Two iconic figures in American culture over the past 20-30 years – The Donald (Trump) & Bill Cosby – are under full-scale “take no prisoners” attack from the “dreaded scourge” known euphemistically as “militantly partisan activist mini-mobs… and their sycophant media toadies”. To be sure the two individuals’ situations are quite different. Or are they?
One is a very successful real estate developer with very weird hair…. and a penchant for self-promotion and bombastic rhetoric. Annoying qualities perhaps…. but stopping short of “get a rope” UNLESS “get a rope” is the mini-mob’s solution to everything it dislikes…. which in this case – Is.
The other one appears to have been a pathological serial rapist for decades. That IS Bad unless, apparently, one is another “Bill”….. Clinton. What to do with a pathological serial rapist gets into the fine-print weeds of America’s judicial system.
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Donald Trump has long been despised by a segment of the American population for the abhorrent high crime of being “a very rich white man”. The sitting POTUS campaigned on the podium-pounding promise to rid America of “rich white men”. At least those not named George Soros or the other “rich limo-liberal white men” (like Jim Goodmon) who kiss Obama’s ring hoping for a seat on his politburo.
Obama’s fiery rhetoric from Day One has been straight from France in the late 1780s. … or Russia toppling the Tsar (or is it Czar) in 1917.
- Gin up the brain-dead crazies to overthrow the wealthy….
- Let’em loot and pillage for a few weeks; then….
- Herd’em back into their hovels while…..
- The New Aristocracy delight at using the great unwashed as hapless pawns in their pseudo-intellectual social experiments.
There’s nothing original about that scenario whatsoever. It’s thousands of years ago. First employed fairly soon after humanus became erectus.
To be sure The Donald makes it easy to “hate him” and to ridicule him. “Hate him” because he is (1) very rich and (2) very white and (3) has funny hair. “Being rich” is a high crime only if one is also “white”. If he changed his name to P. Donald Diddy would “they” love him?
Donald has been incredibly successful for a very long time in the very high stakes poker game of high-profile real estate development. That business is incredibly complex and fraught with unforgiving dangers. Donald has Mastered The Game arguably better than anyone since The Gilded Age.
Donald has also gone waaay overboard in Self-Promotion. That too is only a high crime if the self-promoter is “white”. “Black folks” who are shameless self-promoters via exorbitant life-styles and unconventional personal appearance are deemed iconic deities….. and worshipped by their adoring disciples. Whether over-the-top self-promotion is a good thing or a bad thing can get confusing.
If Donald was just (1) very white….. (2) incredibly rich…. (3) had that funny hair; and (4) uncontrollably bombastic; but simply changed his clownish hairstyle, might he be less a target for the aforementioned “militantly partisan activist mobs” who lay siege to his life? Is that Hair de’ Trump essential to him being The Donald?
The militantly partisan activist mobs aided, of course, by oh-so sycophant media toadies, tout that everything Donald says is simply Awful and Hateful and Cruel and therefore a High Crime Worthy of a date with Madame Guillotine because….. well, because he “is white”, has that funny hair, can be bombastic, and there are aplenty of file images of him looking goofy.
“Being bombastic and looking and acting eccentrically” works for both Bully Barber and Al Sharpton; but is condemned when it is Donald Trump ??? Maybe if Donald dressed in pontifical robes and professed to be “on a mission from God” he would get positive press? Naaaaah.
There are also aplenty of file images of “the Clintons” and “the Obamas” et al looking very goofy; but “those” are not shown by the sycophant media toadies supporting the militantly partisan activist mobs determined to “take out” Donald. How come dat?
At the end of The Day, all Donald Trump does is express opinions that some find offensive. For that reason corporations and organizations fearful that “militantly partisan activist mobs and their sycophant media toadies” might turn on them….. join the pitchfork / torch wielding mob calling for Donald’s figurative beheading…. for expressing his opinion.
Fiery faux messianic leaders of the militantly partisan activist mobs (and their sycophant media) also express opinions that some find offensive but, apparently, defining “offensive” is solely up to that “sycophant media toadies” in lock-step with the militantly partisan activist mobs. …… Oh. If that seems both scary, stoopid and very dangerous. It is.
FYI: “Expressing contrarian opinions” was a beheading offense in France in the late 1780s as well as a one-way ticket to Siberia in Russia from 1917 until, well, it still is. But THAT won’t happen in America because …… ???
