Right-wing blogs attack Lara Logan after tragic incident

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Right now, I'm truly disgusted and ashamed of people within my own party who are either blaming Lara Logan for the brutal rape and assault that she endured or chalking it up to karma.

Two blogs - The Gateway Pundit and DebbieSchlussel.com - have both taken different but equally awful approaches to discussing what happened to Lara Logan.

First, a portion of the entry from Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit:

Lara Logan is lucky she’s alive.
Her liberal belief system almost got her killed on Friday. This talented reporter will never be the same.

Why did this attractive blonde female reporter wander into Tahrir Square last Friday? Why would she think this was a good idea? Did she not see the violence in the square the last three weeks? Did she not see the rock throwing? Did she miss the camels? Did her colleagues tell her about the Western journalists who were viciously assaulted on the Square? Did she forget about the taunts from the Egyptian thugs the day before? What was she thinking? Was it her political correctness that about got her killed? Did she think things would be different for her?

[Source]

Next, the entry from Debbie Schlussel:

As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how “peaceful” Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart. Still, it’s also a great reminder of just how “civilized” these “people” (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, “Bahai’im” [Animals]) are...

[Source]

Schlussel also posted an update after receiving reaction on the entry:

The reaction of the left to this article is funny in its predictability. Sooo damn predictable. Of course I don’t support “sexual assault” or violence against Lara Logan, and I said that nowhere here. RIF–Reading Is Fundamental. Your premature articulation is a problem. I did say that it warms my heart when reporters who openly deny that Islam is violent and constantly promote it get the same kinds of threats of violence I get every day from Muslims. Because now they know how it feels. They aren’t so dismissive of the threats when those threats are directed at them, instead of at us little people. And yet they still won’t admit that THIS. IS. ISLAM. Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this “revolution” by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about.

Hoft chose a more "misogyny-on-parade" approach, focusing on her looks and asking condescending hypothetical questions about why she was there, as if her presence gave anyone the right to touch her in the first place. Schlussel, on the other hand, seems to imply that Logan's abuse was deserved based on an allegedly naive attitude about what the people were like and how they'd treat her.

It seems people have taken a casual attitude about rape in the past few years, and that's really bothersome. No wonder rapes go unreported in the world, when you have morons like these playing the victim-blame game.

EDIT: Seems it gets worse when you read the rest of Schlussel's entry:

So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we'd hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that's a hope that's generally unanswered.

This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.

Now that's all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was "liberated" by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the "liberation."

Hope you're enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].

[Source]

I want so badly to punch Debbie Schlussel in the face over and over and over again...

Comments

Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I heard sexism isn't all that popular with the ~50% of people who are women.

Re: Or should I say

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Actually many of 'em seem to have gotten on board the internalized misogyny wagon just fine.

Re: Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Slaves also tend not to complain too much to their masters about being slaves and internalise that vision of themselves. That's not an argument that slaves should be kept in slavery of course.

And whether or not that vision of themselves would persist if they were given the choice to make it otherwise, is another thing, and the point of contention I think.

Re: Or should I say

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually slave societies always feared servile wars and were paranoid as all Hell. The Slave South was in a lot of ways more like Israel than like what US culture is thought to be. Unless you're Nebris, nobody thinks a gender rebellion is going to happen anytime soon.

Re: Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

That's because men and women, as groups have far greater vested interest in relatively peaceful resolution of their conflict, a way that that slaves and masters, as groups do not. The battle line is never clearly drawn.

I don't doubt that such slave rebellion fears existed, but equally, there generally was, akin to the mysogyny-internalised women that spaz refers to, plenty of slaves who had internalised their roles as slaves.

Given the keys to the manor, although dazed at first, would they still choose to remain slaves?

Re: Or should I say

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually very few of the slaves did. The USA was not exceptional in this regard, there were regular bustings of slave conspiracies and several large-scale rebellions. Similarly, if slaves *had* been content in slavery the North would never have been able to recruit 200,000 Southern blacks into the USCT units in the war. And this applied everywhere else, too. In countries of the modern world that picked slaves from majority-Muslim groups, the ability to read and write led to rebellions on a scale that dwarfed the Nat Turner Rebellion.

Slaves were given those keys in the US Civil War, or more accurately slaves forced the keys to be proposed to be given and then ensured they were given and kept.

Re: Or should I say

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Given the keys to the manor, although dazed at first, would they still choose to remain slaves?

It's interesting that you posed this as a hypothetical question, given that America's history constitutes a practical test of it.
That part of society which takes its familial, economic, and cultual inheritance from the slaves are, after all this time, still not doing so well. Conservatives are usually really keen to attribute this to Individual Responsibility and insinuate that it's their own darned faults for remaining poor generations later. In an individual sense, this is clearly a very callous and uncaring way to think about your fellow human beings and it leaves out a huge system of influence and privilege from the explanation.

But maybe what they think they're seeing - a people who "used" to be oppressed and now "aren't", and yet who can't seem to bring themselves up to the socioeconomic station of a non-oppressed people - maybe that's just evidence that "dazed at first" was an incredible understatement. I wouldn't balk at the idea that this has partly to do with having internalized a 'victim' role generations ago, and that role having persisted as a cultural identity. Is it possible for self-esteem problems to exist collectively, as opposed to individually? I think so.

Re: Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Of course we shouldn't expect every ill of Egyptian society to be fixed immediately, or even that other ills won't arise under democracy. T

hat's not what its about. It's the general ability of democracy to rectify those ills, eventually, that people trust in. Rightly, in my view.

Re: Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Meh, I disagree.

Although what you say is true about the people involved, as a system, given the same pool of individuals I would expect a better result with democracy than other systems. I think most people would agree.

Re: Or should I say

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Well strictly speaking, it's not one a repeatable theory we can test either way, although we can certainly investigate many examples to see which view they support.

As you say, it's mostly a matter of a different of opinions. Fortunately I'm the one who is right here! (of course)

Re: Or should I say

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually the Egyptians have had a movement like this once before. British invasions suppressed it at gunpoint and ruled Egypt for the next few decades. For some damnfool reason the usual reaction of people who see a revolution in progress and are afraid of it is to invade the strongholds of the revolution. Genre Savviness never appears to apply in real life. And if Israel decides to be the Saddam in this scenario.....

Re: Or should I say

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

They've got a nice religion to take care of their brains whenever they wonder what to do, don't they?