The People vs. Imperfect Men

By Fe Bongolan

Were you fully erect?”
A reporter’s question from Rep. Anthony Weiner’s press conference, June 6, 2011

On the first day of the trial in New York’s Criminal Court of former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape of a hotel maid, back in Washington we had another trial of sorts. Only this time, there was no single judge or a jury and no defense for the accused. In a press conference called by his office, Congressman Anthony Weiner, one of New York’s outspoken progressives, admitted to and apologized for lying about his lewd overtures to young women, using Twitter to transmit pictures of his package in boxer shorts.

I do not equate Congressman Weiner’s indiscretion to the serious accusations made against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but our social conscience is so divided over what is truly moral that it’s close to psychosis. I wonder whether or not an American jury is capable of making a qualified decision for or against Mr. Strauss-Kahn based on the merits of the case.

America is a strange place these days.  We seem to eagerly enjoy not only judging but completely condemning our politicians’ sexual transgressions. Yet for as long as America’s history, this has not always been the case. Thomas Jefferson fathered a number of mixed-race children out of wedlock with his slave Sally Hemmings. Dwight Eisehower had a British girlfriend during the war. General Douglas MacArthur kept his Filipino mistress in good stead at the Senator Hotel in D.C. until his own mother told the woman to go packing. Jack Kennedy slept with Marilyn Monroe and Judith Exner, who was secretary and mistress to a mob boss. J. Edgar Hoover kept a file on Martin Luther King Jr.’s sexual indiscretions, but never revealed them. It was rumored a certain modern-day President’s father, also a President, had kept a mistress. Everyone, it seems, was too busy to take notice, and if I can recall, no one talked about it in the press.

Since Gary Hart — the first Congressman in recent memory who took the fall for sexual indiscretion in the late 1980s — there has a been a score of notable sex scandals bringing down men in high office, the highest in office being president Bill Clinton. Hart’s downfall coincided with the rise of the Religious Right as a political power in the US. This rise had its roots in what astrology calls the rise of conservatism, two years after Uranus and Pluto completed their wide-sphere conjunction and shortly after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. The trend has continued since that time, with about the same cultural impact and intensity as the Sixties. In fact, it is the anti-Sixties movement, which in this age of instant communication and face time allows these scandals frequent visibility to the point of being invasive.

Our political, social and moral discourse has devolved from that of Deists informed by the philosophy of the Enlightenment to mean girls in high school. The separation between church and state is blurred. Now, regardless of gender preference and marital status, our elected representatives are walking a catwalk over an acid bath when it comes to public scrutiny over their personal lives. This scrutiny has became apocryphal when it comes to the results. Look at what happened when Bill Clinton got impeached for defending himself for lying about sex. The aftermath — eight years of neoconservative rule by a war and money-hungry cabal headed by Dick Cheney — is far worse than a simple sexual indiscretion.

Sexual scrutiny of politicians — “fair game” as they say in the Beltway — is a political retribution strategy with roots in America’s culture war between conservatives and liberals. That war has long ceased being about morality and has everything to do with fighting for and keeping power. It puts men and women in a painful political power vise: we are now geared to expect nothing less than moral perfection in our male leaders, who we still regard as father figures. Their human foibles, particularly lies about sex, become a form of political betrayal so deep to us that we lose sight of the stakes. It is now so morally skewed in this country that we hold politicians who lie about sex more accountable for those actions than for voting for the continued desecration of the social safety net, the neglect of the young and the elderly, the pollution of our planet and the torture and murder of other human beings.

Unless we stop them, politicians will continue to work schadenfreude — pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others — to their advantage against their rivals. The press earns income by inflaming our immediate and unconsidered opinion to inform public judgment about the disgrace. The pandering to the righteous earns dollars and political points, which makes it all too easy to allow this money-making wheel to crush Rep. Weiner and speed his fall from grace. That would be a shame. What’s even more shameful is that there are fellow party members ready to shun Weiner for this no-sex sexual escapade, who may even be guilty themselves but not found out. Yet.

