On Franken’s Resignation

Agreed.
Witch hunts work in both directions.
The common theme is denial of due process and that theme predominates where government fails its duty.

But… did he actually do anything bad? I’m not 100% up to date here. Did he admit to having touched people inappropriately, or did he resign because of accusations that have no evidence behind them?

Because if it’s the latter, then it’s far more likely that he resigned because someone hated him politically and wanted him out. I mean, if we put that as the standard most of the senate would have to go. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, by the way, just saying.

Americans love to get worked up over sex and it is even better when it involves the rich and powerful so that the masses can gawk and feel better about their own behavior. As I wrote in another post, this is a mixed bag. Yes it is good that bad behavior is become less tolerated especially among powerful men. But just as greater awareness and concern over the legitimate issue of child abuse led to the Satanic abuse panic of the 1980s and 1990s I think we will see the legitimate issue of sexual harassment turned into a moral panic and media circus with an added dose of politicization as both parties will now actively look for accusers no matter now flimsy their stories.

As for the comparative lack of moral outrage over issues such as war, it is similar to the lack of moral outrage over the sexual harassment of low-wage workers. Maids and waitresses don’t make for photogenic Time Magazine covers and hip social media campaigns quite like Hollywood actresses and journalists. Nobody wants to see a frumpy maid on the cover of Time. Sorry to be so cynical about this but the selective outrage is too glaring. It is coming from the same media that is trying to pass off George W. Bush as better than Trump because apparently deporting people is worse than actually killing them.

It’s good to see all the abusive men go down, latest being Harold Ford Jr, fired from Morgan Stanley for inappropriate conduct. My joy would be complete if anybody anywhere seemed to give a damn about what to do when the accusations are false, though. (Must be the damned lawyer in me.)

Which leads me to ask, what could possibly be more important to talk about than the recently revealed total corruption in our federal law enforcement agencies? These people set out to undo a legal election. People act like it’s no big deal. Are we smarter for real, as some have argued here recently?

Misplaced priorities on steroids, seems to me. (Again, it must be the damned lawyer in me.)

@realitychecker,

That is why I keep bringing up things like the Satanic sex abuse panic. I know it is not entirely the same as the current Me Too campaign but there are some similarities, particularly trial by media. Other cases include the Duke lacrosse case and the Tawana Brawley case.

People try to pretend like false accusations never happen and that if you bring the issue up you must be a misogynist but that is far from the truth. Most of the falsely accused people in the McMartin Preschool case were women, just to use one example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/us/the-trial-that-unleashed-hysteria-over-child-abuse.html

I wish we could have a rational discussion about balancing the interests of accusers and the accused but that is getting lost in the swirl of outrage culture and political point-scoring by both Republicans and Democrats.

@Herman

This is a poor comparison between petty assault in Franken’s and Conyer’s cases and satanism, rape and murder in the others. These are adults making the claims not prompted children. Even in Moore’s case there is no charge of rape or even actual sex just inappropriate behavior. Those who make the false accusations usually expose themselves when their claim is examined.

Franken is admitting his guilt by resigning and giving up the power he used to get away with this groping and that’s where it will end unlesss someone brings a civil suit against him.

The McMartin preschool and the other satanist hysteria cases involved professionals and politicians along with the media so I wonder if there wasn’t someone else or some group that helped to feed the hysteria.

Garrison Keillor gets whacked for a hand placement mistake. But Donald Trump gets nothing for many more accusations and admissions, about where he’s put his hands.

Maybe the lesson is about expectations? “Nice guys” need to know their place lest we drop the boom on them. But assholes are given a pass, because, you know, they’re just assholes.

Is there something primal-primate going on here?

@Peter,

I wrote that the Satanic sex abuse case was not entirely similar, my main point was that the rush to judgment and the trial by media aspect was similar. That is why I also mentioned false accusations by adults in the Duke lacrosse case and the Tawana Brawley case.

I am not saying that all of these accusations are false. Most of them are likely true, in my opinion, but to pretend that false accusations never happen is absurd. I have known ordinary citizens who have had their lives ruined by false accusations of sexual misconduct even after their accuser confessed to lying and charges were dropped. But by that point his reputation in the community was ruined, he lost his job and his wife left him. The point here is that accusations of sexual misconduct are serious and should be treated seriously so that justice can be done to both sides as best as possible.

It is clear that many people are treating the issue as a political football now which is exactly what I expect from Americans in this day and age. Principle no longer matters anymore. The most important issue is points scoring and making sure the other side can be trolled into oblivion on social media.

@Herman – you are completely right in your comparison.

