Tuesday, April 24, 2018

No wonder liberals are hated. No wonder Trump won.

The Canadian maniac who used his van to attack pedestrians has identified himself as a member of Incel -- a convocation of online dweebs who have declared themselves involuntarily celibate. In an insane Facebook diatribe, he declared his determination to wreak vengeance on the "Chads" and "Stacys."

I previously had no knowledge of those terms. They're easy to figure out.

As you probably know, the Incel subculture and the Alt Right overlap to a substantial degree. As ever, the people who crow about accidents of birth (such as skin color) tend to be losers who have nothing else going for them.

This observation applies to white, black, Latino, Hindu and Jewish nationalists. It also describes most jihadists. ISIS warriors and the disciples of Richard Spencer both have the same frustrations and the same motives.

Bill Maher used to joke that the best way to prevent Islamic terrorism is for young women to fuck young men who might otherwise gravitate toward radical Islam. I think he was right. I also think that the same strategy would end right-wing terrorism. 

But this strategy will never be put to the test. Many of today's young males have no appeal as romantic partners. They're losers. Always will be.

Technology is destroying the job market, even as the one percent gobbles up more and more of the economy. Result: Our society currently offers young men little opportunity, especially when compared to previous generations. Why should any self-respecting young woman want to sleep with a guy who will never attain his parents' middle-class lifestyle? Why would any female want to date a guy who works two dead-end jobs yet still can't afford a crummy bachelor apartment?

Our society is an engine designed to produce loneliness. Our society creates celibates the way Nabisco spews out Oreos.

Worse, our hypersexualized culture makes celibacy far less endurable than was the case in, say, the 19th century. Not getting laid is bad enough -- but if you think you live in a world filled with "Chads" having continual porn-star sex with multiple "Stacys," you'll drive yourself nuts.

As nutty as Alek Minassian, the Canadian Incel-dweller.

The far right knows how to capitalize on this phenomenon. By contrast, Democrats will never address the issue, even though the root problems are social class, poverty and downward mobility -- things which should matter to liberals.

Feminists, firmly addicted to resentments of their own, can only sneer at the Incel crowd. Of course, sneering will only make matters worse.

Here is a fact which no feminist will ever admit: A struggling, poor young female will always be considered more attractive than a struggling, poor young male. Female readers, I ask you: How would you feel if you knew, deep down, that you will never be considered date-worthy until you raise your yearly income another $10K or $20K? That idea would drive you absolutely bugfuck crazy. You know it. I don't expect you to offer that confession in a public forum, but you know damned well that I'm not lying.

Picture a young white man who can't find any job better than night manager at the local 7-11. Obviously, he won't get laid. Worse, liberals insist on speaking condescendingly to that struggling young man. In liberal eyes, he is the problem. He's white and he has a penis -- therefore, he's the bad guy. It's perfectly acceptable to call him "privileged," even though he's the night manager at a 7-11 and he hates his fucking job as much as anyone has ever hated anything.

Liberals invariably treat these schlubs as subhuman monsters. The victims of our culture are considered victimizers.

No wonder liberals are hated. No wonder Trump won.

Inevitably, many of these despised young men will become actual fiends, as Minassian did. If you're doomed to Hell, you might as well commit the sin. 

The original Nazi party shopped for recruits among sporting groups. Modern Nazism targets dweebs who play video games in their parents' basements. The original Nazi party attracted struggling veterans and dispossessed beer hall loiterers. Modern Nazism appeals to the growing number of guys who can't get good jobs and can't get laid. And "good" liberals pride themselves on making those guys feel even more alienated.

25 comments:

OTE admin said...

You are partly but not totally correct. White men have been voting against their economic self-interest for DECADES, and it is ruinous trade agreements and outsourcing, not the neolib "explanation" of "technology," that is to blame. I gave up feeling sorry for these dudes decades ago. They can go to hell and all die off for all I care. They aren't victims because they set the stage in supporting politicians whose expressed goal was to destroy their and their fathers' and grandfathers' way of life.

