Billionaire Misopedic Misogynist Rapist Jeffrey Epstein, with Egg-Shaped Penis, Goes Free

[image is from here]

File this one under "How WHM Supremacy WORKS to protect and defend rapists." Especially the rich rapists. All that follows is from YouTube and *here*. NOTE: he's not a pedophile; he's a serial raper of girls; there's nothing "child-loving" about it.

Billionaire Pedophile [sic] Goes Free
Conchita Sarnoff Conchita Sarnoff – Wed Jul 21, 12:05 am ET

NEW YORK – Hedge fund mogul Jeffrey Epstein became a free man Wednesday, five years after he was first accused of sexually abusing underage girls. After months of reporting, The Daily Beast’s Conchita Sarnoff reveals exclusive details of the investigation and the legal wrangling that saved him from a long prison term.

She reports:

• Palm Beach’s police chief objected to Epstein’s “special treatment” and gave The Daily Beast an exclusive look at his nine-hour deposition about the investigation.

• Earlier versions of the U.S attorney’s charges, including a sealed 53-page indictment, could have landed Epstein in prison for 20 years.

• Victims alleged that Epstein molested underage girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, including three 12-year-old girls brought over from France as a birthday gift.

• The victims also alleged trips out of state and abroad on Epstein’s private jets, which would be evidence of sex trafficking—a much more serious federal crime than the state charges Epstein was convicted of.

• Epstein’s attorneys investigated members of the Palm Beach Police Department, while others ordered private investigators to follow and intimidate the victims’ families; one even posed as a police officer.

• Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told The Daily Beast that he “would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue justice without making a political mess.”

Film director Roman Polanski is not the only convicted pedophile to walk free this month and return to a life of privilege. On Wednesday, hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein completes his one-year house arrest in Palm Beach, which has been even less arduous than Polanski’s time at a Swiss ski chalet.

During Epstein’s term of “house arrest,” he made several trips each month to his New York home and his private Caribbean island. In the earlier stage of his sentence for soliciting prostitution with a minor—13 months in the Palm Beach Stockade—he was allowed out to his office each day. Meanwhile, Epstein has settled more than a dozen lawsuits brought by the underage girls who were recruited to perform “massages” at his Palm Beach mansion. Seven victims reached a last-minute deal last week, days before a scheduled trial; each received well over $1 million—an amount that will hardly dent Epstein’s $2 billion net worth.

With that, the known victims of Epstein’s sexual compulsion have been officially silenced, and the case against him is closed unless new ones come forward. According to banking sources, he has been moving assets out of the U.S. and may well follow Polanski into a luxurious exile.

But the question remains: Did Epstein’s wealth and social connections—former President Bill Clinton; Prince Andrew; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were just a few of the prominent passengers on his private jets—allow him to receive only a slap on the wrist for crimes that carry a mandatory 20-year sentence? Was he able, with his limitless assets and heavy-hitting lawyers—Alan Dershowitz, Gerald Lefcourt, Roy Black, Kenneth Starr, Guy Lewis, and Martin Weinberger among them—to escape equal justice?

Michael Reiter, the former Palm Beach police chief, certainly thinks so. He gave The Daily Beast exclusive access to the transcript of his nine-hour deposition for the victims’ civil suits, in which he explained how the case against Epstein was minimized by the State Attorney’s Office, then bargained down by the U.S. Department of Justice, all in an atmosphere of hardball legal tactics and social pressures so intense that Reiter became estranged from several colleagues. At the time, Reiter, who retired in 2009 and now runs his own security firm, objected both to Epstein’s plea agreement and to the flexible terms of his incarceration in the county jail rather than state prison. Asked during the deposition whether he thought Epstein received special treatment, he answered “yes.”

In March 2005, Reiter’s department, acting on a complaint from the Florida parents of a 14-year-old girl, launched an investigation that would eventually uncover a pattern of predatory behavior stretching back years and spanning several continents, knowingly enabled by Epstein’s associates and employees. Two or three times a day, whenever Epstein was in Palm Beach, a teenage girl would be brought to the mansion on El Brillo Way. (“The younger the better,” he instructed Haley Robson, a local teenager who was paid to bring other girls to the house, and who declared, on a police tape, that she was “like a Heidi Fleiss,” the infamous California madam.) Advised that she would be giving a “massage,” the girl was then pressured to remove her clothes, submit to fondling and a large vibrator, and sometimes lured into more invasive sexual contact. Each girl was paid $200 or more, depending on how far things went, by house manager Alfredo Rodriguez, who was instructed always to have $2,000 cash on hand.

The Palm Beach Police Department identified 17 local girls who had contact with Epstein before the age of consent; the youngest was 14, and many were younger than 16. And that was just at one of Epstein’s many homes around the world—he also owns property in New York, Santa Fe, Paris, London, and the Caribbean. Subsequent investigation by the FBI, reaching as far back as 2001, indentified roughly 40 victims, not counting Nadia Marcinkova, whom Epstein referred to as his “Yugoslavian sex slave” because he had imported her from the Balkans at age 14. Now 24, Marcinkova became a member of the household and is alleged to have participated in the sexual contact with underage girls.

Epstein quickly got wind of the investigation, and progress on the case got messy very quickly. He hired a squad of lawyers and private investigators and dispatched influential friends to pressure the police into backing off. Instead, local detectives pressed on and brought the matter to the attention of the FBI. The detectives asked their federal colleagues whether the fact that some victims appeared to have traveled out of state on Epstein’s planes—plus the use of interstate phone service to arrange assignations—might be violations of the federal 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years. (Florida enacted the federal TVPA in 2002.)

So when State Attorney Barry Krischer, who also ran Florida’s Crimes Against Children Unit, proved reluctant to mount a vigorous prosecution of Epstein, saying the local victims were not credible witnesses, Chief Reiter wrote the attorney a letter complaining of the state’s “highly unusual” conduct and asking him to remove himself from the case. He did not, and the evidence his office presented to a state grand jury produced only a single count of soliciting prostitution. (Krischer has since retired and would not comment for this article.) The day after that indictment was returned, Reiter was relieved to have the FBI step in and take over the investigation.

The details that eventually emerged were often shocking and occasionally bizarre. For Epstein’s birthday one year, according to allegations in a civil suit, he was presented with three 12-year-old girls from France, who were molested then flown back to Europe the next day. These same civil complaints allege that young girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, few of whom spoke English, were recruited for Esptein’s sexual pleasure. According to a former bookkeeper, a number of the girls worked for MC2, the modeling agency owned by Jean Luc Brunel, a longtime acquaintance and frequent guest of Epstein’s. Brunel received $1 million from the billionaire around the time he started the agency.

The non-prosecution agreement executed between Epstein and the Department of Justice states that Epstein and four members of his staff were investigated for “knowingly, in affecting interstate and foreign commerce, recruiting enticing and obtaining by any means a person, knowing that person has not yet obtained the age of 18 years and would be caused to engage in commercial sex act”—that is, child sex trafficking. Yet the agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to only two lower-level state crimes, soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor child for prostitution.

