Did women cause the recession?

[OP ED]

Just tryin' to be helpful.

this [babies] was something OP ED already knew, but was saving for a special occassion.

by which i mean i was waiting on Thumperton to return in a new form, or something.

[compared2what?]

So I guess nobody else feels that way, huh?

[Perelandra]

So I guess nobody else feels that way, huh?

Yeah. But I'm collecting my thoughts about the baby-bashers right now. Our work never ends, I tell ya.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I think I was momentarily trapped in old mother Hubbard's cubbard.

You mean cupboa.... Ah, you trickster, you!

And you mean old L. Ron Hubbard's... ah, wrong thread...

did you see Benefit Busters on Channel 4? Two things struck me about it, first the analogy made by the mad woman in charge (a real wemon) between the single parents on her course and a butterfly, which I wouldn't have noted had it not been for just finishing Sinister Forces, and the massive Stalin/Saddam-esque pictures of the founder of the company adorning every empty bit of wall, followed by the mad woman's trip to her country pad for some sort of conference during which data protection guideline regarding the women on the course were clearly and repeatedly breached.

The next day I had to go to A4E myself, and there next to the door, where I hadn't previously noted it, a picture as tall as me of her grinning, millionaire dole scum face.

I heard about it. I know about the new "programme" itself, if not the TV programme, first hand. A lot of people I know have just been summarily chucked off benefits by the new private firm who do the medical assessments of the disabled (we can expect some scandal on this one, I think, further down the line) - the idea being that only the truly needy will crawl back to reclaim. But everyone is reclaiming. So all the extra spies they hired will just turn out to be an extra expenditure on top of everything they are still, when all is said and done, legally obliged to pay out in the first place... to the people who put the money there in the first place.

And they'll spin the money they pissed away on shite spies into an extra vast expenditure on benefits, thus turning the mood of the nation against claimants in the run up to a very deep recession. Nice work, if you can get it.

But that's all by the by. The thread's not about the UK benefits system. It's about whether or not women caused the recession, and they didn't, and that's that. Nor men neither. It were finance that went and done did it, sir, and finance is a fucking weather system - perhaps a controllable one (largely controlled by men, though not due to their gender) but a weather system nonetheless. You might as well blame women for the rain (well, we used to).

Yeah, there's a few men, outnumber ten to one (mostly new deal advisors in my experience), theres a few contract staff, hihg-upness doesn't come into it.

Human Resources is a farcical non-industry, I agree. Contract staffing is a farcical attempt to have positions filled in large organisations by people to whom the organisation itself will owe no loyalty, no pension, no rights, and etcetra. But contract staff are blameless - just as women (even feminist ones!) are blameless.

The staff at temping agencies are another of my pet hates, incidentally.

Well that's a shame for them. It's bad enough they ended up as taken-for-granted perma-temps, frequently-mocked outsiders in their provincial or metropolitan offices, with no real union or employment rights. It must be great to have you scowling at them over a claim form at the end of the day! I've seen and heard them subjected to much worse (as I'd imagine you have too - the bouncers and bullet proof glass haven't been added in for a laugh, or to make the whole process more Orwellian... that wasn't the reason for it up in these parts, anyway).

AHABSOTHERLEG: Do you sit in the JobCentre or Manpower comfy chairs feeling no twinges of hatred or superiority towards your fellow signers. If so, you're a better man than me.[/i]

I may well be. I've been on a few courses at A4E now, so I've got to know some of them over the course of a few months. Very few women on New Deal Courses, I notice.

Total pish, sir. You notice women like my brother used to notice black folk on Top of the Pops. You notice their presence, and you notice their absence - it is worhty of note to you, as a thing apart. I mean, you really NOTICE, don't you? And it MATTERS. No one else sees anything worthy of comment, one way or the other - but you guys are so perceptive, you look beyond the herd mind, you see the TRUTH!

To lighten the tone, I used to like my trips up to Heroin House, as we called it, just for the stuff that you'd overhear from the other folk signing on. Just what they were talking about in the queue was class.

"Awright, man. How's it gaun? I knew you were oot."
"How come?"
"I saw ye yisturday."
"Aye? Where wis ah?"
"Ye wur lyin' in the road on that bridge up near Rumford."
"Aye? Wis ah?"

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[compared2what?]

So I guess nobody else feels that way, huh?

Yeah. But I'm collecting my thoughts about the baby-bashers right now. Our work never ends, I tell ya.

