Doin' Da DSK

Catch my article up at UrbanSurvival today. Scroll down to "Asian Economy")

I have to admit that I am intrigued by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story.  This is one of those events where the curtain has opened a little too far and we can get a good peak inside.

What gets my attention is that this is definitely a counterfeit situation, much like the Obama birth certificate and the Usama take-down.  While I am no fan of the IMF, nor any of the troglodytes who infest it, I can always tell a bullshit story when I see it (having worked in news and media for 40 years).

There are two parts of this story that don’t smell right.

• 1)      I’ve had occasion to stay in 5- and 6-star hotels in various parts of the world, and I can tell you that house-keeping does NOT enter a room that is occupied, unless specifically requested by the guest.   That fact is triply-true for $3,000 per night suites.  Just doesn’t happen.  If you leave a wake-up call, but don’t answer the phone, a MALE security staff-member will enter a MALE-occupied room to ensure the guest is OK.
• 2)      A man with Strauss-Kahn’s money and influence would not bugger chambermaids.  He could easily afford much classier prey.  With his stroke, one call to the concierge could have a selection of high-end models at his door.  It would have been handled quite discreetly and none of us would be the wiser.

As Marcellus says to Horacio in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”  Or in this case, the state of world affairs.

There is no doubt in my mind that Strauss-Kahn is being taken down.  The question is, is HE the target, or is the IMF the target?

Hotel Sofitel, New York

Paul Craig Roberts puts up a virtual rogue’s gallery of people and institutions that would love to see Strauss-Kahn and/or the IMF brought down a peg.  His conclusion is that the IMF itself is the target.  I think that’s just a little too neat and clean.  These things are never that tidy.  Every major incident in the past 100 years had multiple goals behind it.

I tend to use making movies as a metaphor for how the world works, and it serves me pretty well.  When Mr. Producer sits down with the script, he/she is looking for income potential, both in the story and stars, but also in product placement.  “If we sign Tom Cruise and have him drink Coca-Cola in this close-up, we can get the Coke folks to jack up some cash,” he thinks.

You’re scratching your head and thinking, “What in the hell does that have to do with Strauss-Kahn?  Glad you asked.

Let’s say you’re, oh…I don’t know…Sarkozy (just for instance, of course).  You want to take down your primary rival in the upcoming elections.  You have a plan, but you need some back-up, say with media and international relations.  So, you set up the incident in a New York hotel and shop around.  Ah!  The Brits want the IMF humiliated for their own reasons.  The Yanks have a beef with the guy, as well.  He’s got some enemies over here and some rivals over there.  If everyone chips in a little, we can all get some benefit without any one of us getting too dirty.  Blowback’s a bitch, as they say.

By doing this, you get several birds with one stone, and you get most of the folks who would blow the whistle on the operation to shut up, because they are in on it.  You get the Yanks to back you up in the courts and media.  The Limies and the Frogs won’t go against you, since they have a hand in the cookie jar.  You spread your risk and your expenses around.  No one says anything because they get what they want out of it, and if they squeal, everyone gets mud on them.

Just for good measure, you trot out a couple of paid accusers and feed them some classic lines, like ‘rutting chimpanzee.’  Honestly, I wish I had come up with that one.  That’s a sign of good writing behind the scenes.  And trust me, this whole thing is scripted and stage-managed down to the smallest detail.

It has been a signature of political hits over the past several decades to make accusations of sexual impropriety in one case, followed by a series of accusers who ‘suddenly’ come out of the closet.  Frankly, of all the high crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated against citizens within and outside of various countries around the world, the bedroom proclivities of powerful men should be the least of our worries.

US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court, in an 8-1 admission of traitorous actions, handed down a decision that police did not need warrants to search people’s homes or persons, thus completely trashing one of the central tenets of Anglo-American law, since the Magna Charta.

Basically, the way the American legal system works now, is anyone can be accused of anything at any time, without the least shred of evidence.  That person is then either forced to plea out on lesser charges, or face years of hearings and run-arounds until he is broke and broken, without ever getting to trial.  And even if he gets to trial, the jury is stacked through the process of voir dire so that there is no hope of winning acquittal.

Strauss-Kahn is as good as convicted, since the media has tried him and unquestioningly swallowed the ‘facts’ of the case, without batting a critical eye.  There is no love lost between me and people of Strauss-Kahn’s ilk.  I’d be happy as a pig in a poke to see him tried for crimes against humanity, for the what the IMF has done to developing countries under his watch.  He should have a lot of company, too.  But, this charade over diddling chambermaids who were violating company policy by entering an occupied suite is utter rubbish.

That the maid is an African immigrant, single parent, and living in New York City (one of the highest costs of living on the planet) makes her a prime target for bribery, given her situation.

I am no fan of Usama bin Laden, but he (and all of humanity) deserved a full and comprehensive trial, so that we could learn the truth of the matter.  Even the most heinous Nazi war criminals got that at Nurmberg, and they were arguably far worse in deed than bin Laden ever dreamed of being.

Certainly, Strauss-Kahn deserves his day in court, especially if such a man is ‘only’ on trial for buggering chambermaids, given the multitude of crimes he could be charged with, if there were such a thing as justice.

Unfortunately, justice is dead, in America and anywhere else, for that matter.  The jury box has been eviscerated, the prosecutors and judges have been allowed to run wild, and the media soil solemn proceedings with innuendo and here-say.

Whatever you think of Strauss-Kahn, what is really on trial here is justice.  If it doesn’t exist for the highest among us, then it certainly has vanished for the lowest.  This carnival show of rich and powerful, lowly chambermaids and suicide watches is sickening.  It is so transparent that I marvel at how many people don’t see through it.  But, then I’ve felt that way for a long time now.

It’s just that it’s so stinking obvious!

We are obliged to uphold Strauss-Kahn’s right to justice, because if he doesn’t have it, then you and I don’t either.  I would feel the same if it were Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini or Josef Stalin sitting in that cell in New York City.

It is the deepest indication of civilization how we conduct ourselves in the courts.  When I was a child, there was no end of finger-pointing at the Soviet Union for their show trials and miscarriages of justice.  Has the US now devolved into its own worst enemy?

If Strauss-Kahn is found guilty by a jury in a fair trial, then I whole-heartedly support the maximum sentence, since he abused his power and wealth by abusing such a defenseless human being.  But, he deserves a full and unbiased trial, in which we learn the unvarnished truth.

As it stands, we are being led to conclusions by master manipulators who are engineering a conviction in the court of public opinion.  We are seeing our rights trounced and destroyed at every turn.  Perhaps by showing this man that we support real justice, we can convert someone of his power and wealth to the side of truth and freedom.  It’s a long-shot, but just about anything is these days.

There is more than enough injustice and abuse in the world.  To fight it, we must rise above it, not reduce ourselves to its level.  One great Truth that appears in every religion I have ever studied: As you sow, so shall you reap.

Time to start sowing some seeds of justice.