Sexual Abuse and the Committees of the Elite

The robber barons of over a century ago were the movers and shakers in the establishment of the committees of the elite. Today they are the weapons manufacturers, the elite bankers and those in the financial sector, the healthcare/pharmaceutical/health insurance industry, the fossil fuel industry, the tech industry, etc. Recently, two of the elite flew off to the edge of space and the forest fires around the world must have given them a spectacular view, a sort of ringside seat to an environmental Armageddon.

The puppet masters of the committees of the elite would rather have the mild-mannered Joe Biden at their helm than the embarrassment that is Donald Trump. They accepted Trump, but would much rather paint the face of empire with a Biden. Biden’s a better cover.

Some may believe that there is a world of difference between a Biden and a Trump. Look at their foreign policy overlaps and it’s discernible just how alike these two committeemen are.

But foreign policy is not the thrust of this writing… Alleged sexual abuse is. Comparing Andrew Cuomo to Donald Trump is somewhat like comparing apples to oranges. Each man’s alleged sexual assaults fall along a continuum of that abuse, with Trump being somewhere at the extreme. He allegedly raped a woman in a New York City department store, while Cuomo’s alleged crimes range from verbal sexual harassment to touching, groping, and unwanted kissing. There is much difference in these kinds of sexual abuse, but they all fall somewhere on a continuum of violating people, and in this case, women.

Sexual abuse has to do with power and control. That kind of abuse affects every social class, but the committees of the elite seem to take part in it as if it was an ordinary and an acceptable behavior.

The elite could care less about those on its committees who rule and give a kind of corporate fascism the patina of democracy and our governmental institutions the patina of democratic operation. Corporate fascism is not easily dislodged once it takes hold. Both capitalism and the veneer of democracy tolerate exceptionally bad behavior. The elite have deep pockets with which to grease the wheels moving those who do their bidding.

Once full-throated fascism takes hold, as it did in Germany of the 1930s, a person can’t fight fascism anywhere except in the streets, and by that time it’s way too late to fight.

The elite will tolerate Trump when he calls neo-Nazis and white supremacists “some very fine people,” and won’t care that much about whether he allegedly raped a woman in a department store. Again, they’d rather have  Biden, but will accept Clinton, Bush II, and Reagan, no matter their inappropriate behavior and war crimes and crimes against the environment. The message here is better not get caught puffing on a cigar in this system after committing an act that violates another.

Occasionally, an FDR will come along and save the capitalist class from its worst excesses, but the elite know, even though some among them hated FDR, that his intent was to save capitalism and not end it, or change it in some fundamental way. During the Great Depression, the elite wanted the destitute, including destitute children, to have the same rights as they, the elite, had to sleep under bridges.

Cuomo, as he attempts to wreck the Democratic Party in New York, doesn’t seem to give a damn. He seems to be in it for the glory of the battle. Even though his abuse of power is alleged at this point, even a casual observer has got to wonder if 11 people can all be wrong.

The elite care about their money and power and nothing else. Those with immense wealth and/or power are so shortsighted that they will allow the natural environment to fall around them as long as their particular surroundings remain somewhat intact. They will even mortgage their children’s and grandchildren’s lives against their comfort. The elite are the modern-day Nero, playing their symbolic violins while Rome burns. And Rome now burns in more than symbolic ways!

Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the Wall: Memoir of a Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017).