An Open Letter to Amanda Marcotte

Dear Amanda Marcotte,

I've long followed your career at Pandagon, and your disastrous run as blogmaster for the John Edwards campaign, often with derision. I'd like to apologize, as I now see the error of my ways.

I see now that you only speak the truth. You understand what is in the hearts of so many women, and you articulate it so well! Amanda, I wish I could be more like you. It's so obvious now that you have no agenda to push; you simply say what so many women are terrified to say for fear of retribution from the male establishment.

It is shameful what the right-wing noise machine did to you when you were working for John Edwards. How dare they manipulate the brave words you wrote on your blog?! I now understand that they simply are too intimidated by strong, feminist, women in the spotlight and therefore organized a right-wing hit job against you. Luckily for women everywhere, though, you survived to keep on trucking over at Pandagon.

I also have to thank you for your wisdom. It's incredibly intelligent to pick your battles in life. Strategy in changing people's perceptions is key. And I think it is very wise of you to focus solely on the discrimination we women face every day here in the United States, and let the oppression that women in the Middle East face every day go. It's not our battle. Maybe once we've secured abortion on demand and women are perfectly equal in every single facet of American life, then we can move on to getting rid of FGM, mercy killings, shariah laws, and burqahs. But for now, I think it's for the best that we concentrate on real problems like abortion and defending Planned Parenthood. It's a good thing we have such smart, capable leaders in the feminist movement today like you.

I guess mainly I'm looking for forgiveness from you, and feminists everywhere, for being so mistaken. The leaders of the new wave of feminism simply know better than us regular gals what is best for us, and I understand that now. You have been right all along; men are the enemy. I've decided to forgo make-up and push-up bras as they are symbolic of caving into the patriarchal ideals of beauty -- no more waxing or shaving or slathering on deodorant and perfume to attract men who only wish to keep me trapped forever in inferiority. I deserve to be loved for myself, as our Mother Earth, Gaia, made me. That is why from now on, I'm going to live my life in the light of love by embracing lesbianism and feminism completely.

So, please accept my humble apology and let me join the sisterhood. I'm willing to work hard to fight the patriarchal establishment. All I'm asking for is the acceptance of you, and my other sisters, and your forgiveness for my ineptitude.

Sincerely,
Cassy Fiano

Did she learn nothing at all?

Good grief. I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks, after all.

Amanda Marcotte is, unsurprisingly, still going on foul-mouthed tantrums. Now, I'm not about to say people shouldn't swear or whatever. Believe me, I can have the mouth of a sailor sometimes. But there is a time and a place for that. That's why you won't see me swearing here, or in front of my parents, or at work, and so on and so forth. I'm not about to go on crazy, obscenity-laced screeching rants and then be shocked and shaken when they're used against me after I try to get involved in politics. If you can't make an intelligent point without erupting into hate-filled screeds, then either you need to see a psychologist, NOW, or you aren't very intelligent. Take your pick.

And of course all your hate-filled writings came out, Amanda. What did you expect? That no one would bring it up during your foray into politics? Turns out the Edwards campaign didn't like them too much. And yet apparently, her writings have not changed. I mean, you'd think someone would learn from the experience. Guess not:

Update: To all the people linking to this post, if you gave half as much a sh*t about the lives of our troops as about the fate of a hypothetical bumper sticker in a very silly joke, then this war would already be over.

How hard your life must be if the very idea of finding that someone has vandalized a bumper sticker that proclaims your @$$hole status would make you freak out. Having imagined a bumper sticker removal, perhaps you can imagine rebuying the “I’m An @$$hole” bumper sticker.

Ignore the sexist origins of the word. “C*nts”=@$$holes.

Break something. Set something on fire. Tonight you can find a way to resist. That @$$hole with a Bush bumper sticker? It can be removed.

And no, she didn't use asteriks or spell it with an @$$. Shockingly enough. And please -- like any liberal actually cares about our troops. It's nothing more than a talking point for them.

She also included a lovely song which includes phrases like "sh*t floats" and "c*nts are still running the world." It also makes mention of the "fact" that "the working class is now obsolete". Gee, that's funny. Because I work. I'm not lower class, but I am definitely not rich either. So where would that put me then? Hmm...

Moving on. The lovely, soothing song also mentions "In theory, I respect your right to exist, but I will kill you if you move in next to me," presumably talking about upper-class citizens. But perhaps I'm interpreting wrong. It then goes on to croon, "The free market is perfectly natural. Do you think that I'm some kind of dummy? It's the ideal way to order the world. F*ck the morals, does it make any money?"

Ugh, I think I'm gonna choke on my all-soy granola bar.

Last but not least, I perused the wonderful comment section:

one minivan, two bush stickers AND a stop partial birth abortion sticker.

i stopped in my tracks and started swearing at an empty vehicle. i probably looked crazy. the boyfriend assisted me forward as i kept swearing. i wish i had thought to just peel off the stickers.

what a simple yet brilliant idea.

I’m not particularly interested in setting fire to my own belongings, but I just found out my landlord is a Republican, so…

A friend used to steal support our troops magnets off of peoples cars and stick them on his car as trophies. Amazingly, no one ever gave him a hard time for it. He would watch his victims to see what they did. IF i recall, half the time the victims did not get replacement magnets, the other half did replace them. He used to say even though he was being a thief, he was a troop supporting thief b/c he rooted out all the fakes and got the genuine people to buy more magnets, supporting the troops even more. Then he would say something like “The money off of those magnets goes to the war effort, right? right?” As he said this he would always ham it up, like make some kind of sad-puppy face, or innocent child face, or what he called the trusting man-child. I’m not sure how to describe that last one. It’s a tragedy he went into cooking instead of acting after High School, he was such a talented thespian. Well, we all know what homophobia can do to people.

Hee, I just really love this song. It makes me angry-gleeful. (by Ms. Marcotte herself, from the comments section)

Wow, I can’t believe that people are making a thing out of the bumper sticker comment. Conservatives really have a deaf ear for jokes, don’t they? The comment was inspired by the half-silly/half-angry tone of the song, but I wouldn’t expect bona fide Bush voters to get something so complicated as that. (from Ms. Marcotte again)


And so on and so forth. She claims it was all a joke, but her readers didn't seem to take it that way. I have a Soldiers Angels ribbon on my car, along with a Duncan Hunter bumper sticker, and yeah, I'd be furious if someone ripped them off. What right do they have? Am I running around ripping bumper stickers off of other people's cars? No. If a conservative advocated their readers to rip bumper stickers off of leftists' cars, you can bet they'd be screaming censorship even before a single bumper sticker was ripped.

But, regardless. Amanda, it may be too late for you to save yourself. If you aspire to go to the next level, your hate-filled, obscenity-laced rants will keep on coming out because you just can't seem to learn to tone it down a bit. You know, maybe make an intelligent point without dropping an f-bomb for once. I know as a leftist that might be hard, but try. Then you wouldn't be such an easy target and people might actually be able to -- gasp!! -- take you seriously.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades