So, Ted Cruz and his family were surrounded in a Washington, DC restaurant and left.
Much hand wringing ensues about civility.
It’s bullshit.
If you could have only one rule for creating a good society it would be the following:
Elites must experience the consequences of their behaviour.
The simplest reason the US is a shitshow and getting worse is that, for important people, it’s been getting better since about 1980, while it’s been getting worse for everyone else since about that time.
Because it only gets better for people who matter, they keep doing more of what they are doing.
Why wouldn’t they?
Forcing people who make life worse for everyone else to at least suffer public approbation is a baby step in the right direction.
Of course, it’s not enough, and people are morons. Barack Obama made life worse for most Americans in many, many ways and he wouldn’t be shamed. (But then, he did make New York bankers’ lives better….)
Shame people who make your lives worse. When you riot, don’t riot in your neighborhood, go to theirs, then riot. And so on.
People like Cruz and Obama are responsible for a ton of deaths. Generally incremental deaths, deaths due to policies which impoverish and immiserate people, but deaths nonetheless. They are responsible for even more suffering.
Being unable to eat a meal at a restaurant is pretty minor in comparison. It’s not enough.
But don’t think public shaming like this does nothing. People forget that Obama was anti-gay marriage at first. He changed his mind because gay activists got in his face and the faces of his family. They crashed public fundraisers, they made a fuss, they made his life, and the life of people he cared, about unpleasant. They backed it up with a donor strike.
And they won.
Obama caved and became pro-gay marriage, and fools and idiots pretend he always was. But he changed only because of personal and political considerations. Obama is no more moral than most politicians; he does what serves him best.
If you want politicians and rich people to do what you want, apply pressure. Make them hurt. They don’t respond to appeals to their better nature because, even if they had one, it doesn’t apply to ordinary people because they don’t identify with ordinary people. Politicians understand that, in most cases, their personal interests are directly opposed to the interests of ordinary people.
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A1
Cruz is a typical cuck. He should have confronted the folks and told them to fuck off. This is why the Republican party deserves to die, and why Cruz lost to Trump.
By the way it is a Washington DC restaurant.
someofparts
Here is another iteration of the point you are making about elites.
https://blackagendareport.com/black-unity-behind-black-candidates-helps-whom-us-or-them
“In the end, the wall of black unity around Barack Obama freed his hand to ignore black demands upon him, if we’d possessed coherent political sense to make any in the first place.”
Jerry Brown
Isn’t there some point where the attempt to make politicians uncomfortable becomes counter-productive for your cause? I would not want people to start feeling sympathy for Ted Cruz.
XFR
They were anti-Kavanaugh protesters though, so who knows what would have happened had they been protesting for a cause that wasn’t establishment-endorsed. My guess is they’d have been arrested and jailed, and probably charged with public mischief.
Same thing with Twitter, really–much of the targeting of non-public figures that goes on probably constitutes grounds for criminal harassment charges yet somehow everyone knows that that’s never going to happen.
“The United States is a nation of laws–badly written and randomly enforced”–Frank Zappa
Ian Welsh
Oh yes. One of the reasons Obama caved on gay rights is that corporations don’t really care. Smart rich people know that much of the cultural life and personal services they care about are provided by gays.
nihil obstet
The people who feel sympathy for Ted Cruz are not your allies in any case. Most of the time, appeals to civility are objections to content.
NR
XFR:
Are you really saying the establishment is anti-Kavanaugh? Because that’s insane.
Heliopause
I wish it were that simple. Whenever you deploy a strategy such as this there is more to think about than simply whether the target deserves it or not. Will my action achieve its ostensible goal or is it likely to backfire (it was far more likely that Obama would respond to LGBT activists, his nominal allies, in a fashion they desired than that the Cruz cohort will do so, in fact, if you look at conservative social media, they’re already in an ugly, retaliatory mood)? What criteria will you use to identify targets? For instance, can you only do this to people as famous as Cruz or is a mid-level government functionary who is carrying out destructive policies a legitimate target? What about members of the military or employees of defense contractors who are murdering Yemeni children as we speak, but are unknown to the public?
Will my action trigger a backlash? If so, what’s it likely to be, and is the collateral damage worth the larger goal?
Is the proximate reason for my action an important one, or is it in service of a proposition which is morally ambiguous (i.e. support for the proposition that evidentiary standards can be completely ignored in pursuit of the goal of defeating a Supreme Court nominee)?
I’m not at all opposed in principle to making life as uncomfortable as possible for the likes of Cruz, but the necessary first step, which is thinking through goals and consequences, doesn’t seem to occur to many activists, sadly.
Willy
I only know one elite, but many of their supporters and wannabes. I work their children. I politely wax nostalgic about the way things were before 1980 (and could’ve been for them), but only enough to get them thinking that their parents might not be as smart as they wish they were.
bob mcmanus
Arguments I have seen about this sometimes focus on respect and civility toward Ted Cruz’s “family” in the restaurant case, the Cruz spouse. This is used on the presumption that a Republican wife (if not directly involved in politics) is an innocent victim of Republican white male patriarchy, just like the rest of the sisterhood. Check out comments on last night’s interview with the Kavanaughs, she looks “kind” “why doesn’t she divorce the guy” etc. The axiom of sisterhood, that ALL women are always victims of the patriarchy is important for the MeToo and BelieveHer campaigns and the neoliberal project of erasing class struggle from political discourse, displacing it with competitive identity discourses.
Okay to shun, mock, harass Ted Cruz in a restaurant? Uh, I thought this place was further developed than that. If Cruz wanders into a hostile environment, the only pragmatic question anymore is does he walk out.
Herman
@Heliopause,
That is just it. People don’t care as much when it happens to a major politician but what about some ordinary government employee? I would not want to be hounded in a restaurant by activists because I happened to work for ICE or the military or the police. And let’s not forget that the right can play the game too. If this happened to a Democratic politician or a doctor who performed abortions or someone who worked for Planned Parenthood or a left-wing college professor would people on the left be so quick to defend this kind of activism?
I am also not sure that this enhances the lot of ordinary people. It could easily turn people off from your side or from politics in general. Who would want to get into politics today? You have to deal with so much insanity from not only the opposition but from people who are ostensibly on your side. I wouldn’t be surprised if this sort of thing turns off a lot of good people from getting involving in politics and running for office. Politics will end up selecting for the worst personalities and we will get more people like Trump in the future.
