#and they’re calling for the ERADICATION of a made up ideology to group all of a minority

[adeliriouswanderer]

American Fascism, Racism, and the Trump Cult

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on policy or politics. Quarantine has left me with what seems like an infinite amount of time to reflect on our countries current state of affairs—and as cliché as this sounds, it feels as if we are living in dark times indeed.

Since our current regime began in 2016, all of the progressive policies of the Obama era have been eradicated by an egotistical fascist. Far-right and white supremacist ideologies are being pushed as the new normal by those who fear that their position of power is being threatened by minorities and anyone left of center. A center that is very quickly skewing farther and farther right on the political spectrum. Folks who hold these far-right ideologies have historically been threatened by people of color, folks who identify as LGBTQIA, feminists, women’s rights champions, and others who voice opinions that are different than the rights self-absorbed narrative. Especially when these folks attempt to find seats at the decision-making table.

Our current regime fears these opinions so much that they attempt to silence anyone who speaks out against their clearly fascist policies and statements by convincing their base that our voices and opinions are being incited by “fake news” or as Trump loves to call it, the “lamestream media”. This regime has convinced it’s cult-like followers that any media coverage that does not stroke the ego of the POTUS or any coverage that speaks out against his archaic, and often false views/statements, are untrue accusations and that he is being unfairly targeted. Trump continuously lies to his base and the American people, and when he is called out on his lies, both he and his base scream fake news. The POTUS has convinced his base that democrats are sheep to the media who are trying their best to undermine all of the “great” work he is doing for Americans. Despite Trump not keeping his promises to his base, they still follow him with what feels like a Jim Jones cult mindset.  Take this video where trump easily brainwashes his followers into ignoring how his he is lining his and other billionaires pockets by attempting to convince his base, who largely consist of poor/working-class white folks, that they are the “elite”:  

They see no wrong in Trump's behavior. How is that Trump has convinced millions of people to blindly follow his every whim? You see, as badly as it pains me to state this, Trump is not the cause of these deeply rooted, bigoted, ideologies. They have been around since the founding of America. Like a festering cancer that sometimes quietly goes into remission, but is still there, waiting for the body to become weakened so that it can make a reappearance. Folks have long held onto their bigoted ways, Trump simply gave a platform where these ideologies could be voiced and he emboldened those who held them to speak out louder than ever. After having a president in office that championed for the rights of minorities, the right was fearful of being forgotten and worried that their ideologies would be silenced. This fear ultimately led right-wing voters to vote for and blindly follow anyone spoke out in favor of their bigoted beliefs. And trump happened to be the loudest and most aggressive at the time. The right touted his down to earthiness and non-political way of speaking. Trump is praised for “telling it like it is” because for a while, at the turn of the century, white folks seemed partly scared to fully voice what they really thought about anyone who wasn’t white and straight. That’s not the case anymore.

I find it appalling that in 2020, I can scroll through the comment section on any article related to race and find a plethora of comments written by white right-wings and conservatives insinuating that there is no race problem in America. They state racism does not exist; they unquestionably believe that there is a level playing field between white folks and people of color, and that white privilege does not exist.  Much like Social Darwinist, these folks believe that people of color and folks experiencing poverty are inherently responsible for their less than status in society. That they’re lazy and unwilling to pull themselves up by the bootstraps because it’s more convenient for them to live off of the government-- like the infamously stereotypical welfare queen, a term coined in 1974, by George Bliss of the Chicago Tribune in his articles about Linda Taylor.

These folks fail to realize that people of color and people experiencing poverty are a result of systematic and institutional racism designed to enslave people of color and keep them from sitting at the decision-making table. Further, they don’t understand how poverty rolls off the back of parents and onto children—how hard it is for children to break intergenerational cycles. Take Kaitlin Bennet, the infamous gun girl of Kent State. She hosts a youtube channel where her main “goal” is to “expose the corruption and demoralization” of the “liberal left.” In this following clip, Kaitlin states that there is no racism in America because she is surrounded by people of color on a daily basis, as if their very existence is somehow justification as to why racism doesn’t exist. She states that some lives are inherently more valuable than others and that those who are experiencing homelessness should get a job. When Kaitlin realized she had couldn’t win a baseless argument against two obviously educated college students, she had to resort to personal attacks against James's sexuality. She’s edited out the word racist or racism from her videos because apparently those words demonetize her youtube videos and she loses money for including those words. 

Let’s break down one of the systems that these folks so eagerly deny and blindly ignore-- the prison industrial complex. In the 80s, Reagan turned the metaphorical “war on drugs” into an actual initiative that was put forth by a seemingly racist governmental body whose aim was to create a caste system to ensure people of color would never rise out of poverty. While Raegan solidified these new forms of discrimination against people of color, it was Nixon who set the stage for the systematic incarceration of black and brown people through his Southern Strategy. As civil rights activists worked to dismantle the Jim Crow laws of the south, Nixon and other politicians began to create a strategy that would ensure votes from whites who aligned with both the conservative republican party and the left-leaning democratic party.

The “Southern Strategy” was ultimately a political movement that aimed to garner votes from white Americans from both sides of the political spectrum by antagonizing racialized fears in the white populace. The campaign painted an image that portrayed people of color as deserving of being poor and uneducated-- it pathologized them as criminals and deserving of their second-class place in society because they simply could not rise above their uncivilized ways. Michelle Alexander states:

The racialized nature of this imagery became a crucial resource for conservatives, who succeeded in using law and order rhetoric in their effort to mobilize the resentment of white working-class voters, many of whom felt threatened by the sudden progress of African Americans.

This campaign ultimately led to Reagan’s 1982 War on Drugs, and his later establishment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which were enacted through his Anti-Drug Abuse Act of1986. After Raegan’s enactment of AABA, the numbers of incarcerated black and Hispanic men skyrocketed creating an overpopulated prison system that led the way for privatization. Republicans laid the foundation for mass incarceration of people of color, and democrats solidified the systemic discrimination and oppression that would soon follow a person who was formerly incarcerated throughout their life.

The Clinton (D) administration enacted laws banning drug offenders and felons from receiving public assistance in the form of financial aid or food stamps, denying them the ability to public housing, and stripping them of their right to vote. These combined laws on part of both democrats and republicans led to the creation of a caste system that created a populace of second-class citizens, who were stripped of their most basic rights—this group was disproportionately made up of people of color. Less than 5% of the world's population, has nearly 25% of the world's incarcerated population. Black people make up about 13 percent of the U.S population and 31 percent of those incarcerated for drug use—Latinos make up an additional 18 percent of the total U.S population and account for 20 percent of those incarcerated for drug use. It is important to note that crime is equally distributed between all races, but the impact of policies of the 1980s and 1990s has been anything but evenly distributed-- black men are eight times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and nearly a third of young black men are under criminal justice system control.

These laws have persisted throughout the last three decades and allow for a system that systematically discriminates against an entire sub-group of individuals. When formerly incarcerated people are released from prison they have very little support from institutions designed to provide help to the most vulnerable populations in the U.S. They typically can not get into public housing and private landlords can legally turn them away citing their criminal history as a reason. Formerly incarcerated persons cannot receive federal financial aid to further their education-- and if they do manage to pay for school, most jobs will not even look at their resume, much less hire them because of their felon status. Further, formerly incarcerated persons cannot receive public assistance benefits such as food stamps. A lack of social support leaves these individuals at a high risk of reoffending just so they can survive in the outside world, which ultimately locks them into a brutal cycle of flowing in and out of the prison industrial complex.

It seemed like during the Obama era, there was hope; a hope that our country could heal from our divisive history of viewing anyone other than white straight cis men who are most valued, followed by white straight cis women, as something other than less than. Because, let’s be honest, many folks along all lines of the political spectrum have never fully respected the opinions and lives of people of color, LGBTQIA folks, immigrants, etc. We have been and still are, just tolerated. That’s why Obama was a breath of fresh air. He attempted, and sometimes succeeded, in eradicating archaic policies like the militaries don’t ask don’t tell policy, championed for the rights of minorities and immigrants through bills like DACA, attempted to ensure those who were poor had access to health care. President Obama launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative on February 27, 2014, to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people could reach their full potential. These were just a few of the many ways Obama worked to level the playing field for those who were not born into the western version of the genetic lottery. 

What is it going to take to heal our country and end these systems of violence against black and brown people? When are we going to step up and not give media attention and not vote in folks who are so clearly bigoted to positions where they can continue to marginalize already vulnerable populations? When will this hate for those viewed as other, less than, die out? Is this our new reality for the unforeseeable future? The biggest question of all is: when will the right figure out that Trump doesn’t have any of their best interest in mind? When will they realize that he’s sitting on one of his many gold toilets and shitting on America?

I want to live in a country where equity is at the forefront of our minds; where people strive to ensure all of their neighbors have equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or class. We must continue to use our voices to speak up for the oppressed and vulnerable, and VOTE for folks who believe in an equal and just society. Will 2020 usher in voices into the political sphere that are representative of folks from all walks of life, or will it be the same bullshit we’ve had for nearly 244 years since America was founded? 

[newstfionline]

Headlines: Sunday, October 4, 2020

UN chief: World is living in ‘shadow of nuclear catastrophe’ (AP) U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that the world is living “in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe,” fueled by growing distrust and tensions between the nuclear powers. The U.N. chief told a high-level meeting to commemorate the recent International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons that progress on ridding the world of nuclear weapons “has stalled and is at risk of backsliding.” And he said strains between countries that possess nuclear weapons “have increased nuclear risks.” As examples, Guterres has expressed deep concern at the escalating disputes between the Trump administration and China. Relations between the U.S. and Russia are at a low point. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are feuding over Kashmir, and India just had a border skirmish with China. And North Korea boasts about its nuclear weapons. Without naming any countries, Guterres said programs to modernize nuclear arsenals “threaten a qualitative nuclear arms race,” not to increase the number of weapons but to make them “faster, stealthier and more accurate.”

