"Investigators need to stop waiting for evidence," continued!

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2021

Hesse don't need no facts: We start today with an observation about Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Our observation is connected to something we (liberal) denizens of Our Town may not know about ourselves.

Our observation would be this:

Carlson often starts his Fox News program with some perfectly reasonable point. 

He'll frequently blow his point wildly out of proportion. He will frequently overstate or disappear basic facts.

But in its essence, his point will be perfectly  valid. He doesn't need to toy with his facts.

Our observation gets worse. Quite often, Carlson starts with a perfectly valid point about The Crazy which exists right here in the streets of Our Town. 

We liberals! It's hard for us to spot The Crazy which exists right here in Our Town. Our Town's dogmas have always held that we the liberals are the very smart people—that The Dummies are all Over There.

Here in Our Town, we've heard that twaddle since the day we were born, and  we're strongly inclined to believe it. It's hard for us to see how absurd our conduct frequently seems to be. Also, our self-impressed proclamations.

Much as it is in other towns, it's frequently hard for us to see who we actually are. For better or worse, it isn't always especially hard for Others to see who we are. 

Our ridiculous conduct often gives Carlson an easy place to start. Quite frequently, he'll overstate his case or tilt his facts, but there's no reason why he has to.

Here in Our Town, we've increasingly fallen under the thrall of the assistant, associate and adjunct professors. They've come to us with various elements of their "critical theory." 

We're too dumb to see how amazingly dumb quite a few of their precepts are.

We're too dumb, but also too self-impressed. We've told ourselves that we're super-smart. We're so dumb that we've come to believe it.

The signature dumbness of Our Town has been on display this week. As we noted yesterday, a letter to the New York Times captured one part of this tribal dumbness. Here's what we read in the Times:

The media and crime investigators need to stop waiting for evidence of a racially motivated attack and address it as it is. What happened on Tuesday was a mass murder, a crime against the Asian-American community, toxic gender violence and violence stemming from white supremacy.

"The media need to stop waiting for evidence!" Investigators need to stop too!

Granted, that statement came from a letter to the Times, not from the Times itself. A person could even claim that we've made an insensitive edit.

But the New York Times chose to publish the letter, and that prescription summarized an attitude which was being widely displayed on cable news and elsewhere within Our Town: 

We don't need to no stinking evidence! We already know what we saw!

This morning's Washington Post adds a second, related nostrum. This nostrum is found in Monica Hesse's second column about the Atlanta killings.

Her column today is full of sarcasm. The headlines above it say this:

In print editions: The shooter cliches I never want to see again

Online: Things I do not ever need to hear or read about a shooter again

The things she doesn't ever need to hear or read again! Borrowing from the popular culture, Hesse is telling us this today, and yes it's related to yesterday's letter:

Monica Hesse don't need no stinking facts!

In fairness, let's be fair. If you're willing to bend way over backwards, you can defend most or all of the various things Hesse says today.

You can create a technical defense of Hesse's various demands and requests. Of course, if you're willing to squint hard enough when you look at an artist's rendering of Sasquatch, you can think you're looking at a photograph of Marilyn Monroe or Denzel—or maybe even George Clooney!

Hesse goes on and on in her column, listing the various kinds of facts she's doesn't want to hear. As with yesterday's tetter, so too here:

We're being told that we want one thing. We went to hear the preapproved stories we very much prefer. 

We want to hear our preferred Storylines. We want to hear nothing else.

Let's say it again! If you try extremely hard, you can imaginably defend most of what Hesse says. But you'd better be prepared to work extremely hard.

Hesse's column captures a certain drift which has come to prevail in Our Town. We want to hear our preapproved stories. And we want to hear them in perfect form, in precisely the form that we like.

It's easy for Tucker to mock such work. It takes no effort at all.

But this is who we've increasingly become in Our Town. In our tribal frustration, we're inclined to be very, very dumb. Also, we're completely unable to see this about ourselves.

Also, consider this: 

Ann Hornaday, the Post's film critic, writes today about issues of diversity and inclusion.  We share that point of concern.

We recently watched Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella for the first time. We loved its beautiful visuals, its brisk storytelling, its humorous take on the two stepsisters, its extremely positive values.

We liked all that, but good grief! Especially for a film which appeared in 2015, we were amazed by the (near-total) lack diversity in the kingdom Branagh imagined and created.

