Serial rapist Bill Cosby has finally been exposed as a serial rapist. Like most rapists, he didn't do it just once. (Which raises an interesting question about Bill Clinton. We know he raped Juanita Broaddrick when he was state attorney general of Arkansas. How many other women has he raped? I suppose it's too much to ask for “the” media to look into that.) The “stories” of Cosby's rapes were apparently “out there” for years, but suppressed by the “mainstream media,” which loves to mock “the Internet” as untrustworthy trash (although these same corporations have websites and are attempting to corral the web- which, come to think of it, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of making a lot of the Internet untrustworthy trash!), until the Internet itself made it impossible to suppress the matter any longer. The known rapes asserted by named victims who have spoken out span the years from 1969 through 2004- so far. As of November 19th, six women have spoken out publicly and by name and described Cosby's assaults on them.
The media jabber about the matter reflexively refers to Cosby as “beloved.” It's this alleged universal love for Cosby that made “people” unwilling to accept/believe the victims' “stories” (crime accounts), we are told, despite the fact that Cosby paid off one of his victims years ago to make her civil suit go away. Which surely should have raised suspicions, at the least, and prompted questions. Sometimes the U.S. corporate propaganda system is remarkably incurious for an alleged “news” system. (It's a system which refers to itself as “the media,” as if it's the one and only media and not particular media controlled by particular interests. It is a very dangerous term to accept, as so many “progressives” unthinkingly do, as it fosters a false consciousness that accepts this particular propaganda system as just a neutral and “objective” seeker of facts and reliable purveyor of truth, indeed as the ultimate arbiter of reality. It should be properly labeled and called by its right name- the American corporate propaganda system.)
But as for Cosby being universally beloved: I for one have never “loved” Cosby. Indeed, I never even found him funny (that's a matter of taste, as humor is totally subjective), and his Big Daddy Teddy Bear shtick struck me as cloying, manipulative, and borderline precious, not endearing. To me he was not someone to glorify and lionize, as the propaganda system always did, but rather he was just some entertainment industry celebrity doing product endorsements, a typical careerist, as far as I could see, one whose various products (comedy and TV series) I only saw intermittently since I did not care for them. His first notable career milestone was the CIA glorification TV show “I Spy.” These kind of shows and movies that glamorize the secret police (and grossly misrepresent them too, obviously), are highly vulgar morally, and shameful in that they effectively aid and abet the massive crimes against humanity of the CIA and its ilk by providing a cover image for the criminals. (The James Bond propaganda business is a particularly egregious example of this glorification of state terrorists through total fiction and a glamorization of their violence. The progenitor of Bond, Ian Fleming, was actually a British secret police agent himself.)
This noxious stuff genuinely brainwashes people. The alibi that it's “just entertainment” and fictional is specious and obtuse. Obviously people's attitudes, impressions, and ideas about the world are greatly affected by the “entertainment” they are exposed to. In fact, the entertainment propaganda is far more impactful than the alleged non-fictional propaganda (“news”) since people watch and read so much more of it, AND mentally their intellectual guards are down while imbibing it into their brains. It might be okay if “the” media assiduously informed people of the truth in the “news” side of the propaganda industry. But of course they don't. After all, it's a propaganda industry.
Prior to Cosby's rapes becoming general public knowledge, there were already known incidents in which Cosby bullied people, (hardly unusual for a Big Deal entertainment industry figure- people with power tend to abuse it), and I remember one incident in which he put a chokehold on a man while at work.
Now Cosby is behaving in his most arrogant manner, refusing literally to speak one word on the matter. When Scott Simon, on the U.S. government, corporate-funded radio propaganda network NPR, interviewed Cosby, he very apologetically asked for Cosby's comment on the matter (Simon wouldn't even say the word “rape.”) Simon had to narrate that Cosby was shaking his head in non-response. Cosby wouldn't even say “no comment” or “I'm not going to talk about that.”
So Bill Cosby is a selfish creep and felon who drugged women to rape them. He even used his rape M.O. (modus operandi, meaning his criminal method of operation) in his comedy. (Ha-ha.) [1]
Of course a Big Deal celebrity like Cosby could have gotten laid without having to resort to rape. Obviously he preferred to rape women. He enjoyed rendering them helpless and violating them. Probably if he'd had consent, he couldn't have gotten an erection.
