MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2023
Also, children born today: Increasingly, identity has come to rule the discourse of a rapidly shrinking world.
We aren't saying that issues related to "identity" shouldn't rule the discourse. We would seek to initiate a different type of discussion:
We humans have a strong capacity for anger. That includes anger which is perfectly justifiable.
But when people discuss identity issues, what kinds of reactions are likely to be helpful? By way of contrast, which kinds of reactions are simply unhelpful anger—are anger all the way down?
Conflicts based on cultural identity are found all over the globe. Given the way human anger works, we're guessing that the attempt to address such issues won't always be thoroughly helpful.
For starters, what do we mean when we say that identity has come to rule a rapidly shrinking world? For one example out of many, we point you to an interesting profile in Saturday's New York Times.
It was listed as THE SATURDAY PROFILE. The headlines on the profile say this:
Teenage Rapper, Rooted in Mapuche Identity, Roars for Indigenous Rights
MC Millaray, 16, an emerging music star in Chile, uses her fierce lyrics to convey five centuries of struggles by the country’s largest Indigenous group against European colonizers.
We'll take a guess. We'll guess that most people who read that profile had never heard of the Mapuche.
That said, the Mapuche are indeed Chile's largest Indigenous group. The leading authority on the topic offers this brief overview at the start of a lengthy discussion:
Mapuche history
As an archaeological culture, the Mapuche people of southern Chile and Argentina have a long history which dates back to 600–500 BC. The Mapuche society underwent great transformations after Spanish contact in the mid–16th century.
The Mapuche have been involved in identity-based conflicts dating back to Spanish colonization. Saturday's profile involved a 16-year-old girl who is focused on current struggles in her native Chile.
The Mapuche are a cultural group with a very long history. For better or worse, Chile's non-Mapuche population is a much more numerous group.
In Chile, those groups are currently engaged in a struggle. Meanwhile, in that same day's New York Times, a second news report offered this:
‘We Have to Come Here to Be Seen’: Protesters Descend on Lima
They marched through the streets of Peru’s capital, carrying signs that said “I’m not a terrorist” and waved rainbow-colored flags associated with Indigenous communities in the Andes. Many chant “murderer” at the country’s leader and sing hymns about not being afraid anymore. On Thursday, more continued to arrive, with many vowing to stay for the long fight.
In the past week, thousands of rural Peruvians have descended on Lima to join local protests calling on President Dina Boluarte to resign...
[...]
Since Ms. Boluarte took office on Dec. 7, violent protests against her government have paralyzed large swaths of southern Peru, shutting down copper and tin mines and choking off highways leading to Lima and towns in the Amazon.
There have been at least 57 deaths related to the unrest, all outside of Lima.
[...]
The protests have been led largely by Indigenous, rural and poorer Peruvians fed up with what they portray as the country’s dysfunctional political system and entrenched discrimination.
These events in Peru also involve long-standing conflict between different ethnic / cultural groups.
Population groups are involved in conflict all around the globe.
Most American haf never heard of the Kurds until that group became part of the ongoing war in Iraq. Almost surely, most Americans still have never heard of the Uighurs—wouldn't recognize the name, wouldn't have any idea who the Uighurs are.
As of the early 1990s, few Americans had ever heard of the Tutsis and the Hutus. Global history teems with disputes, conflicts, wars and genocides involving such historically distinct ethnic / cultural groups.
Identity groups are in conflict all around the world. Increased communication and ease of travel in a rapidly shrinking world serve to bring the world's many different identity groups into increasing contact with each other.
In this nation, we largely focus on the cultural divisions between the population groups defined as black and white. (Our own indigenous groups receive much less attention.) The vicious killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis has now become the (temporary) focus of that ongoing discourse.
Alas! We humans routinely have a hard time negotiating points of conflict between different "identity groups." That 16-year-old rapper in Chile gave voice to a great deal of (justifiable) anger in last Saturday's profile—but we pause this week to ask a basic question:
What kinds of behavior are likely to be helpful in such familiar discussions? By way of contrast, what kinds of reactions may give voice to (fully justifiable) anger, but may only make matters worse?
There's no sure way to answer such questions! But in this morning's New York Times, Charles Blow starts his latest column like this:
Tyre Nichols’s Death Is America’s Shame
The spectacle of a televised countdown to the showing of the video in which Tyre Nichols was savagely beaten by Memphis police officers doesn’t just theatricalize Black death; it is a damning indictment of American perversion.
It was horrific, as promised, but unfortunately not singularly so. It was instead yet another data point in a long line of videos showing the torturing of Black bodies by the police. It was more snuff porn with Black victims, in a country becoming desensitized to the violence because of its sheer volume.
