DISQUS

grey32,

Why are we not allowed to have rightious indignation and express it.

"We" are allowed to feel and express whatever we want, obviously.

However, social movements for change are IMO best configured for the purpose of actual social change to affect a wide and diverse range of people, not just you and people who feel the world like you do ..... and rather than to give participants such as yourself a faux political context in which to publicly express your feelings for (yeah I see it) the primary purpose of public self-expression and feeling better from that public expression.

I am appalled by the way that some people are acting like this is your own personal psychological expression-fest. You are acting like the world belongs to you for your own personal psychological needs and you can just use it that way.

I find that really self-referential and selfish. As, by the way, does my girlfriend. Who, like me, is a lesbian.

Just as a note, Channukkah is a seriously minor Jewish holiday that only gets attention in this society because of its time-proximity to a major Christian holiday.

And, I'm sorry that you didn't get what I was saying in that comment and shrugged about it. It's on me, I don't speak these kinds of things in ways that make clear what I am actually saying in language that people can hear.

Argh, a typo in the above: there is a paragraph above that should read:

"In my non-fractured observation, people often respond to me as if I am insightful when I am pointing to ugly that does not scrutinize them where they do not wish scrutiny -- and as if I am seriously damaged in my perception when I am pointing to ugly in/around them that they do not want to be under scrutiny. These dynamics are consistent with others in my experience, that my girlfriend named."

(I don't have a registered alias so can't edit)

I just want to thank you for posting this Michelle.

carolinagirl, I have something difficult to say about this. I hope I will be able to say it clearly here. This is going to be a long comment.

On this site, I can make a comment that includes these observations you are quoting. In contrast, on the dailykos, in most contexts (with very few exceptions), a comment like this would likely lead to me being told, subtly or unsubtly, that there is something deeply wrong with my behavior and -- more importantly -- my actual perception of reality.

Of course, I use the very same gut modes of perception for my observations at dailykos that I use here.

So. In a recent discussion on another (but not entirely unrelated) topic, a participant in this discussion who finds what you have quoted from me to be incisive commentary wrote to me that:

O my...you are so deluded that you think you can decide what is truth? You are one sick demented person all because of your sexual desires.

This same person also named my perception this way: distorted cognition and this way: your distorted mental belief system and told me I respect your right as an individual to delude yourself and referred to Your type of delusional paranoid self absorbed confusion

Sources:

here

here

Here's the situation: I used the very same gut modes of perception in that discussion as I used to make the observations quoted by you above.

The very same perception-mode that left and leaves me horrified at what I perceive as a dominant-cultural view of sex related to disconnected individuals, objectification, and their individual pleasure ... The very same perception-mode from which I said over and over in that discussion that for me sex is a mode of interaction and communication between real beings ... the very same perception-mode that leads me to observe that talk of gay deviance is deceptive cover for deep overriding pathology about sex in the larger dominant culture and those who carry this part of it .... is the very same mode of perception that yields and enables to make comments like the you have quoted here, carolinagirl.

That is: With regard to the deep under-structure of my perception, the deep matrix of sense-perception, cognition, and deep reality-assumptions that guide me in seeking to understand and try to name what I perceive around me -- what I am saying in this comment quoted here is entirely consistent with what I was saying that yielded those comments about how deluded and distorted my perception is.

The same being is using the same mode of perception and deep understructures to say this being quoted here and what I was saying there -- they are consistent for me.

I was talking with my girlfriend earlier about this, as I realized my response to reading my comment quoted and the ensuing discussion. I was trying to say out loud what I was going to write. And when I tried to say this thing about the same being, she stopped me and said: "It's not about you. It's about where people get defensive because you're getting too close to home."

Over and over, she has seen this pattern in my interactions with other people (and with herself as well). She has told me that my observations from this mode of perception are almost "surgical" in getting to where people get most upset and most protective. At the same time, she has seen that people who are NOT directly under the scrutiny of my critical observations often find them insightful ... that is, when they are about others and/or about areas where they have nothing to protect or defend.