Hornaday's column concerns such issues. At one point, she quotes a certain type of thinking which is quite common here in Our Town:

HORNADAY (3/20/21): For those who have been advocating for inclusion on screen and behind the scenes, how will success be recognized and measured? And will hitting any numerical goal be enough?

Madeline Di Nonno, president and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, believes that numbers have their place. When the institute—which focuses on on-screen representation of women and underrepresented groups—does its research, she says, “we measure against the population as a baseline,” using demographic statistics regarding the LGBTQ population and people with disabilities, for example. But “fiction should at least meet the baseline,” she notes, “and then go way beyond. People of color in the United States are 38 percent of the population. [But] we’re looking at talent. We’re looking at opportunities. And opportunities should be given to talented people and not, ‘Well, we now have 38 percent directors who are people of color, we can stop.’ Absolutely not.”

You can perhaps defend what Di Nonno says there—but it's much easier to mock it. 

According to Di Nonno, Hollywood films shouldn't include a proportional number of directors (and actors) who are people of color. For some reason, Hollywood films should go "way beyond" that!

That statement is extremely easy to mock. At the end of the day, the statement is basically dumb, but it's very much the way we tend to think and talk in Our Town..

That statement begs for satirization. Over on the Fox News Channel, Tucker's prepared to serve.

Anyone can understand the way that statement looks to Others. Correction: Everyone can understand that basic point except us!

This is the way we've come to be here in the self-impressed streets of Our Town. We're very dumb and remarkably clueless, and this basic cultural problem seems to be getting worse.

Please don't believe the accusers: How dumb can we be in our self-impressed town? Consider this news report in today's New York Times.

In Houston, seven women (so far) have brought civil lawsuits against DeShaun Watson, alleging that he engaged in sexual misconduct while receiving massages.

Watson is the star quarterback of the Houston Texans. Today's report about these lawsuits appears in the Times' sports section.

This news report might have seemed a bit over the top during the Mad Men era. The report goes on and on, then on and on, about how "audacious" the lawyer representing these women is.

(Paragraph 2: "The accusations have been broadcast by an audacious personal injury attorney who has little or no history with such cases and who has used Instagram and Facebook to solicit potential clients.")

On and on the reporters go, discussing the "outsize life" led by the accusers' "showy" lawyer: 

We learn about his "reputation for bluster and, depending on one’s view, grandstanding." With respect to the "outsize life" this lawyer leads, we learn that his office is on the 73rd floor of Houston's tallest building. 

We learn about the way he behaved thirty years ago when he was a law student. Also, he drive a Ferrari!  His "very public approach to soliciting clients" is rather casually frisked. 

We have no way of evaluating the claims made by these seven women. We can evaluate the Times' news report—we'll guess it would have seemed to be a bit much during a  Mad Men episode.

Here in Our Town, we tend to assume that we get the straight dope from the Times. "Who's being naive now, Kay?"

The news report's byline names two reporters. We'll even guess that an editor may have glanced at it too!


64 comments:

  1. "He'll frequently blow his point wildly out of proportion. He will frequently overstate or disappear basic facts."

    Citation needed, dear Bob. Otherwise, alas, your claim here is just garden variety dembottery.

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  2. “Monica Hesse don't need no stinking facts!
    In fairness, let's be fair. If you're willing to bend way over backwards, you can defend most or all of the various things Hesse says today.”

    It’s cowardly for Somerby to ignore what Hesse actually said and simply declare that his view is correct and yours is wrong. He wants no discussion, in other words.

    For what it’s worth, Hesse isn’t offering a legal or prosecutorial opinion, nor does she claim to speak for all liberals (assuming she is one).

    She decries the standardized discussions that always ensue surrounding these kinds of killings. She says she is tired of hearing certain things, but she does want to hear about mental health, just not from politicians who posture about it to avoid taking action.

    She is tired of hearing about “thoughts and prayers”, and “it’s too soon to discuss guns”, instead of a concrete and meaningful discussion of guns.

    Excerpts from her column:

    “I would, however, love to hear about mental health. Let’s have that conversation. Let’s have symposiums and colloquiums and serious studies and interventions — my God, let’s talk about mental health. But I do not need to hear about it from the politicians who, as soon as they are given the opportunity, slash community health budgets, show more fealty to insurance companies than their constituents and refuse to address the poverty and other underlying conditions that can make it difficult or impossible for Americans to seek quality mental health care.

