TRAINED SEALS

Recently I wasted tens of minutes of my life reading and excoriating the ramblings of some absolute nobody named Suzanne Venker, who appeared to be trying to parlay a guest column on FoxNews.com into as much attention as possible. May I quote myself?

There is ample money to be made Uncle Tomming in the conservative media; there's no quicker way to a book deal, columnist gig, or TV appearances than to be something other than a white male. Flap-jowled white guys are 90% of the intended audience, and they love nothing more than being able to feel like they are totally not sexist/racist because, look, a woman/black person just said it! Thomas Sowell says there's nothing racist about George Zimmerman!

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Ann Coulter says women are responsible for getting raped! See? It's totally OK for us to say it if they can say it.

The Indianapolis Star has granted a weekly column to some other contenders in Venker's arena, "Chicks on the Right." They will now have a dedicated audience (beyond the local radio show they've already snagged) to which they can serve heaps of twaddle with titles like "This Is What Real Feminism Looks Like". It will surprise you to discover that Real Feminism looks shockingly similar to right wing talking points. You'd be hard pressed to distinguish anything here from the average syndicated right wing columnist or a transcript from any call-in radio show.

One of my friends who rarely says anything political in a public forum posted the following on Facebook after a couple of friends attempted to engage the "Chicks on the Right" on some of their grosser misrepresentations of reality:

Nothing like reading a bunch of middle aged women trying to cut down your friends for making valid arguments against their grossly misinformed ideas of what feminism is. I generally shy away from confrontation because it makes me incredibly anxious and uncomfortable, and it's reading things like the Chicks on the Right's comments that make me wish I was much better at voicing myself in the face of confrontation. I saw plenty of people outraged at these two bullies' comments on their page sparked by their horrible little column in the Indy Star today, and two of my friends who were inclined to voice their opposition directly to the duo were responded with name calling and flippant dismissal of their opinions mostly due to their "liberal" viewpoints, their ages, and even discarding one well-written response just because the author was a man. It was a childish display of how ignorance will always defend itself with more ignorance.
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I guess all I really wanted to say in this is that these women have their like-minded followers who are so zealously guarding their viewpoints that we will never even begin to sway their gaze. They've blinded themselves so thoroughly that it is completely futile to try and mend their seeping corneas – the scar tissue of their hateful rhetoric won't allow it. They are passionately gripping on to a form of misogyny so tightly that to them it has morphed into a bastardized ideal they are trying to label as "new" feminism.

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, those of you who actually and proudly represent feminism and women's rights – we're the ones that matter, not these harpies (to use a word that they have used so – excuse the pun – liberally today to label women that just happen to think differently than they do). There are plenty of conservative women who are smart and stay informed and can still be compassionate when it comes to matters of women's rights because they can see past their own front yard and realize how hard it can be for some women in America just to get by. My mother is a shining example for me – she doesn't judge me for my youth and doesn't mock me for having different viewpoints than her. The women of Chicks on the Right give my mother and every woman like her a bad name and it's not fair. Our opinions are not worth less because we are young. We are not "lazy" and "entitled" "parasites" just because we think a certain way.

There is never a point to debating or questioning people like the "Chicks" because despite how much they talk, they have nothing to say. They're not going to debate ideas because they don't have any. Their goal is simply to get attention and parlay their existence into as many paydays as possible (they'll have a Fox News show by the end of the year). They're just a gimmick (check out their blog, if you dare) looking for attention and they know how to tell angry white people what they want to hear. Everyone who makes a living playing to this audience sounds exactly the same because it is only interested in hearing one message: You are the victim, and here are the targets at which your anger should be directed.

With the product/message so clearly defined, the only competition in this Marketplace is to show the boss how "edgy" or demographically appealing you are. Engage them in an argument? These people are trained seals, and they only know one trick. As it pays pretty well, they don't intend to deviate from it.

31 thoughts on “TRAINED SEALS”

  • Yes, the message to the right wing masses is that you are the victim. I have long noticed that the R party schtick is to be "professional victims", and their greivances (voting rights, taxes, immigration, education, "war on terror", environment, whatever) are presented in terms of how they are being victimized by the horrible, powerful, and socialistic D's.

  • It's incredibly easy to sell a scapegoat to someone who's unhappy.

    What amazes me is how seductive the perspective is. Regardless of what the "Chicks" actually believe today, they will actually believe what they've been saying. (Case in point: if you can find some of the early Rush Limbaugh broadcasts from KFBK, you'll get the sneaking sense that it's all an act, a show, that he doesn't actually believe it, or that he's exaggerating and being provocative for show.)

    And what I'm seeing more and more of (and, to be fair, it's on the left as well) is people who don't feel that their own ignorance and intellectual laziness should preclude them from loudly advertising their opinion. So, it's easy to write down the opinion of the "Chicks", even on a new issue they haven't discussed, yet. And they'll do it in a dismissive, haughty, arrogant way, even if they barely understand the issue.

  • Is it too much to hope that one or both of their husbands are currently contemplating the pissibility of or holding auditions for the "new models" that will replace these two charming ladies?

  • Is it too much to hope that one or both of their husbands are currently contemplating the possibility of or holding auditions for the "new models" that will replace these two charming ladies?

  • May I quote LBJ? "If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket." Rush Limbaugh's career was founded on this and his followers believe in the ad hominem lifestyle.

