Friday, December 08, 2017

Democrats Clean House of Sexual Miscreants To Better Throw Stones At GOP Glass House

That pretty much sums up the action by Congressional Democrats in forcing Representative John Conyers and Senator Al Franken to resign from Congress. The main motive is to be able to more freely attack the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) for the sexual crimes and misbehavior of the likes of Roy Moore, their candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, who as a local District Attorney spent his middle age seducing teenage girls, or for that matter the Republican president of the U.S., who happily bragged about his approach to women as consisting of forcible kissing and "grabbing them by the pussy." The Democrats needed to deprive the Republicans of ammunition to use in retaliation, so Conyers and Franken had to go. Both men resisted pressure from their fellow Democratic lawmakers for weeks before finally giving way. (Although the Democrats still have the albatross of known rapist and philanderer William Jefferson Clinton around their necks. During the presidential campaign the demagogue Trump managed to neutralize the Access Hollywood video of himself boasting of his sexual assaults by bringing along to the next debate women who were wronged by Clinton.)

Conyers, age 88, has clung like a barnacle to his seat for decades. He represents a black district of Detroit, Michigan. He is designated a "civil rights icon" by the "liberal" wing of the power establishment and by the black elite.  As a Representative, he has been one of these Big Talk Liberals who doesn't really challenge the corrupt and oppressive power system but makes his career comfortably within it. He used taxpayer funds to buy the silence of at least one victim of his sexual depredations.

As a final arrogant act, he has designated his son, named after him, as his successor, like a King would do. (His son cut up his girlfriend with a knife. He got away with it, unsurprisingly, as even "unimportant" men get away with such "domestic dispute" violence in America.)

Franken, U.S. Senator from Minnesota, put the accusations against him into two categories: ones that were "simply not true," and others that he "remembers differently" from the women he groped or forcibly kissed, which was his "right as an entertainer," he explained to one woman he attempted to assault. In his Senate speech announcing his resignation (under pressure- 30 Democratic Senators demanded he resign his post) he made the pertinent comparison to his fate with that of Trump, elected president and in power, and Roy Moore, seemingly about to be elected to the Senate from the primitive, benighted state of Alabama. This led to media tongue-clucking against Franken. [1]

Trump has given his full-throated endorsement to the erstwhile cradle-robbing Moore, and the GOP has fallen into line behind Trump, as they invariably do, opening the Party's money spigots to shower Moore with funds.

Franken made a carefully parsed statement in his resignation speech: "Nothing I have done as a Senator, nothing, has brought dishonor on this institution" [his emphasis]. In other words, all his molestations occurred in his former capacity as a comedian. Molestations he did not acknowledge. (Which leaves a mystery in his version of things: why are you resigning?)

Most of the recently-outed sexual predators have been men of power in politics or the entertainment/media industries. Franken thus is a two-fer: former minor entertainment biz star, now also a former politician.

I shed no tear for Franken. Aside from the fact that as a pro-human, I resolutely oppose the two-party political cartel that monopolizes political power in the U.S. and that relentlessly promotes U.S. imperialism and corporate oligarchy, there is much to dislike about Franken in particular. I listened to hours of his radio show on the now-defunct Air America radio. He was a tub-thumping nationalist and military groupie, and often made reactionary pronouncements. His kind only looks good in comparison to the primitive reactionaries of the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers). There is no salvation through the Democratic Party, contrary to the undying, naive hopes placed in it by putative progressives.

Normal humans should take pleasure in any difficulties experienced by our rulers. Sit back and enjoy the show!


 A comedy genius in action: Al Franken grabs sleeping woman's breasts.



John Conyers: His Congressional career tragically cut short at just age 88. 


1]  Minnesota has a Democratic governor, who will appoint a temporary successor to Franken. Then there will be a contested election for the seat in November 2018, and a regular reelection again in November 2020. The Democratic Party's hold on Minnesota is somewhat tenuous. By contrast, Conyers Congressional district in Detroit is safely Democratic, as U.S. blacks vote by better than 90% for Democrats.

The U.S. Senate consists of 100 Senators, two from each of the 50 states. It is the least representative elected legislative body on the earth. The 20 least populous U.S. states have the same population as California, yet get 20 times the power in the Senate, having 40 senators to California's 2. (Most of these states are reactionary hotbeds. This is yet another way in which rightwing politics is structurally baked into the U.S. power system.) Senators serve 6 year terms. Every two years, a third of the Senate is up for election.

The House of Representatives has 435 seats, which are very roughly apportioned by population. The entire House is up for election every two years.




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