But despite my girlfriend's comment that it is not about me -- in my own experience and perception, I am not a fractured being when speaking from these modes of perception.

Observations from this space come from the same eyes, the same underlying matrix of perception, the same foundational sense-perceptions about reality. In fact, I am also currently engaged in offline observation of my own life and experiences, taking apart some of my understanding of categories related to sexual orientation for my own self, putting aspects of my own life under critical scrutiny with this same mode of perception as well.

I am not speaking from fractured perception, but I observe that responses to me speaking from this perception often come in as if it is fractured, and these examples I am mentioning here are no exception. It seems to me that my girlfriend is right about this at least: My critical observation that feels non-threatening to whatever context or whoever is often lauded, and my critical observation that feels threatening to whatever context or whoever usually leads to me being told that there is something very wrong with how I perceive.

I have never before been in a deep conversation with someone who feels about same-gender sexual interaction as does the person who I quoted who told me of my delusion and distorted cognition/perception. That is, I have never had the experience of someone suggesting in a discussion or argument that I am sick or crazy in my perception of reality because of the gender of the person I am attracted to or in a relationship with.

I have, however, had MANY experiences with people responding to me speaking from this mode of perception by suggesting there is something seriously wrong with me when I get too close to something that they don't want under scrutiny.

My experience is -- it's all the same basic thing, and this is no exception at all. Nothing to do with the specific topic at hand, nothing to do with the gender of who I or anyone is with, nothing to do with the deep quality of accuracy of this observation over that observation. Nothing to do with anything but where people are willing for there to be critical scrutiny from one like me, and where they are unwilling.

In my non-fractured observation, there is a whole whole lot of ugly in these discussions about the gay rights movement, white supremacy and current events around those things. In my non-fractured observation, there are multiple sources and specifics of the ugly.

In my non-fractured observation, people often respond to me as if I am insightful when I am pointing to ugly that does not scrutinize them where they do not wish scrutiny, and as if I am seriously damaged in my perception when I am pointing to ugly that they can see clearly in others. These dynamics are consistent with others in my experience, that my girlfriend named.

But I continue to see what I see, non-fractured. And in an alternative world, if I could request something on this from everyone who might interact with me in this mode of perception, if I had one wish on this, this is what it would be:

Choose. Choose whether you feel that how I do critical scrutiny is crazy or is clarity. Choose and stick to that choice.

If I am crazy in my perception, don't decide I am useful what I say happens to resonate with what you are able to hear. If I am useful in my perception, don't decide I am crazy when what I say happens to get down to areas you will not allow scrutiny of. Choose so you can read this wish the same if it were directed at you (whoever is reading this) or at someone at dailykos or anywhere. Just choose.

But I know from long experience that the concept of making such a request is nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.

Because the use of physical violence as a metaphor for feelings about the Warren thing, is an INSULT to those who actually endured physical violence in their quest for racial justice. Some of the commenters are purposefully trying to draw upon scenes of being physically assaulted. I wouldn't be surprised if they stoop to images of water hoses and dogs.

THANK YOU! for putting that to words.

Thank you.

Yes.

Reminds me of how there was a dkos diary a couple of weeks ago that was like a parody to me because it was (seriously and with no apparent comprehension of the reality) comparing what the diarist clearly described as a totally undangerous cops-not-attacking-us "family morning out at a Prop 8 protest" with Selma and Stonewall.

There is a lot of unreal deeply disrespectful rhetoric going on.

But my real question is "How come the LGBT community keeps allowing the opposition to make make the first moves and challenge them instead of vice versa?"

I have the same question. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

You can only get sucker-punched so many times before you learn that you have to anticipate the next move.

My suspicion is that this may have something to do with the privilege (race, class and possibly also gender identity) of who is at the center in publicly defining what the "LGBT community" is and should care about.

