No! Men, Don’t Just Shut Up!

“What defines the success of a movement? Is it how loudly its message resounds? Or is it how much tangible change it makes in the lives of those it was formed to protect? … Awareness is hollow if not followed by measurable action that makes a difference.”  – Mira Sorvino

 

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• Extending the statute of limitations on filing sexual harassment claims from one to three years (comparable with other civil claims).
• Expanding the scope of sexual harassment protections in professional relationships, including redefining who can be liable for harassment beyond one’s direct employer (vital in today’s growing gig economy).
• Ending the impunity afforded abusers by the “one free grope” rule (shockingly, still followed).
• Mandating sexual harassment training in all businesses with more than five employees (instead of the current threshold of 50) and applying it to all workers (not just supervisors). The training would include “bystander intervention” techniques, potentially mobilizing whole workforces as reciprocally protective communities.
• Outlawing unscrupulous legal tactics employers use to keep victims from speaking and to shield harassers

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Five critical bills concerning workplace harassment — AB 1870, SB 224, SB 1343, SB 1300 and AB 3080 that sit on the California governor’s desk.  He has until Sept. 30 to act on them.

Men don’t buy into the latest public insanity of oversimplifying and latching on to governance by meme.  No don’t “Just Shut Up”.  Speak up loudly about your support for these types of changes.  Ask women close to you or those who are willing to enter constructive conversations to share their experiences and offer specific things we all can do to turn this cultural ship around, to put it on its ear.

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… I credit Jim Wagner for bringing an article* to my attention that contained these salient points.  Jim, a man who incidentally was told to just shut up, but he didn’t because he can’t and shouldn’t. Drop it folks, listening isn’t a passive exercise wherein people in pain howling at the moon only to have the same sun rise each day. It’s an active exercise wherein the very preconceptions and prejudices that created a dysfunctional community are brought into the light, challenged, and changed for the benefit of the entire community.  Silence is retribution, a form of jail bestowed on a whole class of people who didn’t invent the norms, but sure are a big part of pushing and pulling to move us all to be far more compassionate and respectful of everyone in the community.  Parity takes courage to hear the things we don’t understand or agree with and then work together to actually achieve a measurable balanced outcome.

  

*If the governor signs five sexual harassment bills, California will lead in protecting women

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Stereotyping, Retribution, and Feel Good Misery]

No more quiet acquiescence to stereotyping from folks who think the end justifies the means and that their personal pain gives them the authority to swing wildly at anything that moves outside their own tightly controlled framework. This is what happens when retribution and vengeance, even cultural paranoia sees ghosts around every corner. We require the child to suffer the parent’s indiscretions. We declare our misery greater than other’s misery, even to the point of assessing their misery as privilege. We see our inability to immediately stand against abuse as justifying later day abuses of our own. We excuse political overreach as valid restitution for age-old norms that no longer stand as proper; i.e., no longer normative precisely because free-will and experience leads us to evolve.

It’s not Progressive to weaponize simplistic explanations of a very complicated multivariate universe, cultural or otherwise. It’s not parity when you demand personal responsibility for the evil or misguided actions of one’s neighbor. The human animal is a private animal that’s endowed with free will and a collection of very personal and unique experiences to draw upon when consciously and unconsciously acting.

Yes, by all means advocate for change, ask neighbors to be 100% engaged in community, be 100% transparent and demand the same from your community and governance, and understand that a community creates systemic features that will be barriers to parity and civility no matter it’s individual and collective well intentions. No, not every soul who appears to or actually shares similar or generational DNA, cultural or biological, makes the same choices as their lineage, their stereotyped neighbor or parentage.

Be aware that when swinging about and flaying one’s proverbial hands and arms, you’re not going to experience the hugs and collaborations needed to overcome personal tragedies and collective angst and/or abuses. Rage in any form is violence and violence breeds violence, if not then resistance for sure. To understand peace and it’s powerful ability to decompress and set the stage for the collective rejection of abuse and enslavement by the power elite we should look to great people who faced death, some dying, having chosen nonviolence as their “go to” action or reaction.

No the universe is not fair, we humans, the thinking animal, judged fair based on our personal choices. Do we choose peace? Do we reject stereotyping? Are we transparent? Do we elevate those who struggle to elevate themselves? Do we seek remedy via constructive (positive) engagement? Do we forgive so much that we find we’ve truly cleared our memory of pain and suffering? Do we share our prosperity, even our limited advantage given by accident of birth, with those in need whether physical, mental, or emotional?

Sabotaging Diversity

I haven’t written in a while. I’ve had some time to think and reflect. The bug is returning, if not ever so slow. I’ve evolved my social media toolkit; creating different platforms in order to help friends and pen pals choose what content they are more or less forced to interact with as pertains to my diverse interests. Front Porch Cinversations is tab in my binder where I hope to place random questions and thoughts about community, governance, and life in general. It’s not a family scrapbook, or personal diary, or intellectual thesis. It’s a place where I can say things without months and months of research. It’s inpressiins. It’s also a place where I can say never mind because my heart and soul got out in front of my mind or my mind simply had a weak moment and moved to emote rather than analyze everything to death before leaving a bookmark as pertains to random thoughts or even dreams.