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Then there's the case of Jian Ghomeshi, a Canadian celebrity and certified Cool Dude (in Canada, anyway) who got his sexual kicks out of luring women to his lairs (or into stairwells or other convenient spots where he could enjoy some privacy with his prey) and suddenly choking, biting, slapping, and pummeling them with his fists, without so much as a “Pardon me, Ma'am, while I pleasure myself by abusing your flesh.” His victims uniformly describe being stunned into physical and mental paralysis by the abrupt shift of Ghomeshi, without any warning, from seemingly normal, charming, and pleasant enough guy into violently angry sadist physically attacking them. He used his fame and charm as bait to lure his victims, obviously. Ghomeshi was a media “star,” a Hip Cat who led a band, “wrote” books, and was a radio “personality” until his criminal sexual proclivities caught up with him. Now he's a fired radio personality who's under police investigation. (In case you're wondering about his name, he's the son of Iranian immigrants to Canada.)
Eclectic or opportunistic in his choice of victims, depending on how you look at it, some of those who experienced his violent ministrations included a CBC producer, an author, an actress, and a fan he latched onto at one of his book signings.
This Ghomeshi guy, one of those types who hungers for fame, first got people to pay attention to him in a band called Moxy Früvous, which I surmise is an ultrahip name for a band. Turns out he was assaulting women back then in the 1990s too. He managed to worm his way up the media hierarchy into prominence inside the Canadian government propaganda system, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, with his very own shows, Play, a TV show, and the very With-It, Superhip radio show “Q.” (Man, I'm just too out-of-it and stuck in Squaresville to know what Q is supposed to reference.)
I've had the misfortune to hear Q a few times, because it's imported into some U.S. media markets via “public” radio stations. I had no idea who this “Jian Ghomeshi” guy was, but he came off as a slick, smug hipster, good at glib patter. His show combined pop cultural chatter with reactionary politics, which I chalked up to the reactionary regime of Canadian prime minister Harper. I figured CBC and the jackass I was hearing on the radio were just enthusiastically toeing the party line. Every show I happened to hear had some Russia-bashing segment near the beginning, revolving around either Ukraine (Russia the Bad Guys, the Big Lie of western media these days) or scoring points on Russia over examples of harassment and repression (none of which were anything that doesn't happen routinely in both Canada and the U.S.)
That's all I knew about this jackal until he was exposed as a predator and I read up on him online.
Here's the gist of how the air got let out of Ghomeshi's balloon.
A freelance reporter had collected stories from some of Ghomeshi's victims and took what he had to the Toronto Star newspaper. In preparing to break the story, the paper contacted Ghomeshi for comment. Ghomeshi had a lawyer tell the paper the accusations were crap.
Go-Go-Ghomeshi, clever fellow that he thinks he is, then tried to head the brewing scandal off at the pass. He went to CBC management and showed them videos of Himself beating up women and explained to them that it was all quite innocent, consensual, sadomasochistic sex “play,” the sort of stuff a groovy unconventional swinger like Himself engages in and that's no big deal, even if a bit kinky for stuffy straight-arrow types. He figured showing them the videos would put the matter to rest.
But then the strangest thing happened- and how could Jian-dude have seen this one coming? Far from being reassured, the CBC brass found the videos of his violent attacks disturbing and fired him. Typical killjoy squares.
Poor misunderstood Jian The G then had no choice but to sue the CBC for $55 million (Canadian, presumably), on grounds of wrongful termination and defamation.
As Smooth JG has patiently explained on Facebook, (before going into hiding), he had “done nothing wrong,” merely engaged in “adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission.” With consent of the lucky gals He designated as subs, of course. [2]
Yeah, I guess you could say it was an “adventure” for his victims, if you add the word “harrowing.”
Ghomeshi spun the problem as some kind of judgmental, puritanical violation of his sacred sexual privacy.
After about 9 victims fingered him, people apparently had a hard time buying his story. Even the “crisis management” firm he hired, Navigator, (there's a straight-to-the-point name), dumped him.
