The dominoes are falling fast.
“The events he describes back in the 1980s simply did not occur, and I do not know why he has claimed them now,” the 80-year-old Takei said.
I do. It’s because he’s constant, vehement critic of Comrade Cockholster and the Rethugliklan worldview. As a result, the Guard Our Pedophiles is going to do everything it can to smear its critics. They just have to pick one. La cible du jour.
Consider their point of view: What better way to defend (currently) Roy Moore than sully the reputation of someone else. It’s part of their playbook. Hell, it is their playbook.
Which brings up an interesting thought. Not that it would make any of the claims we’ve heard–and are going to hear–any less valid (most of them are likely true on some level) but remembering the Clinton accusers during the '90s, I have to wonder if any of today’s current accusers weren’t sought out by the far-right? Hollywood is an easy target by almost any calculation, but it’s an especially tasty one for the far-right – if for nothing more than to deflect from Current Occupant’s many and varied–and real!–troubles.
I don’t know about this new one against George Takei, it very well could be true. My wish would be for it not to be true. However, you’re right, tio, he is an especially tasty target for Donald’s people who do his dirty work (for Donald and others like Moore, the current Hot Seat occupant)…
Had this story been about a male Hollywood star, or minor star, or politician, assaulting a woman the way his accuser claimed he did, very few here would doubt her claim. I’ve been a fan of George Takei since his days in Star Trek, but I’m not giving him a pass because I like him or that he’s gay. At the moment, I’m far more likely to believe the accuser over the accused.
Truthfully, I’m believing it. I’ve seen way too much in my youth to discount this scenario. And I love Takei.
A few years ago in Baltimore a city bus had an accident. The next day a dozen people came forward claiming injuries. However, the bus had ended service for the day and was headed back to the garage when the accident happened, and the only occupant was the driver.
Besides political considerations and the potential motivation of prejudice, there are people out there that will see the current environment as a chance to make money from making a claim. We’ll have to be careful to make certain the facts are known before making judgement.
Feel free to take that argument over to one of the many Roy Moore threads.
The problem is that sex is a messy thing. There are opinions about events. The opinions do not always agree with one another. And sex involves one person making a move on another person. If the move is ill-timed, one side can claim that it is an assault, while to the other, it’s just a move.
Thanks for a sensible comment.
On another note, I do NOT want to hear any allegations about behavior on the set of “My friend Dahmer”. Nuh uh.
Another thought: Let’s say Takei was a well-known rabid, gay Rethugliklan like Peter Thiel. Do you have any doubts the Greedy Odious Pricks would be blaming Scott R. Brunton? Calling him a liar? Branding it “fake news”? (And in Thiel’s case, attempting to sue the Hollywood Reporter into bankruptcy?)
As I said earlier, “It’s part of their playbook. Hell, it is their playbook.”
I haven’t heard of any lurid behavior on a cooking show since The Galloping Gourmet Graham Kerr retired.
Fun Fact: Graham Kerr is alive and well and living in Mount Vernon, Washington. He is 83.
I love George Takei.
But, if we are going to get through this period - to another side - where sexual abuse and harassment are taboo - it (each story/set of accusations) has to play out.
That isn’t to say that all accusations are accurate. However, as we have seen, often there are others who will corroborate with similar other stories - and in this moment in time that happens pretty swiftly. So while we wait to see if there are more lurking accuations against Takei, I will hope this is false, but I will recognize that it is a bias I hold in that hope, at the same time I recognize, sadly, that it very likely is not a false accusation.
That’s certainly not a good attitude. There are false accusations, and they can destroy people. Accusations leveled after 36 years are extremely suspect. Do you remember things clearly from 36 years ago? I sure don’t. Memory is funny too. What you “remember” is not the event, but the way that you have cultured that memory. To simply give credence to the accuser by default is not a good way of thinking. The Rolling Stone article should have been a warning - false accusations exist. Duke lacrosse is another case. The mattress girl in Columbia is another false accusation case. Plenty of examples.
