Latest from Kathy – Feminism & Elections
One Dimensional Feminism: Feminism and the Election
(This entry is one in a planned series of entries on what I’m calling One-Dimensional Feminism. In One Dimensional Man (published in 1964) Herbert Marcuse argued that societal power—he was focused on capitalism—had new modes of domination facilitated by technology and the accelerated commodification of all modes of life. Domination could win by satisfying peoples’ desires as much as through repressing them; peoples’ aspirations could mesh with the interests of capital more fluidly than ever before. This enmeshment of the subject with forces of domination made society and its subjects “one-dimensional.” “One dimensional society” refers to a societal order that establishes itself as inevitable: no other dimensions of reality are glimpsed through the solid edifice it presents of itself. Reality is flat because the dimension of the negative is foreclosed—reality appears only in its positive form. Today the “positive” is not only the foreground against which negative space is simply forgotten. The “positive” is also that inducement to positive-thinking, to putting a positive spin on everything including practices once seen as the conductive tissue of subordination (e.g. consumerism is now seen as in and of itself a form of subversion). Residual forces of negation (opposition and critique) are digested within a social order that makes these forces reappear in their positive and positively incorporated forms. My project on One Dimensional Feminism explores this basic idea in relation to the hollowing out of feminism as a former force of opposition and negation (critique)and thus the way that new forms of patriarchal control—neo-liberal patriarchy—function to better assimilate the subject of feminism within the interests of a patriarchal system, and generally the interests of men as a social group.)
This is what a feminist looks like
The slogan represents the positive spin PR campaign to counter vicious “negative stereotypes” long defiling feminism over decades of vilification—e.g…
Stan:
This raises a substantial list of questions that are shouting out from that Marcusian negative space.
One sticky issue it raises for me is the default assumption that there is a centralized remedy for the poroblems created by managerial centralization itself. If there are levers of power at the top, then the only way to change anything is to seize the levers… unfortunatley, these same levers (if you’ll indulge this awful mechanical metaphor for a moment longer) are simply never within the reach of radicals of any stripe.
So we get bogged down in the politics of co-optation, of incrementalism (which is a far different thing than tactics). Voting for someone as part of changing the landscape for a specific tactical purpose – like exposing Democrats by putting them into office – is not the same as voting the lesser-evil to move things along some imaginary, perhaps delusional, continuum. Same action, different motive, and diferent follow up.
I think you’re absolutely accurate in your description of feminists – whose devotion to women’s social emancipation I don’t doubt – who are operating on the continuum assumption. I’m suggesting that the core mistake is not misplaced faith in political personalities, but the failure to see how hierarchy of some kind inheres in centralization, administration, management itself. That’s why we DO get fooled again. Every time.
It’s on the foundation of this axiomatic error (imho) that that we ourselves develop organizing hierarchies that inevitably lose the capacity for simple honesty as they fall into the game-mentality. Communists boosting Democrats. Feminists boosting Obama.
Moreover it is manipulative, and it will always – at the end of the day – wreck credibilty, because the omissions and white lies we tell to get over the next hurdle come back to bite us on the backside.
It’s an attractive delusion, because abandoning these unquestioned beliefs leaves us facing thre stark reality of our own debility, our profound weakness as a “political” force, and the impregnability of the as-is… for now.
We inherited – however we define we here – this poison pill of faith in organization from our political ancestors on the left; and I might even suggest that administered/managed organization is a distincly male – and military – inheritance, a point that emerges from the historical background outlined in De Landa’s book, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines.
On the topic of commodified resistance, which you and Marcuse describe very nicely, the deeper question may be philosophical. So long as the sovereign self – the basis of liberal acquisitive individualism – remains without a critique, the market will always be able to trump us by selling our resistance back to us as a lifestyle. This one gets very scary, as a bit of reflection will reveal. If the self is not sovereign, what is? If the self is not sovereign, then do we risk nihilism on the one hand or reactionary collectivism (like nationalism) on the other? We can marianate on that.
There is an important place, imo, for the frumpy virtues of moderation and self-control, which radical feminists implicitly embrace, and which were and are attacked by “sex radicals” and other such charlatans, and by the market (all about self gratification, even if it is alienated and therefore deeply perverse), using guilt-by-association with religious fundamentalists, etc. By that, I don’t mean moderation and self-control by women, but by everyone. Anything as freighted with power and consequences as sex, money, et al, requires nothing less and possibly a lot more for us to behave ethically toward one another.
S’pose I’ve said enough here. Thanks for this, Kathy.
5 December 2009, 10:08 amrootlesscosmo:
Thanks for posting and for your cross-posted comment, Stan. A couple of not very well-organized thoughts:
So long as the sovereign self – the basis of liberal acquisitive individualism – remains without a critique, the market will always be able to trump us by selling our resistance back to us as a lifestyle.
It certainly does that; the 60′s maxim “the Man can’t bust our music” was neatly answered by “But he can buy it and sell it a profit,” which pretty well disposed of the notion of music as a revolutionary force. Still, I think the sovereign self (cf. MacPherson, The Theory of Possessive Individualism) is a fairly old idea–at least as old as the Enlightenment. (A dubious term, I know.) The process by which resistance gets packaged and marketed, however, seems to me to be more recent–at the earliest starting in the 1920′s or 30′s. (Evidence in support or contradiction would be welcome; I’m more or less shpritzing here.) So what (if anything) changed? Why did the sovereign self begin to equate politics with shopping only after 1920, or even 1945?
the core mistake is not misplaced faith in political personalities, but the failure to see how hierarchy of some kind inheres in centralization, administration, management itself. That’s why we DO get fooled again. Every time.
It’s on the foundation of this axiomatic error (imho) that that we ourselves develop organizing hierarchies that inevitably lose the capacity for simple honesty as they fall into the game-mentality. Communists boosting Democrats. Feminists boosting Obama.
