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Sodomy Hussein posted:I propose that people not try to backseat mod the thread to cut out people who want to discuss the topic in more detail, share their observations, or express a different opinion. This isn't C-SPAM. If you're really hurting to see a bunch of guys write about women lying about being raped, a Reddit account is free to make. Lester Shy posted:After #metoo, I seriously thought we were going to have a difficult-but-necessary reckoning with all of the various abusers in the Dem party. Franken resigned. After Epstein's arrest, Christine Pelosi made a widely-mocked post about "some of our faves" being implicated, which, while cringeworthy, did indicate we were going to rid ourselves of the Bill Clintons and Bill Richardsons of the party. #metoo as a movement was always going to be ditched the second it became politically untenable because of who the movement was built around: wealthy white women in or connected to media, who could leverage their public profile and twitter followers and -- most importantly, in most cases -- afford lawyers and so could actually get something to stick to their rapists. But because it was foundationally wealthy, media-connected white women, it folded when it meaningfully ran up against the political vehicle of wealthy, media-connected white women: the Democratic party. Franken could be ditched because he wasn't crucial to the project, but Biden definitely was/is. I think the Christine Pelosi thing was just tipping their hand a little too much. They all know the part is infested with rapists, but if she knew that very little would ever happen to Dem politicians outside eg. Franken, I don't think she would have ever made that tweet. That said, #metoo was good still, because any rapist seeing some kind of consequence for their action is a win, and there was a good deal of momentum behind it that spilled over into other countries, other, non-media areas (campuses etc.), but it's dead as a movement. As a social phenomena it's still there and still full of potential, but will never catalyze into what everyone thought #metoo would have become -- what it needed to become -- without broad class solidarity and the tools it provides (unions, for one), so that women who don't have lucrative media jobs can still force their rapists to account for their crimes.
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Feb 8, 2021 17:29
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christmas boots posted:I guess I don’t see how these things are connected. Could you elaborate? okay fucksticks put on your big boy pants and strap the gently caress in because I'm about to take you to school on how tara reade worked with vladdy PUTIN to try and Russiagate this whole dickswizzling shitwagon of an election! 1/84 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 8, 2021 17:36
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silicone thrills posted:I feel like you are just trolling this thread at this point. Grouchio has a history of posting weird misogynistic poo poo, and specifically about Reade as well, which their rap sheet attests to. I don't think they should be taken very seriously in this thread (or indeed this subforum).
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Feb 8, 2021 18:43
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No one is "celebrating" the Republicans' treatment of Ford. They had, strategically, little reason to smear her directly as sitting politicians -- their aligned media did that work and their constituents would have believed Ford was a godless lying communist traitor regardless. The Democrats, on the other hand, had and have every reason to go after Reade as viciously and vociferously as possible, because they have to deal with the two principal positions in their messaging that Reade threatened: 1) We are the party of #metoo, believing women, social justice, standing up to abusers, and equality. 2) Joe Biden is the figurehead and embodiment of these values, and leads our most progressive administration ever. I know I'm in D&D but I genuinely hope that we can be adult enough to recognize that, while this is absolutely the image the Democrats want to project, they're positions and not goals, and certainly not the actual material goals of the party (strengthening their donor base, securing and expanding the economic and international relationships that benefit them, etc) -- or, at the very least, the goals of Joe Biden's administration and their wing of the party. Biden, and his image, are central to pursuing these goals because the image, and not the material goals, are what resonates with the rank-and-file Democrat voters. So, if Biden is revealed to be a rapist, or at least becomes popularly perceived as one, #2 can't be true. If #2 is true and Biden isn't dismissed by the party (which can't happen, especially now), #1 -- the entire basis for Democrat image and messaging -- cannot be true. In order to keep their voting base so as to pursue their economic and political goals, the Democrats CANNOT allow Reade to be perceived as telling the truth. It undermines their entire project. That's why they had to go after her, and that's why they'll continue to go after her for at least as long as keeps speaking out about what Biden did to her (and probably until she, or maybe Biden, dies)
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Feb 9, 2021 17:26
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The idea that it's inappropriate to criticize the late Bryant for his history of rape and sexual assault if you're insufficiently black is a great example of how, divorced from any real theory of change and material analysis, anything can be cynically dismissed with this sort of faux-progressive woke posturing. "Intersectional analysis" (or the perverted shadow of it that exists within the progressive sphere) can and is being used, just like anything else, to shut down discussion and protect abusers from being held accountable. LionArcher's post was unsubtle, but it's not really that different from the admonishments from Democrats and their supporters about Joe Biden, just a step removed: It's not that you can't call Biden a rapist because he's X, it's that you can't call Biden a rapist because then the Republicans will gain power and that will be be bad for/outright kill X -- sub in black people/immigrants/trans people/disabled people/etc. etc. etc. for X based on your audience and then you've effectively shut down any challenge of Biden's image within nearly any progressive-aligned space that isn't watching for this specific rhetorical trick.
