Feminist Metablogging – One Bald Man With A Telephone
If you’ve ever wondered why it is that making headway against the Right in the information war is like wading through quicksand in clown shoes, here’s an object lesson in how just one determined cracker asshat can bog down progressive bloggers for weeks. (This story via Pinko Feminist Hellcat. )
The case of George McClintock, who sued for custody of his biological daughter, has been percolating in and around many feminist blogs over the past weeks. The fact that there is a suit is a matter of public record, as it was reported on WSNBC TV and McCormick is depicted on video talking about the case.
This is how feminist blogger The Countess reported it on January 11, the story having been sent to her by a reader:
One of my readers, Violet Socks, sent this story to me. A Georgia bio-dad is fighting to gain custody of a child that the birth mother gave up for adoption. I don’t know if Georgia has a putative father registry. If Georgia had a putative father registry, this mess wouldn’t have happened. Putative father registries allow men to add their names to a database in the event that they impregnate a woman who chooses to give up her baby for adoption. The guy is notified of a pending adoption if he’s on the database, and then he can step in to claim his rights in a timely manner.
There are problems with this case. The mother was 15 when the father started seeing her. He was 26. She became pregnant not long after. According to the link, “[t]he mother’s lawyers and the adoptive parents argue that McClintock has used up his chances to gain custody. After dropping several previous petitions to get parental rights, they say Georgia law prohibits any more.” The fathers’ lawyers, on the other hand, say that “the mother’s lawyers violated Georgia law when they failed to notify McClintock of their intentions.”
The judge is expected to make a decision soon whether or not McClintock may obtain custody of the child.
What jumps out at me from that post? First, that the case could illustrate the utility of putative father databases in Georgia, and this could be politically significant, and second, that it won’t be, because the plaintiff’s exhausted his chances to pursue the case. Seems reasonable that a feminist blog would wish to comment on such a political issue.
Fair enough, you might say – but where’s the kerfuffle? In comments blogger Reclusive Leftist brought up what she thought were other salient facts:
What bothered me so much about this report, as I told Trish, is that it leaves out the fact that this guy has behaved criminally in this case, including hacking into the opposing attorney’s computer. He has created a nightmare situation for the women involved — the birth mother, the adoptive mother, the attorney.
I have no idea RL knew this, and a cursory google gives only the 2 news reports, but careful reading of her comments here and elsewhere would presume intimate knowledge of the case. One can read from comment context and detail here and at other blogs that the commenters include, anonymously, Reclusive Leftist herself, and also what appears to be the intended adoptive parents of the child in question.
It seems McClintock was not happy, not happy at all, that Reclusive Leftist, or anyone else for that matter, deigned to comment on what’s a matter of public record. On the face of it, not unreasonable. It’s a very fraught and difficult situation and no-one wants to be wrongfully traduced or misrepresented. He had every right to make a complaint using the right channels, ie initially by email to the blogger.
But MCormick wasn’t reasonable. Rather than make a mere complaint, McCormick went cracker nuclear. From the comments at Red State Feminist ( McCormick being referred to, variously, as Voldemort and McAsshat) :
Anonymous said…
Hypatia’s father, I LOVE your comment. Drunk and googling his own name — yep.
This is how crazy Voldemort is: my ISP is based in Minnesota. He’s calling them every hour and harassing them, right? This morning he actually said to the guy, “You know, I just might move to Minnesota…”
My ISP is rapidly realizing that Voldie is insane, but they don’t want the hassle. Voldie is avidly reading every single comment on my blog and he is outraged by the “mystery” post this morning. He’s calling up my ISP and insisting that my blog be shut down. He’s absolutely bonkers.7:56 AM
Anonymous said…
Yeah, the guy at my ISP was just astounded at the Minnesota comment. Voldie is trying to physically threaten an ISP company??? At least that drove home what I’d been telling my ISP: Voldie is a stalker. What he really wants, you see, is my personal information. Every time he calls my ISP he demands to know who I am, where I live, etc. He keeps saying that he’s going to serve them with “papers” to force them to give out my personal information.
The Countess again:
January 31, 2006
Flukeworm Harasses A Blogger
A flukeworm who will go unnamed has harassed a blogger who had written about his case on her blog. This asshat even contacted her ISP, threatening to sue for libel. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on. However, her ISP made her take down the posts she wrote about him. This guy has visited my blog, posing as a reporter for CNN. He brought up lots of “facts” about his own case while pretending to be a reporter. He can’t intimidate me. This really sucks. Some people will bully anyone who stands up to them. I have had plenty of trolls over the years who are nothing more than bullies who feel as if they have no power, so they gripe on my blog. I delete that sort without even reading their rants.
Posted on January 31, 2006 at 09:23 AM
All of which leads one to trust the veracity of RL’s original additional details. What a tool the guy is. I wonder if he’d do this to obviously male bloggers? Somehow I doubt it. MCormik obviously thought he’d found a soft target in a bunch of wimpy liberal women. Nuh-uh.
He lost the case, and in the most humiliating way, by trying to file a totally misguided writ of habeus corpus…
Feb 2 Red State Feminist again:
McAsshat Wrap-Up
I would just like to say that I think this has been a victory in many ways. Most importantly for the child in question, who is going to be raised in a loving, wonderful home.
It has been a victory in another way too. McAsshat attempted to shut down the rights of individuals such as Violet Socks to exercise their free speech by repeatedly calling, harassing, and threatening her ISP- to the point of even threatening to “move to Minnesota” and threatening individual employees at the ISP. This caused her to have to completely remove all her posts about McAsshat in order to keep her blog up and running. That is censorship by bullying. It’s too bad that the ISP didn’t stand up to him. They did a disservice to the blog community by setting a poor example. They did a huge disservice to Violet Socks. They also did a disservice to the birth mother, the adoptive family, and anyone else who has been bullied, harassed, and maligned by McAsshat.
Because it probably made him feel pretty darn powerful. That feeling FUELS guys like him to continue with this destructive behavior.
The thing is, people, you have to stand up to bullies. Call them on it every time. Don’t give in to threats. So often people who know they are in the right get shut down because they don’t LIKE creepy threatening assholes bothering them repeatedly. That’s the route the ISP took. And who can blame them, really , for wanting to do what would make him go away the fastest? But the fact is that creepy threatening assholes are going to do what they are going to do. Until you show them they have no control over you.
That’s what we – yes, we- have attempted to exemplify in this case. We have a right to be heard, and we are not going to be bullied into silence.
Which brings me to my main point. This really is an information war. We are in it for the long haul. This small drama in one corner of the blogosphere is an apt illustration of how the info-troops can be brought down by that winger equivalent of the caltrop, the ISP complaint.
Bloggers need to not back down when it gets tough, and rally round, just like these bloggers did.
It’s been said that blogging is an overwhelmingly male occupation – though I’ve yet to see any definitive evidence for it though I can see it would seem that way from the voices that are loudest. (Who runs Blogspot? Who runs Google? Market fragmentation does not exempt ISP’s or search engines from institutional sexism.) One of the reasons for that is men like McClintock, men with power isssues, bullies, blowhards, know-nothings, meatheads all, who think it’s their inalienable right to beat down someone else’s opinion by main force.
It’s difficult enough as a woman to blog consistently. Even if on paper you have the time, there are always other demands – children to see to, meals to cook, laundry to be done (unless of course your last name’s Huffington). But what we do have as women is stamina. We carry on.
Let McCormick and his ilk flail about uselessly, they’ll self-destruct in short order. We’re in this for the long haul.
Tags: Blogging Feminism Child Custody
