Sexual Assault

Kavanaugh Confirmation Begs the Question – Does Truth Matter?

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“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

-George Orwell

 

 

Does the truth matter?

 

It seems to be one of the central questions of our age.

 

We just held a Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

 

And despite multiple women making credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him…

 

Despite an FBI investigation so grossly limited in scope that investigators couldn’t even interview either the accusers or the accused…

 

Despite the withdrawal of support from some of the most conservative organizations including the National Council of Churches representing more than 100,000 congregations, the magazine of the Jesuit religious order, and even former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens…

 

Despite all that, the Republican majority gave their wholehearted approval.

 

 

Only Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski bucked her party and voted against him – while Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote for him.

 

 

The result was a forgone conclusion – a Republican majority who blatantly ignored any evidence and made a decision based purely on party politics.

 

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified in front of these people only a week earlier about a drunk Kavanaugh’s attempted rape when they were both in school.

 

She put her life, her security and her family’s happiness on the line to come forward. She still can’t return to her home after multiple death threats.

 

Yet those in power chose to ignore her.

 

They looked at the facts presented to them and chose to interpret them in a way that allowed them to do what they wanted to do in the first place.

 

Many said that they believed Ford was accosted but not by Kavanaugh.

 

Yet they refused to allow the kind of investigation that might have gotten at the truth.

 

These are not the actions of lawmakers interested in what happened all those years ago between Kavanaugh and Ford – or between Kavanaugh and multiple other women who they didn’t even give a hearing.

 

These are not the actions of lawmakers concerned about picking the best person for the job.

 

Instead, they are the actions of partisans who put power over objective reality.

 

They’d rather craft a story that fits their desires than the other way around.

 

It is craven, cowardly and disrespectful to their office and their charge.

 

This article began with a quote from George Orwell, author of 1984. Let me offer another:

 

“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become tolerant or intellectually stable.”

 

That is what happened here. A ruling class resorting to force and fraud to broaden its power.

 

 

Republicans already have control of two branches of government. Now they have stolen a third – a power grab that will echo down the halls of history for decades to come.

 

 

This is a senate majority representing fewer people than the so-called minority, lead by a President who lost the popular vote.

 

It is not democracy or a just republic. It is a coup.

 

 

As Orwell warns, when we ignore an inconvenient reality, we are on the road to totalitarianism.

 

 

It didn’t matter to those senators whether Kavanaugh was a blackout drunk, whether he still drinks to excess, whether he engaged in sexual harassment or attempted rape.

 

Heck. He could have attacked Ford on the floor of the Senate, itself, on live TV.

 

None of it would have mattered.

 

He was simply a means to an end – the increased power of the Republican Party and the donor class it represents.

 

GOP senators (and even Kavanaugh, himself) complained about dark money influencing the nomination process, yet the overwhelming majority of that money came from conservative backers!

 

They raved and foamed at Democrats for stalling the nomination yet refused to take responsibility for sabotaging Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland.

 

Instead they offered bad faith distinctions between what you can do during an election year vs. a presidential election year – as if it made any difference.

 

It is not just the spirit of the Constitution that lay in tatters on the Senate floor – but the fabric of reality, itself.

 

Thankfully, voters have an opportunity to have their voices heard in a few weeks.

 

We can take to the polls and let these people know how we feel about it.

 

Honestly, this may be our last chance.

 

I am absolutely devastated by these events.

 

I find myself at the ripe old age of 44 chiding myself for being naïve.

 

I watched the hearing as if it were a TV show or a Frank Capra movie. At the last minute, goodness will prevail.

 

That didn’t happen.

 

I, too, was blind to reality.

 

Well, the blinders are off.

 

Like so many of you, I am in mourning for a country that never really existed.

 

But the wake is in November.

 

Let’s hope it will be the start of a rebirth.

 

Click here to find ways to get involved in the November 6 midterm election.

 

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

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Brett Kavanaugh is the Link Between Rape and Abortion

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I think I will always associate Brett Kavanaugh with the taste of vomit in the back of my throat.

 

I couldn’t watch his sham of a confirmation hearing without my gag reflex going into overdrive.

 

Here was one of the most privileged of people on the planet alternatively weeping and raging that he was being denied his due.

 

Here was a man bemoaning that no matter what happened, his reputation forever would be ruined, but who likewise refused to call for an investigation to exonerate himself.