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Feb 10, 2021 16:49
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Biden will certainly run again, and if the GOP nominates Trump, or one of his empty suit acolytes, they're going to make it again a very easy choice for most people. For Trump or one of his empty suit acolytes you mean, right? I should make it clear that I don't want a second Trump term, but Biden has, realistically, less than two years to start delivering on some actual material concessions to broad swathes of the working class (like $2k checks and loan forgiveness, not wonkbait EOs and epic IFL science psaki bombs) or Trump is going to be able to walk in to the office in 2024.
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Feb 18, 2021 19:15
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xcheopis posted:I don't consider sexual assault a game. This really isn't the thread to try out a gross bit like this.
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Feb 20, 2021 17:49
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xcheopis posted:Not doing a bit. I've been raped, more than once, and this dehumanizing language is demeaning. You can pile the anger and hate on Biden and also have compassion for Tara. A rhetorical choice made specifically to tie a rapist to his crime within the context of specifically talking about Tara Reade -- literally in the middle of the conversation about her -- and more specifically drawing the distinction that she, Tara Reade, is merely the most public victim of said rapist by using those words is, I'm sorry, not that big of a deal in the midst of the entire democratic apparatus and, moreover, posters ITT trying to claim Reade is lying, or it doesn't matter, or it's not worth talking about. You popping into this thread to call out that little detail, outside of context, reads as really disgusting hard-right trolling, even if that doesn't describe you or you didn't intend for your comments to be read that way. Context matters, in both what you're posting and the posts you're responding to.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:26
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xcheopis posted:The ones making this "a big deal" are the ones upset over a small request to consider their language. Why does that upset you so much? Because it is a profoundly unfair reading and a total refusal to contextualize a good point about how an entire political body worked overtime to smear Tara Reade in order to protect the man who raped her, who is now literally the most powerful man on the planet. This being the thing you wanted to call out specifically instead of, say, the people in this thread who have been probated for calling Reade a liar and/or a Russian agent and are doing it again here reads, at best, as worthless woke positioning to derail the conversation and is indistinguishable from far-right parody, which is what multiple people (the people who are most vociferously calling out the Democrats' hideous treatment of Tara Reade) thought you were doing. Hard to imagine a better way to shut down an otherwise good-faith conversation about rape and political power structures than by policing extremely minor rhetorical choices. You should probably at least recognize that, even if you don't think you did anything wrong here.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:57
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Kalit posted:Holy poo poo, this thread is becoming toxic, with you being the main culprit it seems. A minor suggestion was made by a poster, while acknowledging that they were sure that the OP's intention was good, and other posters are attacking them? And you're still continuing after they came out to the thread about being raped multiple times in the past?? I think what they did has a far more chilling effect on earnest discussions of rape and rape culture than the thing they were complaining about, to the extent that multiple posters thought they were a sick gimmick or something at first blush. That seems more "toxic" to me than my recognizing it. This is becoming a derail so this'll be my last post on the subject, but anyone, no matter who they are and what has happened to them, intentionally or unintentionally, can be a malign influence on these (in my opinion very necessary) conversations.
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Feb 20, 2021 20:32
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xcheopis posted:Good-faith conversation until even a single sexual assault victim gently asks that posters think about what they are saying before posting. I have been sexually assaulted and don't think that has any bearing on what you said or what I said and I loving hate even mentioning it anywhere, much less online, and I don't think I ever have on something awful before but here we are. I, as a sexual assault victim, thought what you did was lovely and have seen those exact tactics shut down conversations before and that has when it has happened, and as it happens now, make me, a sexual assault victim, feel like poo poo. I must stress again that when you smoked on in here people immediately thought you were trolling the thread. It made me, a sexual assault victim, feel disgusted because I, again, have seen those exact tactics shut up a room because everyone gets worried that they're not using the correct language or they might get into a fight with someone because their specific words are being scrutinized instead of the content of what they're trying to say. I guess that counts as "losing my poo poo over it"! and I should have just ignored it and moved on. Boy, I've never ever, ever, heard that sentiment in response to an earnest challenge from someone who has been sexually assaulted themselves! I think what you did was wrong even if it was done in good faith and I don't think me or you being victims of sexual assault has anything to do with it other than it, and your bizarre defensive posturing and making the assumption I only care about people who have been raped as some sort of abstract locus of argumentation has ruined my morning. gently caress you. I hope I have sufficiently expressed my own extremely painful and uncomfortable history to satisfy you so you can no longer dismiss me as a rape culture enabler or whatever.
