Christine Blasey Ford accuses Brett Kavanaugh of trying to rape her during a party while they were in prep school. The political stakes are high: if Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote fails in the Senate and Democrats win the body back in November, conservatives will watch their dream of a solidly reliable 5-4 majority go up in smoke.
What makes the research psychologist’s charge culturally interesting — why people can’t talk about much else this week — are its many layers of debatability.
Is it right to derail a man’s career, or anyone’s anything, over a charge that can’t be verified? Is “innocent until proven guilty” still a thing?
Assuming Ford is truthful (and no new victims of Kavanaugh’s alleged piggery step forward), is a single disgraceful act by a 17-year-old (she was 15) a dealbreaker? 17-year-olds are more aggressive and impulsive than adults. It’s not their fault. It’s their brains’. Out-of-control teens don’t necessarily become crazy adults. That’s why we have a separate justice system for children. On the other hand, most of the people I knew as kids haven’t changed that much.
If Kavanaugh’s school buddy hadn’t busted up the scene, would he have raped Ford? Maybe, maybe not. But what she alleges, pinning her down and covering her mouth, would be unlawful restraint — a serious criminal offense.
I don’t know what happened. If this were a jury instructed to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, I’d have to let Kavanaugh walk.
My gut tells me Ford is telling the truth. She told her own shrink in 2012. She passed a polygraph. Her account describes an encounter that, though terrifying, could have gone worse. If she wanted to destroy Kavanaugh’s bid for the high court, she could claim that he’d raped her. Kavanaugh was a prep boy. He’s still a douche. Ford’s description sounds like vintage late-1970s/early-1980s douchbaggery. Douches gonna douche.
Again, I don’t know.
But here’s the thing: we can’t know. He said-she said is a cliché for a reason. This took place, or didn’t, in an age before smartphones and security cameras. People had privacy. Which they sometimes abused.
Republicans want the he and the she to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 24th. Anita Hill 2.0! Ford’s lawyer says that’s too soon because her client wouldn’t have enough time to prepare. For what it’s worth, Ford’s lawyer is right; Kavanaugh had months to prepare for his cakewalk; she deserves the same before getting grilled.
If and when America gets its spectacle — Monday, Monday, Monday! Ford vs. Kavanaugh! Visit the concession stand! — we will know nothing more than we do today. She says it happened. He says it didn’t. She can’t prove it did. He can’t prove it didn’t.
What’s really on trial here is #MeToo.
Some dude, a pompous, angry “white knight,” tweeted the semi-official motto of #MeToo the other day: “BELIEVE ALL WOMEN! DISCUSSION OVER.” Nice try, but fascism isn’t the law yet. Discussion continues. Discussion will continue for the foreseeable future.
Because this discussion is inherently unresolveable.
It will not be resolved. But it will end.
#MeToo will end with a whimper. Give us a few more Aziz Ansaris and we’ll be too exhausted to continue. Yet #MeToo will have accomplished a lot. Its “Believe All Women” battle cry will be dismissed as the ridiculous attempted overcorrection it obviously is. No one deserves to be believed, not at face value, not without evidence, just because they’re a woman (or a man).
What people need and deserve, accuser and accused alike, is to be respected, taken seriously, and listened to. Pre-#MeToo, too many female accusers were dismissed out of hand, even mocked, frequently disrespected and revictimized. Too many male offenders were believed simply for belonging to the half of the population privileged under patriarchy.
Society needs to arrive at a place where people of underprivileged status are heard as much and as intelligently as those with wealth and power. Well, society really needs to eliminate differences in social and economic status. But until then, equal respect and dignity will have to suffice. #MeToo will help us get there.
In the meantime, we’ll have Ford vs. Kavanaugh.
(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Francis: The People’s Pope.” You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
59 Comments.
Why not just arrest the entire 20th century?
Dude, during one scene in Cheech and Chong’s up in smoke, Cheech is in a car with his passed out drunk ex. He turns to the camera and asks ” What would you do?”
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” The Gang Hits the Slopes revisited those 80’s films and showed how pervy and illegal they would be today.