    In other words, I do not need to hear about mental health from people who are using it as a temporary diversion so they do not have to talk about guns.”

    And:

    “I want to hear about the systems that helped build the shooter. He didn’t come from nowhere. He is not a lone wolf. He might be a predator, but he is one whose worldview was shaped by the culture that raised him — the things he saw celebrated, the things he saw excused, the people who he was taught have value, the people who he was taught have none.
    I want to hear about whatever solutions we need to implement to make sure we don’t ever have to talk about people like him again.”

    If that sounds to you like “Monica Hesse don't need no stinking facts!”, then I’d say you’re pretty hopeless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish Hesse had added a demand that gifted programs in schools remain open and operating under objective criteria so that brilliant Asian kids are not be impeded and punished for being walking object lessons against the divisive theories of our illiberal liberal elite.

      Delete
    2. Oh, I get it now...

      Bake off!

      Your turn.

      Delete
    3. Here is a description of the victims and their lives. Try to imagine what it must have been like to be them. Then see how funny your jokes sound.

      https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/19/2021887/-These-are-the-people-who-died-in-the-Atlanta-spa-shootings-and-the-lives-they-left-behind

      Delete
    4. Recognizing your silliness is not the same as discounting these victims.

      This is true no matter how thoroughly they’ve been morphed into your fashion accessories.

      Delete
    5. "Bake off!"

      And you call me silly?

      Calling these women my "fashion accessories" is demeaning to them and to me, but why should that get in the way of your snappy comeback?

      You are the most miserable excuse for a human being I've met here, excluding Somerby. Even deadrat is more of a person that you are.

      You need to go somewhere else, find a sewer perhaps, where your fellow conservatives can applaud your total lack of humanity.

      This is clearly only about "owning libs" for you, because this brand of "humor" is the style of the Republican ratfuckers who live solely to hurt others while politics provides a facade to excuse their efforts. It is that sociopathic narcissistic Machiavellian trait combo that characterizes internet trolls and con artists.

      It goes without saying that you are not a good person. It is no doubt much easier to come here and mock liberals for being good people while only someone like you would consider dead Asian women to be fashion accessories.

      You need to go away now. No one here thinks you are funny or clever. You are embarrassing yourself because we all see you for what you are -- pathetic.

      Delete
    6. "Since then Ms. Greene, locked out of the policymaking process, has instead devoted the first weeks of her term in Congress to disrupting House floor proceedings and trolling her colleagues on social media....

      A growing number of lawmakers have demonstrated less interest in the nitty-gritty passing of laws and more in using their powerful perches to build their own political brands and stoke outrage among their opponents."

      You can regard Cecelia's kind of trolling as disruptive of discussion (since she rarely participates except to take pot-shots) or you can see it as aping the latest role model for modern obstructionist Republicanism.

      Delete
    7. As usual you get what you give and then declare that it sucks.

      I’m not going anywhere. I’m reading the blog and commenting as I wish as long as the owner allows that freedom.

      I assume no one has a gun to your head forcing you to read me. It’s certainly safe to assume that this is only more of your asininity.

      Delete
    8. I do not get what I give. You toss your snotty comments wherever you wish, without regard to anyone's ideas, and you rarely respond substantively to anyone. You are a spoiler, just as Greene is when she continually introduces motions to adjourn. Spoiling is easy, it requires no talent, no thought, no knowledge, just a lack of civility. That sums up what you do here too.

      You may be commenting "as you wish" but that doesn't mean you are participating in this group. You are disruptive. Somerby pays little attention to his comment section. I find that cowardly, but it doesn't mean what you are doing is OK. If you behaved this way on a moderated blog, you would be tossed off, periodically, much as Greene is (yes, I know the last time was a mistake). I wouldn't be surprised if enough of her Republican colleagues are fed up with her to vote with the Dems to kick her out of the House. She has no shame. If you have any sense of decency, you'll apologize to the rest of us for that "fashion accessory" remark. I won't hold my breath.

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    9. I was responding to someone who accused me of discounting and trivializing the murders.

      By all means, hold your breath.

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    10. That doesn't sound like much of an apology.

      Delete
    11. The transparent phoniness of Cecelia pretending she cared about looted businesses during the BLM protests last Summer, are as funny as anything that happened in 2020.
      Can you fucking imagine her thinking anyone could fall for it? LOL.

