Down with Transit!

Berlin “radicals” set off a bomb at Ostkreutz, a Berlin S-Bahn station. It’s a strange choice. Maybe they want to enflame “the German street” in that grafitti-riddled, mostly unemployed proletariats-in-waiting neighborhood. After all, you need to actually be employed to be an oppressed worker, don’t you?

They’ve recently rebuilt the platforms. The place in such a shambles, that it was even an embarrassment to the DDR, but they didn’t do anything about it because no Wessies or foreigners went out that far.

The perps are a rather consistently syphilitic looking bunch of adolescents who call themselves “Black Bloc”. They are prone to Emo-like self-absorption, and cover their faces (in what they must believe is a fashionable manner) out of a paranoid “fear of the state”. The irony is that they always seem to smash property in support of causes that require a big, ham-fisted authoritarian state to realize. The sad thing is that the same is true of the Pirate Party, a group of people who seem to think that they’re intergalactic pimp-daddy Jedi Knights disguised so as not to shock us mere humans. And to think that they’re supposed to be ADULTS.

Otherwise they wall for anything, such as the long love affair they had with Trutherism.

After Admitting That He Has Never Heard of Ayn Rand, French Journalist Proceeds to Denounce Her "Frightful Theses"

Connaissez-vous Ayn Rand ? Votre serviteur, jusqu'à récemment, n'en avait jamais entendu parler.

A Le Monde journalist admits that until a couple of days ago, he had never heard of Ayn Rand. After he states his (admirable) desire to learn more, Sylvain Cypel then proceeds to quote a Slate article that is totally negative, and from there to go on and on about Rand's "frightful theses."

France's Mistral Sale: For the First Time Ever, a NATO Member Will Deliver Sensitive Military Technology to the Former Soviet Union

The French-Russian agreement is symbolic, says Le Monde: Thanks to the deal with the Kremlin for the purchase of French Mistral ships, a NATO country will be, for the first time ever, delivering sensitive military technology to a country of the former Soviet Union.

The Mistral (check for previous articles on the ship and its sale) is nicknamed the "Swiss Army knife" by members of the French military because if it was expressly built to carry (some 15) helicopters, the latter can be replaced by some 60 armored vehicles, or a dozen tanks, or a dozen amphibious vehicles, or 700 troops, or a hospital with two operation rooms, or (obviously) a combination of the above.

There will inevitably be a technology transfer to the Kremlin, whose naval yards have not built a warship in over 10 years, as two of the four bâtiments de projection et de commandement (BPC) sold will not be built in France, according to the contract, but in Russia.

This led to tension between Paris and Washington, but as John Vinocur explained back in January, the Americans could hardly complain when their leaders were constantly touting the reset button with Russia.

Indeed. At the time, then-defense minister (now foreign minister) Alain Juppé quoted who else but America's Apologist-in-Chief:

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.

Next on the agenda: the sale to our newfound Russian friends of 500 to 1,000 of France's Panhard-built light armored vehicles.

(And what comes after that? Military sales to China?!)

From the original article by Dominique Gallois in Le Monde:

Après trois ans de discussions, la France et la Russie sont parvenues à un "accord définitif" sur la fourniture à la marine russe de quatre porte-hélicoptères Mistral. …

L'accord est symbolique : c'est la première fois qu'un pays de l'Alliance atlantique (Otan) livre du matériel militaire " "sensible" à un pays de l'ex-Union soviétique.

… Les deux dirigeants ont confirmé le montage industriel : deux exemplaires du Mistral seront construits pour l'essentiel par les chantiers STX de Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), les deux autres en Russie. Ils n'ont cependant donné aucun détail sur le montant du contrat, estimé à 1,5 milliard d'euros. Encore moins sur les équipements, notamment électroniques, prévus à bord. Conçu aux normes civiles, le BPC, long de 200 mètres, est le plus gros bâtiment de la flotte française après le porte-avions Charles-de-Gaulle.

