1. Malcolm X is a really, really fine film. I always remember that it is fantastic, but I never remember just how good it is until I watch it again.

2. I am flying to Dallas to do some almost-Christmas visiting with my family; while I will have Internet access a fair amount of the time, all the non-family-visiting time I take will be turned over to finishing the essay that I’m co-authoring with Roderick, which we will be presenting a mere week from today at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division conference in Boston. I should be back around Christmas or so, but I don’t know if there will be any substantial blogging prior to the New Year. We’ll see.

   The essay we’ll be presenting, in case you’re interested, is on libertarianism and feminism; I’ve mentioned the topic, in considerably less detail, here before: see Why Libertarians Need Feminism and Government and the pink-collar ghetto, and touched on related themes in Pro-Choice on Everything, Part I, Because of assholes like this guy…, April March, and EC OTC in OZ, among other places. The overarching project is an effort to show that radical feminism and libertarianism can and should be reconciled–they can because the points where there seems most obviously to be contradiction are actually mostly the result of misunderstandings, either of each other or of one’s own position (misunderstandings that can be dispelled, in part, by the illuminating example of the nineteenth century individualist anarchists, as Roderick has argued before); and they should because they have a lot to offer one another both in terms of theoretical insight and strategy. Unfortunately, some past attempts by libertarians to incorporate feminism into their analysis (take Wendy McElroy’s iFeminism—please!) have fallen straight into a couple of notorious traps: (1) dancing to the divide-and-conquer tune of definition-by-opposition–that is, isolating some ill-defined bogey-woman of Evil Radical Feminism, attacking it mercilessly, and then forgetting to say anything in particular about male supremacy; and (2) attempting a hyphenated feminism synthesis in which the feminism is entirely swallowed by the libertarianism. Our hope is to help suggest a more productive way forward.

3. Happy Festivus! (Thanks, Max.)

Cheers, everyone.

Ol’ Jerry Falwell is at it again; the latest, from his 21 November Old Time Gospel Hour broadcast, is the following incisive tidbit:

And we’re going to invite PETA [to Wild Game Night] as our special guest, P-E-T-A — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we’re going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my special groups, another one’s the ACLU, another is the NOW — the National Order of Witches [sic]. We’ve got — I’ve got a lot of special groups.

Ouch! As Jessica put it over at feministing, Yeah, I bet all the ladies over at NOW were huddled around their cauldrons just fuming over that one. Please.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be too hasty to pile on. Perhaps poor Jerry wasn’t trying to be insulting. Maybe he just got confused, and mixed up NOW with another famous feminist organizing effort:

WITCH was born on Halloween, 1968, in New York, but within a few weeks Covens had sprung up in such diverse spots as Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, North Carolina, Portland (Oregon), Austin (Texas), and Tokyo (Japan). They’re still spreading. A certain common style–insousciance, theatricality, humor, and activism, unite the Covens–which are otherwise totally autonomous, and unhierarchical to the point of anarchy. …

Washington, D.C. WITCH–after an action hexing the United Fruit Company’s oppressive policy on the Third World and on secretaries in its offices at home (Bananas and rifles, sugar and death / War for profit, tarantulas’ breath / United Fruit makes lots of loot / The CIA is in its boot)–claimed that WITCH was a total concept of revolutionary female identity and was the striking arm of the Women’s Liberation Movement, aiming mainly at financial and corporate America, at those institutions that have the power to control and define human life.

Chicago WITCH Covens showered the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago with hair cuttings and nail clippings after the firing of a radical feminist woman professor, and the Chicago Witches also demonstrated against a transit fare hike. They, as well as Witches in New York, San Francisco, North Dakota, and New England, disrupted local Bridal Fairs. The fluidity and wit of the Witches is evident in the ever-changing acronyms: the basic, original title was Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, but on Mother’s Day one Coven became Women Infuriated at Taking Care of Hooligans; another group, working at a major Eastern insurance corporation, became Women Indentured to Traveler’s Corporate Hell; still another set of infiltrators, working at Bell Telephone, manifested themselves disruptively as Women Incensed at Telephone Company Harrassment. When hexing inflationary prices at supermarkets, a Midwest Coven appeared as Women’s Independent Taxpayers, Consumers, and Homemakers; Women Interested in Toppling Consumption Holidays was another transfigutory appellation–and the latest heard at this writing is Women Inspired to Commit Herstory.

For Rebellion Is As The Sin Of Witchcraft. —I Samuel, 15:23

–Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful (1970)

Chicago WITCH hexes the Transit Authority (photo by Louise Brotsky)

Double, bubble, war and rubble
When you mess with women, you’ll be in trouble
We’re convicted of murder if abortion is planned
Convicted of shame if we don’t have a man
Convicted of conspiracy if we fight for our rights
And burned at the stake when we stand up to fight
Double, bubble, war and rubble
When you mess with women, you’ll be in trouble.
We curse your empire to make it fall–
When you take on one of us, you take on us all!

–Women’s Independent Taxpayers, Consumers, and Homemakers (W.I.T.C.H.)

Who says that feminists don’t have a sense of humor?

If Jerry F. is trying to get our goat, he’s going to have to try a lot harder than that. You should feel free to let him know that at his contact page.

Update 2004-11-29: Looks like flea had the same idea at One Good Thing (thanks, Amanda):

This, sadly, is what passes for wit in those circles. They’ve been calling feminists “witches” for literally twenty years, possibly more. I think more. I think second wave feminist icon (and one of my heroes) Robin Morgan started a group called WITCH in response to it, where they ran around and did Abbie Hoffman-esque stunts like casting a spell on the New York Stock Exchange to shut it down at the beginning of the day. When the Wall Streeters tried to open the doors, they found that they could not. The WITCHes took full credit for their spell working, of course, and they were indeed responsible, as they had superglued the locks shut the night before.

