Since mid-October, when the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the hash tag #metoo was started, the sexual allegations against powerful men has proliferated beyond anything anyone imagined. Here’s an incomplete list from the NY Times:
Weinstein
Spacey
Russell Simmons
Glenn Thrush
Charlie Rose
Al Franken
Steve Jurvetson
Eddie Berganza
Andrew Kreisberg
Louis C.K.
Roy Moore
Benjamin Genocchio
Jeffrey Tambor
Ed Westwick
David Guillod
John Conyers
An incomplete list, as I said. If you don’t know who they are, Google them. But where is trump?
The Access Hollywood tape made it clear he belongs in this group. So, what we have socially is a big problem with how men view women as objects they can touch or grope or whatever just because they can. What we have is a serial abuser in the white house, a pedophile running for the Alabama senate seat (Roy Moore) and a spectrum of prominent men in the news, entertainment, and political businesses. And yet, trump doesn’t denounce his republican perverts, his republican pedophiles.
The repugs, after all, need votes in congress to pass a massive tax bill that will increase taxes on those people making between $10,000 and $75,000, and give tax breaks to everyone above that 75K marker. In other words, the poor and the middle class are getting screwed.
They place policy above pedophilia. How’s that for a party mantra?
There are moments in this unfolding horror that are almost comical – like when Kellyanne Conway appears on Fox and tries to explain why the white house hasn’t distanced itself from pedophile Roy Moore – we need the votes for tax reform. Then there are the more sobering moments, like the second allegation against Al Franken, one of my favorite senators. But hey, I’m sorry, he squeezed my butt isn’t quite the same thing as I was 14 years old when Ray Moore… fill in the blanks.
But mostly, all of this says we’re a country in the throes of a moral dilemma. Our president, after all, has been accused by more than a dozen women of sexual harassment…and then there’s that Hollywood Access tape where he admits to being a serial sexual predator.
So here we are, more than a year into trump’s election to the presidency, and what we’ve learned is that the guy who claims to be the art of the deal hasn’t solidified a single deal. His tweets in the dead of night have upped the ante for war with North Korea, have alienated most of our allies, and have made it clear that he still can’t believe that he didn’t win the popular vote.
We no longer live in a multiple choice world. We don’t have the luxury. Climate change deniers, tax breaks for the uber wealthy, pedophiles running for the senate: who the hell are we these days? As a nation, a people, a collective consciousness?
I left a post and it just disappeared. Weird……..
Found it!
For all the protest and dissention I’ve been a part of in my lifetime, I always made certain assumptions about democracy, and what America was. In January I marched with millions of women and men protesting the election of a self-proclaimed predator against women, who also advocated hanging his opponent, and denied the realities of science. We had NO effect. A year later an infantile, ignorant president tweets nonsense, and devotes much of his presidency to “getting even” with all his percieved enemies, and openly advocates for Nazis and religious fanatics, eliminates the arts, attempts continually to eliminate journalism and replace it with propaganda, and puts his own family into the White House, the same nepotism any good would be fascist dictator displays. WE ARE NOW THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT IS NOT PART OF THE PARIS ACCORD. THE ONLY COUNTRY. Is this really the will of the majority of the American people? Do we actually have a choice at all any more?
His regime blatently empowers all corporate interests, takes away any protection for the environment, and now we will all pay and pay and pay so they can get richer on the loss of humane social services and more tax breaks. Frankly, all I see is the arrogant consolidation of power, and sexual abuse has always gone along with that. I wonder sometimes if “America” is over, to be honest. Or is this what “America” is now, irreversibly?
Sorry to be so grim, but lately I’ve just been overwhelmed with sadness at what is happening. And I don’t know how to come to any peace with it.
To me, trump and his cronies all represent the worst of this country, the unbridled greed for money and power. I don’t think there is any way to be at peace with what’s happening.
I can’t claim to be an authority on the way a man’s mind works, but having been married for 54 years and having three sons who were “late bloomers” in terms of leaving home, etc., I have some fair insights into the male world view. We raised them to never, under any circumstances, lay so much as a little finger on a female in anger or conflicts, and to never, ever touch a woman who doesn’t want to be touched. They are all in their late forties now, and according to the girls and women who have come and gone in their lives, they have abided by these rules of conduct toward the opposite sex.
However, and it’s a HUGE however, it seems to be inbred in the genes of the male of our species to have a core belief that women are 1, to be revered and respected, and 2, to treat them with a sense of deference because it’s their job or because we are their equals… There are those men who view this as enormous insult, considering females as ‘chattle’, to be obedient, to be the sexual objects that are to be used in whatever manner a man chooses to use them. Those men seem to far outnumber the ‘gentlemen’ in our society today, and it reaches far into the history of civilized society. It’s a twisted male ego that causes him to commit such vile acts and to honestly have the conviction that the women “want” them because they (the abusers) are so great and so famous and so powerful that the female should be ‘honored’ by their grossly unwanted attention.
Most of these women feel afraid and intimidated and therefore hide their wounds and secrets. There will, I think, be more and more and more stepping out of their closets of fear. The statute of limitations is long past for many, but still, the release in and of itself brings unexpected relief and healing. I know this from personal experience. Just as an aside, for what it’s worth, Kelly Ann is the mistress of the president.
On Kellyanne – I kind of figured. Gag.
WWOOOWW… Strong… if majorily accurate… can only hope appearances can be deceptive……. maybe it’s about reestablishing a certain something that’s not all together negative….. and no there Rob I am not a supporter…I’m the clown U/no… well let’s just say, “haven’t read much of the stuff yet”
You may be a good-natured trickster, blah!
Just thinking – Jupiter and Venus in Scorpio!
Good point!