Mary Robinette Kowal, who is a leading SFWA pinkshirt, a professional puppeteer, and a mediocre science fiction writer of Regency romances with a little fantasy sprinkled over them, (you know, the sort that wins awards despite nobody reading them), has decided to get tuff now and tell the real SF writers to “shut the fuck up” and leave the organization. Because respect.
Dear Twelve Rabid Weasels of SFWA, please shut the fuck up.
I know you value your freedom of speech. Good on you. However there are 1788 other members of SFWA who also value their freedom of speech and manage to exercise it without being raging assholes.
You are professional writers, so should know the power of words. I therefore must assume that you are deliberately being provocative and trying to set things on fire because you enjoy watching a flamewar.
There are 1788 other members who don’t. Scratch that… there are 1752 because some people just quit because of you….
Please quit. And by “quit” I mean, please quit SFWA in a huff. Please quit noisily and complaining about how SFWA is censoring you for asking you to stop using hate speech. Please quit and complain about the “thoughtcrime” of asking people not to sexually harass someone. Please quit and bellyache about the good old days when people could be bigoted jerks. I want you to express your opinions clearly so that everyone knows them and knows that you are quitting because the other members of SFWA want you to Shut the Fuck up.
With all sincerity,
Mary Robinette Kowal
First, I note that of the three people that I know who have quit the organization, two quit due to the actions of Kowal and the junior members that the Scalzi administration foolishly encouraged instead of keeping in line. And if 36 people have really quit of late, then obviously the responsibility lies with those who have actively sown dissension and dissatisfaction throughout the organization with their inept activist leadership rather than the so-called “rabid weasels” who have been there for years, if not decades.
It lies with people like Mary Puppinette Kowal.
Second, no one is complaining about anyone asking people not to sexually harass anyone. They are objecting, quite reasonably, to the insane idea of setting up SFWA as a sexual harassment police with self-declared jurisdiction over every SF/F convention on the planet. They are objecting to the abuse of the organization by a number of vocal nonentities attempting to use it for their own ideological purposes.
If anyone is going to “Shut the Fuck Up”, it should be irresponsible nobodies like the Puppinette who have absolutely nothing of any value to say, either on their blogs or in their books, and who have contributed nothing to the organization except to bring it to the brink of self-implosion.
I continue with these SFWA-related posts, not because I think anyone is particularly interested in the petty squabbles of writers, but because they are a perfect micro-example of the greater processes in work as part of the Left’s long march through the institutions and organs of society. Leftists like the Puppinette invade, infest, and then, as soon as they feel strong enough, start issuing dictates and posturing as if they speak for the entire organization in order to cement their control. They attack, attack, and attack, and when they finally meet up with a modicum of resistance, shriek that their critics are being provocative for no reason at all except personal shortcomings.
Thus we end up with “Christian” churches devoid of actual Christians, a “Republican” party devoid of genuine republicans, a “Democratic” party devoid of proper democrats, and a “Science Fiction writers” association without any actual science fiction writers. Learn to recognize the pattern. It is already at work in an organization near you; it is why every organization that is not firmly vigilant about keeping these destructive invaders out will eventually succumb to them.