Thanks to our War President, equating political dissent with an act of treason has become something of a national pastime in Republistan. Tom Tomorrow has already commented on this phenomenon in connection with televised sociopath Ann Coulter, but while Coulter is certainly a dangerous lunatic there is at least this one point in her favor: a significant part of her book is devoted to documenting what she takes to be overt acts of war, and material assistance to the enemies of the United States (especially the Soviet Union). Of course, her case is based mainly on distortions, fabrications, and nonsense; but it still puts her a step above the foot-soldiers of tyranny who simply drag out the language of “aid and comfort to the enemy” explicitly and directly on the basis of nothing more than peaceful dissent from the President’s war policy.

Consider, for example, a fellow named Dan Kuykendall, who (during my time in the Auburn Peace Project) decided that it would be best to notify the Opelika-Auburn News that rallies opposing the war on Iraq give aid and comfort to the enemy, and mused that Isn’t the definition of treason giving aid and comfort to the enemy? Since then, the rhetorical tactics haven’t changed much; consider this contribution to Blockheads for Bush, commenting on Ted Kennedy’s recent missives against Mr. Bush’s war:

Let us be clear about this – there are legitimate criticisms to be made about the liberation of Iraq; about whether or not we should have gone in, and about the manner in which we went in, and about how we have performed since we went in; there are, however, no legitimate criticisms to be raised about the reason we went in, nor can there be any legitimate point for an American to make other than that we should be doing more to win this fight. To criticise the reasons we went in and/or to do anything which indicates an unwillingness to see this thing through to final victory is the statement of a fool, or a traitor. No two ways about it.

We’ve given the left a pass long enough – its [sic] time for those who are of leftwing opinion to make their final call: which side of the river are you on? If you’re on America’s side, then you want total and overwhelming US victory – and just to really spell it out; this means that our enemies are dead or begging for mercy. I challenge you – choose, and let you be known for what you are by what you choose – patriot, or traitor.

(Subsequent comments make it clear that most of the Bush League takes the traitor horn of the dilemma. Some offer the charitable suggestion that Ted Kennedy might be both stupid, and a traitor.)

I sent a letter to the editor of the Opelika-Auburn News in reply to Mr. Kuykendall back in April 2003; since the underlying rhetoric hasn’t changed any in the ensuing year, the reply was a useful template for my comment on the BfB article:

Treason is a federal crime, defined in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, which says Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. Apparently at least some of the commentators on this weblog have read the passage, as they refer to the aid and comfort language. Unfortunately, it seems that they have also failed to read Amendment I, which reads Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Founders did their best to make very sure that the Constitution prevented the government from using charges of Treason to suppress peaceful dissent. That is why the language of the article clearly states that the law of treason to be invoked only for overt acts with the intent to wage war on the United States, or to provide concrete, material assistance to those who do.

If anyone has evidence that Ted Kennedy has committed such a serious federal crime, they should contact the FBI field office in Boston at (617) 742-5533. Otherwise, baseless insinuations against Mr. Kennedy, for nothing more than disagreeing with George W. Bush’s foreign policy, amounts to little more than a shameful proposal for tyranny. You have every right to agree or disagree with Mr. Kennedy’s policy; you have no right to make such scurrilous attacks against fellow citizens on the basis of mere political disagreement.

Posted by: Rad Geek at April 10, 2004 11:51 AM

The comment has been posted directly on the Blockheads for Bush article; we’ll see how long it remains in their echo chamber as it was posted.

A wonderful article by Pagan Kennedy explores the concept of the platonic Boston marriage between two straight women who have committed to living with each other [Ms.]. It also begins to explore the features of the patriarchal world that make this kind of arrangement so hard for so many women. An interesting sidebar: the emergence and sensationalism of lesbianism (we’ll call it pseudolesbian from here on out to distinguish it from actual women-loving-women) in male-dominated culture was emerging precisely at the same time as the most pitched part of the battle for suffrage, and women’s inclusion into the political sphere in general. Pseudolesbianism emerged again as a pornographic staple in the 1970s as the Second Wave entered its most pitched and giddiest phase. It seems like the pornographic sexualization of intimate relationships between women is the primordial Backlash, and is used as a bludgeon to help keep women isolated from one another in the same way that sexualization of intimacy is used to keep men and women from forming deep friendships and the same way that faggot is used to abort any emotional or physical intimacy between men. In each of the cases the relationships formed are then shuttled off into some anonymous-ideal form of relating: through Femininity, through Heterosexuality, through Masculinity. Of course, the effect of each is very different: Masculinity is culturally conditioned to dominance, aggression, authoritarianism, instrumental reason; Femininity to submission, passivity, emotion; Heterosexuality is what you get when you put the two of them together. We need to begin the project that Kennedy evokes so beautifully, of learning to live together and be present to one another, imagining alternative ways without the bludgeon of a patriarchal sexuality invading that life. (Well, hell, you might argue: it’s not just this platonic stuff; we also need to relearn how to have sexual relationships without the bludgeon of a patriarchal sexuality invading that life. And you’d be right).

Today I was delighted to find the www.ourbodiesourselves.org, the online home of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, women’s liberation pioneers and the force behind the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves (including multiple new editions since the original publication in 1970).