I have to leave this place. I had some good times here, but it’s not healthy for me. Well, it appears that Peggy Noonan’s pen can craft truth, after all. Apparently it is morning in America!

Probably due to my rural Southern upbringing, I believe that the best way to rid the neighborhood of a rabid dog is to to shoot it, quickly and humanely, so that it doesn’t have an opporunity to have an awareness that it’s being put down.

I don’t believe in torture because it just doesn’t do any good.

For that, I have no words.

And Mezosub, you’re not the only one comfy with, oh, let’s just use the standard military euphemism of “collateral damage.” You wrote the phrase about Noonan against a wall that I quoted, but others also alluded to it. Frankly, this makes me sad: raping and killing women isn’t the problem: it’s that the wrong women are currently being raped and killed.

I have to leave this place. I had some good times here, but it’s not healthy for me. I’ll lose hope if I linger.

How many of you have been in a revolution? Heck, even hearsay is okay. How many of you have ever talked with someone who participated in a revolution?

Well, Holly, I can see that my disturbing and coarse talk of Revolution has gotten you quite worked up. Perhaps it was the crude and unrefined manner in which I speculated that snobby rich people who disdain the poor and hungry masses who are obliged to serve them in retail and service establishments that tugged your heartstrings to wonder if the rich bitches of the world will be raped on their way to the firing squad.

But then, I’m just an ignorant redneck from Arkansas who doesn’t do “social justice work for a quarter of a century.” My aspirations were always more humble than yours, obviously, for all I ever wanted to do was get far away from the reich-wing, wingnut-religious, homophobic, racist, sexist, bigotted white people who lived in the suburbs surrounding the Little Rock ghetto where I grew and never missed an opportunity to tell me how coarse and crude I was because all my family ever had was family, and I just wasn’t hating the black and brown people nearly as much as I should. Why, I was even friends with a few of them. OH NOES!

But, eventually, I did get out of Little Rock, and came to Los Angeles and met a very nice fellow who has, in fact, lived through a war. The Lebanese Civil War, actually, which is not quite the same thing as a Revolution. And yes, I do realize that people get hurt during revolutions and that they are frightening, horrific events for everyone in the whole society, but especially for the class of people whose wealth is being siezed to be either nationalized or redistributed.

However, deep down in my very soul, I am a conflict theorist and I believe that there can be no true social change without class struggle, in the Marxist sense of the word. I also believe that when haughty rich people openly mock and degrade the poor and working classes, it is only chickens coming home to roost when those same poor and working classes eventually rise up, overthrow the government, and sieze all the private wealth for the new world order. And if that means that the Peggy Noonans of the world get lined up before the firing squad…well…they shouldn’t have been so smug in their belief that they were entitled to exploit all those poor and working class people in the first place.

As with all things, your mileage may vary.

My original concern relates to what I just wrote. It seemed to me (Again, I don’t know Amanda. I haven’t seen in her action. I only know her Internet persona.) that Amanda was being dangerously certain about Noonan, which was reinforced by “rich bitch.” There’s a current in this thread and in this site and that current permits statements like “…capitalist-sympathizers like Peggy Noonan are going to be among the first ones up against the wall,….” As long as Noonan is reduced to a “rich bitch,” then perhaps one can squeeze the trigger.

1. You’re right, you don’t know Amanda, so to come in here and start impugning her integrity is not only insulting and rude, it’s arrogant in the extreme. Attack the ideas, not the person.

2. I think it’s pretty well-known, at least around here , that Peggy Noonan in fact *is* a “rich bitch” to use the vernacular; a wealthy pundit and writer who doesn’t have to worry about her credit card balance or how old her truck is.

3. I would think after three or four rounds of saying the same thing over and over again and getting the same negative responses, you’d get the message and move on. Do you have anything new to add, some new aspect to your argument to point out? Or is it always going to be “Amanda’s just jealous.”

4. Related to #1, how in the world can you simply assume that post-publication Amanda will become fabulously wealthy? There’s no guarantees. And then you further assume that if she does write a bestseller and becomes fabulously wealthy, she’ll immediately become just as much of a “rich bitch” Antoinette as Peggy Noonan? You have some kind of crystal ball there, Holly?

