The satirical use of the title of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 has permeated the landscape from Robert Calvert’s poem Centigrade 232, to activist/film producer Michael Moore’s original film Fahrenheit 9/11 up to today’s opening of Fahrenheit 11/9. Well, sometime next week the Senate Judiciary Committee will add to the madness with its’ own version of Bradbury’s dystopic look at anti-intellectualism. Eleven white male Republican committee members, along with ten diverse Democrats, will either advance or more than likely denigrate the rights of women publicly, just as they did 27 years ago with Anita Hill. The Republican majority, including the Chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) will be little Dr. Ford, the alleged victim of the sexual assault. The senior members have already declared Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as either “mixed up” denied her professional title by referring to her as ‘the lady’ or declared “no outside investigation is necessary.”
Much like the Bradbury book, information is deemed dangerous and the burning of knowledge makes for better decision making. How absurd is this notion by the Republicans? The GOP will try their best to throw the flames into the lap of the senior Democrat on the committee Dianne Feinstein D-CA). When Feinstein received word of the allegations by Dr. Ford she was asked to maintain the confidentiality of the accuser. Had she released an anonymous accusation Republicans would have looked askance and cried foul. So, releasing it now changes nothing but when the Republicans would light the excuse-flame-throwers.
Feinstein allowed her sense of responsibility to the victim to overshadow the fact that she is dwelling in a den of unscrupulous political operatives. From Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell who engineered this entire Supreme Court debacle when he violated the Constitution and denied a sitting President [Obama] his right to seat a Supreme Court Justice; he declared today that Kavanaugh will be seated on the court prior to hearing from Dr. Ford “…in the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court,” he said. A lot has been made of the MeToo movement in relationship to what happened to Dr. Ford, as if we need some external justification to seek justice for women. Embarrassingly attorney Lisa Bloom, the longtime advocate of women’s rights, found herself initially defending Producer Harvey Weinstein. Even she allowed friendship or loyalty to dismiss credible allegations. Bloom quickly and rightfully backed away. Subsequently, reports of Weinstein’s behavior reached a point where even he could no longer plausibly deny his criminal and atrocious behavior toward women.
Why is it so hard to practice equity with a woman?
It took sixty accusers to finally get the public to believe an open secret, that Bill Cosby was drugging and assaulting women. So now we are faced with a do-over in the Anita Hill case. Two of the members of the Hill/ Thomas political conflagration are on the current Judiciary Committee, Hatch and Grassley. Both men adamantly supported Clarence Thomas so much so, that they went on angry lengthy screeds excoriating Professor Hill’s character and veracity. After 3 days of talk about hairs on soda cans, comparisons to porn movie characters and finally Mr. Thomas claiming the proceedings were a “high tech lynching,” Thomas was confirmed. Professor Hill eventually went off to teach, still perceived by half of America as a scorned woman, and Thomas is still in a position to decide the fate of women reproductive rights.
Men need to stand behind the women who bravely make their voices heard in protest and eventual arrest. Let us stop making women suffer twice for crimes committed against them.
Vote in ’18 for Change.