One of the few radical feminists who seems to understand that Islam is not something that the left should love.
To this I would add the result(s) of blacks in positions of government leadership. Whether it be in a single city, i.e. Detroit, New Orleans, etc., or in an entire nations, i.e. S. Africa, the former Rhodesia, or in not-for-profit institutions, i.e. universities,etc. to question and/or criticize is considered de facto unforgivable malicious racism.
As if trying to hold black leaders/leadership to the same standard as those expect of non-black is somehow cruel and unrealistic. You know, like expecting a half-wit child to multiply fractions, or a child with a club foot to be a track-and-field star. IOW, "The subtle bigotry of Liberalism." After all, we don't make excuses, or expect less, from people we consider our equals.
I know feminist graduate students who are busy “deconstructing” the veil, polygamy and arranged marriage as possible expressions of feminist or female power
If true, my question is: How intellectually bankrupt can you get?
Here it is: On a lot of shows (and I mean a lot), the last word you hear before they go to a commercial break is one of the following: "death", "murdered", "killed", "passed away", "homicide", "suicide"; in other words any and all words and phrases "death" related.
Now, this usually isn't found on shows like "Raymond" or other comedies. But on the "CSI" shows, "NCIS" and other dramatic shows, it happens repeatedly.
It simply cannot be unintentional or accidental or coincidence. No way.
Excellent. Thank you.
This is the second Phyllis Chesler thread today. The other one is excellent. I'm self-pinging this one for later.
Any petty differences between Christians and Jews must be set aside. Either that or perish.
Welcome to FR, Phyllis...
What has happened to the left is the victory of very old propaganda techniques that have ballooned into a culture. These revolve around drawing a boundary around one's presumptive opponents, stigmatizing and stereotyping them, and at last relating only to that stereotype rather than to the human beings behind it. It is this dehumanization that resulted in six million Jews being killed not for what they had done but for the idea of what their enemies claimed that they were.
It is much easier to relate to a stereotype than to actual human beings, and when one hears mindless criticism of "the religious right" for example one hears the heartbeat of this monster.
It allows persons who subscribe to a certain set of ideals to project their opposite into opponents who may very well be their biggest defenders. Modern feminists who refuse to recognize that Bush, for all his putative faults, has done more for women's rights in three years than their academic caterwauling has done in three decades are a case in point. He and his supporters are the enemy, they have been categorized, bounded, and defined into a neat little ideological package that is a sort of intellectual shorthand and an excuse for lack of real thinking. And where this fantasy is threatened by the reality of the rape rooms it is the rape rooms that are dismissed. That is the suicide of idealism in the interest of something else.
That something else consists of what used to be known as "class consciousness" - membership in a group with a common set of what are by now attractive and comforting illusions, solidified by hatred and nurtured by a reactionism that leads its adherents far from their original ideals. This is not hypocrisy, it is deliberate and desperate self-blindness. It is also seductive and exceedingly dangerous.
The test is a simple one - intelligent, truly independent people on the left may make common cause with their political opponents against the real enemy of their common ideals - a Hitchens, a Paglia, a Fallaci may do this but those of less stern intellectual stuff are prevented by fear of disapproval. It is that disapproval that is truly feared by those who have succumbed to this false class consciousness, and one hears its echoes in the vituperation directed at such as Hitchens, Paglia, Fallaci, by their former friends.
Truly a culture war, this one, but the truth will out. It always does - fantasy fails in the face of fact, especially when fact consists of an Islamic knife drawn across one's throat. That is very unfortunate for the fantasist but it's the truth.