Let's Hope that #MeToo Doesn't Disappear Prematurely

#MeToo is approaching its flame out. (See David Walsh's "The petition against Matt Damon and the 'erasing' of Kevin Spacey: The fiercely antidemocratic character of the sexual misconduct campaign.") Apparently there is a campaign to erase Matt Damon's brief appearance in the all-female Ocean's 8 because he is alleged to have provided cover for Harvey Weinstein's sexual predations.

Walsh argues that

For the [New York] Times and the American ruling elite, the obsessive publicizing of allegations of sexual wrongdoing reflects in part the desire to “change the subject” from the social disaster in America, the cancerous growth of social inequality and the eruption of US militarism around the globe. It also serves to deepen the attack on democratic rights and inure the population to the “disappearing” of heretical or controversial figures, helping to set the stage for outright mass political repression. 

The arrogant, self-absorbed and affluent layer, male and female, pursuing the campaign also has its own economic and social agenda. Individuals who are already in many cases privileged and wealthy would have us believe that sexual harassment, which now includes a wide range of behavior, is a martyrdom and its victims are among the most put-upon and oppressed members of society. 

Such a claim would have been unthinkable even a few decades ago. It was generally recognized then, and not simply by socialists, that the working class and the poor, and especially working-class and poor women, were the principal sufferers in modern society. There has been a huge economic and ideological shift. A self-absorbed upper middle class, determined to elbow everyone else out of the way, now insists that its experiences are earthshaking and world-historical. 

This layer, made wealthy by the stock market boom, various media and entertainment industry activities and other parasitic enterprises, is distant from and hostile to the working class. Like the American ruling elite as a whole, it is utterly contemptuous of democratic principles.

I think the Trotskyites at WSWS are wide of the mark here. To NYT's credit, it ran a lengthy, excellent front-pager about entrenched, decades-long sexual harassment at two Ford plants in Chicago -- see "How Tough Is It to Change a Culture of Harassment? Ask Women at Ford," by Susan Chira and Catrin Einhorn -- which is the really real reality that #MeToo is up against, not censoring the content of the arts & leisure page.

#MeToo has come about because more women are becoming managers, executives -- leaders -- in our capitalist world. The preposterous fiction that patriarchy sits its fat sweaty ass upon -- that father knows best -- had to come tumbling down sooner or later. Let's hope that #MeToo doesn't prematurely disappear because of a drift to puritanical censorship. Let's hope it's given enough time to trickle down to the shop floor and the construction site.

The Rohingya and the U.S. Pivot to Asia

"How the Rohingya Escaped" tops the online edition of The New York Times this morning. It is a marvel of multimedia storytelling. The Times has pulled out all the stops since late last summer documenting the purge of the Rohingya, a Muslim-majority people, from Rakhine State, Myanmar. The Myanmar military is said to be engaged in genocide. 

All the familiar stories of babies brutally murdered and women gang raped have been given prominent placement in the Western media.

The volume of stories should give a seasoned news consumer pause; after all, there are numerous hot spots around the globe where ethnic cleansing goes almost without mention. Then there is the emphasis on violent rape and baby murder. Combine those two together and you are usually talking about propaganda meant to alter geopolitical boundaries. Think Kosovo and Iraq.

My guess is that it is part of the U.S. pivot to Asia.

Status Quo Election in Catalonia

From Raphael Minder's "Catalonia Election Gives Separatists New Lift," which highlights the failure of conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy:

The three main separatist parties won 70 of the 135 seats in the Catalan Parliament, official results showed. Over all, the separatists won only about 47 percent of the votes, according to the preliminary results, but they benefited from a voting system that favors their dominance in rural areas.

Their victory by no means assures success. The separatists are a fractious group, and they have already struggled in the past to agree on tactics and strategy. In recent weeks, their disagreements have become more profound, after their failed independence push in October.

The separatist parties may now find themselves facing a difficult round of negotiations to decide who should lead Catalonia’s government and how to put their secessionist project back on track.

The leaders of the two main separatist parties campaigned from outside Catalonia — one from prison in Madrid and the other from a self-imposed exile in Belgium — and both face prosecution for rebellion after a botched attempt to flout Spain’s Constitution and declare unilateral independence.

