Harvey Gets It Caught in the Wringer --They were so certain of it: no matter how outrageous and criminal their behavior was regarding their treatment of women, the grandees of Hollywood – studio heads, directors, producers, really virtually anyone in the movie business who controlled the careers of women – were confident they had not a thing to worry about: as the big bosses, they could inflict any kind of sexual depredation upon their subjects, who wouldn’t dare say a word about it because ‘no one would believe them.’ The moguls were too rich, too famous, too powerful, too connected to ever be accused by some low-on-the-totem-pole starlet. They were untouchable.
Well, thank God, that’s over. Aggrieved women are coming out of the woodwork with their accounts of sexual misconduct. We have Harvey Weinstein to thank for that. He, and many others as well, after decades of untrammeled, incomprehensible criminal behavior, are finished [for the foreseeable future]. If criminal charges are not forthcoming, and they may not be, Mr. Weinstein is essentially ruined anyway – fired from his own studio, a wife and two young kids leaving him, unemployable, essentially a pariah among his peers, who will be essentially broke, once all the lawsuits and lawyer fees tumble forward.
Mr. Gripes, who in the best of times, is not the most empathetic character, asserts, “Too bad, Harvey. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. You’re a crude and egotistical pig. You deserve everything that’s happening to you.’
With all the tumult spewing forth these days, Mr. Gripes is puzzled by a few aspects of this scandal: why, for one, were there so little venom and outrage directed at Weinstein and the other predators by the victims’ boyfriends, husbands or significant males in their lives? In fact, it appears that there was virtually blanket silence and inaction on the part of these men. For a week, maybe, after Weinstein’s behavior was exposed, everyone in fact seemed to toe a party line: ‘I didn’t know a thing about this kind of behavior in Hollywood.’ Even the friends of the victims asserted this.
Then suddenly everything shifted: it turned out, evidently, everyone knew of the Weinstein crimes, as well as a thousand others, and they’ve known for a long time. Ignorance was no longer thrown out there as a defense. A lot of people just kept their mouths shut.
So, I ask again: where were the men who lived with these women, who had serious relationships with them? Why, for decades, did we hear absolutely nothing from them?
It turns out there is one gallant knight, perhaps, in this, although he basically didn’t do what was really called for either. Gwyneth Paltrow in a meeting was accosted in an ‘uncomfortable’ manner by Weinstein, escaped, went home, and told her boyfriend Brad Pitt about the incident. Mr. Pitt subsequently accosted Weinstein at a gathering, and told him, I’m guessing, to ‘knock it off’. And that was the extent of it. Nothing more from any other male in Hollywood. Ms. Paltrow in fact continued to work with Weinstein afterwards. Is it all about careers, and no courage, out there?
What kind of man would ever allow a monster like Weinstein to put his hands on a woman, let alone someone whom you care about? Mr. Gripes shakes his head; I just don’t get it.
I’ll end this piece with a Gripes fantasy of an alternate ‘take’ on the Weinstein-Brad Pitt confrontation: Brad Pitt goes up to Weinstein at the party, after the incident, and yells, ‘Who do you think you are, you fat creep! Gynneth came home very scared after meeting with you the other day. You think you can just go up to any woman and put your slimy hands on her?’
At that point, in my fantasy, Mr. Pitt unloads his best impersonation of a Sonny Liston right cross-left hook combination, landing thunderous punches into the far-more-than-ample gut and solar plexus of Weinstein. Weinstein collapses on the floor, gasping, pleading with Brad to stop. ‘You’re despicable, Harvey, and if I hear of any other women whom you mess around with, and whom you hurt in any way, I will find you and beat you to a pulp. I promise you.’
Deeply enmeshed in his fantasy now, Mr. Gripes can almost hear the late announcer Howard Cosell intoning, ‘Down goes Weinstein! Down goes Weinstein! 1…2…3…4… The count is going to hit 10, and the bastard is out cold.’