America’s education sector is facing job losses ‘you do not want to see’ (Yahoo Finance) The education sector is shedding jobs, and analysts worry that that they may never come back. “You’re seeing state and local governments cutting back on teachers, you’re seeing even in the private sector, the number of education workers cut back,” Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told Yahoo Finance’s First Trade. “That’s a function of state and local budgets … state and local government budgets are really being strained and that is going to hurt teachers, health workers, safety workers.” The education industry is officially looking at a loss of around 355,000 jobs since February, the BLS report stated. Even private education was hit with a 69,000 loss in jobs, the report noted. These jobs include teachers and professors and staff at private schools and colleges.

Trump COVID infection thrusts world in uncharted territory (AP) News that the world’s most powerful man was infected with the world’s most notorious disease dominated screens large and small, drawing shock, sympathy and some barbs for President Donald Trump. The outpouring from world leaders and flagging markets Friday left little doubt that Trump’s illness will have global implications—even if they’re still unknown. The positive test reading adds to investors’ worries, especially about its effect on the Nov. 3 election between the Republican president and Democrat Joe Biden. U.S. stock futures and most world markets fell on the news as did the price of oil. From India to Qatar to Mexico, world leaders were quick to offer official sympathy from the top, many in the form of tweets directly to Trump, while something approaching schadenfreude bubbled up from elsewhere. Trump is the most prominent on a growing list of powerful people who have contracted the virus, including many who were skeptical of the disease.

Amid pandemic challenges, houses of worship show resiliency (AP) The coronavirus pandemic has posed daunting challenges for houses of worship across the U.S., often entailing large financial losses and suspension of in-person services. It also has sparked moments of gratitude, wonder and inspiration. In the Chicago suburb of Cary, Lutheran pastor Sarah Wilson recorded a sermon aboard a small plane piloted by a congregation member. The video that went online showed a high-up view of idyllic landscapes. “It was very spiritual,” Wilson said. In New York, Episcopal priest Steven Paulikas heard from someone in France who watched a service via Facebook. “I loved your sermon,” was the message. “It’s a new experience for me,” said Paulikas, of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. “People I’ve never met before, from different states and countries, are joining us online.” Such positive experiences are not uncommon. Clerics nationwide say they and their congregations responded to the pandemic and resulting lockdowns with creativity, resiliency and invigorated community spirit. Financially, there’s no simple summary of how houses of worship have fared through six months of pandemic. Revenue at Wilson’s church, St. Barnabas, has been stable even as it resorted to drive-in parking lot services. Paulikas says giving is up 19% at All Saints’. But in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, offerings fell, according to chief operating officer Betsy Bohlen. Social service outreach remains vigorous, however. Bohlen said $25 million has been raised for a COVID-19 emergency fund.

Tropical Storm Gamma gaining strength as it heads toward Mexico (ABC News) Tropical Storm Gamma is gaining strength Saturday morning and now has winds of 65 mph. The storm is moving northwest at 9 mph and is about 75 miles south of Cozumel, Mexico. On the current forecast track, Gamma will make landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula later Saturday and then begin to weaken. The main threat right now for Gamma in Mexico will be the 15 inches of rain that will be possible in some areas, which could produce life-threatening flash flooding near where the storm makes landfall.

Maduro looks to crypto (Foreign Policy) In a speech this week, embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro floated the idea of using cryptocurrencies to skirt U.S. sanctions. The announcement came as Maduro unveiled a new anti-sanctions bill, which will examine the possibility of using cryptocurrencies in both foreign and domestic trade. In 2018, the Venezuelan government became the first in the world to launch a cryptocurrency, the oil-backed petro, as a way to evade sanctions. However, it is not available outside Venezuela, and cryptocurrencies have numerous problems that have so far made them highly inefficient for trade purposes.

Macron Vows Crackdown on ‘Islamist Separatism’ in France (NYT) President Emmanuel Macron of France on Friday outlined measures designed to rein in the influence of radical Islam in the country and help develop what he called an “Islam of France” compatible with the nation’s republican values. In a long-awaited speech on the subject, Mr. Macron said that the influence of Islamism must be eradicated from public institutions even as he acknowledged government failures in allowing it to spread. The measures include placing stringent limits on home-schooling (for medical reasons only) and increasing scrutiny of religious schools, making associations that solicit public funds sign a “charter” on secularism. While these measures would apply to any group, they are intended to counter extremists in the Muslim community. “Secularism is the cement of a united France,” he said, calling radical Islam both an “ideology” and a “project” that sought to indoctrinate children, undermine France’s values—especially gender equality—and create a “counter-society” that sometimes laid the groundwork for Islamist terrorism.

30 Years After Reunification, Old German-German Border Is a Green Oasis (NYT) While the militarized border that split Germany for 38 years has disappeared more readily than the persistent economic and political differences between the two parts, a faint 870 mile-long scar remains. It is green. After a long-running battle between landowners, government authorities and environmentalists, the federal government announced last month that the entire former border zone would be designated a nature reserve. Once an insurmountable obstacle—especially to the people in the East—crossing the strip has now become a literal walk in the park.

Two killed, 25 missing as drenching rain hits parts of France and Italy (Reuters) Two people died and 25 people were missing in France and Italy after a storm hit border regions of the two countries, bringing record rainfall in places and causing heavy flooding that swept away roads and damaged homes, authorities said on Saturday. The storm, dubbed Alex, ravaged several villages around the city of Nice on the French Riviera. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi called it the worst flooding disaster in the area for more than a century after flying over the worst-hit area by helicopter. Television images from both countries showed several roads and bridges had been swept away by flood water and numerous rivers were reported to have burst their banks.

Venice deploys flood barrier for first time as storm drives up tide (Reuters) Venice deployed its long-delayed flood barriers for the first time on Saturday as forecasters warned that storms could combine with high tides to inundate the city. The network of 78 bright yellow barriers that guard the entrance to the delicate Venetian lagoon started to lift from the sea bed more than three hours before the high tide was scheduled to peak. Officials will be hoping the controversial, multi-billion-euro flood defence system, known as Mose, will mitigate the pending storm. Designed in 1984, Mose was due to come into service in 2011, but the project was plagued by the sort of problems that have come to characterise many major Italian construction programmes—corruption, cost overruns and prolonged delays.

Nagorno-Karabakh says 51 more servicemen killed in fighting with Azerbaijan (Reuters) Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday that 51 more servicemen had been killed in the war with Azerbaijan, a sharp rise in the death toll from a week of fierce fighting.

China holiday: Millions on the move for Golden Week (BBC) Hundreds of millions of people in China are marking this year’s National Day holiday with gatherings and quick getaways. National Day, which marks the founding of the People’s Republic of China, coincides with this year’s Mid Autumn Festival. It is estimated that 550 million people will travel domestically during the eight-day holiday referred to as “Golden Week”. It’s thought that 13 million passenger trips were made on Thursday—the highest figure since February, according to state media. Last year seven million people travelled abroad to destinations such as Thailand but with restrictions in place across the world, many countries are out of bounds for travellers.

“Hellish conditions” (Foreign Policy) Thousands of Ethiopian migrant workers are being held in squalid prisons in Saudi Arabia after they were expelled from neighboring Yemen at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released on Friday by Amnesty International. The detainees including pregnant women and children. Detainees interviewed by Amnesty described being held in overcrowded cells with inadequate access to health care, food, and water. Several had experienced or witnessed others beaten or electrocuted by guards for complaining about the conditions. Ethiopian State Minister Tsion Teklu told The Associated Press that as many as 16,000 Ethiopians could be held in Saudi prisons, adding that the foreign ministry was working to repatriate 300 people each week.

[secretsquirrelmrl]

Secret Squirrel Makes War Much Easier On The Population Of The World.

