TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2022
... her assailants were disappeared: It's very depressing to consider discussing The Disappeared.
What makes the prospect so daunting? Anthropologists explain the matter in the following way:
If we try to discuss The Disappeared, we're forced to confront the way our human minds tend to react at times of tribal war.
How "rational" are our human minds, especially at times of tribal dislocation? For starters, consider this passage from Paul Krugman's new column:
KRUGMAN (4/19/22): I’m not just talking about things like the panic over critical race theory, although this has come to mean just about any mention of the role that slavery and discrimination have played in U.S. history. Florida is even rejecting many math textbooks, claiming that they include prohibited topics.
That’s bad. But we’re seeing a growing focus on even more bizarre conspiracy theories, with frantic attacks on woke Disney, etc. And roughly half of self-identified Republicans believe that “top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.”
It's true! In the YouGov survey to which Krugman links, 49% of self-identified Republicans said they think this statement is true:
"Top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings."
In a rational world, and based on current reporting and evidence, it would be hard to know why anyone would say they think that statement is true.
Yes, the statement is somewhat fuzzy. Presumably, there's some "top Democrat," somewhere in the country or somewhere around the world, who is involved in some sort of enterprise which could be so described.
That said, the question seems to imply a substantial degree of involvement. Aside from direct attraction to The Crazy, it's hard to know what would lead anyone to think that some such statement is true.
Belief in the statement seems to come to us live and direct from The Crazy. But as Krugman notes, 49% of self-identified Republicans told YouGov that they think the statement is true.
Having said that, those Republicans are hardly alone. As part of the YouGov survey, large numbers of other respondents said they think the statement is true.
You can check the numbers here. We offer these chastening examples:
Percentages who said they think the statement is true:
Republicans: 49%
Conservatives: 48%
Hispanic Americans: 34%
College graduates (Bachelor's only): 32%
White Americans: 32%
Moderates: 30%
People who get their news from liberal news websites: 28%
Democrats: 21%
Black Americans: 21%
Liberals: 13%
None of those groups believe that statement to the extent that Republicans do. Overall, though, 30% of U.S. citizens said they believe the statement.
Indeed, 21% of Democrats said they believe the statement! Twenty percent of people who said they think QAnon is nuts said they believe it too.
On what basis do these people say they believe that statement? YouGov conducted no follow-up interviews, exploring the basis on which people say they believe the statement.
Nor did YouGov conduct a parallel survey—a survey in which respondents were asked if they believe this statement:
"Top Republicans are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings."
How many respondents would have agreed with that? Apparently, it didn't occur to the brainiacs at YouGov to ask.
Krugman reported the response rate by Republicans. His statement was perfectly accurate, but it seems to us that this presentation leaves a great deal out.
Left out is a very basic question:
In the end, just how "rational" is our widely self-impressed species? Just how rational is our allegedly "rational" human race?
As Art Linkletter first tried to tell us, we human beings are strongly inclined to believe the darndest things. According to major experts, our belief systems become especially skewed at time of highly partisan tribal war.
During such times, we humans are strongly inclined to pick a tribe and start fighting. We're strongly inclined to believe the best about our own infallible tribe, and to believe the worst about The Others.
So it has gone, it seems to us, during the course of the past ten years, the era Elizabeth Alexander was talking about in Sunday's Washington Post.
In yesterday's report, we offered a quick overview of what Alexander said.
Alexander was discussing a group she calls "The Trayvon Generation." We probably should have included more of her description.
That said, the young people to whom Alexander refers have seen a great deal of information taken "out of context" (Alexander's term) over the past ten years. And not only that:
Along the way, a lot of people, and a lot of facts, have been disappeared.
The young woman who was held up at gunpoint has been disappeared. So too with her assailants. So too with the gruesome criminal history, and the deeply horrible childhood, of the first person who was shot and killed at Kenosha that night.
Other people have been disappeared over the past ten years. So have boatloads of basic facts, all so we can happily believe the darndest things.