Why do Right-wing movements (anti-abortion, anti-affirmative action, anti-immigrant) seem not to experience the same cycle–hope renewed, settling for the lesser evil, being downcast by yet another disappointed hope, endlessly repeated–as Left-wing movements? Did listeners call Limbaugh to express their sense of betrayal when three GOP presidents, with a total of 20 years in office (interrupted by 8 years of Clinton), never pushed for an anti-abortion Constitutional amendment? Did anti-abortion forces divide over whether or not to support a third party candidate? I have the impression (vague again, correction invited) that there isn’t a strong parallelism between the Republican Right and the Democratic Left; if not, why not?
Finally as to Kathy’s article: I agree with everything she says. But would a Left person have written this article in 1968? (Remember SDS’ 1964 slogan: “Part of the way with LBJ.”) As with the “commodified dissent” phenomenon–and I’m not a fan of Thomas Brooks–what has changed since those days, when a sense of betrayal led almost seamlessly to a conviction that revolution, however defined, was both necessary and achievable? Why does her analysis lead instead to the bleak prospect of marginalization and ineffectiveness?
The older I get the more I become aware of this dimension of time, and the more inclined to compare present ideas with their older equivalents, and to wonder what accounts for the changes I observe. I have a gloomy feeling someone’s going to suggest “material conditions” and I can’t disagree, though I still don’t see–I didn’t see when I was a self-identified Marxist either–the mechanism that connects the material sphere with the realm of ideas.
5 December 2009, 3:18 pmStan:
Hey RC. Thoughtful as always, and challenging as always. My own remarks are admittedly reactions, as this will be. Stirring the recipe now, and hopefully the presentation on the plate will be more appealing.
I wonder if the analogy of the arms race doesn’t account for the changes over time. Adaptations in offense and defense. Whoever dominates is in a position to continue dominating in this cycle.
As to why the right keeps on keeping on, when we get our asses handed to us on a platter, the left’s sometimes authoritarianism remains internal and still directed against a system which is dominant and actively resisting anything that threatens the dominant fractions of humnanity. The right always pushes to strengthen the power of the status quo (what ocnservatives conserve is power), and the ratchet effect works on their behalf because it strengthens dominant institutions. All the increases in executive power during the Bush adminsitration have been preserved by the Obamna administration, to the dismay of many former Obama supporters, ie, the Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, etc.
That puts me back on my hobby horse about the self-perpetuating character of institutions.
5 December 2009, 4:54 pm(Boer) Tom:
Hmm The state and associated institutions create professional positions for feminists; these positions are of the type where output is demanded, and the output can either betray various oppositional movements (especially harmful from a sympathetic scholar), or alienate the person in the professional position from the oppositional movements in question, which eventually makes that person redundant (how valuable is another philosophical position in a project of domination?).
It reminds me somewhat of orientalist literature – the stereotypes and magical thinking aside, the orientalist literature was a mirror of sorts that could give the studied population some insight into themselves, but of course, it was used by various European regimes to control said populations. A critical scholarship on the left is needed, from sympathetic scholars not beholden to the state – take a break from a movement and reflect brutally?
Rootlesscosmo: Perhaps I could tie those two concerns (material conditions’ effect on thoughts and sovereignty of self). I think I’ve mentioned before that my social circle in North America is almost entirely west-Africans. One of my Nigerian friends invited me to his church (evangelical or happy-clappy, as in “hallelujah with clapping hands, repeat,” as we call them in SA). In one of the sermons, there was much hell-mongering. I decided to accept (as in believe in) hell, and prepare myself for it – I told an apolitical evangelical, with complete sincerity, that I’d be willing to suffer an eternity in hell to stop the crimes of his state, which I then described to him in great detail… Likewise, in arguing with colonialist apologetists, I first try to believe what they say, then try to prove these new beliefs to myself, so that I’ll know what questions to ask when looking through relevant data. Notice that this is a relinquishment of personal sovereignty – one must typically first willingly submit to one’s opponent to study him/it (e.g. colonialist apologetists, consumerism etc) to obtain appropriate knowledge, before one can undermine him/it. This is why leftist reactionary behavior is counterproductive – you cannot get to know and understand your opponents, much less force any of them to develop morally or intellectually.
So what ties material reality to ideas? I’ll say it is the psychology of expecting of an impending disaster, or living it – which one determines one’s actions. For anti-abortion people, they believe that they are living their dreaded worst case in any case, so they are willing to try anything that seems to ‘ameliorate’ it. Note that this worst case involves (what is to them) a great deal of independence of women, as well as abortion per se. They see it as settling for less, and maybe getting more another day. They cannot see that they serve the state, and are thus oblivious to the dynamic in which they are involved, yet their partial successes galvanize them.
The left set it self up for failure, in some respects – I’ve been told that Bedouin women in Saudi drive, and carry AKs, which tends to discourage interference by the police, whereas the left is dependent, in many ways, on the state… I think this psychology is driven in large part still by the suppression of the Paris commune – how many future revolutionaries came out of that? How many were disillusioned? I wonder if the left had instead (to a greater degree) focussed on making alternative structures (to free individuals’ minds, i.e. get them used to freedom, exercising initiative, etc), and then deliberately tear down the structures’ obvious manifestations to avoid interference from the state, whether the left might not have been more successful. Little victories do galvanize; one gets used to demanding little things that cause one’s less powerful opponents to think, and one learns to motivate one’s comrades to psychosocially significant actions. Can we seize something, and willingly relinquish it, only to later seize and relinquish it again? Such behavior allows for many possibilities… People who are used to winning and losing tend to be more effective. Give up and reseize individual sovereignty… But now, communes now seem generally limited to religious outfits, most of which are not left.
6 December 2009, 12:09 amlatte lenya:
Palin is not the enemy. If she is a woman, she is oppressed by sexism just like anybody else. What’s the difference between Palin and the professional feminists in academia? Not much, except she might be better at it. There’s your continuum.
Having enemies might temporarily galvanize but in the end operates as a distraction. It is depressing watching leftists, including feminists, attack Palin the way they attacked Clinton—not on the basis of policy, not thinking critically, but ridiculing hair, makeup, children, intelligence…dismissing any appeal she might have as an alternative to the sterility of both parties, and losing a chance to learn from the phenomenon. I wonder if Palin isn’t to the right what Obama was to the left: neither is as rogue or audacious as they’ve claimed to be, and both might be manifestation of people so desperate to believe in something, anything, that we’re willing to suspend judgment and vote.
