home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!ames!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: odin@world.std.com (Hank Roth)
- Subject: The Big Lie (PC)
- Message-ID: <1992Aug30.194728.29478@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 19:47:28 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 57
-
- POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: What it really means.
-
- Political Correctness (PC) is the Big Lie campaign. If you are
- against racism, abortion clinic bombings, union-busting and
- imperialist war--then maybe you're just too "politically correct"
- and a dangerous enemy of the state. As ludicrous as it may sign,
- given the present climate of right-wing triumphalism and
- some "liberal" collaboration, George Bush railed against a
- "notion of political correctness" in a speech he gave at the
- University of Michigan in May, a year ago, and accused the left
- of conductiong an "inquisition," "censorship" and bullying." He
- gave the presidential seal of approval to the race-haters and
- like the Willie Horton propaganda smear campaign, he started this
- witchhunt against this new bogeyman, "political correctness."
-
- Who are the targets. You and I, and a few professors and courses in
- Black and women's studies. Grabbing the mantle of free speech to
- champion the right of punks to hurl words like "nigger" is to
- profane the purpose and spirit of free speech.
-
- They still remember Vietnam and it haunts them when campuses were
- organizing centers for political protest and "breeding grounds of
- subversion." Now with a New World Odor, campuses but most
- particularly the LEFT must be brought firmly into line and one
- way to do it is to label what we say as "politically correct" and
- therefore unacceptable. How utterly absurd. Do you know what PC
- really is: Ed Herman writes in his doublespeak dictionary, it is
- "The callenge of dissidents and minorities to traditionally
- biased usages and curricula, as perceived by the vested interests
- in existing usage and curricula and those seeking a basis for
- attacking the current challengers." Whereas, "really correct,"
- that which is acceptable to the RIGHT is: "The status quo in
- politicized language and curricula; also, whatever line the
- government and establishment wants to take on an issue."
-
- What these attacks from the Bush camp, petty-bourgeiois students
- and the fascist far RIGHT are doing is inciting straight-out
- racist violence with their forcible repression of independent
- thought and action.....in a LOCK STEP march to total *CONFORMITY.*
-
- The PC hunters rail about constraints on their "free speech",
- ----but consider this: Who owns the country and who owns the
- media? If they want to yell "nigger" and threaten Jews and Gays,
- they do so and no one denies that they have that right--but this
- also makes them enemies of the LEFT and it makes their accusations
- that anyone is PC who challenges them for their insensitivity and
- ignorance a ploy by them in effect sustaining their fascist
- witchhunt.
-
-
- Hank Roth
-
- ////------------------------------------------------------------/////
- ** Peace & Justice ** ** People Before Profits ** ** End Racism **
- ////------------------------------------------------------------///
-
-
-