Starving Artist, I think that one reason that there isn’t a lot of explanation of the motives of celebrities is that it would be purely speculative. You can’t know their motives and neither can we.
I do know that many celebrities give more than just lip service. The first one to come to mind is Robert Redford. He has held local office, serves on the Board of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has written a book on the wilderness and has long been an activist on environmental issues. (And that’s only part of his activism.)
I had a crush on a television star back in 1956. He had been in some movies before that. He was a good Democrat…for a long time. I guess you could call President Reagan an activist.
Audrey Hepburn had a second career as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.
I seem to remember a lot of celebrities that were participants in the women’s movement in the 1970’s – Jane Fonda and Marlo Thomas are two examples. Marlo produced a television show called Free to Be You and Me that was a wonderful success.
No, no. You don’t understand. The United States is pink and Canada is yellow and there is a long, long, long wall between the two. Nothing that happens in this country is of any consequence there and vice versa. Arctic cold fronts are a myth, as are acid rain and polluted air. *They disappear into an abyss where the colors change from yellow to pink.
Starving Artist, I’ve put away my hanging rope for a while. It has took much SLACK in it right now.
Zoe, it’s funny how the posters I most disdained when I first came here, such as Diogenes, EddyTeddyFreddy, and yes…even you, are now the ones I think most highly of. We don’t speak much, but I almost always appreciate it when you have something to say.
Please know I have no problem with speaking up about injustices. I’ve even said in answers elsewhere here that it’s a necessary [and for that matter, crucial] aspect to making the changes that need to be made. But speaking up is one thing…rage and hate and the attribution of every conceivable evil intent on the part of your opponents is another. I think it’s not only counter-productive, but bad in and of itself.
You criticize the gay and gay friendly posters of the board then when taken to task you turn hostile and demand slack you weren’t granting anyone else.
Zoe, I tried to catch you before you left. I think the kinds of things you mention are exactly what a celebrity should be doing if they want to effect change. I’ve said so many times on these boards. It’s much more legitimate in my opinion to get down and dirty and work to take office and put in the effort to try to work within the system to create change than it is to, in effect, say (in SA’s best Jeanene Garofolo voice) “Hey, you like the work I did on Saturday Night Live? Then vote against Bush because the war is wrong.”
You’re objecting to projection on the parts of other people; from where I sit, you’re engaging in it yourself, however.
I saw no “hate and rage” on the part of anyone, at least before you wandered in to start stirring the pot. Mostly I saw frustrated incredulity, along the lines of, “Can you fucking believe this loon?” and “How in God’s name could this guy have gotten that job?”
Whether or not you see an attempted parallel being drawn between gays and al-Qaeda in the “greatest threat” line, it’s at minimum hyperbolic; from my perspective it’s slanderous and the same species of offensive as Falwell’s line about the gays, pagans, and feminists. The idea that legal abortion is some part of the Gay Agenda tee-em is tinfoil hat territory. People who say that sort of thing will get reactions of incredulous aggravation, not just from whoever they’re targeting, but from plenty of other people as well.
My personal responses to you in this thread (most of them unposted) have not been rooted in knowledge of your political persuasion – I only know it because you mentioned it specifically, and I’ll probably forget it again by next week – but in the fact that as far as I can tell you’re seeing hatred and extremism that just plain isn’t there.
So while you think you’re telling people to tone it down from an unreasonable level, I and others folks are seeing you calling a fair amount of sarcastic “What the fuck?” bile and hatred. Which means that you come across as either a hothouse flower who’s never encountered people kvetching about yet another bloody frustration that’s fallen across their path or someone who thinks that objections to that behaviour are axiomatically out of line. Since people presume that hothouse flowers will wilt in the Pit, they concluded you were one of the latter.
Since I don’t see that “hate and outrage” except to the extent that you provoked it by trying to slap people down for something they (as far as I can tell) weren’t doing, your repeated claims of it don’t come across to me as an explanation for your behaviour.
