Here’s an interesting article:
Not proof of Cosby’s innocence of course, but the article does provide factual evidence of how certain women may cooperate and collude with each other in order to manufacture seemingly convincing evidence containing vivid details of non-existent rapes.
This article does none of this. It details how the story one woman told could not be corroborated. At worst, one woman lied to a reporter who did not accurately check her story. There was no manufactured evidence and there is still a very good possibility that a rape did happen. Given the way the victim is being treated and the fact that she asked to have the story killed, I would not be surprised to hear that she deliberately changed details. In any case, even assuming that she is a liar and completely manufactured the story, this is far different from multiple women previously unknown to each other all coming forward with similar stories from different times and locations. One woman lying about a rape does not equal cooperation or collusion.
The victim manufactured the details and the reporter colluded by acquiescing to her request not to interview the alleged perpetrators and by not investigating to see if her story held up…the same thing the fraternity itself did in refuting her claims.
And are you really saying that after the claimant had been raped she just randomly decided to shift the blame to a college and fraternity that had nothing to do with it? Given the potential and actual repercussions I think that’s a pretty shitty thing to do. It condemns totally innocent people and entities and lets the actual rapist go scot free, potentially to rape again.
Neither of the people responsible for that story have any excuse for the damage they’ve done.
This may be one of the few things we agree on.
First, the reporter has no excuse for going forward with this story without due diligence and should be help accountable to the damage done to the reputation of the fraternity or to those suspected of these actions.
Second, the “victim” should also be held accountable for false accusations unless she is able to come forward with any more verifiable details. She apparently is either a very messed up young woman or did actually go through some trauma that greatly affected her but there is just no excuse for false allegations.
I don’t know what if anything happened in this case but I do know that these two women have just made it less likely that any subsequent accusers will be believed which is a very bad thing for any women who have actually been raped and are considering coming forward.
Meanwhile-Bill Cosby is still scum (maybe not technically a rapist but still pretty scummy).
Exactly. As is so often the case, Starving Artist’s post tells us more about the writer and his analytical “abilities” than about the issue itself.
To be sure, there are some very important and troubling problems connected with the University of Virginia story published by Rolling Stone, but unsurprisingly, Starving Artist looked straight beyond the important issues in order to jump to stupid and unsustainable conclusions.
The article linked does indeed call into question important aspects of the Rolling Stone story about alleged rape at the University of Virginia, and suggests that the journalist in question engaged in some rather problematic investigatory practices.
It does not, of course, provide any “factual evidence” of collusion “in order to manufacture seemingly convincing evidence”; in fact, it doesn’t yet demonstrate that evidence has been manufactured at all. Nor does it demonstrate that, whatever the problems with the Rolling Stone story, the rape did not occur. It does offer some claims made by the fraternity, arguing that story of the alleged rape is inconsistent with the fraternity’s own records, but offers no evidence to support those claims except the fraternity’s own statement.
To be honest, i’m not sure what to make of the whole story at the moment. It’s very problematic to publish a story without giving all sides a chance to tell their side. Even if the woman in question asked the Rolling Stone journalist not to talk to the alleged rapists, the journalist probably should not have acceded to that request, or at the very least should have been more clear in the story itself that this was only one side. The bad journalistic practices, however, don’t mean that the woman herself is lying about the rape, and nor do the claims of the fraternity actually disprove anything yet.
Of course, no-one will be surprised that Starving Artist accepts without question the word of the fraternity, and “interprets” it as conclusive evidence, while dismissing out of hand the word of the woman in question. It’s a perfect measure of his approach to debate and discussion and critical reason.
It’s also an example of a more general trend among apologists for sexual violence: every case where a claim of rape is called into question reaffirms, in their minds, the more general duplicity and dishonesty of women, and yet the cases where there is clear and obvious evidence of rape never serve to balance the scale in favor of taking rape allegations seriously and accepting that they might be true even if there is not always evidence sufficient to sustain them in a court of law. And, more generally, when weight of testimony and allegations lies in favor of believing the allegation (as in the Cosby case), they ignore the weight, but when the weight of testimony evidence lies against believing the allegation (as in the UVA case), they place all possible emphasis on that weight.
Well said.
Well said maybe but off the mark, as is usually the case with those of the hang-em-from-the-yardarm mentality.
No one in this thread is apologizing or making excuses for rapists. :rolleyes:
What they (we) are doing is saying that many of the accusations are either implausible, laughably exaggerated into something they clearly weren’t, and that evidence exists that some of it may be a money grab. All of this is unquestionably true and pointing it out does not make us fans of rape or those who commit it.
The tendency of lynch mob types to condemn people based on nothing but accusations – and as we’ve seen in the case of Joe Paterno and Woody Allen, to jump to erroneous conclusions and invent wrongful behaviors that never existed – is not only wrong on its own merit but dangerous to society as well.
Whoa boy.
The fact that Woody Allen never legally adopted Soon Yi Previn does not alter the fact that he was involved in a family situation in which Soon Yi was a minor member.
It is a grim brand of tunnel vision to state that Paterno was in the dark regarding the sexual deviance and patterns of Sandusky.
It is not surprising that you are defending either of these highly dysfunctional individuals. Your defense of them does not equal innocence of either of them.
