What's To Be Done With Bill Cosby?

When I was a kid my parents had a Bill Cosby comedy record. God it was funny! 

For anyone my age, Cosby was a near life-long presence, from a groundbreaking TV roll in the ‘60s to Jell-O commercials and Saturday morning cartoons in the ‘70s and ‘80s to another groundbreaking TV roll in the ‘80s and ‘90s. In a fall from grace I never could have imagined, and despite whatever legal loopholes keep him out of jail, it’s abundantly clear from mountains of evidence that Bill Cosby was privately a heinous sexual predator.

 

And so what’s to be done with his amazing career accomplishments? Comedian and commenter, Kamau Bell is trying to answer that question in his new documentary, We Need To Talk About Bill Cosby.

 

I’m creeped out enough by the courtroom testimony against Cosby, I’ll never be able to watch his old work without thinking about it. So I won’t watch. And I’m not alone. He’s been virtually excommunicated from our culture.

Likewise, Louis C.K. was once one of my favorite comedians. He rightfully also fell from grace as the MeToo movement unfolded. But on a long drive recently I listened to a streamed comedy channel that played some of his old standup. I quickly rewarmed to his comic genius and so researched his recent efforts to reenter the standup comedy world. While his initial apology was thoughtful, his recent jokes on stage about his former bad behavior are so weird, and just creepy, it makes you doubt the sincerity of that original apology. I’m back in the anti-Louis C.K. camp.

 

I watched the HBO documentary about Michael Jackson called Leaving Neverland. There can be little doubt that Michael Jackson was a child molester. But like it never happened, in 2020 Sirius Radio launched a Michael Jackson channel, and just last December the musical “MJ” premiered on Broadway.

A radio station and a Broadway musical celebrating the work of a child molester! What’s next? Will Turner Classic Movies broadcast a Harvey Weinstien film festival?

I’m reminded of the line, “Tolerating racism is racism.” Likewise, I think tolerating sexual assault encourages sexual assault.

 

I’m not saying there’s no place for redemption. In some cases, there truly should be. But what that would look like is hard to imagine. Most transgressors who have survived in the public eye don’t accept responsibility for their sins. Think Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

 

Yes, most of Clinton’s accusations involve consensual relationships, but still he repeatedly used an unequal power dynamic to lure women into sexual relationships, and there are several accusations of forced sexual contact. Yet, when Democrats hold a convention, Clinton arrives to an affectionate standing ovation.

And with Trump it’s even worse. He spent years bragging in New York tabloids about his extra-marital affairs, made repeated ugly sexual comments to women in public, and of course was caught on tape bragging about the joys of sexually assaulting women. Nineteen women have come forward accusing him of doing just that. Yet, tens of millions of Americans didn’t care that they might be electing a sexual predator to the most powerful office in the world.

Is anything real? 

 

I’ll admit, I’m not perfect at drawing the line either.

 

With some unease, I still listen to Ryan Adams’ music. He’s one my favorite songwriters of the past 25 years. His private misdeeds also came out as a result of the MeToo movement. Apparently, he methodically established friendships with up-and-coming female artists under the pretense of acting as a mentor, when in fact he was grooming them for sexual encounters. 

One of Adams’ best-known victims was Phoebe Bridgers. She's recently built a successful music career on her own and her most memorable song, Motion Sickness, is about her relationship with Adams. In the opening lyrics she sings: “I hate you for what you did, and miss you like a little kid,” lamenting the lost, innocent joy of connecting with one of her heroes, and rightly hating him for the ugliness that lay hidden beneath the surface.

And maybe that’s what we’re all doing as we struggle and fail to make peace with the heroes whose work moved and inspired us, only to later discover they were secretly monsters.

 

 

What Trump's Election Taught Our Children

Image by B. Kenley

When my children were small a wise older parent told me, “Don’t worry so much that children do what you tell them to do, worry that they’re watching everything YOU DO.”

There is great truth in that maxim. If kids ignored our stated values and simply watched our behavior, what did they learn from Donald Trump’s election?

Your Vote Does Not Matter

At least in presidential elections.

Twice in the past 5 presidential elections, the candidate that a majority of Americans chose didn’t get to be president; Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. In fact, Clinton got 2.5 million more votes than Trump, but Trump will be president.

When supporters of the Electoral College argue that all those red states show a country that didn’t want Hillary Clinton and that highly populated coastal cities shouldn't be allowed to pick the president, American teenagers in government classes across America know that’s bullshit. They see through the suggestion that reds states are totally red. In Michigan, Trump got 47.60% of the vote over Clinton’s 47.33%. So virtually half of the voters in Michigan wanted Clinton as president, but because it was a quarter of one percent less than those who wanted Trump, they’re votes were not added to those of the big coastal cities. It’s like they never voted at all. In my state of Indiana, 43% of presidential votes (Clinton votes) were thrown in the trash and likewise, not added to those of the coastal states.

