On Gutlessness and Epic Meetings of Pots and Kettles

Apparently the newest nugget of antichoice wingnut wisdom is that prochoice bloggers are — wait for it — “gutless cowards” because some of us use pseudonyms.

Before you start yelling “Amanda Marcotte! Jessica Valenti! Jill Filipovic!” or point out that plenty of antichoice bloggers do the same, or protest that there’s a king-hell shitload of good reasons for not using your real name online that have nothing to do with the sick obsessiveness and twitchy trigger fingers of the antichoice lunatic fringe, let’s ask ourselves what this woebegone little whine might really be about. Because it can’t really be about anonymity/pseudonyms, since these practices cut across both sides of the abortion rights blogosphere.

From where I sit it looks more like one or two particular pseudonymous prochoice bloggers somehow annoyed some antichoice bloggers who “blog naked” so to speak. And this was the best they could do: a peevish gripe about prochoice bloggers blogging “anonymously”.

But why not?  Baiting a hook and reeling in some predictably goofy comments about “gutlessness” and “hiding behind pseudonyms” to “spew libelous smears”… that kind of post puts a little Fun into a boring mid-week afternoon.  And after all, no matter what the bible-banging doomer goons tell you, Fun is what it’s all about.

Unfortunately, over at BIG BLUE WAVE (copy-paste for obvious reasons: http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/07/prolifeprowoman-asks-why-are-so-many.html), SUZANNE spiraled into paroxysms of stupid rage and beclowned herself with this brainless commentary:

Oh, SUZANNE.  “Libel”?  You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It only got worse in the comments, when a few people with their heads screwed on explained that there are a lot of good reasons for blogging pseudonymously. When I saw real-world stories of threats, harassment and stalking brushed off as “cowardly” and “BOGUS”, along with accusations of “Libelous Smears”, I could stand it no longer.  I left a comment, and that was where the Pot and Kettle didn’t just meet but careened into each other at top speed and burst into flames in an epic head-on collision.  My comment, not surprisingly, was

…not published.

 And just because I had the nerve to ask for examples of the “Libelous Smears” and the steel-belted, gold-plated brass BALLS to suggest that said smears might exist only in SUZANNE’s frenzied imagination.  Oh well…

Anyone who makes false accusations of “gutlessness” and especially “libel” should be prepared to back them up.  Making an accusation and then deleting comments that call you on it takes gutlessness to a whole new level.

But so what? Her house, her rules.  She’s a Propagandist and that’s how Propaganda is done. But let the record stand that SUZANNE’s brainless blather about “Libelous Smears” is manufactured from whole rotten maggot-infested cloth, with nothing to back it up but the summer breeze.

And after all, they all do it: longtime readers might recall when false accusations were made against The General at Stanek’s Psych Ward & Fetus Fetishizing Cafe, and when he called her on it in her comments section, she responded by deleting his comment.  These people are nothing if not predictable.