/visual processing disorder discussions do rub me the wrong way, which I think is what you’re referring to re: ableism (if only partially). I can’t imagine why anyone would make something like that up and think the harm caused to her (and by extension, people with invisible disabilities) in doubting it is greater than the benefit gained in that particular gotcha game.

          I can’t agree with you that the general character of the place is one of spiteful mockery, but I have doubts that I’d be able to convince you of this, especially since I’ve only really ever lurked over there and am in no way an authority.

        3. “Much of the site”? I don’t know how much time you’ve spent there, but I strongly disagree.

        4. And regarding the “visual processing disorder” issue, this is a paraphrase of what I said over there about it:

          Regarding nested comments, I believe Ana Mardoll when she says she has a visual processing disorder, and don’t believe that anyone [at SKA] is really disputing that. Whether it really prevents her from following nested comments — while permitting her to follow flat comment threads — I’m skeptical (given that nobody has explained how that’s possible or seems to have heard of such a disorder), but really have no idea.

          However, I don’t believe that that’s Melissa’s real reason for prohibiting nested comments. I think it has more to do with preventing horizontal discussions among the commenters, and making it easier for the moderators to detect subversion by seeing (and, if they choose, deleting) the most recent comments in any thread.

          1. When I built the FWD/Feminists With Disabilities website (eta: early 2010), one of the accessibility requirements was “no nested comments” because they were known to cause problems for some people with visual processing disorders. I never asked them exactly how that worked neurologically, I just listened to them and believed them and built them a website that didn’t have nested comments.

            For the same reason, I resisted nesting comments here for a long time. I eventually gave in to the preferences of the commentariat, but I still wonder whether that was the right thing to do.

      2. I guess if you bought into the patriotic frenzy that Melissa is stirring up among her commenters against “The Enemy” — to the point of openly soliciting proclamations of loyalty — you might think what M. Aud thinks.

        Except most of what she says is overhwelmingly hyperbolic, and, at least as it applies to me, a flagrant lie (see my comment below).

        Go read the “Circle Time” thread at shaker koolaid and perhaps you’ll change your opinion.

        Keep in mind that Melissa claims never to have been to the site. She depends entirely on cherry-picked screencaps, which represent a tiny minority of all the comments there. And doesn’t seem to understand that debate and disagreement are allowed there, and that for everything that could even possibly be construed as a personal attack on Melissa, there are multiple commenters condemning it.

        Nor has she provided the slightest proof that the email harassment she’s subjected to comes from people at shaker koolaid (never mind proving that any such harassment is known to or endorsed by the siter owner).

        1. And if you formerly respected me but now don’t because you believe Melissa’s blanket condemnation of that site and everyone who’s ever posted there, then there’s nothing I can do about it, but it suggests that you’re gullibility quotient is rather high. Just because Melissa says something is true you’re willing to believe bad things about someone you otherwise respected, without actually going to that site to see the responses to Melissa’s claims? She’s just a woman who runs a blog — pardon me, an “advanced feminist space!

          I will note that she has now gotten to the point of claiming that when the shaker koolaid site owner has tweeted people to deny the awful things being said about her, that constitutes “going after” those people!

        2. Circle time was absolutely the trigger for me. I think at the time, it had the most comments of any other thread on the site. Before, I found myself agreeing with small things I’ve noticed while lurking. After, I felt terrible and just wanted to hug everyone on SKA.

        3. Patriotic frenzy, I like that term. I’ve lost all respect for Mardoll and CaitieCat after their comments on the Pharyngula thread.

          Mardoll for thanking the Dudebros over there for defending her honor, and CaitieCat over the top, all caps swearing and name calling. It was verbal violence at its’ best.
          Congratulations for warmly embracing some of the worst bottom feeders on the liberal net! Those White Woman Tears (literally) worked didn’t they?

          I don’t appreciated being referred to as an MRA either!
          Drink the Shaker Kool Aid* is not an MRA hangout, far from it. Not only did your buddies punch down, they insulted us. They also mocked out Circle Time post. Circle Time is sharing how and why we ended up on DtSKA. FWIW, there are a few former mods and contributors sharing their stories too, hardly a bunch of MRA’s, but whatever.