I’m a gay Trekkie who adores Takei but I’m taken aback by his pause on Stern’s show. People that need to hedge their answers because the truth needs to be sanitized pause like that, people with the truth don’t normally have to pause to figure out what exact words to use because they know they don’t have to worry. Granted, that’s not proof but it’s troubling. His “It was never at work, it happened at home,” sounds kind of bad in my book. Without the recent Stern interview I’d probably be closer to your belief that somebody was trying to screw with him but there’s zero evidence for that and this person has four friends claiming he told them contemporaneous accounts–if it is a conspiracy it’s going to fall under the weight of having to have five people coordinate their stories correctly. If it’s not, other people will come forward. Abusive people rarely abuse a single person. I badly want it to be a conspiracy but as a skeptic and supporter of sexual assault survivors I’m incline to support the victim than claim he’s making stuff up because somebody paid him to.
Without taking a position on this allegation, I feel we are on the way to having a witch hunt.
Which is why consent is the most important thing. Brock Turner is now poster boy of what consent isn’t.
Question for you, do you think the incidence of false accusation is higher than the rate of non-reporting/silence? Both phenomenon are real. The victimization of both situations can and does destroy people.
I am familiar with the field of false recovery of memories - as a friend has been a lead researcher in that field for many years. I am also familiar with the effect of trauma on the memory. If you asked me about a random day from six years ago, unless there was something about that day (a particular situation/conversation/meeting) I would be hard pressed for the details, and even with something to cue the memory - I would recall some aspects of the conversation but certainly not all the details. However, if you asked me to talk about the day the house next door was being torn down, and I got a call at work that a hole got knocked into the side of my house by the demolition crew - I could give you very detailed memories from the moment I got that call through the next morning.
Likewise ask me about something from my senior year in college (similar time frame to what you suggest) - not going to have many details. Ask me about the night I was raped in my senior year - I can still relate many of the details - and related ones like who I spoke to about it contemporaneously, as well as who I spoke with about it a few years later. how many years it was before I was able to speak about it with my family, etc. Point is - trauma events can have impact upon searing details into the memory. So don’t discount 30+ year old accusations just because they are 30+ years old. Especially if there are other accusations that are unrelated and follow a similar pattern.
With four contemporaneous accounts of friends being told of the incident it seems likely to have happened. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to coordinate a lie when five people are involved but it’s easy to coordinate the truth. When you couple that with the Stern show it makes it even more likely to be true. I say this a gay Trekkie who adores Takei and am deeply disappointed by this news but I’m not going to give him special treatment because he’s on our team.
This is really sad. I love George Takei as Sulu, his countless one time appearances in TV shows (I literally watched him last night on The Neighbors season 1 finale as an alien overlord.), him shining a light on our shameful Japanese concentration camps and as of late his constant string of sizzling burns directed at Trump. The gut reaction is going to be this is impossible, he’s so adorkable, we love him so much! But adorkable people can be creeps too.
If Branton is lying about the four people existing then that’s that and he’s a liar. But if these four friends he gave contemporary accounts of the incident exist and back up his claims then that’s the point I support the person who was assaulted. When you couple that with his problematic Stern interview where he hedges his wording about whether or not he had ever grabbed somebody’s crotch, he gave classic straight male abuser lines, the whole, “I was trying to loosen things up” and “It never happened at work, it happened at home.” It sounds sketchy in my book. I don’t want it to be true, desperately don’t because I do adore him, I get a little mental squeee when I see him on my TV (although that’s probably going to convert to squick!), but the evidence so far presented, if it applied to anybody else, I would be behind the victim 100%.
If we want to evolve as a society, we need to be able to sanction those who transgress even if they are our heroes and champions of our causes. I’ll do a dance if Branton proves to be a fraud motivated by the GOP or personal demons (well, I won’t dance for his personal demons) but right now I’m going to support his claims like I would support any other survivor of sexual assault who has four friends saying they were told about it when it happened.
I am 78. I remember a traumatic event from when I was 22. It changed my life. I won’t get into the details. I tried not to think about it for many years as the memory filled me with rage, and just get on with life. But it DID change my life so was and is hard to forget.
I love George Takei and want to believe him but like others, the pause on the Howard Stern show and the “uh oh” is a admittance of guilt. Not being gay I don’t know what is normal or reasonable practice but if Takei undressed this person while he was passed out from drinking too much that is not reasonable or acceptable behavior.
I am glad that the practice of people with power over other people to make sexual demands and/or behave badly has been outed but this reporting can also get out of hand.
Women have been abused by men sexually for a long, long time because of the power difference. It is unfair and wrong but will inevitably continue to happen once this is off the front pages and teevee. It is very difficult, especially if you are young & insecure to stand up to a man who has a higher job position than you do or has the power to hire you for a job you badly want.