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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
A comparable hypothetical situation would be if it was "revealed" that Dr. Dre beat up Michel'le in the 90s and subsequently lost his headphone and Apple deals. Yes, what he did was terrible, but 1) we knew this already, 2) this was years ago, and 3) (the important part) he has not only apologized but changed for the better. Oh, and then it turns out the one behind the "reveal" was Paul Joseph Watson.
i'm tired, my friendTo be honest I'm especially frustrated because Gunn was also such an important part in Got G's success, to the point where he was brought in for infinity war. No other director can do what he did, and it seems especially egregious given the context.
On a side note, Mike's now going after prominent Jews in Hollywood to try and spin a Pizzagate-like conspiracy narrative in wake of his success.
I'll point out that we had a similar discussion about a Congressional candidate who was revealed to have beaten his wife some forty years prior to his election bid. Obviously these are different circumstances - for one, a movie director being fired is laughably inconsequential; he's not "one of us" in any sense - and I understand that applying different standards to different circumstances is not a sign of hypocrisy in any way. But I do recall that discussion about the candidate being extensive.
Look, I'm not in favor of the idea that one misstep in the past means you can never, ever change or become a better person. God knows there's enough on the Internet that would sink me by that standard. But I also think that if you're the kind of person who makes jokes on Twitter about pedophilia, then you make it big - if you really have "changed", go back and delete your stupid-ass tweets. It's not like he made the jokes on his forgotten Livejournal in high school; this was his public-facing account. I agree that we shouldn't hold everyone to task for every single stupid thing they've ever posted, but that doesn't mean you don't have a responsibility to houseclean every now and again to the extent that the medium allows. (And if he doesn't have time, or has too many tweets - the man's an MCU director. Hire a full-time tweet deleter intern and be done with it.)
I will also point out that, far from being a bunch of alt-right stooges like Fourth seems to think now, it's very important that we think about what Cernovich's aim is for this. Just like with Franken, there has to be a middle ground between allowing people who do stupid shit to not face consequences for that stupid shit because having them taken down would be strategically poor (fortunately, Gunn's just a movie director), and letting Cernovich get away with this.
Edited by RedSavant on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:12:20 AM
It's been fun.Sense 8 is over, so.. Disney should hire a Wachowski sister or two. Wacky space adventure is right in that wheel house, and it would have the added benefit of making certain (Cernovich) heads explode.
Edited by Izeinsummer on Jul 26th 2018 at 2:13:54 AM
It was immediately followed by 'and then you make it big', though I do apologize for being imprecise. My point is that if you've obtained a place of greater social relevance or renown, then you deserve to be held to a greater standard of conduct, including retroactively, when the object of that retroactive scrutiny is A) entirely controllable by you and B) readily available on your professional profile.
I would be fired if my Twitter, which I used as a professional landing pad, had jokes like that on it, regardless of when I made them. It doesn't make sense to be any more lenient just because the guy made a movie people liked, and ideally, it shouldn't be a political act at all.
Edited by RedSavant on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:21:18 AM
It's been fun.Gunn's dismissal was the appropriate course of action for Disney. Unfortunately Turner Broadcasting hasn't shown the same wisdom and stood by Harmon. While it's unfortunate on a certain level, this has to happen for the political left to remain credible on matters of culture. So long as there is credible evidence for the conduct the people in question are being accused of, they should be dismissed and blacklisted.
What nonsense, neither of them are leftist politicians or organizers and thus it's laughable to claim that their firing is necessary for the Left to remain relevant in regards to culture.
What you seem to not understand is that this is not a real controversy, it's not people organically discovering some controversial tweet and being authentically outraged about it.
This is the alt-right pulling up dark jokes made years ago and using it as a weapon against a political enemy, and the fact they have also attacked Harmon is simply a demonstration of the consequences of Disney firing Gunn. The fact you seem to think this is a good thing is just bizarre.