An American Democracy? No More….As an innocent, patriotic kid growing up in the United States, Mr. Gripes just assumed – felt in his gut actually – that American governance had no peer in the world : a robust, prosperous, confident, indomitable democracy, a free people, an example for all nations. I thought it would go on forever. All of us growing up in the 1950’s believed that 1,000%.
And now look: in 2017, our government is 100% dysfunctional. That’s the sad truth.
No longer are elections ‘free’ and ‘open’. Not by a long shot. Instead of welcoming challengers, and looking forward to a fair fight, incumbents have ‘locked up’ the system, by either raising so much money that newcomers don’t have the stomach or the cash to even enter legislative contests, or incumbents are protected by the egregious, pernicious gerrymandering that gives every electoral advantage to those already in power.
Perfect example of ‘no-contest’: Governor Andrew Cuomo, who runs again, next year in New York, has already raised $25 million [!] for that campaign even though, at this point, he has no viable opponent to run against. No one else will be able to raise money of that scale. That kind of money is overkill to the max; if the governor had only $15 in his re-election coffers, he’d still win. This is what incumbents do: raise so much money early, to scare off challengers. And this is democracy? Give me a break. Incumbents are petrified of even token opposition. They’re cowards. And they’re re-elected 90% of the time, over and over again. [The lethargic, uninformed voting public is at fault too; as the cartoon character Pogo says, ‘I have met the enemy, and it is us.’]
It’s taken Mr. Gripes a long, long time to acknowledge a political epiphany – Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, from the South or the West or the East, politicians do not believe in an equitable system; if they can – and they work ‘the angles’ very efficiently – eliminate the opposition in any quasi-legal way, they’ll do it. The sitting politicians mouth beautiful words about the strength of our democratic system, but work to eviscerate it at every turn. These gutless wonders are frightened to death of real democracy, real competition. American democracy is rotting at its core.
Trump, Trump, Trump? Well, He Wins, Wins, Wins…A couple of days ago, it was all about Senate candidate Roy Moore 24 hours of the day…then it was 24/7 on Pocahontas…tomorrow, maybe Jared Kushner, or Ivanka, or the fake drama of the tax bill. And it just goes on and on. For cable news, and to a lesser extent, network news, the beat-down on Trump never relents. Mika Brzezinski, sighing and grimacing all the way to the bank, fretting about Donald the Gremlin; the monotonic Rachel Meadow smirking for a full hour [a couple of words of advice to Ms. Meadow: just chill out and relax for a couple of minutes, and let your fans exhale, OK?]; CNN shuffling its countless panels of commentators on and off camera, whirling them back and forth, as if they were the teacups at the Disneyland ride, or Chris Cuomo dramatizing every tiny news item to death [His hurricane coverage was priceless]. Mr. Gripes watches less and less of the farce that is present-day American broadcast news. It’s simply insufferable.
And guess what? I don’t miss it one bit. Balanced coverage just doesn’t exist anymore. These days it’s a pitched battle between two sides which never agree on anything, and television ends up serving up biased pabulum to myopic viewers who already have made up their minds, and do not listen to any arguments to the contrary.
Television, in its usual cowardly fashion, has fundamentally given up trying to bridge the chasm between the two factions; Mr. Gripes thinks television news has probably always hyped the drama inherent in news events, but now, the hype has a bias attached to it to retain loyalty among viewers.
What is driving the anti-Trump brigades [of which there are millions and millions] especially crazy is that despite the constant Trump bashing, as well-deserved as it is most of the time, Trump is winning virtually all the fights. Congressional seats? The Republicans have netted four additional seats since January 20 over the Democrats; Obama’s health plan is being eviscerated bit by bit, and will disappear in a couple of years; a tax bill which will add $1.5 trillion to our debt, is a foregone winner now, and Trump’s support in electoral districts he won in 2016 has not diminished at all [it turns out the lower Trump poll numbers simply reflect higher Democratic support in urban blue states, the vast majority of which are solidly Democratic to begin with.] It looks like Trump will begin his next Presidential run with his supporters firmly in his back pocket.
