Tag: SFWA

Rejecting the Lie

A few people, both sympathetic and otherwise, have asked me why I am willing to hold and defend such controversial and upsetting opinions as I have done of late.  And providing more evidence that rabbits simply do not have the capacity to understand not-rabbits, the SFWA is absolutely rife with various theories concerning my supposed mental instability.

After all, who but a deranged lunatic would think to challenge the received wisdom of the warren’s long-accepted consensus goodthink?

As it happens, the reason is fairly straightforward.  If you will not stand up for the truth when pressed, you will not stand up for the Truth when persecuted.  Now, I may be wrong about the process of civilizational development and the extended period of time I believe it requires to fully transform tribes of primitive savages into an advanced and civilized culture; I have no problem changing my mind when a compelling case contra my position has been made.  I have, as the regulars here know, done precisely that with regards to free trade and open borders, among other things.  But I have not seen one single person, not one, even attempt to demonstrate that I am incorrect in any way.

I’ve seen rants, I’ve seen outrage, I’ve seen anger, I’ve seen insults, and I’ve seen assertions that certain subjects are beyond debate. What I have not seen is anyone make a case, let alone a coherent or compelling one, that opposes the logic and observations I have presented.  This is because the Lie cannot compete with the Truth, it can only attempt to obscure it and silence those who dare to speak it.

But the Lie never wins in the end.  The ongoing controversy somehow reminded me of this passage from Panzer Commander, a war memoir written by one of Rommel’s favorite officers, Col. Hans von Luck, which I found moving in the way it showed how even enemies at war can find common ground in the light of the Truth.  More importantly, it shows how even a rage that burns hotter and more violently than the rage of the SFWA’s delusional members cannot destroy the hunger of the human spirit for truth and Truth alike.

“Smolensk looked as though it had been abandoned. Destruction in the industrial quarters and of the bridges over the Dnieper was immense. In the midst of the ruins, Smolensk cathedral pointed to the sky. It appeared largely unharmed. I followed the women and the old men and as I entered the cathedral, was deeply impressed by its beauty. It looked intact. The altar was adomed; burning candles and many icons richly embellished with gold bathed the interior in a festive light.

As I went up to the altar with my companions, an old man, poorly dressed and with a flowing beard, spoke to me in broken German.

“Gospodin officer, I am a pope who used to preach here before the Lenin-Stalin era; I have been in hiding now for many years, scraping a living as a shoemaker. Now you have liberated our city. May I say a first mass in this cathedral?”

“How is it,” I asked, “that your cathedral is in such good condition?” His answer surprised me. America in tsarist times bought the church and all its treasures “Immediately after the Revolution, Russians who had emigrated from the Russians who, at the time, were in urgent need of American dollars. The cathedral is American property, which is why everything is-almost-unchanged.” 

I have never been able to verify his statement, but it was not very important to me. Without referring to HQ, I gave the pope permission to celebrate mass the next day, for which he wanted to bring in an additional pope.

The following day, I went to Smolensk again, having informed the divisional commander in the meantime; as a precaution, I took along an armored patrol.

The sight that met our eyes when we arrived was breathtaking.

The square in front of the cathedral was full of people moving slowly toward the entrance. With my orderly officer, I jostled my way forward. Already, there was not a corner left in the cathedral in which people were not standing, sitting, or kneeling. We remained standing to one side to avoid disturbing the service by our presence.

I was not familiar with the Russian Orthodox ritual, but the ceremony that now began drew me more and more under its spell.

Invisible behind the altar, one of the two popes began with a monotone chant, which was answered by a choir of eight voices standing in front of the altar. The chanting of the precentor and the choir filled the vast space of the church. The acoustics gave the impression that the chanting came from above, from heaven.

The people fell on their knees and prayed. All had tears in their eyes. For them, it was the first mass for more than twenty years. My companion and I were greatly moved.”

In rejecting NK Jemisin’s call for reconciliation within the SFWA, I declared there can be no reconciliation between the observant and the delusional.  Still less can there be any compromise between the Truth and the Lie.

The liars can ban the services. They can revoke memberships, they can deny access, they can reject publications, they can close their eyes, and they can put their hands over their ears. But one thing they cannot do is make their lies real.  And sometimes, it is necessary to imitate the marshwiggle, stick one’s hand into the fire, and raise a stink capable of penetrating their illusions.

