Harvey Weinstein et al

[mattiasNYC]

Weinstein is out and Trump is in, so in a fact based analysis Hollywood has higher standards for behavior than the American  people as a whole.

Surely there is a lesson in there somewhere, whether or not we are ready to learn it.

Well looking at voting statistics it's fairly depressing that so many women had such little problem with what he said he did.

As for false accusations, they are kind of a red herring in the context of these kinds of serial sexual assaults with a dozen or more credible, public accusers each, going back decades with a consistent reported pattern of behavior.

But, "the Hunt" with Mads Mikkelson is an excellent movie about that topic.  It might be one of the more realistically terrifying things you've seen on a movie screen in your life, if you're a man.

Well, my points weren't really that any specific accused man was guilty, merely that this current climate will foster false accusations and a slippery slope of what an actual assault really is. And to be clear: I'm not saying that those that were victimized shouldn't speak up, I'm saying that there is now a bunch of other people who will call relatively trivial things sexual assault, or even make things up, which in turn will make those who really suffer from it harder to believe.

 

[mattiasNYC]

And further more are they immoral for thinking that they can do anything just because they're a star, and they won't even wait for permission by the victims....

Not sure I get this.. Isn't anyone who think they can do anything immoral?

Yes, they are. The question is if those who voted for Trump now can say that people like Spacey (who said he can't recall having done these things) are immoral yet not say the same about Trump (who bragged about having done those things).

 

[mattiasNYC]

I see what you did there,, a little topic judo to flip the disgust onto another target, pretty clever.  :-[

Not at all. I find it utterly disgusting when people abuse others. I'm just noting that "some people" apparently have a problem when "the Hollywood elite" misbehave, yet elect self-confessed sexual assaulters to the presidency.

II could argue it isn't remotely apple to apples, but won't,  because even that reported past behavior by Trump was undesirable.

Good one.

JR

Exactly. But it's not a big deal. Your president, with your help, has shown men all over the country that doing what Weinstein did is a-ok. You can even become the president after confessing. That's the message that you guys sent.

 

[mattiasNYC]

See I still don't understand why you dislike Obama so much. He was the most moral president we have had in a long time. Even if you disagree with his politics, he was an example to the American people morally and ethically. His wife and daughters showed real values to American women and girls. This was a presidential family free of corruption, leading by example. This has to be worth something to you. I know you had a problem with his "free sh*t" policies, but that actually  shows tremendous moral and ethical principals, even Christian principals. This was a good man and leader. Now we have the opposite in every way. Look at the way Trump and his family sets examples for our young people...The parallel between Weinstein and Trump is a valid one.

This is pretty much spot-on.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I suppose if someone were falsely accused of sexual harassment, especially a wealthy person, they'd have a law suit issued before you could say arsegrabber. Silence as they say, is deafening.

In the UK David Ike used to Accuse Jimmy Savile of paedophilia whilst Savile was alive ,  he said it publically and repeatedly, and even put it in his books, he said 'if I'm lying Savile can sue me" he never did.

Now Ike can be s bit of a loon but he worked at the BBC when Savile did. 

Yes, I agree with the above. If there's nothing behind the accusations a lawsuit might be in order for libel or slander. As I mentioned above though the issue is really somewhat different. For every one of you that is rational there's going to be a few that aren't, and that's part of what I'm reacting against. The discussion in Sweden got really dumb really quickly. Somewhat related:

I think Spacey owned up to it but said he was drunk, cause you know, 14 year old boys are fine when you're drunk...

It's obviously not ok to approach children sexually. I think most people agree with that, and I don't think Spacey meant to imply that it was fine. 

But let's for a second change the example for the sake of discussion; let's say that this wasn't a young boy but a man, and let's say that the person doing the grabbing was a woman. She hadn't asked for consent, they were both drunk, and they then ended up in bed consensually. Would that woman have been sexually assaulting the man at the time? Nobody would think so. What if the man wasn't interested and just walked away? Nobody would say so. What if the situation was the opposite; a man touches a woman without stated consent, she doesn't have a problem with it, they end up  in bed - sexual assault? How about if the exact same thing happened but he got rejected and she walked away? Then absolutely yes.

