Saturday, May 18, 2013

From the "I Think I Shall Now Be Sick" Files

Via Crooks and Liars, we have the sordid tale of a right-wing nutcase threatening to shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina. To me, the combination of warped sexuality and wanton violence is particularly depraved. It's one thing to lambast one's political opponents, but it's an entirely different thing to fantasize about performing acts of sexualized violence on them, and to watch them die in agony.

There is an infection running through our society, a melange of rage, sexism, and cruelty that periodically erupts into boils in places like Cleveland and Steubenville (sorry Ohioans, I know it happens everywhere). While right-wing nut Peter Santilli most likely hasn't engaged in acts of sexual violence against women, his screed indicates that, mentally, he is capable of it. While his internet rant isn't the pus-filled boil that erupted on live television, it's the pathogen coursing through the patient which ultimately results in the boils, a slightly more virulent strain of the pathogen which results in verbal attacks on women almost invariably involving a sexual component. While the dismantling of Rape Culture is going to be an ongoing exercise in social engineering, I can only hope that sexualized death threats against a former high-ranking government official will merit a visit by the Secret Service.

In the meantime, I think I shall now be sick.

11 comments:

Syrbal/Labrys said...

Hard to decide whether to be sick over his utter misogyny and sexism, or by the fact that such violent blather is treated as if it is legitimate discourse by the Rethuglican party. Meanwhile, they whine and cry like kindergarteners whenever anyone on the Left indulges in constructive criticism of the adult non-gunnut-lethal sort.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Hard to decide whether to be sick over his utter misogyny and sexism, or by the fact that such violent blather is treated as if it is legitimate discourse by the Rethuglican party.

I think the acceptance of his misogyny is the bigger problem. He himself is a sicko, but the culture of which he is a part is a criminal enterprise.

Vixen Strangely said...

The tiresome fallback of this type of cretin is "Oh, I meant figuratively speaking!" So he might, if there were reactions to that kind of speech, grumble about how there used to be a 1st Amendment while asserting that he might not have meant an actual gun, nor a woman's actual vagina (then why the words "gun" or "vagina"? It always strikes me as strange that RW-ers despise Freud but seem like such case studies.)

But in any event, it's shock language used largely to punch up a sadly derivative collection of CT that just--really? A person not named Vince Foster "mysteriously suicides" and it's Hill's fault? Obama's running drugs and guns out of Afghanistan? (Dear fellow, I believe it was Latin America, involved a different "Barry", and was the Reagan Administration...) I can hardly keep my eyes open with a coke straw.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Poor Cleveland.

All that, and the Browns.
~

John Going Gently said...

Nutcases are just that nutcases...
( and I was a psychiatric nurse for years)
Wen they run off from the mouth.... They just need to be ignored.
It's the ones that are just bad and not mad that need a good slappin

mikey said...

It is all so grotesquely predictable. Just a few decades ago the US belonged - in a literal as well as figurative sense - to white men. Their dominance was unchallenged, and they felt safe in their power.

Now, while they retain the power, there are challenges from everywhere. From women, from people of color, from gay people, from people who aren't even Christians, can you imagine?

As their safe seat at the head of the table is increasingly threatened, they react more violently, their desperate struggle against the inevitable changes in a world where their inherent structural advantages are no longer simply an assumption.

Oh, make no mistake. It's going to get very ugly around here...

Patricia said...

We all know how scary vagina's are, especially Hillary's. Not sure his gun is big enough to handle it.

John Going Gently said...

Patricia
I saw one in 1980
Never again
!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The tiresome fallback of this type of cretin is "Oh, I meant figuratively speaking!"

"Can't you take a joke? HUMORLESS FEMINIST!!"

All that, and the Browns.

Not to mention those steamers (don't google that!).

It's the ones that are just bad and not mad that need a good slappin

Yeah, I stand corrected.

As their safe seat at the head of the table is increasingly threatened, they react more violently, their desperate struggle against the inevitable changes in a world where their inherent structural advantages are no longer simply an assumption.

The tragic thing is that, if they just learned to share, their "fall" would be cushioned to a large extent.

We all know how scary vagina's are, especially Hillary's. Not sure his gun is big enough to handle it.

Hillary would kick his ass in a real fight.

Patricia
I saw one in 1980
Never again
!


Wait a minute... that's no haiku!

mikey said...

Great!

Can I borrow a few hundred bucks instantly?

Thanks in advance...

Hamish Mack said...

Santilli should get professional help. He has lost ordinary human decency and is a danger to himself.