          McEwan started this because of the HARO email she recieved from one of her readers. She withdrew for a week, and came back guns ablazing for us to deflect from the article? To rally the troops? No idea.

          By the way, has anyone here seen her infamous “acid facials” post?
          (TW: c word)
          Or her referring to Presidents Obamas’ daughters “unsullied c**ts”? Funny how THAT never comes up, but what a big bunch of meany poopy heads we are does.
          *(and yes, I HATE the name. I don’t find anything remotely mock able or funny about Jonestown, but I digress)

        4. More of a general question about the name –

          At what point can historical events become analogies? I was born almost ten years after Jonestown, but I can imagine living family being sensitive to those events. I don’t read the title as exceptionally offensive because I’ve been so far removed from that part of history.

          An example at the opposite end of the offensive scale is witchhunts – which, by and large, do not happen anymore but were also horrendous. No one is sensitive to using a witchhunt as an analogy.

          Curious to see what people’s thoughts are. I’m not in a position where I could change the name so it’s irrelevant, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen people have such a strong reaction to it, and I’d like to know more about it.

      3. PrettyAmiable August 4, 2014 at 1:06 pm | Permalink

        More of a general question about the name –

        At what point can historical events become analogies? I was born almost ten years after Jonestown, but I can imagine living family being sensitive to those events. I don’t read the title as exceptionally offensive because I’ve been so far removed from that part of history.

        An example at the opposite end of the offensive scale is witchhunts – which, by and large, do not happen anymore but were also horrendous. No one is sensitive to using a witchhunt as an analogy.

        Curious to see what people’s thoughts are. I’m not in a position where I could change the name so it’s irrelevant, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen people have such a strong reaction to it, and I’d like to know more about it.

        I get angry because people make it out like a big joke: haha those crazy people killed themselves because they were told to!
        Here are the facts:
        The majority of them were murdered

        They joined the Peoples Temple because they wanted an Anti racist/classist/sexist society (70% of the Peoples Temple members were of African descent)

        There was no way to escape out of Jonestown, physically or legally

        Some people lost their entire family

        There are many survivors left still.

        This is the best link I’ve found if you’re interested. Please do check it out.

        http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/

        1. I’m assuming you know this, but I don’t think it’s a joke. Thank you so much for the resource. Maybe that’s the key difference – the “kool-aid” reference comes off as a joke rather than an analogy (e.g. the witch hunts mentioned above).

        2. PrettyAmiable August 4, 2014 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

          I’m assuming you know this, but I don’t think it’s a joke.

          I know you don’t. I’m glad you asked though: the more the word gets out the better. That’s an amazing link btw.
          There are hundreds of pictures of the Peoples Temple members on there, and they’re heartbreaking.
          (I was 13 years old when it happened fwiw)(

    2. Hi Tigtog, I am going to post my reply to this over in #spillover, because I’m pretty sure this is an automatic stouche generating topic.

    3. FWIW, I gave up on Shakesville many years ago. It reminded me too much of college cliques where the fashion and power relationships in the group determined who and what were “cool” and which were “uncool” and thus deserving of whatever contempt and mistreatment people felt like heaping upon them. Since I’ve spent most of my life being stuffed into the category “uncool”, this did not sit well with me.

    1. Wow I hadn’t realised that you had been banned! Totally agree with your comment there by the way.

    2. Wow; I read your comments here Donna L and wondered “wait, wasn’t a ‘Donna L’ strongly defending Shakesville against SKA proponents in the Feministe threads I read yesterday (because they were linked to in a Pharyngula comment on this issue) ?”

      Turns out you were defending Shakesville – on the spillover 11 thread from December. In the spillover 12 from January you were ambivalent.

      And now you’re not only “pro-SKA”, you’ve been banned from Shakesville ? That’s a submission I have to read.

      I want to say it’s typical, which is slightly unfair (plenty of people have turned against Shakesville and Melissa but plenty haven’t), but it’s definitely a thread in a pattern.

    3. You were banned? What the hell?? I have seen you defend MM on several occasions… And I really valued reading your contributions both here and there.