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Feb 20, 2021 21:40
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Is this a "critique of language"?xcheopis posted:Your responses have come across as "caring" about rape victims only in the abstract and not the actual human to whom you are responding. Go gently caress yourself. I'm done. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 20, 2021 21:48
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Ytlaya posted:I actually somewhat agree if I'm interpreting this right. Something that has kind of bugged me is that some people seem to view Biden being a rapist as being "disqualifying/beyond the pale" in a way that various other terrible things him and other politicians do aren't. I don't really understand why "pushed for a war with a 6-7 figure death count" doesn't fall under the same category of "this guy should be immediately rejected as both a politician and a human being." I think it's morally correct, but a tactical error - or at least a misunderstanding - on the left: liberals see Biden's career as a series of unfortunate mistakes he's better about now (bussing), things he can't really be blamed for (Iraq war), and stuff that's either "pragmatic", politically expedient, or they just flat out like and agree with (crime bill). Rape and sexual assault was something that liberals were saying was totally disqualifying for anyone, regardless of who it was or when it happened, and were fully behind MeToo (or claimed to be) when Biden started to move towards the candidacy. The idea was that we cannot continue to protect and empower rapists -> Joe Biden is a rapist -> we cannot allow him to become the Democratic nominee for president, much less president of the United States. This was a mistake on the part of the left because if the last few decades of American politics have taught us anything it's that reactionaries are immune to hypocrisy.
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Feb 22, 2021 17:16
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How are u posted:before we fix our democracy. This cannot happen until we are actually capable of holding our elected representatives accountable for their decisions and actions, and that cannot be done until a critical mass of people are willing to withhold their vote for politicians that have crossed the line. If things are so bad that any Democratic loss is enough to bring about real, actual fascism it's already too late, because voting Blue No Matter Who does nothing but give free rein for the Democrats to move to the right, which at some point will ablate enough left and liberal support that the Republicans will win handily anyway (2022, more than likely). There's nothing to be done and it's just a matter of if the system collapses now or 2-4 years from now, because there's no positive influence that can be exerted towards preserving democracy. If a rapist can get elected because the other side's rapist has raped more often, you'll never get to a point where you can have a system that excludes rapists (or racists, or war-mongers, etc). Eventually you'll get to a point where people who don't want to vote for rapists will get fed up and you'll get your nightmare option anyway. This idea that we're on the brink of total damnation unless we vote for a rapist -- as well as the fiction that in voting for a rapist you have a hand in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands (ffs!) -- results in, as we can clearly see, the highest seats of power infested with rapists. If you don't want to be lead by a rapist &c., you shouldn't vote for one. Until you can act on that conviction, things are never going to get any meaningfully better. There's no mechanism for them to do so otherwise. Joe Biden has not been, and cannot be, "pushed left", nor can he be made to account for his rape or rapes.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:11
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How are u posted:More than anything else I voted for him because Trump had to go because, as was born out in the months following the election, the Republicans are fascists who want to literally end democracy in the United States. That's existential, and takes precedence over anything else, for me. Replace "rapist" with whatever you want, but it doesn't change any of the logic. My point is that if the Republicans are all actual fascists and do actually want to meaningfully end democracy in the United States and 1/6 was a for-real fascist coup attempt the game's already over and by voting for Democrats you're just delaying the inevitable. There's no pressure on the right for Republicans to become not fascists. There's no pressure from the Democratic voter base in any direction. There's pressure from the Republican voter base for the Democrats to go right, because their voters who think like you do will vote for them anyway, and they will have to try and capture R voters to make up for the people that are (correctly!) giving up on the Democrats as vehicles of any meaningful change in their lives. They're not really going to capture many R voters (see Trump's popularity among Republicans), and so you'll just lose more and more D voters until the Republicans can win handily anyway. The only way you can exert pressure on the Democrats with your vote is by withholding it when they field an unacceptable candidate. If you can't do that the Republicans will inevitably win eventually. You get your fascism tomorrow or next week, Nancy Pelosi isn't suddenly going to become a socialist if Biden wins a second term. There's no way out. This is all, of course, predicated on the assumptions you're making about Trump being a uniquely evil historical aberration and 1/6 being an actual, manifest threat to our democracy instead of a totally unambiguous and blatant example of our institutions already having failed on almost every level and our entire political sphere being entirely hollow and sterile. Which is also exactly what the Democrats have been shouting from the rooftops because it is the only way they're going to get you to continue to vote for the blue rapist no matter who. Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 21:36
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How are u posted:I strongly disagree on this point. Utterly disagree. I think you can see how we can come to very different conclusions based off this disagreement. I have provided an argument as to why I think that voting blue no matter who puts no directional pressure on the democrats and, instead, drives them right which leads inexorably to more republican wins. Can you give me an alternate mechanism that I'm not seeing?
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Feb 25, 2021 21:47
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Insanite posted:Are you ready to hit rock bottom, thread? I think this was always the way it was going to go, and even if Cuomo is canned I think this is the sort of thing we can look forward to from here on out: Democrats, in a broad sense, have learned that their voter base responds to that sort of faux-academic "woke" (for lack of a better term) rhetoric that apes the style of progressive critique but not the content, and so they'll use it to their political ends. This is more egregious than they've been in the past, but this sort of framing was leveraged against Bernie, Markey (hilariously and unsuccessfully), Reade, and if you'll recall even against BLM before it became politically infeasible to do so (in that it was largely co-opted by politicians and redirected into painting on roadways or whatever).
