This is what I was afraid of
Two weeks ago I wrote Androphobia: Fear of Men.
It got an interesting mix of responses. Some responses amounted to saying that I was over-reacting. To which my response is "I'll believe my own lying eyes over your opinion. Thank you very much."
Then today I saw this article.
Now the cascading accusations were reaching deep into the heart of the mainstream media. Charlie Rose … Matt Lauer … Mark Halperin … even liberal outlets like NPR and the New Republic were not spared. For that matter, not even the New Yorker and the New York Times were spared: At the Times, star political reporter Glenn Thrush is under investigation, and the New Yorker has just fired its star political reporter, Ryan Lizza, over “improper sexual conduct.”Some of these cases were clearly and inexcusably abusive – the actions egregious and the corroborating accounts damning.
Others, however, were less clear.
OK. That's to be expected.
But keep reading.
Normally when a publication decides to fire a reporter for cause, it does one of two things: It quietly announces their departure without stating a reason, giving the reporter some room to find another job; or, when the malfeasance may have impacted the reporting, it announces exactly why the person was fired, publishes the results of the internal investigation, and makes it clear which stories are being corrected or rescinded as a result of the reporter’s misbehavior.The New Yorker did neither; after what appears to have been a fairly brief investigation, it announced that Lizza was a sexual abuser, but left the rest of us to guess at what sort of abuse might be involved. Lizza, meanwhile, says: “The New Yorker has decided to characterize a respectful relationship with a woman I dated as somehow inappropriate. The New Yorker was unable to cite any company policy that was violated. … This decision, which was made hastily and without a full investigation of the relevant facts, was a terrible mistake”.
Tavis Smiley of PBS reports a similar experience:
PBS launched a so-called investigation of me without ever informing me. … Only after being threatened with a lawsuit, did PBS investigators reluctantly agree to interview me for three hours.
If having a consensual relationship with a colleague years ago is the stuff that leads to this kind of public humiliation and personal destruction, heaven help us. The PBS investigators refused to review any of my personal documentation, refused to provide me the names of any accusers, refused to speak to my current staff, and refused to provide me any semblance of due process to defend myself against allegations from unknown sources. Their mind was made up. Almost immediately following the meeting, this story broke in Variety as an “exclusive.” Indeed, I learned more about these allegations reading the Variety story than the PBS investigator shared with me, the accused, in our 3 hour face to face meeting.
Now, I don’t know the truth of Smiley’s or Lizza’s cases; I don’t have enough detail to form an opinion. And yet, that in itself seems disturbing. It seems safe to say that few of these men will ever work in journalism again; there is a blacklist, and unless they can conclusively clear themselves, most of their names are on it.
Just like I said two weeks ago, you don't date, flirt, or do anything that can ever be interpreted as informal with a female coworker. Not anymore. Not unless you want to risk destroying your career.
Blacklisting people so cavalierly is hard to defend. But with “believe all women” the order of the day, that’s effectively the new regime we’re looking at. No outlet wants to be deemed insufficiently concerned with sexual abuse. And even if a company were willing to endure the public outrage, its lawyers seem likely to advise against it. After all, if you hire the guy who got accused of sexual harassment, and he does it again, the company is going to be on the hook for a whole lot of money.
This is what I was talking about before, when the woman lawyer described what sexual harassment was in a legal sense. She wasn't lying and she wasn't wrong.
If the woman feels uncomfortable then it's sexual harassment. End of story.
That's how employers approach it. It's about liabilities, not right and wrong.
What is actually true is secondary in importance. It costs them virtually nothing to destroy a man's career, but it could be a huge risk to stand behind him.
What do you think an employer is going to do?
Some people don't want to believe that, but that's on them.
Ultimately the norm of reflexively believing every accusation, and meting out harsh treatment to every man who is accused, does grave harm to the cause of fighting rape and harassment. #BelieveAllWomen elides the messy reality that women, like the rest of humanity, aren't always telling the truth—and that even when they are, their interpretations of events is not always the most reasonable one. If we reify too many weak or false claims, the norm will quickly slide toward "believe no women."
That's where she is wrong. We are a long, LONG ways away from "believe no women."
That day may arrive one day, but it probably won't arrive during the remaining years of my career. In the meantime, men better get used to the new normal.
Comments
Weren't you taught, as a child . . .
. . . to act like a civilized human in public? I sure was.
Weren't you taught not to go into public and pick your nose or your ass? I know that many males have no problem scratching their balls in public, but they should - it's gross, rude and completely unbecoming.
Do you run around work like you did outside, as a kid? Do you dig in your nose or ass or balls at work - in front of others? (Hopefully not!)
Then why would you draw the line at treating your female counterparts, at work, with the same respect you'd give your grandmother (or someone you truly love, in a non-sexual way)? I seriously don't understand how this is soooo incredibly hard for some of you. It's reminding me of the witch in The Wizard of Oz".
[video:https://youtu.be/GPO43kCh3_c]
You are responding to a straw man that represents neither
gjohnsit's thesis, nor the comment by BA to which I was responding.
With respect only to the latter, here's what we're talking about:
Flirt with a guy at work, and you're fired.
If that seems reasonable to you, then fine, that's a world you find reasonable. I'm telling BA that in my opinion such a world is not reasonable -- not only with respect to mating behavior, but with respect to any of many other essential behaviors that make humans humans, rather than robots. In my opinion, expecting adult humans to spend 50% of their waking hours not being humans is a seriously fucked-up way to run a society. Kind of like expecting 100% of 9-year-olds to sit quietly and attentively in a chair for 6 hours a day -- and if they can't, you diagnose them as having a psychological dysfunction, and medicate them into submission.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
You're equating jacking off in the car to humanity ffs
Edit: I just learned to copy/paste comments I'm replying to. He deleted the part about the long drive home and having to be "human" on the way home after work.
