Al Franken is Gone, Sexual Harassment Allegations are Harming Democrats

From an email by one of our gubernatorial candidates:

"Yesterday Senator Al Franken announced in a speech that he will resign his Senate seat. He still denies allegations of sexual harassment and was ready to fully cooperate with a Senate ethics investigation, but that will not happen now. Despite testimonials and support from many women who worked with him and know him well, many of his Senate colleagues decided to call for his resignation.

The national catharsis over pent-up reports of assault or harassment is good if it brings some abusers to justice, stops future abuse, and makes the world safer and fairer—especially for women and girls. It should also force an examination of how tough it is for victims to come forward and why they too often do not. But like all moments of catharsis, it has the potential to go too far.

Even as we encourage victims to come forward, we must not treat all transgressions the same. We should be able to distinguish between childishly inappropriate behavior, abuse of a position of authority, and predatory acts.

The credible allegations against Franken are much less serious than those against Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Roy Moore, or Clarence Thomas. That’s why I did not call on Al Franken to resign, why I put my name on a letter of support for him, and why I am disappointed and angry at seeing him forced out by his Democratic Senate colleagues. It’s not because he’s a friend (he isn’t) or because he gives me campaign funds (a small amount, a long time ago) or because I think no one else could do the job (of course they can).

I’m disappointed in Democrats who called for Franken’s resignation without letting the Senate ethics investigation play out. Franken and his Minnesota constituents deserved to have the Ethics Committee do its work. We have a Republican president who bragged about sexually assaulting women and has been accused of far more than Franken. Alabama may soon elect a Republican senator—with the support of the Republican National Committee—who many believe has molested children. We did not need to push Franken out to show that Democrats have the “moral high ground” and are “for women.”

We are champions for women when we fight for decent wages, fairness on the job, health care, reproductive rights, and retirement with dignity. We are on moral high ground when we hold the powerful accountable just like the weak, and insist that due process be given to all." --- Tina Liebling

So yeah, she got my vote.

 

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[#rapeculture]​

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The momonga says: Click because okay then.​

Apparently so:

¿Bisexual men?

This much I know: You're welcome to take all the time you want explaining to heterosexual men the part about not making sexual advances on women.

I'll be ... uh ... over there, trying to take the subject seriously.

 

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Exactly. That's what you shift and pretend is different, with each new Fox-question. It works like a "Gish Gallop" - continually changing the subject and context.
It's dishonest, fundamentally in bad faith.

That's not true.
I accurately represented it, and responded directly - both responses were direct, and fairly dealt with the ugly you posted, in its context.
The context? - You tried to pretend I was claiming women friends or allies, to absolve myself of misogyny or something, the way some racist will point to their (nonexistent) "black friends". That was dishonest, and it was slander. You knew very well that I was posting counterexamples to your several bogus claims about Democrats and women you don't know. (Claims which you, not me, use as providing authority for yourself).

Falsehood - "thirdly" ( in case you hadn't posted one yet?)

That's not true.
And that was the third sentence since the previous falsehood.
When I first made that claim, I hadn't actually counted - it was just an intuitive feel. But damn - - -

No, you don't.
For example:

That's not true.

That's dishonest.
(Here's the context you pretend isn't there: As has been clear for many pages, regarding the accounts, both explicitly and by presumption in all my posting, I believe all of some of them, some of all of them, and take into account Partisan bias and intention when it's obviously a factor (in the pattern of errors or calculated innuendo in the rhetoric, or the coaching and media manipulation in the presentation, say). Whether you regard that kind of assessment as justified or not, pretending it isn't there is dishonest).

That's not true.

And so forth.

Higher moral ground, sure. If Conyers had resigned and Franken announced well-orchestrated retirement, higher yet. But then they've had that for decades.
The Dems have the higher moral ground sewed up. They've had it since the Republican Party got bit by Nixon and started becoming an army of orcs in the moonlight. Your point?

The Dems have been saying that since 1976.
If you say it three times, spin around, and click your heels, it still won't come true.
Granted, the Reps haven't got anybody at the moment - but this time last time they didn't have anybody either. What they had prepared in advance was organized voter suppression, media domination, gerrymandering rampant, vote counting manipulations, and the deepest pockets on the planet.