      Delete
    12. So not caring about rioting, looting, and violence would make me what, Einstein?

      You.

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    13. Not caring about looting makes you a typical Right-winger who supports private equity firms gutting businesses for profit like a mafia-style bust-out.

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    14. Oh, I’m sure there was a slew of private equity firms with their eyes on family owned small restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and pet groomers.

      Who will you use next in order to suggest that the havoc that is still going is just business as usual?

      Pyromaniacs?

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    15. Relax. Right-wingers aren't going to light black people's voting ballots on fire They'll just make it illegal for them to vote altogether.

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    16. That would be following the history of Democrats.

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    17. Conservative Democrats were racists.
      Conservative Republicans are racists.
      This isn't Democrats vs. Republicans.
      This is Conservatives vs. Humanity.

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  3. You just might be a conservative if...Tucker Carlson sounds reasonable to you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Our Town's dogmas have always held that we the liberals are the very smart people—that The Dummies are all Over There."

    This has actually been studied. The findings are that the very smartest people tend to underestimate their own intelligence. People with average intelligence are the ones who think they are smarter than they are. This isn't a political phenomenon -- it works across the board.

    This is similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is controversial largely because of its explanation (theory), not the observation about estimates of competence or intelligence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Liberals have been shown to be better educated, on average, and to have a better grasp of the facts on tests of current events knowledge. That is attributed to not watching FOX News and other sources of misinformation, not to greater intelligence.

      Today, Somerby tries to excuse the misinformation spread by Tucker Carlson by saying that he starts out with a reasonable point. Lately, Somerby himself has been starting with highly dubious points and getting worse from there, so he may not be the best judge of what is "reasonable" after so much time spent watching FOX.

      Delete
    2. Not lately. Somerby's been a malevolent Trumptard for at least 4 years now, and prior to that was an incipient Trumptard.

      Delete
    3. Anonymouse 1:31pm, what Somerby said about Tucker has been said repeatedly about him.

      When anonymices say that Somerby starts out by making a reasonable statement and then belies it or refashions it into a misguided conclusion, is your initial remark about his original statement a compliment or the example of his pattern of subterfuge?

      Delete
    4. It is an example of equivocation. He states both sides of an issue, before discussing one of them extensively, so that he can then go back and claim that he said the other and thus is exempt from criticism.

      For example. He might say that pets give pleasure to many people and are a harmless source of unconditional love. Then he will go on and talk about how stupid journalists are for discussing the way in which people treat their pets as a central part of their lives, or complain that the NY Times has too many pet-related articles. If someone complains that pets do a great deal for people's mental health, then Somerby's defenders will point out that single positive statement he made before laying into the media coverage of pet lovers.

      This is formulaic for Somerby. His essays always have that pattern. He is never direct enough to express an unprotected opinion without also stating the other side (in a reasonable fashion). Perhaps this is what Carlson is doing too -- haven't watched him and I won't watch him.

      Somerby deserves no compliment for his failure to have the courage of his convictions. There is something for everyone in each of Somerby's reports and that seems to confuse many of his commenters.

      Delete
    5. So it’’s doubtful that Somerby was issuing an endorsement of Tucker any more than Anonymices here are endorsing Somerby when they claim that he uses a sort of cover statement in order to merely sound reasonable or objective, and then lets all hell break loose.






      Delete
    6. And that's why Somerby, yesterday, repeated Tucker's arguments almost word for word? His pro forma ass-covering came BEFORE he started spreading Tucker's compost. I included both of their statements in my comment so that everyone could see how closely parallel they were.

      Just as Donald Trump used to repeat (with a lag time of minutes) demands that came directly from Fox News, Somerby now repeats assertions that come from that same source. He used to camouflage them better, but maybe he doesn't feel he needs to do that any more, now that his cover is blown.

      Delete
    7. Somerby didn’t parrot Tucker’s argument, he “parroted” what has been always been American jurisprudence.

      Somerby’s statements about the current imperative of narrative over facts has been his Jeremiah/-cry long before Tucker Carlson Tonight was around.

      Delete
    8. Re:
      The corporate-owned, Right-wing media somehow being "Liberal".
      Is that "narrative" or pooh-flinging idiocy?

      Delete
  5. "Granted, that statement came from a letter to the Times, not from the Times itself. A person could even claim that we've made an insensitive edit."