Thanks. Take your time.

Incidentally, on a more general note: Out of an abundance of caution, I'd just like to mention that neither this post nor any other post in which I don't invite people to tell me and the entire board how they feel about the prospect of giving me wet kisses to shut me up should be construed by them as an invitation to tell me and the entire board how they feel about giving me wet kisses to shut me up. Or how they feel about the prospect of kissing or having any other kind of sexualized physical contact with me for any reason, not excluding that it's how they do in fact feel.

Further, I strongly advise all people who may, at some future date, feel that there's enough ambiguity wrt the question of whether their thoughts about giving me wet kisses might -- owing to some particular confluence of events -- be just exactly what I'm longing to hear to err on the side of restraint. Unless they're trying to fuck with me. And I mean that in the "Don't fuck with me" sense of the phrase, in case that's not clear.

Because, lest there be any lingering doubt on the matter, I will henceforth uniformly regard each and every such remark, without exception, as having been made with the express intention of fucking with me. And will respond accordingly.

That said, I hereby issue a grant of general amnesty to anyone who may accidentally have expressed their feelings about giving me wet kisses to shut me up to me and the entire board at some previous point. (Start date effective 8/20/09.) So, you know -- No worries, hypothetical people! I'm not mad! Maybe you just didn't realize!

Oh. One other thing. That was a one-time-only grant of general amnesty. Did I mention that? You can take it to the bank. It expires now and there won't be another one. Thanks, sincerely, for the good times. Thanks also in advance for not fucking with me. Which, btw, don't. I don't like it. So your consideration is much appreciated.

c2w

[barracuda]

Hey, at least he condesended into allowing you to babble on to your hearts content in between the periodic bouts of shutting you the fuck up. So you've got that to fall back on in case the career as a wet kisser doesn't pan out.

Ten bucks says he's skipping this thread anyhow.

So I guess nobody else feels that way, huh?

I sure felt that way when I read that shit, in between all the other times I felt that way.

[Penguin]

Well that's a shame for them. It's bad enough they ended up as taken-for-granted perma-temps, frequently-mocked outsiders in their provincial or metropolitan offices, with no real union or employment rights. It must be great to have you scowling at them over a claim form at the end of the day! I've seen and heard them subjected to much worse (as I'd imagine you have too - the bouncers and bullet proof glass haven't been added in for a laugh, or to make the whole process more Orwellian... that wasn't the reason for it up in these parts, anyway).

--------
To lighten the tone, I used to like my trips up to Heroin House, as we called it, just for the stuff that you'd overhear from the other folk signing on. Just what they were talking about in the queue was class.

"Awright, man. How's it gaun? I knew you were oot."
"How come?"
"I saw ye yisturday."
"Aye? Where wis ah?"
"Ye wur lyin' in the road on that bridge up near Rumford."
"Aye? Wis ah?"

I'd buy that for a dollar.

Yah.
A mate got laid off yesterday. Or it would be more accurate to say that thee company laid off everyone hired thru a temp agency, which was I think 1/3rd of the workforce. And the non-temps got notice of work force layoff negotiations starting next week. At least here the temps get unemployment payments just like they had been regulars. As long as the government has money, which may not be long. They were probably among the last leaders of the free world claiming that the economic turmoil does not extend to us. Idiots. (I mean, if I knew well over a couple years before them - and paid off my loans too based on that - and the people who are supposed to be economic and political professionals did not, well, it tells volumes of their competence)

C2w, thanks for the amnesty, though I can't recall for sure if I need it. I ain't always sure of what the hell Ive gone and blabbered and just dont remember.

Im open to hugs and kisses instead - if you can't help yourselves that is, only keep em virtual so nobody gets jealous. Presently I would prefer a back and neck massage though, my head is aching.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I'll hugs ya, AND kish ya, Penguin - if ye'll let me. 'Cos I've mished ye, that's why!

Not that I'd want to dilute the sheer unrelieved oppressive vitriol of the thread itself or nothing, of course. Accentuating the positive is wrong, mathematically.

[compared2what?]

I'll hugs ya, AND kish ya, Penguin - if ye'll let me. 'Cos I've mished ye, that's why!

Not that I'd want to dilute the sheer unrelieved oppressive vitriol of the thread itself or nothing, of course. Accentuating the positive is wrong, mathematically.

Come on, now. I wrote a happy children's song, totally all custom-special for this thread. Did you miss that or something?