On the day of his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump described his "American carnage."
This morning, in the New York Times, Blow has a wide array of things to say about "American perversion." Also, about America's ongoing "snuff porn."
"America should be ashamed," Blow says as he continues. He offers sweeping denunciations of virtually every subgroup in the country, excluding virtually no one except perhaps himself.
Elsewhere in this very large nation, a whole lot of babies are being born today. What sorts of reactions are likely to build a batter nation for these, our newest fellow citizens?
Charles Blow's columns are routinely full of anger. A person might, with perfect sense, say that Blow's anger is almost always justified.
That said, we'll be asking a different type of question this week. It's a question for which there's no ultimate answer:
What kinds of reactions may prove to be helpful? Which kinds of reactions may not?
Tomorrow: E pluribus, insults
ReplyDeletetl;dr
"Increasingly, identity has come to rule the discourse of a rapidly shrinking world."
That's your tribal world, dear Bob. Your brain-dead fictional world with wimmin trapped inside men's bodies.
...here, in the real world, no one cares about your brain-dead cult's "identities"...
Russians and Ukrainians are angry.
DeleteEspecially the Ukrainians...
DeleteTl:dr
DeleteUnder Trump, Putin, the fascist leader of Russia, flourished.
Under Biden, Putin is getting his ass handed to him.
The purpose of anger is to motivate change. The "unhelpful anger" Somerby refers to may be anger in situations were nothing can be done. I doubt that is true of the situations where Somerby wishes people to suppress their anger, including both indigenous people's rights and civil rights in our country. People are still angry because there is still work to be done in achieving social justice.
ReplyDeleteAll cultures have rules for expressing emotions. In many cultures, anger is reserved for those with power and denied to those without it, socially speaking. Thus anger is often reserved for the upper classes and denied to those who are lower class, subordinate in position, lower in the pecking order. Anger is supposed to be directed down, not up the hierarchy, in terms of expression. Somerby speaks in favor of that rule in our society and worldwide today.
In many cultures, emotions are also gender-coded. Cultural rules say that men may express anger, but not women and women may never express anger toward men without being considered bad, uncouth, inappropriate, crazy even. This has been true in our society. Similarly, sadness is marked as appropriate for women and fear is denied to men but OK for women to express.
Then there are religions that suggest that the goal of life is to suppress all emotion because it arises from attachment to the world (Buddhism, for example). Aside from whether this is possible, when emotion is forbidden, then a person loses the ability to determine where they stand in relation to important events in their daily lives, because that is what emotion does for us as human beings. Anger tells us where we stand and what needs to be changed, and feeling it motivates us to strive for change. That is exactly why those invested in the status quo wish to suppress the anger of those who are oppressed, whether indigenous people or our American lower classes. Somerby cannot reasonably say that nothing needs to be changed in our society, so proscribing anger (including by religious teaching) is not only wrong but also tends to be a method of controlling subordinate classes.
Also, notice that Somerby seems to equate anger with violence. Violent behavior is a means to an end, but anger can and does exist without necessarily leading to massacres (which can also be committed in cold blood, without emotion). The means for achieving change need to be separated from the anger that motivates striving toward change. Otherwise it sounds like Somerby is telling all people with grievances to go home, sit down and shut up because minorities need to accept their lot in life and do nothing to change their circumstances. Who says that? Only those who are one-up and want to stay that way.
Everyone hates white people. Why wouldn't they?
DeleteNeither the Tutsis nor the Hutus are white.
DeleteSomerby seems to be confusing hate with anger. Anger occurs when a person believes they have been deliberately harmed or wronged by another person. Hate is the justification for violence against others. Contempt and disgust are feelings that accompany a desire to exclude, ostracize, expel or eliminate others based on inferiority, danger to the self, or violation of social norms (contempt is directed toward people, disgust can be felt toward things, such as poop or rotted food or morally corrupt behavior).
White people benefit from creating a false narrative of victimization because they are the dominant group; they are not oppressed, and so therefore cannot credibly participate in identity politics, which is solely about justice for oppressed people.
DeleteWhite fragility is largely responsible for much of the misery and suffering in the world as it impedes progress for the sake of maintaining a false dominance and hierarchy.
For right wingers, like some of the commenters and Somerby himself, this is something to joke about or be smug about and smirk and giggle; this attitude might engender anger, but generally it does not - Leftists are too busy working on getting progress, and also understand that right wingers are borne from a personal history of trauma, these are wounded people.
Noticed.
DeleteStay tuned to see how Bob complains about Blow taking things too seriously, after disparaging our media for "lifestyle" columns.
