From the story Anne Laurie posted, it sounds like the Times done fucked up:
Abramson’s attempt to raise the salary issue at a time when tempers were already frayed seemed wrongheaded to Sulzberger and Thompson, both on its merits and in terms of her approach. Bringing in a lawyer, in particular, seems to have struck them as especially combative. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, argued that there was no real compensation gap, but conceded to me that “this incident was a contributing factor” to the firing of Abramson, because “it was part of a pattern.” (Update: Murphy wrote to me after this post went up to dispute this. Her quote is accurate and in context, as I’ve confirmed in my notes. However, she now e-mails: “I said to you that the issue of bringing a lawyer in was part of a pattern that caused frustration. I NEVER said that it was part of a pattern that led to her firing because that is just not true.”)
No surprise she tried to walk that back, as Josh Marshall notes, because you probably shouldn’t fire someone for getting a lawyer when they’re alleging employment discrimination, unless you want to guarantee a lawsuit. But Murphy was in a tough spot. She had to shit all over Abramson on Pinch’s orders, and if you want to portray Abramson as uppity, hiring the lawyer rather than accepting that she was underpaid for two decades is definitely something that people who value having a pecker at $100K/year would think is out of line.
Frankly, I don’t care who edits the Times, but it sure is fun to see that half-bright prince fuck up. I’m sure journalism will survive, but the Times may not. Since Abramson has settled, this is probably a moot point, other than the shellacking Pinch is going to get from his liberal readers.
Belafon
No insulting Snape.
Curtis
Analysis of NYT compensation from Sam Wang:http://election.princeton.edu/2014/05/16/did-the-nyt-pay-jill-abramson-less
Frankensteinbeck
I am getting an impression, and because it’s an ‘impression’ I don’t know if it’s true or just my personal experience. It seems like another major arm of the Reagan Revolution is dying. Specifically, it’s becoming clear to uninvolved whites how very real racism and sexism still are. In the 80s those topics were swept under the rug, mission accomplished, only a little fine tuning left, time to go home, don’t talk about it because accusing anybody who’s trying to help welfare queens learn responsibility of racism is rude. Now it seems to me like these have become undeniable topics again, and the attempts to deny they exist by conservatives just reinforce the truth of racism and sexism to anyone who isn’t a screaming bigot.
I dunno. Is this just my personal experience?
Professor
Do I suspect that this is a case for Lily Leadbetter (sp)? I am just asking for a friend.
Villago Delenda Est
Kicking that asswipe Sulzberger in the crotch is always a good thing.
Uppity beeyotches need to be put in their place, yo!
C.V. Danes
The fact is that, unless you are lucky enough to be born into the 0.1%, we are all underpaid, though some arguably more than others. Just look at the wrist slap that Google, Apple, and several other tech companies just got for colluding to keep wages and opportunities depressed.
$500k/year is a lot of money, but she was still historically underpaid. Was it solely because she was female? Probably not. Was is a significant factor? Probably so. But it is also a factor of a significant trend affecting all of us as the super-rich continue to suck all the oxygen out of the economy with all their rent-seeking and whatnot.
Belafon
@Frankensteinbeck: I think we’re getting there. It will be interesting to see if we make progress or slip like we did at the beginning of the 20th century. Will the economy get so bad that a majority of people will be willing to deny others access in order to keep their own meager earnings? Will people finally see through it? Will the large Latino population prevent this from happening?
Stay tuned, open your eyes, and keep fighting. (ETA: I don’t mean you in particular. That’s a royal “you”.)
Aren’t you the one who wrote “Don’t tell my parents I’m a Supervillain?” If so, I bought it for my kids. They’ll be reading it over the summer.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
No.
But then sweeping it under the rug didn’t actually work so really very little changed. Things maybe, maybe got a little better, but then we hired a pretty good guy to be president (to come in and clean up after one of their children shit the bed) and that opened those flood gates once again.
Frankensteinbeck
@Belafon:
I am! I hope they enjoy it.
EDIT = @Ruckus:
I think sweeping it under the rug worked perfectly, since its intent was to get whites with only mild bigotry issues or complete personal detachment from bigotry issues to stay out of the way while bigots continued to do their thing.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, I think you’re right. The death throes are making me insane lately, but I think you’re right. Probably the Obama/Hillary thing that seems to bring out all the worst of racist and sexist dog whistles has made it too obvious to ignore. I also think that the uninvolved white parents who thought racism and sexism were things of the past brought up children who internalized that whole idea and now are simply flabbergasted at what racist sexist shits their parents and grandparents really are under all the kumbaya they taught little Brittany and Zachary (I swear, 75% of all white , even some AA, college students are named one version or another of these names).
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree. We’re definitely making progress.
burnspbesq
@Curtis:
Innuendo and speculation based on very few actual data.
What I expect from this joint. Not what I expect from Sam Wang.
Eric U.
I think we are making progress and the sexist racists feeling free to be open about it is probably helping. When they were smart enough to use the dog whistles only, that was harming progress. Of course, many of the dog whistles have been exposed as racist or sexist, so that was a problem for them too.
the Conster
@Eric U.:
What we’re seeing is not the dog whistles, it’s who shows up after hearing them for 30+ years.
burnspbesq
Right. Because the Democrat & Chronicle has the resources to run big Washington, London, Paris, and Shanghai bureaus, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal will immediately hire Krugman and Nocera, etc., etc.
