Sunday, July 25, 2010
More MacKinnon-bashing, interrupted
I'm glad there are a few people out there correcting the anti-feminist foolishness going on all over Yahoo!Answers.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The False Rape Society? Isn't that also called Social places where white het men gather, to discuss their sexual conquests of women of all colors--using coercion, force, or alcohol and drugs--but who never, ever commit rape?
[image of book cover is from here]
[This post was revised later on 24 July 2010, with a partial list of WOC blogs added, and text added by me in bold and in brackets.]
When I think about the problem of men falsely accused of rape, one story leaps to mind: the story written about, magnificently and movingly, by white Southern writer Harper Lee, in her classic book, which was published 50 years ago this year--less than a couple of weeks ago--titled To Kill A Mockingbird.
There's a Southern white woman allegedly named Connie Chastain, and she's no Harper Lee in the social justice or writing departments--for those who haven't seen the movie or read the novel recently, Ms. Lee, a white Southern woman, described the climate and culture of violence of white men in the South, and who is victimised by them: namely, everyone else.
Connie, however, seems to think there's a significant social problem with white men (and women) being falsely accused of rape. This significant social problem apparently merits the formation of an online resource, primarily for men and the mothers of falsely accused boys, called "The False Rape Society". Her blog focuses its supportive lens on white men falsely accused of raping white women, and the token woman of color.
Has she noticed there's a different problem in the South--as well as the North, the East, and the West? That of white men raping white women, and white men raping women of all colors, and Black men raping Black women? And men tending to rape the women of their own ethnic and cultural group, except for the wealthier white het guys... who roam the Earth raping wherever they go? I know she knows about the intersection of race and gender problems in the South: she's read To Kill A Mockingbird and does list it as one of her favorite books.
She's just done a post about yours truly; she identifies what someone has decided are the "Top Ten Feminist Blogs", which she admits to not visiting. Note: more or less, they are ALL basically white-dominated feminist blogs. She doesn't seek out the opinions of women of color who have feminist or womanist blogs on the problem of rape. What's up with that? This shows a lack of regard for the experiences of rape faced by women of color (and also by white women) who have an analysis of men's violence against women. Connie was just checking the list that she came across. But, isn't she capable of going beyond the list to, say, the blogs of women of color? The answer is "yes", she is capable of going beyond the list, but "no", she isn't going to arrive at any WOC blogs. She does, however, arrive at my blog. Why, because I'm not a woman? Typical antifeminist practice--ignoring women's voices, especially ignoring the voices of WOC and going right to one of the very few males who has a feminist view on men's violence against women and related atrocities.
Why ignore the blogs of feminist women of color, you might ask? Because, it appears, the only woman of color she cares to highlight, to focus her attention on, with a photo and all, is a Black woman who she identifies as "The Duke Liar"--the woman who WAS abused--verbally, physically, and sexually--by a gang of white frat guys. (The abuse was in the ridiculing of her, the taunting of her, the remarks that they wanted a white woman, not her; the ways they degraded her humanity by treating her as a thing to be used, paid for, and cast out like a rag. The abuse was in their disgusting remarks, and their physical touching, as if she was "theirs". Even without rape, there was plenty of sexual abuse by that white gang of men that night. And if you believe they've been non-misogynist saints before and since, I've got some oily sea water to sell ya in the Gulf of Mexico.)
This white woman, Connie--and I do wonder if she is a woman, honestly--shows her racism against Black women in several ways. Later on in her post, below, she mentions a white feminist blogger who doesn't much like me because I once called her out on being racist to women of color to whom I am an activist ally. (The whites--of whatever gender--generally don't like being called out on racism, with a few notable exceptions.)
She also doesn't seem to notice that I identify as an intergender male, not as a man. (It is a tad confusing, as "male" and "man" are often used interchangeably, even here at A.R.P.; and I personally and politically support men and males being identified in ways that women wish and need to do for women's safety and resistance efforts). The only group of people Connie Chastain seems to go to actively support are privileged white men who might, or might not, be rapists. (How, honestly, can she know?)
Connie wrote a novel called Southern Man, about someone who is falsely accused of sexual harassment--do you think he's Black man falsely accused of harassing a white woman? Nope. He's a class-privileged white guy.
Here's a blurb about her book:
A family man is targeted with a false sexual harassment complaint by an amoral young woman and her uber-feminist mentor.
In case Connie's antifeminism wasn't apparent, that blurb sure clears up where she stands. Could the 'family man' be amoral?? Naaah.
She mentions below, in citing "the problem" that she discovered that the two percent false rape charge rate wasn't accurate according to her own work and findings. What percent is false, "Connie"? You fail to note that. Why? (As found generally, that false report rate is generally stable at 2% to 8% percent, which means the non-false report rate is always at 92% to 98%. Think about that. And how many of those 92% to 98% of correctly accused men--the men who are rapists--see a courtroom, or prison terms? Not a whole helluva lot. And what percent of raped women get defended? Not a whole helluva lot. None of the raped women I know have someone like Connie doing up a blog about The True Rape Society. Apparently injustice only counts as such when it happens to white guys.
Coming up shortly, from The False Rape Society, is her explanation for its need. Then comes her latest post, on me and my blog, not on blogs by women of color, including but not limited to:
An Arab Woman Blues, Anishinaabekwe, AROOO (A Room Of Our Own), Aunt Jemima's Revenge, Celie's Revenge, Code Red, Diary of An Anxious Black Woman, Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, Guerilla Mama Medicine, Journal de la Reyna, Mariposa Tales, masterwordsmith-unplugged, Racialicious, Standupsistah, The Angry Black Woman, The Crunk Feminist Collective, The Feminist Texican, That Girl Has Issues., The Kitchen Table, What About Our Daughters, and last but not least, Womanist Musings.
There are so many blogs by WOC that I seriously wonder how far out of her way Connie has to go to purposefully avoid reading any of them. Given the list you'll see below, I now feel like this blog post is at least a BIT more balanced.
She also ignores one of my all-time favorite white feminist blogs, by a woman who VERY responsibly focuses on the reality of rape (and the truth about "false rape claims"); that blog is called Abyss2Hope. I'll bet Connie won't go near THAT blog EVER--it's got way too much information about men's rape cultures. It would shake the very foundation of Connie's blog, and political focus.
There's a lot of "reality" Connie seems to intentionally avoid. Because we know those class-privileged white het men need all our support and attention and all. Lorde knows they don't get enough from one another!