ReplyDeleteTherapists sometimes encounter people who believe that all conflict is bad. They have perhaps been taught that as children. More often, it is women who feel that way, having been taught to suppress their negative emotions and deny their own desires and rights to make a life that meets their own needs.
ReplyDeleteTherapists teach such people that engaging in conflict is the way to resolve conflicting and competing needs, which arise in all sorts of situations, from marriages to jobs to disputes with neighbors, relatives and even children. They also teach rules for engagement when there is conflict, means of resolving disputes, called generally "conflict resolution". Our society also has mediators and judges for resolving conflict. When conflict is approached peacefully, it is regarded as a good, necessary and often inevitable way of interacting with others. No therapist advises a client to suppress their own needs for the good of someone else, to become a spineless entity that exists only for the good of others. That is neither saintly nor desirable.
Somerby's urging today may be cultural. There is an old joke about how many Irish mothers it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is none. The Irish mother says "You young people go out and enjoy yourselves. I'll just sit here alone in the dark until you get back." That's what happens to those who do not assert their needs (which are identified by the things we feel anger about) and perhaps Somerby learned to trample his mother's legitimate claims, but that is not how the world should work, no matter how few indigenous people there are in Chile compared to the descendants of colonial powers. Might doesn't make right and we have become a world where all needs matter, not only those of the biggest and most powerful groups.
It strikes me that in these situations what we might have learned in these situations is to reserve some judgment until the facts all roll in, as some will stick to false impressions even when they have.
ReplyDeleteIn the superficial way I have followed this so far know: the victim was not a career criminal or bad person. The beginning of the alleged murder was not on tape. Those (like Blow) who have spun these televised police killings as strictly white on black racism have a problem in that the cops were all African American. They will attempt to sell this as irrelevant and it only matters that the victim was black. That will be a tough sell.
Neither Blow or Somerby have earned much trust in these discussions, I’d wait and see till we know more.
"Those (like Blow) who have spun these televised police killings as strictly white on black racism have a problem in that the cops were all African American."
DeleteThis is only true if one ignores the concept of institutional racism.
There has been a narrative that there is an epidemic of cops killing black men, Apparently, there a few hundred of such homicides every year. More whites numerically are killed by cops - but blacks are killed disproportionately (though I suppose, for example, blacks might commit a disproportionate amount of crimes, including murder, which possibly might account for that). It seems that only a small number of these incidents get much publicity. Some like the Floyd killing get mega publicity. Certainly, in the Floyd murder, the fact that the principal perpetrator was white was a highly emphasized factor. Now, there is the incident with Tyre Nichols - and the perpetrators were apparently 5 black cops. However, it seems there needs to be a way to fit this incident into this larger narrative - It doesn't matter if the perps were black - what matters is that the victim was black. Anon 11:44 confirms this narrative - "institutional racism" is responsible for this incident. It's a pretty murky concept - if black cops kill a black guy, it's an example of "institutional racism." I would think there are more rational ways to view this, if one isn't trying hard to make it fit into a political narrative. I will say that in the US, compared with other advanced capitalist countries, homicides involving cops killing citizens are extremely more frequent . What's the answer? More training probably. Maybe having social workers respond when mental illness seems to be involved. There's various ideas out there, I make no claim to having answers.
Delete
DeleteHmm. If it's only a few hundred annually, why is it such a big deal?
For example, google tells us that in 2022 more than 75,000 Americans died from overdose of synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl. Sounds like a problem. A few hundred? Meh. Shit happens.
Whether it is an epidemic or not, such a killing is outrageous and should never happen. How is that not obvious to all?
DeleteShould never happen at all? Human beings are not civilized or rational. Senseless violence and death has always been a feature in of our behavior and it always will be.
DeleteAC, thanks for the thoughtful response. Clearly another factor in the cases that get attention is the quantity of the video on the incident, so the press can use it to spark the kind of response that keeps viewers glued to the story.
DeleteMao, clearly “Meh” would be the correct response to anyone trying to argue that you are not a moronic degenerate.
You don’t expect senseless violence frim cops.
Delete@2:30, human beings are both civilized and rational. Senseless violence and death are aberrations.
DeleteBecause of technology, we are able to collect statistics across very large groups and disseminate them to our entire society. That makes each occurrence, which IS an aberration, seem like a regular and normal part of life. That is not true, but is an illusion of our ability to collect data.
This police killing was so senseless that I am glad that people are expressing their outrage. There is no reason why we should consider such things inevitable, much less acceptable behavior.
Somerby is complaining about the wrong things when he focuses on Blow today. The problem is not identity. It is that police have abused their power. How and why that happened must be examined and safeguard put into place to protect people from such abuses.