The Dems have been fielding that kind of candidate since WWII. Clinton was just the latest one.

That's dishonest. You are lying about my post, with those questions.

Too late (and wrong, partly). You didn't respectfully disagree - you dismissed their opinions and concerns as products of oppression, defenses of the status quo, women doing what was "expected of them". You did that by presumption, without any idea who they were or why they thought as they did. That's not "disagreement", and it's the near polar opposite of respect.

And that's a major problem faced by the Democrats - the Party has an entire faction of people producing shit like this in public as if it were high level reasoning, as if it were legitimate opinion:

They think it's more complicated than that. Also, they think this is childishly naive:

1) Just oozes with respect, don't it? All that respect for women's desperate clinging, partisanship, need for a status quo - women who are smarter than you are, better educated, less Partisan, more radical politically, economically at least as independent, older and younger and just as widely experienced in life, and much better locally informed - - - - you "respectfully" disagree with the stereotypical bs opinions you have assigned to them.

You keep trying to pretend there's an issue in my posts with who I, you, or anyone, "believe". That is dishonest of you.
It is also confused. I doubt you "believe", for example, Tweeden's factual errors. There's no reason you would - they are not essential to your thesis or hers, they don't matter much to you. But you will battle to the dirt to keep them from being edited out of the narrative, because that would be not "believing" Tweeden. Make sense? No. But that's the way it is.

 

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Oh I do, it is called MGTOW, it has a growing following. Thanks to modern technology more and more men are finding alternatives to the ever more dangerous and archaic game of propositioning women, from tinder to porn to video games to sex toys. These provide sexual outlets that are safer for men, and for women. In an ideal future: men will outlet all their sexual advances on to sex bots, bots who will never accuse them of anything, bots whose love is real and not simply a cover to utilizing a man's wallet or his heart as a play toy.

Hey look he likes anime stills too!

 

I don't know, nor do I think I qualified to determine if Franken commited such heinous crimes, I think a court of law or a senate ethic committee or impeachment proceedings would need to determine that, that goes for Roy and Trump as well.

No. They should not only not be in the senate/congress they should be imprisoned or even castrated so as to inhibit their sexual urges that they clearly can't control. That is why we need a court of law to apply real punishment to these people rather then let a court of public opinion tar and feather them or worse protect and glorify them because of political bias.

Again if any member of government could be removed from power by mere allegations and a social media warlock hunt, then we on the left stand to lose, because we lack the loyalty to defend our own while the right will defend a pig boar of a man who openly claims he molested women with impunity. It all comes down to enough public opinion, how popular someone is, and that pig boar has enough of a loyal base to protect and elect him, while franken does not.

So the choice is simple: we either demand due process for all, or we destroy our own in a warlock hunt while the right remain immune.

 

#rapeculture | #wannabe​

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Click to go your own way.​

Yeah, we know mgtow.

Thanks for playing.

Look, I'm just going to take you seriously as if that wasn't an inadvisable course.

So, you say something about a larger situation. Then your point is addressed. So you change the subject. And now we will attempt a pretense of taking this contemptibly contemptuous rhetorical clodhopping seriously.

Mgtow is as mgtow does, and these men are worth a laugh at least until they become dangerous, except being dangerous seems to be what they want. Like the dude in the picture: He's counterprotesting a protest against misogyny, which sounds pretty much like an embittered identity masculinist and not some man who has decided to "go his own way".

So, no, really, if we're talking about sexual harassment and women, stay on topic.

If we're talking about an angry closet brigade, go start a thread about them.

Okay. Let's put Franken on trial for harassment. Let's put Conyers on trial for harassment. Let's bust the conspiracy of enforced silence that allowed ... er ... huh? Oh, law says? So that is due process? Until we change the law?

Okay, let's change the law. What's that? We're going to sit around and listen to men blubber about what's wrong with women? Of course we are; that's what we always do, and if we don't they threaten to go their own way, and the thing about these whining liars is that they never do.

So let us be clear about mgtows: If they were smart enough to go their own way, they would do that instead of wasting their time being mgtows.

