The ogre Weinstein is guilty as charged – on two charges, but got off on some others, which apparently were much more serious. Considering how weak the cases looked at trial’s conclusion, let’s be grateful that at least Mr. Weinstein, walker and all, is going to spend at least a few weeks on Rikers Island before sentencing. The image of him creeping around his dingy, smelly cell, while eating bad bologna sandwiches, is a comforting thought.
On a much bigger scale, though, to conclude that his conviction is a turning point for the ‘Me, Too’ movement is, I think, a bit overstated.
I actually believe nothing’s really changed in the dynamic of rich, powerful men taking advantage of their positions to manipulate and plunder women.
Yes, certainly there’s been a great deal of attention as to the manner in which women are exploited in Hollywood and corporate America. But, forgetting Hollywood and business for a moment, the broad culture in this country continues to not only tolerate the boorish, often criminal behavior of men, but even encourage it.
Powerful men in their relationships with women subordinate to them have had it easy, with virtually no disapprobation from anyone for decades, and will not be altering their behavior any time soon. The prospect of taking advantage of beautiful, young women without the chance of dire consequences is just too alluring to ever be eliminated.
Women, too, should know better these days, but I see signs that things in the broader society remain the same: in the Weinstein trial’s initial stages, with the press exuding confidence that the ‘Me-Too’ movement and women’s increasing empowerment were unstoppable forces, a couple of television shows demonstrated that nothing is changing out there in American culture.
I happened to come upon the Golden Globes awards ceremony on television: and, as I looked with jaw agape, women presenters came out on stage in some extremely scanty outfits: a couple of them were wearing an unbuttoned, half-open vest look, without any upper undergarments, so that half their breasts were exposed.
Talk about the ‘male gaze’: guilty as charged, I and millions of other males gazed intently. This scene, right after the opening days of Weinstein’s trial, was so hypocritical. Don’t these women have any awareness that their scandalous attire might create the absolute wrong message to adolescent girls -- and young boys, for that matter? Do these performers think about nothing else but their insipid celebrity and meaningless careers?
Or, on a much bigger scale, what about the half time show of the Super Bowl? 100 million viewers, including millions of young men and women, saw on the halftime show Jennifer Lopez and someone named Shakira dance and sing as if they were performing in a strip club. The act was replete with flashing thighs and crotches. Amazing to see. It was very nearly pornographic. And have we heard a peep of protest from Me-Too advocates such as Rose McGowan or Gloria Allred? Not a whimper. Worse, Ms. Lopez even had the gall to permit her 11-year-old daughter to participate in this prurient and sleazy exhibition!
Evidence, indeed, that nothing’s going to change any time soon. Women will continue to be exploited and mistreated. That criminal behavior is baked into American culture.
Ms Pelosi, What Were You Thinking?..... Nancy Pelosi, until a couple of months ago, seemed to be a very shrewd politician who could navigate her way around quite skillfully any minefields she might encounter. But, my God, she sure failed miserably with the impeachment initiative against President Trump. His popularity now is highest than it’s ever been, and he’s relishing every moment of his triumph. And, worse for Democrats, it’s giving Mr. Trump an opportunity to rub more salt and vinegar into the wounds of his --- once again -- outgunned and flummoxed opponents.
Here’s another factor: the extraordinarily long siege of the Mueller investigation – two years – with finally an anticlimactic verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ exhausted the American public. They were not in a mood to go through that circus again. So, the impeachment hearings and trial on the heels of Mueller didn’t catch the full attention of jaundiced TV viewers, who simply had enough of politicians fighting and acting like nine-year-olds; it just never caught on. The back-to-back juxtaposition of the Mueller and impeachment hearings really hurt the Democrats as they attempted to galvanize an uninterested public.
But, what exactly did the Democrats think they were going to accomplish? The Republican majority in the Senate, frightened by the thought of Trump true-believers who are furious that anyone would disapprove of Trump, and possibly pushing for Trump-backed candidates to run in primaries, was never a threat to vote for his removal from office. My lovely cat Seamus could have told you that six months ago. The Republicans in the Senate are scared sh_tless. [To be honest, I understand their fears.]
And yet there were the Democrats, all earnestly yakking about all the sins of the President and his destruction of American democracy, marching in lockstep to convict the President. The optics just did not work: Pelosi and Schiff lecturing us on American ideals, as if it were a decorous high school debate, while the other side, with its cast of money grubbers, blackmailers, swindlers, conspiracy junkies, holocaust deniers, charlatans, bunko artists, snake oil salesmen, and bag men, outmaneuvered and bludgeoned the Democrats at every juncture.
