Open Thread

I have to admit, none of this Dem v. GOP theatre captures my attention in the least anymore. I’m content to know that the circular political firing squads are doing an exquisite job of convincing people in this country of the providence of turning to democratic socialism. Some* demographics are obviously slow to learn. Habits are hard to break.

But I’m interested, who that frequent Ian’s blog describe themselves in traditional democrat/republican terms? I’m a leftie. In no way do I associate alignment with the left today, as being a democrat. I really have no idea what democrats stand for anymore.

So here I am, standing agape at the whole Kavanaugh process:
“Now that we have had a full and frank debate … and wasn’t that some debate, folks? Boy, wasn’t that full? Wasn’t that frank? … time to vote the guy in.”
Like the bullshit job David Graeber describes of box-ticker. Tick the Due Diligence box. There, that’s the Due Diligence done.

Kavanaugh was a consensus nominee at the outset. He’s a Bush-boy, first of all. Remember the Bush re-hab project by the Obamas and Clintons? Getting Trump to nominate Kavanaugh was supposed to be some kind of triumph of the “normal” over the chaos-regime.

In addition, all the Supremes know him and allegedly like him like a son or grandson. He’s said to be less radical and reactionary than some of the other candidates proposed by the Federalists, so there’s nothing to worry about, right? Even if he were to get out of line, the other Supremes would rein him in.

And BTW, Kennedy was no lefty. He was just as corporatist and authoritarian as the rest of the court’s majority. And indeed, much of the court’s minority as well. Kavanaugh is no lefty, either.

The only real doubts about Kavanaugh initially were focused on his career as a political operative and hit man which had held up his confirmation to the DC Circuit. Supposedly, he’d expiated most of that sin on the DC Circuit bench for the past 12 years.

So. The sexual assault allegations seemed to come from out of nowhere. And we all know how sexual improprieties are used as political weapons in DC. It’s a nasty game, but it usually works to discredit or remove inconvenient office-holders (Franken, eg — and many more) and nominees (potentially Kavanaugh, eg.) This time, of course, the accusations align with the #MeToo movement.

What he did or didn’t do to Christine Blasey Ford when they were in high school is hard to know from this distance, but paging through his yearbook https://archive.org/details/cupola-1983/page/n0 should convince you that it’s possible he did what she remembered.

More than that, his drunkenness in high school and college (and maybe now) and his endless lies while testifying, his insults and contempt of female senators and so on should have made it impossible to confirm him — and would have in ordinary times. But these times aren’t ordinary.

In fact, drunkenness and cruelty, insult and contempt toward women, and yes, sexual assault are advantages in these times. At least they are advantages so long as Trumpist Republicans can hold power. The accusations and his obnoxiousness prove Kavanaugh’s Alpha Male bonafides.

Dems are no good at playing this game. They have no Alphas to go mano-a-mano with the resurgent Rs. No Amazons, either. They have conditioned themselves to be accommodating.

And so here we are.

Another crisis on top of so many others.

The pseudo-left claims the hide of Linux originator Linus Torvalds, through what was essentially tone-trolling writ large.

The debate unsurprisingly seems calculated to drive a wedge between the “hacktivist” left and the “social” left, in much way the BernieBros slur was designed to wedge apart the latter and the economic left.

Apparently unquestioned on either side of the debate is the presumption that five flame emails culled from 20 years worth of correspondence constitute a pattern of bullying.

The examples given generally show Torvalds flying off the handle in response to the development team taking a haughty or dismissive attitude toward user concerns–as in the “kill yourselves” and “shut the f*** up” emails–which isn’t exactly the behavior of a compassionless bully.

The “retrospective abortion” flame OTOH was OTT but so much so as to be silly, and was in response to something that truly was a staggeringly incompetent piece of coding. It went much too far, but a simple apology would have more than sufficed.

Big question – do you think Trump supporters will get tired of winning and start voting Democrat? I don’t see it.

Slate is fake news btw. I would never cite it as evidence of anything. It’s HuffPo levels of propoganda.

@ Lemonhead

Trump supporters must come to personally feel that his policies are harming them. Then they must come to personally know others in that same boat. Then they must come to feel that being shunned by their former Trump tribe will not ruin their lives. Then they must believe that voting “Democrat” will actually improve their lives.

Good luck with the last part. Turning socialist, resorting to violence, or suffering in silence seem more likely options for those people.

Kavanaugh was a super-entitled drunken frat boy who matured into a super-entitled credentialed political careerist. His confirmation hearings were unusual in that they went off script and produced some useful information. I don’t know what happened between him and Ford.

But it elicited that Kavanaugh is a liar. He lied about his drinking. He lied about his prep school/frat boy life. This was crucial. We may not know with certainty what happened between Kavanaugh and Ford. That was in the past, but his lies were in the here and now. One Democratic Senator got to the heart of matter when he asked Kavanaugh if he knew what falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus meant. Kavanaugh demurred. He knew what it meant. It’s a foundational legal concept. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it. That in itself was telling. So the Senator translated: false in one thing, false in all things. This was not really followed up on. But it in and of itself should have been disqualifying for Kavanaugh. But it wasn’t. It didn’t even create a ripple among his Republican supporters. Susan Collins epitomized their attitude when she said she believed Kavanaugh when he said he would not overturn Roe, when he said nothing happened between him and Ford. But Kavanaugh lied in his hearing and if he lied there, then he could lie and be lying anywhere.

Then, of course, there was Kavanaugh’s prepared statement where he let loose his anger, where he threatened anyone who dared question him, and who topped it off by inventing conspiracy theories. Again any one of these things should have been disqualifying. But none were. That’s because Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the Republicans didn’t care. This was from the beginning a power play. The only thing that upset them and made them angry, like the ridiculous Lindsey Graham, was if there was any hiccup along the way. There was some made-up drama. Flake asking for further FBI investigation. The investigation was a transparent joke. But again no one on the Republican side, including Flake, really cared. It was just some ritualistic kabuki for the rubes. Flake and Collins were always going to vote for Kavanaugh. You have to understand about these people, and this applies to both Democrats and Republicans, that when there is a clash between their so-called principles and their class, they always go with their class. Manchin, for his part, has no principles that I can discern. He is a crass opportunist. Trump could have nominated the devil, held a rally in West Virginia, and Manchin would have voted for him. Unlike these three, Murkowski’s vote was cosmetic because it had no effect on the result. It can even be seen as a trade with Manchin’s. In the end, she couldn’t even bring herself to vote no. The rationale was she would vote present as a “courtesy” to Daines who was attending his daughter’s wedding. Again this reeks of class. Did Murkowski stand with her constituents or with a member of her club? Oh yeah, right.

