Forum Replies Created
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While she won the women’s vote easily–she lost the white women who did not go to college. Obama won those votes. And since she ran such a gender driven campaign she really lost the white males.
PA it’s always good when you;re in a discussion here so keep it up. I am going to use your remark there as a jumping off point but it’s just that, a diving board. In some ways this is going to sound like a directed screed with targets and simple points BUT it’s not. It’s just a gray-inspired wandering in the gray zones of all this. Part of places like this and discussions like this is just seizing the chance to wander around with thoughts.
I think we, meaning all of us, are often in danger of reproducing the very essentialism we seem to be speaking against. Why? Cause this is tricky. Essentialism, which is a very important concept IMO, is this–when you take someone’s overt and apparent “position” in the race gender class dynamic (eg. I am a white male) and act as if that’s who the person is, to their core, when in fact those things (race class gender) are not set or fixed or easily predictable. That’s what I didn’t like about Ms. Mythic Sally’s pronouncements—she wasn’t a feminist, or if she was she was a bad one, she was an everyday bad old essentialist. “White male misogyny” is in her voice to me the same as “muslim extremist hijad wearing terrorist” in another, different kind of essentialist voice.
Hillary is not my candidate though I voted for her in the general because my line was, Trump is even worse than you think.
She did not lose those people, the ones you list, PA, the mood of the moment did. The mood of the moment magnified the “muslim threat” and contained all of these (said from THAT point of view) black affronts to civilization. Remember, this is the time where, CORRECTLY IMO, some point to the fact that Kaepernick’s demonstration actually cost the NFL a percentage of its audience (I know it’s other things too but that was part of it).
It wasn’t just class, it was resurgent racial attitudes from the past. That’s huge, it’s part of this.
Race and gender are not just symbols. They are lived things. They are real at the policy level too. In fact in the USA the 3 things — race gender class — can’t be isolated from one another. There’s no separate fate for any one of the three things. I personally know I am better off in this country by virtue of being a white male professional. BUT at the same time, and this is why it’s tricky, it never pays to be essentialist about stuff–it is always, at the end of the day, a falsification.
So what I objected to in the Mythic Ms Sally’s remarks was the presumption that came from basic ordinary dumbass essentializing. I don’t begrudge her being a woman and wanting a woman president. In fact to me, when I am caught in a debate with a diehard establishment dem, I don’t even pick up the gender issue–I am just not going to say, well her being a woman makes no difference (it did. WHAT KIND OF DIFFERENCE though? and that’s where it’s tricky.) AT THE SAME TIME I fully get the essentialist trap and am a deep believer that it’s all about policies. Hillary’s policies would be far better than Trump’s though nowhere near as good as Sanders’s.
I don’t have a simple point, really, just that we too can fall into the very traps we guard against. There is no pure position where all tricks and traps and complications fall away and we’re just “right.” So when I heard Mythic Sally say Bernie was all about white misogynist males, I had 2 responses at the same time. One was, both my wife and 2 daughters were dedicated Sanders people. So don’t generalize. The other was, yes gender issues are out there, they’re real, and resisting them is real—if I were predisposed to be blind to that my wife and 2 daughters would constantly enlighten me.
Finally though the thing about Mythic Sally that bugged me the most, personally, wasn’t driven by the content of what she said, it was the style. The style is, this is all about essentialist categories and I am just right. To ME anyway saying Sanders was ALL ABOUT white male misogyny is really no different from saying Obama was all about muslims are all the same and always the enemy.
Anyway this is why it’s tricky. Race gender and class are all equally real things. At the same time that fact in itself can lead to all kinds of too easy essentialism. So it’s a narrow path with thorns on one side and fire ants on the other. ‘
It’s complicated.
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But, maybe not. Maybe she’s stewing hard over it because I pissed her off so much. Dunno. Probably not, but that’s part of the risk, I guess.
Well, basically, forget about her. She strikes me as being too prejudiced to learn. Honest, that was an honest impression. But onlookers coulda gotten something out of it, and we have a good discussion here, which includes onlookers too (maybe even the NSA) (!). Sometimes it’s not so much convincing someone as standing up to them, too. Sometimes you just have to stand up and serve the cause.
