Liberty County sheriff's detectives have arrested two children of the Cleveland Independent School District board president for allegedly lying to police about an alcohol-fueled party at their home where a teenage girl says she was raped, authorities said.
Capt. Rex Evans with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office said detectives arrested Kyle Lee Lewis, 20, and Rachel Leigh Lewis, 17, Monday on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting. The siblings, children of board president Lloyd T. Lewis, hosted a party while their parents were out of town Nov. 9, Evans said.
"Evidently Kyle and Rachel invited several people over, and several people grew into more people and more people," Evans said, adding that alcohol was consumed at the party.
He said authorities received a 911 call that night from a neighbor who said a young woman knocked on her door, half-dressed and distraught, saying she had been raped.
"You can clearly hear (the victim) in the background, very distraught, very upset, indicating that she had been raped," Evans said.
Evidence sent to DPS
The alleged victim, 17, told authorities that "at some point in the evening, a person or persons were involved in forcing her down and sexually assaulting her. She indicated that she managed to escape the house, and that even though all those people were there, evidently no one attempted to help her," Evans said.
Evans said the sheriff's office has interviewed witnesses at the party and has sent evidence to the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab for testing.
"Everybody that is not being truthful with us is facing a criminal charge for making a false statement," he said.
In addition to Kyle and Rachel Lewis, authorities arrested an 18-year-old Houston woman, Shelby Lofton, on the same false reporting charge. Another man is expected to be arrested, Evans said, though he could provide no more information.
The Lewis family did not return a phone call on Tuesday.
Link: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Cleveland-school-official-s-children-charged-with-2282684.php
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Cleveland school official's children charged with lying about rape
Liberty County sheriff's detectives have arrested two children of the Cleveland Independent School District board president for allegedly lying to police about an alcohol-fueled party at their home where a teenage girl says she was raped, authorities said.
Capt. Rex Evans with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office said detectives arrested Kyle Lee Lewis, 20, and Rachel Leigh Lewis, 17, Monday on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting. The siblings, children of board president Lloyd T. Lewis, hosted a party while their parents were out of town Nov. 9, Evans said.
"Evidently Kyle and Rachel invited several people over, and several people grew into more people and more people," Evans said, adding that alcohol was consumed at the party.
He said authorities received a 911 call that night from a neighbor who said a young woman knocked on her door, half-dressed and distraught, saying she had been raped.
"You can clearly hear (the victim) in the background, very distraught, very upset, indicating that she had been raped," Evans said.
Evidence sent to DPS
The alleged victim, 17, told authorities that "at some point in the evening, a person or persons were involved in forcing her down and sexually assaulting her. She indicated that she managed to escape the house, and that even though all those people were there, evidently no one attempted to help her," Evans said.
Evans said the sheriff's office has interviewed witnesses at the party and has sent evidence to the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab for testing.
"Everybody that is not being truthful with us is facing a criminal charge for making a false statement," he said.
In addition to Kyle and Rachel Lewis, authorities arrested an 18-year-old Houston woman, Shelby Lofton, on the same false reporting charge. Another man is expected to be arrested, Evans said, though he could provide no more information.
The Lewis family did not return a phone call on Tuesday.
Link: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Cleveland-school-official-s-children-charged-with-2282684.php
Capt. Rex Evans with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office said detectives arrested Kyle Lee Lewis, 20, and Rachel Leigh Lewis, 17, Monday on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting. The siblings, children of board president Lloyd T. Lewis, hosted a party while their parents were out of town Nov. 9, Evans said.
"Evidently Kyle and Rachel invited several people over, and several people grew into more people and more people," Evans said, adding that alcohol was consumed at the party.
He said authorities received a 911 call that night from a neighbor who said a young woman knocked on her door, half-dressed and distraught, saying she had been raped.
"You can clearly hear (the victim) in the background, very distraught, very upset, indicating that she had been raped," Evans said.
Evidence sent to DPS
The alleged victim, 17, told authorities that "at some point in the evening, a person or persons were involved in forcing her down and sexually assaulting her. She indicated that she managed to escape the house, and that even though all those people were there, evidently no one attempted to help her," Evans said.
Evans said the sheriff's office has interviewed witnesses at the party and has sent evidence to the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab for testing.
"Everybody that is not being truthful with us is facing a criminal charge for making a false statement," he said.
In addition to Kyle and Rachel Lewis, authorities arrested an 18-year-old Houston woman, Shelby Lofton, on the same false reporting charge. Another man is expected to be arrested, Evans said, though he could provide no more information.
The Lewis family did not return a phone call on Tuesday.
Link: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Cleveland-school-official-s-children-charged-with-2282684.php
David Graeber's reflections on money, debt, and violence
David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years
has hit a chord with a lot of people who are concerned about rising inequalities in the United States and elsewhere. Graeber is an economic anthropologist, a discipline that pays close attention to the ways that material arrangements worked in detail in pre-state societies. One of the great works in this field is Marshall Sahlins' book, Stone Age Economics
, which paid very close ethnographic attention to how the social arrangements worked in hunter-gatherer societies when it came to gathering and consuming food and other necessities of life. (My main recollection is that Sahlins found that hunter-gatherers worked much shorter days than their successors, the farmers, and had much more time to enjoy the finer things of life, including stories and jokes.) Graeber is also described as one of the intellectual sources of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and anti-globalization activism has been an important part of his life for a long time. (Here is a story in Bloomberg that gives a lot of interesting background.)The book is difficult to characterize. It's about debt and money through history, but it's really not a work in economic history. It offers a lot of ethnographic detail about borrowing, lending, gifting, and reciprocating, but it's not really a work of anthropology. And it offers morally valenced language to describe debt and credit, but it's not really a polemical critique of the present financial system. It is certainly an engaging, interesting, and thought-provoking book, and Graeber appears to know a great deal about the social and institutional histories of the main civilizations of Eurasia.
One line of thought is perfectly clear in the book: Graeber wants to demolish the myth of the truck-and-barter origins of money. This is the standard story within classical and neoclassical economics. But Graeber thinks it is a complete fiction. He regards this as a just-so story that doesn't make any sense ethnographically, and has never been observed in real pre-state societies.
The story, then, is everywhere. It is the founding myth of our system of economic relations. It is so deeply established in common sense, even in places like Madagascar, that most people on earth couldn't imagine any other way that money could possibly have come about.
The problem is there's no evidence that it ever happened, and an enormous amount of evidence suggesting that it did not. (28)Graeber's case for this position seems to be a sound one. But why exactly does it matter? It seems to be a bit analogous to literal-minded social contract arguments: that the state is legitimate because it descends from a primordial agreement among all citizens to create its authority. But discrediting the origins story doesn't really tell us anything about the functioning system. We have an economic system today that coordinates activity through money and credit, and it doesn't really matter very much if we know exactly how it came about. I think that Graeber is focused on the issue because he thinks the myth helps to convey the view that the contemporary economist's view of human activity -- self-serving actions designed to maximize one's own utility -- is in fact an historical universal, applying to pre-modern and non-western social settings as well as to the New Orleans cotton exchange.
It's money that had made it possible for us to imagine ourselves in the way economists encourage us to do: as a collection of individuals and nations whose main business is swapping things. (44)Graeber's view, by contrast, is that most human activity doesn't conform to this model; that the gift relation and the practice of open-ended reciprocity are much more characteristic of the human condition.
There are many startling facts and descriptions that Graeber produces as he tells his story of the development of the ideologies of money, credit, and debt. One of the most interesting to me has to do with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform -- vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. ... According to the Populist reading, the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent the East and West Coast bankers (promoters of and benefactors from the tight money supply), the Scarecrow represented the farmers (who didn't have the brains to avoid the debt trap), the Tin Woodsman was the industrial proletariat (who didn't have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers), the Cowardly Lion represented the political class (who didn't have the courage to intervene). ... "Oz" is of course the standard abbreviation for "ounce." (52)(This is roughly as startling to me as an interpretation of Star Wars as an extended allegory on Reaganism (intervention in Nicaragua, scary military officers in the background, etc.). This doesn't quite work, though, since Star Wars appeared in 1977, three years before Reagan's first election as president.)
One of Graeber's recurring themes is that money and debt are reciprocals of each other. He tells many stories about IOU's being passed around within a community: John promises to give X to Alice; Alice passes on the IOU to Robbie in exchange for a beer; Robbie takes the IOU to the nail shop and exchanges it for a pound of nails from Bert; and Bert eventually comes back to John to redeem the IOU. In this circuit, the statement of debt serves as a basis for folk currency within a local society. But Graeber argues that the establishment of Bank of England resulted in bank notes that were no more or less than IOU's from the state (49).
Another theme that comes into the book is the close connection that Graeber draws between money and currency, and violence and war. He argues that trust and extended credit arrangements work very well during periods of peace; whereas a period of extended warfare puts a premium on the portability and anonymity of precious metals. So warfare pushes societies (and monarchs) towards the use of currency made out of precious metals. He goes further: monarchs needed to pay their armies, in Europe, central Asia, and East Asia; and precious metals (coins) work best for the heavily armed and footloose soldiers who made up those armies.
As a result, while credit systems tend to dominate in periods of relative social peace, or across networks of trust (whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions like merchant guilds or communities of faith), in periods characterized by widespread war and plunder, they tend to be replaced by precious metal. (213)And:
The Atlantic Slave Trade as a whole was a gigantic network of credit arrangements. Ship-owners based in Liverpool or Bristol would acquire goods on easy credit terms from local wholesalers, expecting to make good by selling slaves (also on credit) to planters int he Antilles and America, with commission agents in the city of London ultimately financing the affair through the profits of the sugar and tobacco trade. (149)Graeber has a preferred alternative to a society based on barter, market exchange, debt, warfare, slavery, and peonage. It is what he calls a "human economy":
This is why I developed the concept of human economies: ones in which what is considered really important about human beings is the fact that they are each a unique nexus of relations with others -- therefore, that no one could ever be considered exactly equivalent to anything or anyone else. In a human economy, money is not a way of buying or trading human beings, but a way of expressing just how much one cannot do so. (207)An intriguing, and somewhat perplexing, part of Graeber's analysis is his effort to link the value systems of Eurasia's great civilizations to the social creation of money, credit, and debt. A central thrust here is his analysis of the "Axial Age" -- the period from 800 bc to 600 ad when there was great creativity in the emergence of new spiritual leaders and movements. There was, simultaneously, extensive warfare; and there was the simultaneous invention of currency in several widely separated places. He illustrates this nexus with the case of China:
The golden age of Chinese philosophy was the period of chaos that preceded unification [during the Warring States period], and this followed the typical Axial Age pattern: the same fractured political landscape, the same rise of trained, professional armies and the creation of coined money largely in order to pay them. We also see the same government policies designed to encourage the development of markets, chattel slavery on a scale not seen before or since in Chinese history, the appearance of itinerant philosophers and religious visionaries, battling intellectual schools, and eventually, attempts by political leaders to transform the new philosophies into religions of state. (235)So what is the connection he wants to draw between value systems, social violence, and money? It is unclear to me; somehow Graeber weaves together a fascinating narrative involving each of these. He does think there is a connection, but it's difficult to see what is thought to be causal in the story.