Hey, at least he condesended into allowing you to babble on to your hearts content in between the periodic bouts of shutting you the fuck up. So you've got that to fall back on in case the career as a wet kisser doesn't pan out.

Only if I can babble like a ripening nectarine.

Very zen. Which is to say: Totally silent.

[Penguin]

Only if I can babble like a ripening nectarine.

Very zen. Which is to say: Totally silent.

psynapz did lose a few dozen points with that one in my book (yeah I keep scores).

Now I will take a bath to allay my head before I make even more of a fool of myself. (Besides, I love your prose that flows like a clear cool stream in the woods, c2w, even though I have to pay more attention to comprehending than usual. That can only be a good thing.)

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I don't read too good. But you are right. That is a bona fide classic for our times, and it sums the whole thing up, and should basically have ended the thread on a high.

If you're evil and you know it,
Clap your hands (clap your hands)!
If you're vermin and you know it,
Clap your hands (clap your hands)!
If you're scummy and you know it,
Then you can't afford to show it,
So if you're evil verminous scum, just clap your hands!



Clap Clap! (sorry, force of habit)

To be looked down on by Stephen Morgan, though, at this stage in the thread, is an exaltation that even the Morning Star himself would've considered an excessive buff to his vanity.

[OP ED]

sure i'll have to edit or delete this later, for the sake of my soul, but:

i should like to elaborate on this more later, as i regard it as being of paramount importance.

Yeah, i said that, and i came back to do just that, even though there are other things to be done, fish to fry, etc. because it IS bloody important.

The problem being that i have no idea where the best place to start is, having spent years turning this very thing over in my head trying to come to grips with it has not aided me at all, rather it has only added to my confusion and unrest. i am not pleased.

I have never been practically skilled at trasmuting my positions wrt to particulars into something which can be used to address generalised problems or to simplify my highly complicated thoughts into something that can be communicated to total strangers across the globe. Which is to say that even if i have feelings that can be counted upon to be consistent, that doesn't mean that i've ever been interested in sharing them.

but this evening i aim to at least try to do so, if only i knew how.

wait. ok. the spirit moves me...

[ha]

the good lord has revealed to me how easy it is, after all. You see, several men have already projected their feelings regarding women onto you, perhaps i should simply follow suit, considering how simple this must be if such simple minded folk have been allowed to reveal their thoughts so openly. Despite the raging inferno of my barely constrained lusty inclinations, i shall attempt to control myself insofar as to not slip up and make it any more obvious than it already is, you know?

and as much as the refined amongst us may consider this to be an otherwise out-of-place instance of OP ED's sudden politeness and/or invocation of manners, this is, i must assure you, not even slightly the case. It is rather an act of caution:

because, you see, i hate you.

("oh but OP ED, you're just saying that")

no, i bloody well mean what i say, and i fucking do hate you, and i'll tell you why.

but first, your latest question:

So I guess nobody else feels that way, huh?

is one i already answered as straightforwardly as any statement i've ever made that didn't involve me calling someone names or telling them to kill themselves. You may have missed it, being that it was during the latter parts of my exchange with S.M. and if you're anything at all like me, you probably have to read everything he says about women twice just to make sure that he actually just really fucking said what you thought he said and also because, like me, you have to stop every few minutes to wipe the bloody glaze from your eyes to continue staring at the monitor. What i had said was, to paraphrase myself: the thing the feminists call "patriarchy" is such a highly evolved predator of a memetic package that i'm likely not to notice the bugger at all, his beastliness having blended expertly into the scenery as he slowly creeps up behind in preparations to tear out my fuggin throat and leave me to bleed out in the rain.

if i knew where the bastard lived i'd go to his house and break his damned legs, but as he is an abstract notion with no unified objective validity, i'm shit out of luck and doomed to spend the rest of my cursed existence trying to remind myself that he may be standing right behind me at any moment just biding his time and waiting to ruin my life again.

("again?")

