"Me Too" and the Logic of the Vigilante

Women have been harassed in many ways at the workplace, from outright rape to far less aggressive ways, comments about their bodies, their scents, or simply comments from men about their own desire for those women who have to work with them every day.

Atwood

The "Me Too" movement has succeeded in raising awareness of this serious and pervasive problem.


But "Me Too" has also embraced a mode of the vigilante--punishment without trial.
The argument made by "Me Too" advocates has been the legal system, and corporate systems run by Human Resources, have failed to protect women and failed to deliver justice, and given the failure of established institutions to redress their grievances, women are justified in going to the press, to social media to exact revenge by public shaming.


This is always the way with the vigilante: The argument almost always involves at least three elements:
1/ The established process of judges, juries and trials is too slow.
2/ The legal system often fails to convict guilty parties, who get off "scot free."
3/ Women need protection, but the legal system in its failure to protect is complicit in the crime.

"The Oxbow Incident," written decades ago, shows how this can play out. In the end, three innocent men are hanged for a crime which, it turns out, was never committed.


As Margaret Atwood has asked: "Do Good Feminists believe that only women should have such rights?"  She adds, "I believe that in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period, including the right to fundamental justice."


Yet, that is exactly what the "Me Too" women would deny the men they've accused.
Atwood outraged "Me Too" by referring to a witch hunt.
"There are, at present, three kinds of "witch" language. 1/ Calling someone a witch, as applied lavishly to Hilary Clinton during the recent election. 2/"Witchhunt," used to imply that someone is looking for something that doesn't exist. 3/ The structure of the Salem witchcraft trials in which you were guilty because being accused.  I was talking about the third use."

Accusation is Final Judgment

She goes on to note that Me Too is a symptom of a broken legal system. I would add that it is the symptom of the perception of a broken legal system. Doctors and many swept up into the criminal justice system have known for decades our justice system is any thing but.


"All too frequently, women...couldn't get a fair hearing through institutions including corporate structures--so they used a new tool: the internet...This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake up call. But what next? If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers?"


Will we have tumbrils rolling through the streets of Hollywood and New York and Madame Dufarge knitting names into her cloth?

Duke Lacrosse Falsely Accused

Examples of false accusations have been noted: The UVA fraternity rape that wasn't; the Duke lacrosse team rapists who committed no rape and no crime; the comedian whose accuser went home with him, got naked and didn't like what followed.

Lurid detail. Lies.

And then there is the case of Al Franken, who was likely boorish, stupid, unfunny but hardly a rapist or even much of a bully. More a stupid adolescent who has no idea how to approach women in a way which they might find attractive, not to mention acceptable.


The very range of complaint, from the man who puts up a Playboy pin up at his work station next to the work station of his female coworker, is hardly the same sort of harasser as  the TV star who has a button on his desk which locks the door to his office, so the woman cannot escape and he can rape her. Those are two very different offenses in my mind, but not, apparently in the mind of Me Too.


Some Me Too folks say it's not even the individual man who is the problem but the systematic oppression of women by a patriarchy. Really? Where are we now?


Those who argue the airing of accusations in the press is just, argue that in the respectable press, the accused are given the opportunity to respond, but thus far most of those accused have not denied the accusations, which proves they are guilty. Of course, those who refuse to comment have likely been admonished by their lawyers to say nothing, presumably because even the innocent in denying inexpertly may open themselves up to new charges.


In the case of Harvey Weinstein, we had that old "I'm entering therapy" which is in fact, an admission of guilt,  at least to some of the charges. But in the case of Al Franken his denial was that he remembered things differently, and that was taken as an admission of guilt as well.


Hardly.


The other Me Too trope is while there have been some clear instances of women bearing false witness and accusing men who had not wronged them, those unjustly strung up in the court of public opinion are "collateral damage," and their fate is justified by the need for revenge on the part of all those women who have been wronged for whom there was no other option to seek justice.


The result has been, to my eye, something akin to mob justice. That is the alternative to a dysfunctional legal system.


An accusation of harassment must be taken as a substantial act, an act of aggression. It may be warranted, but it is aggressive. It should be subject to question, to cross examination. In any system of adjudication, the punishment and judgment should fit the level of offense: The rapist belongs behind bars; the guy who puts up the Playboy pin up is a jerk, but does not belong behind bars.