Well, they're not getting all of it. And that's not a sign of hate, Connie. It's only a sign that I pick different battles. You want to be sure that around 5% of falsely accused men are not faced with prison terms. And I want to see rape by the approximately 95% of men who do have raped when accused, stop doing it, and to get all men to stop other men from committing rape. My focus is also on Indigenous people's rights, and rights of the Earth. Does that mean I also hate everyone who isn't Indigenous, and every form of life that isn't "the Earth"? Do you get, yet, the illogic of drawing a conclusion that someone fighting to end an atrocity hates the perps? Might I actually--are you sitting down?--love women and justice for women? Can WHM supremacists and the women who defend their callous and selfish actions even imagine such a thing!! (Wait: you mean someone can LOVE women, focus on women, or focus on how and when and where men are oppressive, and not HATE men???? I know: what a concept!)
Anyway, reader, below Connie's post are some comments posted to that F.R.S. blog, and included there is one from some dolt (I think that's the right term--I'm using "dolt" in the most positive sense) named Michael Waters, who goes out of his way to find some old comment by "v" that was posted here once upon a time. Because apparently he couldn't quote me, the host, who writes most of what is on this blog (well, that isn't cross-posted). This is how the MRA-trolls' bullshit goes: Michael quotes a commenter as a representative of my voice, rather than, oh, say, quoting me directly. And then MRA-trolls can pick up that post, and use it over and over again to make their same silly points. This is typcical of how MRAs and their defenders misrepresent feminist or profeminist points of view, for their own biased and bigoted agendas which are pro-patriarchal and racist--at least. (See *here* for much more on that strategy.)
I do offer a comment to her and to Michael, at the end, which was posted to that blog she moderates.
Now, what follows next is her own introductory material from The False Rape Society blog, and after than is the latest post to that blog, which mentions me, which is really silly--who the hell am I? Doesn't she have some serial, gang, marital, or date rapists to spend time criticising? She concludes I'm basically insane. So, Connie: why bother writing about me then? (Shrugs shoulders and shakes head.) I don't offer commentary on the introductory material, but I do put commentary, in bold and in brackets, among her comments in the blog post about my blog and moi.
Why this blog [The False Rape Society]
The Problem:
This Web site was started by an attorney in the United States to help raise awareness about the serious and largely ignored problem of false rape claims. Every objective study ever conducted on this subject reveals that false rape claims are a significant problem. But despite the grievous harm often suffered by the falsely accused, their unique needs are rarely acknowledged, much less addressed.
As a society, we permit the reputations of persons falsely accused of sex crimes to be destroyed by even baseless accusations of a lone accuser; we permit the presumptively innocent, who too often turn out to be falsely accused, to be arrested and jailed on even far-fetched claims, with bail set sufficiently high to insure they won't be released before trial; and we excuse false accusers with little or no punishment, inviting others to falsely accuse with impunity and without deterrent.
The unique needs of the falsely accused are ignored because the entire rape milieu has become unnecessarily gender-politicized, and the persons who dominate the public discourse about rape apparently believe that acknowledging the false rape problem would somehow hamper the war on rape.
By any measure, denigrating the experience of the wrongly accused by dismissing them as a myth or as unworthy of our discussion, and regarding the victimization of our daughters as somehow more worthy of our protection than the victimization of our sons, is not merely dishonest but morally grotesque.
My Involvement:
As a society, we permit the reputations of persons falsely accused of sex crimes to be destroyed by even baseless accusations of a lone accuser; we permit the presumptively innocent, who too often turn out to be falsely accused, to be arrested and jailed on even far-fetched claims, with bail set sufficiently high to insure they won't be released before trial; and we excuse false accusers with little or no punishment, inviting others to falsely accuse with impunity and without deterrent.
The unique needs of the falsely accused are ignored because the entire rape milieu has become unnecessarily gender-politicized, and the persons who dominate the public discourse about rape apparently believe that acknowledging the false rape problem would somehow hamper the war on rape.
By any measure, denigrating the experience of the wrongly accused by dismissing them as a myth or as unworthy of our discussion, and regarding the victimization of our daughters as somehow more worthy of our protection than the victimization of our sons, is not merely dishonest but morally grotesque.
My Involvement:
I became interested in this subject in a roundabout way. As a lifelong liberal and strong supporter of equal rights for women, I had accepted the feminist insistence that only two percent of all rape claims are false. I felt assured by it, gladdened that the progressive forces of feminism were not running roughshod over the innocent of my gender as they led the war on rape. One day, I became involved in a peculiar case involving a false rape claim, and my research led me to studies conducted by persons without a political agenda. To my astonishment, I found that the two percent claim was not correct. False rape claims, in fact, comprise a much greater percentage of all rape claims. I began to understand that false rape claim victims had peculiar needs, unique needs, and that their suffering was being ignored because the entire field had become so terribly politicized. To my even greater astonishment, I learned that things that are untrue are repeated as fact with cult-like repetition to "prove" that rape is rampant and that women don't lie about it. The truth, I learned, wasn't nearly as important as this ideological agenda. It saddened me, then it puzzled me, then it angered me, that few seemed concerned that this agenda is hurting innocent people who are regarded as nothing more than collateral damage in the "more important" war on rape.
I also found that in case after case involving false rape claims, judges bemoan the harm done to actual rape victims by the lies. The credibility of every rape victim is reduced with every rape lie. I began to seriously wonder why the persons who dominate the public discourse about rape insist on sticking their heads in the sand and do nothing to help reduce the prevalence of false rape claims since false rape claims indisputably hurt rape victims. I soon figured out that any other course of conduct would be inconsistent with their ideological stance that allows neither for nuance nor for any admission that males in significant numbers can be victimized by the actions of women.
I decided to write an article about what I'd found, and to monitor false rape claims in the news. I also decided to put the news stories I collected into a blog in case anyone else was interested in this subject. This blog is the result of that effort. My article has turned into a book, which I am now writing, and the blog that nobody read has acquired a zealous readership.
I am still no less a strong supporter of equal rights for women. But I part company with what I believe is a small but powerful cabal of ideologues that not only is disinterested in helping victims of false rape claims but that mocks the very suggestion that this is a subject worthy of discussion.