And then strawman.
Wow!
As pondered below, I often wonder about The Ghost, when this flailing and gnashing of teeth happens.
No, I am not equating jacking off in a car
to anything.
In this particular instance, I was responding to BA's comment, which suggested (I will paraphrase) that when you're at work, you're there to work, not socialize. I think people should be socializing wherever they go. Telling them not to socialize is telling them not to be people.
Meanwhile, you decline to recognize or process what gjohnsit has claimed, which is that the workplace (in particular, though not exclusively) has become a milieu where you can get fired, not for jacking off in your car (or at your desk, or in the bathroom, or whatever), but (for example) for saying something to another employee that is overheard by a third employee, who takes offense at whatever was said and goes off to report you. But what is worse, you can now apparently be fired without meaningful due process, for something you may or may not ever have said or done, based on an accusation that may not even come from an aggrieved party, because there doesn't even need to be an aggrieved party, there just needs to be an HR department enforcer whose job is to get rid of potential liabilities and who has become aware of whatever it is that somebody thinks you may or may not have said or done. and then you can hope you can somehow pick up the pieces of your life afterward, whether or not you are vindicated.
Regardless, if you think this is all about men jacking off in front of their subordinates, you aren't listening -- not to gjohnsit, not to me, and not to some of the news stories that are currently circulating. What this is about is a witch hunt -- and when it's all over, if it ever is over, everyone will stand around feeling embarrassed and talking about how terrible it was and not ever admitting that they were part of the mass hysteria. That's how it always is in the aftermath of a witch hunt; yet we do not learn.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
As far back as I remember as well
and my experience as a 58yr old male has been pretty much as yours and I agree 100%.
One thing that has happened are all these workplace dramas
sitcoms and movies that have show love interests developing. Wonder if those helped change norms?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
And yet statistics about
marriage say that about 15-20% of married couples meet at work.
dfarrah
You poor, poor man.
You mean you now have to go out in the world being vigilant about where you go, when you go, whether or not to go alone, worried an innocent glance might be misinterpreted and result in a false accusation? And that when you go to deny the accusation your word may not be given the benefit of the doubt? Well welcome to the club that women have been in for millennia. Only for women it hasn’t just been false accusations we’ve been at risk for suffering. You should count your damn blessings that you don’t risk getting groped, molested, assaulted, or raped if your vigilance should prove not sharp enough one day. And we know, until now, that we sure haven’t been getting any benefit of the doubt. Even in a case of rape with evident injury, physical evidence collected by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (ponder that enjoyable process if you harbor any empathic capacity at all), we know how seriously that is taken, as hundreds of thousands of rape kits never get processed in the US.
Instead of aiming your anger at the rare false accuser — and I have nothing but derision for them — maybe you should aim it at the millions of men throughout history who have committed violent acts against women, and at the systemic protection they have received. You don’t like that your comfortable, safe status is threatened. You should be thankful that you have had however many years of life enjoying that status. It’s 100% more time than any woman has enjoyed it.
Cry me a fucking River, you poor, poor, victimized man.
The year was 1990.
I was giving a friend a ride to his car. As I drove, he began to grope me. Smiling gleefully as if I had given permission because it was an honor for him to touch me, I was incredulous. I was also afraid for myself. Was I going to be able to navigate my way out of this unharmed? I was 37, he was 39. I was a manager for a small nonprofit, he was an attorney. He was also having an affair with my best friend, but I don't think he knew I knew. I'm thinking, he wants both of us AND he's married?
I have been sexually harassed before this incident and since this incident. Thank you for so eloquently voicing my opinion.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Sorry for your violation, RA.
I couldn’t sleep last night because of this post. Took me a while to get the nerve to respond.
Thank you for all of your contributions here, and earlier in LD’s daily BNRs at TOP. I’m mostly a lurker but I’m a loyal lurker.
So very nice to have your voice here.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I second Raggedy Ann's greeting
It's good to hear from you and would like to see more of you here.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Thank you. You are emboldening me! (We’ll see!)
n/t
@Raggedy Ann
Gross for you! Some guys are too ignorant and over-egoed to realize that being a disgusting and invasive big dick can never make up for actually having a little one... we've all had to cope with them and it's a nasty, creepy-crawly shock every time, especially if it's some jerk you may have to deal with at work or socially under polite circumstances. But luckily most men are not like that and would never actually abase themselves to that level.
I personally don't care about thoughts that may pass through a guys head as long as they stay there, but people who can't control themselves when they feel like using someone else need help, in isolation from society.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
And there we have it.
Collective guilt. The past crimes justify the current injustices. "I suffered, so your suffering has no significance."
Witch hunts -- and make no mistake, this is now a witch hunt -- are always wrong, they're one of the worst diseases of human society. The result is inevitable: Bad actors take advantage of the social hysteria to punish people they don't like while garnering attention for themselves.
At least I finally can relate, in whatever watered-down way, to one aspect of the historical experience of african american men -- I now literally feel obliged to avert my eyes when encountering a woman on the street. No, I don't do so out of fear that I will be beaten to death in a back alley, in fact, I don't do so out of any particular fear of suffering any real consequence -- I do so because I've been conditioned to believe that it is wrong for me to walk down the street holding my head up and meeting the gaze of a particular class of what might otherwise be thought of as my fellow humans and social equals. At least I'm not expected to tug my forelock.
Go cry your ironic river, while our culture lurches around spastically reacting without reason or insight to each perturbation in whatever the momentary settlement might be to the oldest and most intractable of all human social problems. When men you love get caught up in this firestorm, you'll sing a different tune, but it will be too late, and nobody will be listening, because you'll be on the record: "It's rare. Kill them all and let God sort them out."
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Way to put words in my mouth.