What you have to ask yourself is this: Can a legal system be fixed, improved, righted? 


Then ask: Can mob rule ever be made just?


So it comes down to this: Do you prefer law or the mob?

Hideous Memories. Beautiful Songs.

When Sarah Vowell described the story of America as hideous memories with beautiful songs, she knew of what she spoke.

Certainly, among us today are people who remember John F. Kennedy's assassination in hideous Dallas, in 1963. His assassin may have been a dissolute loner named Lee Harvey Oswald, but many believe Oswald was an innocent fall guy and that Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy, possibly involving Mafia hit men. No matter, it was hideous and lunatics were involved. 

General James A. Garfield

Lincoln, of course, was shot in the back of the head by another lunatic, a self dramatizing out of work actor, who shot Lincoln, slashed an accompanying officer and then leapt to the stage, shouting, "Sic Semper Tyranis!" thus always to tyrants, before fleeing. Another hideous memory.

Between those two assassinations another President was shot, just a year into office, and before he could make any mark in history.  James A. Garfield had been a true war hero, in the Civil War, which ended only 16 years before he took the oath of office. He was nominated when the Republican convention deadlocked, torn asunder by the boss of the New York party, who thought he deserved to be running the government, and would have been had his candidate been nominated. 

President James A. Garfield

Garfield may have been the finest mind since Lincoln, and certainly one of the most admirable men to have ever been elected President. 

His inauguration speech was--outside of Lincoln's two addresses--the finest or among the finest ever given.

After a brief summation of the history of this nation, in which he put our struggles into a moral and emotional framework, he turned to the problems which his administration had to face, among them the unfinished work of freeing the former slaves, who without education and help could never be really free, he noted.

He knew he had to address the spoils system of government and replace it with a Civil Service whose job it was to serve the people not simply to be paid off for services rendered to victorious candidates.

He pointed to the financial underpinings of democracy which entailed decisions about whether to back American currency with gold or not.

And he turned to the issue of racism, and colored folks in the crowd stood weeping as he highlighted the importance of this work:

The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer a subject of debate. That discussion, which for half a century threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no appeal—that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are and shall continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike upon the States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States nor interfere with any of their necessary rights of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy of the Union.	9
The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by proclaiming "liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof."	10
The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. NO thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to the one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years.	11
No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.	12
The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see the light."

Had he been successful in solving these problems, we might have been spared the Jim Crow years in the South and much heartache, but he was shot by a man who was clearly a lunatic, whose family had hoped to commit to an insane 

but who, as is understandable to us today, managed to get a gun.

Garfield's lunatic assassin 

Such is American history: the great, the less than great and the potentially great wiped out by the weirdest and most diseased among us.

Senator Patrick Leahy on Nothwithstanding Clause and Funding Rapists

Rachel Martin interviewed Senator Patrick Leahy about a report that says the United States Congress is still funding Afghan police units which are known to systematically rape young boys, who they seem to have a predilection for raping.

In our country, if you have child porn on your computer you can go to prison for the rest of your life, but our Congress is funding real live child rapists in Afghanistan, and has been for some years.

Ex-Captain Daniel Quinn

Daniel Quinn, an Army officer in Afghanistan was relieved of his command because he beat the daylights out of an Afghan police commander who liked to chain village boys to his bed and rape them all night. That was more than Quinn could stomach, but his American superiors scolded him, reprimanded him and ultimately ended his career for giving vent to his outrage in a most unsoldierly manner.

“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.”
--NYT article 

But America is still at it, still making bargins with the devil. Here's an exchange from NPR:

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The abuses include the routine enslavement and sexual abuse of underage boys by Afghan military commanders. Senator Patrick Leahy wrote a law requiring the Pentagon to stop funding foreign military groups who commit human rights abuses. But in Afghanistan, that has not happened.

INSKEEP: The Pentagon explains this by citing language tucked into a funding bill called the notwithstanding clause as justification. Notwithstanding other issues, the funding continues.

David Greene spoke with Senator Leahy about the inspector general's report. And we should warn you, the details in this interview will be disturbing to some.

PATRICK LEAHY: I can't imagine walking down Main Street - certainly in any town in Vermont - and say, how would you like to have your tax dollars spent to support a military unit that will take young boys, dress them up as girls and then use them as sex slaves? That's exactly what's happening.