Mailvox: the undead corpse

FeministX offers her condolences, rather less sarcastically than I would have expected:

Vox, I can see that your membership in SFWA was meaningful and important to you. I am sorry that you are being sidelined from an organization that was valuable to you because you expressed an intellectual opinion. I know this must be very frustrating because even good arguments will not help you gain understanding from your opponents.

Thank you.  I very much enjoyed SFWA back in the day, and having the opportunity to get to know writers such as Gordon Dickson, Joel Rosenberg, David Feintuch, Lois McMaster Bujold, Pat Wrede, and Raymond Feist.  I belonged to it for nine years without so much as exchanging a cross word with anyone.  Even then, however, there were some signs that the equalitarians in their midst were fitfully stirring and seeking to take control of the organization from those they derided, and still deride, as “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys”.

Looking at the organization now makes you think of seeing your cousin lurching toward you with his hands outstretched, his throat gashed open and his head lolling down on his chest, moaning “braaaains”!  It’s rather ghastly.

SF vs science

Shattersnipe would appear to favor a rhetorical approach to the seemingly indisputable observation that not all human population groups are equally civilized:

And there is white-hot anger, so fierce you become the eye within the
maelstrom of your own rage, calm as your pulse exceeds the beats of a
marathon runner, calm as your fingers grasp and clench, calm as you grip
your aggressor’s throat and squeeze.

This last I feel for Theodore Beale.

Recently, I blogged about sexism in the SFWA Bulletin.
I wrote that piece as a self-declared comic rant, the tone inspired by
anger at men who ultimately meant well, however offensive and outdated
their efforts at showing it. I received a lot of support for having done
so; but of course, there was a flipside. My anger, said some, was
unseemly and unprofessional. My arguments were poorly reasoned. I was
preaching to the choir. I was the gendered pejorative of choice. But the
thing is, I can shrug that off. I deal out enough criticism that I
expect to receive my share in return, and whatever form that pushback
takes, it very rarely shocks me. By the standards of women on the
internet, in fact, I’m pretty lucky. I’ve received a minimum of rape
threats, I rarely get called a cunt, and if some of my detractors are
uncivil, then I can usually dish it out in return. I was bullied,
harassed, attacked and assaulted enough at school for being forthright,
female and unfeminine that written threats just don’t chill me the way
they used to. (They still chill me, of course. And I didn’t suffer
nearly as much as others. Nonetheless, the comparison stands – and no,
this isn’t an invitation to try harder.)
The point being, I have privilege, and that
privilege protects me. I’m a middle-class, well-educated, straight white
ciswoman with a functional, middle-class white family, and however much
the misogyny gets to me at times, I can draw on that privilege – on
that firmly entrenched sense of self-worth and the emotional, social and
financial safety net which supports it – and fight back. I belong to
the second most privileged group of people on the planet, and whatever
abuse I still suffer regardless of that, I have the cultural status to
counter it and be heard. As an individual, therefore, I’m hard to
oppress. I have privilege. I have resilience. I have opinions.
And I have anger….
I feel poisoned even typing that. Sickened.
Trembling. I cannot even imagine how Jemisin feels. Nor am I attempting
to speak for her. She is, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant
women – one of the most brilliant people and writers, period – active in
SFF today, and my voice in this matter is not a replacement for hers.
I am speaking because it would be a crime against conscience not to.
I am speaking because a world where men like
Theodore Beale are left to speak unchallenged by the weariness of their
opponents is not a world I want to live in. I am speaking because my privilege affords me a chance to be heard.
And I am speaking because of the bodily
disgust, the rage and hatred and putrescence I feel for members of my
own race, both now and throughout history, who speak of savages and
lesser beings, of civilisation and the right to kill those outside or
perceived to be incapable of it; who speak, as Beale does, as though
people of colour are a genetically different, inferior species of human
when compared to his Aryan ancestors.
This is my Reconciliation.
The passion of it all just gives you shivers, doesn’t it?  It’s hard to decide what is the most amusing part of this hysterical “dabacle”.  It’s a little subtle, perhaps, but I think, in the end, my favorite part is where she declares the “bodily
disgust, the rage and hatred and putrescence” she feels for the idea that “people of colour” are “genetically different”.
What is so funny about this is that it all goes back to 2005, and a WND column when I pointed out that women don’t write much hard science fiction because they have little aptitude or inclination for science.  And now, eight years later, we see a spelling-challenged female SFWA writer who is frothing-at-the-mouth furious at the idea that Africans are a genetically distinct population group, a group that therefore must necessarily be either inferior or superior to other population groups.
In other words, she is a science fiction writer who is deeply and violently offended by science.  This should suffice to explain why science fiction has qualitatively declined over the years.