According to anthropologists, we humans are strongly inclined to believe the darndest things. Within our remarkably self-impressed liberal tribe, our journalists have been strongly inclined to help us believe such things.
People and facts have been disappeared. Inaccurate facts have been invented. Completely irrelevant facts have been very strongly stressed. Speculations have been widely accepted as fact.
Full disclosure:
It's very, very, very depressing even to think about reviving The Disappeared! A person with an inner ear can hear the howls of protest which result when we liberals are asked to understand how much information has been withheld from us by our most famous, most trusted news orgs.
Those howls emerge from our lizard brains. You see, we long to believe The Crazy too, and our "journalists"—many went to the finest schools!—have been astoundingly eager to serve The Crazy to us.
We have many "miles to go" before we meet The Disappeared. Tomorrow, we'll consider the latest shooting, along with a bit more of what Alexander said.
Tomorrow: The latest editorial about the latest shooting. Also, more of what Alexander said
Relax, Bob. This is a country where those proud to call themselves "libertarians" beg Daddy Government to do something about our borders.
ReplyDeleteEh, dear Bob, have you heard of one Jeffrey Epstein? The Lolita Express, the island, the parties -- and their attendees -- all that shit?
ReplyDeleteIf you have, how could you not suspect that some of the top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings? Tsk. That would require impressive doublethink, you know.
But then, this is certainly your personal business, dear Bob. You can also believe that there are 69 genders, and it's impossible to know who the wimmin are. For all we care, be a BlueAnon, or anything else you want to be...
In 2016, we elected a self-proclaimed sexual predator to be President of the United States.
DeleteOf course, men are involved in child sex-trafficking rings.
Hey Smear artist, why do you refrain to use the name "Bill Clinton?" Even in the HBO doc, the gal who accused of everyone of everything, claims She saw him doing zero that was wrong, neither does the guy with the flight logs, who seems to have some kind of grudge, and it's a safe guess was less than fully vetted.
DeleteWhat are you going to talk to a right winger about? Trade or the national debt? Child molestation they understand.
Bob's view is that the nasty, misinformed right winger is a victim. Hard to imagine a serious person buying that at this point.
The next argument made in good faith by a Right-winger, will be their first.
ReplyDeleteGee, Bob. Are you starting to think those who want to take away women's right to choose, might not be the big supporters of freedom they say they are?
ReplyDelete"Liberals: 13%"
ReplyDeleteThat is the lowest percentage in the list. Less than half the % for those who watch liberal channels.
But Somerby thinks the best use of his time is to preach to liberals about their reasoning. Personally, I think we liberals should be preaching to Somerby about his reasoning, but you do what you can.
Somerby says: "We're strongly inclined to believe the best about our own infallible tribe, and to believe the worst about The Others. "
DeleteSeems to me it is a fact that liberals belief less nonsense than Republicans, as shown by this poll (and many others). Why is it not OK to believe something that is factually correct about one's tribe?
at 11:58..... Yes, and this is typical lazy, self loathing stuff from Bob.
DeleteI don't know if I believe the best about, say,
The Clintons. I could certainly list some
promblems. I am utterly revolted by the
Democrats inability to stand up for President
Clinton.
But to equate their faults with Trump
takes a real moral idiot like Bob.
"As Art Linkletter first tried to tell us, we human beings are strongly inclined to believe the darndest things."
ReplyDeleteArt Linkletter said no such thing. He said that kids SAY the darndest things, if you give them enough time and have an unlimited supply of film that can be edited later to show a bunch of kid bloopers.
Somerby's link is to House Party, which was a variety show and had nothing to do with anyone saying "the darndest things".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIQC1fJS9xE&ab_channel=linkletterselfstorag
"Along the way, a lot of people, and a lot of facts, have been disappeared."
ReplyDeleteThis would be the natural point to talk about the effots of Republicans to suppress large amounts of information in school libraries and textbooks, to disappear such information, so that kids will no longer have an accurate context for talking about civil rights, race, slavery and American history. But Somerby says not one word about that effort, even though it is the main crusade of today's candidates for office on the right. Why has this effort been disappeared by Somerby?
