Messages

16

Main / Re: Recorded screams played back during Vladek Filler rape trial

May 26, 2011, 03:35 PM

So far in this case, most of the criticism of the prosecutor has centered on Assistant DA, Mary Kellett.  But an ADA is merely acting on the authority of the DA, who is an elected official and is thus accountable to the people.  It is the DA who is elected, and whose office is legitimized by an election victory.  Thus far, the activism from our side (spearheaded by SAVE) has focused on disbarring ADA Mary Kellett.  But I've always thought that the activist energy behind such a drive is misdirected.  The one who is in authority should be the one who is held accountable.  If ADA Mary Kellett was out of line, and if her decisions necessarily carried the implicit endorsement of the elected DA, then we should focus our ire upon the elected DA.

That DA is named Carletta Bassano.  She is the one with the decision-making power.  It is she who is ultimately responsible for the abuses that have occurred on her watch, abuses which undermined the legitimacy of her office.


Carletta Bassano

Her Web site is here:
http://www.da7.org/aboutda.htm

17

Main / Recorded screams played back during Vladek Filler rape trial

May 25, 2011, 05:35 PM

FYI, these aren't the screams of a woman being victimized.  Rather, they are the screams of a woman who is on a violent, psychotic rampage -- a woman who lost custody of her kids due to her abusive behaviors, a woman who attacked police, a woman who lodged a rape accusation against the father of her kids while coincidentally embroiled in a child custody battle.  That woman, the defendant's wife.  Notice that her name is omitted in the article below, so I'll help you out:  her name is Ligia Filler.  They finally allowed the truth -- recorded footage -- to be played in court for the jury in Vladek Filler's trial.

FYI, here's the recording for those who haven't heard it:

Ligia Filler Police Audio


Vladek Filler

Recorded screams played back during rape trial
By Bill Trotter
Bangor Daily News
May 25, 2011
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/25/news/recorded-screams-played-back-during-rape-trial/

ELLSWORTH, Maine -- The chilling sound of a Steuben woman's screams reverberated through the courtroom Wednesday as the sexual assault trial against her husband continued in Hancock County Superior Court.

The screams were from a recording of the woman being taken into protective custody by police on April 24, 2007, a little more than two weeks after she says her husband, Vladek Filler, raped her in their Gouldsboro home. The recording was presented Wednesday as evidence in the sexual assault retrial of Filler.

Washington County sheriff's deputies took Filler's wife into protective custody on April 24 after she called police from a friend's house in Steuben and they went to check on her well-being.

Called as a prosecution witness, Lt. Travis Willey of the Washington County Sheriff's Department testified that he found Filler's wife on a rural road near a blueberry field, wearing no shoes, black pants and a bra, and carrying her youngest son, who then was about 18 months old, in a sweatshirt. Willey told the jury in Filler's trial that he made the recording as he and other police took Filler's wife into protective custody and took her to Down East Community Hospital in Machias for an evaluation.

When questioned on the stand by Hancock County First Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh about her state of mind, Willey said Filler's wife was not making a whole lot of sense.  She appeared tired and, because she had white froth around her mouth, dehydrated as well, Willey said.

"She seemed very irrational at the moment," the deputy said.

On the recording, Filler's wife can be heard making accusations between her screams and other unintelligible comments. She threatens on the recording to kill her husband and says that he sexually assaulted her and her three children. The woman has two boys with Filler and she has a now-21-year-old daughter who was fathered by another man.

"She didn't go into details, but she did say that [Filler molested the children]," Willey said under cross-examination by Filler's attorney, Stephen C. Smith of Bangor.

Filler, 41, is on trial for assaulting and sexually assaulting his estranged wife, but has not been charged with any crimes against his two sons or his stepdaughter. Filler now lives in suburban Atlanta and has custody of their two sons, who are 5 and 14 years old.

Filler originally was  tried on the allegations in early 2009 and found guilty. But the trial judge and then the state supreme court ordered a retrial after Filler argued that the case's previous prosecutor, Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, inappropriately raised during closing arguments an issue that had been barred from testimony.

