Now you're thinking like James O'Keefe. It doesn't work like that.
Al Franken is Gone, Sexual Harassment Allegations are Harming Democrats
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Nonsense. They pretend to represent the working class, when all they really represent is the donor class.
Optimistic hint: There is some indication the wave will get into the powerhouses - one Democrat/media guy at a time, so far, but if it goes much farther the foundation moves: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-morgan-stanley-fires-former-lawmaker-for-misconduct-2017-12
I agree the Republican ass has been hanging out for decades now - but getting anyone to see it has proven to be remarkably difficult.
This is where failing to distinguish the Frankens and Bartons (and Spitzers and Keillors and so forth) from the Moores and Trumps and Ailes's takes you: to a place in which you can't separate predators from jerks, crime from offensiveness, calculation from impulse, fear from disgust, injury from insult; to a place in which reason does not govern.
But that's ok, in the case of Franken's takedown for example, because the people advocating for it are confidant in their empowerment - they are going to be the powerful who govern in place of reason. Franken's resignation is - in their view - an accomplishment of their empowerment, and a step of progress toward their goal of dismantling oppression and empowering the formerly vulnerable.
But not his tax returns, eh? Priorities.
I agree the Republican ass has been hanging out for decades now - but getting anyone to see it has proven to be remarkably difficult.
Any individual Republicans who can be shamed were driven from the Party by 1994. "The Republicans" as a whole or Party were last capable of being shamed in 1968.
Or make powerful friends who can protect you. When moral condemnation's consequences are arbitrary and capricious under reason, power will take over.
So what is the "idea" people are being "given" about actual apologies and genuinely decent reactions and modes of behavior?
This is where failing to distinguish the Frankens and Bartons (and Spitzers and Keillors and so forth) from the Moores and Trumps and Ailes's takes you: to a place in which you can't separate predators from jerks, crime from offensiveness, calculation from impulse, fear from disgust, injury from insult; to a place in which reason does not govern.
But that's ok, in the case of Franken's takedown for example, because the people advocating for it are confidant in their empowerment - they are going to be the powerful who govern in place of reason. Franken's resignation is - in their view - an accomplishment of their empowerment, and a step of progress toward their goal of dismantling oppression and empowering the formerly vulnerable.
James O'Keefe's thinking has paid off for his supporters quite handsomely for eight, ten years now. James O'Keefe took down a salary of 300,000 dollars last year. He recently accepted an award for the influence of his thinking in a public ceremony and celebration of his accomplishments - the award was handed to him on stage by the wife of a US Supreme Court Justice.
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Bells
Staff member
Democrats generally attract female voters. And lowering the bar for sexual assault to being jerky behaviour and simply just offensive instead of criminal (don't know where you are from, but sexually groping women is sexual assault), and you carry on as though his victims could simply not tell the difference or perhaps other women demanding he resigns cannot tell the difference while generally whining about "empowerment"...
If anyone wants a definition of "mansplaining", this post of yours fits the bill perfectly.
Ya, the women are speaking and they spoke. And I think that's been your whole issue with this whole thing and the result we must now endure is patronising and condescending comments like the tripe you just posted.
And why? Politics.
spoken like a conservative republican.
conservatives, as you, like to pretend stupidity to exasperate and waste the other's time to have to spell out that which they know but feigning they don't. argument by omission or conflation. there are mistakes and there are gross mistakes and what al franken did was also the latter.
for some offices or tasks, near perfection is a requirement. i'm sorry you have such lower standards or you actually believe their aren't people of genuinely higher moral standards (they do exist) because you are projecting yourself onto them. Just as there are people with exceptionally high iq's or exceptional talent and there are people with exceptional or very good morals. Just as there are people who make straight A's all through school etc. Nasa doesn't hire just anyone off the street randomly with the excuse 'well, no one is perfect.'
the other issue you are missing is that those in power must be held to a higher standard and al franken, just as anyone in public office, will have to answer to the public as well as pay the price (being and setting an example) for that.
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I'm not arguing that the asshole isn't successful in his own way, just that he tried to fake a sexual harassment victim, and the media didn't buy it. That's just good journalism.
Cross your fingers. Clinton didn't.
Of course she faced credible accusations by several women of having abetted sexual assault, and in believing those women you would have been calling for her eviction from the Democratic Party and resignation from office had she won - so maybe the white women who didn't vote Democratic in 2016 were just unwilling to vote for a sexual predator like Hillary Clinton.