The Right has done much that the Left could learn from. They’re unified, they act locally, and they’re disciplined. Many live by the ‘frumpy virtues’ Stan referred to (although I object to ‘frumpy’ as gender-specific).
6 December 2009, 7:36 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Latte Lenya
, but it could apply to Palin supporters.
7 December 2009, 1:03 pmI wasn’t sure if you were addressing me (galvanize?), so on that assumption… I use opponent rather than enemy deliberately: An opponent is someone whose aims are to some extent opposed to yours – not necessarily an enemy (I don’t seek to destroy these individuals), but individuals whose aims I wish to frustrate, on two levels. 1. I don’t want e.g. colonialist apologetics to succeed in the coming months and years (and especially not among my ethnic group…), and 2. by frustrating these opponents, I interact with them, and have the opportunity to provide facts to them that they would not otherwise have access to (and certainly would not seek out of their own accord) – if they don’t want to accept these facts, fine, but in the fora that I present them, others can see them, and they cannot claim ignorance. Likewise, knowledge of these facts tend to induce moral and intellectual development – they must (for their own sanity) incorporate these facts into their world-view. Of course, this does not apply to Palin (I would have no opportunity to interact with her on such a level, and it does not interest me – North America is broadly your problem, not mine
(Boer) Tom:
I guess I should say that the providing of relevant facts is a (the) major tactic of frustration of my opponents’ aims…
7 December 2009, 9:42 pmMichael Anderson:
Part of the control of women is the control of population, and the control of workers for the elites, either through displacement and outright poverty forcing exploitative labor, or “career-tending” in the academy—I thought that was a great term, kudos to Ms. Miriam. I know some of those folks.
I believe we will be witnessing even more downsizing of the middle class as our global “empire”, such as it is, rolls along to its conclusion. Perhaps as more people who thought themselves privileged face the final solution of Kafka-esque legislation & poverty backed with the muzzle of a gun; which stops all discussion and settles all arguments; they will see the truth—-but my personal feeling is that all bets are off for now. The American oligarchy has had it their way for 2 1/4 centuries, and it will take some doing—read Joe Baegent’s “Deer Hunting With Jesus” for some info on that mindset.
The references to Palin were illuminating, and had I paid a bit more attention to the rhetoric coming from the establishment left last election season, I would have seen & heard their silence. Definitely Dworkin’s breeder model, coupled with a public image of hunting wolves from an airplane—my God, what could be more, uh, MANLY than that, eh?
We will have to break our American “exceptionalist” mindset, along with the historical codified patriarchy/heirarchy of religion and corporate governance. But what’s to replace it? And, is this the right term to use? What sort of “deep objectivity” can we use here? Stan has talked about the value of small groups as a core (based on the military model [?], a hierarchical organization—sorry)…we’ve got bits of things happening now—how does this get from micro to macro? How do we keep that essential quality of “human-ness” that Yoder described from getting twisted around and co-opted? We are a species constantly in trasition, and far from perfect.
Perhaps—the value of restraint in the conduct of your life is extremely important—a friend of mine once said “just because something CAN be done doesn’t mean it SHOULD be done.” The results are self-evident.
8 December 2009, 1:46 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson
9 December 2009, 2:32 pmAbout that “Deer hunting with Jesus” mentality: Attend an evangelical church, for a few weeks, get to meet some ‘manly’ guys (working and middle class; manly referring to mindset), and be prepared to listen to and joke about things like rape, murder, white supremacism, capitalistic boosterism etc. (It is called “building rapport,” and is critical for effective communication. Listen to Rush Limbaugh if necessary to practice keep your calm…) You’ll have to be sympathetic to these individuals, especially for making incisive insults (insults that really strike home and sting, especially given the mindset – it is part of fraternizing), without appearing “stiff,” uncomfortable or out of place. Without any ‘liberal anger,’ you may then strike with ‘You think she wanted that?’ or ‘You are a rapist sack of shit,’ but your demeanour must not be angry (except for a moment where you may betray anger) – end with e.g. a grin of victory (the insult stuck) – you need to be ‘fun’ to be with, be able to ‘take a joke’, and be a friend, who can really help out – you can incorporate these ‘outbursts’ as fraternizing insults. Can you weld or fix cars? Being a gear head really does open time for such discussions, but it must remain natural – don’t let explicit politics dominate discussions. If you can get such ‘friends’ to start to think critically about their cultural and physical environment, you’ll make the social/cultural environment a bit less poisonous for others. You’d be surprised how many people don’t read books…
m.c.:
What makes Sarah Palin so dangerous is that there are many like her out there, and even more who are attracted by her and her ideas. Well, maybe if Bill Kristol emails her a list of talking points, maybe they aren’t her ideas.?
9 December 2009, 3:41 pmm.c.:
Maybe not only Kristol. Randy Scheunemann helped her a lot in the ’08 McCain Campaign.
9 December 2009, 8:40 pm(Boer) Tom:
@m.c.
10 December 2009, 2:53 pmWhy do you consider her so dangerous? I mean, if you want to respect an opponent, fine, but I’m not even sensing from you a respect for Palin as an opponent. Why don’t you rather try to approach her (and the movements of which she is part) sympathetically, e.g. by reading their various publications? It takes a few months of in-depth reading and interaction to understand them. Even deprogrammers (anti-cultists) generally have extremely sympathetic understandings of their ‘patients’. (You actually need to believe what they believe, and explore that resulting mindset, before you can actually meaningfully undermine it.)
Michael Anderson:
@ Boer Tom:
I grew up in that kind of environment you are encouraging me to experience in the old hometown—and I don’t want to go back to that space. I can remember one lunch break at the mill when I was in college, listening to a guy bragging about how, when he got home from work, he put his wife on “like a gas mask.” I found it pretty hard to take then…and moreso now.
Sooner or later you have to walk down another street, like most of us are trying to do on this blog, and being watchful, intelligent, and mannerly can get you a lot farther with folks of this persuasion than sarcasm. It is VERY hard to sympathize, though. I am back there, now, and it has changed–and not changed.