Our young people know that the Constitution once forbid women from voting and enshrined slavery in its text. It was far from an infallible document. The Electoral College has the power to erase the will of the majority and has done so in 40% of the presidential elections since 2000. Our children know that, too, and it’s the most powerful evidence any cynic ever needed to argue that voting doesn't matter.

The Truth Doesn't Matter
Politicians have been called liars from the days of ancient Greece. But with Donald Trump there needs to be a term bigger than "pathological liar." To Trump, the truth is a matter of expedience. What is the most manipulative version of reality he could express in a particular moment? He just says it. If he needs to say something utterly contradictory later in the day, he will. And he never, ever, admits he lied. You could literally spend a day watching YouTube videos of Trump saying one thing and then another video in which he claims he never said it.

Adults develop beliefs and get emotionally attached to them, the beliefs become part of our identity, such that we'll relentlessly ignore proof we're wrong. Children are less stone and more clay. They watched their parents ignore Trump's relentless contradictions and hipocracy and internalize that incongruity as an acceptable norm.

Our children were watching and saw this: What is true does not matter. Say whatever serves your personal needs and never, never admit you're wrong. Then, attack, defame, insult anyone who catches you in a lie. That's called, "Tellin' it like it is."

Sexual Assault And Bullying Don't Matter

It’s not surprising that a politician would have multiple accusations of unethical or illegal behavior. But Trump is markedly different in a unique way. From the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry to many of the accusations about Hillary Clinton, there were no confessions or video-taped hard evidence to verify the accusation. They were simply accusations with varying amounts of conflicting evidence. But in Trump’s case, most of the ugliest accusations about his character can be verified in a video clip of him on YouTube, IN HIS OWN WORDS!

So when you hear someone say Donald Trump is disrespectful toward women, worse yet that he’s repeatedly committed sexual assault. You don’t have to believe them. Just go to YouTube and watch an endless stream of videos of Trump across three decades, bragging about womanizing, mocking older women for not being young and sexy, or offering a bizarre endless stream of leering sexual comments to women, such that he makes Bill Clinton look like a virgin choir boy.

In fact there is such a breathtaking mountain of evidence of Trump’s disrespect of women online as to make denial idiotic. This all culminated in the release of a recording in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Today, there are a total of 16 women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual assault.

Yet, American parents still elected him president.

Consider this troubling statistic: 1 out of every 5 women is sexually assaulted while in college.  I have a daughter in college, so this isn't idle supposition. I wonder about the boys who sexually assault those girls. How did they come to believe that if you're attracted to a woman, you just wait for the right moment, then reach out and grab her? And rape? It's the most under reported crime. Afraid of the turmoil and embarrassment of pressing charges, girls often remain silent. It's heartbreaking. There's a thread in our culture that whispers to boys, "You know she wants it." Companion strands in the same thread tells our girls, "You better just keep your mouth shut about it." 

A new, big strand in that thread is the election of Donald Trump. You can admit to sexual assault and 16 witnesses can confirm it, and American parents will still elect you president.

A friend told me her 8-year-old granddaughter had been watching TV this fall when her kid show ended and the news came on. Without her mother realizing, the little girl listened to a news report that played the tape of Trump bragging about assaulting women, and then interviews with several women who claim he assaulted them. When that little girl woke up the day after the election and found that Trump had won, she was inconsolable and sobbed, "Why would people choose him?" 

That little girl learned her lesson; "If it happens to you, you better just shut your mouth." And what her male contemporaries learned? Well, we know what they learned.

Our Children Are Watching
We wife and I don't preach politics in our house, but the news is on from various sources. Kids listen, often not when we want them to, and other times, they're listening when we think they're not. As we know, that's how kids learn.

In church one Sunday in the months before election day, our pastor was explaining Revelations, reading through a list of human qualities that God detests. "The arrogant. The self-satisfied. Those who love money above all else" he ticked down the list on a video screen. "Narccissits who see themselves at the center of the world . . ." My wife's 11-year old son leaned toward us and whispered, "Donald Trump."

Oh my, how our children are watching.

Buy a copy of Kurt's latest novel, The Salvage Man

“Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of A Thousand Falling Crows

Buy a copy of Kurt's first novel, Noblesville

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of Whistling Past the Graveyard

Batshit Crazy & Conspiracy Theorists

I passed a car on US 31 the other day with a bumper sticker that read, "9/11 Was An Inside Job!" With a reflexive sneer I craned my neck to get a good look at the driver as I passed. A bearded, tight-jawed, 30-something dude gripped the steering wheel with clenched fists, glaring at the road before him.

Figures he’d look a little . . . crazed.