Lilairen, no offense, and I appreciate your taking the time to post to me (What, you’ve been making posts to me but not posting them? Wtf? You should have, I can take it.), but as of now I’ve devoted the better part of two nights to this thread, and I’m not only tired, but life beckons. Make of my posts what you will. I would point out however, that it hasn’t been until this thread had pretty much run its course that this issue of whether or not hate and outrage was truly expressed has begun to arise. Prior to that, nobody seemed to have any trouble whatsoever assailing me again and again over their right to feel the hate and outrage I perceived, and more or less calling me a jerk for having the nerve to call it into question.
I’m confused now. Have you been complaining about the supposed hate and venom, or have you been complaining about the reception you received when you referred to certain people’s justifiable indignation as hate and venom?
If it’s the latter, you may want to think on why it irritates some people to be called hateful and venomous for reacting to an extremely vicious statement from someone in an ironically powerful position the same way vicious statements from both sides of the political spectrum are regularly greeted on this board.
elucidator: I’m so not gay, but there’s some blatant homophobe running for office in Oklahoma who’s been tapped to be on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS! How fucked up is that? Also, I’m not gay. general murmurs of outrage Starving Artist: Nothing’s been decided yet. Relax and give it time. SolGrundy: Fuck that! elucidator and others: Gay militants? How bizarre. Starving Artist: These things take time. Being angry only turns people off. SolGrundy: It’s taken long enough. Here’s a barely-relevant story of my experiences and a tangential argument about gay marriage. Miller: Being angry is necessary. This is a civil rights movement just like any other. EddyTeddyFreddy: We are entitled to be angry. Starving Artist: Being angry only alienates the normal people from your cause. Hamish: We’re not normal and we still deserve rights. matt_mcl: Oops, that was me posting as Hamish. Mockingbird: Starving Artist, you suck! Starving Artist: Fucking liberals! Zoe: Fucking straight white men!
Hey, I’m sympathetic. There is, absolutely no doubt about it, a left-wing element to this board that is ridiculously hostile to any differing political point of view. Here’s the funny thing, though: none of the people you’ve been debating with in this thread are part of it. I’m liberal, yeah, but I’d like to think that I’m pretty open minded when it comes to different politics. If you check out Sam Stone’s pitting, I posted a fairly lengthy defence of him.
Obviously there’s a disconnect here, which is why I’m taking so much time trying to get through to you. Only, I have a very real feeling that you’re not making the same effort. I absolutely believe that you don’t mean to be patronizing in this thread. I wish you’d give me the same credit when I say that what you’re actually typing in here, is, in fact, very patronizing.
This is exactly what I mean when I say you have no conception of context and subtext. The context is that this is a right-wing, Republican politician making that speech in a political atmosphere dominated by the idea that our freedom is under assault from terrorist extremists. It was your guy, George W, who explained 9/11 by saying “they hate our freedoms.” Remember that? I can give you fifty quotes from Republican politicians, from the White House all the way down the line, talking about how Al Qaeda is a threat to our freedoms. I can give you a hundred if I include Democrats. And now we have Coburn, a Bush appointee, saying gays are the greatest threat to our freedoms. In the context of current politics, there is an unmistakable subtext in that statement that equates homosexuals with terrorists. No, he doesn’t come right out and say it, because if he did, he’d get the same backlash Falwell did. Hence the insinuation: he knows the rabid homophobes out there are going to pick up on it, while the moderates like yourself, who agree with him on other issues and maybe aren’t so concerned with gay rights, are going to let it sail under their radar.
All communication is extrapolation. All of it. None of these words I’m typing right now have a fixed meaning. They have meanings derived by consensus, by implication, and by context. You need to understand this if you’re ever going to be an effective communicator. Communication is a two way street. If you say something, and I take it in a way you didn’t mean, you need to state it again in a different way, because the way you stated it the first time isn’t working.
