Commentary: Male dominance is the issue

by Tom Howarth
Originally published in the Northern Virginia Daily, December 30, 2017.

 

Takeaways

• Although it seems a new chapter has begun with the #MeToo movement, society has a long way to go before the notion of male dominance is unseated.
• Decades ago, the Title IX statute opened the door for women to participate in school sports, where they have thrived.
• Regardless of the stellar accomplishments of women in sport, or in any other area, we continue to save the biggest stages and rewards for the boys.
  
  

Some powerful men are falling from their high places.

Politicians, celebrities and academics have all succumbed to charges that they imposed themselves on women. The current scandal could have started at any time, but the dethroning of Harvey Weinstein gave birth to the “#MeToo” movement.

What is at stake for men is nothing less than a redefinition of masculinity and male dominance. The charges of sexual assault and harassment are not essentially about sex but power. Why do I impose my will on you? Because I can, and I can get away with it. Apparently, you cannot get away with it anymore unless you are president of the United States or have his blessing.

All men need to survey their lives and ask if they ever made a woman uncomfortable or treated her as an object. Not many of us would emerge unscathed.

The current reckoning is the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath? Do we just take for granted that powerful men will act badly? Do we succumb to the notion that this is just the way it is?

I graduated from the University of Connecticut in January 1973. During my tenure at UCONN, men’s basketball was the most prominent sport on campus. Women’s basketball was not established until 1974. Could I be forgiven for assuming that basketball was a man’s game and that women’s basketball was something created to satisfy the requirements of Title IX, the civil rights statute enacted in 1972?

I couldn’t have been forgiven for long, as the women’s rights movement strongly challenged male dominance in many aspects of life.

In Street & Smith’s 2017-2018 basketball preview you can find references to men’s college teams from powerful Duke to small college Ferris State. In all, references to college basketball consume 221 pages of the magazine. How many pages are devoted to coverage of women’s college basketball? Precisely, six.

I have a button on my remote control that, when I push it, gives me schedules and scores from college basketball games from conferences around the country. Can I find out how my alma mater’s women’s team is faring? No. References to NCAA Women’s Basketball do not appear next to the category, NCAAB. So, what is the message? As far as my remote control is concerned, college basketball is men’s basketball.

Does men’s basketball dominate the women’s program at UCONN? Hardly.

The treatment of women’s college basketball is but one slight beneath the Harvey Weinstein, et al, tip of the iceberg.

Tom Howarth is a former legislative assistant to the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-NJ. and a member of the Warren County Democratic Committee. 

Learn more about the Warren County Democratic Committee at www.warrencodems.org.

Goodlatte’s misleading behavior

by Steve Foreman
Originally published in the Northern Virginia Daily, December 30, 2017.

Takeaways

• As chair of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte fails the leadership test by putting party before Constitution and country.
• Under Goodlatte's leadership, the committee seeks to discredit the Mueller investigation by claiming bias at the FBI taints the entire process
• While the committee spends time undermining Mueller's work, they ignore an existential threat to our democracy. 

I am dismayed to see our 6th Congressional District Representative Bob Goodlatte, televised leading his committee in the investigation of “inner bias” regarding the FBI. As chair of the Judiciary Committee, we can presume that Goodlatte is responsible for the hearing as well as the direction of the committee in questioning Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Remember that Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, an impartial Republican, as a result of President Trump’s firing the FBI director, James Comey, and that Trump is on record stating he fired Comey to stop the investigation into the president and his men regarding Russia. Mueller’s efforts have already resulted in arrests and indictments.

Goodlatte’s committee was not concerned with the fact of the indictments, or the behavior of the president and his men, or the fact of an attack on the nation and electoral operations. Rather, they are concerned with the fact that some members of the FBI were guilty of passing emails disparaging Trump. Apparently, personal opinions somehow tainted the investigation of Hillary Clinton. Several members of the committee expanded this idea to suggest that the whole Mueller investigation be shut down. If the Republicans are so concerned about the Clinton problem, they should investigate her actions. Perhaps they are discouraged from investigating her now, given that previous investigations amounted to little more than expensive, fruitless witch hunts.

I am shocked that Goodlatte would attempt to stop the investigation into the invasive behavior committed by Russia. This is a partisan move to try to sow doubt about Mueller rather than a desire to protect and serve our country. There is the predictable chorus of Republican talking heads trying to cast doubt about Mueller’s work. Putting the Republican Party ahead of the Constitution is not the behavior of public servants concerned with our best interests. Republicans are fond of investigations when directed at their opponents, but are afraid of truth-finding when it is looks at their actions.

Steve Foreman is a writer, IT specialist, and Chairman of the Warren County Democratic Committee.

