BHL Update: "Make the Howlers Shut Up"!
France's most embarrassing philosopher and woman-blamer, Bernard Henri-Levy, is shoveling himself deeper in the merde, this time in a Daily Beast DSK column, eight of whose 10 paragraphs begin with the giggle-worthy peacock's proclamation "I maintain." Example:
I maintain that those who are surprised that one doesn't take the side of the "poor, immigrant woman" as a matter of principle against the "rich and arrogant white man" who supposedly has raped her are reinventing a kind of class justice in reverse.
What?
Anyway, at least this time he's not openly trashing DSK's accusers, and he even feels enough pressure to say this:
I would make it clear, in passing, for all those who seem to believe that the struggle against the trivialization of rape necessarily involves the pulverization of the rights of the defense, that I, of course, consider rape and attempted rape as crimes.
Imagine living in a world where you'd feel obligated to write that sentence (or even that "of course"). Or that you'd look upon the drama of one of the world's most powerful men allegedly raping and don't-you-know-who-I-amming the immigrant help (then trying to buy off her poor relatives in Africa), and deciding that the most urgent thing at hand is to make all those damn newspapers shut their traps. No really:
I maintain that from now on, and more than ever, only one thing is urgent, faced with this drama: to make the howlers shut up
Take it away, Warren Zevon!
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Absolutely hysterical must-read:
"My Good Friend Dominique Strauss-Kahn Has Sodomized Me On Any Number Of Occasions And I Never Bitched Out About It"
Winning:
n an age when so many are shackled by the leveling effect of a drably corporate world culture, homogenized, bland, and empty, Dominique Strauss-Kahn embraces the world in a great bearish hug of vim, and bonhommie, and a contact erection, which is usually fair warning that the raping is about to commence.
My very good friend Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not take "No" for an answer from our colorless prison of a world.
He will also not take "Please stop, you're hurting me," for an answer, nor "Stop or I will call the police," nor even "Rape! Violeur!"
Actually it's a little scary when he does that. He gets this glazed, empty look in his eyes, glossy and vacant, like the eyes of a haunted fortune-telling automaton in some dark carnival of evil, filling you with a sense of dread, and also, filling you with his penis, because, just like that, with a click and whir, he's raping you....
[snip]
....They say England and America are two nations divided by a common tongue, and then we pretend to laugh at that, because laughing at that shows we're witty, like the way people pretend they've read my books.
Similarly, France and America are two nations divided by a common criminal code; unfortunate that the simple expression of both human frailty and human vitality -- "I'm going to rape you now" -- is so egregiously misinterpreted by our American cousins.
As a philosopher, I live life by several dicta. Carpe diem is not just some cheap doggerel to be found on a poster in the room of a college freshman, who, according to the statistics, is probably being raped by my good friend Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
No, it is moral imperative, a Commandment superior to any of the expressions of petit bourgeios restraints as concocted by superstitious Jews 3000 years ago. It is not a slogan; it is a manifesto.
And a legal defense to rape.
And it stands, singularly, as the summa of human philosophy, along with its perfect corollary, the irrefutable axiom that keeps our society tolerable:
Snitches get stitches.
He certainly sounds like an Excitable Boy.
I love watching him struggle against the bien pensant PC memes. Having fun with groupthink now, dude?
"Take it away, Warren Zevon!"
Is there a recording of Bob Dylan performing "Werewolves of London" in 1975?
I read the headline as "Make the Howley Shut Up" at first, and it confused me considerably.
And since we're on the subject of rape, They think they know who I am.
Hell, I'd resubscribe to Reason to get that in hard copy.
Haole? Hawaiian for "scrubby white boy?"
the rights of the defense
What a stupid douche. Oh wait, I can't use the word douche. I want my language to be pure of francophile influence. Let me start over:
What a stupid water-bottle-used-to-clean-stinky-pussies. If he was smart, he would know that those right of the defense only exist in the court room. Out here in the real world, we don't have such epistemological blinders.
You are going to have to do better then that.
English is littered with French words....
Words such as stupid, defense, exist, and epistemological.
Huh? Epistemological is definitely Greek. Epist?m?) and logos. It's a 19th century coinage from Greek.
I'd put the Greek, but the commenting system doesn't like including foreign scripts.
What a stupid water-bottle-used-to-clean-stinky-pussies.
As a fairly disinterested observer on this thread maybe you should just take the aesthetic high road stick with douche.
I appreciate the first alt-text a lot, Matt. You're the only hit on Google for the excellent phrase "putting the 'tard in soixante-huitard"
It is deeply shocking that the president of the IMF cannot afford a maitresse en titre, but anybody who blows $3,000 a night for to stay at a Sofitel when there's room at the Carlyle deserves a downgrade to Riker's Island
Do you really think he was personally paying for that room?
If Spitzer's madame is to be believed, DSK was blackballed because he mistreated the, uh, subcontractors.
I assume you mean blacklisted, but I suppose blackballed could work as well
where's steve smith take on dogg sk?
Probably that this guy is a minor league rapist.
STEVE SMITH NOT RATE RAPE IN LEAGUES! STEVE RATE ON TRANSCENDENCE OF RAPE EXPERIENCE, AND TASTE OF RAPEE AFTERWARDS! STEVE LIKE THEM A BIT NUTTY!
So then, Mr. Smith, you have no qualms as to me referring you you as an amatuer league rapists?
STEVE NOT CARE ABOUT RATINGS BY INFERIOR RAPISTS! TERMS LIKE AMATEUR OR PROFESSIONAL NOT EVEN BEGIN TO ENCOMPASS STEVE RAPE SKILLS!
