Barefoot and Pregnant

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Joxam
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Joxam » Tue Dec 05, 2017 11:38 pm

Thad wrote:John Oliver grills Dustin Hoffman over sexual harassment allegations

“Do you believe this stuff you read?” Hoffman asked.

“Yes,” Oliver replied. “Because there’s no point in [an accuser] lying.”

“Well, there’s a point in her not bringing it up for 40 years,” Hoffman said.

“Oh Dustin,” Oliver said disapprovingly, putting his head in his hand.


This is a good trend to see (though I imagine John Oliver probably won't be invited back to any film Q&A sessions). Ronan Farrow's spent quite a bit of time (well before he helped break the Weinstein allegations) criticizing journalists who are willing to, for example, sit down for an interview with Woody Allen and just agree they won't talk about his alleged child abuse.

Part of why predators have gotten a pass for so long is that not only have people not spoken up, but sometimes when people do speak up the press agrees just not to talk about it, in exchange for access. I think that's a big part of what happened with Bill Cosby; after the first round of allegations against him quieted down, he got to go back to work and reclaim his position as a beloved elder statesman of comedy. It took another decade before the allegations came back around and ruined his career.

The allegations against Hoffman aren't nearly as bad as the ones against Weinstein, Cosby, or Allen, of course, but they're all part of the same culture. And part of that culture has been a complicit press that's willing to lob softballs at celebrities. What's the expression? When you're a star, they let you do it.


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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Thad » Wed Dec 06, 2017 1:18 pm

Mongrel wrote:Conyers is out.

And they're turning the screws on Franken, with a steady drumbeat of female Democratic senators calling for his resignation today.

I think he's toast. But if any of you have a Democratic senator who hasn't called for his resignation yet, it couldn't hurt to call or fax and suggest that they do so.

(ETA: Senators on the ethics committee, of course, can't comment while they're conducting the ethics investigation. But any other Democratic senator, including and especially Franken himself, is worth contacting.)

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:29 pm

I really do want to see him run as a full-throated Republican just to see what happens.

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby atog » Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:10 pm

Dantes wrote:
hmm
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:43 pm

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Mongrel » Thu Dec 07, 2017 3:33 am

NPR: Franken to resign later today

(well, it's Thursday where *I* am anyway - but DC's on the same time zone, IIRC)
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Thad » Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:34 pm


Not only will Franken not be the last, he might not even be the last today.

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Blossom » Thu Dec 07, 2017 8:19 pm

Franken's resignation announcement - he hasn't resigned yet, of course, that's happening "in the coming weeks" - was total bullshit. He basically announced that he can't go through an investigation and still be able to do his job as a Senator, so he has to quit being a Senator, which is a shame, because the investigation would have totally cleared him of all wrongdoing, because the women are all lying.

He also said he was “shocked” and “upset” by the harassment allegations and that in responding to the claims, he may have given people the “false impression” that he was admitting to any of the accusations.


Seriously, fuck this guy.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Rico » Fri Dec 08, 2017 4:55 am

"No, stupid, dig UP!"

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby beatbandito » Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:09 am

Okay this is going to sound trollish, but how does someone deny allegations?

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about it, and Franken came damn close to my ideas. Different mainly in that he appears to only denying some, and fumbled on the handling there.

So if someone reacted to a single account with something along the lines of "I've heard the allegations, and stand firm that the events described did not transpire." would that be better? Because I can't think of a way of apologizing for someone's feelings while denying the substance behind them that manages to not be patronizing.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Grath » Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:46 am


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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Thad » Fri Dec 08, 2017 2:50 pm

beatbandito wrote:Okay this is going to sound trollish, but how does someone deny allegations?

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about it, and Franken came damn close to my ideas. Different mainly in that he appears to only denying some, and fumbled on the handling there.

So if someone reacted to a single account with something along the lines of "I've heard the allegations, and stand firm that the events described did not transpire." would that be better? Because I can't think of a way of apologizing for someone's feelings while denying the substance behind them that manages to not be patronizing.

When you've got eight different accusations and the first one had a photo with it, you're really past the point where anybody is going to believe you if you deny them.

I think Franken's initial statement, after the first accusation, was pretty good (though I still think he should have resigned then). Part of the problem with his resignation speech is that he tried to walk back his earlier, better response.