In Weiner’s case, no one had contact. It was consensual. It was titillation.  And it’s going to victimize all of us because we would rather accept the rules of a manufactured morality than to allow civil discussion, reason and personal forgiveness between the actual parties involved to work our way through this. What happens between two consenting adults is still none of our fucking business. What happens because we allow these moral judgments to take precedence over common sense and the issues at hand is. It’s not just about the People vs. the Imperfect Men, men who dwell in the houses of power. It’s about us. We may be thrilled by a politician’s charisma and their leadership, but they are not  gods or kings, just men. It’s about us confronting our own shame and fear over admitting our own human failings. It’s about us drawing some kind of perverse feel-good over someone else’s obvious pain. Anthony Weiner has his own lesson to learn from this, and we do too, by allowing other people, particularly our leaders, room to be human themselves.

25 thoughts on “The People vs. Imperfect Men”

  1. “that is, i’m not saying weiner’s wife’s pain is not real. clearly she feels humiliated. i’m just curious about the potential of getting to a point where sexual expression via internet by a partner with another consenting adult need not spell humiliation for a spouse. that is to say, if we can get to a point culturally where we recognize a person’s sexual attractions and connections are not necessarily limited to one person and are not inherently unhealthy or a betrayal, then perhaps this kind of incident loses its power to cause pain — and therefore loses its power in the public sphere to manipulate.”

    Perfectly said, Amanda.

  2. firegirl:

    Thanks for your input. Yes, we agree and he will agree that what he did was stupid. But what human being doesn’t do something stupid? No one was killed, or hurt except his wife and family and for that he has to make amends. Let that be between them.

    Yes, politicians should be held to higher standards, but I think their accountability has to deal with policy and consciousness towards constituents and country and not his penis. If nothing else, maybe we should not look at his behavior as a political issue but a psychological one. After seven terms, this man needed to blow some steam and thoughtlessly considered the internet a safe place to do it. He was wrong.

    The rule about following the expectation of moral perfection all the way up the social food chain for politicians needs to be examined. What are we projecting onto our leaders that which we cannot exemplify ourselves?

    Even the most moral politician has blood on his or her hands. What punishment suits what crime? Why do we punish what is so obviously human yet take for granted what is so obviously monstrous?

  3. It might be molehills and not mountains, but the fact is, this guy knows how the system works, and he chose to be a part of it. It may not be right that he’s been villified in the media for something so minor, but as an elected official, he knows he’s been entrusted to represent the people’s interests and is being held to a higher standard.

    And he knows his competitors and detractors will look for any opportunity to deposition him now and in the future.

    Whether thats right or wrong, he knew what the job expectations were when he accepted it. And it was probably in part, that entrustment and committment to uphold a higher standard that drew him to politics. And the opportunity to influence.

    If he really must send off shots of his naked chest with half his face in the picture and photos of he and his wife in the background, then he’s got to know what’s coming to him if someone finds out. He has hard choices to make, just like we all do.

    So the really big news is not that he’s maybe having sex outside his marriage, its that there’s really someone that stupid in public office. And we actually voted for that person.

    Our bad.

  4. Fe – how true is that!! xo
    No worries, I’m on the bandwagon to spread ethical polyamory and compersion.

  5. Loving this discussion!

    I’d like to clarify that I’m a person who does not have a TV, does not tweet or use FB, and I limit my news intake very strictly to just mainly text articles because I’m too psychically porous (moon exactly conj. Neptune in Libra) to be fully engulfed/engaged in the circus that is the American media, so I had not paid much attention to this drama/opera. I also would like to clarify that I used the generalized term “Mrs. Weiner” in my first reply because I did not even know her proper name, which is Huma Abedin – not that it really matters for this discussion but I wanted to acknowledge her as a person in her own right, and who, as Fe points out is in the absolute best of company (Hilary) as this unravels and shakes loose.

    – Amanda, I totally agree and look forward to the day when we all are able to feel really comfortable in our own skins about who we are which includes our sexuality. In addition to looking forward to the world you describe, I also look forward to being able to walk in that world and not feel weird or strange because I happen to be a person who believes that monogamy is right for me… and yes, in the course of this discussion I see how I’ve projected my own needs and values onto the players in this movie. Hearing all the differing points of view here in this discussion helps me remember that just as we all look different on the outside we are also remarkably similar when you get right down to it (gender differences aside) on the inside. ( a nod to Eris67 for embracing the duality thing) We also each are wired differently -emotionally and psychically , though probably there is an underlying similarity there as well.

    – to Fe, Len, Mystes, and so many others… I agree with the notion that this is just a much ado about nothing mainly whipped up by a frenzied media and a deeply repressed and polarized society probably to distract us from much more important issues. Sadly, our American culture is still in it’s adolescence in so many ways so this sort of turbulence isn’t really a surprise given how immature we are as a collective.