During the trial on Wednesday, Filler's wife was heard screaming on Lt. Willey's recording, "I will kill him!" and "I'm not crazy! I'm not crazy!"

The jury of eight women and seven men, including three alternates, listened to the recording for about half an hour at the end of Wednesday's testimony. The trial is expected to resume around 9 a.m. Thursday.

Before Willey's testimony, Steuben resident Linda Gleason testified that in the days leading up to Filler's wife being taken into protective custody, Filler's wife, stepdaughter and youngest son were staying with Gleason in Steuben. Gleason, a friend of Filler's wife, said that they were staying with her after Filler and his wife had a fight about Filler's wife using the car.

Gleason said Filler's wife called police from her house on April 23, 2007 -- the day before she was taken to Machias for a mental evaluation -- to tell them about the alleged rape she said happened on April 6 that year. In the days leading up to the recording, Gleason testified, she did not see Filler's wife eat or sleep.

Filler's wife also testified earlier Wednesday while being cross-examined by Smith. The defense attorney questioned her about the alleged sexual assault on April 6, during which Filler supposedly sodomized her against the laundry washer and dryer machines in a bathroom.

Filler's wife answered slowly and several times asked Smith to repeat his questions. Several times throughout the day, each attorney objected to questions asked by the other. They held many sidebar sessions with presiding Justice Robert Murray, out of earshot of the jury, to discuss their objections or concerns before questioning resumed.

Under cross-examination, Smith asked Filler's wife how Filler held her down, which of his hands he used to do what, how her head was positioned during the alleged assault in relation to the machines and a laundry basket, and other questions about the incident.

During the line of questioning, Filler's wife said she does not know why she did not later get a post-rape medical exam, which police had recommended that she do. She also acknowledged that when she spoke to police about an unrelated matter on April 11, she never told them she had been raped five days earlier.

Filler's wife also said that in December 2005, around the same time Filler allegedly threw water from a cup into her face during an argument, she was thinking about leaving her husband. She said she had gathered some personal documents and photographs in a bag in case she decided to leave.

"I was afraid," she testified.

Smith asked her if she was afraid that, if she left, her husband would get custody of the children.

"I was afraid," she repeated.

The prosecution is expected to continue calling witnesses on Thursday. Smith has said that Filler and his eldest son are each expected to testify in the trial.

The trial is expected to conclude on either Thursday or Friday.

18

Main / Referees slammed for wearing pink whistles to honor breast cancer awareness

May 20, 2011, 03:39 AM

Ha ha.    They not only pandered to women, but failed to ask permission to pander.

Referees disciplined for wearing pink whistles
By Jeff Pohjola
97.3 KIRO FM Reporter
http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=481714#



One hundred forty-three football referees have now been disciplined for wearing pink whistles to support breast cancer awareness.

Last October, the Pacific Northwest Football Officials Association, which covers high school football games throughout King County, decided to raise awareness for breast cancer by wearing pink whistles for a week.

PNFOA President Jeff Mattson told us last fall that they were also donating their game checks. "A lot of the guys in the association have either been touched by breast cancer or affected by breast cancer in some way."

But the higher-ups at the state office took exception, saying the pink whistles were a violation of the uniform code.

Washington Officials Association Commissioner Todd Stordahl said at the time, "There's one person who has the authority to make that decision, and it's not PNFOA."

The refs argued that there is no rule that governs the color of the whistle, but the state dug in, and said that anyone caught using the whistles would be suspended.

But at a meeting of the local refs last fall, they decided to wear them anyway. And his month, the state followed through on Stordahl's threat.

Sources close to the decision confirm that the refs will have the majority of their playoff games revoked for the next two years, and their organization is on probation for the next three years. If Stordahl and the WOA disagree with anything the refs do in that time, they will take steps to decertify the group, and 143 referees will be out of a job.

