I can’t resist taking a simple, childish pleasure in his surname.
Gamecock
Proof that we can eliminate the position.
John Lewis
Boxes need to be ticked.
Proven experience, ability, knowledge or competence are not required.
Pete Buttigieg
My name is Pete Buttigieg. I’m 38 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.
There is an idea of a Pete Buttigieg. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Andrew C
Off topic but……
“The publisher of a book about cancel culture by Julie Burchill has cancelled it after the writer was accused of Islamophobia on Twitter.”
Oblong
@AndrewC
Yeah – she basically said some other journalist – a Muslim – worshipped a paedo. Which is basically true, given Muhammad had a 9yr-old wife*. But it seems the truth is no defence for wrongthink.
* there are some revisionist theories about what that term might actually mean in practice, but they largely come across as excuses even Rudy Giuliani would be embarrassed to argue in court.
Rowdy
It was the ever-reliable ‘Must’ Ash Sarkar.
Ottokring
The first open gay in the WHite House cabinet ( Grenfell ? Genell ?) appointed by Trump has already been memory-holed and now Mr Buttjigger is the Only Gay in the Village.
Surreptitious Evil
Richard Grenell – was only ever Acting DHS Secretary
John Lewis
Julie Burchill is a successful author, any less so and she wouldn’t be worth posturing about, any more so and money would have won the day.
The same publishing house, Hachette, decided not to forego the revenue from Jordan Peterson’s guaranteed best-seller despite the howls of protest from within, albeit at a very junior levels
Bloke in North Dorset
I don’t know anything about the book publishing industry:
Does she get to keep any advance?
Can she take her manuscript elsewhere?
asiaseen
@ BinD
Publishers’ contracts usually have some very small small-print that will keep laywers getting richer for years.
Pcar
@Oblong
Similar to the “Fact Checkers” on the CCTV of suitcases of ballots dragged out from under table after “everyone” told to leave, then brought to counting machine:
“What you’re seeing is not true
– nobody was told to leave
– there were no suitcases under table
– nobody removed anything from under table or took it to counting machine ”
One of Hellary’s top aides is head of International Independent Fact Checkers org
Ummmm
Already turning his being accepted in the role as a homophobic litmus test so to even ask if he’s qualified let alone suited to the job will have the woke mob inflamed….what was that someone was saying about dog whistle politics
aaa
I just don’t know. What Julie Birchill said wasn’t nice, it wasn’t kind, it might not even be correct. But islamophobic? By that standard, we’re going to be locking up everyone who jokes about sky pixies and imaginary friends.
Bloke in North Dorset
asiaseen,
Thanks. I guess there’ll be some clause about bring the publisher in to disrepute.
MyBurningEars
@aaa
In the anti-Semitism rows, what counts as “anti-Semitic” by fairly broad – but by no means universal – social consensus, seems to include insults that by themselves are quite mild, but which part into certain stereotypes or tropes that are considered harmful.
Calling people believers in a sky-fairy isn’t nice, kind, or likely accurate. “Accurate” here meaning either theologically – fairies and deities are different things, and few religions teach their deity is actually airborne, though of course someone who believes the theological is all absurd anyway will have little time for such distinctions – or likely to be true personally, since many or even most nominal Christians, Muslims etc are primarily “cultural Christians”, “cultural Muslims” etc, who have family celebrations according to particular calendars and are aware even if dimly of a certain set of religious stories, but are not literal believers. However, it doesn’t seem to pick out a particular religion or play into an established trope about such a group. I have little doubt that if a smart-ass Dawkinsite manager daily greeted every employee who wore a skullcap, turban or headscarf with “and how’s your sky-fairy today?”, they’d be booted for discrimination pretty quickly.
Calling someone of Muslim heritage a “paedophile worshipper” primarily because of their parental/ethnic background cuts much closer to the “racist” bone, since it is picking out a more tightly defined group, and largely based on ancestry (“literal communist” Sarkar not known for writing from a literalist religious perspective). And it does play into the trope of Muslims being a bunch of paedophiles, which is used relentlessly in far-right propaganda. Quite possible btw to think that primarily Pakistani-origin grooming gangs have been widespread and harmful and that officials being cowed from investigating them due to fear of being seen as “racist” was a big part of the problem, yet also find far-right tropes that all/most Muslims are paedos to be disturbing and distasteful. Similarly if you don’t see that there’s a problem with the significant involvement of Caribbean-origin young men in the drugs trade then you’re never going to address deep-rooted issues in that community, but you can still see it as being racist to stereotype all young black men as drug-dealers. I’ve never bought into the hero-worship some people have of far-right leaders for their promotion of the grooming gangs story either – seems likely to me this contributed more to the story being suppressed and increasingly politically sensitive to investigate than it actually helped the victims. “Paedo-worshipper”, intentionally or not, seems to be harking very much in that direction.
