Minnesota's 2018 special Senate election for Al Franken's seat sets up seismic political shift

Article here. Excerpt:

'Political operatives in Minnesota and Washington were drawing up lists of candidates to run for Sen. Al Franken’s Senate seat even before his resignation speech last week, searching for prospects with the profile, fundraising prowess and mettle to sprint to next November’s special election — and then do it again in 2020 to hold the seat another six years.

Franken’s decision to step down amid a growing sexual-harassment scandal has scrambled Minnesota’s 2018 election, which was already on track to be the most high-stakes political cycle in the state in years. The looming battle for control of the U.S. House could run through up to five competitive races in Minnesota, and an open governor’s race puts Republicans in a position to take full control of state government for the first time in half a century.

No one has declared for the new Senate race yet, but many big names are in the mix. DFL Lt. Gov. Tina Smith and former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty are among those being discussed, but both parties will consider a half dozen or more possible contenders. Smith, seen as Gov. Mark Dayton’s likeliest choice as Franken’s immediate replacement through the special election, has emerged as a possible candidate for the long term. She was initially viewed as a caretaker appointment who wouldn’t run.

“Anyone who gets in will need to demonstrate an ability to organize quickly, fundraise and create a campaign to go the distance, and the distance is 2018 and then again in 2020. That will be a deterrent,” said Doug Loon, president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Spending on contested U.S. Senate races easily reaches into the tens of millions of dollars, and candidates face a level of scrutiny that’s probably second only to presidential contenders.'

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Was emailing a friend about Garrison Keillor's professional demise and found myself writing one of my essays. I wandered into outlining the progression of feminism from wave 1 (SBA) to now, and what is going on (at least, what I think is). I will share the bulk of my diatribe below and ask for feedback.

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AND YET.... a couple anonymous unscrutinized accusations of some kind of impropriety that rises to no level of offense under the law at all brought the whole thing down to the point that GK [Garrison Keillor] and his decades of A++ orig. comedy work has all been discarded. What did he do that was so wrong? Rape? Repeated acts of rape? Child molesting? No. Supposedly he touched a woman's back. That is the only thing I am aware of. She didn't like how it felt-- years later, she says so. And suddenly -- un-personed.

No man is safe when the standards for becoming a pariah subjected to radical social demotion and relief of means of livelihood in some cases are reduced to this: whispered accusations from anonymous sources reported 2nd- and 3rd-hand by non-authoritative entities (ie, non-law enforcement or gov't officials) mentioned once and then copied and spawned over social media, picked up by news that then repeats it ad infinitum.

As I said on MANN, it's enough to make a man be glad he hasn't ever succeeded much. To be a man in a position of responsibility and/or accomplishment is to have a target on your back. Feminists have been planning and plotting for decades, waiting for the chance to topple as many male leaders and socially prominent people as they can. Bringing men down is what 4th-wave feminism is about. Ppl still talk of 3rd wave feminism. That is sooo 1990s. 'Tis now the 2000s. A new chapter is being written. From getting equal rights under the law it has by measures morphed into "bring the men down". It is no longer about equality. That died last century. 2nd wave feminism got the idea that it was about preeminence in society; whose interests shall win out? It began with "women's lib", which indeed had some good points to make and work to do. But that was stage 1. Stage 2 was an exercise in taking over the feminist agenda. (See "Who Stole Feminism?" by CH Sommers) By the end of 2nd wave feminism, it was now in the hands of women who had no use for men in their lives or in society (unless you count the men who picked up their trash). This was the dawn of the radfems, the bull-dike feminists. By the mid-80s and into the 90s, it was 3rd wave feminism. The gloves came off. "Patriarchy" was the problem, manifest by men and society. It was responsible for countless acts of oppression through civilized history and was the boot on the necks of women and people of color, as "patriarchy" indeed had a color: white. Common cause was made. The populist party of America, the Democrats, was targeted as a possible fertile field for them to colonize. After all, they could form a new party or take over an existing one. The GOP was out of the question but the Dems... they had been approachable to the feminist agenda in the 1970s, why not push it further? So torch-bearers were identified. They knew they had to wait patiently for their chances. They found a few, HRC among them. There were others... Nancy P, for example. Still others, less well-known, but they had a future if they wanted it. They put in their time, amped up the woman-power volume, lobbied, complained, screamed, sent out mailers, funded EMILY'S LIST, and worked... and worked... and waited.... HRC was their foot in the door. The $$ the Clinton Foundation raised was the key. After Obama left the DNC a wreck financially, they saw their opportunity. HRC would save the DNC but at a price: she would win, by hook or by crook, the nomination. And her people would run the show. The DNC, lacking leadership from any other quarter and broke as can be, capitulated.

Show-time! Decades of waiting, plotting, planning, coordinating... the SJWs/feminists on college campuses didn't happen by accident. The whole thing has been plotted and executed. The goal became not mere equality. A 50/50 split of male and female representatives would somehow always mean that men had a controlling say in matters vital to feminism's agenda, an agenda nothing short of the marginalization of men and boys to the point that their issues and interests as a class were not only not on the radar but any effort to put them there would be aggressively assailed. But how to do this?

Paint all men as monsters waiting to pounce. There were and are indeed some who fit the bill. But too few. To get the male sex considered deprecated in terms of holding positions of power or influence in any way, political, social, financial... men had to be seen as unfit to wield power, by nature, categorically. As far as feminists are concerned, fair's fair. After all, for millennia, didn't both men and women consider women unfit to do the same? Time for some social justice. Men may have created civilization, but now that male labor has been replaced by their own inventions, need civilization remain in the hands of men? Maybe not. Definitely not.