    This is the kind of reasonable statement that Somerby makes and then proceeds to ignore. Given that this is true, there is no need to go on with the rest of his diatribe. If Somerby understands that this is true, why does he then proceed as if it were not true, as if he had never had this understanding? This is one of the more frustrating aspects of his writing. When he then goes on and behaves as if the opposite were true, like the NY Times had said the things he criticizes, and someone objects, his pro forma statement is raised to excuse what he has written. So, he has things both ways. That is dishonest.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Here in Our Town, we've increasingly fallen under the thrall of the assistant, associate and adjunct professors. They've come to us with various elements of their "critical theory." "

    Not only does Somerby think Carlson makes sense, but he is criticizing the professors. That is about as stupid as it gets, suggesting that a professional demagogue whose purpose in life is to spew propaganda is a better source of information than people who spend their lives and careers becoming expert in a specific subject.

    If this sounds plausible to you, you need to think about the way in which the right has undermined knowledge and challenged the notion of truth in order to convince its followers of the big lies that advance their goals. In order to do this, it is necessary to undermine the traditional sources of reliable information, which include the press and the professors and other experts. Trump did this and people died of covid. The right is still doing it and Somerby is helping.

    What makes Somerby worse than the typical conservative lie-monger is that he keeps pretending to be liberal. This is perhaps his biggest lie. His purposes are only to attack liberals, create dissension on the left, and undermine democracy by attacking our free press and universities (just as dictators always jail the professors and close the universities to consolidate power and derail opposition to their regimes).

    Don't be fooled. The dumb people here are the ones who buy the big lies told by folks such as Somerby.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The dumb people here are YOU!!"

      I am singular and yet I am awarded a plural noun and verb! How lucky am I?

      In a comment about the dumbness of rocks! Irony is not dead.

      Delete
  7. "We want to hear our preferred Storylines. We want to hear nothing else."

    Somerby wants his preferred storylines too. He likes the storyline that pretends there is no racism, that easy gun availability doesn't encourage mass shootings, that immigrants are not being targeted because of Trump's nativism, and so on...

    Somerby likes to pretend that these conservative storylines are "truth" whereas the things liberals know to be facts are "narrative" and "storyline" (a term that should be neutral but that Somerby pretends is fiction).

    For the past four years, the right has presented a storyline in which there is no such thing as domestic terrorism, no such thing as right-wing terror groups and individuals who engage in white-supremacist violence. Trump censored intelligence reports and forbade the FBI from investigating right-wing violence as domestic terror. Then the Insurrection proved the blindness of that approach.

    Calls for the reversal of that policy, for truth in reporting by the media, are now being hailed by Somerby as a demand for storyline, as if the suppression of facts during the past four years were not itself storyline in the form of propaganda!

    It is time for the media to be permitted to connect the dots when these mass shootings occur -- to point the finger at the appropriate causes and consequences. To acknowledge what is really happening, not the fairytale right-wing version in which antifa caused the insurrection and no Boogaloo Bois broke into small businesses and blamed it on BLM.

    Somerby is unreliable on these topics. His storyline consists of whitewash. I am with Hesse on this one. I don't want to hear about another mentally ill, lone wolf killer who had a bad day, when another white male deliberately targets Asian women out of religious confusion, sexual frustration and misogyny. You cannot prevent, much less solve these killings without admitting what happened. Somerby's version, that a fine Christian boy went temporarily bonkers because he "had a bad day" and some probably illegal aliens were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hurt, makes no sense in the context of the facts, and provides no basis for addressing social problems that will lead to more such shootings. But the right doesn't care about preventing shootings -- they don't want gun sales to be affected by the whiny complaints of those who are most likely to be shot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The "right" would say that these message-parlors just needed a good guy with a gun standing by. Asians need to learn to be proficient marksmen before they move here, so should we all.

      Delete
  8. "You can perhaps defend what Di Nonno says there—but it's much easier to mock it. "

    Here is the difference between a liberal and Somerby. A liberal would read the statement and nod along with it. It would never occur to a liberal person to disagree about the role of numbers in achieving parity.

    Somerby talks about the mockability of the statement. Somerby is no liberal, not even close. He is a conservative pretending to be liberal and missing the mark because his reactions are not anything like the values and attitudes held by most liberals. He is an asshole conservative pretending to be liberal so he can attack liberals and support conservative memes.