What is really driving these alt.right dudes is they feel that because they are white males, they are entitled to the best jobs, and they think women and minorities are "taking" jobs that "belong" to them. Previously, these men never got those jobs on the basis of "merit" but only for being white males who were assumed to be providers. They can't stand it that they actually have to get out and get trained and actually do something with their lives. No sympathy. Because so many of these guys are motivated by hatred for women, their minds are damaged by porn, and they think they are owed women's bodies, women being little domestic servants, and women popping out babies for them. Too bad, so sad women are looking the other way and not pairing off with these losers. And, contrary to what you think, women's issues, like issues affecting racial minorities, are often separate from economic issues. There are something like 100 million more males in the world than females, with some 74 million extra males in China and India alone thanks to the sexist idea boys are better and are providers. Girl babies are being killed after birth or female fetuses are being aborted, and now look what we have. The minute you can sit there with a straight face and say women don't have real issues of literal survival that have NOTHING to do with the economy is the day I will take your post seriously about these killers being any kind of "victims." You know very little about feminism, which is a subject I know a lot about having come of age during the original second wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Stephen Morgan said...

You've got a point, but I think you're wrong.

Poor people get laid all the time. Breed like rabbits. Statistically far outbreed the higher classes, even if we exclude the foecund immigrant classes.

Another problem, InCels tend not to be poor. Their most famous member hitherto is Elliot Rodger, their previous contribution to the field of spree killing, and he was a rich kid who drove around in a sports car. "Chad" isn't the name of a rich chap, that would be something like Tarquin. Chad is a muscly surfer dude.

Alessandro Machi said...

OTE admin, So you are using what the Asian's do to their female offspring to condemn the White man's values? Holy crap. Your issue appears to be not against white men, it appears to be against all men. Perhaps be intellectually honest and accurate with your anger.

I would suggest that the old school method of remaining at home EITHER until one has married OR, has amassed enough wealth to safely leave the nest is not so old school after all.

What you fail to mention is that for every asshole white guy that you see there is at least one other super cool white guy who would make an amazing partner. Perhaps the answer is to focus more on the men who are stand up rather than focus on the men who are what you say they are. From my perspective women would rather focus on the jerk and ignore the stand up guy, and guys probably do the same thing in reverse.

As for actually sticking to the point that was being made by Joseph, if there is a younger guy who is just not able to make enough money to start creating a future for his own life, don't you think it's possible he may have a lot of guilt at even contemplating trying to have a relationship since deep down he knows he can't see it through long term?

Imagine being a male and having sex knowing knowing one really can't afford being involved in a pregnancy. Now imagine being a male not having sex because one can't afford being involved in a pregnancy. Either scenario could drive a man bonkers, that is what Joseph's topic is about in my opinion and it is a valid point.

And that is why religious values suddenly don't look as kooky as perhaps they did a while back. Drugs, Sex, being free nowadays may have an even greater acknowledged cost consequences then ever before, especially since everything is now monitored so closely. Man hating, or White Man hating just creates excuses to justify one's own hate mongering.

I would suggest that as Joseph pointed out, the real enemy is a downward spiraling economy that is developing robotics that are replacing jobs. Then lets throw in renewable energy being used to create robotics, and Drones. All of Society should be being compensated for advances in automation, not the elite rich who are getting richer and richer and would rather see a world with about 75% less people on it.

We are witnessing the ultimate ponzi scheme of all time and as long as people keep blaming each other for the faults of the world, the rich elite will continue on a path of automation domination that will erode our society of everyday jobs.

We are in an era in which most people with a good paying job have that good paying job because the job is a precursor towards making some process more streamlined, aka less employees needed to run some type of service or business. The reason the change is happening relatively smoothly is because enough people are being paid well enough to obliterate other jobs in the name of economic efficiency.