There’s nothing murky about institutional racism, it has a clear definition; I will grant that it’s definition runs counter to how a right winger FEELS about his place in the world, and thus a right winger may have to read over the definition more carefully. (You can pretend you’re a lawyer or voted for a Dem, whatever, but don’t try to con us you’re not a right wing moron)
DeleteThere’s no genetic explanation for how black people are over twice as likely to be murdered by cops than whites, or get crumbs when it comes to how our goods and resources are allocated. If you think otherwise, you are, definitionally, a straight up racist.
Often right wingers will say “hey black people were also enslaved by other black people in Africa”, yet feign bewilderment that black cops could murder a black person. Disingenuous, anyone?
Indeed, institutional racism is about the only rational way to view this. The only other rational way to view this has deeper roots; the need for dominance predates racism (something that was basically invented when European settlers colonized the Americas). Both are a blip on the timeline of humans, for most of our existence we have been engaged in egalitarian societies, so there is hope.
We need to get rid of qualified immunity, we need to demilitarize the police, we need to avoid hiring cops that have an authoritarian disposition, cops should not be making traffic stops, not complying with a cop should not be a death sentence, etc.
We don’t need to throw our hands in the air just because a right winger wants to deny what’s happening and furthermore can’t be bothered with solutions.
anon 6:30, you seem to be pretty certain on all this, ruling out any other possible explanation for what happened to Nichols. You seem dogmatic, simplistic and close-minded. Blacks might well be victims of police homicides in greater proportion than whites for many reasons. I'm sure "institutional racism" has a dictionary definition, but that doesn't explain how each individual homicide by police of a black person is caused by it, or that there can be many other factors. And in this case it weas black cops. Can't you acknowledge that insofar as it was black cops, the argument that racism was the cause could be questioned? Atty Crump you may know has become a multi-multi millionaire from these cases, so his views might be taken with a grain of salt. And you may not understand qualified immunity. it applies to civil suits. I won't try to explain it, but it's not always a defense - only in certain situations. I don't know what you mean about 'demilitarizing police." I suppose laws could be passed to require cops to take some psychological test to weed out those with "authoritarian" dispositions. If cops don't make traffic stops, who would? Might it not lead to more carnage on the highways if civilians did it? I think you are simplistic, and real trigger happy about calling people racists - the very same type of irrational stereotyping that gets imposed on blacks..
DeleteAC/MA, people who search extra hard to find explanations to justify beating a black man to death are called bigots.
DeleteYou address institutional problems using institutional reforms, several of which were listed.
Black people can absorb negative stereotypes about being black and these can affect their behavior as readily as white people. Black people can and do score as biased on the IAT task (Implicit Attitudes Task for Race), a measure of the influence of such stereotypes on judgment. It makes sense to me that someone who works at a job where they see the worst of human behavior might form a negative opinion of black people, even while being black but considering themselves an exception or dividing black people up into good and bad types. Plenty of bigoted white people loved Sammy Davis Jr. and didn't consider him the same as those other kind of blacks. Your argument that no one black can be racist is very silly.
The rest of your comment shows that you are largely unfamiliar with the discussions around changing police procedures. You can use google to find articles explaining how police have become militiarized in the first place and what it would mean to demilitarize. You ask about traffic stops, but in Denver we get tickets by mail, generated from traffic cameras. In CA, the Highway Patrol gives traffic tickets while local police respond to other calls. I think you don't know enough about these issues to discuss them intelligently. Please do some more reading before you attack other people's ideas about what needs to change in policing.
Do you really not know that victims of police abuse bring civil suits, especially when DAs will not charge the officers involved?
BIL was a white Chicago Fireman. Racist as hell. Asked him how he worked side by side with black officers. He said the black Firemen are hard working family men. They hate those - other words for disadvantaged ghetto people. Group culture can overcome identifying by race. But you know that.
DeleteAccusing Blow of merely venting anger when he actually suggests a plan of action, well, Bob proves once again that he will go to any lengths to complain about how everybody sucks and does it wrong except for him.
ReplyDeleteThe World According to Somerby:
DeleteEverybody sucks
But black people, and women, and particularly young women (esp those that rebuke my advances) suck more
And really white people don’t suck, esp when you disaggregate them from all The Others.
And even though blacks and women suck, they are very nice and beautiful people, especially their children, and there’s nothing creepy about that, nope, I’m not creepy, not creepy at all.
So, we shouldn't care about civil rights for black people because few people have heard of the Kurds? That makes no sense to me.
ReplyDeleteIt is sort of like the argument that minorities deserve to be oppressed because they are minorities. If something bad is happening to a few people that doesn't matter to the larger group to whom that bad thing is not happening. That seems to be Somerby's reasoning today.
DeleteIt’s almost like Somerby is doing self parody
Delete"On the day of his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump described his "American carnage."