      I really have been moving away from Shakesville… I used to read it religiously but I just stopped being able to deal with the awful treatment of commenters by the moderators. Total pile-ons even when people are trying to be polite, or just calmly questioning. It seems any dissent whatsoever is not allowed. And the rhetoric changes on MM’s whim. Suddenly something will be decided to be off-topic or derailing, even if precedent says that it isn’t. I understand being a feminist blogger can be pretty awful, and one might feel defensive, but that does not justify her censoring and silencing of any disagreement. Threads just turn into a whole bunch of ‘Well said Melissa’, with no alternative views allowed.

    4. I still defend Melissa at SKA when I think it’s the right thing to do; i’m not an “us vs. them” person, on the whole. (Unlike Melissa herself!) Just last night I had a lengthy comment in which I strongly defended her — not for the first time — against claims of transphobia, based on the notorious Mary Daly thread from a few years ago. I say whenever it come up that I dislike the use of “LIz”; I also said last night that I can’t stand the eagerness some have to engage in amateur Internet psychoanalysis with respect to Melissa.

      But because I comment there at all, and also recognize the great harm she’s done by treating so many people, with such great frequency and so little justification — and with all disagreement and debate (let alone criticism) ruthlessly suppressed, despite her specious claim that disagreement is permitted — I am now The Enemy to her, and was banned accordingly. In a staggering betrayal of her, yada yada. (Not, as I explain in my above-referenced comment [see http://tinyurl.com/mygvs53%5D, for any violation of the comment policy or for anything else that I said at Shakesville. I was in excellent standing there, with no problems whatsoever, until the day I found myself banned.)

      2. By the way, at least one person who responded to my comment at SKA was convinced that Melissa’s outraged polemic about “breathtaking betrayal” was specifically directed at me. It wouldn’t surprise me, but if it’s true that reflects badly on her, not me.

      3. I also said last night that I can’t stand the eagerness some have to engage in amateur Internet psychoanalysis with respect to Melissa.

        This is the other piece of ableism I’m not a huge fan of – does it really matter if shitty behaviors are pathological or not? The only function in saying she has NPD is to other her. Sometimes behaviors are just shitty, and I don’t care if it’s related to having NPD or not.

      4. Yes, I tried to phrase my comment as little like it was a matter of “sides” as possible; I certainly don’t think being critical of Shakesville and Melissa means thinking all bad things about her, or all good things of SKA. Or the other way around ! But it’s hard to express that when there kind of are sides ? Not in the “I’ll agree with everyone on my side and those on the other side are my enemy” sense, or so we hope, but you know what I mean. Two constellations of positions that are sufficiently similar within themselves and sufficiently different between them that one finds oneself mostly agreeing with one and mostly disagreeing with the other, and our arguing history reflects that…

        Then again this could simply be because from Shakesville’s point of view there ARE sides – so people who are on the fence eventually end up on the “anti-Shakesville side” as a mechanical consequence of having been booted off the “pro-Shakesville side”, even if their opinions haven’t changed (it sounds like that’s happened to you).

  14. Yeah, I’m gonna have to go ahead and agree with/support DonnaL and Pretty Amiable on this one. SVKA is not a “cesspool” of any kind. People who make inappropriate comments are called out, but not piled upon. I’ve been treated worse over here, in the past.

    I’ve also behaved badly over here, and in ways that I WOULD categorize as – if not abusive, at least deliberately hurtful. I regret those actions deeply. And I’m sorry I have hurt people here.

    But SVKA, while perhaps containing “mean,” or at least “not nice” comments, is not the hate site MM is making it out to be. Frankly, it’s a place where abuse victims go to commiserate, and heal. The site owner does not blast hateful messages on twitter; perhaps some commenters do. But unlike MM, I do not believe that a blog or tumblr owner is responsible for the actions of her readers. Nor do I believe all commenters have to think/speak/behave in strictly proscribed ways.

    If anyone believes SVKA sprang up (about a year ago) merely because readers objected to the commenting policies at Shakesville, I really recommend you read the “Circle Time” post at SVKA.

    1. I’m retracting the “cesspool” descriptor. That was hyperbole and I should have waited to cool down so that I could redraft with a less emotive word.

      I’ve made plenty of posting and moderating mistakes over the years, and I’ve done my best to learn from criticisms of those mistakes and do better going forward. I’m not close enough to Shakesville any more to critique their current moderation policies, and I’ve only sampled some of the most recent threads on SKA (and some linked to as examples pro and con by other parties), so I grant that I am an outsider who doesn’t necessarily see the whole picture on either site.

