You may have read the endless reams of articles about the little kerfuffle at Rolling Stone magazine last week. Here is a link to the original story published November 19 - A Rape On Campus:A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA by Sabrina Rubin Erdely.
It's a horrific story about a young freshman who was invited to a frat party and ended up being brutally gang raped by a group of frat brothers as part of some frat initiation. This horrific story spawned campus protests and caused the University Board to suspend all fraternity activities and issue a statement condemning the incident and any kind of campus sexual assault. Well, except that the story was not the least bit true. Yeah, it turns out that Ms. Erdely, in her zeal to find a victim to highlight and perpetators to condemn, failed to do what any credible journalist would do before accusing people of a horrific criminal act. She failed to do any kind of fact-checking at all. She took what this young woman said as the truth because she trusted her instincts and just ran with it. And so did the Rolling Stone editors. As a matter of fact, once someone bothered to actually check the facts and "discrepancies" in the article, it did not take long to find the story to be an almost complete fabrication. It caused a firestorm on Twitter and here is just one of many articles from the Washinton Post - The Full Demise Of Rolling Stone Rape Story on December 10.
Now this is really beside the point. It is Erdeley's explanation as to why she feels she has done nothing wrong that is truly disturbing. According to her...and I am paraphrasing here...so what if none of it was actually true. It COULD have been true and that is good enough because there is a rape culture on college campuses today that must be stopped. But of course, that begs the question that if this "rape culture" is so rampant, why does she have to resort to fabrications to make her point? But even more hideous were her condemnations of any who would dare to take umbrage with her fabrications and distortions and then accusing them of being "rape deniers" and "supporters of rape culture". And the inevitable accusations of "blaming the victim" except in this story, there WAS no victim. Well, except the young men who were falsely accused, of course. But then, that's okay because they COULD have done it.
Anyway, you can read all you want about this issue with a simple "google search" if you want, but I find it scary that seemingly credible "journalists" now have no qualms about printing lies if it furthers their narrative. We used to call that "fiction", but now it is "journalism". This is just one example of the slippery slide downward into some kind of Orwellian nightmare.
Oh, and if you really want to see scary, check out the same type of kerfluffle surrounding HBO "Girls" writer/actress Lena Dunham's autobiography Not That Kind Of Girl and John Nolte's investigation for Breitbart - LINK. In her case she alleges that she was raped by a conservative, Republican student named "Barry" while a student at Oberline College. But this time her false accusations may cause a pretty hefty libel suit...here's her "brave" excuse - Lena Dunham on Rape Backlash
As always feel free to comment on this or any other issue...
It's a horrific story about a young freshman who was invited to a frat party and ended up being brutally gang raped by a group of frat brothers as part of some frat initiation. This horrific story spawned campus protests and caused the University Board to suspend all fraternity activities and issue a statement condemning the incident and any kind of campus sexual assault. Well, except that the story was not the least bit true. Yeah, it turns out that Ms. Erdely, in her zeal to find a victim to highlight and perpetators to condemn, failed to do what any credible journalist would do before accusing people of a horrific criminal act. She failed to do any kind of fact-checking at all. She took what this young woman said as the truth because she trusted her instincts and just ran with it. And so did the Rolling Stone editors. As a matter of fact, once someone bothered to actually check the facts and "discrepancies" in the article, it did not take long to find the story to be an almost complete fabrication. It caused a firestorm on Twitter and here is just one of many articles from the Washinton Post - The Full Demise Of Rolling Stone Rape Story on December 10.
Now this is really beside the point. It is Erdeley's explanation as to why she feels she has done nothing wrong that is truly disturbing. According to her...and I am paraphrasing here...so what if none of it was actually true. It COULD have been true and that is good enough because there is a rape culture on college campuses today that must be stopped. But of course, that begs the question that if this "rape culture" is so rampant, why does she have to resort to fabrications to make her point? But even more hideous were her condemnations of any who would dare to take umbrage with her fabrications and distortions and then accusing them of being "rape deniers" and "supporters of rape culture". And the inevitable accusations of "blaming the victim" except in this story, there WAS no victim. Well, except the young men who were falsely accused, of course. But then, that's okay because they COULD have done it.
Anyway, you can read all you want about this issue with a simple "google search" if you want, but I find it scary that seemingly credible "journalists" now have no qualms about printing lies if it furthers their narrative. We used to call that "fiction", but now it is "journalism". This is just one example of the slippery slide downward into some kind of Orwellian nightmare.
