How Many Knuckles of a Fingering

The fifty year old man who had his finger knuckle-deep in a ten year old girl is found “not guilty” of rape in the Sweden’s Courty-Court (Hovrätten).

Oh, no, the question wasn’t whether or not the man had had his finger up her hoohaa. That’s beyond doubt to the court. The question was whether or not he’d had it deep enough to constitute rape. At least according to four out of five judges in the case.

This verdict has been… shocking. To the media. To the public. And not least of which to the Swedish legal system. As it stands, at the time of writing, the perpetrator stands freed of all charges, where he had previously been sentenced to three years in jail for rape by the first instance of Swedish law, the County Court (Tingsrätt). But now, right this second, the man is technically innocent.

The verdict came by the reasoning that the ten year old girl, the prepubescent mind you, didn’t use the “correct” word to describe her vagina. The word the girl used, “snippa”, technically refers to a woman’s outer genitalia, and not the inside of it. Despite the fact that the girl made a demonstration, of sorts, to the court of how much of the man’s finger had been inside her.

This is… upsetting. Frustrating, sure enough. Infuriating, understandably. And taken at face value, it is a fucking travesty. A miscarriage of justice, as they say…

But… this sort of legal dumbfuckery isn’t unheard of. The Swedish courts are divided in three. All cases that are heard first pass through stage one, the county courts (Tingsrätt), where a case is judged and most often that’s the end of it. Sometimes, when a ruling is protested, the case can wander up to the Courty-Court (Hovrätt). Who make their own judgements. And sometimes, they judge a case so anal-retentively that absolutely no one is happy with the ruling. Only to force the case up to the last rung of the ladder. The Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen). A court designed to either set legal precedent, or, on occasion, make it perfectly clear that the way the law is written (by politicians) is too fucking dumb for the courts to make use of it.

This is, sometimes, how it goes. And the courts are too opaque about this process for the public to know until afterwards. And seeing as careers are made and broken by the noise such a circus generates, it is only natural that every pundit and “expert” from here to Abisko will want to have their say to drum up a storm and stink.

But these storms only roars because of a prime misconception about our judiciary system. Namely; that people believe that the law dictates what is right and what is wrong. That the courts are a moral arbitrator, awarded the responsibility to guide the population in lieu of religion to lead righteous lives.

But it is not. That has never been the courts’ responsibility. That’s what the marketing says, of course, because we’re supposed to obey the Law like good little citizens as if the word was given from on up high (and not from the populist ass-hat politicians of the government). More often than not, the Courts themselves think the Law is dumb as bricks, and sometimes they make a fuss just like this to make a point.

The Law is not a moral compass. The Law is not stone tablets, carved by heavenly lightning. The Law is a sickly homunculi, cobbled together by deranged monkeys in a gilded zoo. The Law is written to impose Order. No, I’m sorry, not even Order with a capital O, but just plain garden-variety order. The sort of order that you switch out more often than your morning cereal. A favourite jar of marmalade is switched out less often than the order imposed by The Law. An order that seeks to control people to the highest extent it can get away with, in the greatest detail it can conceive, because as it turns out, its just another set of crazed monkeys out there who elected the ones into the gilded zoo to begin with. People are too dumb and unruly to rule themselves. If they were not, we would need no imposed order, and no Law.

Right and wrong, moral refinement; that is a conundrum for dead philosophers. Not for a mad public, a populist parliament, and especially not for the appointed courts. But that’s not what the narrative tells us. So when once upon a midnight dreary, the Law demonstrably fails, when it commits something so obviously Wrong, some people act is if the Gods themselves have shat the bed. When in fact it may just be the mechanics having hawked a loogie into the overly complicated cogs of kitchen cabinet-grade order, just to try and make their overseers notice that something’s wrong.

/Sebastian Lindberg 28/2-2023

A Rapist’s Free Pass

So, Bill Cosby’s free. That happened. Despite the fact that he’s a convicted sexual predator and rapist, according to a jury of his peers. Despite the fact that he was sentenced to jail by a court of law. And so is a conviction overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, rubbing out one of the #MeToo-movement’s largest milestones.

How the fuck did that happen? A court decided that he was guilty of drugging-then-raping a certain Andrea Constand. That’s not hearsay or vilification; a court of law found that that happened. The other 60-some accusers that have fingered Cosby as a rapist and sexual abuser since the 60’s haven’t been tried, and as such, aren’t validated through the legal process. But the Constand case was. And yet…

The overturn was due to a loop-hole, really. Some of the evidence at the trial (an admission by Cosby himself that he’d bought drugs for the explicit purpose of drugging women to fuck them) had been gathered under the expressed promise by a then-prosecutor that it wouldn’t be used against Cosby. So now, the conviction has been erased, Cosby’s free, and prosecutors can’t use the Constand-case to get at Cosby again.