We shall discuss Donald in different contexts in the weeks to come. In the meantime, think about why you feel the way you do about him….. be that favorable or otherwise.
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Now what about Bill Cosby? This may be as head-scratching a cultural conundrum as America has EVER dealt with. Yes, I said EVER!
There was a period of time when, arguably, Bill Cosby was THE single unifying element in The Black v White Thing in a post CRA America. If anyone / anything represented “color-blindness” it was Bill Cosby and his cross-over humor. I am not talking about his I Spy days as Robert Culp’s sidekick.
Or maybe not? I am a middle-class white baby-boomer. Maybe my opinion of Bill Cosby PRE-SERIAL RAPIST INFO was not shared by my contemporaries in the black community? Maybe “they” always saw him (Cosby) as an Uncle Tom sell-out to “whitey”. Were Fat Albert and Russell not to mention The Huxtables scorned by “blacks”?
Were “blacks” more loyal to the Harlem-esque humor of Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley then Richard Pryor and his angry ilk? Did white folks just think “black folks” enjoyed Bill Cosby’s color-blind humor. Did “they” resent his portrayal of the mainstream successful Huxtables. Did “they” resent that White America so enthusiastically embraced “The Huxtables” as “a black family that we white folks could actually accept as neighbors”?
More so than Kid Dyno-mite and Florida and Willona enjoying “Good Times” in the notorious Cabrini-Green “projects” of Chicago. ….. or the vaudeville-esque antics of George & Weezie Jefferson who “moved on up to The East Side to a deee-luxe apartment in the skyeeee….”.
Is it even debatable that Bill Cosby’s fame and success for 50+ years was fueled primarily by his popularity with White America?….. not by “his own kind”.
Then there are the public admonitions that Bill Cosby has made over the past 10-15 years chastising “the black community” for not taking responsibility / accountability for its actions. Cosby has taken issue with the bloviating race-baiters who profit by ginning up the street mobs….. and who serve as demagogues for those militant activist groups. His admonitions fueled resentments towards Cosby for “acting white”. The Cardinal Sin to race-baiters.
And now we are facing the reality that “the multiple accusations” that Bill Cosby a/k/a “Cliff Huxtable” was indeed a pathological serial sexual predator are true. Hesitancy to believe the accusations was removed this week as Cosby finally admitted using drugs to “have his way with women” over the years.
I’m going out on a limb to say:
There is NO WAY way to couch ‘using drugs on unsuspecting women in order to rape them” as anything but VERY BAD & CRIMINAL. We are not talking about “a hooker fetish” or “a string of mistresses” or “he liked to watch”….. or “he was addicted to porn”. “Using one’s celebrity to attract women, then drugging and raping them” is NOT “go spend a month or so at a remote celebrity addiction clinic and all will be forgiven….”
America is certainly moving towards a modo “progressive” Any-Goes sexual attitude. Are we only a few weeks away from declaring “drugging & raping women” as Sure….Why Not….Who are we to judge. Will public kindergartens be teaching “which drugs work best and where to get them” by next month? Again, I hope not, but I’m not on The Supreme Court.
What Bill Cosby “probably did” is in-no-way excusable by comparing him to “Hillary’s Bill” – America’s First Black President. Neither’s actions would be excusable in a sane world. That would be a version of “…. but Everybody Does It” that delusional sports fans hide behind when their beloved program gets exposed for serial nefariousness.
There are whacked-out goobers somewhere babbling that “these women ‘asked for it’ and knew what they were doing……” There are always “goobers somewhere” that support the unsupportable. Charles Manson still gets marriage proposals for goodness sakes.
As this investigation gathers more solid evidence that Bill Cosby “did it”, he should, IMO, be subject to whatever the judicial system calls for. Are there statutes of limitations involved that negate criminal prosecution? I don’t know. Are all elements of his legacy as a world-famous entertainer at risk? Sidewalk stars, statues, et al? I would think so.
….. it WOULD be nice to believe that whatever standards Bill Cosby (or Donald Trump) is held to would also apply to those who misbehave and/or perform feloniously but are viewed more sympathetically by “militantly partisan activist mobs….. and their sycophant media toadies”.
Have militantly partisan activist mobs… and their sycophant media toadies become The Voice of America?
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