What’s ahead? The Big One…Mr. Gripes is 100% certain Donald Trump is hiding something very damaging to him vis-à-vis his relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia. How do I know? I see with my own eyes: Trump’s actions and words are the giveaway: in dealing with everyone else, Trump is a bully, a sadist, a blowhard, a liar [Wow, what a liar], a bombast, an ignoramus, an egotist, and very likely a crook. With Putin, though, Donald Trump acts like the contented, fat house cat, purring away on his master Vladimir’s lap. Trump is guilty of something very, very serious. I have a feeling the answer lies in those undisclosed tax returns of his, which will be revealed someday. When that occurs, Trump could very well finally meet his Waterloo.
Jim Israel
Mr. Gripes
November 29, 2017
Sweet Revenge…. It was seven or eight years ago, and a fair distance from home, that Mr. Gripes experienced the moment when a victory by a persona like Donald Trump became inevitable.
Reminiscing a bit, in those days I had a lot of free time, so I’d travel down South or into the Midwest to tour minor league baseball parks: for six or seven days, I’d drive from one city to another – usually small obscure towns – to attend one game per day, typically at night. A lot of driving ensued: I opted to travel on roads no longer used much, essentially devoid of automobiles, as newer, brawnier federal highways had superseded the older, crumbling thoroughfares.
I was on one of these sojourns, probably in 2010 or 2011, motoring one early evening from South Carolina to Augusta. It was a typically beautiful Carolina summer night, with a full moon dramatically looming through my windshield, amidst gorgeous pines lining the road. Suddenly, I noticed through a thicket of brush and tall grass, a completely empty building – a factory, for sure – on the side of the highway. Nothing stirred, just that imposing structure – and an enormous deserted parking lot adjoining the plant. It was deathly quiet -- I parked and took it all in for several minutes.
It was a very somber, sad sight: the formerly frenetic business of the factory – it had been a ‘textile’ manufacturing plant – must have formerly employed hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals. Now? Nothing but a relic. It resembled a tomb.
Fifteen miles later, another empty factory, vines growing up its walls. I counted about ten or so factories along that road, within 50 miles, all idle.
And, then, in an instant, I was struck, as if I were slapped across my face, by an epiphany: these low-to- middle-income workers, undoubtedly loyal employees for years, after the decision was made to move the plants overseas, were discarded and cast aside as if they were used Kleenex. Bill Clinton with his misconceived NAFTA mess, the large corporations backing the free-trade pacts, and the uncaring political/plutocratic classes, didn’t give one sh_t about these people. Once their employers closed the plants, the laid-off workers were stranded and abandoned, as if they were road-kill. They were betrayed.
Yes, at that moment, I just felt in my gut – I knew! –someday these furious workers, and others in similar circumstances all over the country, eviscerated by very powerful, implacable forces aligned against them, would one day exact a harsh punishment on the perpetrators. It took a long time, and I had no idea in what form it would take, but Donald Trump’s victory last week surely must have been sweet, sweet revenge to those forgotten workers.
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Now allow me to relate to you, my readers, some of my post-election impressions:
Mr. Gripes understands perfectly well you’re as fatigued as I am regarding the length, idiocy and vituperation of this past Presidential campaign, but there’s no way in hell it’s going to change: the networks, i.e., CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, every one of them, benefit financially so extravagantly from an elongated campaign cycle, and because the networks are the main disseminators, by far, of political news to citizens, they will never advocate anything shorter. The manner in which our political campaigns play out is a disgrace to the American democratic process, but we’re stuck with it for a long, long time.
Donald Trump, early in the cycle, complained after a 2-1/2 hour Republican debate that CNN should have shared in the advertising profits coming out of that network telecast. He was absolutely right: CNN broadcast that ridiculously long debate, for one reason: to boost its advertising dollars, knowing that Donald Trump was a ratings bonanza. Overall, CNN, incredibly, made an additional $100 million during the 2016 election cycle, compared to a non-Presidential cycle. It would serve a network like CNN no fiduciary purpose to shorten campaigns, even though it would serve the national interest to in fact truncate the whole process; but it just isn’t going to happen. As always in this country, the harsh realities of the markets rule.