La question du transfert de technologie a longtemps retardé la conclusion de ce contrat. Dès le départ, MM. Medvedev et Poutine n'avaient pas caché leur intérêt pour la technologie du Mistral et exigé la livraison d'exemplaires dotés de tous les systèmes de commandement sophisitiqués équipant les deux bâtiments déjà en service dans la marine française. Se voulant rassurante à l'égard aux pays alliés d'Europe centrale, la France affirmait que les porte-hélicoptères seraient vendus "sans équipement militaire".

L'une des spécificités et des principales qualités de ce bâtiment, baptisé le "couteau suisse" par les militaires français, est sa polyvalence. Il a, en effet, été conçu pour transporter une quinzaine d'hélicoptères et, au choix, une soixantaine de véhicules blindés, une dizaine de chars ou d'engins amphibies pour une opération de débarquement. Il peut embarquer aussi 700 combattants, un état-major de grande dimension, et un hôpital contenant deux salles d'opération.

…Au fil de mois, ces discussions avaient fini par provoquer des tensions entre la France et des pays d'Europe centrale et orientale, et par susciter la réprobation des Etats-Unis. En octobre 2009, le ministre des affaires étrangères de l'époque, Bernard Kouchner, avait espéré que Moscou puisse acheter "ce merveilleux navire".

… Outre le caractère stratégique du Mistral pour les militaires, ce contrat permettra aussi aux industriels russes de se remettre à niveau. Leurs chantiers navals n'ont pas construit de bateaux de guerre depuis dix ans. Côté français, d'autres contrats sont en cours de discussions, comme l'achat par la Russie de 500 à 1 000 véhicules blindés légers (VBL) fabriqués par Panhard.

Caption contest: What's Going Through Michelle's Mind?

The Way of the Cosa Nostra

Associates of a populist-leftist-elite-proletarian-sooper-dooper-friend-of-humanity “alleged” ass rapist offers “alleged” victim hush money.

"They already talked with her family," a French businesswoman with close ties to Strauss-Kahn and his family told The Post. "For sure, it's going to end up on a quiet note."

Prosecutors in Manhattan have done their best to keep the cleaning woman out of the reach of Strauss-Kahn's supporters, but the source was already predicting success for the Parisian pol's pals.

"He'll get out of it and will fly back to France. He won't spend time in jail. The woman will get a lot of money," said the source, adding that a seven-figure sum has been bandied about.

That must make him super-extra-innocent.

"Please, please stop. No!" she cried as he pinned her to the bed, law-enforcement sources said. "Please stop. I need my job, I can't lose my job, don't do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop!"

In a heartless reply, Strauss-Kahn, allegedly told her, "No, baby. Don't worry, you're not going to lose your job," sources said, adding that he again repeated, "Don't you know who I am?"

While she begged him to stop, he allegedly pressed the attack, dragging her down the hall and forcing her to perform oral sex.

Gosh, all he wanted to do was to leave a little something to the working class!

Investigators also confirmed a DNA match between Strauss-Kahn and a semen sample found on the maid's shirt.

Elsewhere, Bernard-Henri Lévy defensive task once executed by bitter class-warfare dead-ender Gloria Steinem still looks stupid.

France’s voodoo doll

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on sexual assault charges, 57 percent of the French said he was the victim of a plot, according to a poll by four Paris media groups. Who set him up? A separate description of public opinion pointed to Nicolas Sarkozy. … The contributors’ list [on a website for the news magazine l’Express] of suspected instigators began … with the president, followed by “the Americans.”

In the International Herald Tribune, John Vinocur takes on the président described by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, author of M. le President, as “a man from nowhere” and “a little tyrant,” in love with money and rich people.

This reaction in French public opinion looks like another turn in what appears increasingly as Mr. Sarkozy’s demonization. …

But in France, a segment of the French was reported imagining Mr. Sarkozy’s hand in the fall of the probable Socialist candidate.

Why? There are, by unscientific count, three books out now, all explaining how the president inspires or is portrayed as inspiring hatred. They contain rationalizations, defenses, prejudices and varying examples of meanness (from both the authors and their subject) that provide no single answer — while leaving Mr. Sarkozy, in the phrase of essayist Pascal Bruckner, as “France’s voodoo doll.”