What the Kavanaugh confirmation showed is what a bunch of unprincipled cowardly, bullyingly misogynist hacks the Republicans in the Senate are. I don’t have much use for the Democrats either, but this was an all Republican show. It also had commentators gasping that the Supreme Court was being politicized. This was, I think, a step in the right direction. The Court has always been political, and any demystification of it that increases our awareness that this is the case is all to the good.

@ Webstir “I have to admit, none of this Dem v. GOP theatre captures my attention in the least anymore”

Unfortunately, the histrionic attacks on Trump, then Kavanaugh, have made this lifelong independent more sympathetic to the Republicans than the Democrats. The threats against family members is additionally alienating. http://tinyurl.com/ybm7glyd The evident Deep State collusion against Trump have had a similar effect. (I’m normally slightly more sympathetic to the party out of power, mostly, I suppose, because I get disgusted with the party in power. That pattern is currently not applicable.)

My usual slam dunk argument – that we live in a plutocracy with democratic trappings (Gilens and Page); neither party is thoroughly committed to correcting this, or even TALKING about it; and therefore neither major party should be trusted – still applies.

However, it’s the Dems that seem much more willing to stoop to flagrant character assassination and contempt for the rule of law. Lindsey Graham recently said that this episode (Kavanaugh confirmation) is the closest thing he’s seen to McCarthyism in his life. (I assume he meant “since McCarthy passed from the scene”). It’s also the Dems that largely colluded with DOJ. CIA and FBI mucky mucks to first derail the Trump campaign, and then derail the Trump presidency.

The only things comparable that I can think of are the Reagan campaign’s secret deal with Iran to derail the Carter re-election campaign; and the CIA involvement in the JFK assassination.

In “conspiraland” (to use a phrase used by detractors of conspiracy theories), it has been stated that the Dems were desperate partly because some of them are traitors, and Kavanaugh will not stand in the way of military tribunals to try Americans – such as themselves – who have collaborated with foreign enemies. Also in conspiraland, it’s been suggested that James Baker is cooperating with the Feds, and Comey is the first person who will go down. However, Schumer and DiFi are at risk, also.

https://aim4truth.org/2018/10/05/truth-news-headlines-october-6-2018/

The white-dogs got the civil war they wanted. I’ve got ten bucks that says they can’t win.

@Willy,

Regarding social misfits having more influence now, I agree that it is due to the rise of the new technology sector and the wealth it has brought certain kinds of unpleasant personalities. These types seem to have a heavy presence in the tech industry and on the Internet. I used to joke that the jocks were the good guys all along but now I think there really is some truth to that. Contrary to the stereotypes a lot of the nerdy people I knew in high school and college were the biggest jerks you could meet. On the other hand the coolest, nicest guy in my high school was the quarterback of the football team. Go figure.

I wonder if Kavanaugh will be among the last of his kind to have real power. The frat boy types are being pushed aside by technocratic nerd types these days. These are the people that want to automate everyone’s job away and gloat about it. You also find all kinds of racists, Social Darwinists, misogynists, eugenics fans and other extreme ideologues among the new tech aristocracy. I think they will be a lot worse than the old boy network represented by people like Kavanaugh.

DiFi looking very sad, supposedly “just after” she read the latest FBI report on Kavanaugh. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/9ld8fu/this_is_feinstein_just_after_she_read_the_new/

She might be sad not because she leaked the Ford information, but because somebody in her staff did.

Mandos, I have no interest in defending Obama. I came out against him months before the convention that first nominated him. But I think you are comparing apples and oranges. Obama targeted illegal immigrants. Trump targeted illegal immigrants And political refugees who are protected by treaties to which the US is a signatory.

I am against most immigration because, as I have said many times, we need to manage our population downward. Workers not born in the US make up something like 17-18% of the US workforce, and this has large negative effects in several industries and more generally on the wages and working conditions of US citizens. A wall is a stupid Trumpian non-solution. Most illegal immigrants to the US fly in and overstay their visas. A more effective course would be to penalize heavily employers who hire illegals and/or reactively discriminate against citizens, –say those with Latino last names. Refugees are a different matter. We should honor our treaty obligations, and seek to aid but also to put pressure on their origin countries to end the civil rights abuses that caused these people to become refugees. I believe that the world is going pear-shaped due to overpopulation and climate change, and there may come a time when we simply won’t be able to handle the flows, but for now and for the next ten and possibly twenty years I think we can and we should.

Look, our government breaks down as follows: the president is the monarch. we have a house of lords and a house of commons, and the court is the priesthood. — GlassHammer

That’s the structure the writers of the Constitution were familiar with in the late 18th c. They were, after all, English rebels. By the mid-19th c., the English crown had become little more than a ceremonial post. Every time the house of lords acted up, the prime minister could simply threaten to create enough new peers to get what he wanted anyway. In those European countries where the monarch continued to exercise real power (Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Turkey), the monarch was sent packing 100 years ago (end of WWI). The governmental structure does not conform to a democratic structure where people other than a small coterie of rich white men count in the “we, the people” rubric.

U.S. success up until the collapse of the Soviet Union has a lot of causes. The government structure allowed some good policies (compare with equally well endowed South American countries) and some very bad ones. I don’t think it was the structural defects of the government that kept it going. Those defects are now preventing us from maintaining the government’s legitimacy, and rightly so.

The chief problem of American politics is the absence of mass-organization as a force. The popular will cannot make itself felt because there are few membership associations to coordinate action for or against candidates for office.

This problem has a couple of causes. Voting laws enforce the two party system, where private organizations are permitted to control ballot access. There is no requirement for the parties to act democratically in their candidate selection. Whatever candidate they select has a free ride onto the ballot while any alternate party has to contend with major hurdles. Simple first past the post victories help squelch any serious efforts at elective alternatives. Except for ballot printing and voting site management, the whole process is private. This makes money extraordinarily important and works against ordinary people’s efforts.