Although the police investigation was officially closed, Chief Reiter tried to stay abreast of the federal case against Epstein. He was particularly concerned that Epstein be registered as a sex offender, which was part of the final deal, and that a fund be set up to compensate his victims—which was not, although Epstein agreed to bankroll their civil lawsuits. Attorney Dershowitz says Epstein’s agreement to pay attorney fees for the victims and agree to civil damage claims—without admitting guilt—amounted to “extortion under threat of criminal prosecution.”

But exactly which crimes did the Department of Justice threaten to prosecute? The Daily Beast has learned that there were several earlier versions of the U.S Attorney’s charges, including a 53-page indictment that, had he been convicted, could have landed Epstein in prison for 20 years. Brad Edwards, attorney for seven of the victims, confirms the existence of an earlier draft of the non-prosecution agreement, officially under seal, in which it appears that Epstein “committed, at some point, to a 10-year federal sentence.” But in the end Epstein’s legal team refused that deal and threatened to proceed to trial. And that’s where the question of whether the case was “winnable” before a jury again came into play, according to a source in the U.S Attorney’s Office, which shared the state attorney’s view that the prosecution was far from a slam dunk.

For one, it was clear from the start that Epstein would spare no legal expense and that his team of veteran lawyers, whose cases ranged from O.J. Simpson to the investigation of Clinton’s relationship with an intern, would play rough. When the Palm Beach police started to identify victims, according to Detective Joe Recarey’s report, Dershowitz began sending the detective Facebook and MySpace posts to demonstrate that some of these girls were no angels. Reiter’s deposition also states that he heard from local private investigators that Dershowitz had launched background checks on both the police chief and Det. Recarey. Dershowitz denies all of that. According to Reiter, both he and Recarey also became aware that they were under surveillance for several months, without knowing who ordered it. And the Florida victims began to complain that they and family members were being followed and intimidated by private investigators who were then linked to local attorneys in Epstein’s employ. In one reported instance, the private investigator claimed to be a police officer, and Reiter considered filing witness-tampering charges.

The credibility of the victims was also an issue; they had never complained of their treatment by Epstein until they were contacted by police, and they may have voluntarily returned to the Palm Beach mansion several times. Many of the girls came from disadvantaged backgrounds or broken homes, and they were susceptible to Epstein’s cash, intimidation, and charm. Those who were 16 when they went to El Brillo Way would have been in their 20s by the time they took the stand, and Epstein’s investigators had dredged up every instance of bad behavior in their pasts. According to an exchange in the Reiter deposition, a few of the victims had worked in West Palm Beach at massage parlors known as “jack shacks.” Each new compromising detail was immediately forwarded to the State Attorney’s Office, where staff met frequently with Epstein’s lawyers.

The Florida statutes are clear: Any person older than 24 who engages in sexual contact with someone under the age of 18 commits a felony of the second degree. The victim’s prior sexual conduct is not relevant; ignorance of her age is no defense. She needn’t resist physically to cast doubt on the issue of “consent.” For a child under 16, even lewd behavior short of touching is a felony of the second degree. But convincing a jury that a sexual encounter is a heinous crime is difficult if the victim can be made to appear willing and unharmed, not to mention vulgar and mercenary. It wasn’t hard to imagine some of the victims quickly being discredited in court by Epstein’s crack legal team, who repeatedly noted that the age of consent is lower in many other states.

But that doesn’t quite explain why the Department of Justice would forgo the child-trafficking charges, which pertain regardless of a girl’s attitude or character. Epstein’s final sentence is so out of line with the statutory guidelines for that crime that it appears the department may have been influenced by the existence of his many powerful friends and attorneys. A highly intelligent man who once taught math at the Dalton School in New York without a bachelor’s degree, Epstein has been a serious and respected player in the highest reaches of politics and philanthropy. He has made substantial contributions to political candidates, served on the Council on Foreign Relations, and donated $30 million to Harvard University.

Moreover, many of his high-powered acquaintances availed themselves of Epstein’s private jets, for which the pilot logs, obtained by discovery in the civil suits, sometimes showed that bold-face names were on the same flights as underage girls. A high-profile trial threatened to splash mud over all sorts of big players, just as both Gov. Richardson and Bill Clinton’s wife were running for president. Also, a hedge fund prosecution in which Epstein offered to give evidence was heating up. Alberto Gonzales, who was U.S. attorney general throughout most of the Epstein investigation and resigned just before the non-prosecution agreement was signed, told The Daily Beast that he “would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue justice without making a political mess.” But that may have been an impossible mandate, given the players involved.

Instead, said attorney Brad Edwards, “Epstein committed crimes that should have jailed him for most of his life…he was jailed for only a few months.” And this week he walks through his door a free man.

Conchita Sarnoff has developed multimedia communication programs for Fortune 500 companies and has produced three current events debate television programs, The Americas Forum, From Beirut to Kabul, and a segment for The Oppenheimer Report. She is a contributor to The Huffington Post and is writing a book about child trafficking in America.

Watch Jeffrey Epstein Storm Out of a Deposition When Asked About His Penis

From YouTube, on Jeffrey Epstein:

MusicTechnologyJules | September 20, 2009

Just dont ask millionaire Palm Beach sex offender Jeffrey Epstein about his privates.

Local attorney Spencer Kuvin did during a deposition Sept. 2, and Epstein walked out — 100 seconds after it started. And it was all caught on the video above.

Epstein, 56, did answer the first question: What is your name?

But he balked at the second: Is it true that . . . you have an egg-shaped penis?

After an objection from his attorney, Mike Pike, and another attempt from Kuvin, Epstein took off his microphone and left.

It cost the Wall Street prodigy Epstein: He was fined $800 by the West Palm Beach court currently hearing civil lawsuits filed by women whom Epstein paid for sex when they were underage.

While Epstein claims he never even met several of his accusers, they painted a not-so-pretty picture of Epsteins junk to prove he exposed himself.

It absolutely was an important question, said Kuvin. If he claims to have never met them, then we should know whether the victim is telling the truth.

Kuvin represents a suburban girl who, at 15, was enticed to visit Epsteins Palm Beach home under the pretense she would receive $200 to massage the man. But the massage allegedly turned into much more until the girl allegedly walked out in disgust. She is now in college.

The deposition has been reset for Oct. 8, and Epstein should expect the same question.

Epstein was released from a county correction camp this summer after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence for his guilty plea on two felony prostitution charges.

Lethal Weapon 5, featuring The Homicidal Misogynist Maniac Mel Gibson who DOESN'T realise that "What Women Want" is to NOT BE MURDERED BY MEN

[image of the Homicidal Misogynistic Maniac Mel Gibson, is from here]

That Mel Gibson has made, to date, four "Lethal Weapon" films seems fitting, except that they aren't about him being a lethal weapon to women. It is fitting, as well, that he's been in productions called "The Punishment", "Ransom", "Conspiracy Theory", "Payback", "Signs", and "Complete Savages". That he ever made a film titled "What Women Want" is increasingly frightening.