The OP’s not actually experiencing any injustices; he’s experiencing discomfort moving through his world for the first time and is whining about it. My wish for the result of this reckoning is that all of us get to move through the world with the degree of comfort he has heretofore enjoyed, the loss of which he’s now feeling. He seems utterly unaware that what he feels is what women have always felt and for far more frightening reasons than he has.
Where you interpret “kill them all...” from my comment is beyond me. Quite a stretch.
Nowhere does the OP, in this or in other things he has written
on the subject, suggest that he is unaware of the historical difficulties of women. That is all you. In the end, you decline to address the core of his "complaint": Creating a social environment where men are afraid to be in the unrecorded, undocumented company of women is not in the best interest of anybody, male or female, but that is what this latest witch hunt is doing. This is no longer about childish vanity -- it can no longer be reduced to the clever-and-thought-provoking-but-never-was-wholly-accurate observation that "Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." It doesn't fucking matter if men are afraid "only" of losing everything but their lives, while women have historically had to fear losing even their lives -- what matters is that what men are afraid of losing is real and non-trivial, and what's more, their fear is justified.
Meanwhile, nothing in your comment suggests any interest in any short or long-term resolution other than, "Fuck all you Y chromosomes. Too bad so sad. We suffered, now you suffer." I stand by my characterization of the implications of your comment, whether you like it (or own it) or not. A lot of good people are going to be destroyed in this witch hunt, because during witch hunts, false (whether deliberate or misguided) accusations lose their rarity; but even worse, whatever progress has been made in trying to establish a culture in which men and women can comfortably function as equals and social partners is going to be lost, while simultaneously we are going to allow ourselves, in panicked response, to be subjected to yet more surveillance. Blech. So glad I'm going to be too old and/or dead to give a fuck.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I expressed my wish for long term solution.
I said it in the post. Don’t know how to copy and paste here, but you can go back and read it.
“Kill them.”
“Fuck all you Y chromosomes.”
Nowhere do I remotely sound like that.
you expressed contempt for the OP's expressed experience.
you denied that the OP was suffering any particular injustice -- which isn't objectively true to begin with, but even if it were, it is incorrect to suggest that one is qualified only to speak out against those injustices of which one is oneself a victim. "Who are you to speak out against child abuse? You aren't an abused child!" I'm sorry, is that argument supposed to make sense to anybody?
meanwhile, you expressed nothing suggesting any interest in any solution of any kind.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I said:
“My wish for the result of this reckoning is that all of us get to move through the world with the degree of comfort he has heretofore enjoyed, the loss of which he is now feeling.”
If a backhanded snipe at your target's
privilege is how you express an interest in a solution, then okay, I grant that you have expressed an interest in a solution.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Please clarify,
are you upset because you need to look straight ahead, yes and avert your eyes from women? Welcome to my, and millions of other women's world.
Edited to add: I apologize for lashing out. As a woman, I just wish we could all respect one another as human beings and allow each other to live our lives in peace and harmony. Pie in the sky? Look around us. We are in the challenge of our lives. If guys would just say - hey I'm not guilty so I'll be vigilant to ensure women are respected - or - hey I know of someone or have been guilty myself, so I'll change my behavior. The cat is now out of the bag. We have to go to an extreme to find the center. It will run its course. Let's help that happen in a positive manner.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
The Ghost of Impropriety Past?
That's what I've been thinking lately when I read the 'poor me' comments and essays. Lots of these #metoo incidents are many years old. Makes me wonder if they're 1) upset that they can finally get in trouble for behavior they know is inappropriate, and 2) those closet skeletons might be scratching and rattling at the door.
This isn't rocket science, either. People shouldn't do or say things to others at work/in public that they wouldn't do or say to their grandmother (or someone they truly love and cherish in a non sexual way). If they behaved that way, there would never, ever be any 'scary' gray area.
Well said, Deja.
Thank you.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
while i do have certain philosophical objections to people
being "tried" under current cultural standards for transgressions committed under a different set of cultural standards, neither gjohnsit nor I are expressing any great concern over the fate of, you know, actual perpetrators.
what i think disturbs both of us at this point is that all notions of due process, and of innocence-by-default, have been thrown out the window. This is the essential difficulty. When an african-american male in 1958 was at risk of a brutal, pitiless execution-by-extended-torture should any white woman ever suggest that he "behaved inappropriately" towards her, he would do whatever he could to avoid ever being in a situation where such an accusation could possibly be brought forward with any credibility -- and anyone observing the situation would say, "That is fucked up and unjust, but he's behaving exactly the way any rational human would." When gjohnsit says, "When a man -- especially any man with any meaningful social status -- is at risk of losing everything he has (family, money, job, status) should any female with whom he ever interacts accuse him of behaving inappropriately, that man will do whatever he can to avoid ever being in a situation where such an accusation could possibly be brought forward with any credibility," he is told that men should STFU and live with that risk, because, you know, lots of men (hell, most men, let's face it) have behaved badly -- or worse -- for the last 100,000 years.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Look,
I know there are people out there who will lie, cheat and scam to get what they want, and I've witnessed it in real life. All sexes are guilty - worked with a hate-filled saboteur bitch from hell once, and a racist male supervisor, I believe was grooming the young Hispanic males who were the majority (grooming like a predator would). Both are pieces of shit and make me wish hell existed. Those people give the rest of us bad names and make it harder for us in pretty much all aspects of life. It's just a fact.
If you feel the need to never be around women in public, I think you are taking it to the extreme, but it's your choice. Despite being ogled, groped, harassed, and even raped, I refuse to believe that all men are scary, horrible ogres I must avoid at all cost.
Hell, an employee at the campus where I work, literally stared at my crotch as I walked past him while he sat and ate at our annual winter feast, yesterday (Fri). It was so obvious (he turned his head as I walked by, my crotch near his eye level, and he never looked up at my face) and gross. Even though I know I shouldn't have to, I asked my female co-worker, when we got outside, if I had freaking camel toe or something. Why would a professional, stare at someone's crotch, at work? She informed me that his name is Gus, and he's a creeper. Still, I don't distrust all men; but, now I have added a creeper to avoid to my list at my new job.