? I didn't lower that bar - you did, explicitly and specifically. You insisted on it.
You aren't "the women". Neither is Kellyanne Conway, speaking of your rhetorical level of integrity.
In particular, you aren't a normally DFL voting woman like the ones I know, three of whom - speaking women, at least if Facebook posts count - have said they are canceling their Democratic Party recurrent donations as of today, a fourth of whom is sitting across from me right now trying to find the right email words to warn Dayton that appointing a rightwinger or wimp in the interim - regardless of gender, and specifically including his current Lt Governor (wimp) - will be viewed as further betrayal by a fair number of his (Dayton's) constituents.
Apparently (secondhand, I'm not tracking personally) there's nobody on the major media representing these women. Odd, no? Maybe there aren't very many of them.
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as much as i agree with you in that no one in elected office should have a string of sexual assault accusations against them. It should be noted at least one of frankens own accusers didn't think he should have resigned. personally I feel anyone with any sort of accusations of sexual or physical assault as well as any sort of corruption accusation against them should be automatically disqualified from office, however you seem to think that we can just clean house while the others play in the pig shit and not have it have consequences. Sadly that is not the case. I understand that having more lines we won't cross is part and parcel to being the good guys but the simple truth remains when going up against people who have no morality at all, unless you have an overwhelming power advantage which we do not, you have make compromises on your morality. Sometimes you have to stain yourself so those of the future don't have to.
This john Adams quote comes to mind
"
I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain"
you wish to act as if there is no cost; but there is always a cost and it always paid.
oh and before you accuse me of mansplaining for having a penis please note I've been sexual assaulted twice and physically assaulted at least 5 times.
Again, you are searching for perfection that you will never find, even less so in politics. My guess is that Franken did his job well, regardless of past indiscretion. Why you would choose to shoot yourself in the leg simply because it has hair is beyond me.
i think you are making this issue a bit personal. i'm not sure why you are alluding to myself in regards to some search for perfection or not which is really none of your business. your idea of perfection or a mistake differ from mine.
this is your opinion on this political matter as well as sexual harassment and i have my opinion on this matter that disagrees with you.
another woman has come forward and has said that he 'forcefully' grabbed and kissed her after an interview proclaiming it was his right as a person in power. i doubt his apology is sincere but more a matter of lessening the backlash.
but the point is when society does not put up with this type of behavior, it sends a message to the public in general where the demarcation lines are. that's what being in public office is about. you will either be fodder for a good example or as a bad example.
it's no different than a murder case where one may have had a justifiable or more justifiable reason to murder than another but you can't let them get away with it and still be made an example of because the bigger issue at stake is that you must send a message to the public that taking the law into your own hands is not acceptable recourse. anyone can choose to act badly as well as take advantage or exploit their power or opportunistic given any situation but if you do, you should be willing to pay those consequences.
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What he is supposed to have said is that it was his "right as an entertainer" - a bit different, not much more plausible in its wording (it sounds a lot more like a description or paraphrase of what someone said than a quote).
That is the worst supportable accusation he faced, imho - and others seem to agree: that was the trigger for the organized call for him to resign. (It is also the most discordant with Franken's long record of public and workplace behavior, and the one that "sounds" least like the guy according to people who know him well and have worked with him.)
Water under the bridge now, of course.
What I'm hoping now, politically, is that something surfaces bad enough to justify forcing Franken's resignation regardless of the consequences. The anti-Republican crowd - mine - needs the Dems to look as capable, strong, and effective as possible. Trump and the Rep Congress are going to create crises.
Bells
Staff member
Oh sorry, I didn't realise that you aren't counting all women...
In other words, white women voted for Trump more and that margin widened because he was able to garner a higher percentage of uneducated white female voters. On the whole, Clinton did draw the majority of the female votes. Not Trump. One could only argue what you just did, if you deliberately choose to ignore minority female voters entirely. Are you?
I called and supported the calls for her husband to resign, due to the allegations against him. Why would I blame his wife for something he did?
Secondly, Hillary Clinton is as much a victim of misogyny and abuse as all other women are. So again, why would I blame her for what her husband was accused of?
The irony is that you accuse me of using Republican lines, when you come out with this sort of rubbish.. Really?
I did?
Because I dared to suggest that men who sexually harass and sexually molest women should be held accountable? Oh noes! Democrats do it too, so I'm supposed to turn the other way, ignore it while pointing out the Republicans who are sexually harassing and sexually assaulting women? Something something about glass houses and rocks applies here.
