I am about to go wayyyy out on a limb here and defend Strauss-Kahn. I don’t have to, and he is a totally unpopular cause if ever there was one but… He is sixty-two years old and I am sixty –one. We are both sane, healthy, functionning adults but we aren’t kids anymore. We were kids at approximately the same time in history and share the school yard. Here it goes.
Both DSK and his accuser are natural parents, not innocents. Neither one. One has to adjust things, here, to do justice to the man. Rape laws, the very concept of rape, are about protecting procreation, the capacity of individuals to make the personal voyage of relationship that leads to parenthood. They have both visited that island before, and not together. This cannot be about sexual innocence betrayed, it has to be about something else. What, precisely, I don’t know, and can’t really tell from here. We will be assaulted by this dreadful case for a long time. I am miserable for us poor informed citizens, really!
I might add that the business about the other assault case makes him look rather good. Is that all there is against him in sixty-two years of life? The man should be Pope. Really! Stuff just adds up over the years and looks bad; one can explain all of it but who wants to. It just looks bad.
Granted he is a priviledged individual. Not just because he is wealthy; he is also deemed powerful. He is not powerful in an ugly way, he is powerful in being allowed to work on matters very important to the rest of us, on the world economy. One likes to think that those who eventually get those jobs are – if rather ruthless – also terrifically persistent and dedicated. That is one very long haul to the head of the IMF.
One of the things one tries as one gets older is to communicate to those younger by letting them glimpse what we might have been like at their age. I have been known to buy young clothes once in a while. Not much appreciated by those youngsters, I am afraid. I don’t think it warrants calling me senile for the faux pas, but the ugly word will be heard anyway. That’s the terrible subtext of this whole DSK business, to my mind. To the extent that those crude accusations may be true, one is accusing an old gent of being senile. That is my personnal take on the case. Very painful to watch. Voilà!
Both DSK and his accuser are natural parents, not innocents. Neither one. One has to adjust things, here, to do justice to the man. Rape laws, the very concept of rape, are about protecting procreation, the capacity of individuals to make the personal voyage of relationship that leads to parenthood. They have both visited that island before, and not together. This cannot be about sexual innocence betrayed, it has to be about something else. What, precisely, I don’t know, and can’t really tell from here. We will be assaulted by this dreadful case for a long time. I am miserable for us poor informed citizens, really!
I might add that the business about the other assault case makes him look rather good. Is that all there is against him in sixty-two years of life? The man should be Pope. Really! Stuff just adds up over the years and looks bad; one can explain all of it but who wants to. It just looks bad.
Granted he is a priviledged individual. Not just because he is wealthy; he is also deemed powerful. He is not powerful in an ugly way, he is powerful in being allowed to work on matters very important to the rest of us, on the world economy. One likes to think that those who eventually get those jobs are – if rather ruthless – also terrifically persistent and dedicated. That is one very long haul to the head of the IMF.
One of the things one tries as one gets older is to communicate to those younger by letting them glimpse what we might have been like at their age. I have been known to buy young clothes once in a while. Not much appreciated by those youngsters, I am afraid. I don’t think it warrants calling me senile for the faux pas, but the ugly word will be heard anyway. That’s the terrible subtext of this whole DSK business, to my mind. To the extent that those crude accusations may be true, one is accusing an old gent of being senile. That is my personnal take on the case. Very painful to watch. Voilà!
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