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Mar 15, 2021 16:12
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Cuomo's favorability amongst NY dems was still around 75% before he legalized weed. If toxxes were still a thing I'd bet my account on Cuomo getting a slap on the wrist, assurance that he won't run again (which afaik he already said), but keeping his office because we need a Strong Democrat in there when we Hold Trump Accountable (which also will not happen)
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Apr 9, 2021 15:01
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There is no reason for NY Dems (or the Democrats in general) to get rid of Cuomo. Their voters don't care, their donors don't care, their leadership definitely doesn't care, and even the media is done with him. He smashed the legal weed button to get the heat off, and oh hey look over here there's Gaetz! This would be different if they were worried that there might be any consequences, but the media has died down and the voters have shown they don't really give enough of a poo poo. Since Franken they've learned over and over again that as long as you keep your head down this stuff blows over. Biden himself proved that if the voters thought the stakes were high enough -- defeating Trump for Biden and Holding Trump Accountable (lmao) in Cuomo's case -- your voters are just going to ignore this after a few weeks. Even the nursing home scandal is only mentioned by NYPost and Fox any more, and even that is more often than not to distract from Gaetz or any other Trump orbit thing. If you think the Democrats are going to move on this it's because you still, in 2021, maintain the puerile delusion that the Democrats, more than just being the not-Republicans, are somehow The Good Guys, and don't even have a conception of how political power works or what it even is
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Apr 9, 2021 18:28
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We're not even a year past the birth of "Cuomosexual", Democrats and their voters fuckin love the guy, even after the sex pest poo poo and the nursing homes. The only people who have been working to get him out are the same "crank fringe" that wanted Bernie to win, and we all see what the Democrats did with that whole affair. The Democrats love Cuomo for many of the same reasons the Republicans love Trump, and like Trump supporters they're going to move heaven and earth so their guy doesn't really ever face any consequences for his misdeeds. This isn't a wild prediction, this happens all the time. The only time they ever get anyone on anything is when whatever they did is so outrageous and disgusting and obvious it pierces the team-political shell.
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Apr 9, 2021 19:16
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Jarmak posted:Talking about his approval you are again, as far as I can tell, just making things up Cuomo polls poorly nationally, amongst everyone, but is still above 50% in New York, and at 75% with NY Dems (which is the thing that matters here) as of Mar. 22, which is before the legal weed stuff. This is exactly what I said, and -- I'll point out also -- your Emerson data is from Mar 1-2 and only mentions Democrats in as much that it says most don't think he should serve another term, which is again not what we're talking about here. I know you're slamming on that google search bar as hard and as fast as you can so you don't get Owned Online but please take the time to read the things you link to and at least acknowledge that this is the Democrats' guy here. Just months ago everyone was tripping over themselves to open a lane for him to make a presidential run after Joe/Kamala. e: https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/25/cuomo-schumer-gillibrand-approval-rating/ I apologize, I thought I had edited that in posts ago but never actually hit the button Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Apr 9, 2021 |
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Apr 9, 2021 19:54
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I posted the source, but he's likely not going to run again and NY Republican voters aren't going to vote for him. The latest polling I could find doesn't include the weed legislation (which is going to give him a bump, which is why he did it). 75% is down from the ~87% he had before any of this broke but it'll be up again soon enough as this stuff fades out and weed is factored in. Why would they do anything to risk the NY Dem machine that has been humming along perfectly happily for so long now? To appease Republicans? Why? So a bunch of people wrote their names down so they can go on record as tut-tutting that naughty Cuomo. Oh they made a task force to assess the viability of creating a focus team to determine if they should form a committee to discuss removing Cuomo. What's that? The first time committee is going to meet in November 22? Ah well, nevertheless... anyway, to reiterate in case you didn't see my edit or something. https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/25/cuomo-schumer-gillibrand-approval-rating/ Morning Consult as of 3/22 posted:Like many other governors, Cuomo began the year riding the wave of a pandemic boost that elevated his job approval rating to 73 percent by the beginning of last summer. While that bump had begun to subside by January, he was nonetheless the most popular statewide official – particularly among Democratic voters.