    The new HBO series Bridgerton uses black performers in key roles and it works fine because romantic fantasy fiction doesn't have to be white, just as Branaugh's fairy tale didn't have to remain white simply because it has always been pictured that way. Women's roles work the same way. If they were doled out in a way that didn't conform to social stereotypes, there would be many more of them available, especially to older women. Liberals understand that this is what Di Nonno is talking about when she says that casting needs to go beyond simply matching demographics and cast based on talent, and Shonda Rhimes did in Bridgerton.

    Somerby thinks this is a statement that can be mocked. That makes him part of the opposition to change, not a liberal who supports and encourages social change.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Does Somerby truly not see the connection between the civil suit brought by those female massage therapists and the women who were killed in massage parlors this week?

    Somerby keeps referring to Mad Men, but what exactly is his point? Is he trying to say that the inexperience of the lawyer undermines the suit? Is he saying that the claims of the women are bogus, brought simply because the football player is famous? Is he implying that this suit is being used to control the prospects of that player by limiting his ability to be traded or his value during contract negotiations? Is Somerby saying that the assaults didn't occur, or that this behavior is normal during such massages? He never explains what he thinks may be false about the news reporting itself either. Lots of hinting and no explanation.

    Based on past experience, Somerby is most likely trying to imply that the women are lying and that their attorney is being paid to use their accusations to manipulate the famous football player. The article is written by two male authors and appears in the Sports section, so it isn't likely to be taking a feminist or sympathetic position with respect to the women involved (recall Somerby's reaction to Stormy Daniels, where he attacked her lawyer instead of the merits of her case).

    But I also read an article yesterday (posted in yesterday's comments) about the victims. It said they were not sex workers or slaves but older women trying to support their families giving massages because they didn't have access to higher paying jobs (one had been a school teacher in Korea). The automatic belief that women who work as massage therapists are there for sex may have led the shooter to target those Asian women when they didn't get his hints about massaging his groin.

    So, this doesn't strike me as particularly unbelievable, nor as a meritless suit. And I do not see what Mad Men has to do with it (and I watched all of the episodes). The issues of toxic masculinity, the tolerance of it among athletes, and Somerby's stunted growth as a male human being all seem relevant.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dear Bob,
    any comments on this unfortunate incident, in which your liberal-goebbelsian "paper of record" found to have exhibited "more than standard, garden variety media bias", plausibly "actual malice"?

    Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The judge did not dismiss the case, but that doesn't mean he affirmed any of the allegations being brought by Project Veritas. The case itself has yet to be decided. Your link restates the allegations as if they were facts, but these are claims that have yet to be adjudicated.

      Misleading, Mao.

      Delete
  11. On the shooting, and hate-crime, a wise one on my twitter feed

    'real hate crime against Asian-Americans is when Harvard limits acceptance based on some quota'

    Hope all here get this. As you realize there exists a quota, how and when, you can accuse famous people of sexual misconduct.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are also quotas at most universities producing approximately equal numbers of male and female admissions. Without them, women would far outweigh the number of male applicants.

      Requiring a student to go to a different university by failing to admit them is not a hate crime in the same sense as shooting them so that their entire life is ended, for no good reason except their race or gender.

      Do you see the difference? It should not matter whether someone is famous or not when they are charged with a sex crime. What should matter is whether they committed that crime or not. Sex crimes against women committed by men who think that their fame entitles them to treat others however they want, are legitimate sex crimes, just as surely as shooting Asian women is just as bad as shooting a senator or a member of a famous family, such as Trump's. People are all important, they all matter.

      Implying that this shooting was not a "real" hate crime is pretty offensive. But that's nothing new when it comes to conservative comments here (and elsewhere).

      Delete
  12. ' we (liberal) denizens of Our Town may not know about ourselves.'

    Liberals ?

    Somerby is a Trumptard, dedicated to the defense and worship of Trump, Roy Moore, Ron Johnson, Zimmerman and others.

    His town is the town of hardcore malevolent Trumptards, useless idiots for Trump. Naturally Somerby approves of Carlson while he's spent decades attacking Maddow.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Conservatives just hate “cancel culture”, except when they don’t.

    Like the ones in this comment board, they’re all concerned about the purported discrimination against Asians at places like Harvard or the specialized high schools in New York City.