    -to Stellium… I too have a stellium, but in Scorpio. I loved your humanity and desire to embrace the raw emotions and shield the vulnerable in a shark-infested tank while the blood runs free. We could all use a friend like you in a crunch!
    I think that what drives a lot of this mayhem is the deeply rooted triune between sex, power and secrecy. Scorpio has a lot to say about these energies to each of us. We each have to wrestle with where we want to cast that circle and say what is within and what is without… defining the boundaries is what we do as a collective and also as individuals. I got from this last eclipse that we are in a deep phase of looking at where we have drawn these lines in the past and are collectively asking ourselves, is that what we want to continue going forward.
    Sex, power and secrecy will probably be bound together for a good time to come, but I look forward to the world that Amanda paints (pun intended) for us where the cords that wrap these three together are lovingly untied and we can all be comfortable in our Power (with a capital P) and in our Sexuality (likewise) and that the use for secrets will be about learning how to appropriately contain energy for creative and inventive processes and not about deceptions, shame, guilt or abuse.

    -marymack, well said indeed!

    love and peace to All

  6. bkoehler — basically he meant to send the image in a private message, but accidentally posted it to a public forum — a “feed” of posts anyone can read. i don’t use twitter either, but i can tell you FB changes often enough and without warning that even if if you’re not drunk and it’s not late at night it can be easy to click the wrong button.

    green-star-gazer —
    i hear your point, though personally i’m hoping this sort of thing can, with some shepherding (ok, a lot), move us away from the puritan/shame/hypocrisy/’sex has a victim’ mindset and toward a grounded awareness that we all have many attractions and connections and ways to share sexually with people — and that that sharing (by a partner, by us) does not constitute being loved less, or worth less, or disrespected, or abandoned, or a victim, or a criminal.

    yes, i know we are a loooong way from that place, and that it will take a lot of awareness and incremental shifts of worldview and self-esteem/sense of self on an individual level to get there on a cultural level. it’s an almost-daily struggle, i think, for many of us who have it in our sights for ourselves personally.

    and maybe i’m naive, but i think it’s worthwhile. i’m curious to see when/if the tipping point comes where people on a collective scale manage to step out of the loop, see the media/political/social frenzy for what it is over most of these sex scandals, and think, “hey — we’re all doing this shit. what happens if we dig a little deeper into ‘why’ we do it from a different angle instead of getting so caught up in how ‘hurt’ we feel? what if we integrate these other attractions, etc, into our sense of being a whole self — and what if others begin to recognize that?”

    that is, i’m not saying weiner’s wife’s pain is not real. clearly she feels humiliated. i’m just curious about the potential of getting to a point where sexual expression via internet by a partner with another consenting adult need not spell humiliation for a spouse. that is to say, if we can get to a point culturally where we recognize a person’s sexual attractions and connections are not necessarily limited to one person and are not inherently unhealthy or a betrayal, then perhaps this kind of incident loses its power to cause pain — and therefore loses its power in the public sphere to manipulate.

  7. aword:

    A word of caution about taking in a contract to populate our Congress with members of the Catholic priesthood. We’d better have androids for Congressional pages, or else there would be no Congressmen reporting to work!!

  8. FE ““If we wanted celibates to run our government, we could probably cut a deal with the Catholic church” Spot on. Spot on. heh-heh. But of course, our sex scandals would just morph into something different…..more repressed all powerful priest-like.

  9. Be, I don’t “tweet” yet either, but I know that even information that wasn’t initially presented on any internet tool can still go “viral” or cause major disruption what with speed of technology.* We have reached into a sort of “no-privacy” zone with our lives – and unless we learn some respect for what was formerly known as privacy – who knows what chaos comes? *i was going to say “communication” – but what form is this “communication” anyway? is it viable as such or do we need to re-tool the concept of what communication is?

    Another example: today’s phones are easily used to surreptitiusly video or photo events/people that otherwise would not be recorded… it’s like playing the party game “telephone” – or telling your best friend your darkest secret – by the time it reaches the friend of the friend of the friend – who knows what story lurks that had nothing to do with the original? or did but isn’t anyone else’s business?

