Memo to Debra Saunders: Rape Is, in Fact, a Crime

For the background, see Echidne. Long story short: 17 year old girl gang-raped at a jock party, rescued by three other women (college soccer players), D.A. decided not to press charges.

The case was reviewed by the state Attorney General's Office, and brought to a grand jury...which, this week, declined to indict anyone. Apparently they felt there was insufficient evidence...although the Santa Clara County grand jury never talked to the three who saw it all.

So far, so bad. It gets worse: today Debra Saunders writes about the case. The worst part comes in the last graphs:

"The issue isn't whether it's acceptable conduct, the issue is whether it's a crime," argued attorney John Cahners, who represents Steve Rebagliati, whose parents own the home where the party took place.

And if it is a crime, is it the same as premeditated rape? It may well be that civil courts are better suited to redress what happened at that March 2007 party.

According to Grolle and another source, the vomit on Jane Doe was not hers. Is it in society's interest to prosecute kids who are months older than Jane Doe for doing things in an alcohol-fueled atmosphere that they never would have done sober or alone? I think there's reasonable doubt.

"If it is a crime"? What the fuck?

Let me make it clear for poor dim Debra: if the (underage) girl is passed out drunk, there is no consent. If there is no consent, it's not sex--it's rape. Rape. Is. A. Crime. No motherfucking 'if' about it.

Now the defense attorney knows very well the issue isn't "whether it's a crime"; he knows it is a crime, no whethers about it, and to spin it otherwise is completely despicable. It's also, in a despicable sort of way, part of his job. Not an excuse, but a mitigating factor.

But there's no such mitigation for Debra Saunders. How fucking stupid do you have to be to buy into that despicable spin?

Debra Saunders stupid, I guess.

Update: corrected my misreading of the Chron article.

Now THAT is what I'm talking About

Page One. Above the Fold:

Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore

Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deduction

The Boston Globe did me proud this morning with a two page article, starting page one and above the fold, on the exact history of KBR and its transformation of itself from an ordinary multinational to an extra-ordinary supra-national entity. The only thing the article didn't do was link up fully with the other half of this story which is that not only has KBR organized itself to shed all tax liabilities related to workman's comp, social security, and unemployment benefits but that it has also, in effect, become its own judge and jury of all crimes committed by its members on its corporate property and in Iraq. As Attaturk pointed out at Firedoglake just a few days ago workers who sign on for KBR are accidentally and, apprently irretrievably signing on for "arbitration" and "mediation" of their lawful claims of harm against the company and against other workers at the company. Raped by co-workers on company property? Mediation for you, babe. And no unemployment compensation if you are forced to quit your job or if you are terminated for ratting on the boys.

The Globe article is perfectly phrased and positioned to make an intervention here between Bush's witless base who think that "republicans" are for "business" like some kind of "mom and pop" florist or soda fountain that is just being "smothered with regulation." The truth is that big corporations are *not only not mom and pop stores* they are *not even american* at this point. This is something that the Democrats, no doubt, will not hammer home. But unless they do this the long slow process of overturning the primacy of corporate interests and replacing them with citizen interests can not take place. When you talk to the republicans in your life about Republican administrations remember that not only is the "death tax" the "Paris Hilton Permanent Hand Bag Luxury Tithe on Everyone Else" but that Taxes on business are taxes on "Creepy Foreign Entities That Use False Front American Names to Drain Our Precious Bodily Fluids" --oh, wait, not that, but something very like that. Well, you work it out.

aimai