  Secret Squirrel has seen the horrors of the day developing, emerging, evolving, war being very much like the Alien Xenomorph. He's seen two ridiculous fat men circling,taunting and screaming at each other, (Donald Trump and Kim Jung Un) threatening nuclear war. This displeases Squirrel enormously since Squirrel has pondered and noted that Trump and Kim Jong Un are both working towards and want war, nuclear war evidently. Squirrel has pondered, "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I'm doomed! I'm DOOMED! They taught me up here in school, I have to crawl under a desk, and sniff Rhoda's behind! I don't HAVE a desk, and Rhoda's in Montreal! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I'm DOOMED! I'm DOOMED!" Yes, this displeases Squirrel very very much.     Well, what of war? Total war became the norm only a few centuries ago.  In medieval times, with exceptions, wars were between combatants.  Civilian populations were left to themselves, except perhaps to raid their farms for food.  In wars of conquest destroying producers and productive assets was counterproductive. As I say, there were exceptions.   One was the Mongols, who eradicated entire populations.  They valued empty pasture over settlements. In ancient times armies could be quite brutal, but the term "total war" came into use to describe the difference between modern and medieval war, which had become the norm. The American Civil War was total war on the North's part.  The civilian population was deliberately targeted, most notably in Sherman's march to the sea.  One northern newspaper editorialized: “When the rebellious traitors [Southern secessionists] are overwhelmed in the field . . . it must not be to return to peaceful and contented homes.   They must find poverty at their firesides, and see privation in the anxious eyes of mothers, and the rags of children.” Another paper “calls .  . for the punishment of all individuals at the South, by hanging, and the confiscation of everyone’s property. ”  Richmond “must be laid in ashes.”  Baltimore “must become a heap of cinders and ashes”  and “its inhabitants ‘ought either to be slaughtered, or scattered to the winds . . .” Virginia and Maryland “deserve to be laid waste and made desolate.” The fire bombing of Dresden in WWII was designed to terrorize the civilian population of Germany by killing many of them.  Likewise that atomic bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It's sometimes claimed that democracies don't go to war with each other.  Nonsense.  When they do, total war is the norm. When kings ruled the lands wars were between them, for limited objectives.   They paid from their own treasuries (though at times augmented by taxation of the people).  Citizens were otherwise irrelevant, except for those young who might callously picture war as an adventure and enlist (or be shanghaied) into the military..  Trade went on mostly as usual even across national borders. In democratic systems the entire populace is theoretically responsible for the war, having elected the leaders.  Propaganda is put forth to convince them of the rightness of the cause.  The industrial capacity of the nation is commandeered for war production.  The people are to not trade with the enemy.  They're expected to hail the combatants as heroes, and castigate the other side's combatants as cowards. Some recent wars don't quite fit the pattern, only because they have been relatively small.  It may be total war in Afghanistan, but with a voluntary military many Americans can see such actions as remote and irrelevant to their daily lives. total war.........According to Karl von Clausewitz, war is "the continuation of politics by other means"....some would say a failure of politics, but then obviously throughout the ages, politicians have most definitely been utter failures much as they still are yet today. The war is the way to conflict, more serious socio-political conflict between two or more groups. It is perhaps one of the most ancient of all international relations, even if it becomes a phenomenon particularly with the beginning of civilizations. It is the organized confrontation of human armed groups, with the purpose of controlling human or natural resources, or disarmament, submission and, where applicable, destruction of the enemy, and are produced by multiple causes, among which tend to be the maintenance or replacement of power relations, resolve economic or territorial disputes. In political science and international relations, the war is a political instrument, to the service of a State or another organization with political purposes. The word war has Germanic origin, "werra", which means fight, discord, tumult. And the term refers to the struggle or armed conflict between two or more Nations or sides of one nation; as well as combat, dissent among two or more people. The war has been a habitual means of problem solving among groups throughout our centuries. A war begins when you leave the dialog and appears violence; all with the aim of submitting to others, which is transformed into "enemy" to our will. A war unfold a series of ideological, political, social, economic, and military; many are the reasons for it include the lust for power of the person or group, own a territory, religious or moral issues, etc. When a war takes place as well know groups loaded weapons, that today have evolved and are more dangerous for humanity; Science and technology allows the use of new weapons and materials, nor can forget the refinement of methods of espionage and logistics systems and communication. There are many consequences bringing the wars, one of them are great human and material, serious losses and serious political and economic disruptions sometimes lack of food, medicines, clothing and housing, among other consequences. The war can refer to many types, we have the civil war, which occurs between opposite sides of a country; the world war, which is a military confrontation involving countries from different continents; the holy war, where religious grounds into action. Chemical warfare, where there is the use of chemicals that can disperse over wide expanses in the form of dust, gases, vapors or aerosols, damaging the health of the living being and the environment; nuclear war, which refers to the use of nuclear weapons; the dirty war, where it is employed coercive or violent illegal actions by the State or paramilitary groups, among others. The war can be described as an armed struggle between two or more States, or between areas of the same country (civil war). Also called war the violent opposition between two or more people by different interests. What triggers a war are many, but most of the conflicts of humanity had origin in religious issues, as for example, the Crusades, or territorial expansions, such as the expansion of the Roman Empire, the conquest of America or the first world war. Other crucial issues of wars are the ambitions of power, or economic causes. Two world wars events to mankind in the 20th century and determined the creation of the United Nations, to try to settle international conflicts and not become armed clashes. However the war is as old as man and threat with accompany him in his time on earth while it lasts. If not war, then what? What are nonviolent alternatives to war? The technology and methodology of war has developed over several thousand years, particularly accelerating in the last century. The United States has numerous military academies and war colleges (for a list see here) and spends about $600 billion each year for weapons development, military training, and maintenance of a massive war machine. The world currently spends over one trillion dollars each year on military might. Sadly thence we see that war is a business,big business, and good for business. We also note that income tax was first started by William Pitt The Younger, to fund his Napoleonic Wars...and income tax and wars have continued to this day.  Now I mentioned are there alternatives to war..well let's consider the 1965 Italian movie, The Tenth Victim....In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt. The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunters and five as the victims. The survivor of ten rounds becomes extremely wealthy and retires. Scenes switch between the pursuit, romance between a hunter and a victim, with a narrator explaining the rules and justification of the Hunt. Now consider Trump and Kim Jung Un running about just trying to kill each other...........well the two obese lards would certainly run about, run themselves thin, hiding no doubt.......and then, consider this, would either be actually willing to die for their respective countries, to go out and THENSLEVS risk death for either of their obese,jaded and somewhat mental ridiculous and warped views and sentiments? Hardly likely is it.  Consider substituting a Tamagotchi War, Tamagotchi was invented by Aki Maita for which she won the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize for economics. Tamagotchi is a keychain-sized virtual pet simulation game. The characters are colorful and simplistically designed creatures based on animals, objects, or people. Beginning with the 2004 Tamagotchi Plus/Connection, a second wave of Tamagotchi toys emerged, featuring a different graphic design by JINCO and gameplay which elaborated upon the first generations. However, the story behind the games remained the same: Tamagotchis are a small alien species that deposited an egg on Earth to see what life was like, and it is up to the player to raise the egg into an adult creature. The creature goes through several stages of growth, and will develop differently depending on the care the player provides, with better care resulting in an adult creature that is smarter, happier, and requires less attention. Gameplay can vary widely between models, and some models, such as TamagoChu, require little to no care from the player. For its current 2 decades, Tamagotchi has gained popularity worldwide....Consider them placed in a room,in a mansion with all needs provided and the first who's Tamagotchi dies, looses...that and their life. Again it's THEM isn't it, neither would like to risk themselves. WAR would be preferred by both.    The how to satisfy their needs for wars,them NOT getting killed................and nobody getting killed at all? Would that be acceptable? To Them probably not, but how's about you consider Squirrel's solution to not having a messy war, by still having a war...of sorts.     Now consider this........Paintball is a game developed in the 1980s in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with dye-filled, breakable, oil and gelatin paintballs, or pellets, usually shot from a carbon dioxide or compressed air (Nitrogen) powered “paintball marker”. The game is regularly played at a sporting level with organized competition involving major tournaments, professional teams, and players. Games can be played on indoor or outdoor fields of varying sizes. A game field is scattered with natural or artificial terrain, which players use for tactical cover. Game types in paintball vary, but can include capture the flag, elimination, ammunition limits, defending or attacking a particular point or area, or capturing objects of interest hidden in the playing area. Depending on the variant played, games can last from seconds to hours, or even days in scenario play. The legality of paintball varies among countries and regions. In most areas where regulated play is offered, players are required to wear protective masks, use barrel blocking safety equipment, and game rules are strictly enforced.MilSim ("Military Simulation") is a mode of play designed to create an experience closer to military reality, where the attainment of specific objectives is the most important aspect of the game. MilSim addresses the logistics of combat, mission planning and execution, and dealing with limited resources and ammunition. Players are typically eliminated from the game when struck by paint. For aesthetic reasons, MilSim often uses airsoft guns rather than paintball guns, as their prominent hoppers appear unrealistic, however Airsoft pellets, being smaller caliber and fired at higher velocity, have an increased risk of player injury if the scenario involves high rates of fire or close range. With the advent of shaped projectiles, such as the First Strike, and the resulting development of magazine fed markers, a considerable increase in range, accuracy and MILSIM realism was gained. Functionally speaking, magazine-fed markers are no different than any other paintball marker, with one exception. Instead of paintballs being gravity fed from a bulky hopper, which sits above the marker, shaped projectiles (or paintballs) are fed from a spring-loaded magazine from the bottom of the marker. The caliber of both the gravity fed and magazine fed markers are the same (.68 caliber) and the velocities are also generally the same. The increased range and accuracy of the shaped projectile comes from the higher ballistic coefficient that the shaped projectile has, and the gyroscopic spin imparted onto the projectile from a rifled barrel and fins on the projectile itself. Magazine fed markers and shaped projectiles have allowed marker designs to more closely approximate the styling and functionality of actual (real steel) firearms, which intern has given paintball a better avenue to compete with Airsoft in the MilSiM environment.    You are getting Squirrel's idea now aren't you. You see each nation sends a properly appointed etc PAINTBALL TEAM.....to fight it out to the finish, according to the rules, whilst being watched and monitored. In the end, with the last man standing, untouched, THEIR team and nation etc would be the winner, and the desired,required outcome, be it territorial, technological or whatever would be fulfilled. Well, how's about that eh! Whot! Beats the mess,the destruction,the horrors, the caracsses of the populations,the destruction that is war! Much better all round isn't it.    But would Kim Jung Un and Trump go for it, or would they and do they prefer............war...of any and all kinds...........think now. But here, Squirrel has provided an easy and painless and much less messy alternative to war. Secret Squirrel, MRL, MP, Dunny On The Wold, Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.

[gibsongirlselections]

Want to Fight Racism? Let’s Cancel Planned Parenthood

It’s 2020, baby. Names are getting scraped from buildings, statues are toppling, a bunch of stuff is catching fire, and you could get canceled tomorrow. A new day has dawned. We can giddily destroy even the dead on the guillotine of moral indignation. And with each head that rolls, an understanding grows that all people, living or otherwise, can be condemned and done away with should they not meet the fresh, improved ethos of the Great Progressive Edict. Nothing and nobody is safe in our quest to sanitize our scatological society. Not even, it appears, Margaret Sanger.