Our Jenga economy at some point will topple. The very innovations that could reduce overall debt for society is being used to automate wealth and profit increases for the rich elite and their cohorts. This is why our country is now so polarized. Those who have more land to govern in Middle America want their guns, religion and a stronger family connectivity, and those who are more progressive mock those values and use the issue of immigration and gun control to call Middle America racist.

The middle class who have something because they have been in this country for several decades don't want to see it all go away because they worked for it. Nowadays there are many younger people who condemn those who worked a whole generation to have what they have because it was created in a more racist environment. But what gets forgotten is that people still had to work no matter what was going on, and to swipe that away is just being racist in reverse.

bluespapa said...

Meh. Liberals want graveyard shift 7-11 managers to have access to good healthcare including mental healthcare, a living wage, and access to affordable postsecondary education and training. Masons and welders are in enough demand they their salaries reflect that. People who can fabricate with 3D printers and CAD are in demand. These are community or technical college degrees or certifications.

The guys who can't get laid nor find a way to a better skills set are miserable to themselves and others. They need mental healthcare so that they can stop making themselves lonely and angry and miserable. They may come from cultural backgrounds that stigmatizes mental healthcare, so liberals work to destigmatize it.

Automation replaces jobs at all levels. All the glut of lawyers. It used to take teams of lawyers to read corporate contracts, which can now be handled by one lawyer and one or two paralegals who know how to use keyword searches and some special software. Medical records are increasingly using common terms and reducing the number of clerical workers in clinics and insurance companies.

But those skills are specialized. People who don't get along with other people and are determined to be angry about every perceived slight need now that a good job, which they wouldn't be able to hold. They need mental healthcare. They don't want to hear that.

The alt/right meltdown we are witnessing indicates that at least some of these guys would rather work in the economy the way it is than get exposed as loser creeps trying to purify the society ordinary people who happen to be minorities. Good choice. The most disturbed don't, nor the most venal hucksters trying to be self-proclaimed commanders in an underground army.

This is the failure of liberals to completely change deeply a deeply engrained culture, and deep-seated anger and hatreds among people who need healthcare.

Joshua said...

@OTE admin

I previously considered myself a feminist. Maybe an anarcha-feminist or something. My issue with both capitalism and Marxism (these aren't the only two options, but humanity at large forces dualisms of every type - I have no idea why humans are utterly obsessed with dualism) is that they are both forms of 'materialism'. And I reject materialism. Though I do find considerable value in the dialectical material analysis of history and Marxist critiques of capitalism. Capitalism, as it exists today, I don't consider it to be 'Late Stage Capitalism'. I think the Late Stage period of Capitalism has come and past, during the InterWar period, specifically. Today, I consider it Capitalism Malformed, a sort of grotesquery that masquerades under the name capitalism (or 'mixed economy') but has actually become retrograde and is turning into what I call Neo-Feudalism. Over time, what's happening is that the economy is becoming more and more similar to Old World Feudalism (without the obelisk Christian monarchy of the past) while carrying fewer and fewer traits of Classical Capitalism (which perished completely by the mid-1930ies). This is the true meaning of 'mixed economy' and it's as far from socialism or commonwealth as it gets. But I digress.

But after reading what you wrote here, I'm prepared to say 'fuck Feminism'. Not because I hate females or their suffrage (as Peter Thiel does, serving the basis of his homosexuality) but because if Feminists are going to be merciless, cruel and evil toward me. Just as the Patriarchy (by which they mean the established power structures) is with me. Then it's impossible for me to ally myself with them. And what you've written here classifies me as a perennial loser who is not worthy of love or sympathy and should never have been born in the first place.

You never stop to think that the person you are being evil toward (men like me) are completely powerless, marginalized, maligned, and miserable. You are literally preying on the weakest of the weak. The only weaker target you could choose would be children (who have no legal rights whatsoever are not even considered a 'person' under the law). That's not something Feminists should be proud of. It's something you ought to be goddamn ashamed of.