PNFOA has no comment, and calls to Todd Stordahl's cell phone have not been returned.

You can e-mail Stordahl at [email protected].

NOTE: Jeff Pohjola is a member of both the Washington Officials Association and the Pacific Northwest Football Officials Association.

19

Main / Strauss-Kahn: Sex used as a weapon to bait him, by his political rival Sarkozy

May 19, 2011, 07:02 PM

I found an interesting article on Time/CNN, about how former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn (a socialist) was nominated by French president Nicolas Sarkozy (a conservative) as a politically calculated and cynical move, designed by Sarkozy to exploit Strauss-Kahn's libertine nature and thus sideline him.  If true, things might seem to have inured to Sarkozy's benefit, with a powerful rival now permanently neutralized.

Sarkozy vs. Strauss-Kahn: Sex as a Weapon?
By Bruce Crumley
Time/CNN
May 19, 2011
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072481,00.html?hpt=T2


French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaks to IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the opening of a G-20 meeting at the Elysée Palace in Paris on Feb. 18, 2011
Philipe Wojazer / AFP / Getty

Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique Stauss-Kahn were never friends -- one conservative, the other Socialist, their political ambitions setting them on a collision course. Yet soon after Sarkozy's 2007 election as President of France, he surprised people by nominating Strauss-Kahn to be managing director of the International Monetary Fund, a heartening reach across party lines. Others, however, saw a more devious motive: Sarkozy was moving his most potent challenger to the IMF's headquarters, in Washington, depriving the freshly defeated Socialist Party of his charisma and leadership. The past four years, according to political observers in France, have been full of similar subtle and not-so-subtle maneuvers as both men prepared for what had been prophesied as a fierce battle for the French presidency in 2012.

Sarkozy has taken the requisite "innocent until proven guilty" position about Strauss-Kahn and his catastrophic legal situation in the U.S. But few observers believe the French President is grieving. Sarkozy knew he had been lucky back in 2007 not to have faced the popular Strauss-Kahn at the polls (instead, the Socialists fielded the attractive but disorganized Ségolène Royal). During a 2006 lunch discussion, a Sarkozy adviser told TIME how relieved he and his boss were that Strauss-Kahn was not running. "Of course," said the adviser with a smile, "if he did run, he'd probably ruin his own chances by getting caught in some woman's bed."

Indeed, certain analysts argue that the French President may have been betting on rather cynical odds: that by sending a notorious libertine to the puritanical mecca of America in the first place -- and to the politically correct strictures of the rigid IMF in particular -- Sarkozy was simply giving Strauss-Kahn enough rope to hang himself with. That may explain why it was that on May 16, the daily Le Figaro quoted Sarkozy responding to the news out of New York City with a reminder that he'd alerted Strauss-Kahn of the risks of being a seducteur: "I warned him about this!"

Sarkozy wasn't the only one. Shortly after Strauss-Kahn won the IMF job, Jean Quatremer -- a journalist for the left-leaning Libération, wrote in an otherwise glowing profile of Strauss-Kahn that "the only real problem for Strauss-Kahn is his relation to women. Too forward. He often borders on harassment. It is a problem known to the media but that nobody talks about (we are in France). And the IMF is an international organization with Anglo-Saxon sensibilities. One out-of-line move and ..."

Already sensitive to the issue, Strauss-Kahn's staff were not happy with the comment. This week Quatremer recalled that "a few hours after the publication of this piece, I received a call from Ramzi Khiroun, one of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's communication people: 'We know you like DSK [as he is known in France] and we don't understand at all why you published this piece.' The tone was friendly -- he spoke to me with the informal 'tu' although we'd never met -- not angry, just saddened. How could I have done such an underhanded thing to his mentor? ... I knew that I was breaking a taboo. And Ramzi Khiroun even dared to ask me to erase the piece from my blog 'so as not to harm Dominique.' Such a scene is unimaginable in a modern democracy."