ReplyDeleteMostly lies. Is Somerby accusing Blow of lying about American perversions? That is a harder sell.
Of all the people who have weighed in on the issue, Somerby mines Trump for a quote!? Trump, the racist that also never had a coherent thought beyond “me me me”. Brother, please.
Delete"What sorts of reactions are likely to build a batter nation for these, our newest fellow citizens?"
ReplyDeleteAs Jane Curtin once said, add some flour, water, a dash of salt and pepper...
"Elsewhere in this very large nation, a whole lot of babies are being born today."
ReplyDeleteNot enough, based on our declining birth rate. Odd that the murder rate increased during covid but not the birth rate.
"What kinds of reactions may prove to be helpful? Which kinds of reactions may not?"
ReplyDeleteAnd yet Somerby seems to have never asked this question of himself, as he addresses vitriol towards us "blue tribe" liberals day after day, without even specific examples of what we should or do differently, other than let every Republican wrongdoer slide for assaults on democracy.
"Charles Blow's columns are routinely full of anger."
ReplyDeleteOne might almost suspect that he wants things to change! The horror!!
Why would anger diminish if nothing is being done about the problems themselves? In addition to anger, Blow and others might feel frustration -- that is the emotion that arises when progress toward an important goal is being blocked by an obstacle. It motivates reconsideration of the problem, renewed effort, or redirection of energy toward some more achievable goal instead.
Should Blow abandon his goals of social justice, as Somerby urges? Should he let our society off the hook by suppressing his anger, so that the majority can go back to ignoring the needs of the minority? Minority rights are protected by our constitution. Somerby needs to respect them too. Blow does us all a service by reminding us of our resonsibilities to each other.
As Americans we have pride that we are not Rwanda. What makes us different is not the lack of massacres, but our shame that such things have happened in our history. Blow is our conscience. No person who wishes to do good seeks to suffocate his own conscience as Somerby urges today.
Somerby seems to be saying "yes, yes, I know we should do better, but stop nagging me...". Every mother knows that behavior doesn't improve when you stop reminding people of their duties. If Somerby wants Blow's nagging to stop, he needs to start urging people to be less bigoted, instead of telling the bigots they're just doing what majorities do worldwide, and to keep up the good work suppressing those rowdy minorities who don't know their place in the world.
Somerby creates a false choice: angry vs helpful.
ReplyDeleteAnger can be helpful. It can force complacency into action. In fact, anger can be highly motivating, as opposed to calm, rational, statistics-laden white papers. People respond to emotion. It was likely the outrage over the treatment of the peaceful civil rights marchers that moved the needle on legislation in the 60’s.
Is Somerby arguing that a country where things like the killing of Tyre Nichols occur far too often shouldn’t be ashamed of itself?
Secondly, since Somerby complains about the “identity” aspect of this, why would anger not be a proper response when a citizen, regardless of color, gets murdered by rogue cops in over-militarized police forces with insufficient training and a lack of federal laws governing such behavior?
Unless you feel the situation with the police is AOK, then what is the proper response by an editorialist or an activist who seeks change?
Finally, why should Blow not deal with the identity aspect of this?
If only MC Millaray had read Bob Somerby, she might have expressed pity for the non-Mapuche and possibly just shut her trap. Can’t we all just get along? Probably easier if you’re a non-Mapuche, though.
ReplyDeleteWhen the color of one's skin gets a person killed during a traffic stop, it seems to be appropriate to address this as an identity issue.
ReplyDeleteFrom today's New York Times:
"The videos show a brutal beating in which a group of Memphis police officers repeatedly kicked and punched Tyre Nichols after they yanked him from his car, shouted a series of threats and orders, and then pushed him to the ground while he pleaded for them to stop.
But in an official account written up by a police officer only hours after the beating, Mr. Nichols, 29, is described as an irate suspect who refused to comply with police officers’ directions and “started to fight” with them, even reaching for one of their guns.
The videos that were released on Friday do not show Mr. Nichols fighting with officers, let alone reaching for any of their guns.
Instead, they show Mr. Nichols, a FedEx employee and father, pleading with the police to stop in the moments before they deploy pepper spray in his face. At that point, Mr. Nichols gets up and runs away as an officer fires a Taser at him. When officers catch up with him, less than 100 yards from his mother’s house, they tackle and severely beat him, delivering powerful punches, a series of kicks and several swings of a baton. At no point does he appear to strike back."
If you are black, you are expected to sit still and do nothing while they kill you. Then the police get to lie about what happened. You, being dead, have no way to dispute mistaken police reports. This status quo would no doubt go on and on, if there were no videos, as there are now.