Which sounds fucky as all hell, right?! I mean, aside from the slue of sexual allegations against Cosby… aside from the dozens of accusers saying that he raped or abused them… aside from the fact that he’s admitted on the legal record to buying drugs to knock women the fuck out… aside from the fact that he’s been denied parole for failing to make an effort to deserve it, even though he’s been in jail for his minimum sentence… he’s still out with the blessing of the courts.

A person, a convicted rapist and allegedly sexual serial predator, with enough accusers for more than one a week for a year, gets a free pass because his admittance to the heinous crime was given under the pretence of immunity. A pretence given under the kindergarten-mentality of the “promise that you won’t tell mum!”-clause.

The #MeToo-movement had its moments, both highs and lows, during it’s short time on stage. So far, few convictions have been made (Cosby and Weinstein being perhaps the most prominent, along with the enablers Epstein and Ghislaine), but plenty of allegations have been levied and people hunted by the court of public opinion. But here we had a case, one of those vaunted untouchables, who actually admitted to acquiring drugs for some date-rapin’, and criminal legal system just opened the door for him because someone, at one point, promised him that it was okay and that they wouldn’t nail him for admitting that he was a rapist.

And yet they would like to try and convince us that we should trust the legal justice system. That we should keep our faith in the court of law and due process. Here’s the rub though… if you’re to be believed, if we’re to have faith in the courts, then we should believe you when you concluded that Cosby is a rapist. Because the verdict wasn’t overturned; only the sentence. That Cosby belongs in jail, and that he shouldn’t be let out on parole because he’s shown no signs of owning his past crimes. And yet… you go against your own decree and let the fucker out.

When a court of law, when a legal justice system, acts like this, I’ll tell you what: It is not the public’s faith in the system that’s found wanting. It’s the system itself.

/Sebastian Lindberg 6/7-2021

Hating Your Heroes

This week turned out to be one of the saddest weeks for global freedom of speech yet this year. Not only because the Ecuadorian Embassy in London opened its doors and sold an asylum-granted refugee (and let me add betraying one of its own citizens) for an IMF loan. Not only because the London Metropolitan police stormed the Ecuadorian Embassy to arrest one of the greatest journalists of our time. Not even only because the Orange Hydra administration spared not a second to demand that Assange be extradited to the US to face conspiracy charges (something that they have always denied wanting to do).

No, the frosting upon this shit sandwich that really topped the bill, was the vitriol from both sides of the US political fence that was spewn at an editor in chief of one of the most potent journalistic outlets since print was made obsolete.

From out of the American woodwork crawled all kinds. From supremacists Trumpists, to militants from the rabid Hillary army, to Russiagate supporters that seem to want to bring back the McCarthy days of US discourse. All in an effort to smear, demonize, and diminish the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.

And while there are many things to be said about Assange’s part in uncovering US war crimes and corruption, about his work toward information transparency, and the national taboos or crimes he may have committed to provide us with insight, I won’t. Not now. His fourteen human rights and journalism awards speak to the credit of his work. His criminal status the world over speaks to it likewise. I will, instead, take time to examine the arguments against the man.

Argument #1: That he’s a rapist. That he’s a misogynist. An epitaph that is levied against him to vilify him as a sludge of a person. As a cretinous monster that needs to be stamped out, and no matter his awards or contribution, he should be shunned.

The global manhunt for Assange began as Sweden initiated a rape case against the man. But judging from the scant information on the Swedish prosecutions case against him that we have available to us, the case seems flimsy. At best. The prosecution has changed the classification of the case many times, but it has most often revolved around sexual misconduct and rape. Even though reports show that neither of the two allegedly raped women seems to have held much of a grudge against the man. Reports paint them as having had casual sexual encounters with Assange, and then left amicably. Until they started trying to get in touch with him due to STD suspicions.

But… having careless sex isn’t rape if it’s consensual. Nor are sexual mistakes. Which leaves us wondering… just how did the Swedish prosecution come to declare a man, that had made himself an enemy of the most influential empire in the western world, a rape suspect? Seems suspect in itself. Even more so, considering that the Swedish prosecution has changed the classifications several times. Not to mention that no suspected rapist in Swedish history has incited a manhunt of this magnitude.

Argument #2: That he’s a criminal. Pure and simple. That he has broken American law by aiding, abetting, and possibly involving himself, in the hacking of top secret government digital archives. That he worked together with Chelsea Manning, and thus made of himself an accomplice.

