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Rash Judgment and Detraction on Phatmass


Lilllabettt

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Credo in Deum

The Management Clique is the main engine behind Phatmass' (current) downturn. Well done @Lilllabettt on outing it - the downturn, that is. "Management Clique" is my word painting.

Not according to the DOP report.

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The Fr O'Rourke story comes from the fabulous movie "Doubt." We need to have a class on Catholic-themed Philip Seymour Hoffman movies.

Also in that scene, PSH plays a priest giving a homily, and it is understood that he is referencing Meryl Streep's nun character. The conflict between these two crackles with deliciousness and no more so than when Father basically calls her an "ignorant, badly brought up female" from the pulpit.

Also in context it has an element of misogyny to it, which adds a layer because the priest in the movie is supposed to be a 60s liberal. layerssssssss

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I thought the feather pillow penance story was actually attributed to St. Philip Neri?  

The story appears in multiple faith traditions -- there is an Irish version, an Italian version, a Jewish version, -- there's even a Hindu version with chicken feathers. It is a very old story and the penance has no doubt been given many times to detractors and gossipers of all stripes. The version I used here is from "Doubt' - which is itself derived from the recollections of playwright John Patrick Shanley growing up in Catholic school. 

 

 

I like avoiding vagueness whenever possible. If there are good reasons for the contrary then that is fine.

I prefer vagueness. It's powerful, because it makes everyone think : "who is she referring to - is she talking about me?" and examine their behavior to see if I could be talking about them.

What I said applies equally to anybody who thought, in their heart, "that cop is guilty as sin" or "no way he could be telling the truth," etc. If your conscience convicts you of rash judgment in this case so be it.

Vagueness also puts the ball firmly in the other sides court. They have the option of either slinking away or facing the music - and I cannot be accused of cruelty in forcing them to come forward by naming them

By the way, it sure is interesting how those who had time to tear down this man's reputation suddenly don't have time to deal with the repercussions now that he's been cleared. Just an observation.

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MarysLittleFlower

I read about how Blessed Dina Belanger always assumed the best of others, tried to excuse them in some way if guilt was evident, and if people around her were speaking badly of someone, she changed the topic or said something good about them. I think this is a good course of action in any case. Everyone deserves a good reputation and if they are guilty, prayer does more than analyzing them.  

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Nihil Obstat

Dude, we are well aware of your need to remedy "vagueness".

insert wry grin here ->

IDGI. Am I supposed to be insulted? :idontknow:

 

The Fr O'Rourke story comes from the fabulous movie "Doubt." We need to have a class on Catholic-themed Philip Seymour Hoffman movies.

Also in that scene, PSH plays a priest giving a homily, and it is understood that he is referencing Meryl Streep's nun character. The conflict between these two crackles with deliciousness and no more so than when Father basically calls her an "ignorant, badly brought up female" from the pulpit.

Also in context it has an element of misogyny to it, which adds a layer because the priest in the movie is supposed to be a 60s liberal. layerssssssss

 

 

 

Excellent film. 

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OK. I didn't comment in the other thread. But as I watched the situation in Ferguson unfold, I was reminded very strongly of the situation in Northern Ireland and my experiences there. How many Ulster Protestants still can't understand the Catholic suspicion of the police. The police force is mostly drawn from their number, and they are adamant that the police are only there to help and protect society, and they think that Irish Catholics who are wary with the police are just hanging onto conflict and trying to create trouble. But the Catholic population has had a vastly different experience with law enforcement, and even though the situation in NI is much better than it was, they aren't easily going to forget the humiliation of being stopped by B men or 'specials' (Protestant neighbours in uniform, given authority to treat them like croutons, who sometimes participated in revenge killings) and active police collusion with Protestant paramilitaries. This isn't ancient history, this is recent. Black American families also remember obvious and painful police collusion in violent acts of racism under segregation - and again, this isn't some old history that everyone would forget about if only political parties didn't talk about it. This is living memory. Structural racism didn't end with the Jim Crow era either. I doubt the use of lynching imagery in the opening post was an accident, and at risk of being called a prissy prick, I'm going to say that it was hugely inappropriate given this legacy. Darren Wilson isn't dead and a highly doubt that the opinion of Lil Red on Phatmass is going to concern him all that much or have a terrible effect on his life. The fact that he shot dead another person may do so - I've spoken with many ex-soldiers who have killed and it's not always easy to skip off back to normality after doing a thing like that, even if they believe 100% that they were in the right.