One thing I have seen in recent discussions at dailykos -- about Prop 8 specifically -- is that some of the people who are speaking loudest about how upset they are also seem to think that they are somehow ... not in a deep long fight in which power doesn't concede without a struggle.

Like, in my experience there is a certain required discipline and vigilance that seems to come with a deep understanding that the system around you is not there to serve your needs, that it is in some way (related to the struggle) hostile to your humanity. Such understanding shows the need for a certain kind of strategy, thoughtfulness, etc. It's a battle that requires hard careful long work, not a canvass for individual self-expression.

What I see instead is movement people acting as if this system surrounding them is somehow by definition here to take care of them -- and then feeling angry when it does not, and speaking/acting out of that space. IMO the most common reason for such feeling is because of a sense of privilege and entitlement.

I think that there is hard work to be done (that doesn't always stem from "I feel this, let me directly act from that feeling without considering what is around me") but that from this space of entitlement, that hard work looks like a form of oppression that should be resisted because "it's so unfair!" If you come from the perspective that you should get things handed to you without a struggle in this system, then to me it seems like that's the kind of thing it would feel like.

I don't know if this is the most accurate answer to your question, though.

versus saying you are getting slapped in the face or all these other platitudes

I just want to thank you for saying/highlighting this.

These metaphors of physical violence have been common in some online discussions about the Warren thing, and every time I read one of them it feels somehow wrong to me. But I can't pin down in words precisely why.

Thanks for the info on the tickets, I was really curious to know what happened. Hope Keith enjoys them.

I acknowledge that you don't want to answer the question I asked as I asked it. To me, whether you are/identify as straight or not is entirely unrelated to the manner (or the surrounding accuracy/inaccuracy) with which I ask it, but I acknowledge that you don't perceive that as I do.

That is true.

Lavender, I am not African American. I am white and as whiterosebuddy mentions accurately below, I am Jewish (though I am not sure that is relevant to this particular question...?)

And myself personally -- I don't mind you asking at all.

Just to be clear: Anything and everything I say on this site comes from me and is my responsibility alone. It comes from my gut perception of what is going on. I am here because I myself find the content on this site generally more in line with how I perceive the issues discussed than some other sites (eg daily kos which is almost physically toxic in its feel to me, sometimes).

I am not advocating for African Americans. I am speaking only and specifically from my perception, which is completely specific to how I perceive reality.

So for example, I posted the link to Womanist Musings above because when she posted it here to this site a few days ago, I read it, and I personally experienced what she wrote there as a vivid and accurate naming of important parts of reality (in particular, she named some ways how this rhetorical move is a move of evasion of reality in particular ways, and I have this thing where I can feel dissonance around things like that but the words and cognition to describe what is going on often come later and the translation from gut to words is sometimes pretty hard for me -- so I am always deeply grateful to read something like that).

Relatedly, my response to bigassbelle's use of that rhetorical move was from my own gut sense of dissonance related to the evasion of reality that I perceive in it. It's personal for me.

Whiterosebuddy made an important comment a few days ago that I really appreciated. She wrote: Your reality is yours as well Michelle. That is 100% true, both in general and also in the specifics and I appreciated that naming tremendously (my reply is here).

One area of dissonance I perceive lately is straight allies (mostly in place like dkos in what I have seen/had access to) seeming to take the rhetorical lead of people in the LGBT community who claim to be speaking for all of us and promoting what I perceive as a partially dissonant view of what is going on in an indignant manner.

In my perception, the problem with this is layered. The first piece is the practice of some, usually white, GLBT people -- actually, it's usually either G or L in my observation) speaking as if they for all of us.

I have not yet been able to fully name the second layer that involves the straight people, but I feel dissonance there as well. Maybe what's happening is that the gay people are giving the straight people permission to do things supposedly in the name of a just cause that are really just harmful (to my perception).