I understand the feeling that things have gotten so bad that we need more radical change and that means more radical forms of activism but at the same time I wonder where all of this will lead. Extreme polarization is not producing better results. We are getting worse results and worse politicians. It also doesn’t help that politics now seems to be based on trying to catch your opponent in scandals, usually involving sex. It is telling that Kavanaugh’s sex life and frat boy lifestyle are the reasons he is being attacked and not his support for plutocracy and torture.
nihil obstet
The premise is Elites must experience the consequences of their behaviour. When you think “some ordinary government employee” is a member of the elite, what definition of “elite” are you using?
BlizzardOfOzzz
Ian supports Ted Cruz being personally harassed — for the same reason he would support Barack Obama being harassed. But we all know the latter will never, ever happen. So prima facie the purpose of the harassment is something other than what Ian wants to think, and yet he still supports it.
The Principled White Left is dying for just this reason, that it is incapable of seeing the world as it is today. Coincidentally, the Principled White Right is dying for the exact same reason.
Heliopause
@Herman
“I understand the feeling that things have gotten so bad that we need more radical change and that means more radical forms of activism but at the same time I wonder where all of this will lead.”
There is also the disconnect between those who claim that Trump, Cruz, et al are literal fascists and the laughable notion that yelling in restaurants is an adequate response to literal fascists.
“It is telling that Kavanaugh’s sex life and frat boy lifestyle are the reasons he is being attacked”
Yes, very telling. Activists need to understand that once something is weaponized the weapon is out in the wild and can be used by anyone. Not saying I’m in principle against deploying various weapons but it really needs to be thought through carefully.
Dan Lynch
I suggest we have two sets of rules, one set of rules for dealing with ordinary people and a second set for dealing with psychopaths and narcissists — and many politicians and “leaders” are psychopaths because they are attracted to power.
For ordinary people, kindness and empathy will work better than getting in their face. I used to be mildly anti-gay. What changed my mind was having a gay coworker that I admired for his intelligence, good manners, and being an all around good guy. He didn’t get in my face, and if he had it would not have made a good impression on me. I can’t recall a single time that I changed for the better because someone got in my face.
But psychopaths and narcissists will eat your kindness and empathy for breakfast. They’ll see it as a sign of weakness. It’s best to stay away from psychopaths and narcissists, but if you must deal with them, you’ll have to speak their language, which is POWER. Getting in their face may be effective sometimes.
Hugh
I agree with bruce mcmanus. It is all about class and class war. The Ted Cruzs of this world shit on us every day. They rain unimaginable violence down on us, but horrors! if anyone interrupts their dinner.
As Ian says, there needs to be more consequences, more costs for those who abuse and kill us.
Re Kavanaugh, he was nominated precisely because he is anti-Roe, Federalist Society approved believer in Presidential dictatorship, at least if that President is Republican. To most of the Establishment, even parts of its “liberal” wing, these positions are irrelevant. They support because he is a member of their club. So you have people like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins who should be automatic No votes trying desperately to find ways to vote Yes but with plausible deniability for what follows. With the sexual impropriety allegations, this has become even harder for them. And the Democrats seem to be holding firm. This makes a cosmetic vote less likely. This would be where Collins would vote No but some Democrat, maybe in a tight race, would vote Yes. Oh, the travails of our ruling classes. None of them give a damn, but sometimes they need to give the appearance they do.
Linda Merrill
I suppose this is irresponsible and dangerous to say, but, really, instead of running them out of the restaurant, why don’t they just poison the food? I mean, you can’t say “they” are not poisoning us as we are attacked from every conceivable angle—sprays, Roundup (which I now have confirmation as the primary cause of my many-years illness), lead in water, human “meat” apparently in the food at McDonald’s and only God knows where they get it from, and on and on. It’s really pretty repulsive but few seem to be able to see it. We must start thinking more within “their” mindset, while not betraying our own selves and our own moral code, I get it. But how are we supposed to defend ourselves?
Herman
@nihil obstet,
“The premise is Elites must experience the consequences of their behaviour. When you think ‘some ordinary government employee’ is a member of the elite, what definition of ‘elite’ are you using?”
I don’t think that ordinary government employees are elites but I don’t think these tactics will just be used against bit shots like Ted Cruz. We already have had cases of people doxxing and swatting each other based on political disputes and these are ordinary people or at best minor figures.
The left-wing cartoonist Ted Rall wrote about this sort of thing in the aftermath of the Charlottesville debacle when he came out against people who were trying to get fascists fired from their jobs.
http://rall.com/2017/08/14/charlottesville-workers-fired-doxxed-censorship
I know that is not the same issue as confronting people while at dinner but I see it as part of the new trend of harassing people based on politics. The advent of social media and other technologies have made it much easier to harass people, get them fired, etc. You don’t even need to physically get in their face to do it!
Eventually more people will refuse to get involved in politics. You can call it cowardice but why stick out your neck for causes that may or may not succeed? Why put your safety and livelihood at risk for the remote prospect of changing the world? The only people left in politics will be ideologues who are so extreme that they don’t care what will become of them.
Finally, why not just defeat Ted Cruz at the next election? I am not sure if getting in his face will even make him change his behavior. If I was Ted Cruz I would be using this incident to rally my supporters against what I would characterize as the dangerous, insane ultra-left wing rabble.
Ché Pasa
Ché Pasa
Hate to break it to you, but this sort of thing has been happening to just these kinds of people for a very long time. Rightists generally thought it was perfectly appropriate, even on occasion lauding murder of abortion providers.
The so-called \”left\” has rarely been as obnoxious, violent and murderous. Even now, those who interrupt the quiet dinners out of some of the high and mighty are remarkably polite; too polite in my estimation.
I\’ve said for years that the obsessive focus on elections to change things is misplaced. Elections are not meant to enable radical policy changes on behalf of the rabble. In fact, they are meant to prevent them, and that\’s how they usually work.
For change to happen, the serious change that we need, those who can do so need to make it impossible for the powerful to govern. It means making them uncomfortable, unwelcome, unable, insofar as it is possible to do so. Interrupting dinner out is a minor thing, but it sends a message.
What\’s been done to date, even the things that cause a lot of ruckus, is very mild compared to what could be done. The People, rabble though they may be, have an immense amount of latent power.
Webstir
But if it can be done to Cruz, then it can be done to George Will, Friedman, Vanden Heuvel or — GASP! — Paul Krugman.
Our famously free press can’t be seen approving of crowd shaming, now can they?
Ian Welsh
Jesus Christ.
Do you know what happens to abortion doctors in America? They’d be pleased to only receive this sort of attention.
And notice I had no problem when they did it to Obama. Problem is more people didn’t do it to him and his family.
Ten Bears
You still haven’t answered the question, ooze, do you believe, do you continue to advocate that the dead children and teachers at Sandy Hook are not dead, that they and the grieving parents, first-responders and community members are crisis actors, the incident a false flag?