Are you sure that you want to live in a world where all the journalism comes from Murdoch and Bloomberg?
The people who whine hardest about the Times are those who will whine hardest in the aftermath of its demise (if such demise ever comes).
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
Hadn’t thought about it from the bigot side.
So that goes:
“Now that we’ve appeased you we can get on with our lives as bigots, so as long as nothing actually changes.”
But now it actually is changing (slowly, never, never, ever do anything real good, too fast or the universe will implode, and you might get gas)
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m still pissed about the Chait piece where those of us who see racism are paranoids. I think that there are more of us who are trying to work together as allies to deal with discrimination but the push back is very real and not just from conservatives. The American Prospect did a story called the Unbearable Whiteness of Liberal Media which is quite depressing.
Who tells the story is important.
http://prospect.org/article/unbearable-whiteness-liberal-media
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Frankensteinbeck: Perhaps, but it’s pretty much mine too. Until January of 2009 I thought we, as a society, were pretty much done with racism and the only people complaining about it were whiners.
Took about one week to show me the error of my beliefs. I have never been as wrong about anything in my entire life. This country is racist as hell, and it didn’t just magically happen overnight when Obama was sworn in.
Villago Delenda Est
In the public sector, pay grades are open and above board, and if you’re a GS-10 or an O-5 or an E-8, your junk doesn’t enter into the picture. All that matters is your rank and your time in service. But the private sector has this weird (to me) culture of being really secretive about who gets paid what. I worked for one outfit where it was a firing offense to reveal to your co-workers what you were paid. I guess it’s that control thing of the dudes (nearly always dudes) at the top.
Villago Delenda Est
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
That was the batsignal to take the freak flags out of storage and let them fly.
srv
Wingnuts have taken over in Canada, Australia and now India. Any countires I’ve missed?
Belafon
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s a tactic specifically used to keep people from organizing. If you found out that your coworker was making 5% more than you, are going to demand that the other guy’s pay gets cut?
burnspbesq
No marriage licenses for same-sex couples in Idaho today. The Ninth Circuit stayed the District Court order temporarily, while it deals with the defendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal.
I’m sympathetic to arguments that reference the difficulties that might ensue if marriages performed while an appeal is pending are retroactively invalidated. But I seem to recall that one of the factors that is supposed to be taken into account when deciding motions for stays pending appeal is the likelihood that appellants will win, and that now seems infinitesimally small.
Someguy
In fairness to the NYT, it appears that Ms. Abramson may have been extremely condescending and patronising to Executive Editor Dean Baquet, an African American journalist. While it’s easy to chalk up her firing entirely to Sulzberger’s sexism, it’s possible that she was doing something perceived as racist to Baquet.
If this is what it’s like at liberal institutions, how bad must it be for women and minorities working with Republicans?
Suzan
So what will they pay the new black guy? What a woman makes or what a white man makes?
Ruckus
@Belafon:
This.
Village is correct, it is a power thing, because money is power. It sure as hell isn’t free speech.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m still shocked every now and then by how open it is.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzan: They’re going to be damn sure we don’t find out, I’m sure.
elm
@Someguy: When did the NYT become liberal?
dmbeaster
@burnspbesq: Well, as a practical matter, the standard for temporary stays is a little different (even if not explicitly stated as such in the rules). Don’t know if you are a trial lawyer, but judges are typically willing to issue temporary orders without worrying too much about the likelihood of prevailing simply to allow a short time to make sure the larger decision is made soundly. This is particularly true if the consequence of a few days delay is minor. I am sure they will make up their mind about the final decision on a stay pending the appeal in a few days, and the likelihood factor will play a much more important role then.
Belafon
@Someguy:
Those are the potential issues, but I believe the description I heard was that she was described as “whiny” which has a very specific meaning when talking about a woman in power, namely that she’s not male.
There’s a lot here to have to sort through, but it’s very similar to a congressman using the word “boy” when talking about Obama.
scav
@Suzan: Oh, they’ve probably carefully worked that out with a fine-tuned lawyer and PR specialist.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve never worked at a place where it wasn’t, but how stringently that was enforced has varied a lot.
In general, the lower-paying and shittier the job, the more the bosses enforce those rules. As Belafon notes above, it is 100% an anti-organizing tactic.
? Martin
I was recently in a meeting of higher-ups who were complaining about a staffer bringing in a lawyer on a performance issue. I asked how many of them were lawyers (I knew the answer, but they needed the reminder). I asked how many of them had been advised by another staffer who was a lawyer. All told there were north of half a dozen lawyers backing the institution either formally or informally in this case, all knowing what the institution legally could and could not get away with. I suggested they at least might wait to complain until the staffer had more lawyers than they did.
That actually seemed to shift their perspective a bit. Institutions often forget how powerful they really are and how powerless workers are, even when the workers are pretty high ranking.
How many lawyers do you think Sulzberger has? I bet it’s in the double-digits.
? Martin
@elm: Yeah, this part of the NYT isn’t liberal. It’s all business, and they don’t play slow-pitch anywhere in Manhattan.
? Martin
@Belafon: I’ve never worked at a place where my salary wasn’t public. Anyone can look it up. And you can’t win. If you make more than colleagues, they feel slighted and hold it against you. If you make less, they look down on you. It turns into a big game.
Tone In DC
I hear ya.