As of Tuesday, the renowned feminist and progressive founder of Planned Parenthood is getting the boot from the organization’s Manhattan clinic, where her name has long been associated with the building. The official reason is that they can’t seem to gloss over her dirty history of racist eugenicism anymore, so now they’re going to disown her.

It’s an interesting plot twist, because Sanger is the founder of the place. It’s also interesting because Planned Parenthood is still in operation and nothing has really changed from the way she ran things back in the early years.

It’s tempting to concede, at least, some logical consistency to the folks over on the left. After all, in the same way they’ve demanded the erasure of George Washington—despite his founding of the country—they’re finally acknowledging aloud that Sanger wasn’t merely a strong-headed, clear-eyed woman looking to give her fellow females a shot at escaping oppression. As pro-lifers have said for decades, Sanger was an unabashed eugenicist with a blatant record of racism. Like Alexandra DeSanctis wrote in National Review, “She promoted birth control as a means of limiting low-income and minority groups and proposed a regime of mandatory sterilization for those she deemed ‘feeble-minded.’”

Who was feeble-minded? Well, to her, probably a lot of people who had perfectly fine brains. And certainly black people were included in that assessment. She famously excoriated them as “human weeds” who were “to be exterminated.” Until recently, Planned Parenthood has had pretty good success in brushing that little ditty under the rug.

Yet in response to those who have refused to ignore it, Sanger apologists have chosen to shape those nasty intricacies into a narrative that paints her as a complicated woman whose whimsical interest in eugenics didn’t actually have anything to do with her commitment to providing birth control to the black women of America. There was a gulf between her two worlds of interest that simply couldn’t be bridged.

Of course, not even Sanger believed that. Justice Clarence Thomas made this evident in a piece at First Things, pointing out that Sanger “believed that birth control was an important part of the solution to these societal ills. She explained, ‘Birth Control … is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method’ of ‘human generation,’ ‘and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science.’ Sanger even argued that ‘eugenists and others who are laboring for racial betterment’ could not ‘succeed’ unless they ‘first clear[ed] the way for Birth Control.’”

But Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to be a racist organization anymore, so now they’re taking the tremendously redemptive step of, well, changing a name (which wasn’t even on the building). “The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” they told black people.

Except, obviously, they’re not really going to do that. Instead, as a means of rectifying past wrongs, they’re going to keep contributing to reproductive harm within communities of color. Margaret Sanger may have been fired, but make no mistake: she’s still working there. Black people aren’t getting any sort of recompense in this.

The black pro-life movement has been saying it for years: Sanger’s efforts in what she called the “Negro Project” have resulted in fewer people of color. The project, for those unfamiliar, was based on a Malthusian hope of reeducating the women—specifically in African-American communities—on the kind of lives available to them without children. Why? Certainly not to help them discover better lives. Why would Sanger care about “human weeds?”

She just wanted to have fewer of them. She got what she wanted, too. Now, over one third of all American abortions happen to black babies, despite the fact that black women comprise less than 15 percent of our population. Indeed, the rate of growth in black communities is slower than among most other major U.S. race and ethnic groups.

Now that Planned Parenthood has distanced itself from the ideology of its founder, they’re in the clear. Never mind that the premise of their entire existence is the ideology of a woman who saw people as something to be manipulated and rooted out. This is what the left is trying very hard to do everywhere: eradicate history, start fresh—a society cut off from its source and advancing toward the sun.

But canceling George Washington for owning slaves centuries ago does nothing to end racism today. To do that, we have to halt the wrongs we’re committing against blacks now. And canceling Margaret Sanger for her nasty eugenics obsession won’t stop the tragic gutting of black communities. Though ending Planned Parenthood certainly would.

Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., astutely noted that the damage to America’s black community can only be rectified with the end of what Sanger started:

My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., once said, “No one is going to kill a child of mine.” Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement. His son, [Martin Luther] King once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.

Step away from the carefully crafted messages of Planned Parenthood’s PR professionals, and look at Sanger for who she clearly insisted she was. Once you do, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the entire fabric of her organization is interwoven with her expansive, explicitly racist view of humanity. Yes, her name has been scrubbed in New York. But her ghost yet haunts the halls of that Manhattan clinic, nodding approvingly as black lives—which matter at any age—are cut short. Statements and blind eyes aren’t enough anymore. If Planned Parenthood earnestly wishes to do its part to mend what they’ve broken, they’ll close up shop altogether.

Emma Ayers is an editor and reporter in the Washington D.C. metro area. She has no Twitter for you to follow.

The post Want to Fight Racism? Let’s Cancel Planned Parenthood appeared first on The American Conservative.

[gedwimora-arc]

Reposting this instead of just reblogging this from Regulus’ main bc it’s Very Long and I originally made the choice to not cut it because of its importance, which was fine for his main but on here it’s a bit much imo. So naturally I’ve had to repost in order to cut.

Something that’s very important to me and I don’t budge on is Regulus’s continued attachment to his family and connections in the elitist pureblood society. There’s a few reasons for this, which I’ll go into here.

1. Life is Messy

Did Regulus grow thanks to his exposure to the darkest parts of his community, the reality behind their beliefs and his views become less bigoted over time? Yes. But the fact he no longer views muggleborns as filth doesn’t eradicate a lifetime of indoctrination, a need for human connection, a justified fear of rejection, still loving your family even when they’re awful, or utterly pragmatic needs like business partnerships. He’s not Sirius or Andromeda, for Regulus utterly removing himself from the society they were raised in is not an option. Life is messy and sometimes you’re the liberal-ish gay cousin at christmas dinner trying to fend off war flashbacks because your baby cousin just said the word “lake”.

Regulus – like Draco – became a Death Eater at 16 and in canon died at 18. By the end of the second war Regulus is 36. He saw and did terrible things at an incredibly young age, then had to totally restructure his whole world view alone with no one to really talk to about it and rebuild his entire life– all while dealing with the physical, psychological and social consequences of his actions. While it doesn’t take him long at all to mellow out, it does take him longer to defrag his ideology and figure out what the hell he does believe now and how to express those new beliefs accurately. Basically the man’s a mess and that’s really to be expected.

2. Portraying the Spectrum

I also feel it’s very important to have people who fall more on the “Bad Side” who are well, not so bad. While on paper these topics are very black and white in reality they’re not always so clean cut. Something I’ve always hated about Harry Potter is that until about the last 2 books there’s basically not a single “Good” Slytherin even mentioned let alone seen. Yes there are people like Severus who are there from the start, but he’s not revealed to be a “Good Slytherin” until the very end, the rest of the time he’s portrayed as one of the worst ones. This always just pissed me off so much, it’s just such an unnecessary and trite demonization of a whole group�� worse, a group of children. Yes it’s the most likely place for the Dracos of the world to end up, but that doesn’t mean every single child who was ever sorted into it is a Death Eater in the making. But we never see those Slytherins and it really, really pisses me off.

Regulus is not a “Good Person” in the sense he was always secretly good and eventually ~~broke free of the evil mind control and is now Pure again~~. I hesitate to even call him a good person honestly, even though his last and only canon acts speak to someone who is unwavering good and self-sacrificing. In his youth he genuinely believed in some truly terrible things but he had his own inherit limits and morals he could not sacrifice even for his family and their beliefs. That’s important, not everyone on that side is a Bellatrix, and while being less awful than Bellatrix doesn’t exactly earn you a medal it does speak to the spectrum. He’s not the best, but he’s definitely not the worst.

By the time the first war is over Regulus is on a knife’s edge at the near perfect center of the spectrum between acceptance and bigotry. He’s proof that a Slytherin coming from the most stereotypical, toxic pureblood upbringing with all the classic Slytherin traits can still buck a lot of the script and actually manage to not be a complete bastard.

3. Never Burn Bridges You Could Still Use

In true Slytherin fashion, we come to a manipulative, Game of Thrones-y  reason. This is one of the key reasons for him IC and also one of the things I think can be difficult for people to get or swallow. Where most people likely feel that the only correct option would be to pull a Sirius and disown the family– that they themselves could never stomach putting up with all the heinous things these pureblood types say and cannot imagine someone who doesn’t believe it doing just that for any reason– the fact is that’s not always the right move, and that there are people who can do it just fine.

Regulus isn’t a fool. He’s the well-educated, intelligent son of a rich, prominent pureblood family with lots of connections all over the place in the wizarding community who got sorted into the “win or die trying” house. Publicly renouncing half or more of those connections is frankly a terrible idea for him to do on so many levels. He loses a LOT of power, access and leverage he could actually use to do things that could actually be a boon in the long run. While unlike Severus he wasn’t –and likely doesn’t become a spy ( though that is up for debate )– those connections could be vital for his continued survival and provide a means of keeping tabs on enemies.

Why on earth would he run around making enemies of everyone he could still use? How does that help anyone? Especially when he’s already mastered the art of placating and maneuvering these types of people.

4. Love, Sentimentality and Loyalty are just as Powerful Weaknesses as Strengths

Something we actually get from canon is that Regulus is an unquestionably loving, loyal and compassionate person. When he has Kreacher take him to the cave he drinks the potion, he sacrifices himself. This is not something someone who is not at their core compassionate, empathetic and loving does. He saw the effects the potion had on Kreacher, he heard what he had gone through, and when the time came he refused to make the elf go through that again.