The police as an institution are not going to build trust as community guardians while people keep ending up dead. Even if you believe wholeheartedly in the ability of the state to investigate state officials with pure impartiality, the outcome of this investigation leaves a major question unanswered - why a policeman needs to shoot twelve bullets into an unarmed guy by way of defence. In the inner-city area where I live when in the UK, police deal with violence regularly (there is a gang problem there), most police aren't armed with guns, and they still manage to defend themselves without either killing people or getting killed themselves. There are non-lethal ways to subdue someone. It's not a stark choice between murdering a teenager and the police officer getting killed himself.

My brother is a soldier. It doesn't stop me from being highly critical of the army. The fact that I love him and value his safety does not mean that I am going to turn a blind eye to the safety and wellbeing of all the families whose lives that army helped to tear apart, as though it was either their lives or their life of my brother, and he had the right to turn killer just because I wanted him to be safe. It doesn't work like that.

 

BLAH BLAH BLAH

How can I be clearer about this?

What you are talking about is exactly what I am talking about and denouncing. People just *knew* the cop was guilty because they just *know* cops are racist. OR they *knew* the cop was guilty because they found out he was white and Michael brown was black and people just *know* how white cops and black men interact.

Well guess what? THATS CALLED PREJUDICE. THAT'S CALLED RASH JUDGMENT And guess what? THEY  WERE WRONG. 

Am I the only one infuriated by the irony?? People disgusted by how our justice system lynches black men turning around and trying to lynch white cops? Or I guess just being "OK" with other people lynching them because, hey, black folk got history with white cops? Do we get that thinking someone is more likely to be guilty because of their skin color or occupation IS THE REASON SO MANY BLACK MEN GET SENT TO JAIL???? This attitude IS THE PROBLEM.

i am COMPLETELY unmoved by your thoughts on your brother/being critical of the army. Something tells me if your brother killed someone in self-defense, and the world media descended on him announcing his guilt, you would have a problem with it. Or maybe not. Maybe you think him being made to pay for something he didn't do would be "worth it" to shed light on the injustice perpetrated by the army on a systemic level.

You might think it's worth it - ruining one innocent man's life so as to bring attention to wider social problems.

I do not think it is worth it. I think it is an evil bargain.

I believe individual human beings are more valuable than the triumph of a particular ideology. OK?

Edited by Lilllabettt
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BLAH BLAH BLAH

Don't you get it? How can I be clearer about this?

What you are talking about is exactly what I am talking about and denouncing. People just *knew* the cop was guilty because they just *know* cops are racist. OR they *knew* the cop was guilty because they found out he was white and Michael brown was black and people just *know* how white cops and black men interact.

Well guess what? THATS CALLED PREJUDICE. And guess what? YOU WERE WRONG. 

Am I the only one infuriated by the irony?? People disgusted by how our justice system lynches black men turning around and trying to lynch white cops?

The existence of structural violence within an institution doesn't mean that all individual policemen are racist. I don't think anybody said that. I think your determination to make all criticism of police violence about your fiance is leading you to assume that everybody else's thought processes must be like that too. That's a massive assumption to make, as is the idea that Michael Brown was attempting to "lynch" the policeman - I haven't seen anyone seriously making that claim. You also don't deal with whether shooting twelve bullets at someone in self-defence is necessary. I didn't particularly expect you to. I also don't expect you to be moved by my own views on the military or my thoughts on my brother - although I think there is an irony in the fact that your whole post is based on your thoughts about your fiance, and you evidently expect those to stand as a decent argument. I mentioned my brother to show that it is possible to be deeply critical of an institution while still care very much about the individuals in it. And for them to be good individuals.

