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This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Brian Dominick at Mar 30, 2005

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It is very unfortunate that some people seem intent on dragging the level of debate in these discussions of gender, pornography, etc, down to new lows. Many people on one side of this discussion seem to be making a mission out of trying to bait the other side into a more vicious, vitriolic, mostly unilateral "exchange." In short, people who are used to abandoning civil discourse and delving into the depths of low-brow debate want to shove the rest of us into that realm, where they know they can reign supreme -- inherently successful just for having drawn the other side off the moral high ground. The funny thing here is that I am actually sympathetic to or in agreement with some of the things being argued by Lucinda's critics (the self-proclaimed, heroic "dissenters" pretending thier opinion is not perfectly mainstream), and yet because of the form much of it is taking, I find myself simply disgusted with many of the people bringing those criticisms. Make no mistake about it. This style of "argument" represents the Fox News-ification of these blog comments, just as I was trying to warn before. Below is the text of a post I just deleted when I banned its poster (Hesed). I don't mind people seeing these words spoken about me, so I'll even put them here, far more prominently than comment # 29 on another post. But I'm not about to let someone who believes this is acceptable discourse drag the intellectual level of these blogs down. Here's Hesed's attempt at spoilage:
Brian Dominic writes: "He was probably far more intimidated by what I wrote, truth be told." ....whatever helps you sleep at night, pencilneck. If that's all you took away from what I said then all this self-ingratiating electronic impunity has definately gone to your god-complexed mind. I guess not everyone over there at Z-Net are "thinkers". ...oh and just for old-times-sake, FUCK YOU!!!
That is the logical extension of the mud-slinging that has picked up in response to having invited a woman to put her voice up with all the white males that have so far populated these blogs. In the end, people like this will simply walk away after they've ruined this forum, moving on to the next place where people prefer reasoned debate to mudslinging, and they'll start their game up there. Then there was this little treat posted as comment #1 on Lucinda's most recent blog entry (about being on the road for reasons that of course have nothing to do with this blog, despite the egotistical remarks of one commenter). Here is what llm1017 (also now banned) had to say:
When the going gets tough - the tough leave town. Typical regardless of gender.
A perfect example of baiting (and I guess a twist of gloating just for good measure). One cannot help but wonder if llm1017 is Bill O'Reilly, the linguistic resemblance is so uncanny. Lucinda has sensibly avoided the fray that has ensued as a reactionARY effect of feminist ideals mucking up what some see as the otherwise straight-and-narrow (proper) leftist discussion typical of these blogs (not to knock Noam, Paul, David or myself, we just have more accepted areas of expertise/interest). So the fangs come out and the venom flows to make sure that if a feminist is going to be blogging on ZNet about violence against women, she's going to do so from the gutters, or else... Well, I've been using and working at ZNet for 11 years now. And these blogs were my idea. And as much as I hope for a very broad range of opinions in the comments area, this is NOT going to become a place where goons can roam free, driving off people who have the decency to present their opinions in a respectful manner. This is NOT Crossfire, my friends. If you want to criticize views presented here, you will do so from the high ground. Demonstrate respect for the AUTHOR of whatever you're criticizing, and then feel free to criticize away. But there's a big difference, and just because you feel your status quo way of life is threatened does not give you license to react in a bitter or vitriolic fashion. Here is what is no longer accepted in the comment areas, from anyone on any side:
  • name-calling (label ideas, but not people)
  • ridiculing
  • baiting and taunting (egging people on to respond to comments)
  • harassing (pursuing people to respond to comments)
  • email attacks (don't bother trying to circumvent these rules through another medium)
You can have horrendous ideas, you just have to present them in a respectful manner. I'm sure both sides can agree that nothing strengthens and promotes good ideas better than to have them tested through the open presentation of alternative ideas -- but some people will always be able to gain the upper hand so long as they can ridicule and bait their opponents. And as much as it is fun to let those who would treat this forum as Neanderthall night on a cable news network refute their own arguments through their blatant depravity, the environment of hostility such actions create is unacceptable here. In the meantime -- despite the content of this lengthy post -- I encourage anyone on any side of these debates who is interested in civil discussion to ignore attempts by others to bring the whole exchange down. Eventually, they will probably move on to someplace more receptive to their antics.