Your whine is that I dared to compare it to Moore or Trump. And? As far as I am concerned, any man who uses opportunity to prey on women like this, is an abuser. But no, you are whining because you don't even see it as problematic, or as being sexual harassment, it was what? Ah yes, he was a "jerk", "offensive", that his groping women was merely "impulsive", that the women were apparently unable to tell the difference.. You know, you set the bar for how you think women should behave when sexually harassed.. Since they aren't Republicans and since they failed to match the criteria you have set up for Democrats, I doubt you think what he even did amounted to sexual harassment. Because anyone who talks sexual harassment and the women who shouted it down to something like this:
And you accuse me or repeating Republican talking points?
Wait.. wait..
Conway went to the media and endorsed a paedophile.
I said there should be zero tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assault in society, regardless of politics.
And apparently I am speaking at the same "rhetorical level of integrity" as Conway?
How much lower and desperate are you willing to go and become to throw down for a man who has a string of sexual harassment and assault allegations against him, against women from all walks of life, some involved in Democratic politics, some Republican women, one performer, a journalist (a Democrat) who writes for The Atlantic (the latest one)..? You should read her article. It is brutal and raw. The very fact that you are choosing to minimise sexual harassment and sexual assault for politics, says a lot about you, iceaura and I have to say, I am not just disgusted, but disappointed, because I had always been under the impression that you weren't one of those guys. Alas, here we are.
You are one of those guys.
Bells
Staff member
Nah dude. I am a survivor of assault and rape and sexual harassment and I spent a large portion of my working life putting people like Moore and Trump and yes, Franken, away in jail. So of course I can have no idea what I am talking about.
I need a man like you to tell me that sexual harassment and sexual assault is just jerky behaviour, is just an impulsive action, is just something that one should feel disgust at...
The horrific irony of your complaint is that what you are spouting is the Republican line.
Ms Dupuy, Franken's victim, makes an exceptionally valid point in regards to how Democrat supporters are responding to Franken's actions, and how those supporters turned a blind eye to various Democratic politicians who harassed and assaulted women and especially, how feminist supporters of these men attempt to rationalise the behaviour:
The author Kate Harding, shortly after Tweeden published her account, wrote a piece for The Washington Post, headlined: “I’m a feminist. I study rape culture. And I don’t want Al Franken to resign.” In it, she rehashes what Steinem wrote 20 years ago: These are our guys, we must protect them especially if there’s a risk one could be replaced by a Republican. “If we set this precedent in the interest of demonstrating our party’s solidarity with harassed and abused women, we’re only going to drain the swamp of people who, however flawed, still regularly vote to protect women’s rights and freedoms.”
Really? If Democrats demonstrate our party’s solidarity with harassed and abused women something bad will happen to women’s rights? Are you kidding me? Is that why there is a slush fund on Capitol Hill to settle sexual-harassment claims with taxpayer dollars—because of feminism?
I heard this argument in private, too. It’s about protecting power and asking the victims to understand the larger goal of (maybe) protecting them sometime soon. This calculation was more reasonable in the 1980s. Now it seems like a Faustian bargain that’s doomed women’s ascension to real power: Boys will be boys and girls will be quiet.
I have a radical idea: Maybe Democrats can replace politicians who harass and abuse women with anyone other than an abuser. There are good men in the world. I married one. I’ve worked with many more. Do we really believe our talent pool will dry up and our caucus will be nonexistent once we kick out all the creepers? I don’t. What if protecting men who harass and abuse women isn’t actually good for women?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s only good for the men.
Really? If Democrats demonstrate our party’s solidarity with harassed and abused women something bad will happen to women’s rights? Are you kidding me? Is that why there is a slush fund on Capitol Hill to settle sexual-harassment claims with taxpayer dollars—because of feminism?
I heard this argument in private, too. It’s about protecting power and asking the victims to understand the larger goal of (maybe) protecting them sometime soon. This calculation was more reasonable in the 1980s. Now it seems like a Faustian bargain that’s doomed women’s ascension to real power: Boys will be boys and girls will be quiet.
I have a radical idea: Maybe Democrats can replace politicians who harass and abuse women with anyone other than an abuser. There are good men in the world. I married one. I’ve worked with many more. Do we really believe our talent pool will dry up and our caucus will be nonexistent once we kick out all the creepers? I don’t. What if protecting men who harass and abuse women isn’t actually good for women?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s only good for the men.