    Turning to the Right is one way for insecure women to feel stronger, by identifying with a dominating oppressor, borrowing power from the company of bullies.

    Picture any woman listening to Rush Limbaugh, laughing along with his comments about Sandra Fluke. You have to be pretty low to stand on the necks of your sisters to feel just a smidge taller. Just always be sure to appear shorter than any man on your team.

    I wish your friend would speak out more. Good stuff.

  • c u n d gulag says:

    You don't make any money an "Echo Chamber," by providing a new voice – or a new idea, if you were even capable of such a thing.

    The rewards from the"Echo Chamber" come from by being an echoing voice that isn't either old, white, male, or straight.

    And you earn your daily bread by comforting the already comfortable, and afflicting the ones the comfortable folks like to afflict.

    The same group of afflicted which YOU would be a part of, except that you sold your soul to the company store.

    Sorry, I don't have change for 30 pieces of silver on me.

  • I find that as time goes on, people like this are just easier to ignore. Which is just about the complete amount of my attention they warrant.

  • middle seaman says:

    Better than ignoring the the whole bunch is not knowing that they exist. We, the beautiful lady and I, stopped reading papers, listening to news (radio or TV) and reading the garbage books they publish. Life becomes more even and balanced.

    It isn't Fox only. Tom Friedman, Robert Samuelson and many supposedly centrists are full of it. Just stop reading and paying for crap.

  • I clicked on the link. I couldn't go any further. The front page made my eyes hurt. At least they're not wasting money on professional web development.

  • OK. I read the column. Not only did these two pull themselves by their own bootstraps; they invented boots.

    Remember in The Graduate, the guy says "Plastics"? Well, my one word of advice to a recent grad is "orthopedics", because all these conservatives are going to need to replace all their shoulders after all this patting themselves on the back.

    Sorry about mixing metaphors here, but frankly, the self-delusion about their work ethic/ job creation/ self sacrifice/ moral superiority / intelligence could power the grid much better than sunshine and dead dinosaurs.

  • CaptBackslap says:

    Was anyone surprised when they scrolled down to the picture of the Chicks and saw they were both blonde?

  • First, to Ladiesbane, thanks so much for "ad hominem lifestyle". That's going to make me happy the rest of the day at least.

    Second, I did go to the blog, and an item called "Oh, snap, suckers!" caught my eye. (I may have thought it was drag-queen-related? Some of these conservative blonde women do have that look.) It was a rage-spitter about a guy named Jason, a "California beach bum" living his surf and sand lifestyle on some form of government assistance. And I quote:

    "You see, thanks to President Obama and his "regulatory powers," lazy sacks of crap like Jason get to suck off working taxpayers like you and me. Easily! Free money."

    This confused me to no end. There are government-sponsored blow jobs from sunbleached surfer dudes? Is this part of Obamacare?

  • I started to read the blog, but stopped when I got to the sentence about liberal feminists " screeching" their views. What next? Are they going to use the word "hags?"

    This is soooooooo 1960's. these "chicks" are not just conservative; they are stuck in time.

  • Perhaps Ed ever consider writing your own right wing blog?

    You could call yourself Eduina Dupés. It'd be a whole lot easier than writing for this mob. Just a few red rags, some meat and a dog whistle and you'll do fine.

    Who knows, you may strike it rich.

  • Burningriver says:

    I clicked through to the blog (because, clearly, I hate myself) and saw at least two placements of 'Y'all' on the main page. Clearly, they know all about Real America and it's ways. That proves it.

  • Sigh, more opinionated, privileged people trying to map everyone to their cramped picture of the world.

  • guttedleafsfan says:

    Makes me think of Rachel Maddow, who somehow parlayed her own false harassment accusations against a university swimming coach into a career as wannabe Ann Coulter and convicted harasser herself.

  • Around here it's the 'former liberal' who somehow 'got smart' or 'saw the light'. They apparently know everything there is to know about the scam that is liberalism because they had an inside view. Still the same garbage, different trashcan.

  • "One quick look at their web site told me all I need to know."

    That's the kind of quick thinking which keeps a guy alive in "bad-guy territory". Just flip on the U2 and enjoy the "combat".

  • guttedleafsfan says:

    Aaaargh yes! Sorry Ms Maddow . Thanks Pinacacci

    My never-efficient namefile will not work properly again\ until Kadri and Franson sign before deadline.

    I am pretty good at remembering numbers though.

  • guttedleafsfan says:

    Unlike a Conserative lady up here who "saw the light" and repented her leftist past when she got into the Senate. Our Senate is a luxury retirement hotel for party hacks and fundraisers.

    The not-so-Honourable Sen. Wallin is latest in the parade of outed expense fraudsters. (The earliest is in jail, so maybe there is some hope for the democratic process).

  • When are we going to get tired of this bullshit?

    The whole shebang, the mishmash, the "discourse," whatever — it all reeks of manufactured, ginned up bullshit. Please, who/what/where is the Oz continually plucking the keys on the outrage machine? Time to show this asshole the door.

    The longer I do this the more obvious it seems that this kind of stuff is being done to keep us all pissed off at each other, divided, unable to talk to one another so the different factions can profit. I neither have the energy nor the interest in taking the bait any longer.

  • The Indy Star was bought out by some faceless media corporation, and wouldn't you know it, they're turning a hometown newspaper into shock-jock schlock. It's almost as if this country has truly hit cultural rock bottom.

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