I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!
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Thanks Ruth. We have been fortunate not having to abide the upsetting experience of such diverse viewpoints from the right. I hope you hear something positive, or they put it on the thread here.
Thanks a million for taking the time. it is appreciated.
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Each of us makes the choice about how we feel, though it often seems
to be controlled by other people or events. We can alter our perception.
We can restore our balance. We can choose peace of mind. We can
choose the texture of a day.
Each day seems to have a life of its own, but we are that life. We can
choose to change the texture at any point. Take a deep breath, stop for
a cup of tea, smile at someone, think of something that brings you joy,
plan a dream. . . . This minute, experience the part of the journey you are
in now.
Make this minute what you want for a lifetime. Alter the texture of
your day in any way you choose, but recognize that the texture
and the minute are yours.
Jennifer James
Success Is the Quality of Your Journey0 -
I started looking for a meme and found myself so disgusted I couldn't focus on it. I'm disgusted mainly with the Supreme Court, I think. How they could give the Loon's possible immunity one minute of their time just amazes me. I do think in the end, they really would not want to go down in history as having made such a monumental change in democracy — it is just that it is even considered. Why does ANYONE want to give someone like the Loon anything. Hasn't he been enough of a taker his whole life long. Shame, shame, shame on the Supreme Court. Too many on the court are obnoxious fools.
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I heard from the Mods. It isn't showing up in the Active Topics on their end, so they will send it over to the tech people. They didn't move it on purpose.
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Thanks Ruth. Hopefully, then it isn't causing migrations here. Nice to know. I won't feel troubled by having to check over every word and idea I feel or have. Hopefully it will end up a non-issue again soon.
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Julia, smart as well as beautiful.
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About a week ago I started seeing this thread again when I go to my bookmarks. The posts are included in the number count of new messages up by the 'bell', but the thread itself doesn't show any new posts with the little red numbers. However, when I click on the thread, it opens to the correct place with newest postings. Weird.
Glad you all are here!!!!
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Alyssa Milano: Harvey Weinstein Isn’t Alone. Our Institutions Are Rapists
Two of rapist Harvey Weinstein’s convictions have been overturned, and in New York he has been granted a new trial. And while it’s important to note that the rapist’s conviction in California stands, and that the rapist is old, weak, and sometime soon he will die alone and unloved in a prison cell in one state or another, this injustice is just another example of how all of our American institutions are built to demean and devalue women–to them, our bodies are commodities to be used, and that will be their downfall.
Take, for example, Brock Turner (now going by Allen Turner and living in the Dayton, Ohio area). He spent only three months in a jail—not a prison—for three counts of felony sexual assault. (He had been initially indicted on five charges: two for rape, two for felony sexual assault, and one for attempted rape, although the two rape charges were later withdrawn.)
The judge in that case, Aaron Persky, said that he was concerned about the “severe impact” of a long prison sentence on then collegiate athlete Turner when he sentenced him. Of course, the “severe impact” to Allen (née Brock) Turner’s victim didn’t matter to Persky–a man’s freedom was threatened, after all, and what does a woman’s suffering and the safety of all other women matter in comparison to that? Rumors abound that Turner likes to hang out at bars in Dayton–the kind of place where people like his victim tend to spend time.
Courts are not the only place where women are failed by our institutions. Law enforcement continually works against us. In fact, almost none of the rapes and sexual assaults which happen in this country are prosecuted. According to RAINN, out of every 1,000 sexual assaults which happen in this country, only 25 rapists spend a day in prison.
Somehow worse, out of every 310 rapes or other sexual assaults reported by police, only 50 lead to an arrest. In many instances police become the enemy of the victim, so ingrained in the patriarchal demands of rape culture that many will lie about evidence and manipulate victims into convictions and jail time rather than just starting from the place that women are telling the truth. While I understand the argument, I am not one of the people who argues “all cops are bastards.” But all cops bear the responsibility for those on their forces who perpetuate this injustice under their own noses.
If somehow a victim hits the jackpot and gets an investigator and prosecutor who ultimately press charges, those good apples will face an uphill evidentiary battle. When victimized, women who report sexual assaults are subjected to an incredibly traumatic and invasive series of evidence collection procedures to produce a “rape kit.” These kits include DNA and other forensic evidence.