Gamecock
‘Or Dr. Jill?’
No, she’ll be Surgeon General (per Whoopi Goldberg).
“Calling someone of Muslim heritage a “paedophile worshipper” primarily because of their parental/ethnic background cuts much closer to the “racist” bone, since it is picking out a more tightly defined group, and largely based on ancestry (“literal communist” Sarkar not known for writing from a literalist religious perspective)”
No, it’s a very simple thing. Mohammed married a 6 year old girl and consummated marriage with her when she was 9. No-one in the world of Islam or apologists for Islam will say this is not the case. So, he was a paedophile, one who wants to have sex with children. Worshipping someone who is a paedophile makes you a paedophile worshipper.
MyBurningEars
@bom4
For what it’s worth both the marital age and age of consummation are contested. So “No-one in the world of Islam or apologists for Islam will say this is not the case” is factually incorrect – although it may be the case that they’re wrong and the original claim is historically right. And indeed there are Muslims who view the age of the marriage to Aisha as both low and theologically important for being so – Nigeria had some problems a few years back trying to raise the minimum marital age as some Muslim groups in the North protested on the grounds that marriage to young girls was acceptable under Shariah (based explicitly on Aisha’s example) and should not be banned by secular law. British Muslims tend to downplay it on the other hand, and generally argue that Aisha was older and certainly was post-puberty by consummation. Have a look at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/17/muhammad-aisha-truth – the authorial claim this somehow represents the objective truth or represents worldwide Muslims is clearly overreaching (see the Nigeria example) but it does demonstrate your claim that the age of Aisha is totally uncontroversial and accepted by all Muslims is also wrong. That article is accurate in pointing out the Quran doesn’t state her age, which is the only bit that even credulous religious literalists treat as inerrant. That’s before you get to the issue that even religious Muslims don’t worship Mohammed (they would say they revere rather than “worship” – worshipping is for Allah) and plenty of younger British Muslims especially (but also some from the older generation, particularly Iranian refugees and a lot of the Turkish community) are essentially cultural Muslims only and don’t participate in worship activities. If you talk to your Muslim friends about Mohammed and their views on Aisha you’re more likely to get something closer to that tepid Guardian article than the North Nigerian religious leaders in https://www.voanews.com/africa/bid-end-child-marriages-arouses-passions-northern-nigeria
So assuming someone in Britain and of Muslim cultural heritage is a “paedo-worshipper” is tendentious at best. They certainly don’t worship Mohammed, most likely don’t think of him as having done the things that Western critics of Islam accuse him of (even if these might be historically accurate) and may well take the whole religion thing with a pinch of salt anyway. This undermines the “I’m very simply stating a truth” defence.
“Calling out” as a “paedo-worshipper” anyone you talk to who is from a Muslim background isn’t just an unproductive thing to do, it’s the kind of minority-bashing that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth, particularly given how it resonates with explicitly racist far-right tropes. And there’s a flip side of this. Did your parents ever go to church, do you put up a Christmas tree or back in the day allowed your kids to sing carols at their primary school concert? Doesn’t that make you a paedo-worshipper too, since you’re celebrating how the God you nominally worship – despite any protestations you’re not at all religious personally – managed to miraculously impregnate a girl often reckoned to be 12 herself? (Not that the Bible states her age, but 12-14 is a common estimate even in religious circles, based on Jewish betrothal customs of the time.) Or perhaps for those among us who stick up a menorah on the windowsill, even if they don’t know all the prayers and have a weddings-and-funerals approach to synagogue, should all be castigated as supporters of ritual child slaughter given the Binding of Isaac? (To dish things around thoroughly, we can maybe land any smug atheists with the gulag deaths and condemn the peace-proclaiming Buddhists for the treatment of the Rohingya.) Decrying anyone you talk to for the nastiest or nuttiest views or actions of their nominal or assumed coreligionists, past and present, is a terrible way for society to (dys)function. Ditto for (pre)judging someone or assuming some kind of collective guilt based on their skin colour and assumed ancestry – one reason a lot of the more extreme BLM stuff gets my back up. If we go down that road, especially now we have ended up with a religiously and ethnically diverse population embedded in a complex and globalised world, then we are going to head into some pretty unpleasant places and I don’t think it’s a bad thing if there are social sanctions against people who seem intent on taking us there. That nutter in the VOA article above who says marriage to a nine-year-old is fine because (his local version of) Islam tells him so? Sure, call him out as a venerator of paedophilia. I’ve got no issue with that. Some brown person on twitter or you meet on the street who has Pakistani or Bangladeshi ancestry but who has expressed no such views? Then unprovokedly calling them a “paedo-worshipper” is a Bad Thing.