Along the way, in a peculiar way, our blog has become a champion to enhance the credibility of rape victims because we seek to reduce the false rape claim epidemic. We have been surprised by the number of rape victims who support our work precisely because false accusations make achieving justice for actual rapes all the more difficult.
Women and False Claims:
I also found that in case after case involving false rape claims, judges bemoan the harm done to actual rape victims by the lies. The credibility of every rape victim is reduced with every rape lie. I began to seriously wonder why the persons who dominate the public discourse about rape insist on sticking their heads in the sand and do nothing to help reduce the prevalence of false rape claims since false rape claims indisputably hurt rape victims. I soon figured out that any other course of conduct would be inconsistent with their ideological stance that allows neither for nuance nor for any admission that males in significant numbers can be victimized by the actions of women.
I decided to write an article about what I'd found, and to monitor false rape claims in the news. I also decided to put the news stories I collected into a blog in case anyone else was interested in this subject. This blog is the result of that effort. My article has turned into a book, which I am now writing, and the blog that nobody read has acquired a zealous readership.
I am still no less a strong supporter of equal rights for women. But I part company with what I believe is a small but powerful cabal of ideologues that not only is disinterested in helping victims of false rape claims but that mocks the very suggestion that this is a subject worthy of discussion.
Along the way, in a peculiar way, our blog has become a champion to enhance the credibility of rape victims because we seek to reduce the false rape claim epidemic. We have been surprised by the number of rape victims who support our work precisely because false accusations make achieving justice for actual rapes all the more difficult.
Women and False Claims:
The subtitle of our blog includes women among those affected by false rape claims because the affect of false rape claims on women is an indisputable fact. Although men have a monopoly on being falsely accused of rape, some women, especially school teachers, are also falsely accused, and they have the same needs as men and boys who are falsely accused. In addition, vast numbers of women are otherwise affected by false rape claims: mothers, wives, daughters, fiances, girlfriends, sisters, aunts, friends, and employees of the falsely accused. False rape claims simply don't happen in a vacuum. While they primarily affect the victims falsely accused, it cannot be denied that they also can destroy the victim's loved ones -- many of whom are women. We have received more supportive email from mothers of young men falsely accused than any other group. It should come as no surprise that they are uniformly outraged by society's mistreatment of the presumptively innocent charged with rape, who too often turn out to have been falsely accused.
Given the affect of false rape claims on women, I wanted to find some way to acknowledge their stake in the battle. I decided to put out a "welcome sign" for women to let them know that we acknowledge their pain, and that their voices are welcome here. To insist that false rape claims are simply a "men's" issue is to ignore reality and to become no better than those who claim men can't understand the pain of rape victims. We have no such gender divisive agenda here.
Given the affect of false rape claims on women, I wanted to find some way to acknowledge their stake in the battle. I decided to put out a "welcome sign" for women to let them know that we acknowledge their pain, and that their voices are welcome here. To insist that false rape claims are simply a "men's" issue is to ignore reality and to become no better than those who claim men can't understand the pain of rape victims. We have no such gender divisive agenda here.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Rape Culture 101 -- Journey to the Dark Side [If you haven't yet, please note how often whites use the word "dark" to mean "negative"]
by Connie Chastain*
I mentioned in my first FRS essay that tracking down the origins of rape culture would comprise research for future essays. [By infusing it with a something called 'the truth about men who rape'.]
I must confess, though, that I'm far less interested in researching the origins of rape culture, [this surprises me not at all] which I don't even believe exists, [!!!!!!] and more interested examining the primary motivation behind the claims for it, the same one that fuels feminism -- hatred of men. [No, Connie. What fuels feminism and discussion of rape culture is men's rape of women, and other things men do to enforce male supremacy and social, political, economic, and sexual dominance.]
Toward this end, I recently went through the web in search of feminist sites and blogs to help with my research. To my delight, I found much of my work already done for me.
Take Part, Inspiration to Action, , a website that encourages activism on left of center issues, has a list of "Top Ten Feminist Blogs," some of which the readers of The False Rape Sociey are no doubt familiar with.
The list was compiled two years ago by Bostonian Giulia Rozzi, who does not identify the criteria she used to choose these particular blogs, which is understandable when you think about it. Whim seems as acceptable a rationale for much feminist decision-making as objective standards do. [I'd say "white" not "whim" was one of her criteria.]
In any case, whatever Rozzi's criteria, the Top Ten Femnist Blogs are (if you're interested):
1. Feministing - http://www.feministing.com/
2. Feministe - http://www.feministe.us/
3. Our Bodies Our Blog - http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/
4. Jezebel - http://www.jezebel.com/
5. Broadsheet (part of Salon.com) - http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/
6. Finally Feminism 101 - http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
7. Women in Media & News Blog - http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/
8. Holla Back NYC - http://www.hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/
9. MediaGirl - http://www.mediagirl.org/
10. Bitch Magazine - http://bitchmagazine.org/blogs
I haven't visited all of these blogs. In fact, I've hardly visited any of them to date. See, I have a really low threshold for feminist BS and can only take small, measured exposures to it at any given time. [But if she's never visiting any of them to date, how does she know there's BS there?! She must be psychic.] But I will visit them, looking for what they say about rape culture, and what they probably won't say, but may otherwise reveal, about the man-hatred that underlies such claims, for future essays, as promised. [And I can predict what Connie will say, and won't say, about male rapists and the endemic problem of sexual violence against women, by men.]
Rozzi follows up her list with an acknowledgement that there are many more "fabulous female-focused blogs out there." [Like ones by women of color!!]
Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered, quite by accident, that one of the most viscerally male-hating blogs I have ever encountered is run by ... a man. (Or so the blogger claims.) [Actually, the blogger DOESN'T. "The blogger" says I'm a gay male who is intergender. But that's easily misunderstood. So let's move on.] I'm speaking of "A Radical Profeminist." [Cue the "Jaws" theme music...]
The blog's banner sez, "This blog exists to challenge white heterosexual male supremacy as an institutionalized ideology and a systematized set of practices which are misogynistic, heterosexist, racist, genocidal, and ecocidal." [Cue the loud shrieking and dashing about in all directions...]
