Donald Trump is the most loathsome, criminal, disgusting pig in the history of American pigs. But I may support him in 2020.
That is to say: I will not support Bernie Sanders in 2020. I despise Bernie Sanders so thoroughly I will support his opponent even if his opponent explicitly runs on a promise to kill everyone named Cannon.
My problem goes beyond Bernie (who, I'm sure, still won't show his taxes). At this point, I find progressives to be as despicable as Republicans. They're all addicted to identity politics.
In other words, they're all guilt-givers.
The other day, I saw Spike Lee on the Chris Matthews program. I've always admired Lee -- he's one of the truly great directors -- but he pissed me off as only a true artist can.
Lee was wearing a shirt featuring the number "1619," to remind us of the first year slaves were introduced to this country. "We need to start talking about that," said Lee.
Start? START? Did he fucking say fucking START?
It seems to me as though we've been talking about nothing else since before the Civil War.
Here's my response, Mr. Lee. You're not going to like it. But you can harangue me for a thousand years and I'll still say the same thing. I've already heard everything that you could possibly say to me about slavery, and I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY SINS BUT MY OWN.
My own sins are plenty.
What does Lee hope to accomplish with his incessant message of "Hate yourself, Whitey"? Guilt-givers like Lee made Trump president, and now the guilt-givers want to give Trump a second term.
Newsflash: Democracy is a popularity contest. Guilt-giving is not the way to make yourself popular. Quite the opposite.
"But I'm filled with rage and I think white people SHOULD feel guilty, MUST feel guilty, for the following reasons..."
Stop it. You still don't get it, do you? Democracy is a popularity contest.
Progressives remain eternally blind to the fact that they are not popular. Most people (including most members of minority groups) hate political correctness. Most people hate identity politics. Plenty of people who didn't like Trump voted for him nonetheless because they want to send a message to the progs: We hate you. We're sick of the politics of guilt.
I can no longer stomach black people who insist on saying "Feel guilty, Whitey." There. I said it and I won't take it back.
That doesn't mean I wish black people ill. That doesn't mean I want them to suffer police abuse or job discrimination or anything of that sort.
When the insurrection broke out after the Freddie Grey funeral here in Baltimore, I happened to be sitting next to a black guy at the local Mickey D's. We watched the TV coverage together. He was appalled by those (relatively minor) acts of violence. I was the one shouting "It's about goddamned time someone fought back."
That's been my attitude pretty much all of my life.
Yet black people in the media constantly tell me to feel guilty for something I did not do. And I have finally had it up to here.
I grew up with a Sicilian mother and a Jewish stepfather. Believe me, if there's one thing I know about, it's guilt. My family was devoted to one cause: Making sure that I grew up with the bedrock certainty that everything wrong with the world was MY fault. When Apollo 13 broke down, my first reaction was to apologize.
Here's the thing about growing up with rage-addicted, resentment-filled guilt-givers who used a kid -- a kid -- as their perpetual emotional punching bag: After a while, the kid says "Fuck it. I'm not apologizing to you ever again. Even if I do something that actually merits remorse. No more apologies."
If a child feels that he is damned no matter what he does, he learns to accept damnation. Catholics have a term for this: The sin of despair.
As with a child, so too with an adult.
In nearly every contest in every election, I've voted the way black people vote. Looking back on my life, I honestly can't think of any person of color I've treated in a racist fashion.
No doubt, the previous sentence will infuriate someone. "You're wrong, Cannon. You ARE a racist and always have been, and I don't give a shit who you voted for." Message to that reader: You don't know my life. What makes you so goddamed sure that I have Klan robes in my closet?
Yes, I have plenty of sins on my ledger. Sins grave enough to make the devil blush. I wrestle with that realization every hour of every day remaining to me. But: Not that sin. Believe what you will, tell yourself whatever fable you want to hear: I know my life and you do not. Nothing I ever did made your life worse. If you're having trouble playing the gas bill, don't blame Cannon.
Even though I've been poor most of my life -- even though I've lived in homeless shelters and commuted by bus, even though I buy clothing only in thrift stores (purchasing only the half-price items), and even though I spent my last dollar yesterday on a can of tuna -- black people call me privileged. Even the ones who drive nice cars and wear expensive shoes still feel that they have the right to call me privileged.
God, but I've come to despise that word.