As so many other commenters have said, these racists (and sexists, in the cases of Shirley Sherrod, Lily Ledbetter and Abramson, among so many others) have let their freak flag fly over the last five+ years. At times, it has felt like a two by four right between the eyes.
ETA: Villago was quicker.
raven
@? Martin:
you can’t go back
and you can’t stand still
if the thunder don’t get ya
the lightning will
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZK8UmvTocQ&feature=kp
Tom Traubert
Speaking as an employment attorney, this one’s gonna be great to watch.
Steve Finlay
The quote is hilarious: “I said to you that the issue of bringing a lawyer in was part of a pattern that caused frustration. I NEVER said that it was part of a pattern that led to her firing because that is just not true.”
So “a pattern that caused frustration” had absolutely NOTHING to do with her firing?? Do you also have prime building lots in Death Valley that you want to sell to me?
It resembles one aspect of a case that a colleague of mine is fighting with his employer. The employer says that reassigning him from flying a helicopter to a desk job was not in any way a disciplinary action. Unfortunately for their claim, the reassignment came with a pay cut. If you’re going to NOT discipline someone, it would be a good idea to NOT cut his pay.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tom Traubert: I’ve got tubs of popcorn for sale! You seem to be in the market!
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve Finlay: So, I am to take it that your colleague thanked them very much for providing him with yet another bone for his attorney to chew on?
Omnes Omnibus
If they are heading down this road, it starts to look like the firing could be retaliation for bringing up the pay issue. That’s a no-no even if her total compensation package was equivalent to Keller’s.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure they’ve been very careful to cover their tracks, but seriously, these people should be lined up against a wall and told that they’re about to be shot, and then the blanks are fired.
They need to have the fear of death put in them for their behavior. Perhaps such a demonstration will have the effect of Obi-Wan waving his hand and telling them to go home and rethink their lives.
We can hope, but I’m not sure it will do much good. Which is when you get REALLY serious and call the tumbrels up to 620 Eighth Avenue for an appointment at say Columbus Circle to forcibly mend the errors of their ways.
kindness
Unless the put Rachael Maddow in as editor of the Times it won’t mean shit because the Editor gets their orders from above, even at the guilded Grey Lady.
My top choice? Molly Ivins but she’s in a far better place at the moment. If the poor dear was still alive she’da kicked over anyway after seein’ what’s gone down in Texas since her death.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
As I’ve said in several of these threads, it’s really striking to me how the arguments that this totally wasn’t sexism and other arguments we’ve had before about, say, how the braying opposition to President Obama totally isn’t racism are pretty much identical and use very similar “evidence” that because X, Y, or Z happened, that automatically nullifies any sexism or racism.
I think this is a good opportunity to point those similarities out to our fellow white women and see if light dawns for some of them.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: The Times is still the only paper worth complaining about.
Anoniminous
Speaking of assholes …
Today is the start of the American Revolution:
“Bunkerville.” I like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: According to the piece, the Times’ own people admitted that raising the issue and bringing in attorney were a problem for them. I am not sure how well they are covering their tracks. Also, compensation gets murky at upper levels. Salary is only a part of it, so making a case that the pay levels were so different as to be discriminatory is hard. OTOH, retaliation is, IMO, easier to establish. If she was fired, even in part, for having the temerity to bring up the issue of a possible gender gap in her pay, that ain’t right.
Brandon
So a rich and privileged female executive who reportedly treated her workers badly does a poor job of negotiating her own pay and benefits and I am supposed to feel sorry for her? If anything, it reinforces a perception that she was probably poor at key aspects of her job, first and foremost being negotiation skills.
SatanicPanic
@Anoniminous: I can’t wait to see what kind of pathetic turnout they get today. I’m betting 1K-10K
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: The madness of Governor Goodhair? Who I believe that the marvelous Ms. Ivins so dubbed?
I’ll bet Molly would have a thing or three to say about that minor incident in West, n’est-ce pas?
wenchacha
I don’t know much about Abramson, aside from her rather odd speech pattern. Is it an affectation or impediment? I find it difficult to listen to her speak much more than a sentence. This isn’t a good reason to pay her less, obviously.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: The projection of these clowns. It’s causing the screen to burn!
Belafon
@Brandon: Is that you, Justice Roberts:
This is the failure on your part, and the point of Lily Ledbetter and equal pay acts. Women and minorities are getting lower pay because it is still built in that they deserve less than white men.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re the law talking guy, I just send the repair guys to fix your phones.
Anoniminous
@SatanicPanic:
I’ll be surprised if they get as many as 1,000.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brandon: Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about denigrating her negotiation skills. She seems to have backed Pinch into a corner that he can’t find his way out of.
Uppity beeyotches need to be put in their place, eh Brandon?
SatanicPanic
@Anoniminous: Yeah, it’s looking like dozens will be attending. rLOVEution!
Mnemosyne
@Anoniminous:
I was just getting ready to try and estimate that myself. They might be able to get as many as 3,000, depending on what time of year they schedule it for.
burnspbesq
@dmbeaster:
Not since I left the gubmint.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous:
I hope Rachel was trying to say that exactly as Mandy Patinkin would.
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is why I look askance at those proposing a Left-Right alliance Populist Movement. We’ve got enough problems. Dragging these nutballs into the mix would ensure universal ridicule.
And rightfully so.
raven
@Anoniminous: You mean like when Hamsher joined Grover?