This may be part of it: I've been thinking the last few days that there may be a sort of white solidarity dynamic in whatever is going on. Like maybe those white gay people who position themselves and all other white gay people as only oppressed (and not also privileged) are also implicitly saying to white straight people: "You wouldn't let us be treated as bad as Black people are treated, right?" -- implicitly invoking a sort of white race solidarity under the guise of it being about LGBT issues.

And so if that is going on, white straight allies get cover for acting out of implicit white solidarity because it's supposedly not about that, but rather it's about justice for LGBT people. No need for self-critique because it's supposedly (defined as if it is) for justice.

But. I still don't know if I am naming this right at all.

he's damaged the lives of thousands, if not millions, of citizens in California.

IMO not nearly as much as the inept thoughtless white-centered anti-Prop 8 campaign did.

Using Warren and others as boogeymen to avoid real self-critique of movement practice? Not ok by me.

I think the fact that you said it that way speaks volumes.

I am now thinking that this focus on Warren is, at least in part, another exercise in avoiding the necessary internal movement critiques and work.

carolinagirl, I myself was tempted to post a sarcastic/satire reply ... but everything I could think of saying was in bad taste or creeped me out one way or another.

It was like:

typetypetype [pause] [think] [delete]

typetypetype [pause] [think] [delete]

and so on.

Anyway, I too would like to to hear answers to this question and think it is very telling that the reply so far is the crickets.

And the operative word in what I stated was not access it was pleasure..which is not an object but a feeling.

People experience pleasure solely on their own, whether there is someone else experiencing it or not...their pleasure is theirs alone.

You write of sex in terms/analogies of experiencing pleasure as a disconnected individual.

I write of it as one possible mode of interaction and communication between real beings.

From my standpoint, you are overly obsessed with individual self, individual desire and feelings of pleasure when it comes to sex.

From my standpoint, you are overly focused on your own and other individual's feelings and desires, and you speak a world in which people relate to sex with each other as being about individual desire and pleasure rather than communication and interaction.

You are one sick demented person all because of your sexual desires.

You are deeply obsessed with what you claim and imagine are "my" sexual desires.

Again, pretending it's about the gender of who I am with serves as cover for and diversion from the distorted twisted way you perceive and write about sex.

All you wish to do as I said previously is demean me.

I think that what actually demeans you is the sickness you carry about what sex is and your choice to hide it under this other topic. I think that would demean you whether I (or anyone else) pointed it out or not.

Craig, that is flat-out excellent IMO.

spirit_55z, if they stop and take a look in the mirror like that, I will fall over from the force of my startled surprised shock.

I'm wondering if what we're seeing in the media and even comments on sites such as dailykos are an actual reflection of the majority of the gay and lesbian community.

Miranda, I'm glad you're bringing this up. One of my biggest frustrations all around with the dkos-type people is how they act like they speak for all of us. It's persistent and it's ugly. They do it on various issues, not just this. And I do feel that this is something they do, try to make it seem like they represent more than they do.

And as for your question: I only can speak for myself, but here I am, one lesbian who does not thing it is anywhere near the kind of huge freaky deal that those dkos people make it out to be.

Oh, wait, I have two more gay people I can report on:

My girlfriend, who they also don't speak for.

And my co-worker, who when I asked her what she thought of the Rick Warren thing hadn't even heard about it a couple of days ago, but after like a minute of reflection, her reaction was: "{Shrug} I'd rather see what happens in terms of policy." Which is pretty much my take too.

(so, here's a sample of 3)

I am really truly not bothered.

bigassbelle, are you yourself gay, or are you straight and just trying to act as our indignant advocate or whatever? (this is not a rhetorical question, I have no idea)

But as for Warren, would Obama have asked him to give the prayer if his church website proclaimed that no Native Americans were allowed? No African Americans? I doubt it.