They feel that the P word applies to me and not to (say) Barack Obama, who went to fucking Occidental College as an out-of-state student, despite having (by his own admission) crummy grades. (Oxy is a dumping ground for rich kids in southern California who don't have the grades for USC.)
The P word is never bestowed on someone like Spike Lee, even though I'm pretty sure that the son of Bill Lee grew up in easier circumstances than those I knew after my dad died. Lee is worth $40 million now, yet he still seems perpetually filled with resentment. The man lives like a king, yet he wants to be an emperor. He has the same infuriating sense of entitlement commonly associated with Donald Trump. Lee has far more intelligence and talent, but the arrogance is similar.
Women. Similarly, an incessant parade of women have always tried to make me feel guilty. If they are unhappy with themselves, they blame me.
There's a reason this list has gone viral. Believe it or not, that poor guy had it easy compared to the way I lived during my first serious relationship. I was forbidden to see all of my old friends. My every waking movement was controlled.
Too many women have become incredibly domineering and controlling -- downright sadistic. Although men are still often caricatured as ape-like brutes -- as unlettered, unfettered "Stanley Kowalski" types -- feminists are actually closer to that stereotype.
The woman I live with now is one of the few I've known who isn't like that.
Feminists never let a male finish a thought. No matter how carefully a man tries to pare down the argument -- can I get it down to two sentences? One? -- she will pounce before a man can utter seven consecutive words.
I knew a feminist back in the 1990s. The moment I uttered a noun, any noun, she would interrupt. She simply had to spew out every idea/memory/word-association conjured up by that noun. Yet she would accuse me (and every other male) of interrupting her. Every unvoiced thought in her head had to come out, or she would claim that she was being suppressed. I once secretly recorded a forty minute phone conversation with her: The only uninterrupted sentences allowed to me were "Hello" and "See ya." Everything else was a nonstop brain-dump, a volcano of verbiage. Her verbiage. Frankly, what she had to say wasn't particularly original or insightful. But still she just had to say it, and she used feminist argot to "guilt" me into patiently accepting her every triteness.
I've met many, many, many women like that. And I'm sick of it. Sick of the rudeness. Sick of hearing feminism used as an excuse for rudeness.
I have a soft voice. I don't interrupt. I make an effort to be a good listener. All my life, women have taken advantage of my politeness. They harangue me incessantly in shrill, loud tones, usually doing 80 to 90 percent of the talking. (I speak literally.) Yet they accuse me of interrupting them whenever I try to formulate an argument of any complexity.
When a woman says "You're not listening!" what she really means is: "Do as I command! Never disagree with me! Never say one word that I do not want to hear!"
I've been abused by most of the women I've known in my life. There. I've said it. I can't prove it to you, not without revealing more about myself than I care to. If you are a feminist, you wouldn't believe me anyways, since you think all men are Penismonsters. No amount of evidence would suffice. But I know what it is like to be hit. The blows don't physically hurt, but the humiliation is unendurable.
Modern women are pigs.
Gays. I don't know what the hell you want from me, but it isn't what you say you want from me. I've never mistreated a gay person. I would be fine voting for a gay politician. I'd have no problem if a child of mine were gay. I've had a couple of bisexual ladyfriends.
(Frankly, they're preferable. I used to be a commercial artist. Bisexual women do not turn into quivering balls of insecurity if I draw a picture of a voluptuous female.)
But there's one message I'd like to give every gay person: Your problems are your problems. I'm not responsible for them.
Don't blame me if you don't like yourself. Self-loathing is a universal constant; if you weren't gay, you'd probably be just as unhappy for some other reason. The myth of all-pervasive homophobia has become your all-purpose excuse, your way of blaming the Eternal Other for your fucking depression.
A gay man is someone who, when he is blinded by the sun's glare, does not simply put on a pair of sunglasses, as the rest of us do. He screams: "Turn down the sun!"
The gay man blames the world, never himself. If a gay man doesn't radiate 100 percent self-esteem at all times, it's always society's fault, not his.
Sorry, gay people and trans people, but I just don't give a rat's ass about your self-esteem issues. You don't care about my self-esteem issues, so why should I care about yours?