Brandon
@Belafon: At lower levels within organizations I think equal pay is a real, serious and continuing problem that should and needs to be sorted out through federal legislation. At executive levels I have no sympathy. The law and courts treat management different from workers and it is a distinction that I find very important.
burnspbesq
@MikeJ:
My point exactly. You win for making it more succintly than I did.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: Mainly because if you dangle some hookers, guns, and moonshine in front of the wingnuts, they’d sell out the alliance in a heartbeat.
gvg
In a lot of substancial ways racism is behind the majority of folks or Obama wouldn’t have been elected. Even though he didn’t get the majority of white votes, he still got near 1/2. What happened is that there used to be this “understanding” that some bigots had about being polite. They thought we didn’t say certain things because it wasn’t polite, not because people actually thought it was wrong. they didn’t know that more and more people who looked just like them thought various minorities were just people not others. that’s what the political correctness canard meant to me.
Anyway, they thought Obama was going to lose because they assumed most other whites thought the same as them. I overheard a few of them talking…since I’m white they didn’t always keep it down. Well that amused me since I knew they were cruisin for a bruisen so to speak. I knew they weren’t the majority anymore. what I didn’t forsee was the panicked wild nutty bulling reaction. They are so lost they are dangerous. I guess I never really understood them and don’t want to.
I knew there was still racism. But oh my goodness there is more, and it’s rabid. Just insane. The sheer stupid deranged nonsense is eyeopening. The stupid theories that won’t die….it’s a mental illness.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: Boy, that was a serious slap in the face of anyone interested in real, positive change in this society.
I’m afraid Jane trashed her credibility with that move.
The equivalent of Ernst Thälmann jumping into bed with Hitler, more or less.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: The bright side is that it got me banned!
srv
Maybe she can do duets with her former lackey Judy Miller.
Jay C
@SatanicPanic:
Not to worry, even if “OAS”‘s turnout estimates are off by a factor of a million or so, by the time Fox News finishes setting up their trick camera angles and editing like crazy, it’ll look like Woodstock meets the Golden Horde, and be covered with the same breathless excitement as Mitt Romney’s Inauguration…..
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: There’s got to be something in the right wing mind that just really needs an inordinate amount of attention for them to feel validated. Say what you like about the people who were hanging out on street corners circa 2005 with their “Honk if you think Bush sucks” signs but they were there every weekend. I don’t remember them putting out triumphalist statements like “There’s gonna be TEN MILLION people on the corner of 6th and Washington next week! REVOLUTION!” They just showed up and did their thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: OK, glad I finished my coffee already, otherwise I’d be mopping up my screen and keyboard.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Anoniminous: Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s really the name of the nearest town.
Was thinking of taking a trip out there and asking him about the Negro. I have a feeling I’m not as well informed as I should be.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay C: Not to mention the toppling of the statue of Saddam in 2003.
SatanicPanic
@gvg: Remember when the news was talking about The Bradley Effect? I remember thinking- who is going to go out of their way to look good in front of a telephone pollster? I think the media was just projecting with that topic.
Calouste
@Anoniminous:
I think 10 million people will show up, give or take 10 million.
Seriously, these clowns are so deluded that they can’t even think that it would be almost impossible to get 10 million people to DC for a day. The busiest airport in the world ‘only’ does about 250,000 passengers a day.
Anoniminous
@raven:
Yupindeedie.
@Villago Delenda Est:
The last Populist Movement (1890s) shattered when Southerners came rolling in, dragging their racism along. Today we can add Guns, God, Gays, and Teh Wimmins to the stew.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
The total population of Washington DC is about 632,000. The entire population of the DC/Baltimore/Northern Virginia metro area is 9.3 million. And they’re going to manage to cram an additional 10 to 30 million people into that geographic area?
Uh, yeah, good luck with that.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: The media has a really bad habit of taking their personal experiences (poker every Friday! Bowling is experiencing a resurgence!) and attributing those to the populace at large.
This is nothing new. The entire universe of my high school was defined by what was in the school paper. I know this because I was on the staff.
aimai
@Brandon: Christ I wish people would stop moaning about what a bitch Abrahamson was and how they “don’t want to have to feel sorry for her.” NO ONE IS ASKING YOU TO FEEL SORRY FOR HER. Literally no one. We are talking about institutional sexism and the firing of the first woman editor of the NYTs because in a white dominated male oligarchy and corporation you just have to figure that if you once piss off the boss you are out, and that they will underpay you as long as they can. That’s the issue. It will be the issue when they fire Basquet, btw, if he rocks the boat or fails to make Pinch and Thompson feel like the manliest manly men of all time plus feel good about race relations in the US and at the Times.
The Times is a little upper class fiefdom. It doesn’t run on any other lines than that. Abrahamson fell afoul of the all boy’s club and every other woman will too. That’s all. Its an issue for women because every corporation is run on exactly the same lines when it comes to women. You never get high enough or powerful enough unless you are a sole proprietor to escape being evaluated as too bitchy or too mean.
And if anyone thinks that Basquet will escape this conundrum they have another think coming.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, darn. I used a banned word regarding a card game that is played for money or the removal of clothing in my last post. Please rescue!
Anoniminous
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Sometimes life imitates snark.
@Calouste:
10,000,000 people simply won’t fit in DC. Have to stack ’em like cord wood. If 30,000,000 showed up half of them would have to overthrow the government of Baltimore.