But we shouldn’t be too harsh on her.  After all, she does an excellent job of proving my original point in my response to Ms Jemisin, which is that there can be no reconciliation between the observant and the delusional.  This isn’t a challenge to my views, but rather, an exemplary underlining of them.

SFWA Forum: the “moderated” posts

Since the freethinkers at the SFWA Forum are presently debating whether my comments can be permitted in the very place where I am attacked with the most badthink words the rabbits can produce, I hereby give myself permission, as per the SFWA Forum guidelines, to quote my posts here before they are disappeared again:

1. Posted Today, 03:41 AM
 

Her speech is ridiculous, her call for reconciliation is impossible, and, it should be noted, MS Jemisin is lying about me:

“For the past few days I’ve also been observing a “kerfuffle”, as
some call it, in reaction to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’
of America’s latest professional journal, the Bulletin. Some of you may
also have been following the discussion; hopefully not all of you. To
summarize: two of the genre’s most venerable white male writers made
some comments in a series of recent articles which have been decried as
sexist and racist by most of the organization’s membership. Now, to put
this in context: the membership of SFWA also recently voted in a new
president. There were two candidates — one of whom was a self-described
misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole. In
this election he lost by a landslide… but he still earned ten percent of
the vote. SFWA is small; only about 500 people voted in total, so we’re
talking less than 50 people.”

I am not “a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few
other flavors of asshole”.  It is John Scalzi, Patrick Nielsen Hayden,
and Theresa Nielsen Hayden who have described me that way.  I merely
posited that even if their false claims were true, I would still be the
right choice for SFWA president given my industry connections and
executive experience. Nor have I ever made any active efforts to take
away the woman’s “most basic rights”; I am in fact a libertarian. NK
Jemisin’s speech is not only ignorant, it is blatantly and provably
dishonest with regards to me, with regards to the history of science
fiction, and with regards to Florida and Texas state law.

I hereby demand a public apology from Ms Jemisin.

Moreover, based on the particular nature of her false claim, Ms Jemisin has clearly violated the Forum rules, which state “The
SFWA discussion forums are for SFWA members only, and all posts made
here are confidential. Material may not be re-posted outside these
forums without the explicit permission of their authors.”  Her false statement was clearly based on my announcement which was posted here in the forums by Lawrence Schoen.

I therefore also request that she be given a warning point by a Forum moderator.

2. Posted Today, 07:52 AM

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

She did nothing of the kind.  I have never described myself anywhere
as misogynist, racist, or anti-Semite and a search of my blog will prove
that.  The only time I’ve even bothered to address such stupid
accusations together is here, in the Forum, which is why it is obvious
that she violated SFWA confidentiality.  I have zero interest in
debating with you, Mr. Sanford. I enjoy challenges and you’re not half
as intelligent as people I’ve crushed in three exchanges.

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

I should certainly hope so.  I was warned for violating SFWA
confidentiality once because I was unaware even partial quotes were not
permitted.  I expect Ms Jemisin to be similarly disciplined.  If not,
well, then we’ll know just how impartial the moderators are.  Anyhow,
20x more people will read this on my blog than will read it here.

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

Reality isn’t racist, Mr. Sanford.  Neither is history.  They simply
are.  And you can’t escape the fact that Ms Jemisin lied about me and
about the state laws of Texas and Florida.  As some of my Australian
readers have already pointed out, Ms Jemisin has no idea what she’s
talking about concerning Australian race relations either.

3. Posted Today, 08:15 AM

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

So, if I’d simply written: “That post on her blog is one of the most
racist attacks I’ve seen in a long time.”, that would not require
moderation?  Who are you trying to kid?

Meanwhile, the President-elect, Steven Gould, notes: “Lots
of people calling for the expulsion of this guy. With reason.”

