Six-year-old Salem Abdullah Musabih is held by his mother in an intensive care unit in the Red Sea port of Hodaida. Photograph: Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters
Sexual predation is the tip of the abuse-of-power iceberg.
Truths are emerging from the sexual predation scandals. Put a person in a position of power and there’s an appreciable chance he or she (most of the allegations so far have been against men) will sexually impose on someone—male or female, above or below the age of consent—with less power. The scandals shine a light on the prevalence of such predation. There’s no reason to think that future revelations won’t work their way through virtually every corner of American life. Non-consensual sex and, beyond a certain point, unwanted advances are unacceptable and must lead to civil and criminal liability, especially in those situations in which the perpetrator has power over the victim.
This is as it should be, and even much of the politically driven anguish and celebration is understandable and excusable. The discomfiture of Bill Clinton’s many zero-integrity apologists as they try to reclaim at least a veneer of decency—a few even admitting that perhaps they got it wrong back in the 1990s—would be gratifying if it wasn’t so disgusting. If there were a gram of decency in any of them, they’d issue personal apologies to the women they labeled as sluts, whores, bimbos, and trailer park trash back then. Of course that won’t happen, which invalidates their opportunistic “reappraisals” of the vile ex-President.
There are two potential problems with the current scandals. You don’t have to be a full-blown conspiracy theorist to question the timing. The establishment concocted a story of Russian influence on Trump, his campaign, and members of his administration that has backfired spectacularly. It’s obvious that there’s nothing to the establishment’s story, and it has boomeranged into two very real stories about Russia, Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration: Uranium One and Fusion GPS (see “The Rout Is On,” SLL). If you’re implicated in the crumbling concoction or either of the two new scandals, you’d like to change the subject.
In America, there’s no better way to get people’s attention than with sex. Appeal to this prurient preoccupation and you’ve got a surefire diversion. Harvey Weinstein answered Establishment prayers: a Hollywood movie mogul, powerful, and among his alleged victims are a slew of comely actresses. He looks like a piggish thug, or a thuggish pig. Talk about a figure Americans love to hate.
Next up was Kevin Spacey, whose alleged transgressions—perhaps in a bow to sexual diversity—are homosexual in nature. There might be some resentment of Spacey in Washington. His House of Cards portrayal of President Francis Underwood as a bad apple tarnishes the .000002 percent in government who aren’t. There are people who still haven’t forgiven Frank Capra for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather, two movies that portrayed politicians in an unsympathetic light.
If someone was trying to divert attention those are two blockbusters. However, there’s a much greater danger than that sexual predation will divert the masses’ attention from Russiagate, Uranium One, and Fusion GPS. Eventually Americans will lose interest in the latest accusations, the accusers, the accused, and their alleged depredations. That point may already have been reached. Investigations, lawsuits, and judicial proceedings will grind on for years, far longer than the American attention span.
Many commentators have correctly pointed out that these scandals are not about sex, they’re about power. The leitmotif of these tawdry tales is: I’m doing what I’m doing to you because I can. Horrifying as it had to been for the victims, they’re the tip of the abuse-of-power iceberg. This must be the beginning of the beginning, we’re nowhere close to the end. The powers that be have had their way with the world for decades, and for many of their victims the price has been far higher than traumatization.
Consider the Yemeni mother holding her child, who’s dying of starvation. She has no ties to those making war in her country. She knows that rich Saudi Arabia has shut her poor country off from food and medicine, and many are dying from starvation and disease. She knows that the rich United States, a country she had thought of as a good place, with good people, is helping Saudi Arabia destroy Yemen. She knows she would bear any indignity or horror, including death itself, if it would save her child.
Dead Yemenis join the millions who have died over the past few decades in America’s senseless wars. America’s deaths are always in the thousands and are well and endlessly mourned. Its victims’ deaths are often in the millions, mostly ignored, but when noticed hypocritically justified as sacrifices to some American greater good. Eventually the survivors figure out it for themselves: the dead are “less than,” and they’ve been killed because America can.
As the cynicism deepens, they realize something else. Wars aren’t just about blood and power, they’re about treasure. America manufactures endless war, weapons, mayhem, and death the same way it manufactures autos and computers, and for the same reason—profit. The rhetoric is a smokescreen: the people who profit don’t want them to end. Is there any evil more monstrous than murdering millions for money?
It’s no consolation to the people of those lands, but most Americans are victims of the same depraved cabal. They are looked upon in the same way and for the same purpose as a starlet invited to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room: to be used and abused. The “less than” are robbed, coerced, defrauded, swindled, herded, conscripted, patronized, propagandized, lied to, and opiated. Those who question this state of affairs are mocked, scorned, deplored, harassed, marginalized, ostracized, silenced, and eliminated.
A river flows into the heart of darkness from this wellspring of evil: the belief that other people are the involuntary means to one’s own ends. It’s the predators’ view of the world, whether that view encompasses victims of their sexual violence, honest and productive people and businesses plundered, countries conquered and subjugated, or any other “less than” they’ve exploited. They will do it because they can…until they can’t, which won’t happen if exposure and retribution are confined to sexual predation.
