It has been a wretchedness of Justice hasn’t it? The Kavanaugh misery has exposed the rude chasm of culture fault lines and toxic bipartisanship far beyond Washington.
If you are a Democrat, Kavanaugh is an alcoholic sexual predator who tried to rape a 15 year old, exposed himself at a party and participated in rape orgies that drugged the women involved. His appointment is the result of a toxic patriarchy of white privilege that protects abusers and will see women’s sexual health rights rolled back to the medieval dark ages.
If you are a Republican, Kavanaugh is a pure virgin who is a God loving family man who has been disgracefully smeared by a Left wing political hit job. Even if he had forced himself on a 15 year old girl, what 17 year old boy wouldn’t and surly anything that happened 36 years ago is a distant past minus any consequences.
At the heart of the matter is the collision of two titanic forces. Centuries of repressed rage of women (and some men) who have been sexually assaulted and abused who have never seen justice crashing against centuries of jurisprudence that doesn’t accept mere allegation as an evidential threshold.
Dr Ford’s compelling testimony that rang true without any corroborating evidence competing against Kavanaugh’s anger at wrongful accusation which could just as easily be the wrongful anger of the guilty with the rest of us in the middle being asked to decide.
We’ve seen these reverberations in NZ, the widow of Awanui Black with her accusation of paedophile rings which the Police found no evidence to prosecute and the claims of rape and sexual assault at Russel McVeagh which were downgraded by Dame Magret Bazley to a hard drinking culture with pockets of sexual harassment.
In the post MeToo landscape where accusation is the evidence and due process simply a means of privilege to protect itself, the Kavanaugh case has exposed a division that seems impossible to bridge. One side demands the accuser be believed and any attempt to critique or question the accusation is as much a crime as the abuse itself while the other side demands due process while denying due process.
My fear is that this will help Republicans at the mid term election, not hurt them. I wonder how the middle are viewing this and what do they fear most? Sexual assault or false accusation of sexual assault.
I think the middle will fear false accusation more and vote accordingly when they are in the privacy and anonymity of the polling booth.
This wretchedness has done nothing to expose the truth, just the vast gulf of where we are now.
The greatest long term damage this episode is going to do is to efforts to reduce or stop unwanted sexual advances and harassment everywhere. The two individuals may be destroyed in the process but they are only two. Sexual exploitation involves millions.
Whether Kavanaugh assaulted Ford or not can never be determined. Not while Ford cannot say when exactly or where exactly, or at who’s place it happened. This seems like a weakness in her testimony until you see that Kavanaugh has kept a detailed diary of where he was and who was with him on every day of his life since age 14. Then her uncertainty about which day of which year and whereabouts becomes essential if it is not to be immediately disproven beyond reasonable doubt. 15 yrs old has been consistent but the year has gone from mid 80s to early 80’s to 82.
But whatever the veracity of her accusation , given it’s on provability and antiquity that it surfaces in these circumstances at this time puts it in the most dubious light possible. As you say it can only divide and embitter the public and the US government .
If Ford has a genuine grievance against Kavanaugh it could not be worse served by this circus.
D J S
Prepare for Red October WWG1WGA
Didn’t you like my comment?
D J S
Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t work for the woke SJWs. I just hope the #MeToo movement realises that demanding that mere accusation should be the new evidentiary threshold for a guilt means our entire justice system becomes meaningless and collapses.
Even the Republicans are saying De Blasey is credible – their argument is that she was mistaken. Trump really wanted Kavanagh, they had warnings about him: they believe they may not have the numbers to get a full on conservative after the midterms.
The Democratic problem is the DNC again throwing their support behind weak establishment candidates rather than strongly community supported candidates.
Bomber I think you are wrong conflating an overall MeToo with the evidence of one woman reporting an attempted rape. Many women claimed MeToo on the basis of trivial encounters & the men who pointed that out were considered predators too. Such claims undermine the seriousness of genuinely nasty abuse many MeToo women suffered. I watched Ford’s testimony online and found her credible. You are wrong to say she did not stand up to questioning – she did, very well. So stop being alarmist. What stands behind Kavanaugh is the patriarchial society where some men do to women what they think is their right as men.
It remains to be seen whether a week long FBI investigation will be a coverup or attempt to uncover the truth.
1 The Awanui Black case: Where the police “found no evidence to prosecute or simply “found no evidence”?
2 The Russel McVeagh case: “Downgraded” by Dame Magret Bazley or “after considering the information Dame Magret found”…?
Its an advance on MeToo which didn’t reach down to the level of the dull compulsion of misogyny over the lives of everyday women.
Its about the systematic rape of children by the rich sons of the WeCan ruling class.
How did you expect the lid to be blown off the impunity of rich macho oppressors unless it took the form of “accusations” which are routinely ignored, dismissed, covered up, or worse, by the capitalist justice system?
Congress at least brings the old shit out of the dark into the light.
Now we get a claytons FBI inquiry as a cover up of rape, and maybe Kavanaugh get the job, or not.
But what effect on Trump’s support base? That will be the test. Will ordinary women continue to submit to oppression by ordinary men?
Who can say? Expect the fight to get nastier on main street as Trump’s economic plans implode and macho mobs mobilise.
But it will get better, said Lysistrata.
The lid is off the can of worms and my bet is that making Amerikkka great again, will lead to the growing resistance to both Republican and Democrat bulwarks of Amerikkkan imperialism and its armoury of racism, sexism, classism, militarism and colonialism.