And yes even if they’re Ash Sarkar and make a living from basically being an annoying troll then getting accolades for how they handle the brickbats they inevitably attract. Best way to beat her at that game is just not engage with the prat, or point out why she’s wrong about the issue at hand. Taking a pop at her cultural ancestry is 110% playing into her hands.
Yeah that used to wind me up. Partly because it unnecessarily racialised the thing but it certainly wasn’t an inherent issue with brown-skinned men in general, it’s quite a culturally specific one. Having said that if “Asian” is dropped for “people of no background” then that’s not great progress either. Racist types will simply read in what they like to the lists of names and photos, and the fact that there are some very serious social/cultural issues that need urgently addressing is going to be allowed to stay hidden under the water (or indeed may become increasingly politically unspeakable).
Gamecock
Consider the arrogant insult Biden lays upon America:
Appointing someone to lead the government’s transportation department, Biden selects
a medium sized city’s mayor whose claim to fame is he likes dick.
No experience in transportation at all.
Biden proudly proclaims the ‘diversity’ of his cabinet. Not one mention of credentials, other than black, female, queer . . . . He says to American that he doesn’t give a shit about what America needs from the federal government; he’s filling posts based on identity politics.
Race is what matters.
Sex is what matters.
Your sexual proclivities are what matter.
Fvck the roads. Fvck education. Fvck it all.
Pcar
@MBE
If some media now refer to them as “Muslim rape gangs” it’s a start, even if they don’t removing Asian means people will make their own decision
@Gamecock
+1 Spot on. Joe “Corrupt” Biden made ‘identity’ over ability clear before election with ‘VP will be a non-white woman’
I find this behaviour discriminatory, destructive and akin to detested by Left ‘old school tie’ appointments
imo Biden is a known national security risk and should not have been allowed to run
I can’t resist taking a simple, childish pleasure in his surname.
Proof that we can eliminate the position.
Boxes need to be ticked.
Proven experience, ability, knowledge or competence are not required.
My name is Pete Buttigieg. I’m 38 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.
There is an idea of a Pete Buttigieg. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Off topic but……
“The publisher of a book about cancel culture by Julie Burchill has cancelled it after the writer was accused of Islamophobia on Twitter.”
@AndrewC
Yeah – she basically said some other journalist – a Muslim – worshipped a paedo. Which is basically true, given Muhammad had a 9yr-old wife*. But it seems the truth is no defence for wrongthink.
* there are some revisionist theories about what that term might actually mean in practice, but they largely come across as excuses even Rudy Giuliani would be embarrassed to argue in court.
It was the ever-reliable ‘Must’ Ash Sarkar.
The first open gay in the WHite House cabinet ( Grenfell ? Genell ?) appointed by Trump has already been memory-holed and now Mr Buttjigger is the Only Gay in the Village.
Richard Grenell – was only ever Acting DHS Secretary
Julie Burchill is a successful author, any less so and she wouldn’t be worth posturing about, any more so and money would have won the day.
The same publishing house, Hachette, decided not to forego the revenue from Jordan Peterson’s guaranteed best-seller despite the howls of protest from within, albeit at a very junior levels
I don’t know anything about the book publishing industry:
Does she get to keep any advance?
Can she take her manuscript elsewhere?
@ BinD
Publishers’ contracts usually have some very small small-print that will keep laywers getting richer for years.
@Oblong
Similar to the “Fact Checkers” on the CCTV of suitcases of ballots dragged out from under table after “everyone” told to leave, then brought to counting machine:
“What you’re seeing is not true
– nobody was told to leave
– there were no suitcases under table
– nobody removed anything from under table or took it to counting machine ”
One of Hellary’s top aides is head of International Independent Fact Checkers org
Already turning his being accepted in the role as a homophobic litmus test so to even ask if he’s qualified let alone suited to the job will have the woke mob inflamed….what was that someone was saying about dog whistle politics
I just don’t know. What Julie Birchill said wasn’t nice, it wasn’t kind, it might not even be correct. But islamophobic? By that standard, we’re going to be locking up everyone who jokes about sky pixies and imaginary friends.
asiaseen,
Thanks. I guess there’ll be some clause about bring the publisher in to disrepute.
