Suppose you were walking through a fancy club locker room and overheard some guys

[librechik]

talking real racist and misogynist, with a lot of dirty slang and laughter, urging each other on and on with their quips. You were offended by the luridness of the language, and were not surprised it was so secret, in a locker room. That's the way the world works, you think, a lot of big shots doing their deals and talking about pussy, & comparing dicks. No women allowed, and no blacks either. Nothing you can do about that--it's private!

Then you walked around the corner and instead of a bunch of lowlifes you saw it was Senators, Congressmen, and Governors, and mayors, and highly respected news anchors and reporters that were doing all the trash talking. And instead of the privacy of the locker room, they were sitting in front of network micropohones, broadcasting their insider talk and woman-hating filth proudly to the whole world.

Imus was like getting a glimpse into the private world of the Good Old Boys Club of DC, revealing their private locker room deals and attitudes to a world they seemed hardly aware of, so self absorbed are they. And instead of repulsive lowlifes, the speakers are the distinguished elite who lord it over us in their professional lives, bashing bloggers and lying and carrying water for the Republicans.

That's what was so shocking about it. Our elite leaders are mere assholes like the worst Tony Soprano thugs. Now they will be more secretive about their hatred. But it will still drive them and ruin our media and discourse in the process.

[Coyote_Bandit]

1. Our "elite leaders"

put their pants on one leg at a time. They are no better or different than anyone else.

[gaspee]

6. Tell them that

I think they forget that they work for us.

[Ferret Annica]

7. I am reminded how Nixon

would have a towel around the bottle of the 'good stuff' when served at stgate diners such as he oft times had on the yacht 'Sequoia' to hide the fact he was drinking better wine then the rest of those dining.

LBJ would keep conversations going even if it meant dragging guys into the restroom while he urinated.

I remember too how FDR once pressed all his intercom buzzers at once and laughed at the spectacle of all those at the other end come running into his office at once.

You are correct, they are and were all human with feet of clay like the rest of us.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. i am a man, but I have never compared my dick with another man or men.

I'm straight so I'm not sure if this is something gay men do, but the gay men I've known never told me that.

As an alternative culture kind of a guy I've been naked with other men at rainbow gatherings, in sweat lodges, in group showers at the country fair, etc. But I've never experienced this.

Do women compare vaginas?

Where do people come up with these stereo types?

[librechik]

5. sheesh, I don't mean literally--but they still do it figuratively

boasting about their power and prowess in this and that, bashing the guys who aren't as rich as smart as so on and so forth.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. Ahh, OK. I just wondered.

[sweetpotato]

9. Do women compare vaginas?

No - breasts...

even though we don't admit it.

[TahitiNut]

13. They're a feature of mammals. They're for nursing the young.

:shrug: Hell, I've known that all my life. It's a wonder to me that more don't.

[John Q. Citizen]

15. I've always suspected that.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Giving rise to a other versions of Skull & Bones? Are men better

at back slapping joke sharing 'prejud-isms'? What is their driving need?

Secretive is better for our children. Abstinence is even better. (with all due sarcasm and disdain for the religious reverends answers and messages to children). We are a farce of fragile fakery.

Anyway, one of the rants that makes me boil is when bigots take to the talk shows and talk about how superior our country it to all other countries.

[cally]

4. I don't know what happens in DC, but that's not what business leaders

do. It just does not happen. I do know what lawyers and financial leaders talk like. It is unacceptable to talk about women or minorities in derogatory ways. Some of the top may get away with it, but it's not allowed for the rest of us.

I'm not denying the sexism or the glass ceiling. I'm just sure that it's not OK to talk like that.

[librechik]

Why do golf clubs not allow women to join?

a lot of corporate business is conducted on the golf course, far away from prying ears. And ambitious women who might want to run things differently.

Do you disagree with my analogy that watching Imus was a bit like sitting in the locker room and talking trash but with Brian Williams instead of Hoover in accounting? I think that was the unspoken appeal of the show.

[sandnsea]

14. Power

To keep power in the hands of the male elite, where it belongs. :sarcasm:

The popularity of the show was the "humor" and yes young guys like derogatory humor. Look at how much humor around here is derogatory. Remember Schiavo and all the "jokes" about the prayers. I still say "jesus christ on a trailer hitch" on occasion. Humans are just a freakin' circus show, George Carlin has that right. Imus and his minions never figured out the difference between laughing at ourselves together and ridicule aimed at degrading groups of people, bigotry.

Most successful businessmen get the difference and don't engage in that kind of behavior. Although they recognize many men do and consequently don't comment on it because it's usually pointless. When a situation comes up that is this bad, then you can't be silent anymore and that's what's happening.

[librechik]

17. I know it was really juvenile and stupid humor; no one should be indulging in it

but I still think it is done far frequently than one would imagine, behind closed doors. Imus opened the door so we could eavesdrop on the action, as it were.

For various reasons I have spent a lot of time hanging out with guys like a fly on the wall. They do it even when they know they shouldn't (cops for example--yikes, the back rooms at the cop shops in minority neighborhoods!)