  10. Hey, I’ve never been to Facebook and the only tweets I get are from the bird feeder, so will someone tell me how stuff like this gets to the news media? Did the girls who got tweeted pass it along to others and that’s how it became public? The Congressman has made a lot of folks in DC angry enough to smear him but in the end it is the media what serves him up for snacking. I’m okay with expecting a certain level of behavior from elected officials but why is there not more outrage about the behavior of mainstream news outlets from the public? In the old days this type of sleaze was expected of the Nat’l Enquirer but not ABC.

    Mr. Weiner will recover from this. Six months from now several other personalities, elected or otherwise thought to be above it all, will have been chopped up and served on a platter by the stoop-to-the-lowest-level-because-its-a-slow-news-day media outlets that apparently have problems of their own. We don’t have to read or listen to it though. Don’t cry for Mr. Weiner, not that I think anyone would, for he is resilient. He is young enough and has a natal Sun conjunct both Pluto and Uranus that sextile natal Neptune and believe me, this is just practice for what challenges await him. He will rise again, an older and wiser man and he will be respected for his wisdom and experience and service to his country.
    be

  11. “If we wanted celibates to run our government, we could probably cut a deal with the Catholic church. Or maybe some Shakers are still alive?”

    E2:

    Thank you for my biggest laugh (thus far) of the day!!!

  12. I am as usual completely out of step with the American press. I don’t understand what the fuss is about and I don’t give a damn. But then again, I graduated from high school long ago.

    Bill Clinton’s sex with Monica Lewinsky deeply disturbed me because she was so obviously a young woman with serious emotional issues and taking advantage of her vulnerability was simply wrong. It was a relationship without honesty or equality. This was internet flirting, and probably makes up a huge portion of web traffic everyday. If we wanted celibates to run our government, we could probably cut a deal with the Catholic church. Or maybe some Shakers are still alive?

  13. It is a comment on our stupidity and our degeneration that Americans get all worked up over an elected official’s sexual behavior. Do we give a rat’s ass if the guy we pay to clean our streets, keep our electricity going, remove our trash, make our Happy Meal is having sex outside the officially sanctioned monogamy model? After all, they are getting paid for their work too. But they are not elected, public officials…so being those means they cannot have a sex life?

    I agree with Fe, this is mindless, diversion bullshit (let’s call it what it is) to distract us from the real ass-reaming we are currently getting by the Big People in congress; the gutting of social programs and the enslavement of the poor in this country. These Big People are effectively turning the ordinary working people into serfs. Yet to keep us from rising up against our Masters (like the ants in Bug’s Life), they distract us with sex scandals. Because they KNOW we cannot resist anything with the word SEX in it. We are all so deprived, depraved, and guilty about our own sexuality that we cannot help but focus on sex in any medium.

    The American people are so easily led into economic slavery.

  14. “Inside the beltway” one must trade on a certain respect and god love the good congressman, but he has lost that in rather large dose. No, it’s not a huge issue, a la war crimes or rape, but people (even here at my beloved planet waves!) enjoy this topic. How many pols will it take for those guys to get the message that it’s not about being pure (though it probably is for some) but it’s about owning your own stuff … Congressman Knuckehead may be a devoted wonk but he is just as massive a narcissist and unable to see his own limitations.

    A little respect is what we constituents expect from our representatives … and some basic common sense. He’s been so busy working those abs, etc, he’s lost sight of the real stuff.

    mm.

  15. Why is it that in order to be an upstanding citizen, one has to deny themselves of their very basic needs? That in order to be of sound mind, one has to abide by standards that when you think about it, is so rediculous! I wonder on a daily basis how many are secretly wearing rainbow underwear under their suits or robes? It seems the overall theme that in order to be deemed worthy at all we somehow have to deny our sexual impulse, when quite frankly the opposite is true! On a personal level, I find by doing just that, has caused a whole host of unfortunate events. I can extend that out to the world really. When I feel strong, my sexual appetite is strong. This whole moral blunder is spiraling out of control ….and we all fall down.

    “Im on the outside, Im looking in,
    I can see through you, see your true colors,
    Inside your ugly, ugly like me,
    I can see through you, see to the real you.”

    Peace

  16. SO true dear Len and Fe. This is exactly what’s been happening in Italy, where the obseesion with Berlusconi’s sexual misconduct has overshadowed the many awful things that are going on.