"So too with the gruesome criminal history, and the deeply horrible childhood, of the first person who was shot and killed at Kenosha that night."
ReplyDeleteAn unarmed mentally ill man was the first person shot in Kenosha. Does Somerby imagine that anything else that man might have done in his previous life justified his being shot by Rittenhouse? Somerby suggests that important facts were disappeared, but it is more the case that irrelevant facts about that poor man's life were omitted because they were irrelevant and because obituaries do not typically review the worst moments of someone's existence -- they focus on remembering the best about a person, especially one who was shot for no good reason and didn't deserve to die that way.
Somerby seems to be specializing in outrageous statements that reveal his own worst attributes these days. His extreme lack of compassion is on full display here. His willingness to misconstrue what happened in order to justify cold-blooded murder of someone at a BLM protest is despicable.
What was disappeared? What Rittenhouse did prior to shooting that man. Also, what he did afterward, his exhilaration, his skipping and running down the street brandishing his gun. His utter lack of remorse and concern. His lack of first aid to the man he just shot. His ability to just walk right past police without being stopped, and his murder of another man and wounding of a third man, both of whom were trying to stop him and prevent others from being killed. All of that has been disappeared by Somerby even though it is all recorded on video, all was witnessed, and all is part of the context of what Rittenhouse did in Kenosha.
And Somerby has the NERVE, the GALL, to talk about things being disappeared! Somerby is worse than an ass today. He shows himself to be a horrible human being.
Again, Somerby talks about some woman being disappeared, but provides no name, no link, just a tease. Women, dead or not, do not deserve to be used in such a way. No woman's death should be a rhetorical device. And no, our press is not teasing or disappearing anything when it makes legitimate journalistic choices about what to discuss and what to omit as it composes its daily presentation of the news. That is an editor's job and they are guided by explicit priorities, not whim and not partisan bias and not flawed reasoning. Somerby, on the other hand, is misusing the topic of violence against women, by teasing about the subject of a woman being killed. This is no joke and it definitely is not cute or funny or clever. It is sexist, misogynist, and callous. Somerby gets worse and worse. If there is anyone who cares about the man on a personal level, please suggest to them that it may be time for Somerby to have a checkup with his primary care provider. This is not normal behavior.
ReplyDelete"a person with an inner ear can hear the howls of protest which result when we liberals are asked to understand how much information has been withheld from us by our most famous, most trusted news orgs."
ReplyDeleteA good example of this is the conspiracy theories that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia in 2016. Even today after the whole affair has been completely 100% debunked, liberal news sites and organizations and blogs refuse to admit it. Because they move in lockstep and because it is not allowed to have any disagreement amongst the whole group, no one stands up and points out the obvious to the true believers, their readers, who they have fooled for so long on this issue.
An incredibly stupid, debunked lie that was bad at about for years just sits there because no one inside the group has the courage to come clean to their readers.
Trump colluded with Russia in multiple ways, the connections were detailed in an entire volume of the weakest possible investigation, and Trump even colluded openly, asking for Russia to obtain and reveal Clinton's private emails, in just one instance.
DeleteMorons like you cling to a technical version of the word "collusion', but clearly Trump colluded with Russia in a very corrupt manner; it is immoral to ignore or minimize such corruption. You chose which side you are on, and now we know who you are and how bad your integrity and character are, so while it is sad that people like you exist, harming society with your idiocy, it is good to be able to identify the likes of you.
Actually, you're wrong. Which proves the point. You been on the receiving end of a mass propaganda campaign and still don't realize it. Thanks to withheld information from the unethical charlatans Somerby speaks about, you're still trying to defend a story that never had any truth to it.
DeleteAnd you turn to a partisan ad hominem witch hunt over something you are totally wrong about. Further proof Somerby is right about our own partisan irrationality.
DeleteIt's not your fault. I don't blame you.
