A woman once said that the French think they are like Germans, but they are actually like Italians. Some stuff they do spectacularly well: The wine, the cheese, the bread. The trains work, the roads are pristine and clearly signalized. The bathrooms are spotless clean.
But when it comes to service or process, it's not that they are chaotic, it's that they love bureaucracy. They love steps. If you can do something in thirty steps, as opposed to one or two, pourquoi pas?
If you need a part of a stove replaced because its glass cover exploded in the kitchen (don't ask) and you call the numero de service of the appliance store, the monsieur you are speaking to, who displays an admirable balance of hostility, impatience and propriety, insists on talking of Electrolux when you clearly said Airlux. Twenty minutes later, he throws in the towel and advises you to take a picture of the serial number label to the store, so they can deal with you there. C'est tout he can do for you.
The trip to the store becomes three separate trips to three different stores, because in each one, the person in charge disavows himself from the responsibility of helping you: it's not their department, their phone doesn't work, Madame de Pompadour called in sick. But when you finally make it to the third store, the one they should have told you to go to in the first place, the lady behind the counter knows exactly what you need, and where to get it, and your suffering is over in five minutes. It is uncanny, as if she knew your sad story with the exploding cover all this time and was just patiently waiting, like Proust in search of lost time, for you to show up.
Try doing something on a French website. I tried to reserve a taxi, because I'll have you know that cabs in Paris are always mysteriously absent or have arcane, incomprehensible rules of where they pick up and where they drop off passengers. Why can't it be in the same place? Je ne sais pas. There are empty taxis parked at the TAXI sign. Some of them have drivers in them, but they cannot take you. There is even a hopeful-looking button you press that goes, like something out of Camus, unanswered.
But at home, there is an internet taxi reservation site. They even have an English version! I fill out all the info: name, time, place, and give a final, relieved click, only to run into the little extra step: they want a cellphone number to send me a code to confirm and verify that I, and not the Marquis De Sade, ordered the cab. But then the site won't accept a foreign number, so after a good 15 minutes of filling out forms and trying Kabbalistic number permutations, there is no cab to be had.
I should have called, but what if the guy sent me to the other guy, the one that works for Cardinal Richelieu? Plus, when I dial, a prerecorded female voice tells me something about the nature of the call I am attempting and she scares me off the phone.
Here in the US, you can go on a kafkaesque limbo of customer service hell, sans doute, but it usually takes one interminable step. Over there, it's a waltz.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Bonjour Tristesse
I was recently in France, where pretty much everyday, like every French person, I put a golden, fragrant, crunchy, chewy baguette under my arm; and unlike every French person, waited to get home before tearing into it in the middle of the street.
Last Sunday, I went into a boulangerie and purchased a ficelle, which is a smaller, thinner baguette (so as not to appear like the grosse cochonne I am).
I ate this glorious thing sans anything. No butter, no jam, no jambon, no fromage. It was so spectacularly good, it did not need anything else. I ate it in the park and could have eaten five more, but I have my dignity.
New York may have pretty much everything the heart desires, but there is no good baguette to be found. Those of you who think there is, are deluding yourselves and should stop immediately.
We have found a very decent croissant and pain au chocolat, and French pastries a block away, but a simple, wholesome, perfect pleasure like a baguette, which is flour, salt, water and yeast, New York cannot muster. This makes me extremely sad.
Some say it's the water. Pourquoi?
I just feel like crying.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
American Shakedown Part II: The Health Insurance Criminal Racket
I recently underwent surgery for a broken bone in my foot. I am insured
through a PPO. I pay over $5000 a year for my individual insurance. Before the procedure, I
asked repeatedly how much would the hospital cost, how much the surgeon's
fee, the anesthesiologist, nobody would tell me. They all said: "But you have insurance, right? Don't worry about it".
I did everything by the book. I used an in-network doctor and in-network facility. I called the insurance company to ask about pre-certification. Yet a few days ago, I get an "explanation of benefits" letter telling me that I owe $20,120.13 for a three hour outpatient hospital stay, not including the surgeon ($3500) and anesthesiologist ($1350) fees, for which apparently the insurance company has deemed I am totally responsible. The reason: they needed more information on what caused the fracture, even though I filled out three different forms at the doctor, the hospital and the physical therapy explaining the issue. Basically, they are trying to see if it sticks and screw me over. Now I have to make calls and contest claims; a frightening and totally unnecessary outcome.