It's what we've been dealing with forever. I guess you just need to learn to deal with it the way we have - by making lists of the ones to avoid. I'm sure as hell not going to relinquish my power, and hide in my house because men are outside of it. I like men. I love every single man in my family.
Edit: every not ever single man
Add: these are not legal issues until they've been taken up by cops/prosecutors. These are businesses. If the ones being fired feel they've been wrongfully terminated, they can file suit, just like ignored harassment victims have to do (or not ignored, but the ones not getting the results they sought after complaining internally).
Beautifully stated!
Speak our truth!!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Speak our truth!
the truth does not belong to you.
I point this out so that interested people can see what is happening.
in your view, there are two teams here.
thx. did you miss the fact that I volunteered for sissy farenthold in 1972.
that was before I got "hostile" to women.
@Deja That assumes that
That assumes that everyone is operating in an honorable and above-board manner.
This doesn't look anything like the Boston Women's Health Collective or Take Back the Night to me. It doesn't look like people volunteering to walk women past the horrific protesters of the far right to get them into the health clinic. It doesn't even look like the #YesAllWomen campaign of a few years ago.
I don't see a grassroots, woman-driven justice movement. I see a media phenomenon. It looks like a coordinated media campaign, like we used to use in various kinds of electoral and issue-based campaigns. It looks highly produced.
That doesn't imply that most of the stories are false. Most of the stories are probably true. That doesn't matter. They can still be used as the raw materials for a highly produced media campaign designed to manipulate the public in various directions.
In this case, they seem to be doing with sexism and women what they spent the last eight years doing with race and Black people: creating a discursive situation in which some people are always right; creating a situation where questioning the idea that those people are always right condemns the questioner. Once the idea that some people are always right and nobody can question that becomes the norm, accusation, if it comes from those always-right people, is proof. Also, however those people define, or are said to define, any of the terms of the conversation, those definitions stand. In other words, if those always-right people choose to collapse distinctions between different kinds of sexual impropriety, including the distinction between consensual and non-consensual acts, that too will be considered automatically right.
It gets worse: people who aren't even members of the groups in question get involved. Over the last few years, there have been plenty of white people who have made political and social capital off of speaking on behalf of Black people or other POC, mostly by getting on the Internet, or in front of a camera, and talking about how horrible other white people are to POC. They can do this without ever having put any skin in the game for people of color at all. In fact, they can do it even when their own history contains some racist shit. It doesn't matter. They're on TV, or the Internet, delivering the right talking points; they say they hate racism; they condemn other white people for being racist; therefore they are on the right team.
We just watched Hillary Clinton get away with this for a year. But it's not just her.
Now it looks like they're doing the same thing with women. There will emerge, if there hasn't already, a cadre of men who go on TV talking about how awful it is for men to treat women this way.
The question isn't whether racism or sexism exists, whether they are important, whether they are horrible, or whether something should be done about them. All those things are self-evident. The question is, why are five multi-billion dollar corporations concerning themselves with rape or sexual harassment? Do we really think multi-billion dollar corporations give a shit whether a woman suffers sexual assault?
We need to separate the following two questions:
1)What is this media furor whirling around our ears, and what do we think about it?
2)How should we (the 99%)relate to one another across gender lines? How should we deal with the issues of sexual harassment and rape? How should we deal with other kinds of sexual impropriety? What do we think justice is? What do we think would work?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Amen. Exactly my
sentiments, much better conveyed. After about the third or 4th revelation, in such a short period of time, my smell meter went off. "This is just more media manipulation, media horse$h!t." Someone asked, "but, Wink, how did they make all this happen simultaneously?" They didn't need to. Once it got rolling they were going to make sure it keeps on rolling. Is what they do. Well done, CSTMS. And well said.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
So it's to be believed, but it's all fabrication. Got it :/
You keep saying this, in every single essay about it. And you go to great lengths to minimize the severity of what's coming to light. On and on, actually.
Do, please explain how, as a woman, you would like us to dismiss the behavior we've seen exhibited by both creepy and/or whiny men right here on c99, and take up some unknown fight. Unknown because media blah blah blah.
I can grasp your initial point, but you gotta give me more reason and movement to follow, than 'because msm'. Then, too, the creepers here need to be taken to task - by women like you as well. The rest of us are tired, and need backup.
there is one big war going on.
the harrassment issue is being used by our enemies.
@Deja
Actually, I believe she's trying to explain that this is being exposed and publicized, in many cases, only to be used against us in dividing and distracting us - not that the sexual abuses and discrimination aren't real and not that this doesn't need to be addressed, as it should have been long since had it not long been considered acceptable by the PTB that those in a power position abuse those perceived as being vulnerable.
But TPTB and their lackeys never miss a chance at PR manipulation and there's plenty of life-threatening stuff being done right now that they'd like us distracted from in attacking each other on a neatly split gender-based issue, while believing that at least something finally is being recognized as a serious issue and addressed 'to clean some of the abusers out of The Swamp'.
Some of the commentary has also made me feel distinctly uncomfortable but believe such to be honest attempts to try to convey the way someone feels/believes some others to feel without at any point advocating that any such fantasized behaviour be enacted.
I firmly believe that if we care about reality/the perspectives of other people, we cannot reject information offered as such which may expand our understanding because it makes us uncomfortable or don't want to hear it/believe that it's even potentially true, or shoot the messenger because we don't like what s/he says.
If that's the way some men feel in their fantasies, (as I've heard elsewhere, especially in older-gen men) and keep it in their heads, we need the insight while accepting the fact that others do have different desires than we might. As long as they never inflict these fantasies on an unwilling participant, what some may think and desire deep down inside is actually none of anyone else's business.