It’s unquestionably true that most of these accusations are not implausible, and there’s no evidence that most of them are “laughably exaggerated”, and there’s no evidence that most of them are money grabs in any way. Whatever you’re pointing out doesn’t apply to most of the accusations against Cosby.
As far as JoePa, the accusation – that JoePa had enough information to be suspicious that child-rape might have occurred, but prioritized other things (legacy, reputation, etc.) over confirming this and preventing any possible future child-rape – is based on very solid evidence and reporting.
I saw a story on the news a couple days ago that the authorities in LA were going to investigate despite the statute having run. It specifically referred to the likelihood of civil action…apparently to assist in that regard.
Is that common?
That story is in reference to a 15 year old who he raped.
There is no statute of limitations on rape when a minor is involved.
I pray the LAPD doesn’t cave under Hollywood pressure and instead does an exhaustively complete investigation.
The assault in question is alleged to have occurred in 1974. Forty years ago. The age of consent in CA at the time was 16, so she may come in just under the wire.
There are other problems with the case - her demands for larger and larger sums of money to buy her silence.
I’m assuming that she had enough self-respect to avoid sleeping with Cosby after this, but many of the others did, so who knows?
In fact, the LAPD is under public pressure to pursue this case even though it’s almost impossible that anything will come from it.
Wow - really? There is actual written evidence of Joe Paterno meeting with another staffer deciding what to do about allegations that a kid was molested in 2001 - originally they were going to report it - then they decided not to.
Please explain how this is “just allegations”
“Just allegations” is me saying “Starving Artist stole my canary”
In this case there is much more than just allegations - these are women that we KNOW he knew, know he has been with, at least two of them have careers in entertainment and have had their 15 minutes of fame, and don’t need money.
Yes plenty of these women have a past - some may have been high. Have you ever been high? If so - did you ever imagine Bill Cosby was raping you? Or anyone else for that matter? Women are often targeted just for this very reason. Sometimes illegal immigrants as well - anything that makes the attacker think that she will be less likely to go to the police.
There are false reports of rape - I’m not aware of a single case where this many women have come forward where it was later proven to be false.
In some cases - I think people probably were wrongly prosecuted/investigated. I am not convinced - for example - that Michael Jackson did anything illegal with those kids. Despite this - there is nothing wrong when people heard the reports of him sleeping with Children - saying “I’m done with this guy - that’s wrong”. There is nothing wrong with others saying - I like him. No one is arguing Bill Cosby should go to jail without a trial.
Plenty of decisions made in life are done without court. You have 17 parents come into a school and say “Mr so an so” molested my kid - they will fire him even before trial (not sure with the whole union thing - but he won’t be at work).
Bill Cosby made jokes about giving women Spanish fly
He has used his lawyers to intimidate women and the press
He actually sold out his own daughter and gave info for a story on her drug use in exchange for dropping one about his rapes
One of his fixers from NBC came forward talking about how he would pay off women
He has made no effort to respond to the accusations
He settled with at least one woman in court
I realize the last two aren’t alone PROOF of anything, but taken taken with everything else - you have too be really optimistic to believe he hasn’t done anything.
Still shouldn’t serve a day in jail unless convicted, but there is nothing wrong with people saying he did even if he never went to trial.
I’m just guessing here, but it don’t think many in Hollywood are on his side…
I’m watching a CNN special with Don Lemon and 5 of the Cosby accusers. Holy fuck Bill. You are an absolute fucking despicable asshole. There’s no reason NOT to believe these women and the story is so damned consistent and always including drugging.
It makes me sick.
I’m going to reiterate what I said a few posts back: at this point you can pretty much stick a fork in Cosby. Even if he were to succesfully fight off some allegations he actually gets a chance to (because of passage of time and the like some others may have become effectively unfalsifiable and he can’t do anything with them), his position in general public esteem would never truly be restored. Businesses and institutions distancing themselves from him, and seeing his legacy sullied at this stage in life, may be pain enough to inflict, if there is some sort of score to settle. And it does look like some people have a score to settle. There’s *something * they want him to feel the heat for. Some people may think it’s not a valid thing to score for settling, or that he made up for it otherwise, but it’s not going away.
We will never know if, had counsel allowed a “say it ain’t so!” moment earlier in the process, would more people not still remain on the fence waiting to hear what he had to say in his own defense.
This is like finding out Alan Alda or maybe Mr. Rogers were serial rapists. It’s that bad.
And this is, to me at least, why it all feels “unfair”.
I want to see rapists punished
I enjoy seeing scumbags get their “just desserts”
We should never enable or allow the sort of bullying that has been alleged
The flip side is though - Cosby has no prospect of a fair and full defence against these claims - they might be true, there might be exaggerations, there might be mitigation after 40 years we have no real prospect of getting the “truth” - or even a full and fair balanced account (unless, there is something written / recorded somewhere we haven’t seen yet)
I read the article that stands as corroboration - with the male friend having “rescued” one of the complainants from Cosby’s house - and (to me) it does nothing at all to verify the core complaints.
Yes it’s sad. If only he were a well beloved millionaire. Then maybe he could get his side of the story out there.
Now I know how the Brits felt when all the revelations about Jimmy Savile came out.