This is a bit long. It may take a little while to read. Just my musings on the article I mention below.
In this week's The New Yorker magazine (July 29, 2019), Jane Mayer has written a very lengthy discussion regardng the way that Al Franken was brought to heel in a questionable flurry of misguided #MeToo accusations .. specifically by a conservative radio personality, Leeann Tweeden.
In thousands of words, Ms Mayer has pointed up that there is and has been a growing hysteria that fostered the #MeToo and all men now live under a cloud of suspicion for even looking at a woman and smiling. (Emmett Till's tragedy comes to mind.) Hysteria is somewhat difficult to define, because sometimes there are actually issues to become hysterical about. Limbic reactions are out of our control.
The current U.S. administration is an embarrassment and destructive to our democratic way of life. Chicken Little may be right! Right or wrong, in one way or another, the Sky may be Falling!
As I read Mayer's article: to me an overlong 'apology' for Franken, it made me realize that in politics, the politician is doing many things at the same time: hopefully working to represent his/her constituants, hopefully being honest (as if any politician is ever totally honest) and surviving in the shark infested waters of doubt and derision. One false move and you are toast.
On the other hand, the regular person, the guy, the gal, the dad, the mom, the parent, the pal.. is pretty much free to just Be.
The times that the 45th president (sic) contributes to the instability of the world with his undocumented accusations and false analogies: hyperbole is swirling in such a way to suck anyone into a vortex of confusion and frustration.
Last night I attended a wonderful exhibition of talent and culture. A friend and her Significant Other have produced a documentary about an iconic performer from the 1960s. The point is that on greeting this lovely woman, we hugged and kissed. I genuinely love her. After reading Mayer's article, it dawned on me that because of the #MeToo thing, any man who embraces any woman may later be taken to task for the embrace. We live in hysterical times.
As in the days of the Salem Witch Trials, the mores of those times, the hysteria that fed upon itself to the demise of innocent women; today, the feeling of being overwhelmed permeates not only the culture of the United States, but the entire first world. We are bombarded by the news of horrible incidents of mass shootings, the Gilroy attack most recently. Our immediate access to information literally grabs our attention and whips it to some other tragedy or incident that supplants the one that just happened.
The point is that we may be on the 'road to perdition' in a manner of speaking because the stress of all of this information slaps us silly from one emotionally upsetting event to another almost in an instant. For those who find the actions of the current president of the United States abhorrent, this is stress that may be similar to being subjected to fingernails on a chalkboard intermittently with no understanding as to why it's so annoying along with the concurrent feeling that we are powerless to eliminate it. Keep folks off balance and that will create an unstable situation where this 'hysteria' that I'm harping on.. is goaded along.
Because of our now instant communication with
e-media broadcasting from smart phones immediately onto the internet and picked up and forwarded willy nilly literally around the world, the paranoia of behaving like normal human beings.. spontaneously greeting someone and touching them or saying something that may be interpreted as untoward is now a real thing.
I have a dear friend who is a "lips kisser." It is her way and when coming or going, it's a peck. In our days of hysteria, if a man was a lips kisser.. innocuous and just his way, the standard would be in our days of hysteria.. (I use that word a lot to remind that it's the theme of this writing).. In our hysterical days.. the man could literally be charged with assault or worse..
To me, the only way to get Al Franken back on track, is for him to run again for his senate seat. And, to win. The Democrats who banded together to dismiss him out of hand, with very little evidence except the questionable accusations of a handful of women, including Tweeden, some of whom have not even been named should come forward (as some do in Mayer's article) and rescue Franken. Some of these Democrats, have now said that they may have rushed to judgement with the superficial 'evidence' and not allowing a proper hearing with the Ethics Committee to have taken place for Franken to respond to the accusations was wrong. Presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand stands by her condemnation of Franken. That says something about her.. to me.
Mayer's New Yorker article examines many sides of what Franken now says that he regrets: simply stepping down. It was like an admission of guilt with no due process. Her article attempts to be fair with some staffers critical of Franken's way of expressing himself. He made a living as a comedy writer and performer for goodness sakes. Some of that broad exhibition of life doesn't come to an abrupt stop just because one becomes a US Senator. It may not be an excuse, but the analogy that I've come up with is that Franken may have jaywalked and his penalty is life in prison. That is wrong and completely unfair.. It is wrong.
Why did it happen? Hysteria. #MeToo..hysteria and even an hysterical response from Franken himself.
Did Franken do it for the Democrats? Probably. Also, the way the whole thing was exposed by Tweeden, his supposed victim, (former Fredrick's of Hollywood lingerie model) from KABC AM conservative talk radio.. totally blindsided him. The article exposes the self serving and blatant untruths that Tweeden claimed regarding the 2006 USO tour that she did with Franken, doing skits that were almost identical to ones he had written and done with other women celebrities in the former trips he took to entertain US Troops abroad. Lies and half truths won the day for Tweeden. The Democrats took the bait and down went the senator, good works and all.
The great shame in all of this is that Al Franken is a brilliant guy. In his decision to 'do the right thing' he may have done more of a disservice to our country than anyone could imagine. The hysteria that permeates the world at this very moment, exacerbated by the paranoia of mass shootings and a loose cannon in the White House, the damning information from the Mueller Report, now old news as just a few days past... The hysteria that foments in us even if we are not even aware of the issues that are ... right this minute... volcanoes of dread.. ready to erupt to further question our own personal morality and our moral state as citizens of the USA.. formerly the good guys who told the truth, stood for Justice and The American Way.. We are now complicit in the detention of innocent immigrants, separation of families seeking asylum .. and the relentless blather from the highest office in the land that reads like a C Minus eighth grade essay.. Make no mistake, that pain in your neck.. the tension you feel when you see folks behaving as if they are entitled to more than you are is because of instant communication and missed interpretations of what might be innocent acts AND.. and.. our loss of decency as a thing to admire and aspire to: the tension permeating the very room where I sit is because I know that things might get worse before they get better.. if they ever get better..
And!! My printer is broken so I can't even print this out and send it to my old Colorado pal who, in his politics, is to the right of Attila, The Hun... because though he reads and believes the Drudge Report on line, can't manage to maintain an email account.
Michael Sheehan