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Apr 9, 2021 20:13
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Jarmak posted:You can't just hand-waive away the majority of the congressional delegation, including both senators, calling for his resignation. Or the formal opening of an impeachment inquiry. Or the Democratic AGs office opening a criminal investigation and issuing subpoenas. On the other hand in the pro-Cuomo evidence camp one poll that has terrible but not catastrophic numbers, and your hot takes. You're just moving the goalposts in circles. I am not moving the goalposts anywhere! My position has been exactly the same as it has been since the very first post I made here: nothing is going to happen to Cuomo other than, at worst, a slap on the wrist. He's not going to run again anyway, by his own admission. He may have bad numbers nationally, but that doesn't matter. New Yorkers still like him (probably love him again, now) and New Yorkers are the people that matter here and (this is the important part!) they don't blame the Democratic Party for Cuomo -- or anything else! Not even New York Democrats (Schumer and Gillibrand's approval has increased). You've been saying what other Dems have been saying and the precise reason why everyone is writing their names on the "Cuomo is a naughty boy list": to prove that they're Doing Their Best. But, there's no reason the Democrats have to actually rock the boat and carry through any of this. They sing the song and do the dance so they can be seen as doing something, which assuages people like you who are like pathologically required to defend them and lets everyone else forget about it. Nothing bad happens to anyone in power. Nobody (important) loses their jobs. Ultimately not enough people (in New York) care, or will continue to care, and Cuomo will never be held to account for any of this. This isn't a "hand wave". This is the playbook that has been used for decades on both sides of the aisle.
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Apr 9, 2021 20:35
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I have an honest question for anyone reading this thread who has some amount of faith in the Cuomo committee-to-consider-impeachment process. Let's say they met tomorrow, and after a few days or weeks of investigation released a statement that said, effectively: "Our investigation revealed that Governor Cuomo may have behaved inappropriately towards some or all of his accusers, but we did not find sufficient evidence for us to call to begin the impeachment process. Nevertheless this committee condemns his actions and recommends strongly against Mr. Cuomo running for office again." Would that make you vote for a republican, or abstain from voting in a scenario where a republican could reasonably win -- even if said Democrat voiced an opinion in defense of Andrew Cuomo?
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Apr 10, 2021 19:52
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VitalSigns posted:If Paula Jones or Tara Reade are telling the truth, then the people who refused to take them seriously are the bad guys, and liberals can't be the bad guys, so they can never ever let up on these women. Ever. This really is it, and why we were treated to pages of "well technically"s and "sure it was inappropriate, but"s: some people understand politics to primarily be the actions undertaken by a government or within a government. Politics is the thing Joe Biden does when he signs an EO or congress passes a bill and everything down the chain: advocates, lobbyists, procedural processes, etc. etc. The only real meaningful interaction any "regular" person can have with this realm is their vote. It's so important because it actually means something and does something, even if it's a small thing, and because of that some part of the actions and responsibilities of the people or parties you vote for is invested in you. They are there because of you, after all. People who think like this then look at the GOP and, obviously and correctly, see them as evil. Their voters, ultimately responsible for them getting to office, share in that evil. They're bad people who do bad things, they love evil, and so vote for people that do evil. There might be a few exceptions here (lack of education teaching you the good opinions, say) but this is broadly what they believe. If they weren't bad people, they wouldn't put bad people in office to do bad things. Unlike me! I'm, obviously, a good person. Sure, I make the occasional mistake (who doesn't!), but ultimately have the right opinions and believe the right things. I don't think women should be raped, for one -- obviously! -- who could argue with this? I'm a good person, with correct opinions, so I have a moral responsibility to do everything in my power to stop the evil people and their bad voters, so I vote for Democrats. Maybe I even consciously identify as a Democrat or a liberal to really highlight (to myself) the degree to which I am on the side of the angels. But wait a minute, the guy I voted for raped somebody! This isn't good. I can't wash my hands of the vote I cast for him because a) voting is the most important political act I can make, and b) if voting doesn't confer responsibility then I have no mechanism by which to blame the horrible awful chuds for Trump. I might have to do something really uncomfortable like consider class, which would really upset my comfortable worldview and at any rate Marxism is a fake ideology that's not pragmatic and doesn't even actually exist according to Snopes. Well okay, what can I do? First off, I can simply say that whoever is accusing a Democrat of being sexually inappropriate is lying. She didn't get a degree or whatever and look here, she was interviewed by Russia Today. This clearly means that she's a lying fraud who is doing this for clout and because she loves Vladamir Putin, history's greatest monster. She just wants to see our proud democracy brought low. She's the dang joker. Oh wait a minute, there are ten accusers? Okay well look this is obviously bad. We all agree. This is just an unfortunate and painful exception in a party who is otherwise committed to women's safety: look here, they're forming a committee! Who could argue with that? That's Doing Something, for sure. I'm trusting in The Process. I have to, because that's what I voted for, and I don't vote for evil bad things, I vote for the good things. I'm a Democrat. And besides, in the end it doesn't really matter if some democrats are bad people, we still need them there. We can't just get rid of the rapists. Do you want Trump to come back? Do you want New York to burn to the ground? There's only one way to accomplish anything and that's following the rules exactly. Anyway this is why rapists like Biden or Cuomo or whoever else will continue to thrive in the Democratic Party just as much as they do in the Republican Party because Democrat voters can't blame the party for anything Democrats do. If they start to, the whole thing falls apart. This was probably mostly -- but not completely -- true until Trump, who really is the greatest gift to the Democrats because now he's the enemy at the gates that's going to bring about the fourth reich unless we toe the Democrat line exactly.
