As an opening disclaimer, I'm going to admit that I'm still moderately uncomfortable using the "c" word in referring to females but, really, there is just no other way to describe the seething anger I'm feeling these days towards the worthless, right-wing pieces of offal masquerading as women in Canada who are not just protesting against the Status of Women Canada, but are doing so in ridiculously offensive and insulting ways.
One can (as I've done before) start here, at the blog of one Dianne Wood who begins badly by using not the proper acronym "SWC" but the more insulting "SOW", even admitting that it's not by accident:
Status of Women Canada (SWC is their way of calling it, I guess they don't like being called a female cow [sic]) ...
No shit, Dianne, but that didn't seem to stop you from acting like a complete jerk. And after I called Wood on that egregious bit of assholitude, try to believe she had the gall to write the following in her own comments section:
We have to all treat each other with respect. Even though I do not agree with "untraditional" lifestyles, I do have many friends who live them. I am not trying to be politically correct, just trying to come up with a way of speaking so maybe we can all learn to listen with each other.
This is apparently a usage of the word "respect" with which I am totally unfamiliar. In any event, Wood seems to want the freedom to compare Canadian women to pigs, but thinks that shouldn't stop us from sitting down and having a polite conversation.
But, Jesus Christ, that doesn't begin to compare with Hailey from Edmonton who takes it one step further and gets into a little photoshopping. But it's the comments section at that piece that really completes the picture.
Hailey, establishing herself as either hideously dishonest or breathtakingly stupid, writes:
There is another website - one that you came to as your referral page I believe - that is calling women who are conservative and speaking out "cunts" and myself, specifically, a "harlot".
Dear Hailey: Fuck you. If you're talking about my site, I never used that expression to describe women who were simply "conservative" and "speaking out" and you damned well know it. I used that expression specifically for a small set of Canadian, right-wing screech harpies who insisted on lowering the discourse to the point where they thought it was acceptable to compare their opponents to pigs. You call someone a "sow," I call you a "cunt." Deal with it. But it doesn't end there.
Commenter Suzanne, the batshit-crazy loon who runs the "fetal rights" blog "Blue Wave Canada," has also established that she aspires to the cunthood with the first comment at Hailey's site:
I love that post. And the picture.
I think I might use that.
Sure, why not? I imagine that, in Suzanne's world, that somehow qualifies as civil discourse as well. And Suzanne turns out to be just as dishonest as Hailey when she writes:
You should see all the snark we get on the Canadian blogosphere. Check out Canadian Cynic and Stageleft for samples.
Sure, Suzanne -- why don't you and your readers check out my site for samples? Let me recommend the posts where I point out the hypocrisy of your complaining about SWC being government-funded while not saying a fucking thing about how the taxpayers are also involuntarily funding the Catholic school system in Ontario. I'm still waiting to hear back about that, but I'm guessing you're a bit busy, given that being such a fucking martyr is a full-time job and all.
I could go on but I'm going to give Hullabaloo's Digby the last word as he writes about the "Angry, Angry Left" from an American perspective:
Please, please spare me the crocodile tears about leftist incivility. We are living in a political world formed by rightwing commentators who have made a fetish of harsh eliminationist rhetoric hammered over and over again into the ether until it sounds like normal discourse. And we've been waiting for more than a decade for the mainstream media to notice that rightwing celebrity pundits, who reach millions upon millions of listeners and viewers a day, routinely accuse liberals of treason and celebrate our deaths. It's made us a little bit testy. When important news outlets like the Washington Post see "leftist incivility" as a topic worthy of the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth it makes us wonder if they are even living in the same universe we do.
Famous and wealthy toxic political commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are routinely lauded as normal mainstream partisans while ordinary readers of the Washington Post are excoriated for incivility when they complain about inaccurate coverage that benefits Republicans. This is bizarro world. It is insane. It is a sign of a very sick political culture.
No shit. It takes a special kind of gall to compare your opponents to pigs, then complain about a subsequent lack of civility in the blogosphere.
Let me give you some advice, Dianne, Hailey and Suzanne. There's a whole bunch of us who are thoroughly fed up with your hypocritical bullshit regarding civility, and we're just not going to play nice anymore. I suggest you get used to it.
BONUS TRACK: Ohmigosh, I forgot all about this gem where Dianne (she of the "Let's call them SOWs even though we know it pisses them off" philosophy) writes in the comments section:
Why are you intolerant to another women's point of view? We can live together, as we have been. I just object to my tax money being used to support something I do not believe in. Status of Women should raise money thtough their supporters just as REAL Women does, then we will all be equally represented. We can live together in peace and harmony.
Yes, peace and harmony. And if Dianne calls you a "sow," it's only because she cares, right?