The Democrats knew they were beat, and beat badly, when, near the end of their dispiriting and humbling defeat, they began beating the drums for the notion that President Trump will not be able to run away from history’s verdict: his ‘legacy’ will be forever tarnished. Bull. Donald Trump does not care one whit about his legacy. To Mr. Trump, it’s all about his net worth. In that reptilian brain of his, if he can’t go to the bank and exchange that legacy for tons of dough, he couldn’t care less. Cashing in on his Presidency is and always has been Mr. Trump’s overriding concern. ‘My legacy? Write me a $1,000 check, and I’ll give you mine.’
It’s Always Deep State’s fault….It was inevitable: as soon as the Justice Department decided to close down an investigation of FBI agent Andrew McCabe, opting not to bring charges up against him, President Trump goes off on the ‘corrupt’ FBI, and decries, in paraphrase, ‘It’s the deep state again.’
Virtually on any matter that the President views as oppositional, the ‘Deep State’ stands accused. Right now, of course, it’s the media’s coverage of the corona virus: it’s the transparency of the Trump lies that is so hard to take; he simply, on cue, trots out the ultimate no-proof, go-to conspiracy, the Deep State.
Let’s examine Mr. Trump’s Deep State a bit more closely: advocates should at least have some evidence of the existence of the group, so bent as they are on world domination and control: for one thing, who exactly are the architects of the Deep State, and where is verifiable proof of their activities? Oh, the Deep Staters assert, we don’t know the answers to that: after all, ‘It’s all done in secret.’
What absolute nonsense: you’re telling me that, say, George Soros, the billionaire industrialist who’s often linked to fanciful machinations of a Deep State, is the mastermind controlling the plot to take over the world? Come on: get real. Hasn’t he got enough on his plate? He’s too busy making oodles of money.
And besides, just imagine Mr. Soros holding a convention of all the leaders of various Deep State cartels intent on running the world. How could there be any consensus among those huge egos how to divide the world up? It’d be worse than herding feral cats.
‘Deep State’ accusations fit Mr. Trump to a T: throw some cockeyed theory out there, without one scintilla of proof. Mr. Trump, who apparently didn’t understand the significance of Pearl Harbor [!] when he visited the site a couple of years ago, doesn’t burden himself with any historical facts, just pure BS. Outlandish conspiracy plots are right up his alley.
In actuality, the Deep State emanates either from really vivid imaginations of some very paranoid individuals, or, more likely, a fable concocted to appeal to extreme right wing zealots, and create momentum for Mr. Trump’s re-election.
Mr. Gripes
March 1, 2020
By Jim Israel
Observing very closely over the past couple of years the turbulent persona of Donald Trump, Mr. Gripes has come to one overriding conclusion – along with a word of caution to his enemies: Never underestimate him, or you do at your own peril. Yeah, he’s a jerk most of the time; he acts in ways that absolutely depress and scare the hell out of Mr. Gripes, and his ignorance is breathtaking. However, in the end, incredibly, he accomplishes a lot.
Just look at the storm he initiated when he urged the four first-term Congresswomen to ‘go back to where you came from’: The Democrats, all of them, fell over themselves condemning Trump for his outlandish statements, then groveled to get glorious TV airtime, bashing the President 24 hours a day. Their ‘crocodile tears’ of outrage were, of course, echoed by their enablers on television– Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski immediately come to mind. Haven’t we been to this rodeo a thousand times before?
[One digression before I go on: the Democrats may have expressed disgust at the President’s exhortations, but they secretly, I think, loved the hullabaloo: it’s sure to give a huge boost to fund-raising for the 2020 campaign, which is what all these politicians salivate over in reality.]
But, Mr. Trump accomplished exactly what he hoped for: the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. Mr. Trump gleefully will label the four women as anti-American, as Socialists and Communists [of course, just like Mr. Trump, 80% of Americans don’t know the difference] even going as far as calling them Al Queda backers and, hey, why not, Hezbollah zealots. He’ll throw the kitchen sink at them. And, predictably, the entire Democratic Party will be labeled as fierce enemies of America. Like lemmings going over the cliff, they could all go down with the ship, come next November.
Red-baiting is as old as Senator Joe McCarthy holding up fake lists of Communists in the State Department during the early 1950’s, but it remains a very powerful stain and formidable force in American politics. The tactic is the entirety of the Donald Trump play book: throw everything at his opponents, create chaos, dissension and confusion, flummox everybody, and walk away with the prize.