But Assange isn’t a US citizen. Assange wasn’t in the US when he allegedly helped break into American databases. So why should he be tried in the US? A sovereign state has no right to simply steal away foreign citizens unless a crime has been perpetrated upon their land. There’s little precedent of extraditing people for digital crimes, but what would the US say if… for example, a US citizen on a US internet connection, defamed and insulted Chinese Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping? The Chinese police state has made it clear that insulting their grand emperor is a punishable offence. But wouldn’t the very notion of delivering one of their own into Chinese hands seem absurd? It is simply mind-boggling for anyone blessed to live outside of American borders to consider how western sovereign nations barely even bat an eye at such an affront to international law.

Assange is a criminal in the UK, because he split bail there. That’s an easy fix. Assange is a suspect in Sweden, because of an equally suspect rape case. Both of those crimes, alleged and otherwise, were committed on UK and Swedish soil respectively. But Assange never committed a crime on American soil…

Argument #3: He’s not a real journalist. So press freedom concerns don’t apply to the persecution of him. This one goes hand-in-hand with the McCarthyist arguments that he’s a Russian spy. A stooge of neo-Russian influence on American politics. As if the US needed a foreign power to destabilize them. They do so well on their own.

But being a journalist isn’t a protected title. At least not in Sweden, where this absurd manhunt began. A journalist doesn’t have any more authority to dig up information or talk to people than any random citizen does. Maybe matters differ in the US, where politics seem to rule the journalistic landscape to such an extent that the Hydra occupying the White House has weaponized his patron news outlet, Fox News, to wage a propaganda war on his opposition. Going so far as to incite violence on rival members of congress.

The truth is that world wide, you are a journalist if you do journalistic work. And seeing the many journalism awards given to Julian Assange, he is more of a journalist than most accredited ones. And as for being a Russian stooge, let us carry on to the next point…

Argument #4: Assange, and anyone supporting him, is a Russian instigator. Simply for the fact that they act anti-American.

I don’ know how else to tell you this, but… you don’t have to support the Putinocracy of revived Tsarist Russia to disapprove of the US way of things. It is not Russian double agents that make the US commit war crimes on a weekly basis. It is not Russian doppelgängers in your midst that are sending your nation free-falling into civil war. It is not Russian influence that has soured the international community in your disfavour. The US is doing all of that on its own.

Even domestic favourites like Joe Biden has proven himself to be a standard molded bully in international matters. He’s even bragged about it. Even democratic darling Obama signed death warrants on US citizens without them being judged by a court of their peers. The US has been circling the drain on acceptable domestic and international etiquette for years. Decades even.

The reason that Assange has spent most of his career looking at your dirty secrets is not because of Russian patronage. It’s because you have a lot of them. A lot of very, very, very, very nasty secrets. Because you have been a very, very, very, very naught nation for a very long time now.

Argument #5, the sweet spot: That Assange is a misogynist and a white supremacist. The reason for which I can only suss out is that people blame him for bricking Hillary in the last days of the 2016 campaign. Because he had a hand in the Hydra gaining the White House.

Never in the same breath though, do I hear self-reflection from these rabid Hillarists, that she wasn’t a good candidate. That she was just as dirty as the rest of Capitol Hill. For as soon as you bring any criticism down on their sweet St. Hillary of the Pure of Heart and Just of Cause, any criticism whatsoever, be it true or false, they shall send self-righteous fury and vitriol down upon you. For as the US political climate has taken a steep turn for the gutter following their election of the Orange Hydra into office, you are either with them or against them.

I bet there’s plenty of valid criticism for the man Julian Assange. I bet people who know him have choice words to say. No one is perfect. Not even people that win awards in journalism. And it is no surprise that governments hate the man. He’s pissed on the porch of some of the world’s mightiest and thinnest skinned powers that the world has ever seen. But when I see private citizens, and million times worse yet; journalists, bashing the man for things blatantly untrue or yet unproven, it chills me to the bone.

For what I see when I look upon the fury some people levy against Assange, I only see one thing. I see We the People, wilfully banging the drums for their own subjugation. Doing the bidding of despots that wish nothing more than to impede on their rights and blindfold their citizenry with deceit and lies and nationalism. I see a people that vilify and spit on their own liberator, the very person that offers to unveil their heroes for the villains they truly are. And it breaks my heart…

/Sebastian Lindberg 16/4-2019

…And Iustitia Wept

That moment when the bastion of western civilization anointed a suspected rapist as the highest authority on right and wrong. The public rages, the gender war flares up, and politicians turn a blind eye, hiding behind the skirts of the sobbing lady of justice.

