Ann explained to me that a clever
reader had figured out our plan to protect the sisterhood by refusing to
cover Sheryl Sandberg. As women, we are bound to Sheryl. She is our
leader.
Or that is what the fool thought. I don’t care for Sandberg and do not mistake “lean in” for feminism.
What
we need to do, Sandberg tells us in her book, is jettison our fears:
"Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. ... And the holy trinity of
fear: the fear of being
a bad mother/wife/daughter."
In
this feminist-sounding riff on "the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself," the only fear not raised is the one FDR was addressing:
economic. It's remarkable oversight
in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
But
Sandberg isn't alone in her silence. Mainstream feminist debate, for
all the lip service paid to the "intersectionality" of race, class and
gender, has also left economic
divisions on the cutting-room floor. It's more marketable to talk about
sex or pop culture.
The recoil from class issues came early, when American feminism began retreating from its examination of root causes.
In
a 1972 article in the feminist newspaper, The Furies, Coletta Reid
observed: "Early in the women's liberation movement, I saw class as an
issue that men in the Left used
to put down feminism. Later it became an issue that many women said we
had to discuss," but never seriously did.
And
yet, we won't ever productively confront women's secondary status
without confronting class. Our economic framework is founded on women's
subjugation.
The
power structure that Sandberg wants to feminize was built to cement the
power of (some) men, and on the backs of (most) women, who would not
only stay out of the power
suites but would make all the power plays possible by assuming every
backstage duty, from minding the kids to handling the least glamorous
and lowest-paid work. It's in capitalism's DNA, and no cosmetic
paste-ons at the top are going to change the dynamic
without significant change on the bottom.
Charlotte Bunch, whose sane voice on
so many feminist questions deserves more notice, limned that connection
years ago in her essay,
"Class and Feminism."
Since
its unveiling this spring, the Lean In campaign has been reeling in a
steadily expanding group of tens of thousands of followers with its
tripartite E-Z plan
for getting to the top. But the real foundation of the movement is, of
course, Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling book,
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,
billed modestly by its author as “sort of a feminist manifesto.”
Sandberg’s mantra
has become the feminist rallying cry of the moment, praised by notable
figures such as Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Marlo Thomas, and
Nation columnist Katha Pollitt. A
Time magazine cover
story hails Sandberg for “embarking on the most ambitious mission to
reboot feminism and reframe discussions of gender since the launch of
Ms. magazine in 1971.”
Pretty good for somebody who, “as of two and a half years ago,” as
Sandberg confessed on her book tour, “had never said the word woman
aloud. Because that’s not how you get ahead
in the world.”
The
lovefest continues on LeanIn.org’s “Meet the Community” page, where
tribute is paid by Sandberg’s high-powered network of celebrities,
corporate executives, and media moguls (many media moguls), among them Oprah Winfrey,
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson,
Newsweek and Daily Beast editor in chief Tina Brown,
Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington,
Cosmopolitan editor in chief Joanna Coles, former
Good Morning America
coanchor Willow Bay, former first lady Laura Bush (and both of her
daughters), former California first lady and TV host Maria Shriver, U.S.
senators Barbara Boxer and Elizabeth Warren,
Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, Dun & Bradstreet CEO Sara
Mathew, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Coca-Cola marketing executive Wendy
Clark, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, supermodel Tyra Banks,
and actor (and Avon “Global Ambassador”) Reese Witherspoon.
Beneath
highly manicured glam shots, each “member” or “partner” reveals her
personal “Lean In moment.” The accounts inevitably have happy
finales—the Lean In guidelines instruct contributors to “share a
positive ending.” Tina Brown’s Lean In moment: getting her parents to
move from England to “the apartment across the corridor from us on East
57th Street in New York,” so her mother could take
care of the children while Brown took the helm at The New Yorker.
If you were waiting for someone to lean in for child care legislation,
keep holding your breath. So far, there’s no discernible groundswell.
When
asked why she isn’t pushing for structural social and economic change,
Sandberg says she’s all in favor of “public policy reform,” though
she’s vague about how exactly that would work, beyond generic
tsk-tsking about the pay gap and lack of maternity leave. She says she
supports reforming the workplace—but the particulars of comparable worth
or subsidized child care are hardly prominent elements
of her book or her many media appearances.
Sandberg
began her TED Talk in December 2010, the trial balloon for the Lean In
campaign, with a one-sentence nod to “flex time,” training,
and other “programs” that might advance working women, and then
declared, “I want to talk about none of that today.” What she wanted to
talk about, she said, was “what we can do as individuals” to climb to
the top of the command chain.