So, in Sweden this one personality made exactly the above point: In social gatherings when we're courting each other touching is part of what we do, and we do our best to read each other's signals. Do we want to eradicate any such interaction without stated explicit consent? And the response to that fairly reasonable question was that he was defending rapists, defending dirty old men showing the parts to people in public, etc. Clearly that's not what he said, but currently that's where the debate is - anything you do that I at any point disagree with, even retroactively, is wrong.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. Some of the described behavior is a-ok as long as people want it regardless of whether it was stated explicitly or not, and it only becomes a problem when someone disagrees. But there's no way a legal system can distinguish between the two without evidence, which most of the time doesn't exist.

 

[mattiasNYC]

based on the current of what has come out and the rebuttals, it is a safe assumption.

"Safe assumptions" are what people have used numerous times which landed many people in jail for crimes they never committed.

 

[ombudsman]

Well, my points weren't really that any specific accused man was guilty, merely that this current climate will foster false accusations and a slippery slope of what an actual assault really is. And to be clear: I'm not saying that those that were victimized shouldn't speak up, I'm saying that there is now a bunch of other people who will call relatively trivial things sexual assault, or even make things up, which in turn will make those who really suffer from it harder to believe.

That seems reasonable on its' face. But on the other hand, we don't need a special standard for sexual assault. False accusations can and do occur for all kinds of crimes. The slippery slope is already here, and so is the believability curve for accusers.

For as much as our society doesn't give much of a shit about overreach when it comes to some things, like cops shooting unarmed people, I don't think we need to freak out about this. If anything it makes more sense to err on the side of over reporting than under reporting crime. The burden of proof is high for criminal cases.

 

[Timjag]

Well Matteus let me give you an anecdote

I was working on an event once with a theatrically trained older lady as the show caller.

She stood next to me we both wore comms equipment. About half way through full dress rehearsal - which were incredible intense and couldn’t be stopped - I was pretty much chained to the console.

Well  I saw he reach down under the desk with her left hand. I then felt said hand on my dick. She then massaged my crotch  for nearly 3 minutes during an important part of the show and I could not leave  – I was running cues and had I walked away the show would have collapsed. I was really taken aback

I was 33 at the time. She was about 56 and very much an upper class British type. I was in no way attracted to her, she clearly thought that this was entirely acceptable – Well lovey it’s the theatre.

Except it wasn’t, it was a corporate event.

After the end of the rehearsals she behaved as if nothing had happened.

My colleagues thought it was the funniest thing ever – had she been attractive to me and my age they’d have called me a lucky bugger, as it was it’s was just funny supposedly that ‘granny had a grope’ it was more than a grope I can tell you.

Did it effect me? Well I did dread doing the actual show with her, but by then she was a pissed as a fart, so it was easy to escape her fondles.

This has happened to me on a number of occasions, dunno why, not now I’m older, but as a young men I was physically accosted by both men and women I away even abducted once by a cab drive - I should say that I used to be very thin - about 125 pounds or 63 kilos and quite girly(!) I grew up though!!  In the entertainment industry it is part of the job, because there is a lot of power and alchohol around and people behave badly when drunk. I should imagine Parliament is the same or congress , the subsidised bars arelethal in power structures.

We have a very unhealthy attitude towards sex in the west. It’s still treated like a Jeykle and Hyde situation where, we all have to be hidden away before Mr or Ms Hyde is revealed. This othering of our sexual selves is what causes these indiscretions. Whilst biology continues on it’s aggressive predesinted nature we learn to control ourselves to behave contrary to it, some don't and some become drunk either on substances or power.