In fact, some of the historical connections are so uncannily close that they are very hard to explain any other way. Let me give an example. After the first coins were minted around 600 bc in the kingdom of Lydia, the practice quickly spread to Ionia, the Greek cities of the adjacent coast. The greatest of these was the great walled metropolis of Miletus, which also appears to have been the first Greek city to strike its own coins. It was Ionia, too, that provided the bulk of the Greek mercenaries active in the Mediterranean at the time, with Miletus their effective headquarters. Miletus was also the commercial center of the region, and perhaps, the first city in the world where everyday market transactions came to be carried out primarily in coins instead of credit. Greek philosophy, in turn, begins with three men: Thales, of Miletus (c. 624 bc- c546 bc), "Anaximander, of Miletus (c. 610 bc- c546 bc), and Anaximenes, of Miletus (c. 585 bc- c525 bc) -- in other words, men who were living in that city at exactly the time that coinage was first introduced. (244)He pulls out "materialism" as a thread in the philosophical systems that emerged in the Axial Age -- China as well as Greece -- and suggests an analogy between the idea of an abstract fundamental physical substance that is the substrate of everything physical, and the idea of an abstract unit of measure of all commodities, money (245); but it's hard to see a consistent and compelling idea here about the intertwining development of philosophy and economics. Here is the closest he comes to a statement of the nature of the connection he finds:
What we see then is a strange kind of back-and-forth, attack and riposte, whereby the market, the state, war, and religion all continually separate and merge with one another. (248)Where does it all lead? After a walk through the Middle Ages (major improvement in quality of life over the Axial Age, according to Graeber), we get to capitalism:
Starting from our baseline date of 1700, then, what we see at the dawn of modern capitalism is a gigantic financial apparatus of credit and debt that operates -- in practical effect -- to pump more and more labor out of just about everyone with whom it comes into contact, and as a result produces an endlessly expanding volume of material goods. (346)Does he bring this parable to a practical piece of advice? He does, actually:
In this book I have largely avoided making concrete proposals, but let me end with one. It seems to me that we are long overdue for some kind of Biblical-style Jubilee: one that would affect both international debt and consumer debt. It would be salutary not just because it would relieve so much genuine human suffering, but also because it would be our way of reminding ourselves that money is not ineffable, that paying one's debts is not the essence of morality, that all these things are human arrangements and that if democracy is to mean anything, it is the ability to all agree to arrange things in a different way. (390)As I mentioned at the start, Graeber is also an activist who has been strongly involved in anti-globalization protests in the past fifteen years. His Direct Action: An Ethnography
is an interesting cross-over book bringing together his anthropologist's training and his activist experience; it is an ethnography of the anarchist activism movement as he has experienced it. I'll discuss this work in a future post.Here are two interviews with Graeber that give a pretty good idea of his style and critical views about the present (link, link). Both are very interesting to listen to.
David Graeber's reflections on money, debt, and violence
David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years
has hit a chord with a lot of people who are concerned about rising inequalities in the United States and elsewhere. Graeber is an economic anthropologist, a discipline that pays close attention to the ways that material arrangements worked in detail in pre-state societies. One of the great works in this field is Marshall Sahlins' book, Stone Age Economics, which paid very close ethnographic attention to how the social arrangements worked in hunter-gatherer societies when it came to gathering and consuming food and other necessities of life. (My main recollection is that Sahlins found that hunter-gatherers worked much shorter days than their successors, the farmers, and had much more time to enjoy the finer things of life, including stories and jokes.) Graeber is also described as one of the intellectual sources of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and anti-globalization activism has been an important part of his life for a long time. (Here is a story in Bloomberg that gives a lot of interesting background.)The book is difficult to characterize. It's about debt and money through history, but it's really not a work in economic history. It offers a lot of ethnographic detail about borrowing, lending, gifting, and reciprocating, but it's not really a work of anthropology. And it offers morally valenced language to describe debt and credit, but it's not really a polemical critique of the present financial system. It is certainly an engaging, interesting, and thought-provoking book, and Graeber appears to know a great deal about the social and institutional histories of the main civilizations of Eurasia.
One line of thought is perfectly clear in the book: Graeber wants to demolish the myth of the truck-and-barter origins of money. This is the standard story within classical and neoclassical economics. But Graeber thinks it is a complete fiction. He regards this as a just-so story that doesn't make any sense ethnographically, and has never been observed in real pre-state societies.
The story, then, is everywhere. It is the founding myth of our system of economic relations. It is so deeply established in common sense, even in places like Madagascar, that most people on earth couldn't imagine any other way that money could possibly have come about.
The problem is there's no evidence that it ever happened, and an enormous amount of evidence suggesting that it did not. (28)Graeber's case for this position seems to be a sound one. But why exactly does it matter? It seems to be a bit analogous to literal-minded social contract arguments: that the state is legitimate because it descends from a primordial agreement among all citizens to create its authority. But discrediting the origins story doesn't really tell us anything about the functioning system. We have an economic system today that coordinates activity through money and credit, and it doesn't really matter very much if we know exactly how it came about. I think that Graeber is focused on the issue because he thinks the myth helps to convey the view that the contemporary economist's view of human activity -- self-serving actions designed to maximize one's own utility -- is in fact an historical universal, applying to pre-modern and non-western social settings as well as to the New Orleans cotton exchange.
It's money that had made it possible for us to imagine ourselves in the way economists encourage us to do: as a collection of individuals and nations whose main business is swapping things. (44)Graeber's view, by contrast, is that most human activity doesn't conform to this model; that the gift relation and the practice of open-ended reciprocity are much more characteristic of the human condition.
There are many startling facts and descriptions that Graeber produces as he tells his story of the development of the ideologies of money, credit, and debt. One of the most interesting to me has to do with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform -- vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. ... According to the Populist reading, the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent the East and West Coast bankers (promoters of and benefactors from the tight money supply), the Scarecrow represented the farmers (who didn't have the brains to avoid the debt trap), the Tin Woodsman was the industrial proletariat (who didn't have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers), the Cowardly Lion represented the political class (who didn't have the courage to intervene). ... "Oz" is of course the standard abbreviation for "ounce." (52)(This is roughly as startling to me as an interpretation of Star Wars as an extended allegory on Reaganism (intervention in Nicaragua, scary military officers in the background, etc.). This doesn't quite work, though, since Star Wars appeared in 1977, three years before Reagan's first election as president.)
One of Graeber's recurring themes is that money and debt are reciprocals of each other. He tells many stories about IOU's being passed around within a community: John promises to give X to Alice; Alice passes on the IOU to Robbie in exchange for a beer; Robbie takes the IOU to the nail shop and exchanges it for a pound of nails from Bert; and Bert eventually comes back to John to redeem the IOU. In this circuit, the statement of debt serves as a basis for folk currency within a local society. But Graeber argues that the establishment of Bank of England resulted in bank notes that were no more or less than IOU's from the state (49).
Another theme that comes into the book is the close connection that Graeber draws between money and currency, and violence and war. He argues that trust and extended credit arrangements work very well during periods of peace; whereas a period of extended warfare puts a premium on the portability and anonymity of precious metals. So warfare pushes societies (and monarchs) towards the use of currency made out of precious metals. He goes further: monarchs needed to pay their armies, in Europe, central Asia, and East Asia; and precious metals (coins) work best for the heavily armed and footloose soldiers who made up those armies.
As a result, while credit systems tend to dominate in periods of relative social peace, or across networks of trust (whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions like merchant guilds or communities of faith), in periods characterized by widespread war and plunder, they tend to be replaced by precious metal. (213)And:
The Atlantic Slave Trade as a whole was a gigantic network of credit arrangements. Ship-owners based in Liverpool or Bristol would acquire goods on easy credit terms from local wholesalers, expecting to make good by selling slaves (also on credit) to planters int he Antilles and America, with commission agents in the city of London ultimately financing the affair through the profits of the sugar and tobacco trade. (149)Graeber has a preferred alternative to a society based on barter, market exchange, debt, warfare, slavery, and peonage. It is what he calls a "human economy":
This is why I developed the concept of human economies: ones in which what is considered really important about human beings is the fact that they are each a unique nexus of relations with others -- therefore, that no one could ever be considered exactly equivalent to anything or anyone else. In a human economy, money is not a way of buying or trading human beings, but a way of expressing just how much one cannot do so. (207)An intriguing, and somewhat perplexing, part of Graeber's analysis is his effort to link the value systems of Eurasia's great civilizations to the social creation of money, credit, and debt. A central thrust here is his analysis of the "Axial Age" -- the period from 800 bc to 600 ad when there was great creativity in the emergence of new spiritual leaders and movements. There was, simultaneously, extensive warfare; and there was the simultaneous invention of currency in several widely separated places. He illustrates this nexus with the case of China:
The golden age of Chinese philosophy was the period of chaos that preceded unification [during the Warring States period], and this followed the typical Axial Age pattern: the same fractured political landscape, the same rise of trained, professional armies and the creation of coined money largely in order to pay them. We also see the same government policies designed to encourage the development of markets, chattel slavery on a scale not seen before or since in Chinese history, the appearance of itinerant philosophers and religious visionaries, battling intellectual schools, and eventually, attempts by political leaders to transform the new philosophies into religions of state. (235)So what is the connection he wants to draw between value systems, social violence, and money? It is unclear to me; somehow Graeber weaves together a fascinating narrative involving each of these. He does think there is a connection, but it's difficult to see what is thought to be causal in the story.
In fact, some of the historical connections are so uncannily close that they are very hard to explain any other way. Let me give an example. After the first coins were minted around 600 bc in the kingdom of Lydia, the practice quickly spread to Ionia, the Greek cities of the adjacent coast. The greatest of these was the great walled metropolis of Miletus, which also appears to have been the first Greek city to strike its own coins. It was Ionia, too, that provided the bulk of the Greek mercenaries active in the Mediterranean at the time, with Miletus their effective headquarters. Miletus was also the commercial center of the region, and perhaps, the first city in the world where everyday market transactions came to be carried out primarily in coins instead of credit. Greek philosophy, in turn, begins with three men: Thales, of Miletus (c. 624 bc- c546 bc), "Anaximander, of Miletus (c. 610 bc- c546 bc), and Anaximenes, of Miletus (c. 585 bc- c525 bc) -- in other words, men who were living in that city at exactly the time that coinage was first introduced. (244)He pulls out "materialism" as a thread in the philosophical systems that emerged in the Axial Age -- China as well as Greece -- and suggests an analogy between the idea of an abstract fundamental physical substance that is the substrate of everything physical, and the idea of an abstract unit of measure of all commodities, money (245); but it's hard to see a consistent and compelling idea here about the intertwining development of philosophy and economics. Here is the closest he comes to a statement of the nature of the connection he finds:
What we see then is a strange kind of back-and-forth, attack and riposte, whereby the market, the state, war, and religion all continually separate and merge with one another. (248)Where does it all lead? After a walk through the Middle Ages (major improvement in quality of life over the Axial Age, according to Graeber), we get to capitalism:
Starting from our baseline date of 1700, then, what we see at the dawn of modern capitalism is a gigantic financial apparatus of credit and debt that operates -- in practical effect -- to pump more and more labor out of just about everyone with whom it comes into contact, and as a result produces an endlessly expanding volume of material goods. (346)Does he bring this parable to a practical piece of advice? He does, actually:
In this book I have largely avoided making concrete proposals, but let me end with one. It seems to me that we are long overdue for some kind of Biblical-style Jubilee: one that would affect both international debt and consumer debt. It would be salutary not just because it would relieve so much genuine human suffering, but also because it would be our way of reminding ourselves that money is not ineffable, that paying one's debts is not the essence of morality, that all these things are human arrangements and that if democracy is to mean anything, it is the ability to all agree to arrange things in a different way. (390)As I mentioned at the start, Graeber is also an activist who has been strongly involved in anti-globalization protests in the past fifteen years. His Direct Action: An Ethnography
is an interesting cross-over book bringing together his anthropologist's training and his activist experience; it is an ethnography of the anarchist activism movement as he has experienced it. I'll discuss this work in a future post.Here are two interviews with Graeber that give a pretty good idea of his style and critical views about the present (link, link). Both are very interesting to listen to.
