Everyday Erinyes #94

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can’t include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

 

This story is over a week old, but I am still shaking my head over it, because it is so unprovoked, so off the wall, so out of nowhere.  Well, of course, it isn’t – we know where this kind of behavior comes from – but two years ago, even one year ago, can anyone imagine this happening?

The detais of the incident are so surreal that it may be anybody’s guess what actually happened.  Some details, I suppose, could be getting withheld to protect the integrity of a criminal case, and far be it from me to interfere with that!  But, as best as I can reconstruct looking at multiple sources, here it is –

Emily Bailey was driving near the intersection of Little Road and State Road 54 in Pasco County, Florida.  Another car, driven by Alicia Scarduzio or Kelly Gemberling, was attempting to pass Ms. Bailey’s car (and was being driven aggressively by whichever woman was the driver) when a light turned red, and both vehicles stopped.

Ms. Bailey honked her horn.  She was under stress so it may not even have been intentional.  But, regardless, the two other women “kept screaming at me, telling me they wanted to f****g kill me.  I just wanted the light to change.  I never thought they would get out of their car and run toward me and pull me out of my vehicle.”

But they did.  They dragged her out of her car by the hair.  They beat her.  They banged her head on the ground.  They broke her nose.  They eventually knocked her unconscious.  All the while Scarduzio was yelling “Stop hitting my mom.  Quit hitting my mom.”  (Do I hear echoes of “Stop resisting”?)

A deputy arrived about the same time a man from another car dragged the aggressors off of the victim.  The aggressors claimed they were the victims.  But there is video and there were witnesses.  They have been charged with burglary and aggravated battery.  They were booked into detention the noght of the incident.

Although we know this was not a racist attack (all three women are “white,” and obviously the expression “batshit crazy” must come to everyone’s ind, I still can’t imagine reading this a couple of years ago.  When rage is unleashed, it is unleashed.  It can go anywhere.  Tisiphone, I hope you can follow up on this case and help achieve justice.

In other news – well, I guess it is hardly news that Republicans still do not grasp the concept of “consent,” and Republicans in Louisiana are no exception.  I can’t tell this any better than the Times-Picayune:

A former Tulane University enrollee accused of raping a fellow student on Election Night 2015 received a two-year suspended sentence and was placed on two years’ active probation Monday (Sept. 18) after pleading guilty to two lesser crimes.

Spencer Schneider, 23, had faced up to 25 years in state prison if found guilty as charged of third-degree rape. But under a plea agreement crafted with the help of his high-powered legal team, Schneider resolved the rape case by pleading guilty to a felony count of obscenity and a misdemeanor count of sexual battery.

The obscenity conviction eventually can be expunged from Schneider’s record, but the misdemeanor sexual battery plea cannot. Neither requires Schneider to register as a sex offender.

Criminal District Judge Robin Pittman imposed the sentence after being assured by the state that the accuser in the case had no opposition to the plea agreement, nor to Schneider being placed on probation. The accuser, who later spoke to The Times-Picayune under condition of anonymity, said she accepted the outcome despite some dissatisfaction.

“Although two years’ probation and an obscenity felony is a far cry from what I think would be just, as he deserved to be convicted of rape and registered as a sex offender, I do believe that this was the best that could be done,” the woman said. “In today’s climate, college rapists are rarely even indicted. I am grateful for any sort of conviction.

Just to clarify a little, the obscenity charge is a felony, but can be explunged.  The sexual battery charge, a misdemeanor, cannot.  Two years is damned little, and two years “active probation” is even less, but I would bet a generous sum that it won’t be nearly two years before he is in court trying to get out of it, because he will find it onerous.

Megaera, can’t we start doing better than this?

I’m not trying to pick on the South today, and certainly a state which can produce a Reverend Dr. Barber and a John Pavlovitz is not devoid of real Christians.  However, fake ones are everywhere, including North Carolina.

Word of Faith, a “church” which has about 750 members in rural North Carolina and maybe 2,000 more combined in Brazil, Ghana, Sweden, Scotland, etc., has been under investigation for multiple abuses, such as “exorcism” by means of punching and chioking, luring non-citizens to the U.S, and keeping them in “virtual slavery, and who knows what all (in this case, they definitely are being reticent about the investigation to protect criminal cases, so I won’t press for details) for years.  But the newest allegations to come to light may make even Republicans a little nauseated.

When Randy Fields’ construction company faced potential ruin because of the cratering economy, he pleaded with his pastor at Word of Faith Fellowship church to reduce the amount of money he was required to tithe every week.

To his shock, Fields said church founder Jane Whaley proposed a divine plan that would allow him to continue contributing at least 10 percent of his income to the secretive evangelical church while helping his company survive: He would file fraudulent unemployment claims on behalf of his employees. She called it, he said, “God’s plan.”

The word “venal” somehow springs to mind.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Dominionists would govern – by theft.  Alecto, theocracy is very old, but it has always been horrible.  Even though the people who need to be convinced probably will not be, since they are accustomed to a level of cognitive dissonance way beyond what we can tolerate, it is still important to prove – again – that crime like this does not pay.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 here.