Oh, and if you really want to see scary, check out the same type of kerfluffle surrounding HBO "Girls" writer/actress Lena Dunham's autobiography Not That Kind Of Girl and John Nolte's investigation for Breitbart - LINK. In her case she alleges that she was raped by a conservative, Republican student named "Barry" while a student at Oberline College. But this time her false accusations may cause a pretty hefty libel suit...here's her "brave" excuse - Lena Dunham on Rape Backlash
As always feel free to comment on this or any other issue...
18 comments:
Bev,
Their "it could be true" explanation for printing the story reminds me of the justifications the KGB had for spreading lies around the world through their massive misinformation campaign (lies such as the US gov creating AIDS in a lab); the lies may be false but they represented "larger" truths.
Their claim that the US gov created AIDS in a lab may be false but it pushes the "larger truth" about the evils of American Imperialism or whatever.
As a former journalist, this just makes me sick. At my former station, I (and several of my co-workers) had the fear of God in us of making even a minor mistake. Needless to say, I...well I'm not going to say what I wanted to do to the people responsible for the 'Today Show' when they were blatantly making stuff up.
But this won't hurt 'Rolling Stone.' Erdeley will get away with it for being "messagey." The fact that we live in a society where accusation=guilt when it comes to sexual criminal activity, means that nothing happens to the messenger. Long story short, I'm not surprised by any of this.
As for Dunham...well, I've been following all of Nolte's articles as her story has unraveled. My conclusion? There was no rape. She made up the whole damn thing to get 'victim's cred' with her leftie peers. I know that Nolte has given her the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that something might have happened and she just withheld information, but I'm not so diplomatic. The details were she remembered- the extreme highlight of the alleged rapist's party affiliation, for instance- and didn't were just too convenient given that her book was aimed at the ultra-left crowd to begin with. And her egocentric, selfish, shameless, sociopathic, reckless, and outright cruel refusal to clear the guy whose life she's ruining ("because the issue is whether or not my ego takes a hit, not whether this guy's reputation is destroyed, you know! why can't he just be happy that I'm forwarding my career?") reeks of someone who thought she'd get away with the whole thing and is throwing a public tantrum over getting caught and realizing that she's not above either public scrutiny and- possibly- the law.
In summary, Dunham is a lying [insert your extremely cruel, debasing, NSFW descriptor here].
First off, it's not "rape denying" to ask if it is EVEN RAPE!! Oh, I don't know, maybe when two young hetero-normative people meet at a free-wheeling party, are having fun, drinking too much, and then go upstairs to have "sexual relations" with each other (like normal heteros sometimes do) fall asleep and then wake up the next morning, hungover, and the "looking good at 2 AM" effects have worn off, that there might be a little rueful regret that SHE might have gone too far. For the guy, it seems to be a plus for the most part, but for the girl, she now regrets her choice. Maybe he's not that good looking.....did he wear protection(?).....oh shit, how am I going to get back to my dorm without everyone seeing me leave the frat house?
And so, after a few more years of inundation in "studies" she comes to realize that maybe he did indeed force himself upon here (not wanting to admit she wanted the action also at the time), and so, voila! RAPE!
What was his name again? I forgot. What frat was it? I forgot.
This IS NOT RAPE! and we trivialize the abhorrent crime by publicizing crap like this coed and Dunham's fabrications. It will be harder now to distinguish between forcible rape and regret on the female's part.
But, as these are liberals, womyn and true believers, they will be forgiven as Bev states above, because it fits the narrative. Men are always forcing themselves on our little fowers who would NEVER EVER have regrettable relations with THAT person.
Forgive me for the crassness of this post, but as someone with many sisters, many females behave the way I described above. They just don't extend this to a "rape" allegation that will ruin lives.
Kit - And just like the KGB, the means justifies the ends for feminists - "All white men are misogynists and rapists out to subjugate woman." All men except Bill Clinton of course, he's a good rapist. Erdeley and all who support her lies only hurt women who really HAVE been raped and need support. and she has no qualms about skipping over the "innocent until proven guilty" and "they must be guilty because instincts are just that keen" part. Thank goodness that our courts run on "facts" and not "instincts".
Yes, Rustbelt, it used to be pretty damning to a journalist's career to publish stuff that's is not verified. Not today - last week the NY Magazine published this huge article about a 17 yr old financial genius who earned $70+million in the stock market this year. You know, he would trade stocks at lunch. The writers didn't even bother to check it out. They just published it. Once again, someone went to verify and found it to be a hoax - US Today
And this wasn't the daily news papers. This was a magazine journalist who had plenty of time to corraborate the story. Oh, there are the usual journalist mea culpas and the kids said he was sorry. But seriously, are people becoming such fame whores that they will lie?
