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So Now It Has Happened
The progressive bloggers who worked for John Edwards’ campaign and were under attack have now received death threats.
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39 Responses to “So Now It Has Happened”
Well, I’m eagerly waiting for the comments from all those folks here who always claim the left wing blogosphere is ‘hateful’…
No doubt they have, just as obnoxious right-wing bloggers have gotten such threats when they tread on certain shibboleths of the left, or from Muslim fanatics when they “insult Islam” (by calling attention to the murders being carried out in its name).
But the Huffington Post article to which you link doesn’t cite any sources for the claim, doesn’t quote from any of them, doesn’t even go so far as to say “Amanda told me that…”
And it is incredibly offensive itself in suggesting that the “right wing” is responsible for these death threats. Are we not allowed to engage in vigorous debate without being held responsible for “death threats” that some whacko sends out?
Please. That’s absurd.
And the idea of anybody who is supporting Amanda Marcotte to criticize others for creating “messages based on hate and fear” is just bizarre.
I think it’s quite reasonable to take Marcotte’s side on the death threat issue without it being bizarre at all.
egrubs… I certainly oppose death threats and condemn those who make them. But the article to which Joe linked pins the blame for those death threats on all the people on the “right” who opposed Marcotte’s insults, and criticized the anti-Marcotte writings (not the death threats, the opposition to her point of view and her method of expressing it) for being based on hate and fear. That’s the comment I was criticizing.
On this there is no question. Those who are making death threats have committed a crime. If possible, they should be identified and prosecuted.
There is truth that commentators on both side of the aisle are subject to these types of activities, and IMO neither side has any control on the fringe elements that are prone to this kind of crap.
These events tar all who wish to have discourse, especially on strongly expressed, partisan opinions, and should not be tolerated nor excused by anyone who desires open debate.
It is one form of intimidation that both sides should be willing to condemn unequivocally and without the normal finger pointing, i.e., only RR wing-nuts do this or only Leftist nut-roots do it; or they had it coming because they dared critize ‘X’.
Let’s all at least agree on that.
Exactly, Austin.
I think one needs to be very wary of blaming someone for anothers death threats. There are always kooks and bad people out there laying in wait. Strongly condemning something, even in a manner that is tilted or even insulting does not make you the owner of someone who takes your words and makes a threat. Or is Marcotte responsible if a conservative Christian gets a threat? There are forms of hate speech that are considered incitments to violence, and plenty of gray-area cases that cause much controversy, but personally I think that the criteria for this sort of speech must be rather strict. It would be nice if Donohue publicly condemned such threats in order to protect the bloggers from the more vicious, but it’s not his obligation.
I absolutely agree on that, Austin. But the cited Huffington Post article makes nothing but a bare assertion of death threats, and then proceeds to condemn, not the death threats, but those who supposedly incited the death threats, and the mainstream media who gave their megaphone to “the ultra-right wing.”
“This is also evidence that ultra-right wing organizations that create messages based on hate and fear find sympathetic audiences with people who think more like citizen-militia than the loyal Catholics that Bill Donohue claims to represent. It is no wonder that there has been no mainstream Roman Catholic group, nor the Church itself, to step forward to support Donohue in his illegal, unethical scalp-seeking tirade against Senator Edwards’ bloggers.”
Personally, I think the violent anarchists who routinely plot to disrupt gatherings of international leaders like the G8 are a sympathetic audience to more mainstream politician like Al Gore, who is traveling around the world proclaiming that George Bush and the Republicans are bringing about the doom of the world because of global warming. But I don’t hold leftists, even whacky leftists, responsible for the hate mail and death threats sent by the mentally deranged.
So while I condemn death threats, I’m not going to give any support to Lane Hudson’s despicable attempt to tar the “right wing” with responsibility for death threats, simply because the “right wing” found Marcotte’s writings to be extremely offensive and insulting and bigoted and said so.
I guess I’d have to see his actual statements to determine if I agree with you, Lynx- I might actually go farther and say that he does have that obligation, if in fact his statements could be construed as incitement.
My impression of most of the criticism of Malcotte was from people like Malkin who simply posted quotes from her blog, pointed out that she had scrubbed some of her remarks, etc- in short, not calling for any real action to be taken or trying to drum up hatefulness, but pointing out what kind of communication this person had engaged in and how Edwards hiring of her reflects on his campaign. This is just giving her words out for public consumption, and if that incited the death threats then it was her venom that did so (though that doesn’t justify that type of response).
I do know that Donahue actually called for firing of the two women, but I’m not familiar with his actual statements. I certainly agree with Lynx that it would minimally be a good gesture for him to denounce the death threats, but I might feel that he actually has some obligation- will go now to try to find actual text of his statements.
