quote:The pro-gay marriage side gets gung-ho about boycotts, and the other side points out that it's technically unfair/illegal to stop someone over an unpopular opinion.
People do remember that OSC helped lead a boycott against Starbucks for supporting gay causes before people called for a boycott on Ender's Game, right? I feel like people seem to act like this didn't happen.
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No it's different. Starbucks was oppressing Mr. Card by trying to shove their vile gay agenda down his throat, whereas those elitist, intolerant liberals (because liberals are a homogenous group and never ever, say, vary in opinion of whether boycotts are effective or ethical, or anything else for that matter) were attacking him just because he wanted to deprive a whole group of people a basic civil right because he just doesn't like them. On the plus side, he now supports the overthrow of the U.S. government since gay marriage is now federally recognized (DoM repeal), which ought to make any America-hating liberal happy.
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I am honestly trying to figure what percentage of liberals or just leftists in general actually act like how card is describing. i get something like it in a real tiny vein of anti capitalist far left radicals in New England just in the form of vague Facebook posts celebrating being able to identify pro war propaganda when disguised as anti war propaganda but that's about it.
He mentioned Michael Moore by name but it is hardly that surprising that he doesn't seem to know what moores argument pertaining to the movie is, even when Moore is busy cramming his big fat foot down his throat these days on the movie
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quote:The pro-gay marriage side gets gung-ho about boycotts, and the other side points out that it's technically unfair/illegal to stop someone over an unpopular opinion.
People do remember that OSC helped lead a boycott against Starbucks for supporting gay causes before people called for a boycott on Ender's Game, right? I feel like people seem to act like this didn't happen.
No, I don't remember this.
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It was in the news a fair amount in 2013, and used as (pretty blatantly retroactive) justification to boycott the Ender's Game movie by some.
I do think it's kind of disturbing when people talk about how harmless OSC's views are, since it requires a sort of willing ignorance of his work with the NOM and the significant amount of damage he did. I've never boycotted anything related to Mr. Card - I buy his books, went and saw EG in theaters, and heck, I post here - but it's more than a little disingenuous to complain about people boycotting your work just because you want to oppress gays while you're actively running a boycott again a company that supports gay rights.
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Are we so sure that the boycott against Starbucks doesn't predate Mr. Card being invited to join the board of NOM? Additionally, it is my understanding that Mr. Card, after joining the board, was not actively involved in decision making. He then left the board some time later.
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Yes, we're absolutely sure. That sort of information if fairly easy to find. It was started while he was a member of the board of directors.
Edit: Also, I don't really want to go into how complicit he was in the action, since presumably we don't have a transcript of the meeting that instituted that boycott. It's something of a moot point - as a member of the board of directors, he *was* responsible for the leadership of the NOM and the decisions it made. If he was opposed to the direction the NOM took in 2012 with boycotts (of which there is absolutely no evidence), it was his responsibility to resign. He didn't. (Though you could argue his eventual resignation the following year was due to him being uncomfortable with the direction the NOM was going, it was long after the Starbucks thing was old news)
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quote:In March 2012, NOM memos dated to 2009 advocating strategies of pitting the African-American and homosexual communities against each other, of discouraging Latino assimilation into a culture accepting of same-sex marriage, and of painting President Obama as a "social radical" were released by a federal judge in Maine and published by the Human Rights Campaign.[150][151][152] The internal NOM documents state that they seek "to drive a wedge between gays and blacks" by promoting "African American spokespeople for marriage", thus provoking same-sex marriage supporters into "denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots", and to interrupt the assimilation" of Latinos into "dominant Anglo culture" by making the stance against same-sex marriage "a key badge of Latino identity". The documents also showed a goal to "sideswipe" US President Barack Obama by depicting him as a "social radical" via issues including child protection and pornography.
The revealed tactics were described as "one of the most cynical things I've ever heard"[155] and "scary"[156] by Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP.[155] The National Black Justice Coalition said that the "documents expose N.O.M. for what it really is – a hate group determined to use African American faith leaders as pawns to push their damaging agenda.
quote: The documents also showed a goal to "sideswipe" US President Barack Obama by depicting him as a "social radical" via issues including child protection and pornography.
What's crazy about all of this is this is literally the exact same tactic used by the moral majority folks in the 80s that Card used to decry in his Secular Humanist Revival Meetings.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Yes, we're absolutely sure. That sort of information if fairly easy to find. It was started while he was a member of the board of directors.
