Anthony Weiner: Enough is Enough

Aside from the fact that I’m sick of hearing about Rep. Anthony Weiner’s sexting (and I think lots of other people are as well), the fact that his wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant really ought to be a siren call to end the media and political frenzy over the issue. It’s time for everybody to think about the effect that the continuing emotional distress of the whole situation will have on Ms. Abedin and the couple’s not yet born child. People who continue to create an atmosphere that is going to obviously inflict emotional distress on the mother and child should carefully consider whether that is going to cause physical harm as well; worst case scenario a miscarriage. I wouldn’t want to even contemplate having that on my conscience.

There are far worse examples of personal conduct that should be the subject of debate and discourse as well as far better examples. For instance:

• In 1972 the California Peace & Freedom Party put out an official party poster with the caption on the top reading, “For the Naked Truth” and at the bottom, “Peace & Freedom Party.” In the middle were candidates David Saxe and Sue Welte and her husband, naked from behind with their faces turned towards the camera. That was an appropriate campaign poster for a party which was then authentically radical.
• In 1974, PFP Candidate Elizabeth Keathley campaigned for Governor naked on Venice Beach to protest the ban on clothing optional areas at public beaches. She made a brilliant political point when the press asked her if this wasn’t ridiculous, explaining that if it was so ridiculous, why was it that nobody showed up at her press conference when she won the primary election, but when she took off her clothes in public they were all there.
• In 1978, I promised in a KMET FM radio commercial that if elected Lt. Governor, I would campaign naked on Venice Beach, Pirates’ cove, and Black’s Beach to similarly protest the ban on clothing optional areas.

Appropriate discourse about bad behavior is reflected in my previous blogs. For instance, Steve Orcutt’s bust for sex with an underage African American girl (14-15 years old) which in my opinion makes him a very poor pick for the post he holds as Chairperson of the Contra Costa County Central Committee of the Peace & Freedom Party, behavior that has been white-washed and defended by the state party’s leadership:

http://janbtucker.com/blog/2011/03/24/a-tale-of-3-sex-offenders/

The leadership cabal of PFP has engaged in a strange concoction of prudish behavior and overly tolerant behavior of sex crime at the same time, adding to some leaders’ penchant for hypocrisy. For example, a few years ago, my use of the terminology in a political statement of people being “oppressed, repressed, and generally f—-d over” was criticized as being outrageous. What’s funny about that critique is that I took the phrase right out of Lew McCammon’s leaflet (an official party publication from the early days of the party’s history) Why Peace and Freedom Party NOW. The prudish objection to my use of that phraseology demonstrates just how old and conservative many of PFP’s leaders have gotten in their bourgois retirement and isolation from younger and normal radical activists.

What is typical of this generation of tired PFP leaders with these attitudes is that they exemplify what French prime minister Georges Clemenceau described when he said, “A young man who is not a radical has no heart; an old man who is still a radical has no brain.” My response to Clemenceau and to the current PFP leadership cabal is, number one, Clemenceau was a sexist or else he’d have included women, but more importantly, you don’t have to turn in your heart to receive a brain.

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