This
clipped, jarring shift from the collective grievances of working women
to the feel-good options open to credentialed, professional types
is also a pronounced theme in Lean In,
the book. In the opening pages, Sandberg acknowledges that “the vast
majority of women are struggling to make ends meet,” but goes on to
stress that “each subsequent
chapter focuses on an adjustment or difference that we can make
ourselves.” When asked in a radio interview in Boston about the external
barriers women face, Sandberg agreed that women are held back “by
discrimination and sexism and terrible public policy”
and “we should reform all of that,” but then immediately suggested that
the concentration on such reforms has been disproportionate, arguing
that “the conversation can’t be only about that, and in a lot of ways
the conversation on women is usually
only about that.” Toward
the end of the Q&A period at the Menlo Park event, a student
watching online asked, “What would you say to the critics who argue that
lower socioeconomic status makes it difficult
to lean in?” Sandberg replied that leaning in might be even “more
important for women who are struggling to make ends meet,” then offered
this anecdote as evidence: She had received a fan email from a reader
who “never graduated from college” and had gone
back to work in 1998 after her husband lost his job. “Until she read Lean In, she had never asked for a raise. And last week, she asked for a raise.” Pause for the drum roll. “And
she got it! That’s what this is about.”
Susan Faludi’s view is the view of
everyone with a site in this community. We are not fans of Sheryl. We
would never go out of our way to cover up for her. I had other things I
wanted to explore this week than Facebook – so did Ann.
But Sheryl has been silent until this week – I believe yesterday – when
suddenly Ms. CEO of Facebook was all over the place – NPR, PBS, et al –
telling the world that they must not have had enough privacy tools –
you think? – and besides this is a free service.
If people expect privacy, that would be a fee based service.
In other words, she was saying “Shut
your pie holes we give you this for free.” Again, she’s not a
feminist. She’s not much of anything. But unlike Marlo (who I like)
or Gloria (who I don’t) or Jane, I’m not an elderly woman with a
foot in the grave who has to pretend that Sheryl is the second coming.
Sheryl was CEO and what she needs to be saying is, “I am sorry.”
Anything other than that is unacceptable. Be sure to read “Sheryl
Sandberg: Facebook knew about Cambridge Analytica 2 1/2 years ago but didn't follow up.”
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
A stunning work of art or an image of our beautiful planet? The transformative power of water, wind & gravity is on full display in this @NASAEarth satellite image of Iraq's Ga'ara Depression. Varied wavelengths identify rock + soil types & detect moisture go.nasa.gov/2GD8tU5
NASA notes:
The transformative power of
water, wind, and gravity is on full display in Iraq’s Ga’ara Depression.
The rim of this large, oval-shaped basin near the Iraq-Syria border
rises a few hundred meters along its southern and western edges.
Geologists call the rock at the
bottom of the basin the Ga’ara Formation. It is made up of alternating
layers of sandstone and soft claystone that formed roughly 300 million
years ago, when the area was covered by a shallow sea. Later, types of
carbonate rock (dolomite, limestone, and marl) were layered on top of
the Ga’ara Formation, and the entire sequence of rock was gradually
pushed up into a dome shape by tectonic forces.
The dome achieved its maximum
height about 30 million years ago. Erosive forces have since chipped
away at this layer-cake of rock. The combined effects of water, wind,
and gravity wore through the thin carbonate layers at the top of the
dome, and then hollowed out the oval-shaped depression from
the soft, crumbly rock of the Ga’ara Formation, leaving behind a rim of
tougher carbonates. These steep cliffs along the southern rim have
played a key role in widening the basin over time. The regular stream of
landslides and rockfalls that tumble down the cliffs have caused the
southern rim to continue moving south over the years.
That's Iraq from space. On the ground? ALSUMARIA reports an armed attack just outside of Baghdad left three people injured today and, yesterday, security forces killed 7 suicide bombers in Anbar Province before the bombers could detonate, a Diyala sticking bombing left one person injured, and Nineveh saw the rape of a young girl and the kidnapping of two people. On yesterday's violence, Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) counts "62 killed or found dead."
And to the realm of pimping war. Tuesday, the United States Institute of Peace held three panels to push further war in Iraq and Syria. The third panel was moderated by leaker Stephen Hadley and featured Special Envoy Brett McGurk, US Gen Joseph Vogel (CENTCOM commander) and US AID's Mark Green.
Let's note this segment and, as you read along, grasp the question asked and then Green's response which starts out on a different topic completely and then, mid-way, begins offering nonsense that is little more than definition and has nothing to do with any actual work being done.
