TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[82_28]

I've said it possibly in this thread or another one, you got me, but that possibly because I am more attuned to it, this "election" has brought out the crazy in everybody. I can't tell if it's just me though. I'm also not just talking about RI. Life in general. People are having emotional problems everywhere. So I will grab the reins to direct this into ESP for a moment: all this bullshit has infected everything. Media saturation? Hatreds? Prejudice? And on and on and on. But I viscerally detect it.

What bums me out most is that this is what children will ever know. Like I was telling my GF last night, children have nothing to compare any of this to. I have the luxury of being able to compare stuff when I was her kid's age to Jimmy Carter just because my grandparents loved him. But what are kids going to compare anything to going "forward"?

We're fucked. I will say as long as we're all still here, let's please not argue.

[Iamwhomiam]

But eventually, by god, we'll have RI discussing nothing but ESP, 80's-90's parapolitics and UFOlogy currents by November 1st.

Have you no shame! Your humor knows no bounds.

[Asta]

Why do women not report harassment, assault and/or rape?

In 1974 my friends at work took me out for drinks on my 21st birthday. Finally of age to have an alcohol beverage. It was Happy Hour (BOGO) I had 2 Black Russians, and one friend didn't want her 4th Scotch on the rocks so she gave it to me. What happened after that changed my life (not forever, there is professional help out there) but I was pretty much 3 sheets to the wind, my friends (yeah, friends) left me behind on my own, and when I wasn't able to find my car in the parking lot, I went looking for help and found this very friendly police officer in his patrol car. In hindsight I don't think he was really cruising the area looking for drunk drivers as much as he was looking for an easy victim. I asked him if he could drive me home which was an apartment just a mile away. I passed out in the patrol car, came to in HIS apartment, and I believe what saved me from God knows what was when I threw up on him. The next thing I remember (passed out again) was finding myself back in the parking lot of the bar, covered in my vomit, I found my car, threw up again in my car, was able to drive home, and when I told my (now ex) husband what happened, he beat me, and raped me. I remember him crying like a baby while he did this to me instead of getting me help. He didn't believe me. It was only 9:30 pm, it wasn't like I was out all night. I needed his help, I didn't get it. I filed for divorce the next week.

But wait, there's more.

Fast forward to 1989. I was 37 years old, and leaving work around 7:30 pm when I was pulled over for "speeding" by another City of Atlanta police officer. Let's call him Officer X. It was the usual "driver's license and registration please " script until he said he wouldn't give me a ticket for speeding if I gave him a blow job. I froze for a moment, then this fury came over me and with surprising calmness I replied, "just give me the ticket." He got angry, became somewhat threatening, but I kept my cool. While writing the ticket, the bastard actually said if I changed my mind, he would be at Manuel's Tavern after he got off duty at 9. When I got home, I told my (2nd) husband what happened, and as it turned out, he was good friends with someone in the motorcycle division of the Atlanta police department, so he called his friend and learned there was a shit load of complaints about this cop but no one would come forward or had enough evidence to get rid of him. I was asked if I was willing to call Officer X back and agree to meet him, that's all I had to do, I didn't have to go there, just make the phone call. In all honesty, I don't know if Officer X really got nailed, because I wasn't there to see it, but I got a call later from Spouse's friend telling me to tear up the ticket and he thanked me for my help.

But that's not the point of the second story. I told people at work later what happened, and one of the secretaries was married to an Atlanta police officer. She harassed me for months, called me a liar, said I was making the whole thing up, cops don't do stuff like that, all cops are good. She stole money out of my handbag, sabotaged my work among other things (HR was of NO help on this at all), she just went on and on until I said to myself screw this shit, I'm finding another job. She acted like I was accusing HER husband, and before I left that job, I did confront her and ask her why she was behaving like a psycho. She had no answer, just threw another hissy fit, calling me unstable and a liar.

So. Why do women not come forward? Because no one is going to believe us, not even other women. No way I would ever tell my parents, they would say I must have done something to encourage being raped. Tried to tell my first husband, but you read what he did, I guess he was reclaiming his property so to speak. Kinda like a dog marking his territory. At least 2nd spouse did something positive and productive (I left him when I sadly learned he had a whole other secret life, but I'm over it now), and 3rd spouse just doesn't want to hear about it, so I don't talk about it, instead I got a therapist and things are comfortably numb in a way.

I'm 64 years old. I still have nightmares. I don't trust authority figures, I don't trust men, and I don't trust women to give me any support. But I do carry a gun now. I didn't think I would grow up to be this kind of woman who has a concealed weapon license, who is afraid to go anywhere after dark, won't go anywhere without someone I do trust. But that is who I have become, and it shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be like this for anyone living in what I once believed was the greatest place on this planet. But it is.

Hopefully this answers some questions for those who have not walked in anyone else's shoes, or maybe high heels.

[km artlu]

...zero interest in trying to understand why...

You can converse with a person. You cannot converse with an ideology.

[Freitag]

While I'm dubious of any media spectacle, and hold People magazine in the utmost contempt, it's not unreasonable that sexual assault victims wouldn't come forward until they feel safe / supported doing so. In fact, that's a pretty common outcome and a big part of why predators get away with it.