“And he order– Kreacher to leave– without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home– and never to tell my Mistress– what he had done– but to destroy– the first locket. And he drank– all the potion– and Kreacher swapped the lockets– and watched … as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and …”

“[…] that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn’t seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus’s family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all.” “[…]  I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius.” […] I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s …

This core of kindness and empathy is both what ended up causing him to defect and also what keeps him tied to what family and friends he has left. It’s hard, especially when you are so loyal and loving to cut out people who you’ve known your whole life, who you love and love you back. Bellatrix is a monster she’s easy to cut out but Narcissa? How could he really cut ties with one of his only living relatives, who’s likely his favorite cousin? Who is herself a fiercely loving and loyal woman? It would take a lot for him to finally cut ties with his loved ones still in the purist community and it’s frankly one of his greatest failings.

5. No One likes a Former Death Eater

The cruel fact of the matter is that regardless of your reformation most people will not accept or acknowledge it and treat you like you are still a monster. Regulus could try – and does try– to integrate more with the mainstream, but it’ll always be met with mixed success at best because he was a Death Eater. Unless he moved to a different country, it’d be difficult to really start over again completely with any real solid success. The majority of the wizarding world socially ostracizes him while still engaging with him on a business and political level because of his status. The only people who still want to have a cuppa with him are all in the same boat as him, bigots or purist sympathizers.

He’s human, and however much he’d like to gripe about people and wanting to be left alone forever to become a hermit he craves interaction, especially since he himself is an intensely social extroverted person. If he cuts these people out of his life he basically has no one to talk to anymore and he’s left totally isolated, which would frankly lead to much worse and dangerous places for him.

6. Someone here has to be the Voice of Reason

Having literally no one in that community who isn’t a total nightmare is asking for trouble. Not only because it allows the toxicity to stew and intensify unchecked but it also means no one is there to try and help the younger generations break free of the cycle. If he just left like Andromeda and Sirius he’s just making it worse by removing a more moderate voice from the communal discussion. It’s not even about trying to show them the error of their ways, that’s in fact a terrible way to go about things with people like this. It’s about diluting the toxic ideology, providing the less dangerous paths and laying out the framework that can act as the basis for someone else’s journey out of the quagmire.

For example, when looking at cults and hate groups, the worst way to reach those people is by trying to point out everything wrong and arguing with them, it only entrenches them more. You make more progress by staying close and quietly slipping in the information and tools they need to work things out themselves. Telling someone they’re in a destructive cult will get you nothing, but telling them about this book you read about some terrible cult and all the signs of one you learned from it and isn’t that just wild? These people are bad news huh? Here give it a read yourself– Is far more effective in the long run.

By being there he acts as a moderate, neutral adult figure who the children can both model and look to for support. He’s much safer than most of their families and willing to be the sounding board for their own debates and give advice from a place of having literally been right where they are now. He can act as a mid-point between the extremely insular and toxic pureblood community, the mainstream wizarding world, and thanks to his time in hiding, the muggle world for purebloods looking to escape or just broaden themselves.

[restoreamericanglory]

New Post has been published on Restore American Glory

New Post has been published on http://www.restoreamericanglory.com/freedoms/the-great-silencing-youtube-caves-to-a-left-wing-censorship-mob/

The Great Silencing: YouTube Caves to a Left-Wing Censorship Mob

Whether you’re the biggest Steven Crowder fan on the planet or you find his videos juvenile and unfunny, what happened to him (and thousands of other YouTube creators) last week should chill you to the bone. The platform upon which Crowder, an online comedian and political commentator, makes his living has decided to de-monetize him. Not because they took a careful, thorough look at his content on their own, but because they couldn’t take the heat generated by a left-wing mob intent on censorship.

That mob was ignited by Vox writer Carlos Maza, a “lisping queer” (in Crowder’s estimation) who decided he’d had enough of being mocked and laughed at by the conservative and his audience. As part of something called the Vox Adpocalypse, Maza went on a Twitter storm against Crowder, demanding that his enemy be censored and de-platformed for making fun of his homosexuality.

And, after taking a reasonable stance for a day or so, YouTube ultimately gave in. They didn’t throw Crowder off their platform, but they de-monetized his videos. In other words, someone will still be making money off of Louder with Crowder; it just won’t be the guy whose name is in the title.

Now here’s what’s really smarmy about Maza and his buddies at Vox. Only a couple of days after this successful mob attack on their ideological enemies, they walked off the job. That’s right, at the same time that they were trying to steal the livelihoods of those they disagree with, they were trying to milk Vox for more money. And now they’re on strike, having proven their worth to the left-wing site by eradicating conservatives from YouTube. Well, conservatives and anyone else unlucky enough to get caught up in this censorship roundup (that group already includes historical Nazi documentaries and even progressives who talk negatively about white supremacy).

Oh, and there’s this: Maza isn’t even satisfied.

“Demonetizing doesn’t work,” he whined on Twitter. “Abusers use it as proof they’re being ‘discriminated’ against. Then they make millions off of selling merch, doing speaking gigs, and getting their followers to support them on Patreon. The ad revenue isn’t the problem. It’s the platform.”

In other words, things won’t be right with the world until a guy like Steven Crowder actually has no place to reach viewers. All because he made fun of Maza’s lisp and his homosexual, socialist agenda.

YouTube ought to be ashamed of itself for caving in to this madness, but we’re not even slightly surprised. We are at the beginning of a sinister threat to free speech, and the major tech companies who control our most visible online spaces are going right along with it. It’s only going to get uglier from here.

[serenagaywaterford]

7) Honestly, the only things that I truly ship on that show (as far as canon goes) are: handmaids & unwomen & marthas/freedom (duh), Moira/happiness, Emily/therapy, comfort and her kid -- she needs those badly, Janine/happiness, Serena/actual remorse for what she's done to all women and June/her 2 kids (platonically -- bc there are pervs out there). *I mentioned "unpopular opinions" earlier. By that, I did not mean the types that use "freedom of speech" as an alibi in order to spread bigotry and

8) harass/attack real life people, especially minorities** and women. I wonder why those types think that THT is a “propagandistic”, unimportant show. /s **Btw, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: I think the show missed a good opportunity to address racism. I understand why Gilead is post-racist, I really do. Their focus is on fertility and that’s why a) fertile women of color are needed, b) infertile women and non straight people are considered useless/a threat. But on the other hand, the

9) series is supposed to be set in the near future. I mean, come on. They’re not even a little bit prejudiced?

———

It’s funny talking about shipping on THT. Cos I’ll diverge from you here in that I definitely do have a ship, and I very much enjoy it. However, it’s so AU and it will never, ever be canon and I’m fully aware of how incredibly problematic it is. But, meh. It’s a fun thing to play around with in my mind. I’ve stopped feeling bad about it tbh. But it definitely comes in second to thinking about the show overall and it’s not my sole reason for tuning in. Which is where I think things differ from other factions of fandom who’s sole purpose seems to be shipping and worshiping the man in a woman’s story.

I am 100% on board with all of those ships! I ship Gilead/Destruction, and all the rest should follow :)

Yeah, the racism thing. I’m probably the worst person to talk about this cos I’m white af. And really, it’s so difficult to manage the racism. Cos, if you deal with racism as it was addressed in the book (race was sort of talked about a tiny bit), then you don’t get Moira in such a prominent role. You wouldn’t have any actors of colour, as extras or minor characters playing Handmaid’s. No Handmaids or children could be anything but white. So, they’d face criticism for not having a diverse enough main cast. 

They would have had a really hard time having Luke be black, and therefore Hannah mixed in a society that only wants pure white kids. I doubt, in such a racist fascist society, they’d want to keep around Hannah as a rich, pampered young girl and we’d lose that whole subplot. So, Luke would have had to be white. 

And Moira, if they chose that route, her story would be SO divorced from everyone else’s that it probably wouldn’t mesh well overall. Arguably. (I’d argue that they’ve already fucked some of that up anyway.)

Maybe they thought it was too complicated to address properly so they just said, “Yeah, racism doesn’t exist! Only babies!!!”

BUT it’s absolutely asinine of the show to suggest that Gilead is post-racial. I don’t care how many babies are dying, there is literally no theocratic society/genocide/dictatorship in history that does not involve race in value judgement. I cannot for one second accept that Gilead wouldn’t be insanely racist and scapegoat not only “sinners” but also people of colour. Like, that is a hallmark of the creation of almost every fascist state? Blaming the Other is key! And skin colour is such an easy target. And lbr, white evangelicals of all types are racist. Like, really fucking racist. And fascists are SUPER racist. If we’re to believe SOJ were an extremely far right radical-terrorist group, it just makes ZERO sense that they wouldn’t be WILDLY racist and that would be a core component of their ideology. I personally don’t know of a single far right group that isn’t insanely racist and bigoted. Some claim they’re not, but they totally are.

Like... how did all that racism that is ingrained in conservative religious fanaticism and America just magically disappear? Nah. Not buying it. It seems lazy not to address it. At least ACKNOWLEDGE it any way, even the smallest possible way.

The lack of attention the programme showed to that aspect just made the protesters at Serena’s rally make no sense too. Why is the main protest calling her a Nazi? Nazi is a specific ideology, and race (ethnic cleansing) is a HUGE fucking component of it. Its main goal was to eradicate an entire race/ethnicity from the planet. From what we know, that doesn’t even come into play with Serena/Gilead’s ideology at all. I have no doubt that Serena was intent on legally/forcibly mandating women to give birth (very much like historical examples of this in El Salvador or Romania, even Russia), at least at that point. Basically removing women’s bodily autonomy completely. But that… isn’t exactly Nazi. The Nazis weren’t attempting to do that to white German women (They banned abortion for Aryans, but they weren’t forcing white women to give birth or be sex slaves. Abortion was just fine for Jews; in fact it was encouraged). Would the Nazis have got there eventually had they won the war and birthrates were plummeting? I wouldn’t put it past them but it’s never been an established cornerstone of their ideology. I guess there could have been more to it than we’ve seen on the show but based on TV canon, I don’t get it. It’s like they wanted to bring race into it… but forgot to actually reference it at all prior to 2x08 lol. 