The insurance companies use deliberately confusing language. I had to read my insurance coverage book three times in order to understand what is and isn't covered. What is the difference between and copayment and a co-insurance? What does out-of-pocket mean?
Then you should take a look at the "explanation of benefits". The hospital charges are fifteen line items, "explained" by mysterious procedure codes like 587 and 452. So hell if I know what exactly they are charging me for. A kleenex? Sedatives? What?
This insurance criminal racket is simply armed robbery. Medical expenses are the only instance in human society in which consumers purchase services without knowing the amounts they cost, which are deliberately obscured by the providers. We are getting raped, and no one is doing anything about it. Obamacare was watered down to placate the insurance racket, not to help the citizens of this country.
Of all the absurd injustices in this virulently capitalistic country, the health insurance scam is the first thing that needs to be reformed and regulated, because it affects absolutely everybody. It is nothing but organized crime, and the abominable politicians who line their pockets at the expense of the American people and the bidding of the insurance industry should be skinned alive in the hot sun and hung out to dry. Americans should be up in arms.
I did everything by the book. I used an in-network doctor and in-network facility. I called the insurance company to ask about pre-certification. Yet a few days ago, I get an "explanation of benefits" letter telling me that I owe $20,120.13 for a three hour outpatient hospital stay, not including the surgeon ($3500) and anesthesiologist ($1350) fees, for which apparently the insurance company has deemed I am totally responsible. The reason: they needed more information on what caused the fracture, even though I filled out three different forms at the doctor, the hospital and the physical therapy explaining the issue. Basically, they are trying to see if it sticks and screw me over. Now I have to make calls and contest claims; a frightening and totally unnecessary outcome.
The insurance companies use deliberately confusing language. I had to read my insurance coverage book three times in order to understand what is and isn't covered. What is the difference between and copayment and a co-insurance? What does out-of-pocket mean?
Then you should take a look at the "explanation of benefits". The hospital charges are fifteen line items, "explained" by mysterious procedure codes like 587 and 452. So hell if I know what exactly they are charging me for. A kleenex? Sedatives? What?
This insurance criminal racket is simply armed robbery. Medical expenses are the only instance in human society in which consumers purchase services without knowing the amounts they cost, which are deliberately obscured by the providers. We are getting raped, and no one is doing anything about it. Obamacare was watered down to placate the insurance racket, not to help the citizens of this country.
Of all the absurd injustices in this virulently capitalistic country, the health insurance scam is the first thing that needs to be reformed and regulated, because it affects absolutely everybody. It is nothing but organized crime, and the abominable politicians who line their pockets at the expense of the American people and the bidding of the insurance industry should be skinned alive in the hot sun and hung out to dry. Americans should be up in arms.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Now Showing At A Theater Near You
Two movies about women's throats: Lake Bell's In A World, and Lovelace.
Plus a screecher, The Conjuring.
Plus a screecher, The Conjuring.
Friday, August 09, 2013
American Shakedown
Attention, Mexicans! Our pride in being undisputed champions of the shakedown is now under mortal threat from our neighbor to the north. You heard right: not from a ravaged country in Africa, not from the Russians, the Chinese, or from our very competitive neighbors to the south (all of them). The latest challenge comes from the good old US of A. You would think that the police stealing cars, money, jewelry and kids (yes) from people only happens in benighted third world countries, but think again.
According to this excellent article by Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker, now you can find the third world shakedown right in America The Beautiful! And as everything that is rotten and corrupt in this magnificent land (corporations are people, the NSA can read your emails, lobbying, you name it), it is perfectly legal. It is called civil forfeiture. It was originally designed to fight drug cartels and organized crime, but ever enterprising, some police departments in some states have decided to expand it to regular, innocent, hardworking people. Because isn't that the way of all progress?
In a nutshell:
At least in Mexico we have equal opportunity: everybody can be a victim of the shakedown. The rich, because they're rich, and the poor because they're poor. Everybody pays. Not in the US, no siree Bob. As befits the cradle of unbridled capitalism, the rich here are left untouched, no matter their wrongdoings. It's the poor, black and brown who get shaken down the most.
Do you want to take a guess at what states are vying for the world championship in the art of the police shakedown? I'll give you a hint, it's not Vermont. Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. (you know, where the Capitol is) and the underfunded police department in Detroit. By law, the loot goes directly to fund law enforcement, which is a great incentive for police departments to cast a wider net and relieve innocent people of their possessions. As for the kids I mentioned above, the notorious police ring of Tenaha, Texas, has a cash for freedom deal in which they threaten to remove your children from your care unless you give all your stuff up. A termagant called Lynda K. Russell, the racist, corrupt attorney general of Shelby County, Tx, is the one allowing the shakedowns of people to happen.