We do not demand that people should be arrested for having a passing thought about, for example, stealing something when they'd never actually do it, and I doubt that most of these rape fantasies actually involve hurting the woman and forcing themselves upon a horrified, unbelieving/terrified, grossed-out person who will ever after regard them with loathing and entertain fantasies about them being tied to a chair while they heft that baseball bat (at least until the victims gross themselves out with the thought of the actual results, also making them no better than their attacker in physically, mentally and emotionally harming someone with no chance of self-defence).
We have to worry about being 'disappeared' for thought-crimes ourselves, as the censorship agenda advances over the internet and as citizen/human rights pile up in TPTB's wastebasket along with us 'disposables', these used simply to dispose of all remaining dissident voices, and I'd view this as one of the threats we most need to address or at least exert some energy and focus on. While we still can, at any rate.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North Thanks, Ellen
Thanks, Ellen; not sure I'm expressing this well. You're helping explain it better...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I find you creepy
in your lust to punish.
Does that count toward taking someone to task?
dfarrah
I find you utterly repulsive
in your past slut shaming and rape apologist comments.
Tori Amos sang about it a while back:
[video:https://youtu.be/MPF_8T2pkAw]
got to keep our eye on the ball.
we are in a lot of trouble with this issue, if what is happening at c99 is a guide.
smart people here saying "fuck you" back and forth.
lists of names offensive people being kept,etc. sides chosen.
end of community. worked pretty quick.
I'm with the truth, as much as I can be.
no gender bias there.
"The truth is not in contradiction with itself."
thx for sticking your neck out on this one.
(remember you had some bad personal experiences yourself.)
@irishking You're welcome,
You're welcome, but I'm doing it as much for myself as anybody else. It feels unbearably grimy to watch the establishment use actual rape stories in a constructed media campaign. It's like somebody's found a way to grind up my flesh and use it for gunpowder.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
read it and weep.
we should go over this thread to see what (& who) happened.
this is a mess.
I don't think we can sweep it under the rug.
my first issue is the loss of civility.
then unwillingness to reason.
insults,attributed motives,etc.
by the end of the thread, I was a "bad guy".
fair or not. I am not taking down anything, let people see what happened.
some came in with anger and insults.
that is not the same as being sad & clueless.
thx.
@irishking Let me see
Let me see what I can do to repair this. I have friends on both sides of this argument. I also have people on both sides of the argument who have objected to my comments, probably because I object to how the argument itself is constituted and conducted.
I don't know if I can do much of anything, because people are liable to get mad at criticism, whether explicit or implicit. I'm wracking my brain to think of a way to snap people out of this cycle without criticizing them. So far, the only way I've come up with is to tell my story--which is a pretty unpalatable option, especially since only slivers of the gruesome part are accessible to me in memory, which means that telling my story might not even work. What I mean to say is, my story would not ever stand up in court, which is why I've never taken it there nor attempted reprisal. Dissociative amnesia is a bitch (not that I would enjoy remembering).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
you didn't cause any trouble.
not your job to straighten people out.
you might go over to Jtc essay where I have my day in court.
"Cuando concluya no quiero tener que reprocharme a mi mismo haber dejado principio por defender,verdad sin decir, ni crimen sin denunciar."
well,I did my best. there was only one Fidel. (for better or worse.)
respecto,companera.
@irishking I
I helped to build this place. It was initially my idea. IMO, it is now in serious danger of failing.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
maybe so.
I said what I think in reply to Jtc below his essay.
@irishking Thanks,
Thanks, irish.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
JtC refunded my $20 late yesterday.
That would be that.
Along with "I don't appreciate" your activities.
Addressing me as "bud" and "partner"
Adds up to "get lost" quick.
Is it too much to say I have been cast out by an angry god?
well,yes. lol
but it is impossible for me to stay now.
that was the idea,imo.
suerte y mil gracias a usted, senora.
This is why...
your donation was refunded:
I don't know what your intention was with that remark but it came off wrong to me. And if I wanted you to "get lost" quick I'd let you know straight out, I don't play games.
you might have asked.
let's take a look. see if we can find out what happened.
context clues.
so do you ?
@Raggedy Ann @Raggedy Ann
do you know that all the people accused are guilty?
and of what?
that is not what you said.
you said- "many hung their heads".
correct. but not the same as "all".
I hope I have made clear the nature of my objection to your comment.
If you do know this , tell me how and I'd be glad to look.
also I notice that you choose to argue over the use "we don't know", but nothing to the important question of how quickly we got to "STFU" around here. Telling people they are "part of the solution or part of the problem." (lol)
to Jtc- I thought we were above this stuff.
that is why you will lose readers. it's not the topic.
it's the abusive group behavior we loathed at TOP set loose by this topic.
please spend the $20 I sent yesterday. not your fault!
pogo was a genius.
edit.
p.s. fwiw,the most important people in the world to me: wife, daughter,sister
Please check yourself
@irishking
When I began reading your comment, I was prepared to ask you if you had seen JtC's essay today about what's going on in this thread, but it appears that you have seen it, and are doubling down.
to Jtc- I thought we were above this stuff.
that is why you will lose readers. it's not the topic.
it's the abusive group stupidity we loathed at TOP set loose by this topic.
please spend the $20 I sent yesterday. not your fault!
Yes, abusive group stupidity, I can agree with that. But seriously, dafuq? Your hostility is showing, and I'm at a loss as to why you'd mention $20.
I thought the $20 was funny.
@Deja @Deja
though I did send in yesterday.
I am not angry, but this business is discouraging to me.
as to "comment" to Jtc.
it does seem that things went south very quickly.