Oaktown Girl
I have no concern about people “feeling sorry” for Ted Cruz. In fact, I invite them to express their sympathies for him and his ilk. That opens the door to a conversation about politicians and policy: who benefits, and who suffers.
Those who aren’t willing to at least try to have that discussion have no intention of ever being on our side, so if publicly shaming Ted Cruz makes them double down on how much they hate us, it’s no loss. On the other hand, you will get *some* people who actually wake up to the fact that there is a link between politicians and the policies/legislation they fight for. And even though that’s a very low bar, we are desperately in need of more people willing and able to jump over it.
bob mcmanus
1) I have pretty much decided that, at least in the US, the existential battle is between feminists and white male conservatives for wealth and power, and everything else is dependent on those. Not that socialists or blacks or fundamentalists don’t have interests and power,and we can definitely form alliances useful to us and pick up winnings they leave on the table, but our position is akin to the lesser countries during the cold war. We can’t rule. Women and rich white males are big enough, developed enough, socialized enough to rule coherently. Feminism isn’t a movement, they authorize and empower movements. They are a party. An oligarchy.
With internal factions and competitions (older vs young women for instance) that can be useful to attach to.
2) Oaktown Girl touches on it, we are rapidly moving from a guilt-based rule-based society to a shame-based society. The weapon is shame and the question is what values are shaming and who can effectively wield it. Part of this is obviously derived from our ongoing loss of privacy and the archiving of everything. Shame societies have fewer overt rules and more intricate and both malleable and oppressive systems of relationships.
In the restaurant, it really isn’t about Ted Cruz. The shamer wants an audience, to make the staff and other customers choose a side. It’s about shaming them.
Stirling Newberry
Actually, they the people running the show the people running the show have killed a lot of people. It is just there people who have not been born yet or who do not know that the little card on your chest says that they are going to be executed. Climate change is not just a word, the people who run the apparatus – such as the bankers who Obama saved – are still in charge. Millions of people go about their daily business exchanging oil based money – dollars, Euros, yuan – and to realize their part of the problem, and in fact if they want to eat they have to be part of the problem.
Money needs to be re-consolidated around a different kind of basis, and unfortunately, the people know how to do this are being ignored.
The real cause is that the property owners (which is the net present value based on past expectations) have their money based on fossil fuel economics – including transport which is about to be much more expensive – while capital cannot be invested in anywhere near the supervision degree necessary to get our energy supply off of oil. Capital is the net present value of a future, which is not being recognized (because since Adam Smith enunciated it) it goes down in value.
This mismatch means that people naturally want property, not capital, and will do anything to achieve it. Especially illegal things, because they think that the representatives can just wave their hands and magically forget the law of gravity. On the so-called liberal side, they believe that you can just print money, which is also wrong – we can only print that much money that people will believe in, and we need to distribute it along the lines that climate change enunciates.
The answer is a read to nominate system of money, interest, and capital. Even Piketty gets it wrong (for example on pages 567-568 Capital in the 21st Century) Because even fame is really part of property.
jonst
why is it only “elites” that must suffer the “consequences” of their “behaviors”? You can say that about anyone. And when you do, you will be chipping away at the values of charity and decency.
This kind of thing, the ‘behavior’ of those types who drove Cruz out of a restaurant, will, if it becomes widespread enough, engender all kinds of violent and profound consequences. And we’ll all suffer. There are other ways to fight the powers that be.
False Solace
Last time I checked, rich white males run the vast majority of Fortune 500s, are the vast majority of billionaires, run the banks and Congress and every statehouse and courthouse you can name. To say “the existential battle” is between feminists and conservative white males is fucking delusional.
90% of the money and power is all on one side, and that side wants you to hate ANYONE BUT THEM. Do I care that the people who run society are white and male? Not particularly. I care that those people use their wealth as a weapon and stir up hate between all other groups.
False Solace
The vast majority of rapists never face any consequences for their crimes. Considering that fact, we really shouldn’t be surprised that people have turned to shaming and social media to try to get some traction. Will those tools be misused? Yes — but maybe if it were possible to get justice any other way it wouldn’t be an issue.
Hugh
For me, money is a medium to move resources around a society, hopefully, to build and maintain the society we want, but I agree with Sterling that ” we can only print that much money that people will believe in, and we need to distribute it along the lines that climate change enunciates.”
It is important to know where we are. I would submit that we are in a pre-revolutionary state. We are daily witnesses to the hollowing out of our economy, our political system, and increasingly our society. Reform isn’t going to cut it. You can not reform something that is this rotten, that is this far gone. Shaming some of our corrupt and criminal leaders is a feel good activity. Making their lives uncomfortable extracts a cost from them. But more importantly it raises political consciousness, and is part of the pre-revolutionary process.
someofparts
Well, in the Taste of Their Own Medicine department, here’s a fresh option.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/18/want-gun-control-arm-the-left-it-worked-before/
parzival
>>Forcing people who make life worse for everyone else to at least suffer public approbation is a >>baby step in the right direction.
I think that you meant to use disapprobation.
bob mcmanus
Last time I checked, rich white males run the vast majority of Fortune 500s etc
The same analysis applies to labour versus capital. Just cause the capitalists “have all that” doesn’t mean there isn’t a class struggle. And how were the workers supposed to win?
Numbers and intransigence.
Nah, I’ve been hearing this stuff for a decade, that Obama is just the same as the black kid in prison, that Hillary was no different than a waitress with a baby on her hip. “Women have no power.” Which women, where?
Power is local and concrete. Koch does not own and control the Cynthia Nixon campaign, did not stop Ocasio-Cortez.
Kavanaugh could have been attacked on ideology or money shenanigans. The rapey allegations are useful because feminists have an army that socialists don’t.
It is still early, and feminists of course haven’t won everything yet, do not have totalitarian control. But these are the forces contending. Everyone else is leaching energy, catching rides.
For the record, I am not exactly on the side of rich Republican men. I could, I think, live quite contentedly in a gynocracy, until they put me in jail for watching Sailor Moon. “Old man likes to watch young girls in short skirts? Shame and jail him.”
b) Saying say Koch and Soros and Blankfein run everything is not my model of power. Hitler did not attack Stalingrad, and was irrelevant. Generals and colonels and privates attacked Stalingrad. Koch does not even “hire” people, as if he is out in a car looking. People come to Koch with ideas, Koch writes a check, those people hire people. And it is that level, the people who work for Scott Walker, the people whose Clinton’s employees hire who have the power.
