The slaughter at Fort Hood is absolutely horrific, and I hate to see it politicized, but that's almost inevitable. One thing I wanted to say about the predictable cries of "Muslim" that raged across Right-Wing radio: it is a reasonable cry. No group of human beings that wants to survive can avoid the fact that some of their population will be ultra-sensitive to the "us" and "them". While you don't want your government leaping to a conclusion before thorough investigation, don't tell me that most of you didn't wonder if there was a connection between Hasan's (the accused shooter) religious beliefs, and his actions. If he attended the same Mosque as a couple of the 9/11 shooters it would be crazy not to investigate that.
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And if you want the average American to be attentive and scrupulous in investigation, then expect there to be disbelief and incredulity on one side...and angry suspicion or even certainty on the other. That's the way humans are. At times like this, we need both extremes.
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Speaking of extremes, it is fascinating to watch the Left and Right fulminate over the health care bill. If you only listened and read to opinions on one side, you'd think that the other got everything they wanted. Extreme Left wingers are screaming that Obama and Capital Hill sold out to Big Pharma and the Insurance companies and are crippled by his insistence on bipartisanship, and is ignoring the will of the American people. Extreme Right wingers are screaming that Obama will bankrupt the country, is a communist... and is ignoring the will of the American people.
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The implication is pretty clear to me: he's doing a pretty damned good job of navigating between opposing armies. It really is fascinating to watch the way each side seems utterly tone-deaf to the screaming from the other side, and avoid the implications. The implication? That there is STAGGERING resistance on one side, and a yearning for total nationalized health care on the other. I know of Right-winger who claim everyone who wants health care already has it. I DO hear some Left-wingers say they would like commercial health care to be illegal. But the vast majority are somewhere in the middle. I say cut off the most radical 10% on either side, and let those in the middle work it out. I'm confident they will.
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In fact, I wanted to say something that has been increasingly disturbing as the health care debate heats up. I've been seeing so many Lefties turning on him, acting as if if he can't solve all America's problems in ten months, he is an utter failure. It may just be that I haven't been watching politics long enough, or closely enough, but it seems that there are only two settings: Magical Negro, and Sambo. There's no stop in-between for "human." Sort of like Morgan Freeman, who has played God more often than he's been kissed. Truly strange. "We gave ya a chance, boy, and if ya ain't got that nigger mojo, we're takin' ya down." Ugh.
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Someone asked if I would rather the publisher of that SF magazine admit to my face that he was racist and wasn't going to cover my material, or that of any black person he could possibly avoid. Of course. I am so sick of the "why aren't there more blacks in science fiction?" panels with whites acting like they are the only group in the world who don't have racial issues. Sick of people looking at me as if I must be crazy, that I'm just making excuses for disappointments in my own career, that the near complete exclusion of non-whites from SF is compensated for by images of aliens and robots. It is emotional stone-walling, and of course I've made LOTS of friends by insisting that something is wrong. And the hidden implication in those panels, as far as I'm concerned? That blacks must be "different". At the least, we have no imaginations. At worst, we're not intelligent enough to read or write SF. We won't come right out and SAY it, but Jesus, have I ever heard that implication often at room parties and such.
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So the most important editor in the history of the field, John W. Campbell, believed blacks were genetically incapable of creating an advanced civilization. And arguably the greatest hard SF writer wrote "Farnham's Freehold" with blacks devolving to cannibals and the lead black male character in the entire history of his ouvre betraying his friends (this being a writer who held loyalty above almost all other traits), and the most important non-fiction publisher in the history of the field a bigot...and you know what people will say? I'm misinterpreting. It's isolated. Of course.
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We're set up psychologically to believe that we must be "better" or "worse". It just can't be that there are universal issues that create problems. It is irrelevant that my position, that about 10% of human beings are asshole bigots, would literally explain every inequality in American life. That's all right. It must be something else. Can't be "us", must be "them." This hurts, it really does. I have to remind myself to remain centered, to remain focused. To soldier on. But this guy tried to hurt me, and my career, and my family. And smiled in my face as he did it.
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OF COURSE I'd want to know where I stood. I wish he'd stood up at conventions and proclaimed to everyone what he thought. And named the names of the other editors and writers who, privately of course, agreed with him. Giving the fans a chance to make a clear, conscious decision which side of the issue they wanted to support.
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No. People have a pathological need to deny that the evil they see in the world lives within their own hearts. Science fiction fans want to believe they are a bastion of tolerance, when the most cursory examination of the material, covers, or character lists would reveal the opposite. Blacks would like to think "it's America." Yeah, right. And what other country in the world has black superstars? And groups that are on top (for instance...white heterosexual males) like to complain when special interests try to band together to increase leverage. But let them get old, and they can't wait to join the AARP. One of the most fascinating things humans do is to use guilt as a tool against whatever they consider the dominator group.
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Blacks, of course, use slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation to lambaste whites. Jews use the Holocaust to lambaste gentiles. Women in America use the status of women in third-world countries to lambaste men. Gays use gay-bashing to lambaste straights. Every group is jostling for power, and position, and the question of whether the the accusations are "fair" is less important than "is it effective." And the more in denial you are about the fear and anger boiling in your heart, the easier it is to be effectively guilt tripped. Just never forget that no group is really trying to achieve "equality." They all want more. They all want to control the discussion, because deep in the hind-brain there is the sense that there isn't enough freshly killed zebra to go around, and I'm gettin' my haunch first.
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I don't know quite what to do, honestly. I wish I could believe that Mr. X was isolated, but looking at a century of SF it is clear that his magazine was popular because his tastes were mirrored by his core audience. Otherwise his magazine wouldn't have survived.
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What can I do? Oh, I'm a little spun right now. I'll regain my balance. But I remember a line spoken by Larry Fishburne in "Tuskeegee Airmen": "what do I think about my country? And what does my country think about me?" I love science fiction, despite what I regard as clarity about her issues. What DOES my field really think about me? I'm afraid that for far too many, if they embrace me it's only because they think I'm an "Oreo"--black on the outside, white on the inside. That was the deal I was offered so many years ago: "you're not one of Them, Steve. You're one of Us." A devil's bargain. A soul-stealing bargain.
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Recent controversy about sex toys in the news. I forget where this was, but masturbation tools were made illegal, and some religious figure claimed that such tools were bad for marriages.
Well...if you're lousy in bed and don't want your wife to know what an orgasm feels like, yeah. But I know a number of women who are non-orgasmic in their marriage bed, and not one of them masturbates. Personally, I wouldn't want to be in a sexual relationship with a woman who didn't know how to turn herself on. How in the hell could she help me understand her needs, if she doesn't? Men are easy: sex with a guy (according to people I know who go both ways) is like blowing up a balloon until it explodes. Sex with a woman is like opening a safe, in the dark, wearing gloves, and the combination changes every day. Oh...and sometimes even the owner doesn't know the combination. I'll take all the help I can get.