David Graeber's reflections on money, debt, and violence
David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years
has hit a chord with a lot of people who are concerned about rising inequalities in the United States and elsewhere. Graeber is an economic anthropologist, a discipline that pays close attention to the ways that material arrangements worked in detail in pre-state societies. One of the great works in this field is Marshall Sahlins' book, Stone Age Economics, which paid very close ethnographic attention to how the social arrangements worked in hunter-gatherer societies when it came to gathering and consuming food and other necessities of life. (My main recollection is that Sahlins found that hunter-gatherers worked much shorter days than their successors, the farmers, and had much more time to enjoy the finer things of life, including stories and jokes.) Graeber is also described as one of the intellectual sources of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and anti-globalization activism has been an important part of his life for a long time. (Here is a story in Bloomberg that gives a lot of interesting background.)The book is difficult to characterize. It's about debt and money through history, but it's really not a work in economic history. It offers a lot of ethnographic detail about borrowing, lending, gifting, and reciprocating, but it's not really a work of anthropology. And it offers morally valenced language to describe debt and credit, but it's not really a polemical critique of the present financial system. It is certainly an engaging, interesting, and thought-provoking book, and Graeber appears to know a great deal about the social and institutional histories of the main civilizations of Eurasia.
One line of thought is perfectly clear in the book: Graeber wants to demolish the myth of the truck-and-barter origins of money. This is the standard story within classical and neoclassical economics. But Graeber thinks it is a complete fiction. He regards this as a just-so story that doesn't make any sense ethnographically, and has never been observed in real pre-state societies.
The story, then, is everywhere. It is the founding myth of our system of economic relations. It is so deeply established in common sense, even in places like Madagascar, that most people on earth couldn't imagine any other way that money could possibly have come about.
The problem is there's no evidence that it ever happened, and an enormous amount of evidence suggesting that it did not. (28)Graeber's case for this position seems to be a sound one. But why exactly does it matter? It seems to be a bit analogous to literal-minded social contract arguments: that the state is legitimate because it descends from a primordial agreement among all citizens to create its authority. But discrediting the origins story doesn't really tell us anything about the functioning system. We have an economic system today that coordinates activity through money and credit, and it doesn't really matter very much if we know exactly how it came about. I think that Graeber is focused on the issue because he thinks the myth helps to convey the view that the contemporary economist's view of human activity -- self-serving actions designed to maximize one's own utility -- is in fact an historical universal, applying to pre-modern and non-western social settings as well as to the New Orleans cotton exchange.
It's money that had made it possible for us to imagine ourselves in the way economists encourage us to do: as a collection of individuals and nations whose main business is swapping things. (44)Graeber's view, by contrast, is that most human activity doesn't conform to this model; that the gift relation and the practice of open-ended reciprocity are much more characteristic of the human condition.
There are many startling facts and descriptions that Graeber produces as he tells his story of the development of the ideologies of money, credit, and debt. One of the most interesting to me has to do with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform -- vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. ... According to the Populist reading, the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent the East and West Coast bankers (promoters of and benefactors from the tight money supply), the Scarecrow represented the farmers (who didn't have the brains to avoid the debt trap), the Tin Woodsman was the industrial proletariat (who didn't have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers), the Cowardly Lion represented the political class (who didn't have the courage to intervene). ... "Oz" is of course the standard abbreviation for "ounce." (52)(This is roughly as startling to me as an interpretation of Star Wars as an extended allegory on Reaganism (intervention in Nicaragua, scary military officers in the background, etc.). This doesn't quite work, though, since Star Wars appeared in 1977, three years before Reagan's first election as president.)
One of Graeber's recurring themes is that money and debt are reciprocals of each other. He tells many stories about IOU's being passed around within a community: John promises to give X to Alice; Alice passes on the IOU to Robbie in exchange for a beer; Robbie takes the IOU to the nail shop and exchanges it for a pound of nails from Bert; and Bert eventually comes back to John to redeem the IOU. In this circuit, the statement of debt serves as a basis for folk currency within a local society. But Graeber argues that the establishment of Bank of England resulted in bank notes that were no more or less than IOU's from the state (49).
Another theme that comes into the book is the close connection that Graeber draws between money and currency, and violence and war. He argues that trust and extended credit arrangements work very well during periods of peace; whereas a period of extended warfare puts a premium on the portability and anonymity of precious metals. So warfare pushes societies (and monarchs) towards the use of currency made out of precious metals. He goes further: monarchs needed to pay their armies, in Europe, central Asia, and East Asia; and precious metals (coins) work best for the heavily armed and footloose soldiers who made up those armies.
As a result, while credit systems tend to dominate in periods of relative social peace, or across networks of trust (whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions like merchant guilds or communities of faith), in periods characterized by widespread war and plunder, they tend to be replaced by precious metal. (213)And:
The Atlantic Slave Trade as a whole was a gigantic network of credit arrangements. Ship-owners based in Liverpool or Bristol would acquire goods on easy credit terms from local wholesalers, expecting to make good by selling slaves (also on credit) to planters int he Antilles and America, with commission agents in the city of London ultimately financing the affair through the profits of the sugar and tobacco trade. (149)Graeber has a preferred alternative to a society based on barter, market exchange, debt, warfare, slavery, and peonage. It is what he calls a "human economy":
This is why I developed the concept of human economies: ones in which what is considered really important about human beings is the fact that they are each a unique nexus of relations with others -- therefore, that no one could ever be considered exactly equivalent to anything or anyone else. In a human economy, money is not a way of buying or trading human beings, but a way of expressing just how much one cannot do so. (207)An intriguing, and somewhat perplexing, part of Graeber's analysis is his effort to link the value systems of Eurasia's great civilizations to the social creation of money, credit, and debt. A central thrust here is his analysis of the "Axial Age" -- the period from 800 bc to 600 ad when there was great creativity in the emergence of new spiritual leaders and movements. There was, simultaneously, extensive warfare; and there was the simultaneous invention of currency in several widely separated places. He illustrates this nexus with the case of China:
The golden age of Chinese philosophy was the period of chaos that preceded unification [during the Warring States period], and this followed the typical Axial Age pattern: the same fractured political landscape, the same rise of trained, professional armies and the creation of coined money largely in order to pay them. We also see the same government policies designed to encourage the development of markets, chattel slavery on a scale not seen before or since in Chinese history, the appearance of itinerant philosophers and religious visionaries, battling intellectual schools, and eventually, attempts by political leaders to transform the new philosophies into religions of state. (235)So what is the connection he wants to draw between value systems, social violence, and money? It is unclear to me; somehow Graeber weaves together a fascinating narrative involving each of these. He does think there is a connection, but it's difficult to see what is thought to be causal in the story.
In fact, some of the historical connections are so uncannily close that they are very hard to explain any other way. Let me give an example. After the first coins were minted around 600 bc in the kingdom of Lydia, the practice quickly spread to Ionia, the Greek cities of the adjacent coast. The greatest of these was the great walled metropolis of Miletus, which also appears to have been the first Greek city to strike its own coins. It was Ionia, too, that provided the bulk of the Greek mercenaries active in the Mediterranean at the time, with Miletus their effective headquarters. Miletus was also the commercial center of the region, and perhaps, the first city in the world where everyday market transactions came to be carried out primarily in coins instead of credit. Greek philosophy, in turn, begins with three men: Thales, of Miletus (c. 624 bc- c546 bc), "Anaximander, of Miletus (c. 610 bc- c546 bc), and Anaximenes, of Miletus (c. 585 bc- c525 bc) -- in other words, men who were living in that city at exactly the time that coinage was first introduced. (244)He pulls out "materialism" as a thread in the philosophical systems that emerged in the Axial Age -- China as well as Greece -- and suggests an analogy between the idea of an abstract fundamental physical substance that is the substrate of everything physical, and the idea of an abstract unit of measure of all commodities, money (245); but it's hard to see a consistent and compelling idea here about the intertwining development of philosophy and economics. Here is the closest he comes to a statement of the nature of the connection he finds:
What we see then is a strange kind of back-and-forth, attack and riposte, whereby the market, the state, war, and religion all continually separate and merge with one another. (248)Where does it all lead? After a walk through the Middle Ages (major improvement in quality of life over the Axial Age, according to Graeber), we get to capitalism:
Starting from our baseline date of 1700, then, what we see at the dawn of modern capitalism is a gigantic financial apparatus of credit and debt that operates -- in practical effect -- to pump more and more labor out of just about everyone with whom it comes into contact, and as a result produces an endlessly expanding volume of material goods. (346)Does he bring this parable to a practical piece of advice? He does, actually:
In this book I have largely avoided making concrete proposals, but let me end with one. It seems to me that we are long overdue for some kind of Biblical-style Jubilee: one that would affect both international debt and consumer debt. It would be salutary not just because it would relieve so much genuine human suffering, but also because it would be our way of reminding ourselves that money is not ineffable, that paying one's debts is not the essence of morality, that all these things are human arrangements and that if democracy is to mean anything, it is the ability to all agree to arrange things in a different way. (390)As I mentioned at the start, Graeber is also an activist who has been strongly involved in anti-globalization protests in the past fifteen years. His Direct Action: An Ethnography
is an interesting cross-over book bringing together his anthropologist's training and his activist experience; it is an ethnography of the anarchist activism movement as he has experienced it. I'll discuss this work in a future post.Here are two interviews with Graeber that give a pretty good idea of his style and critical views about the present (link, link). Both are very interesting to listen to.
Military charges more and more men with bogus rape claims--just to show it takes sexual assault seriously
Following our comments is a searing indictment of a military culture that promotes sex crime witch hunts for political reasons. The news report at issue is among the most frightening articles we've ever posted here, and that's saying a lot.
The number of sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial has increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
The reason is politics. It's up to military commanders to decide whether to prosecute these cases. Unlike civilian prosecutors, who generally don't prosecute cases if there is significant uncertainty about whether they can get a conviction, it's exactly the opposite in the military: a politically conscious admiral or general isn't going to risk their careers by not prosecuting even ridiculous sex claims.
A retired army prosecutor named Timothy MacDonnell asked rhetorically: "What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?"
It is well that you are able to tell that she's a "victim," Mr. McDonnell, before a scrap of evidence is presented or the defendant is given an opportunity to fairly defend himself. But in response to your asinine query, here's what we would have you do: stop playing Russian roulette, stop rolling the dice, with the lives of presumptively innocent men in the hope that you might "get lucky." Start doing what decent civilian prosecutors do: only prosecute cases where there is a moral certainty of guilt.