A selective quote from Joe B. on his blog about going back home: “…back to hometown…to settle some scores with the bigoted, murderous redneck town I grew up in. I love’em but they need a good ass kicking.”
Cognitive dissonance, indeed.
Speaking as a musician, you’d be surprised (well, maybe not) at how many so-called “enlightened” people can come up with a quick whack on women and people of color—not just the Rolling Stones of yore that Ms. Clarke mentioned, but many people here and now. On another level, so many well-meaning people I know have fallen for the Obama-myth and are headed for a big fall. Maybe this is what it’s going to take for America to grow up. The women already know…
11 December 2009, 12:39 amm.c.:
If you had asked me in 1977(or most informed Leftists/Liberals in the U.S.) if Ronald Reagan could win the GOP Pres. Primary in 1980, some of us might have said yes. But if you asked could Reagan win the General Election, I think we all would have been in agreement. Reagan at least served 8 years as governor & was head of the screen actors guild for a while. Probably at least a little smarter than Bush jr. Palin served 2 years as governor, not even finishing one term. She could have told Katie Couric she read her Alaska newspapers & USA Today. Not great but something. The answer she gave was straight out of Junior High School. She can win the Iowa Caucus, especially with Mike Huckabee’s cop killer commutation scandal.
11 December 2009, 1:55 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson – I’m from a similar context – try Afrikaner/Apartheid (albeit a much more intellectually oriented society than ‘red necks’) – if you find it too unpleasant, well I cannot force you, but I think the women who get beat up, for example, may find it quite a bit more unpleasant, especially as they typically don’t have too many options to run away. By immersing myself in that type of context (with appropriate psychological methods), I find I can endure it. What I am suggesting is a kind of moral pressuring, so that e.g. the violence ceases to be acceptable in that context – if one simply condemns, one is ‘elitist’ and potentially the object of mockery – ‘Hey, I’m going to beat my wife just because you told me not to,’ (whether it happens or not in that instance is irrelevant – the moral standard has not been set) and one cannot bring that person any further. Sometimes one must strenously object, fine, but do it in a manner that doesn’t reject the person, nor makes apparent claims of personal moral superiority – often it will be inferred where it was not made, e.g. “So you are as responsible for x, y, z.” “Yes.” “So then I don’t have a responsibility to stop it.” “I think we both do – we have a moral responsibility.”
One friend I had to suffer for two years with occasional arguing, before I could even get him to take a book from me – he still hasn’t read it a year later – but he is progressing in his understanding of the world.
The psychology of someone who beats up his relatives is such that stress often makes him worse – relieve some of that stress, and you may relieve the pressure on his relatives. It is a very different psychology that does not require violence to deal with stress, and one that is not easily induced – it may take years.
@m.c. If you read Tim Wise’s “White like me,” you’ll see he actually discusses it in some detail – ‘book learning’ is seen as an affront, having to do with impractical things. The education system is often an opportunity for teachers with low self-esteem to feel better about themselves by belittling students, and it is by now intergenerational. If you have knowledge that is valuable, you should be able to transfer it, and best much greater hurdles than the sulkiness associated with ‘book learning’. My brother was arguing to me that the Jordan river flows ‘ten kilometers from Jerusalem, and should thus serve Palestinians no more than Israelis’ – grant him his (faulty) premise, and his conclusion (based on his misunderstanding of the relevant geography) still doesn’t follow. What does one do in such a case? Well, I obtained a map, and showed him where the Jordan flows. Give people friendship and information, and be willing to learn, even if they aren’t – a local plumber was very popular, because he was willing to learn from the farmers whose pipes he would come to repair.
11 December 2009, 4:46 pmMichael Anderson:
Palin is dangerous because of the example she sets for both men and women. She’s made the devil’s bargain of Andrea Dworkin’s Right Wing Woman, intentionally or not—-the security of one man’s attentions vs. the insecurity of many men’s aggression, motherhood and the certain degree of status it confers, and accepting and embracing conservative, system-oriented militarist-capitalist dogma. Her sudden and forceful rise to prominence is extremely appealing to men who think that women should have a “traditional” role in society (as defined by male-dominated media and punditry)—and, sorry to say, there are a lot of those kind of men out there.
12 December 2009, 9:52 amMichael Anderson:
@ Boer Tom;
I understand where you’re coming from….and I downloaded that self-help file, and will print it up and read it…looks interesting.
What you said to m.c. about book learning (I read White Like Me last year) as an affront is very true to a lot of these guys (and gals). I agree with your statement about objecting without demeaning—-I have done a verbal version of Newton’s Law of reaction—equal and opposite—in times past, and it doesn’t do a damn thing for advancing understanding.
Living in a strongly liberal area of Oregon as long as I did, you tend to get lazy, intellectually, about your facts when you aren’t required to regularly defend yourself. It’s different here…where folks agree with the neo-con-victs who agreed with Obama’s Nobel speech.
To you, I recommend reading and reading about Scott Nearing, an activist & speaker of the early 20th century. He knew his facts, and spoke strongly and well.
http://www.goodlife.org
Cheers
12 December 2009, 2:07 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson
12 December 2009, 2:24 pmI agree with what you say, but reinforces what I say – set an example to such men (and women) – which you can only do by being part of their social circle, without being overly threatening to them (in their minds). If you think you have it hard, I recall reading some years ago (don’t have it handy now) about reading about a Muslim woman in Sierra Leone who was campaigning against FGM – is the situation you are describing more trying?
m.c.:
@Boer Tom- Here’s one for you and it tangentially deals with feminism. Helen Suzman, the anti-aparteid activist and politician had Max Borkum{Google him}as her long-time campaign manager. He was a financier and associate/business partner of the Oppenheimer diamond magnate family. That was a message to the South African business community & ruling elite! Kind of like Angela Davis or Martin Luther King Jr. being organized and/or funded by the Rockefellers.
