bloom
bloom's JournalSolnit: Unconscious Bias is Running for President
"...I’ve just spent a month watching white male people in particular arguing about who has charisma or relatability or electability. They speak as if these were objective qualities, and as if their own particular take on them was truth or fact rather than taste, and as if what white men like is what everyone likes or white men are who matters, which is maybe a hangover from the long ugly era when only white men voted. It’s a form of self-confidence that verges on lunacy, because one of the definitions of that condition is the inability to distinguish between subjective feelings and objective realities.
Ryan Lizza, fired from the New Yorker for undisclosed sexual misconduct, tweeted, “The Kamala Harris fundraising numbers drive home just how impressive Pete Buttigieg’s fundraising numbers are” when hers were nearly twice as large, and maybe who has money to donate and why white men have always been carried forward and black women have always been held back are relevant things here. One notable thing about the 2016 election is that some of the leading pundits whose misogyny helped shape the race—including Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Glenn Thrush—were later charged with sexual abuse or harassment; that is, their public bias was paralleled by appalling private misconduct. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes were outed earlier; heads of networks, directors, and producers have also been outed as serial sexual abusers in charge of our dominant narratives.
Meanwhile, the New York Times in all its august unbearability just published this prize sentence in a piece about Joe Biden’s failure to offer Anita Hill an apology she found adequate: “Many former Judiciary Committee aides and other people who participated did not want to talk on the record because they feared that scrutiny of Mr. Biden’s past conduct would undermine the campaign of the candidate some think could be best positioned to defeat President Trump, whose treatment of women is a huge issue for Democrats.” That translates as, let’s run a guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and let’s ignore that treatment because even so we think that he’s best positioned to defeat the guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and also fuck treatment of women, especially this black woman, as an issue, really....
The problem, as feminist philosopher Kate Manne put it recently, is that what we say now is not just commentary about what is possible; it is shaping what is possible. She said, “If we knew for sure that a candidate couldn’t beat Trump, that would be reason not to support them. But electability isn’t a static social fact; it’s a social fact we’re constructing. Part of what will make someone unelectable is people give up on them in a way that would be premature, rather than going to the mat for them.” ...What makes a candidate electable is in part how much positive coverage they get, and how much positive coverage they get is tied to how the media powers decide who is electable, and so goes the double bind...."
https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-unconscious-bias-is-running-for-president/?fbclid=IwAR2ZdtO0oET9YBnjZ0ibWWyOQJqByYOaUaeQD3Pe7jK9E6iVPQOFbysiris
"Trevor Noah Says Some Candidates Have Policies, Others Have Male Privilege"
"‘I’m Just Going to Wing It’
Monday night’s CNN town halls with five Democratic presidential hopefuls provided great monologue material on Tuesday. The late-night hosts took on statements by Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.
Trevor Noah said that while “for months now, Warren has been releasing policies faster than Netflix releases documentaries about serial killers” and Harris issued a “powerful threat” to Congress regarding gun control, Buttigieg’s sidestepping questions about actual policies revealed his male privilege.
“You have to admit, running for president as a man is so much more fun because as a woman, you have to bring extra homework. Elizabeth Warren calculated 2 cents on every dollar over 50 million. Kamala is breaking down the statistics on maternal mortality as relates to race and class. But a dude can come and be like, ‘Yeah, I’m just going to wing it.’” — TREVOR NOAH
Video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=41&v=Cf-F2l4I0zI
Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/trevor-noah-best-of-late-night-presidential-candidates.html?fallback=0&recId=1KJpaC7SzXwDTrGteLvAdBKWoIS&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=IN&recAlloc=top_conversion&geoCountry=US&blockId=most-popular&imp_id=315409898&action=click&module=trending&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
"Running for president: that's what girls do" video
https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethWarren/videos/528583180879171/Cross-post "A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez"
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/17/green-new-deal-short-film-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/"TODAY, THE INTERCEPT launches “A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” a seven-minute film narrated by the congresswoman and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. Set a couple of decades from now, it’s a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves?
What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like then?
This is a project unlike any we have done before, crossing boundaries between fact, fiction, and visual art, co-directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt and co-written by Ocasio-Cortez and Avi Lewis. To reclaim a phrase from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it’s our “green dream,” inspired by the explosion of utopian art produced during the original New Deal.
And it’s a collaboration with a context and a history that seems worth sharing."
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https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127126385
""A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," a 7-minute film"
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/17/green-new-deal-short-film-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/"TODAY, THE INTERCEPT launches “A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” a seven-minute film narrated by the congresswoman and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. Set a couple of decades from now, it’s a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves?
What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like then?
This is a project unlike any we have done before, crossing boundaries between fact, fiction, and visual art, co-directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt and co-written by Ocasio-Cortez and Avi Lewis. To reclaim a phrase from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it’s our “green dream,” inspired by the explosion of utopian art produced during the original New Deal.
And it’s a collaboration with a context and a history that seems worth sharing."
"'Stop Sanders' Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.htmlInteresting to read the comments (they are closed now). A lot of fervent Bernie supporters out there.
I do think it's a bad idea for Democrats to try to keep BS from winning -if he is who the majority wants.
I also see it as a problem if Bernie bashes the Democrats and anyone who is part of the 'establishment' - as if he isn't - when he has been in the Senate as long as he has.
I think a good ticket would be Sanders / Warren ----- Warren / Sanders.
If Bernie (with the nom) did not pick a somewhat 'established' Democrat (such as Warren) as a running mate - that would be a problem. I also think if he picked a woman - that would certainly help bring in many of the women who want to see a woman on the ticket.
Mayor Pete could be in the cabinet or something.
One thing about Pete & Bernie is they are both going after Trump voters
Are any of the other candidates doing that?
in Finland - openly running on a platform to slow down efforts to mitigate global warming
"HELSINKI (AP) — Riding a wave of populism across Europe and campaigning to slow down Finland’s efforts to fight climate change, the euroskeptic Finns Party came within 6,800 votes of winning the country’s parliamentary election — a result that smashed even the party’s own predictions..."
https://apnews.com/e8b1c22c9ef9475f9b6a86e87b93b6c0
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I suppose once (US) Republicans finally admit to human-caused climate change, they will more openly fight doing anything to stop it. They fight against renewables, now; they fight against immigrants fleeing droughts; they fight for ignorance - but if they are openly fighting against saving humanity and other life on the planet, I haven't noticed.
If you have, please post. Thanks.
The 2020 Endorsement Primary from 538
I don't know how much influence party leaders have - but I thought this was interesting to know, anyway:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-endorsements/democratic-primary/?ex_cid=rrpromo
Cory Booker 57 points
Kamala Harris 55
Amy Klobuchar 44
Bernie Sanders 21
Joe Biden 18
Elizabeth Warren 17
Beto O'Rourke 14
Julian Castro 12
John Delaney 6
Pete Buttigieg 5
Jay Inslee 5
Kirsten Gillibrand 3
John Hickenlooper 3
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