Edit: Also, I don't really want to go into how complicit he was in the action, since presumably we don't have a transcript of the meeting that instituted that boycott. It's something of a moot point - as a member of the board of directors, he *was* responsible for the leadership of the NOM and the decisions it made. If he was opposed to the direction the NOM took in 2012 with boycotts (of which there is absolutely no evidence), it was his responsibility to resign. He didn't. (Though you could argue his eventual resignation the following year was due to him being uncomfortable with the direction the NOM was going, it was long after the Starbucks thing was old news)
The boycott was instituted in March 2012, Mr. Card joined NOM in 2009. So you are correct, it was late last night so I didn't try looking this stuff up.
But, and please understand I'm not especially comfortable with discussing conversations I've been privy to with the Cards, from what I gathered Mr. Card was not included in decisions being made. He was asked to join the board, consented, and then nothing...
And ultimately he left for reasons I'm sure were at least partially informed by that. He did not publicly make a statement however, opting to leave as anonymously as possible. I suspect because he didn't want to make a big deal of it, though he certainly took a lot of flak publicly when he joined.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: But, and please understand I'm not especially comfortable with discussing conversations I've been privy to with the Cards,
This is completely understandable and just to be clear, I wasn't expecting you to do so.
quote:from what I gathered Mr. Card was not included in decisions being made. He was asked to join the board, consented, and then nothing...
And ultimately he left for reasons I'm sure were at least partially informed by that. He did not publicly make a statement however, opting to leave as anonymously as possible. I suspect because he didn't want to make a big deal of it, though he certainly took a lot of flak publicly when he joined.
*nods* It sounds like they brought him on board for name recognition, not because they seriously valued or wanted his input. Which really sucks and puts in a difficult spot, but he could have resigned and publicly disavowed affiliation. The fact that he remained with them for 4 years, even after some truly reprehensible things they did came to light, makes it difficult for me to blame those who chose to boycott him. You know I don't support boycotts against his work any more than you do, but I can't say I think they're intolerant to do so.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Also, American Sniper is a strange movie to pick as a target for a "liberal vs. conservative" benchmark. It's an incredibly successful movie that has been received quite positively by the snobby ivory tower librul movie critics and has gotten 6 Academy Award nominations - including Best Picture - from the bastion of elitist America-hating artsy-fartsy intolerant liberalism itself - aka, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
No, you don't understand. See, because if it wins best picture, then it's because the sneering elitist liberal elites don't get the real message of the film, and have nominated it out of politically correct deference to veterans (which is of course totally phony and pathetic.)
If it doesn't win despite being nominated, then it is because the liberal elitist snobs could never allow a film with such a conservative message to be recognized for the high art that it really is.
That's the ballgame. Cardball.
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quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: In addition to the problems OSC's faced, the Miss California incident, Chick-Fil-A, Mozilla and Duck Dynasty are great examples of intolerance over finding somebody doesn't support gay marriage. The pro-gay marriage side gets gung-ho about boycotts, and the other side points out that it's technically unfair/illegal to stop someone over an unpopular opinion.
It is neither "technically" unfair, nor illegal to stop someone from doing something for an unpopular opinion. Congress chooses not to confirm appointments because they have unpopular opinions, for example. We can stop allowing people to sell things to us for unpopular opinions. There are all kinds of modes in which we can punish people, in absolute fairness and legality, for their unpopular opinions, and we do it constantly, and that's a good thing.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: [QB] But, and please understand I'm not especially comfortable with discussing conversations I've been privy to with the Cards, from what I gathered Mr. Card was not included in decisions being made. He was asked to join the board, consented, and then nothing...
The hamfistedness of this as a justification for his current position on boycotts, generally, and on his involvement with NOM and Ender's Game specifically, is rather striking.
NOM invited him to be a member as a publicity move. He consented to do this. He accepted responsibility for the decisions they chose to make. No matter how much influence he had, he had the ability to announce his resignation. If he ws ignorant of their activities, that is his fault. I am not a member, much less a leader, of any political organization that is carrying out political activities that I have no knowledge of. To be in such a position would compromise my basic ethical responsibilities- and I am not a famous author.
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when you are literally a director of an organization on the literal board of directors, yeah, you have put yourself on a different standard of culpability and considerations for how much you can be said to be in accord with the acts of the organization by default.
he would have to issue some sort of public disavowal of NOM's actions before anyone should seriously protest that point or the point about his boycott hypocrisy. strangely however i am kind of inclined to think he's not interested in disavowing any of that.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: No, you don't understand. See, because if it wins best picture, then it's because the sneering elitist liberal elites don't get the real message of the film, and have nominated it out of politically correct deference to veterans (which is of course totally phony and pathetic.)