DeleteThe SF police lied about Paul Pelosi walking to the door and then walking back over to his assailant.
DeleteThat beat having to explain why they stood there and watched the men struggle over a hammer.
I would not describe the attack on Pelosi as "two men struggling over a hammer" when one man was clearly trying to harm the other, and did considerable physical damage in the process. Even your language displays your disdain for calling this what it was, a deadly attack on Pelosi, which Pelosi tried to defend himself against. Or do you really think they were both just trying to hang a picture using the same tool?
DeleteNo, Cecelia, this wasn't Uvalde, Texas.
DeleteWithin seconds of the door opening, the officer barked loudly to "drop the hammer"! At which point your Magat friend smashed the hammer into Mr. Pelosi's skull.
What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
Anonymouse 6:37pm, you’re being a disingenuous anonymouse, as is your job description.
DeleteThe news that Pelosi was attacked with a hammer is well known. I’m not obscuring anything.
Calling DePape “his assailant” is plain English too.
You are minimizing what happened and showing a disregard for the harm done.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:19pm, that’s not what happened.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64428041.amp
Anonymouse 8:08pm, minimizing what happened is what you’re doing right now with “iI wouldn’t call it two men struggling over a hammer”.
DeleteOh, wouldn’t you? That’s interesting because it was two men struggling over a hammer, just as someone might struggle over a gun which with the shooter planned to shoot them.
Whatever it is that they’re paying you, it’s not enough.
One man (Pelosi) was being attacked by another man with a hammer. Pelosi was not trying to steal DePape’s hammer, as your language implies.
Delete
DeleteFunny: Liberal Radio describes it as "Paul Pelosi attack video shows struggle for hammer".
...The Lord Thy God Soros spent $18 billions on perfecting dembottery, and yet they still fail to coordinate their gospels...
Anonymouse 8:34pm, complete idiots would NOT think that by “struggling over a hammer” I meant that Pelosi was trying to “steal” a hammer from someone who was seconds from cracking his skull with it, as we all know was happened.
DeleteThat sort of device takes an anonymouse.
If we look at the BBC link provided by Cecelia, we see that it's not as she described it.
DeletePaul Pelosi opened the door, then backed away. The cops shone a light into the house. As soon as they saw the hammer, held by both Pelosi and DePape, one of them said, "Drop the hammer!" DePape replied, "Ah, nope." He then got complete control of the hammer, Pelosi backed away out of view, and DePape swung it toward Pelosi.
The cops did not stand there and watch the men struggle over the hammer, and they did not lie about Pelosi's movements, which were hard to see until they shone their light on him.
DeleteThis is why they stay anonymous.
https://apnews.com/article/videos-2af1f103d1ee44c8897fae09edef32b2
“Video shows struggle for hammer in attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband”
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/27/1152076601/paul-pelosi-video-released-hammer-struggle
“Newly released video of the attack on Paul Pelosi shows a struggle for a hammer”
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-01-27/video-shows-struggle-for-hammer-during-pelosi-attack
“Pelosi Attack Video Shows Struggle and Savage Hammer Swing”
Anonymouse 9:21pm, from “drop the hammer”, there was “What is going on here?” to “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
DeleteHow did did that comport with what the police told NBC News?
Just because AP says it, doesn't make it right. Pelosi was struggling to stay alive, not to gain a hammer. He was trying to prevent the hammer from being used to hurt him. He didn't need a hammer for any chore. The words about struggling for control for the hammer are wrong. Only DePape wanted control of the hammer in order to attack Pelosi. Pelosi wanted to prevent harm.
DeleteDoes anyone seriously think Pelosi would have hit DePape with it if he had gained control of it? Did he have a nail he wanted to use it on? No, he didn't care about the hammer -- he cared about not being hit with it.
AP is not a liberal source, by the way.
As usual, Cecelia is filling up the comments with garbage because she is too stubborn to admit that she doesn't do nuance when it comes to words and their meanings.
DeleteMy main point was that she doesn't really much care about what happend to Pelosi, as evidenced by her casual language about a life-threatening attack. I don't know why she even brought up Pelosi, since it wasn't the cops who attacked him, but a right-wing extremist indoctrinated by MAGA lies. Pelosi was an innocent bystander to an attack targeting his wife for political reasons. That makes DePape a domestic terrorist, not a black man pulled over for a traffic stop, who was beaten to death for no good reason.
Why does Cecelia consider this the least bit relevant to this discussion? She will now write another 20+ comments that no one wants to read. Their only interest will be watching her typing and grammar deteriorate as she drinks herself to sleep.
“Does anyone seriously think Pelosi would have hit DePape with it if he had gained control of it? Did he have a nail he wanted to use it on? No, he didn't care about the hammer -- he cared about not being hit with i
DeleteNo. No one thinks that or thinks that other people think it.