You ask me for solidarity with the suffering that females go through (the recent rape and murder of an 8 year old girl in India comes to mind). Yet if the person suffering is an adult, white, hetero-male (such as myself) that is suffering for a variety of reasons (including Capitalism and Patriarchy) - you say I deserve the fate and I may as well as be damned. May as well as kill myself too, since all that awaits me is more misery followed by eternal oblivion.

Have you ever tried not being evil? Seriously? Just because you are sympathetic toward the global plight of females (and I admit, females are preyed upon everywhere and in everyway) doesn't mean you aren't evil or can't be evil. It just means you are selective about who you are evil with.

Anonymous said...

To all the Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire). Liberal is freedom of thought, progressive is not. We are all readers, civil or not. Translation below.

“Au lecteur” (excerpt)
“…Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices,
Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,
Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,
Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices,
II en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde!
Quoiqu'il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris,
Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris
Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde;
C'est l'Ennui! L'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
II rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
— Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!”
— Charles Baudelaire

“To the reader”
“…Among the vermin, jackals, panthers, lice,
gorillas and tarantulas that suck
and snatch and scratch and defecate and fuck
in the disorderly circus of our vice,
there's one more ugly and abortive birth.
It makes no gestures, never beats its breast,
yet it would murder for a moment's rest,
and willingly annihilate the earth.
It's BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.
You know it well, my Reader. This obscene
beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine —
you — hypocrite Reader — my double — my brother!”
— Robert Lowell, from Marthiel & Jackson Matthews, eds., The Flowers of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1963)

Baudelaire’s words are immortal, but Lowell’s interpretation reveals him as a man of clay stuck in his time. English lacks a good translation for l’ennui: a feeling of utter weariness and fatigue yielding a lack of interest. Many people feel this way about the continuing media circus surrounding the election hack. We just can’t pay enough attention to these issues and keep tending to bills, health, and family matters, so we make a choice to “get on with our lives”. Of necessity, the more pressed we are for time and money, the more we ignore the seismic shifts in underlying social and economic orders. Others have the luxury of time, but won't admit a responsibility for examining critical issues from multiple perspectives. We stumble along our daily paths, ignoring the multi-dimensional impact of macro issues at the expense of our freedom to make future choices. In so doing, we acquiesce to a mechanical future crafted by our inattention, if not by our own design. (Thank you, Proust and Faulkner.)

L’ennui is how I feel about patriarchal chest beating and systemic misogyny. When we perpetuate ways of thinking and systems disproportionately crafted by the male gaze, we weaponize inequality, complacency, and entitlement and put blinders on our vision for the future.

Divided we fall. As the old economic systems designed to be self-perpetuating are gutted by the new princes of the universe, the old order is devolving into entropy and creating a discounted feeding frenzy (as Bannon predicted). Fickle providers, who have benefited disproportionately from economic and social systems of their own design, have traditionally prioritized the present, but ignored a sustainable vision for the future. Now, these legacy systems – including 401ks (a short term economic bonanza for the financial industry that pumped cash out of workers and relieved employers of pension liabilities) and the “consulting” or gig, contract-based economy -- are being gamed for power and profit and coming back to bite us all. Not surprisingly, many men seem to want to blame everyone else. That’s why society is so divided, Hillary myths are so potent, and the term “liberal” is so toxic. Dying from a thousand nicks, rebirth requires a novel understanding of responsibility, labor, and values. Liberal is freedom of thought, progressive is not.

dataflo

Stephen Morgan said...

Regarding China, the reason for more females being aborted is that there is no pension system in China. There is, however, a law which forces and requires all adult men to support their parents in retirement. You think the West has a problem with Boomers dominating the workplace and property ownership, at least they can't legally make you their slave. Women, on the other hand, are not required to do likewise, so if you can only have one child you have the one that pays back on the investment. In the world outside China men are outnumbered by women.