Oh, goody. Sounds like I've come to the right place. [A place that takes multiple forms of oppression seriously??? THAT kind of place??] Anybody who has something to say about so many subjects based on man-hating and male-bashing [or not] will surely have comments on claims of rape culture and false rape accusations. [See, here we go again. I couldn't possibly be writing any of this stuff on "rape culture" because there's a RAPE problem. No. I can only be writing because I'm a "man-hater". I don't know how to break news this to all the men I love and feel affection for. They'll each wonder "Was I the last to know!?" To clarify, for the billionth time: Someone being anti-patriarchy, anti-male supremacy, and anti-rape based on overwhelming evidence of men's overt, systematic, and increasingly globalised sexual violence against women IS NOT SYNONYMOUS with being "man-hating and male-bashing". It's not even close. They aren't even part of the same phenomenon. Which is partly to say: male supremacy and rape are realities. Man-hating is rare and anecdotal at best, and is in no way systemic, systematic, structural, institutionalised, or... drum roll please... a social problem. Only delusional and privileged men (and a few women) think it is a problem.
So the joke du jour this:
Question: How do you demonstrate that you don't hate men?
Answer: There are two ways: actively hate women, and actively hate feminism. And always remember to smile politely when a man looks your way! Because there's no such thing as "unwanted attention" from men, right? (Wrong.) Remember girls: if there's any hint, whiff, or whisper of disrespect in the general vicinity of any man or, heaven forbid--men, you will be immediately socially branded as a blatant "MISANDRIST"! And once labeled, the lunatics will never revoke the accusation, believe you me! (This profeminist gay male can't win for losing. The white straight dudes hate me for loving men, and the white straight dudes hate me for hating men. Go figure. Now who's got that "hate" problem? Make up your mind boys, and Connie.)
This just in: a letter from a little girl named Virginia wondering "Is there really such a thing as 'a misandrist'?"
I'll answer it this way:
"Dear Virginia,
As long as there is hatred and discrimination and violence against women by men in this world, there will always be men at the ready to call the women (and the two or three people who aren't women) who fight for women's human rights, "misandrists". That doesn't mean there ARE misandrists, Virigina. Only people who BELIEVE there are misandrists.
You see, men who feel entitled to abuse anyone female or "feminine" don't like it one bit when they are called out on what they do that harms other people, including their abuses against little girls.
So, as you grow up, keep this in mind: there's no such thing as "misandry", but you're likely to encounter many forms of misogyny over your lifetime. Hopefully you'll find your way and be able to steer clear of men who speak about women as if they aren't human beings, who use pornography like it's oxygen, who don't have female friends, who try and control you, who are possessive and ragefully jealous, and who have a history of committing violence against girls and women. I realise this reduces the number of boys and men you'll want to socialise with and know on a more personal level. But don't forget: girls and women are likely to become your best and most passionately loving friends.
I hope you'll also be able to steer clear of anyone who believes there is such as thing as 'misandry' because I support you living in reality, not inside delusional men's minds.
All my best to you. -- Julian Real"]
The problem, I discovered after a few minutes of looking around over there, is that the blogger, who claims his name is Julian Real, [you know, the one whose name is Julian Real] appears to be completely demented. ['Completely' is a strong word, Connie.]
This guy concocts [I prefer "creates" but she's writing this] his own terminology that requires a fabricated glossary [as opposed to an unfabricating glossary? Are there pre-fab glossaries?]; he remains secure in his "radical profeminist" hatred [once again "legitimate criticism of privileged men" is seen by male supremacists and their defenders as 'man-hating'. Curious thing, that.] of men (if they're white and hetero) [she clearly hasn't read much here] by a commenting policy that allows no challenging opinions. [What explains the challenging comments that have been posted here? Complete dementia? No, Connie. No bigoted and oppressive comments is not the same as "no challenging comments". Again with the misreads: it's interesting that Connie can't discern the difference.] His blog is stuffed like a turkey on Thankgsiving. [Poor choice of "holiday" and metaphor--clearly she's no animal rights activist or Indigenous Rights activist either. A few more remarks like that and she may want to start up a blog in defence of Mel Gibson!] Look down the right sidebar at all the links, labels and previous posts. [My goodness--he actually links to the work of other people--often women with fewer privileges than he has! It's ... it's... misandrist, I tell you!]
Among them, you'll find Real's bio, which says he is disabled, [as opposed to being disabled; we can note she doesn't say "in which he says he's white"] which explains why he has so much time to create and then wallow in such hatred. [Wallowing in hatred? I don't see hatred--or wallowing, either. Just crispy analysis and succulent critique. I get hungry just glancing at it! AND PLEASE NOTE: The level of her ableism in concluding that it is because I'm disabled that I have this time to blog--as opposed to having the time to blog regardless of being disabled, is a minor point in the scheme of things. Clearly not all regular bloggers are disabled, and she also has no idea to what degrees my disabilities keep me from blogging MORE.] Men (and women) who have to go to work and earn the money to put the 'taters on the table don't have time for such foolishness. (And this is no smear of the disabled, either. I've known numerous disabled folks who spent their time doing positive things.) [Apparently not like working to put 'taters on the table. That's what most disabled people do, isn't it? Work to make ends meet? Does she REALLY know disabled people? She's alleges she's "known numerous disabled folks who spent their time doing positive things"? (Like macrame? Advanced origami, maybe?) Isn't that about as backhanded a compliment as "I've known many gay men who I swear are very moral people?" or "I've met lots of women who aren't overly emotional!" If that's how she compliments disabled people, I'd hate to hear her insults!]
Demented or not, when I stumbled across the site [I seriously doubt she stumbled--I suspect she sauntered on in without so much as a "How do you do?" I guess that white Southern hospitality is gone with the wind, huh?], I was on a mission, [uh-oh: a missionary! Run for the hills!] so I stayed long enough to look for posts on rape culture. A search of the site using that terminology reveals eight pages of articles, the first one a movie review of The Karate Kid remake written by Malik Diamond, "hip-hop medicine man from the fifth dimension." (I'm not making this up.) [Connie-the-racist-ableist-pro-patriarchal-blogger clearly has no sense of play or fun. And they say pro/feminists have no sense of humor! Geesh. When WILL they stop projecting!]
I have to say, after visiting Julian Real's little corner of cyber-insanity, [Awwww. Cute term!] it'll be a bit of a relief to get back to ordinary man-hating from, say, Michael Kimmel at Feministing. [He's a profeminist Men's Studies teacher and writer, folks. He works a whole lot with many men of many ages and doesn't suffer "anti-misandrist" fools gladly. He's exactly as much a man-hater as Tony Hayward of BP is an environmental activist.] At least Mr. Kimmel's stuff reads like he was sober when he wrote it. [So now I'm demented AND drunk. Again, one wonders why she'd bother writing about me at all, then!]