I wasn't real clear. in the comment I saw Jtc directed himself to wink (and zoebear) saying their squabbling was costing readers and should stop. enough already. was there an essay? I don't find one.
my point to Jtc is that the problem is not just those two. not any longer.
all you have to do is read the thread.
in my view this display shows what our enemies have stumbled upon.
CSTMS and Ellen Norrth (women!) made some strong point. In my opinion the activity on the thread confirms the worst fears expressed.
dog help us.
uughh.
Hmmm. looks like it was -
"This is not what I signed up for. But I don't blame JtC or ask for my money back."
I thought it was funny.
guess not.
as for the rest.
in words of the great Lester Young- "I feel a draft."
@irishking I
I wish you would stay. JtC is telling the truth when he says, if he wants to see your back, he'll let you know right quick. Since he hasn't, he doesn't. Please don't leave on account of what may, in a few months, come to seem like a fairly minor conflict.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
very nice of you
the meaning of "JtC does not want to see your back" might be quite elastic.
of course that is just one - half of it.
though I did not say so earlier, I don't want to stay around..
one of my favorites.
houston (1958)
@irishking
Well, I'm sorry to see you go.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@irishking
If you ever want to chat, PM me and I'll exchange contact info with you (I don't generally do that in spaces quite so public as the open internet).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!! When we look at what an attempt at a rational discussion of this situation has done within this very community, we see the desired, divisive result.
Many of us here - predominately women - have been raped/undergone attempted rape/been threatened with rape/been disgustingly and invasively pawed/handled/had slimeball men attempt to treat us as a disposable sexual commodity - any or all of the above - quite apart from dealing with odd and limiting/dismissive attitudes inculcated in society affecting other areas of our lives.
These stand out because the scars on our psyches remain painful, and we tend (not surprisingly) to react on an emotional level when these are triggered, often with fear and anger, the emotions so long used on the 'right wing' corporate media in propaganda campaigns to shut down reason by triggering the amagdala so that fear-of-other can be used against the population to weaken the whole by setting them all against 'the other'.
The first thing to remember always, in fighting such manipulation, is that we are all people, we are all individuals. If some men or some people of whatever colour/nationality have harmed us, or we have been taught to fear that they might, simply based in recognizable differences, this does not mean that all within that category are to be regarded as a threat/enemy.
People are not categories as in corporate marketing ploys, whether selling political myths/parties/politicians during elections, prejudices or other, manufactured propaganda - or the sort of products one would expect marketing to be aimed at.
Psychopaths do not see others as real, merely objects which can be useful or useless; we cannot allow them to continue to pathologize us into seeing others only as threats or non-threats, competition or not-competition, wealthy and 'worthy' or poor and 'deadbeats' - as categories, rather than as fellow-humans.
If we are to be afraid of being looked at or spoken to and/or looking at or speaking freely - albeit in a reasonable and respectful manner - among ourselves, how are we to organize that feeling of community essential to withstanding The Psychopaths That Be ruining the world?
Why are we concerned about men looking at attractive women from a safe distance and entertaining sexual fantasies they'd never attempt to inflict on anyone when The Psychopaths That Be are inflicting fascism and destruction on us and the life-support system on which we all depend?
Our outrage and discussion is again being redirected back at ourselves, as is typical, using sex, the PTB's default all-purpose control position/distraction social-engineering technique, while democracy and the world perishes for-profit. And we're running out of time to salvage anything from the wreckage...
Edited, as I somehow wrote/auto-corrected 'divisive' as 'decisive'.
Signed,
The Undisputed Typo Queen!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
good one. (++)
@Ellen North Many of us here
Many of us here - predominately women - have been raped/undergone attempted rape/been threatened with rape/been disgustingly and invasively pawed/handled/had slimeball men attempt to treat us as a disposable sexual commodity - any or all of the above - quite apart from dealing with odd and limiting/dismissive attitudes inculcated in society affecting other areas of our lives.
These stand out because the scars on our psyches remain painful, and we tend (not surprisingly) to react on an emotional level when these are triggered, often with fear and anger, the emotions so long used on the 'right wing' corporate media in propaganda campaigns to shut down reason by triggering the amagdala so that fear-of-other can be used against the population to weaken the whole by setting them all against 'the other'.
I quoted you at length because this is precisely what's happening. I don't see much difference between the stories, images, words that are being deployed by the media now, and the stories, images, words, that were deployed after 9/11 to get the country behind war. The only difference is that the target population has changed. Now we're the target.
We were the people who chided the right wing for being so easily manipulated by their emotions. The truth is that the stimuli being used--attack on the nation, xenophobia, cultural machismo--just didn't work on us, because our minds don't work that way. Our beliefs don't lead us to fearing people because they are foreign, nor because they have different religions or languages than us, whether they are foreign or not. We're not likely to think they're automatically to blame--we will want to investigate, find evidence, prove which people hurt us, before proceeding.
Racists and sexists, however, are to us as terrorists, and foreigners generally, are to the right wing. These are the right stimuli to use on us. So now we're the ones who are easily manipulated.
I suppose people will say that the harm done to women and POC is real--and where was the harm done to right-wing people after 9/11? But given the right wing's beliefs, 9/11 itself felt like real and terrifying harm, even for those people who didn't have relatives or friends actually killed by it. They took it like a body blow, and given their beliefs, that's not surprising. It put them into exactly the right condition to be molded like putty.