I hope this is a beginning to exposing these closed groups for what they are and what they do to our democracy when nobody is looking. Cuz this time they forgot they were being list4ened to, and the wrong people got trashed and the wrong people heard it. And busted Imus (May Limbaugh be next, please!)

[cally]

20. It's not normal in professional circles

Most are just more subtle about their sexism and racism. Anything that could get you sued is not OK. The laws have worked in this respect.

[sandnsea]

21. I allowed for that

Yes, many men do. But the politicians didn't on Imus, and most professional men don't either. There has always been, always will be, a certain kind of male cad who engages in this kind of behavior. They are tolerated in the political and professional world, not condoned. Imus managed to mesh that piggish behavior with politicians and pundits. If you could take a hit from Imus and not get in a snit, then you were earned your man balls. I agree with your assessment of the show, just not that the politicians and professionals were engaging in the same bigoted behavior.

[librechik]

26. yeah, but by being part of the identity of the show

their pictures promoted for appearances and so on--the Tom Brokaw or JIm Lehrer typeswould talk more seriously about the news or whatever. and the Imus gang BS would happen in a different segment. But still the Brokaws are part of the "brand" that people unconsciously ingest through the show, and actually NBC marketing must be happy that their serious stuffed shirt types got a stamp of approval from the beer guzzling macho types and maybe they even bought a book occasionally. NBC did this deliberately to push their staff's book deals and so on. They were HOPING to get some of the Imus scum onto their golden boys, just for the sake of populist cash. Hey, they're just regular guys, not esoteric eggheads who write books!

They knew what was going on in the other segments. They just chose to ignore it, like we used to ignore the "Whites Only" water fountains in the south. As long as somebody is making a dollar, who cares?

WE CARE! That's why we screamed.

[sandnsea]

27. I agree with that

I also think there are an awful lot of DUers who are taking their own positions on this topic to defend some of those politicians. I've watched Imus on occasion, some of the folks you mentioned expressed political opinions you didn't get otherwise. But I'm not going to pretend all the garbage on that show was right or that he should have even been on the air all these years. I "get" him because I've known a lot of guys like him - but he's still a pig. I think some others are defending their own ability to use denigration when they see fit, or are soft bigots themselves. Somebody yesterday mentioned how weird it is when a white person starts their racist spew, as if we all think that way. It's extra shocking when Dems do it and I've had that happen too. That's why I'm saddened by the last few days on DU, but not entirely surprised.

[librechik]

28. discourse is hell

:loveya:

:hug:

[John Q. Citizen]

19. "Humans are just a freakin' circus show.." you and George got that right.

I remember when the Argentine tabloid did a story on the bush twins on vacation in Argentina, and the deragatory, degrading, sexist, mean, and nasty things some people here were saying about them was surprising, to me at least.

I'm not a fan of the twins, but I thought the language and inuendo was a bit over the top.

[cally]

18. Most golf clubs and former' men's clubs have changed

My point is that this trash talk is not normal in business circles either. Yes, of course, sexism and racism exists but it's not as obvious as you are suggesting. I think we sort of excuse it because we argue that it's normal in business circles. It just isn't totally accepted nor normal discourse. It may happen but it's not an accepted norm.

[gaspee]

8. Spending ten

years on a trading floor, one of 20 women out of about 500 traders , gives me some insight into this. Yes, they do talk like that.

Of course, the atmosphere on the trading floor is different from the boardroom, but how am I to believe that confirmed men only spaces aren't more like the trading floor than the boardroom.

[sandnsea]

12. I agree

It's not okay for the pizza delivery guy or the motel maid or anybody else to talk like that. They'd ALL get fired for it. I am so sick of the bullshit on this. It is just not okay and it never has been.

[CookCountyResident]

22. My father played in a big band in the 1940's and 1950's

and would see his fellow band members get turned down from hotel stays simply because of the color of their skin. That behavior really opened his eyes. "All men were truly not equal" back then. We were raised to be color-blind in our home as a result.

[sandnsea]

11. Well not really

Politicians weren't the ones saying that shit. It was Imus and McGuirk, primarily. It would have been shocking no matter whose mouth it had come out of. If it came out of the pizza delivery guy's mouth, he'd have been fired too.

[CookCountyResident]

23. Yes but then......

why do we tolerate rap lyrics being played on the airwaves? That stuff makes me ill to listen to from the messages it sends. Imus, quite frankly, was imitating that kind of trash "talk".

[sandnsea]

24. Why can Jeff Foxworthy say "redneck"?

But we can't have a TV program that ridicules rednecks?

That distorts the current issue and has served to take the heat off the rest of the media maggots. Sad that so many liberals bought into it.

It's an important discussion - for another day.

[saltpoint]

16. I try to avoid hanging around, as it were, with naked groups of bigots.

Same with clothed groups of bigots.

[tjwash]

25. I'm sure that it gets real quiet in that room real fast when Clarence Thomas walks in as well.

nt