From IMDb:

Nick Marshall, Playboy and Hot Shot in advertising, thinks he's God's gift to women. After a little accident, he discovers that he is suddenly able to hear what women really think. First, Nick is pretty disappointed when he discovers that his beloved macho behaviour does not exactly contribute to being desired. Then, his upcoming dream position in the company is being given to a new team member: Darcy, not only a woman, but a man-eating one, also is a very talented ad expert. So, Nick decides to sabotage his new boss by reading her thoughts and selling her ideas as his own. Unfortunately, love gets in his way. Written by Julian Reischl

To Mel Gibson, the Homo Palien Predator who I wish would go to another planet:  

You are clearly a nut that hasn't fallen far from the tree. 

If you ever contemplate, threaten, or plan to kill any woman including Oksana Grigorieva, and your and Oksana's almost nine month old baby Lucia, and your ex-partner's adolescent child Sascha (Alexander), and then to kill yourself, please do so in reverse order in such a way that only you are injured or die. 

Thank you: you'll be doing one woman, two children, and the rest of the world a huge favor. 

You're one vicious white het man, Mr. Gibson, and one cruel, sadistic, Satanic "Christian" coward. Go fuck yourself, and recognize who YOU are: a gold digger, a f*cking pig in heat (no offence to hogs, sows, and piglets or any living being that has an estrous cycle is intended), a n*gger, a w*tback, a f*cking b*tch, a c*nt, a f*ggot, and last, but surely not least: one mean and maniacal P.R.I.C.K. 

If your Jesus does come back to Earth, I hope he swiftly kicks you and your dad in the nuts. That, surely, would demonstrate a level of compassion and love for humanity that you and your father have been lacking for many decades. Pray to your Jesus to knock some sense into you through the gonadal parts of your body you appear to be using simultaneously as your brains and your heart. And ask yourself this: How's THAT approach to life working for you?

-- Julian Real

To learn what that the acronym means, please check out these two posts: P.R.I.C.K.s and PRICKs, Sexxxism, and other CRAP.

For more posts on A Radical Profeminist about Mel Gibson, please see here, here, here, and, for portions of one of those posts in French, see here. Calling Mel a nut, a maniac, or maniacal is not meant to imply he is in any way insane, or drunk. It is meant to imply he is behaving the way far too many patriarchally entitled men behave--in such a manner as to be guilty of the crime of murdering the women they willfully, rationally, choose to be with who they later claim is driving them crazy. Men, too typically, do not take responsibility for their feelings or their actions, when directed negatively at women. They blame women instead, and in this way remain ignorant, arrogant, self-absorbed, overly privileged, and atrociously entitled and terribly normal men.

All that follows is linked to below, and is from RadarOnline.com.

Mel Gibson Punched Oksana Twice, Choked Her & Then Threatened To Murder Her & Family, She Tells AuthoritiesWORLD EXCLUSIVE: Mel Gibson Punched Oksana Twice, Choked Her & Then Threatened To Murder Her & Family, She Tells Authorities

Mel Gibson threatened to kill his own baby daughter, Oksana Grigorieva, her son -- and even himself -- during the brutal brawl that is being investigated by police, according to statements Oksana has given authorities.

In a stunning world exclusive, RadarOnline.com has obtained all the details of what authorities have been told took place on January 6, the crucial date in the domestic violence investigation against Mel, as well as the custody battle between Mel and Oksana.

And the details are far worse than what has been known up to now. Mel punched Oksana TWICE in the head, and choked her with his forearm pressing into her throat after she fell onto the bed – while holding the baby, she told authorites.

Mel is facing a criminal investigation on domestic battery charges by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and is part of a Department of Children and Family Services investigation.

Here are the complete details about what authorities are investigating:

On January 6, Oksana says she attended a basketball game for her 12-year-old son Alexander, who goes by the nickname Sascha. Gibson was furious that she left their infant daughter Lucia home with a nanny and was also jealous that she was around other men.

The nanny witnessed Mel storming around the house, slamming doors and growing furious. The nanny was so frightened that she took Lucia and hid in a bedroom, according to Oksana’s statements.

“When Oksana came home Mel began cursing her,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told RadarOnline.com exclusively. The Oscar-winning actor/director screamed profanities, consistent with what is on the audio tapes obtained and released exclusively by RadarOnline.com.

Then things took a near deadly turn.

Oksana asked Mel to calm down when she returned to his Malibu house in the early evening.

“Mel punched her in the mouth and then again in the side of the head,” the source told RadarOnline.com.

She was holding Lucia and the force of the punches caused her to fall backwards onto the bed.

Mel placed one of his forearms into Oksana’s neck and began choking her. He took his free hand and pushed it over her mouth and she struggled to breathe. She struggled and begged him to stop.

“Oksana has told authorities it was horrific and she thought she was going to die,” the source said.

The punches broke Oksana’s front teeth, as can be seen by the exclusive photo of her injuries obtained by RadarOnline.com

As she begged Mel to stop while he was choking her, Mel kept screaming for Oksana to apologize.

Oksana’s son Sascha, whose father is former James Bond star Timothy Dalton, was in the bedroom the entire time this took place, and he was scared to death and will be a crucial witness.

He was interviewed by child protective services agents last Friday.

Oksana finally was freed from Mel’s grip and jumped up to leave but she says Mel then pulled a gun from the pocket of his short, pointed it at her head and threatened to kill her, Lucia and Sascha, as well as himself, in an apparent murder-suicide plot.

He reportedly yelled “F*ck you” and called Oksana a “F**king c*nt.”

Somehow, however, Oksana was able to run out of the house, wearing her pajamas and barefoot, with Lucia and Sascha.

After Oksana fled, Mel called her repeatedly and threatened her. Investigators will be looking at those phone records.

RELATED STORIES:

MEL AUDIO TAPE #1: Mel’s Racist Rant

MEL AUDIO TAPE #2: Mel Gibson Admits Hitting Oksana, Threatens To Kill Her

MEL AUDIO TAPE #3: Another Mel Gibson Slur Caught On Tape In Crazed Rage

MEL AUDIO TAPE #4: Out Of Control Mel Gibson Says He'll Burn Down House After Demanding Sex

MEL AUDIO TAPE #5: Mel Gibson Completely Loses It: 'B*tch, C*nt, Wh*re, Gold Digger!'

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO of Oksana After She Says Mel Punched Her

Women on TOP? You've GOT to be Joking! A Reality Check for Delusional Antifeminist "Anti-Misandrist" Men

[image of book cover featuring white het men's misogynistic fetishes is from here]

What follows is a cross post from The Independent (UK) followed by another from The Times (UK) by the same writer. With great thanks to Mary Ann Sieghart for telling it like it is is this "post-feminist" West (please insert an overtly disrespectful cough) where increasingly there are delusional, bitter, scornful white, class-privileged, and "straight" men--men who are utterly clueless about what it feels like, means, and IS to be a structurally, systemically, institutionally, and culturally oppressed adult human being--are lashing out at and physically and verbally bashing women for problems created, promoted, and protected by white het men. To any and all MEN: place your disappointment, criticism, and rage where it belongs--toward WHM and the man in the mirror. You may link back to original site/source, by clicking on the title just below. And, beyond that, in this post, is another brilliant piece by Mary Ann Sieghart, as well as a link to an important analysis of evolutionary psychology--a blatantly illogical, irrational, and biased, bigoted anti-woman field of pseudo-scientific inquiry, that ought to be never been presented publicly or in the press without hisses, boos, or laughter.