Like theft a majority of people don’t do it but some do. If it’s socially acceptable or considered not particularly bad, more will do it. Which is why we must treat it as just as people have a right not to have their gear stolen so to do they have a right not to be personally invaded.

 

[mattiasNYC]

That seems reasonable on its' face. But on the other hand, we don't need a special standard for sexual assault. False accusations can and do occur for all kinds of crimes. The slippery slope is already here, and so is the believability curve for accusers.

For as much as our society doesn't give much of a sh*t about overreach when it comes to some things, like cops shooting unarmed people, I don't think we need to freak out about this. If anything it makes more sense to err on the side of over reporting than under reporting crime. The burden of proof is high for criminal cases.

Well, the burden of proof is technically high, but in practice it varies, and our respective legal systems have varying degrees of human involvement. Humans as we all know are fallible, so hence the need for concern (in general).

Basically what I'm saying is that we saw a spike about a couple of decades ago or whenever it was where repressed memories were all the rage and bad (non-) science entered the courtrooms leading to bad convictions. Sure, these days we do have DNA to exonerate or acquit people, but that's not always available.

Again, using Sweden as an example, there were two relevant cases where convictions should never have happened I think, based on what you say is a reasonable way of going about this. One concerning a media mogul who was accused by many women of rape after which he was convicted for several of them. The case is pretty much a textbook example of both racism and how to not conduct an investigation or how to judge someone. The other was during the repressed memory 'era', in northern Sweden, where a young woman clearly suffering from mental illness began by accusing her father (of incest and rape), then other men in the village,  then the mother, then of ritual satanistic murders, and so it went. Digging up a large area of a forest where the babies should have been buried yielded nothing, and the courts finally had to admit that it was all made up.

So my main beef is really the public discourse on these matters, not the legal standard. And while I agree that it certainly seems a 'reasonable' assumption that some of these current people indeed are guilty that's one thing, and assuming their guilt in the media is another.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Well Matteus let me give you an anecdote

Interesting.

I think there are a couple of fundamental problems with these sorts of things. First of all it's the act itself, objectively speaking. What you described is pretty "clear" to a lot of people because of the area being touched. And similarly we'd probably say the same about a man touching a woman's breasts. Now how about the face, or shoulders, or ass, or legs, or arms, or hands etc...?

The expected reply by many will then be "well it all depends on consent", which is the second fundamental problem. Like I said, how do you communicate that clearly without becoming a turn-off? If I found a girl attractive and she grabbed my ass and we subsequently made out and then had sex, it pretty much means I consented to most people. Yet the very same act still with no explicitly state consent would be considered assault if I didn't want it.

And to make it even more complicated there are some who will confess to having been reluctant at first (i.e. not having given explicit consent) but then having gotten aroused and it having led to sex. And what if they then don't regret it? What if they do regret it?

I get why we're focused on powerful men abusing that power to get what they want, but it's just irritatingly shallow to me when we end it there instead of following that logic to all people (excusing the elected self-proclaimed molester as potus)  and all sorts of abuse (ignoring "financial abuse" etc - by which I mean that we excuse all sorts of arguably "unethical" behavior under the guise of "he's just trying to make a buck" etc, "strong leaders" making "tough decisions" are to be looked up to in business, despite them damaging the lives of others).

 

[iampoor1]

The expected reply by many will then be "well it all depends on consent", which is the second fundamental problem. Like I said, how do you communicate that clearly without becoming a turn-off? If I found a girl attractive and she grabbed my ass and we subsequently made out and then had sex, it pretty much means I consented to most people. Yet the very same act still with no explicitly state consent would be considered assault if I didn't want it.

And to make it even more complicated there are some who will confess to having been reluctant at first (i.e. not having given explicit consent) but then having gotten aroused and it having led to sex. And what if they then don't regret it? What if they do regret it?

I think its a giant legal grey area, and we could use some clarification. I think its too easy for flirting to end in sexual assault if some of the "signs" are misred.