Yeah, but here’s the thing: no one but you is seeing the “hate and rage” of which you speak. So we’re all sitting her wondering what the fuck you’re talking about when you say “hate and rage.” Before you showed up in this thread, there was anger, sure. Who wouldn’t be angry when insulted like that, by a public servant, no less? The posts in this thread had been entirely justifiable, human reactions to being insulted viciously without provocation. So when you start chastizing people for that human reaction, we have to wonder “Well, what the fuck does he think we should say?” Context and subtext. Saying what you posted in the context of this thread, implies the subtext of “Shut up, you whiny fags.” And yes, I know that’s not what you meant to say. But saying what you did, in the context of this thread, communicates that message. You can whine about that all you want, but until you recognize that, and alter your delivery accordingly, you’re never going to communicate with anyone.
Show me an example of hate speech in this thread. Not counting the stuff quoted in the OP. Seriously, because I haven’t seen it. This is, what, page three? And I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Show me a quote.
That’s exactly the same thing. Exactly. “Tell” and “propose” are fuckin’ synonyms, for the love of Christ!
We don’t need you to tell us that! You’re not an asshole, but you seem to be constitutionally incapable of understanding an issue through anything but your own prisms. It’s people like Coburn who are actively working to turn back the clock on gay rights. You want to make us feel better about Coburn? How about you take a stand against him? Write your RNC chairperson and tell him your sick of bigots being selected as mouthpieces for your party. Don’t vote for anyone who tries to make poltical hay out of the personal lives of gay people. And don’t fucking defend these assholes when they’re called on their hateful bullshit, like you’ve done in this thread! Telling us not to worry about Coburn, because it’ll all be okay in another three or four decades doesn’t make anyone feel better. And if anyone actually listened to you, it’d make it that much easier for Coburn and those what think like him to carry out their agenda.
Hey, I didn’t call you stupid.
I do not see any way to read this paragraph that does not render it completely self-contradictory.
No, you misrepresent what you’re saying, because you are a piss-poor communicator. And trying to blame it on some sort of political divide is pretty pathetic. Of the people trying to debate you in this thread, which of us are the rabid, irrational liberals? Me? SolGrundy? EddyTeddyFreddy? If rjung or Diogenes were in here, maybe you’d have a point. I don’t see them. So who exactly are you talking about, that’s misreading your posts simply because they’re liberal?
No shit, Sherlock. Fucking read the paragraph you were responding to. We know all about waiting. We know more about waiting than you would if you spent the rest of your natural life in a DMV. And the fact that you come in here to lecture us about waiting is fucking patronizing as hell! If you don’t mean to be patronizing, then stop fucking saying that!
Damn, Sol, please! (here we go again)…I NEVER SAID SUCH A THING!!!
I said things are getting better and letting people see gay people for what they really are, i.e. normal is a better way to fight prejudice than rage and hate.
What’s wrong with that? Would it be your contention that the public at large has always viewed gays as normal? If so, then please explain what the problem has been.
Sorry, Miller, and I apologize if this seems to be giving your post short shrift, but what your post really boils down to is that I should phrase everything I say so that it may be properly interpreted through the “prism” of the person reading it. This is clearly impossible. For a couple of reasons:
First, even in this thread we have people seeing different things in my posts. How am I to phrase things so that everyone reading them will take them the way I intend for them to take them. Wouldn’t I have to be a mind-reader, number one, and secondly wouldn’t I have to post individual comments to the individual posters that a particular variation then applied to?
And second, it would require me to be able to get inside the minds of people who have experienced things I clearly haven’t and speak to them from their perspective…a perspective I couldn’t possibly have, as we all know.
This is why people have (or should have) analytical ability and judgement. I think just about everybody here knows that I’m not their enemy. Most of the people here have seen other posts of mine and should be able by now to tell what type of person I am. Therefore, I would think (and this is why I was so shocked at the reaction of EddyTeddyFreddy) they would know me well enough by now to be able to interpret my words in the context of the person I’ve shown myself to be.
I’m extremely anti-post-count-padding where I’m concerned; if I see that other people have said or are likely to say whatever I could contribute, I don’t post at all. No sense straining the hamsters. I think about far more responses than I start, and only finish perhaps three-fifths of the ones I start.