If it doesn't win despite being nominated, then it is because the liberal elitist snobs could never allow a film with such a conservative message to be recognized for the high art that it really is.
That's the ballgame. Cardball.
Well, we'll find out which version of reality is true come the 22nd.
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quote:And ultimately he left for reasons I'm sure were at least partially informed by that. He did not publicly make a statement however, opting to leave as anonymously as possible. I suspect because he didn't want to make a big deal of it, though he certainly took a lot of flak publicly when he joined.
I would if Card had a different history of political rhetoric on LGBT rights, and politics in general, personally be willing to accept such a benign explanation. But...I can't. I'm not asking you to comment on this yourself, BB, since I know you're in an akward position in such a discussion, but if one is going to lend the credibility and publicity of their name to an institution which organizes boycotts against a given cause, and remain silent on this boycott, and then years later bitterly and public resent (and insult) those who organize boycotts in support of that very same cause...
Well. Surely any ethical stance in such a case would at least involve a public statement along the lines of 'NOM once did this, but I did not support...' or 'NOM did this, and I did support it, but feel I was wrong...' or even the at least honest and open stance of 'NOM did this and I supported it, and now these guys do the opposite and I oppose it entirely not because I oppose boycotts but simply because they're wrong'...
To my knowledge, Card hasn't done that. I'll be happy to eat some crow if he has acknowledged what seems charitable to call hypocrisy so far as his stance on boycotts for social changes. I doubt that will be forthcoming, though. It also seems clear to me that he has become so reactionary and so defensive on some issues that the mere fact of someone he loathes-and surely it is fair to say he loathes almost all liberals now, isn't it? he's said as much-holds a position means he gets to despise it simply by virtue of who holds it.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It also seems clear to me that he has become so reactionary and so defensive on some issues that the mere fact of someone he loathes-and surely it is fair to say he loathes almost all liberals now, isn't it? he's said as much-holds a position means he gets to despise it simply by virtue of who holds it.
Yes, thus my response to his latest argument. By virtue of who I am, I (and actually, millions of other people) fall into several groups of people he loathes and lionizes simultaneously. His logic contradicts itself to the point where it's not even internally consistent or rational, and it's mostly because he can't seem to criticize a certain idea, political position, or even single person who holds that idea. Instead, he has to assign that idea to a whole group of people who are, by virtue of being in that group, inherently and always wrong by default.
Thus he can't say "I disagree with Michael Moore" or even "Michael Moore is a giant ass who makes a living by provoking people" (both of which I'd agree with), he makes it out that anyone who dislikes anything about the movie is a liberal - a sneering elitist America-hating liberal who hates the military and has never met a veteran to boot - and anybody who likes it is a conservative. Nevermind the overwhelming number of liberals who liked the movie (as Orincoro pointed out, they "like it for the wrong reasons"), or conservatives who dislike it for various reasons, or even veterans who dislike some aspects of how Chris Kyle is romanticized and the movie contains something of a unrealistic "Western-esque" showdown between good and evil that detracts from the larger story.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that if, say, Michael Moore had praised the movie or Eastwood hadn't spoken at the RNC in 2012, Card would've written a review tearing it apart as another example of Hollywood elitism and Clint Eastwood's incompetence as a director and his contempt for history.
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I admit at this point it's not surprising, it's more amusing really when Card gets going on the good old days and how awful dem lib'rls are and so on and so forth. Some gems:
quote:Sometimes they get their way, but the "high culture" that our betters prescribe for us common Americans is not high. It's not even logical or self-consistent. For instance, our betters told us that for the sake of freedom of speech, we had to tolerate putting the F-word on T-shirts, and eventually into practically any movie with any pretension to be "high art." Hence the pointless single F-bomb in Julie and Julia and other such obvious efforts to be "brave" and "edgy."
I appreciate this for the way it's emblematic of grouchy old man who is seeing changes he doesn't like grumping. For one, there's the conflation of unrelated matters. It is a matter of freedom of speech that just because you or a bunch of people, even, view a word as offensive doesn't mean someone else should be disallowed from showing or saying that word in public. But it's a different question as to whether or not someone should be fired just for using a word, though there is some tie-in.