One difference between Mexico and here, is that at least here people can still find some legal recourse, even if an expert calls U.S. civil forfeiture cases, "the Guantanamo of the legal system". The article introduces several admirable lawyers that have taken up cases to help people fight this outrageous injustice.
I moved from Mexico 21 years ago thinking that I was moving from the developing world into the apex of progress and civilization. I never expected that I would feel like I was back in a third world country, or worse, but I see evidence of the US slipping into moral, economic and political decay every single day.
According to this excellent article by Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker, now you can find the third world shakedown right in America The Beautiful! And as everything that is rotten and corrupt in this magnificent land (corporations are people, the NSA can read your emails, lobbying, you name it), it is perfectly legal. It is called civil forfeiture. It was originally designed to fight drug cartels and organized crime, but ever enterprising, some police departments in some states have decided to expand it to regular, innocent, hardworking people. Because isn't that the way of all progress?
In a nutshell:
In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.Lately, with all these newfangled laws designed to protect us from sundry terrorist evildoers, the US is starting to adopt not only the surreal magical realism that is endemic to developing countries (Texas vs. One Pearl Necklace?), but a frightening Orwellian and Kafkaesque degree of absurdity. We should all be very concerned.
One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. (Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson’s forfeiture was slugged State of Texas v. $6,037.) “The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window,” Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There’s no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence.
At least in Mexico we have equal opportunity: everybody can be a victim of the shakedown. The rich, because they're rich, and the poor because they're poor. Everybody pays. Not in the US, no siree Bob. As befits the cradle of unbridled capitalism, the rich here are left untouched, no matter their wrongdoings. It's the poor, black and brown who get shaken down the most.
Do you want to take a guess at what states are vying for the world championship in the art of the police shakedown? I'll give you a hint, it's not Vermont. Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. (you know, where the Capitol is) and the underfunded police department in Detroit. By law, the loot goes directly to fund law enforcement, which is a great incentive for police departments to cast a wider net and relieve innocent people of their possessions. As for the kids I mentioned above, the notorious police ring of Tenaha, Texas, has a cash for freedom deal in which they threaten to remove your children from your care unless you give all your stuff up. A termagant called Lynda K. Russell, the racist, corrupt attorney general of Shelby County, Tx, is the one allowing the shakedowns of people to happen.
One difference between Mexico and here, is that at least here people can still find some legal recourse, even if an expert calls U.S. civil forfeiture cases, "the Guantanamo of the legal system". The article introduces several admirable lawyers that have taken up cases to help people fight this outrageous injustice.
I moved from Mexico 21 years ago thinking that I was moving from the developing world into the apex of progress and civilization. I never expected that I would feel like I was back in a third world country, or worse, but I see evidence of the US slipping into moral, economic and political decay every single day.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Sochi's Life
 |
| Tom of Finland or Vladimir Putin? You decide. |
So I'm sure they are not concerned about the - so far - useless outrage over their barbaric, Nazi-like anti-homosexuality laws. Appalled citizens throughout the world may organize in outrage, as well they should, but unless governments, local Olympic teams and multinational advertisers make a stand and boycott the stupid winter games in Sochi, Putin knows that it's going to be business as usual.
I wonder how much money Russians used to grease the dirty paws of the I.O.C, a notoriously corrupt and revolting organization.
Countries with abysmal human rights abuse issues should not host the Olympic Games. Unfortunately, this would leave only Scandinavia and the Marshall Islands as contenders. President Obama may go on the Tonight Show and wag his finger, but unless he calls for a boycott of the games, he's just appeasing the outraged. Putin could care less.
He knows NBC is not going to piss away almost the $800 million dollars it paid for the rights to televise, plus millions of dollars in ads because of gay rights.
It's medieval, and gross and uncivilized, but it is bully tactics. Russia has always been a crude, merciless bully: to its satellite republics under Communism, to Jews and other ethnic minorities, and now to gays. What a dump. Still, if all else fails, I think the Olympic teams should appear at the opening and closing ceremonies wearing sparkly costumes and feathered headgear a la Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and La Cage Aux Folles. Make these the gayest games in history. Have Putin send all the athletes to the Gulag. I bet this would make that criminal psychopath happy.