Did you really expect the Right-wing mainstream media (AKA the media) to admit Trump was elected due to Republican voters being turned-on by Trump's bigotry?
DeleteNot a chance. I'll say this for the phony Russia conspiracy lie they pushed to distract you. It's way more realistic than the one about "economic anxiety".
The foreign power conspiracy was also easier to sell, due to the obvious disdain the Republican Party has for U.S. citizens.
DeleteThe Trump campaign never colluded with Russia in 2016, that is the key point. Yet, readers of certain parts of the media still think they did.
DeleteOh lookee! The great lie is back again! What is the great lie? That Russia didn't collude with Trump's campaign to steal the 2016 election.
DeleteYour moronic responses, completely free of substance or evidence, do nothing to diminish your seeming inherent lack of integrity.
DeleteTrump colluded with Russia, even out in the open, yet you deny the very nose on your face.
It is absolutely true that Trump was elected primarily due to right wing bigotry. Racism is the driving force behind everything Republicans do; however, Trump's actions with respect to Russia were deeply corrupt (the collusion, the obstruction, etc) and your denial of this is sad.
The Trump campaign never colluded with Russia in 2016, as Mueller said over and over and as is obvious. Sorry I can't prove a negative. It was and is a massive propaganda campaign that, unfortunately, you have fallen victim to. They got you so gassed up you think Trump colluded with Russia in public on TV. You don't even stop to think about how stupid that supposition is. It just proves once again the Somerby is right about our own tribe being unable to see our own stupidity.
DeleteLiar liar pants on fire.
DeleteThe collusion lie was invented by the Clinton campaign before the election. It's too bad so many of her own followers were too naive to see she was lying to them. And it was very immoral of her to lie to the people who support her. So scummy.
DeleteYou’d think Clinton would be busy calling out the Right-wing media for pretending to care that Republicans were pretending to care about her email protocols.
DeleteThere was no collusion detailed by Mueller. None whatsoever. I would ask you to provide a source for your claim that he did but there isn't one.
DeleteMueller Report, Volume 1. The entire volume details the collusion.
DeleteWhy does Trump's corruption not bother you?
Hi 7:36
Delete1. No, it doesn't.
2. I didn't say it didn't.
Republican voters are clueless bigots. That so many Republican Congrespeoples are being blackmailed by Russia and Putin means nothing to them.
Delete"Having Said That"
DeleteThe Mueller Report Volume 1 is fairly lengthy.
What is it's content? There is a sentence or two about defining "collusion" on a technical basis, and then there are pages and pages and pages...of what? What is the point of all that information?
7:47 you are the poster child for the Dunning Kruger Effect, it is truly bizarre the difference between what you claim to believe and what is demonstrable.
Your ease with Trump's corruption betrays any claim to not being a run of the mill right winger.
Furthermore, suppose the collusion claim was a noble lie, so what. Suppose Volume 1 was all made up, so what. However, that is not the case, the reality is:
Yes, Trump did collude with Russia, and I hope you are listening. Yes, you do present as a moron. I do not say this to insult, but just to let you know how people see you. We Leftists claim to work against oppression, but the truth is we oppress morons.
7:47 you have a legitimate claim to be the leader of a new movement: Leftists For Morons! Now show us your activism, we Leftists could use some amusement.
I'm curious about these "CRT math problems." What is an example of one? My google skills have failed me on this one.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the question “top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.” It's poorly stated. What is a "top Democrat." What is an "elite" ring? Garbage in, garbage out.
It's almost like the Right doesn't even know what CRT is, without the "It's almost like" part.
DeleteI understand it's a political football, and most likely the gripes about it are a cynical attempt to rally their base.
DeleteBut seriously have any examples been provided by any complainant at any time or is this whole debate completely nebulous?
The only thing I was able to find was someone claiming that a student saying "I don't know" was not an incorrect answer to "what is 2+2?"
nebulous doesn't mean what you think it does
Deletenebulous definition: (of a concept or idea) unclear, vague, or ill-defined
This debate has no examples at all. When pinned down, they pointed to two internet examples of math worksheets from Missouri, that were obvious photoshopped fakes (involving poet Maya Angelou). That isn't vague or unclear -- it is fraudulent.
