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Hi, I’t me Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien here. I have a lot to say so please bear with me but first, thank you so much, herecomesthesun and everybody else for your kind words. They mean so, so much to me. I was just thinking about the time I asked Al Gore about Juanita Broaddrick because it was eight years ago on Friday.
In February of that year,1999, I had seen The Dateline NBC interview Braoddrick gave to Lisa Myers. It would have been very easy to miss because I was not a regular viewer of the show. I had just spent the last few years attending a support group for women(the men met in a separate group) who were working to overcome having been sexually abused and/or assaulted. In the time I was in the group, we met with men who were convicted of committing these crimes and told them how the crimes had affected us. It was part of their treatment program. Many of them had been abused in the past. I’ll never forget one man we spoke to. He tried to tell his mother that he was being sexually abused. She told him she could not help him and did nothing. I felt so bad for him, I wanted to do anything to take his pain away. I could not say I forgave him because I was not his direct victim, it was not my place. Plus, I was still angry at him for what he had then done to others. What can a man do with such great pain? I told him what happened to him was wrong, it shouldn’t happen to anybody and said that if I had known, I would have done everything I could to make it stop. This is where these “monsters” come from. They need to numb the pain of what happened to them. If it was not addressed as if it was important, it can become normal to act that way. The other message they can get from it if they can even be brave enough to acknowledge the horror of what happened, is that they are total trash not worthy of protection. That’s a torturous way to have to live. It’s where countless alcoholics, drug addicts, suicides, and insane people come from who go on to create a new generation of tragedy. Some can stuff the pain down so far they are numb. They may look functional but be sociopaths. All in all, it was an experience I’m glad to have had. I feel more sorry for the specific people who had hurt me than hateful. It’s all the people around them who knew but couldn’t be bothered to do anything that have caused me more pain and loss. The opposite of love is not hatred, it’s indifference. Stop the indifference!
So now you can all know, I was never motivated by blind hate for Clinton or Gore or Hillary when I became an anti- rape activist. I was motivated by sympathy for former victims-even in the complicated situation of those who became sex offenders themselves and are now working to recover. I sincerely hope they do.
In my opinion if Al Gore were to have addressed the issue directly with Pres. Clinton in 1999, that would have been a model of the kind of bravery that would stop more victims from being created in the future. That action alone would have been worthy of an Alfred Nobel Peace Prize.
Al Gore had the honor of being able to spend years of his life studying theology. Doesn’t that include morality? Why dosn’t he know this more than me? Why does Hillary Clinton, an obviously smart women with a law degree, who says she has spent her life thinking about and fighting for ways to make this a better place for America’s children, not know this more than me? I have no special degrees. Just a high school diploma and machinist certificate. So why do I know this more than them? I’m now an at home mom, I’ve got more insight on what kids or sexual assault victims really need more than these people.
Parents all over America need the kind of peace that is the absence of the fear that our kids will be assaulted. The fear of sex offenders is for all intents and puposes-imprisoning our children. Can any of you send your kids out to play the way you once did? No, and for what did we make this trade? For what? Not confronting this issue head on when we have the chance is what we too often have decided to do. Even if we think we never decided to do that. Only someone who cares enough, is brave enough, sees the common themes of confronting probable rapists and sex offenders within their own lives and the problem we all have now when our kids want to go out to play deserves to lead us on these issues. I saw Juanita on Dateline in ‘99 and thought she was telling the truth. I couln't fiqure out why she would lie.I have seen countless victims/survivors tell their stories and she was like them. The next day, as I was teaching the new guy at work (I made flutes) a job on the milling machine, we talked about the interview. For him, Clinton scandal fatigue had set in so bad he simply did not care when I said it wasn’t a consensual affair Broaddrick was talking about. I liked this guy and we were friends, but he said it wasn’t like she was a virgin or anything so who cares. I told him that unless he was Jesus Christ himself in the flesh, his mother probably wasn’t either so I guess it’s open season on her too. He didn’t like that but whatever. I expected NOW to say something but heard nothing so thats why I asked Gore about it. I even thought I may have missed some new info that showed Clinton was not a rapist (I never did see any proof of that, only people who must pretend they don't know JB, it's a weird way for honest people to act). I opened my question by telling him I was proud to be an American of French-Canadian decent. Why the heck would I say that? Because he had said in his remarks up to that point that his mother was French. The second time he told us she was French, a light bulb went off in my head that he had done research on New Hampshire residents and must have thought that saying his mother was French would earn him some points with the many among us of Franco heritage too. In light of knowing that fact, how could such a polished, prepared politician not have known about Juanita Broaddrick?
I think Hillary also is a very well prepared politician and I don’t appreciate being lied too. Yeah,sure it’s personal-that doesn’t make be overly biased-it makes me able to see patterns and not likely to back down when people play games with me. It’s like they’re all one big, unhappy dysfunctional family who will not bother to protect each other if it’s inconvenient, just like that man in the state prison’s mother. God, haven’t these people ever watched Oprah?
Can a family long survive like that? So then, can a country either? She may win but our daughters and grandaughters will not. They will inherit the crappy situation, that rape is not a big deal, just a personal mistake, like adultery, that the silence on the issue of Juanitta Braoddrick has caused her to create. We are going backwards thanks to Hillary and her ilk. Will this be my country then? it won't feel like mine or worth leaving to my daughters. why love it? why have allegiance to it? Why? So I can be audited again, wait to have a weird accident? What free country even causes it's citizens to even have to wonder about that kind of crap?! Thank you for appreciating all my honesty. A boy in high school that I barely spoke to wrote in my yearbook that I was the most honest, open person in the whole school and he hoped I was happy forever for it because I deserved it. I didn't know it was unusual to be open and honest. I just thought it was the right way to be. I'm not so sure it's leading me to happiness right now. I feel like it's leading to sadness. But I don't know how else to be.Just being honest, sorry. Love you, freepers, you're the best!