Syria chemical attack: Sarin gas likely weapon used in Idlib as experts say Russian claims ‘don’t add up’
Analysts say rebels lack money or expertise to stock deadly nerve agentExperts have dismissed Russia’s claim that a rebel chemical weapons facility caused the death of more than 70 people in Syria as evidence indicating the government’s use of a banned nerve agent mounts.
Britain, the US and France are among the nations accusing Bashar al-Assad’s regime of gassing civilians in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, but Damascus claims it destroyed its toxic stockpiles following an international agreement struck in 2013.
The Russian defence ministry put out a competing version of events claiming that legitimate Syrian air strikes against “terrorists” had struck a warehouse used to produce and store shells containing toxic gas, which were allegedly being sent to Iraq.
“From 11.30am to 12.30pm local time, [9.30am to 10.30am BST] Syrian aircraft conducted an air strike in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun on a large warehouse of ammunition of terrorists and the mass of military equipment,” said Major General Igor Konashenkov, according to a translation by Russian state media.
But witnesses and survivors said the bombs struck hours earlier, with images showing at least one hit a road rather than a building.
Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, called the Russian statement blaming the rebels a “lie” and said rebels did not have the capability to produce nerve gas.
“Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas,” he said.
“Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the manufacture of weapons.”
While Isis is known to have used mustard gas, the area around Khan Sheikhoun is controlled by a range of opposition factions including Islamists and groups linked to al-Qaeda.
Russia accused fighters of deploying chlorine gas in Aleppo but no evidence to support the allegations has been put forward by international agencies, who believe that sarin was deployed in Tuesday’s attack.
Beyza Unal, a research fellow with the International Security Department at Chatham House, said the banned nerve agent is expensive and difficult to purify and store.
“Something that needs a certain level of expertise and also money,” she told The Independent, saying any facility would need the ability to take oxygen out of the area where sarin is stored.
“I don’t think rebel groups would have the ability governments would have to purify nerve agents to a level that would make them stable,” Dr Unal added.
“I don’t buy the Russian claims…the story doesn’t add up.”
She added that images of bomb craters in Khan Sheikhoun indicated small payloads, rather than explosives of the type typically used to destroy an entire building.
Sarin can be fatal when either inhaled or absorbed through the skin, contaminating water and clothing to affect anyone coming into contact with symptoms including blurred vision, choking, nausea, weakness, convulsions, paralysis and respiratory failure.
Several volunteers who rushed to help victims of the initial bombing have themselves been taken ill, including Syrian Civil Defence members.
Hamid Kutini, a volunteer with the White Helmets, told The Independent he and several of his friends are unwell.
“I reached the area early after the attack and am still suffering now with weakness in my vision, a continuous headache, and I am not seeing colours well,” he said.
Mr Kutini said families were asleep when the bombs struck at around 6.30am local time (4.30am BST), with people calling the White Helmets reporting “strange symptoms” including drowsiness.
“We knew that some kind of poison gas was used,” he recalled. “The team found people fainting, and people with froth coming from the mouth, and shivers in their bodies…many died while they were asleep.”
Graphic footage showed rescuers dragging bodies and survivors out of buildings, removing their clothes and hosing them down with water in attempts to remove the toxin.
Doctors said victims started to choke, vomit and convulse with foam coming out of their mouths and pin-point pupils, showing symptoms of possible sarin gas exposure.
Amnesty International said many of at least 20 children killed appeared to have died in their beds, with the lack of visible wounds on their corpses pointing to a chemical attack.
A nurse working at the al-Rahma hospital, which was later bombed, told the charity he heard the bombs strike but with a dull “thump” that was unlike a normal “explosion sound”. Minutes later, the casualties started pouring in.
The youngest victims were the first to succumb to respiratory failure and paralysis, a doctor said, adding: “Children are the first ones to die, they cannot fight this. We only had one child who, thank God, survived.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the symptoms were consistent with “exposure to organophosphorus chemicals, a category of chemicals that includes nerve agents” that are banned as weapons of mass destruction.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) seconded the analysis, saying medical teams that treated affected patients in Bab al-Hawa found symptoms “consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas”.
Doctors also detected the smell of bleach on some victims, “suggesting they had been exposed to chlorine” as one of at least two different chemical agents.
Hassan Elbahtimy, from the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College London, said all evidence available so far pointed to the use of sarin in Khan Shaikhoun.
“In this conflict, it is the regime that ultimately is more capable to mount chemical attacks,” he told The Independent, pointing to the previous sarin attack on Ghouta in 2013.