Well, it took me a long time to figure out that you actually honestly imagined that there were people in this thread who were displaying hate-and-outrage. There are plenty of people who think that showing any sign of objection to certain forms of raving lunacy is out of line – “uppity” – on the part of various minority groups, and you sounded just like one of them, down to the minutiae of your rhetoric.
Whoa – WHOA! Calm down! Your temperment clearly shows that you are headed towards violence, and that solves nothing!
See, it’s frustrating when you feel like you’re making the same points over and over again, and they keep getting ignored. Imagine that frustration repeated over and over again in a thread that you can never ever leave, and that helps explain why comments about “love” and “acceptance” and “equal rights” can be perceived as “venomous bile and hatred.”
I’d hoped it were clear that my “Cliff Notes” above wasn’t a 100% serious to exhaustively some up everybody’s points in this thread. If not, apply smileys liberally. (Or, if it suits you, moderate conservatively).
But yeah, I was summing up your comment here:
See, “normal” is the bad word here. Believe me, I know that that sounds like a meaningless semantic argument. But when you’re talking about gay rights, the idea of “normal” has a huge load of connotations with it. I know I used to be of the opinion, “I don’t have a problem with being gay, I just don’t see why people have to act gay.” Why do they post in every remotely gay-themed thread? Why do they act all “proud” of it? I’m a homo, but I can pass for straight – if everybody else would just give it a rest and let people do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes, it would be so much easier.
I’m not implying that you think the same way. I’m only saying that comments like yours can easily be interpreted that way. And it’s a big deal. People shouldn’t be “granted” rights just because they can act a certain way; they should have rights just because they’re people. And many people just aren’t like everyone else, and that’s fine. Nobody should have to straighten up in order to be treated like a human being. And when you have people like Coburn saying that promiscuity and irresponsibility are part of some insidious gay agenda, and that gays could just stop being so gay if they only made an effort – it’s offensive.
And no, I’m not going to call you on “normal” again, because I know what you mean. The problem is that “things are generally getting better” is not the same as “things are fine.” The problem is that in Coburn, we have a clear case of someone who is working to undo the progress that has been made, and people will still defend him and ask, “What’s the big deal?”
And for me personally, the problem is that I appoint myself as part of the SDMB Advisory Committee on Gay Rights Advocacy, when I have had about the easiest coming-out experience imaginable. Never a victim of hate-crime, my job’s not at risk, haven’t lost any friends, total strangers have been super-supportive, and the only times I’ve been called names have been in joking from my best friends or from myself. So I get to thinking, “That wasn’t anything to be scared of at all! Maybe things really are getting better.”
And then I find threads like this one, called “What is Gaybashing like?”, and it makes me feel dizzy and nauseated. And then every claim about how things are improving and good times will come and stay the course and slow and steady wins the race, just sound hollow. And Coburn’s quotes and Missouri’s laws and Bush’s proposed amendments seem less like a natural part of the political process, and more like an implicit approval of continuing hatred and violence and condemnation.
I’m mildly irked, Sol. Not quite sure what you’re trying to suggest here, but it seems a bit of a putdown, for reasons that escape me. Should I not have mentioned it? Heck, you sure did. If my orientation is not relevent, why is yours?
Now, if you’d prefer to discuss this entirely in the abstract, I can go with that, probably would be a more cogent discussion. But there has to be one proviso with that: if you and I disagree on some point, you aren’t allowed to present your status as the victim as a qualification of special expertise.
Indeed. As I said above, I wasn’t being entirely serious with my Cliff’s Notes version. I would’ve included smileys but assumed that everyone were in on the joke, especially with these lines from the OP:
which, I thought, were funny.
I’m a little irked to think that I’ve said something here that would make you assume that I would instantly respond by making myself out to be a victim or acting as if I have Special Gay Arguing Privileges. But then, what’s the point of the Pit if not to get a little irked?