But, since the value of women is essentially nothing to those with power in this country, rape kits are rarely analyzed. In fact, End the Backlog estimates that there are “hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit untested in police department and crime lab storage facilities across the country.” It’s strange that police forces always seem to have enough money for bullets, tear gas, military-style weapons, handcuffs, and zip ties to break up every peaceful protest they come across, but never enough to ensure rape kits get tested.
Great news though! Congress is on the job. Savannah, Georgia, Congressman Buddy Carter wants to end the backlog and get rape kits tested! Oh wait! Carter doesn’t actually care about women and rape victims at all–he’s just trying to push racist immigration policies by denying rape-kit testing funds to sanctuary cities. Women are a pawn in his hateful game–it’s the same game his entire party played in the House and the Senate by supporting the gun industry over women when it came time for the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. This life-saving law sat expired for years because it made it harder for domestic abusers to get guns. Why support women when you can support their rapists and abusers, right Buddy?
You’d think things might be better at the state level, but they are not. Take Idaho, for example. This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments about Idaho’sironically named Defense of Life Act which requires a pregnant person to be actively and imminently dying before they can get an abortion. It doesn’t matter if NOT getting an abortion will leave them in a condition that could be life threatening, or infertile, or disabled–that fetus has more value in Idaho than its mother. In fact, you can legally shoot someone in Idaho if you have a “reasonable belief” that they are about to rob you. That Buffalo Wild Wings gift card in your wallet has more value in Idaho than a woman does. Idaho is not a unique case. In state after state, governments dominated by white men are dehumanizing and taking ownership over women’s bodies.
Government teaches men to be rapists because it enables rapists. When a president, like Trump himself—whom a judge found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in E. Jean Carroll’s civil case—can describe sexual assaults and use “locker room talk” to try and minimize rape culture, when control of our very bodies are up for debate in the courts, when a member of Congress can stand accused by a colleague of paying a minor for sex, and instead of being expelled remains powerful enough to oust a sitting Speaker of the House, when preachers tell their congregations that women should “stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do,” when our schools are attacked for giving girls access to menstrual products—this teaches our boys, and our men, that women do not matter.
We do matter. The rapists? They don’t matter. We know the rapist Harvey Weinstein’s name because famous women were among his victims. That does not make his crimes more or less important, or his victims more or less valuable. Every victim matters. Every rapist deserves the full weight of the criminal justice system cast upon them. The overturning of rapist Harvey Weinstein’s New York convictions is just another symptom of the sickness in our institutions–he is an oozing boil on our diseased political system.
The voters are starting to lance that boil—Brock Turner’s judge was recalled and kicked out of office. EVERY time abortion has been on the ballot since Roe was overturned, it has won. There are thousands of rapists whose names we will never hear. But there are so many more victims, so many more women, whose government victimizes them every day. And while we may never hear most of their names, we are going to hear their votes.
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I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this on bco. When I was in the Peace Corps, a staff member attempted to rape me. Fortunately he was a very sloppy drunk and another volunteer who was in the house woke up and stopped it. As soon as the Peace Corps office opened, I went to the nurse to report it. While very kind and gentle she said that “nothing really happened “. I should just let it go as he was a long time , well respected staff member. Wouldn’t want to soil his reputation would we? I have never felt so devalued and demeaned in my life but the message was clear; I was less valued as a woman than this despicable man who tried to violate me, simply because he was a man. That was over 40 years ago and it still enrages me. Oh, she did give me a bottle of Valium 🫤
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Well that was horrifying exbrnxgrl. How kind of the female nurse to give you something to sooth yourself with as she offered little if any actual understanding and true comfort. I would still be incensed as well that the perpetrator got all the considerations while you were in a fashion mollified with drugs.
Divine, the whole piece was a real eye opener. At my age and being from such a small place things like this do not come up much. I have been aware though most of my life that one way or other over any number of things men have been in charge. I so hope that we can make headway in 2024 since the hot button still remains abortion. Still it will be years I'm afraid and I'm not likely to see it.
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Ain't seen nothing yet, fat boy.
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Life is not a competition with others. In its truest sense it is rivalry with ourselves. We should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair past follies; each day to surpass ourselves. This is, simply, progress. -C. Smith Sumner
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There's a question & answer that is going around the internet that pretty much sums it up:
Would you rather be attacked by a man or a bear? A bear, because at least people would believe me.
