The Anchoress

LANGUAGE ALERT:::YOU’RE WARNED:::LANGUAGE ALERT

So, I am very, very, very…very late to the “big” story that one of John Edwards’ blogmistresses has resigned her position. That’s a shame. I wanted her to keep on and either raise herself up to the challenge or crash and burn with a good try. I was not the only “righty” blogger who wanted her to remain on the job, by the way. Many of us on the right were of the opinion that the gal had every right to her opinion and that her work should speak for itself and her candidate.

I wanted her to flourish or fail on the strength of her writing, alone, not on any “movement” within the right side of the blogosphere or any carrying on by aggrieved persons.

Not that there was no justification for grievance; edgy, offensive writing is going to justly offend. But I’m weary of the whole “I’m offended and therefore this person should not be allowed to speak or make his/her living at Harvard crapola. It’s old. It’s boring. It’s tiresome. It stifles ideas. It creates victims and martyrs where there needn’t (or shouldn’t) be and completely confounds and muddies up issues.

Now it appears this blogger victim has resigned due to oppressive right-wing forces, patriarchal, theological and otherwise, who were trying to silence her because she has a vagina and is a “strong woman,” or something. It’s the man and the church, keeping women down, like they always have before.

Except, of course, they have not. Not historically and not as the world would have you read it. But why look at reality, when it’s so much easier to whine?

I gotta tell you…I’m also weary as hell of the “these people are trying to keep me down because I’m a strong/because I’m a woman/because I’m “speaking truth to power,”/because I’m so spectacular, daring, dangerous, bold, provocative, blah, blah, blah” crapola, too.

Newsflash: writing about the big, bad, patriarchal, wimmyn-oppressing Christian church and the “tiny penises” and “dry vaginas” of those who dwell therein is not particularly daring, dangerous, bold or provocative. The chances are, Madonna already said that stuff publicly back in the 1980’s, and if not, well…let’s face it: saying that sort of nonsense to willing consumers of same…that’s about as daring, provocative and innovative as, oh…hating George W. Bush, which is the safest game in town. If you want to provoke, live on the edge and speak truth to power, etc, try writing similar nonsense about the “women-hating, oppressive, patriarchal, tiny penis’d Islamofascists” and see how well that plays for you.

I think this blogger, as I wrote about Mo Dowd a long time ago, needs to spend less time thinking about her vagina and more time considering her uterus:

Just stop this bellyaching - you are an embarrassment to your uterus! That’s right, I said your uterus! Your uterus is a tough, muscle, expansive and flexible, which can take a beating for months and then get right back in fighting form, ready for another round. It draws in and it casts out, making no excuses, nor yelping about how hard it’s working. Your uterus does not make sobbing, hiccuping noises of complaint because it is underappreciated, and it doesn’t simply find something it hates and blow incessant raspberries through its cervix. Consider your uterus…it is very near the core of your being, and it is strong and capable.

To be honest, I had a sense that this blogger was not going to make it. I read her interesting - a little odd, but interesting - review of The Children of Men (spoiler alert: the only baby being born on earth is being born to a woman, even though the title says Children of Men!) and it was in the comments section that I got the sense that this blogger was really not digging having to be polite and respectful to opposing viewpoints, no matter how courteous their presentment. It was just a feeling I had.

Reading her responses to the Christians who objected to a remark in her review, I had the sense that the blogger was writing while gritting her teeth, trying her best to be polite and “balanced” and “open-minded” while all the while seething inside and tamping down a growing desire to simply say, “Jeebus! Is this what I’m going to fucking have to put up with anytime I fucking want to write some fucking clever little aside about the fucked up patriarchy and theists assholes? Alright, you fuckers - listen up! You are fucked! I’ve had enough of your fucking, pious Godbag mewling - get off my fucking site and keep your bejeebus fucking god and his knocked-up full of spermy holy spirit gooey goodness mother and her fucking rosaries off my ovaries and don’t you fucking fuckers fucking say you’re fucking going to fucking pray for me because I don’t fucking need your fucking prayers to a fucked-up asshat patriarchal god who fucking couldn’t be bothered to fuck a woman before he slaughtered his son like a fucking pig on a spit so that you fuckers could have something to fucking do on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights because the goddess knows you’re not fucking fucking each other - your penises are all too tiny and your twats are all full of ground glass and you’re too uptight and you don’t even know that fucking is great you fucking anti-sex fucktard fuckwats.”