Since the dawn of Man, women have had to play 2nd fiddle to men simply because of how humanity has evolved biologically. It's not fair. But now... it's OUR TURN.

4th wave feminism dawned with one plank in the platform: Bring them down. The tall oak trees must be toppled and replaced by the kinder, gentler (supposedly) firs. Indeed, to make this happen, men must be tarred broadly as dangerous. We've seen it before. Men have done so to other men for centuries. Political parties painting one another as evil, one ethnic group painting the other likewise.... just the past century, look at what Hitler and his men did? Yes, it can be done. An entire class of person despite all evidence to the contrary can indeed be drawn as vilifiable, and it is esp. easy when members of that class are so much in competition with one another that they will gladly throw one another under the bus. Civil wars are made of such dynamics. Combine that with the well-known tendency of men to want to protect women (something women are all too familiar with) and you have it. It's almost too easy. Just line up enough women to denounce men as as dangerous and predatory and target individual men. Complain about ANYTHING and say just a few things and the men around those men will do the work for you. It's really too easy.

If current trends continued, the House may be 50% female by when, 2050? Too late. No, the House really should be 60% female.... by 2025 if at all possible. That can be arranged. Just start accusing men, esp. respected ones, of misconduct. Pick something, anything. A flirtatious interlude. A bawdy joke. Anything. Complain about it. Act frightened and victimized. Down he will fall. And so it works.

The environment is target-rich. Now that "the standard" is set, anyone is good. Pick men you don't like to start with and bring them down. The assholes. Everyone knows who they are. No one will miss them. No one will help them. Once that is established, go after the ones who happen to be in the way. Each man taken down is likely to be replaced by a woman. That pattern has already been established. Political offices are elected so that represents a challenge. But get the public to begin to believe that men are inherently incompetent to execute government administration (contrary to 1000s of years of history) and eventually, with enough women voting, the numbers will start lookin' good.

We've seen the preview. Only 35% of US college graduates are now men. But that isn't good enough for feminists. The attack continues. "Until all women are safe," goes the cry. There is only one way to read that: a man-free campus. Having just one is a danger to women. The feminists have noticed something: no one seems to care when a line of work or school is populated entirely by females. But they shit their pants when it's entirely men. Wonderful. It's too good.

As go the fortunes of men, so go the fortunes of a people. Every time a civilization has collapsed, the loss of the well-being of its men have preceded it. Communities of men can thrive and prosper. Communities of women collapse. Throughout human history, there have been women who did not want to live under the care/protection/domination of men, so they have gone forth and tried to establish man-free societies. They have always collapsed. Not due to invasion, but due to unsustainability/reversion of membership back to co-ed society. Societies that have lost men from their positions socially have dissipated and collapsed. Ancient Egypt is a prime example. The society need not become all-female. It need merely marginalize its men. And it isn't long before it simply falls apart and the population scatters, and new political and social systems arise. These systems are once again governed by men.

What is different about this particular cycle is that we have nuclear bombs deterring other societies from encroaching. We also live in an abundant place that shows little signs of slowing down in terms of its productivity. And the male population seems more inclined to let itself be pussy-beat into submission than just plain not put up with their shit. Most I fancy look forward to the joys of banging sex-droids and hope to fly under the radar and not be singled out by feminists. Best way to do that is do little. Soon we'll all be on welfare, anyway, the robots are coming for our jobs. So who cares? Besides, it's not ME they're coming for. I am not rich or powerful.

Well, brother, you don't have to be. You just have to be male.

We'll just have to see how it goes, as always.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-09/the-weinstein-effect-has-tentacles-that-reach-for-the-powerful/9129152

'Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California Berkeley and has spent 25 years studying power.

He said the Weinstein case "brought together every force that makes power problematic".

"It is striking to just think about the context that 95 per cent of directors in Hollywood are male," Professor Keltner said.
...
There are fewer women in positions of power, therefore there are fewer women who abuse power.

"There has been a historical view in Australia that sexual assault and harassment happens because men can't control their urges," Ms Jenkins said.

"But these situations don't happen everywhere, they happen in situations of power. They happen where speaking up is difficult."
...
Maybe the Weinstein tide will subside only when it has dredged up the last of these abuses of power and we get to a point where it's a good time to be someone who identifies as any gender.

"We need to move from big villains to the small everyday things that lead to this environment where we tolerate sexual harassment," Ms Jenkins said.'

Read between the lines. This is about replacing men in powerful positions with women. The idea that innocent men may get unjustly accused has been declared entirely tolerable if not desirable by the #metoo crowd. Put 2 and 2 together.

It's a gender-based power-grab. Nothing more. Are some motivated by the desire to see men like H Weinstein booted from high places so their harassing ways are stopped? I don't doubt it. But along with those kinds they want men generally tossed out.

When elections for seats vacated by men who resign from accusations are held, mark my words, should a male and female candidate vie for his spot, her supporters and she herself will claim that justice demands the seat go to a woman regardless of her qualifications. The same will/is happening in re private sector or appointed positions. The demand will be to replace outgoing pols or sr. mgrs. with women, period. So long as it has a vagina, it should be the winner.

Ultimately this is a power-grab. Is it also an attempt to de-throne actually objectionable men? Yes. But at its core, it's a gender-based power-grab.

Thing is, I think most ppl know this but don't care. I think they're actually fine with it. For this reason, I doubt the abstract interests of justice will be served. No one, or at least not enough ppl, seem to care. Looks like the 30+ years' campaign to villify men has finally paid off for the feminists.

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