Don’t be ridiculous. Probably wasted advice, given to you, but given nonetheless.
Because anyone with three brain cells knows that you won’t accept a cite that contradicts something that you have talked yourself into. It’s like this brainless insistence that, just because Keyser and everyone else who Ford said was at the party says they weren’t at any such party, and Keyser said that she didn’t know Kavanaugh, that doesn’t mean they deny being at the party.
It’s a form of trolling. I hasten to add, not a form that is forbidden on the SDMB, and certainly not in the Pit. But it’s not in good faith. “Cite that water is wet” is always followed by “that cite doesn’t say that water is wet, and ice isn’t wet, and besides it comes from a right-wing source so you are a liar!!!”
I mean, come on. It takes a certain kind of idiot to read a cite where I asked if a Doper actually had mental issues, and received no response, and from that drew the conclusion -
I googled, and I take it this is just an excuse for not bothering with a cite for your (probably made up) claim, since I couldn’t find anything indicating that Ramirez or Swetnick retracted their allegation.
And the above is also not true – Keyser said she couldn’t remember the party, that really is fundamentally different than claiming definitively that they weren’t at the party, or denying the party took place.
Well, no it won’t. You appear to be claiming that your “PS. Hi margin, did you make friends in the psych ward” taunt was just a random remark? Somebody is certainly an idiot here.
Not in that thread, but I went to Iraq in 2004, came back in 2005, and I have been blunt and outspoken about suffering from PTSD----including here on the Dope.
Shodan’s insults took a marked turn toward mental illness after I came back from Iraq. This is not the only place on the internet where he spreads his particular brand of manure.
I, for one, am not. Shodan has proven to me beyond all doubt that he is not sincere. I will no longer engage with him. Like Andy’s useful reference where Shodan explains his view on race - that some african americans are just normal people, but others are [n word] - this is a useful thread to remember when Shodan puts on his mask of civility in the future. He is a hateful bigot who would attack a veteran’s mental health to score some cheap points in a debate [and, might I add, a raging misogynist who thinks you are “insane” if you refuse to slut shame an 11 year old victim of gang rape]. He isn’t worth any of our time, because he won’t engage with what we say regardless.
Resigned to the sad realization that people as pathetic as Shodan actually exist,
To be fair, one of Kavanaugh’s accusers did admit that she made it up.
Her name is Judy Munro-Leighton and she was reportedly a left wing activist who admitted making the accusation out of anger. There were calls to have her investigated for charges of making false allegations. Swetnick (and her lawyer Avenatti) was also being referred to the FBI the same way, so I could see someone conflating those two cases.
Swetnick reportedly “backed off” some of her accusations:
But that’s a far cry from a full retraction. I can’t find anyone claiming that she had fully retracted her accusation, not even right wing opinion pieces.
The closest thing I could find to a “retraction” about Ramirez was that the New York Times ran a story that seemed to be about Ramirez, mentioning Kavanaugh exposing himself to a female student. The story paralleled the allegations Ramirez made, so the assumption is that Ramirez was the victim in that piece, though I don’t think she was named. The Times later added a correction that they’d failed to mention that the “female student” (again, assumed to be Ramirez) did not remember the incident (which was reported by a different person who was at the party).
That’s the closest thing I could find to a “retraction” by Ramirez.
Given all of the above, I can see someone mistakenly thinking that both Swetnick and Ramirez have recanted. But that’s simply not true.
You know, you are correct. I used to consider myself a centrist, but while my views on the issues have shifted to an extent, a much bigger factor has been the realization that the Right doesn’t actually align with any of the views I held. And people like Shodan, with their disgusting behavior, have helped illuminate that to me. They’ve helped me see through the coded language like “personal responsibility” to the vile racism that lies just below the surface. Going back and reading things they said so long ago – when I considered my politics much closer to theirs – is disgusting.
In that sense, mission accomplished – my ignorance, at least, has been fought over my time at the Dope.
Yep. This is what I found. And because this isn’t the first time we’ve had a similar back and forth on this issue, I think it’s far more likely that Shodan is deliberately lying rather than just mistaken.
There’s another possibility, I suppose – Shodan could just be just an old misogynist dinosaur who sees anything but 100% rock-solid metaphysical certainty by an accuser as the same as a retraction, refusing to recognize all the difficulties that victims and survivors face due to abominable treatment by society and culture.
Jeez, I remember thinking *they’ll have to fix it all now.*That was before it got really bad. I swear, the process of getting help from the VA causes damage equal to that inflicted by the insurgents. That was before it got really bad. I tried to kill myself four times, but I learned to cut myself to stave off the worst suicidal impulses. I don’t even want to check to see where I was in terms of number at that point. There had been some kind of paperwork victory, but I was still throwing up from fear if I had to think about getting in a vehicle, and the VA basically acted like I wasn’t trying hard enough. I hated my doctor and my “team”, and had to fight to get assigned to people who actually listened to me.
Example: me talking to my therapist about flinching at what I reacted to as snipers.
Therapists. “Why would you think there are snipers?”
She’d been my therapist for at least a year.
After one suicide attempt, a civilian agency of some sort took control of my care for a while and changed my meds, but it wasn’t till a few years ago that I was put on name brand, dedicated, standard anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds that were intended for that purpose. They started out with off-brand, off-label stuff, using meds that weren’t intended for what I was experiencing. Gabapentin for incidental anxiety? “Just take more” klonapin if a smaller dose doesn’t work? (After I tried to kill myself with it?)
From talking to other vets, it seems that different VAs in different parts of the country offer different standards. I know at least one bureaucrat here who has been convicted of embezzlement from the VA here. I know it seems like every woman vet here gets diagnosed with “arthritis.” I know they failed a basic safety test (which was not detailed in the press) for things like having a smoking area near oxygen tank storage.
I had one acquaintance whose FOB was mortared and destroyed. Building collapsed on top of her, shrapnel everywhere. One of her arms had the muscles and tendons ripped free at one end of the bone. They sewed her arm back together and sent her home, but she still had problems with the arm. The VA’s diagnosis? Arthritis. She was 23.
I talked to many female veterans in the waiting rooms. All of them had much the same experiences I did.
I just posted a comment and a link to a thread here in the Pit where I vented about the VA and PTSD, and I believe that was three years before the remark I quoted in the same comment.
As I also said, Shodan has been well known to feminists for decades, and I first encountered him on the Ms. boards in the late 90s. He was engaging in the same tactics then.