Gays are forever overestimating their numbers. They once published a magazine named "Ten Percent," because they told themselves that they constituted ten percent of the population. Gore Vidal repeatedly spoke of thirty percent, as if he knew what the hell he was talking about. In fact, gays are roughly 2.5 percent of the population. Look it up. I was shocked to learn that there are more pedophiles than gay people in this country. Again: Look it up.
There's nothing wrong with belonging to a 2.5 percent minority group. Yet ever since Kinsey, gays have flattered themselves with bogus statistics -- and as a result of their propaganda, dunderheaded young people now believe that gays constitute 23 percent of the population.
My message to gays is much the same as my message to climate denialists: Science is science. You can't insist upon a science that makes you feel good.
What familiarity breeds. I know what some of you are now longing to say: "Just for once, you should hear my point of view..."
"Just for once"? "Just for once"? Jesus Christ, I've heard no other point of view since the fucking 1970s!
All my adult life, I've been assailed by feminists/blacks/gays who -- hilariously -- think that I have yet to hear their rap. In a sense, they're just like the 9/11 "controlled demolition" nutjobs. They keep telling me that they're gonna blow my mind with some new new NEW information -- yet invariably, they have no words to offer other than those I've already heard a zillion times.
Black people, women, gays, progressives: Let's be done with the illusion that you have anything new new NEW to say. You don't.
Your hatred of me is very familiar. I am already well aware that I am the cause of all your problems. That's right: You can blame your failures in life on that extremely poor guy who lives in a small attic in Baltimore -- the guy who doesn't know what he's going to eat after he's emptied that can of tuna. He's the privileged one.
Whatever you do, you must never blame yourselves for anything. Point the accusing finger at that demon in the attic, for his skin is white and he has a penis and he does not sleep with men.
I am your insecurity-dump, your rage-dump, your fury-dump. If you didn't have me to hate, you might have to hate that person you see in the mirror. And that would be insufferable, wouldn't it?
But:
Please don't pretend that you have something new new NEW to tell me. Please don't think that you possess some explosive new insight which is going to cause my occiput to rocket out of my cranium and fly out the window and land in the street where dogs may piss on it.
After a certain age, one realizes that one has heard pretty much everything. Everything. For me, "conversation" and "cliche" are synonyms. Conversation has become the art of two people hitting each other over the head with bags of banalities. Even people considered novel and clever are actually quite predictable.
Serge Diaghilev once commanded Jean Cocteau: "Astonish me!" That's my challenge -- and not just to blacks, women and gays. To everyone.
You probably won't meet that challenge. I doubt that any of you are capable of saying any words, on any topic, that are truly unpredictable.
I, on the other hand, posses that ability. I'm clever that way.
Allow me to demonstrate.
John Lennon (another clever fellow) once wrote: "Woman is the nigger of the world." Today, the heterosexual white male is the nigger of the world, at least of the progressive world. Nothing we do is ever right. I am the boogeyman. I am the one who ruined your life. I am Satan.
That's the thing about guilt-givers. After a while, the target says "Fuck it."
Black people, feminists, gays, progressives: I'm sick of being your nigger.
40 comments:
Off your meds?
It's ok to be pissed, Joseph, but keep your spirits up. There's a lot of people who can relate to what you say -- and who care about you.
For most of history self-reflection was always the luxury of a wealthy elite; the rest were too busy working. Leisure time, and the opportunity for self awareness, is now rightly seen as a generally good thing and socially beneficial. But not where the self-preoccupation goes into hyper drive and it becomes a right for every person to install their own personal narrative and demand that others pay dues on it. It gets silly and dangerous. Mindless passion becomes a badge of honor, a "proof" of moral superiority and the rightness of one's ideas. Economics and the lack of money has a lot to do with it. People are forced to fill the gap with BS. Nature has a way of correcting these imbalances. Spiffy Nazi uniforms and rallies gave way in ten years to burying dead and sorting rubble. There'll be social correctives even in our life time. And the ravages of global warming? Even that will pale in a hundred years when the insects die, our crops die, and a new dark age comes upon us. Reality has a nasty habit of intruding.
The obsession with "white privilege" (or male privilege, or cis privilege, or whatever) has completely taken over progressive circles. The way younger people talk about it reminds me of the way medieval Christians talked about original sin: It's something you're supposedly born with and there's no getting rid of it, so your only hope is to flagellate yourself until you prove yourself worthy. It's complete nonsense. Think of how far the civil rights movement would have gotten if their message hadn't been "We want our rights as American citizens," but "You are all bad and we shall never forgive you."
