#metoo and the impact of rape culture

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > #metoo and the impact of rape culture

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Abhorrence posted:

This also mystifies me. Were I head of Fox news, and trying to smear Biden, you wouldn't be able to watch a minute of Fox without hearing Tara Reade's tale.

Trump has dozens of rape and sexual harassment accusers, best for them not to open that ark.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 01:31

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 00:38

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Kalit posted:

Eh, since when does Fox News/Republicans care about being hypocritical?

It's an accusation that the media has credibility problems with versus take your pick of just-as-well or better-documented and corroborated stories. The president was on tape stating that he sexually assaulted women all the time, still won, and this is the hosed up world we live in.

If there was no coronavirus it may have been a bigger issue, but generally you can tell Trump nixed this line of attack personally because he didn't want it brought up, for obvious reasons. Instead they politicized a plague.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 01:39

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

CYBEReris posted:

The frightening thing about rape culture is that this is the moral calculus that it relies on to stay alive. There's always "more important things", always something more "serious" to prioritize. And when rape culture is at its most powerful, it is always its victims that are thrown under the bus first.

All of the calculus is ugly. It's a powerful politician, so everyone has an agenda on the line.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 05:01

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

CYBEReris posted:

Could you elaborate?

Ordinarily an elected politician you voted for (or would vote for) is your guy/gal and people are likely to confuse personal character with politics, which is always a serious mistake to begin with. When a presidential election could hinge on a sexual assault accusation, it's difficult not to see in every statement an ulterior motive. When the presidential election may be "some hope of survival" vs. "probably the end of the republic as we know it," people are going to be less willing to entertain an accusation unless it's absolutely indisputable, and even then many will hold out because politics is a team sport. It muddies the water on everything and the status quo indeed survives on these "what is the greater evil?" considerations.

In 2016 the GOP collectively held its nose to vote for Trump and we watched people construct elaborate fantasies for why even if he was that bad it didn't matter. Similar things happened for Bill Clinton. This is for politicians where their history of misconduct is far more verifiable and repeated.

So at this time with one serious allegation and a lot of people saying that Joe Biden is too handsy (which is serious, but less serious than assault), it's not going to generate much movement. But if X more women show up and say Joe assaulted them, you will still have people who keep riding the ship, because the alternative is letting the other guy, who they are convinced is more evil yet, win.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 05:20

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Phyzzle posted:

I too wonder if anyone found Ford credible enough to hold up Kavanaugh's confirmation, without finding Reade much more credible.

So Reade honestly misremembered a stairwell as an alcove. I say honestly, because what other possibility is there? A lying Reade, putting together her story, would have reconstructed the layout of the passage from memory . . . and still accidentally recalled a stairwell as an alcove. Someone cooking up a story surely has no reason to randomly lie about the layout of a passageway. Clearly, it's possible for the memory there to be wrong, purely by accident.

Now with Ford, the same fallible memory is a much bigger problem; you really have to trust memory to know that this teen-aged "Brett" she met for 10 minutes 30 years ago is the same middle-aged "Brett" on the news. Reade doesn't have the problem of identifying which Joe it was, or knowing when or where it happened. (I don't think Ford remembered what town she was in or what year it was or why she was there or how she got there.)

Setting aside everything else, there were plenty of reasons not to vote for Kavanaugh even if you believed him.

1) Total George W. Bush/Kenneth Star flunky who was nominated because they hoped he would block investigations into Trump under the unitary executive president sun king theory.

2) Almost certainly had some help wiping out like a million in outstanding gambling debts when his name entered the hat for consideration.

3) Despite the fact that Feinstein foolishly waited until almost the last minute to bring the allegations forward, the Republicans bungled the response so badly that there was no political cover to vote for this guy in the name of unity.

4) Kavanaugh has character issues. Pointedly, it's pretty obvious that Kavanaugh was a drunk in college and the backdrop for the Ford accusation was that Kavanaugh was shitfaced. It's possible Kavanaugh indeed has no recollection of being a rapist.

quote:

But when it came to alcohol consumption, his answers became vague and his frustration showed.

In some instances, when faced with questions related to drinking too much, many noticed that Kavanaugh appeared �defensive� and �evasive,� not providing direct answers or throwing questions back at the senators who asked them.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), for example, asked whether his drinking ever caused him to be unable to remember events, and he became insolent.

�You�re asking about blackout. I don�t know, have you?� he said.