[mind your business]

And also so you know, while we're here and i'm going to confess like i've just decided to go back to Christ, this inclination i'd have to hunt him down and break him to pieces would not be for your benefit, much as i like you to the point of hardly being able to contain my desire to shower you with virtual wet ones. Oh no, not at all. Not that it'd be a bad thing, i'm saying, if somehow his broken body aided in your finding "equality" or liberty or something else along those lines which you may consider beneficial of itself. No, i'd kill the bastard for pure fantastic revenge for having been one of those non-objective-validity-having creatures which has tormented me, which would come between us, and which has given me just one more reason to hate you.

i'd kill him and i wouldn't feel even one tiny bit horrible about it. Because i could be a little less afraid then.

oh there's more.

but first:

Two weeks shy of a year ago now, as i'm sure you may recall, you started this thread wherein you drew attention, albeit fleeting, to the invisible monster which even now stalks us. This followed a chain of locked and burned out threads which dealt more or less directly with these concerns. In this thread you dealt with all sorts of nonsense attacks and vitriol, to use AOL's term, that was so remarkably violent in some of its content that it was the very first time i questioned the consistency of the moderation here with regard to enforcing rules about hate speech. I mean, they banned Thumper and Johnny Nemo for saying things not one tenth as bad as some of the disgusting shit in that thread, and the ones it was an answer to.

I remember it well. OP ED does not forget these things.

note: More than a couple of you so-called men of this place earned my enmity ["a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity; antagonism; synonyms: malice, acrimony, rancor"] at that time, and should have no doubt that it will pursue you until the ends of the earth. Please understand, stupid men, that this IS personal. I consider you all obstructions to my path towards freedom from my hate and fear. Your ignorance, and the conditions which created, enable and excite it, must be removed before i have any chance at all of gaining my freedom. Eliminated. Eradicated with extreme prejudice from every facet of existence, by relentless attrition if necessary. Fire and Steel.

ahem.

In that thread you posed a conundrum, disguised by your clever feminine wiles as an innocent question, having something, IIRC, to do with the voices of women and whether or not we, being the general public whose responsibility it is to consider such things, thought that it was being freely expressed in the world and also why we had reached whatever conclusion we had come to.

I did not answer this question.

I had thought it was an easy question, and due to my hatred and fear, allowed others to make their own answers, and offered in place of one a refusal to comment explicitly on the subject. This was a mistake. One of many, i assure you, but a mistake nonetheless. Being as you are a woman, with your matching set of chromosomes, inferior body mass and misleading eyes and being like all the rest of them with your unreasonable insistence on being taken seriously, you seemingly refused to be satisfied with my lack of commentary and commitment. No big deal, right? Not like you were the first woman i've failed to satisfy or anything.

but even after your polite nudging and rephrasing of your question:

Let me rephrase the question: Do any of you think you understand women? And if not, why not? And if so, how so? All genders are free to participate. And it's not a yes/no question. It's essay-style. You have to think about it a little. You may now turn your papers over and begin.

still, i do not answer.

And this, i might add, is not in any case because i consider the question irrelevant, or that it is not something i have considered or that i think that there is no answer. i started right away, the very day it was asked, to formulate a response. For fifty weeks my desktop held my response in stasis, waiting for the inspiration to arrive that might incite the courage required to give it the proper framing. i started and stopped dozens of times during this period, oh it is true, always failing to convince myself of the honesty of my answer. It never looks right to me, never approaches the posture demanded of a position freed from my own bias. Never true. A few hours ago i gave up my attempts to edit it into something appropriate and deleted it, emptied the bin and consigned it to everlasting oblivion. Good riddance. Now i realize that my inability to answer this question was itself the answer. That is, the reason for my lack of commitment is the only answer you, or any other woman will ever have from me. I could apologise for this, or say that i was trying to change, but that would just be another lie. I am not sorry i did not answer, and i apologise for having said i was. I am only sorry that i did not explain my reason for not answering. Because of hate. And fear.


you see, to put it as bluntly as possible, there is a little man in my head, and he sees what i see and nothing else, and when he sees a woman ask a question of me like "Do any of you think you understand women?" what he actually sees is:





no. seriously.

A beautifully designed trap patiently awaiting its opportunity to devour me utterly. And from which there can be no hope of escape or mercy. I mean, jesus christ, no, i don't understand women. fuck. that isn't even remotely in doubt. I could easily find a swarm of women who would back me up on this too, if, y'know, any of them were still talking to me...

If i understood women, you would know, because i'd already be the richest most powerfulest man in the history of the world. Princes and presidents and popes would trip over themselves trying to but touch the very edge of my shadow, they'd have carved my face into mt. Rushmore, i'd have ascended to heaven to sit at the left hand of God, and before i removed myself from this fallen earth i'd have a book on the best-seller list for 1000 consecutive weeks until every man and half the women alive owned a copy; it'd be the most brilliant tome ever written, a treatise filled with wisdom, putting forward the plan for the salvation of our species, the recovery of our most holy dignity, and also practical dating advice. It'd be called "This is Not a Fucking Game".