I do think THT missed a huge opportunity to look into the intersection of various crises. Like, do I honestly believe a bunch of white evangelical radicals would just ignore their inherent racism for the sake of a few more babies? No way. And I think it’s been shown multiple times that the SOJ don’t really care about babies anyway; they want power and total control over women, period. The birthrate crisis was just a tool to manipulate people (including Serena and Wives) into accepting Gilead as necessary.

I think THT could have even addressed the lack of WOC as Handmaids. Why, if they were targetting all women, are there not far more WOC as Handmaids? As Econopeople? There’s only a handful. The majority are white IIRC. You’d think if they really are just after more babies, they’d have a lot more girls of all shapes, sizes, ages, colour. But they seem to be–with the exception of Moira, Emily, and June–fairly young (which seems odd logically simply cos their criteria for determining if a woman is fertile is her already having a child. Not that teen moms don’t exist, but so many of the Handmaids seem really young. You’d think there’d be a few more older 25+ women who actually have had kids. But hey, I don’t think Gilead really cares about logic anyway.), and with the exception of Moira and Brianna, mostly white. (Oh, and Lilly.) There are a few extras of colour. But it seemed like the ratio of actual American society vs Gileadean society was way off, and it would have been good to have an explanation for that, and it could have also set up more understanding about why they consider Serena a Nazi. From what I saw, she’s not a Nazi (so just a horrible violent anti-feminist religious whacko) so I’d really like to know what I’m missing.

Not to mention, I get that the book was VERY much from a single white woman’s POV so why would she feature much about race. It wouldn’t personally affect her much. It is the Handmaid’s Tale, and so she tells it as she knows it. However, the show can’t make the same claim. While June is the main POV character, the POV shifts often to other characters and there’s plenty of opportunity to show how race effects different characters. It doesn’t need to be a huge focus. Just acknowledge it, at the very least. Like they did with homophobia. This isn’t a show about homophobia specifically, but they included gay characters so acknowledged (quite a bit considering) about homophobia in Gilead (and pre-Gilead). I don’t see why the same treatment couldn’t be done with Moira and/or Luke’s POVs (way better coming from Moira lbr), or even RITA! Rita would be a great character to explore more, and add some layers to the overall world in the process.

I liked this article: https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/the-handmaids-tale-greatest-failing-is-how-it-handles-race.html

[distantwitness]

Repost: #KillAllMen Is Feminist Liberation Through Satire

This blog is purely about my research into visual depictions of human suffering, but because I am being personally attacked on a medium I use professionally I feel it is appropriate to share here. 

Please distribute as you see fit and nolite te bastardes carborundorum. 

Originally posted at Laywers, Guns and Money.

Trolls aren't just after me, they're after your rhetorical tools in speech against oppression

Days after my twelve-hour suspension from Twitter ended, the trolls have returned under the same absurdly bad faith humanitarianism. 

The first lockout was annoying but it ended before I knew it. An evening spent on a romantic date with my very male husband made the time pass easier. 

This time I'm locked out for seven days, and when I'm a writer who depends on Twitter for contacts and research this is no minor inconvenience. My husband and I can't eat out at nice French restaurants for seven straight days, Groupons have some pretty strict limits.

On March 19th I lampooned a Federalist article, penned for the purposes of the gun control debate, proclaiming that all men are born violent. Well if that's so, then the only logical response for women, the disproportionate victims of men's violence, have no choice but to #killallmen. 

To interpret this joke of mine, which is quite clearly a joke, as an endorsement or threat of violence is stupid. Even more stupid is that the joke was banned even as it floated above an article with quotes like, "A man’s nature cannot be repressed...Men were made for the intentional use of force and power." Whatever your thoughts on Punch RockGroin's parenting advice, the response of "#killallmen" cannot be seen as a serious and to do so is either profoundly stupid or profoundly dishonest. In order for "#killallmen" to be a credible threat, it has to have some basis in reality. Spoiler alert: It does not.

An Unreal Hashtag

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that #killallmen, at least in my use, is just a joke. It is satire, and as I am currently teaching satire in world literature to British secondary students, let me tell you satire is deadly serious. To be a satirist is to identify oppression and to take power back by upending the dominant narrative. I can't claim to be the inventor of #KillAllMen, but allow me to explain the way I use it. Feminists and their male allies are constantly calling out abusive behaviours of men to stop, whether it be street harassment, unequal pay, dictating reproductive rights, etc. The response of anti-feminists is frequently to say that we are trying to end masculinity, that we are weakening men (see the Federalist article cited above), that all our desired policies will be the death of men. 

Turn of the century anti-suffragette postcard and their imagined women's violence against men. Plus ca change...

A Men's Right's Activist created meme featuring feminist video games critic Anita Sarkeesian.

It is ridiculous. So what does a satirist do when faced with an oppressive ideology that is in fact quite ridiculous? We mirror it. We say, "Yes, Kill All Men!" Because it is an absolutely ludicrous conclusion to draw and the louder you say it the stupider it sounds. We are echoing stupidity not to imitate it, but to mock it and strip it bare. 

I don't particularly care if anyone thinks I'm good at satire, all that is subjective. What I do care about are readers interpreting the function of my satire correctly. You don't have to laugh but you also don't have to phone up Interpol. Just imagine I'm a white male stand up with a beer belly on Comedy Central and change the channel when I'm not funny.

The "Threat" Against Men 

What makes "#KillAllMen" a non-serious threat where "#KillAllJews" or "#KillAllGays" are much more dangerous? The simple answer is reality. We know that there are armed groups out there with the intent, opportunity, and historical record of killing Jews and gay people. Nothing similar exists when it comes to male identity. Is there an organized armed group out there with the stated mission of eradicating all XY genes?

No.

There are however armed groups, like the military in Myanmar and the government in Chechnya, who wish to wipe men from specific ethnicities or even sexual orientation off the face of this Earth. But these threats are typically carried out by other men, and there is plenty of evidence to show the perpetrators are happy to carry on killing and assaulting the women associated with the victimized men. Women from the same group as those engaging in the violence may even show support, but they do not do as individual actors autonomous from the men running the murder show. Are men more likely to be targeted for assault simply because of their gender identity as men?

No.

Men whose physical appearance marks them as members of an out-group are absolutely uniquely targeted for violence. Black men, Latino men, Jewish men, Muslim men, gay men, men who dress in traditionally female clothing, all of them have been victims of one hate crime or another. The FBI doesn't keep statistics on the gender of the attackers in hate crimes, but individual reports of women engaging in violent physical confrontation solo against men are rare if not unheard of. Nowhere is there any evidence that men are under attack by women simply for their identity as men. 

Are men more likely to be victims of domestic violence or sexualized violence? No-ish.

Men, as well as young boys, are absolutely victims of domestic violence. No serious advocate would try and tell you otherwise. Men in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships can experience physical abuse at the hands of a partner. Male children are also vulnerable to abuse from mothers and not just fathers. However, there's a difficulty in assessing whether they are more likely because of the stigma around reporting. Women are simply more likely to report intimate physical abuse. 

It is my own personal opinion that men and boys have a much harder time coming to grips with physical and sexual abuse and might very well need more support in the short term. Women are absolutely guilty of abusing men with prejudice against race, religion, sexual orientation, or even disability. But there is no epidemic of women's violence against simply for being men. That is the paranoid fantasy of the Men's Rights Activist.

Comedian Donald Glover explaining the difference between telling "crazy ex-girlfriend" and "crazy-exboyfriend" stories to friends.

Even if we gathered all the data showing how men can be victims of violence with different motivating factors, women are always disproportionately more vulnerable and are therefore are in greater need of protection.  

Satire Is A Power Move

The Alien was female, but Ripley certainly had to mow down a lot of men standing in her way that tried to use the Queen as a bio-weapon.

If Jonathan Swift's initially anonymous pamphlet A Modest Proposal were shared on Twitter today without the historical distance, I have no doubt one of his many enemies would be arguing Swift is actually calling for us all to #EatIrishBabies. The hashtags #RoastAllBabies #YumYumYum must clearly violate Twitter's policy against hateful conduct. No one living today could argue in good conscience that Swift was actually advocating for frying up the chubby little cheeks of infants born into poverty in order to control the population of urban, and predominantly Irish, poor. So why would he argue that poor women could get themselves off the street by skinning their toddlers to make into gloves for fine and elegant ladies? Because the people Swift is ridiculing, the upper classes so concerned with these poor and lazy souls in the street, have had their humanity so far removed as to believe it. Only an idiot or a dishonest philanthropist could be so credulous of A Modest Proposal at face value.

This Isn't About Me

I watch friends and colleagues like Reza Aslan, Jillian C. York, Hend Amry, and Talib Kweli (just to name a few) get trolled all the time. I shout back at the trolls or offer public support to them when I can just so they know they're not alone. 

I am white, I am straight, I am married, and I can take nice photos because my chosen appearance is traditionally feminine.I have a lot of privilege which has protected me thus far from the sorts of abuse many of my out-group and female friends have received online. I have a body of published work out there that demonstrates my serious commitment to human rights and my ability to write compassionately about victims. I'm not terribly worried about any professional losses, simply the threat of chronic inconveniences. I'm not angry for my own sake. 