In the meantime, here's a petition to transfer the games to Vancouver, so that no one loses money. The nice people of Canada to the rescue. Add your voice.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Now Showing At A Theater Near You
Thomas Vinterberg's extraordinary The Hunt, and Woody Allen's better than usual Blue Jasmine.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Stand Your Ground
In which an unarmed minor dies of a gunshot wound wielded by a suburban vigilante, who decided to take the law in his hands even though Trayvon Martin was not breaking any law and the 911 dispatcher told him to stay inside his car.
No one saw the altercation. No one was on the street. In places like Sanford, Florida people live in gated communities in houses where they can go weeks without seeing a neighbor. Then they get in their cars by themselves. They live in fortresses, and because of this isolation, they are paranoid that someone is going to harm them. This is why they feel they need to have guns to defend their property. They act as if there is no one around them, and they are all alone in the world. No society, no community. This is why they have absurd laws like Stand Your Ground. Although we can surmise that had this entailed the shooting death of a white 17 year-old with skittles in his pocket, murdered by the same man, Zimmerman would have fried, his white last name notwithstanding. Because it is about race, but race gets worse in the suburbs.
In a city teeming with people we share the space with all kinds of other people. We feel safer because we don't feel so alone. And we know better than to assume that because someone is black and wearing a hoodie, our lives are in imminent danger. We may think racist thoughts, but we learn to recognize signs. We simply are more in contact with all kinds of people and this creates a certain social cohesion that seems to be missing from less crowded places.
Racism of course, plays a big part. But the more you live in proximity to different kinds of people, from different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic levels, beliefs and gender orientations, the more you share the space, the broader criteria you have to wield your prejudices. The city provides a saner reality check than the lurid fantasies that come from living in isolation. We laugh about the people we hate in the subway, but we live in peace with them, in very tight quarters.
Living in the suburbs may give you lots of space, but it is isolating and can lead to delusions of blacks coming to rob you, immigrants coming to steal your job and use your hospitals, and you, some sort of lonely Daniel Boone, armed in your own cocoon, fearsome of everything that is out there.
Zimmerman is already rotting in a hell of his own making.
No one saw the altercation. No one was on the street. In places like Sanford, Florida people live in gated communities in houses where they can go weeks without seeing a neighbor. Then they get in their cars by themselves. They live in fortresses, and because of this isolation, they are paranoid that someone is going to harm them. This is why they feel they need to have guns to defend their property. They act as if there is no one around them, and they are all alone in the world. No society, no community. This is why they have absurd laws like Stand Your Ground. Although we can surmise that had this entailed the shooting death of a white 17 year-old with skittles in his pocket, murdered by the same man, Zimmerman would have fried, his white last name notwithstanding. Because it is about race, but race gets worse in the suburbs.
In a city teeming with people we share the space with all kinds of other people. We feel safer because we don't feel so alone. And we know better than to assume that because someone is black and wearing a hoodie, our lives are in imminent danger. We may think racist thoughts, but we learn to recognize signs. We simply are more in contact with all kinds of people and this creates a certain social cohesion that seems to be missing from less crowded places.
Racism of course, plays a big part. But the more you live in proximity to different kinds of people, from different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic levels, beliefs and gender orientations, the more you share the space, the broader criteria you have to wield your prejudices. The city provides a saner reality check than the lurid fantasies that come from living in isolation. We laugh about the people we hate in the subway, but we live in peace with them, in very tight quarters.
Living in the suburbs may give you lots of space, but it is isolating and can lead to delusions of blacks coming to rob you, immigrants coming to steal your job and use your hospitals, and you, some sort of lonely Daniel Boone, armed in your own cocoon, fearsome of everything that is out there.
Zimmerman is already rotting in a hell of his own making.
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Newsflash: Your Rights and The Constitution Are In The Toilet
One has only to read a paper, or rather browse through Facebook, to come across daily occurrences of blatant disregard of laws and citizens' rights in this country. Ever since 9/11, the most damage those satanic terrorists inflicted in this country has been the rise of a secret police state and the erosion of the legal guarantees and freedoms we all think we still have as we happily watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. It ain't the land of the free anymore.
And guess what? It's a slippery slope. You start with "enemy combatants": no trial, no habeas corpus, no nada, stick them in Guantánamo indefinitely, torture them and force feed them if they go on hunger strike, and next thing you know, every law enforcement department in the country feels free to dump on the Constitution.