About the best thing I can say about Real's blog is that visiting it doesn't cause permanent brain damage. [I don't think she's visited long enough to be able to make that determination. ;) And that's NOT an invitation back!]
*Connie is a member of the FRS team. Her weekly essays appear every Friday. Her personal blog is http://conniechastain.blogspot.com/
12 comments:
- Great one, Connie. Sorry we're late posting it this week -- my fault.
- Julian Real is a great example of an HONEST feminist, as opposed to all the rhetorically disciplined EARNEST feminists who populate the blogs like Feministing and such ... Another great example of HONEST FEMINISM is BitingBeaver, please do read up on her. If you have the stomach for it.
- For instance, on Julian's blog, one time I found this post by a radical feminist called v.
The discussion was about a comment an MRA said, I think. that's the "scary stuff" she refers to. One thing I really got about this woman is that she must have had some truly horrible experiences with men, and so she slanders all men because of that. v was supported by Julian in a comment after this.My stomach literally (viscerally) turns. When I read this post, it makes me feel like vomiting. So be forewarned.v said..."Well I can appreciate your desire Julian not to have scary stuff on here, for fear of terrorizing women who comment here or gay men for that matter. However, I do like to see what men have to say at their worst, because most of my straight women friends don't believe me when I talk about this stuff, unless they get divorced, and are dumped for a younger woman, then they tend to get it. But by then they are in their early 50s, have sole responsibility for the kids, and then have to go on the dating scene where jerky men are legion it seems. Too late, they wasted their youth on a man. I wish we could have preventive medicine for younger women--just stay away from these guys to begin with, because this is who tbey really are. It is a sad thing, because lesbians love older women, and love it when women have gray hair. Our lucky radical feminist generation really honored women and age and life experience. Straight men and gay men don't like older women or older men. Men just don't like older people period. I think having a sense of humanity is not that great a thing. I really believe that women are naieve in wanting to be humane to terrorists, rapists and porn makers. You can't be humane to men, you have to be very aggressively violent to them-- direct simple phrases, the threat of stomping them if they can't shut up, lawsuits to make them pay women fair wages, lawsuits to get them to stop sexually harassing women at work... men understand lawsuits, money confiscation, and a gun to their heads. So women need not be humane toward men ever. We can be as rude as necessary to scare them away. Being nice to men never got me anywhere! The tougher I was, the better off I became, and now I am passionate in my show of complete scary contempt toward men in public places. From kicking their legs on buses, to stealing parking spaces and watching them scream, to spitting in their direction at a nice restaurant. Love to see their shock at that. It's pretty cool. Since all men are guilty it is open season! You need not worry about that silly concept known as an "innocent man" because all men are guilty and deserve to be attacked for their past history. You can assume that all men view porn, so spit at them at least. One of my friends was a police officer, and she loved slamming the heads of violent men on car hoods as she took them into custody. They almost always tried something with her, only to have their heads smashed. Some guys on the street were very fearful of her patrol car. We all loved her stories back in the day. But a lot of women can't summon this level of contempt or hatred, and that's a shame. I think women could really get into pushing weak men around, kicking them, spitting at them, shoving them out of the way. Good practice, because again, men don't respect women, they hate women, and we need to hate them back. Fear works with men, because ultimately they fear the day women wake up. They fear feminists for this reason. I know most feminists are pretty nice women, but I think being angry is great! An angry feminist is great, but most feminists are way too nice to men. Women's nice training should be revealed only to other women, and we need to show 24 hour hostility towards men."Ironically, I know what she means about it being helpful to see men at their worst. This is certainly an example of a woman at her worst and it was eye-opening for me to read.
- No offence but its it really wise to be linking to these sites? Linking to a site increases its Google rank and therefore legitimises it. It's great to discuss these things, but I'm sure some of those sites publish hate speech and a great deal of misandric content. Could we not just leave the names there without actually having a link?
- Anonymous at 7:07, honest? Please. Real just posted a "top ten" list of things about Jesus that "most Christians don't want you to know." As a Christian, there are things in the list I have no problem with people knowing -- e.g., yes, Jesus was not a Christian. Duh. Christianity did not exist during his earthly lifetime. How is that honest? As for other things in the list, how is it honest to make claims about things nobody can know? Here's another example of the blog's dishonesty: a post from December 2009 titled "What's Wrong With Fathers' Rights". If linking to it is a bad idea, go to his blog and search "men's rights advocate," and click the title of the first article in the index. It starts with a translink to a very dishonest photo of "bad fathers," and does downhill from there. The article reproduced in the blog post is Father’s Rights and Violence Against Women by Dr. Michael Flood. Read it and tell me what's honest in palming off half-lies as whole truth. I guess we can take some small comfort in knowing Real's blog isn't widely read, but it is quite breathtaking to see damaging, real-world effects of feminist thought in the post-modern age....
- "Heterosexist" means "discussing relationships -- without even mentioning lesbians!" In case anybody was wondering.
- Connie, this list you posted are the fairly well-known blogs and generally considered the centrist feminism blogs. I don't know about all of them, but most. If you really want the eye-opening Radfem viewpoint, try: Femonade: http://factcheckme.wordpress.com/ who just did a series on PIV (I had no idea what that was before reading it). or http://berryblade.wordpress.com/ which I haven't read myself. or http://feminazi.wordpress.com/ a lot of trans-hating there, which I really don't understand. You can go from there if you really want the lay of the land. It is fascinating stuff.
- Ironically, Julian Real is not liked by many of the more radical feminists. Again, I don't know why. From the bits I've read, he seems pretty radical to me. Anon @ 7:07: what is the difference between an Honest Feminist and Earnest Feminist? I'm assuming those are actual terms.
- I agree with Connie. While the links to those sites may increase their Google rankings, it is also good to "know your enemy." We must know that such people and sites that she has linked to and described actually exist. We must develop a taxonomy to describe and categorize such people and websites, because when we can name and describe something, it gives us power and control over it. Without the ability to make distinctions, i.e. "equity feminist" versus "gender feminist" we are lost. So, at least now I have a new distinction about what "nucking futz" is as defined by Julian Real and "v" -- I almost think it is satire, like Betty Bowers is to Christianity.