The 10% who actually do stuff. Professionals and managers. And they are definitely taught to say that they are only following orders.
ponderer
Well, the brown shirts would agree with you. The problem I have had with “the left” and “the right” my entire life is that they insist certain rules must be followed just not by them or theirs. Can’t say I care about Cruz having his dinner ruined, but I am sure the treatment is counter productive. If only because there is no way it will be confined to “the elites.” Harassment like that has a high probability of getting someone shot. No well-meaning individuals should encourage behavior that increases physical confrontations. It will be used against them by the state eventually. Eventually they’ll be going after anyone wearing a MAGA hat and things will get out of hand.
That’s what the elites want. The Elites know that the average deplorable will go along with any injustice as long as they think it will be used on the “other” and not themselves. Don’t help them recruit brown shirts. If history is any guide, it doesn’t work out well for anyone but the elites.
nihil obstet
It is a fact religiously taught in all history classes and pundit reminiscences that all violence against the people began with leftist incivility which then made ordinary people so upset that they supported right-wing escalation. Damn, if those leftists would just stay quiet and polite, and police their compatriots to quiet submission, peace and plenty would ensue!
Charlie
What many are missing, save Hugh and Sterling in part, is these are ELITES we are speaking about here. The mindset of an elite is self-preservation at its most base, hence, their “need” to acquire more power and resources than would last others 1000 lifetimes.
Any message or action that places that self-preservation mechanism into doubt, public harassment included, causes them to incorporate the concerns of others into their concept of self-preservation. Thus, the problems of ordinary people actually get addressed. Note after 2008 the upper class had to go out of their way to hide the appearance of wealth due to the bailouts, and while small in scope, the stimulus package conservatives wailed about prior passed through. We would not have even gotten that if there was no threat the pitchforks were coming.
Charlie
I would include the actions of the militant labor movement and the rights won by workers in that assessment. They found themselves under threat directly.
Willy
I think “elites” was meant to be a descriptor for the nationally powerful who have a million times the global influence of the regular working joe.
Psychopathy and narcissism can be difficult to prove. Usually one has to wait for the fruits before ye shall know them. And being grossly outnumbered, the successful ones operate as wolves in sheep’s clothing until they’ve acquired the ability to hold onto significant power. Until we collectively and culturally know how to limit them they’ll always gravitate towards power and control on whatever level suits them, and to the degree that the rest of us allow.
Maybe everybody in power should be held to a set standard, regardless of their degree of narcissism and psychopathy. I’d think taking in corporate or oligarchic donor cash would be enough of an obvious sin to deserve a sound booing.
Ideally, it’d be as simple as professional athletes being publicly cheered or booed. The obvious problem is there’s so much more dogmatic lying, obfuscating, overcomplicating… that takes advantage of wishful thinking… in politics. And honest and decent historians (sportswriters) don’t seem to get the cultural respect they deserve whenever they say “Uh oh folks, here we go again.”
Evangelicals couldn’t save Tim Tebow, but most sure do cling ever tightly to the far more sucky Trump.
ponderer
I think you guys might be missing something, Ted Cruz is a politician. He serves elites. He is not Elite, unless you count pretense or hopeful ambition. Second, it’s not very effective against true elites. Examples of Obama (arguably an elite now, but not before he was presitute) endorsing something his party already endorses, or the media shortly after the bailout running fewer Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, are not actually convincing unless you are in to confirmation bias.
Being uncivil in the face of injustice pushes the right buttons. Granted you might feel less powerless, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you are doing something worthwhile. Don’t think it won’t be used against you. It’s an effective tactic against the lower classes once normalized, not against actual Elites. It’s not what Genghis Khan would do.
Willy
What would Temujin do?
Webstir
Charlie:
I think I got it too.
Tell Krugman et al. that they’re not a part of the elite club.
Sure, they’re just stenographers for the elite. But they are how the elite purchase their free speech. Toadies … nothing worse.
ponderer
Hmm. Well, if we are talking hypothetically. Probably attack their weakest points. The weakest being their numbers are incredibly small. How did he handle the elite of the places he conquered? From what I hear, he made sure they and their descendants would never be able to challenge him again. As asymmetric warfare, probably kill some number of them brutally using spy’s / assassins as well as conventional forces, maybe not though. He would put aside the temptation to do some chest thumping, or any meaningless trivial actions. He would use their vanity to further divide and weaken them. Especially after recruiting confidants and obtaining insider information. The current rift between Trump and the MIC would probably be all according to a grand plan. I think Temujin would “recruit” inside the MIC, though never fully trust them. He would make sure the commoners knew they would not be molested so long as he was in charge and they would probably respect if not love him for it.
One thing is for sure you would know if you went against him exactly what the consequences would be. You might not know when or where, but you would know you and yours and anyone who tried to help you would meet a grisly fate. You would also know if he was on your side, as long as you acted with honor, no one could subjugate you.
different clue
@herman,
The reason that Kavanaugh is not being opposed or even questioned by the Clintobamacrat Senators on his support for plutocracy and torture is that the Clintobamacrat Senators all support plutocracy and torture.
The spotlight on Kavanaugh’s sexual-behavior past is not meant to get Kavanaugh rejected. It is meant to set a trap for the Republicans to step into . . . the trap of appearing anti-feminitic and anti-womanitic by asking the two accusers some mean and nasty questions. The hope is to enrage a victory-making margin of woman and feminist voters into voting for Democratic officeseekers in the coming election.
Forecasting Intelligence
Ian,
That is your right to approve such actions and harassment of politicians and their families.
But it also means that when the other side pursue the same tactics against your side when the populist left are in charge you won’t be in a position to condemn it.
So be careful what you wish for…
ponderer
I would add that I think that is the attitude that Citizens and Voters should take. The powers that be should be allowed to serve us only so long as they are useful. They should be held to the highest standards instead of the lowest. The highest crime, acting without honor, would be to betray those you profess to follow/serve. So Obama breaking his promises would upset Republicans just as much as Democrats even though they don’t necessarily hold the same values, because its a sign of disrespect for all Citizens. Ensuring the rule of law and fair treatment should be the benchmark of every politic and they should be dearly afraid of breaking it.
bruce wilder
bob mcmanus: The shamer wants an audience, to make the staff and other customers choose a side. It’s about shaming them.
Yes. It is not about what Ted Cruz feels.
It quickly becomes a contest for the acquiescence of an audience of on-lookers, both present and at some remove @ Twitter or Facebook or other media.
Ted Cruz is a good target, because it is hard to look at him directly and not loathe the man, just because his personality / political persona is off-putting. This might be a difficult tactic to make stick against a more affable reactionary turd.
The tribal feel-good aspect of the thing for the shamers and the confidence the shamers feel in the reaction of their (actually present vs media-mediated) audiences (and as opposed to the target’s presumably loyal following) makes me think this tactic depends on the dynamic of actually local politics and virtually “local” politics in ways I cannot begin to fathom.