“They were supposed to have declared all their chemical weapons, including sarin stocks, which got destroyed under international supervision.
“If this turns out to be sarin and the regime is responsible, it means either they did not get rid of all their stocks or managed to reconstitute some of their production and handling capabilities.”
Dr Elbahtimy said Khan Sheikhoun was a “significant” target for Assad’s forces as it borders a motorway connecting government-held cities with rebel strongholds in the north.
The area saw intense fighting in 2016, with previous allegations of chlorine attacks levelled at the government.
Ammar Abdullah, a citizen journalist, told The Independent he had seen chlorine gas before but it was “nothing like this”, adding that friends from Damascus compared the symptoms to those seen in the Ghouta attack.
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ADDED BY EDIT APRIL 17: JUST ANOTHER ARTICLE ON THIS I HAD.
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Syria chemical weapons attack toll rises to 70 as Russian narrative is dismissed
Weapons expert says Russian claim that airstrike hit ‘terrorist warehouse’ in Idlib province is fancifulhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/syria-chemical-attack-idlib-province
At least 70 people have been killed in northern Syria after being exposed to a toxic gas that survivors said was dropped from warplanes, an attack that sparked comparisons to the most infamous act of the country’s six-year war.
At least another 100 people were being treated in hospitals in Idlib province where the strike took place at dawn on Tuesday. Several dozen others were transferred to Turkey, some in critical condition.
Condemnation mounted throughout Tuesday as the US, Britain and EU blamed the Syrian government for the carnage, hours before the start of a donor conference on Syria in Brussels.
Donald Trump denounced the carnage as a “heinous” act that “cannot be ignored by the civilised world”. But he also laid some of the responsibility on Barack Obama, saying in a statement that the attack was “a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution”.
Theresa May said she was appalled by reports of the attack and called for an investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “I’m very clear that there can be no future for Assad in a stable Syria which is representative of all the Syrian people and I call on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad. We cannot allow this suffering to continue,” she said.
UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the latest death toll in Khan Sheikhoun at 72 by Wednesday morning, including 20 children.
The Syrian military said it “categorically denied” responsibility. Russia, which has heavily backed the Syrian regime, said its planes were not operating near Idlib. Early on Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry claimed a Syrian airstrike had hit a “terrorist warehouse” containing an arsenal of “toxic substances” destined for fighters in Iraq. The ministry did not state if the attack was deliberate.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Hamish de Bretton Gordon, director of Doctors Under Fire and former commanding officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment, said this claim was “completely untrue”.
“No I think this [claim] is pretty fanciful, no doubt the Russians trying to protect their allies,” he said. “Axiomatically, if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”
“It’s very clear it’s a sarin attack,” he added. “The view that it’s an al-Qaida or rebel stockpile of sarin that’s been blown up in an explosion, I think is completely unsustainable and completely untrue.”
Hours after the attack, a hospital treating the injured was also hit. Images taken inside the clinic appeared to depict the blast as it happened. Photographs and videos taken at the scene and in evacuation areas nearby showed rows of small, lifeless children, some with foam visible near their mouths.
Save the Children said at least 11 children were among the casualties.
Jerry Smith, the operations chief of the UN-led team that supervised the removal of Syria’s sarin stockpiles following the gas attack on the rebel-held Ghouta area of Damascus four years ago, said: “This absolutely reeks of 2013 all over again.” In that attack, more than 1,300 people were killed. The UN said the perpetrators probably had access to the stockpile of sarin held by the Syrian military at the time, as well as the expertise to use it.
In the aftermath of the Ghouta massacre, a UN team supervised the surrender of Syria’s sarin supplies, the removal of which was supposed to have been completed early in 2014. However, suspicions have remained that a portion of the stockpile was not declared to inspectors.
Tuesday’s attack struck Khan Sheikhun, where there are thousands of refugees from the nearby province of Hama who have fled recent fighting. The town is also on a crossroads between Hama and Idlib and is considered vital to any regime offensive towards the northern city of Idlib.
“In this most recent attack, dozens of children suffocated to death while they slept,” said Ahmad Tarakji, the head of the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams), which supports hospitals in opposition-controlled areas in Syria. “This should strike at the very core of our humanity. How much longer will the world fail to respond to these heinous crimes?”