12 December 2009, 6:38 pm~This message was Not brought to you by the ANC~
Michael Anderson:
Didn’t know exactly where to put this, but it’s interesting…
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/144529
A snippet:
Are Americans a Broken People? Why We’ve Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on December 11, 2009, Printed on December 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the “abuse syndrome.” How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims’ faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful — and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one’s humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
13 December 2009, 12:52 pm(Boer) Tom:
@m.c. The ANC was known within the more serious leftist circles in RSA as a capitalist party, at least as early as the early 70s. Some of the white trade-unions (the black trade-unions were illegal under apartheid) prior to the 80s, were pushing demands of non-white (black, coloured, Indian) workers as a basic question of solidarity. The predominantly white trade-union ‘solidarity’ (RSA, not Poland) started in 1903, and there were several others. Afrikaners who resisted apartheid are generally airbrushed out of the histories… But then, I posted here a while ago about how the SACP was more neoliberal than Thatcher by the early-mid 90s. I don’t like Malema, but given the povery in RSA, there is something to be said for nationalization of the mines – notice how he’s treated by the SACP.
13 December 2009, 4:02 pmLisa:
Boys face compulsory feminism programs in state schools across Victoria in a major push to prevent violence against females.
Possible classroom activities include students acting out scenes of sexual coercion after which students would suggest more appropriate behaviour.
A VicHealth report for the state Education Department calls for teachers to be trained in gender, violence and sexual health issues so they would be comfortable discussing “taboo” issues.
But it would help if teachers could “make the program fun”, the authors said.
The report says programs for all students should start at primary level and be reinforced across all year levels in subjects including drama, English, science and sport.
They would combat common attitudes among boys such as young women are either “good girls or sluts”, the report said.
It said feminist theories were best at explaining the link between gender power relations and violence against women, and must underpin the programs.
But the authors of the “Respectful Relationships Education” report admitted there was considerable community hostility to feminism, even among teachers and students.
“However, a feminist conceptual framework is essential both to reflect research on violence in relationships and families and to anchor the political commitments of the program,” they said.
Australian Family Association spokesman John Morrissey said boys were already getting feminised education due to the falling number of male teachers in schools. “I’m sceptical if boys will respond to it if it is dressed up in feminist language and ideology,” he said.
“Strident feminist propaganda won’t wash with boys.”
Report author Dr Michael Flood admitted there was always the risk of a backlash, but said it was crucial that students were taught that sexist attitudes and unequal relationships between the sexes were central to explaining violence.
“We need to do that in ways that are careful and respectful and don’t make boys in particular feel blamed and demonised for the problem,” he said.
“Not by shoving capital ‘F’ feminism down their throats.”
Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said four schools would run anti-violence pilot programs from early next year.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/boys-face-compulsory-feminism-programs-in-state-schools-across-victoria/story-e6frf7jo-1225803918910
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More from Dr. Flood:
We should be wary of approaches which appeal to men’s sense of ‘real’ manhood … These may intensify men’s investment in male identity, and this is part of what keeps patriarchy in place (Stoltenberg, 1990). Such appeals are especially problematic if they suggest that there are particular qualities which are essentially or exclusively male. This simply reinforces notions of biological essentialism … (Engaging Men, p.3)
Note that he is hostile to “men’s investment in male identity”. He disapproves of men having a “male identity” because he thinks of it negatively as an oppressive social construct used to prop up male privilege and power. For him, the whole notion of “man” and “woman” is an artificial construct:
Nor should we take as given the categories “men” and “women”. The binaries of male and female are socially produced … (Between Men and Masculinity, p. 210)
Dr Flood also celebrates the “queering” of heterosexual men:
Bent straights: Diversity and flux among heterosexual men
Michael Flood
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) La Trobe University
New formations of sexuality are emerging among heterosexual men, informed by constructions of ‘queer’ and ‘metrosexual’ masculinities and other alternatives.
Some straight men express alliance with gay men or question the binary of heterosexual and homosexual, or proclaim themselves to be ‘wusses’ and ‘sissies’, or take up egalitarian or even subordinant roles in their heterosexual sexual relations, or adopt a feminised preoccupation with personal grooming.
Such developments signal a weakening of longstanding constructions of heterosexual masculinity, and there is significant diversity in the contemporary sexual cultures of young heterosexual men. Yet at the same time, many heterosexual men’s social and sexual relations with women are organised both by gendered power relations centred on male privilege and by homophobic and homosocial policing.
It’s politically progressive, thinks Dr Flood, for heterosexual men to declare themselves to be “wusses” and “sissies,” to accept subordinate roles in sexual relations, and to adopt a feminised lifestyle. Dr Flood welcomes such developments because he supports the deconstruction of heterosexual masculinity, which he believes underpins patriarchy and male privilege.
17 December 2009, 12:03 am=================================================
DeAnander:
I love the spin on that article:
Although the writer goes on to mention casually — a couple of grafs further down — that “all students” would participate in some kind of K-12 consciousness-raising, the lead graf gives us the image of boys being singled out and “facing” (as in, being confronted by some threat or menace, and bravely standing up to it), “compulsory feminism programs” (not, for example, “gender studies” or “sensitivity training”, but “compulsory feminism”). Seems to be written in the not-too-subtle code of the anti-state-school, pro-religious-private-school crowd. The Evil State School will subject your child to Liberal Brainwashing!
The Australian Family Association is a culturally conservative group founded by rightist Catholics, iirc, and Wikipedia suggests it has at least one tie to the Murdoch media mogul family. The Herald Sun in which the article appeared is one of the Murdoch papers. Although the AFA probably takes the stock rightwing anti-porn stance, Murdoch of course owns some profitable porn cable channels; perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of those pesky feminists trying to teach schoolboys to think critically about porn and other sexist media
18 December 2009, 4:04 amDeAnander:
Oh yeah, and of course there was the S-word: strident. Strident goes with Feminist in defensive masculinist discourse just like “extremist” goes with “environmentalist”, “terrorist” goes with “Muslim”, and “elitist” goes with “liberal.”
18 December 2009, 4:08 amStan:
Radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr
Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
Anti-American Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez
We should archive these boilerplates that the press seems compelled to use like they are intergal to the nouns.
The maddening perennial problem with this language is that it becomes part of an accepted cultural polarity that conceals deeper critical problems. The radical feminist critique of pornography is conflated with right-wing prudery (itself a gross simplification) leaving us vulnerable to guilt-by-association fallacies. Rejection of mandatory public education – as articulated by Illich, eg -is conflated with the privatizers who want to turn education (uncritiqued as a product) into a commodity.