If he'd actually been innocent, then I do think that the correct response would have looked a lot like the one he gave then ("that's not how I remember it, but you should listen to accusers; please investigate these allegations and I'll cooperate"). But he's not. Again, the first accuser had a photo, and there have been more than enough similar accusations since to conclude that it happened multiple times, including after he became a senator.

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Blossom » Fri Dec 08, 2017 4:55 pm

Thad wrote:
beatbandito wrote:Okay this is going to sound trollish, but how does someone deny allegations?

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about it, and Franken came damn close to my ideas. Different mainly in that he appears to only denying some, and fumbled on the handling there.

So if someone reacted to a single account with something along the lines of "I've heard the allegations, and stand firm that the events described did not transpire." would that be better? Because I can't think of a way of apologizing for someone's feelings while denying the substance behind them that manages to not be patronizing.

When you've got eight different accusations and the first one had a photo with it, you're really past the point where anybody is going to believe you if you deny them.

I think Franken's initial statement, after the first accusation, was pretty good (though I still think he should have resigned then). Part of the problem with his resignation speech is that he tried to walk back his earlier, better response.

If he'd actually been innocent, then I do think that the correct response would have looked a lot like the one he gave then ("that's not how I remember it, but you should listen to accusers; please investigate these allegations and I'll cooperate"). But he's not. Again, the first accuser had a photo, and there have been more than enough similar accusations since to conclude that it happened multiple times, including after he became a senator.


Yeah, basically, I think the first step in denying allegations needs to be actually being innocent. You can discuss strategy from there, but if you botch that first step, nothing you do afterwords is gonna work.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Friday » Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:07 pm

I think the first step in denying allegations needs to be actually being innocent. You can discuss strategy from there, but if you botch that first step, nothing you do afterwords is gonna work.


Except switching to the Republican Party.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Thad » Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:32 pm

TA wrote:Yeah, basically, I think the first step in denying allegations needs to be actually being innocent. You can discuss strategy from there, but if you botch that first step, nothing you do afterwords is gonna work.

I see a lot of people asking "What if people start making false accusations?"

I think that's the wrong question, but most people asking it are probably well-meaning. (Some, of course, are not; some are tugging at their collars while trying to sow FUD because they're worried that they're next.)

People do sometimes make false accusations. Thing is, it's incredibly rare; instances where it's happened in the past, like the Duke and U-VA cases, have gotten enough media coverage to create the impression that false accusations of rape and other sexual misconduct are widespread, but they're not.

Presumption of innocence is a good thing, but it's also a legal standard. The standard for believing a victim is entirely different in the workplace or in the court of public opinion than it is in a court of law, and it should be, especially when it comes to issues like sexual assault where evidence can be very difficult to come by. (Cases where the abuser takes a fucking picture and leaves it for the victim to find notwithstanding.)

Here are a couple of good articles I've read recently:

No matter what Jackie said, we should generally believe rape claims by Zerlina Maxwell, Washington Post. It's a few years old (as the title implies), but does a pretty good job describing the statistics of rape accusations and the harm done by not believing accusers.

Due Process Is Needed For Sexual Harassment Accusations — But For Whom? by Ijeoma Oluo, The Establishment. This one is pretty amazing; apparently the The USA Today approached her a few weeks ago asking if she wanted to write an op/ed saying she opposes due process. When she said she was willing, instead, to write an article emphasizing that accusers have due process rights too but that, too often, they hit a wall when they report harassment, the paper passed; it was only interested in an op/ed saying, outright, that someone accused of sexual misconduct should not be permitted to have due process. (It was unable to find anyone willing to write such an op/ed.)

tl;dr I'm seeing a lot of people ask "What happens if people start flinging false accusations and this becomes a witch hunt?" and the answer is "Then we'll deal with that if and when it happens, but so far it hasn't."

I do think it's probable that partisans on both sides of the aisle are digging right now for any accusation they can find against members of the other party. I also don't think that's actually a bad thing. Expose the bastards; every last one of them.

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Blossom » Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:17 pm

To be fair, some sort people genuinely are that vile.

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But yeah, the statistic is something like ... less than 2% of sexual assault accusations turn out to be baseless? Even just as a math game, you listen.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Dec 09, 2017 6:18 pm

tl;dr I'm seeing a lot of people ask "What happens if people start flinging false accusations and this becomes a witch hunt?" and the answer is "Then we'll deal with that if and when it happens, but so far it hasn't."