Another point that seems to be lost is that the whole brouhaha about “sexual misconduct” such as hand-placement and groping makes women out to be totally innocent and defenseless victims – like children. This is truly a case of women having their cake and eating it too: victims when it suits their agenda of attacking men and equals when they aspire to the power and success of men.

And then there is the whole idea of “collegiality” in the workplace. Forget that! The battle of the sexes (wonder where that ancient notion came from?) knows no boundaries.

The men of the party did not cause her loss of support among women. She and her cohort have been mauling women in the hourly wage section of the economy for decades. They have done this to themselves.

I thought the Zombie Apocalypse was only a product of popular fiction.
Apparently it’s not only a reality, but currently ongoing in the form of all this omnipresent “‘Sexual Harassment’ obsessive syndrome”—with hundreds of millions of individuals all chanting the same mantras and sharing identical belief systems and personalities.

The spirit of both The Inquisition and 1692 Salem Massachusetts still live on, with heresy against the accepted narratives being “the most serious offense one could ever commit against humanity”.
Not to mention an ideal red herring to distract the attention of the general populace away from all the actual conspiracies those in charge are committing against us and the rest of the world in general.

Is it not obvious that the reason Franken was told he had to go was that Team D wants clear shots at Moore and Trump without having to endure Team R whatabouttery?

Is it not obvious that the reason that the United States populace so studiously avoids a hard examination of the real costs and destruction of our wars because most of us supported those wars at the time?

N.b. “Good Germans®”

@FS

I mention whataboutism and you roll our a Russian to show how it is done. The Clintonites are losing again and reverting to political finger-pointing and cries of victimhood.

This is how they roll but it is interesting that it was the party democrats who brought the torches to run off Frankenstein.

I blame the lawyers. Leave it to them to push basic common decency into the excesses of political correctness.

I am also reminded that just last week Dems were refusing to say they would get rid of Menendez if he was convicted of EIGHT FELONIES, just because his replacement from NJ would not be a Dem.

But Conyers and Franken were guaranteed to be replaced by a Dem (MI, MN)

Bona fide moral high ground? LMAO

I think that the Franken resignation marks the current movement toward accountability jumping the shark. There is a whole spectrum of human conduct from the clearly illegal to the abusive to the inappropriate to part of the normal give and take between the sexes. In the current climate, all these are being lumped together and treated the same. This is a mistake and setting up a backlash behind which a lot of people who should be held accountable won’t be. We can probably all agree that Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are sexual predators, and that a lot of what they did was illegal as well. Then we have the group like Bill Clinton, Matt Lauer, Donald Trump, etc. who were players, womanizers, whatever you want to call it. They used and abused their positions of power for sex, but it is not clear they actually did anything illegal. Then you have somebody like Franken (I should state here that politically I am not that big a fan of Franken) who did nothing illegal, some things which were inappropriate, and a lot of things which fall into the category of the normal give and take between the sexes. Your mileage may vary on this give and take, but there isn’t an adult on the planet who has not engaged in it.

As for Roy Moore, he is something of a special case. His interest in teenage girls above the age of consent may be creepy but not illegal. He seems to have used his position as an adult rather than his position as a prosecutor to pursue these teens. And his interaction with a girl below the age of consent was illegal.

What the current discussion mostly misses is the fact that women in general are treated in a markedly inferior fashion in our society, not just with regard to sex. I would prefer more of a focus on workplace discrimination and inappropriate conduct that affects ordinary American women and not this concentration on largely celebrity breaches.

The female component of this conduct, of women using sex to advance is also largely lost. It may be less common but it certainly is there.

Then there is the hypocrisy component, such as women politicians, who defended Bill Clinton in the 90s for more serious and persistent conduct and who in the teens demanded Al Franken’s scalp for activity which was much less so. And as Ian points out, there is the greater hypocrisy of our murderous, looting ruling class, both male and female, deciding that this and not their other much more serious crimes is worthy of notice.

Finally, the process is being undermined. The number, detail, and let’s face it celebrity of the women involved made for strong cases against the likes of Weinstein and Cosby in the court of public opinion. There was a kind of process albeit not a legal due process one. But by the time we get to Franken, the clarity is a lot hazier and the evidence a lot skimpier. Yet the sentence is the same. It is rather like receiving death whether you blew up the bank or merely sprayed graffiti on it. In this inability to distinguish is a recipe for a backlash.

@Bruce

You need to identify this mysterious someone who wanted Franken gone from the senate before these accusations surfaced and why. The reports I read said he was getting along well and learning the ropes without rocking the boat.

Franken threw himself off the bus to avoid a public senate investigation and the push from other party members may have been because they knew of other possibly more serious problems.