It turns out that now people in Canadian media and music circles are nodding knowingly at one another- they knew (or suspected) it all along.
That's typical in cases of celebrity criminality. The signs, even specific knowledge, are there for years before the pot finally boils over and the celebrity is cooked (sometimes). Until his comeback. (Isn't it always a male?)
So I suppose CBC will need a replacement Russian-bashing Hep Cat now. [3]
Anybody got an antidote for a schadenfreude overdose?
1] See “Here's the 1969 Bill Cosby Routine About Wanting to Drug Women's Drinks,” Village Voice, Nov. 17, 2014.
2] “CBC fires Jian Ghomeshi over sex allegations,” Toronto Star, October 26, 2014.
3] If you feel the need to delve into the details of Ghomeshi's twists and turns and how it's all unfolded, the Toronto Star has run a series on the case. You can go there and search “Ghomeshi.” For details of some of Ghomeshi's attacks on women, see “Jian Ghomeshi: 8 women accuse former CBC host of violence, sexual abuse or harassment,” October 29, 2014.
The Huffington Post ran a useful overview, “Ask A Canadian: Explaining The Jian Ghomeshi Scandal To Americans,” November 1, 2014.
Schadenfreude is a German word meaning taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. [Literally "harm-joy."] I'm being tongue-in-cheek as I'm not actually enjoying the public exposure of the malfeasance of these characters- and it's too soon to say they've gotten their comeuppance, which still won't give me pleasure. And anyone who reads my essays knows that the misfortunes of most people pains and outrages me. No pleasure there. I wish I could take pleasure when some asshole suffers a fall of their own making. What I feel is aggravation that they were put on pedestals in the first place, and protected.
The worst recent case is Jimmy Savile, the very industrious British pedophile and BBC star. A much more grotesque case than these two, and one in which major British institutions are implicated. He was effectively aided and abetted in his crimes by the BBC, which quashed an expose of him, a hospital, and the police, for many years. Only after he was DEAD did these gutless accomplices get up the nerve to stop covering for him.
Interestingly, like Cosby, Savile styled himself as a comedian, although he wasn't funny at all, which apparently didn't prevent many from thinking otherwise. That may have been from the power of suggestion. If something is put on TV as “funny,” with a laugh track added, the average sheeplike humanoid is likely to believe it so, both by the conformist, herdlike nature of the species, and by conditioning. “Laughter is infectious” has been proven literally true by the study of the effect of adding laugh tracks to programming.
Or maybe a lot of people just have a lousy sense of humor.
Eclectic or opportunistic in his choice of victims, depending on how you look at it, some of those who experienced his violent ministrations included a CBC producer, an author, an actress, and a fan he latched onto at one of his book signings.
This Ghomeshi guy, one of those types who hungers for fame, first got people to pay attention to him in a band called Moxy Früvous, which I surmise is an ultrahip name for a band. Turns out he was assaulting women back then in the 1990s too. He managed to worm his way up the media hierarchy into prominence inside the Canadian government propaganda system, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, with his very own shows, Play, a TV show, and the very With-It, Superhip radio show “Q.” (Man, I'm just too out-of-it and stuck in Squaresville to know what Q is supposed to reference.)
I've had the misfortune to hear Q a few times, because it's imported into some U.S. media markets via “public” radio stations. I had no idea who this “Jian Ghomeshi” guy was, but he came off as a slick, smug hipster, good at glib patter. His show combined pop cultural chatter with reactionary politics, which I chalked up to the reactionary regime of Canadian prime minister Harper. I figured CBC and the jackass I was hearing on the radio were just enthusiastically toeing the party line. Every show I happened to hear had some Russia-bashing segment near the beginning, revolving around either Ukraine (Russia the Bad Guys, the Big Lie of western media these days) or scoring points on Russia over examples of harassment and repression (none of which were anything that doesn't happen routinely in both Canada and the U.S.)
That's all I knew about this jackal until he was exposed as a predator and I read up on him online.
Here's the gist of how the air got let out of Ghomeshi's balloon.