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By Highlights, Exhibition at Jun 08, 2007 08:07 AM
I have to agree that for Marshall to repeat this post by “Margherite” on the ZNet Blogs, and for Marshall to use her blog, once again, to make this kind of accusation against the visitors to the ZNet Blogs, is inexcusable.

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The Killer Instinct

By Kissenger, Clark at Jun 28, 2006 11:54 AM

Human beings have a killer instinct. It comes out in blogging.

The Temple of Love - The World Peace Religion, Environmental Organization, Save the World Organization

http://www.thetempleoflove.com/

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Sef101960, Yellow at Jun 01, 2005 22:00 PM
The obvious effect on our society of the current uncivilized, reactionary, ignorant, and bullying administration is the rageful and disrespectful way we communicate even amoungst ourselves! We have allowed the Regime in Washington to drag us down! Let's be civil. Our behaviour sets the tone for the kind of future society that we would all like to see created!

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 27, 2005 19:02 PM
(continued from paragraph above) Marshall's contributions were little more than mud-slinging anyway. Remember her line that "There seems to be something of a 12-step program that one has to go through BEFORE BEING LEGITIMATELY ALLOWED TO DICUSS such topics as feminism, misogyny or violence against women," which was followed by a blog on the impossibility of the VISITORS to ZNet being as enlightened MARSHALL? (March 22, .) Just as Paul Street's exchanges with the visitors to the Comments section frequently have engaged in mud-slinging, except in those cases where visitors flatter him. Or are the comments that Paul Street made in this particular blog immune from the ZNet sheriff's “what is no longer accepted” rules, the sheriff enforcing one set of rules for the BLOGGERS (they get to ridicule, insult, and bait and taunt the visitors at will), and another set of rules for the VISITORS (we get to flatter certain bloggers, while tolerating their ridicule)? If so (and none of you has given us any reason to believe otherwise), this is quite some conception of freedom at the ZNet Blogs.(end)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 27, 2005 18:34 PM
(3) With all of this name-calling, ridiculing, and baiting and taunting, hasn't Paul Street dragged the level of dicussion at ZNet to new lows? Doesn't Street's conduct amount to an effort to to bait ZNet's visitors into a more vicious, vitriolic, mostly unilateral “exchanges”? Doesn't Street frequently abandon civil discourse both in this blog and with great regularity in his exchanges with others he dislikes? Doesn't Street delve into the depths of low-brow debate in an effort to drag the rest of us down to that realm, where he knows he can reign supreme? Then who is responsible for FOX-NEWSIFYING the ZNet Blogs? Who is responsible for ENFORCING their Fox-Newsification? The visitors to these blogs? Or the bloggers themselves? It is preposterous for Dominick to argue that “mud-slinging …picked up in response to having invited a woman [Lucinda Marshall] to put her voice up with all the white males that have so far populated these blogs.”(to be continued)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 27, 2005 06:27 AM
(2) According to Dominick, the following comment by llm1017 was a case of “baiting,” and helped get llm1017 banned from the ZNet Blogs (llm1017 was commenting on a Lucinda Marshall blog): “When the going gets tough - the tough leave town. “Typical regardless of gender.” If this is “baiting,” then can somebody at ZNet please tell us what the following remarks amount to, all drawn from the section of Paul Street's April 23 blog where he cites some ZNet visitors' comments posted to an earlier blog of his, then adds his own two cents in response (): 1. “Authoritarian White Male Bob Reilly writes” 2. “White Male Attorney William Whitely…[He] is emotionally balanced and comfortable in his sadistic, racist, imperialist, and authoritarian party allegiance….Scratch a Republican and discover an (at least) proto fascist these days. Many of the Nazis were quite agreeable over a stein or two after a good day at the camps.” 3. “Bill Spencer…has given us a useful little tutorial on the respectable protofascist white male world view in authoritarian late capitalist America…. Why do I get the feeling that Bill is doing a little web-cruising regarding sexual orientation? I smell a log cabin behind question 8.” 4. A comment from another man “goes in the top ten list of stupidest messages I've ever received.” Etc. Etc. Etc.

