FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2025
Gloving Brando's hand: This morning, we wrote about a type of rage which seems to be hard to quit.
Experts say it's bred in the bone. The rage and the fury track all the way back to Homer, as does the sexual subjugation.
Kathleen Parker has written a column in the Washington Post about one pf the new pope's brothers. In fairness, this person was a private person until his brother achieved such fame.
Parker went ahead with her column anyway. Down below, we'll make the story worse:
Pope Leo XIV’s oldest brother isn’t quite papal material
Every family has a special character—or several. The crazy attic-dwelling aunt. The rogue brother who routinely embarrasses his siblings. The overserved uncle who tells raunchy jokes at family gatherings.
[...]
Then along came an American pope with an ultra-American brother. The bar for potential embarrassment doesn’t get much higher. Or is it lower? With the Vatican conclave’s selection of Cardinal Robert “Bob” Francis Prevost as the new papal leader, henceforth Pope Leo XIV, Bob’s eldest brother, Louis Prevost, suddenly seized the media spotlight as a MAGA disciple with a penchant for vulgar social media posts against, among others, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and transgender people. “Your child isn’t trans, you’re just s---ty parents.”
In late April, he gave former president Barack Obama and Democrats a swipe, writing that they are “one very small step from being full blown communists, longing for the total destruction of our way of life and turning the country into a dictatorship, and a racist one on top of it.”
There’s that axiom in action again. People often say about others what is true of themselves—or the dictator-in-waiting they admire. The 73-year-old Lou also believes that anti-Trump Democrats should “be arrested and tried for subversion and even treason against the U.S.A.”
Perhaps it was just a lot of talk, but there went the rage again. Greg Gutfeld has become a star on the Fox News Channel precisely because of this ancient behavioral tic. He can't disagree with someone—he can't believe that someone has behaved badly—without expressing himself through virulent, unblinking rage, along with ugly misogynist and sex-based insults aimed at all those who don't admire his obvious brilliance.
Parker is writing about a person who has been expressing himself through the structures of rage. The other people should be arrested! They should be tried for treason!
Maybe it was all just talk. That said, Parker cut the fellow some slack. She mentioned his lack of fondness for Nancy Pelosi. But Parker, or perhaps her editor, decided to move beyond this:
The Pope’s Floridian Brother Shared a Video Calling Pelosi a ‘Drunk C***’
[...]
On April 4, Prevost shared a video of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from the 1990s going to bat for hitting China with tariffs. Pelosi has since changed her stance on the issue. He also alluded to a baseless conspiracy theory that accused Pelosi’s husband of being romantically involved with the man who broke into their home and attacked him with a hammer.
Prevost shared the post from another Facebook user who commented, “These fucking liberals crying about tariffs is just unreal. Do they not know that there is a thing called video? Just listen to what this drunk c*** has to say in the mid 90’s long before her husband had Grindr dates.”
Mybe it was just a bunch of talk. That said, the familiar dumbness was on display, along with the apparent hatred of the people he thinks of as women.
The dumbness concerns the tariffs. Back in 1990, Pelosi didn't propose a tariff regime which came close to resembling the regime which President Trump had announced on April 2.
That was "Liberation Day." Here's how the New York Times described the president's proposal on its April 3 front page:
"Under Mr. Trump’s plan, the United States will add a new 34 percent tariff on Chinese goods on top of the 20 percent tariff that he had imposed on Beijing in recent months."
Pelosi had never proposed anything like that.
That brings us to the misogyny. This private citizen had decided to repost a C-bomb aimed at Pelosi, while also calling her a "drunk."
(Kamala Harris is routinely mocked as a drunk on the Gutfeld! program. It's done night after night.)
This misogyny is rampant, in prime time, on the Fox News Channel. Every night at 10 p.m., Suzanne Scott pulls the lid off the garbage can and Greg Gutfeld comes crawling out. He's joined by helpmates like the massive blowhard Tyrus, with an additional cast of thousands.
The misogyny is hard to miss, unless you work for a major news org here in Blue America. The rank behavior which drives this stupid and ugly show is off limits to the finer people who inhabit our own news orgs.