I also agree 100% with ARs comments, but I have to agree with PatMHV that the Huffington Post link was long on accusation and short on fact.
There are wackos on all sides of the spectrum, and doubtless in between. We should seek out those who do issue death threats and be able seperate them from those that do not. Painting with too broad a brush is not good, we have seen that with the administration until very recently, and frankly its just as wrong when the tables are turned. Based on this article I have no clue what Donahue said, what who the ‘threateners’ (wow I can make up words too!) are or what they said for that matter.
I will say one can make a case that the right has sort of subsummed a large share of wackos (much larger than the left) and that certain ‘right wing’ pointmen do peddle hate and/or the enabling there of. But, again its about all specifics. Names, places, dates, quotes, etc… Otherwise, a waste of an article…
DaveA – BD is a Rightwing Catholic version of Al Sharpton. He involved him in the Terri Schiavo situation and made similar slanders againts the husband and supporters. Michael Schiavo and his legal team, even a Conservative Religious Republican judge, recieved death threats. The man has a pattern and it isn’t pretty. I’m not implying a direct link, but wacko followers of BD follow his outrageous claims.
But what did he claim, Rudi?? I’ve looked and from what I’ve seen, all he did was quote from the bloggers themselves and pointed out what they wrote as hate speech. He called for their firing (on that I disagree with him- it was entirely Edwards decision to make and fair enough for others to point out the implications of that hire but not to demand that he fire them).
If I saw anything in his words that even implied that these women should be targeted in any way, or implied that they were a danger (which to some unstable minds would be a justification for threatening or even committing violence), then I would say that he bears some responsibility. So far I haven’t seen anything like that though. They wrote what they wrote, he quoted them and criticized them for it. His call to action was for a firing, not a firing squad.
Had you stuck to something like, ‘some of his followers are wackos who make these types of threats’, I probably could go along with that.
He is Sharpton-like, knows just how to say and present things so that others will go the extra few steps, while he himself stays ‘relatively’ clean from the worst of it, even while fanning the flames
In this case, I don’t think he really was out of bounds, but those that follow him don’t much, if any provocation.
CS – The coulpe of sentences by A Matcotte were outrageous, but the bulk of the post was an attack on Conservative Catholic birth control. I wonder if BD read the post in it’s entirety, or just took this snippet to launch an inflammatory campaign. You approve of NFP while AM likens it to misogny, that is the issue, not dirty talk. As AM noted, an extreme stance by dogmatic Catholics oppose condoms. Whats is more offensive ‘dirty talk’, or millions of AIDS deaths. Ultimately, the partisan issue is sex, for strictly monogomus(sp)/procreation reasons (BD) or recreational consensual sex between adults. LOL – I don’t think Amanda has fantasies abiut raoing Billy Donohue. In a side note, Flannery O’Connor published things worse than AM, and FO was a deeply religious Catholic, but not a BD dogmatic Catholic. Was FO an anti-Catholic bigot?
While I agree with CS that the most offensive part of Marcotte’s posts are the stereotypes and the bigotry they convey, the constant obscenities are also relevant.
Words have meaning and purpose. We use curse words to convey a particular depth of emotion, feeling, and conviction. If I were to call someone a “f___ing Communist,” I would be not merely stating what I believed to be a fact, but communicating that I am so convinced of this proposition that it is beyond debate, that I have no intention of debating him, and that I don’t consider his ideas worthy of any thought, respect, or rebuttal. If I call you a “m____-f____er,” I’m not making any real accusation against you, just telling you that I have no respect for you or your opinions, and I don’t think you should even have a place at the table to discuss things.
That’s obviously how Marcotte feels about Catholics (mainstream Catholics). Not only does she disagree with them, she thinks they are contemptuous, vile people, and she is not willing to engage in civil political discourse with them. That is the very purpose of resorting to such obscenities. She goes out of her way to show that she has absolutely no respect for their opinions and beliefs, which differ from hers.
She is not trying to persuade anybody with the justness of her cause, she is announcing that she cares not for persuasion, and intends to utterly defeat any political movement by those she castigates. That undermines our society, frankly, because we all still have to live with each other. It undermines our society every bit as much as the whacko religious types who run around calling women “whores” because they wear blue jeans or take the Pill.
And it’s extremely counter-productive. I agree with Marcotte that the Pill should remain legal. I might even be able to be convinced by science showing that a very high dose of birth control pills can only prevent ovulation, not implantation. Heck, she might even convince me that so many fertilized eggs never implant anyway, that we should allow morning-after pills which prevent implantation. But as long as she declares that I am a misogynist because I am Catholic, that I am perpetuating an evil, patriarchal, oppressive system, then she declares herself to be my enemy.