No, really, if they go their own way that is what it is. But it also seems, whenever I come across it, as if mgtows want to be seen being mgtows. And, well, it's always an interesting result, to say the least. As with many things, it takes a while to get accustomed to the spectacle of mgtow identity evangelizing, but such is the problem with prejudice; if we look past the spectacle we see the paucity of the name; they're not going their own way when what they really want is a relationship with others by which they are seen going their own way.

Symbolically, at least, there always appears some manner of lesson, such as how they view human relationships: They will do; we shall witness; they are fulfilled; and that's all anyone else is actually for in that behavioral relationship. It is not clear how to get along with this identity bloc because its purpose seems to be to fail to get along with others in order to be witnessed denouncing others for failing to get along.

Furthermore, compared to the question of whether anything needs to be so complicated, changing the subject is pretty much what we expect of you, so, you know, whatever. But, look, if the solution to men committing sexual harassment, belligerence, and violence against women is actual chastity, go ahead and explain that to the heterosexual men.

So, yeah, you're on. Go ahead and start a thread and try to explain to heterosexual men that they need to stop seeking sexual contact with women.

How about we men treat women like we would other men? Now I would not make sexual advances on another man, heck I would not even touch another man, ergo I do not make sexual advances on women or touch women. It is really that simply. Look if every man did as I do where would come the sexual violence on women?

―Electric Fetus↑​

I think we both know the danger comes—and comes again—in taking you seriously.

So make the pitch. People will either laugh so hard when they read it, or feel outraged, or perhaps even find certain enlightenment or illumination.

Because, really, if the proposition is that het men shold go mgtow, it is essential that you should establish just how anyone is supposed to take you seriously.

 

But I am being serious, you are merely projecting them as a threat, but not logically thinking it out. The guy in the video has no problem admitting he rather jack of to his anime girls then proposition women for sex, and I'm willing to believe him. He has spoken lovingly of his sex doll collection and has even shown it off to people that ask him why he is not dating and why he has not gotten married yet. So here is the logical question: how is that dangerous to women? if all the "angry closet brigade" go off their own way to jerking off on anime figurines, anime pillows, love dolls, etc, and abstain from any sexual interaction with women, where is the sexual harassment to women going to come from?

This is a solution to sexual harassment to women! Once again if all men redirect their sexual energies away from women, then there would be no men sexually harassing women! Your answer to sexual harassment was a long diatribe that even specifically forbid asking what is sexual harassment, it present no solutions. At best all you did is demand we talk about, ok so here I am talking about it, what the problem? I should I not present solutions in my talking about it?

What changes in the law are needed?

Do you have proof they never do? And also no one listens to men talking about their emotions and weakness, no one wants to hear that shit.

Oh you mean MGHOW, I'm a MGHOW. You mean they should not form a group and simply go their own individual way. Yeah lots of them do that, they are also called "Freemen" but sense they are not interactive or open they are very hard to track.

But that is the whole point, you don't get along with them, they go their own way. And it is not even as far as that, it just a matter of not having sex relationships, at least in my case.

 

MGTOW: 'cuz it works so well for the Catholic Church(?).

 

Ok!

"Dear hetersexual men. Since it is forbidden to even ask what is or is not sexual harassment, says Tiassa, then anything you do could be interpreted as such. Now I know you want to love women and be loved, but it is simply too dangerous. Masturbation, porn, sex toys, can provide sexual release without the risk of harming women, without the risk of rejection, heck they cost much less and are always their for you. Family, Friendships, hobbies, career these can provide you with emotional interactions without fear of harming women, with far less shame and openness, with less judgement and demand. It is 12017 (HE) and the old paradigm of finding a women and having kids and slaving for them until you die, is over, now you need to focus on your self and making your self happy, happiness can only come by separating want from need, you don't need women, and want is where suffering come from."

Ok so where should I post the thread? Philosophy sub-forum?

What danger? It is dangerous to examine other perspectives and philosophies? How can one fight evil without knowing it?

Come on, by now you most know I would enjoy all four?

I would reverse the question: do you have a serious proposition? So far I have seen nothing from you to suggest you seriously want to deal with sexual harassment, when you say:

Short term: Stop harassing; speak out against harassment; stop mitigating harassment; stop making excuses for harassment; stop making demands to define and proscribe harassment.