Anyone who has a genuinely critical approach is inacessible to a culture defined narrowly along the liberal-conservative axis that is anti-critical. Throw in our belief that electoral/policy politics is (1) efficacious at all and (2) really penetrable by outsiders, and we convince ourselves that this is the sole arena of struggle. Then we are captured by the gamesmanship, the compromises, the side-taking.
The older I get the more I believe that the experimental changes in culture – like eating an elephant (one bite at a time) – in anticipation of inevitable breaks that systems evolve within themselves, is more signficant in the long term than playing these fixed games.
18 December 2009, 11:45 amDeAnander:
“Throw in our belief that electoral/policy politics is (1) efficacious at all and (2) really penetrable by outsiders…”
–Dmitry Orlov
18 December 2009, 1:00 pm(Boer) Tom:
I think those integral nouns are a distraction – we get angry when we hear them, and take out our frustration on people who uncritically repeat them. It is largely aimed at relatively poor and uneducated north american whites – if other people accept it uncritically, that tends to be a bit of a problem for the system, as they may become frustrated when justifications change – if the latter don’t pay attention, then shifting targets can always be justified to oneself – most middle-class and educated whites have an unstated attachment to the system. The poorer whites are interesting, as no socialist movement has seriously targeted them for the last sixty years – they are the people who deny anthropogenic climate change, and are involved in other pet right-wing causes – but the now mainly middle-class white left runs away – even as these poorer whites are often attracted to leftist causes – witness how many of them were involved in things like Latin American solidarity (even if it was stated in very right-wing terminology) and come harass left-wing sites, because they feel that the left-wing sites have a few basic ideas wrong (when they come and peddle their pet right-wing causes).
I say that they are a huge opportunity. One such individual came bothering about global warming on an online forum, and I took the opportunity to teach him the basics of statistics, a bit of relevant calculus (hands on), interpreting graphs (many of the right-wing operators have a very sympathetic understanding of their audiences – they realize that these people aren’t stupid, but don’t have the skills to critically interpret data) – one graph showed average surface temperature of the planet over the history of life, with CO2 concentration in atmosphere (above link) – and this fellow was convinced by an anti-global warming website that the graph disproved a causal relationship – except that the temperature change saturated to about 7-10 degrees (Celsius) above present when the CO2 concentration goes above 3-500 ppm – I only had to point it out to him – and not demand that he acknowledge it (sometimes these individuals will repeat a previously debunked point – it is better not to attack them for it – they are looking for justifications for their beliefs, but beliefs are also emotional – resentment against you can also be a justification – deny him – that way they can come to terms with reality on their own time). Also, he had no sense of surface averaging, and how an extreme at one time and place may be moderated by a non-extreme at the same time but a different place – of course these are general lacunae in the North American popular knowledge – how many leftists know how to do this? The difficulties are to target them on their level of knowledge, and to give them opportunity to ‘win’ against you in an argument, so as to build their self-confidence in obtaining and handling knowledge. At least they are interested.
Another weakness of the left and e.g. feminism in dealing with men is that there are several behaviors that are disapproved of, and then we try to police them. This does not usually lead to men reconsidering their behavior. I find it works better to play along, and get into someone’s mind (sympathetic understanding again), and then do something that momentarily denies them their status or otherwise breaks the rules, and get them thinking – not to condemn unthinking/stereotypical reasoning tout court, but challenge only an element to set them on a path of discovery / reflection.
18 December 2009, 2:39 pmcabdriver:
“The older I get the more I believe that the experimental changes in culture – like eating an elephant (one bite at a time) – in anticipation of inevitable breaks that systems evolve within themselves, is more signficant in the long term than playing these fixed games.”
There it is.
The sense I’m getting is that we’re in for an accelerating number of those ‘breaks’. Forces are in motion that are going to outrun and outstrip the abilities of the traditional institutions to cope with them. Indeed, it looks as if presently,the principal effort of those institutions is to deny what’s happening. Their projections are still based on that strange contradiction- the status quo of continual economic expansion. Business as usual. Lip service to the need for massive adjustments in the energy economy, denial in practice.
I anticipate that the next five years are going to be extremely interesting. The triage in government priorities is bound to be something to behold- what’s going to give? Environmental protections? The drug war? Infrastructure spending? Pensions and medical coverage? The military budget? Borders enforcement? Public funding for higher education? Debt service? Social security?
Meanwhile, I’ve been reading various financial articles, and the appended commentaries. What a lot of narrow-brained greedheads, is all I can say. The only thing figuring into their calculations is how to best get over on a balance sheet, and to hell with everybody else. And there’s widespread sentiment that the economic system is fraudulent at it’s core, and that the vast majority of people are screwed, or due to be screwed.
Maybe only the cynics are posting comments…still- who would know better about that than someone in the “financial services sector”?
I’m lucky, I can travel light. And I’m still fast enough to scramble.
18 December 2009, 6:08 pmjuannie:
Stan (I’m using CAPITALS because I don’t know how to format here but I think you’ll get the idea.)
“The maddening perennial problem with this language IS that it becomes part of an accepted cultural polarity that conceals deeper critical problems. The radical feminist critique of pornography IS CONFLATED with right-wing prudery (itself a gross simplification) leaving us vulnerable to guilt-by-association fallacies. Rejection of mandatory public education – as articulated by Illich, eg -IS CONFLATED with the privatizers who want to turn education (uncritiqued as a product) into a commodity.”
What makes it possible for language to become part of that accepted cultural polarity arises from the fallacy of the verb to be. We all, myself included, fall into that trap. Identity and predication create false possibilities that can and often do become quite pernicious. The other forms; auxiliary, existence and location I see as less so and I still use them although I’m not sure Korzybski and General Semantics agree with me. (e-prime does away with all forms: http://www.e-prime.com/ ) When used in the skillful hands of spinmeisters the polarities become imbued in our cultural perceptions through the falacy of identify and predication. Within our language we think this way and there is no escape until we get outside that box.