Still, I cannot help liking it at least a little because I find I despise centrism and this is an attack on centrism more even than an attack on the particular behavior or character of the not-centrist Mr. Cruz.
Charlie
@webstir
Krugman, et. al., are just as much part of the elite as any politician or businessperson. They all need to sweat.
I’ll wait for the excuses as to why they should be exempt.
nihil obstet
The warring parties here are the oligarchy and the people. If you think that the warring parties are the Democrats and the Republicans, the servants of the rulers have done their job well.
someofparts
“But it also means that when the other side pursue the same tactics against your side when the populist left are in charge you won’t be in a position to condemn it.”
Be interesting to see a determined group of protestors publicly shame someone who got a $15/hr minimum wage for all the restaurant servers and affordable health care for all the other restaurant patrons.
peon
“If this happened to a Democratic politician or a doctor who performed abortions or someone who worked for Planned Parenthood or a left-wing college professor would people on the left be so quick to defend this kind of activism?”
I choked on my coffee with that one!!
Statistics from 1994-2014
NAF VIOLENCE AND DISRUPTION STATISTICS
INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE & DISRUPTION AGAINST ABORTION PROVIDERS
VIOLENCE
Murder 8
Attempted Murder 17
Bombing 42
Arson 182
Attempted Bomb/Arson 99
Invasion 400
Vandalism 1507
Trespassing 2560
Butyric Acid Attacks 100
Anthrax/Bioterrorism Threats 663
Assault & Battery 199
Death Threats 429
Kidnapping 4
Burglary 184
Stalking 554
TOTAL 6948
DISRUPTION
Hate Mail/Harassing Calls 116301
Email/Internet Harassment 626
Hoax Device/Susp. Package 0 188
Bomb Threats 662
Picketing 176112
Obstruction 726
TOTAL 1194615
CLINIC BLOCKADES
Number of Incidents 801
Number of Arrests 33839
NAF VIOLENCE AND DISRUPTION STATISTICS
INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE & DISRUPTION AGAINST ABORTION PROVIDERS
All numbers represent incidents reported to or obtained by NAF. Actual incidents are likely much higher. Tabulation of trespassing began in 1999 and tabulation of email harassment and hoax devices began in 2002. Numbers prior to 2013 represent the U.S. and
Canada only. Numbers from 2013 and 2014 represent the U.S., Canada, and Colombia.
1. Incidents recorded are those classified as such by the appropriate law enforcement agency. Incidents that were ruled inconclusive or accidental are not included.
2. Stalking is defined as the persistent following, threatening, and harassing of an abortion provider, staff member, or patient away from the clinic. Tabulation of stalking incidents began in 1993.
3. The “number of arrests” represents the total number of arrests, not the total number of persons arrested. Many blockaders are arrested multiple times.
4. NAF changed its method of collecting this data in 2011.
5.Tabulation of Obstruction began in 2012. Obstruction is defined as the act of causing a delay or an attempt to cause a delay in the conduct of buisness or prevent persons from entering or exiting an area. This would apply to violations of the FACE Act.
someofparts
peon – wow
onward Christian soldiers indeed
peon
“If this happened to a Democratic politician or a doctor who performed abortions or someone who worked for Planned Parenthood or a left-wing college professor would people on the left be so quick to defend this kind of activism?”
Seriously??? left-wing college professors????
“Professor Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at De Paul University in 2007 for his writings critical of Israel, despite the university calling him a “prolific scholar and outstanding teacher.” He has never been offered another teaching job in the United States. When professors at Cal State University Northridge tried to have Finkelstein hired temporarily, the university refused. ”
Jeffrey Sachs, a political scientist at Canada’s Acadia University, put together a database of all incidents where a professor was dismissed for political speech in the United States between 2015 and 2017. Sachs’s results, published by the left-libertarian Niskanen Center, actually found that left-wing professors were more frequently dismissed for their speech than conservative ones:
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/
Or how about ” Professor Watchlist”
“Welcome to Professor Watchlist, a project of Turning Point USA and Turning Point News. The mission of Professor Watchlist is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
Or “Canary Mission’, which “documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” making their names and pictures available to potential employers and grad schools. According to Professor Juan Cole, “Canary Mission’s profiles are filled with inflammatory accusations, falsehoods, misrepresentations and errors.”
someofparts
plus, they’re about to have a fellow predator on the Supremes to help them on their saintly way
peon
“If this happened to a Democratic politician”?? Okay I know is a stretch to consider a Democratic politician left, but I the author of this statement is seriously trying to claim that harassing of left-leaning politicians never happened. Have you never heard of COINTELPRO???????
“COINTELPRO (Portmanteau derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) (1956–1971) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.[3][4] FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive,[5] including the Communist Party USA,[6] anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights movement or Black Power movement (e.g. Martin Luther King Jr., Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), feminist organizations,[7] independence movements (such as Puerto Rican independence groups like the Young Lords), and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.”
Or if you want something more recent, Sept 14, 2018
The Massachusetts State Police Department tweeted a screenshot of a computer monitor Thursday to help illustrate the extent of a series of gas explosions and fires that had occurred throughout Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover, Massachusetts.
The screenshot of a browser, which has now been deleted, included a map of the affected area, an update on the number of homes impacted But that’s not all the tweet shared. The image appears to be a photo taken by a smartphone of a computer screen at the police department, and the browser containing the map had a row of bookmarks—bookmarks that include pages of left-wing activist Facebook groups. Among them were the Facebook groups for Mass. Action Against Police Brutality (MAAPB), which organizes protests and reposts stories of Americans killed by police; the Coalition to Organize and Mobilize Boston Against Trump (COMBAT); and other activist organizations. The “Resistance Calendar,” which shares upcoming anti-Trump protests in Boston and nationwide, was also bookmarked.”
I promise I am done.
Please no pity-party for the poor defenseless right wing asses that run the world and seldom get held to account.
Charlie
@jonst
“why is it only “elites” that must suffer the “consequences” of their “behaviors”? You can say that about anyone. And when you do, you will be chipping away at the values of charity and decency.”
The thing about that is the elites are the only ones who DON’T suffer the consequences of their behavior while the rest of us do. And no, I don’t call a fine that gets paid by other people (customers, stockholders less than voting shares, and taxpayers) to be careful consequences.
someofparts
“I promise I am done.”
Speaking for myself, I hope you show up more often and keep talking.
Willy
The idea of only ever being polite to an elite who is screwing you for their own gain is only ever naïve and cowardly.