Joseph Cannon said...

dataflo, I wasn't expecting Beaudelaire! I almost flagged your comment as spam. This blog receives numerous spam comments filled with non-sequiturs and strange quotations. Glad I did not make an error in this case!

The best translation of "ennui" is probably "ennui." It's an English word as well.

At any rate, the cynic within me is gratified to see so many people who are more wedded to their anti-white and anti-male resentments than they are wedded to the idea of getting Trump out of office. And that is why I predict that we will be stuck with Trump until 2024, and stuck with Trumpism for a good ways past that.

Anonymous said...

Liberals and feminists and modernity, oh noes!

Sorry Joe. I can't walk this track with you, anymore than I can feel sorrow for a some dude mowing down a bunch of unsuspecting pedestrians because he . . . couldn't get laid. Really??

The world is filled with victims but turning a homicidal crazy into a victim is not where I'm at, not today, not ever. You want to talk about mental health interventions or neutralizing the enabling influence of alt-right cheerleaders, I'm there. Yes, the modern world is very stressful but that does not excuse vehicular mayhem/murder. And I'm sorry but the attitude of these men comes out of a sense of entitlement--they deserve to get laid, even if they act like jerks. They deserve a good job, even if they refuse training and/or education. The whine goes on. Do I think we as a society need to do a better job in outreach, opportunity and education? Of course, I do. But I'm not agreeing to anything at the point of a gun or if you try to run me down in your frigging car.

There was a recent study on the whole working-class pivot to the Trumpster and his acolytes. According to analyses, it wasn't economic anxiety that turned the blue-collar electorate but the fear of lost social status to women, minorities, gays, etc.. Am I suppose to feel empathy for that, too? Because I don't.

Change is hard. For everyone. But we don't get a pass when we grab a gun or slide behind the wheel of a van with the sole intention of killing and hurting others.

No excuses.

Peggysue

Joseph Cannon said...

"Excuses"? Peggysue, the post I wrote is not the post you read.

I'll give you ever penny in my possession if you can quote a single sentence that can reasonably be interpreted as offering an excuse for vehicular manslaughter.

The dictionary is our friend here. I suggest looking up the meaning of the word "explanation" and the word "excuse." A lot of people mix up those two.

Aaron said...

I recently read "The Unsettling of America" by Wendell Berry. He sketched out the ethics of a non-industrial sexuality which is centered around a common binding purpose or enterprise. Relationships that don't have such a thing are fragile and won't survive the test of time. The loneliness of industrial society is an inevitable consequence of reducing our work to one purpose, wage employment in order to pay our rents and most often as individuals and not jointly as partners and families. Sexual relationships get reduced to shallow attractions that wear thin and disappear over time. I would say that the opportunities to develop deep, lasting relationships are few and far between when one doesn't have the capital and/or community to escape the sacrifice of meaningful work for meaningless employment.

This may be part of the reason that people retreat into group associations like the alt right and incel. The message that worth is a ven diagram overlap of sexual conquest and income bombards the spaces all of these individuals inhabit makes them vulnerable to such cruel ideologies. They're angry about something, not really understanding what that might be and lack the foundation in constructive cultural ethics and human history if not innate kindness needed to guide them.

If that dynamic is real, then it may be related to your own assertion (broadly paraphrasing as I remember it) that today's left-wing radicals will often become tomorrow's right wing sell-outs and conspiracy cranks.

(Might be double-posted, because I'm sure if comments require 3rd party cookies.)

Mr Mike said...

The replies to your post set a record for verbosity. Once upon a time a high school grad could get a job running a punch press in a union shop and bring home enough to marry his high school sweetheart and buy a house, car, and two and a half dogs.

Thanks to the Willards of Wall Street those day are gone and so are the well paid union members that support the Democratic Party. Something lost on Bill, Hillary, and Nancy. That bridge to the twenty first century (Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow) had no guide rails.