But this is nothing new. It is nothing shocking. The law, and the guardians thereof, has never been concerned with right and wrong. With morality. The law has always been about control. And what greater depiction of control is there than senators choosing a man despised by the public as their high judiciary.

It speaks volumes. It tells the people ”you have no voice”. It says ”the law stands apart from right and wrong”. It says plainly and frankly that no matter how democratic you claim to run your nation, the opinion of the public doesn’t matter. Not as far as the law of the land is concerned. Because the Law never regarded itself to be beholden to the electorate. The intention was never to allow people to chime in on what would be allowed and what would not.

Because the Law was always about controlling and subjugating the population of a nation. In America and elsewhere. And if you ever thought differently, then I should hope this will serve as a wake-up call. And I hope that you will never forget. Don’t let the deaf ears of the court, when the public marches and protests outside, pass into the vague mists of public memory. Don’t let that cold grip of the iron fist of legal authority, granting power over victims to a violent chauvinist, ever convince you that it’s a benevolent hand of protection. And never again tell yourself or others that the law is just and fair, codified morality, a politically blind tribunal.

Because this is not the face of moral authority and a clean conscience.

/Sebastian Lindberg 8/10-2018

The Man-Corral

The man-free festival in Gothenburg, a living testament to the vilification of half of the world’s population, came to a close a few weeks ago. And so far, no crimes have been reported by the attendees. Even the local cops, in chocked disappointment, concede that they haven’t as of yet received any reports of illicit activity.

Which, in accordance to the festival’s anti-scientific methodology, surprises absolutely fuck all. The event was designed for just that purpose; to prove that the problem in civil society is the ever presence of men. Ignoring the position that a festival would probably also be rape-free if women weren’t allowed. And now, the festival’s creative midwife Emma Knyckare, would prefer to completely bypass blaring warnings of confirmation bias, and flatly conclude the event as a resounding success for non-men everywhere.

The whole thing started of as a giggle. Knyckare, and her government sponsored media employer, put time and effort into marketing the man-free festival. Men, monsters, and gender-traitors objected, claiming the pretence to be discriminatory. When the authorities made contact with Knyckare and her posse, the organizers seem to have lied, claiming that men were, despite marketing to the contrary, allowed in. The organizers didn’t want to answer journalistic curiosity about the discrepancy. But soon thereafter, Knyckare came up with the solution of a “man-pen”, where men that the festival couldn’t function without could be kept when their services weren’t immediately needed.

Men are rapist monsters. This is known to every ardent feminist. Crime statistics and the SCUM Manifesto has half-jokingly, reverently, apologetically, and sarcasticly been cited for this conclusion for decades. So why stop at man-free festivals? Why not aim a little larger and try to stamp out crime all together?

Never minding the concept of female penal institutions, and the fact that women (or trans people for that matter) patently commit as heinous violations of human decency as any man could.

Let us make society as man-free as we can. Let us revoke the driver’s license of men, so the other sexes won’t ever have to deal with road rage or the risk of automotive injury. Why not a curfew for men, so that they won’t be allowed to set foot on the streets after dark. Let us just turn back the clock on societal development and submerge our civilization in a vat of gender-swapped ancient-world hegemony.

That will solve everything.

/Sebastian Lindberg 25/9-2018

When Heroes Break

The #metoo-movement has had a bit of a week, hasn’t it? One of the original Harvey Weinstein accusers, Italian actress Asia Argento, was herself accused of sexual assault on a minor. And that’s so very inconvenient for an increasingly politicised movement of feminist empowerment.

It is hard to come to grips with supporting a victim that isn’t herself innocent. It’s hard to have a sinner as a figurehead. Victimization and innocence goes so well together. People are shit at nuanced perceptions of each other. And when you make a political movement all about the immaculate morals of a demographic of victims, it is so very, very hard to disassociate the cause from the often not-so-innocent humans at the head of it.

A big argument among the #metoo:ers has been that specifically men have been poorly taught how to act appropriately toward women. A few men tried to include themselves as victims of sexual harassment in the work place, but they were quickly booted out of the #metoo-movement by the more misandrist elements thereof. Men were supposed to be the villains. It was supposed to be a systemic issue of male predations, of women standing up against the amorphous patriarchy. If people would begin to nuance the subject, claim that sexual harassment wasn’t solely a gender-issue, but a people-issue, then maybe the more radical feminist side of the outrage would have to share the thunder. Then they would have to come to terms with the fact that women aren’t a priori morally superior to men. That women aren’t the only victims. And that women aren’t all innocent. And infinitely more important, that you can be both a sinner and a victim.

