The Best Defense: Attack
We live in times when certain forces around us, seen and unseen, defend themselves by attacking their assailants, real or imagined, by any means possible, and often by those means which we might consider not only underhand, but illegal. Illegality is, of course, something discerned by those in power, and not necessarily by the law books, by custom or any other means, including the law courts. There are enough examples of actions taken which have not only been widely condemned in the mass media and by the public, but ruled illegal by courts at all levels, and still ignored. The interested spectator need only take a quick glance at the United States of America, at Albania, at Serbia, at Brazil, and further, to find more than enough examples.
In Europe, as much as in what some care to call either the civilised or First World, such attacks where defense would be the normal approach are not unusual. They can be seen in courts of law where an astute, but less than civil or social defense lawyer calls a victim to the stand, and proceeds to rip their entire life to shreds. This is often the case with victims of rape, the destruction of the person who has had their life ruined, possibly permanently, in order to gain a lesser sentence or even a verdict of Not Guilty for a rapist whose life would otherwise be ruined. The man who has a promising career in front of him, the sportsman, the student, the son of a rich and influential family. We witness the character of a victim analyzed because of their clothing, the way they walk, the very fact that they are who they are and, even knowing that this is wrong on every single imaginable level, have not yet found a way to prevent such miscarriages of justice.
It is too often the case that those who should be punished for their actions are allowed the benefit of the doubt, despite clear proof of their guilt and the nature of their intentions, and set free back into society with barely a slap on their wrists, because their helpless victim was dressed for a good night out with friends. To protect the promising future of one person, such as a rapist, the victim is thrown to the wolves and, having already had their life destroyed by a physical attack, by violence and desecration of their very being, is left alone to face the shell of their own promising future.
Any sensible and even partially educated person can see the fault in what happens here, in these court cases, often in the mass media, as well as in social media. Calls are often loud for a change, so that such obscene attacks against victims cannot happen in the future, sadly with little change. There will always be a defense lawyer happy to attack the victim to protect and free a sexual predator, a rapist, a pedophile and return them to their families bosom and the often unwilling arms of society. Legislators are, sadly, no help, often more of a hindrance.
Today, in Europe, we see another example of attacking the defenseless to protect the predator. In this case it is big business, a business which has often been hauled before the courts and fined for its illegal actions. All this, sadly, has come to nothing, as the fines are often of such a low nature, so small compared to the income of these concerns, that it seems as if they can pay them out of the office coffee fund. The legislators in Europe are currently working on a new set of rules to protect children from the influences of social media giants, whose one interest is profit by any means. Once more it is the victim who is being called to the stand and ripped apart, rather than the predator. Children and young adults are being penalized in their social lives – admittedly purely online, but for some that is all they have – while the predators are allowed to continue as before. Rather than regulating the predator, the weak-minded and out-of-touch legislative process is targeting the victims.
It is to be hoped that, over the coming months, those massive social media predators will be taken to a just and painful judgment by the powers that be. Sadly, this will not be through legislation in Europe, or through the courts in the United States, or through the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. It will be through the work of countries such as Brazil, who have experienced the censorship and bias of certain social media giants at first hand during the recent elections. The disabling of the No Kings accounts, the disappearance of sites and pages dedicated to democracy and against the machinations of dictators in so-called democratic nations will not be actioned in those countries, where the predators are considered too big to fail, where they are at home in their safe headquarters and villas. Action will be taken on the streets, in the courts, through the legislative power of countries the major powers write off and attempt to subvert.
And one day, perhaps sooner than many might expect, the victims of these predators – whether they be social media giants or politicians – will rise and protect their own futures on the streets, through the ballot boxes, and into the highest echelons of those protected realms. And it will not be a day too soon.