  17. Fe, I think you nailed it on this one.

    I immediately thought of Michael Franti’s “Oh My God”:

    “Well politicians got lipstick on the collar
    the whole media started to holler
    but I don’t give a damn who they screwin’ in private
    I wanna know who they screwin’ in public
    robbin’, cheatin’, stealin’
    white collar criminal
    McDonald eatin, you deserve a beatin’
    send you home a weepin’, with a fair bill for your Caribbean weekend
    for just about anything they can bust us
    false advertising sayin’ “Halls of Justice”
    you tellin’ the youth don’t be so violent
    then you drop bombs on every single continent
    mandatory minimum sentencin’
    ‘cause he got caught with a pocket full of medicine
    do that again another ten up in the beneficial
    oh man I wanna peaceful revolution”

    ________________________________

  18. I’m sorry, but I just have to speak out on a purely humanistic level, after watching that clip of Anthony crying as he read his notes…*crying* as. he. read. his. notes. …I just cannot interject any type of anything. except fr. a gut level, I wanted to run up to that podium and lead him away, lead him away fr. What. What I am I leading him away fr.? can’t say at the moment, but that it just did not seem ..I dunno..necessary? no, not the right word. it did not seem correct, OK, justified, that he be up there speaking about this….you can see, right, he was forced to be up there…(you say, well, he’s an elected official..) humiliated…
    where ARE the boundaries..? public/private/public/pri….pry/

    and to top it off, not sure what was worse, what made my heart tear more, watching the Congressman, or the hungry reporters, the voracious audience, the sick attraction that people have with this sex scandal stuff…on one hand it does seem to make people get a little power bump -oh, look what you did! you’re bad, which means I’m good (even though I feel miserable),
    but at the same time there is also like this weird resonance..or recognition…(pssst..you’re just like me!) but they can’t see that part..is it because the lights, camera, action, is so targeted to the first response? judge vs. recognize. differences vs. similarities.. divided/same…

    or something…just reading the energy….((((((((((((sigh…it’s been a hell of a day)))))))))))))
    thanks Fe! …I guess this really isn’t a comment, more like a stream of consciousness posting…

    peace.

  19. “For me this is less about sex per se and more about lack of respect; for oneself, for one’s partner, for the other women, for one’s gender, for one’s professional responsibilities, and for one’s community recklessly coupled with delusional thinking that somehow because they are a person of power, they will be immune from consequences. For me, the issue is one of a breach of trust which IS a very serious issue and at the root of much of what is wounded in our culture. We no longer trust one another… how can we move forward into the New World when trust is so badly eroded as it is now?”

    Green Star-Gazer:

    Thanks for your response and your challenge, which intrigues me. Agreed about the choices that these men make put then in places where they shortly become insulated by their own power, and feel removed from “the rules” whatever they are. There are degrees of this type of misbehavior. Some worse than others, and certainly some worse than Weiner.

    The hypocrisy of some politicians who were caught comes to mind – those who prevent gay people from the right to marry who they choose – who were actually closeted homosexuals. Or Newt Gingrich who was making hay of Bill Clinton’s tryst with an intern while getting his package serviced by the future Mrs. Gingrich while the then current wife was being treated in the hospital for cancer.

    But what I feel for Weiner is pity. It is the same way I felt after Larry Craig was outed from his attempt to have a sexual liaison with a man in an airport bathroom. The press attention was brutal, and granted there was enough of Mr. Craig’s other politics to make you feel some schadenfreud, but I didn’t feel right about this — the same way I didn’t feel right that Anthony Weiner– a very bright man, who by the way, was confused enough by his own behavior to bobble his initial reactions to the discovery and then lie about it. I think the pain of realizing how far he’d strayed off the reality reservation and jeopardized his marriage was a swift antidote to the power drug he was on.

    Personally, I think there are more New Yorkers so jaded by political scandals that one more, especially after Spitzer and Paterson were named and admitted to their own indiscretions, won’t cause the scales to tumble and fall. I think Weiner has the potential to survive this politically, and possibly personally. His wife is a member of Hillary Clinton’s staff and Hillary herself has proven to be a good role model as a woman whose marriage survives her husband’s many infidelities.

    There are also degrees which we use to judge their behavior – where do we draw the line from what they do in their personal life and their work in the professional arena? What if Rep. Weiner is an effective, reputable statesman who happens to flirt with other women? Are we willing to overlook his behavior if he gets the job done? How could we do this for Ted Kennedy and not Anthony Weiner?

  20. I’m sorry, but why is this an issue? Someone remind me.

    Lemme see: Someone posted a pic of their underwear. Uh-huh… And someone is in Congress. Okay… And someone is married. Um, alrighty.

