The sexual revolution that climaxed in the 1960s concurrently with crystallization of an effective movement for sexual equality and legitimization of alternative sexual lifestyles has evidently peaked and is facing a massive counterattack born of its own seeds and planted by purported “liberals” looking for any tool possible to retain power and assure their neoliberal agenda.  That seems to be the interesting point made by David Walsh in his article “Repressive political agenda of the “sexual harassment” campaign comes into the open” published on November 28, 2017 in the World Socialist Web Site, not exactly a bastion of conservatism.  Mr. Walsh makes very cogent points.  I urge you to read the article.

Reflecting on Mr. Walsh’s article it seems obvious that in their hysterical desperation to re-attain political power, Clinton-Obama Democrats are willing to distort and destroy anything, whether the social progress made in race and gender relationship during the past half-decade or, via their Russiagate invention, the world itself.  The foregoing by no means defends the element of assault too frequently involved in sexual encounters and justifiably lambasted, now as always, rather my point reflects on the fact that the recent spate of reports on sexual misconduct is being cynically distorted conceptually for partisan political purposes in a manner making normal albeit uncomfortable and unwanted “precourse” (i.e., to act as a precursor to; to herald something) to potential sexual relations a basis for partisan political attacks.  Of course, the tactic, as reflected in the article “Democrats have a sexual harassment problem: The party’s leaders can’t keep protecting sexual harassers and claim they’re the party of the resistance” by Dara Linddara, has the potential to backfire against those who promote it.  Consider the case of Democratic Representative John Conyers and Democratic Senator Al Franken, but that problem is dealt with, as is the case with almost everything involving inappropriate and illegal acts by Clinton-Obama Democrats, through a combination of blatant hypocrisy and mainstream media Band-Aids; hypocrisy finally honed over the years in the faux feminist and mainstream media defenses of Clinton-Obama Democratic patriarch William Jefferson Clinton and before him, the famous exploits of the three boys-will-be-boys Kennedy brothers, John, Bobby and Teddy.

So, about not only polarization but politicization for fun and profit.

An explosion of claims of sexual misconduct against prominent entertainers and media personalities, almost all of them Clinton-Obama Democrats (but preceded by several instances involving conservative Fox News personalities such as Bill O’Reilly), set the stage for a silver lining, pulling a metaphorical political rabbit out of an allegorical hat; a profitably welcome distraction given the ironic political orientation of most of the public personalities involved, a situation eerily similar conceptually to that involving Clinton-Obama Democratic claims to represent the interest of the poor when three of their most prominent members individually control more than half of the total wealth in the United States.  But heck, when the mainstream media is on your side you can pull the wool over any number of people’s eyes and keep it there, for a long time, or at least, a long enough time to win a by-election or three.  With reference to turning political lead into gold and sleight of hand political distraction, the turning of the hysteria following publication of news concerning the widespread sexual misconduct by Clinton pal and Clinton-Obama Democratic mega donor Harvey Weinstein into a political positive via the evolving Roy Moore saga ought to become legendary, whether or not it works.

In the most blatant current incarnation of mainstream media legerdemain, as soon as the Weinstein drama hit the front pages, Clinton-Obama Democrats and their mainstream media allies went hunting for dirt in the wilds of Alabama’s past in order to attempt to pluck a victory from the jaws of what appeared to be inevitable defeat.  I refer, of course, to the pending special election for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by current attorney general Jefferson Sessions.  The quest was apparently successful, or at least, successful enough, it either struck or created a vein of salacious 40+ year old materials involving the Republican primary victor, controversial former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore.  While utterly unproven and probably unprovable given their nature and the lapse of time (not at all negative as they are equally un-disprovable), the allegations were not only artfully presented in a manner making anyone who questioned them seem a pedophile, but widely exaggerated in an orchestrated social media campaign portraying them as involving rape and statutory rape when at worst, if accurate, they involved inappropriate albeit consensual sexual touching of a fourteen year old, touching allegedly immediately stopped when objected to, and dating of teenage girls of legal age (although not involving sexual interaction of any kind).  One other allegation, allegedly buttressed by a yearbook salutation, apparently involves a forgery but the accuser’s famous attorney refuses to make the tangible evidence available for evaluation.  So, instead of focusing on the myriad of Clinton-Obama supporters accused of wrong doing, the plan, working at least in part, at least for a while, has the potential of bringing Clinton-Obama Democrats one seat closer to regaining control of the Senate.

How wonderful is that?

Not that former Judge Moore ought to be a viable candidate in any election anywhere, other than perhaps in Alabama.  His anachronistic postures make him an ideal candidate for the middle of the nineteenth century but a majority of Alabama voters might well feel comfortable in that setting.  As discussed below, it may be where we’re heading there anyway.  However, being politically inviable in a modern setting is a far cry from being the sexual predator portrayed through unproven allegations disqualifying a locally popular candidate from election to that historical hotbed of all kinds of improprieties, the United States Senate.  Perhaps, if guilty, that’s where he might feel most comfortable.  What do you say Al?  Ah, the joys of misdirection.

So, in the virulent campaign by Clinton-Obama Democrats to regain political power and possibly, with the assistance of their tame mainstream media, to hide myriads of apparently real scandals, “sexual-hysteria-gate” joins Russiagate, thereby not only undoing the Détente orchestrated by Richard Nixon to avoid a third world war but also the sexual liberation movements of the past half century.

How strange that their current target, former Judge Roy Moore, is among the most strident and vocal advocates of re-enshrining Puritan social mores.  How much stranger that those most likely to be negatively affected by a reversal of evolving social mores are those in the vanguard of today’s politically distorted anti-sexual hysteria.  Much, much worse than the foregoing electoral squabble involving Judge Moore and Al Franken and John Conyers and Bill Clinton and the Kennedies, and on, and on, and on, is the potential impact of the current anti-sexual hysteria on long term intersexual relations over all.  As Mr. Walsh warns us in his article, rather than seeking to cure abuses common throughout history whenever there exists an imbalance of power in personal relations, a worthy and complicated goal already dealt with in, pardon the pun, penal legislation that merely needs better enforcement and more honest reporting, the current hysteria may well boomerang into an opening conservative salvo seeking to re-impose the myriad and hypocritical sexual taboos of which our Puritan ancestors and current religious fundamentalists, whether Islamic or Christian, are so fond.

It may all too soon prove to become a boom time for closet makers; … again.

And we?

Well, we’ll just be collateral damage in battles over political power; …

As usual.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia although he has primarily lived in the United States of America (of which he is a citizen).  Until recently he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at wacalvo3@autonoma.edu.co or guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.