Oh, yeah, Lena Dunham is so damaged and needy by what I don't know that she is willing to ruin someone's life just to get attention. And then get indignant when it's not the sympathetic attention she wanted. Actually, I think she was so stupid to think that only her demographic would be paying attention anyway and who does love sympathy from one's peer group? But then maybe she was just trying to get passed the other revelation in her book - the fact that she admits to sexually assaulting her two year old sister...
Bob, it just makes it that much harder for women who are really raped because it waters down the meaning of being sexually assaulted to the point (as you describe) where any woman who decides she's been raped has been raped including after the fact even if she was a fully consensual partner. Of I remember the sob stories during the "Take Back The NIght" craze in the late '90's. You know the drill "I went back to his dorm room/apartment at 2am and "surprise" he was drunk and tried/succeeded in assaulting me. And I waited until daylight to make my escape even though he passed out hours ago." I swear, that was an explanation.
My solution is to set up that very bright line again and segregate the sexes once again. Separate same-sex only dorm buildings under adult supervision. Same rules for frats and sororities - No one of the same sex should be allowed in any room other than the common meeting area especially designated for same. No one of the opposite sex should be allowed enter under threat of expulsion if caught. Then when the rapists steal into the girls dorm, it will be clear what they were up to...
Harsh maybe, but if rape/sexual assault are so rampant there is no other choice.
Oh, and the providing alcohol to anyone and the drinking by anyone under the age of 21 yrs old should grounds for immediate expulsion (or jail time) as well.
Again, harsh, but if alcohol is fueling the rape culture, then there have to be harsh penalties for using it.
You should know that I am making a point, right? And I am sure that if these harsh penalties were threatened to be enacted and enforced, suddenly the false accusation and screams of "rape culture" would dissolve.
Bev, Colleges are the last bastion of puritanical feminism. Their goal is to drive a wedge between men and women by making sex impossible. Hence, they invented the rape epidemic/rape culture and they pimp that idea at every turn. And being ideologically dishonest, they don't even care if the allegations are true or not. Therefore, the allegation is enough to prove the crime, even if the allegation is false.
How do they justify this? Well, with this twisted bit of logic. (1) Almost all women get raped because most sex is rape (because women are incapable of truly giving consent). So if there was sex, then there was rape. (2) Even if the allegation is false, it is still valid because women have been so victimized by all this rape around them that they are traumatized victims of the rape culture and thus they are mentally raped even when they aren't really raped.
More to the point though, the response of these feminists is an attempt to protect their ideology. If it became accepted that women could make false rape allegations, then the moral authority they think they hold will vanish. Hence, to protect their industry, they need to defend all allegations, including destroying anyone who points out that an allegation is false.
P.S. Dunham is clearly a sick woman, but look for the feminist left to treat her as a hero until her conduct becomes intolerable to them and then they will quietly dump her.
the left requires a fairly steady stream of grievances to keep certain segments of their base actively engage. It is also helpful for the media to have something always available when the need arises to shift focus from a storyline harmful to the left's agenda.
Rape is a serious crime for sure, but one which is difficult to fairly adjudicate.I did learn, after viewing Jodie Foster in "The Accused" to not blame the victim for their questionable judgement. The term "date rape" is a relatively newer addition to the lexicon. Again, I'm sure their are instances where a victim is truly raped by someone they know, maybe even like, and are on an actual date.
Still, the opposite holds true as well. It is all to easy to falsely accuse, whether to extort from the rich and famous, or simply to "get even" for a perceived slight.
What I find interesting is the timing of all this. There have been a spate of high profile campus rape allegations involving division 1 NCAA athletes. We recently had one at UT involving the captain of the football team and a female athlete. Our local op-ed "feminazi" claims she too endured this while in college. I have no evidence to doubt her, but the timing seems awfully convenient.
There is no room in journalism for permitting bullshit to propagate to achieve some perceived greater good, but it used by the left all the time to justify their errors. It reminds me of Dan Rather and his October surprise on 60 minutes with the fake letter. Rather would never admit the allegation was not true, as if that excused him of using a fabricated piece of evidence.