Not even anonymices trying to impugn a political contrarian in way possible.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete
DeleteAnonymouse 9:39pm, you’ve sure spent a lot of time on my language about that widely reported struggle for a hammer between DePape and Pelosi.
A struggle in which Pelosi didn’t do what the police said that he did.
Why stop now while you’re in the process of exhibiting all your political operative priorities and lack of scruples?
It was not a struggle for a hammer — it was a struggle for Pelosi’s life. If the police didn’t get it right, why are you insisting the AP did?
DeleteAnonymouse 10:35pm, the police told NBC that Pelosi walked to the door when they arrived and then went back into the room with DePape.
DeleteNo one is interested in that.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteBTW: what was it that was being used to try to take Pelosi’s life?
DeleteA hammer.
What were they struggling over?
The weapon of a hammer.
And here I thought the anonymouse argument that it’s okie dokey for an adult to tell a child “I’ll get you” for bullying their kid (as in the movie Tar) was the quintessential jumping of the shark.
Anonymouse 10:;7pm, that says it all.
DeleteNow you are (1) changing the subject and (2) treating all snonymous commenters as the same person. Bye now. Don’t stay up too late.
DeleteStart of the subject:
DeleteAnonymousJanuary 30, 2023 at 6:17 PM
If you are black, you are expected to sit still and do nothing while they kill you. Then the police get to lie about what happened. You, being dead, have no way to dispute mistaken police reports. This status quo would no doubt go on and on, if there were no videos, as there are now.
CeceliaJanuary 30, 2023 at 6:25 PM
The SF police lied about Paul Pelosi walking to the door and then walking back over to his assailant.
“…(2) treating all snonymous commenters as the same person”
DeleteAnonymouse 11:29pm, which anonymous are you?
These theories fell apart on Friday afternoon when the San Francisco Police Department released body camera footage captured by officers who responded to the scene. In the footage, DePape can be seen wielding a hammer in one hand and holding Pelosi's arm with the other. As the situation unfolds, DePape begins to swing the hammer at Pelosi, knocking him to the ground as police rush in.
DeleteYes, Ceclia, Pelosi walked to the door. Crazy Magat with a hammer didn't carry him there.
Door opens.
Cop. " How you doin'? What's going on man"
Magat: (holding Pelosi's arm) "Nothing"
Cop: "Drop the hammer"
Magat: "no"
Pelosi pulls away from Magat. Magat turns and smashes Pelosi in the skull.
This all happened in the space of 30 seconds.
There's something seriously the fuck wrong with Cecelia.
Chris Hayes presented a great opening segment last with a long compilation of all the bullshit fed to rubes like Cecelia about this incident.
Both Pelosi and DePape were at the door. Pelosi’s did not walk to the door, open it to the police, and then walk back to stand next to DePape.
DeleteI didn't know until recently that Chris Hayes did porn when he was younger.
DeleteIronically, his junk looks like Nixon.
DeleteCecelia is playing "what about..." and thinks that if there is something wrong in the Pelosi police report then that justifies the cops who blatantly lied about how they killed a man in Memphis.
DeleteIt took her 17 comments to get to that point.
DeleteIt just gets weirder and weirder because as she becomes an advanced senior citizen, Hillary Rodham Clinton looks more and more like Nixon in the late stages of his presidency.
DeleteSo Chris Hayes's junk resembles a bipartisan terror show of failed politicians.
But we shouldn't let that affect how we view his reporting.
Every Republican is uglier than my asshole. Dumber too.
DeleteThe system is working as designed. No need for shame.
ReplyDeleteI went back and read Blow's article after a commenter said that Somerby was not crediting Blow with proposing solutions. Blow is not just talking about identity, but describing the way that some have abandoned the effort to improve policing as time has gone by. In that description, I think I see what has Somerby so upset about identity. Blow describes a list of women, black female police administrators, who have responded quickly and appropriately to police abuses.
ReplyDeleteSomerby doesn't like women much. He especially doesn't like black women. Beyond that, he doesn't like black women with power, such as these women described by Blow obviously possess and have used to enact change. That is the identity issue that Somerby is deploring. As he calls for everyone who is a minority to accept their minority status and stop making trouble, it seems clear that Somerby was triggered by those women who used their authority to change the status quo, ignoring that they too are expected by men like Somerby to subordinate themselves to male dominion, white male dominion, and stop defending minorities. He wants everyone to know their place -- not just indigenous people in Peru and Chile.
