Let me tell you what I’ve learned about the “Good ol Boys” Club. (GOBC)
There are chapters everywhere there are groups of powerful white males. Some of them even allow certain women to join.
These kinds of men know that “boys will be boys” and “men who will be men”. They regard their right to exert their power over others as their due: a birthright bestowed to them along with their gonads.
They take an unspoken vow early on to protect each other from exposure or from any consequences of their actions, including their right to have sexual connections and/or contact with whomever they wish, whenever and however they wish. Women, boys, girls, kids, other less powerful men, it matters not, really: satisfying their sexual needs trumps all the rules. Or any other personal need, for that matter.
They are filled with empathy and understanding for each other. They are a “brotherhood” that will back each other actions in every way there is, from simply “looking away” and pretending not to know, all the way to outright denial and attack on the character of whatever victim dares accuse one of their own. When caught, their ability to muddy the waters with endless excuses is a marvel to behold.
Criteria for membership in the GOBC include a high level of arrogance and conviction that by virtue of being born male, they are far superior beings. As such, they have a right to take what they want or need, and to break whatever rules or law that would prevent them from having it. They count on the support of their understanding brothers to protect them, and most often get it, no questions asked.
How can I be so sure this Good Ol Boys Club exists? How could I not know? It was my own Lutheran Minister who sent me back home when I was only 13, with clear instructions to “pray harder” and to stop acting so seductive in front of my abuser.
It was all of the good men in my own home AA group, who had known for twenty years that one of their own long sober, “respected leaders” had been systematically “sponsoring” newly sober women, then moving in for the “sex-kill” when and if they relapsed.
These early examples clued me in fast me about how powerful the GOBC really is. And those are but two examples out of a lifetime of experiences of one sort or another, in my later role as an RN working with abused women and men and kids who were too afraid to speak out, and were suffering from serious lifelong after effects of thier own abuse experiences with the Good Ol Boy’s Club.
So it is that one of the largest Religion Organizations in the world ends up ignoring and covers generations of sexual abuse from its own powerful God-Loving Priests.
So it is that the powerful leaders we have elected to govern our land allow their own to shamelessly sexually exploit their positions of power over our young. For generations! This is most certainly not some new phenomenon: this is why they took the pages out of members homes long ago and build them a dormitory where they could be protected from FORMER members of earlier Good Ol Boys in Congress!
Yet each time this is “discovered”, it is a “BRAND NEW SCANDAL!”
Like HELL it’s a brand new scandal!
It’s just fucking LIFE AS USUAL, as it has been all along, for the “non-powerful” thus more vulnerable among us. For women and kids, it’s life, as it has ALWAYS been, since America was formed, by powerful, often “highly religious” white males who to this day still hold all keys to this “kingdom.”
Once in awhile, the slime rises to the top where it’s stench is unmistakable, then everybody, including and especially the card carrying members of the GOBC themselves screech their outage, pound their chests, and vow to pursue justice against the currently exposed pervert!
The media swarms to get in on the ratings race, and everyone who has ever BEEN abused by the GOBC gets to remember it all again, in painful detail. Impressive vows are made by the powerful white men, “to get to the bottom of this”.
And now here comes the good old “I seriously believe I am an alcoholic.” explanation. This will allow the GOBC yet one more hook to hang him on, and thus divert attention from themselves or the larger issue of societal pathology that underlies this never ending cycle of exploitation and cover-up.
I know intimately how alcoholism can twist the psyche and create a monster well able to harm others. I live with the awareness that for years of my life, I seriously harmed others with my own addiction-driven behaviors, before finally getting sober 25 years ago. If Foley is an alcoholic, I sincerely hope he faces this and deals with it once and for all, for his sake but mostly for the innocent he lives among, who do not deserve to be harmed by his pathology.
But alcoholism, while more rampant that anyone is willing to admit, and accepted as normal in many lofty circles of power, is NOT the root cause of this whole ugly, shameful scenario we are seeing unfold here. Yes, it twists one’s judgment all to hell, it loosens all healthy inhibitions, and causes one to abandon their value systems for a quick fix of a selfish need, but it doesn’t explain the fact that this kind of exploitation by those in power in nearly endless ways, just never ever ends and the cover ups of them by the GOBC have gone on forever and still are.
t’s all one sick, endless cycle. How ever this latest slime is disposed of,it won’t change any of the foundational flaws in a society where having power means the right to control and exploit others who have less or none, and where only rich white males are rich enough to purchase this kind of power over others.