      I do however stand by my opinion that some of the threads that have been allowed to stand at SKA are predominantly dehumanising and spiteful in their mockery, and that this is unequivocally a reprehensible standard. I don’t see how walking past that helps the constructive commiseration/healing endeavours that are meant to be the purpose of the site.

      1. Dehumanization is pretty reprehensible, I agree, but I’m not sure I see what’s so bad about spite.

        1. I’m not sure I see what’s so bad about spite.

          I rarely see spite unaccompanied by slurs, and slurs generally give rise to splash damage, so it’s punching down and thus better given a miss.

    2. Yeah, I’m gonna have to go ahead and agree with/support DonnaL and Pretty Amiable on this one. SVKA is not a “cesspool” of any kind. People who make inappropriate comments are called out, but not piled upon. I’ve been treated worse over here, in the past.

      Adding my support here to SVKA (I hate the name though, because of the Kool Aid meme)

      Funny how she ignored us, until she was made aware of the HARO request. Then she came out guns ablazing against us.

      Now we’re accused of doxxing and stalking. How looking at someones website is stalking, and posting a public Linkedin profile is doxxing is beyond me. Also having a blog criticizing another blog is harassment how?

      McEwan has also refused to tell us who the troll allegedly harassing her from SVKA is, who she says has been stalking her for a decade.

      I’m angry that people are automatically taking her side and demonizing us. The fact is, she’s a middle class person scamming donations from people who are poor, poor in a way she has NEVER known. “Please donate so Iain and I don’t have to struggle on behalf of the blog”
      Do you know for years I thought they were living hand to mouth?
      I thought she could only afford to shop in thrift stores and yard sales, lived in dread of winter because the cost of heating her home is high, worried about their car breaking down and not being able to fix it etc.

      Unless you’ve been poor or are poor, I don’t think middle class people get it, including the people here. She is the 1% to someone making minimum wage, who can only dream of buying brand new shoes and clothes, or necessities, like a full tank of fuel oil.
      What a lie and she has the nerve to accept money from people on unemployment and disability.

  15. Can reasonable people at least abandon the canard that Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel? Weeks of open warfare and Hamas can barely get Israeli casualties into the double-digits; meanwhile Israeli forces kill 100 times that number without breaking a sweat. While Israel’s actions are certainly a reaction to aggression, they are not based out of any real or perceived sense of necessity; Israelis are no fools. This is punitive, plain and simple. Hamas poses the same threat to Israel’s national security as Al Queda posed to America’s: nada. Al Queda/Hamas threaten individual American/Israeli lives. Contrast that with a legitimate national security threat, i.e. the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 9/11 did not give the U.S. the right to slaughter Afghan and Iraqi civilians, and some unguided rockets falling mostly in the desert do not give Israel the right to butcher Palestinians and shell refugee camps. I said fuck the neo-cons then, and I say fuck Netanyahu and the other Israeli hardliners now. Injustice is injustice, regardless of how much we identify or sympathize with those who perpetrate it.

  16. The death toll in Gaza is now 1,200+, along with as many as 7,000 injuries. About 70-80% of the casualities are civilians.

    And the Israeli military has attacked Gaza’s only power station, depriving nearly all Palestinians of access to sanitized water and electricity. (link)

  17. Can we also talk a little bit about the anti-semitic riots in France and anti-Israel demonstrations in Germany with slogans like “Gas the Jews” being bandied about?

    I’m not saying they’re as horrific as Israel’s attacks on Gaza, obviously, because no lives were lost, but the blatant anti-semitism of them really shakes me, I hope for obvious reasons, despite the governmental condemnation. When the Vatican does horrible things–say, shields molesters–rioters don’t attack Catholic neighborhoods. To my knowledge, Jews in NYC did not respond to the Holocaust by attacking German neighborhoods in NYC and demanding that Germans’ throats be slit. The rising tide of anti-semitism in Europe frightens me–I read recently that after the most recent EU elections, 10% of all EU parliamentary candidates either denied the Holocaust personally or belonged to parties that officially denied the Holocaust. It’s really frightening. I don’t know if that’s true, as I can’t find the citation right now, so it may not be, but certainly anti-semitic fascist parties gained many seats. What I can find a citation for is that there is now a neo-Nazi Holocaust-denier on the EU Parliament’s Civil Rights Committee.