When these things are pointed out, the status quo response is, “You just need to work harder and get out and vote,” as though there were realistic alternatives to the continued rule of the oligarchy.

V:

“I’ve not ever seen the U.S. so divided.”

The U.S. has been far more divided in the past. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. Charles Sumner was almost beaten to death on the floor of the Senate.

However, I will agree that it seems like we are heading in that direction. What holds America together isn’t the Constitution, after all–that’s just a piece of paper with some words on it. What holds America together is a shared set of norms and beliefs about the country. Those are breaking down, and it’s not going to end well.

People freaked out about the election of Trump because of what Trump might do as President. The much bigger concern, for me, is what his election said about the mindset of the country at large.

I don’t know how much longer the country will last at this rate.

@chiron,

What’s so kosher about the elites? They seem pretty dirty to me.

nihil obstet

As of May 2018, there were at least 32 distinct ballot-qualified political parties in the United States. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are recognized in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. These two parties account for 102 of the 230 total state-level parties. Three minor parties were recognized in more than 10 states as of May 2018:

Libertarian Party: 39 states
Green Party: 27 states
Constitution Party: 15 states

Getting on the ballot is really not that hard. It may be among the least hard hurdles in the whole American political process.

What’s hard is getting people to show up, to work well with others smoothly enough that they do not repel as many other people as they themselves bring to the common effort, to invest enough in membership to think thru some few issues well enough that adherents to the cause cannot be derailed by a clever soundbite, to build a coalition that can get to 51% on several consecutive election days, to keep a successful candidate on-side even after she has been offered a surer career path and means of political and financial support, and to counter ruthless and well-founded propaganda efforts by interests opposed to the popular interest/cause.

Money matters so very much in American elections because 1.) money is apparently all it takes and 2.) there are almost no genuine mass-membership organizations that can deploy a combination of some money and a lot of voting bodies to counter money alone.

In many ways, American politics, if not exactly a power vacuum, is at an historic low-pressure point. If you have someone (or some group of rich individuals or executives at giant business corporations) who can write a big check, you can hire professional political operatives who will generate clever and effective propaganda which a compliant media will broadcast as paid and “unpaid” content. Penetrating the noise that that “system” generates is genuinely difficult.

And, the thing is, a few wealthy oligarchs face few organizational challenges in identifying and aiding their friends or punishing their enemies, unless, somehow, their respective interests are opposed to one another. If I can take an aside, the homogenization of elite interests by financialization and globalization as reflected in the smug consensus of neoliberal ideology and the corporate consolidation of political media, is a huge factor in undermining the democratic responsiveness of governments. Elites do not need popular support in their battles and rivalries with one another, because economic power is so concentrated at the top and uniform in its character that there are few such conflicts which are not resolved in the ordinary processes of business competition without much media scrutiny of the implications for the general public.

When you write, “There is no requirement for the parties to act democratically in their candidate selection.” I suppose that is a reference to the conduct of Hillary Clinton in the last Presidential election cycle, during which she took direct control of the national party apparatus well in advance of any campaigning among prospective primary let alone general election voters. It seems to me that this case represents my diagnosis better than yours. Even derelict, the Democratic Party can claim a place on the ballot everywhere. But, the Party itself has few Party loyalists to defend the integrity of the institution and no sufficient source of funds, in large part because they have long since ceased to be a membership organization in any sense. Hillary could “rescue” it financially and take total control. All it took was money and not money from a million pairs of hands, but money from one pair hands, hers. The Clintons had their Foundation, an ersatz charity collecting the big bucks from business corporations and foreign governments, to keep a team of political operatives on-board and salaried. She took two years “out” of public life to re-fill her private household accounts to the tune of $22 million while husband Bill was . . . well I guess he was doing much the same thing — they are a modern two-earner household after all.

I do not think it is possible to put a computer in a car and have it reliably drive itself in an uncontrolled environment. Ditto for a politics. There’s no automatic politics. We cannot tweak a few rules concerning ballot access or voter registration and produce from that, representative democracy.

It is not an easy or resource-free process to organize people to act in concert in the political process to choose and elect a candidate committed to the general welfare or the public interest as understood in common by electorate and candidate. There are powerful and reckless forces at work to prevent or subvert collective action and, at least in the U.S., social affiliation in general is still near an historic ebb.

Jordan Peterson, who I invoked as part inspiration for supporting the Kavanaugh confirmation, thinks that Kavanaugh should step aside and “clear his name”. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/07/jordan-peterson-kavanaugh-should-step-down-from-supreme-court-to-have-his-name-cleared/ I remain a fan of Peterson, but I repeat my comment below:

“Jordan Peterson describes himself as a “classical British liberal”, who is wildly popular amongst conservatives. I’m a fan, and consider him to be a sort of “wise man”, whose thoughts deserve much wider promulgation. He showed moral courage by standing up to the identity politics cabal, risking his tenured position as a professor in Canada.
However, his argument is weak, to say the least. Kavanaugh can have his name cleared while sitting as a Supreme Court judge. Furthermore, the Dems weakened the judge nomination process, degrading an already dysfunctional government. (Which is a de facto plutocracy moreso than a democracy or democratic republic. See Gilens and Page). Withdrawing Kavanaugh would have rewarded the Dems bad behavior, and damaged the judge selection process even more.
Does Peterson not realize that enabling the bully tactics of the Star Chamber Dems, who abandoned the principle of “presumption of innocence”, were on a trajectory that I’ve described as Stalinist wannabes? Peterson has written and spoken extensively about Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”, and is no fan of communism, including the Stalinist variety.
It’s ironic that, even if unintentionally, he wants to reward Stalinist wannabes. IMNSHO, he REALLY blew it with his remarks. In fact, I have mentioned him as part of my inspiration for supporting Kavanaugh against the evidence free charges brought against him. (https://www.ianwelsh.net/kavanaugh-discussion-thread/#comment-99836)
However, I have faith in Peterson’s essential integrity, and his desire to be rational. Hence, I think he can, and should, be engaged to defend his remarks; in the process, subjecting his comments to the same scrutiny, and from the same perspective, that he has applied elsewhere.”