Stephen Hadley: [. . .] one gentleman said to us, you know, we've won three wars in Iraq. One against Saddam Hussein, one against al Qaeda and we're on the threshold of winning one against ISIS but we haven't had an enduring peace. It was to emphasize -- as you [Mark Green] did and as Gen Votel did -- the importance of the stabilization piece. Part of that, of course, a mission near and dear to the heart of USIP, is the reconciliation mission, bringing groups -- sectarian groups that are divided by grievances, by history, threats of retaliatory violence -- bringing them together both at the national level and the local level. Can you talk about what-what the United States and its coalition allies are doing on the reconciliation front in terms of Iraq?
Mark Green: Uh, sure. Uh, in Iraq, one thing we're doing is help to restore the cultural diversity that has been a hallmark of Iraq. So in northern Iraq, uh, we're working, again, to help Yazidis and Christian minorities to be able to return home -- to feel secure enough to be able to return home and-and sort of re-establish their communities. So that's one thing that we're doing in particular. And, in fact, I know that USIP was at our broad agency co-creation conference when we were working with, uh, a wide range of-of civil society groups -- Iraqi, American, but also from other parts of the world to try to look at this element of, uh, of reconciliation. On top of that, what we're also doing is strengthening civil society and working with civil society groups. So in addition to having responsive governments and capable governments -- and governments that are capable of delivering services in an equitable way so that groups aren't disenfranchised. It's also important to strengthen the capability and the role of civil society so that the needs and desires of citizens can be organized and marshalled in their dealings with government. So, uh, to have effective governance, you have to have an effective government that can deliver. You also need the cultural ethic and, uh, and community constructs that allow those desires and needs to be organized and pushed forward to the government. That's part of the work that we're doing there.
Reconciliation?
It refers to one of the benchmarks that was supposed to be tied to continued US financial and military support for Iraq near the end of Bully Boy Bush's second term. No progress was ever made and soon it was forgotten. But reconciliation refers to the Sunnis and the Shi'ites. Specifically, it refers to overturning Paul Bremer's de-Ba'athification. That policy stripped most Sunnis of the ability to serve in government. That policy stripped them of many jobs. It is thought by many -- including every -- that's every! -- witness who appeared before the UK's Iraq Inquiry -- civilian and military witness -- that Bremer's de-Ba'athification was a disaster which destroyed Iraq.
The benchmarks included reconciliation but nothing was done on it -- even to this day.
Another election will be held May 12th and yet again the Justice and Accountability Commission is screening candidates despite the fact that most people were shocked in 2010 that the commission was still around because it had outlived its mandate.
Asked about reconciliation, Mark Green offered nonsense about Christians and Yazidis. Asked about reconciliation, Green spoke definitions of governance, he did not provide one single example of reconciliation and he knew that as he spoke, it was all over his face. The others averted their eyes.
June 14, 2014, then-US President Barack Obama insisted that there needed to be a diplomatic push but, though he soon began bombing Iraq daily, there never was a diplomatic effort. In the time Donald Trump's been president -- about 15 months -- there had been no real diplomatic effort.
Though reconciliation is the best thing for Iraq, it clearly is not the best thing for the occupation of Iraq. A reconciled Iraq could work together and could expel the foreigners in Iraq including the US occupiers. As the US government and the UK government have now spent years admitting that Iraq needs a national reconciliation process but have also spent years refusing to help facilitate that, it is very obvious that the governments do not want a reconciled Iraq -- an Iraq that might take charge of its own destiny.
We've previously noted the US Institute of Peace's Tuesday events in Wednesday's "Iraq snapshot" and in yesterday's snapshot.
While we're noting Brett, let's offer a note to Gina Chon, Rukmini is the new Judith Miller, yes, but she's also got quite a relationship going with your husband. Considering that you left your husband for Brett when you were both in Iraq and he left his wife for you, you might want to wall Rukmini off from your husband.
May 12th, Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections and no one's been bothered by the fact that Ramadan takes place from May 15th to June 14th. Past elections in Iraq have resulted in many delays -- in the case of the 2010 parliamentary elections, many months -- to settle. If the post-election process goes even 1/4 as poorly as it did in 2010, Ramadan will only compound that. Holding the election three days before Ramadan was very poor planning.
Hayder al-Abadi staked his future on the premature claim that he vanquished ISIS in Iraq. That, of course, hasn't proven to be the case. ISIS was supposed to be Hayder's big claim to fame.