Sams said its doctors had determined that the symptoms of the patients were consistent with exposure to organic phosphorus compounds such as the nerve agent sarin, which is banned by the chemical weapons convention.
Smith said: “If you look at the footage itself, the victims don’t have any physical trauma injuries. There is foaming and pinpointed pupils, in particular. This appears to be some kind of organo-phosphate poison. In theory, a nerve agent. What is striking is that it would appear to be more than chlorine. The toxicity of chlorine does not lend itself to the sort of injuries and numbers that we have seen.”
Tuesday’s strike came days after the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the Trump administration was no longer prioritising the removal of Assad, and that the Syrian people would ultimately decide his fate.
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, made similar comments on Monday, affirming a shift in US policy that began under the Obama administration.
Critics of the stance have said that the absence of a credible threat has given the regime licence to commit war crimes with impunity as its backers, Iran and Russia, steadily claw back years of battlefield losses.
The UN security council said it would hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the attack, after a request from Britain and France.
“Everyone is horrified and the children are in total shock,” said Mohammad Hassoun, a spokesman for civil defence rescue workers in the nearby town of Sarmin, which received 14 of the wounded from Tuesday’s attack. Hassoun said the victims were bleeding from the nose and mouth, had constricted irises and suffered from convulsions.
“The total number of wounded is incredible. So far it’s over 200,” said Mohammad, a doctor at another hospital in Idlib. “We received over 20 victims and most of them are children, and two of them in the ICU are extremely critical. There are a lot of injured.” Mohammad said the victims he had seen were drifting in and out of consciousness. Many were on respirators.
Few hospitals in Idlib have the capacity to deal with the symptoms of chemical attacks due to the repeated bombing of medical facilities by forces loyal to the government and lack sufficient oxygen tanks to treat victims.
Idlib is one of the last bastions of rebel control in Syria, and has been subjected to a relentless campaign of aerial bombardment despite a supposed ceasefire brokered this year by Russia and Turkey that was aimed at paving the way for political negotiations.
The raid in Khan Sheikhun indicates Assad’s growing confidence. He has wrested control of territory from the rebels, including the entire city of Aleppo, in recent months. His regime has benefited from the unflinching support of Moscow and Shia militias backed by Iran, as well as waning support for the opposition by its allies in the region and the new US administration.
The attack will refocus attention on the failure of the international community to prevent the worst abuses in Syria’s war, and casts doubt on a signature achievement of Obama’s government, which negotiated the presumed destruction of Assad’s chemical arsenal in 2013.
That deal followed the sarin gas attack on Ghouta, which nearly prompted a US intervention in the conflict. Since then, chemical attacks have continued on a smaller scale, mostly deploying chlorine gas, which was not covered by the deal because it has industrial uses.
However, a similar devastating attack to the Idlib strike took place in east Hama last December, with at least 93 people dying and several hundred more being wounded after exposure to what local authorities described as a nerve agent. Western intelligence agencies believe sarin was used in that attack, but were unable to retrieve biological samples that could prove their fears.
Smith said the recovery of samples would be pivotal to the investigation of the Idlib strike. “It is one of the most important things now to get biological samples, interviews and environmental samples, ideally from witnesses who can also give statements,” he said.
from What It Means: Rams Hire Wade Phillips to be Defensive Coordinator
By John Turney
http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-it-means-rams-hire-wade-phillips.html
This is what will be used in Los Angeles. The end here is a 3-technique and has one gap to control. The nose is in a shade alignment and the weak end or open end in a 5-technique, all one-gap assignments since this is a 3-4 one-gap system when aligned this way. It is no different that a 4-3 undershifted defense.
What Phillips can and will likely do is switch Aaron Donald from side to side and always play the 3-technque. Michael Brockers can stay as a shade technique, which he has been playing since 2014. Robert Quinn does not have to stand up, he can play with his hand in the dirt and play the Will position. Alec Ogletree will remain the Mike and Mark Barron can play the Mo backer, which Phillips says is more of the “coverage linebacker”.
In an era where almost all offensive and defensive schemes are hybrids, borrowing from other schemes and melded together the 3-4 one gap won’t hurt what the Rams vaunted defensive line can do. There may be questions here and there as to whether Quinn, when called upon, can cover, which he will have to do a little bit to mix up games and stunts and blitzes that are needed in trying to confuse NFL offenses.