Very good from TRNN. The possible rise of a 4th Republic; the other 3 were; the whiskey, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Good history lesson as well.
Well worth a view, IMO…
https://therealnews.com/stories/the-next-republic-the-rise-of-a-new-radical-majority

different clue, I agree. The Democrats “care” sometimes sort of, but unless and until I start seeing their blood on the floor, they’re just going through the motions for us rubes. I have already seen one article about Flake(R) and Coons (D) already out “healing” divisions between the parties. I don’t think their efforts are about the parties, but about papering over divisions in their class, the Establishment. It is very much not about us.

Herman, I don’t think the Democrats would ever let Bernie Sanders or a Bernie Sanders like candidate become President. That was the lesson of the 2016 primaries. But if it did happen, I do think they would try to obstruct and/or discredit whoever that President was. The difference with Trump is that he has been a crook all his life. Lots of people have known this for a long, long time. But it is one of those things that doesn’t really have salience until some official sanctioner of the Establishment, like Bob Woodward or the NYT say it.

(In passing.)

Are we to conclude, then, that much of the motivation of conservative men was not any of their claimed high ideals, but simple threatened masculinity? That the radical feminists have been right all along?

BTW, the odds of Dr. Ford’s allegations being true are overwhelmingly in her favor. Aren’t there any women commenting here, or at least men who know the feminist literature on rape?

Christ I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve read or heard a comment where someone from one side of the political spectrum bemoans that their side doesn’t know how to fight dirty (or for keeps) like the other side does. I would even be happy to only get a dollar for pairing up one from each side! Or even when pairing up these comments when the two commentors are speaking of the SAME issue or action taken!

It seems like everyone is convinced that their side is demure and accommodating while the other side plays dirty and wears brass knuckles… Does this comment get zapped if I feel that saying “only the other side plays for keeps” should be rewarded with a well placed tazing? :p

Will

Thanks to V for the link to the interview with D. D. Guttenplan on his book, “The Next Republic — the Rise of a New Radical Majority.”

There are many threads being woven together these days that can potentially give rise to something else again, whether it is that Radical Majority Guttenplan envisions or something we haven’t contemplated yet.

Guttenplan draws his future vision out of American history — “we’ve been down this road before” — so it’s really not that Radical all things considered.

But one thing that I think is required to get beyond the ugly truth of where we are now is rejection of rule by a radical minority — ie: those in power now and who have ruled us at least since Reagan. Call it whatever you want, the Establishment, Deep State, etc, its face is revealed in Trump and his confederates including Kavanaugh, as well as their noticeably token so-called opposition. They are not our friends, and the system that empowers them no matter what we the Rabble say or want is not the one to protect and keep us.

Not even Guttenplan can get to that point.

Ian, are you a Druid?
Sorry, had to ask.
I see a lot of parallels between how you and Greer think.
I hope that comes across as a compliment.

@Raven

This blog like most others seem to be boys clubs but some do have outspoken women commenters. I wish there were more independent and conservative women sharing their views but they see the name calling and abuse they will encounter from liberals if they disagree with the groupthink and avoid that conflict. I agree with you that rape and abuse of women is the major human failure of some members of the male species but disagree that it is driven by political divisions. Women’s claims of abuse should always be heard, as they were in Dr. Ford’s case, but they are not always true or accurate. It was a strong and powerful conservative woman senator who cast the deciding vote for Kavanaugh after being impressed with Ford’s testimony, even with its flaws, but she was not convinced it was accurate.

I hope you guys don’t take that political theater as seriously as you seem to. The kabuki wasn’t about whether Kavanaugh did what he said he didn’t do. It was to prevent us from talking about what everyone knows he definitely did do. If the Democrats couldn’t rake him over the coals for trying but failing to rape someone 30 years ago, there was a small but ever present chance some progressive or libertarian would ask him about torture, due process, or executive power. Once almost rape was brought up, there was no way that could happen. Anyone who did could be called out for minimizing that women’s “pain” or at least you would get drowned out. You see we can’t talk about policy because you are too busy trying to prove you aren’t all closet rapists. Identity politics works, not necessarily to win elections, but to dominate the debate.
Actually if we were going to talk about anything that matters, it should probably be WWIII that is about to kick off in the ME. That’s why Kavanaugh got so much media coverage. With the MSM its never about what they cover, its what they don’t cover that should concern you.
I do get a kick out of you guys wondering if we have the right amount of female voices on this blog. As if the dainty little things might get scared away by all you gruff liberals.

@ Peter:

are you by chance the same Peter (unverified) who comments at (the accursed) dagblog?

Peter, the point was the other way around: the politics seem to be driven in large part by the desire to oppress women. In Kavanaugh’s confirmation, all the high-minded language of conservatism was reduced to the minimization of a credible rape charge.

Treating Dr. Ford as anything but a credible witness is going to drive women away from this discussion.

Webstir, thank you. I think the truth matters to rather a lot of women, and I hope they will vote against the Republicans. Unfortunately, the Kavanaugh hearings may also turn out the rapist vote.

I think any successful socialism will have to acknowledge the intersectionality of class, sex, and race. Bernie Sanders seems to have known this all along, but the rest of us are still learning.

Nobody here seems interested in discussing the principle of “presumption of innocence” or “rule of law”, and how abandoning these would bear on judge selection process going forward. That’s unfortunate, in my view, as that BECAME the biggest thing at stake re Kavanaugh.

In a way, this is a good thing. Some prominent politicians showed us who and what they are, and how low they were willing to go. The Congress does not consist, by and large, of people that I respect. But, to use an analogy, if I’m given a voting choice between a bunch of Mussolinis and a bunch of Hitlers, I’m going with the Mussolinis.

Does anybody know whether any prominent main stream media figures (outside of Fox) or prominent Democrats engaged this argument? The only ‘argument’ I’ve heard in this vein from the Dem/liberal MSM side is “this was a job application, not a trial”.

While the principle of presumption of innocence (ignoring the IRS exception) may be baked into criminal proceedings, I wouldn’t want to live in a society where that was the extent of its application. If I’m being considered for a promotion at my company, e.g., and somebody – let’s say a woman – suddenly appears out of nowhere, and claims I raped her 30 years ago, with zero evidence for her claim, should I be fired instead of promoted??? I prefer to live in a society where presumption of innocence is a widespread principle, just as I would prefer to live in a society where honesty is valued, even when there is zero risk of perjury due to lying.

