Kavanaugh Victim #4

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The polarisation is so great that the USA is in danger of creating the kind of entrenched division which demagogues seek to create and exploit in order to further their own purposes.

I feel sad for the USA. Electing a huckster as president has been deadly for to the prospects of a civil society. The division he has caused, deliberately, will affect matters for a long long time, and not for the better.

Both major political parties are dug in. Because each party has its own teams of financial interests, everything gets crazy. American politics is more about shifting economic ideas to the benefit of one party or another, nothing else. Elected officials don't give a damn about anything else. It is a mad dash to scoop up the cash, and turn our nation into an oligarchy.

If and when that happens, look for a civil war worth watching. Common Americans are practically at each others' throats. The only thing they have in common is a loathing of the super-powerful. French Revolution II awaits.

Trump believers say "america first", though they really hope for (and mean, I think) "us first". I can understand their desire to achieve greater dominance, but they have let Trump infect them with a deadly populist venom, blindly, and he will lead them to a place where their interests are completely sacrificed to the oligarchical swamp Trump plans to lead.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney will be elected as U.S. Senator in November, taking the seat that Orrin Hatch enjoyed since 1977. Watch out for an embarrassing Trump-Romney friendship. BTW, many of Utah's Second Amendment crowd is planning to avoid voting in that race (knowing the Romney has it locked up AND that he opposed the amendment as Massachusetts governor). By not voting, it might show him that we don't roll over just because he has had a change of heart. Suuure!

The animals crowded round the van. “Good-bye, Boxer!” they chorused, “good-bye!”

“Fools! Fools!” shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the earth with his small hoofs. “Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?”

That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. Muriel began to spell out the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence he read:

“‘Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.’ Do you not understand what that means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker’s!”

A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this moment the man on the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a smart trot. All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices. Clover forced her way to the front. The van began to gather speed. Clover tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter. “Boxer!” she cried. “Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!” And just at this moment, as though he had heard the uproar outside, Boxer’s face, with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the small window at the back of the van.

“Boxer!” cried Clover in a terrible voice. “Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They’re taking you to your death!”

All the animals took up the cry of “Get out, Boxer, get out!” But the van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer’s hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In desperation the animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the van to stop. “Comrades, comrades!” they shouted. “Don’t take your own brother to his death! “But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer’s face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen again.

Three days later it was announced that he had died in the hospital at Willingdon, in spite of receiving every attention a horse could have. Squealer came to announce the news to the others. He had, he said, been present during Boxer’s last hours.

“It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!” said Squealer, lifting his trotter and wiping away a tear. “I was at his bedside at the very last. And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the windmill was finished. ‘Forward, comrades!’ he whispered. ‘Forward in the name of the Rebellion. Long live Animal Farm! Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right.’ Those were his very last words, comrades.”

One conclusion I've come to watching parts of the hearing here and there is that there should be term limits for senators. Some of them are saying "in the 44 or 39 years I've been a senator...." I'm waiting for one to say "judge Kavanaugh I've been a senator longer than you've been alive.... and I need a nap zzzzzzz."

Also one thing Graham pointed out with Cosby comparison, is that with Kavanaugh he was allegedly a rapist in high school and then suddenly stopped. Cosby didn't assault females for a year or two and then suddenly stop. He did it throughout his lifetime. And I bet that's probably true of most if not all sex offenders.

Not if he was an opportunistic type of rapist. They are not all sadistic and they don't all reoffend if not caught. Especially if he was the sort of rapist who could only act on sadistic sexual impulses when on substances like alcohol, which as far as I know is not uncommon. There are different types of sexual offenders, not all kinds are likely to reoffend throughout their lives. Here is some information on different types of rapists, with the Opportunistic type listed at the bottom, for a description that might help you understand: https://sunriseclinic.wordpress.com/201 ... f-rapists/

More like entitled frat-boy culture and a tendency to succumb to tribal peer pressure, combined with heavy drinking, was just enough to push him over the edge. I don't think he's irredeemable as a person due to what he was like 30 years ago at frat parties, but I wouldn't trust him as a judge. I'd want someone who has the moral integrity to question the culture around him, not someone who goes along with the herd.

For their own safety, I urge MAGAs to reflect on Trump's insistence of loyalty to himself coupled with his very long and impressive record of betrayals of others - of family members, of wives, of contractors, of investors, of colleagues, of employees, of the "best people" he hires, of the people who paid large fees to his "university", of his creditors - this is a man who never dispensed with integrity because it was never part of his character in the first place. He has the soul, but not the courage, of a thug. He inflicts violence on people from a distance (financial, verbal, taunting, betrayal) unless it is sexual violence. His bullying of others began in childhood. It continues in this now old man, and after 70 old years of bullying, betraying and cheating others, the illusion that he would change was built on desperate hope built on an illusion.

I do have some empathy for MAGAs, because I know it is painful to realise that you have just been used and manipulated by someone who conned you into believing that he truly cared about you - being used feels horrible. Rather than face that, many MAGAs would prefer to go on rationalising his outrageous record and shoddy behaviour, just as a Stockholm Syndrome victim does. Because the fantasy gives them and gave them hope. But it is false hope.

Demagogues - be sure that Trump has studied them - use polarisation to form a wedge between factions because then their enmity to one another makes it easier to manipulate both and increasingly keep both so off balance that they become unaware of the demagogue agenda and its implementation, which will probably involve war - perhaps of both the civil and other catastrophic kind.

There is still time for a mass reawakening in the USA, before Trump thoroughly succeeds in his manipulation of his supporters but many of them will then find it difficult - when they wake up - to confront the shame of having bought into and given their loyalty to such a dastardly man, to have reinforced and defended his unforgivable behaviour and colluded with his lies. However I think that can be healed, and still forgiven, even at this stage. There's still time, though not a lot of time, to stop the Trump agenda for Trump's destruction of civil society and the democracy of respect and his plan to take control on a wider scale which will turn his supporters - perhaps - into thugs and serfs, not the prosperous people they dreamt of becoming while riding on his coat tails.

Brilliant, B19. Thank you for everything you've written lately. I'll reply when I'm home as it's too hard to write on my phone.

Isabella

The thing about Kavanaugh....is that he's talking about some "Democratic conspiracy" or something like that. Something along the lines of what Trump might say.

He's not fit to be a Justice----because he can't get out of his own political way.

and because there is reasonable proof that he participated in attempted gang rape, forcible confinement and suffocation.

Case closed.

Okay so what I said above, minus my last sentence. Not defending Kavanaugh, I just think it's an invalid comparison made for the sake of sensationalism.

I feel like we're coming to a "new world order" now......where all the crap that's happened in the past....will not happen again.

The "me-too" movement had to happen; otherwise, the sort of abuse many people experienced at the hands of people who thought they had a "free hand" would continue.

I've been the recipient, though to not so great a degree as many, of this sort of abuse. So I know what it feels like.

There isn't reasonable proof though that he did or did not do that. There's just Ford's accusation and testimony which I find questionable. I didn't find the testimony against Cosby and Weinstein et al questionable, but this I do.

I didn't care for Kavanaugh's demeanor, but at least it was raw and consistent. Ford's wasn't. It seemed more like she had rehearsed the whole thing.

I'm perfectly fine with Kavanaugh getting passed over. But I find the whole thing brought against him and how it was handled to be suspicious.

I'm sorry to hear this, Korts.
People need to acknowledge that victims and the so-called 'me-too' people aren't always female, the accused aren't always male, and gender isn't a key factor in psychosexual abuse. It's about power.