Some guy with a blog has done an entry on my personal life, which is sort of cool; this is a first, and it tickles my vanity to think I’m important enough that anyone cares.
Usually, I would enjoy this quietly, let my ego be stroked, and leave it at that. There are a couple of disturbing elements, however which incline me to write about it: The first is that he identifies Kit and refers to Kit and me being involved with “a woman.” “A woman?” What, she doesn’t get a name? Is he “protecting” her out of what must be the sickest example of chivalry in the last decade? Or is it that, as is implied, she doesn’t matter, because, well, she’s just “a woman?” Think about that. On my list of Issues To Campaign On, subtle examples of sexism don’t usually appear; but this one is just especially icky.
The other disturbing element is that he identifies me as a “Trot.” Now, let’s be clear, if you want to make a Trotskyist twitch, or if you’re just ignorant, you refer to him as a “Trotskyite.” The word “Trot” has a very specific history–it is the word of choice of the Stalinist thugs. Even the rank-and-file Stalinists used “Trotskyite” in order to imply it was just a little sect of no importance–“Trot” is used by the ones with the brass knuckles outside the meetings, the ones who killed the families of any Soviet worker who even sounded like a Trotskyist, of the ones who murdered the entire generation of Bolsheviks who made the revolution. That word, “Trot,” moves this all the way from silly to, well, a little creepy.
But, still, it is kind of nifty to think of myself as worth that sort of attention. Where are the paparazzi?