Tucker Carlson of Fox, and maybe Jeanine Pirro (also of Fox) went into the rule of law perspective, at length. AFAIK, our cracker jack MSM has basically ignored this, except to try and reframe (and excuse) what the Star Chamber Dems attempted with their “this is just a job interview” meme. My impression is that MSM talking heads and prominent Dems are as little interested in serious discussion of presumption of innocence/rule of law as the other people commenting on this thread.

If my impression (based on very limited media consumption) is correct, that bodes ill for our society. If Trump weren’t such an oaf when it comes to communication to ‘the rest’ of America (not in his base) and so incompetent when it comes to constructive propaganda, he could force the issue into public consciousness. Maybe he will surprise me, but just yesterday I saw a headline of him calling Democrats “evil”, which is a dumb thing to say.

What little remains of our republic continues dangling from a thread. I can imagine what the Roman senators felt like as their republic was dying.

Metamars, answers to questioning under oath and penalty of perjury is evidence in a court of law. With rape, sworn testimony derived from questioning a credible, reliable witness without reason to lie is near-certain to be true – the penalties for lying are overwhelming. Beyond Ford’s own testimony, we have various sorts of corroborating evidence – Ford’s own PTSD, Kavanaugh’s calendar, Mark Judge’s writings, the reports of other witnessess who were not called, and so on.

That is not “zero evidence,” not the same as appearing from nowhere and spreading a rumor.

A generalized presumption of innocence exists, when the charge is rape and the perpetrator is a white man of any means at all. Most rape and attempted rape goes unpunished. It is so much the case that rape is endemic in our society, with 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men being victims of rape or attempted rape.

There is no rule of law in that.

(RAINN – Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network – has summaries of statistics on rape, gathered from the reliable National Crime Victimization Survey. They can be read here: https://www.rainn.org/statistics.)

Late to the party, so splitting this into several parts, possibly several comments. First, @Raven Ontill —

Are we to conclude, then, that much of the motivation of conservative men was not any of their claimed high ideals, but simple threatened masculinity?

Well, yeah, duh, to the first bit, & probably in part for the second bit, how much so depending on the individual.

That the radical feminists have been right all along?

Not necessarily about everything, but a lot of stuff, yeah.

the odds of Dr. Ford’s allegations being true are overwhelmingly in her favor.

I’m inclined to agree with you. Due to the timing of the allegation and the unprovability of it (i.e. no physical damage done, was an interrupted assault w/no marks and only one witness who was a friend of the other guy) I kept my mouth shut, and still not willing to say 100%, but her story makes sense and the timing fits and his own “defense” serves to provide evidence against him (not to mention, as Hugh & others pointed out, the number of provable lies under oath arguably should, and definitely should according to Kavanaugh’s own words, disqualify him, along w/a few other disqualifiers).

Also, seriously, why is everyone ignoring both the large number of people who said this was typical behavior in Kavanaugh’s social circle, and ignoring their own memories of high school? My redneckville coal mining country not-an-“elite”-prep-school-public high school actually sounds overall noticably BETTER in its culture than how people are talking about Georgetown prep, and what was described here was horribly common behavior for a lot of guys. I’m not going to call everyone who says they don’t remember this a liar, coz people forget things and for many it’s natural to try and minimize the bad & remember the good, and I got a lot of great memories from back then too, but a lot of guys, even a lot of guys I was friends with who would never actually assault anyone, were totally willing to ignore it if there friends were doing it, and I remember damn near getting in a fight when I pulled these idiots off this poor girl they suddenly all decided to pile on on a couch for some reason. I wasn’t sure if it was all in fun or not (for some of the guys, yes, and it may have started that way for her) but I heard her say “help” under there and even tho she was laughing I thought she might be serious so I said “are you okay?” and she was like “no” and when no one got off voluntarily I started pulling them off. She said the guy immediately on top of her, who was REALLY pissed off at me & the one I nearly got in a fight with (I thought he was going to throw a punch a couple of times, but he never did, so I didn’t either), had bruised her breasts squeezing them so hard. Based on many stories I’ve heard before and after, this was not that uncommon, usually did not end well, and the guys were not condemned after and if anything congratulated themselves.

Which isn’t to say he definitely did what she said, or that he wouldn’t have come to his senses and stopped on his own if someone hadn’t pulled him off, or that he wasn’t black-out drunk at the time and really doesn’t remember it, which would be an interesting discussion as far as how to judge things this far off in the future, like, he could be a changed person etc etc but again, what really damned him (or should have damned him) was his own response, where he was blatantly and provably lying about surrounding circumstances, his own past in general, and organizing a lying campaign on his behalf. (including using statements from people who then said “I never said that.”)

Aren’t there any women commenting here, or at least men who know the feminist literature on rape?

A couple of women here, but definitely seem to be the minority as far as I can tell. Can’t say I know all the feminist lit on rape, but have read quite a bit, and married to a feminist for over two decades, so reasonably conversant.

Used to read a bunch of feminist sites, but most of my favorite ones shut down (Reclusive Leftist, The Apostate, Sasha Said) & some of the bigger ones I used to read turned into deranged garbage (I shall refrain from naming names)

I’ve cut my blog reading way back, and here is probably the only place I try to keep up w/everything, but Feminist Current is one of the others I try to read semi-regularly, and probably the only feminist site I still read as a regular thing, tho I follow a whole bunch (including a whole bunch of radfems) on twitter.

Recommendations for other places welcome.

…this comment section is incredibly disheartening. It’s like the ‘both-sides’ meme come to life and claiming to be left.

Seriously, take any given evil thing- war, torture, child imprisonment, support of rapists; which side has more people opposed? Is it even close?

Saying ‘both parties support war and capital’ is maybe technically correct, but one party contains people who are against those things and the other does not- the people who are against those things deserve acknowledgement and support. Erasing them the way this conversation seems to… If you want lefty viewpoints, vote in democratic primaries. If you want lefty policy, vote democratic in the national elections.

Unless you think that such a thing as an anti-war, anti-capitalist Republican exists.

PS: Dr. Ford is massively more credible than kav. Just compare his dodges and deflections to her efforts to actually answer the question that was asked. Add in her academic background in how memory works, subtract his casual perjury.

The things that came up aren’t where I’d put the focus given my druthers, but I’m learning that winning on the facts loses to winning on the theater. So I’m not going to look down on plays to win the theater because there are “more important things”; can’t put the cart before the horse.