Mary Ann Sieghart: Women on top? You've got to be joking
For at least 20 years, we have been fed the line that the 'Future is Female'. But the future has always failed to materialise

Monday, 19 July 2010

What a depressing week it has been to be female. A psychopathically violent woman-beater and murderer is lionised. A film director who drugs and then sodomises a 13-year-old girl is let off. A famous actor tells his ex-partner she deserves to be "raped by a pack of niggers". And the Catholic Church elevates women's ordination to the same level of offence as child abuse. Thanks, chaps.

Meanwhile, a new report has reminded us of how little progress women have made in the arts. And, as Selina Scott complained to the BBC last week, when women do succeed on TV, they're removed as soon as their first wrinkle begins to show, while men carry on till their faces look like a relief map of the Hindu Kush.

First to Raoul Moat, though. The most depressing aspect of the men (and women) defending this "legend" is the blame they have heaped on his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart. She, remember, is now recovering from being shot twice in the stomach by Moat. During their relationship, he split her head open. He threw her against a wall and jumped on her stomach. And he threatened her with a gun. His former partner, Marissa Reid, has said he beat her with his fists and a baseball bat, and raped her while she was tied to a bed. Nice.

So what do ordinary people make of that? Here are just a couple of comments on the RIP Raoul Moat Facebook page: "Maybe if she kept her legs closed none of this would of happened. Maybe Moaty had good reason to be angry," and "Moat is a true British hero, he done what he thought was right by getting revenge on his cheating ex-girlfriend." Moat himself wrote: "I never cheated on her. I wish she hadn't cheated on me. She pulled the trigger by doing so just as much as me."

So a woman who moves on from a terrifyingly abusive relationship deserves to be shot in the stomach? And a man who loses a girlfriend is entitled to try to kill her? That's still a scarily prevalent view. Men are 10 times more likely than women to kill a partner who has left them. People often wonder why women suffering domestic violence stay in a relationship. Usually it's because the man threatens to kill them if they go. Raoul Moat wasn't the only man to have said to his girlfriend, "If I can't have you, no one else can," and to have followed it through.

In their splendidly named study The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel [***click on link here or see bottom of post for the link to this important work], the evolutionary psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly write: "Men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables." This sense of ownership gives these men a sense of entitlement and a fury at the notion of losing "their" woman to someone else. So when Samantha Stobbart took up with a karate instructor, in order to feel protected and safe at last, she apparently "pulled the trigger" on herself.

Moat's twisted logic finds a reflection in other walks of life. When women who have been victimised ask merely to be treated fairly, they are often amplified by men into threatening aggressors. Researching a Radio 4 programme about opponents of women priests last week, I was told of an exhibition put on by an Anglican man who opposed women's ordination. He had painted pictures of leering women, naked apart from their dog collars, with intimidatingly large breasts, gathered round a communion chalice filled with menstrual blood. What's that about, Sigmund?

The Catholic Church, of course, has not just forbidden women's ordination, but made it a dreadful crime. Last week, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decreed that "both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an ex-communication". This puts women's ordination on a par with child rape.

If only paedophilia were taken as seriously as women's ordination. The Vatican has hounded theologians and priests who have questioned the Church's teachings on women. Had it used the same energy to root out abusing priests, thousands of children's psyches could have been spared.

Even in the Church of England, which now has women priests and is close to accepting women as bishops, the hatred and vilification are shocking. At last weekend's meeting of the General Synod, some women priests were spat at. And a male bishop who appeared on the radio programme I made complained that the Synod had now been "swamped" by part-time women clergy or – as he put it – "ladies with time on their hands".

Hearing a word like "swamped", you might expect the House of Clergy to have been taken over by women. In fact, they account for just 39 of 197 members. In other words, men still take up 80 per cent of the places. But if women are seen as threatening and monstrous – as in that priest's painting – even their minority presence is hugely amplified.

This overestimation of the power and representation of women is commonplace. Research shows that when women speak in the classroom exactly 50 per cent of the time, both men and women think they spoke more. When I took part in an internet debate recently about whether Oxford University was sexist, James Kingston, president of the Oxford Union, said: "Most of the History tutors at Christ Church seem to be women." In fact, there are six women and six men there.

So perhaps that is why we put up with such appalling under-representation of women in public life. We believe there are more than there are. A report out last week from UK Feminista found that for every female character in TV drama there are two men. Is that an accurate portrayal of our lives? At Glastonbury this year, 71 per cent of the performances were all-male acts. Just 12 per cent of Turner Prize winners have been women, and 7 per cent of Bafta award-winners for screenplay-writing. Even in literary fiction, at which women are supposed to excel, awards go two-to-one in favour of men.

I can understand – just – why only 1.6 per cent of conductors at this year's Proms are women. Conducting is an all-consuming job with gruelling hours and constant travel. But it's hard to believe that men are twice as good at writing fiction, three times better at pop music and seven times better at art. And I certainly don't see why, as a former BBC TV executive admitted to me: "As male presenters get older, they become an authority; as female presenters get older, they become a problem."

The real problem is that 21st-century Britain still undervalues women, and particularly older ones. Open any newspaper, look at any billboard, switch on the TV or read a magazine and you will search almost in vain for a picture of a woman over 50. Girls may be doing better than boys at school, but it is ridiculous to claim that men are being marginalised. They still have the best jobs, the most money and the preponderance of power. And when women make any progress, however small, that is exaggerated to suggest that they are somehow taking over from men.

For at least 20 years, we have been fed newspaper articles telling us "The Future is Female". But the future has always failed to materialise. The present is still overwhelmingly male and women's advances are still over-amplified. I'll start to feel sorry for men when they are wildly outnumbered on company boards, wiped off TV in their forties, routinely earning less than women, and not just being murdered by their jealous partners, but being blamed for it.

m.sieghart@independent.co.uk / twitter.com/MASieghart

More from Mary Ann Sieghart  (click on link to the left, and also see below:)

From The Times [The Sunday Times] (UK)

October 22, 2009

The men who kill out of passion
Men are far more likely than women to kill for jealousy. But the law is changing to stop them using infidelity as a defence

Mary Ann Sieghart

All men kill the thing they love,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, ruminating on a fellow inmate who had murdered a woman in her bed. Love is also used by Othello to justify the same crime. He asks to be remembered as “one that loved not wisely but too well” and claims: “For naught I did in hate, but all in honour.”