Explanations abound for his negative performance rating of 72 percent. There’s the obvious stuff: 9.6 percent unemployment last month, the nonappearance of a promised “buying power presidency,” and a sense among a meaningful slice of voters that French specificity is drowning in a globalized world.

But how does this add up to rage, hysteria, or indeed to what Mr. Bruckner has called “this hatred, out of all proportion, against him”?

… Dominique Wolton, a French academic and media critic, has since described a type of relationship between “a little caste of columnists and star journalists” and many French politicians as “intolerable collusion.”

Get your Laws off Junior's Willy!

San Francisco's proscribers of thought want to make circumcision a misdemeanor.

To say that New York's special election defeat of the GOP is a repudiation of the GOP’s efforts on Medicare is laughable on its face

Republicans suck in New York. Period. End of Story.

In two separate articles on Red State, Erick Erickson takes on the Empire State's special election.

To say that this special election defeat of the GOP is a repudiation of the GOP’s efforts on Medicare is laughable on its face.

The truth of the matter is that the Republican Party of New York sucks and has sucked for a while. It is especially terrible at special elections where the out of touch party leaders pick state legislators who everyone hates and runs them.

More generally, Erick Erickson adds that

The press’s ready willingness to believe Democrat spin is yet again driven home this morning by the Republican loss in New York … Immediately, the press was adopting Democrat spin that this was all about medicare. The press has a history of doing this.

… In fact, throughout 2009 and into 2010, the media embraced the Democrats’ wholesale message that the GOP was too divided to win and the public held against the GOP that it was “the Party of No.”

… Now the media is in a full tizzy that the GOP is going to get beat down on Medicare because of a special election in New York last night. Just like they did with Tedisco. Just like they did with NY-23.

As I noted last night, the race last night had far more to do with New York than with Paul Ryan. To make broad assertions about medicare is silly and disingenuous.

Is This Why You Keep Saying You Miss Home?

The staff of the IMF, like turds floating around in the fetid pool of quasi-diplomatic international institution, prove what's said about the place. It is said to be one giant social distraction, preoccupied by people dating work peers, and pressuring each other for sexual favors.
The NYT reports:

Some women avoid wearing skirts for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Others trade whispered tips about overly forward bosses. A 2008 internal review found few restraints on the conduct of senior managers, concluding that "the absence of public ethics scandals seems to be more a consequence of luck than good planning and action."

This, my friend, is that much-lauded "internationalism" that we're supposed to supplicate our national cultures and norms to. From acquaintances it's gleaned that they behave like they're either living like the privileged caste in a third world, or like the selfish, uncaring types well understood to anyone who's ever lived in a Mediterranean culture, where grown men generally only trust their mothers, and for biological reasons alone, at that.

This seems to include those "visigoths" as I like to call them that seem to want to broadly identify those they want to denigrate culturally as "Ango-Saxons".

"What are we supposed to make of this when we go into Strauss-Kahn's office?" Ms. Schadler [a former deputy director of the European department] said, recounting conversations with former colleagues. "Do we sit there and think, 'He's sizing me up as a potential sexual object?' "

Free of the market and functional society's realities, they also seem to be free of functional social norms and conventions: not to mention the fact that we're talking about the frequently hideous and selfish judgment of those who weren't raised with what are generally good graces passed on to a large part of the population in the anglosphere.

Interviews and documents paint a picture of the fund as an institution whose sexual norms and customs are markedly different from those of Washington, leaving its female employees vulnerable to harassment. The laws of the United States do not apply inside its walls, and until earlier this month the I.M.F.'s own rules contained an unusual provision that some experts and former officials say has encouraged managers to pursue the women who work for them: "Intimate personal relationships between supervisors and subordinates do not, in themselves, constitute harassment."

Be it known: the IMF like all the UN affiliated entities in the US, has a "quota cap" for American hires.

In another case, a young woman who has since left the I.M.F. said that in 2009, a senior manager in her department started sending her increasingly explicit e-mails seeking a relationship. She complained to her boss, who did not take any action.