Your Honor, may I treat the witness as a hostile witness?
ab-smith-lutely
"Dominique," my American friends all lectured me. "Make absolutely certain, before you leave the hotel, to give the maid a nice tip." And NOW see what has happened -- !!!
Appently in France "tipping the maid" has quite a different meaning.
Thanks for rehashing the joke for those of us that didn't get it the first time.
I understand the open shirt when Levy was young, and even when he was middle-aged. But now?
Duuuuuuuuude.
I wonder how many maids are in his immediate past.
He tasks me! He tasks me, and I shall have him! I'll chase him round the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up!
Prepare to alter course!
Captain Ahab: "My lawyers will be calling on your lawyers, Mr. Singh."
I understand the open shirt when Levy was young, and even when he was middle-aged. But now?
What the fuck is up with the Latin bashing? I will not bow down to your stodgy Anglo-Saxon manner and way. There will be no compromise. We are not all rapist frogs wearing open shirts. The rest of us are rapist dagos wearing open shirts.
I don't care if I have to dye the luxurious chest rug when I'm seventy, the shirts stays open for all time.
"Ah haff dun worse than keel yew, Kirk. Ah haff RAPED yew!"
Steve!!!!
"Well, that's one way to clean out your Jefferies Tube."
Shut the fuck up, faggot!
"He's rolling over and playing dead, Jim."
Oh, my!
When it comes to philosophy one should always remember that the words mean the love of knowledge, its really that simple. This dimwit does not love knowledge, he is just using dumb sophistry to defend his friends.
Can't somebody shut that sniveling howler up already?
I don't speak french... but I'm sure there's a cute french expression for "irrational self-righteous indignation"/"vain presumption of the supreme primacy of one's opinion no matter how non-sensical"
Fuck, they probably already have a single *word* for it. e.g. "French"
DSK apparently crudely tried to put the moves on two female concierges at the hotel the day before, and made a pass/comments to the Air France flight attendant on the plane as he was trying to flee the country. That is commitment.
Bob Dole thinks he'd better stop gobbling these things like friggin' Pez. Bob Dole doesn't want to end up doing The Bitch Dance with Steve Smith some lonely Wednesday night, at Riker's Island.
I missed the opportunity to see Zevon perform live in Fort Worth in '00.
Worst. Decision. Ever.
I, of course, consider rape and attempted rape as crimes.
""....However, upon further consideration, you should all just shut up and stop criticising your betters!"
In honor of the memory of J sub D:
"Levy, go fuck yourself."
His hair was perfect.
Dominique ?galit?
guillotine could make a comeback
Just because a jackass arrogant frenchman is right doesn't mean you have to take the opposite position.
The so-called rape that happened in the hotel is most likely a setup and hard enough to prove anyway.
Just because a jackass arrogant frenchman is right doesn't mean you have to take the opposite position.
hmm. Maybe you're on to something there. Can we beat him up anyway?
Assuming that there is a male equivalent to feminists--malists?--I suppose they go around saying that all rape is sex. Like feminists go around saying that all sex is rape.
So, from the malist point of view, no crime was probably committed.
True, when's the last time a powerful male politician attempted to coerce sex from one of his inferiors?
The so-called rape that happened in the hotel is most likely a setup and hard enough to prove anyway.
He was a man of power!
Oh wait, this one is hard for me.
Most embarrassing French philosopher...uhhh...that's a damned crowded field. Are you sure you want to stick to that choice?
No one beats Helene Cixous in the silly french philosophers department.
But that's just me perpetuating the phallogocentric discourse again.
I should have specified "living."
I've fleshed out my theory on what happened, which I know Tulpa will disagree with but here goes:
Turns out there's a subgenre of porn devoted to guys who have fantasies of being interrupted nude by hotel maids. What's more, the Sofitel maids are dressed in "French maid" outfits, only not as sexy as the halloween costumes.
So, DSK, probably a voracious consumer of porn, arrives at this hotel and is titillated by the appearance of the maids. He propositions a couple of staff members hoping to get one alone in his room, unsucessfully.
Few days later, as he knows he's about to be departing, and still unsucessful at bedding any of the staff, he decides to hang out in his hotel room past checkout time, in order to surprise the maid. He checks out on the TV automated system and then hangs out in the bathroom naked, knowing that a maid will soon arrive. When she comes in he sneaks up behind her naked and grabs her breasts, whispering "You are beautiful" in her ear.
After various chasing around the apartment, attempts at removing her clothes, and so on, he threatens to complain to management that she walked into his suite while he was naked, and use his influence to get her fired unless she performs oral sex.
Being a minimum wage earner with a teenage daughter in New York, she's scared enough of getting fired, plus scared enough of what else he might do that she submits to this. Then she runs off before he can shove some money at her and tell her to keep her mouth shut.
He then runs out to have lunch, leaving his cell phone and other items behind. Nevertheless, confident the maid won't talk anyway, at least not before he gets on his plane, he composes himself, has lunch and tells the hotel where he is (at the airport) when they call him later.
I'm generally with this theory, except:
When she comes in he sneaks up behind her naked and grabs her breasts, whispering "You are beautiful" in her ear.
Would have been said in French. Other than that, color me convinced.
I think the fact that he's accused of things other than simply forcing oral sex (such as forced anal intercourse) makes the situation a little more complicated. This is more than a simple "blow job or no job."
Theory doesn't explain the blood-stained hotel bed sheets taken into evidence by the NYPD.