Or we could do the American thing, and get paperwork.  ;D

https://youtu.be/y1o_iY99eeA

 

[JohnRoberts]

See I still don't understand why you dislike Obama so much.

I dislike all political elites republican and democrat... Serving in office should be a short term public service not a wealth building career.

He was the most moral president we have had in a long time.

I wasn't thinking or talking about President Obama but since you bring up "him and me", I guess I will.

President Carter is probably the most "moral" recent president but even he had "lust in his heart" (admitted to Playboy interview).  Moral is a bit of an oxymoron when it comes to high level politicians since no one ever gets elected to high office for telling the truth. They get elected for saying what people want to hear and President Obama was (is) a skillful politician. I even liked a bunch of his  speeches, what he actually did not so much. 

President Trump notoriously says what a lot of people think without the normal filters politicians use to avoid controversy.

Even if you disagree with his politics,

yes

he was an example to the American people morally and ethically. His wife and daughters showed real values to American women and girls. This was a presidential family free of corruption, leading by example.

It was interesting in the context of this thread that Malia, President Obama's 18-19 YO daughter interned for Harvey Weinstein earlier this year (she left in August to attend classes at Harvard). The President and his wife have now joined the chorus of public outrage against Weinstein (we're disgusted..  : )   

Weinstein promoted meeting the First Daughter as a potential perk when auctioning off another internship for over $15,000 in February 2017. As The Hollywood Reporter reports, a memo advertising the internship said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “learn all the ins and outs of the movie biz, and maybe even run into Malia Obama while you're at it."

I sure hope the "ins and outs of the movie biz" was not code....  :

Even the Washington post (not right wing media) wrote about President Obama's most inaccurate statements (I dislike calling any POTUS a liar)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/19/obamas-biggest-whoppers/?utm_term=.718ca2bdeed7
We all remember the  "if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it"... (reportedly the democrats felt that the ends justified the means, and knowingly misrepresented the ACA to win passage.)

This has to be worth something to you. I know you had a problem with his "free sh*t" policies, but that actually  shows tremendous moral and ethical principals, even Christian principals. This was a good man and leader. Now we have the opposite in every way. Look at the way Trump and his family sets examples for our young people...The parallel between Weinstein and Trump is a valid one.

Opinions vary... I was optimistic that President Obama might serve as a positive role model for the black community and improve race relations in the country, but instead my sense is that he had been more divisive than healing. I'm sure I will be called racist for even saying this but I am getting accustomed to that after several years of it. 

President Obama did create a $200M 5 year initiative (My brother's keeper) to help black youth in 2014, a fact sheet from 2016 (On the white house website) lists achievements. I find little mention of it elsewhere. I hope it accomplishes what it set out to do, Still has a year to go.

Ask yourself, did race relations in the US get better or worse while President Obama was the most powerful man in the world for 8 years?

JR

 

[mattiasNYC]

I was optimistic that President Obama might serve as a positive role model for the black community and improve race relations in the country, but instead my sense is that he had been more divisive than healing. I'm sure I will be called racist for even saying this but I am getting accustomed to that after several years of it. 

Ask yourself, did race relations in the US get better or worse while President Obama was the most powerful man in the world for 8 years?

JR

And just how did he worsen those relations? What policies were to blame? In which speeches did he fuel the division?

 

[bluebird]

President Obama did create a $200M 5 year initiative (My brother's keeper) to help black youth in 2014, a fact sheet from 2016 (On the white house website) lists achievements. I find little mention of it elsewhere. I hope it accomplishes what it set out to do, Still has a year to go.

I think this  at the heart of your disapproval. I really don't believe Obama was only trying to help just impoverished black people but all impoverished people. Being the first black president, it would be unfair to expect him to not have some bias for his people in his heart. The public felt this. I think this rubbed a lot people the wrong way, and most would not consider themselves racists one bit. Because of that there was probably some guilt and confusion psychologically. "I'm not a racist but I know this guy is just looking out for his people and not mine"
The need to vilify him in some other way became important.