And one can never be naïve and cowardly in any kind of power struggle and expect to win. And it mostly guaranteed, that if your aggressive tactics are working, the powerful will play the victim card to try and turn the tide of support against you. It’s part of the game. Nice guys like us didn’t write those rules. Successful power players did.
Being charitable and decent to loyal opposition, or to anybody else who’s just happy to be a normal person living a humble life is always a worthy value. But being charitable and decent to bullies who are mostly hardwired to enjoy ruining innocent others, is pure folly.
Webstir
jonst:
Simple rule of thumb — always punch up at the people punching down.
ponderer
@peon
Please no pity-party for the poor defenseless right wing asses that run the world and seldom get held to account.
One can be gravely aware of all that you have stated and still be of a mind that encouraging such behavior is a bad idea. Exactly because of the results you list, but also from all the ones that have come before it. It’s not the first time trivial tribal differences have been used to stir up resentment and violence. The solution to lawlessness is not more lawlessness. The solution to partisanship is not more partisanship. The emotional gratification people get from giving into their more primitive instincts is a burden to future generations. Pity never enters into it. It’s past noneffective to counterproductive. There is a reason counter intelligence agents dress up as protesters and push them to commit ever more escalating acts. It benefits the oligarchy.
The Elites don’t have to live in the world they create. They don’t care if the rabble are murdering each other, in fact some of them don’t mind paying half to kill the other half if it means they can enjoy their wealth longer. What they need to keep doing that is to divide the vast majority as much as possible, and ratchet up the emotions of those who will give in to self defeating actions.
The stark reality is that every ideological group has 2 sets of options. One is to annihilate all the other groups (even if you have the stone and the means, it won’t be happening in your life time), the other is to find common cause to fix the problems we all share.
nihil obstet
@ponderer, The solution to lawlessness is not more lawlessness. That’s what all the law-abiding people kept trying to explain to Martin Luther King, as he led street marches and supported sit-ins. Just because there was some lawless lynching doesn’t mean you ought to trespass on good Jim-Crow-law-abiding people’s streets and businesses!
Willy
I don’t think Ponderer wants to find common cause with the bully to fix his bullying problem.
He wants to find common cause with the bullied to fix the bullying problem, especially those who fully support the bully, but aren’t smart enough to know they’re being bullied.
Jerry Brown
My question was one of tactics- not whether the senator deserves this. He probably deserves worse. And it is not about whether the right wing does the same or worse. It is about how are most people who see the video going to react to it? Does this event get perceived in the same way as images of police using water cannons and beating civil rights marchers with Martin Luther King? Does it evoke the same emotions?
I don’t think so.
What I saw was a group of people surrounding Cruz in a restaurant and shouting at a man who was trying to have dinner with his wife. It is not good optics in my opinion. If most people who see this come away with the same impression, then this kind of protest is ineffective and probably counter-productive to achieving actual changes in policy. The groups that were effective in pressuring Obama probably had voted for him and were likely to vote for him and donate in the future. None of these protesters are going to vote for or support Cruz in any way. He knows that. He’s probably pleased that this video made it to the news.
nihil obstet
What do most people matter? The Gilens-Page study published in 2014 found that “Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions, they have little or no independent influence on policy at all.” So on policy, most people don’t matter, with all their good optics, Miss Manners’ approvals, and emotional reactions.
So how do people matter? They matter if they affect the elites personally. In a real democracy, it is possible that the political system can work for people, by voting out candidates who don’t deliver, but can anyone now seriously argue that we have that? If you think so, then you’re right to argue that it’s much nicer if we all get together and natter amicably with each other. But if not, then the most effective way to hold elites accountable is to engage with them personally at whatever level you can get to them. If they have made our lives worse and we have no realistic way to influence them civilly, don’t accord them deference and ease.
Hugh
Revolutions don’t come about because people were being nice. This is true for those (our rich and elites) who create the need for one as well as those (the rest of us) who need to prosecute one against them. The angst about Cruz being made uncomfortable is ridiculous. They are killing us, and we are supposed to be unfailingly considerate of their feelings??? What part of this is hard to understand?
someofparts
Speaking of bad optics – Kavanaugh hearings. This is going to mobilize women voters even more than Trump. I yelled at the television so much it upset the dog. Listening to Lindsey Graham reminded me of Dalton Trumbo’s advice in Time of the Toad, where he advised that one eat a raw toad each morning to steel oneself against disgust before spending the day listening to revolting liars.
Herman
@someofparts,
I don’t know if it will mobilize women voters. The Clinton campaign tried that with all of the claims of sexual misconduct aimed at Trump and it didn’t work. Some of my liberal friends simply could not believe that women would vote for Trump. They even theorized that they must have voted for Trump because of threats from their husbands or other male relatives as if they couldn’t be Republicans by their own free will.
What so many liberals don’t get is that not all women are the same. There are a lot of conservative women out there who support Trump and Kavanaugh. The Democrats seem to have learned nothing from 2016. Instead of trying to win independents and gain new voters by attacking Trump for supporting the same terrible Republican policies that Bush supported and coming up with their own positive platform they are doubling down on identity politics and sex scandals.
Most people care about kitchen table issues not the culture war issues that hardcore partisans and activists obsess about. That is why confronting Cruz at a restaurant and all of this political theater is useless and maybe even counterproductive. At best you will get the base riled up but you are going to turn off a lot of independents and potential new voters. As disappointing as Obama was he was electorally successful with a more positive message. I think Bernie Sanders and others could develop a left-populist version of the same strategy but the Democrats seem to be playing from the same losing playbook they used in 2016 only now they are more aggressive about it.
someofparts
Well Herman, I agree and disagree with you.
What the testimony against Kavanaugh has triggered is massive and not just an abstraction that only concerns activists and partisans. This kind of thing is stunningly commonplace for women in this country. The millions who have had such experiences have been enduring the memory of them in isolation. Going from that to realizing that it is an epidemic that has impacted almost all of us is what, back in the day, we used to call a consciousness-raising moment – except in this case, on a massive scale. In addition to everyone who is already motivated to organize against Trump, this may add enough additional women to the effort to increase the impact of mid-term organizing significantly.
On the other hand, watching the shiny new relaunch of Murphy Brown tonight reminded me of the bad faith about kitchen table concerns from leading Democrats that led to Trump in the first place. I’m remembering the sinking feeling that the people who still control the liberal commanding heights will find a way to manipulate and betray the rush of support the Kavanaugh hearings will provide for them because that’s how sleazy weasels roll. When the people who were energized by the outrages find themselves betrayed again they will disengage and the door for fresh mayhem will swing back open.
I don’t think anyone with a working synapse doubts that our species is committing suicide with great haste and conviction. Maybe hoping for any kind of good outcome ahead is just idiot wind.