ETA: or what Mnemosyne said.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@gvg: Actually think you’ve nailed it. It’s the old “hey, we’re all white here, right?’
I have an in-law who just cannot believe/accept that I believe that black people aren’t inferior. It’s not that he cannot understand the concept, he just doesn’t understand how anyone could buy it. Kind of how I feel about the supposed merits of concealed carry. But yeah, there’s a rage born of perceived betrayal there. The Stormfronters at least have the balls to say it up front: Their fellow whites have sold them out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: I have always been a bit leery of pushes toward populism because populism often drags a lot of unpleasant shit in along with the good stuff. Maybe it’s my inner elitist, but I think the progressives of 100 years ago had a far better signal to noise ratio than the populists of that period did.*
*Noting for the record that there was some crossover between the groups and that a number of progressives backed some very silly and/or pernicious things based on “science.”
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, that’s where I always start with this stuff. We don’t have enough infrastructure as a nation to move 10 million people to one place at one time. Not enough passenger jets, not enough highways. And when they get there, there aren’t enough hotels, restaurants or even bathrooms to handle that population. You can get a million or two into DC for an inauguration with a fuckton of planning and organizing, but a lot of them are already there. Personally, I don’t see DCs large african american population showing up for todays Klan meeting.
Villago Delenda Est
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
And I am delighted to have done so.
One thing the Army taught me is that people are people. Assess individuals, not groups. Sure, it’s more work, but the results are much more satisfying and effective in accomplishing the mission..
Having said that, we kill all the lawyers, regardless.
/heavy sarcasm
I had good black soldiers and bad black soldiers, good white soldiers and bad white soldiers. Can’t judge them by their skin color, only be examining the content of their characters. Like the good Doctor said.
Roger Moore
@Suzan:
3/5 of what a white guy makes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: WIN!
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: In their defense (not sure why I’m offering this) if you’re planning on destroying the place infrastructure isn’t your biggest concern. Every room is a bathroom in a house you plan on burning down.
raven
@SatanicPanic: I have a good buddy, Marine who was wounded at Khe Sahn. He lived in DC and he would go to the Walter Reed protests. He’d pull up on his bike with all his Nam Vet shit flying and the wingnuts would cheer until he went on the corner with the lefties!
Mnemosyne
@gvg:
You, sir or madam, ring the bell and get a cigar. It hasn’t happened to me in a while, but I think most white people have had that experience where you’re alone with a small group and suddenly the mask drops and they want you to agree that, sure, you say that you think non-white people are equal, but you’re just saying that to be nice, right? You can be honest here. We’re all white.
And, boy, do they get pissed when you don’t go along.
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The big wake up call for me was the Rampart scandal in the late 90s. I thought the whole idea of LAPD framing OJ was ridiculous, and the jury in his trial were crazy to buy it. Then it turned out LAPD really was framing black dudes all the time, and the whole thing seemed a lot less crazy. I still think it’s wrong, but it’s a lot easier to understand why somebody who experienced police misconduct from closer at hand would believe it. It really woke me up to all the ways society still discriminates that just don’t show up on a sheltered white guy’s radar.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Less. They’ll be lucky to break into triple digits.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: The tell is when they glance around just to make sure no one else is within earshot before making the comment.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Did you read Jeffrey Toobin’s book about the trial? It’s pretty scathing towards LAPD, which had gotten into the habit of relying on confessions (sometimes forced) to get convictions, so they let their evidence gathering get sloppy.
I actually don’t think there was any planted evidence in that specific case, but once you’ve been caught doing that stuff, good luck convincing a jury that you totally didn’t do it this time.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
What would happen if they held a revolution and nobody came?
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: This is why I don’t gamble
Fuzzy
I cannot understand why who gets overpaid the most by an archaic New York newspaper is of any interest to anyone. Being retired and living in CA all this has no effect on me. I also realize that this conversation helps keep our brains from bursting.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
Populism as a political philosophy is a NothingBurger. At best it is a marketing slogan. In actuality it is nothing more than a vacuous phrase used as camouflage for obnoxious Public Policies.
The Progressive Movement accomplished some good things. It also accomplished some rotten things. The Progressive Movement has been characterized as “a revolt of the middle class” and I think that’s accurate. The Movement’s policies reflected the bigotries of the time since it was composed of the bigots of the time. (Like, duh) Wilson is a good example.
catclub
@Calouste: “I think 10 million people will show up, give or take 10 million.”
They will be located east, west and north of Baghdad, I mean DC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I think the glove was planted. I also think OJ did it. They framed a guilty man.
@Fuzzy: Issues relating to discrimination have no effect on you?* How lucky for you.
*I am still agnostic on the compensation as discrimination issue, but I am pretty convinced that the NYT was a boys’ club where Abramson was not really welcomed.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m curious: if Abramson has a solid case against The NYT for retaliation, why settle? Would I be right in guessing that the cash settlement included a big “don’t sue us” payoff from the NYT?
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Nobody else does, either. If you look at the history of the recent popular revolutions, one of the things that’s most obvious is that they took a while to get to their full size. Some of that was the time it took to get people motivated, but more of it was simply that it took a while to get all the people in place. The US has more people that it could move into place, which I assume is why they’re hoping for 10 million people instead of only 1 million, but the logistics are a lot worse in that case.