Spy hole in the girls shower.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-19/fbi-will-not-launch-criminal-probe-kavanaugh-allegations
FBI Will Not Launch Criminal Probe Into Kavanaugh Allegations
““Believe All Women” battle cry”
Except those who accused Clinton.
This issue is more complicated than that thanks to his high-school friend Mark Judge; find his 1997 memoir “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk” – he got blackout drunk constantly at Georgetown Prep. There are lines mentioning a “Bart O’Kavanaugh”:
A girl at a party, wrote Judge, asked him: “Do you know Bart O’Kavanaugh? I heard he puked in someone’s car the other night.” Judge responds: “Yeah he passed out on his way back from a party.”
It’s not just “he said; she said”, it’s also “how drunk were they on the average?” Also “how much of a boozer was Kavanaugh allegedly supposed to be?” It sounds stupid, but that is where we are at because we are too chickenshit to end lifetime Supreme Court appointments.
I guess her Democratic party ties don’t really come up.
Or the fact that even though she didn’t want to go public she conveniently had a polygraph test first.
Polygraphs are not evidence. Google this. It’s on par with astrology.
They’re an indication.
Her lawyer arranged the polygraph test. I suspect the lawyer had her do it to satisfy herself that her client was truthful. Lawyers often want to make sure clients in controversial cases (cough cough) are telling the truth before taking them on.
alex_the_tired
You missed the point.
She somehow had all her ducks in a row BEFORE she states she decided to come forward.
Almost as if it were planned.
“Her lawyer arranged the polygraph test. I suspect the lawyer had her do it to satisfy herself that her client was truthful.”
Yep, Polygraphs work as well as Tarot cards.
https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph.aspx
Most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies.
From 2012
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/25/nsa-whistleblower-reveals-how-to-beat-a-polygraph-test
First, Tice says, a person can trick the tester on “probable-lie” questions. During a polygraph’s pre-test interview, the tester usually asks a person to answer questions they are likely to lie about. These include questions like: ‘Have you ever stolen money?,’ ‘Have you ever lied to your parents?,’ or ‘Have you ever cheated on a test?’. Most people have done these at least once, but lie about it. So the tester uses a person’s response to a likely lie as a way to establish how a person physically reacts while lying.
Tice says to trick the tester, a person should lie in response to these questions like most other people would, but also bite their tongue hard while doing so, which will set off other physiological reactions in the body. The tester’s “needles will fly everywhere,” says Tice, “and he will think, ‘This guy is a nervous nelly. He has a strong physical reaction when he’s lying.'”
“And you’re skewing the test,” he says.
Tice says it’s also easy to beat a polygraph while telling a real lie by daydreaming to calm the nerves.
“Think of a warm summer night… or drinking a beer, whatever calms you. You’re throwing them off,” he says. “The needle might nip a little [because you’re lying], but not off the charts.” And since the person has already convinced the tester that they have off-the-charts physiological reactions while lying, Tice says, a small reaction likely won’t tip the tester off.
The tests have also simply gotten easier, with the questions being less likely to shock an individual. “They use to say things like ‘I bet you have sex with dogs,’ just to initiate a reaction to see how that needle jumps if you’ve been insulted,” Tice says. “[But they] have mellowed down a lot… Polygraphs are easy to beat.”
from 2011
https://www.livescience.com/33512-pass-lie-detector-polygraph.html
How to Pass a Lie Detector Test (Whether You’re Lying or Not)
This speaks for itself
https://antipolygraph.org/articles/article-034.shtml
“How to Beat the Lie Detector” by Chicago attorney William Scott Stewart appeared in the November 1941 issue of Esquire magazine. It might be the earliest article ever published about polygraph countermeasures. More than sixty years later, the author’s criticisms of the polygraph and its use remain highly relevant. In the article text below, page numbers are indicated in curly braces for citation purposes. To discuss this article, see the AntiPolygraph.org message board thread, How to Beat the Lie Detector.
Ted, Sorry. But polygraphs are not even indicative. Check the “requirements” for certification. You can disrupt the “results” with either a thumb tack or a tennis ball. The Green River Killer, IIRC, passed his polygraphs with flying ciolors. As have others. It’s all similar to Freud’s notion of dream analysis: everything means something. If the meaning isn’t obvious, keep associating until you come up with a connection.
