zoogs

Maybe I’m really ignorant, but the 1990s passing of NAFTA does not seem like the “anti union” thing it’s made out to be. Whereas appointing labor hostile folks to the NLRB, causing disruption to already fragile but nascent labor movements in the country, and empowering right to work people who were going to appoint obviously labor hostile SCOTUS judges to swing the vote on Janus seems like an actual “anti union” thing,

If we the people failed to grasp the ENORMOUS difference between a party that isn’t as socialist enough as a small but growing subsection of us leftists would prefer, and a party that was going to burn labor to the ground as they have been dreaming to do for decades, then congratulations on a Trump pulling out of the TPP, I guess? Yay, organized labor? 

I think interest in sports is as inertial as the idea that most people want to see men's stories in movies. Sports viewership and intense sports fandom is largely male historically and it doesn't have to be. Women's professional and international soccer is more compelling than U17 competitions, at least IMO. Anyway, regardless of all that, universities have a responsibility to offer some equality in opportunities. And that to me does not mean well, just please overlook football so we can stop offering so many women's sports. 

I do like fiction, though. Movie or TV worlds where things like spirits and spiritual realms exist, or surrealist sci-fi, often drawing from rich cultural mythologies. When it's separated from the question of whether these things are factual, I like how imaginative these worlds can get.

14 hours ago, Moiraine said:

Osborne hired Pelini and didn't seem happy about his firing. Regardless of how much of a jack ass Pelini was, Frost will likely never say much negative about him.

Yay, values!

The Patriots apparently offered a 3rd (I'm surprised they didn't take that one). Seems like there was interest, but on top of being a distraction the guy is what, 32, after all...

To be outspoken is to become a distraction in a rigid system that must be managed, or purged. I think that's kind of an unfortunate reality but it's how it is. The NFL prizes the keep your head down mentality, internally. Players who get too activist-y don't have enough focus on what's really important, the success of The Team. The Patriot Way, and all that. Something I've seriously soured on.

The heart of all of this is that women's participation and opportunities are things that do not matter and it's all just s#!t getting in the way of the unencumbered operations of our true love, men's football, which by the way happens to have extremely large team sizes and would like to even expand from there. If football weren't exempted, we'd just see fewer women's sports. Not a good, or fair outcome.

Long, long term I'd like to see a world where women's athletics was at least as big a deal as men's athletics. 

Self-aggrandizing grievance politics is Trump's entire sad, pathetic shtick.

Really salient point: 

Taking a stand here is more revealing than not taking a stand on anything ever at all. It lets you know everything by which this GOP isn't bothered in the least, compared to the thing that will really set their hair on fire. Priorities matter and in case they weren't obvious before, the curtain has been pulled all the way back.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/seahawks-reportedly-want-to-trade-michael-bennett-to-make-team-a-little-quieter-michael-bennett-notices/

https://247sports.com/nfl/seattle-seahawks/Bolt/Michael-Bennett-being-moved-to-quiet-locker-room-a-bit-115909023

Michael Bennett (and potentially Richard Sherman?) losing his place in the organization because his vocal social justice-oriented personality was considered a distraction is everything the NFL is and aspires to be.

Slightly Different Thing Is Revolutionary, New, and Will Change Everything.

On 1/25/2018 at 12:00 PM, Landlord said:

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?

Drifting through the wind,

Wanting to start again?

5 hours ago, ZRod said:

What has he actually done?

The answer in such conversations is always "things that I like". 

Trump has done a lot of things. Whether you find them joyous or horrifying is your call.

I don't think you or I are immune to using gendered arguments. I do know you and don't think you are anti-feminist, but I do think the nature of this takedown resorted to those lines. I just wanted to really push back on the idea that this is some dumb woman who, because she got all dramatic, spewed out some poorly-written nonsense, which is what I felt was the case being made against her.

I agree with you that we don't need to make stuff up to make our case, but I reeeally think "this doesn't feel real to me" is a flimsy, subjective basis on which to rest the claim that she did.

Also, I don't know if I'd go as far as to say people whose relationships fail over this are idiots. It's hard. To be sure some of them probably are; many people are. But not being in those shoes I really don't think the point is to blame the people who couldn't find some way to salvage it. And of course, it's likely that "not feminist enough" is both not the only reason in that case, and a really trivializing rendering of the husband in question. As for crazy relationship stories, I've heard my fair share...anyway, even if everyone involved is an idiot, I think the point is still that *this* is what is setting it all off.

Let's focus on what we agree on, then? There's people with a profoundly felt, unshakeable conviction that gender issues aren't real, and it's difficult. You and I know and agree that there are people who fit this category, and that no, a large share of them probably will never get it, would be happy to do anything other than to get it. However much I think we both wish they just would.