So then, this morning I found myself both thinking and perplexed.

Why is it in the name of diversity a goodly number of people work to remove the very distinctions that created it? There’s a laziness to it. It takes patience and understanding to see and encourage diversity and honor its distinctions. Whitewashing (as in painting everything with the same paint) doesn’t reflect the beauty that is Mother Nature; it’s a catastrophic winter event where all of the natural distinctions disappear and the sky, road, and side views disappear such that we fear moving in any direction or worse we crash into the indistinguishable. Being different is more than ok; more importantly it’s the foundation for a more robust environment and generational longevity. I am proudly a genetic male. My wife is proudly a genetic female. We chose to procreate. We chose to be a husband and a wife. We choose to go topless or covered. We choose! That’s what animals given a human brain do. To not understand that animals across every species model diversity such that their life behaviors can sustain the species is to take exception to the very Mother Nature that is so commonly referenced to justify diversity in the first place. Encourage strength of thought and character in individuals do that they can see diversity and chose their pathway forward without placing restraints on others free will to choose their own pathway. That’s not a world of monochrome habitats and simplistic language and images. It’s a very rich ecosystem that acknowledges diversity, analytical thinking and choice. And for the sake Mother Nature and Humanity in particular stop sweeping people into one genetic bin or isolating people into monolithic safe havens wherein the occupants jealously guard their biological or social heritage thinking that evolution is a strategic and diabolical plan to erase the human legacy; it’s Mother Nature creating new diversities, ones that may never look like those that preceded it.

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The need for critical thinking in conversations about women’s lives, as a function of social protocols

This is Alec Baldwin speaking about his understanding of once Sen. Wiener; yes that guy. I almost subtitled this why Alex Baldwin is an asshole and a political-social hypocrite.

“Weiner is the modern, high functioning man. The fact that he is married is just one, albeit a huge, factor. I know many people who divorce over such issues of online betrayal. Appointment sex with your spouse doesn’t always arrive when you need it most. A modern cell phone, loaded with contacts of willing fellow players, has a table with a red checkered table cloth ready for you at virtually any time.

We tell ourselves that these devices help us communicate more effectively. What they actually do is allow us to bypass the person lying right next to us, across the room from us or at an airport heading home to us, in order to meet our immediate, even inconvenient, needs. To bypass their moods, their current view of us and their own desires, or lack thereof.

Weiner is a modern human being. So he ensnared himself in things that modern humans do. When I first heard about his problems, I snickered and made jokes, too. Now, I’m sad for him, his family, his district and his colleagues.

Let he who is without sin…..”

• HuffPost , August 09, 2011

It’s no wonder women are abused and fight glass ceilings. They are objects to be excused and compelled to understand we are after all guiltless modern men.

Now explain to me again how it is that the conservative man or women is exclusively a wretched Soul for overlooking a braggart. I wrote harshly about this August 2011 absolution by Alec, yet today Alec is considered by some a modern day hero for funning Trump about his foul play. In light of the recent Weinstein revelations maybe it’s time to choose a different course than feeding at the trough called Hollywood Movies and TV as we know it and giving either of these any sway over our moral code. Time for critical thinking to become our mode of operation and stop following the lead of others simply because they have the stage, whether political or social.

ISIS reaching out to the U.S. from Syria

“They received instructions from senior ISIL leaders in Syria. They were committed to violence.”

 

CNN story

90-10 …pathos?

Understanding that humanity is 90% accident of birth — be it our physical, intellectual, emotional, social, or cultural birth reality — and 10% motivation leads us to humility which is essential to comity and community.

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William Anton Lee
2017, February 09
[90-10 …pathos?]

[The Women in President Trump’s Life]

[Political Thought]

As much as I dislike Pres. Trump and wish him a speedy 4 years and out, this concerted effort to whack his wife’s and daughter’s businesses is not a good idea. We speak about progressive values, we speak to women being their own masters and not being hooked at the hip with male partners, and then we jam these two for being strong and successful individuals. Punishing the women for the man is medieval.

From a practical perspective, those close to this President tell us these women are having a positive impact on Pres. Trump, bringing him to soften the alt-right pissants around him. We need to encourage these women to continue to soften Pres. Trump up. They will outlive the Bannon’s of this Presidency. For all the nonsense about his daughter being family and an improper counselor, better her than Bannon. For all the nonsense about his wife protecting the son’s school year, better she protects the child and comfortably integrates their family life in the coming 3 1/2 years. Nothing more counterproductive than burning down their family and livelihoods and their independence, when winning their hearts and thanking them for challenging the men around Trump is so far more constructive.

If we can’t see that Pres. Trump (and the women largely credited as the first women to manage a successful political/pr campaign into a Whitehouse win) is lashing out as a father and husband (and friend) and not as the Office of the President, then we’re collectively lost in the weeds. This lack of focus on resonating economic issues is what stopped Bernie’s message from dominating the airwaves and led to a Pres. Trump in the first place.

I’m not a fan of blind rage. I want Bernie’s fact based message to be the counter message every night on the news. Stop the distractions.

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