Read some of the quotes from the article. They underscore a culture willing to treat innocent men as collateral damage in the "more important," politicized war on rape:
"'. . . the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously.'"
"And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed."
"'Because there is this spin-up of "We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap," it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes,' said one Navy prosecutor . . . . There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- "Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?"'"
"Too often . . . defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said."
". . . the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts."
". . . a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action."
". . . now many of [these allegations] are given more deference than they're due."
"Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true. 'Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, "There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,"' said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney. But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Here is the entire article:
Military rape charges lead to increased trials
By MARISA TAYOLO and CHRIS ADAMS
Published Tuesday, November 29, 2011
WASHINGTON -- By the time Marine Staff Sgt. Jamie Walton went to trial on rape charges, his accuser had changed her story several times.
A military lawyer who evaluated the case told Walton's commander they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial on sexual assault charges. The prosecutor even agreed. But the Marines ignored the advice.
"Everyone knew I didn't rape her," said Walton, who was acquitted of the charge last year. "But they went ahead with the trial anyway."
Walton's questionable prosecution clashes with the public's perception of a soft-on-rape military. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts.
However, most of the accused aren't being convicted of serious crimes.
Such results are provoking cynicism within the armed forces that the politics of rape are tainting a military justice system that's as old as the country itself.
"In the media and on Capitol Hill, there's this myth that the military doesn't take sexual assault seriously," said Michael Waddington, a former Army judge advocate who now defends the cases. "But the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously."
McClatchy's review of nearly 4,000 sexual assault allegations demonstrates that the military has taken a more aggressive stance. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
However, only 27 percent of the defendants were convicted of those offenses or other serious crimes in 2009 and 2010, McClatchy found after reviewing the cases detailed in the Defense Department's annual sexual assault reports. When factoring in convictions for lesser offenses -- such as adultery, which is illegal in the military, or perjury -- about half the cases ended in convictions.
And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed.
The alleged victim, Tracy Lynn Valderrama, admitted three months later to fabricating the assault.
The Marine, whose name was never released, was charged with rape, breaking and entering and larceny, and was later released from the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston after the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Laboratory found that DNA evidence taken from the crime scene did not match.
Valderrama was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2010 on three counts of knowingly making false statements to federal investigators during interviews about the alleged attack, including that she was assaulted by a man wearing a mask and gloves who was armed with a knife, federal court records show.
She pleaded guilty in federal court in September to one count of lying to investigators and has yet to be sentenced, according to court records.
Valderrama faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The military's conviction rate for all crimes is more than 90 percent, according to a 2010 report to Congress by the Pentagon.
"The pendulum has swung," said Victor Kelley, a former federal prosecutor who's a defense attorney with the law firm National Military Justice Group. "It may be true that years ago some of these allegations weren't given the attention they deserved. But now many of them are given more deference than they're due."
But legal officials with all four military branches say the low conviction rate shows how difficult it is to convict the suspects, not that innocent people are being sent to trial. One common problem in all courts -- military and civilian alike -- is that a sexual assault victim's behavior comes under attack as much as that of the accused does. As a result, juries may not convict despite hearing significant evidence that a rape occurred.
Making acquittals even more likely, the military is prosecuting more contested cases under a controversial law that broadens the definition of sexual assault. Under the 2006 law, the military can argue that a victim was sexually assaulted because she was "substantially incapacitated" from excessive drinking and couldn't have consented.
"What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?" asked Timothy MacDonnell, an Army prosecutor who retired in 2008. "Then you're saying to sexual predators, 'Just be careful and make sure you do it in private and you'll get away with it.' "
In dozens of interviews, however, a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action.
Unlike in the civilian justice system, a military commander, not a prosecutor, makes the final call on whether to press charges. At times, the commanders disregard their legal advisers' recommendations and pursue allegations of sexual assault, raising concerns that the anti-rape campaign of advocacy groups and Congress is influencing them.
Even some prosecutors say the strategy has backfired, making it more difficult to crack down on the crime in general.
"Because there is this spin-up of 'We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap,' it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes," said one Navy prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared retaliation for speaking out.
"There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- 'Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?' "
The pressure ratcheted up in 2003, when female cadets at the Air Force Academy accused commanders of ignoring their sexual assaults. In the wake of the scandal, the military prosecuted several of the accused.
The cases didn't go well. One of the juries took only 20 minutes in 2006 to acquit a defendant. After a judge dismissed charges against another cadet, civilian prosecutors declined to charge him in 2007 because of a lack of evidence.
In fact, none of the men accused in the scandal were convicted of charges related to non-consensual sex, said attorneys who were involved.
Citing such failures, Congress boosted the military's anti-sexual assault budget and crafted the new law to help prosecute cases.
As lawmakers turned up the pressure, the military acted on the demands. The number of all sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data.
Too often, however, defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said.
Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true.
"Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, 'There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,' " said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney.
"But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Beaufort Gazette staff writer Patrick Donohue contributed.
The number of sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial has increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
The reason is politics. It's up to military commanders to decide whether to prosecute these cases. Unlike civilian prosecutors, who generally don't prosecute cases if there is significant uncertainty about whether they can get a conviction, it's exactly the opposite in the military: a politically conscious admiral or general isn't going to risk their careers by not prosecuting even ridiculous sex claims.
A retired army prosecutor named Timothy MacDonnell asked rhetorically: "What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?"
It is well that you are able to tell that she's a "victim," Mr. McDonnell, before a scrap of evidence is presented or the defendant is given an opportunity to fairly defend himself. But in response to your asinine query, here's what we would have you do: stop playing Russian roulette, stop rolling the dice, with the lives of presumptively innocent men in the hope that you might "get lucky." Start doing what decent civilian prosecutors do: only prosecute cases where there is a moral certainty of guilt.
Read some of the quotes from the article. They underscore a culture willing to treat innocent men as collateral damage in the "more important," politicized war on rape:
"'. . . the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously.'"
"And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed."
"'Because there is this spin-up of "We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap," it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes,' said one Navy prosecutor . . . . There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- "Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?"'"
"Too often . . . defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said."
". . . the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts."
". . . a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action."
". . . now many of [these allegations] are given more deference than they're due."
"Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true. 'Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, "There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,"' said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney. But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Here is the entire article:
Military rape charges lead to increased trials
By MARISA TAYOLO and CHRIS ADAMS
Published Tuesday, November 29, 2011
WASHINGTON -- By the time Marine Staff Sgt. Jamie Walton went to trial on rape charges, his accuser had changed her story several times.
A military lawyer who evaluated the case told Walton's commander they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial on sexual assault charges. The prosecutor even agreed. But the Marines ignored the advice.
"Everyone knew I didn't rape her," said Walton, who was acquitted of the charge last year. "But they went ahead with the trial anyway."
Walton's questionable prosecution clashes with the public's perception of a soft-on-rape military. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts.
However, most of the accused aren't being convicted of serious crimes.
Such results are provoking cynicism within the armed forces that the politics of rape are tainting a military justice system that's as old as the country itself.
"In the media and on Capitol Hill, there's this myth that the military doesn't take sexual assault seriously," said Michael Waddington, a former Army judge advocate who now defends the cases. "But the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously."
McClatchy's review of nearly 4,000 sexual assault allegations demonstrates that the military has taken a more aggressive stance. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
However, only 27 percent of the defendants were convicted of those offenses or other serious crimes in 2009 and 2010, McClatchy found after reviewing the cases detailed in the Defense Department's annual sexual assault reports. When factoring in convictions for lesser offenses -- such as adultery, which is illegal in the military, or perjury -- about half the cases ended in convictions.
And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed.
The alleged victim, Tracy Lynn Valderrama, admitted three months later to fabricating the assault.
The Marine, whose name was never released, was charged with rape, breaking and entering and larceny, and was later released from the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston after the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Laboratory found that DNA evidence taken from the crime scene did not match.
Valderrama was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2010 on three counts of knowingly making false statements to federal investigators during interviews about the alleged attack, including that she was assaulted by a man wearing a mask and gloves who was armed with a knife, federal court records show.
She pleaded guilty in federal court in September to one count of lying to investigators and has yet to be sentenced, according to court records.
Valderrama faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The military's conviction rate for all crimes is more than 90 percent, according to a 2010 report to Congress by the Pentagon.
"The pendulum has swung," said Victor Kelley, a former federal prosecutor who's a defense attorney with the law firm National Military Justice Group. "It may be true that years ago some of these allegations weren't given the attention they deserved. But now many of them are given more deference than they're due."
But legal officials with all four military branches say the low conviction rate shows how difficult it is to convict the suspects, not that innocent people are being sent to trial. One common problem in all courts -- military and civilian alike -- is that a sexual assault victim's behavior comes under attack as much as that of the accused does. As a result, juries may not convict despite hearing significant evidence that a rape occurred.
Making acquittals even more likely, the military is prosecuting more contested cases under a controversial law that broadens the definition of sexual assault. Under the 2006 law, the military can argue that a victim was sexually assaulted because she was "substantially incapacitated" from excessive drinking and couldn't have consented.
"What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?" asked Timothy MacDonnell, an Army prosecutor who retired in 2008. "Then you're saying to sexual predators, 'Just be careful and make sure you do it in private and you'll get away with it.' "
In dozens of interviews, however, a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action.
Unlike in the civilian justice system, a military commander, not a prosecutor, makes the final call on whether to press charges. At times, the commanders disregard their legal advisers' recommendations and pursue allegations of sexual assault, raising concerns that the anti-rape campaign of advocacy groups and Congress is influencing them.
Even some prosecutors say the strategy has backfired, making it more difficult to crack down on the crime in general.
"Because there is this spin-up of 'We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap,' it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes," said one Navy prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared retaliation for speaking out.
"There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- 'Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?' "
The pressure ratcheted up in 2003, when female cadets at the Air Force Academy accused commanders of ignoring their sexual assaults. In the wake of the scandal, the military prosecuted several of the accused.
The cases didn't go well. One of the juries took only 20 minutes in 2006 to acquit a defendant. After a judge dismissed charges against another cadet, civilian prosecutors declined to charge him in 2007 because of a lack of evidence.
In fact, none of the men accused in the scandal were convicted of charges related to non-consensual sex, said attorneys who were involved.
Citing such failures, Congress boosted the military's anti-sexual assault budget and crafted the new law to help prosecute cases.
As lawmakers turned up the pressure, the military acted on the demands. The number of all sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data.
Too often, however, defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said.
Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true.
"Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, 'There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,' " said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney.
"But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Beaufort Gazette staff writer Patrick Donohue contributed.
Military charges more and more men with bogus rape claims--just to show it takes sexual assault seriously
Following our comments is a searing indictment of a military culture that promotes sex crime witch hunts for political reasons. The news report at issue is among the most frightening articles we've ever posted here, and that's saying a lot.
The number of sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial has increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
The reason is politics. It's up to military commanders to decide whether to prosecute these cases. Unlike civilian prosecutors, who generally don't prosecute cases if there is significant uncertainty about whether they can get a conviction, it's exactly the opposite in the military: a politically conscious admiral or general isn't going to risk their careers by not prosecuting even ridiculous sex claims.
A retired army prosecutor named Timothy MacDonnell asked rhetorically: "What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?"