    And it doesn’t do any favors to those of us who actually wish to criticize Israel’s actions, either. In some ways, the group I feel most comfortable with is the Israeli left. They’re not anti-semitic, speaking generally, and they say things that would never be heard in the US.

    1. I’m sick of it all. The anti Semitic bullshit, the blind support of Israel, all of it. I choose the side of children. The rest can all go to hell. If your actions and support get children killed, fuck you, you’re evil. I don’t care if you use them as shields or shell them, both lead to dead kids. Between this, Syria, passenger planes being blown to shit and all the other atrocities in the world, if all the kill happy Bastards dropped dead choking on their own blood, I’d wear a red dress and sing Oh Happy Day, while skipping joyfully through the streets tossing glitter in my wake. In fact, I may take a week or 2 off from any news at all because I’m at the point of wishing the planet would shake the human race off like fleas. We’d deserve it.

    2. Yes, I’m unfortunately familiar with what’s been going on, and find it very upsetting. Of course anti-Zionism doesn’t always equal anti-Semitism; unfortunately, it occasionally does, and some of the people for whom it does have stopped pretending that they don’t hate Jews. Given who I am, and my family history, to see that kind of thing happen in France and even in Germany is devastating. No, I don’t put the blame on Israel’s actions; I put the blame on the people who are doing this.

      In some ways, the group I feel most comfortable with is the Israeli left. They’re not anti-semitic, speaking generally, and they say things that would never be heard in the US.

      I agree. Although these things are heard in the US sometimes: my son just joined the Jewish Voice for Peace organization. (As well as in Great Britain.)

      PS: Regarding German neighborhoods in NYC, don’t forget that the German-American Bund filled Madison Square Garden with a pro-Hitler rally before the war; there was a huge amount of support for the Nazis in Yorkville, etc., and gangs of Jewish kids used to have street battles with gangs of Nazi supporters all the time. But no, Jews weren’t demanding the slitting of German-American throats.

    3. It’s beyond ignorant to conflate Israel’s actions with the international Jewish community. Just bigots and hatemongers taking advantage of a tragedy to disseminate their slime.

    4. I wouldn’t be surprised if those anti-Semitics are also in support of banning Muslim headscarfs in their schools. They’re not supporting Israelis over Palestinians, nor are they supporting Palestinians over Israelis. It stems from a long-standing, violent sentiment against mostly anyone that doesn’t have a western face.

      In a related matter, Islamophobia is so rampant in much of Europe that only the most extreme Islamic groups still have enough aggression to stand up and talk (e.g. Britain). Obviously when they do, you get a lot of prejudicial garbage.

      Lastly I feel somewhat ambivalent about supporting equal rights for an opposing people but physically remaining in your own community. Often times, mutual isolation shrivels one’s sense of empathy. It begins with a respectful distance from one another. Then divergent circumstances makes empathy harder and harder. Soon enough even their demands and priorities no longer make sense to us. At that point solidarity does not have an emotional source and it won’t get far.

      1. dude_alex, I don’t understand most of what you’re saying (especially the last paragraph), but your first paragraph, perhaps unfortunately, bears zero resemblance to reality.

        1. Respectfully, Donna L, what is the reality you are speaking to? As far as I see it there are three things which are happening at the same time. 1) Long-standing anti-Semitism that never died down in Europe. 2) A concurrent wave of anti-Islam that is also happening in much of Europe, especially France. 3) Due to the Israel-Palestine conflict, it creates the illusion that 1 and 2 can’t happen at the same time.

          Forget trying to sort through the rest. If even this doesn’t make sense to you then it’s best that I respectfully refrain from arguing.

        2. On second thought maybe there is something else worth saying. In the article you linked from Newsweek, there are several things that are worth looking at.

          1) In the section titled ‘Getting Out’, there is reference made about the intolerance against religious headwear in public. I would think that anyone with firm grasp on reality would know that religious headwear is also something that Muslim immigrants in Europe has suffered to a great degree. In fact it’s been a central issue for them in recent years.

