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The Public Blogging of Pomosexuality, Homotextuality, Homophobiaphilia, and Drear Theory (aka Career Theory) [aka Gay4Pay]. We also read the Corner and OpJournal so the right buttock will be punished as well.
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"I know the gang at the American Prospect and Mother Jones still thinks corporations are "Right Wing" because they read something to that effect in an Upton Sinclair novel. But the truth is corporations are next to useless on almost all cultural issues -- affirmative action, gay rights, etc."
That's an interesting "etc". Almost as interesting as JG's casual anti-gay disdain. He specializes in the gays=bleghh soft sell. He's a gay disliker not a gay hater.
He can't even be bothered to think complete thoughts about gays. Corporations are "useless" on gay rights. No definition of "useless", no clue to what the corps could usefully do. Block gay rights legislation? Advertise against gay marriage? Fire their gay employees?
Acquire and destroy the gay movement in a booby-trapped backward-leveraged stock for debt for options for equity trillion card monte buyout?
Friday, July 19, 2002
Richard Goldstein's tepid call to arms "Fighting the Gay Right" in "The Nation" is mad libs leftism, cut and paste cant. It's as dispirited as it is disposable. I've read VCR manuals written with more passion and more unexpected turns of phrase . It fails even as p.c. camp.
His pretensions to historical insight are as threadbare as his technique. "The queer community is the spawn of a marriage between socialism and bohemianism" he informs us. Sounds more like the history of the salmon community. Probably truer of salmon too. Pink salmon, anyway. Sure, the bohos are a part of the gene-line but "socialism" in it's 19th century connotation covered the radical spectrum from individualist anarchists to first generation marxists. The proto gay liberationists were far more to be found at the individualist/humanist/mystical/universalist wavelengths along that spectrum than at that
dismal hue that might reasonably be considered the original team color of Gays for Gore, or West Village rainbow progressives, or(drearier and lefter still) Friscan Mumia cultists and Chomsky queens.
In an embarrassing bluff Goldstein gripes that Oscar Wilde's "political program" is ignored, obscured by the fame of his "aesthetic genius". What kind of leftoid apparatchik is even capable of writing a phrase as ugly and empty as Wilde's "political program"? Wilde's politics were his aesthetics. He thought it was "beautiful" to do as you wanted.
His "Mind of Man Under Socialism" is the best example of how amorphous that "ism" was in his day. Wilde's "socialism" is anti-state utopianism, artocrocay, panarchism. The anti-matter to Goldstein's party-discipline "liberation".
Goldstein doesn't just conjure up phantom political programs for the defenseless dead. His
imaginings extend to the nameless living as well. He claims that something called "gender patriotism" is the new banner of the generic "gay right".
I've read much written by all the villains mentioned by Mr. Goldstein-- Sullivan, Vincent, Pagila -and by others who share their incorrect perspective and it's the first I've come across this peculiar slogan. My good pal Mr. Google found only one instance of the phrase on the web and it had no connection with the homocon heresy. Perhaps someday we will be able to google Mr. Goldstein's brain directly and discover the source of his delusion.
And perhaps someday epistemology will broaden sufficiently to elucidate such statements as "you can't really be a queer humanist and a homocon". That "really" says it all. We have entered such a recursive realm of mobius argumentation that no response is even possible. Richard's "really" real realness is his to define, afterall.
You can replace the word "humanist" above with any word in any language (or every word in every language) and it would be no more or less true. It's Richard's world, we're all visitors here. And it's Richard's Ball, he gets to hand out the "queer humanist" realness trophy (don't think anybody's walking that particular ball though, the House of Gephardt--or is it Lieberman? Daschle? Nader?--just doesn't speak to the children).
It almost sounds like Richard is looking for a way off planet Goldstein (who wouldn't?) by the end of the piece. Things are getting shaky,fluid,unpredictable. "All the old ways of thinking are up for grabs"
(I'm sorry, I had to quote it. It hurt me to type it too). How'd this happen? "As homophobia becomes a less formative force", (again, I apologize) things get freed up. Minds too it would seem.
So what is Richard proposing here? Homophobia patriotism, perhaps. Sure it had it's bad points but it kept us on the left. As it lessens gays take on undreamed of shapes. It starts with bull-necked British expats and ends with bald-headed Dutch marxist apostates. Except it won't end there unless we do something. So as he began for with Pim Fortuyn he concludes with him (an accidental tribute to Fortuyn's importance). He's the spectre that's haunting...hmmm I don't know, the upper west side? But what is the lesson the dead man teaches us?
