Did he remove it? I appreciated that too, and wanted to give my own response but decided the climate here isn't really conducive to soul-sharing, as yet. As confirmed for me by your subsequent comments.
liminalOyster » Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:39 am wrote:So my motivation is, earnestly I hope, to bring a degree of self-reflexivity to the kinds of strong hypotheses over at, say, Voat, which are not being adequately subjected to reality/plausibility-testing, IMHO. And, frankly, when what’s being called into question is whether or not the sadistic abuse of children even occurred in this context, it’s none too difficult for the self-proclaimed defenders of truth to portray
the responsible skeptics (not quite the right word, of course) as morally bereft or even deviant themselves.
That was self-apparent here when a poster leapt to assuming that posters who didn’t share his/her hot take on the whole thing are either compromised by their psychological defenses or have an ulterior motive.
And yet
everyone is compromised by psychological defenses to one degree or another, that's what trauma and child abuse is largely about. So what you call self-apparent here is rather, what conforms to your personal bias. People
do have ulterior motives, all of the time & including at this board. My attempt has been to show how the world of organized child abuse cannot be understood as separate from the world we live in ~ something that, while not self-apparent to many, is based on inescapable logic. This has been met with psychological defenses, evident in a (possibly deliberate) misreading of my arguments, a refusal to address them directly, point by point, and the leveling of general, nonspecific but
personal accusations, as above.
The notion that those you term "skeptics" (e.g., barracuda) are more responsible than those of us who see something real (re: pedophilia at CPP) and who want to explore that is also evidence of a bias. The so-called skeptics (debunkers, mostly) at this thread have been consistently abusive, vicious, mocking, and defensive of abuse-culture as part of their strategy. I'd say that's quite irresponsible. As an example, the Giuliani letter, which I rashly shared as a bit of incoming data: I stated that, even if it was fake, it was still evidence of
something, even maybe useful for those arguing that PG is all a smear tactic. Barracuda then made the usual snark-response about what an idiot I was for saying that the letter was evidence even if it was fake. It didn't occur to him that I might be trying to get to the truth and not simply trying to win an argument. That's what I call a lack of response-ability.
liminalOyster » Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:39 am wrote: So maybe the reemergence of a spooky hypothetical space underground reflects mostly psychological archetype, but I find it a bit uncanny. As if Bannon or whomever really did anticipate that the question of tunnels or basements would inevitably lead armchair “researchers” to McMartin et al where they would of course find resonance to PG and thus it would feel like further evidence.
It's difficult to tell from this whether you are aware of the (more or less) confirmed reality of the McMartin tunnels or not, or what you think of the recent evidence presented at this thread (via the dread irresponsible Voat-crew) about CPP basement and/or tunnels. I think meta-analysis is useful, but it is also useful as a way to deflect from concrete analysis. So far, your interest at this thread seems mostly to be in holding other people responsible for what you see as unfounded leaps of logic or morally/ideologically questionable positions. Not to be unduly provocative, but you haven't been posting here long, & I am wondering who appointed you one of RI's ideology police? (It's not like we don't already have enough of them!)
liminalOyster » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:35 am wrote:I fear I'm the one who introduced the phrase "hate speech" and I've already acknowledged it was a mistake. But I'd point out that I was not referring to #pg at large, only to what I took as an intellectualized homophoia that linked gay culture to pedophilia. My intent was to say the distilled (unitellectualized) message felt, IMHO, like classic anti-gay stuff from 30-40 years ago. OT1H I acknowledge that "hate speech" is a very problematic term etc. OTOH, I know I sometimes forget how serious anti-gay violence/murder is in Uganda or even Jamaica. Vis a vis the influence of white North American evangelical/missionary culture on those places (esp. Uganda), I think it's not totally crazy to consider howtolerating certain kinds of fascist speech may have direct consequences in remote milieus.
Are you homosexual? No need to answer that, the only reason I ask is because I am curious as to whether it matters to you that we do have someone who posts here who self-identities as a homosexual, that they are a personal friend of mine and probably the closest I feel to having a true ally at this board [edit: give or take one or two others], and that they did not find anything hateful in my arguments? Isn't that the neoliberal thing, to fight for minority rights even when it means oppressing ("correcting") those minorities?
I know there wasn't any hate in my speech because hate is an emotion and I would be aware if I was feeling it. On the other hand, I have had torrents of tangible hate coming at me on this thread and none of that has been identified as "hate speech." Funny that. I would also argue that making jokes about child rape comes close to (something that could be called) hate speech, or at least indicates gross insensitivity to the reality of child rape and the feelings of those of us who have suffered it. Once again, it goes unchallenged because, well, it's all just part of the culture and the biggest wrong these days is to call something "wrong."
To make cogent arguments on the other hand, can be framed, by an intellectual such as LO, as not only "fascist" (despite there being no avocation of force whatsoever) but as potentially having direct consequences in remote milieus. I want to try very hard to stick to the arguments and not focus on the person making them, but when an argument is so unachored in anything resembling the present, current reality (of human beings communicating at a forum), it becomes difficult. Sorry, LO, but it IS totally crazy, under the circumstances, to try and put this forward as a way to absolve yourself of responsibility for stoking the fires of thought control at this forum by tossing out terms like hate speech because you found something intellectually threatening. IMO, THIS is the problem here, not ideologically challenging arguments that question assumptions about our culture.
I am in two minds about addressing any of this, because essentially it's OT and it risks keeping the cycle of disagreements spinning endlessly & preventing any collaboration from happening. But we're so far from that anyway, and what happens between human beings at their keyboards is always going to intersect in weird and revealing ways with what's being discussed. In this case, what's being discussed is power abuse, and I recognize my own tendency to see anyone who disagrees with me as secretly advocating the abuses I am trying to address as symptomatic of being abused & hence over-reactive. I also recognize how that is going to rub people the wrong way and potentially undermine my own position. But, on the other hand, pretending we're not seeing it when it happens isn't healthy either. & abuse of power ~ whether socio- political, physical, or "merely" intellectual and emotional, is something we're all embroiled in & guilty of.
(Note to self: I need to take a break from this board!)
Happy
bah! Humbug! Christmas everyone!
It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
