Excellent essay about Franken

[dhol82]

Sorry I can’t do a cut and paste of the first paragraph from my IPad.

https://medium.com/@SIIPCampaigns/a-survivors-defense-of-al-franken-ea994c5bbc9a

[applegrove]

1. Link did not take me to Franken.

[spooky3]

2. Thanks. Here are the first few pghs and a link:

[link:https://medium.com/@SIIPCampaigns/a-survivors-defense-of-al-franken-ea994c5bbc9a|

(Sorry--I've tried several times to create the link and for unknown reasons, the site isn't allowing it.)

"I feel exploited. And I feel sick.

I’m sick of pedophiles. I’m sick of rapists. I’m sick of sexual violence and sexual predators. I am sick of being reminded moment after moment of the times — yes plural — that I have been shocked out of my body, stripped of my power and deprived of the right to defend my own body by a man sexually forcing himself onto me. More than that, I’m sick of my traumas and the traumas of other survivors being exploited for political gain and emotional satisfaction on both the left and the right. Physically. Sick.

I am sick to know that I cannot protect myself or my daughter from the pussy grabbing woman hater that controls every single law and policy that guides this nation. I am sick to know that Roy Moore exists on this planet and that there are millions of people supportive of a known pedophile holding power over millions upon millions of women and girls in the state of Alabama and the United States. I am sick that a member of the Trump campaign and former state Senator in Oklahoma plead guilty to child trafficking.

And I am sick that people like Leeanne Tweeden feel comfortable enough to take the traumas of the women and children that have been the true victims of sexual violence and used them for her own personal gains and the political goals of the Republican Party..."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Different article. The link to the cited one is here:

https://medium.com/@SIIPCampaigns/a-survivors-defense-of-al-franken-ea994c5bbc9a

[madaboutharry]

7. I see that now.

Sorry for the error, but that other article on the site " Say it ain't so, Al" really pissed me off!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Me, too.

It was more of the same crap about sacrificing an effective progressive senator on the altar of Always Believing All Women All The Time so we liberals can climb up on our high horses and feel good about ourselves, because we're better than the other guys.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Some excerpts:

As a survivor and active member in the struggle to protect and progress civil rights in the United States, I have a track-record of confronting both the Democratic and the Republican party for abuses. If Tweeden was a victim of a violent and predatory Al Franken, I would have stood right by her side and called for an investigation of the Senator and his immediate removal from office. I would have gladly lumped his name into a category with Roy Moore and Donald Trump and Roger Ailes and Henry Weinstein. I would have written an article about how we can’t entrust or bodies to legislators that will assault our women and children and legally enable the predators to get away with similar crimes no matter what side of the aisle we come from.

She is not a victim. She is not an ally. And she is not a survivor. Those words have meaning. Those words hold weight. And she has not earned her right to wear those badges.

***

What Tweeden is, is a willing participant in a new skit in which the Republican Party uses her completely normal interaction with Al Franken as an excuse to accuse a Democratic Senator of sexual assault, deflect from the charges of rape and pedophilia in the highest ranks of their own party, and test drive a strategy by which they can gain increasing amounts of power by exploiting the sexual traumas of women and children.

***

Rather than focusing on accusations against Donald Trump, Roy Moore or Ralph Shortey — the attention is turned onto Minnesota Senator Al Franken. Not only do the Republicans succeed in turning the attention away from themselves, but they succeed in turning the Democrats against each other. And the final narrative becomes:
It’s not the Republican Party supporting pussy grabbers and pedophilia. It’s the Democrats!
The Democratic Party is practically handing the nation’s women and children over to pedophiles and rapists simply because they asked them to. And if we let Senators like Al Franken — representatives that have voting records filled with support for women’s rights — fall to pedophiles like Roy Moore, then we are allowing the real traumas of exploited women be used as an excuse to put more women and girls in harm’s way.

https://medium.com/@SIIPCampaigns/a-survivors-defense-of-al-franken-ea994c5bbc9a

[steve2470]

6. For those of you who get frustrated by "broken links" on DU.....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/125613056

this link will help you fix links...

to fix this link, insert @ where the @ is

you then get this: https://medium.com/@SIIPCampaigns/a-survivors-defense-of-al-franken-ea994c5bbc9a

[Denzil_DC]

9. Here's a link that will work:

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y88o6qal

It's a preview TinyURL. If you click on it, it'll tell you what it points to and give you the option to proceed before it redirects. (I wouldn't expect anyone to click on a TinyURL on its own.)

Or you can copy the whole broken URL from one of the posts above and paste it into the address bar of your browser.

[pangaia]

10. Here is more---

"Politics isn’t a game of morality. Clearly. Wins and losses are accomplished on the basis of strategy. And right now, the Democratic Party is letting a pussy grabbing steak salesman and a bigoted gun toting pedophile out-strategize them with some of the most remedial and ridiculous strategies in the book: deflection.

For example, these lines of argument may sound familiar:
It’s the left that is racially dividing the country, not the alt-right. It’s the Clinton’s relationship with Russia that is suspicious, not Trump’s. It is the left that has destroyed healthcare, not the GOP. The Democrats are the Party of the KKK, not the Republicans.

That’s because one of the most common rhetorical strategies employed by the Republican Party is to deflect an accusation by turning the charges on them around to the accuser. And as common and predictable as this strategy is — the Democrats still haven’t come up with a consistent method to counter it.
Just as in any game of competition, and especially political competition, one side can only succeed if the other side fails to stop them. And fail is exactly what the Democrats are doing. Failing."

I tend to agree with this...

MY team is losing.....

[FuzzyRabbit]

11. Important point from the essay

That’s because one of the most common rhetorical strategies employed by the Republican Party is to deflect an accusation by turning the charges on them around to the accuser. And as common and predictable as this strategy is — the Democrats still haven’t come up with a consistent method to counter it.

Just as in any game of competition, and especially political competition, one side can only succeed if the other side fails to stop them. And fail is exactly what the Democrats are doing. Failing.

[dhol82]

12. Thanks everyone who has brought links to the fight.

[LBM20]

13. GREAT article! This author is saying the Dem party is WEAK on messaging and counter-attacking. And

sadly, as this Franken situation shows us so well, she is correct.

Get it turned around Democratic Party. Learn how to see what the right wing does, stop taking their bait, stop allowing them to control the narratives, and attack THEM and do it RELENTLESSLY.

[dhol82]

14. +1

[oasis]

15. K and R