Ooooooh, I hate this kind of argument. Just hate it. It functions more to blur reality up than to be of use in having good discussion, IMO. See:

Womanistmusings on The Referential Black

(also, seriously, whatever happened to those inauguration tickets you reported were offered to you that you couldn't use? Did someone get them who could use them? Like I said, I don't want them for myself but thought people's idea of offering them to someone here at JJP was a good one)

Just a comment on many of the blog comments I've read where it basically amounts to: "I wish I had a time machine to go back and vote for Hillary" nonsense<?i>

Oh, no, people are saying that? That is just ugly.

If anything, they're just making people look at them the same way they look at the religious right. Invoking the KKK? Seriously?

I think you're absolutely correct in this assessment!

wrb, you are lying. And you may not realize who/what you are in a conversation with right now, wrb, when it comes to lying, because you are so obsessed with who I am attracted to or not that you are blinded to anything else.)

But you know, wrb: You are lying and I will not let your lies go by without comment.

You just wrote: Nor did I write about sex in terms of access to drugs, alcohol or ice cream.

You may have some way to get around this with fancy words, wrb, but you are lying. Here are your very own words from last month's thread (thread linked in my reply to Jon, above):

wrb writes: Your first sexual encounter is no different from the first time you are offered drugs or liquor. You get to decide to engage in that conduct no matter what the gender of the individual is. The probability of that chance being equal is not the issue, the probability of what you choose to do is the issue. Everyone decides with equal chance whether to imbibe, inhale or fornicate. Conduct is always a choice.

Source: where you posted this

wrb writes: It could have been your first taste of ice cream or your first slice of apple pie. The point was simply that when you try it you like it. It is PLEASURABLE not that as you choose to misconstrue it as some 'addictive/compulsive' behavior.

Source: where you posted this

You wrote those words. You did.

You are LYING now, just lying. Fancy words don't change what you wrote. My inability to correctly get just the exact right words to name the sickness you are promoting doesn't change the actual view of sex that you are actually promoting.

Further -- you willfully do not understand what I mean by object.

Disconnected individuals believe that they are the center of the universe and that all around them are not other beings they have to interact with, but objects for them to use to fulfill their own desires.

That is why I see your view as being about objects. Treating other beings as things who exist in relation to your desires, not as real beings to interact with.

Look at your own words and scenarios. In your scenarios quoted above, there is one disconnected individual interacting with whatever is around her/him as if they are things, not beings.

So let me be clear, yet again. Whiterosebuddy, I find your view of sex sick and twisted There is NO OTHER PERSON in your analogies. There is the disconnected individual and things related to that disconnected individual's "pleasure" (to use your word). It is crystal clear who is and is not in the landscape and worldview you promote.

To my eyes, your perception of sex reveals a bleak sick situation in which disconnected individuals approach sex as if it is something related to their disconnected individual desires, rather than as a communication and interaction with another being who is not in your analogies but IS there in real life in every case where the person is not having sex with themselves.

I find your way of seeing and describing sex between two people to be deeply twisted and sick. I believe that anyone having sex from the worldview you promote is acting in ways that will be deeply harmful to the actual beings involved -- harmful to their humanity and to their souls.

And, I do not believe that this is an individual sickness specific to you. As I wrote last month, I see it as part and parcel of the dominant culture in this country. I see it people who come from your belief system AND from capitalist advertisers making things of other beings and selling "sex" as if it is a mode of fulfilling the disconnected individual's desire.

You want this conversation to be about "homosexuality" because that is supposed to give you cover.

You have a unmerited (and itself deeply, deeply sick) dominant cultural force around of the discussion is about "homosexuality", a force that that gives you an unearned false "high ground."

But I see through that, wrb. I see how sick and twisted YOUR perspective on sex is. Such deep harm, such distortion, makes me recoil in disgust.

you wrote: Bottomline, let's agree to disagree.

No. Your actions in our discussions -- your lies, your use of "this is about homosexuality" as a cover for what you are really promoting, and your actual promotion of a sick and distorted worldview -- they offend me spiritually, wrb.

I will not "agree to disagree" with someone who desecrates truth as you do.

I am willing to "agree to disagree" only when I am dealing with someone who has accountability to the truth in a real and enacted way. Through interaction with you, I have assessed that you fail at that.