    But they seek to enshrine their own version of cancel culture into law, as in “Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission” and Arkansas Senate Bill 289, which passed the legislature, and would allow health care providers (doctors, insurers, etc) to refuse to treat patients if the provider has a “moral” objection to either the patient or the treatment. (Race is not a valid objection, though.) Perhaps I should become a Doctor and refuse to treat Trump voters because I have a moral objection to them. Why wouldn’t that be allowed under this law? (The Bill is here: https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/FTPDocument?path=%2FBills%2F2021R%2FPublic%2FSB289.pdf)

    I suspect that the conservatives who exhibit such deep concern for Asians vis-a-vis Harvard are really just trolling the libs, because the conservative argument forever has been that private businesses and institutions should be able to decide , objectively or subjectively, who they choose to serve.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I suspect that the conservatives who exhibit such deep concern for Asians vis-a-vis Harvard are really just trolling the libs"

      To us, dear mh, 'Asian' is someone who lives in Asia. The 'identity' group that you illogically identify as "Asians", you should probably call 'yellows', since you choose to identify the people of African descent as 'blacks'.

      Anyhow. We know it's very hard for you to even imagine, but believe it or not, there is a possibility that people who exhibit concern about racist admission policies might be thinking in terms that have nothing whatsoever to do with 'yellows', or 'blacks', or any other perverse liberal dogma.

      They might be thinking in terms of meritocracy, for example. They certainly aren't asking for any special considerations for the 'yellows'. They're probably saying: just accept those who scored the highest on the test, that's all.

      Delete
    2. They believe in "meritocracy"?
      Cool. You don't often hear from those who want a 100% Estate Tax rate.
      I'm glad to know their voices are being heard for a change.

      Delete
  14. Biden said this:

    "In Atlanta, President Biden addressed the increasing violence against the AAPI population and told Americans that silence in the face of racism is complicity."

    It doesn't matter whether that silence comes from officers investigating such crimes, the press, or Somerby himself. Silence = complicity.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is why you cannot talk to The Other. It isn't about issues any more. It is about winning and winning is narrowly defined.

    "“For a political party whose membership skews older, it might be surprising that the spirit that most animates Republican politics today is best described with a phrase from the world of video games: “’Owning the libs,'” Politico reports.

    “Gamers borrowed the term from the nascent world of 1990s computer hacking, using it to describe their conquered opponents: ‘owned.’ To ‘own the libs’ does not require victory so much as a commitment to infuriating, flummoxing or otherwise distressing liberals with one’s awesomely uncompromising conservatism. And its pop-cultural roots and clipped snarkiness are perfectly aligned with a party that sees pouring fuel on the culture wars’ fire as its best shot at surviving an era of Democratic control.”

    ---------------

    We don't have to play this kind of game on their terms. I think it is better to "go meta" and just expose the game for what it is -- bad faith argument with no relation to the needs of real life people, political theater, performative competence consisting of snark and little else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These statements are Exhibit A for the tyrannical frame of mind we see so often now.

      ‘“In Atlanta, President Biden addressed the increasing violence against the AAPI population and told Americans that silence in the face of racism is complicity."’


      It is now pernicious to wait for the results of an investigation before indicting an individual with a crime that garners longer sentences. The very act of silence....of not vocally making demands based upon foregone conclusions...is complicity in a hate crime!

      ‘“Gamers borrowed the term from the nascent world of 1990s computer hacking, using it to describe their conquered opponents: ‘owned.’ To ‘own the libs’ does not require victory so much as a commitment to infuriating, flummoxing or otherwise distressing liberals with one’s awesomely uncompromising conservatism. And its pop-cultural roots and clipped snarkiness are perfectly aligned with a party that sees pouring fuel on the culture wars’ fire as its best shot at surviving an era of Democratic control.”‘

      No longer do woke liberals find it a sad infraction of manners when other people have the temerity to disagree and counter their opinions (this particular setting being one in which the blogger and anyone in agreement with him is routinely attacked with scathing denunciations).

      No, now the very existence and presence of a contrarian is a treacherous and calculated affront to their woke mental health.

      No one has to “own” anyone with this outlook. You’ve owned yourself.


















      Delete
    2. Before Trump, presidents did not comment on the guilt or innocence of any specific person. Biden is not doing that (as you suggest). He is urging people to speak out against violence against Asian Americans. He is not commenting on this particular person's motives, what they should be charged with, or whether they are guilty or not.