Yet their sense of vindication at the outcome was undisguised.

Speaking from Brussels around midnight, Carles Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia who was removed by Mr. Rajoy, said Thursday’s record turnout of about 83 percent had produced “an indisputable result” in favor of the separatists.

[snip]

Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party earned just three seats and ended up last among the main unionist parties. It was the biggest loser of the night.

Instead, most unionist votes went to Ciudadanos, a rival party on which Mr. Rajoy already depends to keep his minority government alive in Madrid. The advance of Ciudadanos will make it the largest party in the next Catalan Parliament.

Inés Arrimadas, the leading candidate of Ciudadanos, said her party’s win, coupled with the slight weakening in support for the separatist parties, confirmed that the independence movement “doesn’t represent a future for all Catalans.”

“The nationalist parties can never again speak in the name of all Catalans,” she added.

Analysts saw potential losers and pitfalls all around, however, given the narrowness of the separatist victory and the political gulf it indicated in both Catalonia and the country.

The election outcome was “another unwanted result of years of inaction” by Mr. Rajoy in Catalonia, said Jordi Sevilla, a former Socialist minister.

Mr. Sevilla forecast that Catalonia could require another election because of infighting among the separatist parties, while Mr. Rajoy would be forced into an early national election following his failure to solve the Catalan conflict.

Catalan Elections Today

There are elections in Catalonia today. Scheduled by the national government in Madrid as part of its takeover of Catalonia back in October following an independence vote, there appears to be no consensus regarding the outcome of the vote.

The story by Raphael Minder, "Catalonia Votes Again, This Time in a Gamble to Stall Its Secessionists," unfolds in two parts. First, it establishes that no clear outcome is foreseen, which Minder accomplishes by pulling a quote from El País:

“The result looks very uncertain and even once we know Thursday’s result, I expect more uncertainty rather than clarity,” said Kiko Llaneras, a political data analyst and journalist who published a study on Tuesday for the newspaper El País compiling various recent polls.

Part two of the story puffs Catalonia Socialist leader Miquel Iceta as a potential kingmaker. The pro-independence coalition that had governed Catalonia is not running on a unified ticket in today's election. It's every man for himself. Carles Puigdemont is campaigning in Brussels not Barcelona, frightened that prime minister Mariano Rajoy might toss him in the clink if he sets foot back in his own country. Not a profile in courage.

Elections have the potential of producing surprising results. That's certainly been the case in the last couple of years, though in 2017 the neoliberals can crow about the results of the French presidential and parliamentary elections. Emmanuel Macron is the new tribune of TINA ("There is no alternative"). Now that the prevailing wisdom is that Angela Merkel is damaged goods, Macron is puffed regularly in the mainstream media. Macron, like German SPD leader Martin Schultz, is calling for greater European integration, the very opposite of the mood of the street.

The average working man and woman, regardless of ideologies of left and right, have arrived at a place of critical consciousness, I would argue, that disdains greater centralization of political decision making because they can sense -- thanks to a pattern of decades -- that it leads to their own immiseration.

Unfortunately for Catalan separatists, the ambient disdain for greater political centralization does not cleanly translate to a vote for independence. Independence requires courage, while voting is primarily guided by fear. Catalans are no doubt concerned about being punished if they support independence, and rightly so because you know they will be. Look at North Korea.

The Beginning of the End of the National Football League

Since the end of August I have had to devote most of my energy to my place of employment. For the most part, since October, with the exception of the Thanksgiving holiday, I have been working six-day weeks. Working six days a weeks, ten hours a day, there's not much time for anything else. My reading dropped off to what I could squeeze into a lunch break; my music listening, to what I could hear on my iPod walking to and from the office.

But through it all I did have the National Football League on Sundays and on Thursday night. If anything, my attention to the league has increased this fall, not because the level of play has been particularly excellent, but because I haven't been able to manage much else.

It has been an interesting season in that the weakness and contradictions of American society are bringing themselves to bear. To juice his cracker base, Trump has targeted players protesting institutional racism and corporate militarism. Television ratings continue to slide, with no hope for improvement. Now, the #MeToo moment has arrived. After being accused of abusive behavior by his female employees, Carolina Panthers founding owner Jerry Richardson  has promised to put the franchise on the auction block at the end of the season.