I'll get back on Twitter sooner or later and I'll be fine. We need to think about what tactics the trolls are learning to silence so many others with views similar to mine. Buzzfeed reporter, and white female, Katie Notopoulos was locked out for ten days after trolls reported her for joking "kill all white people". Granted I think my satire is a bit more sophisticated than Kate's, our tweets have the same function and we shouldn't be banning satirical speech based on a subjective judgement of its value. 

Women, of all types, are at the most risk of abuse online. Amnesty International has researched this subject pretty thoroughly and finds that women are disgusted by Twitter's response to harassment. Twitter knows it has a problem but seems unable or unwilling to fix it. Last year at The Root, Monique Judge looked at how race and gender correlated with harassment on Twitter. The list of studies and articles on the subject go on and on.   

Meninists will probably always exist, but there's no reason Twitter should take our attempts to laugh at them so seriously.  

Extra Fun: My Prezi for Year 10 and older students on Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". Created for my job as a Tavistock Tutor. 

[cryptobully-blog]

Danny Meyer Union Square Hospitality Group mishandled misconduct

http://cryptobully.com/danny-meyer-union-square-hospitality-group-mishandled-misconduct/

Danny Meyer Union Square Hospitality Group mishandled misconduct

Eric Korsh became a problem shortly after he became the executive chef of North End Grill in the spring of 2014: He gave unwelcome massages to female staffers, made inappropriate comments about female customers that he found attractive, and regularly lost his temper at both kitchen and front-of-house staff, according to eight former staffers.

Korsh’s alleged behavior may be all too common in the restaurant industry, which is known for hot-tempered chefs and rampant sexual misconduct, but multiple former and current staffers at North End Grill say that they were particularly disturbed by it because of who owned the restaurant: Union Square Hospitality Group. Founder and CEO Danny Meyer has built his reputation, and two multimillion-dollar restaurant empires — USHG’s 15 restaurants, plus the fast-food phenomenon Shake Shack — on a foundation of “enlightened hospitality” and a motto of “employees first.” Through relentless proselytization of his ethos — in books, talks, articles, and even workplace awards — Meyer has become the rare restaurateur who is more famous than any of the chefs he employs. His management philosophies are so well regarded that they’re even taught outside of the hospitality industry, including at a nearly $5,000-per-person “leadership development workshop” run by USHG.

But former staffers at North End Grill, as well as current and former staffers at Gramercy Tavern, said that their work experience did not always line up with Meyer’s slogans. Multiple staffers at North End Grill reported Korsh to USHG’s human resources department throughout 2014, 2015, and 2016; following the reports, the department required Korsh to check in regularly, but his behavior did not materially change until as recently as summer 2017, multiple staffers say, leading several of them to quit the restaurant. Korsh left North End Grill and USHG altogether at the end of 2017; both the company and the chef tell Eater that it was a mutual decision. Korsh is now the executive chef at Racines in Tribeca.

Read more from Eater: The 38 essential restaurants in New York City, winter 2018 The hottest restaurants in Manhattan right now, March 2018 Are New York restaurants becoming boring?

At Gramercy Tavern, multiple current staffers told Eater that they complained about aggressive behavior from sous chef Junsoo Bae who, in one January 2016 incident, allegedly groped a server and placed his hand on her neck at a company party; he remained at the restaurant until fall 2017, when management announced that he had been fired — on the same day that he was supposed to leave for a job at another restaurant anyway, the staffers said.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, as the restaurant industry reckons with endemic harassment issues, staffers who still work at the company or recently left said that USHG has been quietly clearing house of employees with known problems. Korsh and Bae are two of at least seven male employees who have left USHG since November, most of them fired, according to the sources.

In an Eater investigation, multiple current and former employees said that USHG, despite its reputation for being a safe haven in the hospitality industry, has previously tolerated and protected people who have behaved inappropriately toward their colleagues. The staffers particularly pointed to perceived failures in the human resources department, which for the last 13 years has been led by company veteran Angie Buonpane. Several current and former employees said that they left meetings with Buonpane, as well as another member of her staff, feeling like the company was not taking complaints about inappropriate behavior from people like Korsh seriously, or doing enough to address problems, even when such complaints were made repeatedly against the same people.

Buonpane has on occasion questioned complainants about what they experienced and witnessed in a way that upset them — in one case, the inquiry led a longtime North End Grill staffer to feel that Buonpane didn’t fully believe her account of repeatedly witnessing Korsh’s bad temper and unwelcome touching, the staffer said. Other employees described Buonpane as well-liked, “friendly,”and “sympathetic,” but they maintained that, ultimately, the department she ran seemed to protect certain people or the company over victims of misconduct. “It was our perception that was wrong, not his behavior,” the veteran North End Grill employee said of Buonpane’s attitude toward her complaint about Korsh.

Several current and former staffers said that they enjoyed parts of their experience of working at the company, and noted that tolerance for bad behavior varied from restaurant to restaurant. Most of the former and current staffers whom Eater spoke with were attracted to working at USHG precisely because of Meyer’s principles; some of them called landing a job at the company a dream after reading Meyer’s seminal 2008 book, Setting the Table, in which he lays out his seemingly winning ideology of 51 percenters, or hiring people based 51 percent on emotional intelligence and 49 percent on technical ability.

But longstanding respect for, and loyalty to, Meyer’s company is precisely what made their negative experiences with HR so surprising, disturbing, or even hurtful, former and current employees said. The “employees first” mantra is “misleading,” said the North End Grill employee, who worked at the restaurant for close to five years, and who, like most others in this piece, requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation in the hospitality industry. “It’s kind of an outrage,” she said. “Here he is being the face of this company, going on speaking tours, making these promises. It’s a false trap. Because they’re not acting that way.”

Meyer declined to answer questions for this story or respond to specific allegations. In a statement from a spokeswoman, he said that the company works “to hold ourselves to the highest standard” and said it investigates all claims of inappropriate workplace behavior, including harassment. When contacted for comment, Korsh denied that he ever behaved inappropriately, saying that he “always strived to maintain the highest professional standards in running a kitchen.”

In an interview with Eater, though Bae contested allegations that he created a toxic work environment, he confirmed the nature of the holiday party incident and another incident where he yelled at a server, saying he took full responsibility and that he felt he was “fully punished.” “I sincerely apologize for everything that happened,” he said. “It was all my fault. I feel guilty about it, and I [went] through all this punishment. …I hope that makes everyone who felt uncomfortable feel better.”

“We strive to pursue a thoughtful and balanced process, but unfortunately not all investigations end conclusively,” Meyer’s statement said. “The last several months have been an invaluable learning opportunity for us. We understand that sexual harassment is a symptom of broader systemic inequality in our industry, and going forward we are resolved to eradicate the deep-seated problem of gender-based discrimination at its source. Real societal transformation takes time. For now, we are focused internally on improving gender parity in leadership roles; further diversifying our recruiting sources; and taking a harder than ever look at who we hire, reward, and empower.”

In a separate, emailed statement, Buonpane said she has spent her career “advocating on behalf of employees, giving my entire self to their care and well-being.” She continued, “I joined USHG over 13 years ago specifically because of the Company’s devotion to the philosophy of Enlightened Hospitality and putting employees first. I can proudly say that I have upheld those values throughout my career. It is USHG’s policy to never comment on any employee matters. Beyond that, I would never violate the trust of the employees that I support.”

Former staffers said that HR’s handling of continued complaints about Korsh demonstrates how the company has failed to fulfill its promises of “enlightened hospitality.” Catherine Woodard, a former back waiter who worked at North End Grill when Korsh started in 2014, said that the chef texted her incessantly, tried to feed her food, gave her unrequested shoulder massages, asked her to come to his apartment, and at one point, took a picture of her from behind while she wasn’t looking and sent it to her. (The move, she said, felt like a way to exert his dominance as her boss. “It was just sort of like, I’m in charge, you’re working for me,” she said.) His treatment was so blatant that colleagues teased her about the attention he showered on her, she said; another former staffer, without prompting, named Woodard to Eater as someone targeted by Korsh.

Woodard did not report Korsh to HR immediately — she had confronted him and felt embarrassed after he told her she had no evidence of wrongdoing — but several others told Eater that they made complaints against him. A former kitchen employee complained to HR twice within Korsh’s first year, following months of unwanted touching, his fits of rage, and more than one meeting with a manager to discuss the problem. Another staffer went to HR about Korsh several months after he started, in 2014, and then again in 2015, after months of witnessing him inappropriately touch staff and erupt in abusive shouting that was sometimes directed at her. A former server reported his behavior to HR when she left in July 2016, in part because of an incident where he lost his temper and in part because she didn’t think HR was properly handling complaints against him. The woman who worked at North End Grill for five years says that she reported him in August 2016; she left a month later, when he screamed at her in the restaurant, thinking that USHG didn’t plan to do more about Korsh’s behavior. Though Woodard left North End Grill after receiving a theater apprenticeship, the other women all said that they quit because they felt that Korsh’s behavior wasn’t improving, and that complaining to HR didn’t help.

Woodard ended up talking to HR in January 2015, when she worked at Union Square Cafe after her apprenticeship and a manager propositioned her during a holiday party. When she spoke to HR about it, she also mentioned Korsh’s behavior at North End Grill. Initially, Woodard was satisfied with how the company handled the misconduct: Buonpane said that she’d already heard about Korsh’s bad behavior, and that he was receiving biweekly sensitivity training; Buonpane also assured her that Korsh would not contact her again, Woodard said. A month later, when she reported that Korsh had contacted her again, she felt that Buonpane’s tone changed. Buonpane asked her a lot of questions — ones that Woodard felt sounded “leading” and “calculating,” as if Buonpane was trying to convince her that Korsh’s behavior “wasn’t what I thought it was,” she said.