"Consider how the Fortuyn assassination played out", Mr.Goldstein urges us with all the grace of, well, a bullet riddled man collapsing in a radio station parking lot. "The ultimate winner" he continues, piling grace upon grace,"was an echt conservative who wants to rein in abortions and stiffen drug laws". There you have it. Fortuyn went and got himself assassinated and as it "played out" his corpse was unable to fulfill the duties of prime minister so the voters of the Netherlands, though they still voted for Fortuyn's party in great numbers, gave the largest share of the vote to the most prominent party (the conservative Christian Democrats) that was not a partner in the ruling left coalition government. A government they blamed for demonizing Fortuyn unto death.
"Such are the unintended consequences of Professor Pim's syncretic politics". Yeah, I will grant that getting yourself murdered for speaking your mind as apolitical candidate in a liberal democracy is just about the unintendedest of consequences, but seldom have the assassinated been blamed for the further unintended political consequences of their murder. Mr. Goldstein breaks new ground here.
And then he rakes over the old ground (his natural métier) with two final insights. I guess we could call them Richard's Politcal Program. They are about as extensive as Wilde's. Apropos the swirling fallout of Fortuyn's murder the gnomic advice proffered is "We should consider that and act accordingly." So there. And apropos nothing at all Richard drags E.M. Forster onstage for his final indignity against the dead and makes him squawk, "only connect."
I've got better advice for the left, gay and otherwise. Only disconnect--Richard Goldstein's computer.
"The Stonewall Rebellion Lives:
Contingents of Queers Against War, Racism, and State
Repression March in Pride Parades Across the Country
by Su Docekal and Bob Schwartz"
Su and Bob are identified as:
"Su Docekal is a founder of Seattle's pride celebration committee and LGBT Coordinator for the Freedom Socialist Party. She lives in Seattle.
Bob Schwartz is a member of Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, a gay liberation organization; living in Chicago"
Cartoons, in other words.
The piece is too long to quote in full but here's a taste:
"Large banners proclaimed, "Defend Civil Rights at Home, No 'Collateral Damage' Abroad, Stop This War!" and "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered People & Allies In SOLIDARITY with Arabs, Muslims, South Asians Against Racial Profiling." Three other banners carried by allied activists defended Mumia abu-Jamal, slammed patriarchy and war. Chants rang out: "Stop the Hate, Stop the Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here," and "Arabs and Muslims Under Attack, What Do We Do? Act Up, Fight Back," were
among them."
And another:
"Seattle "Takes no Pride in War"
In Seattle, a bright pink and black banner that read "We Take No Pride in War" led off the contingent, one of the largest in the parade, also on June 30.
"1, 2, 3, 4, We Don't Want Your Racist War; 5,6,7,8, Go Home and Masturbate," elicited a roar of approval from the crowd. "Pussy Power, Not Bush Power," and "No Blood for Oil" were also popular. The protest was seen as a natural outgrowth of earlier queer efforts to support Somali and Arab immigrants who have been targeted by federal investigators, and participation in actions against the Bush war machine. "So it was natural that we'd want that voice heard at our own pride celebration," said one organizer from Radical Women."
This crap isn't the Stonewall Rebellion reborn. It's stillborn leftism wrapping its sorry ass in the rainbow flag. Mumia queens. Pathetic.
I'm looking forward to reports of the "no racist war" and "Solidarity" with the Muslim world dummies taking their message to the gay pride parades in Mecca, Tehran, Cairo, Baghdad etc etc etc etc.
Then they should stick around for the Women's Equality Parade, The Free Speech Free Press Parade, and of course the Separation of Church and State Parade.
The Stonewall Rebellion will really live again when gays in the Muslim countries fight back against their own brutal regimes. That's a little much to ask right now though since they'd certainly be arrested and possibly be murdered for doing so.
But what an insult to them to say the spirit of Stonewall lives in the leftoid droids who march here in freedom but who can't be bothered to speak against gay oppression in Muslim countries and tyranny in the Arab world in general. Can't complicate the message with uncomfortable particulars, doncha know?
"Don't save your kisses
Pass them around
You'll find my reason
is logically sound
Who's gonna know that you passed them around
A hundred years from today"
Lee Wiley is singing this in the other room. She's ALWAYS singing this in the other room.