On the fire guy, I dunno, I can kinda see it; like, he thinks of Hillary as a snake or a bitch, thought it'd be amusing to chuck some things into the fireplace or whatever. Some people like smashing or shooting or exploding or setting things on fire for the sport of it, and maybe that's the context. People had some fun destroying their Keurigs in creative ways because it upset Sean Hannity. Here is a video of someone literally setting Hillary's book on fire and thinking that would be a cool thing to upload to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh2MTAWOaUM Politics gets people really worked up. 

^On the reality TV note, thank you, Soledad O'Brien, for very prominently taking out the trash:

"It's not accurate. It's not funny. It's not clever. It's not analysis. It's facile. It shows an actual lack of understanding of reality tv (can't believe I'm typing that). It's mediocre. It's a time when viewers need to understand what's going on at the highest levels of govt."

I'm not a proponent of being a Russia hawk, but they have an obvious interest in interference in US affairs and they've found obviously very willing collaborators (for chrissake, Donald Trump made a public call to Russia asking them to hack his political opponent's emails! On the campaign trail!). This isn't an amusing state of affairs, and we deserve better than uninspired metaphors and a tune in next week to find out. Trump's desire for us to consume serious events as we do reality television is a scary thing that demands a serious response.

Part of what troubles me too is what people allude to when they talk about messaging. Like, obviously the winning messaging strategy in 2016 was to feed off some fundamentally race-based resentment of the white working class but for a hell of a lot of us cashing in on such resentment was an absolute non-starter. I feel a pivot to this direction inevitably produces narrow, exclusionary policy, the kind meant to rectify the wrong of the erosion of white privilege at least in certain corners, by restoring it.

Diversity is everything to me, and is core to what I think of as the American national identity. That, and an aspiration for being a force for good, such as through social justice and welfare in our own communities and being a good neighbor globally. So our greatness emanates from our goodness, and we are stronger .... together. But that was a weak, garbage message? and what we really needed was something that could focus in on highly legitimate white anger, hard pass please.

Re: union members, I mean, I think it's pretty clear, if you are truly pro-union then you need to be not voting for the people who have been thirsting for union destruction for decades and good job on handing them the judiciary keys to do that. If racial resentment either took over or all the blatantly anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-LGBT stuff on the Trump ticket wasn't enough to bother you, then that's also on you. That said, I would like to see a much stronger pro-labor push from the Democratic side. I do hope that this is something they'll embrace, as a matter of "worker's rights" and a more truly democratic society, and not "we need the white midwest front and center again."

Florida Republicans are really unhappy about passing a gun control compromise because it did things like raise a minimum purchase age from 18 to 21, which means fewer people can buy guns and that's very sad. On the other hand, they got to put some guns in schools, so hey!

...just so we're clear on what the two sides are trying to accomplish here in this give-and-take. These people are frickin' nuts.

35 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

You keep using examples that are actually legitimate things that are a problem to defend the essay, but none of that has anything to do with the essay, nor does it make the things she wrote about more real.

So, I'm curious about this. The essay is broadly about the strains in relationships caused by liberal men who have pretty negative reactions to the active and sometimes angry activism of women since the 2016 election. If we were to point to some public expressions of that activism and then highlight visibly hostile reactions to it even from within the left, and we agree that this is a legitimate problem...doesn't that actually have everything to do with the essay? Isn't the type of person who would have that reaction precisely the subject of the essay? I mean, it's not everyone, thank goodness, but it's also not nobody, and it's anywhere from no trouble at all, to a bit of a bother, to totally shattering to those who find themselves in this boat.

I mean I just think both of these are gendered putdowns:

- Woman's claims are probably fiction she is attempting to pass off as fact

- Highly credentialed woman obviously shows no skill in her area

It's not like these are always invalid, but the way they're immediately reached for and leaned upon. It's striking, to me. I don't feel her writing is bad here, and I don't especially see how it's relevant except as a means to really make a villain out of this author. I'm sorry the essay pissed you off so much. I strongly disagree that it makes any of those three look ridiculous. And I also disagree that our voices and opinions should be packaged in a form that the general whole would find suitably amenable. I think it's the people who would actually take such things as indictments on the female gender or on feminism or on the left that are an embarrassment, and only to themselves.

I'll point you to Twitter for a sampling of the conversation, since this is where much of it happens (at least in public), with some selected quotes:

Matt Pearce (LAT) https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/968714694801412096
Jamil Smith (Rolling Stone) https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/969439232019197954
Amy Butcher's own twitter https://twitter.com/amyebutcher/status/968542254267805697

There were quite a few from men who said things like, thanks, this is making me think about things more. That makes me happy. Anyway. You're certainly not required to have the same response I had. I'm just glad that she wrote this, happy to see others respond to it the way I did, and happy to see it getting shared in liberal circles online.