Bomber you disparage MeToo which is a movement to encourage women to speak up about their experiences with sexual harassment. This is not the first time you have referred to MeToo as if it were a witch hunt! Are women complaining about men’s bad behaviour too uppity? Too scary? Don’t these women deserve free speech?
Martin
You are very correct about the assistance this farce has given the Republicans. In several key seats there has been a significant swing away from the Democrats. Candidates are running ads using the Democratic senators asking about yearbook scribblings. Mrs Ford did not cover herself in any glory. Her evidence was inconclusive and it was not a good look to be correcting a letter she wrote herself at the hearing. When questioned about events in the past two months she gave misleading, incorrect and frankly at times bizzare answers.
Your comments regarding Russell McVeagh are rather confusing when you use the example of the case in Tauranga. The person who made the allegations about a dead man was found simply to be not credible.
Whereas in the law firm an investigation was conducted and that the more extreme allegations were not supported by evidence. From working with that firm, I know that the female staff were not all delicate flowers and were eager participants.
This is what lies at the heart of the #MeToo movement and in fact of most cases of sexual assault. The lack of that pesky thing called evidence. You complain about the number of cases that do not get prosecuted, yet fail to acknowledge that the cause is nearly always a lack of sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.
You need to ask yourself, what if it was me up there or being tried by media? For women who think Kavanaugh is guilty as charged, what if it was your husband, brother, son, father in the spotlight?
The lack of that pesky thing called evidence. You complain about the number of cases that do not get prosecuted, yet fail to acknowledge that the cause is nearly always a lack of sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.
After 30+ years, what constitutes “evidence”, Michael? Photographs? A signed confession? A bunch of witnesses? Historical sexual assault rarely allows surviving evidence. You might as well use the same “logic” against Catholic priests who abuse children.
In effect, you’re suggesting a get-out-of-jail-free card, if I read your argument correctly.
Your argument is not much better than some societies where religion/custom decrees that a woman must have two witnessess to press a rape charge. That is practically the position you are adopting.
The typical absence of evidence is a perfectly unbiased observation surely Frank. It is just as effective a block to refuting an accusation as to proving one and vice-versa .
D J S
Yeah but it’s a selection panel not a court and republicans have a 1 seat majority.
Frank: “After 30+ years, what constitutes “evidence”, Michael? Photographs? A signed confession? A bunch of witnesses? Historical sexual assault rarely allows surviving evidence. You might as well use the same “logic” against Catholic priests who abuse children.”
I agree with you. I’ve recently had cause to use the same argument anent abuse by Catholic clergy. It’s notable that – absent forensic evidence – the church accepts the fact of abuse having occurred.* Although, in fairness to the accusers, there is often (even usually, perhaps) evidence left on the victims, by the rape of children. The physical (never mind psychological) after-effects can be long term.
However. It is human nature to overstate some issues, and it’s inevitable that some of the accusations brought out by the MeToo campaign will fall into that category. It’s a no-win situation for men, who are, it seems, as damned if they’ve been flirtatious as if they’d been as sleazy as Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby.
And some men have been subject to false accusations; we know this from what’s happened here in NZ over many years.
With regard to the Kavanaugh affair, I haven’t followed it in detail. I certainly didn’t watch the testimony. It’s an aspect of US domestic politics, so it doesn’t concern us directly. We aren’t US citizens (well, I’m not), and can’t influence US politics in any way: though it is US foreign policy which affects us. We can’t vote for or against the US president, however much some might wish it were otherwise.
I’m sceptical about Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, simply because of the timing. It seems to me advisable to be cautious. Her account may well be true; even so, it looks like part of a political campaign to white-ant Kavanaugh. He’s very conservative, and his appointment would certainly tip the Supreme Court’s balance for many years to come. Which, of course, is why Trump nominated him. And why the Dems will move heaven and earth to prevent it.
It puts me in mind of Clarence Thomas, all those years ago. That was also during the tenure of a Republican president.
* But that didn’t help me to win the argument, sadly. My interlocutors favoured evidence over accusation. Or – more correctly – evidence to corroborate accusation.
It’s not so much that Kavanaugh fuckedup as a young adult. Most if us fuck up ss young adults. Its called LEARNING.
The reason he’s become unstuck is because he has obviously lied. Lied about his drinking and his inappropriate sexual acts. If he’d fessed up, done a mea culpa, this would hardly be a news story. In fact his mana might’ve grown with honesty.
Blaming it on his victims does nothing except warp us back to the 1950s. Short skirt?? She was ASKING for it, yer Honour!!
Mjolnir: “The reason he’s become unstuck is because he has obviously lied. Lied about his drinking and his inappropriate sexual acts.”
The reporting I’ve heard says that he’s denied those accusations regarding sexual impropriety. I’m not in a position to judge whether he’s lying; absent corroborating evidence from the friend who, Ford is reported as saying, was in the room when he is alleged to have attacked her, neither is anyone else, I’d have thought.
He’s also reported as saying that he liked beer and drank a fair bit of it.
“If he’d fessed up, done a mea culpa, this would hardly be a news story. In fact his mana might’ve grown with honesty.”
I doubt that. This is the US of A we’re talking about.
“Blaming it on his victims does nothing except warp us back to the 1950s.”
That may well be so, were it the case that he’d done that. But reportage I’ve heard says that he’s denied those accusations. I’m not in a position to judge his truthfulness; neither is anyone else.
I don’t think it’s implausible to suggest that this is part of the Democrat campaign to prevent him being appointed to the Supreme Court. That doesn’t mean that Ford’s account is untrue, of course.
Comments are closed.