- Anonymous said, 'So, at least now I have a new distinction about what "nucking futz" is as defined by Julian Real and "v" -- I almost think it is satire, like Betty Bowers is to Christianity.' I wondered about that myself.
- Hey Connie and Michael,
To Connie first.I doubt you're a woman, and I doubt your name is Connie. See how easy that is to do--to cast doubt on something? It's just that easy. And it really makes you seem foolish, to tell you the truth.And going after someone who's disabled for being disabled--really classy. Where did you learn to do that? In bigotry school? Why don't you doubt I'm disabled? Because it's not convenient?To Michael: Why don't you quote my words, instead of lifting some long passage of a commenter? Because I can go to any blog and pick and choose from the comments to find the one that most conveniently makes the point--you're very good at that. What you're not so good at is arguing with the points I make on my blog. Why don't you quote from this post of mine, for example?or this one:And continue to quote, you know, the writer of the blog--if you're making a point about the blog, as opposed to the commenters state who visit there? What's the matter: didn't anything I write make your propagandistic point as well as that? You're sad.
Friday, July 23, 2010
What Most Christians Don't Want You to Know about Jesus: a Top Ten List
[image of poster is from here]
In this post I am bringing Jesus Home, from Those who Stole Him,
Misunderstood and Misused Him to Promote Their Homophobic, Patriarchal,
White Supremacist, and Corporate Capitalist Agendas of Atrocity.
It's time. Or past time. Perhaps it is centuries past time. Or perhaps someone ought to have had a good talking to with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, giving those Jewish men a heads up about how people who would come to call themselves "Christians" would almost completely misunderstand and misuse Jesus-the-person to promote their own patriarchal agendas and project their own needs for a Father-God who is also a Son.
A month or sometimes a week cannot go by without someone approaching me--a Jew who is neither atheist nor theist--with the idea that "You need Jesus". What they mean is "You need to believe in this cultish religion I've decided is The Truth because I've taken in the delusions and distortions human beings have spoken and written about Jesus and I MUST believe they are true--my faith in my cult depends on it." That's what they usually mean. Some are more good-hearted. Some approach me with a kind of condescending compassion that makes me want to vomit. Some with an arrogance that makes me want to spit in their faces.
Regardless of their reasons and anti-Jesus-while-"Christian" ambitions, they won't get away with it here at A.R.P. Jesus will be spoken about respectfully here as the Jewish person he was, not the Christian God he wasn't.
Let's begin with a few basic truthful facts, as opposed to the kind many Christians preach, promote, and proselytise.
Jews in the time and region of Jesus (while he walked the Earth) didn't tell history the way contemporary Western Christians often do--as a set of facts that are understood to have actually occurred in ways that are not open to interpretation and contradiction, discussion and disagreement.
Christian Fundamentalism is a deeply and dangerously anti-Jesus phenomenon.
What most Christians don't want you to know about Jesus: a top ten list.
1. Jesus was not ever a Christian, nor did he ever advocate that anyone be a Christian.
2. Jesus was not THE son of G-d. He was, as all of us are and each of us is, a child of G-d if we're going with the metaphor of G-d as parent.
3. Jesus used metaphors to make his beliefs and experiences more comprehensible to his audience. Making G-d a "Father" was not something Jesus believed a "truth". He used the language as a device to convey deeper meaning to his listeners. Jesus was a Jew, and while Jews frequently defaulted to various patriarchal metaphors, any rabbi who has studied and experienced G-d, knows that G-d does not have a gender, a sex, or a patriarchal personality.
4. Jesus was not pro-capitalist, and anyone who honors and respects capitalism as a social good that should be made sacred or should be worshiped is behaving in a way that is anti-Jesus.
5. Jesus was not a white supremacist or a racist. Jesus was also not ever white. (Whiteness didn't exist when he lived, for one thing. And Jesus was Semitic, or what would now be called a person of color.) Anyone who believes Jesus was white and behaves as though whiteness is better than any other politically constructed and enforced racial identity is not behaving in accordance with the teachings of Jesus.
6. Jesus was not homophobic and was not an anti-gay or anti-lesbian bigot. He didn't speak on the subject but he did stand with the oppressed, the marginalised, and the socially ostracised and disempowered, the castigated and degraded, and not with the corrupt power-brokers of society. If you are homophobic, heterosexist, and anti-lesbian or anti-gay, you are behaving in a way that is anti-Jesus.
7. Jesus was not anti-woman . He was pro-woman; he held Mary Magdalene as his closest disciple, an equal to him, not beneath him. He never said she was a prostitute. A comma in the New Testament has been ignored, as Jesus, according to that biblical story listed people he encountered including Mary Magdalene and a prostitute. He stood with women enslaved in systems of prostitution, not in patriarchal, misogynistic judgment of them. If you are anti-woman, including against women who are trapped in systems of prostitution, you are behaving against the teachings of Jesus.
8. Jesus was not born from the womb of a woman who was "a virgin" if by "virgin" we mean a woman who had never had sexual intercourse. She may not have had sexual intercourse willingly: she may well have been raped. Joseph, quite possibly, was not his biological father but was a man who took care of Jesus' mother, Mary, after she was raped. Regardless, Jesus had a biological father, not a heavenly one. A sperm and an egg combined and Jesus was born, like every other human being on Earth. The notion of Mary the Mother being a "virgin" is a misread and mistranslation of a term that more accurately means "maiden" or very young woman.
9. Jesus was opposed to the worship of Man, of Mankind, of Men and of Patriarchal societies, particularly and outspokenly against the one he lived in that was governed and ruled by the Roman Empire, which, as all ought to know by now, was lethally anti-Jesus. The Roman Empire was coercive and corrupting of some of his people, the Jews. If your values and practices are pro-man-worshiping, believe in the man as the only appropriate head of household, or head of state, or if you are in any other ways pro-patriarchal, you are anti-Jesus.
10. Jesus was not resurrected in any way that is different than any other human being. In other words, he was not uniquely resurrected. The Resurrection spoken about in the New Testament is metaphorical, and a device to communicate something about our spiritual nature, not only Jesus'. He was not a kind of human being metaphysically different than others but he has been made into one who is metaphorically different. He was a human being, like me and like you, who noted that we are not just animals as "animals" were understood in that anti-Indigenist framework and culture: all beings are and all being is divine. All of Life is Divine. He welcomed people to know and experience this. If you believe Jesus was qualitatively different in his humanness; if you believe he was a fundamentally more metaphysical being than anyone else; if you believe he was "more spirit" than any Indigenous, Wiccan, Taoist, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindi, Jewish, agnostic, atheistic, or pagan person, you don't know Jesus.
