In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Oh Jill, you dumb bunny you.

Jill

bunny-cups.jpg
Sweet Jesus bunnies are adorable.

Comment of the day:

Oh Jill, you’re such a dumb bunny. First of all, the social democrats of Europe (except perhaps Greece)(well, and Ukraine and Belarus if you look eastward) have all embraced the modern liberal democratic concensus. There are no socialists left in (serious) european politics. So you’re a “socialist.” Gasp! Oh how intellectually daring of you! And why is “liberal” a bad word in American parlance? Well, two reasons. The economics of American liberalism are a sad record of dismal failure. And people are turned off by the smug self-righteeousness of liberals. It’s kind of like when I hear some bint defending their right to a NYC rent controlled apartment, and they go on about how the intrinsic health of NYC depends on college teachers like her being able to afforda nice Upper West Side apartment, when in reality she means that she likes getting a private benefit that is, ultimately, financed by others. Well, I suspect you won’t let this get posted on your edgy and controversial blahblah forum, which is too bad, you need to learn something from somelike like me i.e. smart, well informed, sophisticated.

You forgot to mention “modest.”

Don’t you love it when smart, well-informed and utterly sophisticated dudes show up to put us little dumb bunnies in our place?

23 thoughts on Oh Jill, you dumb bunny you.

  2. You know, it’s morons like this that actually MAKE me a socialist, and a liberal.

    Does he even know what socialist actually MEANS? Because, from what he is talking about when it comes to Europe, it seriously appears that he doesn’t.

    As to bunnies … well they’re cute till they grow up and breed, then they are a pest that destroy ecosystems.

  5. Oh Jill, I see you as far more of a silly kitty than a dumb bunny. I mean, bunnies are cute and dumb and all, but kittens are much cuter, and very silly. Seems like this guy isn’t quite as “smart” as he thinks, if he can’t given get his condescending cute animal references right!

    And is it just me, or does he stop making any resemblance of sense about halfway through that adorable little diatribe?

  7. As to bunnies … well they’re cute till they grow up and breed, then they are a pest that destroy ecosystems.

    I dunno, as long as they have natural predators they’re pretty cute when they grow up too.

  8. Wow, he’s right. How dare that uppity college professor (or old lady) thumb her nose at the hardworking investment banker from whom she so blithely steals that affordable Classic Six on CPW every month? Can she not see the pain of the hardworking millionaire? Why, think of the property values!

    I had some guy from my last place of employment try to talk about how rent control/stabilization should be abolished…I felt obliged to pipe up and say that I and my then-fiancee/now-husband lived in a stabilized place. He said “well, the reality is that some people just won’t be able to live in Manhattan.” I then posited that if enough people were forced out of Manhattan or close-enough commuting distance to it, they would simply become exasperated and seek employment closer to their relocation, close enough to the urban center to still receive the higher wages that come along with the higher cost of living, but no longer bothering with the metropolitan center which had told them loudly and clearly they weren’t wanted. After all I had witnessed several friends in support positions make this exact move, returning closer to their families on Long Island or in Westchester or Jersey or even leaving altogether if they came from farther away. All had been offered something to stay but it wasn’t enough to make it tenable for them. I mean, imagine law firms and i-banks and consulting firms with: no secretaries, no mailroom staff, and farther along: no lower-level HR or financial officers or even perhaps no paralegals. An island of executives with no support staff, or REALLY crappy support staff (the more likely scenario, as they would have to take what they could get – who would accept their salaries – and not be as choosy). It’s farfetched (I am employing hyperbole on purpose here) because something would have to give at some point, but eventually it would lead to some kind of change that would NOT favor the rich, even if it just meant necessarily driving up the value of support staff to entice them to still make the trip into the city.

    My former coworker’s answer to my query: “oh, well, I didn’t mean you. I wasn’t talking about people in your situation. I am really talking about those little old ladies who live in Classic Sixes on CPW and are paying, you know, something like $500/mo. for them.”

