Smart people saying smart things (10.16)

Last updated on: October 16, 2014 at 3:41 pm by Fred Clark

Smart people saying smart things (10.16) 2014-10-16T15:41:27-04:00 Fred Clark

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Maureen Ryan, “The Threats Against Anita Sarkeesian Expose the Darkest Aspects of Online Misogyny”

It’s the price women pay when they encounter abuse and have to process it intellectually and emotionally. It’s the price they pay when they have to stop what they’re doing and report harassment or other intimidating behavior to a website or network. It’s the time and the mental energy they lose when they ponder what to write and create — and what not to write and create — in order to avoid living a life that is not dominated by a dread of what could be lurking around the next corner.

The women who endure this abuse daily, hourly, for months, for years: I don’t know how they get through it, because the tax being levied on them and their loved ones is so high. It’s too goddamn high.

Duncan Black, “Nobody Cares About the Deficit”

Uninformed voters have some notion that borrowing is “irresponsible” and “objective” reporters have put it on the list of things they’re allowed to “objectively” say is bad without thinking that they’ve abandoned their objectivity, but the people who make careers out of being deficit scolds just want to cut or steal Social Security. That’s the point.

Jerry Seinfeld, Clio Acceptance Speech

Paul Waldman, “When the Next Terrorist Attack Comes, Will We Be Capable of Keeping Our Heads?”

Most of us appreciate, at least intellectually, that our chance of dying in a terrorist attack is approximately zero, and even if it increases, that increase would mean it has gone from approximately zero all the way up to pretty much zero. But that’s not how we act and react. So let’s go back to that attack, and consider what would happen in response. It would be the biggest news story of the year, every report emphasizing that it happened “just steps from the White House and the Capitol building.” The news media would amp up the fear to levels we haven’t seen in the last decade, encouraging everyone to look for sleeper cells lurking down at the Piggly Wiggly. Republicans would of course unite behind President Obama in our time of mourning — kidding! They’d go on TV to denounce him for being so weak that the evildoers struck us in our very heart, and proclaim not only that the blood of the victims is on the hands of every Democrat, but that more attacks are coming and we’re more vulnerable than we’ve ever been. Dick Cheney would emerge snarling from his subterranean lair to warn us that this is only the beginning and we really need to start bombing at least five or six more countries. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has already said about ISIL that “this president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home,” might just tear off his shirt and scream, “We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die!” right on Fox News Sunday.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Old Jim Crow”

The consequences of rendering black people criminals for being human have been profound and extend beyond the argument over whether we really are facing a “new” Jim Crow. The fact is that for most of our history, every black person who’s ever actively resisted was effectively committing a criminal act. Harriet Tubman might grace postage stamps today, but in her time she was a criminal who likely would have been executed or sold South had she been caught.

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Every shadow in my suitcase is restless now

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October 16, 2014 You can fight City Hall (but if you take them to court, they get lawyers, too)

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