It's been less than a month since a funded organization tried to pull this shit on its own benefactor to try and discredit other claims and political enemies. Due process and skepticism isn't just for the defendants; in fact I'd almost say that done properly it's least for the defendants.

(Done improperly it turns into begging the question long enough to be swept into a position where you can declare your actions legal.)

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby François » Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:15 pm

I've been falsely accused of sexual assault.

When I was maybe 11 years old, there was one time at the pool where an older girl threw a fit and made a huge crying angry scene about how I'd have put a hand under her swimsuit and groped her breasts.

I didn't do it, of course. I'd rather hang myself than even touch any woman without her explicit consent. I feel bad about tapping on someone's shoulder to get their attention. To this day I don't understand why she did it. I was 250km from my hometown; we had never met before then and never met again, we had not exchanged a single word, and I was far too busy being self-conscious about my weight to even imagine looking in the general direction of a girl, let alone stare at any part of one.

I was kicked out and banned from the pool, but that pales in comparison to how it felt, being judged and hated by a hundred strangers for a vile act it would never occur to me to even think about committing. It's dizzying to imagine how much worse it would have been had it happened in the place where I lived, in sight of people I would ever see again at all.

(It is also fairly horrifying to contemplate what a light punishment this would have been for someone who had actually committed that vile act.)

In retrospect, there's no telling how much that did to damage my further relations with girls/women in my life. Good grief, I was painfully shy to begin with.

The whole event is easily among the worst experiences I've ever had, and I'm saying this as someone who was once surrounded by eight people and for several minutes repeatedly kicked in the legs and knees so bad I had trouble walking for weeks. (The two events are not related. But coincidentally, the beating happened because someone's little brother was badly bullied by two shitheads and one called the other by my name to frame me. It later came out that I had actually defended said little brother from those same shitheads on several occasions, but bad word spreads further than good and my reputation never recovered.)

Now I know this is anectodal, I'm not saying "it happened to me so it must be pretty common", and I know no one here is trying to say it never happens. But I am in a privileged position to understand why the perspective of being falsely accused is so scary.

It's like being afraid of dying in a plane crash. The event itself is bad enough, but there is the added weight of There Is Nothing You Can Do About It. Of course you're more likely to die in a car accident, but people are more scared of planes because you have zero agency, and zero illusion of agency. You can do everything right, commit no fault, and still spend several minutes in pure terror and then your bones shatter and you are taken by fire or water. Statistically speaking, plane-related deaths are a rounding error compared to the sheer volume of successful plane transit, but on a primal level, it's just a lot scarier to think about.

Being falsely accused? Yeah, it barely happens, it is in such a profound state of "barely happening" as to not even be worth thinking about, and I'm saying that as someone to whom it did happen. But it's random, there's nothing you can do about it, nothing you can do to prevent it, nothing you can do to recover from it, and someone petty/damaged enough will inflict it on you for the thrill of it or no reason whatsoever. And that'll be enough to make it Terrifying Beyond All Sensible Proportion.

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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Mongrel » Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:35 pm

Yeah, that's really an excellent way of putting it.

As a man hopefully going into teaching, younger children at that, it's a thought I can't escape worrying about. All it takes is a pair of kids who want The Ultimate Revenge for a bad grade or detention or whatever. Or even something with no malice at all, a pure accident like clumsily bumping into someone (that sounds stupid, but remember I'm mister no-coordination... I worry about this already even without teaching being a part of my life).

I mean, when I go read, some of the kids will reach up and hold my hand as we go to the library (I never initiate that) and I find myself worrying if even that's alright. Of course it's perfectly fine, but I'm still worried!

There are of course rules and guidelines meant to address these fears - how to not be alone with kids, etc. - and they do help somewhat, but the possibility's always going to be there. And even if you do everything right, it still means you have to be aware and vigilant at all times.
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Re: Barefoot and Pregnant

Postby Cait » Sun Dec 10, 2017 11:39 am

One of the things that bothers me is that people keep trying to dismiss the claims as 'anonymous', when none of them are. Franken knows who made the claims, anyone whose business it is to know knows who they are, their names have just been withheld from the press to protect them from the sort of retribution and muckraking the public accusers already have been hit with.

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