A kid in Florida is in jail since February and on half a million dollars bail for making a really stupid comment in Facebook.
The house of a guy in Nevada is stormed by armed police after he refuses to let them in to conduct a stakeout.
A young woman buys a case of water and is arrested and sent to jail by plainclothes police as if she were Pablo Escobar.
The government keeps track of everything you ever wrote or said, now with broader powers through a secret body of law, etc.
Who's next? I don't ask where's the outrage because it is useless. We are all looking the other way, making no waves, confident that no one is ever gonna come and get us.
Barack Obama pretends to be a champion of change while presiding over the trashing of the Constitution, the disregard for the Geneva Convention, etc.
I voted for the guy twice, as most people I know. His record on immigration deportations is worse than Bush's. Countless human rights abuses happen every minute at the for-profit jails where illegal immigrants fester waiting to be deported. Guantánamo is still there, and not getting any better.
If it were Dick Cheney, you'd be up in arms.
And guess what? It's a slippery slope. You start with "enemy combatants": no trial, no habeas corpus, no nada, stick them in Guantánamo indefinitely, torture them and force feed them if they go on hunger strike, and next thing you know, every law enforcement department in the country feels free to dump on the Constitution.
A kid in Florida is in jail since February and on half a million dollars bail for making a really stupid comment in Facebook.
The house of a guy in Nevada is stormed by armed police after he refuses to let them in to conduct a stakeout.
A young woman buys a case of water and is arrested and sent to jail by plainclothes police as if she were Pablo Escobar.
The government keeps track of everything you ever wrote or said, now with broader powers through a secret body of law, etc.
Who's next? I don't ask where's the outrage because it is useless. We are all looking the other way, making no waves, confident that no one is ever gonna come and get us.
Barack Obama pretends to be a champion of change while presiding over the trashing of the Constitution, the disregard for the Geneva Convention, etc.
I voted for the guy twice, as most people I know. His record on immigration deportations is worse than Bush's. Countless human rights abuses happen every minute at the for-profit jails where illegal immigrants fester waiting to be deported. Guantánamo is still there, and not getting any better.
If it were Dick Cheney, you'd be up in arms.
Monday, July 08, 2013
Response To A Long Time Reader
I got a comment from "A Long Time Reader" relating to my post on gender discrimination in the advertising business. You can see the post and the comment here.
This is my response:
Thanks for reading, Long Time Reader.
Don't you find it a little naive to think there are no women out there making it on their own? Have you heard of the gal who wrote the Harry Potter books? Oprah Winfrey? I know several women entrepreneurs that have started their own businesses, totally on their own, without expecting anything from anyone but respect and a fair shake, and they have it much tougher than the guys. Lines of credit don't open as easily for them, people don't listen as seriously. They are hardworking, intelligent risk-takers. They are not any less capable than any guy. In fact, they have to work harder to overcome stereotypes and ingrained attitudes. It is not their fault. We just happen to have a deeply ingrained, millennial culture that assumes that men are natural leaders and women are not, because for centuries, women were not allowed to read, study in universities, vote, have professions, have their own businesses, or simply be independent human beings. They were supposed to stay home, breed, and obey the male. How could one compete? To this day, some men still believe they get to decide on what women do with their own sexuality and their pregnancies. The nerve.
At this point, the discrimination, the patronizing, the looking down on women, are embedded in our cultural DNA. It may not always be conscious, or malicious, but that's the way it is.
Look at porn. Porn is a good example of the imbalance between the genders.
Why is it always the woman who is shown to be acted upon, penetrated, manhandled, increasingly with more violence and alienation? Why isn't there a more equal porn where both men and women are objects of erotic desire? Because that is how men look at women. And men don't want to look at other men. And women have been taught that they can't really express themselves sexually. That they should be pure and chaste and not sluts. It's a man's world. And now, there are entire generations of kids who grow up thinking that the ridiculous, ugly, pounding sex in porn is normal sex. You guys are not doing a good job.
Women who object to this state of affairs are called "whiners" by people like you.
I agree that women have to fight hard for equality and fairness. As I said in my post, we have to start our own fight. But men will defend their status quo tooth and nail. Why? Because men know, as the fanatics of every religion that wants to keep women down know (pretty much all of them), that the minute women have truly equal footing, this will mean real freedom, real democracy, real civilization, real human progress. Keeping women down is the first, most basic, most intimate form of human oppression. It is the essence of barbarism.
The question we should be asking is why women have tolerated and abetted this through the ages.