If you’re into maintaining a healthy middle class (usually a requirement for a democracy) and a meritocracy in capitalism (usually a requirement for avoiding violent mob revolts), you’ll want to get big money out of politics.

Kavanaugh creates a situation where the only peaceful way to get corporate money out of politics, is a constitutional amendment.

But again, maybe for Trump voters (of the strategic kind) this is how we force the “hit bottom” that so many voters seem to need to experience.

@different_clue, I agree with the attitude, but I suspect it’ll take a lot less than root-and-branch replacement. It’ll take a few high-profile events, but the way trump and the tea party imposed their will on the Republican infrastructure is instructive.

@Phil

It’s not both sides. It’s neither side.

Presumption of Innocence is only relevant in criminal trials, so its simply disingenuous to bring it up in the case of sworn hearings such as senate confirmation hearings. Testimony is still sworn, but the point of the proceedings is for the senators to satisfy themselves that the proposed candidate (in the case for SCOTUS)is both competent to fulfill the duties of the office and not someone apt to abuse or otherwise disgrace the office. Its easy enough to establish competence(Thomas got in with 18 months on the bench after decades as a bureaucrat FFS!) but the negative part of the equation is much more nebulous. You get peeps to attest to the character of the candidate, review the public record, is this cat a solid citizen, or is he some crazy drunk or just altogether too rapey to pass muster? Again, Thomas got in. Being an utterly partisan hack is certainly no bar to the party with 51 votes. No, you’d have to get them mixed up with some kind of major criminality or corruption to really raise any eyebrows in the Senate. And for that matter, it’s not as though The Federalist Society hasn’t got creeps of this caliber by the truckload, so even if BK’s nomination had been rejected, there’d be somebody “just as bad but less competent” to take his place before the sun had set. So really, more political kabuki for the rubes. The less there is to talk about politically in this country, the louder everybody seems to want to say it.

@Raven Onthill

Well, OK, not being a lawyer, I will retract “zero evidence”, and rephrase my claim as “No evidence that would be anywhere near sufficient to flunk Kavanaugh in his ‘job interview’, were it not an extremely politicized process; nor lead to conviction in a non-dysfunctional court of law”. Not in my non-legally-trained opinion.

You reminded me of something I heard Mike Ruppert say years, ago, along the lines of “means motive and opportunity” constituting something like evidence or proof of a charge. I can’t remember his words, exactly, and I’m not going to go looking for them.

I do remember being almost horrified to hear him say such a thing. (I had and have a great deal of respect for Ruppert, though I think his suicide was gravely disappointing and wrong.) I’ve had “means, motive and opportunity” to kill somebody, but did no such thing.

“With rape, sworn testimony derived from questioning a credible, reliable witness without reason to lie is near-certain to be true – the penalties for lying are overwhelming”

Taking this as true ( I’ll tell you bluntly that the “statistic” I used to hear of 1/3 women getting raped I considered, and consider, a BIG LIE, and I’m glad you didn’t claim that; 1/6 seems considerably more plausible, though I hope the truth is nothing near as bad.) are we to believe that this applies to Ford? I’m not asking if you WANT this to be true of Ford; I’m asking if you believe it, yourself. Do you believe that Ford is “credible and reliable, without reason to lie”?

Rachel Maddow says that in Maryland, there is no statute of limitations “for a felony like this”. OK, so if Ford lodges a criminal complaint, will she even get a trial? And if so, will her “evidence” suffice for a conviction? If so, why aren’t there literally 10’s of millions of Trump and Kavanaugh haters begging Ford to do precisely that? Certainly, some of those 10’s of millions wouldn’t want Ford to undergo any new traumas, no matter if it leaves ‘Kavanaugh the rapist’ to ensconce his evil in the highest court of the land. That certainly wouldn’t apply to all of them; otherwise they would have petitioned Ford NOT to testify in Congress, and spare herself the trauma of that.

@Webstir

“None of your points even come to the fore if our congress critters were even remotely ethical.”

Ah, I think we probably agree, more than disagree, about “even remotely ethical”. I’ve no great respect of Congress, in general; nor the individuals who ply their trade there. (Before retiring as lobbyists, and then really start raking it in).

Perhaps I should have written more clearly that the PART of the “rule of law” that is at stake is the presumption of innocence.

One would have hoped you would have inferred so much, from “if I’m given a voting choice between a bunch of Mussolinis and a bunch of Hitlers, I’m going with the Mussolinis.” I’m not endorsing the general integrity of either the Star Chamber Dems, or the Republicans. Both are dubious propositions, thus neither club is a reliable guarantor of the rule of law, IN GENERAL.

I’m not even endorsing the motivation, necessarily, of the Republicans who stood up for Kavanaugh, against the rape charges. (Though I do take Lindsey Graham at his word about the Democrats exploiting the situation for naked political reasons; and his dismay at Kavanaugh being “railroaded”.)

If we DO descend into something akin to Stalinism or French Revolution Reign of Terror or even neo-McCarthyism, I’ll bet the distinction between the two wings of the duopoly will loom much larger in your mind.

I think if you read or listened to Jordan Peterson talk about the lessons he gleaned from The Gulag Archipelago, you’d at least see where I’m coming from. What the Star Chamber Dems were doing is fraught with danger, even if it takes years for the bitter fruit to ripen.

I’D LIKE TO PROPOSE AND INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. Get 100 Ruskis who are old enough to remember the Stalinist terror, and who followed the Kavanaugh nomination process, and ask them what THEY think.

Come to think of it, querying a random sample of Americans old enough to remember McCarthy would serve a similar purpose.

metamars:

Is this your Rupert source: http://911review.com/reason.html
“Without such a court process, we are forced to employ analogies and metaphors. But there remains to us the most successful, fundamental strategy for the prosecution of criminal behavior: demonstrating that a suspect (or suspects) did, or did not, possess the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime.”

Are you saying you are surprised by the fact that a jury can throw you away without physical and/or direct evidence such as eye witness testimony? Because means, motive, and opportunity are all circumstantial evidence? The tv often makes a big deal about the prosecution not moving a case forward b/c all it has is “circumstantial” evidence. That’s tv.