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Apr 12, 2021 15:13
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Cuomo is the one with ten accusers, I'm just pointing out how the thought process handles one dismissible voice vs. enough that dismissing them all becomes too ridiculous although it's always interesting to see just where they draw that line
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Apr 12, 2021 16:53
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VitalSigns posted:n accusers is a controversy, but we need 2n+1 accusers and then Cuomo is done John_A_Tallon posted:Just to be clear, the ones that knowingly held their nose and voted for a rapist anyway after they decided they believed Tara Reade are even worse than the annoying shits that have a pathological need to lie to themselves and gaslight everyone else about things. I think this is the only thing you've posted in this thread that I disagree with you on. The former are odious cowards who knowingly voted for a rapist because they were scared Trump was going to send the proud boys to their house or whatever but at least they acknowledge Biden is a rapist and that rape is a bad thing but they were too
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Apr 12, 2021 17:15
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That's fair
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Apr 12, 2021 17:33
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thank you both. I think it ultimately is the foundational and most pernicious piece of political fiction both sides tell themselves: the other side is clearly evil, so we must be the good ones. Liberals get some credit for recognizing what is blindingly obvious: that the GOP are, in fact, the evilest party. Unfortunately that doesn't make the Democrats "good" anywhere outside of the minds of the people that need them to be good for their own self-image. I think due to how constrained our political horizons are and what we think "politics" is means you can't work your way out of that trap without some sort of external viewpoint, which is to say: class analysis. The work is cut out for us I guess.
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Apr 13, 2021 00:36
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You fool, you idiot, you rube. Don't you see how this is a really complicated Law Thing that I understand because I went to a very expensive school and read very thoughtful articles about how this is The Rules and Good Actually, and unless Joe Biden and his administration defends Donald Trump against rape charges the Democrats will be just as bad...or worse! than Donald Trump himself and it will be fascist authoritarianism which I clap am clap not clap here clap for? Don't you have any respect for the norms of this great nation? Have you no decorum? Can't get in trouble if you are or have ever been the president, that's part of the game. Trump will never be held accountable for any of the rape or sexual abuse he's committed (or anything else), just as Joe Biden will never be held accountable for any of the rape or sexual abuse (or anything else) he's committed. E. Jean Carroll, like Tara Reade, will never see justice. The women who Cuomo abused will never see justice. That's not how it works here. There was maybe a slight, slight chance that this could have been starting to change but we had to torpedo #MeToo in order to defeat the friggin Mango Mussolini, so
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Jun 8, 2021 20:39
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I agree that the lying news media and sicko deep state is very unfair to our beautiful president! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 9, 2021 02:01
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I was given a sixer for shitposting because I wasn't "meeting effort with effort" but what I want to point out is how Democrat/liberal defense of their rapists is built on "being reasonable" and pedantry about legal and bureaucratic processes -- not the Democrats-as-a-political-party but self-identified Democrats. The party just uses whatever means is at hand to defend their rapists to ensure they remain in the positions they want to be in and/or within the good graces of their donor base. The liberal, or more specifically, Democrat voter, uses the empty dogshit rhetoric about "proper procedure" and "you don't want the democrats to turn into t-t-t-TRUMP, do you?" because their ideological position (and self-image) is compromised if they become willing to admit the "good guy" they voted for and his administration is protecting the bad guy they hate from any consequences whatsoever from his rape of a woman. This is important and germane to the thread because it should illustrate how the defense of sexual predators is something done by the structures of power, not one of the mickey mouse political teams that we want to tag as "good guys" and "bad guys", and it's important to understand that because it should orient everything we, at any level, can or should do to try and fix things. You can't just vote for the blue team. There's no better side. Until people recognize that the folks handing you your BELIEVE WOMEN yard signs are happily defending powerful rapists on both sides of the aisle literally nothing can happen to make anything better. This is, in my opinion, even more important on a personal level because it influences how we, the dumbasses posting here, propagate rape culture even though we think we're being woke allies or #resistance fighters or whatever the gently caress. I mean check this out: Herstory Begins Now posted:Please resist the urge to shitpost in this thread^ Joe Biden, himself a rapist, is in charge of an administration that is protecting Donald Trump, a rapist, from being punished for a rape he committed. That's it! There's no nuance here; that's what's happening, and it is very bad. If being the president means anything, Biden shoulders at least a portion of the responsibility for this. But, see, it's not actually Joe Biden's fault! It's all very unfair to president I'm astounded that people around here don't seem to recognize the exact same Trumpworld rhetoric that was floating around in 2016-2017 (whoaa a friggin million years ago XD XD XD everything happens so much!!!!), before the administration and their pundits recognized that Trump voters only cared about the slop and didn't need the big brain reason and logic poo poo: this isn't his fault, he's being unfairly portrayed, he's actually trying to do the right thing! It's not his fault, Obama set this in motion before he left office and his guys are trying to stop Trump from doing what's right! This didn't actually happen, this is a smear campaign by people who are feeding off the news' outrage cycle! etc. etc. etc. It defends rapists in a national-political sense and also propagates rape culture in a personal, individual sense to let any aspect of this slide because of circumstances/bureaucracy/The Process/whatever the gently caress. It's bad. gently caress Joe Biden for being a rapist. gently caress Donald Trump for being a rapist. gently caress Joe Biden again for defending and protecting Donald Trump. "Oh actually the Biden administration hates that the DOJ is doing that and it makes them very sad". Are you kidding me? How have you gotten this far without immediately recognizing the emptiest of empty gestures from a politician. gently caress off. Please note how I haven't actually made any new points that weren't clear in my "shitposting", but if "good posting" is synonymous with "word count" there you go I guess