@aaa
In the anti-Semitism rows, what counts as “anti-Semitic” by fairly broad – but by no means universal – social consensus, seems to include insults that by themselves are quite mild, but which part into certain stereotypes or tropes that are considered harmful.
Calling people believers in a sky-fairy isn’t nice, kind, or likely accurate. “Accurate” here meaning either theologically – fairies and deities are different things, and few religions teach their deity is actually airborne, though of course someone who believes the theological is all absurd anyway will have little time for such distinctions – or likely to be true personally, since many or even most nominal Christians, Muslims etc are primarily “cultural Christians”, “cultural Muslims” etc, who have family celebrations according to particular calendars and are aware even if dimly of a certain set of religious stories, but are not literal believers. However, it doesn’t seem to pick out a particular religion or play into an established trope about such a group. I have little doubt that if a smart-ass Dawkinsite manager daily greeted every employee who wore a skullcap, turban or headscarf with “and how’s your sky-fairy today?”, they’d be booted for discrimination pretty quickly.
Calling someone of Muslim heritage a “paedophile worshipper” primarily because of their parental/ethnic background cuts much closer to the “racist” bone, since it is picking out a more tightly defined group, and largely based on ancestry (“literal communist” Sarkar not known for writing from a literalist religious perspective). And it does play into the trope of Muslims being a bunch of paedophiles, which is used relentlessly in far-right propaganda. Quite possible btw to think that primarily Pakistani-origin grooming gangs have been widespread and harmful and that officials being cowed from investigating them due to fear of being seen as “racist” was a big part of the problem, yet also find far-right tropes that all/most Muslims are paedos to be disturbing and distasteful. Similarly if you don’t see that there’s a problem with the significant involvement of Caribbean-origin young men in the drugs trade then you’re never going to address deep-rooted issues in that community, but you can still see it as being racist to stereotype all young black men as drug-dealers. I’ve never bought into the hero-worship some people have of far-right leaders for their promotion of the grooming gangs story either – seems likely to me this contributed more to the story being suppressed and increasingly politically sensitive to investigate than it actually helped the victims. “Paedo-worshipper”, intentionally or not, seems to be harking very much in that direction.
‘Or Dr. Jill?’
No, she’ll be Surgeon General (per Whoopi Goldberg).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvK2v9va9JQ
“Calling someone of Muslim heritage a “paedophile worshipper” primarily because of their parental/ethnic background cuts much closer to the “racist” bone, since it is picking out a more tightly defined group, and largely based on ancestry (“literal communist” Sarkar not known for writing from a literalist religious perspective)”
No, it’s a very simple thing. Mohammed married a 6 year old girl and consummated marriage with her when she was 9. No-one in the world of Islam or apologists for Islam will say this is not the case. So, he was a paedophile, one who wants to have sex with children. Worshipping someone who is a paedophile makes you a paedophile worshipper.
@bom4
For what it’s worth both the marital age and age of consummation are contested. So “No-one in the world of Islam or apologists for Islam will say this is not the case” is factually incorrect – although it may be the case that they’re wrong and the original claim is historically right. And indeed there are Muslims who view the age of the marriage to Aisha as both low and theologically important for being so – Nigeria had some problems a few years back trying to raise the minimum marital age as some Muslim groups in the North protested on the grounds that marriage to young girls was acceptable under Shariah (based explicitly on Aisha’s example) and should not be banned by secular law. British Muslims tend to downplay it on the other hand, and generally argue that Aisha was older and certainly was post-puberty by consummation. Have a look at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/17/muhammad-aisha-truth – the authorial claim this somehow represents the objective truth or represents worldwide Muslims is clearly overreaching (see the Nigeria example) but it does demonstrate your claim that the age of Aisha is totally uncontroversial and accepted by all Muslims is also wrong. That article is accurate in pointing out the Quran doesn’t state her age, which is the only bit that even credulous religious literalists treat as inerrant. That’s before you get to the issue that even religious Muslims don’t worship Mohammed (they would say they revere rather than “worship” – worshipping is for Allah) and plenty of younger British Muslims especially (but also some from the older generation, particularly Iranian refugees and a lot of the Turkish community) are essentially cultural Muslims only and don’t participate in worship activities. If you talk to your Muslim friends about Mohammed and their views on Aisha you’re more likely to get something closer to that tepid Guardian article than the North Nigerian religious leaders in https://www.voanews.com/africa/bid-end-child-marriages-arouses-passions-northern-nigeria
So assuming someone in Britain and of Muslim cultural heritage is a “paedo-worshipper” is tendentious at best. They certainly don’t worship Mohammed, most likely don’t think of him as having done the things that Western critics of Islam accuse him of (even if these might be historically accurate) and may well take the whole religion thing with a pinch of salt anyway. This undermines the “I’m very simply stating a truth” defence.