“The maddening perennial problem with this language CAN becomes part of an accepted cultural polarity that conceals deeper critical problems. The radical feminist critique of pornography OFTEN CONFLATES right-wing prudery (itself a gross simplification) leaving us vulnerable to guilt-by-association fallacies. Rejection of mandatory public education – as articulated by Illich, eg -USUALLY CONFLATES with the privatizers who want to turn education (uncritiqued as a product) into a commodity.”
And thus the arrogance of certainty disappears.
With much respect,
18 December 2009, 8:44 pmJohn
Lisa:
Monday, December 7, 2009
Failed Economics Creates Failed Families
By June Carbone
Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Where is the economics of the family when we need it? Family instability magnifies societal inequality and undermines the foundation for the next generation. Yet, the ideas that helped secure a Nobel Prize in economics for Chicago economist Gary Becker, which still provide the starting point for every discussion of the economics of the family, have been proved wrong in almost every respect – and lay the foundation for an economy that looks like Yemen’s.
Becker won the Nobel Prize, at least in part, because of his identification of marriage with specialization and trade: men “specialize” in the market and women in the home. His critical prediction: with the wholesale movement of women into the labor market, the gains from marriage would decline and family instability would rise.
Yet, Becker’s theory cannot explain why the only group in society whose marriage rates have increased are college-educated women or why, contrary to Becker’s predictions, the divorce rates of two career college-educated couples have returned to the levels of the early sixties. Nor does it make any attempt to account for how class now dictates family form, with family stability increasingly a product of education and income. (For more on this, see Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families.)
It has no hope of explaining these factors because it misses the most significant developments of the day. The idea that men “specialize” in the market is absurd. The very idea of the market as separate from the home is a product of nineteenth century industrialization, and the specialization that occurred in that era was a much greater investment in middle class males that increased the returns to education, enhanced differentiation among male workers, and magnified income inequality. The idea that women “specialize” in the home is even loonier – the female homemaker is the very epitome of the generalist, cleaning, cooking, mending and providing child care. While my husband “specializes” in corned beef and cabbage in contrast to my salads and tomato sauce, no one would confuse the result with professional accomplishments that are the result of decades of education and experience. (For more on this, see June Carbone, From Partners to Parents: The Second Revolution in Family Law.)
Ideas, however, have consequences, and a major one that follows from getting this wrong is understating the importance of investment in women. The big story of the last half century is greater returns to investment in women, investment that is derailed by early marriage and childbearing. The second, more pernicious consequence is that Becker misses the fact that what he characterizes as specialization rationalizes domination. Women’s domestic roles – including younger average ages of marriage, multiple children born in close succession, and the lack of external sources of income – correspond closely to a lack of power in relationships. As Nicholas Kristof writes in his inspiring accounts of women from the developing world, give women just a little bit more education and independence and they leave or reform abusive mates, producing healthier children and a more productive society.
In contrast, the policies that have tried to bring back Becker’s specialized family – which include abstinence education, the shot gun marriage, and declining access to family planning – simply ensure the U.S.’s declining economic competitiveness. Teenage girls in the red states that place single-minded emphasis on marriage are MORE likely than their blue state sisters to have sex and get pregnant, marry early and get divorced, stop going to school and go to work, and end up raising their children in poverty.
21 December 2009, 1:50 pmMichael Anderson:
Getting pregnant is now a court-martial offense. The LAST paragraph tells it ALL…
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66764
U.S. personnel in Iraq could face court-martial for getting pregnant
By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, December 19, 2009
The Army general commanding U.S. forces in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of prohibitions for personnel under his command.
The policy, which went into effect Nov. 4, makes it possible to face punishment, including a court-martial and jail time, for becoming pregnant or impregnating a servicemember, according to the wording of the policy and confirmations from Army officials.
The rule governs all those serving under Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III, who commands Multi-National Division-North, including Balad, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Mosul and Samarra. According to the order, it is “applicable to all United States military personnel, and to all civilians, serving with, employed by, or accompanying” the military in northern Iraq, with few exceptions.
Someone would violate the policy by “becoming pregnant, or impregnating a soldier, while assigned to the Task Force Marne (Area of Operations), resulting in the redeployment of the pregnant soldier,” according to the order.
The policy also applies to married couples who are at war together, Army spokesman Maj. Lee Peters told Stars and Stripes in an e-mail message. Both the husband and wife could face punishment under the policy.
Peters said that, despite the broad wording of the policy, it is meant to apply only when pregnancies affect a unit’s ability to perform its mission.
“When a soldier becomes pregnant or causes a soldier to become pregnant through consensual activity,” Peters said, “the redeployment of the pregnant soldier creates a void in the unit and has a negative impact on the unit’s ability to accomplish its mission. Another soldier must assume the pregnant soldier’s responsibilities.”
No one has been punished or accused under the new policy, according to Col. David S. Thompson, the inspector general for all soldiers in Iraq.
Military staff judge advocates for both MND-North and Multi-National Force Iraq have reviewed and approved the policy, according to Peters and Thompson.
“It is a lawful order,” Thompson said Friday during a phone interview.
Thompson, who has served 29 of the past 39 months in Iraq as an inspector general, said it’s the first time he can recall pregnancy being prohibited.
Armywide policy requires that a pregnant soldier in Iraq be removed from the war theater within 14 days.
Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School and is president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said he understands the motivations of the order.
“You have to assume it’s in response to a number of incidents that have caused female GIs to be sidelined at a time when they can’t be spared,” he said.
But he said the prohibition is fraught with “a mare’s nest of legal, ethical and policy issues” that highlight the discord between personal autonomy and military needs.
“Here you really have issues that go to the core of personal autonomy: reproductive rights,” he said.
There are also issues of enforcement, Fidell said. The woman is immediately suspect once the pregnancy comes to light, but unless she identifies her partner, the male could go unpunished despite bearing the same culpability under the order.
21 December 2009, 8:28 pmStan:
How dare those people slow down an imperial occupation by making babies!