    So there you have it. Rent control/stabilization is unfair because this guy has agreed to pay $7K+/mo for his Classic Six (it’s a choice, right? he could choose to live way uptown and ‘slum it’ with types such as ourselves to get his big prewar apartment) and therefore insists that everyone else do it too. After all, the market will correct itself, right? So those little old ladies….have got to go. I mean, they must have somewhere to go, right?

    I lived in Boston immediately subsequent to the end of stabilization there and it did not even begin to level off within the five years I was there.

    A huge monster like New York does depend on something of a balance. Look, there are so many new luxury condos going up. I mostly think they’re ugly and they bring in chain stores on their first-floor levels, but I admit they serve a purpose. You can’t keep out *all* the purely-for-profit development. My head turns inside out thinking about the difficulties if every single building were landmarked. My point is that with a huge and delicate system like NYC, you have to maintain control of the changes. The demolition of the old Penn Station taught that very clearly. So bring in those luxury condos – cautiously – but keep stabilization. The rich will always find a place to live. That some of them insist everyone else be as rich as they or get out, shows how myopic they are. This city is a LOT more diverse on any given block than Boston was when I was there. And, surprise, Boston was a lot more self-segregated and the tensions ran a lot higher there.

    Oh and also, don’t believe for a second there’s no difference between a stabilized and unstabilized unit. Our stabilized unit was a nasty, dingy hole in the wall. We did what we could with it for the cheap rent, finally feeling the push to move to a bigger place for slightly under market value (destabilized) in a less prime neighborhood because we are expecting a baby. We saw what the destabilized units looked like in our old building as they were being renovated. When we broke lease to move, our landlord let us out with NO strings attached – not even a surrender lease – and returned our entire deposit to us. They knew they could do a month of work on our place (which hadn’t been reno’ed since the 80’s) and turn it around for 1.5-2x what we we were paying. We did them a huge favor by getting out of the way, and believe me we felt more than a little guilty about it. So no one should assume for a moment that the stabilized tenant in most instances is living in a unit which has the same face value as their unstabilized neighbor’s.

    Sorry to go on a tirade about this – scratch a middle-income New Yorker, find a curmudgeon in training.

  9. Now, when he was calling *me* a dumb bunny, he said he was in Kiev. So why is he bitching about rent control in NYC?

    I think Mr. Hufu is back.

  11. I was deemed a dumb bunny back on September 17th, in the thread regarding Kathy Griffin’s acceptance speech.

    Guess bunnies DO multiply fast!

  12. I think “bunny” is a substitute for a far nastier word that he knew would result in banning if he used…and the result is just nonsensical!

  13. You missed the “bint” insult, the Arabic word for daughter (analogous to ben/bin in several Semitic languages.) The term is one of abuse by U.S. (and presumably Blackwater, etc.) service personnel in Iraq

  15. This guy has been driving me *nuts*. No doubt that’s his intent, so I’ve been struggling to hold my tongue, but what he said to Zuzu made me see *red*. Now he’s throwing his trash at Jill, too? Nothing like jumping up and down screaming for attention.

    you need to learn something from somelike like me i.e. smart, well informed, sophisticated.

    Wow. Dude, shut up.

  16. I just have to point out that when one needs to point out that one is smart, well informed and sophisticated, it then by definition means one is not smart, nor well informed, or sophisticated.

    Not that that would come as a surprise to anyone that actually had read the above piece mind you.

  17. He’s pretty much right about socialists in Europe though, correct? From what I remember of high school comparative politics and euro blogs, lots of socialist-leaning political parties in Europe have shifted to the right. Look at the Labour party (see here) in Britain, or the SDP (and then here) in Germany.

  18. stnemmoc –

    You’re kinda taking these out of their cultural context. Yeah, here in the states you would describe these parties as socialist, however, in europe these would be more accurately and contextually as left-leaning.

    Yes, the left-leaning parties are the ones that have moved to the right. However, The european socialists have stayed pretty much in place, given that socialism is a commitment to certain principles, not to a spot on the political spectrum.