The next time you're given the passive-aggressive glancing blow of someone rattling on about "anglo saxons" ask yourself why "their" women seem to like "our" males. To use an old adage of an old friend of mine in the Navy, a high number of Italian women he got to know when stationed in Italy were attracted to American men for rather simple reasons: generally they are "grown ups," and are nice. Even those who had a modest upbringing are less prone to loutish thinking than the middling domestic variety.

So the next time you see someone trying to pass off their exploitation and abuse as "a mature attitude towards sex", tie them down, defecate on them, and tell them that it's "your thing" and that it makes you happy. Do that right after you thank them for providing you with the satisfaction you deserve despite what's running out of their nostrils. At that point, they might develop an understanding.

DSK's New Holding Pen

DSK's torturous stay in corporate housing for the average joe, even for those from IMF bailed out countries, is coming to an end

writes Zero Hedge (a dozen more photos at the link, along with a brief description of the 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom townhouse which was recently listed by StreetEasy as costing $13.995 million — merci à Frank). Plus Instapundit links a story on the conspiracy-believing French, something that was recently highlighted in a Serguei cartoon.

Next stop: a $14 million palace just purchased by the missus at 153 Franklin Street, half a block away from iconic TriBeCa eatery Bubby's. From the WSJ:

"David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state court system, said that New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus approved [Dominique] Strauss-Kahn's move to a new residence during a conference call with his defense attorneys and prosecutors on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Bookstaver said he doesn't know where Mr. Strauss-Kahn's new residence will be or when he will be moved."

Damn it sure is good to be married to a billionairess, who will do everything in her power from preventing her husband's improprieties from spilling over into her own social scene.

The " D " in " BRD " Stands for Dull

From the nation that brought you stylish Prussian Jack boots, and the phrase "Ausweis Bitte!", we find a seemingly never-ending "reality TV" series about Customs agents, which I can tell you first hand, is as boring as watching cops go through people's luggage and listen to evasive answers about questions like "who told you that you could import a wild cane toad as a pet?"

Wait a minute. That IS what they do in the series. The series I saw that was shot in Germany's airports boiled down to one long, unintended lesson in why taxes are bad.

When Obama wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic sensitivity he knows how; And when he wants to show his contempt, he knows how, too

…it isn't often that this or any other U.S. president welcomes a foreign leader by sandbagging him with an adversarial policy speech a day before the visit

notes Bret Stephens of the Apologizer-in-Chief. At a time like this, it's hardly a bad idea to remember Frank Gaffney's definition of the Obama Doctrine…

Remember when the Dalai Lama visited Mr. Obama last year? As a courtesy to Beijing, the president made sure to have the Tibetan spiritual leader exit by the door where the White House trash was piled up. And that was 11 months before Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S.

When this president wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic sensitivity—burgers with Medvedev, bows to Abdullah, New Year's greetings to the mullahs—he knows how. And when he wants to show his contempt, he knows how, too.

The contempt was again on display Sunday, when Mr. Obama spoke to the Aipac policy conference in Washington. The speech was stocked with the perennial bromides about U.S.-Israeli friendship, which brought an anxious crowd to its feet a few times. As for the rest, it was a thin tissue of falsehoods, rhetorical legerdemain, telling omissions and self-contradictions. Let's count the ways.

French Leftists Call DSK's Downfall "Our Very Own September 11"

As usual, common Frenchmen refuse to see any tragedy involving Americans (or capitalists) as …tragic, while they magnify every one of their own (alleged) misfortunes — as well as any adversity occurring anywhere, so long as it is allegedly the result of misdeeds committed by clueless Americans and/or by evil capitalists (such as DSK's arrest being the result a nefarious Yankee plot).

In that perspective, reports Patrick Roger in Le Monde, one leader of DSK's fellow socialists calls Dominique Strausss-Kahn's downfall the equivalent of September 11.

For the Socialist deputies, it is as if the sky had fallen on their head. "This is our very own September 11" confides one of the group's leaders. All of the MPs are devastated.