Anyone who claims your life, your body, your mind, your work, or your property without your consent is a predator. The predators among us must be brought to justice. “Because we can” must become an inviolate: “No, you cannot.” No one is a “less than.” Only when that becomes the consistent reality will humanity staunch the evil from which all others flow.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 
Reblogged this on The way I see things … and commented:
Another article of truth by Robert Gore
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Thanks Robert,
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Well done, yet again, Roberto. Consider if you will, that if the average Joe becomes wealthy through hard work or just plain luck, having been at the receiving end what the rich and powerful do, he almost unavoidably becomes one of the predators that he formally excoriated for their corruption, and base sexual predations. Twas ever thus. Women as well as men. If you’ve got the money, suddenly, to make legal and social problems vanish, the only things stopping you is your own moral integrity. Which often dissipates with a six-figure income, or more. Nice guys and girls finish last, because they have the morals, and not the money. Christ said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The needle He refers to, is the corral meant to protect animals from lions while traversing the wild. It’s made of thorn bushes, and the only way a camel can enter it before sunset is to go down on its knees. Get it? If a rich man goes down on his knees in humility before G*d, he will probably be saved. But the camel goes in its obedience to men, Men are reluctant to humble themselves before G*d, especially when seduced by their love of money, and all it can do for them. It’s also in the lesson in the sower and the seed. Sorry I’ve gone off in a rant about Biblical references, but it’s MY frame of reference. Rich and powerful people seldom become scions of morality, because of their wealth and power getting in the way of that. Without the capacity to handle great power and wealth, humans are at the mercy of their sinful nature. This principle is also in the lesson Christ gave when He forgave the woman caught in adultery. Roberto, we condemn the same people we will become, given the chance.
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That is the meaning of temptation, is it not?
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Sean: Sir, your comment holds much water….. until the last sentence.
“We condemn the same people we will become,” Not so fast!
We MIGHT become is more correct, if we, as Robert refers to, succumb to temptation. However if we play ‘look in the mirror and see who is the boss every morning’, one finds it way less easy to submit to life’s vices and weaknesses. In fact it becomes an issue of pride in ones’ self NOT to submit to these varied temptations, of course with the help of the good Lord. YMMV
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Your poignant presentation–>stimulated brain activity so I googled “power and dopamine”. Intro to the article( quote almost predictable):
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!” - Lord Acton
“Understanding why power, money, and esteem addicts are so dangerous starts with a crash course on how dopamine manipulates behavior..”
Skipping to the article”s last of 5 lessons::
Lesson Five
The most destructive combination.
Power/money/esteem addicts are, by far, the most destructive of all addicts because they will do anything to maintain dopamine flow. They abhor truth and ruthlessly lie, cheat, steal, bribe, corrupt, demean, persecute, attack, destroy, and/or crush. To make matters worse, their addictions provide them with the resources that make it possible to ignore, obfuscate, or eliminate any and all threats to their dopamine flow. It doesn’t help that insatiable dopamine cravings keep power/money/esteem addicts scrambling for the degrees, positions, and power that allow them to define legalities, moralities, and addictions.
In a nutshell
Power/money/esteem addictions are the reason our species is flirting with self-annihilation.
For the rest of this story: http://dopamineproject.org/2013/01/why-power-money-and-esteem-addicts-are-more-dangerous-than-junkies/
And from the SLL article: ” The predators among us must be brought to justice. “Because we can” must become inviolate: “No, you cannot.” ”
I foresee an unending line of replacement for Preditors1<–P2<–Petc without something to break the cycle (caused by dopamine, im/a morality, whatever).
Scott Greenfield discussed this "something" at his Simple Justice site entitled "Your Honor" which may represent one of many approaches to the "Power Problem".
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Thank you and thanks for the additional information.
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Many Libertarians are fond of saying “anyone who aspires to a position of power cannot be trusted with it”.
The only thing a sociopath is afraid of is the possibility of a world without them in it. We can hope for “justice”, and we can demand it, and even work for it, but the highest levels of “justice” are, and always have been, also occupied by sociopaths who use their positions for their own benefit. They are not reachable by conventional means, and they know it. This fact limits our options for removing them.
Someone convince me I’m wrong. Please.
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Wonderful article, only missing the Saturday people pushing war with (Russia, Syria, Yemen, Congo, etc.). They are sometimes called neocons, but a better description is neo-cohens.
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Thanks.
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This piece is balanced on the concept that ‘Evil triumphs because good men do nothing.’
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Reblogged this on Starvin Larry.
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‘Is there any evil more monstrous than murdering millions for money?’
As always Robert you have batted this right out of the park, and made me dig deep in my soul for the answer to that, of course we all know the answer.
‘The “less than” are robbed, coerced, defrauded, swindled, herded, conscripted, patronized, propagandized, lied to, and opiated.’
The definition of a state most always ends up including the above, for that is what any organized system of force and coercion is designed to do.
Good v. Evil is not a court case or a TV show.
It’s here, and it always has been.
Use caution, and remember,
With great responsibility comes great power.
Sean
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Thank you, Sean.
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