Like I said above: you do not seem to know who/what you are really talking to when you are talking to me. And I will say this: check your gut knowledge and attend carefully to what is around you.

Specifically, you'd better be really certain you are (and will continue to be) fully protected by the dominant culture that is animating you on these topics .... because without that protection, you will have to account for what you say and do whether you want to or not.

Without that protection, that accountability will not come from/through me -- but I am telling you whether you choose to hear it or not ... without that protection, it will come.

Craig, I was reading your comment, re-reading NMP's comment and was like -- huh? What? No one's doing tha....

Then, I looked down.

Oh.

Ugly.

IMO, a refreshingly sane diary at dkos:

All the Gay People are White, All the Whites are Men...But Some of Us Are Brave

Sorry if this is a duplicate, I'm in a rush to pry myself off the computer.

Miranda, LOL!

I actually had to go google "invocation" late last night, because I started to get really confused. I asked my girlfriend, too, since she has formally studied Christian theology.

Nothing I have heard thus far suggests that he is going to do a policy address.

Though ... IMO it would be kind of funny is someone would do a satire in which Warren DOES do a policy speech under the guise of an invocation (which I still don't entirely understand). I mean, there must be a way he could do it. That would be funny to read. I wonder, has anyone done that yet anywhere? I don't know enough about invocations to be able to do it myself.

Whiterosebuddy, I'm confused, YOU are the one using analogies that sex is an object to be consumed.

You wrote about access to sex as being like access to drugs, alcohol, ice cream and pie. Those were your metaphors (or whatever that is, similes, analogies?)

Or -- maybe this is just semantics. Maybe to you the object is whatever the physical feeling of sex is, and sex is the act of getting it. To me this is basically the same thing I am objecting to and sickened by.

Anyone who conceives/perecieves of sex as an object has spiritual dissonance.

We agree on this, on the face of that statement. But if you feel that way, why do you write about sex (or the experience of sex or whatever that is) as if analogous to objects to be consumed?

your mindset & sexual conduct

The core of my mindset and sexual conduct, for me, is that I experience sexual contact as a form of communication/interaction between beings rather than an object to be consumed by disconnected individuals for their own selfish pleasure.

Are you so incredibly obsessed with the fact that I am with a woman that that is all that you can see?

Or are you condemning a perspective that would locate sex as a form of communication rather than disconnected consumption?

individuals like myself who strongly oppose your arrogance and unwillingness to subjugate adult desires while seeking to shape children to engage in the same narcissitic delusions.

First, to be clear, I myself do not want or have children. Never have wanted, actually. '

But I do think it is an important issue -- what the qualifications are or should be to raise young ones. I myself personally would hope for a standard that would include this: those who perceive sex in terms of disconnected individuals using other beings as objects (to get the object of sexual pleasure, for example) would at least have to think twice -- to be honest and self-critical in a real way -- about what they would be capable of teaching children under their care about being a contributing part of an interdependent whole.

I believe the spiritual dissonance you feel based on your sexual conduct

Well, I don't feel any spiritual dissonance based on my sexual conduct and I never said I did

In that discussion, I felt it emanating from you and from that website in Arkansas I mentioned. And in your case, it is because you write about sex as if it is an object to be consumed by disconnected individuals rather than a mode of communication/interaction between beings.

More broadly, I feel spiritual dissonance around sex from a society that teaches that sex is a way for disconnected individuals to get an object for themselves to consume. As I wrote, I see this on both ends of the spectrum. As someone for whom sex is a mode of communication and interaction, I find this other way to be horrifying to hear/read about, horrifying at a deep spiritual level.

clamoring to change the universe to your personal view is in vain.

This, I agree 100% with. I don't expect this system to change so that it makes sense to me. It is too entrenched, I think.

Thus, I will pray that no one ever allows you to have or raise children.

Well, you certainly have a very interesting approach to the uses of prayer.