IMPress Polly
07-31-2013, 08:51 AM
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of of New York has rapidly assembled a robust list of supporters for her proposal to remove the policing of sexual assault cases from the military's chain of command and to give that authority instead to an independent military prosecutor. Her coalition includes an unlikely alliance of many of my favorite Senators (e.g. Bernie Sanders of my native Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Barbara Boxer of California) and some of those I like the least (e.g. Ted Cruz of Texas and David Vitter of Louisiana. Even Rand Paul of Kentucky, to one's great surprise, has gotten on board. The support of Cruz and Paul is particularly stunning considering that those two earlier this same year were part of a group of just four U.S. Senators who not only voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, but also to propose that it was unconstitutional (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/06/1548961/meet-the-four-republican-senators-who-think-the-violence-against-women-act-is-unconstitutional/). Why they've suddenly decided that they care about sexual abuse victims is beyond me unless it in some way relates to their urges to chip away at the military. Anyway, the number of Senators supporting the legislation has grown from 30 as of July 12th to 44 as of this date (out of 100, of course). It appears it may be possible to assemble a majoritarian, bi-partisan coalition to get this done. (The latter part is important to preventing a filibuster. A filibuster would effectively require that the bill have 60 votes to pass the Senate. Without a filibuster, only 51 would be required and it looks like we're nearly there.)
Anyone who has followed my posts for very long knows where I stand on this matter: I completely support this effort. Rape and sexual assault are epidemic and rapidly growing problems in the U.S. military at present. The number of sexual assaults in the military, for example, rose from 19,000 in 2011 to 26,000 in 2012, which means that over one-third of women in the military experience it, as compared with one-fifth of American women more broadly. Women in the military are more likely to be raped by one of their "comrades" than they are to be killed in combat despite the fact that we're (wrongly, IMO) at war. These large and rapidly growing numbers are consequential of a culture wherein rape is considered normal and acceptable and the victims are the ones who usually get punished: The military itself estimates that just a small, single-digit fraction of assailants get convicted, whereas 62% of those who report being sexually assaulted say they experience official retaliation for doing so. (So much for the "zero tolerance policy" myth!) No wonder the overwhelming majority of victims, so the military itself estimates, don't bother reporting what happened to them! The victims themselves are the ones demanding that the military's self-policing authority on this issue be removed because they don't trust the chain of command. As I've said before, in any area of social life, self-policing is non-policing. It doesn't happen. And in a self-policing institution built on a foundation of violence and almost exclusively composed of men, could we honestly expect that sexual abuse WOULDN'T be rampant? (You could probably sense my conceptual disdain for militaries in general just there.) This problem is only going to keep getting worse unless and until action is taken to separate these cases from the military's chain of command.
Senator Gillibrand, though not part of the advance guard of progressive Senators (duly note, for example, the extent of support her 2012 election campaign was given by Wall Street), has nonetheless earned a reputation for being the Senate's principal leader on women's issues, having gone as far as to form a feminist organization of her own -- Off the Sidelines (http://www.offthesidelines.org/home) -- aimed at electing women to governing positions and passing legislation advancing the cause of gender equality. I support her in these efforts. She was interviewed on the subject of her proposed legislation on military sexual assault cases last night on the PBS News Hour. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/military_07-30.html) I'd recommend checking out what she had to say.
Anyone who has followed my posts for very long knows where I stand on this matter: I completely support this effort. Rape and sexual assault are epidemic and rapidly growing problems in the U.S. military at present. The number of sexual assaults in the military, for example, rose from 19,000 in 2011 to 26,000 in 2012, which means that over one-third of women in the military experience it, as compared with one-fifth of American women more broadly. Women in the military are more likely to be raped by one of their "comrades" than they are to be killed in combat despite the fact that we're (wrongly, IMO) at war. These large and rapidly growing numbers are consequential of a culture wherein rape is considered normal and acceptable and the victims are the ones who usually get punished: The military itself estimates that just a small, single-digit fraction of assailants get convicted, whereas 62% of those who report being sexually assaulted say they experience official retaliation for doing so. (So much for the "zero tolerance policy" myth!) No wonder the overwhelming majority of victims, so the military itself estimates, don't bother reporting what happened to them! The victims themselves are the ones demanding that the military's self-policing authority on this issue be removed because they don't trust the chain of command. As I've said before, in any area of social life, self-policing is non-policing. It doesn't happen. And in a self-policing institution built on a foundation of violence and almost exclusively composed of men, could we honestly expect that sexual abuse WOULDN'T be rampant? (You could probably sense my conceptual disdain for militaries in general just there.) This problem is only going to keep getting worse unless and until action is taken to separate these cases from the military's chain of command.
Senator Gillibrand, though not part of the advance guard of progressive Senators (duly note, for example, the extent of support her 2012 election campaign was given by Wall Street), has nonetheless earned a reputation for being the Senate's principal leader on women's issues, having gone as far as to form a feminist organization of her own -- Off the Sidelines (http://www.offthesidelines.org/home) -- aimed at electing women to governing positions and passing legislation advancing the cause of gender equality. I support her in these efforts. She was interviewed on the subject of her proposed legislation on military sexual assault cases last night on the PBS News Hour. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/military_07-30.html) I'd recommend checking out what she had to say.