Sure, but that wasn't the debunking criteria for any of the examples in the article I posted. Your statement is true, of course, and I don't advocate dismissing a priori anyone's claims. But it's also true that people get falsely accused. So judging each case on its merits is really the only way to find the truth.

[Cordelia]

Hopefully this answers some questions for those who have not walked in anyone else's shoes, or maybe high heels.

I hear you.

[OP ED]

Anthony Gilberthorpe is Trump's witness. Is he signaling a threat to the elite pedos?

octodon.jpg

I miss you so much.

[OP ED]

Hopefully this answers some questions for those who have not walked in anyone else's shoes, or maybe high heels.

I hear you.

Asta, you sound like a smart lady but you also sound like you have terrible taste in men.

(In our family, we'd have a police officer like that severely beaten for even talking to a woman that way)

I tried walking in heels once and gave up about five minutes into it. They're expensive in my size anyway.

[JackRiddler]

As someone said or quoted above, this is really a "she said / he also said" situation. It's no surprise that a video of Trump bragging about groping and how he grabs them by the pussy is going to set off a wave of people saying that he did exactly that to them. Furthermore, just look at the guy, his career, the attitude to women and human beings generally every damn time he opens his mouth, the succession of trophy wives, the fact that he owned a corporate beauty pageant, etc. etc.

.

[Asta]

Dear OP ED, thank you for having the exact kind of judgmental reply I was expecting. Yes, I have had a bad choice in men, and they have also a bad choice in women obviously, because if they had chosen what they really wanted, it wouldn't have been a woman like me.

I grew up in a home where boys were valued more than girls. I married too early. I married to get away from the abuse. I made mistakes. But my present husband and I have been together now for 24 years. I have breast cancer, just finished first treatment of chemo, currently recovering from a mastectomy 2 weeks ago, and facing another year of chemo. My husband is an angel, and I know he will not leave me because of my illness like Newt did to one of his wives.

Before you judge someone, you really need to take a breath, walk in their shoes, and think. And please don't respond with some kind of oh gee I didn't know you have cancer luke warm compassion. There's nothing you can say that I will listen to. In fact, please take that time to enroll in an empathy class.

On edit: You are also not very good at sarcasm.

[OP ED]

I have a borderline antisocial disorder so I am afraid a class wouldn't help much. I have tried actually.

But you're proving my first assumption was correct in that your intelligence has obviously been outweighing your tastes if you have found someone worth the effort.

I have terrible taste at times as well, and while I am always judgmental, it wasn't intended as insulting. I can't pretend to have compassion, but I have some intellectual empathy for intelligence as I consider it my best interest to aid and encourage it and from that standpoint I can give you well wishing and it would remain even if unacceptable.

Edit: yes, I am terrible at sarcasm. Which is why I don't try it.

[FourthBase]

Anthony Gilberthorpe is Trump's witness. Is he signaling a threat to the elite pedos?

octodon.jpg

I miss you so much.

I find myself looking back on many of the dustups here with barracuda and I now think that he was probably right most of the time.

So, how about that witness, eh? Holy fucking shit.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Asta, you sound like a smart lady but you also sound like you have terrible taste in men.

Nobody is here to defend their life choices.

Maybe chill on the diagnoses in the future when presented with a similar opportunity to weigh in.

[OP ED]

Asta, you sound like a smart lady but you also sound like you have terrible taste in men.

Nobody is here to defend their life choices.

Maybe chill on the diagnoses in the future when presented with a similar opportunity to weigh in.

I consider it an aesthetic opinion, but I take your point. I really don't wish it to have been insulting. I usually aim for obvious and blatant if that is my expressed interest.

(What is the point of describing our life choices if not to discuss their relative merits and impact? What response would have been "normal"?)

[82_28]

I have a couple similar stories, Asta. Obviously I am male this did not happen to me or them per se because I flipped out at the cop. Not too bad. I was like 21 and I was driving three female friends home. I stopped to get some smokes and this cop blocked me in to the parking lot and he came over and said why are you with three girls? I said I am taking them home. Not to my house! Just I was driving each of them home. Go in and get my smokes and he's all leaning in the window macking on the girls I was "watching out" for. I asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing. He said something like talking to the pretty ladies you have with you. I said that's disgusting and that I was going to file a complaint on him in the morning. I asked him for his card he just said it won't do any good. He made that motion of ripping a piece of paper up and throwing it over his shoulder. Said nobody is going to believe you.

Anyhow that sprang to mind. It happens. It's a fucking shame that sometimes it takes a punk male to stand up when you see that kind of shit. Not like it would have got the cop anywhere because maybe I embarrassed him. Anyhow he let us leave.

EDIT: The girls I was taking home probably played more a part in it than realized. There were four witnesses at once to his behavior. He was fucked in other words. He could have totally beat me around, handcuffed me and shit, but my friends would have all been witnesses to his lewd and inappropriate behavior. So he said yeah, no to himself. Too many witnesses.