Learn more about the Warren County Democratic Committee at www.warrencodems.org.

Commentary: The Republican Party is responsible for this mess

by Steve Foreman
Originally published in the Northern Virginia Daily, December 13, 2017.

Takeaways

• Trump's dangerous and embarrassing flaws dominate the national spotlight and distract the public while the GOP crafts legislation for the benefit of the "donor class."
• Hypocrisy abounds in the GOP's actions relating to ethics, fiscal responsibility, and calls for unity.
• Misdeeds abound in regulatory rollbacks, the undermining of the ACA, voter suppression, and a ballooning national debt.
• The GOP manages an amazing high wire act — expertly managing their message to Teflon away from Trump's malignant mudslinging while keeping his base on board through misdirection towards social issues, yet, in terms of policy, acting against the interests of the lower 80%.
• Beyond their own selfish legislative concerns, the GOP is also complicit in the damage Trump and his misfit cabinet inflict on our country and our reputation.

If you listen carefully, you can probably hear the other shoes dropping across the mountains from us, in Washington, D.C.

The ever-shifting kaleidoscopic mess that is the Donald Trump reality show is rapidly coming apart, destroyed by its own actions. How could such a compromised venture, based on lies and hate, hope to succeed? Beginning with Trump’s assertion about Obama’s African origins, to pronouncements about rapists and murderers, to the absurd fiction about building a wall, to banning Muslims, or mocking a handicapped person, to sexual abuse, to a public fight with Gold Star parents, to numerous petty fights picked with all manner of Americans, all served one purpose, to put the spotlight on Trump’s inflated ego. The glare has illuminated aspects that Trump and his cult wish would remain hidden.

Mostly responsible is the Republican Party, which slowly but completely embraced Trump, using him as a smokescreen to divert attention from their attempts to sell out the voters they claim to love, and to reinforce the economic might of the top 20 percent that is their donor class. From removing health care for the disadvantaged to creating a windfall tax cut for the people they work for, those who need it least, the Republican Party has plenty to hide.

During the Trump campaign, it was popular to disparage the opposition, charging that anyone with even a hint of guilt was unfit for office. Somehow that standard does not apply to Trump and his appointees, despite the ongoing investigations. With the new administration, we have a Supreme Court justice appointed to a position disgracefully robbed from the preceding president, and a flood of radically conservative appointments to federal judgeships and administrative posts. What legitimacy does this administration have, given its aura of corruption,  incompetence and divisive policies?

The so-called public servants now in charge are not acting in our best interests. We see them rolling back protections and practices put in place through experience and benefiting the common welfare; environmental, judicial, consumer, trade, and diplomatic measures all being thrown aside without concern for the aftermath and potential disastrous effects on the nation.

They call for a convention to effect changes to the Constitution, including removing the direct popular vote for senators. Witness the actions this summer, when Republicans tried to remove health care for millions of their constituents – it only failed after a public outcry convinced a few senators that it would endanger their reelection. Or the recent effort to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which uncovered Wells Fargo’s efforts to take advantage of their customers and which gave money back to consumers? What about the Federal Communications Commission whose Trump-appointed head is trying to roll back net neutrality, allowing large corporations to dictate individual internet use? Or the biggest give away possible, transferring billions to the top 20 percent in the guise of tax cuts to help the middle class? Even though most economists say this would blow up the deficit and ultimately harm the middle class and poor, Republicans are so beholden to their donors that they would forsake the people they represent to keep the campaign donations flowing. Never mind that the deficit hawks of the last eight years would not allow any infrastructure work or spending to stimulate the economy when a Democrat was in charge, they now claim that reducing taxes would result in a boom not a bust, a theory recently disproved in Kansas. After causing the deficit to spike, they plan to cut programs like Social Security and Medicare, long-cherished desires of the Republican Party.

As damaging as Trump is, and there is no space here to list the ways, the Republican Party is complicit in his failures and responsible for his actions. That a minority of voters are willing to look away from cooperation with a hostile foreign government, and accepting of loss of rights like voting or health care, or public safety or clean air, is testament to the ability of Republicans to manipulate public sentiment. Skillful management of hot button social issues allows Republicans to misdirect attention and obscure issues. During Obama’s time, they were the party of fiscal austerity, now that they are in charge, arithmetic and reason don’t matter. The ability to persuade millions to vote against their best interests is almost genius on the Republican’s part.

What will happen when the folks who believed the false populism of the Republicans and Trump realize that they have been sold a pack of lies?

Steve Foreman is a writer, IT specialist, and Chairman of the Warren County Democratic Committee.

Learn more about the Warren County Democratic Committee at www.warrencodems.org.