Apart from the normal inclination of anyone not wanting to be perceived as an excessive drinker, it�s possible Kavanaugh�s answers were more calculated. Any acknowledgment of excessive drinking and drunkenness would help corroborate the accounts put forth by his accusers of what happened during his high school and college years. The suggestion that he was subject to blacking out could be used to show that he was in no position to know one way or the other what he had allegedly done to Ford. It could have undermined his claims of utter certainty that he never was at the gathering described by Ford.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/28/brett-kavanaugh-likes-beer-but-not-questions-about-his-drinking-habits/

As far as Joe Biden, his accuser has credibility issues that scared away news agencies and some legal representation, and the circumstantial evidence is that he's too handsy. While that's not nothing, it's also not equivalent.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 08:02

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Corky Romanovsky posted:

Just got to memory hole all the other accusations and ignore the existence of that secret Congressional sex crimes settlement arbitration.

quote:

I am excited to read about the valid proof that I have missed in the last 2 years.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 08:36

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

reignonyourparade posted:

Joe Biden's accuser doesn't have credibility issues.

When your legal team quits when it comes out that some other lawyers are going to try to get their cases retried because you lied about your credentials to a jury, you certainly have a case of the nebulous credibility issues. That's above and beyond misremembering details of the assault, which is pretty much a given for any accusation, but especially when it's 30-40+ years ago. This is turn gave the papers ammunition to write long character assassination stories about her, dragging in a bunch of un-substantive poo poo like what a bunch of people not at all involved in the case think of her.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 16:31

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

The stuff with Reade's legal team/the perjury subplot is pretty much entirely the reason the media has gone dark on Reade since about May 2020, and I doubt NYT would have published this kind of article otherwise, because that episode is providing the "meat" to the story. To be clear, this isn't good, it's just what's happened.

As far as "why believe Ford and not necessarily Reade," which is the point of this discussion, we're also skimming over the very important detail that Ford testified on TV and basically nailed it.

quote:

I propose that moving forward, we assume ITT that she's telling the truth, and move on to the uncomfortable questions that follow.

I propose that people not try to backseat mod the thread to cut out people who want to discuss the topic in more detail, share their observations, or express a different opinion. This isn't C-SPAM.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 17:01

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Son of Thunderbeast posted:

One of the most uncomfortable questions and situations we find ourselves in thanks to Biden's election is that as far as I can tell, we seem to have lost nearly every inch of progress made by MeToo. Even though MeToo was a movement mainly for wealthy white women, it was still having positive effects in turning around peoples' attitudes by making it clear that apologetics such as smearing victims with unrelated accusations, JAQing off about past indiscretions, etc. were no longer acceptable. Apologetics like that used to be the norm, and for a while some progress was made towards making the norm "Believe women first and foremost, because they have nothing to gain from lying about this," which was making some serious headway everywhere. People were beginning to believe it, more victims were coming forward, and it really looked like it might be a watershed moment.

Then it was decided that Tara Reade had to be shut up, and suddenly MeToo was shuttered. It feels like we're right back to square one, where people who Just Have Questions About Credibility feel emboldened to smear Tara Reade (and presumably other inconvenient victims) with impunity, and their opinions (dogshit as they are) must be addressed with seriousness instead of discarded for the victim-smearing bullshit it is.

Like it or not, Tara Reade's treatment in the media, and everyone who unflinchingly swallowed and repeated the smears, have directly contributed to rape culture's perpetuation in this country. And people are right to be angry about that.

Organized pushback to #metoo began gaining real traction in my view when it was given cover from celebrities widely seen as leftist or "equal opportunity"/"apolitical," particularly comedians, where hosed up backstage personal interactions are the coin of the realm from the dive bar up to the late night writers' room.

People with accusations are still doing far more than they were before #metoo, however, so it's not accurate to say it's dead.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 21:04

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Majorian posted:

I think GL was referring to the Senate Republicans who questioned her during the Kav hearings.

The strategy by Trump and the GOP at the hearings and elsewhere was to treat the Ford accusations as a sham and political stunt by Democratic congressmen. "Republicans treated Ford respectfully" doesn't pass a laugh test, from the beginning they tried to dismiss the entire thing on the technicality that it was not brought to them on a timely basis and therefore just theater.

Graham in his famous five minute diatribe that saved the hearings from being a complete political debacle for Republicans does indeed intimate that he believed that Democrats mishandled Ford's accusation by bringing it in late, but that is about all the consideration he gives it.