Well, my lawyer and I would certainly enjoy seeing them try to expel a paid-up Lifetime member for the thoughtcrime of expressing his opinion.  You see, I’ve already got the entire SF Forum on record, so it would be fascinating to see them attempt to defend various statements by certain authors while claiming that mine were worthy of expulsion.

A black female fantasist calls for Reconciliation

NK Jemisin is publicly lying about me and a few other things in Australia as she blithely advocates the continued self-destruction of science fiction:

Right now American politicians are doing their best to roll back
voting rights won during our own Civil Rights movement. They are
putting in place educational “reforms” which disproportionately have a
negative impact on black and brown and poor white kids, and will
essentially help to solidify a permanent underclass. Right now there
are laws in places like Florida and Texas which are intended to make it
essentially legal for white people to just shoot people like me, without
consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence. So:
admitting that the land we live on was stolen from hundreds of other
nations and peoples? Acknowledging that the prosperity the United
States enjoys was bought with blood? That’s a pipe dream.

I want you to understand that what you’ve done makes me want to weep with envy, and bitterness, and hope.

So: segue time. Let’s scale down. Let’s talk about the community — the microcosmic nation — of science fiction and fantasy.

For the past few days I’ve also been observing a “kerfuffle”, as some
call it, in reaction to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ of
America’s latest professional journal, the Bulletin. Some of you may
also have been following the discussion; hopefully not all of you. To
summarize: two of the genre’s most venerable white male writers made
some comments in a series of recent articles which have been decried as
sexist and racist by most of the organization’s membership. Now, to put
this in context: the membership of SFWA also recently voted in a new
president. There were two candidates — one of whom was a self-described
misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole.
In this election he lost by a landslide… but he still earned ten percent
of the vote. SFWA is small; only about 500 people voted in total, so
we’re talking less than 50 people. But scale up again. Imagine if ten
percent of this country’s population was busy making active efforts to
take away not mere privileges, not even dignity, but your most basic
rights. Imagine if ten percent of the people you interacted with, on a
daily basis, did not regard you as human.

Just ten percent. But such a ten percent.

And beyond that ten percent are the silent majority — the great
unmeasured mass of enablers. These are the folks who don’t object to
the treatment of women as human beings, and who may even have the odd
black or gay friend that they genuinely like. However, when the ten
percent starts up in their frothing rage, these are the people who say
nothing in response. When women and other marginalized groups respond
with anger to the hatred of the ten percent, these are the people who do
not support them, and in fact suggest that maybe they’re overreacting.
When they read a novel set in a human society which contains only one
or two female characters, these are the people who don’t decry this as
implausible. Or worse, they simply don’t notice. These are the people
who successfully campaigned for Star Trek to return to television after
25 years, but have no intention of campaigning for Roddenberry’s vision
to be complete, with gay characters joining the rainbow brigade on the
bridge. These are the people who gleefully nitpick the scientific
plausibility of stopping a volcano with “cold fusion”, yet who fail to
notice that an author has written a future earth in which somehow
seventeen percent of the human race dominates ninety percent of the
characterization.

Let me be perfectly clear.  I do not describe myself as a “misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole”.  John Scalzi, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Theresa Nielsen Hayden, among others, have described me that way.  Of course, John Scalzi also describes himself as a rapist, Patrick Nielsen Hayden took his wife’s name when he got married, and Theresa Nielsen Hayden is dumb enough to have claimed a prominent Game blogger with three Billboard-charting club hits “is not acquainted with actual women.”

Granted, Spacebunny and the fat frog that is Nielsen Hayden don’t look as if they belong to the same phylum, let alone the same species, so perhaps the key word is not “women, but “actual” in the sense of “grotesquely malformed”.

I therefore suggest that their assertions should be taken with at least a small grain of salt rather than credited to me. And it should be obvious that, being a libertarian, I am not actively attempting to take away anyone’s “most basic rights”.  Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not.

She is lying about the laws in Texas and Florida too.  The laws are not there to let whites ” just shoot people like me, without
consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence”, those self-defense laws have been put in place to let whites defend their lives and their property from people, like her, who are half-savages engaged in attacking them.

Jemisin’s disregard for the truth is no different than the average Chicago gangbanger’s disregard for the traditional Western code of civilized conduct. She could, if she wished, claim that privileged white males are responsible for the decline of Detroit, for the declining sales of science fiction, even for the economic and cultural decline of the United States, but that would not make it true.  It would not even make it credible.  Anyone who is paying sufficient attention will understand who is genuinely responsible for these problems.

Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support from those white males.  If one considers that it took my English and German ancestors more than one thousand years to become fully civilized after their first contact with advanced Greco-Roman civilization, it should be patently obvious that it is illogical to imagine, let alone insist, that Africans have somehow managed to do the same in less than half the time at a greater geographic distance.  These things take time.

Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more understanding of what it took to build a new literature by “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys” than an illiterate Igbotu tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not understand that her dishonest call for “reconciliation” and even more diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into irrelevance. Nor do the back-patting Samuel Johnsons wiping their eyes and congratulating her for her ever-so-touching speech understand that.

There can be no reconciliation between the observant and the delusional.

UPDATE: It may amuse some of you to know that in making her false claim, NK Jemisin appears to have violated the SFWA Forum rules, which state: “[A]ll posts made here are confidential. Material may not be re-posted
outside these forums without the explicit permission of their authors.”   I am confident the moderators of the SFWA will be swift to deal with this violation of the organization’s rules.

UPDATE 2: The Spitefully Fascist Writers of America are on the job!  This post was resulted in the following email:  “Your blog feed has been removed from the @SFWAauthors aggregator due to violating of the policies of this service, specifically:  “Marking blog posts for inclusion that include threats or personal attacks or obvious trolling will also be grounds for removal.”” 

UPDATE 3: Now the SFWA moderators have, at least temporarily, wiped my comments off the SFWA Forum thread while leaving the attacks on me untouched.  What a pity that 20x more people will read everything here instead.  Keep this in mind when you’re trying to argue that there are no ideological gatekeepers in the SF/F publishing world.  They desperately want to silence all disssent, and they’re tremendously frustrated that they don’t have the wherewithal.


UPDATE 4: As always, I am quite willing to publicly debate Ms Jemisin, Mr. Sanford, or any other member of the SFWA concerning the issues raised here, be it on the SFWA Forum, this blog, or any other written venue.  And if all these passionate champions of human equality are afraid to defend their views in public, as were Messrs Myers and McRapey in the past, well, everyone knows perfectly well what that signifies, their protestations notwithstanding.


UPDATE 5: McRapey has the perfect solution to the Problem that Must Not Be Named.  He’s going to give money to ANOTHER charity. That will show me!  When did “donation” replace “education” as the left-liberal solution to all evils?

Stampeding the herd

Sarah Hoyt contemplates the bovine thinking that led to the SFWA’s recent “storm in a B-cup”.  After all, it’s hard for the older members of the herd to keep up:

I got very – as opposed to a bit – worried in the eighties when women
started claiming that men talking them into sex was “rape.”  The
reasoning seemed to be that men had awesome talking skills and a mere
woman could not defend herself against all those double-slick words.

I thought “OMG, they’re going Victorian.”

Since then we’ve gone to lookism (the ugly girl’s attempt to take
attention from the pretty one) and to a man even looking at a woman too
long, or asking for a date being considered “harassment.”

In fact, any man NOTICING another person is female is now harassment
(witness the offense at “ladies” in Barry and Mike’s article.)

I feel for Barry and Mike.  I’m sure they were full supporters of the
initial feminism which only wanted to give women access but assumed
that evolution was not going to be reversed in a generation, and if
women wanted to work alongside men, they’d have to endure men being…
male.  And if they used a little of female wiles to get what they
wanted… well, that’s how humans are and they go two by two.  This was a
somewhat rational idea, and if it had stopped there…
It didn’t.

Their articles were salutes of the women who made it in (at that time) a very hostile male environment.

Barry and Mike had no idea that the herd had changed step and that
the mooing signals from the top had changed.  Cattle are very stupid
animals.  They identify their herd by a series of not very rational
signals.  Fall out of step, and you risk being mistaken for an intruder
and gored.  And people who didn’t realize there was herd behavior going
on, and who got to their positions by rational thought, are more than
likely to get that treatment.  I know, it’s happened to me.

