And we are going to lose some battles. Important ones. Democracy will survive, because it is by and large very successful. It’s not perfect, and some of the imperfections led us to where we are right now, but it’s not dying. In fact, unless I miss my guess, it’s spreading across the world, Democratic principles of freedom and human rights are if nothing else becoming a seed of knowledge in those places without it.

I’m a fan of cyberpunk. It’s the one genre that can paint a fairly accurate picture of what happens when Democracy is replaced or subverted by corporate control.

This has happened, to a certain degree. But Democracy comes roaring back, because it’s an ideology that says you, the individual are also important, you have a say (vote) in what happens next. You can participate. You can be heard. You can be a change agent,

Trump is clearly not a fan Of Democracy. Republican are on a collusion course with it, but I refuse to believe that either is stronger than the idea of Democracy. Ultimately they are going to lose, and they are going to lose ugly. And it will serve them right, because while Trump may be a incurious man with limited reasoning skills, many of the The Republicans who have hitched themselves to his train—all in hopes of shrinking government— are not stupid. They are caught up in a dying patriarchal culture in the midst of an information revolution. They have no bend, and therefore will break.

While I wish Franken would have let this go to investigation, perhaps there is a reason he didn’t that we don’t know. Two of the Senators calling for his resignation Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are my senators from Washington state and I’m certainly not abandoning them. I’ve read their statements. I know their work, and I guarantee the Democratic Party needs them right where they are. If people are going to leave, I hope they do it soon.

I expected something like this to happen the moment #metoo became a hashtag. That we equivocate the moment a movement becomes challenging is to be expected. Franken took a fall in an atmophere attempting to call attention to a problem of behavior while simultaneously setting standards to behavior that has been present for millennia—not just decades. This isn’t new, this is ancient. (That’s not to say people haven’t “evolved”—they have) Franken, whatever the truth of extent of his behavior, did the right things, requested an inquiry, apologized, reisigned when his peers, many his FRIENDS asked him to. (Unless he’s playing a larger game, sacrificing himself in a very bold political move, which I wouldn’t put past him) even his resignation speech cannot be ignored for its political power.

So no, I’m not done. I do wish the resignation of Conyers brought about as much angst. But of course it didn’t

Read more at https://wonkette.com/626697/conservative-women-keep-turning-the-feminism-thing-on-and-off-cant-get-it-to-work#hMXhuz0Ie0UgeP61.99

They are bigoted, and occasionally honestly ignorant. They have access to the same information I do.

I come from bigoted, ignorant people, and I learned. Interestingly, it was 1974, at the start of middle school when “forced busing” happened, when I was brought into contact with African American children for the first time, (and no, we didn’t become instant friends, segregation had powerful roots in our psyche’s) and the school curriculum including “black history”, when I, a voracious reader, read books on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, and Sojourer Truth, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Black like Me, The Diary Of Anne Frank—-oh so many books available. And because I was NOT stupid, I processed that information in the way it was intended, got in huge fights with my parents who would make me cry on purpose by saying words like “Jigaboo”, and tell me blacks were good at sports because they ran through the jungle—saying These things when I was learning about the ancient African Dynasties and things like the Library of Alexandra—all because they were afraid I would find a black boyfriend. (The “N” word was de rigueur around my house since I could remember, except from my Swedish grandparents, who had a softer bigotry)

Those people are me. I know them. I understand them. They don’t get a pass from me because if I know better, and I hope, continue to learn better, all it takes from them is willingness. They are not willing.

You are assuming women have more power than we do.

I went to party—not to get laid. No matter what I wore, or how I danced. There were ALWAYS guys that wanted to obscure the line between flirting and sexual assault. Flirting is fun, and is a way to gauge response “does he/she like me? Fun, and acceptable.

My own father “grabbed my butt”—he thought it was funny when I’d get angry. What do you suggest I did back then? Oh, that’s right, I was under age. I should have called the cops, right? Boy, I fucked that up, Didn’t I. Maybe I shouldn’t have run away and hit the streets and learned entirely new set of survival skills.

You are aware that women can’t leave their drinks unattended? That’s the self protective culture that has arisen. We carry our keys in our hands walking to the door, we get escorts, we get dogs, we get security systems, we take self defense courses we get weapons. If we work in a strip clubs, there are always bouncers for protection against men. If we prostitute on the streets we are forgotten and unnamed, and the crimes against us ignored. If we are ambitious in the business world, we run into sexual pro quid pro situation for sexual favors. We are touched, brushed against, grabbed, leaned over, threatened. Assaulted

As I type this, there is a woman feeling terrified and helpless because she doesn’t know what to do. Her boss just shoved his tongue down her throat and she’s terrified of losing her job, she’s not interested in him that way. Nothing to do with clubbing and everything to do with our culture.

You know what Julian Assange is accused of? After having consensual sex with women, they awoke to find him at it again, inside them, without a condom—with no consent asked or given. And He would walk in an American court. Swedish law is quite different.

A woman alone is always in danger because she a woman alone. We are always frightened. Not the mind numbing kind of fear, the look over your shoulder kind, because a stalker or an assault is always a possibility.

I’m sick of women HAVING to be “on-guard” because hooking up in some—not all but some minds is a predator/prey situation

And then there this—a real attitude that I’ve seen here recently as yesterday to discredit the stories of women

Well Well. Digging that hole deeper



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brazile-i-considered-replacing-clinton-with-biden-as-2016-democratic-nominee/2017/11/04/f0b75418-bf4c-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html?utm_term=.4bcaca6c970d

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/us/washington-state-west-politics-democrats.html

https://twitter.com/smartflexin/status/926173910747570177

I’m so confused..

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/11/02/25537553/no-hillary-didnt-rig-the-primary-against-bernie-by-signing-that-fundraising-agreement

From Anita Hill to hollaback. And before and after.
https://www.ihollaback.org

We’ve been trying.

For this feminist, bemused is the best description of how I feel about these latest reveals that certain men in power—power of any kind, be it the power of a patriarchal society or personal power, abuse it to sexually coerce or assault women with much less power. What did people think feminism was about? What we were sometimes screaming in the streets for? Why we fought against everything unfair laws to ingrained sexist language? Gender equality includes not being constantly afraid of sexual assault because of gender.

The Weinsteins of the world are no surprise. That women, after decades, wait, you know what? Fuck decades, after centuries of fighting, whoops, wait, let’s makes that millennia, when women gather some power of their own, they finally feel able to speak out is no surprise either.