As far as being respectful, we're talking about President Trump here, get real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCKzBCx9Cag

Let's start from the presumption that the DNC and allied media got their hands dirty for Biden in muddying up the waters on Reade--pretty likely, I'd say, as that is basically how these scandals work. To think that Republicans don't follow the same playbook is a step beyond naive into willfully ignorant. I dislike having to read about how respectful Republicans are about sexual harassment, assault, and rape allegations in this thread where the default position is to believe women, when the last Republican POTUS has allegations against him that are beyond count and is on tape admitting to assault. Implying that Republicans have outflanked Democrats on #metoo really does nothing but fatally undermine a poster's credibility as anything but a person using all this to push a political agenda.

If that were even remotely true, for starters they would have withdrawn Kavanaugh immediately and put up anybody else from their Heritage Foundation waiting list for consideration. As it is the circumstantial evidence to Ford's allegation is arguably stronger, the hearings debased the GOP in the eyes of women voters, and Kavanaugh now sits with a lifetime appointment.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2021 19:08

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Anyone who was around the Senate at the same time as Biden generally seems to like the guy even if they disagree with him on issues, and frankly Democrats and Republicans were not that far apart on issues for most of his era. The Clinton Democrats continued the tough on crime (tough on minorities), anti-welfare approach of the Reagan era after all, which is why Biden was pretty much everyone's last choice for nominee here. This advertised sense of comradery contributed to media-driven perception that he might end the legislative stalemate in Congress and make Republicans "come to their senses."

Trump, an avowed racist and infantile narcissist, is one of the least likeable human beings on the planet, news at 11.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 03:56

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Biden will certainly run again, and if the GOP nominates Trump, or one of his empty suit acolytes, they're going to make it again a very easy choice for most people.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 18:30

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Biden still has a lot to deliver on and it's incredibly frustrating when the Democrats are publicly negotiating their own positions with themselves, as it's at minimum bad politics. There's a lot to unpack when Biden wants to sign $10,000 of student debt away but begins hemming and hawing about the constitutionality of $50,000, the position of noted progressive firebrand... *checks notes* Chuck Schumer?

I guess what I'm saying is that Biden mismanaging the crises in front of us is his only path to defeat, since it was Trump's path to defeat and people in aggregate have weighed the Reade allegations against the situation and voted Biden.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 19:32

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Willa Rogers posted:

All of the allegations surfaced publicly after Clinton was elected president, and some even after the Lewinsky stuff broke in his second term.

Here's the wiki on the accusations.

That's not necessarily true; modern history is rife with examples of things that were considered politically acceptable in the recent past but would bury a candidate today. I'm sure that'll be true in the years ahead, as well.

Pres. Puddin'head won't be running again in 2024 anyway; it'll be Kween Kamala as the Dem candidate.

Maybe. They definitely want to set up Kamala. But the going narrative in 2015 was that Biden couldn't be president because he's tried 11 times and says dumb poo poo all the time, and well, Trump normalized saying dumb poo poo all the time and now Biden is president.

For another example, a plagiarism issue would absolutely not slow down Biden today.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2021 00:05

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Cabbages and Kings posted:

Right, this is clearly hyperbolic. The '94 crime bill I am less certain what would have happened in Biden's absence, and that era is the very beginning of my memories of being politically active at all, and I think many of my opinions were things like "reps bad, dems good, except for Tipper Gore because she's going after Trent and Manson and I love Trent and Manson". Realizing as a young adult that single-issue gun voters and poo poo basically seem stuck in that mentality was a little disturbing to me.

The crime bill was an extension of the Reagan-era drug war that carried bipartisan support because being "tough on crime" was a no-brainer election strategy. Black communities continued to be dilapidated by crack, and congresspeople from both parties helped by sending black people to prison in such numbers that today we cannot physically contain them all.

Being a Democrat was unfortunately never enough, we live in a center-right political environment on the national level at the best of times. The system is heaving from the astronomical amounts of money being wasted on failed, ignorant, or even evil policy, and that is more on Congress' (and peoples') minds than concern for the welfare of fellow citizens.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2021 20:03

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Ytlaya posted:

While I don't agree with it, I think that "less harm would occur if Biden is elected" is at least a plausible thing for a person to believe. I think the bigger issue is that, once you're deciding to make that kind of decision, you've basically already implicitly acknowledged that we're all doomed and no good future is possible.