Nouri al-Maliki was ousted by Barack Obama in 2014 because ISIS had seized Mosul and other spots. Otherwise, the US would have kept installing Nouri every four years as Bully Boy Bush and Barack had already done. It's that 'stability' that Cordesman is arguing for. Forget that Nouri was running secret prisons and torture sites, forget that this had been exposed in the press, forget that he was disappearing people, forget that he was having the military use tanks to circle the homes of members of Parliament that he didn't like, none of that mattered. Nor did his attacks on journalism and journalists. His forces kidnapped reporters who covered the protests. Even after both NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST reported that, Nouri was still given a pass by Barack.
Hayder hasn't been very effective eliminating corruption either. MEM reported two weeks ago, "Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi yesterday ordered an immediate investigation into allegations that fake jobs in the public sector were being offered to citizens by political parties in order to win votes in the country’s upcoming general elections." ALSUMARIA reported today that the Badr Organization's Hadi al-Amiri stated they would eliminate corruption. He stated that they would create needed jobs and punish those who had stolen Iraq's wealth. Hadi is a militia thug and he's also one of the corrupt -- most infamously, he ordered a plane to remain on the runway and wait for his spoiled son Mahdi to make the flight but the plane left Lebanon without Mahdi on board so al-Amiri, then-Minister of Transportation in Iraq, refused to allow the plane to land. It caused quite an uproar -- as CNN noted in real time.
Geneiva Abdo (THE NATIONAL) offers:
As Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al
Abadi was deciding on coalition partners for his re-election this May,
the two operatives in the room were Qassem Suleimani, the notorious
commander of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hadi Al Ameri, one of the most important commanders of the Shia militias in Iraq under Mr Suleimani’s command.
Mr Suleimani pressured the Iraqi
prime minister into partnering with Shia militia commanders such as Mr
Al Ameri, whom Iran funds and controls. Mr Al Abadi, who is Shia,
initially caved under pressure, but reversed his decision two days later
and is now in a coalition that includes Sunni Muslim parties in an
attempt to show cross-sectarian unity.
That meeting speaks volumes about
the state of Iraq’s elections – the first since the defeat of ISIL last
year – and the country’s political future. At first glance, Iran
appears to still wield enormous influence over Iraqi politics. Indeed,
Tehran has been entrenched militarily in Iraq since
the United States-led invasion of the country in 2003. It also
exercises considerable soft power, in the form of running religious
schools and educational programmes. However, there are several changes
in the political landscape that make it difficult for Iran to maintain
the significant power it has built up. And the Iranian regime appears to
be worried.
Other election issues? Predicting the outcome:
MERI predictions/speculations on Iraq elections:
Total Shiite= 169 +/- 11
Total Kurds= 56 +/- 6
Abadi: 46
Hashd: 41
Maliki: 32
Sadir: 29
Hakim: 21
Allawi: 30
KDP: 25
Barham: 10
Gorran: 8
PUK: 7
Kurdistan Islamists: 6
Read full report & political map
meri-k.org/wp-content/upl…
Voter cards need to be presented in order to vote and not everyone has received them.
1.7 million people in Nineveh Province have not yet received their electoral voter cards that allows them to vote in the upcoming Iraqi elections in May. So far 531,684 people got their voter cards.
#Iraq #IraqElection pic.twitter.com/1yUsNbTFe5
Turning to other problematic areas in the US: Tammy Duckworth. She's the manliest of the troops in Congress, or thinks she is.
I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft-dodger.
—Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D, IL), an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs in a combat mission
Yes, you will be lectured. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. The people and the system have spoken. As the president, he is over the US military in his role of commander in chief. You're insults towards him go far beyond disrespect and attest to your own ethical vacancy. Your insults of people who got deferments go to the fact that you were not raised with manners. Your parents failings reflect in your behavior. You're a member of Congress, try conducting yourself as such. It's raw meat for the knuckle draggers like Bill Morris, but for a lot of others, your insults have crossed a line and go to your own lack of manners and possible derangement.
Considering the lawsuit brought against you for attempting to gag whistle blowers at the VA -- a lawsuit that was settled out of court, not in your favor -- maybe you should learn to seek a lower profile. It's not surprising that someone as disgusting and vile as you would try to hide abuse of veterans at the VA but it is surprising that after this was known you would still try to play Super Solider and Last Voice of Veterans. Well, maybe not surprising. Those raised without manners often were also raised without the ability to feel shame.
The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and Jody Watley -- updated:
Ajamu Baraka on MLIK
9 hours ago
QUANTICO
9 hours ago
Vegetables in space
9 hours ago
The press and the delusions
9 hours ago
Open season on hunting Americans
10 hours ago
Sexist pig boy Chase Madar
10 hours ago
We built that!
10 hours ago
The reality of MSNBC
10 hours ago