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Ruth,
Sadly, that is often the truth. I was too young, naive, and a product of my times to have understood in the moment that I needed care and protection, not him. I even bought that absurd rationalization that “nothing happened “. I was about 22 years old.
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It's horrifying that women are raped, then blamed or told to stay silent! It is even worse in other countries. exbrnxgrl, I can't imagine going through that! In some middle east countries, women are stoned to death because they were raped or gang raped! The woman is at fault!
For a supposedly educated society, we are not very well educated! Trump deserves a fair trial, but he also deserves the same punishment that a man off the street would get if he is found guilty! I don't know how sane people can come up with any verdict other than guilty! Not sure why he is upset, he was proud of what he did to women! As for Melania, I have NO sympathy for her, she knew he cheated on all his previous wives, she got what she wanted, wealth and her parents US citizenship!
I don't believe the polls, I cannot believe so may people actually will vote for Trump unless they are brain dead!
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MM, that is what I've believed for a long time. I do think and am nervous about many people and there are I think more than I realized, that don't absorb as much news as possible like we do. I do know though because I wasn't always the way I am. I listened I think to the political news with far less attention. Back then though, it wasn't so horribly lop-sided like now.
Anyway, we need this CRIMINAL trial right now very much so that a lot of those same people will become re-acquainted with the orange thing and his very strong penchant to break laws and wreak vengeance. It does bother me that the news people do say that the Loon is seen as having a better economy. Well, yes sir, in the beginning. Just ask all those RICH people whom he made a lot richer at the same time providing himself with plenty. I'm sure they for the most part are still quite gung-ho on how he does things.
It is one of the biggest reasons I don't trust polls too much and even more this far out. The polls are only a picture of who you can get to actually answer them — so I'm not so sure the Loon is doing that well with the economy. It does cost as much for as at the store, and in some cases a bit more. I use to think spending $70.00 in one grocery trip was huge and shouldn't happen. Now it is fairly normal not to make it out w/o wrecking a $100.00 dollar bill and then some. Still I know that this is not something that is likely to change and other things around it will hopefully be better. I also know that Biden is not responsible but the fact that we still have issues in speaking about economy.
As for women, we have been way less vocal than we should coupled with seeing later that men sloughed it all up and pretended we were at fault and not their peers. Can't totally blame women who have already been violated and then the system takes over and does it again. We are all going to have to stand up at once at some point in the near future.
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How can they say the economy was better when the grocery shelves were empty during covid? Finding household cleaners, toilet paper, bread and other necessities when the shelves were bare? Perhaps we had more money because there was nothing to buy or when you could find it it was expensive.
Covid incentivized manufacturers to use this as a means of decreasing the amount of product while not lowering the price and in some instances even raising it. Now this practice continues as they publish record profits all made and the general public has not figured this out. A 5 lb. bag of flour or sugar is now only 4 lb. but the price hasn't decreased to reflect we are getting less.
Failure to process rape kits is unconscionable for those who were raped and the fact that most reported cases get dismissed by those taking the reports is criminal. We have 2 men who have been accused of improper sexual advances sitting on the Supreme Court and one who is running for President so what does this say about us. We need to take a stance and be vocal about how this is wrong, the justices should never have been confirmed and the other should not be permitted to run again.
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exbrnxgrl, I’m so sorry that happened to you when you were in the Peace Corps. Wasn’t that in the 1970s? I look back at that time period and while certain strides were being made for women such as Title IX, finally being able to obtain a credit card without a man to co-sign, and not legally allowed to be fired from a job for being pregnant, there was still so, so much discrimination and oppression towards women hidden in the shadows. Men’s reputations were still overwhelmingly prioritized and protected; those with prestige, money and power (or being a “long time well respected staff member”) even more so. It sounds like the nurse in your case was well versed on how to handle the situation which makes me wonder how many times before you Mr. Well-Respected-Staff-Member had committed the same offense against other women, especially being as he’d been there a long time.
While social media and the internet has its downsides, the upside is that more of the atrocities against women are at least being called out, seen and believed. Certainly it’s made the MeToo movement possible. I appreciated Alyssa Milano’s well written commentary, as well as the responses on this thread to what she had to say.
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Many brain cells missing in the whole bunch.
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Mouthful coming down.
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