    Still not getting it. I can’t seem to make these pieces fall together into an ‘immoral’ shape.

    Is it that Weiner’s wife owns every *image* of the husband’s underwear and he was stealing that *image* from her? I have never seen that in a wedding vow. Pretty sure he holds the copyright…

    The longer I live, the more I wonder what it’s going to take to break through this national case of arrested development. Is it possible that we’re getting worse? or is that just the funhouse mirror?

  21. Fe and All,

    To me, this and many of the other recent “sex” scandals we’ve seen of late have a deeper thread, and you’ve also written about it eloquently in some of your other contributions; that of power and the abuse of power, or the notion that those in power somehow feel that they live in a different Universe from the rest of us.

    While I agree that what the congressman did was stupid and lying about it made it so much worse, one can also see that this sort of behaviour, if un-questioned can go on escalating over the years till we arrive at something far more serious, as in the case of the recent alleged sexual assaults by higher-ups. The problem is not just the sexual aspect of the misconduct, it is the abuse of power that goes along with these acts that has to be addressed. Sexual misconduct coupled with abuse of power, unchecked, seems to often escalate to deeply hurting someone down the line, usually women and/or children; as victims or as innocent family members dragged along for the ride.

    But I have to politely disagree with you about this being a “minor” event for two other reasons. If someone is willing to be so reckless with his personal life, when he is a public figure one has to wonder how this might be reflected in other choices and decisions he might make while representing his district in the truly serious debates that we are embroiled in these days. These actions show lack of good judgment… trying to cover up always makes it 10 times worse or more, but the willingness to lie in public just corrodes the people’s trust even further, if that were possible.

    Your point about there being no contact and it being consensual and therefore being not such a big deal… I wonder how Mrs. Weiner feels about all this. You are right of course that it is truly is none of our business, but the thing is, we project onto each other all the time, and public figures, by choosing the public sphere, do need to set a higher standard… even if it is still a human one. I suspect that part of this swirling frenzy is people imagining what they would do if they found out that their spouse had behaved this way. Of course it is not our business, but again it is all-too-human to imagine it for our own situation…and probably feel uneasy. Then there is the public humiliation that one partner gets dragged into when the “other half” misbehaves… and then lies about it when they are caught. It is also a very tragic part of the drama. I’m sure Mrs. Weiner and the other women did not consent to this part of the very public drama that is now unfolding… or, perhaps did they? Who really knows, be we can’t help but look to public figures and see them as modeling something for our collective- for better or worse.

    For me this is less about sex per se and more about lack of respect; for oneself, for one’s partner, for the other women, for one’s gender, for one’s professional responsibilities, and for one’s community recklessly coupled with delusional thinking that somehow because they are a person of power, they will be immune from consequences. For me, the issue is one of a breach of trust which IS a very serious issue and at the root of much of what is wounded in our culture. We no longer trust one another… how can we move forward into the New World when trust is so badly eroded as it is now?

    But the stars tell us that this is the time of meeting with our shadows and demons and making them our own… and of doing the deep healing work personally and collectively. It is not very pretty to watch sometimes, but it is precisely at times like these that we need to expect more, not less, from one another and ourselves. If Mr. Weiner can use this experience to mature and grow as a person and as a public figure, this could be a powerful and ultimately empowering turning point for him and our collective by what he can model for others. It could be quite a higher calling, so to speak. We shall just have to see what the stars have in store for him and for us.

    I always appreciate what you have to say and I always am nourished and challenged by your articles… keep those fingers flying!

  22. Thank you, Len for recognizing it.

    The longer sex is used as a means to manipulate us into fear-based reactions — e.g., using techniques like extortion and blackmail to frighten us into paralysis, we will find ourselves headed deeper into the closets and the back alleys of the world.

    We need to fight back and return the attention to the true crimes being perpetrated on us now.

  23. Fe,
    Thank you for helping us to distinguish between mountains and molehills. It is, as you point out, much more important to focus on war crimes, corruption, neglect, malfeasance and outright thievery than personal indiscretions. The fact that it does not work that way is the direct consequence of sex being intentionally made into a scarce commodity that can be exploited to sell poison and junk under the guise of sex. The biggest bait-and-switch of all time has come back to bite us in preoccupations that threaten to paralyze us in fixation. Thank you so much for a sane perspective.

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