Hugh
I agree with someofparts. The women I have talked with about Kavanaugh are seriously angry. The working class women don’t like him, his political positions on women, and his sense of privilege and entitlement, and they believe the allegations. Trump, Kavanaugh, McConnell, the whole sick crew of hypocritical, sexist, looting, “we’re in for the rich and screw you” Republicans provide the Democrats with an incredible opportunity which, if the past is any guide, the Democrats will squander and betray.
Ché Pasa
Re: Kavanaugh
Does anybody remember how initially he was hailed as a “not so bad” consensus nominee — at least compared with some of the others on Trump’s/Federalist Society’s short list? How he was almost certain of confirmation because of his sterling reputation on the bench, yadda yadda?
How Democrats were probably not going to fight too hard, if at all, simply because they couldn’t win and would have to keep their powder dry (!) for the next nominee, say when RBG croaks.
And so it went right up through Kavanaugh’s first hearings when doubts started to surface quietly. He had some peculiar opinions and dissents from the bench that appeared to violate the judicial and constitutional principles he claimed to revere. He appeared to be prepared to make law from the bench whenever it suited him to do so. He wasn’t just an activist conservative, he was an extreme partisan reactionary whose presence on the Supreme Court would be likely to overturn decades of settled law to revert to an earlier legal framework or more troubling, to create an entirely new one. That is, if he wasn’t stopped by other members of the Court — which was by no means certain given the heavy corporatist and authoritarian bent of the current Court.
Still, he was likely to be confirmed. The only opposition detectable among the Rs was over Roe, which was already gutted and was likely to be filleted in due time no matter who was appointed to the Court. And of course “assurances” were made to mollify the women-folk and quiet them down.
And there seemed to be a number of Ds who would vote to confirm if any Rs wavered. Done deal. Pretty much.
Then the sex-thing arose and it got crazy. We saw yesterday that regardless of what happened that day in the summer of 1982 (possibly on July 1, at Timmy’s house or maybe Squi’s) Kavanaugh has no business serving on any court anywhere. Bluntly: Dude is whack. He cannot control his temper, is viciously partisan, has no compunction about lying about big and small things, apparently doesn’t know the law, doesn’t care, and from appearances will do anything to get what he wants. Anything.
There was no excuse for his public behavior yesterday. It should disqualify him from not only the Supreme Court but from his current position on the DC Circuit, and from ever holding a judgeship again. He lacks judicial temperament.
Unfortunately, courts are filled with men and some women who shouldn’t be on the bench, who are almost as bad and unhinged as Kavanaugh was yesterday, and who, like Kavanaugh, are only on the bench as a reward for political service.
So despite his juvenile display yesterday, he will probably be confirmed and there will be no end to his revenge-seeking.
Lucky us.
someofparts
Zappa once said that we don’t really need to waste a penny on the military. Instead, all we need to do is provide every man, woman and child in the nation a rocket launcher and a box of ammo and no one would dream of invading us.
In my dreams …
ponderer
@nihil obstet, That’s what all the law-abiding people kept trying to explain to Martin Luther King, as he led street marches and supported sit-ins.
Strawman. If MLK had advocated sending white people to the back of the bus, as you want to do, he would have failed. He knew that, and he knew championing poor people instead of just black poor people was the key to success for his movement. He insisted on people being treated equally and fairly, not that his tribe be the favored one. He didn’t take down his enemies, he picked up everyone and that’s why he got the support he needed. He threatened the Elite because he didn’t fall to the narrow minded stereotypes he was supposed to and he organized outside of that.
Some here think that we’re in a street brawl where the one to take the cheapest shot wins. That’s not the case. Its like going to Vegas and realizing, in the middle of a hand, that the house always wins, you don’t double down on your bets because you think you are losing. You play a different game.
Billikin
I don’t think that it is a question of shaming. For one thing, I don’t think that we have become a shame culture yet, even if we are moving in that direction. For another, I doubt if Ted Cruz can be shamed, at least not by people publicly getting in his face.
But yes, especially as we are becoming a less equal society, it is important that elites be held to account, like everybody else. Who are the elites? A good rule of thumb is people whose income is mainly determined by the ownership of property. Elites largely lead a segregated, shuttered existence. To get through to them you need to break their bubble. There are many ways to do this, and invasiveness is likely to be counterproductive, inducing them to strengthen their defenses.
Cruz is not going to change his mind or his politics anytime soon. Yes, Governor Wallace eventually repented his racism, so there is hope. But don’t count on it. The real audience for getting in Cruz’s face is other people. Aside from any political message that is being communicated, there is also the message that the elites are not as powerful as they might like to be. Attacking the pedestal is very important. The elite must be held to account, like everybody else.
Billikin
Edit: Somehow “sheltered” came out “shuttered”.
Tom
@Ché Pasa
If Kavanaugh was black, he would have gotten lynched by these false accusations. And Ford’s accusations are false, Kavanaugh has provided actual evidence of where he was, has corroborating witnesses, and more importantly:
1. He and Ford did not attend the same schools
2. Were a year apart
3. Had different social circles
4. Summer weekends, Kavanaugh was out of town and during the week worked.
5. Dr. Ford did not have a driver’s license and lived on the other side of town from Kavanaugh
If this were a jury trial, I would acquit Kavanaugh of the charges and convict Dr. Ford of making false allegations.
Till someone brings actual physical evidence that can be used in court, Dr. Ford’s allegations must be dismissed as false. Since no actionable crime can be prosecuted, as no formal police report was filed, it is up to Kavanaugh to decide whether he wants to file a slander suite against Dr. Ford. I certainly would if I was ever falsely accused.
To do otherwise is to kill the concept of Innocent until Proven Guilty, and if we lose that, no one is safe.
If you want to attack Kavanaugh, attack his record as a judge, not his personal life with made up stories. My reaction would be entirely different if Democrats and Feminists had stuck to attacking his stance on abortion which he either supports or doesn’t based on his legal opinions he wrote as a federal judge.
Amazing how a false allegation of rape is what started Roe vs Wade, and now a false allegation of rape is what will end it.
That said, Kavanaugh has the votes to clear the committee at 1:30pm EST.
Willy
It’s all too easy to criticize. Is ponderer able to do a public thought experiment, step-by-step, about how the preferred successful peaceful revolutionary method would transpire?
someofparts
ponderer –
“If MLK had advocated sending white people to the back of the bus, as you want to do, he would have failed. He knew that, and he knew championing poor people instead of just black poor people was the key to success for his movement. He insisted on people being treated equally and fairly, not that his tribe be the favored one. He didn’t take down his enemies, he picked up everyone and that’s why he got the support he needed.”