Our modern media is a form of entertainment but there is good reason to think that there is an agenda involved, Confusion, fear and hysteria can serve the goals of certain NWO forces who need the breakdown to occur before they can bring their version of peace to the world.

Cui bono?

For the Dem establishment to defenestrate ranking members of their own tribe like that (It wasn’t just Franken; don’t forget Conyers. And what of that pup from Nevada?) means something is up, and it isn’t what it appears to be.

If it is a prelude to bringing down Trump or unseating Moore (if he wins), it’s half-assed at best. The accusations against them have “already been litigated” after all, so there’s little likelihood they can be revived by Dems once they have cleansed their own side of (some) taint. Politics doesn’t work that way.

I suspect it’s an effort to further weaken the Dems so that what little objection they’ve made against further depredations by the Rs will simply vanish into the ether.

We’ll see.

Wow. All I can say is just wow. It’s not news to me that a lot of the men who comment on Ian’s blog are deeply sexist. I’ve picked up on that in responses to other articles, but it’s really on full display today. Clearly being enlightened in some areas doesn’t make one enlightened in all areas.

It’s possible to care about war, torture, and other injustices without dismissing or downplaying the degrading behavior that many many women have had to put up with. I, for one, couldn’t be happier that at least a few of them are finally having to face some consequences for a change. For every man who is finally “outed” there are so many more who never will face any consequences. Its obvious that most of you don’t have a clue what its like to be female.

I know a lot of the commenters here are older men and I can only hope that once the dinosaurs die off more enlightened and compassionate views will prevail.

It is a godamn shame that Senator Al Franken was forced to resign.

I’ve never been comfortable with show business personalities in public office.

EYaw, P, it’s a cesspool. A regular on stop shop for nazi propaganda. Reminds of something I once read about pacifists: there are none, only opportunists waiting for a chance to run up the jolly roger.

Or something a myth is purported to have said: don’t be like the hypocrites who love to stand on the street corners and in the synagogues and be seen. They have their reward.

@realitychecker – Well, when you find a pure and perfect group without the slightest hint of corruption, you let us know. In this world, this is as much of a moral high ground as they can achieve (on this issue.) What else would you have them do about Franken, Conyers, and these allegations?

Should Dems give up all corporate funding and go full Progressive? Sure. Will they? No way. But I applaud them for this one response on this one issue, even if I condemn other areas of action. My mind can handle that split in reasoning, I would hope your could as well. I believe they are complex human beings running a very complex social organization. IMHO demanding perfection here truly is the enemy of the good.

Dems and women won this battle but the war elsewhere continues.

“Remember when the left was supposedly about community? You know, the community men fought to make possible and safe, so you ‘feminists’ could even be ALIVE to become so self-centered and ungrateful. And yet, to this day, you still expect men to lay down their lives to protect you. And you will never acknowledge the debt you owe for that. When muscles meant survival, which was until quite recently, men meant survival for women.

Inconvenient truth, I know.”

Kiddo, that’s a whole Straw Village you’ve got there.

It is always guys who are insecure or low-ranking in their status with other men that pull this kind of sad nonsense.

Women have been saying they face sexist behavior on a regular basis, and I don’t doubt them – we’ve all witnessed men being assholes toward women. (And there are asshole women, too). The fuss only seems to get traction if the bad behavior is on the part of someone with some form of power over the victims. Women gets cat-calls and lewd suggestions walking past a group of guys on a street, but even when it’s documented – as it often is these days, via cellphone video – nobody seems to be screaming for them to lose their jobs. It’s a toxic part of the culture and that’s not going to change by one-at-a-time takedowns. And if you think forcing the resignation of an occasional politician, the firing of a few Talking Heads, etc is going to send a message to sexist men of the world, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Another piece of commentary that’s more or less on point regarding Franken’s ejection from the Senate:

“By contrast, not one Democrat called for the resignation of Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who faced prosecution this fall over charges of receiving millions in bribes from a long-time crony, a multimillionaire doctor-businessman for whom Menendez repeatedly interceded with the Department of Health and Human Services under the Obama administration.

Every Senate Democrat said that Menendez deserved the presumption of innocence until a jury returned a verdict. But no such consideration is to be afforded to the reported behavior of Senator Franken, which never rose to the level even of a misdemeanor.

To say nothing of the record of the Senate Democrats as a whole, who have wholeheartedly supported mass murder committed by American military forces in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and drone warfare—widely promoted by the Obama administration—in dozens of countries. All these wars, of course, have been accompanied by horrific violence against civilians, including widespread sexual violence perpetrated by forces backed by American imperialism.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/08/fran-d08.html

Peter: You need to identify this mysterious someone who wanted Franken gone from the senate before these accusations surfaced and why.