“Calling out” as a “paedo-worshipper” anyone you talk to who is from a Muslim background isn’t just an unproductive thing to do, it’s the kind of minority-bashing that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth, particularly given how it resonates with explicitly racist far-right tropes. And there’s a flip side of this. Did your parents ever go to church, do you put up a Christmas tree or back in the day allowed your kids to sing carols at their primary school concert? Doesn’t that make you a paedo-worshipper too, since you’re celebrating how the God you nominally worship – despite any protestations you’re not at all religious personally – managed to miraculously impregnate a girl often reckoned to be 12 herself? (Not that the Bible states her age, but 12-14 is a common estimate even in religious circles, based on Jewish betrothal customs of the time.) Or perhaps for those among us who stick up a menorah on the windowsill, even if they don’t know all the prayers and have a weddings-and-funerals approach to synagogue, should all be castigated as supporters of ritual child slaughter given the Binding of Isaac? (To dish things around thoroughly, we can maybe land any smug atheists with the gulag deaths and condemn the peace-proclaiming Buddhists for the treatment of the Rohingya.) Decrying anyone you talk to for the nastiest or nuttiest views or actions of their nominal or assumed coreligionists, past and present, is a terrible way for society to (dys)function. Ditto for (pre)judging someone or assuming some kind of collective guilt based on their skin colour and assumed ancestry – one reason a lot of the more extreme BLM stuff gets my back up. If we go down that road, especially now we have ended up with a religiously and ethnically diverse population embedded in a complex and globalised world, then we are going to head into some pretty unpleasant places and I don’t think it’s a bad thing if there are social sanctions against people who seem intent on taking us there. That nutter in the VOA article above who says marriage to a nine-year-old is fine because (his local version of) Islam tells him so? Sure, call him out as a venerator of paedophilia. I’ve got no issue with that. Some brown person on twitter or you meet on the street who has Pakistani or Bangladeshi ancestry but who has expressed no such views? Then unprovokedly calling them a “paedo-worshipper” is a Bad Thing.
And yes even if they’re Ash Sarkar and make a living from basically being an annoying troll then getting accolades for how they handle the brickbats they inevitably attract. Best way to beat her at that game is just not engage with the prat, or point out why she’s wrong about the issue at hand. Taking a pop at her cultural ancestry is 110% playing into her hands.
@MBE, BoM4
Some good news
@Pcar
Yeah that used to wind me up. Partly because it unnecessarily racialised the thing but it certainly wasn’t an inherent issue with brown-skinned men in general, it’s quite a culturally specific one. Having said that if “Asian” is dropped for “people of no background” then that’s not great progress either. Racist types will simply read in what they like to the lists of names and photos, and the fact that there are some very serious social/cultural issues that need urgently addressing is going to be allowed to stay hidden under the water (or indeed may become increasingly politically unspeakable).
Consider the arrogant insult Biden lays upon America:
Appointing someone to lead the government’s transportation department, Biden selects
a medium sized city’s mayor whose claim to fame is he likes dick.
No experience in transportation at all.
Biden proudly proclaims the ‘diversity’ of his cabinet. Not one mention of credentials, other than black, female, queer . . . . He says to American that he doesn’t give a shit about what America needs from the federal government; he’s filling posts based on identity politics.
Race is what matters.
Sex is what matters.
Your sexual proclivities are what matter.
Fvck the roads. Fvck education. Fvck it all.
@MBE
If some media now refer to them as “Muslim rape gangs” it’s a start, even if they don’t removing Asian means people will make their own decision
@Gamecock
+1 Spot on. Joe “Corrupt” Biden made ‘identity’ over ability clear before election with ‘VP will be a non-white woman’
I find this behaviour discriminatory, destructive and akin to detested by Left ‘old school tie’ appointments
imo Biden is a known national security risk and should not have been allowed to run