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Jun 9, 2021 16:53
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only having done one reported* rape means he's objectively the good guy here and not at all like that awful evil trump who did tons of rapes who... uh... who he's defending... for some reason... even though he hates doing it oooh that trump is just so bad! * please disregard that Tara Reade has been dragged through the mud, sent death threats, etc. for the last few years by every Democrat and Democrat voter. That's not relevant at all and doesn't suggest anything. Everyone knows that there's lots of times where a rapist only rapes once, pretty late in life, having never ever even thought about doing any rapes before. hell yeah tone argument let's fuckin gooooooooo!!! Once again we're smack dab in the middle of palette-swapped 2016-17 Trump voter rhetoric: "you're being intentionally inflammatory", "attacking my side is only making you look bad", "I'm the one you have to convince, actually, and you're not helping your case", "if you keep carrying on like this I'm simply not going to pay attention to your crazy screaming", "calling people an X is only going to make them ignore you... or X even harder!". Anyway let me lay it out for you so I hit the good post word count threshold: Posting Isn't Praxis. No one posting on Something Awful, or Twitter, or anywhere, should ever be under the impression that their posts are doing something like convincing the "other side" of a point. That doesn't happen. Sometimes, in aggregate, enough strong arguments in a particular direction may change someone's (even fundamental) positions on something in conjunction with lived experience, class status, etc. In this sense only the content of the argument matters because that's all that's ever going to be evaluated, distantly, as an afterthought. "I read a post SO GOOD it made me a communist" has never been true in the same way "Everyone was mean to me on the online and it made me become a nazi" has never been true. I'm at least cognizant of my posting here enough to recognize that I cannot and will not convince you or anyone who is fired up enough to respond to me about how my ideas are bad and I'm a mean toxic bully, but I am posting here to refocus and interrogate my own positions and (hopefully) come out with better and stronger stances and formulations of those stances. I'm writing and arguing, ultimately, for myself -- as we all are -- in the hopes that it will make me stronger where it matters: offline, where I actually do have opportunities to convince people. It should come as no surprise that my offline conversations about this stuff are vastly different from my online conversations because of the nature of those conversations and the relationships involved, and the fact that it does not behoove me even one single bit to be gentle and kind so the people who want to make excuses for rapists, even if they don't believe that's what they're doing. No one, on any side here, should ever operate under the delusion that we're trying to convince other posters. We're here to make our arguments, and if my being sardonic or direct makes you uncomfortable that seems like a you problem, not a me problem, and might be a very strong hint that you should honestly and objectively interrogate your own positions on this stuff Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 18:29
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World War Mammories posted:One accusation of sexual assault, but it’s important not to conflate that with the false claim that Biden faces only one accusation of sexual harassment or impropriety. The existence of at least seven women who do in fact make that accusation is well documented. This is utterly not like your average American politician - and instead restricting the category to “American politicians that have also been accused of the same” is distasteful, to put it mildly. I'm no criminal psychologist so let me say this with complete confidence: this definitely seems like the history of a man who has never raped anyone, or well maybe only one rape, as a mistake, then really regretted it, but doesn't really remember it now anymore sorry but we're all definitely sure he's never done anything like that before or after.
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Jun 9, 2021 18:37
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Kalit posted:Maybe Debate & Discussion isn't the correct subforum for you? It sounds like you care more about being a smug rear end in a top hat than constructively contributing to either debating or discussing. I disagree. I feel like I'm making strong arguments and defending them well. It's called "Debate & Discussion" not "Debate & Discussion but make sure to be very nice and call everyone good good boys and give everyone big hugs". I don't actually give a poo poo if you think I'm abrasive because AFAIK it's not against the rules and this is an important subject I feel very strongly about.
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Jun 9, 2021 19:03
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Very happy to see this thread up and running again. I think the the the question of how to regard the art of artists who are abusers is a really interesting ones and I think it can provide a pretty unique insight on how celebrities/politicians are protected from facing consequences, but I'm still collecting my thoughts on it. I really just wanted to comment on: Because Jesus that is an astounding story. It really shows how anyone even distantly related in any way to the smallest scrap of power can basically do whatever they like with impunity as long as their victims have no access to that institutional power.