Now spread THAT word.
Peace to us all, collectively, when we realise we are not entirely separate beings who need warfare, social hierarchies, rape, racism, and civilisation. When we join with revolutionary feminist women and revolutionary Indigenous warriors in the effort to radically transform all patriarchal and genocidal societies, we may begin to collectively know peace on Earth--if Earth survives what industrial and corporate patriarchal civilisation has done to it.
We may know peace, love, and joy in the mean time as well, in a way that is sometimes termed "individually" by those who may limit our being to the distortions of a kind of living-experience not promoted by Jesus. We may know peace, love, and joy by reminding our apparently individual selves who we really are: waves on the sea of non-separate Being that are simultaneously and paradoxically Many and One.
We may know peace, love, and joy when we accept and experience, against much Christian mis-teaching, that G-d, which is not male and is not a man; which doesn't live only in (as) the sky--which lives equally as Earth; which doesn't look down upon us as a patronising father might; which is not in us, or outside us, or above us, or beyond us.
G-d is not a being who is fixed in some sort of sacred portion of outer space. G-d is Being and Becoming. In this sense, G-d is not theistic and theists are wrong about G-d. G-d is non-theistic, not atheistic as that term is commonly used by that arrogant bunch who call themselves atheists.
G-d is us--all of us, and is all that is not us' G-d always has been and always will be becoming this in ways that our limited human minds register as paradoxical and perplexing.
G-d is not Giant Ego that cares one bit whether G-d is referred to as Jesus or "Christ" or Buddha or Krishna or Abraham, or "Allah" or "God" or "Great Spirit", or Goddess, or G-d or any other name that humans can speak or write. For G-d is authentically unspeakable and ultimately unknowable by humans who believe they are not part of all Being as a wave is part of the sea.
To promote one name for G-d, including the term G-d, or Christ, is to not understand AT ALL what Jesus was preaching about and experiencing. It is, rather, to be egotistical and arrogant, lost in one's own private being and ego while often pretending one is doing what Jesus spoke about as seeing and knowing G-d. Delusions about G-d, or about Jesus, or about other human beings, or other Life, will not serve us in our collective quest to find peace, love, and joy on and with Earth and its Biosphere, which is, metaphorically and not-so-metaphorically speaking, our parent.
There is no heavenly Father. There is "us" living in a nightmare of our own making, in part by not understanding what Jesus and Buddha and Indigenous Spiritual Guides were, are, and said.
Wake up from the nightmare. Now.
Know yourself as Being. Sit humbly in the knowledge that G-d is not absolutely or objectively knowable to you, and that you have no moral business going door to door or nation to nation to proclaim that you, and your people uniquely know what G-d is and wants better than any other people who know G-d or Buddha-nature, Goddess or Great Spirit.
PASSAGE OF LANDMARK LEGISLATION ADDRESSING MEN'S SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE WOMEN (AIUSA news release)
white men's and indigenous men's
The following news release may be seen at its Amnesty International website, *here*.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL APPLAUDS PASSAGE OF LANDMARK LEGISLATION ADDRESSING SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE WOMEN
Tribal Law and Order Act is an 'Historic Effort to Tackle Major Challenges That Allow Crimes Against Native Peoples to Flourish,' Says Amnesty International
July 21, 2010
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today applauded House passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that tackles the complex jurisdictional maze that allows violent crime against American Indians to continue unabated. The Tribal Law and Order Act, a long overdue effort to address public safety issues in Indian Country, would enhance the criminal justice system by improving coordination and communication between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.
"This historic, bi-partisan legislation addresses long-overlooked human rights abuses in Indian Country. It is an important effort to tackle major challenges that allow crimes against Native American and Alaska Native peoples to flourish," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "If properly implemented, it will open the door for the U.S. government to address the erosion of tribal authority. In time it will decrease the high levels of rape and finally provide Native women with effective recourse if they are sexually assaulted. In short, this legislation stands to curtail the impunity that allows rapists to prey on Native women like vultures."
The Tribal Law and Order Act is bi-partisan legislation that was introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD). The Act passed the Senate on June 23, 2010, as part of H.R. 725, The Indian Arts and Crafts Amendment Act of 2010. Today, the House passed H.R. 725 with the Tribal Law and Order Act attached. The legislation addresses disturbing rates of sexual violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women, a subject that Amnesty International drew national attention to in its 2007 report, Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA.
Maze of Injustice exposed the disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence that Native American and Alaska Native women suffer in this country -- 2.5 times higher than for non-native women in the United States. The complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions often allows perpetrators, 86 percent of them non-Native men, to rape with impunity. To navigate this maze, authorities need to establish whether the crime took place on tribal lands and whether the perpetrator was Native or non-Native to determine which law enforcement agency has jurisdiction, during which critical time is lost. This leads to inadequate investigations or a failure to respond.
"It is encouraging to see Congress begin to address some of the complicated jurisdictional issues that arise in Indian country," said Sarah Deer, Assistant Professor at William Mitchell College of Law and a consultant for AIUSA’s Maze of Injustice report. "The erosion of tribal authority means that Native perpetrators tried in tribal court can receive only one year per offense, while non-Native perpetrators cannot be prosecuted at all. The legislation provides beginning steps to empower tribal governments to take more direct action in cases of violent crime. When victims know that their perpetrators will be held accountable for their behavior, they will be more likely to report crimes. Empowering tribal law enforcement personnel to protect their communities is the key."
In addition to the jurisdictional morass, the lack of trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) at Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities to provide forensic exams and gather essential evidence is a factor that leads to a failure to prosecute. The AI report raised concerns about the lack of prosecutions and the need for accurate information about prosecution rates.
"Currently there are no standardized sexual assault protocols within the Indian Health Service, meaning that victims of sexually violent crimes may not be given rape kits that obtain critical evidence to prosecute perpetrators," said Charon Asetoyer, chair of AIUSA's Native Advisory Council. "The Tribal Law and Order Act will remedy this and underscore the importance of the need for medical staff that collect forensic evidence to testify in a court of law. It is a critical step toward ensuring that Native women’s human rights are recognized."