      Those women who were shot are obviously women and they are obviously Asian American and they are obviously the victims of a shooting. Anyone can speak out against that violence without sacrificing the purity of their compunctions about guilt or innocence.

      Unless you believe Asian women should be shot, there is no reason for you to remain silent either.

      Delete
    3. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/18/2021718/-When-police-downplay-anti-Asian-hate-in-Atlanta-killings-they-re-helping-hate-crimes-happen

      This is why it is important for people to speak out, especially our president.

      Delete
    4. “ Unless you believe Asian women should be shot, there is no reason for you to remain silent either.”

      That is just not true. That is not what people are being asked to do.

      Any public person who stated that societal tensions have increased and crime is up across the board. Love your neighbor and live in peace. All lives matter”, would be excoriated.

      Delete
    5. Anonymouse 5:01pm, I have no problem with the FBI heading the case.

      Here’s an object lesson:

      https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/4/5/17202026/pulse-shooting-lgbtq-trump-terror-hate

      Delete
    6. Cecelia, you are not getting the point. Yes, crime is up across the board and all lives are important. That is why ignoring the 500%+ increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans is wrong. To treat them as if they are having the same increase as other groups, when they are not, is wrong. It minimizes the problems specific to their group. It makes it see as if Asian American lives matter less that the other lives. That's why a public person saying those things would be rightly excoriated.

      And you have still not apologized for referring to caring about the deaths of these women as "fashion accessories". That says very clearly that their deaths do not matter to you, as you mock those to whom they do matter.

      Delete
    7. These deceased people are your fashion accessories, Anonymouse 6:13pm.

      Otherwise, you wouldn’t be making the demand that everyone must publicly make a particular sort of denouncement or else they are complicit with a killer.

      Saying that Asian Lives Matter would bring down a firestorm on the people who uttered it. These crimes mustn’t be treated as crimes, even as to their particular set of victims. . Rather as something within a hierarchical set of narratives centered upon political polemics.

      Delete
    8. Thus proving you didn't read David Neiwert's link...

      Reducing these deaths to a slogan doesn't show much respect either. You just really seem to have problems reacting like a human being to a human tragedy.

      That's your loss. You should probably just quit trying and leave expressions of sadness and loss to people who won't reduce it to "political polemics". This is why everyone is saying that Biden is a better president than Trump -- he knows how to express genuine feeling appropriate to this situation. You clearly don't and that is no doubt why you are a conservative here trolling liberals on a blog you do not understand.

      Delete
    9. Saying that everyone must denounce something in a particular way is the essence sloganeering.

      It’s the essence of performative political polemics rather than genuine feeling. Especially within the construct that you’re abetting killers if you don’t.





      Delete
    10. Far be it for me to think the whole Right-wing bigotry thing is performative.

      Delete
  16. Conservative sewer rats are free to ply their trade at conservative news outlets, where they can debate their "ideas" day and night with all the
    uncancelled left wing voices employed by the right wing propaganda shit machine.

    And budding conservative intellectuals can expand their "minds" at temples of knowledge like Liberty University where free expression of ideas is never punished.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Well what do you know? An evangelical who had obtained counseling for his sexual thoughts at an evangelical sex counseling center about a mile from one of his targets. Not much of logical jump to assume that he had been taught to hate himself somewhere along the way. Wonder where? That is your hate crime. And he frequented these establishments because of their family friendly wholesome business models? Many such places are dens of human trafficking. They litter the landscape. So there is likely to be some culpability - and I said likely- to go around here. The fact that this killer’s mind set was spawned by a group known to be ardent Trump supporters, and that Trump opened the gates for Asian hate activities does not automatically make this a hate crime against Asians, as a first order incentive. If primarily a hate crime, place wouldn’t have been so important. We are still in the aftermath of a crackpot president who trafficked in dehumanizing based on ethnicity. So certainly there is likely to be that as part of a complicated tragedy. And if there was illicit sexual activity at these places (again, why was he frequenting them?) they were dehumanizing in their business models. Even more reason to be targeted by a self - hating evangelical looking for scapegoats.

    ReplyDelete
  18. And no, I am not “victim blaming”. As I said, these places litter the landscape and in no way can working at one be considered an invite to deadly violence.

    ReplyDelete
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