Blow does offer solutions. It isn't surprising that Somerby ignores them. However, notice the way that Somerby disappeared that part of Blow's essay, pretending that Blow is doing nothing but encouraging black people to complain about victimization -- when it is Somerby who is doing the complaining. For Somerby, the only thing worse than making a fuss because a black man was beaten to death by the police who are supposed to protect and serve, is praising the black women who managed to make positive changes and address such issues appropriately.
Blow and his gay lover were caught slapping lambs at a petting zoo in Connecticut last April. Conveniently, the liberal press buried the story. To this day, liberals still pretend like nothing ever happened. This is the type of hypocrisy that has set our cause back decades.
DeleteNoticed.
Delete
ReplyDeleteFor your reading pleasure, dear Bob:
"One Lie After The Next": CNN Ratings Hit 9-Year Lows After Reputational Suicide
TV ratings?
DeleteFinally the Right is getting to the important stuff. LOL.
Here is the Stormy Daniels case without the sex:
ReplyDelete"Former President Donald Trump's effort to keep details of a settlement related to a past nondisclosure agreement lawsuit were dealt a setback on Monday.
Bloomberg News reports that US District Judge Paul Gardephe has ruled that Trump must disclose the amount of money he's paying to former staffer Jessica Denson, who had filed a legal challenge to Trump's mandate that all campaign staffers sign NDAs as a precondition to working for him."
If Trump was having campaign staffers routinely sign NDA's then it seems unlikely Stormy Daniels approached Trump begging for an NDA as a grift (Somerby's version of her lawsuit).
Reminds me of the old saw:
ReplyDeleteDid you hear the one about the Republican voter who isn't a bigot?
Me neither.
"Roseanne Barr will make her return to stand up comedy after nearly 20 years away from the microphone as part of a new special that will stream on Fox Nation, Fox News’ streaming service.
ReplyDeleteThe hourlong special, titled “Cancel This!” will be available to stream on Feb. 13, the Monday after the Super Bowl, after it was filmed in front of a live studio audience in Houston, Texas at the Cullen Theatre.
Barr, a controversial personality in comedy and noted supporter of former President Trump, had her popular sitcom “Roseanne” canceled and rebranded “The Conners” in 2018 after she tweeted racist comments about former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett."
Yes, this is the same Roseanne Barr who Somerby was positively name-dropping here back when she got in trouble for her statements, the person Somerby defended when she was called out in 2018.
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2018/04/breaking-before-she-was-famous.html
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2018/04/breaking-from-donald-j-trump-to.html
Somerby said he liked her a lot back in 1985-6, but since then she had expressed some crazy ideas -- but Somerby claimed it was liberal derangement that put Trump into the White House. Somerby excused Barr by calling her beliefs and statements crazy, while attacking the black woman who complained about Barr's racism and objected to the slant of her new show. It is the journalists who are to blame, not Barr, who Somerby said over and over that he "liked a lot" back in the day, hinting that he was partially responsible for her later success.
Way to show spine on behalf of a friend! He liked her a lot back when she was presumably different (except she was probably the same racist person back in 1985, but with a better filter). Barr can be considered someone caught in Trump's trap. She may have thought that if Trump could get away with his blatant racism as president, she could do it too. Then she found out that she couldn't. Somerby blames the liberals who objected, not Barr, who he liked a whole lot.
Bill Maher is being given a second discussion format show on CNN too. That makes me wonder if Somerby will see a revival himself on these right wing comedy programs. Even the hope of such a thing (realistic or not) may be a motive for his shilling. Or maybe he just likes these right wing comics a whole lot.
Note that an actual liberal would be made sick to their stomach by the garbage mouths of these racist and sexist comics, including Maher and Barr. But not Somerby, who likes these guys a lot, he says repeatedly.
If Somerby were a liberal, this is what he might write. If you read this, try going back and reading Somerby's post and note the differences between the two.
ReplyDelete"You are here: Home / Crime and Punishment / If Not for Stopping Evil, Then What?
If Not for Stopping Evil, Then What?
January 31, 2023 at 10:08 am EST By Taegan Goddard 12 Comments
I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video of Tyre Nichols being bludgeoned to near death by Memphis police officers.
I have a very high tolerance for terrible news, but the description of the beating alone was enough to break me. Knowing that Nichols later died from his injuries was just too much.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) spoke for nearly everyone when he said on Meet the Press it was “just difficult to watch.”
He added: “What strikes me is just the lack of respect for human life… You know, they, this man was handcuffed. They continue to beat him.”
But then Jordan said something that struck me as just terribly wrong: “I don’t know that there’s any law that can stop that evil that we saw.”
If there’s any use for government at all, shouldn’t it be to stop behavior that everyone agrees is wrong? Shouldn’t we at least try?
Martin Luther King Jr. said it best in 1967: “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”