So how much has changed in 400 years? Even now, says Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, “A man can say, ‘It was only because I loved her. It’s her fault I killed her. She must have provoked me. I killed her because she was planning to leave me’.” As a result, they can sometimes get the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter, with a far shorter sentence.

Between one and two women a week in Britain are killed by their partners. This is often prompted by jealousy, or as a punishment for wives or girlfriends seeking their independence.

Only last week, Neil Ellerbeck, a banker whose wife wanted to leave him, was let off with manslaughter after strangling her. The judge branded him as an “obsessive and jealous” husband who would stop at nothing to prevent his wife divorcing him. He could be out of prison in as little as three years.

In September, Brian Lewis, 31, was found guilty of murdering his wife Hayley Jones, 26, after she changed her status from “married” to “single” on her Facebook profile. She was stabbed and strangled.

“Till death do us part” is the vow we make in the marriage ceremony, but men are much more inclined than women to try to bring it forward. They are three to four times more likely than women to kill their partner or ex-partner. And of the women who do kill their husband or lover, the overwhelming majority do so after suffering years of violent abuse.

Martin Daly and Margo Wilson are evolutionary psychologists who specialise in the roots of male violence against women. In their fabulously titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel, they write: “Men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables.” Not only do men see their partners as their property, apparently, but they have a sense of entitlement to them and therefore a huge sense of grievance at the prospect of losing them to somebody else.

Daly and Wilson put this down to the asymmetrical risk of cuckoldry. Men can’t know for sure whether their partner’s baby is theirs. With women there is no such uncertainty. So males of most species go in for “mate-guarding” to ensure that their partners can’t get pregnant by another male. And as Matt Ridley, the evolutionary science writer, puts it: “Spouse killing is an extreme form of mate-guarding.”

This can take many forms. In 2007 Susan Goswell, 63, was stabbed to death by her depressive husband Roger, 66, when he discovered that she had not been a virgin on her wedding day 46 years earlier, an inquest in Chichester heard.

Women get jealous too, of course, but evolutionary psychologists say that the nature of male and female jealousy is different. For a man it is sexual: he doesn’t want another man to impregnate his partner. For a woman it is emotional: she doesn’t want her partner to give time, attention or resources to another woman, as she needs these for raising her own family. But while jealous women will sometimes take revenge on their partners, they are more likely to take a knife to their suits than to their throats.

Daly and Wilson, in studies of spousal homicide, have found that by far the most common motive is the man’s jealousy. Sometimes this is “morbid jealousy”, in which the man becomes completely obsessed with the idea that his wife is being unfaithful, even when there is no evidence for it. Sometimes, though, it is standard jealousy, set off by her wanting to leave him. Then, says the psychologist Oliver James: “There’s a point at which, if I can’t have her, no one else will. In a kind of way you’ve got her for ever if you kill her, because no one else can have her.”

Dr Elizabeth Englander, in her book Understanding Violence, cites a study of 83 cases of spousal homicide in the US: 42 cases of husbands killing wives, and 41 of wives killing husbands. None of the husband-killers had jealousy as a motive.

Women are most at risk of being killed by their partners at the time of separation or soon after. People often ask why abused women don’t just walk out of the relationship: this is why. Englander notes that the abuser often reminded his partner that if she left him, he would track her down and kill her, and sometimes their children too.

It is no idle threat. In a Chicago study, three quarters of women who were killed had left or tried to end the relationship in the previous year. And violence that continues after separation tends to be more serious and obsessive, often including stalking and sometimes leading to murder. Women don’t tend to pursue their partners after a relationship has broken up. Men do: they are ten times more likely than women to kill partners who have left them.

And when they do, it is usually more violent than other murders. The majority of men who kill their wives or girlfriends use repeated blows or stabbings — far more violence than is necessary to cause death. This is rarely true when women kill.

So what is the mechanism that makes all this anger and jealousy explode into extreme violence against women? Men are in any case much more violent than women, and they commit many more murders. Men tend to externalise their anger, while women internalise it. Just look at disturbed adolescents: young men will fight, drink and take drugs, while young women will self-harm and starve themselves.

Tom Fahy is a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. Jealousy, he says, “is a dangerous emotion, especially if it reaches pathological proportions and if there is alcohol involved”.

Although women can suffer it too, “the type of extreme, inflexible attitude, the sense of feeling of ownership, is much more part of the male psyche”. And men who are left by their partners can feel a sense of complete abandonment. When it’s for another man, “that’s a killer blow to self-esteem”.

Women who kill are already much more dysfunctional than the men who do so. “They often have a background of horrendous physical and sexual abuse themselves,” says Fahy. “They are much farther away from the mean than the average male killer.”

But do jealous men who kill their partners get an easier ride from the law? Historically, that’s been the case. In 1706, in the Mawgridge case here in Britain, it was declared that “jealousy is the rage of man and adultery is the highest invasion of property”.

Several American states used to have statutes that allowed men to kill adulterous wives without fear of prosecution — these were abolished only in the 1970s, and juries still sometimes acquit men who do.

When Harriet Harman became Solicitor General in 2001, she was horrified by the number of cases in which male killers pleaded their wives’ infidelity as provocation and had the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter. On behalf of bereaved relatives, she sent three cases to the Court of Appeal because the sentences seemed unduly lenient.

In one, a solicitor’s wife had admitted to having feelings for a karate instructor. The husband went out, bought a knife and stabbed her to death in front of their four children. Despite the apparent premeditation, he got off with manslaughter. “The relatives of the woman killed were heartbroken,” recalls Harman. “She was being blamed for her own death and she didn’t have the chance to defend herself in court. They thought the injustice of it was absolutely overwhelming.”

The Court of Appeal said that the law needed to be changed. As a result, the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is now wending its way through the House of Lords, will remove any defence of infidelity as provocation.

Not all lawyers, even feminist ones, are sure that this is the answer, though. Baroness Kennedy, a senior barrister who has spent much of her career standing up for victims of domestic violence, thinks that it’s more important for attitudes to change. “There are still ideas that somehow there are ‘good’ women and there are women who bring this stuff on their own heads. I still hear people saying that being a wicked-tongued woman is equivalent to a man being violent.”

She thinks that it would be unfair not to acknowledge in law the devastating effect that fear of abandonment has on a man. “I’d be cautious about denying to men the possibility that you could snap when you think your life is falling apart, though the defence shouldn’t be applied too generously. Changing the law is a simplistic solution to problems that ... require bigger shifts in society.”

Harman agrees that the problem is profound. “It’s about whether or not male ownership of a woman’s sexuality entitles him to take violent action. It’s very primeval.”

But surely we’ve moved on from our caveman days? Harman certainly thinks so. “Violence within a relationship is criminal, just as it is outside a relationship. We don’t accept a man’s ownership of a woman’s sexuality. It’s hers and doesn’t belong to him. It’s not for him to control her or her sexuality by violence or any other means.”

Society has already agreed that domestic violence is unacceptable, and there are no excuses for it. The men who receive sentences of a few years for manslaughter would be sent to jail for longer if their partners had survived and they were convicted instead of grievous bodily harm, for which there is no defence of provocation.