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 27, 2005 04:30 AM
(1) With ZNet blogger Paul Street's “Responding to My Republican Critics and One ‘Liberal Activist'” (April 23, ), a new depth has been reached at the ZNet Blogs that not even Lucinda Marshall's exercises in insulting the intelligence of ZNet's visitors had ever reached. Whatever happened to the new rules handed down by Brian Dominick in his “This is Not Fox News, Folks” (March 30, ()? To repeat them here, in case anyone has forgotten: “If you want to criticize views presented here, you will do so from the high ground. Demonstrate respect for the AUTHOR of whatever you're criticizing, and then feel free to criticize away. But there's a big difference, and just because you feel your status quo way of life is threatened does not give you license to react in a bitter or vitriolic fashion. “Here is what is no longer accepted in the comment areas, from anyone on any side: 1. name-calling (label ideas, but not people) 2. ridiculing 3. baiting and taunting (egging people on to respond to comments) 4. harassing (pursuing people to respond to comments) 5. email attacks (don't bother trying to circumvent these rules through another medium)”

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 14, 2005 06:06 AM
(continued from above) I raise this question, because I agree with the basic principle, cited at the outset, against using various forms of “baiting and taunting” to goad others into inappropriate responses. My only problem rests with the focus on the negative tactics of the VISITORS to the ZNet Blogs, to the exclusion of any negative tactics engaged in by the ZNET BLOGGERS THEMSELVES. Does ZNet object only when a visitor to its Blogs is guilty of dragging the level of debate to new lows? How about when one or more of the bloggers does the dragging? How about when Lucinda Marshall cites someone else's post to another website to LIE about the “literally hundreds of vicious comments” to have been posted to her blog, the majority of which were exchanges back and forth between the visitors anyway, and not even directed toward Marshall's posts? Is this kind of vicious misrepresentation and baiting and taunting of ZNet's visitors acceptable? In citing it, what fray has Marshall avoided? How respectful an environment, conducive to discussion rather than name-calling and ridicule, is Marshall promoting? How low is ZNet willing to let its bloggers go?(end)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 14, 2005 05:41 AM
(continued from above) Additionally, the “Margherite”-Marshall line suggests that, so “vicious” have the visitors to Marshall's blog been, “another ZNet blogger felt compelled to protest; and ZNet finally barred several posters.” Since this other ZNet blogger happens to be Brian Dominick, a question comes to mind: What do you, Brian Dominick, and what do the rest of the visitors to these Blogs, believe to be an appropriate response to the “Margherite”-Marshall LIE that literally hundreds of vicious comments have been posted to Marshall's blog, so many, in fact, and so vicious, that the sheriff was compelled to bar several posters?(to be continued)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 14, 2005 05:09 AM
(continued from above) The first two paragraphs that Marshall quotes in her "Addenda" are uncontroversially true. (Although if one follows the link that Marshall provides, , what one finds is rather deflating: The notice paid to Marshall's blog was an April 7 comment posted by someone named “Margherite” to an earlier, March 14 post to the Misbehaving.net website.) However, the third paragraph that Marshall quotes here ("When she blogged...") is a serious misrepresentation of the facts. At no time have “literally hundreds of vicious comments” been posted in response to Marshall's blog. While a lot of comments have been posted, the vast majority of them have not been “vicious.” Unless the mere act of posting a comment that is not suitably flattering is to be regarded as “vicious” in the sense intended by “Margherite,” and quoted approvingly by Marshall. For Marshall to repeat this post by “Margherite” on the ZNet Blogs, and for Marshall to use her blog, once again, to make this kind of accusation against the visitors to the ZNet Blogs, is inexcusable. Yet it does appear to be typical of how Marshall conducts her work, in this case using a post to the Misbehaving.net website to get away with it.(to be continued)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 14, 2005 04:23 AM
(continued from above) Let us therefore take a look at how Lucinda Marshall closes her April 10 blog, “What I Actually Said” (). Marshall closes this blog with an “Addenda” that reads: “Y'all might be interested to note that this blog has been noticed elsewhere: “http://www.misbehaving.net/2005/03/where_did_the_a.html “Lucinda Marshall, who has published a host of articles about violence against women, has a new blog at ZNet: http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=marshall “When she blogged a brief comment on the ubiquity of porn and cited an article called ‘Addicted to Porn' (at http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/campaign.php?view=31 ), literally hundreds of vicious comments were posted, so many that another ZNet blogger felt compelled to protest; and ZNet finally barred several posters.” (to be continued)

