A member of my family is paranoid schizophrenic. As I read about Jared Loughner, I think of this relative. There are many points of congruence - the decent but incomplete education, a fascination with intellectual discourse, a seemingly coherent exterior, a deep core of paranoia.
A familiarity with firearms.
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Demon Bank
Indulge me for a post while I dream about a basic banking system. With the crap coming out of the Catfood Commission and the continued squeezing of lower income (and not so low income) consumers for their financial options, plus a nod towards the continual invasion of our privacy, I whiled away the evening pondering the possibility of the Demon Bank.
The Demon part of it refers to how it would be received by the Very Serious People and all of the monied elite. The premise of the bank is to introduce a baseline offering of banking services to the perpetually under- (and just plain un-) served portion of the citizenry who don't have tens of thousands of dollars just lying around to make them the desired customers of giving-you-the-business-as-usual banksters. The two markets this bank would compete against would be local payday loan outfits and regional and national mega banks with their massive ATM infrastructure. In both cases, the main objective is to reduce or remove charges for ordinary, low-risk transactions. The challenge is to not harm local banks and credit unions who are serving their communities well and who cannot leverage scale to distribute operating costs.
The Demon part of it refers to how it would be received by the Very Serious People and all of the monied elite. The premise of the bank is to introduce a baseline offering of banking services to the perpetually under- (and just plain un-) served portion of the citizenry who don't have tens of thousands of dollars just lying around to make them the desired customers of giving-you-the-business-as-usual banksters. The two markets this bank would compete against would be local payday loan outfits and regional and national mega banks with their massive ATM infrastructure. In both cases, the main objective is to reduce or remove charges for ordinary, low-risk transactions. The challenge is to not harm local banks and credit unions who are serving their communities well and who cannot leverage scale to distribute operating costs.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child
Repeat after me:
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
That child did not seduce him. By her own account, she screamed and struggled and fought and tried to get away.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
She is not an "accuser". She is the victim of a brutal, vicious, premeditated attack on her by a fully aware adult. The State of California is the accuser in this legal case, and it is the State that is pursuing this criminal.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
In response to that accusation, Polanki pleaded guilty to the crime. He stated for a court of law that he knowingly planned and executed the violent rape of a child. Whether he did so as part of a plea bargain is irrelevant. He pleaded guilty to the full extent of his attack on a minor.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
There was a civil case later, where he was also found guilty and made to pay retribution to the child he brutally violated. Some people think this constitutes "paying" for the crime. It does not. It is a civil proceding for damages against a private individual. It does not pay for his crime against the laws of the state, those that forbid violent assault, even if the criminal is able to hand over a wad of cash afterwards. And, by the way, that is known around these parts as prostitution - the exchange of sexual services for money or goods in trade. The civil law offers additional remedies to those wronged, but it is not a substitute for punishment by a criminal court for criminal acts.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
His movie making "genius" is irrelevant to his assault on this child. He planned, in a horrific echo of Humbert Humbert in Lolita, to render the girl unconscious with drugs, unable to protest his carnal use of her body. As in Lolita, the drugs did not work. Unlike Lolita, much like real life, the child fought back. She rejected him. She did not want this to happen. He raped her anyway. Nabokov's novel is art, an examination of how men rationalize their violence against their victims. Polanski's rape is a crime, a case study of a particular man rationalizing his violence against his victim.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
There is no defense for what he did. Nothing he has ever done as a movie maker excuses or diminishes the premeditated violation of another's body for his own physical satisfaction. Any pain he has "endured" since that decision - when he knowlingly and with malice of forethought chose to force alcohol and drugs onto a child so he could rape her - is entirely of his own making:
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
That child did not seduce him. By her own account, she screamed and struggled and fought and tried to get away.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
She is not an "accuser". She is the victim of a brutal, vicious, premeditated attack on her by a fully aware adult. The State of California is the accuser in this legal case, and it is the State that is pursuing this criminal.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
In response to that accusation, Polanki pleaded guilty to the crime. He stated for a court of law that he knowingly planned and executed the violent rape of a child. Whether he did so as part of a plea bargain is irrelevant. He pleaded guilty to the full extent of his attack on a minor.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
There was a civil case later, where he was also found guilty and made to pay retribution to the child he brutally violated. Some people think this constitutes "paying" for the crime. It does not. It is a civil proceding for damages against a private individual. It does not pay for his crime against the laws of the state, those that forbid violent assault, even if the criminal is able to hand over a wad of cash afterwards. And, by the way, that is known around these parts as prostitution - the exchange of sexual services for money or goods in trade. The civil law offers additional remedies to those wronged, but it is not a substitute for punishment by a criminal court for criminal acts.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
His movie making "genius" is irrelevant to his assault on this child. He planned, in a horrific echo of Humbert Humbert in Lolita, to render the girl unconscious with drugs, unable to protest his carnal use of her body. As in Lolita, the drugs did not work. Unlike Lolita, much like real life, the child fought back. She rejected him. She did not want this to happen. He raped her anyway. Nabokov's novel is art, an examination of how men rationalize their violence against their victims. Polanski's rape is a crime, a case study of a particular man rationalizing his violence against his victim.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
There is no defense for what he did. Nothing he has ever done as a movie maker excuses or diminishes the premeditated violation of another's body for his own physical satisfaction. Any pain he has "endured" since that decision - when he knowlingly and with malice of forethought chose to force alcohol and drugs onto a child so he could rape her - is entirely of his own making:
- He chose to rape a child
- He chose to play games with the court system
- He chose to flee when the courts would not agree to diminish his crime
- He has refused to face the consequences of his acts
- He has attempted to buy off the victim and the law
- He has paraded his story around to increase his own celebrity
- He has traded on his celebrity to get his brutal rape excused and escape just punishment for what he did
The defense seems to be Polanski is an artist and should not be subject to the same laws as the rest of humanity becuse he has gratified us with his artistic endeavors. That is an exact inversion of the principle of the law:
Because Roman Polanksi does not wish to share the earth with other human beings, feeling entitled to treat another person as a sex toy for his personal entertainment and gratification, there is no reason why the rest of humanity should wish to share the world with him.
He deserves to go into prison with the rest of the child rapists and spend the rest of his miserable life suffering in his own self-inflicted hell. Why does he deserve this?
Because he drugged and raped a 13 year old child.
Anglachel
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