I'm distressed how much the language of "critical theory" has invaded our lives. It reminds me of the Marxist-Leninist stuff they had to memorize in the Soviet Union: It's complete gibberish, but the first person who points that out gets sent to the gulag.
It's not even white privilege anymore, now it's white supremacy that all whites practice. The rhetoric is scary.
I suppose Roger Stone would be your preference as Trump's running mate.
Assuming Roger's not in prison, of course.
Oh wait. He would be pardoned, wouldn't he?
Great. The way is clear for your Trump/Stone Dream Team.
Take THAT and a big FU, Bernie Sanders!
I'm with you.
You are **so** close to understanding the breadth and depth of female rage. Imagine the fiery rage of being hated by 3/4 of the population (all the men and half the women) for how you were born.
Fuck you, jane. You are hated because you are rude, obnoxious, overbearing and despicable. And you surely use feminist argot as your all-purpose excuse for your rude behavior.
The majority of women dislike feminism not because they have been brainwashed to despise their own kind, but because these have male fathers/brothers/husbands.boyfriends whom they love. They know from experience that all males are not the brutish, rapey, insensitive stereotypes that you sicko feminists imagine them to be.
But go ahead. You can go ahead and blame all of YOUR problems in life on that demon in the attic in Baltimore. That's what I'm here for, isn't it?
I also poisoned your well and caused your crops to die. And right now, I'm plotting to abduct your child to use his blood to make bread.
Things sound dire, Joseph. Raging into that good night or over a lost muse? Been following since your West Coast time and you been laugh out loud wry but that seems to have run away leaving bitterness. Why does it seem you're up against that cosmic expiration date?
Whether you like it or not, you do belong to a privileged group, white males. White males think the entire world revolves around them. They think they have it so rough, and they are pissed off when other groups want a share of the pie.
I quit giving a shit about them when they kept voting the wrong way election after election, decade after decade, for the very people who were destroying jobs with ruinous trade agreements and outsourcing. There is no helping these idiots, who still they think they are entitled--as white males--to "family wage" jobs, the family wage concept which lies at the root of sex discrimination, the wage gap, and women's poverty.
It isn't "identity politics" to state the truth. YOU are engaging in "identity politics" when you shit all over women. We do live in a patriarchy and white males are at the top of the heap. Not you personally, but you white males as a group.
You are also full of it about feminism. Don't make claims you can't substantiate, like "most" women "dislike" feminism. ALL women benefit from it whether or not they call themselves feminists or even like it. Women know today they don't exist to be fuck toys, incubators, and little domestic servants for you dudes, that they don't make you dudes the center of their universe anymore. That isn't "dislike" for feminism, Joseph, to realize they are human beings, which is all feminism is about, and not subhumans who exist in relationship to others. YOU don't get to tell women what to think or define what feminism IS. YOU wouldn't know what it is if it bit you in the ass. I have close to a decade on you in age, and I am well versed in it. You can't even see how entitled you are as a white male. You think you have the right to tell women to shut the fuck up. I have known since I attended high school fifty years ago the male left was completely and totally worthless when it comes to women. They are just as bad as the right when it comes to hating women. The left dudes love their porn and prostitution, which are human rights abuses, and they support the heinous transgenderism, which is woman-hating at its core.
Understand the difference between men as a sex class and individual men. You take every single thing personally. You apparently have a problem with women, and I can hardly stand to read your MRA-type garbage when it comes to this. It is your Achilles heel when you write about politics.
I agree with you on Sanders, however. I won't vote for that shitbag, but he is not going to be the nominee at all.
I worry much more about Cory Booker, who despises public education or Kamala Harris, who cannot get elected because of the Willie Brown albatross.
I have no idea who I will support in the primaries.
Fuck you, you despicable feminist piece of shit. You will never be published here again.
"You think you have the right to tell women to shut the fuck up." No, I think I have the right to have my say. It's the women -- the domineering, controlling, manipulative women -- who will not accord that privilege to me
I can honestly say that, in all my life, in all of my interactions with females, the females have done at LEAST 75 percent of the talking. TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK. Incessant talking. Incessant attempts to control my every thought and movement. Incessant demands that I justify -- endlessly, endlessly justify -- my every decision and whim.