Thinking about it that way makes me wonder if one of the things that pushes those people power revolutions forward isn’t sheer logistics. Having that many people from out of town camped out in the city square has to put a huge stress on the capital. That makes the people not involved angrier and the people who are involved frantic, and that winds up heightening the protests.
SatanicPanic
oh man, the OASS protests are even better than I thought:
“I’m so fed up with the tyranny I sold my jet ski,” the caller said. “I’m so fed up with the way the government is manipulating the water with the chemtrails, I’m afraid I can’t even use my jet ski.”
Rawstory has a nice writeup- I’d link it but I can’t figure out this HTML thingy
Emma
@Amir Khalid: Combination of money, other inducements, and a bit of blackmail of the “you don’t talk about us we won’t thrash prospective chances for you” kind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: I don’t know enough about it to say that she has a “solid” case for retaliation. It is just that retaliation is more straightforward and easier to prove. Did they can her, even in part, because she raised the issue of compensation? With compensation, her salary was lower, but the NYT says her overall compensation was higher. Was it bonuses? Was it that the stock market was doing better so her stock options were worth more? Did she willingly trade salary for options? And so on. As far as why settle? A settlement is a sure thing. Take a case to a jury and anything (good or bad) can happen.
ETA: Also, most settlement agreements contain a clause waiving any right to sue or agreeing to dismiss with prejudice any suit already in progress.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
Plus I doubt that Abramson was planning to fight this out on behalf of all women. My guess is that she was just pissed that she, personally, got screwed.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
Because litigation in the U.S. courts is time-consuming, frightfully expensive, and inherently uncertain.
Given a choice between $2 million on Monday and a 60:40 chance of $3.5 million (net of attorney’s fees) in 2-1/2 years, which would you take?
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: Logistical support was very comprehensive and well-organized during the November-December-January period in Kiev, and in fact even though there were, on some weekends, over 1% of the country’s population in the capital (roughly equivalent to 30 million in DC) there was little obvious strain on the city or its not-directly-participating inhabitants. For much of the time, at least until mid-January, it was more like a festival in tone. That things got more tense wasn’t really a function of logistical inadequacies.
burnspbesq
A fairly smart take on l’affaire Abramson, and the larger issues facing newspapers, from a fairly unexpected source.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/whats-wrong-with-the-new-york-times/
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Wow, math fail, and I can’t edit to pretend it didn’t happen. 1% of the US would be like 3 million, not 30.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
No, I didn’t. My view of the trial was heavily influenced because one of the guys in our department was an expert witness in the civil trial. He was scheduled to testify in the criminal trial, but his wife was sick and they called a different witness. Still, I got to hear some about it from an actual expert witness, and I know a lot about the topic on which he testified, so that gives me a strong opinion about the whole topic.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
It’s a pretty interesting book because Toobin had a lot of access to the defense team. One of the interesting anecdotes I remember was Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project talking about the fundraising he was going to do in LA after his testimony on OJ’s behalf. According to Toobin, Robert Shapiro looked at him and said something like, “Barry, no Jew in this town is ever going to give you a dime again after that.”
And, yes, Toobin comes to the same conclusion that just about everyone else has: OJ was guilty, but the LAPD and prosecution fucked it up.
Calouste
@Gin & Tonic:
1% of the US population would be 3 million, not 30 million. And of course Kiev already has about 6% of the population of Ukraine, a higher percentage than any US city.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
We absolutely need to do this because the voting record of white women, especially married, white women is a big problem. To sort of jump a bit off topic, the thing that is so beautiful to me about the Moral Monday movement is that they are inclusive and have figured out how to bridge some of the old divides and work together for mutual benefit. I really see this as a model for how we move forward. We don’t all share the same experiences or the same level of oppression and discrimination but certainly we can feel enough empathy to be allies and support each other.
MomSense
@SatanicPanic:
I remember that came out around the time the Clinton campaign was making the case that superdelegates should go with her since the Bradley Effect was too big a risk to take with the election.
RaflW
@Anoniminous: The Washington times posted an article about an hour ago :
Operation American Spring falls flat: ‘This is very disappointing,’ Texan says
It just amazes me that they thought they could get a million. I’d have been gob-smacked if they’d gotten 10,000. But of course, they will remain convinced, convinced I tell ya!, that they are the silent majority.
Jay C
Hey! Where’s Bob in Portland? Off crying in his beer? His brave, freedom-fighter anti-fascist separatist pals in the Donetsk seem to have run into a bit of a snag with their big plans . Rather unsurprisingly, the local industrialist/oligarch – and several thousands of his employees – are less-than-happy with the prospect of seeing their local economy (and their livelihoods) fall under the sway of some rump “Republic” run by a bunch of masked Russian thugs Gee, whodathunkit?. Ukraine, for all its problems is an actual country with actual trade, which makes actual money for its local industries. In truth, having to rely on mobs of hardhats (however well-organized) for public order really isn’t an optimal situation, but it looks like Uncle Vlad’s big expansionist plans have run aground for the nonce. And we didn’t even have to send John McCain over with a Marine division to do it!
Big R
@Villago Delenda Est: N.B.: Policies that forbid discussing your salary with coworkers violate the National Labor Relations Act.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@RaflW: Awesome, that just made my day.
Fuck the right wingers. I’M TAKING MY COUNTRY BACK.
scav
Orders of magnitude, schmagnitude.
kc
@Steve Finlay:
Yeah, a complete failure at damage control there.
sparrow
@Big R: thank you
Felinious Wench
@aimai: This.