I said that the only difference was the target population, but that's actually not true. During 9/11, one side was rational and the other was not. In this case, not all people arguing against the #MeToo movement are keeping their heads. Some of them are also reacting emotionally, as if to threat, because they believe they are being made into the enemy. That makes everything worse. But then, the object here is not to make us hate foreigners and support an invasion; the object is to make us hate and fear each other as much as possible.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i don't have the least fucking interest in being welcomed
to your world. shall we race one another to the bottom of the social equity ladder?
and i have even less interest in being treated as if I'm unaware of the conditions of that world, only because i'm protesting the efforts of some people to push me down into it in a misguided attempt to elevate themselves out of it.
so yes, i'm upset that i'm expected to act like a shamed criminal pervert any time i'm anywhere near any woman i don't already know, including walking through a crowd down a sidewalk in broad daylight. and i've every good goddamned reason to be upset about it, without getting snotty condescending bullshit from someone like TB mare mocking me about my poor hurt fee fees. fuck that.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I see you didn't bother to read
my entire comment and/or you just don't give a fuck (your words) about anything but your feelings. I tried to apologize and express some sanity, to ears filled with cotton. I'm used to typical dismissals such as yours from men with hurt feelings such as yourself. I get you.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Hug to you, RA.
I was out with my husband this evening and am only just catching up. Sorry you got hit with this, though I know you have the fortitude to withstand a hurricane and don’t need my support. Still, you have it. Hopefully this chapter is closed. Peace.
Thank you, TB and
no worries. I've been dealing with many self-centered people my whole life - some of which are in my own family. Some people cannot look beyond themselves; they are alone in the world. I recognize this behavior because I exhibit it myself sometimes. We all do.
This issue makes men uncomfortable. I get it. However, whether they want to be in our world or not, we've been living in this uncomfortable state our whole lives.
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!!!
I know you understand, TB. Thanks for your support.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
XO
n/t
Certainly, I read the entire comment.
And I answered the question you posed at the top of it.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Until you have
walked in a woman's shoes and sustained the same level of sexual harassment, you can just stfu and listen with compassion, for a change. You can either be part of the solution or continue to be part if the problem. You continue to be part if the problem by discounting and minimizing women's experiences, because whether you want to be in our world or not, you are in it.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
dissonance
please look where we are now.
are we handling this, or providing an amusing demonstration (to ptb) of the effectiveness of this issue as a wedge?
As a woman
it is not a wedge issue to me. It is simply an issue that is systemic like racism. Men run away when confronted much like the reaction by racists - in continual denial. It's time for the culture to change in so many ways. If men aren't willing to change, we have an impasse, a wedge, a clusterfuck. It contributes to the problem by denying women's voices, minimizing their experiences, and being unwilling to change unacceptable behaviors.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Denial and listening
I'm seeing a lot of this from many (not all, of course, but many) men on social media, including here at c99. The way it manifests most is by the men focusing completely on their own needs, thoughts, and feelings. When women respond by trying to share their experience as a woman, and explain how life is from a woman's standpoint, these men refuse to listen. The immediate reaction is defensiveness. Gaslighting, condescension, and nastiness generally ensue. The woman's words are discounted and ignored, and the man goes back to focusing on himself.
I don't think we women can back down from this. We can't agree to be quiet and stop pushing to be heard, in order that men can stop feeling confused and uncomfortable. Women have carried that exact burden for millennia, for eons. That time is over.
Honestly, it's time for men to challenge themselves to start listening. I mean really listening, with the authentic intention of hearing what women are trying to convey. And then thinking about the new information thus acquired, and making the internal adjustments which the new information makes necessary. Does this require courage and self-awareness? You bet, but women will not be doing anyone any favors by enabling men to avoid doing it.
It's not women's job to "make nice" in order to avoid conflict in this. Way too much is at stake.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
The moment you suggest that my chromosomal
complement disqualifies me from commenting, I lose 100% of my interest in the engagement.
So yeah, I'll compromise, and give you half of what you want.
*click*
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@Raggedy Ann I have.
I have.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Cyber fist bump!
Preach, sister!
If we had Top Comments here, that'd be #1!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Oh my goodness, thank you!
**blushing**
and here's everybody's friend.
nice.
and hello to you too.
Super way to introduce the
Super way to introduce the ultimate divisiveness to join with all of the created rest of the PTB's ways to divide and conquer - men and women, suspicious of and afraid of each other. This lot seeming concentrating on news-people? Are these by any chance generally disposing of news-people who might speak out or be more likely to speak out about things the public shouldn't know about?
In any event, add that in to the political, colour and other divides the corporate media propagandists have been maintaining and advancing in America and there are, ideally, only very tiny groups willing to stand together against The Psychopaths That Be. Divided, we fall.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
bing! n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
absolutely right (++)
This is what I was talking
This is what I was talking about before, when the woman lawyer described what sexual harassment was in a legal sense. She wasn't lying and she wasn't wrong.
If the woman feels uncomfortable then it's sexual harassment. End of story.
It's worse than that. It basically means that all you need to do is find a woman (or a gay man) willing to say something for pay, and you can destroy a person's credibility forever. It's not just about a woman being genuinely uncomfortable and a man potentially paying a high price for causing the discomfort. That's a much messier set of questions, in which both parties have a point. I have a simpler problem.
My problem, first and foremost (given the current level of corruption in politics and the media) is: have we just given the establishment the weapon they need to take down anyone they want? Would it be difficult for them to remove any inconvenient office-holder, media figure, or movement leader in this manner? What would prevent them from doing that to someone who was innocent? If that happened, how would the error be caught?
Remember that it's the media--which mostly means the corporate media--who are going to be the ones wielding the hatchet and making the decision of which perpetrators get away with it and which don't, because that almost entirely depends on the press. They're also the ones who will make the decision whether or not to target innocent people. If they are willing to lie in order to destroy someone's character--and can we doubt that they are, after everything from the Swiftboating of John Kerry to the phantom chair-throwing in Nevada?--they will also be making the decisions as to which innocent people get caught in the crossfire and which innocents get intentionally smashed.
Tavis Smiley is a Black man who doesn't always toe the Democratic party line. I'm not surprised somebody decided to take him down.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
bing! n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Has anyone accused so far really been innocent?
Bingo, Big Al! n/t
@Deja Not Bingo, as that's
Not Bingo, as that's not my point.