Rudi,
You and Marcotte end any discussion by stating opinions as foregone conclusions: the Catholic Church is misogynistic and promotes policies that spread the HIV virus. Of course no room for discussion in that latter that promiscuity is the actual cause for spread of HIV, and that women in many African cultures are not empowered to refuse consent for sex and thus distributing imperfect barriers to the HIV virus may actually cause more deaths than this policy might save…
Flannery O’Connor- do you actually think that her work is having any influence on the national psyche or political discussion? What’s the circulation of her books as compared to weblog hits for the two women in question? Seems to me that BD is taking a page from your playbook: concentrate on those who are in a position currently to have influence.
Cs In overall circulation FO is insignificant. But if BD reads her stories and takes them to be anti-Catholic, then rants……..
AIDS is caused by a virus. If a Christian baby in Africa dies of AIDS the virus killed the baby, not sex. Are you saying there are catagories of disease and illnes, moral and immoral? So the death of someone from moral cancer is more virtous than the death of someone by immoral cancer? Is a Jehovah’s Witnesses death due to their convictions……
You put religion and morality into a public health debate, when science and medicine will treat illness, not faith. LOL – The Iranians can cure AIDS with a herbal tea……
I wonder what BD’s says about Camus and ‘The Fall’. What is our political leaders raed that godless existental Brie eating author. Al-Qaeda hates us for reading Camus
.
A good many disease are spread by air born agents. If we breath or sneeze we lauch those agents into the air. Therefore breathing causes disease, so don’t breath.
C. Stanley well distributing condoms may be worse than total abstinence, and it’s cute and all that we pretend those are the options, but we all know they aren’t. They will have sex, with or without condoms. If they use condoms then maybe the sex will result in them NOT getting AIDS. If you wish you can take the high road and say that well, we’re going to use long term goals to change the society so that people decide to abstain and a womans “no” means “no”. That’s really nice, pity most young people will have died by infection by the time their society changes enough for that policy to be effective.
I think it’s fine the Church charities don’t hand out condoms, it’s their prerogative. Now what I think is obscene is a government policy based on a religious philosophy (and let’s face it “waiting until marriage” is a mostly religious belief) that chooses to not confront actual reality in favor of idealism, deadly idealism, in this case.
Yes, Rudi, HIV in babies in Africa is caused by sex with an infected person, or by being raped by an infected man. It is not caused by the Catholic Church or the decision not to use a condom.
But you and the Marcottes of the world are claiming that the AIDS infections are the result of (i.e., are caused by) religious opposition to condom use. Does sex without a condom increase the chances of HIV transmission? Yep. Does sex with multiple partners increase the chances of HIV transmission? Yep. C Stanley made no claim that there are “moral” and “immoral” diseases. She simply made a very correct observation that one of the reasons for the prevalence of HIV infections in Africa is a relatively high occurrence of sex with multiple partners. That is a true statement that says nothing about the morals of the choices being made; it is simply a natural consequence of the choices being made.
One of the things that puzzles me about this African condom issue, as seen by the left, is the argument that these millions and millions of people in Africa are blatantly disregarding the Church’s teachings on sexual promiscuity, yet are at the same time so completely devoted to the teachings of the Church that they refuse to use condoms for that reason.
Lynx, it’s a far more complicated question than that. Remember, this is a very different culture than ours. Many women there still feel compelled to have sex at the demand of their boyfriend or husband, whether they want to or not. Mere distribution of condoms isn’t going to solve that problem, and could make it worse. The abstinence component of the “ABC” program, the official U.S. policy to combat AIDS in Africa, isn’t just about condemning sex as bad. It’s also about empowering girls and women to reject sex when it goes against their own wishes.
Sure, some of the women there want to have sex and lots of it, just as here. But also as here, there are plenty of women who would rather on the whole not have sex, but do so anyway as a result of social pressures. The abstinence portion of the program can help a great deal with this latter group, while the condom portion can help with the first.
You say, well, the young people will die before society changes. I say, their society is not going to change without some help, without giving support to those within the society who want to change their own cultures. Some girls probably die from infection during female ritual circumcision in Africa. Should we provide clean scalpels and manuals to those who perform that barbarity on girls? Or is it better to say, this is wrong, you must stop it?