What do you think I think nebulous means?
DeleteIt sounds like you think it means ungrounded, cooked up, phony, hysterical, manufactured, based on nothing, lacking support or evidence, specious. Your next sentences says you could find no evidence. I think those things are true about this debate, but none of those words mean the same as nebulous (vague, hazy, ill-formed). The right knows what it is complaining about -- it just doesn't exist in the schools. This isn't a matter of the right being vague about what it thinks is wrong. They have no examples because it is a made-up problem, non-existent. Math books are not teaching CRT.
DeleteThis may seem like a trivial difference, but words matter. When you know the meanings of words, encountering the wrong one in a context is jarring, discordant, even confusing, but always annoying.
I wouldn't want you to go through life using words improperly because it is embarrassing when you meet people who know the actual meanings for those words. Just as a friend is someone who will tell you when you have bread crumbs in your beard, a friend will tell you when you have used a word improperly, so you won't be embarrassed in front of others. The people who don't tell you such things are the ones you need to watch out for because they don't have your best interests at heart.
There are a few current and former teachers in these comments and teachers tend to know what words mean.
Wow, what a reply. Lack of examples would seem to indicate that something is ill-defined. And it seems fair to call a debate ill-defined when its topic is ill-defined... but let's move on.
DeleteThe trick with google searching this is to specify a time frame before it became a political topic. Found some links.
"Critically conscious mathematics can be understood as the intersection of what is being taught - the curriculum - and how it’s being taught— the pedagogy. Our children need an education that activates their voices and ensures that they are able to advocate for themselves and their communities to be treated equitably, even or especially if that means reorganizing societal institutions—not just an education that helps them pass state tests."
Grace Chen, Managing Director of Math Design
http://culturallyresponsiveteaching.weebly.com/crt-in-secondary-math.html
There's a book:
Critical Race Theory in Mathematics Education
Atlantic article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/racist-math-education/524199/
https://www.hoover.org/research/seattle-schools-propose-teach-math-education-racist-will-california-be-far-behindseattle
And lots more.
No one said that the conservatives are not talking about this stuff. Culturally responsive teaching is not critical race theory.
DeleteBeing defensive is not a way to learn anything.
That stuff you pulled up was not created before this became a political topic. It exemplifies the political topic because it comes from the last round of complaints about wokeness. We discussed this on this blog even.
From the book:
"Critical Race Theory in Mathematics Education brings together scholarship that uses critical race theory (CRT) to provide a comprehensive understanding of race, racism, social justice, and experiential knowledge of African Americans’ mathematics education. CRT has gained traction within the educational research sphere, and this book extends and applies this framework to chronicle the paths of mathematics educators who advance and use CRT. "
This is a collection of essays by researchers who are studying CRT as applied to the teaching of mathematics to minority kids, not a math book that has CRT in it. This is about pedagogy, not math.
Banning a math book is not going to stop teachers from being considerate of their black students and trying to help them do their best in math class, which is what the materials you cite are about.
The Hoover.org source is conservative. The Atlantic article is about the controversy, not about CRT or math. This controversy is manufactured by conservatives. Of course the controversy exists -- but not because CRT is being taught in any elementary school or high school, and not because textbooks have CRT in their word problems. Conservatives are upset because black people and liberals and many others acknowledge that racism exists, while they are trying to create a society in which there is no mention of it.
Don't come here and tell us that conservatives are right to be concerned because some scholar wrote a book about how to better teach minority children in math class.
It is great to know how to use Google, but then you have to figure out what the items are that were retrieved.
You're quite the passive aggressive ball of anger aren't ya? Anyway, here's an article from 2012 for you to argue with next.
Deletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118318/Elementary-school-Georgia-students-racist-math-homework-question.html
"Christopher Jackson said his nine-year-old son's homework from James A. Jackson Elementary School in Jonesboro, Georgia, contained a question that read, 'A plantation owner had 100 slaves. If three-fifths of them are counted for representation, how many slaves will be counted?'"