Now to the actual campaign:
The most trenchant analysis post-election that Mr. Gripes ran across? ‘Hillary Clinton forgot that 70% of this country is still white.’ What the hell were Ms. Clinton and her acolytes thinking? Why did the Clinton campaign spend so much time beseeching voting blocs she already had locked up? For example, going around and speaking to women’s groups about shattering the ‘glass ceiling’ must have seemed like gorgeous music to her female supporters, but let’s face it, not one of those affluent, educated, upper-class ladies was ever going to vote for Donald Trump. Hillary was invariably treated as if the coronation were only days away. Singing sisterhood encomiums to adoring female audiences turned out to be a gigantic waste of time. She should have been in Wisconsin or Michigan, communicating with disappointed and angry residents. Sure, everything looked swell for her right up until Election Day: then we were treated to a rendition of the fairy tale, ‘The Emperor – in this case, The Empress – Wears No Clothes.’
The media – and I include every one of the most prominent newspapers and networks [except Fox] – were victims of wishful thinking. Their fervent hope was that Ms. Clinton would win, and their advocacy coverage, often without a shred of impartiality, led them to presume some notions that turned out not at all to be true: what about, for instance, the huge ‘get-out-the-vote’ advantage that Ms. Clinton would unleash on Election Day? That didn’t happen. The huge advantage of Hillary’s advertising ad ‘spend’ over Trump’s? All those dollars didn’t help in the end. [Mr. Gripes’ take on political ads? Viewers either ignore them or tune them out very, very quickly.]
A tsunami of Hispanic voters for Ms. Clinton would guarantee victories in some of the swing states? Again, an overstatement: in Florida, 30% of Hispanics supported Trump, giving him the state. I suspect the media was not out in the field actually talking to prospective voters, but basically chatting with only Democratic operatives, who knew the press wished for a Clinton win, and so suckered them with overly optimistic projections that were treated as the Gospel truth.
And let’s not forget the damage that Bill Clinton inflicted: the tape revealing Mr. Trump bragging about his predations on women hurt him certainly, but the Republican ploy to bring back before the 2nd debate all the women that Mr. Clinton had preyed upon was a brilliant counter-punch to the gut: after all, Hillary, to save her husband’s and her own political careers, had savaged these same women back in 1992. A lot of undecided women leaning to Trump but upset with the tape revelations and consequently more open-minded about Hillary, might have reasoned, ‘Yeah, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are pigs, but is Hillary really that much better?; she was her husband’s enabler. It’s a wash. I’m voting for Trump.’
The campaign was just one misstep after another after another….what a colossal screw-up.
And, finally just before I ride off to a Thanksgiving feast in northern New Jersey, a few words on what a Trump presidency might look like: first of all, I’m not going to prejudge Mr. Trump; let’s see what he’s got to offer. A couple of things are in his favor: he’s a pragmatist, not a prisoner of ideology; I think he’s an adaptive person. Second, he’s appears not to be another double-talking, dissembling, devious, pusillanimous politician the likes of which we all are sick of. He’s a builder, so he revels in ‘big’ works; that spirit of audacity is something this country needs desperately in its leaders. So, we’ll just have to see what transpires.
Now to some of Mr. Gripes’ doubts and fears: Mr. Trump apparently is going to proceed with a ‘trickle-down’ stimulus to the economy – you know the drill: huge tax reductions will lead to increased business profits, which will lead to increased tax revenues, and, voila, lower deficits. It doesn’t work: Reagan tried it, and deficits soared. George Bush 2nd tried it, it failed then, too, and we were saddled with huge deficits again. And, Trump is going to try for a third time? Moronic.
Mr. Gripes prays that Donald Trump does not take the muscular interventionist approach to international disputes. Again, we’ve tried this, in the Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and it’s been a complete failure: not only has America lost prestige and power across the world, but, maybe worse, its own citizens have lost faith in the American system as well. All of us have been beaten up by asinine and wrong-headed Presidential presumptions about the world. President Trump, please show some forbearance, judiciousness and caution before you meddle and bomb.
Jim Israel, aka ‘Mr. Gripes’
November 24, 2016