The Foley story has bigger wings because it’s election time again. Americans everywhere will wake up and tune in to this one, and revel in the exposure of scandalous behavior of this guy, and the others who protected him and exact a small pound of flesh from them, maybe, maybe not.
We’ll label it a “Republican Problem” and use it to win power in congress back, power which will then be held by a cadre of primarily rich white males of the opposition party.
It would be quite comforting to believe that only Republican Leaders are capable of such exploitation.
But I am too old to believe this. I cannot see past the realities I’ve lived for 66 years and see are still fully aive and thriving right in front of my eyes on this very day.
Exploitation of the non powerful by the powerful may be a bit subtler now, perhaps dressed in more “civilized garb”, and exercised more covertly , but this opressive, damaging, still acceptable societal norm hasn’t gone anywhere.
Racism, sexism, ageism,classism, homophobia, all of the “isms” were just covered over with a thin veneer of democracy and “diversity training” and fancy talk, a veneer the current administration is not even trying to hide behind anymore, having pumped themselves up with war power and religious fanaticism enough to trot their true agenda right out proudly and wave it right in our faces.
Foley is a pathetically sick figure that they will gladly and noisily nail to the public cross now, to get the focus off their complicity in his crimes, and god only knows how many of their own. They will focus on HIS addictions relentlessly now, to take the focus off their own. They will screech for justice as long as the TV cameras are on them, and forget it as soon as they leave.
The vast majority of Americans will once again turn away from the news as soon as it reverts back to being “only” about unnecessary wars that kill endless innocents along with our own kids, and other more complex corruptions because that’s “just politics” and not worth their time. There is money that has to be earned earn and stuff to buy yet.
Meanwhile, taking the lead from the leaders of this land who assume the right to exploit whoever they wish, for personal satisfaction or gain, we have younger men such as I watched on TV last night, a enterprising young fellow who is making millions of dollars making films called ” Bumfight”, using homeless alcoholics, some of whom they awaken from a sound sleep, gag with duct tape, and beat half to death, on camera. And we have teenage kids on drugs mimicking that film, in jail now, for actually killing one homeless person, for “excitement.’
In Jesus Camps, little ones are being taught to wage “religious wars”, and the rights of women to control what happens to their own bodies are being systematically destroyed by powerfully lobbying groups who own the lawmakers.
The aged and uninsured poor are slowly being weeded out of society from lack of access to adequate health care, and how this can NOT be called what it is, socially sanctioned genocide is way beyond me. Now they’re working on getting rid the middle class level of uninsured as well.
Overseas, they’re swinging their dick in every widening circles, killing onncents and our own kids with abandon and without any shame at all, so convinced is this President that he is personally sitting on the right hand of God, and his greedy cabal, who have NO doubts of their right to own and rule the entire world.
The GOBC agenda is far, far larger and more important than any need to effectively address the rather puny issue (in their minds) of “child sexual abuse” by high ranking levels of government. It is an irritant, a pesky fly that will soon be crushed under the big stomping feel of the current elephant dwelling in Americans living room.
I won’t be around to see it when, and if ever, enough of the America people wake the hell up and decide this is not the kind of country they wish for America to be. It’s going to take a long time, and a world of directly personal hurts to penetrate those cozy, upscale, cocoons of denial.
I am glad that this will probably result in some of the young impressionable pages in Washington being better protected from the sexual predators in Congress, for awhile anyway. Every little bit helps someone.
But it’s the Good Ol Boys Club, those men addicted to power over others, who assume the right to exploit the less powerful for their own gain in any way they choose, who cover up for each other always, and are unhampered by any ethical boundaries, it is this kind of men who make up the ugly, incontinent, smelly elephant in America’s living room.
This is the kind of GOBC elephant that the populace of this country have elected and/or allowed to rise to the highest levels of government.
This awful creature is not going away anytime soon, folks, because far too many of us refuse to even see it for what it really is. It may even shape shift into a donkey someday, a creature a little easier to walk around, just because it leaves smaller piles to step in, maybe.
Meanwhile, protect your children.
Protect each other.
And never blindly trust the most powerful.
Not. For. One. Moment.