          2) The article takes a swipe at a list of bigots, which is great, except there’s a problem with they’re doing it. It weaves together several things as if they were all one big group. Neo-nazism, in its various hidden forms disguised as pop culture, is spoken of in the same breath with a frustrated, second-generation Islamic diaspora. The quote “Jihadism is the new Nazism” pretty much sums up the article’s attitude. Furthermore, the phrase “alliance between Islamists and the left” is pretty telling – it certainly throws a shade of doubt on whether the quoted sources are committed to peace.

          3) When the author reminisced about his older book, he himself didn’t made good on the insights that both Jewish and Muslim communities face a great deal of hardship in Europe. He anticipated that a “tolerant Islam can emerge” – it’s funny how a tolerant Europe that makes life easier on both groups isn’t even a possibility that was mentioned. He focuses on “tolerant Islam” instead of a “tolerant Europe.” The narrative was basically that “they used to get along with us just fine, until something went wrong with them.” Pretty horrible how this narrative barely scratches the surface on how second-gen Islamic immigrants are driven to aggressive behavior due to being excluded from the public sphere. Instead, it had to be due to the Soviets, the Iranians, the Balkans, and extremists within Muslim culture itself. Yes it’s false that Israel is manipulating the US. But the reverse quite true in the past few decades – the US has been manipulating Israel for its own ends, and it’s suspicious how the article doesn’t list that as a perpetrator.

        3. What you said doesn’t resemble reality because the vast majority of people participating in those demonstrations/riots and attacking synagogues and shouting things “Gas the Jews” have not been right-wing, are not white Europeans, and do purport to support Palestine.

        4. I don’t want to doubt your grasp on the facts, but I don’t know if that “vast majority” is a first hand observation, anecdotal hearsay, or selective media coverage. How was it possible to survey these translocal masses of people and immediately know they they were right-wing? And I’m not sure if supporting Palestine is just an excuse for those people.

          Like I suggested earlier, I have reservations about the sources I’ve seen you use, not in terms of the facts they cite but in terms of how they’re being framed. When Islamic fundamentalists incite and carry out violence, what leads you to assume that this is not a right-wing action?

          In France for example, any reference to Religion is greatly discouraged in the public sphere, so there was no way for these things to get talked about in a civilized manner. Yes it’s easier to pin all the blame on a group that’s fallen into disfavor with the system – that way the system will support what you say and give you a measure of safety. But I’m not sure that’s a good formula for civil society.

          Obviously, a fine line can be drawn between deploring Gaza occupation (which should be deplored) and disrupting the basic livelihood of sephardic diaspora (which is terrible). That line is easy to draw and we’ve both drawn it. That’s not where my reservations are. My reservation is that the issue you’re citing, about communal violence in Europe between two minority groups, seems more like a more deep-seated ethnic issue. I agree with you that it’s not directly linked to Palestine. I also agree with you that there is an indirect link that fans the flames. What I do not agree is that you are citing a source that pins virtually all the blame on the Islamic diaspora between the lines, turning the occupation on its head by framing the problem as the lack of a “tolerant Islam”, pinning the cause of their dispositions on exclusively non-Western sources, and ultimately claims that its “reality”.

          I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack, but it seems to me like the “reality” you’re referring to is just something that you want to see, something that reinforces a simplified us-versus-them framework. With all the things I’m seeing, it’s hard to suppress the suspicion that citing the violent incident is just a smokescreen for silencing other legit Palestinian voices against the occupation. In Canada for example there have been attempts at the federal level to pass laws, under which all attempts to criticize the Israeli state will be classified as ‘anti-Semitism’. I trust this isn’t your position but the article you cited doesn’t inspire confidence.

          There are plenty of neo-con eurocentrics that are against the occupation on the surface, and despise both groups deep down. They do exist and I’ve debated against those people numerous times.

        5. What you said doesn’t resemble reality because the vast majority of people participating in those demonstrations/riots and attacking synagogues and shouting things “Gas the Jews” have not been right-wing, are not white Europeans, and do purport to support Palestine.