We Blues! During the #MeToo era, we tired quickly of pretending that we have some sort of "sexual politics." Today, we silently stare into space as Gutfeld and his stupid boys and compliant girls trash Blue women all the way down.
(For the record, the C-word gets bleeped on the Gutfeld! show. Sexual insults do not.)
Our favorite stars pretend they don't know that this sort of thing goes on. This cowardice is part of who we are, as is the incel's anger.
Go watch On the Waterfront this weekend! Yes, it ends with the final act of the "male" narrative—with the fistfight down on the docks. But its greatest scene is the walk through the park, where the Brando character picks up the Saint Marie character's glove and slips it on his own hand.
As he does, he comes to a realization:
She's a better person than he is. He wants to be more like her!
Somerby does not understand what the terms sexual politics and misogyny mean.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to think that simply criticizing a woman is misogyny. That is incorrect. It is criticizing a woman on the basis of some sexist stereotype, because she is a woman, that is misogynistic.
misogyny definition: "In simple terms, misogyny is the hatred or prejudice against women. It's a belief that women are inferior or that men are better than women, and can manifest in various ways, including discrimination, violence, or simply holding harmful stereotypes. "
It is thus not misogyny when someone says that Nancy Pelosi is a liar or a bad politician or engage in insider trading. There needs to be some evidence of generalized hatred of women, not dislike of her as a person.
Somerby also misues the term "sexual politics" to refer to any sexual abuse, rape or sexist attack on a woman. That is not what that term means either. He says:
"We Blues! During the #MeToo era, we tired quickly of pretending that we have some sort of "sexual politics." Today, we silently stare into space as Gutfeld and his stupid boys and compliant girls trash Blue women all the way down."
The #MeToo movement was intended to publicize sexual abuse and coercion to engage in sex committed by men in powerful position upon the women dependent on employment in various industries where there is a power differential. The behaviors are rape and sexual assault. Somerby never uses those terms but instead talks vaguely about sexual politics, a term with an entirely different meaning. For example, Somerby has repeatedly said that the #MeToo movement is dead and he refers to the rape and sexual abuse of women in The Iliad as sexual politics when it is just straight out sexual abuse.
sexual politics definition: "the principles determining the relationship of the sexes; relations between the sexes regarded in terms of power"
From Wikipedia: "Sexual Politics is the debut book by American writer and activist Kate Millett, based on her PhD dissertation at Columbia University.[1][2] It was published in 1970 by Doubleday. It is regarded as a classic of feminism and one of radical feminism's key texts, a formative piece in shaping the intentions of the second-wave feminist movement. In Sexual Politics, an explicit focus is placed on male dominance throughout prominent 20th century art and literature. According to Millett, western literature reflects patriarchal constructions and the heteronormativity of society. She argues that men have established power over women, but that this power is the result of social constructs rather than innate or biological qualities."
Somerby has never engaged in any meaningful discussion of today's sexual politics in terms of male dominance of our society, nor has he ever discussed the sexual politics in Ancient Troy or Greece. He uses this term whenever he doesn't want to say rape or assault. This is wrong because it ignores the other forms of dominance and submission imposed on women in our society, inherent to our institutions and reflected in behavior. He has reduced the complexity of male-female behavior to assault and complaint. I've mentioned this before, but Somerby has gotten worse on this topic, not done any reading on the subject, and is majorly ignorant about male-female relations in our culture. It causes him to say incredibly stupid things, as he does again today.
In general, a misogynist is someone who supports the patriarchy.
Deletesexist definition: "characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex"
So it seems Somerby’s criticism of Gutfeld is mostly to point out the supposed “cowardice” of…our media favorites, but also all liberals, as if there are no instances of liberals attacking misogyny, simply because Somerby thinks no one attacks Gutfeld specifically.
ReplyDeleteThe piece about the pope’s brother indicates that misogyny is fairly widespread amongst conservatives, just as the popularity of Gutfeld indicates that. Nicolle Wallace, as a counter example to Somerby’s contention, has frequently called out Trump and the GOP for their misogyny. If Somerby wrote about it, he probably attacked Wallace.