The "conduct of the people in question" is making bad jokes years ago, the fact that this is apparently enough to deserve their immediate removal regardless if they've actually improved as people is a travesty and socially toxic.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:43:03 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI should note as a caveat to this post that I sincerely don't know who James Gunn is beyond context from this thread and an ATT thread for GOTG 2. In fact I have to keep reminding myself nobody's referring to the character of Charles Gunn from Angel.
That said, honestly this whole thing feels identical to the back and forth we had about Al Franken between the initial reporting of the scandal and the revelation that there were multiple incidents.
So my question then is the one I'm asking now: Should one years-old fuck-up screw up a person's life and/or career? Especially if he's apologized for it, it's irrelevant to the person he is today, he was hired in his current position with full knowledge of said fuck-up (going be one earlier post) and the fuck-up, by all appearances in this instance, doesn't seem to have actually harmed anybody between then and now?
Also, when did Gunn apologize for the tweet? Was it also years ago or was it only after it came out?
Edited by sgamer82 on Jul 26th 2018 at 3:42:36 AM
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Everything related to human interaction is politically significant whether we like it or not, especially when it comes to matters of culture and media. There's no way around that, and whether or not they deserve it, in order to save face anyone with even remotely credible allegations against them for these sorts of things needs to go, regardless of whether or not they did it this past week or 40 years ago.
Sooner or later the alt-right will run out of people with evidence-backed allegations of any consequence to "take down", and then they'll be left with complete fabrications, which can safely be discarded as such.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:44:15 AM
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That sounds like a political version of We Have Reserves
My point was that the tone of conversation was the same, not the events themselves. We here are basically saying the same things now we did then.
Edited by sgamer82 on Jul 26th 2018 at 3:47:49 AM
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You have given zero evidence to support your claim that this is actually necessary, so no I see no reason to assume that a director not falling victim to an alt-right hate mob hurts the Left.
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This is the biggest difference, others may remember but during the discussion about Franken I was strongly for his removal while my stance on this is obviously different. The difference between offensive jokes and sexual assault are just too great to act as if they're comparable.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:45:42 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangYou mean like Pizzagate was discarded as the complete fabrication it was?
Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.@Fourth Spartan: Someone who "jokes" people feel great after a rape is over is not a good person to me. Disney firing him was to show they don't condone this message. I've seen so many cases of joking masking someone's true feelings, same here I suspect.
I can only imagine what the anger of someone who has been sexually assaulted reading that statement is. We would be absolutely grilling the republican congressman who'd say something like this (Cohen's recent shenagigans for example).
Edited by Grafite on Jul 26th 2018 at 10:50:21 AM
Life is unfair...![]()
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I am in the same camp, which is why I brought up the sheer amount of disconnect between the two.
Not all crimes are equal, and just because a solution is needed for one, does not make it appropriate for another.
I would like to bring up that gallows humor is actually one of the ways people cope with things... Lots of people that go through very dark things in there lifes, are exactly the kind of people who get the most amusement out of grim jokes.
And by baning the topics from humor you remove that mechinisim.
This isn't universal at all, but it is one thing to consider.
Edited by Imca on Jul 26th 2018 at 2:51:37 AM
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Ah, so you don't believe people can change. Got it.
I think that shows a ridiculous ignorance of humor and the fact that dark humor exists. Regardless the point is not that what he said was not inappropriate, it obviously was.
Assuming that all shock pedophile jokes must mean the person is a pedophile is ridiculous nonsense that has no connection to reality.
The entire point that you have failed to engage with was that the jokes were made years ago, that matters.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:54:32 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang@sgamer82: Well we do; the Untied States has a working age population of more than 200 million, and there are at bare minimum thousands (usually more like hundreds of thousands or millions) of people who can adequately perform a given job. We can more than afford to call the alt-right's bluff and ostracize anyone with even the slightest whiff of credible controversy, while they continue to cling to people who are utterly depraved out of tribalism.