And yet these sick, sick creatures think that I am trying to squelch THEM. You goddamned feminists are the ones who refuse to treat ME as if I were a human being. YOU are the ones who have continually shat on ME -- my entire goddamned life.
I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE.
I am finally rebelling against all of the domineering, abusive, insulting, controlling females I've ever known. You want to think of me as a monster? Fine. I'll play along. I'll be the monster you have unfairly presumed me to be.
Joey, Joey, Joey. What can anyone say about an old guy who still goes by 'Bernie'? Imagine if he'd lived up to his parents' illusions as Bernard Sanders (without the r sound) and wore swell suits. I like the guy, always did, but would never vote for him. He agitates, good stuff.
What do you do if the tickets are Clinton/Sanders and Trump/DeVos?
I am glad you finally let it out. Good for you. Explains a lot.
I'm Whiter than sour cream. I've always felt more oppressed by fascists than feminists and brown people. Just sayin.
I know Joe, just hearing the name Sanders in the news can cause a lot of harm to some people. I almost lost it today. But...
Please take care of yourself. From my experience wallowing in the past no matter how hard and disappointing is not good for one's health.
Holy shit, Joe! Even though my total monthly income is only $1300 (SS), I'm sending you $10 so you can buy some more tuna. This is the best way to stretch it: chop 2 boiled eggs, 1/2 onion, 2 stalks of celery. Mix with a can of tuna, small dollop of Zatarain's Creole Mustard and a large dollop of real mayonnaise (none of that low-fat shit). You'll thank me. Love, Sharon
That is very kind of you, Sharon. Far kinder than I deserve. (I wasn't kidding when I said that my sins would make the devil blush. If you knew...!) At the risk of seeming ungracious, I won't take your money.
The low-fat mayo is what I SHOULD buy. Heart disease, you know. There are no grocery stores within walking distance, so I extend tuna with canned tomatoes and peas.
Thanks again.
If we're doing poverty food, I recommend beans on toast. Quick, good, filling. Warm, if you live in one of those places where the winters get cold.
"Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. " -- George Orwell.
Three words, Joseph: I LOVE YOU!
I Love you no matter what. Your blog has been a guiding light for me since before Hillary's first campaign for the nomination in 2007-2008. I probably speak for lots of folks when I say that I don't know how I would have made it through that time & the present. Please know that you are loved beyond imagination.
What the opposition needs to play on infinite loop is that clip of Sanders pushing Jane aside the same way Trump pushed aside the president of Montenegro. Peas in a pod.
I meant it in a good way -- hope you make the breakthrough soon. Nobody hates you, no matter how you feel right now.
I have come to the conclusion that Democrat Politicians will gladly stampede the Younger Generations over, above and on top of their Elders, because they believe it is the right thing to do. I guess Republican Politicians are the ones who are able to get out of the way.
When I was five years old I played with two sisters who lived few houses down from me, one was my age, the other was one year older. We would race from the backyard of their house to behind my Garage. I would win. One day I was at their home and they were really really really really excited. They had bought new tennis shoes the evening before and they were both going to beat me to my house.
I was mortified, not at the thought of losing, but that buying new tennis shoes could suddenly make someone faster than someone who did not have new tennis shoes. The Sisters were really whooping it up. I seriously thought I was going to lose and something inside of me was telling me that I had to try as hard as possible to not be defeated by a new set of Tennis Shoes.
We raced, and I zoomed ahead, and I think I recall hearing some type of disbelief behind me. When it was clear I had won I don't know how at that young of an age I knew to do this, but I slowed down just a bit so they would be closer then they had been in prior races by the time we reached the back of my Garage.
I turned around and was met by tears by the buckets. The two sisters were inconsolable. I had trouble processing their level of grief, I had not expected their need to win was so great that losing would be so painful for them. I don't think we played much after that day.
It was difficult trying to process the events of that day. What if the Tennis shoes had made them faster than me, and they taunted me from then on because I had old, slow sneakers and they had fast, new tennis shoes?
Is that really something to be happy about, being better than someone else because of something they purchased that my parents could not afford? I wondered if the Shoe Sales person had just led them on, telling them they would be faster for sure and they were giddy the entire time from the moment they bought their shoes until our race.
We all grew up in times where grown ups maybe made bad decisions, but they offset their bad decisions by having a job or keeping the family from being homeless.