It is well that you are able to tell that she's a "victim," Mr. McDonnell, before a scrap of evidence is presented or the defendant is given an opportunity to fairly defend himself. But in response to your asinine query, here's what we would have you do: stop playing Russian roulette, stop rolling the dice, with the lives of presumptively innocent men in the hope that you might "get lucky." Start doing what decent civilian prosecutors do: only prosecute cases where there is a moral certainty of guilt.
Read some of the quotes from the article. They underscore a culture willing to treat innocent men as collateral damage in the "more important," politicized war on rape:
"'. . . the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously.'"
"And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed."
"'Because there is this spin-up of "We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap," it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes,' said one Navy prosecutor . . . . There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- "Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?"'"
"Too often . . . defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said."
". . . the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts."
". . . a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action."
". . . now many of [these allegations] are given more deference than they're due."
"Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true. 'Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, "There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,"' said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney. But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Here is the entire article:
Military rape charges lead to increased trials
By MARISA TAYOLO and CHRIS ADAMS
Published Tuesday, November 29, 2011
WASHINGTON -- By the time Marine Staff Sgt. Jamie Walton went to trial on rape charges, his accuser had changed her story several times.
A military lawyer who evaluated the case told Walton's commander they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial on sexual assault charges. The prosecutor even agreed. But the Marines ignored the advice.
"Everyone knew I didn't rape her," said Walton, who was acquitted of the charge last year. "But they went ahead with the trial anyway."
Walton's questionable prosecution clashes with the public's perception of a soft-on-rape military. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts.
However, most of the accused aren't being convicted of serious crimes.
Such results are provoking cynicism within the armed forces that the politics of rape are tainting a military justice system that's as old as the country itself.
"In the media and on Capitol Hill, there's this myth that the military doesn't take sexual assault seriously," said Michael Waddington, a former Army judge advocate who now defends the cases. "But the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously."
McClatchy's review of nearly 4,000 sexual assault allegations demonstrates that the military has taken a more aggressive stance. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
However, only 27 percent of the defendants were convicted of those offenses or other serious crimes in 2009 and 2010, McClatchy found after reviewing the cases detailed in the Defense Department's annual sexual assault reports. When factoring in convictions for lesser offenses -- such as adultery, which is illegal in the military, or perjury -- about half the cases ended in convictions.
And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed.
The alleged victim, Tracy Lynn Valderrama, admitted three months later to fabricating the assault.
The Marine, whose name was never released, was charged with rape, breaking and entering and larceny, and was later released from the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston after the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Laboratory found that DNA evidence taken from the crime scene did not match.
Valderrama was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2010 on three counts of knowingly making false statements to federal investigators during interviews about the alleged attack, including that she was assaulted by a man wearing a mask and gloves who was armed with a knife, federal court records show.
She pleaded guilty in federal court in September to one count of lying to investigators and has yet to be sentenced, according to court records.
Valderrama faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The military's conviction rate for all crimes is more than 90 percent, according to a 2010 report to Congress by the Pentagon.
"The pendulum has swung," said Victor Kelley, a former federal prosecutor who's a defense attorney with the law firm National Military Justice Group. "It may be true that years ago some of these allegations weren't given the attention they deserved. But now many of them are given more deference than they're due."
But legal officials with all four military branches say the low conviction rate shows how difficult it is to convict the suspects, not that innocent people are being sent to trial. One common problem in all courts -- military and civilian alike -- is that a sexual assault victim's behavior comes under attack as much as that of the accused does. As a result, juries may not convict despite hearing significant evidence that a rape occurred.
Making acquittals even more likely, the military is prosecuting more contested cases under a controversial law that broadens the definition of sexual assault. Under the 2006 law, the military can argue that a victim was sexually assaulted because she was "substantially incapacitated" from excessive drinking and couldn't have consented.
"What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?" asked Timothy MacDonnell, an Army prosecutor who retired in 2008. "Then you're saying to sexual predators, 'Just be careful and make sure you do it in private and you'll get away with it.' "
In dozens of interviews, however, a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action.
Unlike in the civilian justice system, a military commander, not a prosecutor, makes the final call on whether to press charges. At times, the commanders disregard their legal advisers' recommendations and pursue allegations of sexual assault, raising concerns that the anti-rape campaign of advocacy groups and Congress is influencing them.
Even some prosecutors say the strategy has backfired, making it more difficult to crack down on the crime in general.
"Because there is this spin-up of 'We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap,' it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes," said one Navy prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared retaliation for speaking out.
"There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- 'Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?' "
The pressure ratcheted up in 2003, when female cadets at the Air Force Academy accused commanders of ignoring their sexual assaults. In the wake of the scandal, the military prosecuted several of the accused.
The cases didn't go well. One of the juries took only 20 minutes in 2006 to acquit a defendant. After a judge dismissed charges against another cadet, civilian prosecutors declined to charge him in 2007 because of a lack of evidence.
In fact, none of the men accused in the scandal were convicted of charges related to non-consensual sex, said attorneys who were involved.
Citing such failures, Congress boosted the military's anti-sexual assault budget and crafted the new law to help prosecute cases.
As lawmakers turned up the pressure, the military acted on the demands. The number of all sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data.
Too often, however, defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said.
Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true.
"Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, 'There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,' " said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney.
"But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Beaufort Gazette staff writer Patrick Donohue contributed.
The number of sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial has increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
The reason is politics. It's up to military commanders to decide whether to prosecute these cases. Unlike civilian prosecutors, who generally don't prosecute cases if there is significant uncertainty about whether they can get a conviction, it's exactly the opposite in the military: a politically conscious admiral or general isn't going to risk their careers by not prosecuting even ridiculous sex claims.
A retired army prosecutor named Timothy MacDonnell asked rhetorically: "What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?"
It is well that you are able to tell that she's a "victim," Mr. McDonnell, before a scrap of evidence is presented or the defendant is given an opportunity to fairly defend himself. But in response to your asinine query, here's what we would have you do: stop playing Russian roulette, stop rolling the dice, with the lives of presumptively innocent men in the hope that you might "get lucky." Start doing what decent civilian prosecutors do: only prosecute cases where there is a moral certainty of guilt.
Read some of the quotes from the article. They underscore a culture willing to treat innocent men as collateral damage in the "more important," politicized war on rape:
"'. . . the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously.'"
"And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed."
"'Because there is this spin-up of "We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap," it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes,' said one Navy prosecutor . . . . There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- "Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?"'"
"Too often . . . defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said."
". . . the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts."
". . . a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action."
". . . now many of [these allegations] are given more deference than they're due."
"Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true. 'Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, "There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,"' said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney. But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Here is the entire article:
Military rape charges lead to increased trials
By MARISA TAYOLO and CHRIS ADAMS
Published Tuesday, November 29, 2011
WASHINGTON -- By the time Marine Staff Sgt. Jamie Walton went to trial on rape charges, his accuser had changed her story several times.
A military lawyer who evaluated the case told Walton's commander they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial on sexual assault charges. The prosecutor even agreed. But the Marines ignored the advice.
"Everyone knew I didn't rape her," said Walton, who was acquitted of the charge last year. "But they went ahead with the trial anyway."
Walton's questionable prosecution clashes with the public's perception of a soft-on-rape military. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that the military is prosecuting a growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations, including highly contested cases that would be unlikely to go to trial in many civilian courts.
However, most of the accused aren't being convicted of serious crimes.
Such results are provoking cynicism within the armed forces that the politics of rape are tainting a military justice system that's as old as the country itself.
"In the media and on Capitol Hill, there's this myth that the military doesn't take sexual assault seriously," said Michael Waddington, a former Army judge advocate who now defends the cases. "But the reality is they're charging more and more people with bogus cases just to show that they do take it seriously."
McClatchy's review of nearly 4,000 sexual assault allegations demonstrates that the military has taken a more aggressive stance. Last year, military commanders sent about 70 percent more cases to courts-martial that started as rape or aggravated sexual-assault allegations than they did in 2009.
However, only 27 percent of the defendants were convicted of those offenses or other serious crimes in 2009 and 2010, McClatchy found after reviewing the cases detailed in the Defense Department's annual sexual assault reports. When factoring in convictions for lesser offenses -- such as adultery, which is illegal in the military, or perjury -- about half the cases ended in convictions.
And sometimes, servicemen are falsely accused, as was the case in February 2010 when a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Marine was arrested and jailed for more than a month for allegedly sexually assaulting a Laurel Bay woman whose husband was deployed.
The alleged victim, Tracy Lynn Valderrama, admitted three months later to fabricating the assault.
The Marine, whose name was never released, was charged with rape, breaking and entering and larceny, and was later released from the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston after the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Laboratory found that DNA evidence taken from the crime scene did not match.
Valderrama was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2010 on three counts of knowingly making false statements to federal investigators during interviews about the alleged attack, including that she was assaulted by a man wearing a mask and gloves who was armed with a knife, federal court records show.
She pleaded guilty in federal court in September to one count of lying to investigators and has yet to be sentenced, according to court records.
Valderrama faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The military's conviction rate for all crimes is more than 90 percent, according to a 2010 report to Congress by the Pentagon.
"The pendulum has swung," said Victor Kelley, a former federal prosecutor who's a defense attorney with the law firm National Military Justice Group. "It may be true that years ago some of these allegations weren't given the attention they deserved. But now many of them are given more deference than they're due."
But legal officials with all four military branches say the low conviction rate shows how difficult it is to convict the suspects, not that innocent people are being sent to trial. One common problem in all courts -- military and civilian alike -- is that a sexual assault victim's behavior comes under attack as much as that of the accused does. As a result, juries may not convict despite hearing significant evidence that a rape occurred.
Making acquittals even more likely, the military is prosecuting more contested cases under a controversial law that broadens the definition of sexual assault. Under the 2006 law, the military can argue that a victim was sexually assaulted because she was "substantially incapacitated" from excessive drinking and couldn't have consented.
"What would you have us do? Tell the victim she can't get justice just because it's a hard case?" asked Timothy MacDonnell, an Army prosecutor who retired in 2008. "Then you're saying to sexual predators, 'Just be careful and make sure you do it in private and you'll get away with it.' "
In dozens of interviews, however, a wide range of people who are involved in the military justice system questioned whether the military was weighing the proper legal considerations when deciding whether to take criminal action.
Unlike in the civilian justice system, a military commander, not a prosecutor, makes the final call on whether to press charges. At times, the commanders disregard their legal advisers' recommendations and pursue allegations of sexual assault, raising concerns that the anti-rape campaign of advocacy groups and Congress is influencing them.
Even some prosecutors say the strategy has backfired, making it more difficult to crack down on the crime in general.
"Because there is this spin-up of 'We have to take cases seriously even though they're crap,' it creates a kind of a climate of blasè attitudes," said one Navy prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared retaliation for speaking out.
"There is a pressure to prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. When you get one that's actually real, there's a lot of skepticism. You hear it routinely -- 'Is this a rape case or is this a Navy rape case?' "
The pressure ratcheted up in 2003, when female cadets at the Air Force Academy accused commanders of ignoring their sexual assaults. In the wake of the scandal, the military prosecuted several of the accused.
The cases didn't go well. One of the juries took only 20 minutes in 2006 to acquit a defendant. After a judge dismissed charges against another cadet, civilian prosecutors declined to charge him in 2007 because of a lack of evidence.