I think the "correct" answer is that it's a mistake to even engage with electoral politics in circumstances like that (in a way other than "recognizing the entire institution as an enemy," anyways). If the only options for President are people like Biden or Trump, it seems misguided to be invested in that choice rather than the circumstances that lead to that choice in the first place.

It's like if someone lived in Nazi Germany and was arguing about the importance of electing "Hitler, except he supports marginally improved rules of engagement for invading other countries (while still invading them) and seeks gender parity in the employment of concentration camp guards." Like, maybe in a vacuum that's technically better in the most literal possible sense, but you've kind of lost your way if you think making that decision plays any role in achieving a decent future.

This is a ludicrously reductionist (and lazy Godwinning) viewpoint when you can point to any number of issues that the Biden administration has been a measurable good for people on already, in February 2021.

If it's getting your precise way every time or otherwise "We're doomed and the future refused to change," that amounts to pouting and will attract that level of respect for your position. Everything is a continuous fight and if you sit it out you're still serving someone's interest in practical terms and they're not your friend.

I would ask people to follow Sanders' example, who certainly isn't 1:1 with Biden on policy but through the effort of decades made things that were politically impossible pipe dreams as late as 2016 become central issues to the Democratic Party in 2021, and is now Chair of the Senate Budget Committee. Actual change takes decades, and revolutions from the top basically don't work in American politics.

It's definitely frustrating when every election is "What are you gonna do, vote for the other guy?" but that's the reality of it. We do what we can when we can do it.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2021 00:02

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

some plague rats posted:

Such as?

Again, such as?

I'm not going to further entertain this to turn this thread into U.S. Pol 2 just because some posters got laughed out of that one. In practical terms if you didn't vote for Biden or Trump you may as well have not voted for president at all. That is the choice in front of people who have not decided that engaging with the electoral system is unacceptable. That is why people voted Biden even when they suspected or believed he committed a sexual assault. Because the one actual alternative admitted to one on tape, and nothing happened, except that he got to mismanage a hundred-year pandemic and kill hundreds of thousands through negligence.

Electoral politics simply isn't about which candidate is without sin, it never has been.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2021 01:50

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

quote:

Any reasonable and informed perspective would come to the conclusion that things have been "beyond the pale" for a very long time and the idea that someone like Trump was crossing a line into the unacceptable (with the unstated implication that things before were acceptable) is complete nonsense.

You don't engage, you don't try to win the debate, you go for holier-than-thou, I-know-better-than-you, as if no one else has faced the problems you face or has any understanding of the world in which 1 in 6 women have experienced rape and 81% have experienced harassment. As a result you isolate yourself into jeering from the sidelines, and no one cares, because they have things they need accomplished besides a sense of moral superiority.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2021 20:40

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Willa Rogers posted:

Yes, in a thread talking about our society's take on sexual harassment, opinions in major media outlets like the NYT are relevant. This isn't USPol.

What's your point in saying that Cuomo's situation is "significantly different" from Biden's? Are you defending Cuomo or Biden with that comment? Who's the "lesser evil" to women from your POV?

This sort of pubic hairsplitting, so to speak, is one of the more toxic elements of discourse on the topic.

The article is essentially speculation, not what Democrats are actually doing. It also recommends they force him out.

Meanwhile:

Calls mount for Cuomo to resign https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/541192-calls-mount-for-cuomo-to-resign

The differences between Biden and Cuomo are situational. Biden hasn't admitted to anything WRT Reade, Cuomo has already begun trying to apologize and an investigation with subpoena power is underway. We just had a third accuser come forward about a half hour ago. Cuomo already has scandal problems and yeah lots of people in New York hate him. And frankly while he is firmly entrenched in New York, he is obviously less powerful than Biden.

The media judging by the NYT opinion piece is snapping out of the Trump haze where a politician performing any normal public functions whatsoever is considered miraculous. Cuomo's competition nationally was a president whose press secretary almost never held press conferences, while he himself did not generally make appearances outside of race war rallies, and when he did he sounded like he was in sharp mental decline... Biden stumbles, Trump free-associates. Cuomo showing up was enough to make national headlines.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 20:26

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Mellow Seas posted:

If you want to start your political arguments from the perspective that at a minimum two thirds of Americans are "disgusting", that's your right, but it's going to make a lot of people hate and ignore you.

