Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism,soc.women,soc.college
Subject: Re: "Politically Correct" -- A Quote
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 6 Apr 92 02:35:56 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <visser.702517056@convex.convex.com>, visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) writes:

> In <9204051928.AA04965@tba.msi.cornell.edu> harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU 
>(Harel Barzilai) writes:
> 
>>Forwarded from:
>>	misc.activism.progressive
> 
> 
>>A PC Quotable 

[definition of PC deleted] 

> 
> +>"Enforcers of today's brittle status quo now employ "politically
> +>correct" to describe any political position which disputes the
> +>soundness of economic life, the validity of the assertion that racism
> +>and sexism no longer influence our society, the infallibility of
> +>corporate power, the nobility of right-wing culture, the value of
> +>militarism, or the wisdom of any given policy of the Reagan-Bush
> +>tenure."
> 
> 	The above paragraph is a prime example of the thinking behind
> political "correctness".  It throws out terms like "racism, sexism,
> Reagan/Bush, corporate power, right-wing....etc." to describe the 
> people who dont share their beliefs and accept unchallenged those
> beliefs.  
> 
> 	Political correctness is about stopping debate or trying to 
> discredit people or ideas by labels.....and at the same time believing
> that your own ideas are somehow above debate.   

	Bulls-eye.  Not only do we have a pontificating post (ok, a forward) by
Harel Who Apparently Has No Middle Name For Us To Comment On Barzilai, but in a
successive post, and admonishment of "oppression" because people dare oppose
him and his ideas on "his" groups:

	[...from a post commenting on the "invasion" of alt.activism...]

>
>    ``After a year without net.access, I'm pleased to see you're still
>    there.  Looks like I missed the virtual abandonment of
>    alt.activism to the sabateurs and the creation of
>    misc.activism.progressive'
>
>		--From email I recieved last month
>
>
>What jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.edu refers to was part of the reason 
>we created misc.activism.progressive (MAP) which is moderated.
>

	What?  To silence opposition?

>...
>It may be however that you may wish to create a moderated UseNet
>discussion list if the sabotage (*) continues -- we at MAP are too
>busy to moderate that but perhaps other alt.activism or MAP readers
>may be interested.
>
>Harel
>
>(*) (aptly named, with valid analogies to other newsgroups, another I
>might add: posting to rec.food.veg (or a .animal.rights group) by
>meat-eaters on a constant basis repeatedly with the same arguments
>about how vegetarianism is really stupid and some 3rd grade "insults"
>about veg-heads to boot)                      

	Here we have someone invoking the laws of political correctness to
chastise those that disagree, then classifying those opponents as mere
3rd-grade talents in the art of debate, capable of nothing more than name
calling.

	But wait, didn't you just post an article that consisted of an ad
hominem attack of adding a "y" to someone's first name in the attempt to make
their position look unsupported?  Yes, you did.

	But wait, there's more!  This is from the person who admits that he
doesn't read in this group (or several others that he "forwards" to) because he
doesn't have the time.  Hmmmm.

	So, which is it?  A great USENET conspiracy to silence you?  A chorus
of 3rd-grade debaters?  (If they were trully so lame, you could easily out
debate them, no?)  The desire to have complete control over the newsgroups you
read?

	Misc.activism.misc and misc.activism.progressive.d are coming.  You
have no control over them.  They are unmoderated.  Freedom of speech wins
again.

	
Brett
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