In fact, none of the men accused in the scandal were convicted of charges related to non-consensual sex, said attorneys who were involved.
Citing such failures, Congress boosted the military's anti-sexual assault budget and crafted the new law to help prosecute cases.
As lawmakers turned up the pressure, the military acted on the demands. The number of all sex-crime allegations sent to courts-martial increased from 113 in 2004 to 532 in 2010, according to Defense Department data.
Too often, however, defendants are being prosecuted despite qualms about the evidence, attorneys said.
Given the push to prosecute, many commanders may see a trial as the best way to determine whether allegations are true.
"Most of the rape cases that I've defended in the military system never would have gone to trial in a civilian system because the prosecutor would say, 'There's no way I'm taking that to trial because I'm not going to get a conviction,' " said Charles Feldmann, a former military and civilian prosecutor who's now a defense attorney.
"But in the military, the decision-maker is an admiral or a general who is not going to put his career at risk on an iffy rape case by not prosecuting it."
Beaufort Gazette staff writer Patrick Donohue contributed.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Skelmersdale sex assault claims false
DETECTIVES investigating a report of a sexual assault in Skelmersdale have found the allegation did not take place as initially reported and no criminal offence has been committed.
The alleged incident was reported to have taken place in the Birch Green area of the town on Tuesday 15th November.
The inquiry has now concluded and officers would reassure the local community that all such allegations are taken seriously and treated sensitively.
Link:
http://www.lancashire.police.uk/news/skelmersdale-sex-assault-claims-false
The alleged incident was reported to have taken place in the Birch Green area of the town on Tuesday 15th November.
The inquiry has now concluded and officers would reassure the local community that all such allegations are taken seriously and treated sensitively.
Link:
http://www.lancashire.police.uk/news/skelmersdale-sex-assault-claims-false
Skelmersdale sex assault claims false
DETECTIVES investigating a report of a sexual assault in Skelmersdale have found the allegation did not take place as initially reported and no criminal offence has been committed.
The alleged incident was reported to have taken place in the Birch Green area of the town on Tuesday 15th November.
The inquiry has now concluded and officers would reassure the local community that all such allegations are taken seriously and treated sensitively.
Link:
http://www.lancashire.police.uk/news/skelmersdale-sex-assault-claims-false
The alleged incident was reported to have taken place in the Birch Green area of the town on Tuesday 15th November.
The inquiry has now concluded and officers would reassure the local community that all such allegations are taken seriously and treated sensitively.
Link:
http://www.lancashire.police.uk/news/skelmersdale-sex-assault-claims-false
Pitcher Josh Lueke paid his debt to society for a sex offense, but the press won't let him move on
John Romano, writing for the St. Petersburg Times, did the literary equivalent this morning of arching his eyebrow, then, in the de rigueur fashion of newspapermen who can't trip over one another fast enough to out-zero-tolerance-talk the next when it comes to violence against women, spent an entire column wringing his hands and mouthing concern over the Tampa Bay Rays' acquisition of Josh Lueke, 26, a right-handed reliever traded by the Seattle Mariners last weekend.
You see, Mr. Lueke has a 98 mph fastball, a killer split-fingered fastball, and a conviction for a sex crime. It's the latter that caused Mr. Romano to arch his eyebrow and harrumph his indignation in the court of last resort, the sports pages of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May, 2008, Mr. Lueke had a sexual encounter with a then-22-year-old woman in Bakersfield, Ca. She told authorities she'd bar-hopped with a group of minor league players. She passed out in an apartment Mr. Lueke shared with a teammate. When she awakened, she said she realized she'd been sexually attacked and filed a rape complaint. One year later, Mr. Lueke was linked to the woman through DNA and was arrested and charged with rape and sodomy. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of false imprisonment with violence. He was sentenced to three years of probation, and 62 days in jail. Having already spent 42 days in jail, the remainder of his sentence was waived for good behavior.
Now, two days after Mr. Lueke was traded to the Rays, unlike the trial judge who sentenced Mr. Lueke, sportswriter John Romano isn't so quick to waive further punishment for good behavior. He writes: ". . . an accusation of rape? A no contest plea of false imprisonment with violence? By setting the bar lower in this case, has something been lost in Tampa Bay?" And: "You can say Lueke has already paid his debt, and everyone is entitled to a second chance. Or you can say the circumstances surrounding Lueke's case are too disturbing to ignore."
No sane and rational person in any sense condones either violence against women in general or the violence Mr. Lueke perpetrated against a particular woman. It is well to note that Mr. Lueke wasn't convicted of rape; the rape accusation was just that -- an accusation. Mr. Lueke pled guilty to a lesser offense and served a little more than a month behind bars. Why does a district attorney allow plea bargains? Often it's because he's not sure he'll get a conviction for the more serious offense.
The reality is that if people like Josh Lueke knew their guilty pleas to lesser offenses would bar them from their chosen professions, they would be far more likely to roll the dice with a trial on the more serious offense. With rape charges, there is a good chance the defendant will prevail. Is that what John Romano wants? Seriously?
And contrary to Mr. Romano's assertion, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Lueke's case were not "ignore[d]": he was charged, jailed, and pled guilty to a crime. He has paid his debt to society, and he's been trouble-free since this incident.
That's not good enough for John Romano. He gives Mr. Lueke a warm Florida welcome by dredging up an incident that, he suggests, should blacken Mr. Lueke for the rest of his life. In the end, Romano refuses to commit himself about whether the Rays should have lowered the bar by acquiring an accused rapist. Romano calls it a "personal" decision, offering an explanation that is as baffling as it is vapid: "This is more of an individual issue for those who care about the fortunes of a baseball team and a community. . . . . In essence, it is a question of whether you expect your ballplayers to be held to higher standards."
The "higher standards" presumably would mean that no convicted criminals need apply in major league baseball, at least none whose crimes involved women.
So what else is new for Josh Lueke? The Mariners' front office did a lot of explaining to women's groups when Seattle acquired Mr. Lueke before last season. It even fired its pro scouting director, Carmen Fusco, in part, because he traded for Mr. Lueke without checking his background. At that time, sports writer Larry Stone offered Josh some Lueke-warm support, but added he "wouldn't begrudge anyone who feels passionately that [Mr. Lueke] shouldn't ever get to put on a major-league uniform." (Do you see the trend among these sportswriters? Justice is somehow a "personal" decision.)
Mr. Lueke made a mistake that cannot be condoned; he served his time; and his probation is over. But the fourth estate won't let it be over. No amount of punishment is enough for these guys. Their notion of "justice" does not include mercy, or rehabilitation. Is this in any sense fair?
Let's answer that question by using as our bar tough-as-nails former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who ruled baseball with an iron fist as its first commissioner for 25 years. No commissioner of any major sport has ever approached the power the Judge wielded over baseball. Immediately upon becoming commissioner, Landis banned eight players from the 1919 Chicago White Sox team for fixing the World Series. The great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson still can't gain entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of that ban. No one thinks of Landis as a paragon of mercy and kindness.
What would Judge Landis do about Lueke?
No one knows for certain. But we can look for guidance to a case involving a minor league player named Alabama Pitts. In 1935, Pitts was banned from minor league baseball by the head of that league after serving a stretch in infamous prison Sing Sing for armed robbery. The crime Pitts was convicted of was far more serious than the one to which Lueke pled no contest. That's a fact.
A reporter at the Milwaukee Journal went to bat for Pitts, and said this: "Well, he's served his time. . . . What's a young fellow going to do when he gets out of prison after paying for a mistake? . . . . I hate to see anything encourage blue noses who think a guy who makes one break should sleep in the woodshed the rest of his life."
Pitts' case got kicked up to Judge Landis' office. While the nation waited for the Judge to rule, hundreds of telegrams and letters poured in wishing Pitts luck. Amazingly, one of the messages came from the victim of the robbery that sent Pitts to prison: "If the parole commissioner thinks it safe for society to send Pitts out," the man wrote, "it ought to be safe for baseball players. My sympathies are entirely with Alabama in this controversy." Read that last sentence again. It evinces a compassion that is completely out of style in our zero-tolerance times.
In the end, baseball's Grandest of all Poobahs sided with Pitts and reinstated him. The judge cited the reformation of Pitts' character and the fact it would be destructive of Pitts' rehabilitation to keep him out of baseball.
Alas, Pitts' story doesn't have a happy ending. He never became a big league star. In fact, he was slain a few years later in a barroom brawl at the age of 30. The news report of his death highlighted the fact that he was the greatest athlete ever produced at Sing Sing prison.
Alabama Pitts got a second chance. Why doesn't Josh Lueke deserve one?
Because we live in hysterical times, that's why. How else to explain the fact that America is the prison capital of the world, and that there are now more sex offenders here than there are people in some states.
But it goes beyond hysteria. Criminality has become politicized, and it is now necessary to publicly abhor even minor sex crimes to pander to women's groups. Pandering, of course, is never done for a proper reason. Usually, it is done by people who don't consider the group pandered to their equals.
We have elevated every male sexual infraction or perceived infraction to the level of "severe" on the Homeland Security Advisory System, and an assualt on a woman is deemed an assault on an entire gender. Men who misuse guns aren't considered as much of a threat as men who misuse penises.
But after reading John Romano's column, what really worries me is that we have now reached a stage I didn't think was possible: our zero tolerance, merciless, compassionless age has made Judge Landis look like a softy.
Say it ain't so, John.
Romano column: http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/tampa-bay-rays-raise-some-disturbing-questions-with-acquisition-of-josh/1203892
You see, Mr. Lueke has a 98 mph fastball, a killer split-fingered fastball, and a conviction for a sex crime. It's the latter that caused Mr. Romano to arch his eyebrow and harrumph his indignation in the court of last resort, the sports pages of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May, 2008, Mr. Lueke had a sexual encounter with a then-22-year-old woman in Bakersfield, Ca. She told authorities she'd bar-hopped with a group of minor league players. She passed out in an apartment Mr. Lueke shared with a teammate. When she awakened, she said she realized she'd been sexually attacked and filed a rape complaint. One year later, Mr. Lueke was linked to the woman through DNA and was arrested and charged with rape and sodomy. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of false imprisonment with violence. He was sentenced to three years of probation, and 62 days in jail. Having already spent 42 days in jail, the remainder of his sentence was waived for good behavior.
Now, two days after Mr. Lueke was traded to the Rays, unlike the trial judge who sentenced Mr. Lueke, sportswriter John Romano isn't so quick to waive further punishment for good behavior. He writes: ". . . an accusation of rape? A no contest plea of false imprisonment with violence? By setting the bar lower in this case, has something been lost in Tampa Bay?" And: "You can say Lueke has already paid his debt, and everyone is entitled to a second chance. Or you can say the circumstances surrounding Lueke's case are too disturbing to ignore."
No sane and rational person in any sense condones either violence against women in general or the violence Mr. Lueke perpetrated against a particular woman. It is well to note that Mr. Lueke wasn't convicted of rape; the rape accusation was just that -- an accusation. Mr. Lueke pled guilty to a lesser offense and served a little more than a month behind bars. Why does a district attorney allow plea bargains? Often it's because he's not sure he'll get a conviction for the more serious offense.
The reality is that if people like Josh Lueke knew their guilty pleas to lesser offenses would bar them from their chosen professions, they would be far more likely to roll the dice with a trial on the more serious offense. With rape charges, there is a good chance the defendant will prevail. Is that what John Romano wants? Seriously?
