Take me to the river, Shakesville.
Melissa McEwan's post For The Record has been seconded many places on liberal, woman-respectful blogs in the last week, so you may have already seen it. But if you have not, I say "Read it" and then "Me, too".
I have never voted for Hillary Clinton. (Though I did vote for Bill, twice, and am not a bit sorry for it.) I even wrote once that I agreed with Molly Ivins when she said she was giving advance notice, she would NOT vote for Hillary for President. But I had to publicly take back that blustering statement when Hillary became an equal contender for the nomination because, the fact is, if Spongebob Squarepants turned out to be the Democratic nominee this time around, I AM GOING TO VOTE FOR HER/HIM. The alternative is unthinkable. I found Hillary and Barack equally acceptable and equally unacceptable, although I do agree with Howie Klein's assessment that Hillary is/was demonstrably more liberal than Barack.
Yet any time I commented on a so-called progressive blog to protest hate language which was being aimed at Hillary on the basis of her being a woman, a wife, an older female, I was assumed to be a Hillary supporter. Not just that, a Boomer identity-politics-troglodyte racist C**T of a Hillary supporter who could not understand change or hope or vision if it bit me on my white, fish-smelling ass.
Yep, that's me to a tee.
Despite my best efforts, it got to me. And I've been sick inside as I've watched the testosterone-fueled fist-pumping victory dance. Because for some of these guys, too many of them, it was not just Hillary who was going down in flames. It was all the uppity bitches who ever denied their male superiority. We really can tell the difference, you know. You asswipes fool NOBODY but each other. And your exalted candidate did not lift one fucking finger to interrupt it. Which means when it's time to let YOUR values get assaulted, he'll choose silence if it serves him in the long run there, too.
PUH-LEEZE don't begin with your lizard-brain rebuttal of all the things Hillary's campaign did or said that were racist. I've read them. I agree. One does just not justify the other. Can you fucking understand that much? It's not a goddamned football game, nobody is keeping score of racism vs. sexism (except for you morons). I have and will continue to speak out just as much against racism, in all its forms. It's completely unacceptable.
And so is woman-hating.
I'm going to excerpt one part of Melissa's post here:
"...these women have witnessed this despicable but spectacular marriage of aggressive misogyny and their long-presumed allies' casual indifference to it, and wondered what fucking planet they were on that dehumanizing eliminationist rhetoric, to which lefty bloggers used to object once upon a time, was now considered a legitimate campaign strategy, as long as it was aimed at a candidate those lefty bloggers didn't like.
"And these women felt, quite rightly, like feminist principles were being thrown to the wolves in a fit of political expedience.
"And these women felt personally abandoned. By people they had considered allies.
"And while they struggled to understand just what was happening, while they were losing their way along well-traveled paths that no longer felt familiar or welcoming, they were admonished like children to stop taking things personally. They were sneered at for playing identity politics. They were demeaned as ridiculous, overwrought, hysterics. They were called bitches and cunts. They were bullied off blogs they'd called home for years.
"(But don't take that personally.)"
You have all shit in your beds, and you are too dumb to understand how. But nonviolent, steadfast refusal to cooperate with your cherished machinery will eventually get your attention. I'm asking all my sisters, mothers, daughters, and our allies to ELECT THIS DEMOCRAT, we have no healing option otherwise. He'll do some good, and he'll stop some of the death and destruction that's eating us alive. Boycotting this vote is suicide, and if you hint such a thing my way, I'll consider you self-destructive and unreliable.
After the election, though? The bot-boys are OUT. Lock the door. We know who we are, we know who stayed clean in the blogosphere, we took names and paid attention. Jesse Wendel, Lower Manhattanite, Shakesville, Crooks and Liars, Digby, Orcinus -- at the top of the list of those who can manage to fight injustice without resorting to racism or sexism. (Feel free to give praise to others in the comments here.)
Playing fair means, eventually, that only other fair players will sit down at a table with you.
But you'll always have Bush to whine with.
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For those of you with energy to deal with denial, recommended reading to help you not feel crazy:
From Dave Neiwert at Orcinus, How right-wing crap polluted Democrats' political waters
Shakesville keeps a simultanous Hillary Sexism Watch and Barack Racism Watch. The latest I could find are Hillary Sexism Watch #104 and Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch Part Forty-Goddamn-Six.
A request by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville to provide concrete evidence of posts and comments on "progressive" blogs of woman-hating directed at Hillary produced this depressingly long and detailed list:
List of Leftie Misogynist Hate Against Hillary
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Summary only...
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