21 December 2009, 10:35 pmMichaael Anderson:
You nailed it, Stan:
http://www.truthout.org/topstories/122209jl03
Army General Who Implemented Pregnancy Policy Responds to Truthout Report
Tuesday 22 December 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
The Army general commanding US military personnel in northern Iraq who implemented a controversial policy last month that said female soldiers who become pregnant, and the men who impregnate them, could be court-martialed and sent to prison issued a lengthy response to Truthout explaining his order following the publication of our report on the matter Monday.
In an email, Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo said he appreciates “the discussion about one aspect of a general order I have applied here in the combat zone of Iraq. The true intent of my directive cannot be easily understood from one or two brief articles, so I would like to clarify my rationale for the directive.”
Cucolo added:
In this 22,000 Soldier Task Force, I need every Soldier I’ve got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission. Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected 12-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates. Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status — or contributes to doing that to another — is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos, “I will always place the mission first,” or three of our seven core values: loyalty, duty and selfless service. And I believe there should be professional consequences for making that personal choice.
23 December 2009, 1:02 pm(Boer) Tom:
I’ve been reading Hudson’s Superimperialism again, and I’m struck by an aspect of the data he gives – I could (with much effort) find the same data, but most people cannot – I’m thinking of popularizing research, and self-education. In the GNU movement, anyone who is a competent programmer can contribute, and it is not that hard to learn (or teach) programming, yet with activism, there is very little coordinated effort to teach poorer people to do the necessary research, especially such practical details as which sources have the relevant information generally, or relevant mathematical methods. While I realise that most poorer people have enough to worry about, most of the best activists are from poorer backgrounds – why is there little or no research by the left into popularizing such research methods? Moreover, as men are often sulky on such additional effort, such a research (into popularizing social research) effort could lead to women gaining a degree of extra social power. Can we find newly impoverished social researchers, who might want to teach and write explanatory pamphlets? (North America does not have much of a pamphlet tendency…) If someone wants to figure out how the parameters of quality of life have changed in the last 60 years, how do they go about it, in their particular countries/areas?
24 December 2009, 6:11 amMichael Anderson:
@ (Boer)Tom;
Please do! I appreciate you attention to detail and method. After reading some of Scott Nearing’s material from the early 20th century, when pampleteering was more of an art, I am interested. And forgive my ignorance, but what does the acronym GNU stand for?
24 December 2009, 12:30 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson
I tried to above (on the global warming)*. GNU stands for “GNU is Not Unix” (a recursive acronym, which is a kind of joke), a free unix-style operating system (if you run e.g. Linux, chances are that everything else is GNU – Linux is a tiny part of the GNU system). It was an initiative by the FSF
*The person I was debating turned out to be a neo-nazi – but I stand by my position that it is better to communicate regardless – the neos are capable of individual violence, but there is not a functional German-style civil service for them to inherit – boo! One can use their lies against them, to inform and educate others about the topics that they wish to use as recruiting tools, thus undermining them… The only trick is to occasionally have a headline like BS, and a body starting with “Your first lie is to claim …” or the like. If one does not argue against them, uncritical minds will have no obvious path to critical insights.
24 December 2009, 10:00 pmStan:
Change-up!
25 December 2009, 10:36 pmLisa:
Weekend Edition
January 1 – 3, 2010
Why Men Really Read Playboy
The Talboidization of the Media
By DAVID MACARAY
Some men used to pretend they read Playboy magazine for its fiction—an utterly transparent and pathetic rationalization meant to disguise a perfectly natural interest in naked women.
The Huffington Post evokes a similar rationalization. Where Playboy was a skin magazine that offered “shelter” in the form of quality fiction, HuffPo is a beehive of frivolous pop culture that purports to be an intellectual journal. We can go there without feeling guilty, as if we’re visiting Foreign Affairs’ little brother.
While HuffPo does, undeniably, offer some intellectual sobriety, most of the material is devoted to glamour, attitude, faux-trends, sex scandals, predictions, smug irony and sophomoric humor (“Douchebag of the year awards”). And if you don’t think Arianna considers the site to be high-brow, listen to her on the panel shows; she portrays it as the Internet version of a 19th century literary salon.
Its success shouldn’t surprise anyone. In addition to the wide assortment of celebrity buzz and glitterati, you get political commentary from movie stars and Hollywood wags (Alec Baldwin, Clay Aiken, Andy Borowitz, Jamie Lee Curtis, Harry Shearer, et al). Instead of some obscure college professor writing about Afghanistan, you get Bill Maher writing about it.
HuffPo’s popularity coincides with that of cable television’s, History Channel, which, given its staid, no-nonsense title—and if you didn’t know any better—would lead you to believe it was dedicated to the straightforward, even scholarly treatment of….well, history. But after catching a few episodes of “Ancients Behaving Badly,” you realize that isn’t the case. Edward Gibbon it ain’t.
1 January 2010, 2:19 pmLisa:
Forgot the citation to the excerpt above:
http://counterpunch.org/macaray01012010.html
1 January 2010, 2:20 pmm.c.:
I agree with you but in this world compared with the Sarah Palin’s, Arianna is an intellectual and if you took a vote in Red-State & Purple-State america Sarah would get most of the votes. Arianna’s site is the center-left’s answer to the Drudge Report and the center’s answer to Tina Brown’s Daily Beast. She does an OK job imo.
2 January 2010, 12:57 pmMichael Anderson:
@ Stan on “Change Up!”
Sometimes, when I think about it, I’m not exactly sure which is worse, here; status quo or something else—the something else being punishment. Looks like it’s going to be tough for a woman to stand up for her rights in the military either way.
But, in any case, right now, I’m glad that SOMEBODY, even if it was a congress-critter, got through to the military on a high level.
Is there any kind of media about this topic going towards women (hell, KIDS) thinking of enlisting? I was thinking of something along the lines of Quaker House’s “Abe, the honest recruiter” material.
2 January 2010, 6:15 pmm.c.:
Speaking of Gibbon, does everyone know the story of Cincinnatus the Roman farmer?(Cincinnati, Ohio is named after him.) In 458 B.C. the Roman Republic asked him to command the Militia in a war against the Aequii. After successfully waging the war for 16 days he disbanded the Militia/Army and returned to his farm a hero. No Julius Caesar him.
4 January 2010, 3:45 pm