 

At least three separate women have accused him of sexual assault, yet Congressional Republicans are still planning to ram through his nomination to the Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment where he will almost certainly be the tie breaking vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

 

How fitting.

 

What perfect symmetry.

 

You couldn’t have planned it any more poetically.

 

A man accused of multiple attempted rapes who is doing everything in his power to make abortion illegal.

 

An overgrown frat boy crying into his beer that we can’t take away his God given right to take away women’s rights.

 

A confederacy of almost exclusively male lawmakers ready to discount women’s reports of violence so that they can limit women’s freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.

 

If there is one good thing to come from this farce, it is the spotlight it has shown on the relationship between rape and the movement to recriminalize abortion.

 

These two things are essentially intertwined.

 

On the one hand, we have sexual intercourse carried out under threat of violence, sex without consent or in direct violation of consent – a crime invariably perpetrated by men on women.

 

On the other hand, we have the removal of female consent from the birthing process.

 

They are almost the same thing, or at least two sides of the same coin.

 

In both cases, we’re removing or ignoring female permission, agreement, approval, agency. We’re saying it doesn’t matter what the woman wants. It only matters what men or a patriarchal society wants.

 

And the justification is an ancient text – the New Testament – that doesn’t mention abortion once. And the Old Testament actually gives instructions on how to conduct an abortion (Numbers 5:11-31).

 

Not that it really should matter. The United States is not a theocracy.

 

But it IS a patriarchy.

 

That’s what this is – an attempt by the most insecure, power hungry men to control women.

 

It is about keeping and strengthening a caste system where men are allowed to be fully realized people and women are allowed only secondary status.

 

It is about dehumanization clothed in piety and false morality.

 

All those people crying for the lost lives of a cluster of cells in female uteruses care not a wit about the thousands of women who will die from unsafe abortions once safe procedures become unlawful.

 

We’ve been here before. Abortion was illegal in the US from the early 1800s until 1973, and we know what will happen. There is actual history on this – back alley procedures conducted by quacks using sharp implements to pierce the womb – and there is no reason to think it won’t repeat itself.

 

Changing the law won’t stop abortions. It will just make them unsafe for everyone except rich women who can afford doctors willing to take a chance on going to jail for a big payday.

 

If these people really wanted to stop abortions, they’d support handing out free contraception. They’d turn every orphanage into a palace. They’d each adopt as many children as they could. They’d make neonatal care free, expand services to help women raise children, increase maternity leave, pay for free childcare, expand education funding.

 

But they don’t do any of that because despite their crocodile tears, their objection has nothing to do with unborn children.

 

It has to do with mature women making decisions for themselves. It has to do with conceptualizing them as people equal to men and with minds capable of consent.

 

It’s about allowing women the right to choose – choose whom to have sex with and what exactly the consequences of that sex will or will not be.

 

I am so thankful that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her testimony. What bravery! What grace under pressure!

 

To be able to share with an entire nation her personal trauma at the hands of Kavanaugh. Such courage boggles the mind almost as much as those who refuse to accept her story as genuine.

 

They say that this is political. That it’s a hit job. Yet they pound their fists onto their ears to drown out Kavanaugh’s words in self-defense where he makes it entirely clear how partisan he is and will be once he takes the bench:

 

“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”

 

These are not the words of a fair arbitrator. They are the ravings of someone with an axe to grind.

 

But they do well to point out the elephant in the room – Donald Trump.

 

The man who nominated Kavanaugh has had at least 19 women accuse him of sexual assault. He even admitted to it on video in the infamous Access Hollywood tape.

 

Yet a minority of Americans elected him President through a legislative loophole kept open by centuries of neglect, apathy and moneyed interest.

 

I don’t know how this all will end. The FBI will conduct a limited investigation this week – probably stymied as much as possible by the Trump administration.

 

But the road that lead us here is achingly clear.

 

This is a tantrum of the patriarchy.

 

It is the weakest, most twisted men and their Stockholm syndrome suffering accomplices.

 

It is not about defining when life begins.

 

It’s about defining who gets to count as fully human – who gets the freedom to choose.

 

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

WANT A SIGNED COPY?

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Men Are Responsible For Stopping Sexual Assault. Not Women. MEN.

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Enough bullshit.

Nearly 99% of sex offenders are men.

So stop blaming women for sexual assault.

It’s not the clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the words they say, or how much skin they’re showing that cause men to sexually assault them.