@Reflextion: Pizzagate convinced nobody in the mainstream, and made the alt-right look like complete assholes to the whole world. The more they have to resort to that sort of shit the better.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:54:37 AM
You don't see any possible negative effects to instituting a cultural one strike rule? Seriously?
All this would do is allow the Right to strike at anyone who opposes them and is not perfect while strongly disincentivizing people from actually reforming because why bother if society is just going to treat you as a permanent monster?
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 5:54:45 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangWell, this isn't going anywhere, so I'll end with a couple of notes: I've always hated dark humour of the kind in question here and an apology is just words. I sincerely doubt Gunn would have apologized of his own free volition without being called out.
Oh, and that I'm interested to see what the narrative in the Democratic Party is going to be regarding matters like this in the future. I feel like there will very likely be a shift to a tougher stance, which will hurt Biden, given some past actions.
Life is unfair...
That's fine, agreeing to disagree is probably the most productive direction this discussion can go.
But I will point one thing out, his actual coworkers defended him
... So I frankly think you're being rather uncharitable to assume that his apology must be insincere.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 6:00:17 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang@Fourthspartan: We don't actually need people to reform when there are thousands of other people capable of taking their place who don't have the same optics problem, and since the people generally being taken down by these smear campaigns are (ironically considering the source) white men, it also serves a secondary role of increasing overall turnover among that slice of the and thereby providing additional opportunities to shift the demographics of Hollywood, the Senate, and other such institutions towards being more equitable.
Also, as far as evidence that this is important, both polling and studies
consistently show how badly hypocrites are thought of; being regarded as a hypocrite is generally viewed even more dimly than being on the wrong side of any given issue in politics, so we need to take every opportunities to demonstrate (loudly and bombastically as the case was here) that we stick to our principles. It's one of those weird irrational things about how people judge one another. Luckily this is more about optics and how we're perceived by others than anything else since, as I imagine many people here are about to point out, everybody is a hypocrite on some level.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jul 26th 2018 at 6:08:55 AM
To be frank I think you're being exceedingly myopic about this.
The entire point of rehabilitation is that it's bigger then James Gunn, when you say that doing something bad is a permanent black mark you are supporting all the other times society does that. Which is rather odd position for one who presumably supports the Left to take.
Furthermore considering the strong push (as detailed in the link I posted a few posts up) to get him back I highly doubt that capitulating to the alt-right like you want us to do is actually necessary or a good thing.
I see no utility to punitive justice in this context and I see even less utility to helping the alt-right ruin what appears to be a good man's life.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 26th 2018 at 6:11:27 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

Disney acted like Disney. Nothing about their actions should have surprised anyone, so I honestly can't say I "blame" them. I'm a huge proponent of "free speech doesn't mean free of consequences" so my knee-jerk is to go "well, thems the breaks."
Buuuuuuuuut then we have A: the notion of redemption Fourth keeps bringing up, B: The fact that this is playing into the Alt-Right's hands, and C: This inexplicable narrative that "in joko veritas."
Honestly, Gunn was always a guy with a skeezy sense of humor. This is not an unknown. The man wrote Lollipop Chainsaw for crying out loud. It's the only caring about it after it gets astroturfed by the Alt-Right and people buying into the idea that it's what he really thinks that bugs me. This isn't learning Mr. Cosby was a rapist, it's learning George Carlin made offensive jokes.
That he then publicly apologized for, and didn't take down (which is something I honestly almost respect since at least he didn't try to bury what he did). He did own up to it.
Like I said, if you think that he shouldn't hold a position because the kind of person who made those jokes shouldn't be employed by Disney, sure. I totally get that. I also do believe that Disney's hands were tied by the fact it's, well, Disney.
I just dislike the fact that the ones who tied their hands was the Alt. Right, and they've managed to make a (false) narrative that gets other people on their side.
Edited by Larkmarn on Jul 26th 2018 at 4:33:06 AM
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