I love the fantasy he spins about how this sort of censorship from 'our betters' is something that has started since...strangely not long past his young adulthood (it's weird how often the world just goes straight to hell after that period in one's life!). Classic example: really? Was it really black rappers and comedians who put the word 'nigger' into American culture? I could've sworn that that word was already there and in fact had been completely acceptable for generations before entering into a gradual decline, followed by a renewal of the use of the word in a very different spirit than in the past. One might almost think Card was either simply lazy or deliberately full of shit to portray this evolution of language as a straightforward triumph of liberal elites, and so obviously hypocritical.
One might ask a question like 'hey, should an elected official be held to a higher standard than an entertainer, especially when they're speaking, say, on the record about specific policy?' If you're some sort of godless American-hating liberal like myself, you might have the unmitigated gall to answer 'yes', but it's surely all part and parcel of my cabal's efforts to destroy Christianity and Republicans and (especially!) white men.
The funny thing, though, is that he's still got a handle on interesting questions such as the pitfalls of censorship (in theory, anyway) and the way such things seem to play out. I could retain some respect for his politics if he would at least cop to the plain fact that he doesn't really oppose this sort of thing in theory-ideas of censorship, of a particular group setting the tone for the culture, of marginalizing unwelcome ideas-he only actually dislikes it in practice when he's losing.
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quote: black rappers and comedians who put the word 'nigger' into American culture? I could've sworn that that word was already there and in fact had been completely acceptable for generations before entering into a gradual decline, followed by a renewal of the use of the word in a very different spirit than in the past. One might almost think Card was either simply lazy or deliberately full of shit to portray this evolution of language as a straightforward triumph of liberal elites, and so obviously hypocritical.
OSC also famously self-censored the use of the N-word from the first edition of Ender's Game (the Novel).
And nobody fight me on this. It's definitely, definitely there.
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I'm still stuck on the part about the single f-word in Julie and Julia being an attempt to be "edgy."
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quote: black rappers and comedians who put the word 'nigger' into American culture? I could've sworn that that word was already there and in fact had been completely acceptable for generations before entering into a gradual decline, followed by a renewal of the use of the word in a very different spirit than in the past. One might almost think Card was either simply lazy or deliberately full of shit to portray this evolution of language as a straightforward triumph of liberal elites, and so obviously hypocritical.
OSC also famously self-censored the use of the N-word from the first edition of Ender's Game (the Novel).
And nobody fight me on this. It's definitely, definitely there.
Mine had it, I was actually very confused as a kid because "Isn't Alai Muslim? Why... Why does that.." Wasn't first edition though.
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quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Mine had it, I was actually very confused as a kid because "Isn't Alai Muslim? Why... Why does that.." Wasn't first edition though.
Because there are definitely no black Muslims in the world.
But yeah, I'm pretty sure my copy has it too (wherever it is, it keeps getting lent out), and I don't think it's first edition. The first time I read EG (around 2000) it definitely had it. It was fairly shocking, though I think I took it as "we're at a point now (in the future, not our now) where racism is a joke because it's not something that exists in any way" sort of thing.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: ... it as "we're at a point now (in the future, not our now) where racism is a joke because it's not something that exists in any way" sort of thing.
Possibly the only way to truely irradicate racism...an attack by space aliens. We all n*ggers when the plasma bolts start flyin!
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quote:I love the fantasy he spins about how this sort of censorship from 'our betters' is something that has started since...strangely not long past his young adulthood (it's weird how often the world just goes straight to hell after that period in one's life!)
get off my lawn you damn generation that has different values and challenges than me and is trying to be more inclusive than i am. go achieve life markers we have largely put outside economic reach for you or i will mock your self-centeredness.
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oh and your music sucks, back in my day we weren't trying to be edgy we were just doing it right and didn't care about all this feminist liberal pc blather about school integration I MEAN title nine I MEAN gay marriage I MEAN literally thinking trans are human beings
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quote:The pro-gay marriage side gets gung-ho about boycotts, and the other side points out that it's technically unfair/illegal to stop someone over an unpopular opinion.
People do remember that OSC helped lead a boycott against Starbucks for supporting gay causes before people called for a boycott on Ender's Game, right? I feel like people seem to act like this didn't happen.
No, I don't remember this.
That's...well, I don't know what to say.