It’s a choice made by men.

Males. Husbands. Sons. Boyfriends. Brothers. Nephews. Uncles. Co-workers. Coaches. Bosses. Total strangers with raging boners.

That’s the key factor – a penis.

So stop blaming the victim for being victimized. And stop letting men off the hook with every stupid ass excuse under the sun.

It’s time for men like me to take responsibility.

The mere possession of male genitalia does not make it impossible to resist sexual urges. Nor does enculturation as a male in a patriarchal society determine our decisions – even if it does influence them.

Sure. We live in a world of toxic masculinity. The “Boys will be boys” sentiment dominates the social landscape. But that’s not what actually does the raping and harassment.

It’s us. Individual men.

We’re responsible for our own actions.

And if seeing that in print makes you want to offer a kneejerk reaction against it, stop and take a breath.

Do you really want to argue that men aren’t responsible for themselves? Are we, as men, really such a weak, passive gender that we don’t qualify as agents in our own lives?

I’d like to propose that we’re better than that lame justification. Men are not one slim step above animals. We are thinking, feeling human beings who – when presented with an opportunity to engage in harassment or violence – have a choice in the matter.

Free will does not end with an erection.

There are lots of things we can do with it. Rape is just one of them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

You want to know the REAL reason so many men choose sexual violence?

Because we can.

Most sex offenders are white men – almost 6 in 10.

Most were not sexually or physically abused, themselves, as children.

They’re just guys taking advantage of a power trip that’s often consequence free.

In short, society lets us get away with it.

When men know that no one’s going to hold them accountable, some act accordingly.

The presence of alcohol and violent pornography increase the likelihood of sexual violence, but lack of repercussions is the number one consideration.

We figure victims won’t speak out, and if they do, they won’t be believed. The deck is stacked against the survivors of sexual violence and in favor of the perpetrators.

You don’t need a study by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center to prove that – but it’s there.

It just goes to show how much of a rational, reasoned action sexual violence is.

It’s not something done by an uncontrollable animal impulse. It’s the result of a cost-benefit analysis.

That’s why all these #MeToo stories are so powerful.

Women all over social media are coming forward and admitting that sexual violence has touched their lives. And we see most every woman in our lives is affected. For the first time, the scope of the problem is becoming visible.

The ground is shaking under the patriarchy. And as a man I am so fucking relieved.

It is absolutely disgusting to me that so many of my gender don’t give a shit about consent.

They act as if women’s bodies are theirs to do with as they want. Pinch them, grab them, grope them, discuss them as mere objects of our personal pleasure. It’s just a man’s right.

Fuck you, Dude.

Seriously.

I’m not a perfect person. I’ve certainly engaged in inappropriate behavior – especially as an adolescent – but I’ve always respected consent.

And if there’s any time when I’ve crossed a line, call me out on it. Hold me responsible. Treat me like a real person – not some overgrown child, an ape that can’t help but fling his own feces.

Yet we too often stop there. We dare women to name us in a venue where we have all the advantages. That needs to stop.

Stopping sexual assault can’t just be the responsibility of women anymore. In fact, it’s not their responsibility at all.

It’s ours. It’s men’s.

Moving forward, guys like me have to step out of the shadows and take our place at the forefront of this fight.

We caused this mess. It’s up to us to clean it up.

This means calling out sexism. No more yucking it up with the guys uncomfortably in public and then condemning it in private.

This means demanding equal treatment for women. Equal pay, childcare, reproductive healthcare. Easy access to contraception, mammograms, gynecologists, neo-natal care.

This means teaching our sons and daughters – but especially our sons – what consent is, why it’s important, and how to tell if you’ve got it.

And it means acknowledging that women are just as much sexual beings as men. No more double standards, no more defining women as a reflection of men and male desire.

It won’t happen overnight.

It will require commitment and strength.

But we can do it.

Why?

Because we’re men.

And if we try, we can be just as strong, just as responsible, just as human, as women.

Betsy DeVos Wants Fewer Rights for Rape Survivors & More for Alleged Attackers

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As a public school teacher, you see a lot of ugly things.

You see children with bruises under their sleeves. Kids who cringe when your voice gets too loud. Young people traumatized by sexual violence.

Even in middle school.

So when Betsy DeVos decided to take up for alleged rapists while making it harder for survivors of sexual assault to come forward, I took it kind of personally.