I mean, yeah, okay, i understand a lot of things about women. Same as i know when i stepped out on the porch to smoke my pipe this morning that i should go to the back porch because the whitetails would be grazing in the yard. I know where they'll be and what they'll be doing but i don't understand why they choose to jump my fence and graze here instead of in my neighbor's lawn. If i was really hungry today, i guess i could use what i know to kill them, or if i wasn't, just to get close enough that i could if i wanted to.

the "why" part of the question is actually easier for me to frame. at least it looks that way. i don't understand women because i'm not a woman, and no amount of statistics or observations can change that. At present, it is a technical impossibility. I can get closer, i suppose, by listening to their words and trying to interpret them, but i'll always be casting them through my own lenses. I'll never have firsthand knowledge. The social barriers under discussion in this thread are part of that, of course, but they aren't the whole thing. Part of it is biological and this represents an insuperable barrier to my understanding. I'll always think of some facets of their behavior as somehow foreign and exotic. Alien.

that isn't going to change at any point in the visible future.


...

This lies near the heart of the matter too. From my perspective, at any rate.

My hatred relies on its fear to supply the fuel. And as is well known, fear is in many cases the result of a lack of understanding. I've known that for a long long time. since i was a young demon. learned from comic books.


i'm afraid i am never one who knows when too much elaboration is enough, but i fear i have been approaching it already for some time.

I could make you a list. I am afraid that whatever my reaction is to anything, it will inevitably be the wrong one. I am afraid that i should not survive if forced to live without those things i need and want the most and i fear that i will never have them for long. I am afraid that any effort on my part will only increase the rate of deterioration. I am afraid that i have spent far too long already collaborating with my enemies and enabling their victories. I am afraid, with a sense of certainty born from experience, that eventually i will make another mistake and lose again.

I am afraid i have already said too much.

...


feel free to let me know if this is not elaborate enough...

until then, as such:

speaking of silence.

[compared2what?]

I am afraid i have already said too much.

No, that was just right. And showed some major balls, btw. Please feel both safe and loved, and under no obligation to moderate your hatred. Okay?

And while that genuinely is pretty much the sum of what I've got to say that's important to say, I could -- and prepare yourself for a newsflash, here -- say it in one or two thousand words instead of 26 or 27 of 'em. If you'd prefer. Just let me know. But only if it doing so doesn't interfere with your feeling-safe-and-loved-and-under-no-obligation-to-moderate-your-hatred responsibilities. Because that was a fucking order, honey.** The "Please" was purely a formality.

Love,

c2w

** (Or "asshole," or "chief, or "thee OP ED," or whatever does sound like a term of endearment to you. Mr. There's-No-Fucking-Pleasing-Me.)

[Penguin]

compared2what, damn. Ive tried answering you three times now, and I keep vacillating between "this is too personal" and "this is not personal enough to convey what I want to say". I will think about this more and try to answer later.

I can relate to some of what OP ED said, though. Except that all of the women I have ever known are still on good terms with me

Perelandra, no need to apologize, at all. Simply, thank you for that.

Love, Pengu, later.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The application of gender-inapposite pronouns doesn't have a fixed meaning. It varies according to context. And probably regional usage. I'm personally heavily predisposed to read it as value-neutral gender-role subversion, since that's the context in which I'm accustomed to hearing it used. Specifically, by gay men who do not hate women but who do habitually use default-female pronouns for any and all people to whom they wish to refer when speaking in privacy among themselves and their intimate friends. Which is an argot that definitely comes with a certain amount of Miss-Thing-level cattiness fully en suite, no doubt. But that doesn't express or imply a low view of women on the part of the speaker. It's just a sub-type of our old and familiar friend from back in the punk-rock day -- ie, the appropriation, mockery, send-up, defusal and rejection of the terms in which both the speaker and his/ her cadre are traditionally disparaged by society. For which there are many precedents and also numerous contemporary analogs. Language is a living thing. That always has its pros and cons. I mean that every living thing has its pros and cons, not that language always does, incidentally. Although both are true.

Understood. I support mockery and appropriation. I apologize for being too exacting about semantics to Penguin and Joe.

You don't have to apologise to me for that.