My patience with conspiracy theorists is utterly gone. Feels like bat shit crazy is spreading across America like the stomach flu on a cruise ship. I've gone from laughing at it to fearing it. Our nation is overfilled with folks who’d rather believe blurry, complicated, bizarre conspiracy theories than an obvious truth screaming in their face. Vaccines cause autism, global warming isn’t real, Obama was born in Kenya, and oh yeah, he's a Muslim, and the government is hiding the truth about UFOs. Who believes all this crazy shit?

Are these the same people who sign up to sell Herbalife?

Years ago I had a conspiracy theorist next-door neighbor. Once over the back fence he explained that the United States never landed on the moon. Claimed it was all filmed in the Texas desert. He eventually developed his own conspiracy theories about me. After that first unnerving conversation, I started avoiding him. When gardening, every time I saw him pull in his driveway, I’d stroll to my garage as if looking for a rake. I’d wait there watching from the window until he disappeared in his back door. Years later he said to me, “I know you're up to something. I've seen you sneaking around over there.”

He was half-right. I had been sneaking around. Trying to avoid his crazy ass! I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile.

President elect Trump is the king of conspiracy theories and he’s spun some real doozies! On his twitter feed he's claimed that global warming was a hoax concocted by China, that thousands of Muslim American’s celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11, that Christians aren’t allowed to immigrate to America while the U.S. is importing terrorists, Obama wants to take our guns (Aren’t we about up to our 8^th annual “Obama’s coming for your guns” gun sale?), immigrants with Ebola are coming to America, and he was a prime promoter of the Obama/Kenya/Muslim story. Problem is, none of that is true. And it’s all demonstrably not true. And I’ve just scratched the surface. When you look at the voluminous list of conspiracy theories he’s spread on his Twitter feed, it gets hard to tell the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a pathological liar who's simply sees the conspiracy theories as a means to an end.

Whether Tump believes the more bizarre things he's tweeted or not, the conspiracy theories resonate with his followers. And consider this: He’s bragged on tape about sexually assaulting women and thus far 14 women have come forward claiming he in fact, did. Yet his supporters don’t believe it. With no evidence they’ll believe global warming is a hoax created by China, but won’t believe a fact based upon the perpetrator's taped confession, backed up by 14 corroborating witnesses.

Sometimes bat-shit crazy is a willful choice.

Most often, conspiracy theories are about deflecting blame or laying it at your enemy’s feet. This explains where holocaust deniers come from– anti-Jewish folks convinced it's just a scheme to build sympathy for Israel or the Jewish faith. Or perhaps Anglo European folks who’d rather not believe what their parents or grandparents did or at least allowed to happen in the 1930s and ‘40s.

My former nutty neighbor told me that the world is actually controlled by three Jewish businessmen. All of the events we see from elections to wars are manufactured elaborate slights of hand, meant to distract us. Elections aren’t real, they’re staged, the winner predetermined. And wars aren't about civil strife or ethnic differences or competition for natural resources, they’re staged to consume our attention, thin the herd, and allow those three Jewish businessmen to maintain control of the world.

And members of the tin foil hat brigade seemingly lay in wait everywhere. Three months after 9/11, I arrived late at real estate classes to find the only open chair was next to a Middle Eastern-looking man. People were avoiding taking that seat, pulling chairs from another room. Dismayed by the way fools and bullies harassed innocent Middle Eastern Americans after 9/11, I promptly took that empty seat. The man sighed with an appreciative smile and shook my outstretched hand. “Thank you for joining me,” he said. We chatted during breaks. He shared worries for his family in Afghanistan and we eventually talked about the horror of 9/11. But as I was leaving for lunch, he leaned in and whispered, “You know, on 9/11, none of the Jews went to work at the World Trade Center. They knew what was about to happen!” My heart sank. I’d heard of the conspiracy theory spreading in the Middle East claiming that Israel did it to frame Muslims and Arab nations. I replied simply, "Really?" Then I walked away and left him to sit alone when I returned for the afternoon session.

But that was a decade and a half ago. Today, my patience with conspiracy theorists is utterly gone. I will no longer nod and smile and avoid them. I’m calling bullshit every time from here on out.

Read about Kurt's latest novel, The Salvage Man

 “Kurt Meyer’s The Salvage Man is a gentle Midwestern fantasy made up of one treasure after another. Part historical fiction, part love story, and part rumination on modern day life, this novel asks hard questions about the world we live in and the world we leave behind. I couldn’t put it down.”

Larry D. Sweazy, author of A Thousand Falling Crows

Read about Kurt's first novel, Noblesville

“Meyer turns the pages of history with gentle care and a warm heart, creating a story I’ll remember forever. Thank you Kurt Meyer for opening a door to my beloved town’s past and allowing me to travel the streets and meet the people of Noblesville 1893.”

Susan Crandall, Author of Whistling Past the Graveyard