I had not thought of it that way, but I think you are absolutely right.
Meanwhile, I spotted this at Naked Capitalism and thought it would be interesting to the commentariat here.
Here is a current example:
Brett Kavanaugh’s SCARY Opening Statements
posted by The Young Turks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCYWO7mlA0
and then, the same 42 minute BK statement, but posted by Mark Dice
Brett Kavanaugh’s Powerful Opening Statement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW_lSdzwF3s
Read the comments in both clips.
Two different Worlds. Two different realities. Different forms of sentience.
Super science fiction, happening right in front of us.
nihil obstet
@ponderer
Who do I want to send to the back of the bus? Inquiring minds want to know. Or at least I do.
The history of the civil rights movement has been rewritten into a very tame, straightforward march of good. It didn’t really happen that way, you know. A couple of things always get left out. One is the slow movement of the federal government towards dismantling segregation. As third world nations were getting independence following WWII and being attracted towards communism, U.S. treatment of its non-white population was becoming a major international propaganda loss. Eisenhower was explicit on this problem.
A second is that there were less mellow groups in the civil rights struggle. Beside Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael who were big scary blacks advocating Black Power, Martin Luther King was reassuring. You can interpret this as “See, civility wins” or as I interpret it, it takes uncivility to move power to even a less scary option.
A third is that civil rights were perceived and addressed as a Southern sin. It’s always fun to feel righteous beside your brother’s error. With the federal government and Northern popularity, King led a movement that successfully addressed racial laws in Georgia and Mississippi. He was notably less successful in Chicago and Boston. In fact, his efforts in the North have been dropped from the memory of the civil rights movement. It was after he moved from confronting Southern legal segregationists to confronting Northern economic segregationists that he lost popularity. He regained it after his assassination when his message could be sentimentalized into “I have a dream.” Civility in the South did not win over Southern power; it was national power that did so. Civility to Ted Cruz will not win over national power if there are no outside forces making it the better deal (lesser evil) for elites.
If you read conservative speeches and writings of the time, from Jesse Helms to James Kilpatrick, you find lots of criticism of the civil rights movement, both for content and for means. Martin Luther King was, if not a communist (which J. Edgar Hoover insisted he was), doing wrong by breaking the law. In the way of all power, they insisted that there are other, better ways of trying to change the laws.
What are the current equivalents of international pressure, aggressive accountability groups, and domestic power center that are bringing pressure on elites? I don’t see any. All I see is the need to put pressure on the elites ourselves.
someofparts
Well, reading the comments in those links I posted was hard to stomach for too long.
Sorry to say, but one of the first differences I notice in the left/right wing remarks is that the liberals leave the wingnuts alone. Meanwhile, the right wingers are all up in the comments the liberals are trying to make calling them names and interrupting. Feels like happy, educated, tolerant people are going to get run down and run out of town by the brown shirts. Kind of like Israel redux.
If these are the trends then lookout, Israel and the U.S. are going to start WWIII in the middle east and get their asses kicked by Russia and China. Guess Canada will get to be like France in WWII. Probably have a puppet Vichy right-wing government in charge while the war rages until the Russians push out the Americans and liberal control is restored. For the U.S., all records of anything or anyone that was ever decent here will be erased from the face of the earth and the survivors will have no way to rediscover their real history.
bob mcmanus
…step-by-step, about how the preferred successful peaceful revolutionary method would transpire
Not my thing, but Gar Alperowitz 2013 freaking amazed me. Mondragon times 100. Totally radical. Highly recommended.
I am into spite and revenge myself (and into Lenin) and will settle for nothing less than guillotines. Local control of guillotines ala Alperowitz might be acceptable
bob mcmanus
The women I have talked with about Kavanaugh are seriously angry.
Yeah, yeah, the movie 9 to 5 raised their consciousness in 1980. Then the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 infuriated them and everything was gonna change. Then, remember Bob Packwood? 1995, not very often do you get that close to expulsion from the Senate. Like Franken.
Yet we are still going to have a rapist on SCOTUS for two generations.
Could be wrong, if I am Trump and McConnell I call an immediate vote and call the moderates bluff, cause “No” on Kavanaugh is forever, Flake on Collins. No backsees.
No, so far, Kavanaugh is another grotesque failure of American feminism, just like 2016. For the moment, I will say white UMC coastal feminists have the greater responsibility.
ponderer
@nihil obstet, Who do I want to send to the back of the bus? Inquiring minds want to know. Or at least I do.
I assume Jim Crow law abiding citizens from your comments. I’m not defending Ted Cruz, just that chasing him out of a restaurant is at best unproductive and sends the wrong message. Millions of people killed by our empire and what gets Americans riled up, sex. Almost sex, possibly with someone 30 years ago who never said anything, but maybe wasn’t consensual. Obviously politically timed kabuki of the kind that DC is so good at. They weren’t there to stand up against the Elite, they were there to boo the other team. I’m sure they don’t care that Cruz couldn’t buy better publicity (or maybe he did).
The point being that MLK wasn’t an anarchist and not an example of a case where lawlessness was used to counter lawlessness. Your original statement took issue with my assertion that lawlessness was no answer to lawlessness. You said that we needed to get in the Elites faces.
“If they have made our lives worse and we have no realistic way to influence them civilly, don’t accord them deference and ease.”
If Ted Cruz is an Elite, one who “matters” when it comes to policy of the US GOV (which I don’t think he is). What does a public haranguing accomplish? Won’t he just get take out or eat somewhere else? What if he starts eating at places you can’t get to? I’m guessing that’s what the actual Elite do, but that’s entirely my imagination. Sit ins can be effective (and I wouldn’t classify as lawless actually any more than jaywalking), but that doesn’t mean just because you sit somewhere that the world is going to start working differently. Why does it matter? It matters because of optics. The only power that matters is social. It’s not money, money is only useful such that it can buy you social power. Social power or capitol, the ability to get other people to do what you want. There is a reason propaganda is a thing. The powers that be, run things the way they do with it. Mostly they have to invent stuff, Tea Parties, NGOs, think tanks, etc. as a cover to hide the fact that they have no redeeming social qualities and are forced to buy their influence.
Francois Tremblay
Dear Ian Welsh:
This is not relevant to this article specifically, but I don’t know how else to contact you respectfully. I wanted you to check this study:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0024683
I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet or not, but if you haven’t, it may be of some interest for your blog. I am an egalitarian as well, but I think it’s very interesting.
Charlie
Sort of pertinent to this thread, but very salient. Elites will keep doing what they are doing until there are consequences. Waiting around for magic to do it while expecting others to play nice does nothing.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/forgiveness-is-overrated-fe469b93b18f