And I seem to recall that Somerby bristles at the suggestion that Trump supporters are gullible, or misogynistic, or what have you, because it shows how eager liberals are to label the “others.”
Here is where Somerby shows his confusion:
ReplyDelete"Go watch On the Waterfront this weekend! Yes, it ends with the final act of the "male" narrative—with the fistfight down on the docks. But its greatest scene is the walk through the park, where the Brando character picks up the Saint Marie character's glove and slips it on his own hand.
As he does, he comes to a realization:
She's a better person than he is. He wants to be more like her!
That's the life-saving undercard on this film about a fight. It's a key moment in the film's "female" narrative."
Fighting, even fist-fighting, is not male or female. Both sexes do it, even boxing and physical fighting. Both sexes feel anger, both participate in fighting as a sport and as spectators. Stereotyping fighting as male shows Somerby's bigotry.
Wanting to be a better person, or consider this specific woman in the film as "a better person" is not gendered either. Women don't civilize men. Men don't put women on pedestals and consider them better people who will make them better by association. These are all stereotypes. Somerby refers to this movie theme as "feminine". The idea that it is masculine to break laws and that women tame men, is a negative stereotype about men and women that neglects men's responsibility to make themselves good decent people, without expecting any woman to do that for them, to inspire goodness, or to be better by taking laws and rules seriously while men consider breaking laws to be manly, strong, viral. The admiration of lying, cheating, law breaking, criminality and corruption on the right may be reflected by Somerby's attitude toward the end of this film. Being corrupt like Trump is not manly, it is despicable. It has nothing to do with being masculine nor is rule-following feminine. This is stereotyping and it portrays both men and women in ways that are harmful to them and that neglect individual differences and people's actual identities. Men who blame their own bad behavior on their gender (boys will be boys) should not be let off the hook, as Trump is routinely let off. These throwback gender ideas may be a major difference in attitude between those on the left who want to see him held accountable, and right wingers who swallow all of the sexual bigotry whole hog and use it to justify the bad behavior of their politicians.
"Stereotyping fighting as male shows Somerby's bigotry."
DeleteThe vast, vast majority of fighting in the world involves men with men, despite your desperate longing for it not to be so.
Women fight with women and women have historically fought alongside men throughout history, despite your belief that women don’t fight. There is evidence from burial sites showing this.
Delete@7:46 PM Reading comprehension problem?
DeleteWhen someone disagrees with you, they may be working from different facts than yours. That is not a reading problem. Who are women fighting with when men try to assert dominance over them and they resist? Women settlers fought off Indian raids, alongside men or while men were absent from home. Women participated in the Civil War in various ways, alongside men, on both sides. The fact that men write history means that their participation has been minimized, but historians have been restoring their contributions via research.
DeleteWould you conclude that women had no role in government just because Trump had all mention of their activities removed by executive order? That is how women's history gets suppressed and people like you form an incorrect impression of what women are like, what they are capable of, and what they have done throughout history. Perhaps you have no read widely enough.
I’m getting a great kick out of anonymices telling us that there are shared traits, types of successes, and failings/failures among both sexes.They do put up a valiant fight for no other reason than the fight. Of course, they’ll take it all back depending upon what’s convenient as to their next stand against Bob or other commentators. Understand that there’s no principle these folks embrace, other than sheer ill-will toward any contrarian.
DeleteThe funny thing is that Cecelia happily imbibes the vile misogyny on Gutfeld that Somerby illustrates here, every day.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:23am, I’m in the studio audience every night with the chihuahua wearing the Gutfeld! hat.