And meanwhile the herd of tough grrrl Victorian maidens, “don’t call
me slut” but “I’ll sleep with guys I’m not even interested in, and I’ll
call myself slut,”  “asking me on a date is sexism” and “I can’t
understand where all the good men have gone”, “we’re just as good as
men”, “it’s rape if a man talks a woman into sex because men have
awesome men neurons we can’t compete with” goes on its merry way
changing directions as the leaders change rationals and demanding more
government intervention to handicap men more, because otherwise, how can
they compete with wonderful male superpowers?  They who are fragile
flowers who get peristaltic disturbances because someone mentions most
top scientists aren’t female?

The irony is the lesson being taught to younger men who have watched the Resnick-Malzberg debacle is that my way is the right way.  Kowtowing to the feminist cows only leads to being trampled, but standing up to them, challenging them, and contemptuously exposing them for the pathetic intellectual frauds they are will send them stampeding away, mooing in distress, every single time.

Barry and Mike were full supporters of the initial feminism.  Most men of their age were. Having been steeped in it my entire life, I’m a full-fledged enemy of it.  And I’m very, very far from being alone in that regard.

Equality in the SFWA

A German university points the way:

The University of Leipzig has voted to adopt the feminine version of the word for “professor” as its default. In German Professorin refers to a female professor while Professor is the male equivalent. Under the new measures, written documents will use the term Professorinnen when referring to professors in general. A footnote is to explain that male professors are also included in the description.

This solves so many problems!  I’m sure the likes of McRapey and McRacy will be delighted to henceforth be known as science fiction authoresses.  They’ll probably throw on pretty dresses to celebrate this bold step forward in gender equity. 

You know McRapey is just dying to break out his little red pumps again.

Seriously Fascist Women’s Association

One of the cross-dressing lights of the New Equalitarians created a helpful list of the most censorious liberal fascists in the SFWA.  With one or two exceptions, it’s a useful list of nobodies and mediocrities whose books you now know you can safely continue to ignore.

It’s a bit amusing to read through it and realize there are precisely two authors on it whose work can reasonably be compared to that of the two men who are being so widely castigated… and I’m not a fan of either Resnick or Malzberg.  I merely support their right to write opinion pieces and freely express their opinions in them, regardless of how offensive these delicate, fainting flowers may find those opinions to be.  Of course, in the present SFWA, such support for free speech renders me a radical extremist, nearly as dangerous as the deeply offensive cover of Issue 200.

Bonus points for whomever can figure out how many of these
self-appointed censors have published novels with more “offensive”
covers than the Red Sonja illustration on the Bulletin cover that has
inspired such an epic collective hissy fit.

It’s been interesting to see that Laura Resnick, who is usually very quick to leap in and loudly condemn anyone suspected of insufficient enthusiasm for equalitarianism, has been silent concerning the public witchburning of her father. It’s also intriguing to see how these liberal fascists claim labeling two old men “sexist
bigots” and openly calling for an end to their column is acceptable, but
identifying them as “censorious” is, and here I quote the SFWA
moderator, “abusive behavior”.

    SFWA burns a witch

    Amanda takes exception to the ongoing SFWA witch hunt, which is being led by Rapey McRaperson and his sidekick, Rachel Swirsky:

    What did Resnick and Malzberg do that was so bad, you ask? Well, at the beginning of the column in issue 200, he admits to have written — gasp — porn. And he sold it to a “lady” editor. He identifies female authors and editors as “lady” writer and “lady” editor. Oh, and he’s pissed — not that I necessarily blame him. He and Malzberg had been attacked in the SFWA forums for stating their opinions  in what is basically an op-ed column (gee, I thought that’s what op-eds were for). People were demanding that SFWA censor them by not letting them write the column any longer and, gasp, he called them out on it.

    Could he have been more circumspect? Probably. Are some of his ideas old-fashioned? Of course. But that isn’t, in my opinion, the real crime with what’s been going on. The crime is how the detractors behaved. They took their issues with Resnick and Malzberg public without giving the public the opportunity to read the columns in question and make up their own mind. They attacked two men who have more experience in the field and, in the vast majority of cases, more sales than these attackers will ever hope to have. Instead of simply asking to post a counter piece to what Resnick and Malzberg said, they went on the attack, with all the name calling and vitriol they accused the two gentlemen — gasp, have I just committed the crime of sexism by calling them gentlemen? — of being sexist and misogynistic.

    In other words, this very vocal but apparently small group resorted to bullying and threats to leave or never join SFWA in order to impose their own views on SFWA. Pardon me for not jumping on their bandwagon but I don’t support bullies and you can sure as hell bet that if the tables were turned on them, they’d be whining about how we just don’t understand and we aren’t enlightened or whatever the latest bullshit politically correct term happens to be.

