I am reluctant to emphasize the complex subject of attacks on women; I think it may be a factor with a certain kind of woman, and for a lot of people it may be one of a complex variety of "feelings". But it is bound to raise people's hackles and is rarely black and white. As with religion, telling people who they are is bound to misfire; the problem of separating feelings from evaluation of quality needs some diplomacy and putting people's backs up doesn't help.
I was dismayed when I saw Hillary Clinton with Elizabeth Warren because it was evident to me that Hillary simply didn't come across the "footlights" the way Warren did. Though I looked carefully at Hillary's history when I left Bernie (his one-note insistence on what's right - which I don't dispute - are not an action plan and he's still sowing discord amongst good people, though mostly it's the fringe not him), it was hard to warm to her as a public speaker. Unfortunately, money is part of the equation in politics, and is often cited as a marker of evil. The way things are, that is another coded attack that is not an indicator of intent or heart. Hillary had good policy plans that might have worked. We do, however, need a congress with a majority that is not solely devoted to preventing action, as Obama's was (he had a majority to overcome this for all of 5 months in 2009).
Blaming victims is a lousy strategy, particularly when the minority is your only hope to overcome true evil. True evil is the evolution of the current Republicans in power and their festering takeover of public authorities, the voting apparatus, and the courts.
Rachel Maddow has been devoting her time lately (with a digression into the government failure on Katrina which all of us watched for days on national TV while Bush and his people said they didn't know what was happening) to reporting on the separation of kids (as young as 8 months) from their parents. There is no recordkeeping or identification so the kids and parents can find each other. Local authorities and airline personnel are finding out they were lied to, a vignette of a judge's disgusted reaction when he's told parents don't need to know where their kids are by federal prosecutors (they're now using the military). Alex Azar (Secretary of Health and Human Services) is one of the many Trumpian appointees who doesn't give a flying f*** about his victims and hasn't lifted a pinky for human rights.
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On the Syrian gas attack, it is surprising that the claim it didn't happen has any credibility in any group of people who I know are at heart compassionate. It is an indicator of the way the internet allows people to find biased material that supports their claims, and ignore material that they don't wish to hear. Like the problem with women, which is varied and individual, claims of trolling go nowhere, but it is obvious that "alternative facts" that are not facts are promoted here on the forum, and it's impossible to sort out the propaganda sources from the honestly misled.
As a veteran of the climate wars, I am all too familiar with the proliferation of misinformation and its insidious spread. I beg of you, exercise intelligent skepticism about your sources if they are promoting Russian propaganda. This is not about US and western history of misdeeds (absent the Marshall Plan), but with not taking dubious material on faith without checking much more carefully. The internet has a whole superstructure for climate denialists. The one attacking Democrats in the US and promoting mayhem is all about helping us on our road to perdition. We may deserve the damnation, but Russia is not the angel in this situation.
Here:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/04/12/disinformation-conspiracy-trolling-syrian-chemical-attack/University of Birmingham, told us although Moscow became militarily involved in the Syrian conflict in 2015, they had a propaganda office at the presidential palace in Damascus since the beginning. “From the very start you could see how they were putting out muddled story lines just to make you uncertain about what’s happening,” he told us.
The White Helmets, also known by their official title Syria Civil Defense, are a non-governmental organization made up of volunteers who carry out rescue efforts in rebel-held territory while wearing small cameras. Aside from saving lives, they have been credited with documenting war crimes. Thus, they are targets of frequent (but unproven and unfounded) smears that they are terrorists who are staging “false flag” attacks.
Lucas told us attacking medical facilities and first responders then accusing them of terrorism is a Russian tactic, because first responders in Syria — where it’s extremely difficult and dangerous for foreign journalists to enter — are often key reporters of atrocities:
The Russians would go after hospitals and first responders and the propaganda would come out that you shouldn’t trust information from White Helmets or doctors because they’re aligned with the terrorists. They were deliberately bombing the area but saying you can’t trust anyone who is reporting it.
Official Russian government channels are not the only sources of misleading information. Lucas pointed to a coterie of Western social media personalities and bloggers who have concentrated their efforts on running interference for the Assad regime.