Democrats told the guy who could barely stay awake during fourth period to get the skills of a rocket scientist (and debt comparable to NASA'S budget) to compete while Trump promised punch presses for all. And here we are, Trump normalizing misogny, hate, and bigotry.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, Joe. But I neither want an explanation or an excuse for despicable behavior. A remedy, a way of preventing the maladjusted from hurting others? Yes. There are some things that are simply unacceptable for which no 'explanation' will suffice. This is one of 'em. We agree on a lot. But not this.

Peggysue

Joseph Cannon said...

Mr. Mike, I think we're on the same page. But I'm hardly in a position to score others for verbosity. Whenever I re-read an old post, I think of ways to cut it in half.

Oscar Wilde once said: "I can write a ten-page letter in one hour or a one-page letter in ten hours." That's why I pity the folks who have to write briefing papers for the current president.

Anonymous said...

On the journey in and out of the white supremacist movement:

https://www.ted.com/talks/christian_picciolini_my_descent_into_america_s_neo_nazi_movement_and_how_i_got_out

In Picciolini's life, it started with lack of quality time w/ parents who are not available to nurture their children because they are working all the time, or they're in prison, or they're out to lunch with an addiction. They could be children of a domestic abuser or teenage parent who was too unprepared economically and emotionally to be present for their child, or just one of too many kids, you get it. When an immature person experiences abandonment and isolation, it is understandable when this leads to feelings of anger and resentment.

Acting out, even if it gets negative attention, becomes a desperate cry for help. Picciolini, who suffered from low self-esteem, poor academic performance, and bullying, skipped school, used drugs, and attracted the attention of a hate group recruiter, who tapped him on the shoulder and offered him a lifeline to movement that gave him a sense of belonging and identity. He joined and didn't look back. He didn't question the lies he was fed because they filled a void and met a need. He watched friends commit violent acts and go to prison, but didn't hesitate to blame a multi-culturalist agenda, people of non-Christian faiths, and immigrants for crime, drugs, and all the other social and economic ills. He did this despite the fact his parents were immigrants and with knowledge that it was often white Supremicists who were funneling drugs into cities and inflicting violence and pain on minorities.

Before you throw down the gauntlet of blame, hear Picciolini tell the story of how he got into the movement, and how he got out. Now listen to a black man talk about his historical experience of demonization and how it differs for white and black males.

https://www.ted.com/talks/theo_e_j_wilson_a_black_man_goes_undercover_in_the_alt_right

Division plays into Bannon's hands. Practice compassion, try on forgiveness, fake it till you make it, and bridge Picciolini's void.

We can collude with Trump's new order by promoting divisive policies and throwing shade on "the other" -- your choice to reach for the light, nor not.

And Joseph, please help us pay attention to the important stuff. Let's break out of the tribal mode. It's easy to play into Mercer/Bannon's hands and promote negativity and division, it's hard to focus on the thing that will keep us from falling down that rabbit hole.
dataflo

OTE admin said...

For clueless Joseph and others here, this is a primer about the so-called "Incels." They are a HATE group the same as the KKK.

The LAST thing Democrats should EVER do is appeal to these whack jobs, these criminals.

Next time, Joseph, don't make a fool out of yourself and think this has anything to do about the poor widdle babies can't get jobs, and therefore they can't get women.

They don't regard women as human, just as f***toys, incubators, and servants, not as human beings. Porn more than anything has absolutely turned these guys into emotional wrecks who cannot relate to others at all. Women are walking away from these losers in droves, thank God.

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian

Read it, and then understand what this "movement" is about. It is about HATE.

Alessandro Machi said...

Peggy Sue, just because Joseph explains a behavior does not mean he endorses it. I agree with your point that sometimes one does not even want to know what the point is if it involves a heinous act. The distinction with a difference ends up being how the rest of react to Joseph's article. Does it make us want to search out good people, or just see anger and fight back against the bad people.

