Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Binders of Women--on polygamous compounds--sanctioned statutory rape

Oh my God! I just remembered Big Love, the HBO series about a polygamous Mormon family hiding in plain sight.

The papa, played by Bill Paxton, is from a polygamous compound ruled by a tyrannical "father" (Harry Dean Stanton). There are, in fact, binders of women. Girls coming of age are  cataloged in a 3-ring notebook, through which the funky, ugly, nasty, male polygamists paw.  In exchange for political favors, or simply because it is their due, they choose wives and more wives (sister wives). Sanctioned, accepted statutory rape.

Yes, Big Love is a TV show, but this is a bit of a coincidence, me thinks. That reference to "binders of women" morphs from awkward to creepy to sinister.

Romney's father was born a year after my father. My background memories from my grandfather are the motherland of Russia, blended mysticism of the Caucasus Mountains, and the Cossacks being not so nice to Jews. On my mother's side: farming, Sweden, hardship, humor, good Lutheran propriety.  All that is part of me, as polygamy and cynicism toward women are part of Mitt.

2 comments:

  1. Sarah, very pertinent post.

    Those polls over recent months that had the Saint of the Sacred Underwear scoring so well with women had me scratching my humble pedestrian head -- the side of it that's left after a rampant motorist blasted-off the other side just outside the house six months ago (she explained to the cops she'd just had the impulse to jump in the car and get some gas, as the prices looked so darned good -- though maybe after next month, once the last remaining bits of the polar ice caps have been torn off to facilitate drilling, the prices will look even better... if only she'd have had a bit of patience hid away in a secret pocket of her brain-cell binder...).

    Still let's give that man with the binders full of women due credit. For one thing, it's rumoured he keeps the binders well hid in the glove box of one of his wife's Caddies... though it's never easy to remember which one... but then don't they all look the same in the dark of the Holy Underground Parking Vault?)

    And too, that lucky wife of his was part of the programme in destroying the jobs of all those people who once worked at the auto parts plants forced out of business when the Saint outsourced the entire auto parts industry to China through his chum the hedge fund Vulture King Singer. Flipping houses, flipping businesses, flipping industries, it's all part of the new Saintliness. But hey, isn't this country all about making a killing?

    "Other GOP presidential hopefuls chased [Paul] Singer's endorsement, but Mitt chased Singer with his own checkbook, investing at least $1 million with [Singer's] Elliott [Management] through Ann Romney's blind trust (it could be far more, but the Romneys have declined to disclose exactly how much). Along the way, Singer gained a reputation, according to Fortune, "for strong-arming his way to profit." That is certainly what happened at Delphi [formerly Delco Auto Parts div. of GM]...

    Painful as it may be to consider stories like this, maybe we ought to get used to a future in which seeing through such stories (like seeing through bloody windshields) will be the only way to see anything.

    Romney's Bailout Bonanza

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  2. Tom, I'm so sorry about your accident. You're alive. There's that? Yeah, every day more is unearthed about Mitt, his wealth, his roots, his wealth's roots. Be well, wellish, like, better. ... Sarah

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