I wonder if that is why to this day I drive a 40 year old car. I don't need a new car to feel better about myself just as I didn't need New Tennis Shoes to Run Faster than others. Maybe that is the White Privilege that drives others crazy?
Being put in a no win situation by racing against my two friends with their new tennis shoes meant I lost two friends over a stupid lie about magical tennis shoes.
Is this had been a script I could be viewed as the Bully of the Story, yet I did nothing wrong other than have fear that new Tennis Shoes could make someone else faster than me. In those Girl's eyes I was dead to them because they lost even with their new Tennis Shoes.
If any of us can be so fragile over one moment in time, it's a miracle our society functions at all. Why mess it up even more by blaming people for things they had no control over or things that happened way in the past.
Joseph, the proper word is "Gaslighting". It sounds like you have had your fair share of being Gaslighted by others in your life. What the Patriarchy Accusers refuse to see is it does not take more than 10% or 20% of all Men to be Patriarchal for the effects to reverberate in Society.
Those who constantly complain about Patriarchy and Patriarchal Men probably would rather spend 95% of their time shadowing and complaining about the Patriarchs in Society rather than spending their time focusing on the Men who are good guys.
What Janet in Texas said.
Oh, and BTW, nobody believes you will ever support Trump.
Once you get old like me, you start to whittle things down and you realize there are only two kinds of people: mean ones and kind ones. It's confusing because mean ones can be kind, and kind ones can be mean. There are mean feminists and there are kind ones. It's the same no matter how you slice and dice human populations.
Don't forget raw onions. lay raw onions on top of a THIN slice of your favorite cheese.
Joseph, while I don't agree with everything you wrote here, I would defend your right to say it no matter what. If free speech has any value, it's the ability to be exposed to ideas we find disagreeable. One thing I've always hated is the notion of "thought crime". This is what progressives try to enforce with virtue signalling, the idea that certain thoughts and ideas should never be spoken about or thought about. This is fascism, plain and simple.
My sister in law and her two young adult daughters, my nieces, tried to tell me last time they were in town that my parents marriage was misogynistic. I called bullshit, because my mother worked before my brother and I were born. From the time she was a little girl, she wanted to be a mother and a homemaker, but she worked to help get her new family with my father off the ground, while he went to grad school. My father would have supported her if she wanted to get a masters and PHD, because he always supported her, no matter what. She supported him and his dreams and goals in a similar way. The idea that my father was a misogynist, simply because he was the main breadwinner for most of the time my brother and I were growing up (my mom actually worked part time for most of that time, then went full time when I was 14 and my brother was 16), made me angry. They didn't know my parents then, and still don't know them as well as I do. My father goes out of his way to help people he doesn't even know, and doesn't care if they are male, female, gay, straight, black, white, whatever. I've witnessed him doing this countless times. But no, none of that matters, because my mother freely chose to be stay at home mom for 14 years. Somehow, this is my fathers fault, and men's fault in general. I do not accept that. I realize that US society as a whole was quite male focused for most of my parents life, but by the time I was born, women's liberation was in full swing, and by the time I graduated High School feminism and equality were well known concepts nationwide. I should probably also mention that prior to this last visit, I had never heard my sister in law or nieces say anything like this about my parents. They seemed greatly bemused by the notion as well, and addressed me as if I was a misguided child for suggesting they were misguided in their (apparently) very recently acquired view of my parents marriage.
Anyway, sorry for the long reply, but I hear you and I have loved reading your stuff since the George W years and you have been a light in the wilderness in many ways for me. So thanks for that.
i'm still going to give Jussie Smollett the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty. But, if Smollett is found guilty, it will seem like Jussie was late to the "We are Victims Movement", which is growing by the day, and is offended he was not believed because he is famous and should be given preferential treatment.
Joe, for some sick, twisted, reason I still come back to read your blog. Today I wanted to see what you thought about Bernie entering the race, wondered if you saw it for the shitshow it could be. And I find you ranting and raving about....identity politics? Women who have tried to control you? Lol. You're off the rails. This sounds like a personal issue of yours more than anything.
You're getting confused (Russian propaganda will do that to us all here and there): You think there's this thing called identity politics, which is actually just black people and latino people and women achieving high office. For the most part, this phenomenon you describe doesn't exist and has been inflated and made into a straw man by the other side. Of course we should celebrate diversity, lol, that is the default American view. What is unnatural is the white supremacists with a grip on the White House and Senate and many state legislatures.