That can't be a serious statement for it is a logical paradox: how can we stop and speak out against something we can't even define? You can't possible be serious?

when you say:

Middle term: We need particularly responsible public discourse, and, really, if we intend to ask survivors of sex crime to explain it to us one more time, we aren't dragging them through it for nothing. Because what we need right now is to understand the shape, scale, and pathology of the behaviors in order to properly address them. For instance, there is a bit I just don't like to touch, because it drives me nuts; there is a weird masculinist critique of "feminism" that I don't like to bother with unless it comes up, but it is not simply wrong, but also thoroughly sick because, to the first, it's wrongly applied, and to the second, it was actually written by a man. Still, though, what drives me nuts about it is the core idea, the seed of mythopoeia, is not entirely inaccurate. So it grates when I hear a particular organization described, even by feminists I respect, as foremost and leading; on this one point the organization really does have the appearance of conceding the futility of disrupting the genesis of rape culture. To the other, I also get what they're after, but as much as I would like to call it just a rhetorical vagary, I can't actually find the line between where they're at and saying boys will be boys so let's just worry about it when it comes up. Even still, and this is the important part, it's also a matter of splitting hairs in the dark. We're going to be like Harry Dean Stanton staring up at the alien, for a while. When will this beast stop standing up? It's one thing to argue about how to address rape culture, but the one thing we can say about the dimensions of the phenomenon is that its scale exceeds our present comprehension. As the high culture auto-da-fé plays out, the most useful thing we can do is learn everything we can about the dimensions and patterns of these behaviors ...

Everything after the first sentence is complete drivel! I have no fucking clue what you are getting at... you can't be serious.

When you say:

Long term: ... because the longer view is to figure out how to break sexual violence. No, really. Full stop.

yeah no shit! HOW DO WE DO THAT? You have literally done underpants gnomes logic!

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Your three terms correlate with underpants gnome logic so well that it has to be a joke, you can't be serious.

I on the other hand I am serious. You are already aware of mgtow, there are growing number of men that are forgoing sexual relationships with women, this is not an unserious impossibility: as technology provide better and better alternatives to women fewer and fewer men will go after (and harass) the real thing. I personally have not had sex in 5 years and jerk off to porn (yes some of it is gay fury porn, but most of it is just drawn heterosexual bestiality), I do not date anymore, I do not proposition women, I do not accept propositions, I do not touch women, and I see no reason why if my behaviors were not implemented in mass it would not be a solution to sexual harassment of women. Seriously

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The catholic church does not have porn, love dolls, occulus rift/vive, etc, and we all know many of them joined the church to because of how ashamed they were with there, lets say "off norm" sexual desires. In short the catholic church did not make pedophiles, rather it attracts pedophiles, and provides a place where they have moral cover to diddle little boys. MGTOW is not an organization or a place, it a very lose term for men that believe marriage is a bad joke, and sexual relationships with women is more dangerous then it is worth. While the clergy of the church believe in repressing all sexuality in it members, MGTOW generally believe in open expression of sexuality, so long as it is not on an actual human female. Any facsimile of a women is allowed, heck sex on tinder and with prostitutes (if legal) is acceptable to most, in fact the only thing mgtow agree on in total is "no marriage" everything else there is actually considerable disagreement.

 

Re the speaking women:

You disrespect, presume, and grant your ignorant and disrespectful presumptions the status of high moral ground and established reality. You lie, you slander, you mistake, you disparage without cause, and you repeat it all in the face of correction - even by very obvious and simple fact.
The question is: why do you do that?
Why did you post this, for example:

That's not true.
I didn't do anything like that. No such "focus" (the exact opposite), no "conspiracy", no "denial", no such "ignoring" (the exact opposite), appears in any post of mine. And you have had that pointed out to you several times now, if you missed it the first two or three.
If you are not avoiding the observations and arguments that do appear, what are you doing?
- - -
Meanwhile, in the litany of lies

No, I didn't.

1) You were lying about my post, with the quoted questions. Your response is a dodge of that issue.
2) The women involved here are smarter than you, better educated, more radically feminist (some of them), and the constituent members of the "feminist circles" you claim as authority. You choose to slander them, disrespect them, and invalidate their reasoning and opinions, rather than listen to them.