We all remember the  "if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it"...

Comparatively to the other presidents of his time, I will definitely give him a pass on that one.

President Trump notoriously says what a lot of people think without the normal filters politicians use to avoid controversy. Yes it was interesting in the context of this thread that Malia, President Obama's 18-19 YO daughter interned for Harvey Weinstein earlier this year (she left in August to attend classes at Harvard). The President and his wife have now joined the chorus of public outrage against Weinstein (we're disgusted..  : )   

You can't possibly think in context with today's political circus, that this gossip article calls into question Barack Obama's morality.
There is something compelling you to dig around for reasons however insignificant.

Thank you for your answers, I understand why you have the feelings you do. I don't think your a racist at all, you just have a strong sense of us and them. And I suspect not in a race or cultural way, but in a general Darwinian way.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I think this  at the heart of your disapproval. I really don't believe Obama was only trying to help just impoverished black people but all impoverished people.

Ok, but so what can we learn from this? Here's the website:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/279811

Search for "black" on that page.... Search for "African".... Click on the 1-year report to open the PDF and search again... Exactly where does it make race an issue? It doesn't.... What can we learn from that?

Being the first black president, it would be unfair to expect him to not have some bias for his people in his heart. The public felt this. I think this rubbed a lot people the wrong way, and most would not consider themselves racists one bit. Because of that there was probably some guilt and confusion psychologically. "I'm not a racist but I know this guy is just looking out for his people and not mine"

The need to vilify him in some other way became important.

There is something compelling you to dig around for reasons however insignificant.

Thank you for your answers, I understand why you have the feelings you do. I don't think your a racist at all, you just have a strong sense of us and them. And I suspect not in a race or cultural way, but in a general Darwinian way.

But at some point we kind of have to open our eyes and see if there's a pattern, right? I mean, take Trump for example: Numerous attacks on people of color by white supremacists and/or anti-semite neo-nazis and/or Islamophobes, and all he can muster is "violence on both sides".... a lunatic shooter mass-murders more people in Las Vegas than anyone has done before him; "not the time for policy change", "time to heal", "thoughts and prayers" etc.... But when the perpetrators are five black teens he feels compelled to take out a full page ad in a New York paper calling for the death penalty, just like he did after this week's terror attack, within hours of it also calling for changing legislation.

There is a common denominator here and some people are just tired of ignoring it.

You might not call it racism the way we wouldn't call someone who says something that isn't true "a liar" if they weren't aware that they were lying, but clearly if people are discriminating because of race they're discriminating because of race, regardless of what we call that.

I fully agree with you. I can't remember the last time the US had an equally or less 'tarnished' potus. Carter possibly. Obama and his family were dignified and united. A great looking family that led by example. But to be honest, I don't think a lot of white Americans like that. They don't like that a "black" family is that 'perfect' and make it all the way into the White House. Something must be wrong (relative to the others).

And that's why through that prism My brother's keeper and the like become "black" endeavors. I mean, I think you're partially right that it's a simple desire to create a sort of general us-vs-them situation, but it does fall along strange lines.

So bringing this back on-topic:

It's simply not possible to on the one hand say that the swamp needs to get drained and that Weinstein et al need to go because sexual abuse is horrible, but to then claim that it's ok that the guy who bragged about it gets to be president. It's just not possible to claim that with a straight face using any kind of reasonable ethics-based argument.

Hold on..... Alanis is calling.....

 

[ombudsman]

Ask yourself, did race relations in the US get better or worse while President Obama was the most powerful man in the world for 8 years?

JR

Surely you're not arguing that Obama is accountable for how racists reacted to a black man becoming President ?

And even if we knew ahead of time  exactly how they would react - so what ? Why would that even matter ? Racists simply don't have the clout to force the rest of us to constrain the rights and lives of POC in order to not offend their ignorant narratives of self pity.