Look, it’s hitting some of us a bit hard because we’ve experienced it ourselves. We know what it is to throttle our opinions back and speak with the right tone in meetings so we don’t appear too strident. We know what it is to sit at a table of 15 people in key leadership positions and be the only female. We know we get whispered about, called a token or hear people whisper “she’s fu*king her way to the top.” We know how we have to dress and wear our makeup and tone down who we are so we’re neither too feminine or too butch. We know how to fit.
And when we find out a man doing the same job as us with less experience, or who has not been as successful as we have in the same roll, it’s maddening. Yeah, she’s a privileged white woman with a high salary and plenty of paths to take. It doesn’t matter. Too many of us have experienced it ourselves and did not have the resources she does to fight back. I am a female executive in tech. Some of you just flat-out wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell.
So, saying we suck at negotiation, Brandon, is totally missing the point. If you negotiate too hard, you’re a bitch. You’ll be sitting in that meeting room with your male peers and you’ll be branded as the bitchy ball-buster because believe me, the guys will talk to each other about it, even if they don’t get into the specifics of the package you received. You’ve now poisoned yourself with your peers. There’s no way to win.
It’s easy, as a guy, to look at this and say “what’s the big deal?” You don’t see what is in our heads every day, every meeting, every e-mail, every time we are communicating or on display in presentations. We’ve got to get it right, every time, the image we project.
I’m not exaggerating this. Been an exec for 10 years now, and I always have to be the smartest person in the room. I’ve seen a lot of things. This is how it works.
kc
@Brandon:
No, I don’t think anyone feels sorry for her. The issue is discriminatory employment practices at the NYT.
She was an editor. I doubt “negotiation skills” were a “key aspect” of that job.
kc
@aimai:
YES, thank you.
kc
@Anoniminous:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Wonder how many actually showed up. 30, 40?
Schlemizel
@Jay C:
Please – do not mention that name. He may hear you and come running. He will remind you that the son of some well connected politician got a seat on the BoD of some company and the Russian Interfax news agency is pretty sure there are Nazi’s there – all accompanied with much insulting and ranting. It is a performance much to be missed.
“Speak of the devil and in he walks”
Cacti
@Jay C:
Hey! Where’s Bob in Portland? Off crying in his beer? His brave, freedom-fighter anti-fascist separatist pals in the Donetsk seem to have run into a bit of a snag with their big plans . Rather unsurprisingly, the local industrialist/oligarch – and several thousands of his employees – are less-than-happy with the prospect of seeing their local economy (and their livelihoods) fall under the sway of some rump “Republic” run by a bunch of masked Russian thugs Gee, whodathunkit?.
The Advocate also has an article about Putin blaming “gay nazis” for the unrest in Ukraine.
Scapegoating an unpopular minority has always been very anti-fascist.
TooManyJens
@Amir Khalid:
She probably couldn’t prove it, and had no way of knowing that the NYT spokesperson would basically confess it to the New Yorker.
Amir Khalid
@kc:
As top editor of The New York Times, she was in senior management, where negotiation skills are most definitely a key aspect of the job.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: Well, those developments can confuse the easily-confused. I’m old enough that I can remember when the miners and steelworkers of the Donbass were proletarian heroes. Now their sons, doing the exact same work in the exact same mines and mills, are capitalist stooges because the ownership of the mines and mills is in private hands.
Jay C
@Schlemizel: @Cacti:
I thought you had to speak his name three times out loud in a mirror….
And of course, Putin is going to blame “gay nazis” for unrest: the straight ones just DON’T do the leather-and-jackboot look quite as FABULOUSLY!!
? Martin
@RaflW:
Yeah, that really goes to the heart of how clueless these guys are. I can see a community I’m not part of organizing a large turnout without my realizing it. The 2006 immigration rallies, for example. But within your community, if you expect a million people showing up, you’re either organizing it or being organized by it. It’s impossible to miss the buses, charter flights, blocks of hotel rooms being reserved, folks driving supplies out, organizing the events of the day, what have you.
Sometimes you have to wonder if these guys ever wander out of the militia compound.
Calouste
@? Martin:
In the immortal words of the sage Adam Savage: “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”
Schlemizel
@? Martin:
Trust me, it never occurred to these assclowns to do any of that. It would have been hilarious had a million morans shown up. It would have made Woodstock look like a military precise operation.
Schlemizel
@Jay C:
I have no idea but I enjoy days he and uvula do not show up here. Its nice when the adults can talk without the spoiled children running around the room smearing shit on the walls and trying to screw the cat.
Calouste
@? Martin:
And of course these people just expect things to happen without having to do anything for it. Like say prosperity gospel or trickle down economics. These people literally believe in magic, as in the generation of something from nothing.
Jay C
@RaflW:
Dunno why, but for some reason, right-wing organizers of supposedly-mass movements* always seem to overestimate the numbers their “rallies” are likely to generate: more precisely, they publicize inflated expectations of turnout, and, in a sane world, would earn public mockery for it, when the actual pathetic “crowds” of cranks finally materialize. Except, of course, with the pathetic excuse for a national media we have in this country, the coverage of these “rallies” (if any) will probably ignore the grandiose claims, and respectfully focus on the “grievances” being aired.
And of course, I’m sure some wingnut somewhere is going to do a “count” of the Springers rallying everywhere in the whole country, and claim it adds up to “millions” , thus “justifying” their claims.