Yep. Plus I have a friend who went to Yale at the same time as Kavanaugh. He was not a friend, but he knew this guy was part of DKE fraternity, well-known for its boozing.
You can’t believe all women any more than you can believe all men, but we should definitely be believing many more than we have in the past.
That said, anything that keeps Kavanaugh off the bench is a good thing. I wouldn’t mind having some *real* conservatives on the bench – government absolutely should change slowly. But what we’ve got now aren’t conservatives in the traditional sense, but rather proto-fascist, pro-plutocracy, anti-science, fantasy-reactionaries.
I say ‘fantasy-reactionary’ because the past they would have us return to never existed in the first place.
“You can’t believe all women any more than you can believe all men, but we should definitely be believing many more than we have in the past.”
CrazyH
Are you saying you didn’t believe Andrea Dworkin regarding porn? Or Camellia Paglia regarding the modern Feminists?
You didn’t believe Ayn Rand on anything?
Or Heloise and her version of Feminism way back in the 1100’s.
Or Emma Goldman, or Mary Wolstoncraft?
You never had a chick who read My mother my self?
Sad faux hippy, just sad.
Heloise is easier if you search with Abelard. Interesting couple.
> Are you saying …
No. I didn’t say any of those things.
Once again, I’ll remind you that I’m perfectly happy to debate anything I do say – but I feel no obligation to defend whatever nonsense you pull out of your ass.
CrazyH
So female thought is nonsense?
I bet you said that because you have no clue who those women are nor what they stood for.
And you attempted to be cool by using “debate” along with “nonsense”.
You should write commercials.
:: eh-hem ::
“but we should definitely be believing many more than we have in the past.””
Your line. I listed women who were not listened too.
Women you have no clue as to who they were nor what they said.
I went all the way back to the 1100’s to cite the roots of feminist thoughts.
Fuck I didn’t even list Hypatia.
And Dworkin was reamed for her opinions on pornograpjy despite being proven correct. Paglia’s observations on modern feminism are true as well.
Worst part is you didn’t even bother to use Wikipedia to comprehend the depth of their thoughts and actions and the sadness of their lives.
PTOOEEY!
@EvilDumCluck
Did you even read the f’n article? Did you notice the part in ALL CAPS???
“BELIEVE ALL WOMEN! DISCUSSION OVER.”
Now read this line again:
“You can’t believe all women any more than you can believe all men, ”
If you put on your thinking cap, maybe you can see some sort of relationship between the two. If you try really, really, hard maybe you can even come up with some sort of relevant reply to that relationship.
Otherwise:
Once again, I’ll remind you that I’m perfectly happy to debate anything I do say – but I feel no obligation to defend whatever nonsense you pull out of your ass.
It’s refreshing to hear such a concise summary – and indeed much improved craftsmanship compared to a certain blog post 😉
I disagree with the assessment that #MeToo is going to go out on a whimper – anymore than the civil rights movement ever truly went away.
There is a deeper twin-injustice behind #MeToo: 1) employers (masters?) have enormous power over potential and actual subordinates quite typically resulting in a relationship with heavy undertones of sado-masochism (as pointed out by David Graeber). 2) Sexual violence is still not treated anywhere close to cases of similar bodily violence without an obvious sexual angle (apart from the control aspect) which are now frowned upon. Had Cosby gotten his kicks by hitting people for no apparent reason – American psycho style – this wouldn’t have taken decades.
These two injustices are not going away anytime soon and are continuing to produce some sick shit.
#MeToo merely serves as a band-aid and predominantly gets applied to homo celibratus, a distinct sub-species that lives according to very different legal standards, with enormous salaries and respect traded for essentially complete lack of privacy. I think it is ultimately due to this lack of privacy that the Weinsteins and Cosbys are finally getting what is coming to them. Infatuation with celebs and gossip is not going away either… should accusers get it demonstrably wrong this will not end the circus either…
“I disagree with the assessment that #MeToo is going to go out on a whimper – anymore than the civil rights movement ever truly went away.”