Delete"The vast, vast majority of fighting in the world involves men with men" - you haven't met my wife. She is worse than Cecelia, and he's a pugilist.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:40am, anonymices love all
Deletemy shared traits with women and men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_warfare
DeleteThe MeToo movement began with accusations against Harvey Weinstein, a major Democratic Party donor. Somerby accused all of liberal Hollywood of looking the other way and attacked liberals in general for it. The idea that liberals believe misogyny only exists amongst conservatives is one that Somerby frequently implies, and accuses those liberals who do attack misogyny of virtue signaling. Misogyny was always bipartisan, it’s just that this latest resurgence seems to be an ugly phenomenon of the right wing.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, liberals did not defend Harvey Weinstein. Somerby has also attacked feminists for being insufficiently supportive of women, which is ludicrous and was untrue when he said it, and untrue in the other situations where Somerby has attacked women's lib -- for example, he said they did not complain when Chris Matthews said sexist things about Hillary. That Somerby attacks feminists and women who complain about male behavior, does not mean Somerby is the real champion of women, nor that his accusations were correct and not defensive.
DeleteTwo wrongs don't make a right. The existence of misogynists on the left doesn't excuse those on the right. On balance, the right has been busily destroying all progress made by women since the 1960s with its DOGE cuts and firings. The right's political positions have been nakedly anti-woman, from abortion bans to incel demands for sexual access, to Tucker Carlson and the men's rights movement with their ball tanning and insistence that women must return to kitchen and home and not work. Misogyny is very unbalanced now. Liberals still support women's rights while conservatives do not. There is no need for the left to be perfect in its treatment of women before anyone is allowed to complain about the right.
American liberal women seldom support women who are victims of Muslims abroad or victims of illegal immigrants in the US.
DeleteThat’s not true.
DeleteReligious practice is not necessarily victimization. Liberals may make finer distinctions about complex cultural issues than Laura Loomer does.
DeleteSomebody call DiC a whhaaammmbulance.
DeleteHey, DiC, while Trump was luxuriating in Saudi Arabian wealth recently, did he mention this:
Delete“Manahel al-Otaibi: Saudi women's rights activist jailed for 11 years”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68934913
Or the fact that women are still denied basic rights there?
Naaaah. He was too busy accepting bribes.
Hey, DiC, guess who’s a major funder of Hamas? Why, it’s the same country that wants to give Trump a palace in the sky. Cute, right?
DeleteSo sad for the felon Bibi that the felon Don figured out billionaire Jewish donors campaign cash ain't needed and doesn't get out the Jewish vote. Murderous Muslim oilmen can stuff billions into his felonious pockets for our munitions. He will hurt Israel, badly, only a matter of time.
DeleteDiC : and for years Netanyahu supported Hamas but you said nothing.
DeleteJust because Netanyahu and Qatar are the financial backers of Hamas, doesn't mean they are anti-semites.
DeleteTo be an anti-semite, you have to be a critic of ethnic cleansing.
It doesn't matter what the Pope's brother is like. He is not the Pope.
ReplyDeleteCalling Harris or Pelosi a drunk is not misogyny or sexist because being drunk is not part of any stereotype about women and has nothing to do with sex.
ReplyDeleteMaking up lies about a candidate or elected official with an aim toward limiting her influence and maximizing that of men can fairly be described as misogyny. Calling a woman a "drunk," taken alone, doesn't relate to her sex. Including that claim along with frequent mentions of that woman's sexual relationships, characterizing her as a "ho" or a "c**t", or generally implying that her femaleness makes her unqualified for the job clearly is sexist.
DeleteMaybe you are willing to assume that the person who makes only one of these comments never makes the others. That's your choice.
Judging from the comments section here, not the campaign which I consider obviously sexist. That includes Somerby’s praise for Harris’s smile but nothing else about her.
DeleteBorrringg
Delete"We Blues! During the #MeToo era, we tired quickly of pretending that we have some sort of 'sexual politics.'"
ReplyDeleteDid we?
I need to check my We Blues text app more often. I completely missed that.
Sexual politics?, I'm not even breathing hard.
Delete"Tapper pointed out that Biden “would lose himself in trains of thought.”
ReplyDeleteSo did Einstein. The context is that interview by Hur, where he is asking detailed questions about unimportant events years earlier. Biden tries to remember. That's all the interview proves. All people stop talking when they are trying to think about something complicated or difficult to recall. It has nothing to do with age.