 

[ombudsman]

Well, the burden of proof is technically high, but in practice it varies, and our respective legal systems have varying degrees of human involvement. Humans as we all know are fallible, so hence the need for concern (in general).

Basically what I'm saying is that we saw a spike about a couple of decades ago or whenever it was where repressed memories were all the rage and bad (non-) science entered the courtrooms leading to bad convictions. Sure, these days we do have DNA to exonerate or acquit people, but that's not always available.

Again, using Sweden as an example, there were two relevant cases where convictions should never have happened I think, based on what you say is a reasonable way of going about this. One concerning a media mogul who was accused by many women of rape after which he was convicted for several of them. The case is pretty much a textbook example of both racism and how to not conduct an investigation or how to judge someone. The other was during the repressed memory 'era', in northern Sweden, where a young woman clearly suffering from mental illness began by accusing her father (of incest and rape), then other men in the village,  then the mother, then of ritual satanistic murders, and so it went. Digging up a large area of a forest where the babies should have been buried yielded nothing, and the courts finally had to admit that it was all made up.

So my main beef is really the public discourse on these matters, not the legal standard. And while I agree that it certainly seems a 'reasonable' assumption that some of these current people indeed are guilty that's one thing, and assuming their guilt in the media is another.

Public discourse is a rolling disaster for which no one accepts accountability and everyone is free to use everyone else to justify their own bad behavior.

I'm not discounting concerns that you describe, but to me the point is that all these things cut both ways. If the system focuses too much on the possibility of false accusations that coincide with failures of the legal system in those cases, you have people getting away with sexual assault. It is a bit abstract but there is a zero sum, push pull relationship between these things. 

The system, ideally, should be balanced in such a way that no one fails to report a crime because of valid cynicism about it being prosecuted, and also no one gets an unfair assist from media narratives or social trends (while recognizing that juries and judges are prone to all of the same social influences and biases as everyone else and perfection cannot be expected from human beings).

What I'm saying is that the system is still so far biased against women that we're nowhere near that balance. False accusations have to be a drop in the bucket compared to unreported or unprosecuted sexual assaults. That's why I'm not worried about an overcorrection; we simply have a long way to go before it is possible.

 

[JohnRoberts]

And just how did he worsen those relations? What policies were to blame? In which speeches did he fuel the division?

I really need a break from this endless arm wrestling, but Ok one brief example.
=====
Early in President Obama's first term a Harvard college professor friend of president Obama (Gates) got into a scuffle with Cambridge Police when the professor's neighbor(s) called the police on him for breaking into (or appearing to break into) his own house.  President Obama without full information publicly speculated that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" and suggested there was a racial component to their handling of the matter.

After learning the specific circumstances surrounding the Gates arrest President Obama tried to walk back his overreaction calling it a "teachable moment" and inviting them both to a "beer summit" in the White House rose garden. 

IMO this event was emblematic of the tone between the white house and police departments, going forward.

Lots more, but I have better things to do tonight.

JR

 

[bluebird]

After learning the specific circumstances surrounding the Gates arrest President Obama tried to walk back his overreaction calling it a "teachable moment" and inviting them both to a "beer summit" in the White House rose garden. 

But from my point of view this is a great way to handle the problem. What else could one do? Yes his error was to make an assumption based on his personal connection to Gates. Again I give that a pass as anyone of us would have done the same. And then to admit he is learning with a "teachable moment" is pretty damn humble for a POTUS to admit...And then beer for all Come on John this guy could be your best friend. 8)

 

[bluebird]

False accusations have to be a drop in the bucket compared to unreported or unprosecuted sexual assaults. That's why I'm not worried about an overcorrection; we simply have a long way to go before it is possible.

I think your right but you have to consider the damage of being falsely accused and weigh that against a quick grope on the butt or a rude remark. As said before, its a complex problem with a lot of grey area.

Which reminds me, I'm in for jury duty tomorrow...