There is no fucking way you can compare Black Lives Matter with groups like the Black Panthers who actually ran classrooms for children and fed the poor.
Who you got for civil rights? Sharpton, known FBI informant? Jesse Jackson and his thief of a son?
Who you have sitting on the Hispanic side? Not a single name comes to mind.
What happens is the true believers get tossed out of any movement while the ones who can capitalize on the group take control. They have sycophants as followers and NEVER ask questions.
#METOO is basically done right now.
So is Civil Rights.
What is left has a confused mish-mash of politics and social agenda. Not a single clear message in sight.
I am honestly not sure what you are responding to – I didn’t compare BLM in 2018 with civil rights in 1968, etc.
Big picture characterizations of the civil rights movement typically focus on the struggle to attain equal rights for “Negro” workers as they called themselves back in the day: To be able to take part in public life (i.e. get served in restaurants, ride buses), and crucially to be able to get their dues from the social safety net known as the New Deal same as white workers. Therefore I think you are downplaying the successes of this movement by taking for granted that a racialized person can actually participate in economic life notwithstanding still rife discrimination.
There is a tie-in to the present discussion – what you somewhat crudely call the “emasculation of the American male” (by which I believe you are referring to younger white males including yourself). A case can be made that the elites, after being forced to extend the New Deal to minorities after the Civil Rights movement instead proceeded to incrementally shred the New Deal programs resulting in the precarization – now also of white males – which defines the experience of our generation. Racism and sexism ultimately played into their hands, making it harder to organize collectively to chart a different future.
andreas5
Obviously your “big picture” is only colored Black.
Forgot about these
“The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian advocacy group in the United States, founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[1] AIM was initially formed to address American Indian sovereignty, treaty issues, spirituality, and leadership, while simultaneously addressing incidents of police harassment and racism against Native Americans forced to move away from reservations and tribal culture by the Indian Termination Policies. AIM’s paramount objective is to create “real economic independence for the Indians”
“Cesar Chavez (born César Estrada Chávez,[1] locally [ˈsesaɾ esˈtɾaða ˈtʃaβes]; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers union, UFW) in 1962.[2] Originally a Mexican American farm worker, Chavez became the best known Latino American civil rights activist, and was strongly promoted by the American labor movement, which was eager to enroll Hispanic members. His public-relations approach to unionism and aggressive but nonviolent tactics made the farm workers’ struggle a moral cause with nationwide support. By the late 1970s, his tactics had forced growers to recognize the UFW as the bargaining agent for 50,000 field workers in California and Florida. ”
Being far older and wiser than you I lived through these bits of History.
And my civil rights pallete has more than one color.
I fully understand you have chosen to be a Sheldon, you enjoy the need to ENDLESSLY discuss your FEELINGS and SELF WORTH.
I’m certain you don’t notice how males have become portrayed as weak and incompetent in American media. How American women are portrayed as more “masculine” than females of other nations.
It is ok for you to be the “bitch” of your family, the Zeta dog, bottom if that is your inclination.
No need for me to go on, we all know which side of the semi-fake-hip-intellectual in touch with his youthful emotions you fall on.
But see what you miss is every woman dreams of buff real men, those are the guys they usually get caught banging. I guess that why “Cuck” is almost as popular as “soyboy”.
To end it your knowledge of the Civil Rights movement, which included women as well as Red and Brown people, is atrocious. You then attempt to use some specious argument even Henri would not try to clarify a point which does not exist.
Finally you fall back on the old young un’s cliche.
Because you know deep in your Big Bang Theory sized emasculated ego I was right.
There is no modern civil rights movement.
BLM can never compare to people like Huey Newton or Bobby Seale. Seale was duct taped to a chair during court to shut him the fuck up.
And they shot and beat people of all colors and races, oh I forgot the Gay Rights movement started about then Stonewall riots kick-started it. Makes my pallete a rainbow, unlike your monotone.
Next time you choose to spread that simplistic bullshit you passed as intellectuality share it with those more ignorant than yourself.
Then you can be admired as Sheldon is.
Because I’m older and wiser than you I have absorbed far m ore knowledge and information.