As it turned out, Quatremer (and Sarkozy) were prescient. In 2008, Strauss-Kahn was forced to admit he'd engaged in a sexual affair with Hungarian economist Piroska Nagy -- a subordinate at the IMF. It was not quite the fatal misstep: Strauss-Kahn, though reprimanded, kept his job. Nagy eventually lost hers as part of a cost-cutting measure. (See "Have Sex-Assault Charges Killed the Presidential Hopes of the IMF Chief?")

But that career crisis focused Strauss-Kahn and his staff on the fact that his sexual behavior could be used as a weapon against him when he eventually returned to French politics. A team of political advisers and communications experts was dispatched to Washington to help him spin the Nagy scandal and limit the p.r. damage. As part of that, according to D.S.K.: The Secrets of a Presidential Contender, a 2010 book about Strauss-Kahn, his minders told their boss to "stick to business" and forget his "hormone count." A seemingly contrite Strauss-Kahn appeared to do just that, not only dedicating himself to his increasingly urgent (and much applauded) IMF response to successive economic crises around the world, but also working with French media to restore his image as a dedicated husband.

French conservative officials loyal to Sarkozy watched in horror as Strauss-Kahn's already high approval numbers resumed their ascent. A poll in late 2009 found that Strauss-Kahn was the leading figure the French public said it wanted to see play a larger role in the future. Meanwhile, Sarkozy's ratings continued to decline, setting record lows for the postwar French presidency. Sarkozy allies decided to escalate the sex war, voicing overt warnings in the press that they'd go public with proof of Strauss-Kahn's lamentable private behavior if he chose to run for President -- referring to long rumored incriminating photos of Strauss-Kahn caught in flagrante delicto. A book that came out around the time quoted a Sarkozy intimate and the ruling party's spokesman noting that if Strauss-Kahn ever ran for President, "he wouldn't last a week. We have the photos -- they exist! We'll pass them around, and the French people wouldn't like that." Strauss-Kahn responded by threatening a libel suit; the party spokesman denied ever having made the statement.

The rumored photos have been bandied about as a potential weapon for years. One political analyst said 18 months ago that he wagered Strauss-Kahn would never run for President because "in addition to all the stories of his sexual activity, there are photographs. They're real. And no politician would ever survive what's in them if they ever went public." An adviser to a current government minister told TIME that while he'd never seen the photographs, he had it on solid grounds that they not only existed but could even lead to criminal charges.

The goading rumors clearly got under Strauss-Kahn's skin. As first reported by the weekly Le Point, at the G-20 meeting in September 2009 in Pittsburgh, he cornered the President while both men stood before neighboring urinals, warning Sarkozy, "I've had more than enough of the repeated rumors about my private life and the supposed files and photos that could come out to undermine me. I know it's all coming from the Elysée. So tell your boys to stop, or I'll take legal action." Sarkozy reportedly denied having any hand in the campaign.

The pictures, if they ever existed, have never materialized. But Strauss-Kahn was obsessed with their being used as a threat. At the end of April, at an informal meeting with editors of the left-leaning daily Libération, he railed that "for years people have said there are photos of giant orgies, but I've never seen any of them turn up ... Why don't they produce them, then?"

If the charges against him prove to be true, Strauss-Kahn's enemies no longer need to produce any kind of photographs.

-- With reporting by Jeffrey T. Iverson / Paris

20

Main / Re: Disbar Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett for Prosecutorial Misconduct

May 13, 2011, 02:51 PM

Note that the new prosecutor on the case is Paul Cavanaugh; the D.A. took Mary Kellett off the case for the re-trial.  If we're going to weigh in on the case (in blog comments and discussion forums), we have to demonstrate awareness of who are the decision makers.  At this point, the drive to disbar Mary Kellett is independent of the Filler re-trial.

21

Main / Re: Disbar Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett for Prosecutorial Misconduct

May 12, 2011, 05:14 PM

A new article just came out; see below.  Here's the first comment:

Heh. It's really not 1,000 signatures as men's rights leaders begged their followers to sign it again to reach their goal. And acquitted definitely doesn't mean innocent.