My point is, what's to stop the media and their owners from using this to end anybody they like? If an error were made, how would that be caught? Do we trust the press to catch it? If they did catch it, would we trust them to report the error/retract the old story, with as much visibility as they previously promoted it?
Are these questions pointless because this event hasn't yet happened? Are we assuming that because it hasn't happened yet, it never will, because...why? Because so many men are guilty of such crimes that it's highly unlikely to find an innocent one? Because no woman or gay man would ever accuse someone for pay, or, in other words, because every accuser is automatically telling the truth? Because the press would never do an unwarranted hatchet job on anyone?
My question was: have we handed the PTB a weapon with which they can take anyone down whenever they choose?
Saying "everybody's been guilty so far" isn't really an answer.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
No, "we" haven't. Like I said below,
there is no evidence that these accusations are against innocent people so on what basis is there to fear that the PTB can take anyone down whenever they want, with the inference being innocent people? I mean, if they aren't innocent, what the problem? (whether the punishment matches the so called crime is another issue). Of course the PTB can use sexual harassment and other actions like viewing porn to take people down, but these are not innocent people as far as we know. So the worrying by the old white dudes on here that now everyone who even looks at a woman sideways is going to be fired, have their careers ruined, etc., is not based on evidence but an emotional reaction against long standing assumptions and bias'.
@Big Al So we are
So we are assuming that no-one innocent will ever be thus accused, because so far, nobody has been. At least as far as we know--George Takei says he's innocent, and who knows whether that's true or not, and who could tell, since the supposed incident took place in the early 80s.
You can have #BelieveAllWomen (and gay men) or you can have innocent until proven guilty. You can't have both.
And it's stunning how readily we, who believe in the near-entire corruption of the government, the courts, and the press, are willing to believe that all those institutions will operate to take down only the guilty.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That is not my point.
Maybe re-read what I said. I said the reaction here that this is going to allow the PTB to railroad anyone they want is overblown BECAUSE if you are innocent or if you've only committed a minor "infraction", you have nothing to worry about BECAUSE so far as we know, there is no evidence the PTB are railroading INNOCENT people. There might be, but we don't know that yet. There are people on here who saying that NOW if you look at a woman (or vice versa, etc.) sideways you can now be fired, your career ruined and possibly be shipped of to Siberia. There is no evidence for that reaction at this time and I don't think there is at all.
It's a specific point made relative to some of the conversation under this essay.
@Big Al I'm not worrying
I'm not worrying about "old white dudes on here." And it's not an emotional reaction, but a rational one, based on what happens when accusation is automatically taken as proof. That's bad enough when you have a government, a legal system, and a press you can respect. We have a government, a legal system, and a press that shut down Acorn because of a smear, that fired Van Jones because of a smear, that more or less operates on various politicians and political factions smearing each other. We have a media that Swift-boated John Kerry and spread the story that Bernie Sanders supporters were chanting "English only" at Dolores Huerta, the story that Bernie Sanders supporters threw chairs and stormed the stage at the Nevada caucus, and that Hillary Clinton had already won the nomination when she hadn't--timed immediately before the CA primary.
If I know, for a fact, that somebody has already committed arson multiple times, it seems like a bad idea to make them a security guard for various properties around town, and to just take it as read that of course, they will operate straightforwardly and do their job. Saying "they haven't yet committed arson on this side of town" doesn't really help.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
You've said this twice now
The part about paying a "woman (or gay man)" to lie. Link? I don't doubt it's a possibility, but I haven't heard of it yet, and I'm not going to dismiss the others even if it's proven to be true.
Look up
lawyer Barbara Lee.
dfarrah
we don't know.
Actually, we do know.
Many of the accused have hung their heads in shame and admitted their behavior was unacceptable. To me, you saying "we don't know" contributes to the ongoing denial of men in wanting to change their behavior.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I will do this once.
Has anyone accused so far really been innocent? - ba
we don't know. - ik
Actually, we do know.
Many of the accused have hung their heads in shame and admitted their behavior was unacceptable -ra
my saying "we don't know" simply means we don't know that all these people committed crimes or violated workplace rules. I certainly don't.
that is all.
I will do this as many times as it takes:
When you say, "wdon't know" implies ALL of us. When you say YOU don't know, that is more correct. Speak for yourself, not for the collective "we," and I'll do the same.
So, I revise my claim, "Actually, MANY of us do know..."
Creating dissonance goes both ways. Thanks for proving it.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
oww .
the question is whether we know that all are "guilty".
and guilty of what crimes?
I don't know that, and I don't think you do either.
I could be wrong, but I'm not. No, I'm not.
please continue without me is the natural response to this abuse.
and voila! there we have it- a beauty of a feud on c99
we will see more is my sad prediction.
we are fools, easily led.
dispiriting really to watch this happen.
check out what CSTMS said.
edit- please.
so do you ?
do you know that all the people accused are guilty?
and of what?
that is not what you said.
you said- "many hung their heads".
correct. but not the same as "all".
I hope I have made clear the nature of my objection to your comment.
If you do know this , tell me how and I'd be glad to look.
also I notice that you choose to argue over the use "we don't know", but nothing to the important question of how quickly we got to "STFU" around here. Telling people they are "part of the solution or part of the problem." (lol)
to Jtc- I thought we were above this stuff.
that is why you will lose readers. it's not the topic.
it's the abusive group behavior we loathed at TOP set loose by this topic.
please spend the $20 I sent yesterday. not your fault!
pogo was a genius.
edit.
p.s. fwiw,the most important people in the world to me: wife, daughter,sister.
Please check yourself
When I began reading your comment, I was prepared to ask you if you had seen JtC's essay today about what's going on in this thread, but it appears that you have seen it, and are doubling down.
Yes, abusive group stupidity, I can agree with that. But seriously, dafuq? Your hostility is showing, and I'm at a loss as to why you'd mention $20.
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