You were an active party in the conversation when it was first discussed. I've brought it up 4 times in conversations here about OSC being boycotted. I know that you were an active participant of at least three of those and one of them involved a back and forth between you and myself that spanned pages. It also was mentioned prominently in many of the calls for boycotting OSC, both about Superman and also Ender's Game.
Despite that, you followed up our conversation and these calls with some pretty nasty aspersions about everyone (you were clear too - "Really, everyone? you were asked. "Yes, everyone." you replied (quotes are not exact)) who supported boycotting OSC, claiming, if I can recall correctly (can't find it in search easily), that they are all only doing it out of hatred for OSC. It seemed at the time and still seems to me to be far out of character for you.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I suspect you might have a teensy little blind spot about certain aspects of this issue.
quote:And ultimately he left for reasons I'm sure were at least partially informed by that. He did not publicly make a statement however, opting to leave as anonymously as possible. I suspect because he didn't want to make a big deal of it, though he certainly took a lot of flak publicly when he joined.
Is why he left really that much of a mystery to people? In response in part to his actions as a board member of NOM, including, again, leading a boycott against gay rights supporting businesses, OSC was in turn the target of a boycott.
To try to defend Ender's Game against this, he wrote a piece that essentially said "The fight against Gay Marriage no longer has any point. We've lost."
To me, this seemed obvious, but do people think that him, in an effort to protect his own interests, publicly effectively saying that NOM no longer has any purpose and donating money to them is essentially throwing it away might have played some role in him parting from the organization?
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Does anyone care what past pres have to say? They have like equivalent clout to a sitting first lady. Eat your vegetables kids.
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Usually (iirc) new presidents keep counsel of previous presidents to help with the transition and seek their advice on certain specific interests (such as foreign policy, re: Bill Clinton regarding the Norks).
The advantage of a democratic system with a peaceful transition of power is that all past presidents almost automatically become Elder Statesmen who can go around helping to advance American interests and act as good will ambassadors.
Experience is experience.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I think the fun one is going to be if GWB comes out in support of gay marriage.
It's not impossible. While he wasn't in favor of legalizing gay marriage in office, he fell well to the left of the party line when it came to the issue. And nowadays his views (pretty much "maybe we should just leave gay people alone, it's not really any of our business") make him sound like a practical Librul. (It's often amazing to see what a sharp turn to the right the Republican party has taken since 2008, that in retrospect Bush looks comparatively reasonable and moderate on a lot of issues)
As far as his personal views, in his autobiography Bush talks about Cheney bringing up the issue with him (Cheney being a gay marriage supporter) and him reassuring Cheney he had no problem with his views, which makes me think any opposition he had to it was out of loyalty to his political party. I can't think of Bush making any homophobic remarks (and expressed in a released private conversation that he had received some flak from Evangelical leaders for refusing to do so) and he never struck me as a particularly hateful person.
On the other hand, he's generally avoided making any political statements since he left office, and I don't think he would make any major announcement in support of gay marriage before the 2016 election. Especially since it's nearly a done deal - I think it'll probably be legal nation wide by the end of this year.
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Um...isn't GWB known for his lackbof knowledge in that area? Or did I just pick that up from Wil Farrell & SNL?
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Um...isn't GWB known for his lackbof knowledge in that area?
Regardless of how competent he was a president, he has 8 years of experience in the office, has met with dozens of heads of states, handled numerous complex geopolitical issues, and had a grasp of the duties and responsibilities of the office - as well as some of the subtleties and nuances of presidential foreign policy and the current status quo - that Obama would definitely be interested in his advice. They met numerous times after the election to discuss the turnover of office, and I imagine Obama probably called him somewhat frequently during his first year. "Hey, you know president so-and-so of this country, what's your take on his current posturing?" or "what's up with Putin and not wearing shirts ever?", that sort of thing. Whether or not that actually happened I'm not sure, but I can certainly imagine it. I can even say I believe it to be likely.
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Ahhh like the fbi & mob cooperating to fight the Nazis in the Rocketeer...partisanship pails in comparison to xenophobia (to couch it in the worst possible way).
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Even if it's granted that GWB was a uniformly terrible President (and my present opinion is that he was below average, let's say), there would still be potential value in asking for his input on some matters. Even if it were only to be seen asking, or just to evaluate what someone he disagreed with thought of a situation. Though that's not usually what's meant by 'advice'.
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quote:Bush, who left office in 2009 with a historically low popularity level, seems content in self-imposed exile. “I crawled out of the swamp, and I’m not crawling back in,” he said in a rare interview with the Hoover Institution this year.
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