Let 'em have it, guys.

Change of venue denied in rape re-trial
May 12, 2011
By Bill Trotter
Bangor Daily News
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/12/news/change-of-venue-denied-in-rape-re-trial/?ref=latest

(VIDEO OF ED BARTLETT FROM SAVE)

BANGOR, Maine -- After a judge on Thursday denied several legal motions during a pretrial hearing, the trial of a Georgia man accused of raping his wife is expected to go forward this month in Ellsworth.

Vladek Filler, 41, formerly of Gouldsboro, was found guilty in 2009 of raping his wife but, after his then-attorney argued that a prosecutor made an inappropriate comment during her closing argument, Filler requested a re-trial. The trial judge, Justice Kevin Cuddy, granted the request -- a decision that later was upheld by the state supreme court.

Jury selection in the new trial is expected to be held Monday, May 16, in Hancock County Superior Court. Filler is facing two counts of assault and one count of gross sexual assault.

On Monday, Filler's new defense attorney, Stephen C. Smith, on Thursday asked the new trial judge, Robert Murray, to dismiss the gross sexual assault charge and one assault charge against Filler. Smith argued that there is not enough evidence to support the assault charge, and said that the judge who presided over Filler's divorce proceedings determine that the alleged sexual assault did not occur. The divorce resulted in Filler gaining custody of his two sons.

Paul Cavanaugh, the new prosecutor in the case, told Murray that the divorce judge's opinion has no bearing on the state's criminal prosecution of Filler. The divorce was not an adjudication of the criminal allegations against Filler, he said.

Murray denied both of Smith's motions to dismiss charges against Filler.

Smith also had filed a motion seeking a change of venue in the case. The attorney cited several media articles about Filler's case and has said that they contain comments by Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett, the prosecutor for Filler's first trial,  that are "extensive and persuasive" and that have been "designed to engender ill will" toward his client.

Smith argued that the case should be moved out of the print coverage area of the Bangor Daily News because of the amount of attention the case has received in the BDN. He suggested that Portland would be the best location because of its distance from the Bangor media market.

Cavanaugh countered Smith's claims by saying that much of the media attention surrounding Filler's case has been generated by Filler and by groups that have taken up his cause -- including one that held a press conference Thursday morning outside the Bangor courthouse that included Filler standing in front of news organization video cameras. Several of those groups have highlighted Filler's case on their websites, saying he has been unfairly prosecuted and criticizing Kellett's prosecution of the case.

Kellett has declined to comment on the Filler case or on the accusations against her.

"It is not genuine [for Filler] to complain about the [extent of media] coverage," Cavanaugh told the judge Thursday.

Murray denied Smith's request for a change of venue. He said that, despite the media coverage, it has not been demonstrated that the media attention has been prejudicial against Filler.

Murray also considered other arguments raised by Smith, such as whether certain testimony or potential items of evidence such as emails or photographs might be admitted during the trial. Murray said he would have to decide during the trial whether to allow such testimony or evidence to be submitted, depending on how the case is presented to the jury.

Before Thursday's hearing, relatives of Filler, representatives of the group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, and another former rape defendant held a press conference outside the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. They said that too many questionable cases alleging sexual assaults in Hancock County are being brought against men who end up being acquitted.

SAVE President Edward Bartlett said Thursday that funding for criminal prosecutions in Maine should be reduced to help lower the number of what he said are frivolous prosecutions brought against innocent men. Bartlett said that on Wednesday, his group delivered to Gov. Paul LePage's office in Augusta a petition with more than 1,000 signatures on it. The petition requests that Kellett be disbarred and that all charges against Filler be dropped, he said.

Mike Webber, 38, of Penobscot said he was tried twice in Hancock County in recent years, once on 14 sexual assault or contact charges and a second time on charges of assault and unlawful sexual touching. Both trials were the result of a custody battle he was having with his ex-wife, he said, and both times he was acquitted.