Stay the course, my friend, and yes Bernie is goddamn awful, I can't foresee the consequences of this. But I can tell you one thing, women and people of color are your allies, some of the best (and the only) allies you have. In case you missed it, Nancy Pelosi just kicked Trump's ass. He lost, publicly, maybe for the first time in his life. Calm your ass down. We have a mission to complete.
Justin - 37, white, male, Kentucky
Guilt tripping your way to power has a long history in America. The Puritans, the Baptist and their revival meetings preaching eternal damnation, the Prohibitionists, and the Evangelical Christians. Now it is the Progressive Social Justice Warriors.
I tend to agree with Alessandro Machi's last comment. Don't fall for that divisive shit, Joe. You're too smart and too good...even with all your sins...for that. I'm sore about Al Franken too and will never forgive Kirsten Gillibrand, but my guess is Franken will rise again...older and smarter.
Further...we have to be really strategic about how we deal with the Sanders issue and not get sucked into some fever swamp by Russian bots, etc. Just like the MAGAs, we could well be targeted, confirmation bias being what it is.
what to do about Burno Sanders, lampoon the fuck out of him and his Bros. Hillary was soft on him out of deference to his incel following but they stuck a knife in her back anyway.
My contribution is:
Trump has his MAGA hat, Burno could counter with a red, white,and blue extension cord with the logo, "Berno 2020. Steal power from the bourgeois!"
Joe,
This is Zolodoco, by the way. If I were you, I would rarely if ever look at the responses to my posts. So I don't expect a timely response, if any, to what I'm writing now.
I agree with everything you've said. What I say after this isn't meant to represent you. I am and always will be in the working class. I want to see Trump's head on a pike. That isn't hyperbole. His class needs some skin-in-the-game, even if that means some seriously grim shit. Personally, I'm male and hetero. I don't care about anyone else's sexuality. I do care about how we conduct ourselves as a society and how we respect the ecosystems and various species that allow us to thrive.
My experience so far is that the fringe element is all about these bullshit identiy issues and not nearly enough about actually getting... shit.. done.
Joseph and commenters here may be interested in the Georgina Challen case in England. Challen was convicted of murdering her husband by beating him to death with a hammer. Her conviction has now been overturned and she will be retried. Her appeal was on the grounds that "new evidence" has come to light regarding the nature of "coercive control". She and her children are being used as poster people for "new psychiatric discoveries".
Her husband seems to have been a domineering bastard, there's no doubt about that. He may well have deserved what he got. I don't know many details of the case. He was certainly unfaithful to her and his unfaithfulness was a trigger for her flipping. But listen. She had been monitoring his mobile phone records for eight or nine years.
The concept of "coercive control" is being sold by many propagandists as if you've got to have a vagina to be a victim of it. Some of what is being said about it is total crap. For example the originator of the concept, Evan Stark, who doubtless gets many stays in hotels and much kudos in the psychiatry world out of it, says it's like living in an unreal world and being taken hostage.
Great soundbites.
So is he talking about Facebook?
And there's the rub.
You can read the legal definition in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015.
The Crown Prosecution Service has made it clear that the crime covers control over the victim's "social media" presence.
"Thou shalt have the individualised right to watch advertising".
"Facebook is your family now."
It's like you've joined the army and you can never get out.
Almost certainly Facebook was involved in the preparation of this law, and Facebook and its parent agency the CIA are also involved in the development of the story about "coercive control", even if probably none of this can be proved.
Having said all that: most victims of domestic abuse ARE women, and freedom for all victims of abuse everywhere!
Hey Joseph, depending on your monthly income, take the food stamps if you are eligible for them.
An interesting take on toxic femininity. Can't we all be assholes?
https://medium.com/s/powertrip/metoo-will-not-survive-unless-we-recognize-toxic-femininity-6e82704ee616
Hope you’re well, Joseph.
Read today that some Stanford grads are planning to sue the school. The grounds are that their degrees are now worthless since any dolt with rich parents could bribe their way in.
As a proud graduate of one of the top, say, one hundred and fifty state schools, this is all very funny to me. Bribes? Favors? Nah. As a state resident, they HAD to take me.
Enjoy the humor when you find it.
- Tom
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