Even Othello decides that a fitting sentence is to stab himself to death. And Oscar Wilde’s protagonist? “The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.” Britain no longer has the death penalty, but at least now, once the law is changed, men who kill their partners will no longer be able to get away with murder.

Related Links:
Life for Facebook murder boyfriend
Top banker cleared of murder after killing wife 
 

*          *          *

From a Google Search. Note, clicking on this opens or makes available to be opened, a PDF document, a free copy of the work titled:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel

Barbarians Determine Fates. Sent to me by the poet B. R. Gowani

 This disturbing image is from here. 

B. R. Gowani supplied me with the image, the link, the caption below, and his poem. Thank you, B. R.

“An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning, in which women are buried up to their necks in front of a crowd of volunteers and killed in a hail of rocks.” PHOTO/Thierry Roge/Reuters/Guardian

Iran: Barbarians determine fates

by B. R. GOWANI


Unmarried Eve and Adam fornicated
They parented many children,
Sisters and brothers,
Siblings,
They married amongst themselves …

(this is what Allah willed
or else He would have created
a second pair of human beings)

Out of the incestuous relationships
Of siblings, that is,
The earth was peopled*,
Including, the Iranian judges
Who have sentenced many people
To death by stoning or hanging
For adultery!

Now it is Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
(a widow and a mother of two children)
Who is awaiting her death
For committing that act.

These beasts could better concentrate
On critical productive issues, instead of
Who’s going out with whom?
Who’s sleeping with whom?
Who’s kissing whom?
Who’s holding whose hand?
Who’s not wearing a chador?
Who’s with uncovered head?
…

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

*This is according to Abrahamic religions:Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and the various tribes of the Americas, and others have their own stories.

Merci beaucoup to Martin Dufresne: A French Translation of the "Protect The Patriarch" post, on Mel Gibson and Sean Connery

[image is from here]

Martin Dufresne has been a long-time supporter of radical feminist and radical profeminist efforts to stop male supremacist violence against women, including by translating English texts into French for a wider global readership. I am grateful to him for taking up the project, and time, to translate my recent blogpost, with the rambling title, "Protect The Patriarch" Day. Sean Connery and Mel Gibson are Two Arrogant Authoritarian "Artists": Can Hollywood Stop Sucking Them Off, Please? Documented Domestic Terrorists Like Mel Gibson Don't Deserve Protection, or Oral Sex.


Martin shared with me several images for consideration to put with this post, all of them with biblical references, including the one above. I chose this one because it was the least racist to me, in appearance. Here is what Martin mentioned to me, that is worth knowing, especially if you encounter any other images that go with these verses, and also to understand the biblical history of what has since become white male supremacy:

The Bible says that Noah cursed his irreverent son, Ham, the youngest, saying that his descendants would be servants to those of his brothers. 

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.  

Scholars have argued that those descendants, termed Canaan, became the population of Egypt, Ethiopia and gradually all of Africa, giving a religious basis to racism. See http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGham.htm 

 

Whatever picture you decide to use, this story of Noah's sons and their choices could be summarized in a cutline for those who don't know that biblical anecdote about the respect owed fallen patriarchs (Genesis 9: 20-27)

Below is Martin's translation work of my post on Mel Gibson and Sean Connery.

Julian Real: C’est la journée «Protégeons les patriarches». Sean Connery et Mel Gibson sont deux «artistes» autoritaires pétris d’arrogance. Est-ce que Hollywood peut cesser de leur tailler des pipes, s’il-vous-plaît? Les terroristes conjugaux aux exactions démontrées comme Mel Gibson ne méritent ni protection, ni fellations.

(…) Gibson mérite également d'être accusé d'avoir menacé la vie d’Oksana Grigorieva de violence physique et sexuelle, d'agression verbale, et d'être un terroriste conjugal. Voilà ce qu'il mérite. Contrairement à certains médias, je ne vais pas me contenter de le qualifier d’ivrogne ou de fou. C'est un homme sobre et sain d'esprit qui, comme tant d'autres hommes, est cruellement favorable au viol et à la violence conjugale. C'est ce qu'il est. L'alcool n'enseigne pas à ses consommateurs la façon d'être sectaires et, alors que toute femme qui crierait comme lui serait qualifiée de « conne » et de « folle » et de mégère avant d’avoir terminé sa première phrase, il n’est qualifié que d’«ivrogne», car il ne peut être négativement stigmatisé à titre d’homme blanc hétéro (HBH). Il nous faut ajouter à l’amalgame de ses privilèges et droits ethniques et patriarcaux un autre élément négatif, qu'il s'agisse de l'ivresse ou la folie. Quelle appellation avons-nous pour désigner les HBH qui n'ont pas ces autres conditions pour expliquer leur comportement? (Outre celles d’éminent spécialiste et de génie artistique, je veux dire. Vous voyez ce que je veux dire? Nous n'avons pas d’expressions négatives pour qualifier le simple fait d’être de race blanche et de sexe masculin et hétérosexuel, comme nous en avons pour chacune des autres catégories démographiques.)

Et Sean. Il faut que quelqu’un le trouve et le gifle au visage à au moins à 007 reprises, parce que c’est un patriarche arrogant qui démontre ci-dessus qu’il ne sait vraiment pas quand se taire. Peut-être qu'il peut expliquer pourquoi se fait-il que lorsque des femmes ne le laissent pas avoir le dernier mot, il est incapable de se comporter en adulte responsable et sortir de la pièce. Est-ce parce qu’il voit toute pièce comme un élément de son château personnel? À l’entendre, "les femmes" vont tout simplement parler encore et encore, tel un lapin Playboy Energizer dénué d’interrupteur autre qu’une gifle pour leur imposer la soumission. Il les présente comme autant de Mel Gibson, à l'exception qu'elles ne sont pas violentes aux plans physique et sexuel comme les hommes misogynes. Si Mel se défoulait sur lui comme il le fait sur Oksana, je me demande si l’on verrait la main du vieux Sean imprimée sur une joue de Mel? Je suppose que non parce que le vieux Mel remettrait à ce salaud la monnaie de sa pièce. L'autoritarisme violent de Sean Connery a besoin de se retrouver ailleurs qu’au visage de femmes, à main ouverte ou non. Sa suprématie masculine, si indigne qu’elle soit, contribue tout de même à son image de marque. La misogynie d’un homme devient ce qu'il est, et pas pour le meilleur. Si elle persiste suffisamment longtemps, elle envahit son esprit et le corps de telle façon que nommer son comportement misogyne cesse d'être suffisant. Il DEVIENT UN misogyne. Il en est de même des attitudes racistes des Blancs. Après un nombre suffisant de manifestations et d’expressions de celui-ci, certains Blancs n'ont plus besoin de faire quoi que ce soit pour puer le racisme. On le sent à un kilomètre à la ronde, à deux kilomètres dans le cas du vieux Mel. Ce n’rets pas pour rien qu’il paraît que Sean Connery aurait voulu Mel Gibson jouer le rôle du méchant dans le prochain James Bond.