PatHMV by all means, teach women to say no. Teaching them self defense would also be nice, as many men don’t react to well to negatives. Still, though I hardly think it would be simple, teaching that saying no to sex is your right (as well as teaching men to accept this) and empowering women is absolutely necessary. And also, since the conversation seems to be assuming that all men are idiots and half-rapists, teaching men that a deadly disease is much less cool than being denied by your girlfriend and that using prostitutes is falling to the lowest degradation would be nice.
But give them condoms, just in case. Maybe they want to have the sex, or maybe they are afraid to say no for now (teaching takes time) and would at least do it with protection. Do both, to take care of both contingencies.
Lynx,
I’m pretty close to 100% agreement with you. Churches can decide whether or not they should give condoms, govts ought to include them in an overall program to work toward the long term social changes that we’ve been discussing regarding behavior.
Are you aware that this is pretty much the Bush ABC program in Africa?
Oh and the female circumcision argument is an extremely dishonest one, in my view. This practice is wrong, dead wrong, and lending credence to it by providing material specifically to practice it is criminal. There is nothing wrong with consensual sex, if there is no disease involved. Giving out condoms does not legitimize an inherently wrong practice. I was given a condom in school in sex-ed (I lived in Pelosi’s district) and did not see it as a go ahead for rape.
C. Stanley, the last I heard of the Bush programs was that they were being turned into “abstinence only” programs that emphasized that condoms don’t work. I do get that they work less well than abstinence, but they work a hell of a lot better than nothing.
What is true is that I read that on a blog a GREAT deal more lefty than this one, so it’s accuracy is suspect.
PatMHV,
Thanks for stepping in to correct Rudi’s twisting of my statements. Obviously I do not see a “moral character” to certain diseases, but I do see the connection between behavior and risk factors for transmission of disease.
Lynx,
Here’s a WaPo article that gives a pretty balanced review of the Africa HIV program, IMO. Overall the article is slanted a bit toward the negative but I think it points to some valid criticisms. That’s different than trying to falsely portray the whole program as if it doesn’t involve condom distribution at all, or to try to say that the major cause of the increase in HIV positives in Africa is the Catholic church or the religious right or what have you.
Lynx, I did some quick research on the ABC program in Africa while preparing my last comment. It’s very hard to sort out the real facts. It appears that the first lady of Uganda really went on an abstinence-only kick for a bit, which may have led to to much emphasis on the “A” and not enough on the “C”. Also, there was a defect in a massive lot of government-produced condoms which curtailed the supply and made folks more distrustful of them.
Beyond that, I see a lot of left-oriented folks complaining about Bush appointees and making noises about a lack of sufficient emphasis on condoms, but that seems to be coupled with rampant criticism of the “global gag rule” which prohibits recipients of U.S. aid from counseling or advising or answering questions about abortion. That has nothing to do with the transmission of AIDS or the prevention thereof, but the critics seem to be conflating the too, so I have a hard time sorting out truth from alarmism. Particularly when they never seem to acknowledge that abstinence education has any appropriate role.
I didn’t really mean to be inflammatory with my ritual circumcision argument, but picked it as a very extreme example of a fairly common thought process. Obviously, it’s analogous to needle exchanges, differing only in the judgment of whether drug use is always an absolute wrong or not. More in the sexual vein, I’ve seen a surprising number of people encourage teenage girls that blowjobs are a safer form of sex which they can use to satisfy their boyfriends even when they (the girls) don’t actually want to have sex yet. A surprising number and ideologically diverse group of women I know (far from all, just a number) think it a good thing to promote this view, rather than the alternative view of encouraging those same teens to understand that if the jerk is only willing to be your boyfriend if you “put out,” he’s not worth the time of day. These women say, well, the real truth is that the girls want boyfriends and they really are going to do anything in order to keep them, so let’s encourage a safer practice. Keep in mind that this argument is made even when the hypothetical is that the young woman doesn’t herself want to engage in sexual conduct. I find it extremely distressing.
Pat and Cs – To be honest, was pulling your strings a little bit. India and Brazil have a big problem with AIDS because of poverty and prostitution. Brazil(Catholic) has come up with a successful program the thid world can model. Indian has the problems you associated with Africa. Bush’s ABC isn’t in the Brazil program.
Lynx, The WaPo and GAO are an alternative sorce to the Moonbat or ‘Axis of Weevil’.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401628.html
GAO Criticizes Bush’s AIDS Plan
Back to strings and snark. I wonder what Billy Donohues stance is on AIDS and ABC.
PatMHV,
Great points about abstinence, sex ed issues, etc. I think a lot of this is an example of hyperbole in the discussions: take the example you mentioned of where sex ed goes astray at times when it teaches “you probably don’t want to say no for various reasons- either because you truly don’t want to be sexually active yet or because you aren’t wanting to do it at the time- but when the pressure’s too great to say no, here’s the safer way to say yes.”