I don't know your history, but I have been an aid worker in war zones and I have had surgeons paging the psychosocial department to ask if we can send someone over to try and calm people down while they operate without anaesthetic, because there was none left in supply. One of my best friends out there lost her two little cousins and walked into their room when the shelling was over to find parts of them all over the walls. I just remember a foot and chunk of leg still in its shoe. I suspect I've seen death a lot closer up than you have, so the emotive reasoning along the lines of "Well, just wait until it happens to you" doesn't work - I've already seen what an army can do to people and nothing can change what I saw, not even the possibility of something happening to my brother. I don't expect you to be moved by that either, but I do expect you to consider that you're not the only person who has loved ones caught up in violent situations. Sometimes you talk as though you're the only person with any life experience whatsoever and consequently with any right to speak. (I'm surprised the phrases "kum-by-ah" and "in the real world..." haven't made an appearance yet.) Other people also have views informed by their situations and experiences in life, and for some people those experiences involve their communities being crushed by police and the knowledge that they are less likely to see justice because of who they are - but apparently that's just BLAH BLAH BLAH, not another irony: you expecting people to view Mike Brown's death through the lens of your personal situation, but getting outraged when they persist in viewing it through the lens of anyone else's.

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Lilla, I doubt I will convince you of anything but I'll trade you one diatribe for another.

Prejudice and bias goes both ways. I could accuse you of being biased in favor of the police, of the government etc and therefore more willing perhaps to turn a blind eye to the actual evil that they commit, and therefore willing to ignore the cries of a community of people (disenfranchised and disempowered as they are). I would say that's even more pernicious than what you're accusing others of. However, people are generally unwilling to confront their biases and see how they color the stances they take. We all have them anyway, and there are reasons, some legitimate and some not, that they exist.

But I will confess I have a bias against the police. When stories like these break I typically predict/guess that that a cop is guilty (do you assume that they are not?), while I'm also open to the possibility that he or she is not. However, I also have little faith that our justice system shows parity enough to convict cops when they are actually guilty. I was SHOCKED when the 6 cops in Baltimore were in indicted.

Let me explain the reason for my bias. I am not part of, but I try to listen to, the Black community. And what I hear from them is lots of pain, anger, and frustration from instances of racism from people and from police. I can either assume that they are being histrionic and overreacting OR I can assume that there are genuine reasons for feeling how they do. When one faces a system of habitual injustice and prejudice they are likely to develop an us vs. them mentality (can you blame them? I can't) so they MAY see racism when it genuinely isn't there in a particular instance, but I can understand the reaction and sensitivity whenever there is violence between races.

I think the Michael Brown case was not a strategic case to advance the awareness of police brutality--too many unknowns, the incriminating security footage of Brown prior--but that alone should tell you something. The ensuing violence was a reaction. Was it  reaction to one isolated case? No it was more like the straw that broke the camel's back.

You know, speaking of being safe at night in your quiet room in your warm bed, I will say it's very EASY to say "now let's just all calm down and be rational about this," when your community is not bearing the brunt of injustice. We are not purely rational creatures when we are involved in conflict. (You even give way to emotional appeal in your op when detailing the trials and tribulations of your boyfriend). So when people, including myself and others on phatmass, appear to you to be "calling for blood" you understand it as us "having an axe to grind," whereas I see it as standing with a community that is oppressed and victimized.

You know, it's not that it's fair for one innocent (which, I'm going to mince words and say that Brown's killer is not necessarily innocent, but the DOJ found him "not guilty" of a particular crime, in any case . . .) man be "lynched" to shed light on systematic racism it's when instances like these arise there are SWATHS of people who think we are living in a post-racial society and that there is no systematic issue of police brutality. To them, that the police did not act as a piece in a wider racialist system is a foregone conclusion because there IS no such thing as racism in the police force except for some few, isolated incidents. When people come in with that attitude it is very frustrating and that's part of the reason why people press the issue of systematic racism so much. )Let's not forget that hundreds of thousands of dollars IIRC were crowdfunded for Darren Wilson well before he was cleared and the KKK showed their implicit support of him). So when people are coming in with these assumptions it's not that I *know* this particular cop is guilty because he is white and the dead kid is black or that I *know* this particular cop is racist, it's that I KNOW there is an actual problem with racism and police brutality against black people in this country. I feel like I have to prove these things every time these debates come up (which is a fool's errand, I know) and I may use the particular incident as leverage in asserting my argument. Again, that doesn't mean I KNOW that particular cop is guilty. I'm aware how it may seem like that's the case. Do you see this distinction?

