Wonders and Thanks

Wonders & Thanks

This week of Thanksgiving, let's be thankful for Gal Gadot, the Wonder Woman wonder, and "everyone" associated with the movie, for getting out from under producer Brett Ratner.  Ratner, whose company RatPack-Dune helped finance the first WW film has been accused of sexual harassment and assault. Gadot has her own story about him.

In an interview on the Today show, Gadot confirmed that Ratner would no longer be financing the Wonder Woman franchise, reported the staff writers of Women in the World (NYT)— though she ended  rumors that she had threatened to quit the film if Ratner stayed on as a player. Listen to what she said: “The truth is, there’s so many people involved in making this movie — it’s not just me — and they all echoed the same sentiments,” Gadot told staff writers of Women in the World (NYT). “So everyone knew what was the right thing to do.” 

We're thankful to "so many people" this year who spoke up, and who agreed on what was right: no more pussy-putdowns by men who just are not funny. Thanks too for WiW. 

Why Do Men "Do It?"

Women and men have to ask themselves a creepy question: WHY  do men like Louis CK and Harvey Weinstein force women to watch them while they masturbate? It isn't just powerful men who do this.  When I was an A&W carhop decades ago, we had a weasly old man do the same when we girls delivered his tray of food and a mug of root beer. There isn't a woman alive who hasn't encountered or had a friend who encountered bizarre sexual threats.

Sex therapist Alexandra Katehakis, told Angelina Chapin at The Cut (NY Magazine), it's "sexualized hostility," or "eroticized rage." Call it a need to frighten women to put them in their place. Most tellingly she claims, "They sexualize their emotions, because they don't know any other way of comporting themselves." Really? Why is that?

David Brooks, the conservative columnist that PBS newsie Charlie Rose called on for expertise on this question (thanks, Charlie! We noticed the white rapper you featured on that show too) says Louis CK, Weinstein, Trump and Moore are the result of the country's "siege mentality. " Such men don't feel empathy. They cannot put themselves in the victim's shoes and understand their feelings.

Sexual predation happens to men too—as Kevin Spacey of House of Cards fame showed us. But it is women most often viewed as sexualized objects. All this penis-flouting is a way of keeping hierarchies in place via "mounting," symbolically or literally, something historian Robert McElvaine talks about in his groundbreaking book Eve's Seed. Who's on top?

An even bigger question encircles us: aren't more pleasurable positions possible for all of us?

Read Angelina Chapin's article here:  https://tinyurl.com/ybjvbfe2

See David Brooks comments here: https://charlierose.com/videos/31163 and in this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/opinion/sexual-harassment-predators.html

#MeToo Includes Senators

Soraya Chomoly and Marya Stark of the Women’s Media Center present a troubling report on US democracy’s gender politics: when Senator John McCain cast a “no” vote for the ill-fated Republican repeal of Obamacare, he was hailed in the press as an independent. But when Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski did the same, they were called traitors to the Republican party, offline and in public.
 
Georgia GOP Rep. Buddy Carter said on national television, “Somebody needs to go over to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass." Texas GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold said if Murkowski and other women GOP senators were men he would challenge them to duels. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke sent what Alaska GOP senator Dan Sullivan called a “threatening message,” about his department’s punishment of Murkowski’s Alaska in response to her vote.” Online comments were worse.
 
Those female US senators aren’t alone, Chomoly and Stark say, citing a 2016 Inter-Parliamentary Union survey of women in legislatures around the world, which found:

• 42% report wide distribution of “extremely humiliating or sexually charged images.”
• 44% receive death, rape, beating and abduction threats
• 33%  were harassed by persistent, intimidating messages
• 62% believe the harassment is aimed at blocking women’s pursuit of leadership.

Think this a picture of OTHER countries?

True, Republicans have a bigger problem with women than do Dems—three times the numbers of women get elected as Democrats. But regardless of party, US women are shockingly underrepresented. The numbers of Republican party women would rank the US 165th out of 193 nations, right alongside patriarchal Congo and Mali.  Tracking Democratic women in Congress would rank the US 38th in the world, right after Switzerland‑a country that finally granted women the right to vote in 1971. 
 
We agree with WMC. More Republican women would help the party stay sane; more women on both sides of the aisle would make Congress more functional. Sexual harassment is nasty and costly to women—and also to our nation. 

Thanks to CNN's Dana Bash, Senators Collin and Murkowski, and WMC's story, linked here: www.womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/what-women-politicians-online-harassment-tells-us-about-degraded-democracy

When EconoMan Does the Laundry....

...his ill-gotten money skidmarks remain his little secret. That lays the cost of thugs on taxpayers. Drug money creates a huge pile of dirty laundry, and so does the global economy's offshore banking and tax havens. (Estimates range from $800 billion to $2 trillion). The US indictment against Paul Manafort and RIck Gates unsealed this week says they used classic financial detergent to make Ukrainian and Russian mobsters look spic and span. Oh, and RICH. 

How?  Money laundering takes cash and deposits it in banks and company shells without reporting it as income. You or your "smurf" do this in amounts less than $10,000 so the bank won't be required to report it to the IRS. You wire money across borders, the more borders the better.  You then  write checks to buy real estate, life insurance, oriental rugs, art, or other big ticket items like stocks and bonds. Maybe you co-mingle it with legitimate money to cover your tracks. All makes it harder for state and federal prosecutors  to untangle your sources. 

Reports Kevin McCoy in USA Today: www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/10/30/follow-money-heres-how-money-laundering-works/813379001/“The indictment filed by Mueller's investment team lists 17 domestic businesses or limited liability companies allegedly owned or controlled by Manafort and Gates. The indictment also identifies 12 entities in Cyprus, and three others in the United Kingdom or the Caribbean islands of the Grenadines. [It] also identifies scores of transactions from 2008-2014 in which Manafort allegedly wired more than $12 million from the foreign accounts to vendors for personal expenses without paying taxes on the income.” 

Meanwhile, YOU are doing the real laundry, and paying for the privilege. Unlike Manafort's play book, Screwnomics will put you at the center of economic change. Aren't you  tired of money's dirty secrets?  Pre-order Screwnomics at your local bookstore, and ask your friends to like our Facebook page. Help us make change!