I'll offer a few very public examples of things that cause me dismay. The Daily Beast, very openly and strongly left-leaning outlet, raking Kristen Gillibrand over the coals for being too nakedly opportunistic (she was one of a few to call on Al Franken to resign). The story of some big-time Democratic Party donor (a woman, in this case) threatening to withhold donations for her going after Franken and Bill Clinton, because obviously she is the one that should pay the price for things those men did.  Female politicians being skewered by the left for being maybe too power hungry and ambitious -- Gillibrand, HRC, Kamala Harris, heck, Oprah -- while at the same time pining for Joe Biden, because isn't it adorable how that good old-time boy grew up dreaming about wanting to be President and wouldn't it be nice if he got it?

I mean, ultimately, I think we're on the same wavelength here. And yeah, there are plenty of liberal men who are just as angry about these things, but there are also men (and women) who sincerely and strongly hold that such anger is contrived, scorn-worthy, or illegitimate. These are fraught and highly charged political times, to put it as evenly as possible.

...and you can find many other comments, including from prominent journalists, who don’t have your read of the article at all; who related to it or found it powerful. You present one sneering derision as if it were the only response of note to the piece, but a cursory look online will show you that it is not. I find it fascinating how dug in you are to the idea that it’s fiction. What if it weren’t? What are the stakes here? 

It reads dramatically. You could say she’s being real melodramatic about the whole deal, though I think it’s only fair to point out this would be another rather gendered putdown. I think her strong feelings on this topic, the inadequacy and backlash even from liberal corners and the dismay that this causes, is quite warranted. We disagree. Can’t it just be that?

I don’t know, I find it a little pointless to talk about campaign strategy over policy. It’s not entirely meaningless, as you point out, but I take the view that we get the governments we deserve, generally speaking, and the solution to having people with really bad policies in office is us being able to better recognize why they are bad. Yeah maybe it’s too bad some savvier PR people aren’t running political organizations so that they can do a better job of convincing us the sky is blue, but if we depend on that to decide the sky is blue then we accept a world where we don’t always get it right.

I think it's fair to argue the campaign made numerous strategic errors, and made poor judgments in relying on their internal polling. 

But I think the larger culpability is with the union folks who failed to distinguish between the pro-labor side and an extremely, virulently anti-labor side, a core piece of whose fundamental mission is crushing union membership power. 

This is the action of a moralizing State asserting state control over information access. What does that have to do with net neutrality? 

That's absurd and dumb. The male Senator who made that suggestion should be have his sophomoric antics discarded rather than seized upon by news media. It's possible to oppose naming a highway after our dumb President while still treating this person as a human being and not an object of national amusement. I think I've had enough of "ha, ha, she's a porn star and her porn star name was Stormy Daniels" news media. Real low hanging fruit there. 

I remain bewildered by the baseless consensus that has been formed here that Amy Butcher's essay was fiction. If any of you can find something to substantiate this, I'd be happy to see it. 

Liberal men not being nearly on the same page on this topic is of course real, as real as sexism is, which was never the exclusive domain of conservatives -- and how many examples do we have, publicly, of either bad behavior, complicity, or tone-deafness from powerful liberal men we'd expect better from? It's not everybody, but it's there. I don't believe the frustrations expressed in her article are invalid, and in fact I share them.

Lastly, I want to point out how common it is for women who are professionals in their field to have their competency in that area questioned. I realize writing is a subjective thing, and if you weren't a fan of her style, fine. It just feels like we're treating her as a Silly Woman who got worked up and consequently jammed out some incoherent keyboard babble. She is, in fact, an award-winning essayist and a Professor of English -- so if you want to hit at her writing chops, have something to back that up.
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I feel like it's interesting to consistently find "hey, maybe gender discrimination isn't that real" think pieces interesting to the exclusion of similar demonstrated interest in "here are thoughts on this aspect of gender discrimination". Not that you should have no interest in one, but there's lots of writing to be interested in! 
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This passage from this article, my goodness. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/nyregion/yale-student-not-guilty-saifullah-khan.html

Quote

 

Mr. Khan’s lawyers worked relentlessly to discredit the account of the woman, who was not identified by name in the arrest warrant application. They asked repeatedly how much she had to drink, and how she could claim not to remember certain details, such as how she arrived back at her dorm room, but remembered others, such as the alleged assault itself. They parsed her text messages with Mr. Khan, asking if she had not been flirting with him in the days before the incident. They showed off her Halloween costume, a black cat outfit, and asked her why she had not chosen a more modest one, such as “Cinderella in a long flowing gown.”

...
Mr. Pattis showed the jury security camera footage of the two walking back to her dorm, in which the ["so intoxicated"] complainant appeared to be leaning on Mr. Khan, her leg dragging slightly behind her.

“Don’t you look like two lovers?” Mr. Pattis asked the woman on the stand.

“No,” she replied.

 

For f#*k's sake. Leaving the adjudication of his actual guilt or innocence aside, how do these lawyers live with themselves? I suppose by imagining they're fighting the good fight. Not for the client, merely, but for the great cultural ideas of the women-don't-matter patriarchy, like If Women Dress Like That They're Asking For It. Their tactics are obviously effective, but disgusting.