While fun watching Lena Dunham figuratively go down, but not for nothing, John Ziegler's exhaustive and continuing efforts at the Framing Paterno site put anyone claiming to be an investigative journalist to shame. False narratives from "established" publications/networks/websites, never an easy task to combat.
I'd been following the Rolling Stone story, but this is the first I'd heard of the Lena Dunham one. I did a little looking into it, landing on some particularly graphic details in the process. To state my opinion without raising the MPAA rating of this website, I'll just say that I'm now a bit dubious of Dunham's grasp of basic anatomy, let alone reality.
"John Ziegler's exhaustive and continuing efforts at the Framing Paterno site put anyone claiming to be an investigative journalist to shame."
Let me see if I've got this right. A quick check into his background reveals Ziegler:
-Dredged up the report about victim #2 denying being raped by Sandusky from 2011, claiming it was a 'new' find, despite it being common knowledge at the time. (Victim #2 later admitted the rape, and psychologists described him as suffering from his conditioning at Sandusky's hands- a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.) Yet, he presented it as new, exonerating information.
-Later posted victim #2' name on 'Framing Paterno,' despite every victim's rights organization telling him not to do it. Later, after telling everyone to f*** off, he took the name down and claimed the site had simply been hacked and he was not to blame.
-Had previously promised to reveal the name of victim #2 on the 'Today Show,' even though- of all people- Matt Lauer told him not to... (Speaking of which, what does a putting the victims' names up in public have to do with allegedly clearing Paterno? The only plausible explanation on the journalistic rumor mill I've seen is that Ziegler is blackmailing them into saying what he wants.)
-Has also said that, after interviewing Sandusky, the former DC's testimony can clear Paterno. Uh, right. The man who lied about raping dozens of boys (on national TV during the Bob Costas interview), is now trustworthy.
-Claims that Sandusky is guilty, even though, when I checked 'Framing Paterno' last month, nearly all the articles were of the (Reverend Jeremiah Wright voice) "the victims lied! the victims lied! the victims lied and Paterno's legacy died!' ilk. (Interestingly, those articles seem to have been taken down now. Hmm...)
-And is so fanatical (his on-TV defenses always devolve into him just trying to shout down his interviewer), that even the Paterno family wants nothing to do with him. Paterno's own son has told him, in no uncertain terms, to "shut up."
In other words, a shyster, a spin doctor, a double-talker, and a tabloid hack. Some 'hero.' But he IS telling the Truthers what they want to hear...
My favorite part of the whole Rolling Stone article was the FACT that the frat didn't even have a party or social event the night of the alleged incident. One question to a member of the frat house is all it would have taken.
This is just getting too confusing. Let's just go back to respectable women only having sex after marriage and less respectable women getting paid for it. Both require a consent and agreement by both parties. With a little alteration of the law, the latter situation could even have written consents/contracts.
Two New York police officers shot in their squad car, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
Hate Zig all you want, Rustbelt. His style can be a bit much for those with an anathema to painful truths, notably ones which have yet to be refuted, not just with FramingPaterno.com, but with his reporting on the Steubenville football team's recent media-manufactured false narrative, as well as his "Blocking 'The Path to 9/11'" and "Media Malpractice" projects.
As for the Paterno son you mention, Scott, he threw his own dad under the bus in the name of the false narrative and inconsistently told stories from Mike McQueary. Scott, like you it seems, hates being called out by someone with a better grasp on the wherefores and whatnots. On the other hand, Jay Paterno and John talk quite frequently, and if you listen to any interviews Jay makes these days, he shares opinions in line with what Zig's been sharing. Better late than never, and as we continue to watch the facts revealed about the nefarious backdoor dealings between the NCAA, Green and the majority of PSU Board of Trustees, more and more people are getting on board with how due process was the least of those folk's concerns.
Yes, Kit, but change that to "two cops died". Both were assassinated at point bkank range while sitting in their squad car in the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight. "Alleged" killer shot himself shortly after. He posted his photo in Instagram with warning he would kill two cops in revenge for Eric Garner. He killed his girlfriend earlier in the day on Baltimore.
The city cops openly turned their backs on Mayor Diblasio when he showed up at the hospital to give a statement...
You folks in NY need to call Albany and tell them all their silly gun control laws aren't working...my prayers are with the souls of the two NYC cops and their families...the shooter can burn in Hell. Someone needs to put a gag on Al Sharpton, that old blowhard is riding this for all it's worth.
Actually, the guy did not kill his girlfriend. She is still alive and was able to identify the shooter. But yeah, when anyone learn that Al Sharpton is only out for himself?
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