Ken Belson's write-up yesterday, "The N.F.L. Shows Surprising Deference to Jerry Richardson," quantifies the value of a National Football League team:

The coming sale represents a rich opportunity for all involved. N.F.L. teams are among the most valuable in sports, and they rarely change hands. Most are relinquished only when their owners die, such as in 2014, when Ralph Wilson died, prompting the sale of the Buffalo Bills to Terry and Kim Pegula for $1.4 billion. Given the exploding prices paid for sports franchises, the sale might turn into a silver lining for the N.F.L. and its owners, as team values are based partly on recent sales.

[snip]

The sale will most likely provide him and his partners with a windfall. The N.F.L., sports industry financial experts note, brings in significantly more money than the N.B.A. — more than $14 billion this year. Nearly every team is profitable because the teams share equally more than $6 billion in annual television, sponsorship and merchandise revenue. The Panthers play in a far larger, more vibrant region than the Bills, the most recent N.F.L. team to be sold. And the Panthers also have a more favorable stadium lease. Quarterback Cam Newton, one of the league’s biggest stars, led the team to the Super Bowl in 2016.

Forbes, which conducts an annual survey of team values that industry critics claim are imprecise, estimated that the Panthers are now worth $2.3 billion, 11 percent more than in 2016. The team, Forbes said, carries almost no debt and had $102 million in operating income, the ninth most among the league’s 32 franchises.

Even with the ratings drop, the NFL is still the primary vehicle for identity in the United States. My guess though is that this is the beginning of the end. The main reason this season has been so uninspiring is the large number of injuries. You could feel the funereal pall fall over TVland when Aaron Rodgers was knocked out earlier in the year with a broken collarbone. Injuries are not an aberration. They are getting worse as the schedule expands and athletic excellence increases. The Seahawks have been virtually erased because of injuries.

We will have to look for an identity elsewhere.

There is No Shock and Awe Preemption When It Comes to North Korea

Regarding the possibility of a preemptive U.S. attack on North Korea, my question to anyone advocating such a course of action is -- Why do you think China won't intervene, as it did in 1950, to prop up its ally?

That question is taken up by Oriana Skylar Mastro, a warfare-state academic at Georgetown U., in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. The title of the article, "Why China Won’t Rescue North Korea: What to Expect If Things Fall Apart," is misleading in that it conjures up images of the Chinese standing back and watching while the Kim regime is bombed into submission by U.S.-South Korean shock and awe.

The conservative professor's article is actually down to earth and reasonable, but not sanguine when it comes to U.S. options. China might not be wedded to the survival of the Kims, but it has been planning for and is ready to secure the nation's nuclear arsenal. A better title of the article would have been: "China Will Not Rescue Kim Jong-un, But It Will Invade North Korea and Secure the Country's Nuclear Arsenal and Territorial Integrity If Things Fall Apart."

That's a sobering message for American Exceptionalists and neoconservatives. Basically it tells us case closed. There is no shock and awe preemption when it comes to North Korea.

Hence David Sanger's article published Sunday, "A Tillerson Slip Offers a Peek Into Secret Planning on North Korea," outlining the Trump administration's pitiful attempts to blunt the impact of professor Mastro's article by having Tillerson claim that the U.S. also has plans to secure North Korea's nuclear devices. Sanger notes that

But the reference to planning for North Korean collapse, while not drawing wide notice, caught the attention of those who have been drawing up military plans for a number of possible scenarios, including American pre-emptive strikes. Asked whether Mr. Tillerson had referred by mistake to entreaties to the Chinese that previous administrations kept secret, Steven Goldstein, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, said it was quite deliberate.

“The secretary reiterated the position he has taken in meetings with Chinese counterparts,” he said. “He would like the U.S. and Chinese military leaders to develop a plan for the safe disposition of North Korea’s nuclear weapons were the regime to collapse.” He added: “While the secretary has never advocated for regime change, we all have an obligation to be prepared for any scenario.”

There is no indication that the Chinese have responded, or that military officials have met — though Beijing would almost certainly keep that secret if it occurred.