Webber said the accusations against him were fabricated and he never should have been prosecuted. He said the experience has damaged his personal life and his auto repair business.

"I lost four years of my life," Webber said. "Somebody tried to use me as an example, for what I don't know. I'm still trying to put things back together."

22

Main / Re: Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. Special Forces

May 01, 2011, 10:44 PM

May 1, 1945 - Adolf Hitler was confirmed dead.
May 1, 2011 - Osama Bin Laden was confirmed dead.

66 years.

23

Main / Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. Special Forces

May 01, 2011, 09:36 PM

President Obama on Death of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden is dead, Obama says
May 2, 2011
By CNN Wire Staff
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.dead/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

(CNN) -- The mastermind of the worst terrorist attack on American soil is dead, U.S. President Barack Obama announced late Sunday night, almost 10 years after the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

Osama bin Laden -- the longtime leader of al Qaeda -- was killed by U.S. forces in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad along with other family members, a senior U.S. official told CNN.

U.S. officials have taken custody of bin Laden's body, Obama said. No Americans were harmed in the operation, he added.

Up-to-the-minute updates on bin Laden

U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world were placed on high alert following the announcement of bin Laden's death, a senior U.S. official said, and the U.S. State Department should be sending out a new "worldwide caution" for Americans shortly. Some fear al Qaeda supporters may try to retaliate against U.S. citizens or U.S. institutions.
Bin Laden's death affects the world

Hundreds of people arrived at the White House late Sunday night and chanted, "USA! USA!" They then chanted, "Hey, hey, goodbye!" in reference to the demise of bin Laden and then spontaneously sang the national anthem.

Osama bin Laden, the face of terror

"This welcome news is a credit to our intelligence efforts and brings to justice the architect of the attacks on our country that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, in a statement issued Sunday night.

The news brought some relief to the grieving family members of those killed on 9/11.

Celebrations in front of the White House (Video)

"This is important news for us, and for the world. It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones," Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93, said in a statement. "It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil."

CNN's Ed Henry, Jeanne Meserve and Elise Labott contributed to this report

24

Main / Re: Ohio man pleads guilty in forced-abortion attempt

Apr 28, 2011, 05:26 PM

He pled to a charge where he could get sentenced to as many as 20 years?  Talk about stupidity.  I would have rolled the dice.  I mean, how can she prove that he threatened to kill her for not getting the abortion?  It's feasible that he was just packing a gun, that's all.

25

Main / Video of 12-year-old boy making amazing football passes

Apr 24, 2011, 09:11 AM

12 Year Old Johnny Sullivan Trick Shot Quarterback from IOWA ..Go Hawks!

26

Main / Re: Barbara Kay on institutional feminism and misandry in Canada

Apr 22, 2011, 03:02 PM

In discussions of equality, I think that it's important to first define the initial conditions before you discuss remedies based on notions of equality.  Feminists consider the initial conditions (prior to feminist "remedies") to be stacked unfairly against women.  So in their view, "equality" is actually inequality that is justified as somehow balancing out the supposed unfairness of the initial conditions.  Their whole argument depends on the listener accepting the feminist version of the initial conditions.

Feminists get the public to accept the feminist version of history by whacking people over the head with so much victim talk and accusations of male privilege that the average person just buckles to the tidal wave of feminist reasoning and simply accepts that women were oppressed in the past.  Once this mental leap of faith is made by the general public, accepting the feminist viewpoint on the initial conditions (males privileged, females oppressed), any amount of inequality can then be justified even contrary to one's own common sense.  

To win an argument under these conditions, i.e. to define equality accurately, you have to illustrate how it is women who have been historically privileged rather than men.  This completely guts the foundation upon which feminism rests.  Redefine privilege and you will thereby redefine equality; it's as simple as that.