Last week, the Secretary of Education for the United States of America blithely announced her plan to no longer require colleges and universities that receive federal funds from prosecuting on-campus sexual assault with the same severity.

Yes. Seriously.

“The prior administration weaponized the Office for Civil Rights to work against schools and against students,” she said at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.

“The notion that a school must diminish due process rights to better serve ‘victims’ only creates more victims… If everything is harassment, then nothing is.”

In other words, the billionaire heiress in charge of protecting students’ civil rights thinks there is a power imbalance between rapist and victim. And she’s right. Except that she thinks the alleged rapist is on the losing end of that imbalance.

This may be the most preposterous thing she has ever said. And she’s infamous for saying preposterous things.

In matters of sexual assault, all the power lies with the accuser!?

Has Ms.DeVos ever met a survivor of sexual assault?

I have. I’m sorry to say that I’ve met some while working in our public schools.

To put it bluntly – they were my students.

Little children afraid to go home. Kids with backpacks and cartoon animals on their shirts. Barely teens who kept to themselves, arms locked across their chests. Youngsters who just wanted to stay in class as long as I was staying, who would draw and hum and soak up the least bit of human kindness.

Some of them eventually would confide in me, their teacher. Not that I asked. I would have preferred letting the guidance counselor handle it. I really wasn’t trained for it. But there’s only one thing to do when someone wants to tell you their story – you listen.

And that’s exactly what DeVos is telling us NOT to do.

Don’t listen to accusations of sexual assault unless there is a preponderance of evidence. Start from a position of skepticism and unbelief even so far as making accusers confront their attackers.

After all, it’s the only way to protect from false allegations. As if that were at all common.

Only someone devoid of empathy or intelligence could say such a thing with a straight face – much less present it as a statement of public policy.

Yet DeVos isn’t the only high ranking member of the Education Department voicing it.

Two months ago, Candace Jackson, the official responsible for enforcing campus sexual assault laws for DeVos’ department, told reporters that “90 percent” of sexual assault accusations “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’”

Jackson, who heads the Department’s Office of Civil Rights, apologized for the statement after public backlash.

But now it’s federal policy!

Like much else from the Trump administration, it flies in the face of the facts.

False accusations do happen, but they are much less frequent than sexual violence. Only between two and ten percent of rape allegations are untrue, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Moreover, the same report found that 63 percent of sexual assaults are never even reported to police. Survivors of this heinous crime rarely come forward because of shame, fear and embarrassment.

That’s something I saw first-hand from my students.

They weren’t bragging about an experience they’d lived through. They wanted more than anything to forget it, to ignore what had happened, to get on with their lives. But they just couldn’t. They felt so betrayed, so vulnerable, so guilty, so frightened.

 
DeVos’ new policy will do nothing to change that. If anything, it will only embolden would-be attackers to attempt more assault – a crime that already affects nearly a quarter of college women.

According to a National Institute of Justice report, 20 percent of young women will become the victim of a “completed or attempted sexual assault” while in college. And more than 6 percent of men will also be assaulted.

We shouldn’t be making it harder for people who have been brutalized to seek justice. The accused should have due process, but that’s what an investigation is. In the rare instance of false allegations, those unduly impugned should be exonerated.

Despite what she says, DeVos’ recent actions have nothing to do with that. Before passing down her decision, she met with “Men’s Rights” groups like the National Coalition for Men – organizations that I can honestly say, as a red blooded American male, certainly don’t speak for me.

This is politics, not any concern for justice. It’s no accident that DeVos serves at the pleasure of a President who was caught on a hot microphone bragging about engaging in sexual assault. It’s no accident that his base includes white supremacists. It’s no accident that his party continually stomps on women’s rights.

If we really wanted to help survivors of sexual assault, we’d take steps to make sure the crime they lived through never happens again. At very least, we could take steps to make it more rare.

Imagine if instead of abstinence only sexual education classes, our children were taught actual facts about human sexuality. Imagine if every child learned the meaning and necessity of consent. No means no. Period.

That could have a real impact on these crimes. Over time, we could create a culture of respect and understanding. That certainly seems a worthier goal for a Secretary of Education than removing support for victims of sexual assault.

As to the handful of students who turned to me for help, I really can’t tell you what happened to them afterwards. In most cases, I don’t know myself.

In each instance, I turned to the authorities to ensure my students received the help they needed.

I hope they got it.

Unlike Ms. DeVos, I put them first.