5. The topic of this post is supposed to be hard-selling. Do you have anything to add that is related to the topic at hand? Or are you just here to fight with Amanda

I’ve only once been bullied when out buying media or electronics — when I bought my iBook, the sales people practically wouldn’t let me leave the store without also getting a .mac account. I spent more time explaining why I didn’t want one than actually shopping for a computer.

Overcoming objections is the sales person’s job. It is usually a waste of time to explain something to them, because they won’t accept your reason. They have a canned answer for most any objection in the book. If you don’t present a specific objection, they can’t overcome it.

There are a very few exceptions. “It’s against my religion.” Or “I already have one.” But it’s best not to even give them a handhold.

However, I’ll bet several people here can talk about being bullied in electronics stores because “we don’t know what we want.”

And I think men are probably manipulated in different ways — not so much social pressure to be nice, but social pressure to be cool or strong or show they are wealthy. And there’s always “to impress the cute girl behind the counter.”

It disheartens me to imagine the master’s tools in the hands of progressives. And then what happens after the young men run through the streets, killing and raping and having a good old time? Do a select few move into the mansions and don the master’s clothes and sit at the master’s table we begin again?

Paulo Friere says yes.

Nope, I’m not in their boat. I’m treading water, since I’ve been tossed from the Pandagon boat. However, you’re hanging over the gunwale and are chatting with me, so I’ll chat right back.

Mark, you wrote, “Wear a hairshirt and eat cat food, or shut up and admit we all want to be Suits here.”

Mark, that’s hyperbole. I think that stale bread would suffice.

To be frank, my frustration isn’t just with Amanda. I think Amanda is brilliant. I’ve said variants of this many times. And I’m on her side, even though I’ve been tossed over the side. My frustration is what is allowed to pass in these threads. For example, a few people have fantasized in this thread about Noonan being put up against a wall and shot. How many of you have been in a revolution? Heck, even hearsay is okay. How many of you have ever talked with someone who participated in a revolution?

Here’s the short version: Women get raped. Babies go hungry. Old people die. And a lot of young men have the time of their lives. Yee-haw!

Now, let’s imagine this in Noonan’s case. Several Pandagonians imagined her being put up against a wall. Will she be sweetly escorted to that wall? Or will she be dragged there by her hair? Raped along the way? Maybe she has a daughter? Will the daughter also be raped and shot?

It disheartens me to imagine the master’s tools in the hands of progressives. And then what happens after the young men run through the streets, killing and raping and having a good old time? Do a select few move into the mansions and don the master’s clothes and sit at the master’s table we begin again?

My original concern relates to what I just wrote. It seemed to me (Again, I don’t know Amanda. I haven’t seen in her action. I only know her Internet persona.) that Amanda was being dangerously certain about Noonan, which was reinforced by “rich bitch.” There’s a current in this thread and in this site and that current permits statements like “…capitalist-sympathizers like Peggy Noonan are going to be among the first ones up against the wall,….” As long as Noonan is reduced to a “rich bitch,” then perhaps one can squeeze the trigger.

I’m afraid of revolution. It won’t just be the rich folks who will suffer and again, I don’t want them to suffer. I expect, if I’d been raised in Paris Hilton’s shoes, that I’d behave like her. Instead, I was raised 3 to a bed and that shaped me differently. I don’t think that Peggy Noonan is evil. I think that she is ignorant. I think most rich people are. For those of you who’ve hanged with the wealthy, it’s easy to see how their lives are skewed by their days.

JoAnne wrote: “If Holly perceived Amanda as being class-envious, then there must be a reason for it. I’m not saying that the reason is that Amanda has this attitude, because honestly I don’t see it. But I don’t think Holly is pretending to see it to piss Amanda off, or saying it because she’s a closet Repug. Something plucked a nerve there.”

No, I’m not a closet Republican. If you knew the meat me, you’d see that as I’m as far from a Republican as a person can be. I’m queer and a longtime activist.

And JoAnne, I too wish we could get along, but that’s unlikely in any arrangement. Conflict happens. I’ve led an unusual life, as I partly shared. Most people don’t stay in the field as long as I did. So, I’ve got a different perspective. There are things I hear that remind me of things I’ve heard, things that were precursors to violence. However, one doesn’t need bunny ears to hear that in this thread. There’s verbal violence in this thread and hints of coming physical violence: Noonan against a wall.

And whereas I hate, hate, HATE that children and others do without while Noonan lives in a mansion, I haven’t learned that revolutions deliver justice. They are platforms for vengence.