Hence why this thread is mostly three posters strenuously nodding their heads in agreement ad infinitum while it is otherwise mostly dead, even though this is a serious issue.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 15:41

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Insanite posted:

It's a great test case for whether the wider Democratic party will lift a finger about this kind of stuff ever again.

Dude is deeply unpleasant, not at all critical to achieving anyone's goals but his own, responsible for the nursing home COVID scandal, and has a boatload of credible allegations against him.

e: Like, come on!

https://twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1370413686351921156

Worth reading that whole report and then, among other things, asking yourself who the ally is who is going to save Cuomo, it's pretty clear people are digging up their bags of hatchets for this opportunity.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 22:23

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

https://twitter.com/brianmrosenthal/status/1370504633362317315

The Oldest Man posted:

i hope everyone who called themselves a cuomosexual last summer understands they were idolizing Blue Trump

Well bad news, because if he is Blue Trump (as that article convincingly argues) then he will never log off

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 23:47

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

the 2016 lover posted:

Worth reading the new Ryan Grim piece with reporting about the completely-unconnected allegations regarding Reade "perjuring" herself w/r/t her undergraduate degree.

https://theintercept.com/2021/03/14/new-york-times-tara-reade/

The email from Deming to Ketchum was found in Reade�s law school files and provided upon request to Reade�s lawyer, but the memo Deming said she would write, laying out the specifics of how the affair was settled, is not. Reade�s lawyer provided a copy of the email to The Intercept.

I have known a person going through the domestic violence shelter system while in college, in their specific case they basically became a ward of the state and that's how I learned a floor of the dormitory I was in was a domestic violence shelter that was basically run like a minimum-security prison. You can certainly count on some university functionary to not know their rear end in a top hat from their elbow when it comes to answering questions about this kind of stuff, assuming they are even allowed to say anything. Changing your name during this process would obviously only make things worse in terms of record-keeping.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 03:37

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Mind_Taker posted:

The logical conclusion to How are u�s post is that it will never be the right or practical time to remove a rapist from the presidency if they have a (D) next to their name. I suspected as much, but it�s depressing to read regardless.

It's not like Republicans don't do the same thing. Evangelicals decided they could sleep at night when it came to Trump's character because he's the chosen one.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 20:19

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Lester Shy posted:

Right, but isn't the whole appeal of the Democrats that they're a morally superior party?

Everyone thinks their party is morally superior even when one politician turns out to not be, because people generally hold politics in higher regard than personal morality when casting votes.

quote:

I don't expect Republicans to resign in response to bad behavior because they explicitly campaign on being the biggest pieces of poo poo imaginable. Democrats pretend to be better, but when the allegations hit home, there's always some tenuous justification for keeping a monster in power.

Well, they've begun the process to impeach Cuomo and in current conditions I don't foresee Cuomo running again in 2022 regardless. To make a long story short, it's not a "re-elect Cuomo or maybe never have elections again" scenario.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 21:12

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

joepinetree posted:

We don't have to discuss the Tara Reade case as a macro issue that is out there that we don't have any control over. We can discuss it through the prism of what happened in these here forums.

Even before the latest round of documents came out, it should have been obvious to anyone, anywhere, that discussing Reade's undergraduate education had nothing whatsoever to do with the allegations being made. It wasn't relevant, and even then, there should have been some benefit of the doubt for someone who was potentially going through a domestic abuse situation as she finished her undergrad.

Now, of course, we have documentation that she was indeed the victim of horrendous domestic abuse, that any confusion regarding her graduation status was the result of this particular situation, that she indeed had held a faculty position at Antioch, and that there are not and will never be any perjury charges against her. And yet it has been ok, for a year, to accuse her of perjury, frequently with malicious intent. Forget the Joe Biden allegations for a second, just think about how many people in this forum dealt with the horrific domestic abuse that she suffered. How in this, one of the most progressive spaces in the whole of the internet, it has been acceptable to just full on accuse someone of criminality because they may have not handled paperwork correctly in the middle of fleeing for her life. Without there ever being any accountability, any remorse, any reckoning, we just go from "she is a lying perjurer" to "oh, well, what can we do, republicans are bad too."

This is a glaring example of rape culture. It's not that people should have foreseen that documents would be made available that showed that any confusion over her graduation status were related to being the victim of domestic violence. It's that she shouldn't have to even produce them in the first place. That's rape culture in a nutshell: even in a forum without any direct incentives one way or the other, it was fine to try to destroy an alleged victim's life, without ever having to face any repercussions or cost.