That’s the impression I got, anyway. The resignation came a little bit later, and I guess in the end, even though I am sad to see it, it is probably a good thing. We all need to be who we are, after all. If the Edwards gig (and the requisite polite tone) was not a comfortable fit for this blogger, and change was not really an option, then better to cast it aside. It does feel a little bit, though, like this blogger wants to both assert herself as powerful and still play the victim card.

In this, she reminds me of Major Margaret O’ Houlihan in the film M*A*S*H (not the tv series). Recall O’ Houlihan was regular army and she had no appreciation for the “other side” of the army, the unserious draftees. After they pulled the tent down on her while she was showering (a mean trick; they had a bet as to whether she was a natural blonde, if I recall it), and O’ Houlihan (in a classic, brilliant bit of hysteria by Sally Kellerman) grabbed a robe and marched her soapy body over to Col. Blake’s office, screaming and crying, “this is not a hospital, it’s an insane asylum, and it’s your fault! Put them under arrest!…If you don’t make them stop, I’m going to resign my commission!”

To which Blake responded, “then resign your commission, Margaret!”

Which propelled O’ Houlihan out the door and back toward her quarters whining, “my commission….my commission…”

Great scene. This whole story reminds me of it. Blogger doesn’t like the other side, busts their chops, non-stop. Other side exposes her with her own words. Whining. Etc.

So, as I say, this is a shame. It doesn’t do much for the blogosphere’s credibility. This episode doesn’t help those bloggers who are looking to earn establishment money or establishment credibility. The whole story will be spun (is being spun) as a poor left-wing truthteller being stomped on by the Nazis on the right, and the thing I had really hoped for - some little glimmer of mutual (and self-interested) protection between the left and right sides of the blogosphere - is clearly not yet ready to come to pass.

I suspect it will take Hillary and Nancy Pelosi trying to regulate free speech for left and right to finally find a way to call a cease-fire of sorts. One hopes. No guarantees, there. The evolution of the blogosphere into something that can have real and lasting impact on the issues of the day is somewhat slowed.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press is also evolving, as we see daily in what the “mediating intelligences” decide to report and not report. For example, you don’t hear much about good financial news like this. The president is the wrong party, and he’s Bush, besides, so good (or vital and informative) news is not allowed out unless it simply cannot be contained. But most of it is containable. And what is not containable is either fixable or obfuscatable…if that’s a word!

Siggy has a longish take on what it means for the world when the press has decided that its consumers do not need to believe them or like them, as long as they fall in line.

UPDATE:
Apparently the second Edwards blogger has resigned, citing “those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats…individuals who used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation.”

Well, I have loads of respect for responsible discourse and - as I think I’ve shown in this episode - plenty of tolerance for “unreasonable” discourse, as well. If this blogger was threatened and loaded down with hate mail, I certainly want to go on record as denouncing such behavior as reprehensible. Oh, in fact, I have! Back when it was taking its toll on me!

Truly, over-the-top hate mail is no specialty of “the right.” I’ve seen some enormously energetic hate poured out in my direction, and it doesn’t begin to match some of the hate mail other right wing bloggers have shown me. It would be good if people on both “sides” would cut it out. Particularly those of us who confess Jesus as Lord.

There’s nothing wrong with disagreement. Bad language can sometimes be useful (and sometimes overused), but there really is no reason for mouth-foaming invective to have a permanent place at the table. I do believe, though, that the only way the tone and tenor of blogdom discourse will be raised is if the bloggers themselves begin to raise it. I won’t hold my breath.

Related: Blogmistresses Not Fired By Edwards
Edwards Fires Blogmaster and Other Stories of Suppression