A teacher resigned from Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross in January after causing controversy by handing out Math homework that involved questions about slavery and beatings.
The third-grade maths problems - which featured such questions as: 'If Frederick got two beatings each day, how many beatings did he get in one week?' - sparked outrage among parents connected with the school, and led to a wider investigation in Gwinnett County in Georgia.
Google Gwinnett County Georgia CRT and use your great figurin' skills on that.
Name-calling: "You're quite the passive aggressive ball of anger aren't ya?"
DeleteAnd how sure are you that any such thing actually happened, given that the Missouri worksheet was a fraud and the parent who complained about reading Toni Morrison was a Republican activist whose son was already exempted from the assignment?
Would such an example suggest that a teacher is trying to make black kids feel more at home in math class, or does it seem punitive toward them? Does this seem like anything a liberal person concerned about the success of black kids would do? Ask yourself why parents were outraged (assuming they were). This example has nothing to do with wokeness and sounds like conservative ratfucking to me. I can imagine someone saying "If you want slavery to be taught, I'll give you some slavery-teaching." But this has nothing to do with helping black kids do better in math and everything to do with undermining such an effort.
If you cannot tell that, there is something seriously wrong with your bullshit-detector. This story would be right at home on Fox News and it is NOT what any liberal would advocate doing in any school.
And you can be 100% sure, to the point of betting big money, that none of the textbooks banned by Florida had any such examples in them. But if you believe this shit, you belong over in the other tribe with your Republican friends.
And hell yes I am angry about this stuff. And I am 100% sure you don't know what the word passive-aggressive means, since I have been anything but passive and am direct about stating my opinions here, unlike Somerby.
oof Rationalist.
DeleteAll those examples are either suspect or not concerning in any way (a high school AP class learning about how to research through the lens of CRT or Marx is excellent and something I wish I had).
Rationalist, let's keep it simple, you have a dollar in your pocket, whereas a Black person has 15 cents. Either you think this is just fine and dandy - being racist is pretty common, or you are completely asleep at the wheel, nebulously-speaking.
Bob says the intellectual standard-bearer on the Right has mental illness and brain deterioration.
DeleteTypical of Bob to excuse their bigotry.
The only thing Rationalist doesn’t believe that comes out of the mouth of Right-wingers is their bigotry.
DeleteRepublicans didn’t try to overthrow the United States Capitol, because Russia didn’t collide with Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. They tried to overthrow the United States Capitol because black peoples votes counted in the 2020 Presidential election.
DeleteEveryday the radical right republicans - the party of "bizarre people", to quote James Carville - push the boundary further and further towards fascism and every day morons twist themselves into pretzels appeasing them, thereby encouraging them to push the boundary even further.
DeleteWatch our nation slide into the sea, indeed.
Polls are as reliable as right wingers having a discourse in good faith. But how irrational and dumb is our tribe, particularly when compared to the other tribe?
ReplyDeleteWell! Somerby will peddle his trivial nonsense, but he will not let you know that when it comes to Covid, our tribe handily bested the other tribe, saving thousands of lives while the other tribe willfully let thousands die. The other tribe, Republicans, they have blood on their hands, quite a bit.
https://youtu.be/aHT5TdKli9s
Somerby you have a lot to answer for.
Bill Maher, in a typically cheap, repulsive attack on President Clinton, went to the very weakly supported charge that President Clinton partied and had sex with Jeff Epstein and underage girls. Like Bob, Maher seemed to want to give as much credence as possible to the
ReplyDeletenew politics of Pedophilia.
And while it's not exactly breaking news that Bill Maher is scummy kinda guy (You could construct an equally fair sex trafficing charge against Maher based on the A and E special about his old stomping grounds, the Playboy Mansion) it is another indication that
we might as well get used to this crap because
it's not going away.
In our desensitized world this seems to be what's
needed to get a reaction, and sales, out of people.