I may not be clear and concise, but then it is a murky world of facts and they are very complex. That complexity can not be simplified.
But hey you can Tweet about this to your Leonardesque peers.
Bored now and these old eyes are making typing mistakes.
Nut up Snowflake.
MeToo, I strongly suspect, will go out with a whimper. Three reasons:
1. I’m not aware of any national boycott they are organizing to demonstrate the economic damage they can wield. (So no one’s going to listen. They will chalk up Weinstein, Spacey, etc., as the cost of doing business.)
2. As with Occupy Wall Street, MeToo doesn’t seem to have any functional leadership that is, you know, actually leading.I see no indications of any actual strategy, timeline, or true organizational hierarchy. They own a car, but they haven’t planned a road trip. (See point 1.)
3. Take a look at Richard Gere’s career. He got blackballed from the studios when he started sticking up for Tibet because China (a huge revenue source for the film industry) wasn’t pleased about that.
My suspicion is that due to MeToo’s inability to capitalize on momentum, the movement will stall soon. A lot of rank-and-file actresses will discover that they aren’t getting callbacks. Most of the men (as well as some of the women) in power will compile a list comprising MeToo member names. If you’re on that list you might as well burn your SAG-AFTRA card because it will become economically too risky to use you: what if there is an “incident” that a non-MeToo actress would simply have shrugged off? What if you object to a scene?
Oh, the industry will continue to support MeToo. The press releases will be the same formulaic horseshit we’ve all seen before in a thousand industries. MeToo will be kept in our thoughts and prayers, but we’ll still see women on the screen wearing thongs and high heels and lots and lots of bare breasts. “Hollywood celebrates the woman as powerful” will be the headline. As long as she brings in the coin and keeps her tits looking great will be what’s muttered by most of the execs.
The #MeToo movement needs to make a preemptive first strike against the Kavanaugh confirmation BEFORE he is confirmed. A failure to act now is to confirm that the movement is finished and women have lost this battle in the class war with no option remaining but to submit.
This country is not a democracy.
But if women can come out en masse now and protest, and act AS IF this IS a democracy there are more upside possibilities yet remaining.
Women are now in a class war, whether they recognize it or not, and the first casualty of war is the truth.
The capitalist class warriors now making the case against women’s rights are using tactical lies just as they were used in pushing the WMD lies in support of the war against Iraq.
The powerful would have you believe that the pendulum is due to swing back away from repression.
This is a bad metaphor.
The better metaphor is that the women’s movement is a Tug-of-war and the side that rests, as if waiting for a pendulum to swing, will be pulled into and be mired in the mud.
Don’t be seduced by the wrong metaphor, Or by the likes of Kavanaugh and his supporters.
As a female the same age as Kavanaugh, I did attend plenty of drunken parties that same time period. Is everyone afraid to admit they went to these parties? And then we look back then, it was a “normal” activity for kids to do as a rite of passage. Thankfully, no one attempted to rape me, but there is no doubt this did happen in these situations. As far as Kavanaugh not remembering, well, duh, he was drunk. And then we have his friend Judge who wrote a whole book about his alcoholic younger years.
In the Stanford rape case that made headlines, both were drunk, and I believe this is partly why Turner did not serve a harsh prison sentence.
And as far as Kavanaugh, I will quote the immortal Dead Kennedys song “Too Drunk to F*^%^”.
No on
I recall places where you had to be VERY careful. A passed out woman would pull a train.
Not too pretty.
Frats, private parties, parties with dope dealers all were danger zones.
At the same time some women loved the risk. I knew a few personally, would place themselves in the middle of potentially horrifying situations just for kicks.
There are male and female risk-takers for sure. I know we all should claim our sexuality, but I would venture to say many young men and women use alcohol to remove their inhibitions which leads to risky situations coupled with poor decision making from the fog of alcohol. If people want to be sexually liberated, they need to understand what that means, and from what I can see(since my younger years in the 1980s) I don’t think people have evolved to conscious sexual activity which leads to many problems we all know about. Heck, I don’t even think most adults have a fully responsible and conscious sexual life. My 2 cents.
Mobilize Now!