*Lefties, for some reason, tend to rather underestimate crowds at rallies and marches, or so ISTM….
burnspbesq
@Felinious Wench:
However, if your lawyer negotiates too hard, that’s just lawyers doing what they do, and doesn’t reflect on you.
We have our uses.
TooManyJens
@burnspbesq: Except that in this case, Abramson’s bringing in a lawyer was at the very least “part of a pattern that caused frustration” with her. Even if we believe the walkback that it had nothing to do with why she was fired, it still hurt her.
catclub
@Jay C: They are probably all at the Nevada meetup, and will have the last laugh when they show YOU.
Robert Sneddon
@? Martin: Portapotties, where are the toilet facilities? Anyone who’s ever helped run an event of any size knows the carrying capacity of a site is limited by the amount of drinking water available and toilets to dispose of the waste. A million people in DC are going to produce at least several thousand tonnes of sewage a day and unless they dig pit latrines in the middle of the Mall then they’re going to need portapotties, lots of portapotties, and dump-n-pump trucks to service them and…
I’ve been at events with half a million people on site, the toilet queues were *legendary*.
elm
@burnspbesq:
From the fine article, and a detail noted in AL’s post:
Omnes Omnibus
@TooManyJens: @elm: Part of that is when she brought the lawyer in. At her level, she should (and perhaps) did have a lawyer handling the negotiation from the beginning.
FWIW I have always found it much easier to negotiate on behalf of a client that on my own behalf.
? Martin
@TooManyJens:
The NYTimes doesn’t rely on their own lawyers? So management is allowed, in this case, a small army of lawyers, but workers aren’t allowed one? I know it’s frustrating when the sides are 50 against 2, when they used to be 50 against 1, but I think we ought to be able to come to terms with such things.
Schlemizel
@Omnes Omnibus:
You and burnsie are exactly right. If it is important don’t negotiate for yourself, get an intermediary. That removes the passion potential pitfalls. A lawyer should be a good at this part. Yes, it makes it a little slower but I think you end up with a better deal and both sides can walk away and blame their lawyers so no hard feelings. At least that is how it is with grown ups. No way I sign a $500k deal without one.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course. As an employee I have a relationship with these people that I hope will be ongoing. I have at least some degree of emotional attachment. You can push as hard as you want. You get to walk away clean at the end.
That’s not a slight. It’s a legitimate benefit of the arrangement.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Except that having a lawyer negotiate for you shows you are suspicious of management and not a team player.
Schlemizel
@? Martin:
Yes, this is what I found. Until you get to the top .1% you don’t get a lawyer but the company does. I can’t imagine why the company wants it that way . . . no possible hint of a clue of the inkling of an idea why they like it that way.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: Look at pro athletes. Their contract negotiations are handled by their agents who are almost all lawyers.
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
Unless you’re part of a union, in which case having a lawyer is supposed to be part of the deal. I think the basic issue is that employees bringing in a lawyer (or any other kind of professional to negotiate for them) is seen as a sign of mistrust and proof that the employee has an antagonistic relationship with management. Not to mention that the amounts being argued over are small enough that the benefit of having a lawyer negotiate for you will quickly be eaten up by his fees, especially if management decides to slow-walk the negotiations to ensure that happens. Neither of those things is as much of an issue in collective bargaining; antagonism will be out in the open, and legal fees are divided among all the members.
Felinious Wench
@burnspbesq: Bingo. :)
Felinious Wench
@Schlemizel:
QFT.
I’d never negotiate a salary or contract without a lawyer. Period. I work in an industry where I have got to be sure any intellectual property I create apart from the company is owned by ME. That means I want iron-clad contracts about who owns what and how much I get paid for X, Y, and Z. You get around the “bi*th got a lawyer” with “Look, I write freaking books, people. You don’t get the profits. I also work on open source, and you don’t get to touch that either.” And while my attorney is looking it all over, well, salary is part of the contract.
That way, I’m not getting a lawyer over SALARY, I’m doing it to protect my IP, which is totally acceptable. These are the kinds of games you have to play.
Steve Finlay
@Felinious Wench: Exactly right. I’ve seen it many times. But in our company, the ones who move up fastest are the cheerleaders and yes-men of either gender. God help you if you want to talk about reality, whether you have a Y chromosome or not.
EthylEster
@Villago Delenda Est: Wrt not disclosing one’s salary, I heard a story (on NPR probably) a couple of months ago that treated this topic in some detail. It turns out it is illegal to fire someone for disclosing one’s salary, regardless of company policy. But everyone seems to forget this. I’m not kidding…it’s definitely illegal but most employees and many companies do not realize it.
So blab away and then sue the fuckers for firing you.
burnspbesq
@Felinious Wench:
At that level, in companies of that size, it’s customary and expected that a candidate for a C-level job will show up with a lawyer AND a compensation consultant, who will have at his/her disposal a ton of data about how similarly situated execs at similarly situated companies get paid (there’s a lot of executive comp data in public companies’ SEC filings). You best believe that the outside directors on the compensation committee, who have the final sign-off on your contract, have those data.
If you show up at a gunfight with a knife and end up dead, it’s a little disingenuous to blame the guys with the guns.
Keith G
Still haven’t seen that sexism (which is as prevalent a bias as any) was the root cause for this. Maybe it was, but the tearing-their-hair-out crowd above has not shown that it is.