The June 9 2016 meeting with Manafort, a trump kid, a trump son in law Rob Goldstone and Natalia Veselnitskaya, where they agreed to do illegal things and acted on them? That conspiracy with Russians (some say she was a lawyer representing Putin). Debunked? Hardly,
ReplyDeleteWhat illegal things did the agree to and do, Barry?
Delete(Kushner was there too.)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMao Chong Jr , whoever the identity beat me to it. I believe that a high up British Royal may have been involve. And a Jewish Ashkanazi (with not a lot of use for historic Britain, Republicans or even some of the Democrats...all out for personal power than the common good if there is such a thing ) liberal. Epstein poured shit over everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhen a gun was held to a young woman's face?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that when men want to threaten a woman, they threaten her looks instead of her life?
You would never talk about a gun being held to a young man's face. You would hold the gun to his head and threaten to blow his brains out -- not threaten to ruin his looks. But when you aim a gun at a person, you aim for the torso, around the heart and other vital organs. Aiming for the head is a much smaller target and less likely to stop someone or incapacitate them.
But Somerby is going for effect, so he threatens this woman's beatuty (and yes, of course, she is YOUNG, because who cares about middle aged or old women in today's society). Because there are certain kinds of men who see no other value to women beyong their appearance, their looks, their face. That's why acid attacks against women are the more common form of discipline in India and the Middle East. Because who will want a woman if she is disfigured? And her shame will be visible to all, marking her as impure.
So, holding a gun to her face is the surest way to get readers to cry "Oh, noes!"
Even newspapers are not as sexist and stupid as Somerby.
A word on the 13 percent.
ReplyDeleteA liberal who thinks the Democratic leadership are
involved in pedophilia are pretty obviously not
liberals. They might be a generic nut, or prankster.
My vote would be the they are the kind of
"progressive" who is up at 3.a.m. listening to
Pacifica.
From No More Mister Nice Blog:
ReplyDelete"As I'm sure you know, yesterday a 35-year-old Trump judge who was rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association, and whose confirmation vote took place after Trump lost the 2020 election, struck down the mask mandate for planes and other forms of public transportation. There's glee on the right, and I fully expect President Trump or President DeSantis to nominent Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle to a seat on the Supreme Court. I also expect a great deal of right-wing bullying directed at those -- and I'll be one of them -- who continue to wear masks in public places, especially on flights. The mean season won't end just because the right, aided by quite a few self-identified liberals, has now won a total victory in the war on collective COVID mitigation. If there's another pandemic in our near future, we should assume that we'll be on our own from the beginning of the outbreak -- widespread caution simply won't be allowed, even at first. I wonder how many more years the long-established requirements for vaccination against childhood diseases can remain in place. We've known at least since Sandy Hook that the right doesn't care about public safety, and that right-wingers are unmoved even if people who look like themselves die of preventable causes, because the only thing that matters to them is their profound outrage at feeling inconvenienced.
So be safe out there, or as safe as our Fox-watching overlords allow us to be."
------------------
Somerby has been saying that there is no way to evaluate whether a judge is qualified or not, but here is an example. You can tell this one is unqualified for her position because she just ruled that the CDC cannot make rules to prevent disease. CDC = Centers for Disease Control.
Somerby is old enough to die of covid. So is your granny. It is time to take this Republican craziness seriously, instead of just letting them get things out of their system while trying to stay out of their way. Trump's unqualified apointee has now made it unsafe for those of us in the high-risk group to fly on an airplane or use other public transportation without risking our lives to the next variant down the runway. This is not a game. This is real life and it matters what people say and do.
"Alexander was discussing a group she calls "The Trayvon Generation." We probably should have included more of her description."
ReplyDeleteSomerby DID include her description. Then he misrepresented it in the rest of his essay. He probably should have read what she actually said and not based an entire complaint on something she DIDN'T say.
But perhaps this sentence today indicates that he DOES read his comments section, where his unfairness to Alexander was noted. An actual mensch would have apologized less obliquely.