I do not feel the need. There is a too frequently used gambit in conversation about politics, where perfectly plausible albeit speculative inferences are neutered by deliberately hearing them as “conspiracy theories”. I was not positing a conspiracy theory. I was suggesting that people act from mixed motives and opportunistically. #MeToo has been a series of opportunities to get rid of people, taken with motivations that no doubt often have little to do with the ostensible outrage being expressed. I am not saying the accusers are wrong in their complaints or should not be believed. But, it is not the accusers, who are acting to remove the accused from positions of authority. It is the people with executive authority within their respective institutions, who are rendering judgments and who are acting and their motivations and even identities in many cases, are not exposed to scrutiny. I am saying these “judges” being human are likely acting from mixed motives and opportunistically.

Our political economy is organized by hierarchy and politically holding the boss accountable and limiting the scope of his authority to dominate is an unsolved problem. The left, though wishing for enlightened conduct, is very weak in its analysis and search for remedies.

I do not have much hope that, when this episode is over, we will be better off, that new norms will be in place that will protect young women or anyone.

Mandos: No one who reads this thread will take seriously the implied “we’ll get to it later”.

Because Kirsten Gillibrand and her merry band will get back to corporate income taxes and the U.S. wars in the Middle East and net neutrality and the consequences of the Obama recovery real soon now and then we will see how vitally important it was to win this one battle, during the calm in the Russiagate storm.

Back to the Clinton-Weinstein picture, which is only an example, representative. I know the usuals will come around calling me MRA Red Pill or whatever. I expect, I don’t care, that they do it is part of the point. I have withdrawn, precisely because in any familiar situations, women think they can lay hands on me. Not in stranger or service circumstances, like waiters or checkout clerks, but in offices and parties among friends the power asymmetry (and not only physical) was oppressive.

Don’t get it? Imagine a white Southerner in a suit and a black farmhand in Mississippi in the 1950s. Imagine an officer or noncom and a private, especially in the Imperial Japanese Army, where corporal punishments and beatings were part of training, precisely in the asymmetry. Imagine a French noble and peasant in pre-revolutionary France.

Who can lay hands on whom is critical.

Besides the power and privilege, what else does it mean? Well, it is usually accompanied by a presumption of innocence, good intentions, the use of power and privilege for benevolent ends. “I meant no harm.”

Notice Weinstein’s arms hanging straight down. Not only are you not allowed to grab the women’s wrists or otherwise physically attempt to restrain her, if you try to wrench yourself away or verbally protest you will be considered crazy and maybe evil. She meant no harm. It was her right as a good person. You’re nuts to find anything wrong or uncomfortable with it.

This is a massive institutionalized unquestionable privilege.

@ someofparts

I get it, we must all agree that female shit doesn’t stink.

Sorry, but I have a working nose. 🙂

As far as what is going on with Franken, besides what I said way above, the removal of a Senator in disgrace is very very unusual, like once a decade. One time it happened, interestingly perhaps, is Bob Packwood in 1995. From Wiki:

“Two years before Roe v. Wade he introduced the Senate’s first abortion legalization bill, but he was unable to attract a cosponsor for either.[16] His pro-choice stance earned him the loyalty of many feminist groups[17] and numerous awards including those from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (January 10, 1983) and the National Women’s Political Caucus (October 23, 1985). In 1987, Packwood crossed party lines to vote against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and he was one of only two Republicans to vote against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the court.[3] Both votes were based on the nominee’s opposition to abortion rights”

This occurred, coincidentally?, after another huge electoral catastrophe, the loss of the House in 1994. At such times of failure , is it common to practice harsh internal discipline of shaken allies in order to prevent insurgencies and rebellions?

Show business is not a business most people would consider to be particularly ethical or observant of sexual mores. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Yet Americans have a penchant for electing show business personalities to office and then expressing shock, shock! that they aren’t necessarily paragons of virtue, purer than Caesar’s wife, and monk like in probity.

Al is a comedian, low comedy for the most part, more than a little of it risqué, and if someone was offended, I wonder what they expected. What would they make of Groucho, ffs?

I think it was Jackie Speier who said that DC was like “Hollywood for ugly people.” Well, yah. I think she was expressing her exasperation at the sexual harassment and worse that goes on in Washington all the time, but she made the unintended point that whether appropriate or not, Hollywood and DC often mirror one another in more ways than just the naughty bits.

I’ve never been comfortable with show business personalities in office, from Reagan to Trump and yes, Franken. To me, they do much better to comment on and mock public officials from outside the government than within it.