People can make whatever electoral calculus they want, and decided whatever lines they are willing to cross. But let's not pretend that rape culture was just related to people's voting decisions and forget the vociferous, relentless attempts to accuse of criminality someone who is at the very least undoubtedly the victim of horrific domestic abuse.

Even the Intercept feels compelled to verify information about Reade's background and believes that it matters, it's not rape culture to attempt to verify who someone is for purposes of establishing credibility when they accuse the presidential nominee of a crime.

Rape culture is when it is a given that you will be socially and professionally eviscerated for making an accusation against a man (even privately!), and when you live in a system that makes it almost impossible to keep accurate records of your most basic professional accomplishments or live a normal life because you're hiding from a man who can presumably walk around scot-free despite posing a threat.

It's profoundly stupid that perception of the entire thing would hinge on whether someone received 35 credits or 36, but the puzzling development of Reade's representation dropping her at almost the same time and Republicans not touching it because their candidate is an admitted rapist is how it played out. Republicans could have held a hearing or five, but they don't give a poo poo about Reade. Reade's lawyer is doing now what should have been done in May 2020.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 02:06

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

The Oldest Man posted:

Sorry did you stop talking about what happened to Tara Reade in this second paragraph? I honestly can't tell.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1371976113329561601?s=20

Good to know Biden will believe women after the investigation proves they weren't lying, if it even can.

I guess my point is that until we're in a setting where sexual assault allegations against politicians in particular are not made decades after the fact, people are going to look into peoples' backgrounds in lieu of being able to demonstrate anything independent of that (such as a multitude of allegations coming out of the woodwork, an obvious paper trail, etc.). Not even this will solve people using this opportunity to ruthlessly harass victims into oblivion (doxxing them and making death threats and whatever else).

Both Ford and Reade had their credibility attacked, but generally a larger % of people believed Ford for various reasons.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 17:00

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

silicone thrills posted:

Im pretty sure most of those reasons came down to - Party democrats backed Ford but didn't back Reade. Ford's abuser is a republican. Reade's abuser is a democrat.

The DSA has done more to support Reade than Republicans have. Ford had full Democrat backing. Generally because Ford was given the opportunity to speak she has more public support. This didn't stop harassment or Kavanaugh, though.

Nucleic Acids posted:

And I will go ahead and say that had to do with who was being accused and the social class of the accuser.

I agree also.

The Oldest Man posted:

I'll stop you right there. This is never going to not be the case, if only for the obvious reason that many abusers don't become public figures until decades after the fact and we should respect any woman's choice not to compound the trauma of an assault or rape by making a public accusation at that time. The fact that years later when their attacker stands for public office - and the power over others that comes with it - might be when a victim's mental calculus changes from silence to speaking up is not always going to be resolved with a more supportive anti-rape culture, because the damage an abuser can do as a private citizen often pales in comparison to what they can do as a public official. They should be believed and supported either way, and and the fact that Ford was believed specifically by democrats and Reade was not believed specifically by democrats boils down to cultural affinity, class, and political party of the accused and accuser, not the "credibility" of each accusation.

Point taken. For what it's worth I don't see any reason to doubt Reade's account and the situation is more clear to me than when this thread began.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 05:25

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

silicone thrills posted:

I wouldn't really consider the DSA to be "the democrats" poo poo that's why I initially joined them as an alternative. Obviously now some chapters have floated have floated closer to the democratic party but they're still separate.

That was not meant to say DSA is Democrats, although there are self-identifying democratic socialists among Democrats (and some Democrats who hate them).

Name Change fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Mar 18, 2021

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 13:19

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

joepinetree posted:

I don't know why you claim "even the intercept" as if the intercept is some gold standard that makes something ok. But even if the intercept was investigating stuff, it doesn't change the fact that no one here was "investigating" anything, and yet were comfortable making definitive statements over something that even at its very worst case scenario still didn't matter.

The NYT reported that she lied (not just "was mistaken" or "we could not verify"). This initiated law enforcement and lawyers looking into whether she committed perjury during sex crimes trials, which is an extraordinary wrinkle to making these kinds of accusations.

The Intercept's reporting is why we know more about it than that (and even then not everything is clear).

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 18:55

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

joepinetree posted:

The point is that even if she had lied it would still not have mattered.

In public opinion it matters, in pursuing charges or damages it inevitably matters. You can't make it not matter just because it's distasteful.

quote:

And the "not everything is clear" is super weaselly.