The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009 is in direct response to concerns raised by tribal leaders, tribal organizations, Native American and Alaska Native women and the AI report. Specifically the Act will:
clarify the responsibilities and increase coordination among federal, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies with respect to crimes committed in tribal communities;
begin to restore tribal governments with authority, resources, and information to address crimes on tribal land;
combat violence against Indian and Alaska Native women;
increase and standardize the collection and distribution of criminal data in tribal communities, including the data that establishes whether crimes are being prosecuted.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
# # #
For more information, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/maze.
On the Art of Stealing Human Rights, extracts from the speech delivered by Gerry Gambill in 1958 at a Human Rights conference, Tobique Reserve
This image of AIM patch is from here,
where there is also a photocopy of the typed document from which the text below was retyped. I'll try to include that document at the bottom of the post.
This is a cross-post, and is brilliant, and can be applied, in some cases, to other raced, gendered, sexed hierarchies and be modified accordingly for the as yet unfinished Oppressors' Handbook for Dummies, if there needs to be a section that applies across oppressions without noting intersectionality.
This document is also historically important and it certainly does and should stands on its own, speaking to the specific concerns and issues faced by Indigenous people of what became known as the Americas, unfortunately referred to in the male pronoun below. The author makes "her" into a non-person in writing it this way. Then again, it WAS written pre-feminist consciousness in dominant society in North America. And there are plenty of white men who STILL use the male pronoun as a substitute for "all people". And what the hell is THEIR excuse?
All that follows is from *here*, except the document at the bottom which, like the AIM patch image, is from *here*.
[Note: The following extracts are from a speech given by Gerry Gambill at a conference on Human Rights at Tobique Reserve in New Brunswick, in August, 1958. In this speech, he warned native people about how this society goes about taking away the human rights of native people...]
The art of denying Indians their human rights has been refined to a science. The following list of commonly used techniques will be helpful in "burglar-proofing" your reserves, and your rights.
GAIN THE INDIANS CO-OPERATION - It is much easier to steal someone's human rights if you can do it with his OWN co-operation. So..:
- Make him a non-person. Human rights are for people. Convince Indians their ancestors were savages, that they were pagan, that Indians were drunkards. Make them wards of the government. Make a legal distinction, as in the Indian Act, between Indians and persons. Write history books that tell half the story.
- Convince the Indian that he should be patient, that these things take time. Tell him that we are making progress, and that progress takes time.
- Make him believe that things are being done for his own good. Tell him you're sure that after he has experienced your laws and actions that he will realise how good they have been. Tell the Indian he has to take a little of the bad in order to enjoy the benefits you are conferring on him.
- Get some Indian people to do the dirty work. There are always those who will act for you to the disadvantage of their own people. Just give them a little honor and praise. This is generally the function of band councils, chiefs, and advisory councils: they have little legal power, but can handle the tough decisions such as welfare, allocation of housing etc.
- Consult the Indian, but do not act on the basis of what you hear. Tell the Indian he has a voice and go through the motions of listening. Then interpret what you have heard to suit your own needs.
- Insist that the Indian "GOES THROUGH PROPER CHANNELS." Make the channels and the procedures so difficult that he won't bother to do anything. When he discovers what the proper channels are and becomes proficient at the procedures, change them.
- Make the Indian believe that you are working hard for him, putting in much overtime and at a great sacrifice, and imply that he should be appreciative. This is the ultimate in skills in stealing human rights; when you obtain the thanks of your victim.
- Allow a few individuals to "MAKE THE GRADE" and then point to them as examples. Say that the 'HARDWORKERS" AND THE "GOOD" Indians have made it, and that therefore it is a person's own fault if he doesn't succeed.
- Appeal to the Indian's sense of fairness, and tell him that even though things are pretty bad it is not right for him to make strong protests. Keep the argument going on his form of protest and avoid talking about the real issue. refuse to deal with him while he is protesting. Take all the fire out of his efforts.
- Encourage the Indian to take his case to court. This is very expensive, takes lots of time and energy and is very safe because laws are stacked against him. The court's ruling will defeat the Indian's cause, but makes him think he has obtained justice.
- Make the Indian believe that things could be worse, and that instead of complaining about the loss of human rights, to be grateful for the rights we do have. In fact, convince him that to attempt to regain a right he has lost is likely to jepordize the rights that he still has.
- Set yourself up as the protector of the Indian's human rights, and then you can choose to act only on those violations you wish to act upon. By getting successful on a few minor violations of human rights, you can point to these as examples of your devotion to his cause. The burglar who is also the doorman is the perfect combination.
- Pretend that the reason for the loss of human rights is for some other reason that the person is an Indian. Tell him some of your best friends are Indians, and that his loss of rights is because of his housekeeping, his drinking, his clothing.
- Make the situation more complicated than is necessary. Tell the Indian you will have to take a survey to find out how many other Indians are being discriminating against. Hire a group of professors to make a year-long research project.
- Insist on unanimity. Let the Indian know that when all the Indians in Canada can make up their minds about just what they want as a group, then you will act. Play one group's special situation against another group's wishes.
- Select very limited alternatives, neither of which has much merit, and then tell the Indian that indeed he has a choice. Ask, for instance, if he could or would rather have council elections in June or December, instead of asking if he wants them at all.
- Convince the Indian that the leaders who are the most beneficial and powerful are dangerous and not to be trusted. Or simply lock them up on some charge like driving with no lights. Or refuse to listen to the real leaders and spend much time with the weak ones. Keep the people split from their leaders by sowing rumour. Attempt to get the best leaders into high paying jobs where they have to keep quiet to keep their paycheck coming in.
- Speak of the common good. Tell the Indian that you can't consider yourselves when there is a whole nation to think of. Tell him that he can't think only of himself. For instance, in regard to hunting rights, tell him we have to think of all the hunters, or the sporting good industry.
- Remove rights so gradually that people don't realize what has happened until it is too late. Again, in regard to hunting rights, first restrict the geographical area where hunting is permitted, then cut the season to certain times of the year, then cut the limits down gradually, then insist on licensing, and then Indians will be on the same grounds as white sportsmen.
- Rely on some reason and logic (your reason and logic) instead of rightness and morality. Give thousands of reasons for things, but do not get trapped into arguments about what is right.
- Hold a conference on HUMAN RIGHTS, have everyone blow off steam and tension, and go home feeling things are well in hand.
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:
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.
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.
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