And contrary to Mr. Romano's assertion, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Lueke's case were not "ignore[d]": he was charged, jailed, and pled guilty to a crime. He has paid his debt to society, and he's been trouble-free since this incident.
That's not good enough for John Romano. He gives Mr. Lueke a warm Florida welcome by dredging up an incident that, he suggests, should blacken Mr. Lueke for the rest of his life. In the end, Romano refuses to commit himself about whether the Rays should have lowered the bar by acquiring an accused rapist. Romano calls it a "personal" decision, offering an explanation that is as baffling as it is vapid: "This is more of an individual issue for those who care about the fortunes of a baseball team and a community. . . . . In essence, it is a question of whether you expect your ballplayers to be held to higher standards."
The "higher standards" presumably would mean that no convicted criminals need apply in major league baseball, at least none whose crimes involved women.
So what else is new for Josh Lueke? The Mariners' front office did a lot of explaining to women's groups when Seattle acquired Mr. Lueke before last season. It even fired its pro scouting director, Carmen Fusco, in part, because he traded for Mr. Lueke without checking his background. At that time, sports writer Larry Stone offered Josh some Lueke-warm support, but added he "wouldn't begrudge anyone who feels passionately that [Mr. Lueke] shouldn't ever get to put on a major-league uniform." (Do you see the trend among these sportswriters? Justice is somehow a "personal" decision.)
Mr. Lueke made a mistake that cannot be condoned; he served his time; and his probation is over. But the fourth estate won't let it be over. No amount of punishment is enough for these guys. Their notion of "justice" does not include mercy, or rehabilitation. Is this in any sense fair?
Let's answer that question by using as our bar tough-as-nails former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who ruled baseball with an iron fist as its first commissioner for 25 years. No commissioner of any major sport has ever approached the power the Judge wielded over baseball. Immediately upon becoming commissioner, Landis banned eight players from the 1919 Chicago White Sox team for fixing the World Series. The great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson still can't gain entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of that ban. No one thinks of Landis as a paragon of mercy and kindness.
What would Judge Landis do about Lueke?
No one knows for certain. But we can look for guidance to a case involving a minor league player named Alabama Pitts. In 1935, Pitts was banned from minor league baseball by the head of that league after serving a stretch in infamous prison Sing Sing for armed robbery. The crime Pitts was convicted of was far more serious than the one to which Lueke pled no contest. That's a fact.
A reporter at the Milwaukee Journal went to bat for Pitts, and said this: "Well, he's served his time. . . . What's a young fellow going to do when he gets out of prison after paying for a mistake? . . . . I hate to see anything encourage blue noses who think a guy who makes one break should sleep in the woodshed the rest of his life."
Pitts' case got kicked up to Judge Landis' office. While the nation waited for the Judge to rule, hundreds of telegrams and letters poured in wishing Pitts luck. Amazingly, one of the messages came from the victim of the robbery that sent Pitts to prison: "If the parole commissioner thinks it safe for society to send Pitts out," the man wrote, "it ought to be safe for baseball players. My sympathies are entirely with Alabama in this controversy." Read that last sentence again. It evinces a compassion that is completely out of style in our zero-tolerance times.
In the end, baseball's Grandest of all Poobahs sided with Pitts and reinstated him. The judge cited the reformation of Pitts' character and the fact it would be destructive of Pitts' rehabilitation to keep him out of baseball.
Alas, Pitts' story doesn't have a happy ending. He never became a big league star. In fact, he was slain a few years later in a barroom brawl at the age of 30. The news report of his death highlighted the fact that he was the greatest athlete ever produced at Sing Sing prison.
Alabama Pitts got a second chance. Why doesn't Josh Lueke deserve one?
Because we live in hysterical times, that's why. How else to explain the fact that America is the prison capital of the world, and that there are now more sex offenders here than there are people in some states.
But it goes beyond hysteria. Criminality has become politicized, and it is now necessary to publicly abhor even minor sex crimes to pander to women's groups. Pandering, of course, is never done for a proper reason. Usually, it is done by people who don't consider the group pandered to their equals.
We have elevated every male sexual infraction or perceived infraction to the level of "severe" on the Homeland Security Advisory System, and an assualt on a woman is deemed an assault on an entire gender. Men who misuse guns aren't considered as much of a threat as men who misuse penises.
But after reading John Romano's column, what really worries me is that we have now reached a stage I didn't think was possible: our zero tolerance, merciless, compassionless age has made Judge Landis look like a softy.
Say it ain't so, John.
Romano column: http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/tampa-bay-rays-raise-some-disturbing-questions-with-acquisition-of-josh/1203892
Pitcher Josh Lueke paid his debt to society for a sex offense, but the press won't let him move on
John Romano, writing for the St. Petersburg Times, did the literary equivalent this morning of arching his eyebrow, then, in the de rigueur fashion of newspapermen who can't trip over one another fast enough to out-zero-tolerance-talk the next when it comes to violence against women, spent an entire column wringing his hands and mouthing concern over the Tampa Bay Rays' acquisition of Josh Lueke, 26, a right-handed reliever traded by the Seattle Mariners last weekend.
You see, Mr. Lueke has a 98 mph fastball, a killer split-fingered fastball, and a conviction for a sex crime. It's the latter that caused Mr. Romano to arch his eyebrow and harrumph his indignation in the court of last resort, the sports pages of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May, 2008, Mr. Lueke had a sexual encounter with a then-22-year-old woman in Bakersfield, Ca. She told authorities she'd bar-hopped with a group of minor league players. She passed out in an apartment Mr. Lueke shared with a teammate. When she awakened, she said she realized she'd been sexually attacked and filed a rape complaint. One year later, Mr. Lueke was linked to the woman through DNA and was arrested and charged with rape and sodomy. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of false imprisonment with violence. He was sentenced to three years of probation, and 62 days in jail. Having already spent 42 days in jail, the remainder of his sentence was waived for good behavior.
Now, two days after Mr. Lueke was traded to the Rays, unlike the trial judge who sentenced Mr. Lueke, sportswriter John Romano isn't so quick to waive further punishment for good behavior. He writes: ". . . an accusation of rape? A no contest plea of false imprisonment with violence? By setting the bar lower in this case, has something been lost in Tampa Bay?" And: "You can say Lueke has already paid his debt, and everyone is entitled to a second chance. Or you can say the circumstances surrounding Lueke's case are too disturbing to ignore."
No sane and rational person in any sense condones either violence against women in general or the violence Mr. Lueke perpetrated against a particular woman. It is well to note that Mr. Lueke wasn't convicted of rape; the rape accusation was just that -- an accusation. Mr. Lueke pled guilty to a lesser offense and served a little more than a month behind bars. Why does a district attorney allow plea bargains? Often it's because he's not sure he'll get a conviction for the more serious offense.
The reality is that if people like Josh Lueke knew their guilty pleas to lesser offenses would bar them from their chosen professions, they would be far more likely to roll the dice with a trial on the more serious offense. With rape charges, there is a good chance the defendant will prevail. Is that what John Romano wants? Seriously?
And contrary to Mr. Romano's assertion, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Lueke's case were not "ignore[d]": he was charged, jailed, and pled guilty to a crime. He has paid his debt to society, and he's been trouble-free since this incident.
That's not good enough for John Romano. He gives Mr. Lueke a warm Florida welcome by dredging up an incident that, he suggests, should blacken Mr. Lueke for the rest of his life. In the end, Romano refuses to commit himself about whether the Rays should have lowered the bar by acquiring an accused rapist. Romano calls it a "personal" decision, offering an explanation that is as baffling as it is vapid: "This is more of an individual issue for those who care about the fortunes of a baseball team and a community. . . . . In essence, it is a question of whether you expect your ballplayers to be held to higher standards."
The "higher standards" presumably would mean that no convicted criminals need apply in major league baseball, at least none whose crimes involved women.
So what else is new for Josh Lueke? The Mariners' front office did a lot of explaining to women's groups when Seattle acquired Mr. Lueke before last season. It even fired its pro scouting director, Carmen Fusco, in part, because he traded for Mr. Lueke without checking his background. At that time, sports writer Larry Stone offered Josh some Lueke-warm support, but added he "wouldn't begrudge anyone who feels passionately that [Mr. Lueke] shouldn't ever get to put on a major-league uniform." (Do you see the trend among these sportswriters? Justice is somehow a "personal" decision.)
Mr. Lueke made a mistake that cannot be condoned; he served his time; and his probation is over. But the fourth estate won't let it be over. No amount of punishment is enough for these guys. Their notion of "justice" does not include mercy, or rehabilitation. Is this in any sense fair?
Let's answer that question by using as our bar tough-as-nails former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who ruled baseball with an iron fist as its first commissioner for 25 years. No commissioner of any major sport has ever approached the power the Judge wielded over baseball. Immediately upon becoming commissioner, Landis banned eight players from the 1919 Chicago White Sox team for fixing the World Series. The great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson still can't gain entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of that ban. No one thinks of Landis as a paragon of mercy and kindness.
What would Judge Landis do about Lueke?
No one knows for certain. But we can look for guidance to a case involving a minor league player named Alabama Pitts. In 1935, Pitts was banned from minor league baseball by the head of that league after serving a stretch in infamous prison Sing Sing for armed robbery. The crime Pitts was convicted of was far more serious than the one to which Lueke pled no contest. That's a fact.
A reporter at the Milwaukee Journal went to bat for Pitts, and said this: "Well, he's served his time. . . . What's a young fellow going to do when he gets out of prison after paying for a mistake? . . . . I hate to see anything encourage blue noses who think a guy who makes one break should sleep in the woodshed the rest of his life."
Pitts' case got kicked up to Judge Landis' office. While the nation waited for the Judge to rule, hundreds of telegrams and letters poured in wishing Pitts luck. Amazingly, one of the messages came from the victim of the robbery that sent Pitts to prison: "If the parole commissioner thinks it safe for society to send Pitts out," the man wrote, "it ought to be safe for baseball players. My sympathies are entirely with Alabama in this controversy." Read that last sentence again. It evinces a compassion that is completely out of style in our zero-tolerance times.
In the end, baseball's Grandest of all Poobahs sided with Pitts and reinstated him. The judge cited the reformation of Pitts' character and the fact it would be destructive of Pitts' rehabilitation to keep him out of baseball.
Alas, Pitts' story doesn't have a happy ending. He never became a big league star. In fact, he was slain a few years later in a barroom brawl at the age of 30. The news report of his death highlighted the fact that he was the greatest athlete ever produced at Sing Sing prison.
Alabama Pitts got a second chance. Why doesn't Josh Lueke deserve one?
Because we live in hysterical times, that's why. How else to explain the fact that America is the prison capital of the world, and that there are now more sex offenders here than there are people in some states.
But it goes beyond hysteria. Criminality has become politicized, and it is now necessary to publicly abhor even minor sex crimes to pander to women's groups. Pandering, of course, is never done for a proper reason. Usually, it is done by people who don't consider the group pandered to their equals.
We have elevated every male sexual infraction or perceived infraction to the level of "severe" on the Homeland Security Advisory System, and an assualt on a woman is deemed an assault on an entire gender. Men who misuse guns aren't considered as much of a threat as men who misuse penises.