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Rastrosus, Oncorhynchus at Apr 14, 2005 03:59 AM
Twice now, Brian Dominick, the ZNet Blogs moderator, has chosen to intervene in these blogs with a “special post” wherein the badge he wears as the Blog's sheriff has been prominently displayed on his chest: “Blog Comments vs. Discussion Forums,” March 26 (); and “This is Not Fox News, Folks,” March 30 (). I believe Dominick to have been right to deplore visitors to the ZNet Blogs who “seem intent on dragging the level of debate in these discussions of gender, pornography, etc., down to new lows,” and who try “to bait the other side into a more vicious, vitriolic, mostly unilateral ‘exchange'” (March 30). Twice now, I have agreed with Dominick that certain posts were dragging the Blogs through the gutter, using various forms of “baiting and taunting” to goad others into inappropriate responses, increasing the risks that people will become so turned off by antics such as these they will stop visiting the ZNet Blogs, or ZNet in general. And twice again, I have been terribly disappointed in the sheriff for busting only the VISITORS to the ZNet Blogs, while giving the BLOGGERS THEMSELVES a free pass.

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Staff, Shihtzu at Apr 09, 2005 09:18 AM
Anthony wrote: " still personally believe that the primary cause of that degeneration of the debate is the incessant attempts by antiporn feminist supporters like WildRider, ShihTzu Staff, and others to constantly use imflammatory rhetoric and personal baiting tactics to avoid a genuine discussion of the issues" First of all myself and WR were not responsible for the degeneration of the debate. The debate had become disrespectful to women almost immediately. I have a very different perspective than most of the posters on that particular blog. Does that make me wrong? No, it does not.

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By Cryofan, Cryofan at Apr 03, 2005 05:24 AM
you win i lose game over

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Margh, Wilson at Apr 02, 2005 19:22 PM
Why is vitriol assumed to be an effective response to any news item or concept that momentarily threatens one's peace of mind? Surely history, from the Underground Railroad to Gandi, MLK, et al., has shown that collective, public disobedience is far more effective (and controversial) than screaming invective and character assassination.

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Cryofan, Cryofan at Apr 02, 2005 10:21 AM
Instead of directing our vitriol at the rightwing bots trained and programmed by the teevee and talkradio, let's direct all our venom at the rich and the corporations who support the GOP and the yuppies and social-liberals who support the Democratic party. /how's that for being controversial without attacking another poster?

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Margh, Wilson at Apr 01, 2005 22:39 PM
Thank you, Brian. I haven't paid much attention to ZNet blogs lately, but started reading again because I've enjoyed Lucinda's work published on other web sites (Common Dreams, Alternet, etc.) and hoped to see more of her perspective in a less formal medium. Violence against women is not logical, and Lucinda's publications illuminate this perversion of human culture most vividly. The use of logic, however flawed, to refute a feminist comprehension that pornographic degradation of women and rape are related culturally is not useful. No debate is possible, because the evidence has been hidden from public view for too long. As a culture, we are still collecting case histories. Feminist theory is way ahead of culture for postulating any thesis at all.

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Ccollins206, Tiana5 at Mar 31, 2005 06:55 AM
Although I absolutely agree that postings on any blog ought to be respectful to fellow posters and writers, I've felt and believe I've seen others shut down by labels that I don't feel have been adequately addressed. For example, I've read posters and writers label fellow posters as "misogynists" or "typical leftist males." I felt my posts on Lucinda Marshall's blogs were treated very dismissively by her in following entries. I feel that these sorts of labels and brush offs don't do much to build a community of gained understanding about feminism or any other issue for that matter. I ask that my comments and the comments of those disagreeing with the view point of Znet authors be critiqued with the same respect that we are being asked to show to fellow bloggers. Telling people they are misogynists or dismissing their ideas as irrevelant because they disagree with them doesn't help bridge the gap in understanding--it only widens it.

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Re: This is Not Fox News, Folks

By Lackey, Word at Mar 31, 2005 06:43 AM
I don't why I seem to be the first to respond to your posts on this subject since I'm new to the Znet Blogs... Yet again I say "thanks". I've been participating in online fora for 20 years or so. I've seen quite a few online communities destroyed by the crude and rude comments of a few who seem to delight in their power to disrupt discussion. Usually the only viable option has been a strong moderator who is able to recognize and stop the symptom before it blooms into discouragement and bad vibes all around. And this isn't an easy solution among folks who would prefer more cooperative and egalitarian self-policing methods. I'm sorry you've had to lay down ground rules for conduct but I'm also surprised that you haven't had to do so before now. I think everything you've itemized is eminently reasonable.

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