The nomination of Kavanaugh is just the latest step in patriarchy’s war against women.
The biggest war crime is the crime of innocent citizens losing their life. The biggest crime for women will be to fail to mobilize now against the sexist violence about to be done to you and your rights in the name of the law.
Women will die as a consequence of the abolition of legal abortion.
The “sport” of boxing, like politics, is based on lying about how injured you are, about how tired you are, about the advantage you have over your opponent, etc. You must psych your opponent to gain every advantage.
Neither of the two parties is above lying to get their way. I wish the world was different, but it’s not. I wish there was a way to win this war without expressing certainty where there may yet be doubt, but the truth is the first casualty of war, and will continue to be followed by further casualties if not resisted as if it is the real threat that it is.
Express anything but certainty about the consequences of letting the Trump nomination of Kavanaugh go to fruition, and women will die by the thousands. Pretend with all your might that this country is a democracy and that the rights of the 51% matters, even if you think democracy here is a lie.
Kavanaugh will try again to silence every woman’s voice while violating her, if not in bed then in the court of law.
Kavanaugh is the Class Enemy of women. Fight his class or you will succumb to his class. Women must conclude that Kavanaugh is guilty of rape without complete evidence. This is not a trial that cultivates the pretense of fairness. This is not the time for “innocent until proven guilty”. This is a war, a fight for a real freedom and a fight for life over death.
If there has ever been a time for expressing certainty in its absence, it is now. To be a slave to reasoned balanced truth is to become a slave to the sexist patriarchy that supports the abolition of abortion and has no respect for truth.
“The nomination of Kavanaugh is just the latest step in patriarchy’s war against women. ”
Glenn, that is us.
I’ve watched the emasculation of the American male and it is horrifying.
Imagine all men as those on Big Bang Theory.
Only the Jewish guy owns a home and he inherited that from his mother.
They make massive salaries as tenured professors who do very little actual teaching. Their wives make good bucks.
Yet they live like college students.
And they whine continually.
You want to be those guys?
Would you rather be Lee Van Cleef? or Dolph Lundgren?
Well Sheldon?
The choices are too binary. If I’m in a gunfight? I want to be Clint Eastwood. If I need to write a computer program? I want to be Sheldon. If I want to be a hypocritical draft dodger, I’d be John Wayne, Dubya, Pres. Cheney, Ronald Reagan, etc.
If I need to replace my carberatur? I want to be Cooter from “Dukes of Hazzard.” If I want to know how to spell carburetor without having to look it up, I want to be E.B. White. If I want to be, literally, the absolute worst man in the whole wide world, I’d want to be Mark Zuckerberg.
And so on.
alex_the_tired
How wrong can you be.
Sheldon is a THEORETICAL physicist, he would not code. Most likely only Howard could code, but he is an engineer so doubtful.
Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard would have some else code for them. First three would most likely be students. Not sure if Howard teaches or not.
Glenn Ford was a real trick shot before he was an actor. So Ford not Eastwood.
Any damn fool can replace a carburetor. I may actually give that one because I have never worked on newer, post 90’s cars.
Dolph Lundgren was not only a real martial artist, who actually was considered the deadliest man in the world for ranking number one in Kyokushin tournaments. Very badass Karate, But he is also an Engineer.
Problem with your list is at one point every man would have known how to do the majority on the list..
I have an uncle who can do all those things and another who could do all but code.
One man wearing all those hats.
Either you are a complete idiot, Glick.
Or you are a right-wing robot plant working to disrupt discussion.
@glenn –
EvilDumCluck is a troll in the traditional sense, she’s not actually trying to discuss anything, she just wants to evoke strong reactions.
If we all shunned her, she’d go find someone else to bother. Unfortunately, that takes 100% participation to work.
I do commend your attempts to housebreak her, even as I doubt they will accomplish anything.
@CH
An anti-Turing test… Hmmm.
It just clicked with me now.
Your suggestion has real real-time currency.
I’m going to have to look into it.
Thanks
Glick, c’mon man, you can do better than nitpicking. My fundamental point was completely ignored by you. If I want that sort of candyass evasive cowardice I can read the Times..
Good analogy, Alex.
