Bernie Ward, Daily Kos Followup

This morning, I cross-posted my December 7 piece on the Bernie Ward prosecution on Daily Kos, and one commenter opened a can of worms that I was glad to address, in the way of clarification. I reproduce the snarky comment and my response.

Anonymized Kossack:

I stumbled upon this article

yesterday researching the net for news about Bernie.

It appears to me that in this article you’re sort of opportunistically using this man’s personal catastrophe to advance your “bigger picture” philosophical musings about pornography and censorship. I wish you hadn’t brought it here, but since there’s not a darn thing I can do about it, I’ll just register my displeasure and move on.

Bernie Ward made a stupid and devastating mistake, and that is all.

God bless our tinfoil hearts.

by *** on Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 11:22:33 AM PST

My reply:

After looking at the blizzard of comments you’ve left on this story elsewhere, I have to say that I’m inclined to agree with you that this is a political prosecution (and I made the point without pushing it) …

But it’s important to remember that you don’t know jack s*** about the case, any more than I do, than anyone does. Everyone has rushed to judgment on this matter — I have carefully tried NOT to: to stick with what IS known, and the broader social context of this auto-da-fé.

We have to stick with WHAT WE KNOW. We’re not close-minded bigots (usually). We’re supposed “progressives” who think, who reason, who show tolerance and compassion. Who DON’T mindlessly rush to judgment when the would-be matadors of demagoguery wave their red capes at us.

We are the “reality based” community, and what we suspect is DIFFERENT than what we know and we know the difference. Right?

But what we CAN discuss is the insane, witch-hunting atmosphere that Ward is — rightly or wrongly — cast into, the thousand pound gorilla in the room.

That we are far more frightened by penises than by guns. If you murder someone, you do not have to register when you get out, you are not put on a “death offender” registry, your new neighbors don’t have to be informed, and you aren’t monitored for the rest of your life.

Use your penis (or, as in this case, have some vague insinuation about sexualized images of children, without any IMPLICATION that your penis is involved) and the community turns on you like the pod people did in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

And those who are prosecuting Bernie Ward are very well aware of this. WHY they chose this timing when they could have charged him at any point in the past three years only adds credence to our suspicions, but that’s what they must remain: suspicions.

Until we learn more facts — assuming that we ever do. There exists a strong possibility that Ward will be branded for life, have his career destroyed, and we will NEVER know what really happened.

And we will never know what was meant by “child pornography.” It will remain, like so many lawsuits I used to have to file and seal, a “characterization” without ever revealing the specifics, as in “remarks of a sexual nature.”

Which means what? Dunno. But three state employees were stripped of career and pension in a case I once sealed. And when I looked through the depositions, BEFORE sending them to the warehouse, the actual comments were so innocuous that, well, it sickened me.

As does the reaction to the “characterizations” in this matter. All we have is an ugly label.

That’s uncomfortable, I know. But it’s that thousand pound gorilla that no one’s willing to talk about, and like Major Powell, we can’t just turn the boats around and row back upstream. We’re locked into following the river, wherever it takes us.

And the fact that this powerful political tool for taking down one’s enemies (note that whether Bernie is innocent or not, the EFFECT is the same, right now, as if he were guilty as hell — voice silenced, removed from the air, already shunned by “right-thinking” liberals who would normally be at his side) well, that mode of “extraordinary rendition” has to be talked about.

And, if not here, where?

I read the vicious, self-righteous screeds against Bernie (with no more information than you and I have), automatically assigning guilt, disgust, hating, holding their metaphorical blue noses.

And that was just the DailyKos postings. The righties were far worse.

And I was ashamed for their self-righteousness, their mindless bigotry, their willingness to presume facts not in evidence, and reach monstrous and unsupported conclusions.

You don’t have a lot of friends or allies in your opinion as to Bernie’s innocence, right now.

Why form a circular firing squad and go after me?

I happen to love Bernie Ward:”It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” And, while I’ve asked for neither, perhaps you ought to reconsider just WHO your enemies (and Bernie’s) are.

You were warned in the opening disclaimer. Too bad you chose to ignore it … twice.

In Salem, Massachusetts, the scream “Witch!” was sufficient to destroy lives.

In America today, “kiddie porn!” accomplishes the same end, as you well know, just from last week’s blog postings on dKos.

The Rightie blogosphere has been positively orgasmic about it. Yet you lump me into that crowd?

Sad. Sad. Sad.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
– Thomas Carlyle

Courage.

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