Musings —04.16.2016 09:59 AM
—Monica, you, me and the Internet
Fascinating Guardian piece on online thuggery. Important, even. Here.
One part of it really struck a chord with me: as a pale-skinned establishment kind of guy, I haven’t experienced even a fraction of the online abuse that women or minorities experience daily.
Sure, a lunatic – I know who he is, he knows I know – made it is his personal mission to spew all kinds of hateful crap all over the (necessary, unwanted) Warren Kinsella Wikipedia entry. For years. But that’s about all I’ve experienced. I just ignore it. I know I have an online footprint that is bigger than what the lunatic can ever achieve. I’m doing okay.
But what is described by the author of this Guardian piece – and the subject-matter of the tale, Monica Lewinsky – simply dwarfs anything a guy like me can ever experience. Reading it, I almost can’t believe she didn’t end it all.
What moves these truly pathetic men to say these things? Are they mentally ill? Are they monsters? Why are their victims almost always women? Many questions.
Anyway. I like the suggested solution: take back your good name. Push back. Assert your narrative.
Good advice for those of you out there reading this, wondering if it could ever happen to you.
It could.
Nobody deserves to go through what that poor girl had to go through. I just keep thinking what if it were one of my daughters? Clinton was despicable throughout this. Everything about was saving HIS (and his wife’s) political skin – he didn’t care that he was ruining someone’s life that as a boss in a position of power, he should have been looking out for. Just like Hillary’s rush to let her people in Bengazi die to preserve her fake narrative around the “Arab Spring”. I’m pleased to see that Monika has come through this, if not undamaged, at least strong and with her own voice. It never should have happened but for Clinton’s indiscretions in the first place.
You know I have a tough time believing some of the bullying stuff I read. By this I don’t mean I don’t believe the people who say they are bullied or what they say is said to them, I have seen it. What I cant believe is that supposedly civilized people in countries in 2015 say things like that to people. It is horrific, it is unbelievable. The actions of Clinton are in a way understandable, powerful people try to protect themselves but the random uninvolved people and what they say is stunning. The only good out of it is that it makes some people determined to be better people.
The “hate” isn’t new, it’s just that now there is a simple, cowardly method of delivering said hate. Like pop up blockers we need a troll filter. Would it be that difficult to build an algorithm for such a thing?
Unfortunately it’s not just the Internet. She had it from news anchors , comedians and random strangers. She didn’t do anything that nearly half the population hasn’t done but she became a target and he gets patted on the back for being manly and gets off scot free. She was in her early twenties, he was the president of the Most powerful country on earth. Who was really at fault here? He’s never even said he’s sorry to her.
And she was fully aware that she was having an affair with not only “the president of the most powerful country on earth”, but also a married man. In fact, later in her recollection of the affair, she explicitly states feeling guilty of being a participant in the relationship while FLOTUS was around. Nevertheless, that guilt dissipated when her infatuation with Clinton would cloud her perception of reality. Listen to the tapes; she acknowledges Clinton’s reluctance to the relationship because he “knew he shouldn’t”, but he too was overcome with lust like her.
Monica Lewinsky doesn’t deserve any of the stigmatization she faced in the aftermath. Its saddening to hear about the unrelenting judgment she faced for years on. That said, she is in no way absolved of culpability. In fact, excuses like “she was in her twenties” or “he was the President” are borderline sexist. It implies that she doesn’t have the independence of thought to pursue a extra-marital affair because she was the “weaker” person in the situation.
That’s complete bullshit.
The fact of the matter is both Bill and Monica succumbed to lustful urges and romanticized something that they both knew was unorthodox, and in the eyes of the public, unbecoming. They both committed adultery and are equally responsible. Victimizing Lewinsky to a point where she is completely diminished as an individual and reduced to an object of abuse is incredibly obtuse.
Also, we have been entertained by years and years of jokes, comments, references and innuendos about the affair with both Bill and Monica being the recipient of that mockery. Unfortunately, Monica faced the brunt of disparaging remarks simply because she’s a women and its prevented her from being able to move past it the way Bill has. This is undeniable. However, don’t whitewash the shit out of the situation by thrusting the guilt in one direction purely out of overcompensated empathy.
They do it because they can. It is that simple. They do it because they think they can get away with it. They would not do it face to face because they are essentially cowards and bullies.
Once upon a time, when phones were the most popular method of communication, for the dispensing information, you would not have believed what people would say to others over the phone. (worked in a federal government information centre in the early 1970s) People who called in over the phone were frequently much ruder on the phone than in person.
Now we have the internet and its so anonymous, people suddenly get “brave”. they’re going to “express” themselves. if you took any of those “big mouthed” fools and asked them to say to Ms. Lewinski what they said on line to her, in person, there might be one in one thousand who would take you up on the “offer”.
As usual in a rather sexist society, Clinton got on with his life and made a lot of money on the speakers’ tours. Ms. Lewinsky, well life wasn’t so great and it was hard. Not much has changed in the course of history.