I told you so…. In the previous ‘Mr. Gripes’, I offered the opinion that the minute Attorney General William Barr announced that the Mueller investigation did not warrant bringing any collusion charges up against President Trump, Mueller as news was over. The country had had enough, and was suffering from Mueller-fatigue. Turn the page, Americans said in unison, let’s move on. And that is exactly what happened. For two years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of us were caught up in the investigation. Cable news loved it – ratings were way up, profits were way up, so there was no motivation to move off Mueller and give us some respite. And, in those two years, television news lost its ‘impartial’ standard, a terrible precedent for a free press. Ratings since Mueller ended the probe have plummeted, i.e., Rachel Maddow on MSNBC lost 500,000 viewers within a week of Barr’s action! Let’s face it, Democrats: Mueller is now a corpse. Mouth to mouth resuscitation won’t work. Move on, for God’s sake.
The Farmers – Trump lies. He says his tariffs on American agricultural product are bringing ‘billons’ of dollars into that sector, and he’s saving the farmers from foreign predations. ‘We’re making billions of dollars.’ Then why has he spent $30 billion out of the national budget on essentially bribes to wheat farmers to shield them from the huge damage tariffs are doing to these same farmers? Cotton farmers, because of lost business with China, have not planted 30% of their fields for next year – they’re losing billions. I can go on and on about many other industries. You can’t say money’s pouring in the front door, and the same money’s pouring out the back window, and then brag we’re ‘making billions.’ It makes no sense.
Mr. Gripes takes a look each morning at the proposed daily Presidential schedule. And, every day, the President has nothing planned until 11:30; and then it’s usually an insignificant meeting with a business or lobbying group. After that, nothing is on his schedule until late afternoon; again it’s some insignificant photo opt or meeting, if there’s anything at all. And that’s the end of another day. Let’s assume he’s not exactly perusing some position paper on New Zealand 2020 sheep-wool earnings projections during his ‘free’ hours, right? This President’s rapt attention is probably focused on watching FOX News most of the day. And what about the country’s business, you ask? Not his job, Jose.
America’s Women World Cup: Juxtapose the jingoistic, nationalistic, vacuous, and hyperbolic coverage by American media of the country’s women’s World Cup team with the real story: an embarrassing display of American bad sportsmanship, insufferable manners, and the bullying of vastly inferior opponents. In the world’s eyes, we showed once again we’re nothing but self-centered, spoiled, entitled brats.
In the first game against an overmatched Thailand opponent, the Americans won 13-1! In the press here, the slaughter was seen as simply a dominant and impressive victory. I saw it differently: it was ‘Ugly American’ all over again. Why, in the last minute of play, did the Americans have to score that thirteenth goal? And then celebrate as if they won the World Series? The dignified course of action would have been to simply pass the ball back and forth to each other for a few minutes, without any attempt to score again, until game’s end. The players would have been lauded for their sportsmanship. But, no way was that going to happen: Their motivation was to humiliate the Thai team.
Besides the bad conduct on the field, for the full two weeks of competition, we had to listen to nothing but complaints from the American women. It never ceased. Mostly it was about money they thought they were owed since the men’s team was paid more. Did they have a point? It may be an apples versus oranges comparison, but I do know this: there’s no way a women’s World Cup makes as much or more money than the men’s tournament: the men’s games, which traditionally are an enormous sporting extravaganza all over the globe for a month, bring in billions in revenues and TV rights, far outstripping the women’s games. [Besides, the American women didn’t do so badly anyway: each team member on the women’s team in the end will receive about $350,000, certainly a handsome sum, whatever their grievance is.]
Then, on the last day, American team members actually had the temerity to protest what time the final was going to be televised in the United States; they assumed there’d be lower viewership with a late-morning showing. And, predictably, they shouted ‘conspiracy.’ Ridiculous. The women’s final started Sunday morning at 11 am on television. Is that such a crime? A point of comparison: two weeks later, the telecast of each of the first two days of golf’s British Open began at 1:30 am [!] on the East Coast. I didn’t hear or read one complaint about that.
One last point: As certain as the sun rises in the East, dreary politicians had to jump in to piggyback on the team’s success. Mayor De Blasio in New York City – who apparently doesn’t have the money to fix the dreadful subways or get the homeless off the streets -- hosts a victory parade down in the financial district, replete with the obligatory ticker tape, at a considerable cost. How craven this mayor is: the team’s success, he figures, will polish his me-too credentials with women across the country, as he pursues his absolutely moronic and arrogant Presidential run. New York didn’t need the parade. Let Minneapolis or Wichita hold the event. It cost $1.5 million to host. Bill De Blasio might as well have tossed that $1.5 million into the East River.
Mr. Gripes
August 8, 2019
Jim Israel