The ignorance of the public about how memory works and what cognitive processings is about is very frustrating. People are drawing unwarranted conclusions on the basis for "common sense" or folklore and not relying on expertise about mental competence.
But this is also irrelevant. Biden is not president and he won't be running again. Because the people with expertise thought he was fine, there was not a cover up as asserted. This is a huge distraction aimed at preventing Trump from being examined, and an attempt to smear Biden's accomplishments in his excellent presidency. This is what happened to the Clintons after their succesful presidency.
People with sense saw what Trump was and would never have voted for him. Now, people with sense see what Tapper is about and the way the right is attacking Biden, but similarly cannot convince others of what happened, especially given the weight of the campaign against Biden. This is unfair but we can't do anything about it.
Delete86 47.
ReplyDeleteI called the fascist tip line on you Hector.
DeleteToo late. My head has been shaved and I'm looking out from the inside of an El Salvadoran prison at Kristi Noem's ankle bracelet.
DeleteTime for a reality check... I think some folks thought Trump's approval rating would keep falling, but it's rising.
ReplyDeleteIpsos has his net approval going from -8 pts to -1 pt with voters. Aggregate has him up higher than late April too & much higher than at this point in term 1.
The media does seem to be bending to his threats. PBS round table tonight called the, ""I will sell you the best Boeing warplanes if you Muslim terrorists dump a few billion in "my son's" business,"" as tRump's Doctrine. What the ever loving grifting fuck is going on?
DeleteTrump getting losses
ReplyDelete— SCOTUS rules against him on emergency powers
— House Committee rejects “one beautiful bill”
— Russia unacceptable proposal on Ukraine. They do not seem to want peace.
— Iran not giving up nukes.
— Hamas not making peace
But you're overlooking the bright spots:
Delete258 million live saved with a single fentanyl seizure;
law and order maintained via hauling James Comey in for an 86 47 interview;
the restoration of the proud name of the Gulf of America.
More and more people are discussing Somerby's calls for liberals to take up arms in their fight for the soul of this country, everyday.
ReplyDeleteDon't be a wussy you big pussy.
ReplyDeleteSomerby urges the Blue press to get more involved in the distractions provided by the right, especially Gutfeld. That is a push in the direction the right wants our attention to go. Somerby is pushing, not resisting, as he urges us to feel more outrage over Gutfeld's rehash of daily right wing distractions.
ReplyDeleteIf we want to resist the right, it begins with not letting ourselves be taken in by Somerby's own contribution to the right wing distraction machine, their narrative domination. The same applies to not participating in the controversy over renewed right wing attacks on Biden over his age. It is just noise. Our focus must be on Trump's wrongdoing and his attempts to subvert democracy by violating Constitutional rights. We need to keep our eye on the ball.
Actions are facts. Motivations are speculations. We can't read other people's minds. Richardson wrote
ReplyDelete"Bill Southworth tallied the times Trump has grabbed headlines to distract people from larger stories..."
I agree that Trump does grab headlines. But, Southworth doesn't know why he does this. My guess as to why he grabs headlines is different from Southworth's. My guess FWIW s that Trump has grabbed headlines for many years, and that tactic worked for him.
I think Southworth's incorrect impression comes from media bias. Yes, Trump talks about trivia like squirrels and Taylor Swift. But, he uses lots of words talking (and boasting) about his (alleged) accomplishments: closing the border, cutting fraud and waste, the (anticipated) success of his tariffs, (allegedly) brining peace between Israel and some neighboring countries, etc. If the media gave more coverage of these stories, then Southworth would realize that Trump talks a lot about important issues.
ReplyDeleteDavid in Cal is not a moron.
ReplyDeleteDavid in Cal is a bigot, who wants to distract you from the fact he's a fascist, by playing a moron on the internet.
Every Democrat and Republican male I know has used "cunt" and "bitch" privately to insult a woman they don't like and every female has used "dick" and "prick" to insult a man they don't like. "Cocksucker" is equal opportunity.
ReplyDeleteSo Louis Prevost, brother of Pope, called Nancy Pelosi a “drunk cunt” Wow! Nice , sounds like he is just like Trump!!
Delete