Pour les députés socialistes, c'est comme si le ciel leur était tombé sur la tête. « C'est notre 11 septembre [2001] à nous », confie un responsable du groupe. Tous sont totalement abattus.

This follows a tradition in France and Europe — especially among commentators, intellectuals, and cartoonists — of trivializing 9-11 and making inappropriate references about the 911 attacks…

And in this case, the false analogy leads one Le Monde reader to react:

Le 11 septembre 2001 : 3 000 morts ce jour-là, et innombrablement plus par la suite (Afghanistan, Irak...). L'affaire Strauss-Kahn : une victime certainement, et peut-être deux, car quelle que soit l'issue du procès, la carrière politique du directeur général du FMI semble singulièrement compromise. En tout état de cause, zéro mort. Le responsable du groupe socialiste à l'Assemblée nationale qui a cru bon d'affirmer que l'affaire Strauss-Kahn, " c'est notre 11-Septembre à nous ", manque du sens des mots, du sens de la mesure et du sens de la pudeur, tout simplement.

Edouard Reichenbach
Antony (Hauts-de-Seine)

The Market: An Inept Haiku

Anticipation aches shorters
S&P bottoms
Buy

DSK's Fishy Downfall Is Due to a Diabolical Yankee Plot

What would the voluminous batch of cartoons about Dominique Strauss-Kahn be, if it didn't include France's obligatory it's-all-a-Yankee-plot cartoon? And so it is thanks to Serguei that we can witness the poor innocent DSK after his being entrapped, snatched, and summarily displayed by a heartless Uncle Sam…

As U.S. families are squeezed by increasing health insurance premiums, San Francisco's millionaires will be protected from paying Obamacare's bills

Selective enforcement of the law is the first sign of tyranny. A government empowered to determine arbitrarily who may operate outside the rule of law invariably embraces favoritism as friends, allies and those with the best-funded lobbyists are rewarded. Favoritism inevitably leads to corruption, and corruption invites extortion. Ultimately, the rule of law ceases to exist in any recognizable form, and what is left is tyranny.

Thus starts the article by Milton R. Wolf, a board-certified diagnostic radiologist who doubles as Barack Obama’s cousin. (Check out his The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?)

America's founders rejected that road to tyranny when they boldly declared that all men are created equal. They wrote a Constitution meant to secure the promise of equal protection under the law.

President Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats all, in their rush to take over America's health care system, made all sorts of outlandish, unkeepable promises.

… The now-familiar monthly trickling down of new waivers is, at best, a tacit admission that Obamacare is a failure. So far, seven entire states and 1,372 businesses, unions and other institutions have received waivers from the law. The list includes the administration's friends and allies and, of course, those who have the best lobbyists.

More than 50 percent of the Obamacare waiver beneficiaries are union members, which is striking because union members account for less than 12 percent of the American work force. The same unions that provided more than $120 million to Democrats in the last two elections and, in many cases, openly campaigned in favor of the government takeover of your health care, now celebrate that Obamacare is not their problem.

… The priorities of the Obama administration and its Democratic allies are on display with every waiver granted. The list of beneficiaries in Mrs. Pelosi's district, for example, belongs in an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

… As American families are being squeezed by increasing health insurance premiums as well as rising gasoline and grocery prices, I'm sure they'll be relieved to know that San Francisco's down-and-out millionaires will be protected from paying Obamacare's bills.

… Americans deserve and, in fact, are guaranteed by our Constitution a level playing field. We were never promised equality in results, but we do deserve to play by the same rules and to be judged by the same standards. When a new law like Obamacare is so deeply flawed that its supporters openly violate these American bedrock principles to sustain it, it's time to repeal that law.

I will repeat the same question I've been asking since the first health care waiver was granted: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep exempting its best friends from it?

Obama's Roundabout Praise of Bush: "I'm not the first administration to say this"

During Andrew Marr's 18-minute BBC interview with Barack Obama, before the commander-in-chief's visit to Europe, the latter was asked the following question:

And if you find another very high value target at the top of al-Qaeda, Mullah Omar or whoever it might be in Pakistani territory or other sovereign territory, would you do the same again?