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Jun 16, 2021 21:05
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Putting aside paying for the art of a still-living known abuser, I think you can appreciate or even enjoy something created by an abuser but it requires personally coming to terms with, and being clear with yourself about, what the artist did vs what the piece means to you. I think this is an uncomfortable process that, if it doesn't actually ruin the work for you, absolutely impacts your enjoyment of it and (especially, at least for some people) your self-identity as eg. a Bowie fan or an appreciator of Woody Allen's films, or Kobe Bryant's NBA career, etc etc. I think there are two modes in which people who are unwilling to do this reckoning with themselves move past the idea that the thing they like was made by an abuser. The first is the "apolitical" mode where the person makes a conscious decision to not care about whatever happened or whatever the allegations are so as to not impact their personal enjoyment of the art. I think this is usually communicated as eg. "separating the art from the artist" and I think it's by far the most common relationship to art produced by abusers. I don't think this is good, but I think it is understandable, especially because I think most people who feel this way about something they really like still recognize that the individual who produced it did something bad. Unlike the second mode, which is, I think, predominantly taken by the people for whom the art (or whatever) is a part of their individual identity. I'm shooting from the hip here but I think it lines up pretty well with the study Wila posted earlier about how a strong partisan identity makes it more likely someone will outright dismiss allegations of rape or sexual abuse. We as modern, alienated, atomized capital subjects have very little in the way of community-social bonds and political animus and more and more carve our identities out of our consumer choices. We see ourselves, more and more, as a collection of product and brand preferences. This used to be more the purview of nerds, who were more alienated due to largely being social outcasts, but that's not really the case any more. I think for these people, who see themselves as fundamentally "good" like we all do, the revelation that a part of their identity is "bad" is unacceptable, because it makes them bad and that idea has to be dismissed out of self-preservation. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic here, either: these consumption-preferences make up a massive portion of what everyone talks about, all the time. For a lot of people (especially people who aren't academics amongst academics) talking about popular culture, which is largely just the current bucket of consumption options, is just what you do in social settings, especially because talking about eg. politics and religion is largely uncomfortable and socially inappropriate. I want to be clear that I'm not being derisive here about what like "the little people" talk about. I think everyone does this. I do this. I think 90% of what I've talked to my friends about in the past three days has been new Nintendo games that are coming out and funny YouTube videos. Besides the sort of household "what do you want for dinner tonight" stuff, I think most of what I talk to my wife about is about the media products we like. Anyway, I think if you don't have a strong "other thing" to orient your identity around (community involvement, cause activism, class identity, religious orientation, career, etc. -- all things that are rapidly attenuating in contemporary western society) you fall back on your collection of consumer choices. Bowie can't be bad because liking Bowie is part of what makes me who I am. Reckoning with this would either cause me to jettison a part of my identity or force me to undertake the legitimately monumental intellectual and emotional work of disassembling my self-identity and rebuilding it around something else. Therefore David Bowie can't be a rapist. He couldn't have preyed on young women. Either these people are lying, or what he did was okay (at the time, maybe), or his behavior later in life has absolved him of any potential wrongdoing that happened when he was younger. This is extremely pertinent to the American political landscape, because with the exception of tiny slivers on the left and right we don't have political identities -- we're almost totally alienated from the political system -- we have brand preferences masquerading as political identities. We go to the voting booth and can pick Red Skub or Blue Skub and everything that falls out of that personal, individual decision matters only insofar as it comprises a part of our identity, and the degree to which that part is our identity. Take a look at voting for Biden, for instance: In the first "apolitical" mode, people recognize that Biden is a rapist, or at least recognize that Biden was sexually improprietous, but they like the Democrat "product" -- relief from bad feelings about Trump, relief from the fear that the proud boys were going to 1/6 their neighborhood, the hope the Democrats might actually do what they promised to do during Biden's campaign, whatever. Biden's abuse is "out of their hands", so to speak. It doesn't matter because the stakes were so high and the other guy was so bad, etc etc. We've heard it a million times before, in this thread even. The second mode is people for whom being a Democrat is a significant part of their self-identity. They might even (and often do, I think) cast themselves as pragmatic Dem voters who are realistic about what the Democrats can accomplish and you know it's a long road etc etc., but fundamentally believe that the Democrats represent their values of justice, equality, civic-mindedness, etc. -- legitimately good things, don't get me wrong! -- but misappropriated to a political power bloc of a capital two-step. For these people Joe Biden can't be a rapist for the same reasons David Bowie can't be a rapist, although unlike Bowie (who just made good music), Biden, via the Democrats, exemplifies all of the (legitimately) good egalitarian and social-justice sentiments that they earnestly hold.
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Jun 17, 2021 17:19
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is pepsi ok posted:I'm really loving sick of having to share this site with rape apologists. This is at least a 2 year problem at this point and it's only going to get worse as the Biden administration rolls on. Mods need to get off their loving asses and do something about the culture they fostered. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 7, 2021 21:16
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