  19. s in c

    So what you’re saying is that socialism is more of an idea than it is a political party? I’ve kind of been reading a copy of the Communist Manifesto (not very enthusiastically–it’s only like 40 pages without prefaces) and the introduction kind of glossed over what is meant by socialism as opposed to communism, but sufficed it to say that there were no true socialist societies anywhere, only “state capitalism” and “bourgeoisie capitalism”. All I remember about the subject from European history was that socialism was just where the state controlled everything, but now I’m confused. Oh, well…

    Oh, and did anyone notice how feminism and communism have a lot in common? I’m sure this is not a coincidence. I mean, think about it! The patriarchy controlling gender roles vs. the bourgeoisie controlling the means of production… Primeval society was the only place where there was no oppressed class and no oppressor class vs… feminists probably think that women in hunter-gatherer societies shared basically equal gender roles with men, right?

    Also: I’m not trying to prove to feminists why they should be communists, I was just interested in the connection. (I am not a communist!)

  20. *smile* stnemoc, nothing wrong with being a communist … a tad naive, but so is the capitalism-fellating that is libertarianism.

    I think you are making the fairly common north-american mistake of equating socialism with communism. Socialism is a collection of ideas of how the state should operate. Communism has aspects of socialism, but is incompatible with democracy. (Admittedly, Marx wasn’t too optimistic about the long-term benefits of democracy, but that’s a different discussion).

    Rather, instead, you have the social-democratic states in europe which perform a range of democratic, capitalist, socialisms. So, it’s perfectly possible to have a socialist state without it being a matter of the state control of

    everything

    .

    Now as to the ‘Communist Manifesto’. Nice book, and highly interesting in a historical sense, but there are far better, complex and more historically applicable developments of such, Neo-Marxism amongst them, that are relevant today. Pop ‘neo-marxism’ into google-scholar and see what you can find, have a read.

    And as to feminism and communism, there are those that think communism needs to be an intrinsic part of the feminist project. They aren’t really taken seriously, but some have produced some really interesting theoretical investigations. Socialist-Feminism, however, has a long history of a place within the feminist project, and still holds strength.

    Now, I will preface the above with the fact that I am a sociologist that considers communism to be a nice theoretical exercise, but not really realistically applicable (though slightly more applicable than say, libertarianism, which is just ignorance). I grew up in social-democratic countries, and tend to see them as the best model for democratic societies. Just wanted you to know where I am coming from subjectively.

    A lot of people argue that if it is a choice between the state deciding what is best for the members of a society and corporations deciding based on market forces, they’d take the state, because while considerably imperfect, at it’s heart the state IS the people.

  22. I make the link between feminism and communism because after reading this blog off and on for maybe a year or so, and reading part of the Communist Manifesto, there seem to be, like I said, so many parallels. Here, the patriarchy is behind everything from pro-life to the modesty movement, and even some victim-blaming tendencies. Any interaction between the sexes, within the sexes, at work, at school–everywhere–is framed by a male dominated society, right? (I’m not saying I disagree.) For Marx, I think, the bourgeoisie were behind everything that was going wrong with society. Everything that was good was being replaced by a cruel profit motive and nothing else. All history was just economics and class struggles, which sounds KIND OF similar to the way feminists seem to view society and history but with gender instead of capital. Or maybe that is just what the really radical feminists think, I have no idea.

    As for the Communist Manifesto being relevant, I thought it was neat how much of what Marx said about revolutions in communications and free-trade (forcing every country to modernize and become part of global capitalism) could still be applied to today’s world. I might look into the Google links, but the first one looks like a lecture outline from some kind of 6000 level course, which is terrifying.

    Anyway, I’m not too worried about being a naive communist: I think my brother has some Ayn Rand books around to balance things out. (I am not a libertarian!) Thanks for replying! 🙂

  23. You missed the “bint” insult, the Arabic word for daughter (analogous to ben/bin in several Semitic languages.) The term is one of abuse by U.S. (and presumably Blackwater, etc.) service personnel in Iraq

    Not to derail the thread or anything, but that’s interesting to know. Back home, “daft old bint” was a pretty common insult for women and I had no idea of the origins.

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