Re-read the Intercept article if you like, which makes this exact determination simply because they can't verify everything in terms of paper trails and all that poo poo, because one of the officials involved is dead and so on.

Ytlaya posted:

"Pointing to other random life stuff to establish 'credibility' in the context of a rape accusation" is in fact completely ridiculous. It was always just people looking for an excuse to dismiss inconvenient accusations, both in broader media/society and on these forums.

The only sort of "credibility" that could possibly be relevant is if someone specifically had a history of lying about being raped/assaulted. These arguments (about stuff like the supposed "perjury") only came up because people wanted a justification for ignoring the accusations, and, as always, the victim ended up paying the price.

Also, have you considered that possibly "people will comb through my entire life looking for reasons to question my 'credibility'" might be a strong incentive against accusing powerful people?

Actually we find that when a person's reputation is deemed credible their claims are deemed more credible, and more people go to bat for you in other areas. This is why Reade's lawyer is bothering to work on correcting the record.

sexpig by night posted:

and then what happened

NYT gonna NYT, which people here generally know, but their audience is generally credulous.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 20:28

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

joepinetree posted:

Yes, rape culture is rampant. It is, however, pretty gross to defend the perpetuation of rape culture this way.

Again, investigating who a person is, is not rape culture. Writing a hit piece that ignores your own paper's journalistic standards, because going into a domestic violence shelter unpersoned who you are looking into, is.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 20:40

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

joepinetree posted:

Again, my point is that whether or not she had lied about her BA should never have mattered. People in these very forums thought it did and assumed that she had even when the simpler explanation was that she was a victim of domestic abuse who didn't pay too much attention to paperwork. But it didn't and shouldn't, and to argue that people here were correct to think that it mattered because the NY Times thought it did is to perpetuate the rape culture.

Trying to offload the incredibly gross stuff that has been said in this forum on the NY Times is moral cowardice.

You should probably take that up with them instead of resorting to calling me a coward for engaging with you.

comedyblissoption posted:

thinking about how the media hyperfocused on the "credibility" of tara reade and not notorious liar joe biden mired in many harassment allegations and whom was the butt of snl and daily show groping jokes based on his "tactile" c-span footage

thinking about how this didn't work out for Cuomo, Kavanaugh, etc.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 21:10

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

misadventurous posted:

You took time out of your life to write posts supporting them, you personally made yourself their rep on forums.somethingawful.com and don�t get to duck out of someone pressing you on their decisions. The only other way this post makes sense is if you think you were like explaining to joepinetree what the intercept was doing because he just didn�t get it, which I doubt was the case

You are doing the exact thing he�s calling out, by sticking your rear end out for their lovely invasive reporting

I'm not responsible for what other posters say in U.S. Pol or anywhere else. I've been clear from the beginning that the NYT helped create a narrative, not that I endorsed it or agreed with how it was done, and tried to discuss things in detail. Even when I couldn't explain to myself what was going on with Reade's background, the NYT piece in particular (and IIRC a similar Politico one) was obviously a hit piece full of stuff that wouldn't get printed without "Tara Reade lied about her academics" as the lede.

If there's a big anti-Tara Reade culture on D&D then people should probably address and engage that, instead of just trying to zone off threads because they are "unwelcome" in D&D or whatever. This thread has often frozen people out with self-righteous screeds about how people who don't see the situation the same way as they do are disgusting and beneath engaging with. At the end of the day it's simply more complicated than that and everyone here knows it.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 23:22

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

comedyblissoption posted:

the ny state senate is 20 republicans + 43 democrats

if you assume all republicans will remove cuomo from office, you would need to peel 22 out of 43 democrats (51%) to remove him from office

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Senate

The NY Republicans are on board with impeaching him for just the nursing home stuff so they would definitely be on board with impeaching him for whatever else.

Lester Shy posted:

I believe women when they come forward at great personal risk with their stories of workplace harassment and abuse, so yes I do think the "investigations" are smoke and mirrors, or more accurately, a way to kick the can down the road until enough people have forgotten or forgiven. Are you expecting the investigation will find evidence that all these women are lying?

I guess it's worth noting that there are actually three investigations:

- NY legislature, which is looking into both nursing home stuff and sexual harassment as an impeachment inquiry

- Attorney General, who is looking into the sexual harassment (this was the investigation that Cuomo was originally trying to set up to be run by his cronies). This investigation has subpoena power and all that.