Il n'y a eu aucun avertissement spécial en ce sens mais aujourd'hui, comme hier et probablement tout à fait comme demain, c’est la «Journée Protégeons un Patriarche». Cette fête est célébrée de nombreuses façons, par de nombreux hommes. Les femmes y participent, mais franchement, si les hommes cessaient d’y participer - avec toutes sortes de manifestations et d’expressions, et si les hommes hétéro cessaient de défendre et de protéger les aitres hommes hétéro qui violentent les femmes ET CESSAIENT EUX AUSSI DE VIOLENTER DES FEMMES – pour plutôt respecter les désirs des femmes et leur bien-être - un tas de choses changeraient. Faute de désirer cela, les hommes renvoient aux femmes le fardeau de réduire le patriarcat, de réglementer et restreindre les comportements sexuels, physiques et émotionnels des hommes, comme si les hommes étaient des chiots ou des marionnettes. Mais les patriarches sont puissants et dangereux – semblables à des stéréotypes de pit-bulls aux dents longues ou du personnage cinématographique de «Chuckie» (une sorte de Pinocchio patriarcal).

Les hommes comme Mel et Sean sont assez forts pour tuer d’autres hommes, mais ont seulement le droit, selon les règlements patriarcaux, de tuer des femmes assassiner. Ils proclament périodiquement leur amour des femmes et leur désir de leur faire honneur. Ce qu'ils ne semblent pas comprendre, c'est que cette promesse parle d’«honneur» et non de «crime d'honneur». Avec 3 000 femmes tuées par an aux États-Unis - le même nombre d'êtres humains qui sont morts lors des attentats d'Al-Qaïda le 11 septembre 2001 - nous vivons chaque année une attaque terroriste contre les femmes par les hommes des États-Unis. Cette atrocité annuelle n’est ornée d’aucune indignation et ne suscite aucun déferlement de bombes sur les hommes blancs hétéros. Il n'y a pas ni invasion durant de longues années, ni efforts incessants pour la capture des terroristes. Il n'y a pas d'action militaire du gouvernement visant à investir armes à la main les caches des maris suspects pour s'assurer que les femmes ne sont pas assassinées. Il n'y a pas eu e il n’y aura pas de campagne de lutte de libération au nom des épouses et conjointes états-uniennes impitoyablement massacrées, comme nous le ferions si l'ennemi est considéré comme «d’outre-mer» ou au moins «étranger». Nous n'avons pas commémoré et sanctifié de Ground Zero pour les femmes, toute surface de plancher ou de moquette constitue le lieu de l’attentat. Quand d'autres personnes entrent dans l'espace où le terroriste conjugal a frappé, cet espace ne devient jamais sacré, il fait simplement peur. Il ne devient pas saint, mais hanté. 

Faire rendre des comptes aux agresseurs adultes de sexe masculin ne devrait pas incomber aux personnes qui subissent leur terreur et leur torture. N'est-ce pas assez qu'elles y survivent? Cette confrontation est un travail pour les hommes, pas pour leurs victimes – surtout lorsqu’elles sont mortes. Les femmes et les filles peuvent lui pardonner, mais il n'existe aucune raison honorable pour que les hommes le laissent s'en tirer. Pensez «Roman Polanski», le violeur de fille doté d’une protection professionnelle et internationale; pensez au nombre de célébrités qui veulent le voir parcourir la Terre en homme libre. Quel élément de son identité de violeur de fille exige que l’on oublie ce qu'il a fait? Le temps suffit-il vraiment à faire de lui un non-criminel? Le délai de prescription est-il échu? Ce délai est-il jamais échu pour les filles et les femmes affligées de stress post-traumatique pour avoir survécu à l'inceste, à l’agression sexuelle et au viol? C’est vraiment deux poids, deux mesures!

Comme la publicité de la carte de crédit Master Card, la devise de ceux qui possèdent les privilèges particuliers aux hommes blancs hétéro fortunés pourrait être : Ne partez pas sans eux de la maison où vous commettez vos crimes.


Les sociétés patriarcales sont généralement organisées de façon à rendre les femmes dépendantes et subordonnées aux hommes de diverses manières. Des hommes blancs hétéro très privilégiés se plaignant de cet état de choses en parlant d’un PROBLÈME ENDÉMIQUE DE MISANDRIE, utilisant un genre de logique qui ne peut être appelée que gravement tordue. Il s’agit même d’un illogisme proprement sociopathe. Certains hommes interdisent aux femmes de vivre en dehors du contrôle des hommes, et lorsque des femmes les quitter et traînent devant les tribunaux ces fanatiques de la suprématie masculine, les hommes hétéro qualifient d’«injustes» les pensions alimentaires qu’on leur réclame.  Cela motive certains de ces hommes à traquer et abattre les femmes avant qu’elles puissent intenter de telles poursuites. Ainsi, elle n’obtiendra pas son argent, et personne d’autre ne pourra l’aimer. Dans la vision délirante de cet homme, vous devez comprendre qu’elle était aimée de lui, mais incapable d’apprécier cet amour. Et les masculinistes de lancer : «Mais il arrive souvent qu’il se suicide aussi!» Le problème qu’esquivent ces hommes-pas-si-nouveaux c’est : Pourquoi ne se suicide-t-il pas D’ABORD? Pourquoi Son malheur à lui exige-t-il qu’il l’assassine, elle? Les masculinistes prennent habituellement un air perplexe et confus à ce stade de la discussion. La notion que les hommes ne tuent pas les femmes ne leur est jamais venue à l’esprit. 

Vérifiez les tirades de Mel : vous y trouverez TOUS les messages misogynes les moins subtils. Ils sont tous là. Les hommes violents sont si gentils et tout. Pourquoi les femmes semblent-elles avoir un problème avec le fait d’être possédée? Ah là là… C’est bien la preuve que le féminisme va trop loin! Hé, les riches mecs blancs hétéro, au sujet de ce prétendu «problème de misandrie», essayez donc de vivre, en réalité, comme quelqu'un qui n'a aucun de tous ces privilèges politiques et économiques et ces droits sociaux, et revenez ensuite me parler de l'expérience d’un haine endémique pour «qui vous êtes».

Voilà comment les choses fonctionnent. (Ce n'est vraiment pas difficile à comprendre.) Les privilèges masculins autorisent les hommes à posséder des choses, dont les gens qui ne sont pas des hommes. Dire «Les garçons sont comme ça» mène à la longue à «les hommes sont comme ça». Mais s’ils le sont, c’est aussi parce que les hommes ont également le droit de ne pas avoir à grandir émotionnellement. Ils peuvent demeurer des bébés au plan émotif et le font trop souvent. Ils pleurnichent, hurlent et crient tout comme des bébés, des tout-petits et des marmots gâtés – ils le font simplement avec une voix plus grave. Et quand ils le font, ils estiment leur comportement comme souverainement logique et rationnel. Mel n’a-t-il pas affirmé qu’IL était dans le droit et qu’il ne pouvait pas comprendre ce pourquoi elle serait en colère contre lui, avec tout ce qu'elle lui devait? Ses éclats que nous avons toutes et tous entendus la semaine dernière démontrent cette incroyable absence de raison. (…)

(Traduit par Martin Dufresne)

What's Right[-wing] About This Picture?