In reality, the standard in a criminal case is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” And while, sure, a prosecutor always prefers the “smoking gun” or the unimpeachable witness, they can and will build a case on circumstantial evidence alone. If, on that evidence, they can convince a jury ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ of the defendant’s guilt, those gray bars will slam shut behind you.
It’s harder to do, but it happens all the time.

metamars:

Here’s a good write up and example:
https://www.thoughtco.com/circumstantial-evidence-the-scott-peterson-trial-971080

@RC — you know I normally like your comments & agree on most things, but seriously? You’re saying this after what happened with Merrick Garland? (who I didn’t like, either, tho he was damn sight better than this one)

this particular interviewee comes with the Constitutional recommendation of the President. Even to hopeless lefty partisans, that should carry with it some tiny modicum of deference, manifested as requiring more evidence to reject him than would be the case in a common job interview via an employment agency, or for a walk-in applicant, albeit less than the full presumption of innocence with the reasonable doubt standard, perhaps even less than the preponderance of the evidence standard, but certainly requiring some reasonably credible show of corroborative evidence. Just imagine how much evidence you would require if it was your candidate’s choice being rejected; when would the whining stop in such an instance lol? The three branches of government are supposed to behave toward each other with a certain spirit of good faith and comity. What the Dems tried to do in this case was beyond despicable. And the bills will be coming due for quite awhile, IMHO.

& again, we’ve got a LOT more to go on to reject him than with most job applicants (see my reply to Metamars above). And no, I wouldn’t hire him for much of anything, totally aside from politics; he strikes me as a humongous jerk, tho that does serve to show a difference in the two sorts of job interviews–for the supreme court, I don’t care if he’s a jerk if he can/will do an acceptable job. I care much more about him being a huge jerk if I or other people at my company have to work with him personally. I would not want to spend time w/this guy if I didn’t have to, but that’s not a supreme court issue. But I don’t think he will do an acceptable job, either.

I will again say, his ONLY qualification that serves to put him on the Court above, say, “random lawyer or judge selected from randomnly selected phonebook” seems to be “hardcore conservative who worked for Bush administration.”

After Garland, the Dems should have pulled out every procedural stop possible to slow this down, simply as a tit for tat, you screw w/us, we’ll screw w/you kind of thing, and I’m kind of ticked at them for not. But that’s our Democrats!

Would also be ticked at them for being waaaaay less upset at or even pretending to ignore Mancin voting for the nom, as opposed to their upset at Tulsi & Nina for backing Bernie over HRC, but, well, that’s our Democrats!

Susan Sarandon is evil for not backing HRC because even bad dems will vote better than Rs; but the actual bad dems who vote WITH Rs are just fine, and need to be backed, because . . . the Rs will vote worse? They will say “Aye” to confirmation louder? They will raise their hands with more gusto? Mancin will take corporate money to screw over the working class and the environment and women’s reproductive freedom with less gusto than Republicans?

Also to RC — I found Hill to be very credible; surprised at your take on that one.

@ MW

Wolf, you know I love you, and I think I’ve made it clear I would reject Kav on many grounds aside from the sex stuff (he’s a rank corporatist, that’s enough for me lol), but due to my legal background, I have much greater respect for the fundamentals of process than most here. Process should not be tit-for-tat-ed, it is more fundamental than the specific charges or, especially, the politics of the moment. That is where I come down, and also Ford would never stand up to any kind of real cross-examination, she was incredible at several points, e.g., can’t recall if she was polygraphed on the same day as went to grandma’s funeral, just a few weeks ago. You want to rely on that memory? Really? Would you not remember that peculiar combination of events? I can’t judge her without having a keen awareness that she was rehearsed a million times by pro consultants before we ever saw her on camera. So she was being a well-trained actress when she testified. And she still seemed unreliable to me. Reasonable people can disagree, it is a close call at best, but established process was violated in too many ways here for me to go along with the idea that these uncorroborated allegations were sufficient to derail a Supreme Court nominee. Finally, Clinton and any other Rethug would also have nominated a corporatist.

BTW, interesting to consider that Obama gave all the Bushies a pass when he came in, if he had cleaned house with the appropriate investigations Kav would never have been nominated. Thanks, Obama. Again.

You asked a while back about getting in direct touch; I do not intend to be a presence in the comments here anymore, except maybe rarely, but if you want to get in touch, say so and we can work on it. I’ve always respected your efforts to take a balanced approach to things. 🙂

The psychological and physical control of women by men was enshrined in Western Civilization over two thousand years ago in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. There, we read that Eve was supposedly created from Adam’s rib; thus she became his property (along with his animals and later – his pickup truck). Neither seemed to have navels.

All was well until a talking snake convinced Eve to eat an apple and then seduce innocent Adam into doing likewise. Therefore, she and all future women were blamed as the source of all misery and hardships bestowed upon men forever.

Western Civilization’s women may now be at a watershed moment in history if they reject the above as fake news and demand co-equality with men. If they do not, then they will silently slink back into their predestined corners and beg men to be forgiven for their momentary uppity behavior.

@ MW

BTW, re Hill, I believed her at the time. But my point in referring to her was that she has become a solid multi-millionaire (10 to 30 million dollar range, I’ve read), mostly due to her iconic victimhood and speaking fees, movie and book revenue, etc. Just to further point out the shallowness of those who argue Ford has no reason to lie. She will now also become a multi-millionaire due to the fame she just achieved. Very predictable.

Wanna bet lol?

This is an open thread, but I still feel like I’m going off-topic with this. While it’s no great surprise, I still find it disturbing that we’re already at the point where most people can be identified through their DNA. Another piece of the panopticon.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/golden-state-killer-genealogy/572545/

To find out exactly how easy it is for genealogists and law enforcement to find genetic matches, Erlich and his team first analyzed MyHeritage’s 1.28 million–person DNA database. Nearly 60 percent of the people in it match enough DNA with at least one other person to be third cousins or closer. Then the researchers built a model that predicted that a database needs to include only 2 percent of a population for 90 percent of the people to have a third-cousin match or closer in it. In other words, a database of just a few million people could be sufficient to track down nearly everyone in the United States.

@realitychecker

“I’ve read that the Statute of Limitations for what Ford charges was only extended unto infinity in 1996, so that there was a limited time to prosecute in the early 1980’s, now well expired.”

Thanks for clarifying. This is bad news for the truth. Which is bad for Kavanaugh, if he’s truly innocent, and bad for Ford, if she’s telling the truth.