- FBI (looking into what crimes may have been committed in relation to nursing home scandal)

I'm not prepared to say what I think is going to happen as a result. On the one hand Cuomo could just hang on due to inertia and machine politics, on the other hand any one of these investigations may increase the seriousness of the other two with its findings. There's currently no political will to get Cuomo out of office immediately, but the goalpost on this thread for a long time was not enough Democrats calling on Cuomo to resign, and now it's "they haven't forced him to resign by now so they just don't care." That doesn't match up with the facts.

Meanwhile, the last governor to get impeached was a guy in like 1914 as part of a Tammany Hall hit job when he wouldn't play ball with their brand of corruption.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 16:47

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Lester Shy posted:

A call to resign is predicated on the belief that it will have the intended effect, no? If you demand Cuomo's resignation and he refuses, I think it's fair to expect you to exercise your power and take steps toward impeachment. You demanded the resignation before any investigation; there's no reason the investigation would change your impression of the situation unless you believe there's a chance that all of these women are lying. I can't speak for the rest of the thread, but my position from the beginning has been that Cuomo should be removed ASAP. I don't care that it's unprecedented. If Dems want to be a party that values and believes women, they should be willing to take unprecedented steps to remove abusers from office.

Investigations are also a political tool to sway public opinion, create more solid foundations for action, and shed more details on what actually happened. And again you are asking for Democrats to leverage mechanisms that don't exist, causing all manner of political and civil collateral damage, simply because Democrats are not acting quickly enough by your completely arbitrary standard to replace Cuomo with one of his lieutenants.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 18:22

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Lester Shy posted:

This is an argument for inaction in all cases because doing anything might rock the boat. Trump's impeachment caused all manner of political and civil collateral damage because it delayed COVID relief by several weeks, and yet Democrats pursued it anyway, despite the fact that they knew what the outcome would be from the beginning. NY Dems have to stand up on principle at some point. Otherwise Cuomo's just going to skate, like Northam did, like Biden did, like Trump did.

Simultaneously blaming Democrats for taking a principled stand against Trump and letting him skate at the same time, using reasoning that in both cases is not true, nice.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 18:40

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Lester Shy posted:

That's not what I meant, but I could have been more clear. Northam skated on blackface. Biden skated on the rape of Tara Reade. Trump skated on too many things to count, from his dozens of accusers to the Access Hollywood tape to inciting 1/6. In all of these cases, a rebuke from each man's own party could have solved the problem instead of letting it fester. In each of these cases, the party chose to do nothing for cynical reasons. That's fine, it's what I've come to expect. But I don't buy the argument that the cynical, pragmatic approach is also the moral one.

It may be pragmatic, but it isn't cynical; the cynical approach is on display throughout this thread.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 19:02

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

My understanding is that Castor did not actually grant Cosby immunity, as he would need a court order to formally grant that, but the PA Supreme Court and Cosby pretended he had that for the purposes of this legal argument. Cosby proceeded to incriminate himself in the civil trial, which Castor and others no doubt anticipated. Castor making the absolutely stupid decision to announce that he would never prosecute Cosby is its own thing, however.

If you take issue with the Supreme Court's ruling, that would be a topic for an election, as they are all elected positions, but PA SC justices almost never lose elections and are almost never impeached.

The larger issues are more systemic, like this entire thing resting on just one of Cosby's 50+ accused rapes because statutes of limitations and lack of evidence makes it almost impossible to prosecute rapes, let alone when the accused is America's Dad.

The only good that might come from this is further attention to reforming sex crime laws.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 22:56

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 00:38

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Aside from asking who the system is for it's worth asking who the decision is for. The atrocious Cosby decision doesn't make a lot of legal sense, and as a bonus:

(A) The system has been engineered so you can't do anything about it to anyone involved in the decision as a consequence, even though there are ostensibly elections

(B) The decision is designed to have no impact on anyone else, even those who can wield celebrity and enormous amounts of money in their defense.

I end up going back to the amount of people who had their pockets lined with Cosby money for decades and held him up as a pillar of the community. As seen with Phylicia Rashad, these people still exist and they haven't been convinced otherwise, and if you rode Cosby's coattails for any part of the way you did very well. It also helped Cosby that his racial politics could be summed up as "less complaining, be more like whitey."

# ¿ Jul 6, 2021 20:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > #metoo and the impact of rape culture

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