          I think it’s a mistake to downplay the influence of the far right nationalist parties. Yes, it may not be white Europeans shouting “Gas the Jews” in this instance but let’s not forget that it was right wing white Europeans who came up with the idea in the first place. Plus, I happen to think fundamentalist religionists who support dictatorships are pretty right wing, I would be very surprised if these rioters held particularly enlightened progressive liberal beliefs. That to me makes them right-wing, no? I feel like it’s a way the media smears liberals, by presenting supporting a theocracy as somehow a leftwing cause. I do not view Christians, on the whole, as natural allies, and I loathe the term Judeo-Christian as I feel it is a manipulative way of trying to get me to participate in the othering of anyone who isn’t Christian (oops, Judeo-Christian.)

        6. PS: I can take you at your word that the people who raised the particular offensive sign (which is too horrible to repeat) are Islamic extremists and not some generalized bigot. My “first paragraph” was unclear and misinformed. Maybe this is what you meant?

          It seemed to me that there were moments where you were trying to generalize this, which I had reservations about. If I read you wrong then this debate is unnecessary.

        7. I can take you at your word that the people who raised the particular offensive sign (which is too horrible to repeat) are Islamic extremists and not some generalized bigot. My “first paragraph” was unclear and misinformed. Maybe this is what you meant?

          That’s exactly what I was talking about. I have no desire to get into a debate about the other things, because I largely agree with you.

    5. To my knowledge, Jews in NYC did not respond to the Holocaust by attacking German neighborhoods in NYC and demanding that Germans’ throats be slit.

      Yes, and the fact that Russia, is also (indirectly or otherwise) killing civilians has not provoked threats against ethnic Russians on the other side of the globe. Speaking of parallels, as Russia is a capitalist country now, why aren’t the same talking heads on Fox News who are saying the Cold War is back, suggesting a purge of capitalists from the media, literature and government?

      1. There’s a pretty persistent meme among American conservatives that Russia is not a capitalist country. Although Putin’s government is more state heavy than the Republican ideal, it’s still firmly capitalist. It’s just assumed that if Russia was capitalist, it’d be acquiescent to American interests, and since it’s not, it clearly isn’t.

        1. There’s a pretty persistent meme among American conservatives that Russia is not a capitalist country.

          The old ‘No true Scotsman’ meme, eh?

  18. I ran across this article on WashingtonPost.com which touches on how the tendency to see African-American people, especially males, as criminal (or “bad”) starts very young:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/24/my-son-has-been-suspended-five-times-hes-3/

    Spoiler: the writer discovers from talking with white parents that the stuff her 3-year-old (African-American) child has been suspended for doesn’t get the white children suspended.

  19. At the moment I’m thinking about social movements and how they should operate. I’m a participant in a local ‘ethical polyamory’ society and we are having issues with making inclusive spaces. Being a group that has sexual diversity as a central issue, participants are far more attentive to wordings and phrases that could be used to describe, allude to, or disparage various bodies. What’s even more complicated is that we can’t expect people to come forth and engage each other in their use and misuse of sensitive language; any serious sex-related support group has to be mindful of other people’s feelings, and when people don’t feel like engaging, feelings have to trump understanding no matter how tempting it is to have it the other way. That’s the sort of stuck place people are in.

    I was casually browsing some past articles and I came across Jill’s ‘about me’ blog many years go. One of the responders raised a dichotomy between an ‘inclusive’ movement with a corrupted mandate and an ‘exclusive’ movement with loads of elitism. Perhaps a different set of words would put the bigger dilemma to light. What is more important, an inclusive space or a safe space? That’s what’s really at stake here in this double bind. On the one hand, any disagreement about one’s identity will evoke traumatic memories. On the other hand, disengagement-induced isolation will increase trauma.

    For the most part, the specter of “you-just-don’t-get-it” looms large. Understandably so, since most of today’s online and offline media are so full of mainstream backlash that any critical discussion is disparaged by predictable people sitting on privilege, who at best will talk right past you. If you’re someone in a subculture that has seen all of that, you’d be suspicious if I invited you to yet another discussion where we put our identities under the microscope.

    My own, honest take on this is that the most militant or vocal critics of political incorrectness or normativity are already coasting on some kind of privilege that allows them to speak and have a voice. Not that they’re wrong; the militant critics can have a point and they often do. My concern is that they might silence others who don’t even have a presence yet, let alone a voice of their own. On the one hand if you call out someone for being fat-phobic when they have a language barrier, what are we supposed to make of it? On the other hand if you gain social-survival-points by appearing more glamorous over your allies, is that a benefit you can declare as necessary?

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