This unfortunately reminds me of what the brilliant “conspiracy theorist” John Judge (who had worked for Cynthia McKinney, IIRC) once said, “we can BELIEVE anything but we are allowed to KNOW nothing.” See “Not all conspiracies are created equal” @ https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/notAllCequal.html

“Trump has set the precedent for an outsider to the Establishment duopoly to actually get the grand prize.”

I agree that, in part, Trump is an outsider. One who established a precedent, that the PTB want to destroy. But Trump’s actually been very disappointing in terms of supporting people of far lesser means than himself, who have been legally targeted (while Hillary waltzes around, scott free) and going broke in the process. There may be some legal reason for not, e.g., him just picking up the tab for their legal defense. But he doesn’t raise awareness of their plight, which could lead to easy crowd-funding of their legal bills. I blame his narcissism. Without which, he probably wouldn’t have run in the first place, so the situation is complicated….

@Mojave Wolf

“Hey Metamars. I suspect we are not going to agree on this, but re: rule of law — if you really wanted that strictly applied, as Hugh, Webstir & some others have pointed out, Kavanaugh is gone for repeatedly lying, and lying about things that don’t make any sense to lie about — no one cares that you used to drink in high school. This is not a good look for a judge.”

That’s a fair point. But while desirable, to “strictly apply” the concept of the rule of law in the judge nomination process, there are multiple ways we can fail that standard. We can fail it in ways that do and don’t free us from dangers of giving in to the Star Chamber Democrats. We should be able to at least debate, in this contest between “Mussolinis and Hitlers” which of the two evils is worse (in the short run, and in the long run); and whether or not one is considerably worse than the other.

“And again re: the presumption of innocence — okay. If you mean to a prosecutable standard, should you ignore all evidence you can’t get a legal conviction on? I disagree w/you there.”

No. I personally don’t trust Ford, at all. However, other people find her account plausible. I don’t have a big problem with her testifying before Congress; and would have no problem with her, at all, if her story was more believable.

FWIW, I find it very plausible that she’s a victim of MKULTRA. Of course the crackerjack MSM doesn’t mention this possibility. (I presume I would have heard of it, if they had.) Likewise, I doubt that the MSM contextualized the Ford testimony with reference to the bogus “Iraqis removing babies from incubators” testimony given to Congress to gin up support for our first Iraqi war. (This was covered on Democracy Now. https://www.democracynow.org/2003/12/2/a_debate_on_one_of_the ) The woman giving this emotional testimony was NEVER held to account. So, if I’m correct that Ford was a Deep State asset, then I doubt she’ll ever be held to account. ( I’m more concerned she’ll be killed by the Deep State, to make Trump look bad. )

On this score, Larry Klayman recently talked about how Congress critters are, in general, scared of the intelligence agencies, and thus are unlikely to pursue possible Deep State collusion involved with Ford.

“But his reaction to the charge of assault does NOT make him look ” I agree with this.

Webstir,

I don’t know where you see local law in action but it is my experience that local law meaning state law down to the municipal level is in free fall. The very same hyper ideological, hyper political dynamic we see at the Supreme Court is being played out locally. Add to that the following trends: that lawyers like doctors feel that they have to put more and more effort into being entrepreneurs just to keep up economically leaving precious little time for actually understanding the law, that judicial resources necessary to keep up with a growing population are being cut, that more and more conflict resolution is being driven to alternative dispute resolution or plea bargaining so that the dynamic of review of our relations is off the record and largely controlled by the richest and most powerful, that electronic research allows for and encourages out of context citations and argument allowing lawyers and judges to cherry pick and rearrange legal reality, the utter failure of our education system to train people in logic and rhetoric.

These are the overwhelming trends at all levels of our justice system. I could go on with all of the negative trends I have observed over the last 40 years. The rule of law, which always has been precarious, is now nearly nonexistent.

Hvd:
Yeah, I caveated with the “generally.”

There are major holes, but largely they’ve always been there, for example, access to justice for the poor. That’s just one feature, not a bug, of the common law system. You really aren’t a ‘full’ citizen of this country unless own property.
As well, much of this comes back to the American people who have been so effectively propagandized.

Example: Just last night I represented a client at a Planning & Zoning meeting. A neighbor is basically starting a junk yard next to his home and he has rallied the rest of the neighbors against it. The ordinances are there, and clearly outlaw the activity in their particular zoning designation. Much yelling and screaming at the P&Z commissioners for not having taken action. After the meeting, I met with this group and explained that, while yes, they are in the right, good luck getting the prosecutor to take action within, oh, say, the next two years.

I explained that there are two prosecutors for the entire County & they are usually up to their eyeballs in the usual day to day criminal matters, making it difficult to get to things like P&Z violations. They were all incensed. “Well, then” they said, “the county obviously needs to hire more prosecutors!”

These same people will be the first to scream bloody murder when their taxes go up to hire another prosecutor.

Welcome to America.

@realitychecker

Come to think about it…. what about a statute of limitations for a civil trial? Is that even a thing?

metamars:
Yes. It’s a thing.
SoL’s on contract generally 4 years.
SoL’s on Tort generally 2 years.
Etc etc

SoL’s on RC’s legal knowledge generally 3 seconds …

True that, hvd. Actually just had a case recently dealing with just that situation.

Facebook Blocks Links to Free Speech Competitor ‘Minds’
@ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/12/facebook-blocks-links-to-free-speech-competitor-minds/

I could see this coming from years ago. One has to wonder about the mentality of the alternative news and commentary sites, both left and right, who just assumed that they’d always have a platform. There was a window open, for many years, for these people to coordinate their efforts and develop parallel functionality, but they collectively failed to do so.

Would be great if Ian, or somebody else, did a blog post on minds.com. I never heard of them before today.

Unfortunately, twitter is still centrally controlled. They’ve also been shadow-banning conservatives. That tells me that they will eventually shadow ban progressives, too, and anybody else that have been suppressed by facebook and google.

BTW, I see a huge business opportunity (which is civically virtuous) in fairly summarizing alternative media sources. It takes way too much time to sift through all the sources. Especially the youtubers – they tend to go on and on and on. And some of these have 20 minutes of repetitive ranting for every 10 minutes of still-too-verbose narratives.

This is the silver lining in the current youtube censorship. Content that was being monetized incentivized the content creators to stretch things out.