The original Star Trek may not seem to be iconic literature, but that fuzzy red energy orb that grew and got bigger whenever foes fought each other was also depleted when the foes did not fight each other so fiercely. The person who falls by the wayside today and commits a violent crime tomorrow might have been the same person who could have taken a different path if others had some empathy for that person, yesterday.

Technology is allowing the younger generations to downsize their life. It's become a toss up as to which is better, spending almost a hundred thousand dollars on rent by age 30, or maybe purchasing a miniature home and placing it in the parent's backyard for 20 grand and saving up the rest of the money.

Joseph Cannon said...

I DID connect Incel with modern fascism. Repeatedly. Unmistakably.

I am responsible for the words that I write, not for the words you THINK I wrote.

The link between Incel and fascism only emphasizes the need to address an issue which you would prefer not to think about. We really do live in a society that creates an increasing number of celibates -- that is, males who are not desirable partners. Increasing the number of male celibates will increase the number of Alt Rightists, precisely because modern fascists know how to speak to those people and people like you do not.

That's a problem.

Alessandro Machi said...

Joseph wrote, Oscar Wilde once said: "I can write a ten-page letter in one hour or a one-page letter in ten hours." That's why I pity the folks who have to write briefing papers for the current president. end quote.

I am writing a pitch for a new Female Team Sports league. I am now passing day three. I have written at least 10 drafts. I thought I would be done after the second or third one. It's mind boggling.

Alessandro Machi said...

OTE admin, but are you fixating only on those who have gone off the deep edge?

Maybe right now there is another group of distraught people and all they need is to be needed. Meanwhile those who might make good acquaintances are too busy focusing on the lost causes, but not to help. to scorn.

it's easier to focus on the angry then those trying to do the right thing.

Anonymous said...



The Silicon Valley business model explained in 15 seconds:

1. Cut jobs and corporate payrolls by developing & marketing automation.
2. Export any jobs that can't be easily automated to low-wage nations.
3. Import workers from low-wage nations to suppress wages for all of the jobs that can't be easily exported.

Pretend it is all about inclusion and diversity. If anyone challenges the model, call them a "raciss".

Anonymous said...

This column was beyond offensive to women. Interesting how even though they have alwaysbeen second class citizens in every realm of personal and public life, have never seen themselves represented proportionately in government or business, had to struggle mightily to even get the right to vote, still have not achieved earning parity, watched the most historically qualified candidate for President "lose" to not only the least qualified but a disgusting misogynist to boot, are having their rights eroded daily basis by his misogynist administration, and are more likely to suffer death at the hands of their male partners than on the highway --- still, in spite of all the repression and abuse, it is MEN and not women who are the mass murderers, and yes, mostly WHITE men.
For a highly intelligent, liberal man such as yourself to pity these men for their "loneliness," to give credence to Maher's sickening solution to this problem.....is overwhelmingly both discouraging and infuriating. It takes the double standard to new, horrific heights and makes victim-blaming into an art form. I suggest you pay heed to this column by a man whose views are informed, reasoned, and reflect the truth in this matter: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/26/mass-killer-toronto-attack-man-men

Joseph Cannon said...

In other words, Anonymous, you would rather see Trump remain president than give up your hatred of men.

Andy said...

Speaking truth to power is quite different from "hating men." The haters are not feminists (who want equality, not domination) - No, the haters are the misogynists, the incel members, those who voted for trump because they could not abide a woman as President, the mass murderers, the abusers. No surprises here I'm afraid. Men who kill get a pass. Women who speak up about it are told they are haters. In other words, shut up and go away. Hillary is still hearing that. it's trump-world now....

Gus said...

Andy, where exactly does Joseph give men who kill a pass?? Honestly, I would have thought reading comprehension would be much higher among readers of this blog. Also, when liberals loose empathy, they might as well be right wingers. Joseph is sadly right, Trump will be President for another 4 years thanks to this focus on hatred from both "sides"