Your complaints is about protecting men like Franken and yes, that carries over to protecting men like Moore and Trump. When the GOP glossed over what Trump did and supported him, when they glossed over and continue to support and endorse Moore, it's because of this inherent belief that it's not really important, that it's just jerky behaviour, that there was nothing really of note, just something that he did was "impulse" (which really, makes him an even more dangerous predator because no one knows what's lying underneath).. The women around you are so disgusted that he has been made to resign by the women who work with him that they are leaving the party in protest? Err okay. That just says that those women have fallen prey to the whole 'girls will be quiet', who will be expected to water down sexual harassment and sexual assault for the case of politics. They are the same sort of women as the ones on the right who voted for Trump and will vote for Moore, because "politics".
You are protesting the loss of male hierarchy, because yes, the women are now speaking. And many women, like those around you, will protest along with you, because that is what is expected of us. We are expected to protect the status quo, to not protest if it upsets that hierarchy.
And why? Because politics.
I noted in the Moore thread, that you would not be pushing these arguments if Franken had been a Republican. And that's what makes your stance here even more disgusting.
I wasn’t going to come forward. Then I was. Then I wasn’t. I’ve been hoping Franken would just step down and I wouldn’t have to say anything. I’ve been hoping he’s a decent enough man not to force his victims to parade in front of the Ethics Committee. I’ve been hoping I’d not ever have the moniker of “Franken accuser.” At some point I decided I was just going to tweet cryptically and hope someone got it. “We all hoped the Weiner story was fabricated by Breitbart. It wasn’t,” I tweeted weeks ago. As of this writing it’s gotten only one retweet.
This is the reality of what sexual harassment does to women. We hope that he has the decency towards his victims. Ms Dupuy spoke out when she realised he wasn't going to act like a decent human being and was willing to drag his victims to a public hearing. So she spoke out and yeah, I support her. You? You denigrated her and the other women who have spoken out, not just against Franken, but who have spoken out against their harassers and abusers as apparently not really knowing if they have been sexually harassed, because from your armchair, a man who has not experienced a man you trusted groping you and trying to force his mouth on yours without your consent or his tongue down your throat without your consent, you deem it your place to declare:
Those women could separate it, they know. They spoke out. They are speaking.
And perhaps that's your problem. They should just be quiet, because hey, 'boys will be boys'. Because boys can act like jerks sometimes, because sometimes, they can be offensive, sometimes they can be impulsive and sometimes they can be insulting or be disgusting. Politics! But.. But.. But.. Trump! Moore! Ya, they are sexual perverts too. At least one of them is a paedophile. In case you weren't aware, their accusers are being told the same rubbish you have posted in regards to Franken. Funny that, huh? Soon as that position of privilege for one's politics becomes threatened, decency be damned! Politics is what matters the most.
And women? Well, we should just suck it up and keep being fed that allowing sexual harassers to remain in positions of power is good enough for us, because apparently that guy is good for our rights. What was it that you said?
Women should be quiet if it pertains to a Democrat. Women who are victims should let the men decide if they have been sexually harassed.. 'Girls should be quiet'..
Until we weren't anymore.
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Bells
Staff member
And? Did you expect her to say any differently?
Women who are victims are in this sort of place whereby we have to be accommodating. Tell me, how do you think it would have gone down if she had come out and declared "he should resign"? Did you see what was said about Tweeden in some parts of leftist media when she came out? She said he should not resign. What else could she have said? Even saying that, she was slut shamed, photos of her as a Playboy model were plastered all over the place.
So yeah, what else could she or any other victim of sexual harassment say when faced with a public figure?
Sorry, but that's not good enough.
Those excuses are not good enough.
Or if I deliberately objected to your lumping of all women voters, as if that were a category you could appeal to via Franken's resignation. Clinton did not draw "women's" votes, but non-white, less educated, women's votes. Other Dems have failed likewise, in Minnesota.
And a higher percentage of educated white women voters. Dems can't count on drawing women just because they are Dems, in Minnesota.
As I believe you know, since it was clearly typed right in front of you, I wasn't talking about accusations against Bill. I was specific: Hillary has been accused, by several women, of abetting and collaborating in their sexual assaults and abuses - accusations worse than Franken's worst accusation, women claiming more serious harm done to them than by Franken. So we would expect you to believe them, and call for Clinton's resignation had she won. If we took you seriously, in your claims here.
What excuse could you present, for not believing those women and acting accordingly?