Mr. "Hope'n'Change Introducing a Break With the Old" did his best not to mention George W. Bush nor, certainly, to praise him, but there was no way he could avoid it entirely (00:10):

Well, I've always been clear to the Pakistanis — and I'm not the first administration to say this — that our job is to secure the United States; we are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan but we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to, uh, kill our people or our, our allies' people, we can't allow those kinds of active plans to, uh, come to fruition, without us taking some action…

"I'm not the first administration to say this": what other administration, in the war against terror, can that refer to but the administration of George W Bush?!

Plantu's Typical Simplification of the Palestinian Problem

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal shows up even in French cartoons on the Middle East, with Plantu — in his take on Obama's playing the host to (an irascible-looking) Netanyahu as they read about the DSK scandal in the newspapers and in his (simplistic) take of Israel's Palestinian problem — having his (innocent-looking) Palestinian quip:

Well, as for us, it's been for the past 50 years that we've been getting screwed, and there's been a much smaller fuss made about that!

A small fuss, a much smaller fuss, made about… Palestine?! What has Plantu (who often played the host to Yasser Arafat through his Cartooning for Peace initiative) been smoking, pray tell?…

(Benjamin Netanyahu himself had a more balanced viewpoint…)

How long will it take for European leftists to make the "Uncovered Meat" Argument?

Fewer days than you would think. Expect it to soon be loosely linked with the fake fingernail-pulling narrative of the Gitmo "Gulag." We are after all taking about Europe's "intellectuals".

Oh, wait.

As for privacy, the servile French press should stop editorializing about the accused if they show no concern for the victim.

The other laughable part is the generalized implication among the French that the US (somehow, whom, one cannot say) is responsible for the media frenzy associated with something that millions of French people are hyperventilating about, but draws significantly less attention, if not just a passing glance, in the US.

DSK's Travails Remain the Main Subject of French Cartoons

20 Nobel Prize Winners Are to Put Humanity on Trial
• One of the members of the Nobel "jury":
I wouldn't mind finding a broad for a quick lay…
• Uncle Sam: Oh? Has a Frenchman won the Nobel Prize?

To no one's surprise, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been a subject of French cartoons non-stop since last week, as the following batch will testify to, with Plantu and Xavier Gorce regularly intertwining the DSK scandal with other news of the day (such as the reform of France's justice system; the Rio-Paris flight crash; a Stockholm initiative to put humanity on trial by a jury of Nobel Prize winners for its alleged felonies against the plaintiff, Planet Earth; the Middle East's Palestinian problem, with Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Barack Obama's White House, etc)…



• A judge to another magistrate bringing the file on French Justice Reform: Yes?… Uhhh… Okay! Leave it there!




• An unfathomable catastrophe…
• Terrible images…
• What happened?


• Let's hope that thanks to the black boxes, we will be able to understand the reasons for the crash…


•… of Flight DSK 2012


The Hollande Phenomenon
• Socialist Party leader François Hollande:
Hey! Terrific the number of people showing up for my speeches!


• Gotta do it now!
• Go for it Martine!
• Go!
• Yeah!
• Press on!
• You're doin' good!


• Martine Aubry: Hey dudes, cool it. The decision is up to me!


• Martine Aubry: You never bully a woman into doing what she doesn't want to do!

• Greek: Oh! That must be the IMF loan that I've been waiting for?!!
• (IMF?) Suit: Hands off! It's the bail money for DSK!


But even prior to the scandal, DSK was no newcomer to French cartoons…

• How can you claim to be on the left while driving a Porsche?

• DSK: It's a matter of options

• [Musical sounds]

• DSK: My horn plays the Internationale

Live Bait!

The left: "Daddy drinks because you cry"

"President Obama blames high unemployment rate on 'huge layoffs of government workers' at federal, state and local levels."

Stack that one up on the manure pile of leftism with an argument I heard last night: that oil prices are high because the companies that produce it aren't taxed enough.