But in this day and age, when religious belief is utterly irrelevant, and we are not hunting Mammoths and living in caves, women have every right to demand equality, fairness and respect. That is not whining or begging, that is plain dignity.
Modernity, however, is no guarantee of civilization. Look at the Holocaust. Look at every genocide since then. Look at the American South up to the 1960's. Look at two young football players who gang raped a girl recently and bragged about it all over social media. Someone on CNN was sorry that their brilliant future careers were over.
It is still imperative for those who are treated unfairly to fight for equal opportunity and justice.
As for your opinions about begging blacks and grousing Jews, they seem to me pernicious and naive generalizations. There are many successful black people, like our very own President Obama; and there are countless Jews who beg and don't have a pot to piss on.
If certain groups don't have the political, economic, or social power to change their situation, what are they supposed to do? If Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement had not "whined" and demanded, would there still be segregation and lynchings in the South? If women had not demanded the right to an education, to vote, to equal pay? We'd all be attending mindless Tupperware parties in Stepford.
That's not progress. That is regression.
In short, I think we do not protest enough, but I suspect that we have very different worldviews. Thank you for your readership.
This is my response:
Thanks for reading, Long Time Reader.
Don't you find it a little naive to think there are no women out there making it on their own? Have you heard of the gal who wrote the Harry Potter books? Oprah Winfrey? I know several women entrepreneurs that have started their own businesses, totally on their own, without expecting anything from anyone but respect and a fair shake, and they have it much tougher than the guys. Lines of credit don't open as easily for them, people don't listen as seriously. They are hardworking, intelligent risk-takers. They are not any less capable than any guy. In fact, they have to work harder to overcome stereotypes and ingrained attitudes. It is not their fault. We just happen to have a deeply ingrained, millennial culture that assumes that men are natural leaders and women are not, because for centuries, women were not allowed to read, study in universities, vote, have professions, have their own businesses, or simply be independent human beings. They were supposed to stay home, breed, and obey the male. How could one compete? To this day, some men still believe they get to decide on what women do with their own sexuality and their pregnancies. The nerve.
At this point, the discrimination, the patronizing, the looking down on women, are embedded in our cultural DNA. It may not always be conscious, or malicious, but that's the way it is.
Look at porn. Porn is a good example of the imbalance between the genders.
Why is it always the woman who is shown to be acted upon, penetrated, manhandled, increasingly with more violence and alienation? Why isn't there a more equal porn where both men and women are objects of erotic desire? Because that is how men look at women. And men don't want to look at other men. And women have been taught that they can't really express themselves sexually. That they should be pure and chaste and not sluts. It's a man's world. And now, there are entire generations of kids who grow up thinking that the ridiculous, ugly, pounding sex in porn is normal sex. You guys are not doing a good job.
Women who object to this state of affairs are called "whiners" by people like you.
I agree that women have to fight hard for equality and fairness. As I said in my post, we have to start our own fight. But men will defend their status quo tooth and nail. Why? Because men know, as the fanatics of every religion that wants to keep women down know (pretty much all of them), that the minute women have truly equal footing, this will mean real freedom, real democracy, real civilization, real human progress. Keeping women down is the first, most basic, most intimate form of human oppression. It is the essence of barbarism.
The question we should be asking is why women have tolerated and abetted this through the ages.
But in this day and age, when religious belief is utterly irrelevant, and we are not hunting Mammoths and living in caves, women have every right to demand equality, fairness and respect. That is not whining or begging, that is plain dignity.
Modernity, however, is no guarantee of civilization. Look at the Holocaust. Look at every genocide since then. Look at the American South up to the 1960's. Look at two young football players who gang raped a girl recently and bragged about it all over social media. Someone on CNN was sorry that their brilliant future careers were over.
It is still imperative for those who are treated unfairly to fight for equal opportunity and justice.
As for your opinions about begging blacks and grousing Jews, they seem to me pernicious and naive generalizations. There are many successful black people, like our very own President Obama; and there are countless Jews who beg and don't have a pot to piss on.
If certain groups don't have the political, economic, or social power to change their situation, what are they supposed to do? If Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement had not "whined" and demanded, would there still be segregation and lynchings in the South? If women had not demanded the right to an education, to vote, to equal pay? We'd all be attending mindless Tupperware parties in Stepford.
That's not progress. That is regression.
In short, I think we do not protest enough, but I suspect that we have very different worldviews. Thank you for your readership.
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