Your argument is above Glick’s comprehension.
You are not an expert on Sheldon and neither am I.
Glick is a fool who tries to understand the world through corporate produced pop culture.
Glenn, alex_the_tired, CrazyH
I can see how after giving each of you the red ass at some point you would choose to gang up.
But to use the most infantile sad insults just proves my contentions regarding you three.
You all forgot to call me a Nazi or a Russian bot.
I’m more of a Hank Stamper.
I doubt any of you know who that was either.
It is pitiful how the semi-fake-hip-intellectual Sheldons of the world want to rule whilst under the pretense of deep thought.
Maybe in your artisanal gluten free craft beer bars, I bet your hair pitted and legged partners frequently give you the tolerant eye, whilst pondering what the buff construction guy would be like to ride.
Nut up snowflakes, for now, your Ken doll world is the hipster Hollywood driven norm.
Unfortunately, that is all about to come to an end.
Enjoy those soy milk Latte’s while you can the tide is going out and it’s taking your ilk with it.
Take off the capri pants and toss on some nice Carharts, cause just like fake news fake people pretending to be fake intellectuals, oh fuck it the world is sick of frauds like you.
Me I care more what the Indian Amazon call person thinks of me, she is the one who can refund my money.
@EvilDumCluck
Thank you for illustrating my point so well.
@Alex / Glenn / All – shall we shun this shithead?
As I said, it takes 100% participation, 100% of the time, else it doesn’t work. Usually, I’m against such tactics – I’d support keeping the Unamerican Stupidizer on board simply because he makes an honest effort (even tho he’s a shithead as well)
But this one is a waste of bandwidth. I wouldn’t be surprised if it picks up leftie talking points to post on rightie sites just to stir up trouble. I think we can stir up enough trouble on our own, we don’t need this pathetic loser’s assistance.
Whilst you three wankers put on your onesies and hug your snuggle pillows in the safe space I thought I’d share one of my favorite poems.
Danse Russe
William Carlos Williams, 1883 – 1963
If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
Oh, man, this is just too good to pass up…
(technically, I’m still waiting for responses on shunning. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
> I am lonely, lonely,
I am not surprised, not surprised
> If I admire my … buttocks
Then your head is in an optimal position to do so.
> Who shall say I am not the happy genius
Your posts.
@CH
I am willing to refrain from responding to EvilDumCluck but I’m not sure this is a real person and not a robot.
It seems to almost, but not quite, be able to pass the Turing Test.
But if it is human with graphomania, any response even a coordinated one to ignore it, is likely to gratify it.
I am going to assume it’s a robot and stop looking for anything human in it. I’ve lost curiosity in it, and since ignoring it is what I’d do in either case, I’m in with the shun.
Graphomania (from Ancient Greek: γρᾰ́φειν, gráphein, lit. ’to write’;[1] and μᾰνῐ́ᾱ, maníā, lit. ’madness, frenzy’),[2] also known as scribomania, refers to an obsessive impulse to write.[3][4] When used in a specific psychiatric context, it labels a morbid mental condition which results in writing rambling and confused statements, often degenerating into a meaningless succession of words or even nonsense and called then graphorrhea[5] (cf. hypergraphia). The term ‘graphomania’ was used in the early 19th century by Esquirol and later by Eugen Bleuler, becoming more or less common.[6] Graphomania is related to typomania, which is obsessiveness with seeing one’s name in publication or with writing for being published, excessive symbolism or typology.[7]
“@EvilDumCluck
Thank you for illustrating my point so well.
@Alex / Glenn / All – shall we shun this shithead? “
@Glenn –
You’re an SF fan if I’m not mistaken … ever read the WWW Trilogy by Robt. Sawyer? (recommended if not)
One character needs to devise an anti-Turing test. How can one determine that the subject is a computer rather than a human pretending to be a computer?
@CH
“WWW Trilogy by Robt. Sawyer”
No, I haven’t read any of these, but they do look interesting.
My favorite SF is “Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur C. Clarke. Interesting because it seems that an “encounter” with an alien culture might happen this way without a real encounter ever happening. I skipped the sequels because the first was so neat and clean with its beginning and ending that an addition to it could only subtract from it.
