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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
AKA Smith
Published Letters: 6540 Editor's Choice: 93
Thank you for following my letters. I follow yours as well.
I am not upset that you raise the issues that you have regarding the rapist I knew. The incident I describe happened about twenty-five years ago. You are perfectly correct in your assessment of what I should have done.
I don't think people did necessarily cut off people who committed such acts many years ago. Instead, what I think was more common is that people, like the rapist I mentioned, were more likely to hide their behaviors. I think the reason we were all, including his wife, speechless is because he had so blatantly declared himself a rapist. He seemed not to mind that he had acted in an evil manner and I think he enjoyed shocking us. I might add that I believe he also enjoyed shocking me in particular. It was an unspoken thing that he and I did not like he other. You see, I was the lone feminist in the group.
Also, I did try to get his wife to leave him, both before and after that incident. She simply did not have the self-esteem to go. That couple, in and of themselves, are at least a half a dozen short stories that I could write if I were so inclined.
He was my first encounter with a sociopath whom I recognized as being one. I had just started reading about sociopathy at the time. What I did not immediately recognize was the less obvious sociopath to whom I was married.
Here is a clue: When people defend evil people, when they willing hang out with evil people, when they minimize or rationalise the acts of evil people, look out!
Numbed as I was by this man's revelation, I did try to cancel the dinner. I took my husband aside and said that I wanted to go home. He refused. He had the car keys and we lived one hour out in the country in the middle of nowhere. During dinner the man spent a great deal of time talking about "a woman's place."
I don't want to rehash the Duke case with you. I don't happen to think that mixing the current case with any other case serves any viable purpose. Every case is different.
However, I am curious about something. You said: "Typically you aren't stripping at the local titty bar the next night after being raped." I am a little puzzled as to why you think that has relevance. Stripping was her job and she went back to doing her job. If she had gone back to working at the local Burger King, would you have the same response?
Do you have something against strippers?
You said: "So, the owner of the house is rich, so the parents are rich, so the District Attorney is looking as is there is one justice for the rich and another for the poor. What does that say about society when we can't protect the most vulnerable and weak? Not much!"
To understand the evil of conferred status in our society (in any society) is to understand the extended meaning of The Partiarchy. The Patriarchy, in its larger sense, is not merely about men's power over women. It is also about white power over black, the power of wealth over poverty, the power of brute force over the weak, corporate power over workers, government power over the underclass, the power the military has over new recruits, all uses of power everywhere.
Implicit in all power is violence. Power cannot exist without the underlying threat of violence. Rape is merely a raw and obvious use of violence. So unsubtle.
It is the more encompassing use of The Patriarchy that we will see employed if we go to war with Iran. Does anyone imagine that if we cannot successfully contain the violence in Iraq that we will fight Iran with an all volunteer military? They are stretched to the limit now. The military draft is part of The Patriarchy. When young men (or women) are militarily enslaved to provide the sacrifice of their lives for the power and enrichment of others -- that's The Patriarchy at work.
No, Ben Dover, they are people.
When you can dehumanize a person -- as you just did -- it shows one of two things. Either dehumanizing people is something you do easily, or these are people you dislike enough to see them as less than human in the first place.
I guess I was trying to address the enlighted and you took the bait instead.
Tell you what, Minnow, I will toss you back. You would be no sizzle in my frying pan.
Come back and we will discuss The Patriarchy when you have grown bigger and maybe taken a women's studies course or two so that you have some vague idea of that I am talking about.
You ain't the enlightened. You ain't the enlighted either.
Ron Paul is an old geezer who has attracted a lot of young whippersnappers. He is no doubt financially secure. Were he to be elected and succeed in dismantling Social Security, what are the young whippersnappers going to do about their suddenly impoverished parents/grandparents?
I don't see the younger generation as especially self-sacrificial. When their grannies don't have Medicare/Medicaid helping pay for their care, I doubt the young whippersnappers will bring granny home and nurse her themselves. Maybe they will have her made into Solent Green and enjoy her for dinner.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