    This is an issue, if you want to give it that much credence, that should have been handled in-house. But no, these bullies took their complaint public but didn’t want to give the public the whole story. After all, if they did, the public might just see through all their catch phrases and righteous indignation. They demanded SFWA act so this atrocity never be allowed to occur again.

    And SFWA caved and did so publicly and in a way that adds to the condemnation that has been heaped on Resnick and Malzberg, as well as the editor of the Bulletin.

    The much-criticized editor of the SFWA Bulletin, Jean Rabe, resigned under pressure today.  It appears Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg will be stripped of their column as well. It shouldn’t be long before all criticism of women, romance novels in space, and the Obama administration are banned in the SFWA Forum.

    It’s absolutely freaking hilarious.  I just wish I could share all the self-congratulatory back-patting over all the brave, brave courage that the censorious freakshows believe they are exhibiting by boldly taking on chainmail bikinis and references to ladies.

    The dangerous vision of the SFWA

    I posted a pair of comments that were in line with my post yesterday on the SFWA Forum.  (Forum posts are private and one is not allowed to quote them elsewhere, otherwise I would quote the posts to which I was responding.) This resulted in numerous complaints to the moderator, a warning for “abusive behavior”, the deletion of the following posts, and a temporary removal of my posting abilities there by a creature with the unlikely Warrior Woman name of Cat Rambo.
    Not that it will likely make a
    difference, but I don’t see how “Moahr Titz” is going to
    improve the Bulletin. As for more diversity, that’s a fantastic idea
    if you want to render the Bulletin of absolutely no interest to
    anyone except women who derive vicarious pleasure from listening to
    other people moan about the travails of life. If this was the
    Organization for Respecting Women and not the SFWA, hey, these
    various suggestions are fine. But they have absolutely nothing to do
    with science fiction. Consider: it will be a pretty hollow victory to
    claim that everyone in professional science fiction is finally
    respecting women, minorities, dwarves, and fairies in the desired
    manner if in the process you manage to drive away three-quarters of
    the science fiction readership.
    The Bulletin absolutely should have
    scantily clad women being rescued by manly men from bug-eyed aliens
    on the cover from time to time. It should have robots and spaceships
    too. Whether you find that offensive or not, that’s part of what
    science fiction was, and is. Science fiction is supposed to be the
    literature of dangerous ideas, not safe and inoffensive and
    respectful and politically correct ones.
    And if you can’t handle that
    concept, then you should get the hell out of the field and the
    organization. You don’t belong in either of them.
    I therefore encourage every member
    of the SFWA who is offended by the Dialogues or the Bulletin covers
    to follow e. Catherine Tobler’s excellent example and resign from the
    organization. Because regardless of your literary talents and
    interests, you are clearly not fit to be a science fiction writer.
    Science fiction isn’t about respect, equality, or inoffensiveness, it
    is about science and the future.

    I also addressed the idea that the Dialogues column between Mike Resnick and Barry Salzberg should be forcibly retired with alacrity.

    How about a regular column by women
    writers complaining about sexism in [science
    fiction/fantasy/horror/publishing/games] and how there are not enough
    female [fill-in-the-blank]. That would be totally new and different
    and impossible to find anywhere else!
    Maybe every four issues we could
    change it up with a column by a black writer complaining about racism
    in [science fiction/fantasy/horror/publishing/games] and how there
    are not enough black [fill-in-the-blank].
    Who wants to read about the history
    of yucky old science fiction by some old white guys of whom nobody
    has ever heard anyway?

    So, praising the decision of a member to quit, expressing the opinion that others of similarly delicate minds would do well to follow her example, and noting that women are inordinately inclined to be easily offended, speech-controlling fascists resulted immediately in fascistic, speech-repressing activity by an offended woman.  In the eyes of the present SFWA, criticism equals abuse.

    And you thought the Sports Guy was joking.  Women really do ruin everything. Even for themselves. Perhaps especially for themselves.

    No wonder a number of SFWA members refuse to post on the Forum and stubbornly stick with the old ones on SFF.net.  The SFWA Forum doesn’t just stifle discourse, it actively eliminates it altogether.

    Harlan Ellison wept.