As for the current Puritan fervor, both Hollywood and Washington have been through this before. It’s hard to say that anything better comes of it, but we’ll see.

The sex abuse issues absolutely deserve discussion, but it should be an intelligent and nuanced one, as Jessica correctly points out above.

It should take into account all the relevant factors, not just the one or two that play best to a particular political faction. It should acknowledge that individuals make key choices along any pathway, and they must own them when we do our various accountings.

False accusations, lack of accountability for false accusers, the availability of the criminal justice system as ‘Punisher’ being greater for female claims about sexual misbehavior than any male could ever imagine having, these are ALL complicating but relevant factors, and if I seem overly adamant about this, it is because all I have seen from the feminist fringe since the 80’s is deliberate, determined ignorance that these even are relevant factors. (Indeed, mentioning ANY ONE OF THEM at a place like Firedoglake at any time during it’s glory days would have elicited deadly-wishing attacks from all the Old Guard feminist types that dominated there. And that would be the most moderate response from any progressive site.)

So, let’s not continue that studied ignorance, please. It’s an insult to the intelligence.

@ zotter

No, I was saying that the entire feminist wave, which includes all questionable parts, has jumped the shark.

Nobody with a brain or a soul would be against equality and equal treatment, but in the real world it is never possible to do that for everybody to the same degree, so it becomes important to learn how to do pro’s and con’s, costs and benefits, risks and rewards, when discussing all these complex issues. The refusal of too many to even acknowledge the factors that complicate the arguments of one’s own side is what I am continually wailing about on these threads, for the most part. I want better conversations, but they must be built on firmer foundations, i.e., foundations not dependent upon falsities, or they will never happen in a way that will be worth anything.

But I would also respond to your specific query by noting that it seems to me that it sometimes happens that any ‘victim-oriented’ political group, including women, may sometimes be seen to gladly accept unequal treatment that benefits them in various areas without complaint, concern, or explanation. It seems to me that that does undercut the meme that equality is the Prime Directive, but rather it may be acquiring more ‘power’ by any means.

I don’t think it is bigoted to note such things, to analyze them when they arise, and to promptly moderate one’s moral tones, arguments, and certainties appropriately.

Btw, I have no animus toward you. I spent my life on the progressive left because I think the nicest people are there, but I have an even higher devotion to good logic and accuracy. I shouldn’t have to choose one or the other, should I?

Clear rules are good. But only if they align well with reasoned consideration. And that’s the hard part, getting both into one space.

It’s easy to yell for absolute, black/white clarity, which is what every political adherent seems to want to do, but that is rarely going to be where justice or even efficiency is going to be found.

There has to be some kind of balance point btw the absolutes, and the overly detailed solutions. I always say, try drafting a statute on anything of moment. It’s a thought experiment frequently used in law schools. Very humbling to all lol.

The difficulty of finding that proper balance is why we need much better, more nuanced, conversations.

Haven’t known too many lawyers, personally. But of the two I’ve known best, one was a Mensa who’s probably read all books he posed in front of in his promo pic. The other was known for screwball commercials advertising his chain of offices, and died in the arms of his mistress from a coke overdose with his wife having to get her JD to keep the firm from collapsing after his death. One guess as to who was the more successful.

A very poor sampling, yes, but I suspect that most lawyers have to play by the same rules of ‘the system’ as the rest of us, which is pretty screwed up, IMHO.

I brought up the killing as I couldn’t think of a more obvious travesty of justice for such an obvious situation. Sexual harassment is far more varied and complex.

Yves Smith posted something today that takes all of this in the kind of new direction it needs to be heading – entirely different framing that gets past the insidiously divisive categories that have us punching sideways and wasting time. Here’s the link –

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/class-beyond-case-deatons-deaths-despair-embodiment-neoliberal-epidemics.html

What we need is solidarity across all of these fault lines and the piece I linked to suggests a framework for getting there. Check it out and see what you think. The two parties, the purity police, confederate flags, all the stereotypes and made-up nonsense never goes anywhere, and that is a feature not a bug.

http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/geoffrey-rush-lawsuit-australian-paper-defamation-1202633714/

Amidst all “Me Too” and “Protect Our Women” mantras and rhetoric, does the life of Justine Damond matter?
Doesn’t seem anyone or anything was protecting her.
And who are the ones assigned to carry out enforcement of “sexual harassment” laws? The same police officers who shoot middle-age professional women in their own front yards over ambiguous movements that are mistaken for being “threatening gestures”?

Furthermore …
…does the “Me Too” cult allow those women who are convicted felons or registered sex offenders equal “membership”