Not Even Original

George Templeton Strong, a diarist and lawyer, who is widely quoted in histories of 19th century America, particularly in the Ken Burns series on the Civil War and in Chernow's "Grant" described one of the two scoundrels who were able to hoodwink the gullible President Grant into a variety of shady schemes, a man named Jim Fisk.

In a long line of husksters

Chernow describes him as handsome, blonde, bloated with diamond rings and "flashy." 

But it is Strong's description which is eerily familiar:

"Illiterate, vulgar, unprincipled, profligate, always making himself conspicuously ridiculous by some piece of flagrant ostentation, he was, nevertheless, freehanded with his stolen money, and possessed, moreover, a certain magnetism of geniality, that attracted to him people who were not particular about the decency of their associates."

Chernow adds:
He collected prostitutes and chorus girls no less promiscuously than he bought railroads and steamships and exulted in the attention his flamboyance aroused."

If any of this sounds familiar, it should at least remind us that today's version of Big Jim Fisk isn't even original.

Chris Pappas: Bringing An Olive Branch to the Knife Fight

Last night, the Rockingham County Democrats hosted the first of 7 candidates for the Unites States Congress seat being vacated by Carol Shea Porter.

Such a Nice Boy: Mamma would be proud

The would be Congressman is a 30 something who runs a family restaurant with 230 employees in Manchester, N.H. He went to Manchester public schools, then Harvard.


He gave a very nice stump speech and said all the usual Democratic Party things about the need to end of opioid epidemic by spending more money, the need to embrace immigrants as he has done with his own employees--he has 2 adolescents from Syria--the need to safeguard planned parenthood, the need to protect victims from bullies, the need to sing Kumbaya on a regular basis.


He is a very nice guy; that much is evident. His heart is in the right place.


Questions ensued from the audience of mostly older men and young women.
Someone asked what his bed side book table had on it.
Several made statements about the abuse of women, the abuse of immigrants, the offensiveness of Donald Trump, the need for more money for various victims of Society.


Someone mentioned that whoever the Republican opponent in the Fall, he would likely emphasize the need to build the wall and to protect American womanhood from marauding rapist immigrants and what would he say when he was faced with the thuggish Republican.

"Well," he said gently, "I don't see any point in engaging in food fights."


He said he thought New Hampshire folks were not going to respond to that sort of frat boy, testosterone driven anger.


I thought of canvassing in Kingston, N.H. in 2016 where we saw nothing but Trump signs.

PS.
Here are Mad Dog's contrarian views on Democratic shibboleths:
1/ Voter suppression: White guys telling Black folks they cannot vote without passing a literacy test or paying a poll tax is racist disenfranchisement. But if you are not sufficiently politically engaged to get your ass down to register, then maybe you should not be voting. Keep the polls open Friday 6 AM to MN through Sunday MN.


2/ Responding to the opioid crisis: This should be done as part of an overall healthcare for all program. Spending money on feel good ineffective programs is money down the drain.  The programs work only as long as people stay in them. Do it as Portugal did it--legalize and treat in the healthcare system like diabetes or don't do it at all.


3/ Immigration: Acknowledge we cannot have open borders. We could be overwhelmed by Chinese and Indian immigrants alone. We need rules. We got DOCA people and we should amnesty them in, make them citizens. We may have to do this periodically going forward, but we should not criminalize the desire to work hard and become part of our USA club.


4/ Stop being the champion of every victim group which has a board of directors and some sob story. Toughness is not a gravel voice or a jutting jaw, but do not take a step backward and do not back down.

Jell-O Man: Trump Pinned to the Wall

Chuck Schumer is what we've got for the face of Democrats in the Senate, which is one reason the Republicans control the government, but finally Schumer fastened on something which might be useful.

"Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Saturday blasted President Trump as an unreliable negotiating partner, fuming that working with him is “like negotiating with Jell-O" after a failure to secure a deal to avert a government shutdown."
--The Hill

Jell-O man! Better than Rocketman. Better than Little Marco. Jell-O man. It sticks because it carries embedded in it a ring of truth. The man who was once solidly pro-choice and is now solidly anti-abortion;the man who was for a Dreamer policy "with heart" who is now against putting dreamers ahead of Norwegians. Oh, it fits!

We have Jell-O man!

Now, if we can just get a few Democrats to sing in the chorus.