27

Main / eBay raising money for women survivors of war, but not men survivors

Apr 19, 2011, 09:09 PM

I was making a purchase on eBay tonight, and right when I was about to pay for the transaction, I noticed the following:





What is it with people ignoring male vulnerability to pretty much everything?  Do male survivors (if they survive at all) of a war have no responsibilities to their children, or no difficulties?  Is it somehow a "walk in the park" for men in a war zone?  I'm sick of this favoritism of women and suppression of male vulnerability.

28

Main / Re: Recent MRMg Flyers...

Apr 19, 2011, 08:50 PM

If I were you I would put the word "Society..." all by itself, followed by the list, and then under the list put "...has daddy issues."  The way it reads right now is that the words "Society has" begins a sentence, with each item in the list ostensibly completing the sentence.  But the problem is that the sentence wording doesn't work out.

"Society has characterizes 'the man' as the enemy"
"Society has pays women higher salaries than men"

See what I mean?  The sentence structure isn't harmonious.

29

Main / Sarah Palin: GOP leaders need to "fight like a girl"

Apr 18, 2011, 02:36 PM

Article here:
http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/04/16/sarah-palin-steps-into-wisconsin-points-to-left-field-and-hits-a-grand-slam/

Video here:
http://videos.videopress.com/xwlqZ8oZ/sarah_palin_madison_wi_speech_std.mp4

6:15-6:34

What we need is for you to stand up, GOP, and fight.  Maybe I should ask some of the Badger women's hockey team, those champions, maybe I should ask them if we should be suggesting to GOP leaders they need to learn how to fight like a girl!

The last four words of the above quote are spoken in a guttural snarl, presumably to drive home the point that GOP leaders should be ashamed of their manhood and imitate women.  I don't think I can stand a campaign season saturated with provocative anti-male slogans like this, let alone 4-8 years of it.  Not only that, but Sarah Palin's voice always seems a little bit wobbly when she's trying to be feisty, which kind of annoys me.

As for the substance...  I don't doubt that she would be better than Obama.  But I'm quite certain that I prefer Ron Paul (or even Rand Paul) for president rather than Sarah Palin.

30

Main / Re: The Roots of Racism

Apr 16, 2011, 03:37 PM

The bigot and USC might differ on whether black culture should be respected, but they agree it exists. Interesting.

What I find interesting is the statement above, taken from from the article that was quoted in the first post of this thread.  The statement assumes that the mere acknowledgement that cultural differences exist is itself a racist notion, and this notion I consider to be absurd.  I suppose the premise behind that reasoning is that once you recognise that a genuine cultural difference exists, then this leads to a valuation between differing cultures, valuing aspects of one culture more highly than another.  To the author, this is akin to valuing one race more highly than another, and as they say, "this will not do."

How can you value multiculturalism if you assume that cultural differences contravene the supposedly inclusive spirit of multiculturalism?  It seems incoherent to think this way, in my opinion.  I believe that culture is the real issue here, not race, even though there is often a significant overlap between race and a particular culture.  That is why when someone makes a statement which idealises aspects of one culture, or expresses distaste for aspects of another culture, this often gets misconstrued as racist and the politically incorrect statement then becomes squashed in the process (yet the idea behind the statement survives in the speaker's mind -- unable to be properly explored -- and therefore it often festers into genuine bigotry).

I, for one, find distasteful the relationship between a lack of empathy and wealthy liberal society.  That's a cultural critique to be sure, and yet I think that it's a quite valid critique.  One moment the people in such a culture are consuming wine and brie and revelling in the trappings of high society; in the next moment, they're "atoning" for their self-indulgence and self-absorption by accusing common everyday people of being bigoted and close-minded.  It's projection, and the worst part is that the bigots are using the pretext of anti-bigotry to hide their own very real bigotry.  The power of an accusation of bigotry is very potent, however, and this reality provides the shield of plausible deniability to such self-loathing libertines.  They hate what they are -- most often they are upper-class white elitists -- and they atone for their self-hatred by broad-brushing everyone else.  Like I said, quite often the accusation of racism is merely a projection of the accuser's own feelings of racial bigotry.