Miscellaneous

"Thought Police" and a "PC Gone Too Far Culture"

By Fannie

"To those who mistakenly believe that [those who object to Limbaugh's bigotry] are [the thought police], I offer this alternative perspective: The entire rest of the world, with its privileging of men, and heterosexual and cisgender people, and thin (but not too thin!) and tall (but not too tall!) and able white bodies with neurotypical minds, and religious people and people who have sex (but only in certain ways!) and people who can and want to be parents and the wealthy and the educated and the employed and the powerful and residents of the Western and Northern hemispheres, and all the ways in which most of the rest of the world facilitates and upholds that privilege, and all the ways in which the rest of the world marginalizes and demeans and treats as less than all the people who deviate from those privileged "norms," and all the ways the rest of the world has indoctrinated you into that system of privilege, and socialized you to believe it's the natural and right and immutable state of the world, and all the shills for the kyriarchy who fill the ether with self-reinforcing rubbish on a constant loop so you swim in a sea so thick with the detritus of Othering that you don't even notice it on a conscious level anymore, and all the jack-booted bullies who swarm out of the woodwork to kick you back in line if you do notice and dare to protest, if you have the temerity to question the message, and all the other bits and bobs of the brainwashing to which we are all subjected since the day we're born as part of the scheme, nearly incomprehensible in scope, to ensure that challengers to these traditions are never made, and, if they're born, are squashed with the weight of mountainous tidal waves of blowback in the other direction?? The purveyors of that shit are the goddamn thought police.

And you know what one of the biggest lies they tell you is?

That it's the other way around."

And another big lie is the way such people so often brand themselves as courageous tellers of truth in the PC Gone Too Far Culture created by all of us over-sensitive censors.

What people like Rush Limbaugh do? I wouldn't call it brave, I would call it empty bravado. It's ignorant, unthinking, uncritical hostile commentary that confirms popular prejudices.

Until now, he's suffered little financial or personal consequences for communicating in that negative, aggressive manner for decades. At the end of this, he will still likely be a millionaire, and he will be a millionaire not in spite of his commentary, but precisely because of it. Dude's cackling all the way to the bank.

Brave?

Nah.

Limbaugh and his supporters are often the types of people we have to tiptoe on eggshells around calling them or their statements "problematic" rather than racist or sexist or homophobic, because calling them the more accurate label, bigot, is too mean to them, a gross violation of their FREE SPEECH, and evidence of "leftist intolerance, hypocrisy, and judgment."

Our critiques, they cry, rather than the original hostile statements themselves, are what Shuts Down Dialogue. An unspoken condition of dialogue happening with such people is that we can talk about contentious topics only if we do not call these bigots bigots while doing so.

The truth?

The purveyors of that shit can't handle the truth.

Contrast Limbaugh's position with Sandra Fluke's- a student who no one heretofore had heard of who had the temerity to publicly talk about the importance of access to birth control for people with certain non-sex-related medical conditions.

Are we to understand that a millionaire public figure is somehow.... courageous for misrepresenting her testimony, riling up his misogynistic troops, and smearing her name?

Contrast Limbaugh's position with that of feminist, non-white, non-cis, non-male, and non-hetero bloggers and commentators, those of us who don't, actually, possess institutional and financial power to "censor" privileged men like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, and Kirk Cameron, let alone possess multi-million dollar contracts to share our views.

Are we to understand that it's we who are "The Man," and that it's Limbaugh and company who are heroic underdogs, bravely subverting us, "the system," political correctness, and everything we stand for against all odds?

Sure.

Talk about all of this, or whatever, today, my truth-telling friends.

Full post as published by Fannie's Room on March 09, 2012 (boomark / email).