No, I don't. That's dishonest.
I specifically and explicitly considered your description of them, presented in lieu of reasoned disagreement, to be ignorant, presumptive, and disrespectful. (It's also a classic ad hominem argument, btw - the term is abused around here, but your posting there is exactly what it labels.)
You still haven't actually disagreed with them, you know - trying to invalidate everything they say by mischaracterizing them and their circumstances doesn't address their arguments and reasoning and stances at all.

Because I'm an adult who can reason.

None.

Some of what was claimed or (especially) suggested, especially in secondhand descriptions of the accounts by others.

Tweeden for sure - and as a professional with resources she would have been a fool not to have been.

1) And again you try to sneak in the claim that I'm not "believing" some woman, entirely. That is dishonest. 2) Because I'm an adult who can reason, everyone errs in memory, and factual errors exist in the accounts.

I'm not.

Although it would be a sound approach, if there were no other information: it's perfectly reasonable to assume that in any Partisan US media propaganda battle since about 1980 the Republicans are actually doing whatever they most stridently accuse others of. That's not always, every single time, exactly true - but it's definitely the way to bet.

Which throws a darker shade on this:

1) Since the Reps took the low road, in 1968, the Dems in their moral superiority have elected three Presidents for five terms - the Reps have elected five Presidents for seven terms and counting.
2) All three elected Dem Presidents since Nixon have been conservative, and increasingly so over time - defined: as or more rightwing and authoritarian and traditional than Dwight Eisenhower.

So that's the context of this:

You won't. You'll beg the central question of your errors and presumptions.

That is dishonest. You are lying about my posts.
But even so, we can ride with your bs and see where it takes us:

Yes.

Yes.
I'm answering you, specifically, right here, remember. Your definitions, your framing, everything you insist on. In a normal situation of reason and analysis and vocabulary the answers would be "Maybe" and "It depends".

When "maybe" and "it depends" are excluded, reason and judgment are excluded. Then money and power decide.

 

Re: porn, etc. I do not think this actually the case. Such may be "frowned upon," but you know how that goes.

And no, the church certainly doesn't "make" pedophiles, but not all the offenders were pedophiles--they raped kids, yeah, but that wasn't necessarily their preference. Opportunity, availability, and also that whole "easy targets who aren't going to complain and aren't going to be taken seriously if they do" were primary factors for many.

(Sorry. Headache. Can't really articulate right now.)

 

yeah it is repressed, sure it still happens, but is still repressed.

Ok so in what scenario would mgtow achieve "easy targets who aren't going to complain and aren't going to be taken seriously if they do"? Oh that right ones of these:

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Oh no someone help that poor lump of cotton!

 

#chortle | #guffaw​

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Click because the boys really need this one.​

Dude, I'm gay. I think you're effing ridiculous. Either deal with yourself or not, but like I said, go ahead and explain it to the heterosexual dudes.

It's okay to admit you're not capable; nobody is. Because you're being effing ridiculous.

So stop trying to waste people's time.

 

Yeah yeah I knew that, was the gay fury porn I post way back not obviously me say "hey we got something in common, sort of"? Anyways do you think there are no hetersexual males reading? Heck every mgtow is a straight male, either they all came up with it themselves or someone told them!

I have many times before, and I just did here on this thread, what more do you want of me? if you want me to post a thread on the topic just name the sub-reddit I should post to!

Anyways I will take the fact you ignored everything else I said as a defeat on your part and an admission of your lack of seriousness.

 

Are you suggesting that we need to condition the Franken's and Trump's of our society to be satisfied with only fantasizing about forcing themselves on women?

 

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No, really... This "discussion" is going nowhere fast. Guess we'd rather point fingers than solve the problem...

 

No no I'm saying we should conditional ALL men to find alternate sources of sexual release then sexual interactions with human females. Instead of fantasizing about forcing themselves on women, just force themselves on waifus instead. Did you know that Japan has a rate of rape 1/27 that of the USA, and over half of their male population between the ages of 18-35 are herbivore men?

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No it is good, pass the popcorn.

 

At the point at which men become commonly habituated to express their sexual desires towards fantasy characters, do we then socially police the propriety of that behavior as well?