[I found this image online, but not at a specific URL and I searched for it on a URL but couldn't find it.]

11.11.2010 update:
Here's one like it:

image is from here

I'm kind of expecting crayon makers to come out with a "Whiter Shades of Pale" series any day now.

Glenn Beck, Fux News' Homo Palien Prime Minister, is a Patriarchal White Christian Putz (some of those terms are synonymous; others are mix-and-match)

[image is from here]

May Jesus come to him in the night and smack him in the head, turn him, and smack him on the other side. I can only hope after The Rapture, those of us who actually understand who Jesus was and what values he stood for will remain on Earth, after G-d has sent all the racist-misogynist-heterosexist-anti-Semitic "Christians" straight to Their Own Special Hell, hopefully nowhere near Earth.

Nothing proves Fux News is led by the Devil more than the prominence within their network of Glenn "Satan" Beck. What follows is from *here*.

In attack on Christian philosophy, Glenn Beck sides with Nazi propaganda

Fox News personality Glenn Beck believes the Jews murdered the biblical messiah Jesus Christ, and Gosh Darn It, if the Christian savior had been more like Barack Obama he'd have "come back and made the Jews pay for what they did."

That's just the tip of a bizarre rant recently aired by News Corporation, which featured the chalkboard-handy host once again assailing Christian social justice efforts, which many faithful see as core to their sacrament. In the process, however, Beck revealed what one prominent reverend called a fundamental "misunderstanding" of scripture, as well as an apparent detachment from the English language when it comes to the word "victim."

First of all, as the story goes, Jews did not kill Jesus. The Roman empire had him executed after Jewish religious leaders became worked into a frenzy over his ideas - or so the New Testament claims. Armed Roman guards allegedly beat and lashed him, then hung him on a cross until death.

Indeed, claiming as fact that Jews killed Jesus would seem to indicate that Beck has adopted a meme otherwise endemic to antisemitic thought and literature. The implication that Romans were stalwarts of law and reason who merely appeased the bloodthirsty Jewish mob was a vital component of Nazi propaganda.
Beck also suggests that calling Jesus the "victim" of a violent and oppressive system is "an abomination." Jesus, he insists, was really a "conqueror" who chose death at the hands of his own people in order to overcome the wages of sin for all humanity.

While an advanced theological argument could potentially be rendered to support this statement, all traces of logic seem missing. By its principle definition, what Beck is describing is victimhood. The word "victim" literally means a living being that is scarified to a deity.

A nearly universal cornerstone of Christian theology holds that Christ's death washed away man's sin in God's eyes, therefore his sacrifice is a key moment in their religious rite. Logically, it would follow that without the fundamental construction of the Christian God, who measures ill-deeds against humanity and threatens impure souls with eternal punishment, there would be no such thing as "sin" -- meaning the sacrifice chosen by Christ was to satisfy a deity. Such is the first definition of the word "victim," according to Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

The alternate definition of "victim" also contradicts Beck's application of the word. Webster further defines "victim" as "one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent". In this understanding of the word, the conservative opinion host would seem to be suggesting that being beaten and murdered by armed thugs is not a force or agent acting on an individual in an adverse manner.

Instead, the juxtaposition of victim and conqueror is convenient for Beck in that he's trying to refute the intrinsic nature of many Christians' beliefs that the poor and needy should be comforted. Instead, the television talker opines that "redistribution of wealth" is nowhere to be found in the religious tome.

But even this rings hollow. The first generation of Christians, spoken of in the book of Acts, took it upon themselves to sell all their possessions and bring the proceeds to Christ's apostles so they might redistribute the wealth to all believers.

Acts 2:44-45 says, "All that believed were together, and had all things in common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."

The notion is multiplied by Acts 4:34-37, which adds: "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement'). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet."

In the spirit of the one they called a messiah, the first Christian church willingly shared their wealth with fellow believers. In this same vein, legendary author Kurt Vonnegut once opined, "'Socialism' is no more an evil word than 'Christianity.' Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women and children are created equal, and shalt not starve."

Facts of language and scripture considered, Beck's unusual claims about Christian theology seem to be, at best, misplaced.

In a recent piece charging Beck with "heresy," Time's Elizabeth Dias explained:

A core Biblical command is to follow Jesus' example of humility, not of conquering, and to show compassion for the least of those in our midst. A different commentator, the Apostle Paul, quickly sets straight Beck's account of Christian service: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.”

People may not disagree with Beck, as he said last night, because he is Mormon. But many Christians will disagree with him because he insinuates Christianity is nothing but a pull-yourself-up-from-your-bootstraps spirituality and ignores the church's long tradition of working for the plight of the powerless.

It's certainly not the first time Beck has crossed the line with Christians, many of whom are core to the conservative political movements that make up a vast cross-section of Beck's audience. In March, after the Fox News personality claimed that "social justice" is code for Nazi authoritarianism, many religious groups took him to task, lashing back in defense of their efforts to aid the poor.

Ready with a retort was Rev. Jim Wallis, a Christian leader in Washington, D.C. who spoke with ABC News.

"Brother Glenn, let's dispense with personal attacks," he said. "I don't know you. I have no reason to attack you. But you made a statement here that needs a serious conversation. ... I know you're used to monologues, but when you say things like this, you invite a dialogue. What do you say about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., what do you say about Desmond Tutu, about Mother Teresa, what do you say to the reverends and rabbis who gave their lives to social justice because that is their faith?"

Speaking with the New York Times, Wallis added: "What he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show. [...] His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern."

Rev. Canon Peg Chemberlin, who presides over the National Council of Churches of Christ USA, further told ABC that Beck's charges seem "ridiculous" and reveal a fundamental "misunderstanding" of scripture.

"He's speaking on behalf of his political views and trying to take out of the biblical text the things that are going to oppose his political views," she said. "This is primarily a political motivation. ... It's not that Christians haven't been Nazis and socialists, but we're not talking about political parties here. We're talking about 2,000-year-old gospel."

Ultimately, these silly claims boil down to Beck's apparent goal of convincing his viewers that Obama is a secret harbinger of "liberation theology"; that the president of the United States is a covert Nazi who has come to redistribute all your wealth.

Richard Lawson over at Gawker offered perhaps the most cutting response to Beck's latest assault on Christianity's core tenets, suggesting the host has just gone "insaner and insaner" as the Obama administration progresses.

"Can you believe that there is someone on national television talking about this stuff, in this manner, every day and lots of people watch it in 2010?" he asked. "It's like a Terry Gilliam movie. Only darker."


[Wrong, Stephen. "Only LIGHTER-WHITER."]

Beck's rant on Christianity begins at the 6:00 minute mark, in this video broadcast by Fox News on July 13, 2010.