Furthermore I have distrust for the cops because they have always had a sordid history with black people, from COINTELPRO and the war on drugs, to the hoards of killings and beatings captured on video today. I don't know how people can ignore these things. It's very aggravating. Do people really think cops are all unequicovally the "good guys." Take a look at some declassified documents or youtube vids today. To believe in the "good guy" croutons is insane?

I also operate with the axiom that power corrupts and people tend to abuse power. Cops are given a huge amount of power. I have severe doubts that many people can handle that responsibly (think Stanford Prison experiments).

All these things lend to my bias. That I admit, because I'm so "self-aware." Now, I probably wasted an hour of my saturday night for nothing, but that's nothing new for me. Take care.

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The existence of structural violence within an institution doesn't mean that all individual policemen are racist. I don't think anybody said that. I think your determination to make all criticism of police violence about your fiance is leading you to assume that everybody else's thought processes must be like that too. That's a massive assumption to make, as is the idea that Michael Brown was attempting to "lynch" the policeman - I haven't seen anyone seriously making that claim. You also don't deal with whether shooting twelve bullets at someone in self-defence is necessary.

Le me try again.

Criticize police violence all you want. The very second you start feeding innocent individuals to your political movement and calling it "justice" - you've lost all legitimacy.

Michael Brown wasn't trying to lynch the cop - the people in the street demanding the cop be tried and convicted as an obviously guilty son-of-a-so-and-so were trying to lynch the cop.

Maybe we should all re-read "To Kill A Mockingbird" to see how the justice system can be used to lynch an innocent man. 

Repeat: it does not matter if you are 100% right about police violence, racism, etc. It is EVIL to target an innocent person as part of your political movement. period. Rash judgment is WRONG. No matter how bad you think the system is. PERIOD. 

This Ferguson incident is the rare occasion when so many people who were SO convinced of the rightness of their rash judgment can get solid feedback that they were absolutely incorrect. Hopefully the embarrassment is deep enough to make a lasting impression.

 

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You're asking too much Lilla. In the 21st century we don't have individuals, we have identity groups. Everyone has an ideology and all the other people are just scenery in it.

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MarysLittleFlower

Could it be that we are somehow all speaking past each other with this? Its true there is corruption in the government. Maybe police. Maybe military. Schools. Hospitals. Businesses. ETC. Some are trying to point to that. Others are saying that in fighting corruption, we should not make assumptions about individuals but look at each one separately: as a person, not a faceless member of such and such group. Could we all agree though with those two points - that there is corruption, but we shouldn't fight it by targeting individuals who may be innocent? Our Lord teaches - fight evil with good. Hatred with love. If we fight things like racism with racism what good would that do. Some are maybe reminding of this, while others are reminding of the racism being serious. Can we all agree on those points? 

Edited by MarysLittleFlower
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The Management Clique is the main engine behind Phatmass' (current) downturn. Well done @Lilllabettt on outing it - the downturn, that is. "Management Clique" is my word painting.

Can someone please explain to me what is going on?

I can't fix anything if everything is worded in vague code. From my viewpoint, you are doing no better than those who you are complaining about.

Solution anybody?

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MarysLittleFlower

For my part I have no clue what the reference is to:idontknow:  

It seems like its some controversy with two sides to it that some members know about (maybe due to a particular thread) and others don't. 

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AccountDeleted

Can someone please explain to me what is going on?

I can't fix anything if everything is worded in vague code. From my viewpoint, you are doing no better than those who you are complaining about.

Solution anybody?

I have vague ideas about what was being implied here but since I can't be sure and could very well be totally off base, it would be nice if the complaint was just voiced clearly and with no ambiguity. The other option of course is for the complainant(s) to PM you directly so you can deal with any perceived problems but there may be hesitations about doing this because you don't always seem to respond well to complaints. Once before when I personally tried to express my concerns to you via a PM, you called me a Debbie Downer and basically made me feel discounted. I felt shut down and decided that I just wouldn't bother addressing any concerns to you anymore - I just observe now and let things run their course, assuming that it will all come out in the wash over time.

I respect and admire what you do here with phatmass and still think it's the best Catholic forum online. But that doesn't mean it couldn't use some improvements in some areas. It just depends on how open you are to suggestions from those who post here. But you are right - you can't make changes if you don't know what the problem is, so I hope someone clarifies this point for you, and for all of us who enjoy being here.

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