I agree with you, of course, that this is something we want to avoid. But bring this up as an argument in support of INCLUDING abstinence teaching, and often you’re shouted down as someone who ONLY wants to teach abstinence. The polarizing of the arguments is absurd at times.
The ‘just say no’ advice is just not appropriate in some societies.
Often the African husband contracts HIV during the extended periods he is away from home working, and he sees no reason to tell his wife about his adventures while on the road. The wife, whether or not she feels empowered as a woman to say no, is dependent on the husband’s paycheck and would feel compelled to keep him happy and coming home when he can.
Tribal customs are also very difficult to go against. If it is generally expected that the woman not say no, it isn’t just the husband’s wrath the woman has to fear; the other women in the tribe would side with the husband.
Grom India, through Indochina, and all over Africa, the message at the recent AIDS conference was that the women had to be equipped with, not only courage, but real protection. India has a very agressive program of distributing condoms to prostitutes, for example.
My quarrel with abstinence is in those situations where it just isn’t an option. In every area of the globe, some women turn to prostitutution because it’s the only way they can find fo provide for their children. Lofty morals are too often for the well fed.
At the last AIDS conference, a big emphasis was placed on this dependent and powerless role of women. So much so, that a big topic was the development of a female condom
Which is why “A” is only one component of the approach. Only the most radical of the right demand abstinence-only, at least for places like Africa. Neither C.S. nor I are suggesting that abstinence should be advocated by itself, but as on component of the total solution, including condoms.
After all, scientifically, the progression from A to B (Be Faithful, i.e., monogamous) to C is in fact the progression from most safe to least safe in preventing AIDS transmission. If you’re abstinent, there is no way for you to catch AIDS (leaving aside blood transfusions and the like, for which condoms do no good). Or if both you and your partner stay faithful to each other, you also won’t catch AIDS in a sexually-transmitted way. Finally, condoms, which severely reduce the transmission of HIV. But it’s still possible to catch HIV even while using a condom.
“No doubt they have, just as obnoxious right-wing bloggers have gotten such threats when they tread on certain shibboleths of the left, or from Muslim fanatics when they “insult Islamâ€? (by calling attention to the murders being carried out in its name).”
You make this assertion and criticize HuffPo for not providing sources about the death threats in the same breath. Where is your source, PatHMV, for your claim about right-wing bloggers receiving death threats?
There’s a thread with over a thousand comments over at Shakespeare’s Sister. Go find it and read it and see if you can’t discover threats to Melissa. Then please provide a source for your claim of death threats against right-wing-bloggers. I look forward to seeing you support your assertion.
Well, let’s start with the unhinged Debbie Frisch.
Then there’s the threats Michelle Malkin got after she republished contact information on organizers of an anti-war protest, which those organizers had put on the internet themselves (not just e-mailed it to Malkin, mind you, but posted the entire, unredacted press release with contact information on their own web site.
Then, of course, there was the unhinged Reuters employee who told Little Green Footballs proprietor Charles Johnson: “I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut.” (and yes, I’m well aware of the venom that spews forth from commenters at LGF; I don’t go there myself, and the issue you raise is death threats, not rude, obscene, or vile comments)
Then there are the death threats against an Afghan blogger, which appeared to come from a BBC computer.
Do you consider “I want her f***ing head on a pike… F***ing skanky ass Nazi whore – I’m coming for you” a death threat? Particularly when followed by “A restraining order is only as good as the cop who will enforce it when you call… They are worthless, frankly”? (That one’s directed at Malkin, too)
Well, that should do for a start, 10 minutes of looking. Doesn’t this “their guys are worse than our guys” stuff get tiring pretty quickly? Note that I never denied death threats by whackos on the right, just pointed out that both sides have their whackos. It’s wrong, short-sighted, and just a waste of time to argue against these whackos as “embodying” the other side, rather than addressing the substantive issues raised by the saner, more rational people of both sides.
“Doesn’t this “their guys are worse than our guysâ€? stuff get tiring pretty quickly?”
I wasn’t addressing that, but yes. However, you were criticizing HuffPo for something you did in the same posting, which is what I found…oooooo…a wee teensy bit ironic.
Well, as I said, I was not disputing that they had in fact received death threats. The comment about not citing sources was not intended to cast doubt on whether they had, but to point out that the HuffPo post was not really about the death threats, but instead was about tarring “the right wing” for the death threats, holding all non-death-threat critics of Marcotte’s obscenities and insults responsible for the actions of some whackos. I could have made that more clear, I suppose.