Putting aside whether Joe Biden, former drug warrior and attack dog of the Dems, now entering his fourth run for the party nomination for president, and inveterate hair sniffer, is the last liberal standing in a field of progressives, Lucy Flores ain’t buying.
I know a few things about mistakes and second chances. As a formerly incarcerated youth and high school dropout, when I decided to run for a state legislative seat, I needed my community to know that not only was I sorry for the many transgressions of my young adult life, but also that I had taken those experiences and learned from them. I learned to treat my mistakes not as points of shame, but as opportunities for growth. It’s those experiences with tough moments that inform my approach to accountability today, and why I believe it matters that people acknowledge when they do wrong.
There is, of course, a certain virtue from recognizing one’s mistakes, although a wayward youth doesn’t necessarily commend one for public office. Nor does dropping out of high school suggest she’s got the intellectual chops to do more than parrot the self-serving jargon of her tribe. But it also doesn’t make her wrong.
The #MeToo movement wasn’t just a flash in the pan. It marked a profound tectonic shift toward continued female empowerment and self-realization that’s still evolving, and the ongoing rumbling continues to cause all kinds of discomfort.
Well, sure, she uses the geological term “tectonic” wrong, but it’s nothing compared with the conflation of empowerment and whining vapid failure of a sex to say “no” if that’s how they felt until they could do so with the absolute assurance that their sisters would cover their cries and they wouldn’t face the obvious castigation for their mobbish reaction to their own life of weakness.
After centuries of oppression, subjugation, and dehumanization, women finally began finding their individual voices in the security of a collective chorus. We tapped into a newfound power that, first and foremost, demanded accountability, and the offenders were plentiful and easy to spot. The worst of the worst were forced out of their systemic fortresses of protection.
Without the “security of a collective chorus,” who believe in the absence of proof, who said nothing until they felt safe to do so without any challenge, who basked in the warm glow of a million sad tears for whatever story they told, there would be no “newfound power.”
But what of the “offenders,” who might be better called the accused since there is neither a requirement of proof nor an opportunity to challenge? Are they the “worst of the worst”? Were they hiding in their “fortresses of protection”?
Rapists, sexual assaulters, sexual harassers — villains who refused to acknowledge their actions, much less atone for their behavior. Powerful, rich, and famous men who acted with impunity, some for decades, were finally brought to some version of justice.
Creepy old Joe Biden isn’t alleged to be a rapist. Not a sexual assaulter. Maybe a “sexual harasser,” since that phrase defies definition, and can be whatever Lucy wants it to be. But Lucy says he isn’t a harasser, and isn’t the “worst of the worst,” even in her fertile imagination. She got due process for her transgressions as a wayward youth, but she demands that Joe Biden go right to atonement.
And then there was Joe Biden.
Not a villain. Not an unlikable person. Not a sexual harasser or assaulter. But also, as Anita Hill recently found out, not exactly sorry, either.
There doesn’t seem to be much dispute that Biden was a touchy-feeling guy, whether it was hands-on or olfactory. Some call him a warm and feely. Others creepy. Most of us would not do what came naturally to Joe, because we don’t go around touching random people. But is Joe a #MeToo target, even if he doesn’t stand accused of rape, or is Lucy in the sky with diamonds?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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When I was at the Montreux Jazz Festival in ’79, B.B King was there, and constantly referred to his guitar, Lucille. I was hanging out with Taj, who finally told him to shut up. “It’s a guitar, man. You really need to get laid.”
LOL….nice story…and it promotes your supposition about us lonely, love lorn guitar players. See how you are?
As drummers always say, no need to fret over fingering when you’ve got rhythm.
What do you call someone who likes to hang out with musicians?
A drummer.
He’s an 80-year-old white guy. Even without his mannerisms, he could never pass as part of the movement. That he has the mannerisms just gives them cause to marginalize him. Kinda like gravy on old mashed potatoes.
I’m totally baffled by Biden’s belief that he can be a viable candidate against Trump. Why did Trump pick the weak nickname “Sleepy Joe” over “Creepy Joe?” It’s probably because Biden is who he wants to run against. If Biden wins the nomination, the “Sl” will change to a “Cr” and we will be bombarded with video compilations of Biden’s undeniably creepy behavior with young girls. The video of Sessions slapping Biden’s hand away from his granddaughter will play on giant screens at every Trump rally. What could he be thinking? Is he secretly working for Trump?
Spoken like a true Warren supporter, you Berniebro.
Bernie would be a disaster. There is no good candidate. Bernie might be able to beat Trump, but what’s worse, being an international laughingstock with a reality TV star president, or electing a slightly more respectable president with disastrous policies that ruin our economy? If I didn’t laugh I would have to cry.
Therein lies the current quandary of American politics. Draft Bill Clinton?
Grossly off topic but I didn’t start it so……This is where a truly principled, non-partisan could find room to actually tolerate, if not support a candidate (Bernie) that by most metrics is terrible. In fact as a libertarian that generally considers nearly all candidates to be awful, statist choices one way or another, a Bernie presidency has a certain attraction. His best ideas are in the area of foreign policy, where the president has the most autonomy due to congress being idiots that have essentially left it to the president to do….pretty much whatever.
His awful economic and domestic policies would mostly fail to gain traction with congress so his worst impulses would be mitigated to large extent—not a disaster.
Tuesday Talk rules, so fair enough.
Good ideas in foreign policy, like stopping the endless wars? A foreign policy based on “partnership, rather than dominance?” Reducing Israel’s control over US policy? We already heard all of that from Trump and Obama, yet the same policies persist, continuing a trend started by Bill Clinton and escalated by Bush. There’s no evidence that Bernie would be any different. And there’s little hope. If an “outsider” like Trump doesn’t change anything, and Obama didn’t change anything after campaigning on a mantra of hope and change, why should we expect any better from a tired old limousine socialist?
Don’t draft Bill Clinton–he’ll just go back to Oxford.
Problem?
Would y’all be interested in a slightly tarnished Justin Trudeau? If you’re looking for someone who can absolutely talk the #metoo talk, if not necessarily walk the walk, he’s your man.
… and second, served as a weapon for discrediting dissidents and political rivals.
“Creepy old Joe Biden isn’t alleged to be a rapist. Not a sexual assaulter.”
Yet.
With his history of touchy-feeliness, there are bound to be some women in the wings who will pop out and make claims if he gets far enough along the campaign path.
But with Avenatti under multiple indictments, how will anyone know?
Fear not. For every Avenatti there’s an Allred.
Maybe Mr. Biden has lost control.
“…a profound tectonic shift toward continued female empowerment and self-realization that’s still evolving, and the ongoing rumbling continues to cause all kinds of discomfort.”
I think history shows that most people who proclaim that “it’s all going to be different from now on” are disappointed, some sooner than others.
Shortly before #MeToo became a thing, I wrote about how the shift was coming from legal action to mob action on social media. It struck me as a very dangerous idea. It was. It is. That women took comfort in mob rule is a testament to weakness, not strength.