But a close second is “The Fear Index” by Robert Harris. Scary because it seems like its AI manipulation of human greed seems almost possible now.
@Alex / Glenn / All – shall we shun this shithead? “
I think this is entirely out of our hands 😉
1) We post a comment on Ted’s writing;
2) EWG engages in quite creative exercise in associative thinking that likely never crossed the mind of the author;
3) EWG then composes an impressive screed railing against his* own creative interpretation;
4) EWG does not stop there and takes up new tangents, sometimes sounding like an acolyte of Malcolm X, sometimes like one of Donald Trump;
5)Mayhem ensues 😉
One has to admire the ingenuity, agility, and sheer effort expended. We are blessed that such a self-declared wise and experienced man* invests so much of himself* into this forum to the point of running it practically by himself* now.
* somehow I am very sure he is a he 😉
When/if Glick makes sense, I reserve the right to respond. So I suspect I’ll be in on the boycott for the foreseeable future.
It is a thin line I walk here as the resident censor. I want vigorous dialogue but Glick has a tendency to run on and on. I hope he stays here but that he can focus more.
@Glenn – R with R is absolutely Clarke at his best (not that I think he had a ‘worst’)
The sequels – meh, not so much, but they do contain one of my favorites quotes, which I dub, “Benford’s Corollary”
“Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced”
@ Andrea
“One has to admire the ingenuity, agility, and sheer effort expended.”
Unless the connections we see between items he(-it) posts are made by the reader, something that each of us who has responded to him(-it) has done. ( it, since I now lean toward it being a robot, or a robot w/human assist)
The “ingenuity, agility, and sheer effort expended” can be a reflection of our own inadvertently humanizing of him(-it) in our attempts to understand an inverted reification, a thing made “human”.
@Ted – I really appreciate your approach towards free speech, and wouldn’t change it for the world.
Without naming names, some posters abuse that privilege by spamming the comments to the point where you can’t find anyone else’s posts. Me no like, but I wouldn’t begin to suggest you ban anyone simply for being a dick. (This crowd? Ha! You wouldn’t have anyone left posting – my humble self excepted, of course. 😉 )
I’ve been housebreaking newbs since the first Bush admin. “Don’t feed the troll” works quite well for most true trolls. (those posing just to get a rise out of people – if people don’t rise, they’ll go find someone who will.)
But it also works when they truly want to participate in the discussion. They’ll eventually learn to mind their manners if they want anyone to talk to them.
Rall, I saw you a LONG time ago on Bill Maher. Were you never invited back?
I’ll assume the same for Aaron McGruder.
I appeared a number of times but have not been invited back.
It has been reported that Kavanaugh and Obumma’s “nominee” Merrick Garland voted together 93% of the time.
Attempted live link here: Link
If not use: tinyurl.com/ybdmlseu
The capitalist parties have the same interests and the same funders.
Either party would be acting against it’s own financial interest to ignore those who finance their propagandistic campaigns.
These parties do not act in the interest of citizens who vote for them, but in there own interest.
To Glenn,
Please don’t assume I passed this along (FWIW) because I was surprised/confused.
Rather it was intended as an opportunity/motive/excuse, for those who otherwise might think it impossible, to look away from the last installment of infantile US politics … before the BIG one starts after the midterms:
The 2-year tour of the 2020 US presidential circus.
> The 2-year tour of the 2020 US presidential circus.
Which I expect to be even more entertaining than the last circus. (We’re gettin’ screwed either way – might as well enjoy the show)
@falco
Please don’t take my response to you as an attempt to be insrtuctive.
I just wanted to indicate to you that I’m thinking along the same lines as you.
@CH, @falco
“> The 2-year tour of the 2020 US presidential circus.
Which I expect to be even more entertaining than the last circus. (We’re gettin’ screwed either way – might as well enjoy the show)”
Those of us who were witnesses to the unruly and revolutionary impulses acted upon in the sixties will remember that the democratic (small d variety) unrest came from those unencumbered by and unaffiliated with the two major parties.
The assholes in charge will not be enjoying the show if things go that way again, as now seems more and more likely.