”An eye for an eye” is still a prevalent sentiment in the reptilian core of the human psyche. We’ll probably never be rid of it. People keep musing that rapists should be raped themselves. That child molesters should have their genitalia removed. Morbid, poetic, almost Dante-esque, punishments to sate our need for vindication.

So, now that it is coming to light that one of the originators of the #metoo-movement is a pedophile and child molester, would it make it less heinous that she was sexually assaulted herself by the monster Weinstein? Isn’t that what the public, what large parts of the #metoo-movement thinks? Isn’t that why feminists and activists come crawling out of the woodwork to try and defend their disgraced idols? Isn’t that why academics and professors have flocked to the aid of another accused sexual abuser, Avital Ronell, professor at NYU and prolific feminist and humanitarian writer, implying that Avital Ronell should be ”excused” for her sexual misconduct due to her sizeable academic work? Because a villain can’t be a victim, and you can’t let your cause be tarnished by the moral compromise when your heroes break.

This is all so very wrong. A victim does not have to be an innocent. Sexual abuse, or abuse of any other sort for that matter, does not only befall the saints and the virtuous. It’s always ugly. It is always an affront to our society whenever, wherever, and to whomever it happens. Be they men, or women, or molesters themselves.

For as long as you keep putting mere people up on a pedestal, politicise them to suit your agenda, you’re going to keep being disappointed. Because eventually, everyone becomes a victim. And no one is innocent.

/Sebastian Lindberg 28/8-2018

The Swedish Fuck-Receipt

In Sweden, if you want to stay safe from being prosecuted for rape, you’re going to need to get a written contract of consent from your sexual partner.

The ruling party-coalition in Swedish politics are currently in the effort of introducing a new law. It seems to be a revision of the law of sex-crimes, now stating that each participant needs the expressed consent for every unique act of sexual intercourse. Otherwise, you open yourself up to be branded a rapist.

According to the vice-prime minister (I didn’t even know we had one of those…), the new law is being hamfistedly introduced as a panicked band-aid against the #metoo-revolution that has cut a swathe through most professional circuits in Swedish society, from lawyers to actors. To stem the tide, and expressively intended to teach the male demographic how consent works, every participant now needs to give their unequivocal consent. And to have that consent admissible in a court of law, I can only assume that such consent needs to be written down. On a form of some sort.

Now, this may come as a surprise to some of you, seeing as I’m a straight man and thus pretty much public enemy number one these days, but I think rape is a bad thing. M’kay? One of the worst things, actually. Unlike murder, which simply destroys a person, rape can effectively damage and corrupt them beyond repair or recognition. A mutilation of the soul, if you will. And I think such mutilation is just about the worst you could do to another living creature.

That being said, this proposed law is silly. It is, specifically, this silly. Not to mention that the responsible politicians have made it clear that this law is intended to prosecute exclusively males, a demographical targeting which, as a footnote, shouldn’t be legal according to the Swedish constitution. We’ll have to wait and see if this new law affords all genders the same level of protection. But granted, such speculation is premature, even if the ministers sound explicit in their intended discrimination.

So, instead of speculating on what will come from this law, I will instead give you pointers on how to follow it, to the letter, and make sure that you don’t intentionally or unintentionally rape someone.

So, here’s what you need to consider when you get your Fuck-Receipts:

Until such a time that the state supplies them to you, print out your own schtup-certificates. Do not take your partner(s)’s word for it! Here-say is notoriously fickle in a court of law. Make sure you get consent in writing, signed and hand-written.

Make sure to diversify your copulation-release. Have unique forms for every kind of intercourse you wish to apply for; oral, anal, vaginal, etc.. Make sure to include a time-stamp for how long the consent for each activity is meant to last. Do not for a second think that if you get a “yes” once, that lasts forever, or the whole night for that matter. Remember children; assumptions lead to rape!

Be certain that your custom shag-voucher includes and inquires about any pre-existing injuries or infections. You wouldn’t want to be held accountable for any damages suffered during your scheduled woo-hoo-session.

And finally, never forget your hump-slips at home! Carry them with you at all times, like condoms, because you never want to get stranded at an orgy without at least a dozen. As soon as you feel a tug in your pecker or the swelling of your meat-sleeves, lob out your fornication-notice. Make sure that your intended fills out all the specifications with relevant information before you even consider to roll up your skirt or unshore your belt-buckle.

For too long has the art of flirting been left to poetic uncertainty and unintelligible slurs. Remember! From now on, legally verifiable consent is your responsibility!

/Sebastian Lindberg 19/12-2017