Interesting reads
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@antipodean I've seen his stuff occasionally and its pretty good. My favourite bit was:
It was Paul Valéry who called Ancient Greece “the most beautiful invention of the modern age”, and it should be a redundancy to acknowledge that most of the enslaved and benighted populations of the ancient world had no freedoms at all, let alone freedom of speech. Few women had public lives, and none had political lives. Oratory and rhetoric were confined to an elite class of citizens, who could still be put to death, torture or exile for the things that they said. It’s telling that two famous speech-makers of this time, Socrates and Cicero, were both killed for their words. So why bother? Why keep up this pretence? Because you can only pretend free speech is under attack like “never before” if the image of “before” is bowdlerised to the point of pure fantasy. And because the West must meet a unitary definition against its great enemy, Islam.
Here is the abridged version: empiricism and freedom of speech were invented in the ancient world, and fought a long battle against groupthink among the governments, fellow citizens and the church. Eventually, heretics like Galileo won out, and the Renaissance happened. Western civilisation was born, or maybe reborn, and so were Judeo-Christian values, or “secular Christian values”. (You can insert any number of other contradictory dualisms here.) Then the Enlightenment happened, and these freedoms were codified into the Westminster system, the American Constitution and various other things not really identified. There was some science. And throughout all this time, Muslims tried to conquer Europe with their weaponised intolerance, and were repulsed everywhere from Tours to Vienna. (Malcolm Roberts even managed to add the Anzac landings at Gallipoli to this list.) Now multiculturalism has made the West weak and feckless, and Muslims can conquer Europe simply by having babies.
This strange image of the past can never explain why Rome had an emperor called Philip the Arab, or why the Jews of Spain betrayed their cities to Moorish invaders, or why Italian migrants to Australia were greeted with race riots, or why Protestants in Amsterdam would not marry their Catholics, or why the founding fathers were deists or why in the face of existential threat Christians allied with Muslims against fellow Christians all the time. In fact, this bogus history can’t explain the West at all, and those who believe it end up enacting perverse forms of revanchism, aimed at a non-existent past.
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My favourite part was this particularly the last sentence, if god exists he has a good sense of humour.
One Nation candidates cottoned on. Margaret Dodd, running for the seat of Scarborough, quit the party just 24 hours before the poll. In a statement she said that “PHON in my eyes are not about the WA people and their future but for personal power for Senator Hanson, who will do and say anything to achieve her goal at whatever cost”. “Saying anything” had extended to mid-campaign endorsements of both Vladimir Putin and a pre-vaccination “test” no one had heard of, off-piste pronouncements that had left even the disaffected in the electorate bewildered. The protest vote found a home elsewhere, and, in a karmic footnote, a federal One Nation senator came down with measles.
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The same guy who authored the article above tweeted a link to this one on Mike Judge:
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A fair few times on here people have given their view re Roman Polanski, this is a the AMA (Ask Me Anything) by the victim from Reddit the other day. If it (the Polanski case) is one you like to go off on, its a good read.
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A surprisingly high number of folks on here bring it up, and categorically state an opinion on it. So I'm assuming have an interst in the case.
So having the actual victim explain her position is a good read. Like anything on here its only a good read if it interests you, for me it had some interesting points about her life view, her view of the judicial process etc.
If its not interesting to you, I'd suggest you don't read it.
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@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum I found it odd that she kept saying Polanski went on the run because the judge lied to him despite people giving her quite lengthy explanations as to why she was wrong .
Yeah. I chuckled at that too, welcome to the internet eh, where people who have "done the research" know more about the case than the people in the actual case, apparently. It is sureal the number of people telling her she had the facts wrong.
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@gollum said in Interesting reads:
@antipodean
A surprisingly high number of folks on here bring it up, and categorically state an opinion on it. So I'm assuming have an interst in the case.Yeah, you already said that. It doesn't tell me why it's a good read.
So having the actual victim explain her position is a good read.
Which would be..?
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Seriously? just read the fricking thing if you are interested in the case. Or don't read it if you aren't
Like literally every single read on this thread...
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@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum I found it odd that she kept saying Polanski went on the run because the judge lied to him despite people giving her quite lengthy explanations as to why she was wrong .
The forgiveness she's found is no doubt healthy for her emotional and mental state, but she really does come over as an apologist/ advocate for her attacker. Like a strange Stockholm syndrome.
@gollum said in Interesting reads:
@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum I found it odd that she kept saying Polanski went on the run because the judge lied to him despite people giving her quite lengthy explanations as to why she was wrong .
Yeah. I chuckled at that too, welcome to the internet eh, where people who have "done the research" know more about the case than the people in the actual case, apparently. It is sureal the number of people telling her she had the facts wrong.
Because the victim of a crime is the authority on the applicable statute?
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@antipodean said in Interesting reads:
@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum I found it odd that she kept saying Polanski went on the run because the judge lied to him despite people giving her quite lengthy explanations as to why she was wrong .