But after reading John Romano's column, what really worries me is that we have now reached a stage I didn't think was possible: our zero tolerance, merciless, compassionless age has made Judge Landis look like a softy.
Say it ain't so, John.
Romano column: http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/tampa-bay-rays-raise-some-disturbing-questions-with-acquisition-of-josh/1203892
You see, Mr. Lueke has a 98 mph fastball, a killer split-fingered fastball, and a conviction for a sex crime. It's the latter that caused Mr. Romano to arch his eyebrow and harrumph his indignation in the court of last resort, the sports pages of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May, 2008, Mr. Lueke had a sexual encounter with a then-22-year-old woman in Bakersfield, Ca. She told authorities she'd bar-hopped with a group of minor league players. She passed out in an apartment Mr. Lueke shared with a teammate. When she awakened, she said she realized she'd been sexually attacked and filed a rape complaint. One year later, Mr. Lueke was linked to the woman through DNA and was arrested and charged with rape and sodomy. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of false imprisonment with violence. He was sentenced to three years of probation, and 62 days in jail. Having already spent 42 days in jail, the remainder of his sentence was waived for good behavior.
Now, two days after Mr. Lueke was traded to the Rays, unlike the trial judge who sentenced Mr. Lueke, sportswriter John Romano isn't so quick to waive further punishment for good behavior. He writes: ". . . an accusation of rape? A no contest plea of false imprisonment with violence? By setting the bar lower in this case, has something been lost in Tampa Bay?" And: "You can say Lueke has already paid his debt, and everyone is entitled to a second chance. Or you can say the circumstances surrounding Lueke's case are too disturbing to ignore."
No sane and rational person in any sense condones either violence against women in general or the violence Mr. Lueke perpetrated against a particular woman. It is well to note that Mr. Lueke wasn't convicted of rape; the rape accusation was just that -- an accusation. Mr. Lueke pled guilty to a lesser offense and served a little more than a month behind bars. Why does a district attorney allow plea bargains? Often it's because he's not sure he'll get a conviction for the more serious offense.
The reality is that if people like Josh Lueke knew their guilty pleas to lesser offenses would bar them from their chosen professions, they would be far more likely to roll the dice with a trial on the more serious offense. With rape charges, there is a good chance the defendant will prevail. Is that what John Romano wants? Seriously?
And contrary to Mr. Romano's assertion, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Lueke's case were not "ignore[d]": he was charged, jailed, and pled guilty to a crime. He has paid his debt to society, and he's been trouble-free since this incident.
That's not good enough for John Romano. He gives Mr. Lueke a warm Florida welcome by dredging up an incident that, he suggests, should blacken Mr. Lueke for the rest of his life. In the end, Romano refuses to commit himself about whether the Rays should have lowered the bar by acquiring an accused rapist. Romano calls it a "personal" decision, offering an explanation that is as baffling as it is vapid: "This is more of an individual issue for those who care about the fortunes of a baseball team and a community. . . . . In essence, it is a question of whether you expect your ballplayers to be held to higher standards."
The "higher standards" presumably would mean that no convicted criminals need apply in major league baseball, at least none whose crimes involved women.
So what else is new for Josh Lueke? The Mariners' front office did a lot of explaining to women's groups when Seattle acquired Mr. Lueke before last season. It even fired its pro scouting director, Carmen Fusco, in part, because he traded for Mr. Lueke without checking his background. At that time, sports writer Larry Stone offered Josh some Lueke-warm support, but added he "wouldn't begrudge anyone who feels passionately that [Mr. Lueke] shouldn't ever get to put on a major-league uniform." (Do you see the trend among these sportswriters? Justice is somehow a "personal" decision.)
Mr. Lueke made a mistake that cannot be condoned; he served his time; and his probation is over. But the fourth estate won't let it be over. No amount of punishment is enough for these guys. Their notion of "justice" does not include mercy, or rehabilitation. Is this in any sense fair?
Let's answer that question by using as our bar tough-as-nails former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who ruled baseball with an iron fist as its first commissioner for 25 years. No commissioner of any major sport has ever approached the power the Judge wielded over baseball. Immediately upon becoming commissioner, Landis banned eight players from the 1919 Chicago White Sox team for fixing the World Series. The great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson still can't gain entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of that ban. No one thinks of Landis as a paragon of mercy and kindness.
What would Judge Landis do about Lueke?
No one knows for certain. But we can look for guidance to a case involving a minor league player named Alabama Pitts. In 1935, Pitts was banned from minor league baseball by the head of that league after serving a stretch in infamous prison Sing Sing for armed robbery. The crime Pitts was convicted of was far more serious than the one to which Lueke pled no contest. That's a fact.
A reporter at the Milwaukee Journal went to bat for Pitts, and said this: "Well, he's served his time. . . . What's a young fellow going to do when he gets out of prison after paying for a mistake? . . . . I hate to see anything encourage blue noses who think a guy who makes one break should sleep in the woodshed the rest of his life."
Pitts' case got kicked up to Judge Landis' office. While the nation waited for the Judge to rule, hundreds of telegrams and letters poured in wishing Pitts luck. Amazingly, one of the messages came from the victim of the robbery that sent Pitts to prison: "If the parole commissioner thinks it safe for society to send Pitts out," the man wrote, "it ought to be safe for baseball players. My sympathies are entirely with Alabama in this controversy." Read that last sentence again. It evinces a compassion that is completely out of style in our zero-tolerance times.
In the end, baseball's Grandest of all Poobahs sided with Pitts and reinstated him. The judge cited the reformation of Pitts' character and the fact it would be destructive of Pitts' rehabilitation to keep him out of baseball.
Alas, Pitts' story doesn't have a happy ending. He never became a big league star. In fact, he was slain a few years later in a barroom brawl at the age of 30. The news report of his death highlighted the fact that he was the greatest athlete ever produced at Sing Sing prison.
Alabama Pitts got a second chance. Why doesn't Josh Lueke deserve one?
Because we live in hysterical times, that's why. How else to explain the fact that America is the prison capital of the world, and that there are now more sex offenders here than there are people in some states.
But it goes beyond hysteria. Criminality has become politicized, and it is now necessary to publicly abhor even minor sex crimes to pander to women's groups. Pandering, of course, is never done for a proper reason. Usually, it is done by people who don't consider the group pandered to their equals.
We have elevated every male sexual infraction or perceived infraction to the level of "severe" on the Homeland Security Advisory System, and an assualt on a woman is deemed an assault on an entire gender. Men who misuse guns aren't considered as much of a threat as men who misuse penises.
But after reading John Romano's column, what really worries me is that we have now reached a stage I didn't think was possible: our zero tolerance, merciless, compassionless age has made Judge Landis look like a softy.
Say it ain't so, John.
Romano column: http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/tampa-bay-rays-raise-some-disturbing-questions-with-acquisition-of-josh/1203892
Cain's candidacy sunk by unproven sex allegations
Another woman--this one, a 46-year-old unemployed, at least twice divorced, single mother named Ginger White--has crawled out of the woodwork to go on television and claim she had a 13-year-consensual-affair with Cain. Cain denies it.
Ms. White's motivation for coming forward to destroy a public man is known only to her, but like one of Cain's earlier accusers, White has a history of financial troubles, with a threat of eviction for non-payment of rent just two weeks ago. She's had liens filed against her dating back to 1994--eleven liens have been filed against her since 2009, nine in 2011 alone. The owners of her apartment complex have sued her for non-payment of rent nearly every month since the beginning of the year. Ten years ago, she filed a sexual harassment claim against an employer, and the case was settled. She filed for bankruptcy in the late 1980s. In January, there is a scheduled court date in an unrelated civil suit filed against her by a former business partner, Kimberly Vay, who alleges that White stalked and harassed her.
The previous woman to come forward and lob accusations against Cain, Sharon Bialek, claimed she was "too embarrassed" back in 1997 to report that Cain had sexually assaulted her then. Yet, mirabile dictu, somehow she overcame her embarrassment and plopped herself in the center-ring of a media circus next to grandstanding feminist lawyer Gloria Allred to tell all the world about her alleged ordeal. This was just weeks after that same woman was spotted hugging the man who supposedly sexually assaulted her fourteen years ago. Bialek's sordid narrative raises questions about whether she was the aggressor in whatever sexual dalliance might have occurred, http://www.libertymusings.com/blog/?p=885, and otherwise reeks of opportunism given her chronic financial problems, including dual bankruptcies, liens against her property, a paternity lawsuit, and multiple civil actions. If Bialek is telling the truth, she allowed a sexual assaulter to prey on other women for 14 years, all because she didn't feel like reporting it.
And there were the women who filed and settled sexual harassment claims against Cain based on sketchy incidents that supposedly occurred in the 1990s.
Despite having a lead in the polls even after several accusers had made allegations against him, Cain faced an uphill battle to win the GOP presidential nomination under the best of scenarios. He has never held elected office and has a penchant for positing simplistic and dubious solutions for complex policy problems.
But, now, the sex allegations have taken their toll, and Cain's support among voters, especially women, has plummeted. His policy positions have become irrelevancies to Americans, and America's ratings-hungry news media, who prefer to revel in their favorite-of-all spectator sports: watching men--good men included--be destroyed by sex allegations.
Some zealots who insist that women don't lie about sexual misconduct say that focusing on the legal troubles of Cain's accusers is irrelevant and misogynistic, that it's not fair to insist an accuser be a "perfect" victim to be taken seriously. They are not just wrong to asssert this, they are dishonest and unjust. It is impossible for Herman Cain to "prove" his innocence in connection with these allegations absent direct evidence surfacing that White, Bialek, or the others, are lying, and such direct evidence is unlikely. The allegations are purely of the "he said/she said" variety. Therefore, the character, the possible motiviations, and the legal pasts of the accusers are all relevant.
Some will say, "What are the odds that all these women would come forward if nothing happened?"
Perhaps the better question is this: "What are the odds that the two accusers we know a lot about, White and Bialek, would have such checkered pasts?"
Here's the bottom line: Cain's candidacy is all but finished, and that's wrong. It's wrong not because I favor Cain. I don't. It's wrong not because Cain is innocent. I have no way of knowing that, and neither do you.
It's wrong precisely because Cain has no way of proving his innocence even if he is innocent. When a sexual assault allegation was made against Al Gore last year, I made the same argument.
Still, our PC culture insists that Cain must be sacrificed. It is a longstanding, and grossly unjust, tradition in America that, when it comes to men and sex, especially public men and sex, the allegation is its own conviction, even allegations of ancient wrongdoing. This tenet has been heavily reinforced in recent years with the politically correct canard that insists "women aren't believed" when they report rape even though it's exactly the opposite: women are instantly believed. But instead of urging everyone to be wholly objective about the accusation, to be compassionate with the accuser, and to not assume the guilt of the accused, we are taught that it's somehow wrong not to instantly believe any woman or child who cries rape or alleges sexual misconduct, even if that means assuming the man or boy they accuse is guilty.
In one sense, it's difficult to blame the American people for being wary of Cain. They have no way of knowing what happened, and they want to elect a president of good character.
But in another sense, we are the grinning vigilante mob in Duluth and a thousand other places, posing next to the lifeless bodies of young black men hanging from trees for no reason other than that a woman cried "rape." Another man has been destroyed based on nothing more than accusations. When will good people stand up and say, "Enough!"?
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