Woodard was deeply disappointed by the reaction; a former Union Square Cafe coworker confirmed that shortly after the meeting, Woodard said that she had “felt pretty dismissed.” “I remember leaving feeling really frustrated,” Woodard told Eater recently. “It was like I realized, ‘Oh, they’re not looking out for me. They’re looking out for the company and making sure that I’m saying the right things.’ Like the liability of it is not on them.”

Both the five-year North End Grill veteran and the former server who left in 2016 said that women under their report recounted uncomfortable flirtations or unrequested massages from Korsh on several occasions. They were both aware that others had previously reported the chef to HR and had witnessed Korsh’s angry outbursts; the five-year veteran also received multiple comments from guests about his aggressive behavior, which could be seen and heard from the restaurant’s open kitchen, which is lined with seats for diners.

Both also independently pointed to a specific incident that compelled them to make a complaint to HR. A female back server had reported Korsh to management for his behavior in 2016, specifically noting unwelcome flirtations while the two were alone, the two staffers allege. Shortly after, Korsh was asked to apologize to the employee privately, with only another male manager present; this reaction troubled both staffers, they said. The former server said she didn’t think it was sufficient, considering past complaints against Korsh, while the veteran staffer felt that the employee’s confidentiality had been violated, she said. The former server quit after the incident and transferred to Union Square Cafe, reporting Korsh’s behavior to HR as she left in the hopes that a paper trail would help her colleagues who remained.

The veteran staffer decided to report Korsh in August 2016, thinking that her seniority and congenial relationship with Buonpane would mean she would “be heard”; it had become too “emotionally draining” to witness Korsh’s behavior without trying to change things, she said. But she was unprepared for the response from USHG: At the meeting, Buonpane not only told her that Korsh met with HR frequently to improve his behavior, as Buonpane had told several others, but that he had told her that his inappropriate behavior had actually stopped. Buonpane also asked the staffer for additional evidence, as if she wanted “me to have stacks of folders and rolls of films, and without that, I wasn’t credible,” the staffer said. Right after the meeting, she called her mom “sobbing” — “hurt” and disappointed that she felt like she hadn’t been taken seriously, she said. “It was aggressive, it was volatile,” the former staffer tells Eater now of Buonpane’s reaction. “It was a cross-examination, that is how it felt. I was getting torn to shreds.” (Her mother, as well as a screenshot of a text message from the staffer to a friend at the time, corroborated her account to Eater.)

“There was a lack of belief, which was quite jarring when I had worked for the company for four and a half years at that point and had a clear record,” she said. “I was a faithful, loyal, go-above-and-beyond employee, coming forward on my own without being asked. I saw something egregiously wrong, and wanted to address it. For that to have no weight against a man who had HR complaints… that was the issue.” About a month after speaking to Buonpane, she found herself under fire from Korsh, when he yelled at her about an issue that she felt she had no control over, she said. She quit that day.

Another one of the former staffers, who worked with Korsh early on at North End Grill, witnessing and bearing the brunt of his explosive temper, said her decision to leave was largely influenced by how HR handled her claims against Korsh in 2014 and 2015. Buonpane told her that she was very sorry about how she felt, but as in conversations with other staffers, she explained that Korsh was regularly meeting with HR to help recalibrate his behavior, the staffer said. Over the year and a half that she worked with Korsh, the staffer said she saw no change. “I think like a lot of women who work in kitchens, I don’t get offended easily, but this was just too much,” she said. She decided to quit. Then, despite what she considered an inadequate HR intervention for Korsh, she said she felt that the company seemed very concerned about what she would say on social media about her departure. “After everything, they were just trying to protect themselves. I still couldn’t believe it — his behavior was not normal and I was the one made to feel awful,” she said.

The former kitchen employee, who experienced Korsh’s uninvited flirtations, massages, and frequent temper blow-ups, said she was nervous to go to HR, but felt that, especially at a Meyer restaurant, Korsh’s behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. The chance to work at North End Grill was a big deal for her when she started in 2014; she initially she saw Korsh as a mentor and admired Meyer’s philosophies, she said. But from the very beginning, she said, Korsh’s aggressive behavior was on display, exhibiting “that cliche, ego-driven, abusive chef” with “brazen” screaming in the open kitchen. She started trying to avoid him, but his behavior began to wear on her, she said. She had a 2014 meeting with an HR employee to talk about Korsh’s behavior, but she felt that little happened to change the situation, she said.

Beyond that, she felt that Korsh became more aggressive with her after she went to HR, she said. With things getting worse, she decided to go back to HR a couple months later, this time asking for a transfer to another USHG restaurant, saying that dealing with Korsh had become untenable. In response, Buonpane said that the staffer would need a reference from Korsh. At that moment she felt “helpless,” she said: “For a lot of reasons, USHG is a great company to work for in the restaurant world — I didn’t want to leave — so it was just this strange moment where I really realized that even here, no one’s going to call him out, no one’s going to protect me or other women.”

Three current employees, and one former employee, of Gramercy Tavern told Eater they were similarly upset that despite multiple complaints, the company kept Bae employed at the restaurant for years. Allegedly, he was not only a bully in the kitchen, but, in at least one instance, in January 2016, he drunkenly put his hand around a female employee’s neck at a company event. HR was made aware of the incident; in the summer of 2017, he was reported again, for berating a server in front of customers. The sous chef, who’d been at the restaurant since 2012 — starting as a line cook, then promoted to sous — was not fired until the fall of last year.

According to a source with direct knowledge of the incident, Bae became intoxicated at a holiday party in January 2016 and began grabbing a server’s behind while she repeatedly told him to stop. When she turned around to confront him, he placed his hand around her neck, “in what seemed almost like a bizarre, totally misread attempt at flirting,” a staffer said. Other employees quickly put their bodies between Bae and the woman to try to stop the situation, one source with direct knowledge said. When HR found out about the incident, which happened in front of numerous people, it began to question employees. Staffers said they were told that he had a work visa that was attached to his employment at the restaurant and punishment like getting fired could mean he had to leave the country. “There was definitely the sense that because getting fired would mean he had to leave behind his career in America, that ultimately that would be too harsh a punishment,” a staffer said. “But then, it’s like, if he were from Boston, would he have been fired?”

Bae said that following the incident, he was suspended briefly and required to take “Danny Meyer classes that reiterate his philosophy” on what he can and cannot do. But several employees said that since he already had a reputation for behavior such as losing his temper in the kitchen, they were surprised when the company didn’t take stronger action. “I think for most employees who saw or knew of the incident, it just felt like that should have been immediate grounds for firing of a manager, but nothing happened and it left a very bad feeling among the staff,” another current employee said.

According to employees, Bae’s bullying did not stop after the incident, or even after further complaints were made about his behavior. When one staffer reported him to superiors, she was told that the company was working with the sous chef on his issues, the staffer said. In summer 2017, his temper flared in the view of customers in the more casual dining section, where there’s an open kitchen, according to multiple current staffers. He began to berate a female server over a seemingly innocuous issue. The server complained to HR, and Bae said he was suspended for more than two weeks, but the incident was never addressed with the staff. (Bae confirmed the incident but added that he did not think his behavior created a bad work environment. “I truly apologize to anyone who ever felt that way,” he said.) “Kitchen culture is crazy, but at Danny Meyer restaurants, they really talk a big game about how they are different,” a female employee said. “They thought he was an excellent cook, but he was not a respected leader.”

In early fall, Bae announced he’d be leaving for his current position at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. But on what was supposed to be his last day, managers announced he had been fired without providing any further explanation.

In January, according to three current employees, and one former staffer, five other Gramercy Tavern kitchen employees were fired for harassment or bullying. It followed an October email from chief culture officer Erin Moran to the entire staff, specifically mentioning the #MeToo movement and reminding employees that the company has a “zero tolerance policy of sexual harassment abuse in the workplace,” and a December email to staff from Meyer that had the subject line “Sexual harassment in the workplace.” In it, he reiterated his 51 percent philosophy and announced that Moran would be doing a “listening tour” at all the restaurants regarding harassment, adding a link for people to report misconduct. “Perhaps too idealistically, I have always believed that if you and I set a standard for acceptable behavior in our organization, all others would follow,” Meyer wrote in the email.

True to their promise to promote women, USHG promoted chef Emily Brekke to the executive chef position after Korsh left. Meyer also announced this week that veteran USHG staffer Lena Ciardullo has been named the new executive chef at Marta, Vini e Fritti, and Caffe Marchio. She is now the third female executive chef at USHG’s nine full-service restaurants; the first, Suzanne Cupps at Untitled, started in her role in April of 2017.

“It feels like now they are really trying to clear house and truly have a zero tolerance policy,” said one employee who still works at Gramercy Tavern. “I think there’s a sense that people are happy they are finally taking things seriously — but I guess we’ll have to see how this all continues to play out.”

In a way, the company’s widely touted philosophy about being a family could have hindered how they dealt with bad actors too, two Gramercy Tavern employees said. “It’s like, in a family, you don’t really want to let anyone go, you want to try to help, or protect, in a way — but they were protecting the wrong people,” an employee said. “They should have been protecting us.”

Still, the same employee said that he truly felt heartened by their restaurant’s recent conversations with management and HR. “I think it seems like they are trying to not just enforce a zero tolerance policy when it comes to harassment, but that they are thinking about the deeper imbalance of power between men and women in our restaurants and are looking to change,” he said. Another Gramercy Tavern employee said she is also hoping the changes will be for the better at the restaurant. She decided to go into the industry because of Meyer’s philosophies as outlined in his book, she said. “It really changed the way I look at the restaurant industry, and made me want to be a part of his company,” she said. “I think if you make millions of dollars selling some pretty defining principles, you should make sure those are still a part of your restaurants.”

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