According to current and former American officials, the contingency plans to seize North Korea’s nuclear arsenal have grown in complexity in recent years, largely because the North Korean arsenal has grown.

There are competing estimates among American intelligence agencies over how many weapons the North possesses. Most estimates range from 15 to 30 nuclear devices, but the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for protecting American troops on the Korean Peninsula, projected this year that the number could be in excess of 50.

The North is presumed to have undertaken an elaborate effort to hide the weapons. The result, one senior military official said recently, is that even if dozens of weapons were seized and deactivated, there would be no way to determine whether many more were still hidden away, perhaps under the control of surviving members of Mr. Kim’s military.

In the secret American rehearsals of how to execute a seizure of the North’s weapons — more of which are planned for the first half of next year, officials say — speed is of the essence.

Finding those weapons, landing “render safe” teams to disarm them and airlifting them out of the country would be a difficult enough task in peacetime. But the American planning assumes a three-way scramble to seize both weapons and territory, involving Chinese troops who may find themselves facing off against the United States and its South Korean allies.

“Washington should assume that any Korean conflict involving large-scale U.S. military operations will trigger a significant Chinese military intervention,” Oriana Skylar Mastro, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University, wrote this month in the journal Foreign Affairs, in a provocative article titled “Why China Won’t Rescue North Korea.”

China, she wrote, “will likely attempt to seize control of key terrain, including North Korea’s nuclear sites,” most of which are within 60 miles or so of the Chinese border. Because of geographic advantage, they would probably arrive long before American forces.

In the past, American planning was based on an assumption that China would come to the aid of North Korea, as it did during the Korean War nearly seven decades ago. But Ms. Mastro, who also advises the United States Pacific Command, wrote that today “the Chinese military assume that it would be opposing, not supporting, North Korean troops.”

Her analysis mirrors what is increasingly becoming the dominant thinking among American military planners. That has made the secret discussion that Mr. Tillerson alluded to all the more vital. Curiously, some Chinese academics have begun writing about the need for the United States and China to prepare a joint strategy. Such public airing of the issue would have been banned in Chinese publications even a few years ago.

In other words, the prevailing military-academic opinion is that regime change in North Korea will likely expand Chinese power, as regime change in Iraq has expanded Iranian power.

Nonetheless the Trump administration continues to goad North Korea into some sort of reaction that can be used to justify a U.S. attack. (See Sanger's latest, "U.S. Accuses North Korea of Mounting WannaCry Cyberattack.) Warfare appears to be the only foreign policy of the United States.

#MeToo Tackles Jason Bourne

Don't get me wrong. I am all for letting the #MeToo fires rage for as long as possible. #MeToo offers proof of life in an otherwise moribund plutocratic society that needs to hurry up and disintegrate.

I must say though that I feel some sympathy for Hollywood leading man Matt Damon (a.k.a., Jason Bourne, and earlier in his career, "Good Will Hunting"). Damon, a thinking man, had the temerity to question #MeToo's conflation of an ass slap with pedophilia, which set off a row online, with his Good Will Hunting costar and former girlfriend Minnie Driver telling The Guardian that men “simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level.”

Patrick Martin of the World Socialist Web Site summarizes in "More sexual harassment allegations hit congressmen, media and entertainment figures":

Actor Matt Damon drew fire for an interview with ABC in which he sought to differentiate between the conduct of Senator Franken and the comedian Louis C. K. and more serious allegations. “There’s a spectrum of behavior,” he said. “There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?”

“You have rape and child molestation,” he continued. “That’s criminal behavior, and it needs to be dealt with that way. The other stuff is just kind of shameful and gross.”

For these comments, Damon has been denounced by some of the high-profile advocates of the sex witch hunt in Hollywood, including Alyssa Milano and Damon’s former costar in Good Will Hunting, Minnie Driver. Milano wrote on Twitter that Damon’s reference to a “spectrum of behavior” was wrong. These were “different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it’s still cancer.”

Driver is on thin ice when she says that men cannot fathom daily abuse. Aren't men also the victims of sexual abuse? Weren't the victims of Kevin Spacey and James Levine young men?