Elsewhere, a recreational screed against whatever royals there are left in Europe uses an bit of conditioned-in reasoning that so pervasive on the continent of brilliance, that no-one even thinks about it how absurd it is:

Royal families, who "like to present themselves as in touch with ordinary people, still have much greater privileges than their subjects," points out the magazine.

In other words, unlike the caviar gauche writers of Der Freitag, the symbolic aristocracy must become homeless in order to ber referred to by third parties as understanding their people.

Titled blood and splendor, (which also happens to be the title of a book about dictators), one wonders just exactly what blood the wonderful titular chief of Lichtenstein has drawn in his lifetime.

If you think that women don’t lie to get back at men, how naive can you be? And who is going to protect our sons?

An article named Women Don't Lie can be found at the Elephant Journal (thanks to Instapundit and don't forget to check out the Stephen Baskerville post) as well as at the False Rape Society.

I cannot tell you my name because what I am about to talk about is an ongoing legal matter. I will tell you that I am a feminist. That I fought for the rights of women to be believed. I worked for a rape crisis center in the 80s.

I helped organize and participated in Take Back the Night events. I am friends with therapists and activists who have worked tirelessly for the rights of women and children. I was sexually abused as a child, and it defined my life for a number of years.

I am also a mother. I have raised a beautiful son, now a beautiful, caring man. He is honorable and strong. He has a deep spiritual practice. He is a man sensitive to the needs of women. Because of my involvement in “the movement” and because at some point he became aware of my own painful history, he is empathetic to women who have been abused.

Last year a woman, we’ll call her Sarah, accused my son of attempted sexual assault. She said, she thinks he tried to rape her. …

Despite no evidence, despite the fact that she is obviously a troubled woman, despite other attempts by her in the past to accuse people of hurting her in some way, despite her own admissions of wanting to sue others still, despite my son’s spotless record and the support of myriad women who have known him for years, the state has chosen to pursue this “case.”

If you think that women don’t lie to get back at men, how naive can you be? Yet we live in a culture of “women don’t lie,” a culture fostered by women’s groups since the 70s. A culture I helped create and support. A philosophy I believed.

Because why would women lie? The process of coming forward, going through the legal system was so horrific, so humiliating, why in the world would a woman put herself through it?

But that was then. Then, sexual abuse was hidden and women were maligned and humiliated if they dared come forward. And strong, brave women stood up for the rights of their children and themselves.

Now there are women’s groups with a strong political voice. There are women in political office, policewomen, and so on. Men and women now are predisposed to believe women when they accuse someone of rape. It is sometimes a knee jerk reaction that we have not evaluated for its veracity. We have not wanted to hear that women sometimes lie. The system has supported all women even those who lie. They’ve made it easy for them. If it is proven that a woman has lied, they are not prosecuted. They are at most sent to counseling. And being a “victim” can be intoxicating to some. It can let them off the hook for being responsible for their own actions.

But who is going to protect our sons? We who were on the front lines in the 70s when things were bad for women, we have raised good sons. Men we are proud of. Who will stand up for them?

I am now appalled to think that I was one of these women who thought that women don’t lie…and where there smoke there’s always a fire. Despite having raised a beautiful son, I was a sexist. Then I started doing research. There have been studies done since the 80s citing the percentage of rape allegations that are false. Some studies say as high as 60%. People who have been dealing with this for years have tried to tell us that women do lie. But we haven’t wanted to hear.

… Why would women lie?

Why wouldn’t women lie? They lie to protect themselves, to alleviate guilt, or because they are delusional. They lie because they can. For all the reasons that people lie, women lie.

… Our good men are being harmed.

…This hysterical crisis mentality has created a gap between our awareness of the now highly visible victims of sexual misconduct and the almost invisible victims of false allegation. The lesser known victims have their own stories to tell, enough to reveal another long ignored injustice that demands remediation. False allegations of sexual misconduct have deprived a rapidly growing number of men and women of their reputations, their fortunes, their children, their livelihood and their freedom. Wasting the time and money of families and communities, and have left some so desperate that they have taken their own lives.

…It’s time that we admitted what is right in front of us. Not every woman tells the truth and not every man is a potential rapist.