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Kavanaugh’s nomination, Cosby’s sentencing: News media pornography and the enraged middle class
The senate hearings are a study in hypocrisy. Here are two elite products bemoaning their fate, both indulged in and very immature. She with her soft voice is like an adolescent that feels she is treated badly and he blubbers like a schoolboy found out cheating. It is typical of a class in decline where the assumed privileges do not quite work any longer or are being used against them. They were handled like pawns in a power play. It also indicates the protections in place for the establishment and the constant isolation from real life because like Bush Jr. they bear little responsibility for their actions nor can ever understand what it is that working people go through in order to survive. No wonder that Kavanaugh thinks torture is okay as he has never been or ever will be tortured and Dr. Ford thinks that being roughed up is a terrible fate while she has never been really in the horrid circumstances of the victims of the US empire. —GR
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8 comments
The impolite question: What would this privileged, reality-impared duo do as “guests” of ISIS?
I don’t see Blasey-Ford as bemoaning her fate. She came forward to give character information about a Supreme Court Justice nominee. First of all, your dismissal of allegations of attempted forcible rape as the kind of minor offense that only 1st world snowflakes would bother to mention, strikes me as the kind of macho bravado so unfortunately common amongst 1st world lefty intellectual art dealers. Rape is not an exclusively 1st world problem. It is terrifies, humiliates, and scars women in every nation, class and ethnic group. Blasey-Ford did not come forward to prosecute the offense or to call attention to herself. She thought this was information relevant to the consideration of Kavanagh’s qualifications as a Supreme Court Justice. I agree. The position of Justice is a powerful one That will affect the lives of people throughout the world. The Supreme Court will rule on cases that will define the limits of US Presidential authority to assasinate “non state combatants”, to suspend habeas corpus for the detainees at Guanatanamo, to ignore international treaties and law such as the Geneva conventions, the court will rule on cases that limit or expand the surveillance of the national security state, that will restrict or affirm the civil rights of American citizens to protest and to vote, and to in many cases to live or die. The Supreme Court will not bring radical change to the government of the US. It will not bring world wide revolution, but it can set conditions that will affect the forces of change. A man who rapes, is a person who seeks to control, who looks at other humans as objects, who feels entitled to take what he wants without regard to the affect on others. That attitude will be present in every decision he makes. I am almost 60 years old and quite disappointed with the stunted consciousness of the left on “women’s issues.” It is obvious to me that the imbalance of power between men and women has vastly contributed to the worst problems that now face the global population. And above and beyond whatever political relevance is present in the confirmation of Brett Kavanagh, it offends me to hear a man characterize sexual assault as a problem unworthy of the contemplation of serious thinkers.
I did not denigrate the real ordeal Dr. Ford went through. But despite the anxiety, remorse and anger (see above comment), she was was not harmed (thankfully). There are far more awful things going on in the world, that is what I wanted to express. Despite the personal pejorative names you use, which to me is always a weakness in the struggle for justice and equality, I do accept and even understand what women who are reaped go through. At 84 I still can remember clearly what happened to me as a child (art has nothing to do with it – paraphrasing Mae West).
None of us has any indication what Dr. Ford’s real intention was even though she disowned any political intent. But she was shamelessly used for political ends. What concerns Kavanaugh, do you really think it makes much of a difference to the Court if he sat on it or not? Throughout the years it has constantly veered to the protection of vested interests and the few concessions for the people were fought bloodily (just think of the political ‘coup’ of Bush Jr.’s candidacy for office by a relatively centrist Court). Women are not powerless and perfectly able to bond and bring about the change they want. What needs to be refined are the methods but at present they are raising their consciousness and realize that nothing is gained without solidarity and rational goals. We are not dealing here with child’s play nor with adjusting outward appearances but with a real revolution.
I may add that one cannot have change by trying to adjust circumstances through present-day authorities. Neither the Court or another candidate than the damaged Kavanaugh will bring about beneficial change. Nor can it prevent more cruelty in foreign wars. Seeing the hypocrisy of the chosen judicial senators and their scrambling for points, makes one realize how corrupt government has become. Despite the Rights of Man (sic), the Constitution cemented class and power within a Federal straight jacket. Therefore, any revolt has to redesign the basic premises for a better society. Anarchism would do away with many manacles (‘man’ again…), so that socialism can be build. Small petty skirmishes about political appointments and internecine elite struggles will not do it.
My best reply to Ms Woods on her opinion of Dr. Ford’s testimony is what Camille Paglia (I know she is much reviled) wrote as a truism in the Hollywood Reporter on Feb. 27, 2018: “Treating women as more vulnerable, virtuous or credible than men is reactionary, regressive and ultimately counterproductive”. Capitalist ‘civilization’ has made all of us infantilized to a degree whereby we have lost independent thought to a degree whereby similar events produce identical learnt responses, following exactly the early Russian experiments on Behaviorism.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-movies-metoo-modern-sexuality-endless-bitter-rancor-lies-1088450
A sexual attack is abuse of power. As a survivor from early childhood I know exactly what one feels, helplessness about not being able to sufficiently defend oneself against a superior force, anger because one’s private sphere is forcefully invaded and guilt about being a victim who could not prevent it.
Though throughout the ages women and children were raped by males from conquering armies as part of their promised pillage Under capitalism this has spread into smaller personal relationships whereby a husband attacks a wife, a brother his sister and subordinates the children of their employers. Individual rapists search for victims within city and work settings.
In every instance it is a forceful expression of one’s power over the other, one’s victim. Sex becomes then almost symbolic of that power. In human societies women are second class and children third class citizens. It is reinforced in religion by the dictum that man (sic) has dominion over the earth and its living beings as ordained by a male God.
No social society can ever be created without the total equality of men, women and children because it is designed to do away with all gradations of power. There can be leaders but no power holders. The present revolt of women to asset their rights and prevent abuse of power over them is a rational and long overdue adjustment that needs to be supported.
Sadly, this controversy between Kavanaugh and Ford once again demonstrates the utter lack of insightful education that people here endure. The adamantly biased and serious tunnel-vision and opinionated talk fests on the television screen do nothing to help or clear the power abuse at the real basis of all sexual attacks, nor does it bring out the underlying problem that poisons this society, namely the class differences and the propagandizing of every step towards more elite control. Women’s rights are part of the unrest and resentment shown by the demonstrators which should give pause to those in power, but it does not, exactly because they remain uncoordinated and singular. Even demonstrations like the women’s march to Washington last year remain ineffective if they do not end in real action. Now they are easily dismissed as a temporary sideline to what is falsely claimed as democracy due to the lack of organizational follow-ups afterwards and so remain a flash in the pan. Stubbornly sticking to one-issue politics like the identity politics ignores the underlying malaise of capitalism and does not bring you one iota further, while resentment against men excludes those who would eagerly want to be included in an underswell of resistance. It thus remains indeed anti-revolutionary.
Perfectly argued.