The forgiveness she's found is no doubt healthy for her emotional and mental state, but she really does come over as an apologist/ advocate for her attacker. Like a strange Stockholm syndrome.
@gollum said in Interesting reads:
@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum I found it odd that she kept saying Polanski went on the run because the judge lied to him despite people giving her quite lengthy explanations as to why she was wrong .
Yeah. I chuckled at that too, welcome to the internet eh, where people who have "done the research" know more about the case than the people in the actual case, apparently. It is sureal the number of people telling her she had the facts wrong.
Because the victim of a crime is the authority on the applicable statute?
Agree it's part of helping her move on , I didn't realise his apologists had built up such a myth about why he did a runner . It seems like she's bought into it too as a coping mechanism even in the face of people quoting large chunks of the law to show why she is wrong.
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@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum calm down , I never said it wasn't interesting. I think it's pretty odd she empathises with Polanski and see the judge as the villain though.
To me it read that Polanski (to her) made a big mistake & was a shitty guy for doing that. But what happened next was out of all proportion & has been distorted WAY beyond what it was. She also has an attitude that this - guys in power sexually abusing kids, was 100% the norm then & still is in Hollywood, and thats horrific, but its reality, so crucifying Polanksi & destroying her life to do so is almost worse. And anyone going "oh my god! Polanski must pay!!" & going on a crusade is a hypocrite (to her) as can they possibly not know this is 1 of thousands? Where are they in those cases?
She points out that she has more of an issue with the people who had no idea what happened but blew it up - thus causing her endless trauma, than she does with Polanski. With a judge who agreed a deal (a situation that is almost never renegged on - literally never) but then for whatever reason switched. I can buy that. Its less she now likes Polanski its more she sees & can judge what he did & what others have done in response & personally can see which ones caused her the most trauma & damage.
She only empathises with Polanski in that, like her, this event was drawn out to define & destroy both their lives by people who very much did not have justice for her at the forefront of their minds.
She doesn't in any way empathise with him re what he did to her.
This case should have been a gateway to Hollywood going "ok this shit is happening & we need to stop" instead it became "we are all good, we just need to get Polanski". And her life being thrown under the bus was just collateral.
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@gollum said in Interesting reads:
@jegga said in Interesting reads:
@gollum calm down , I never said it wasn't interesting. I think it's pretty odd she empathises with Polanski and see the judge as the villain though.
To me it read that Polanski (to her) made a big mistake & was a shitty guy for doing that. But what happened next was out of all proportion & has been distorted WAY beyond what it was. She also has an attitude that this - guys in power sexually abusing kids, was 100% the norm then & still is in Hollywood, and thats horrific, but its reality, so crucifying Polanksi & destroying her life to do so is almost worse. And anyone going "oh my god! Polanski must pay!!" & going on a crusade is a hypocrite (to her) as can they possibly not know this is 1 of thousands? Where are they in those cases?
So despite her allegation and the fact he absconded, we should ignore it? Or we should ignore all rape cases in future because not all of them are reported?
She points out that she has more of an issue with the people who had no idea what happened but blew it up - thus causing her endless trauma, than she does with Polanski. With a judge who agreed a deal (a situation that is almost never renegged on - literally never) but then for whatever reason switched. I can buy that. Its less she now likes Polanski its more she sees & can judge what he did & what others have done in response & personally can see which ones caused her the most trauma & damage.
Is the word almost figurative or literal as well? Are you now an expert in plea bargaining in California?
She only empathises with Polanski in that, like her, this event was drawn out to define & destroy both their lives by people who very much did not have justice for her at the forefront of their minds.
Strange claim to make; that the judge didn't have justice 'at the forefront of' his mind.
This case should have been a gateway to Hollywood going "ok this shit is happening & we need to stop" instead it became "we are all good, we just need to get Polanski". And her life being thrown under the bus was just collateral.
Ahh no. The case is about the allegation. It's not a witch hunt into Hollywood. You certainly don't get to complain that people are using it to go after Polanski and then say it should have been used to go after everyone, McCarthy style.
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@gollum agree with all of that apart from the last part, when he was arrested in 2009 a decent chunk of Hollywood got behind him
That foxs take on it , you might think that's what I expect fox to say about Hollywood liberals and then you read Harvey Weinstein
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@antipodean a doco was made about the judge, he had the temerity to think 42 days in jail wasn't enough for drugging and raping a 13 year old........ I mean he was using the case as a way of boosting his profile and besides his partner was 30 years younger than him so who is he to point the finger? Well the last part is what the doco alleges , it's hard to take someone like Meryl Streep seriously when she says Hollywood is vilified when they behave like this.
Anyway back to thread topic and kind of related to the AMA since it goes into justice and sentencing
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/magazine/afghanistan-soldier-ptsd-the-fighter.html?referer=