#MeToo should avoid gender Manichaeism and keep its eye on the prize, a radical leveling. Most of these #MeToo stories are about abuse of power; most happen to be about men because it is still "a man's world." Men -- men with lots of money -- are in control.

My last job was working with and for young women. In the spring of 2016 I noted on this page that

Women are definitely on the ascent. And let me tell you, they are not particularly gracious to a brother on his way down. Women feel a lot of pent up disdain and resentment, if not outright hatred and anger, towards men. "Loathing" might be the best term. I can bear witness as the only man at many a behind-closed-doors staff meeting.

Cry no tears for men though. We deserve every bit of bad news coming our way. There will be no Donald Trump helicopter rescue touching down in a green field to lift us off to safety as the boreal forest burns all around. No, it is all hellfire and sinks of sulfurous acid for us.

A good reason to let the #MeToo fires burn is that in the light produced Russiagate is exposed for what it is -- a ridiculous piece of deep state drivel (see the latest Robert Parry summary, "Protecting the Shaky Russia-gate Narrative"). #MeToo has coherence -- abuse of power -- and a string of journalistic delicacies -- the details that accompany predatory sexual behavior -- followed by results -- no more shit-sniffing Charlie Rose on PBS or CBS. Russiagate has none of the above..

The #MeToo "Great Awakening" Could Do the Trick for the Dems

Necessary reading this morning is Thomas Edsall's "The Politics of #HimToo":

Since the first week of October, when The Times wrote about Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of sexual abuse, the floodwaters have been rising. At least 51 prominent men have been accused of sexual misconduct, ranging from groping to rape. The accused — many of them abruptly removed from their positions — run the ideological and partisan gamut from Garrison Keillor to Leon Wieseltier to John Conyers to Matt Lauer to James Levine to Trent Franks to Al Franken to Charlie Rose and on and on, including, most recently, Mario Batali and Russell Simmons.

For Democrats, who have struggled to find traction in their battles with the administration, the explosion of allegations has created an opening to put the focus on Trump — a development greatly enhanced by the Moore debacle.

Among Democrats, Gillibrand stands out as the politician who first claimed ownership of the issue, and she is seen by many analysts and commentators as having moved into the front ranks of potential presidential candidates. But what Gillibrand started has become a broader movement encompassing almost the entire Democratic Senate caucus.

After initiating the call on Franken to resign his seat, Gillibrand swiftly received remarkably strong support from her colleagues: 32 fellow Democratic senators and the two independent senators who caucus with the Democrats. There seemed to be an emerging consensus with a basic chess tactic: Sometimes you are required to sacrifice a pawn to checkmate the king.

In other words, Democrats smell blood, Trump’s blood.

Gillibrand now says that Bill Clinton, one of her most steadfast supporters, should have resigned the presidency after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed, and on Monday Gillibrand told CNN that Trump should leave office in the face of “very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity.”

“I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation,” Gillibrand asserted at a news conference on Dec. 6. “You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable.”

Gillibrand continued:

"We, as elected leaders, should absolutely be held to a higher standard, not a lower standard, and we should fundamentally be valuing women, and that is where this debate has to go."

On Wednesday, Trump did Gillibrand a favor, tweeting:

"Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!"

USA Today, a publication known for the moderation and balance of its commentary, promptly editorialized:

"A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush."

Edsall then goes on to parse the #MeToo moment with quotes from academics and political professionals. Edsall hedges on any prediction regarding the 2018 midterms, saying the Democrats are woefully hamstrung by gerrymandering, which is true. Edsall also seems to believe that GOP women have not been swept up in #MeToo.

But then how to explain the elections in Virginia and Alabama? Blacks are being apportioned a hefty role in both these Democratic victories. My thinking though is that the fictional gender gap that I accepted as a guarantee of Hillary's victory last fall is now becoming real. The suburban Republican who the Hillary campaign courted is finally coming around thanks to the unceasing piggishness of our POTUS.

#MeToo is a stand-in for the Great Awakenings of the colonial and early republic past. Our culture, largely static in its broad contours since the dawning of the neoliberal age in the 1970s, is finding ways to cleanse itself. Occupy was a brief and ultimately aborted attempt. But #MeToo appears to have all the chemical ingredients to burn indefinitely.