A freelance reporter had collected stories from some of Ghomeshi's victims and took what he had to the Toronto Star newspaper. In preparing to break the story, the paper contacted Ghomeshi for comment. Ghomeshi had a lawyer tell the paper the accusations were crap.
Go-Go-Ghomeshi, clever fellow that he thinks he is, then tried to head the brewing scandal off at the pass. He went to CBC management and showed them videos of Himself beating up women and explained to them that it was all quite innocent, consensual, sadomasochistic sex “play,” the sort of stuff a groovy unconventional swinger like Himself engages in and that's no big deal, even if a bit kinky for stuffy straight-arrow types. He figured showing them the videos would put the matter to rest.
But then the strangest thing happened- and how could Jian-dude have seen this one coming? Far from being reassured, the CBC brass found the videos of his violent attacks disturbing and fired him. Typical killjoy squares.
Poor misunderstood Jian The G then had no choice but to sue the CBC for $55 million (Canadian, presumably), on grounds of wrongful termination and defamation.
As Smooth JG has patiently explained on Facebook, (before going into hiding), he had “done nothing wrong,” merely engaged in “adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission.” With consent of the lucky gals He designated as subs, of course. [2]
Yeah, I guess you could say it was an “adventure” for his victims, if you add the word “harrowing.”
Ghomeshi spun the problem as some kind of judgmental, puritanical violation of his sacred sexual privacy.
After about 9 victims fingered him, people apparently had a hard time buying his story. Even the “crisis management” firm he hired, Navigator, (there's a straight-to-the-point name), dumped him.
It turns out that now people in Canadian media and music circles are nodding knowingly at one another- they knew (or suspected) it all along.
That's typical in cases of celebrity criminality. The signs, even specific knowledge, are there for years before the pot finally boils over and the celebrity is cooked (sometimes). Until his comeback. (Isn't it always a male?)
So I suppose CBC will need a replacement Russian-bashing Hep Cat now. [3]
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Man, if a Cat as Cool and Hip as ME chokes and beats women, it must be cool and hip! Dig?
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There goes two people I didn't particularly like, down for the count (or there careers are, anyway).
Anybody got an antidote for a schadenfreude overdose?
1] See “Here's the 1969 Bill Cosby Routine About Wanting to Drug Women's Drinks,” Village Voice, Nov. 17, 2014.
2] “CBC fires Jian Ghomeshi over sex allegations,” Toronto Star, October 26, 2014.
3] If you feel the need to delve into the details of Ghomeshi's twists and turns and how it's all unfolded, the Toronto Star has run a series on the case. You can go there and search “Ghomeshi.” For details of some of Ghomeshi's attacks on women, see “Jian Ghomeshi: 8 women accuse former CBC host of violence, sexual abuse or harassment,” October 29, 2014.
The Huffington Post ran a useful overview, “Ask A Canadian: Explaining The Jian Ghomeshi Scandal To Americans,” November 1, 2014.
Schadenfreude is a German word meaning taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. [Literally "harm-joy."] I'm being tongue-in-cheek as I'm not actually enjoying the public exposure of the malfeasance of these characters- and it's too soon to say they've gotten their comeuppance, which still won't give me pleasure. And anyone who reads my essays knows that the misfortunes of most people pains and outrages me. No pleasure there. I wish I could take pleasure when some asshole suffers a fall of their own making. What I feel is aggravation that they were put on pedestals in the first place, and protected.
The worst recent case is Jimmy Savile, the very industrious British pedophile and BBC star. A much more grotesque case than these two, and one in which major British institutions are implicated. He was effectively aided and abetted in his crimes by the BBC, which quashed an expose of him, a hospital, and the police, for many years. Only after he was DEAD did these gutless accomplices get up the nerve to stop covering for him.
Interestingly, like Cosby, Savile styled himself as a comedian, although he wasn't funny at all, which apparently didn't prevent many from thinking otherwise. That may have been from the power of suggestion. If something is put on TV as “funny,” with a laugh track added, the average sheeplike humanoid is likely to believe it so, both by the conformist, herdlike nature of the species, and by conditioning. “Laughter is infectious” has been proven literally true by the study of the effect of adding laugh tracks to programming.
Or maybe a lot of people just have a lousy sense of humor.
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