You can shape it into any form you want. 
You can color it any color you like. 
It's cheap. 
It's non nutritive, but it tastes pretty good going down. 

It's the sort of stuff you can eat when you are down with the viral crud, and if you throw it up, it's not all that bad coming back. 
When you try to pin it to the wall, it just oozes down. Can't pin it down. 
You can't live off it, but for a short while, it sort of hits the spot. 
It's the man, in a single image.

Jell-O man!
We can throw it at his limousine when it comes up to a rally.
We can eat a big bowl of it at the podium, with a smile.
We can hold it up and point to it.

It's what we need now.

The Post, The Movie

When exactly they decided to make "The Post" I do not know, but Wikipedia suggests the script was bought before Donald Trump won the Presidency.  

In light of Trump's attacks on the press it seems to be a film about the importance of that fourth estate which Trump attacks as an enemy of the people and an enemy of the truth, "just such horrible, dishonest people."

This movie will not persuade many Trump-holes that the press is a noble thing, the guardian of the people, but it is worth seeing.

Yes, it's a movie about the press and the pursuit of the truth, but it's just as much a movie about what America was like 40-50 years ago, when women were not supposed to have important careers or even important opinions. 

Along the way the cozy relations between Ben Bradlee  and Kennedy are mentioned. They have Bradlee admitting because he was so charmed by Kennedy, he did not do his job as a newspaperman and he was seduced into Kennedy fandom. 

Kay Graham's decision to risk it all and publish the Pentagon Papers becomes the classic worm turns story, as she is treated as some dull witted child who has no business running the paper her father gave to her husband to run, but you can see her gradually growing a spine, and when she finally confronts her good friend, Robert MacNamara she does it on a personal level: Her own son had gone to Vietnam and MacNamara knew even then the war was simply unwinnable and the only reason to continue was to avoid humiliation for American politicians. 

The most interesting character in this movie is actually given only brief screen time, namely Daniel Ellsberg, the guy who worked on the 7,000 page report which MacNamara commissioned and which detailed how American involvement began, was sustained and ultimately at what point it became evident there was no way the Vietnamese would lose that war. 

If you read about Ellsberg on Wikipedia, there is a scene where Ellsberg, who has done 2 tours in Vietnam, listens to a man who is going to prison for refusing to go to Vietnam, and it finally dawns on him this guy is a true patriot for refusing to go, and all the fools who got sucked in and sent over were simply tools of a malevolent government. 

If Ellsberg had read Thoreau in high school, as I had, he would have known "the true patriot serves his country with his mind, not with his body, marching off to war like some wooden soldier." But Ellsberg did not have Ms. Johnson for high school English; he only had two degrees from Harvard and one from Cambridge.

Reading about that revelation in Ellsberg's life reminded me of the time they called a meeting for seniors in my college and they had a Marine sergeant, in dress uniform, explain that each of us were obligated to serve in the United States armed forces until we were 36 years old and were eligible for the draft that whole time, plus a year for each year of college deferment which meant we could be drafted to age 40.

There was a guy on stage,  who had graduated a year earlier, who had fled to Canada, and was now a Canadian citizen. Canada was not actually all that welcoming. He had got in because he had a degree in engineering. 

There was another guy who was about to be sentenced to prison for refusing to go.

And then there was this other guy who spoke soberly, but very respectfully to us, who said what we were all thinking: None of these options looked good. Going to prison sounded like no fun at all. Canada would mean, well, not being an American any more. That would seem to be pretty easy--after all, the Canadians are just like us, aren't they? But somehow, when you really have to decide, you realize just how deeply ingrained being an American is part of you.

But then, this guy nodded to the Sergeant and said, "But then, there's that other option." 

The guy who was talking was named Tom Hayden and he impressed me deeply. I wrote my parents about him.

What made the Pentagon Papers important, which is alluded to in the film, is the difference in the way most Americans perceived their government. Kay Graham explains to her daughter she went on Air Force One with LBJ to go visit at his ranch because, "When the President tell you to do something, it's hard to say no."

Of course, now we are all much more jaded about our political leaders, but not then.

And the effect of the Pentagon Papers was aptly summarized by one of Nixon's lieutenants, H.R. Haldeman: To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing.... You can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say; and you can't rely on their judgment; and the -- the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong.^[16]
--Wikipedia