Irony is dead. Robert Silverberg has murdered irony.

[theweaselking]

“The early Truesdale draft is not what is being circulated now. Many veteran members of SFWA objected to the early text and have worked it over to keep it to the point that pre-censorship of published material is an Orwellian injury to free speech, period.”

Pinging james_nicoll, who may have missed that PARTICULAR gem of doublethink in the comments of Natalie Luhrs' post.

Comments

[seawasp]

It's not dead! It's only resting!

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I was happy to agree with the angry white dude once he stopped openly declaring what he really thought.

[bplutchak.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure that for a professional association to set standards for their official publication is not a violation of free speech, but what those of us in the business world usually call "Branding".

Sad news

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User james_nicoll referenced to your post from Sad news (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4814035.html) saying: [...] Irony murdered by Silverberg. [...]

[fengi.livejournal.com]

aaaand the WS shows up to equate not putting boobies on the front of the Association's newsletter with the McCarthy Blacklist.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Shitterley actually managed to use "I have black friends" *and* "people who object to racism are the real racists", in, like, one sentence.

He's got practice at this?

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like he's lots of fun for the bingo card fans.

[zeborah]

I think bingo's actually more fun if you've got time to mark off one square before they're calling out the next.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I'm realizing it's now been years since his first internet meltdown over people who dare to suggest race and gender are not only as important as class oppression, but in some situations they are the more relevant topic. And by "people" I mean black women. He's so relentless about it I can't help but pity his wife, "Yes, some black lady blocked you on twitter, yes she's part of the oppressive one percent...no, it's okay if you are angry about it for the rest of the day."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

He has never met any kind of prejudice against anyone that isn't really, truly, secretly, at it's REAL source, prejudice against Will Shetterley.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

The one thing I'm not going to bash Shetterley for is the class thing. At one point he actually articulated a reasonable and workable understanding of the relationships among class, race and gender in US society, -- that's the point where you'll find me encouraging him, if you search for a citation -- but it was less than a month till he went down some weird rabbithole. It was a weird and sobering thing for me to watch. I can't understand how, when he had hold of it at that one point, he lost it so thoroughly.

But it's unehlpful to make a hierarchy of these things, really. Class in the US is a racial issue: race is a class issue: and gender and class and gender and race work the same way.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

With how they overlap, it'd be nearly impossible to make a hierarchy, too - racism, sexism, classism, and so on rarely exist independently in a vacuum.

If it wasn't useful to distinguish them to better address the root causes, it'd be easier to just lump everything together into "being-mean-ism".

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

"I have black friends who object to racism. They are the real racists."

Damn, that's two sentences. I lose.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

Go for the semi-colon.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

But...but...I...but...OH MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Having a Monolith fall on them both could only improve things

[thebluerose.livejournal.com]

Wow they are really working hard to be allowed to have uncensored access to the SFWA for ever and ever arent they. My main question is why? Other than a medium for them to disseminate their archaic dissolute meanderings, what do they percieve as the benefit to them? More being seen in print?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

"Publish these articles for us, Danny."

"For ever...
"...and ever...
"...and ever."

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

I propose a petition to restore the petition to its original insane glory!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Worth noting that the origin myth of this traces to a person not a member of SFWA.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

True! Mary Robinette Kowal makes that same point in the comments.

But even though the original dude is a non-member? Look at all those members leaping on it.

[thornae.livejournal.com]

I skimmed through the actual petition (the "early Truesdale draft," that is, and skimmed because dear gods what a load of turgid rubbish).

My favourite part of it is the quoted email exchange between Truesdale and Steven Gould (new SFWA prez after Scalzi).
It finishes up with Gould writing this:

“Dave,
I appreciate the work you did for SFWA back where you used to be a member, but your email is not
a question. It's a polemic which confuses "free speech" with the legitimate needs and aims of an
organization's publications. Not only are we not obligated to pursue your notions of "free speech"
but as a 501(c)3 corporation it would be grossly irresponsible of us to put such ahead of the
business and goals of the organization.
You may, of course, air your views on this in whatever venues you control. You may even rejoin
SFWA and make your points in our member discussion forums or The Forum.
sincerely,
Steve
[etc]..."

I like him.