You were in the wrong, misrepresenting "these" arguments in order to slander.
You were wrong about that, too. As you were informed at the time, because I answered in good faith when you pretended to ask (even though I knew better). But your question was not honest, not actually a question - it was a false claim, posted to slander, framed exactly as Fox News is famous for framing such innuendo and slander in "questions", for exactly the same reason.
I was talking about you, and your posts, not them. You hide behind those women frequently.
You should post honestly, and not slander and troll and lie about people. Hiding behind victims of assault, justifying your slanders, attacks, and dishonest trolling, by pointing to courageous victims of assault, is dishonorable and bad.
Yes. Your good cause does not excuse your unethical, dishonest posting here - any more than it would Conway's, if her cause were good.
Republican framing, rhetoric. Quote my accusations, if you cannot paraphrase accurately - which you can't.
More lies and slander, increasingly disconnected from the posts.
You can't write three consecutive honest sentences about my posting here. Why is that?
Protesting the loss of male hierarchy? As we say in Minnesota: whatever.
But now you extend your terminally deluded, completely bullshit, inexcusably slanderous fantasy projections unto me to women you don't know anything about, and slander them simply on account of their association with me. After all that prattle about believing women, women are speaking, women know what they're talking about - the second you don't like what they say, all that goes right out the window and they're patsies and tools of the nearest man, defenders of the nearest male hierarchy and your imagination of the status quo, doing what you assume is expected of them by the society you imagine them to be living in, by presumption.
Not the Trump voting, birther believing, professionally coached and rhetorically sly Republican accusers of Franken, of course - those are "women speaking", not anyone's patsies or tools, certainly not acting in the service of any kind of male hierarchy or status quo.
Another characteristic you share with the Republican authoritarians: shamelessness.
btw: If I pass on your description of the "women around me" to the women I referred to above, to (say) the wife of the increasingly strident emails to the DNC, or the married lesbian radical feminist sister and her wife of the last straw disgust with DFL management (they actually know the principals) - she's been reminding me that folks like you don't actually know much about Minnesota or US politics and I should be charitable, but she hasn't got the full flavor of your posting (and I haven 't played my trump card of reminding her about Anne Wynia, Emily's List, and the wages of distant ignorance) - do you want me to relay the response? Some women for you to listen to?
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Well put pjdude - simply said, we don't have the luxury of keeping ourselves squeaky clean and out of the squick and mire when faced with a force that will use that superior morality against us as a cudgel to ensure justice is denied.
Appropriate - do we dirty our hands so our children might not have to bear the burden of this taint... or do we let it fall to them to deal with? Personally, I find the idea of pushing it off to our next of kin to be the height of selfishness and single-minded greed.
We appear to be paying that cost now, what with who we have in the White House, the ruling farce of a Congress, and the damage to civil rights and liberties being done with these terrifying lifetime appointments to stolen positions.
Actually, let me correct myself - we will be paying the cost of last years failures for generations to come.
I'm sorry you've been through all that pjdude.
Irony:
The only thing I don't get is whether these people think they're being smart or subtle or what.
On the Democratic Party:
• Support Hillary? ¡Fight the Establishment!
• Support serial sexual harasser of women? ¡Save the Establishment!
• Support serial sexual harasser of women? ¡Save the Establishment!
The only thing I don't get is whether these people think they're being smart or subtle or what.
When the alternative is to make it even easier for the party that has a consistent trend of demolishing civil rights for anyone that isn't a wealthy white male to further consolidate and ensure their continued power... I'd think the choice obvious.
We have, sadly, reached a "the ends justify the means" style conundrum.
The part I don't get is why staining ourselves means giving away what isn't ours.
When the Christians tortured during the Inquisition, or at Salem, they twisted the words of Christ. It's easy enough to cite Matthew 25 and say we would hope someone does the same for you as long as we are the ones setting fire to other people. When it's our turn, we would be like any other bully: Wait, wait, let's talk about this.
Yes, yes, sacrifices must be made, he said, as he sent yet another to their doom. The Sarlacc sounds great as long as you're Jabba. Or, you know, Salacious Crumb.
Yes, we have more lines to not cross because we call ourselves the good.
Yes, sometimes we must make compromises on our morality.
Ours.
And as sacrifices go, it's a lot easier when the burden is someone else's.
And it's a cheap sacrifice of our morality when the actual sacrifice is someone else.
Okay then - let us hear your proposal on how this should be fixed, perhaps?
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