The pathetic cry of “witch hunt!” from easily threatened egomaniacal males like that of the former guy and his sanctimonious cohorts in crime is laughable. As well as outrageously, flamingly ignorant.
So much of what this sniveling passel of right-wing wimps claims as persecution these days is ridiculous, but this constant bleating about witch hunts in relation to white males is truly the hind end of their hubris.
The fifth novel in my Other Worldly series, coming next year, will touch upon historical fact—unlike recent hissy fits of petty little men—with respect to actual witch hunts euphemistically known as trials, and the inherent misogyny and fanatical quest to control therein. For now, here’s a few salient points.
The Salem Witch Trials—not that they were rational judicial proceedings conducted by an impartial tribunal—occurred in Colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The accusation was witchcraft, also referred to as the so very succinct, scientifically fact-based term “devil’s magic,” by people known as Puritans.
Was this devil depicted as male like their god conveniently is? Because those accused were predominantly women. Let me repeat that. Those accused and hastily executed were predominantly women.
There were a few men subjected to this flagrant atrocity, but they were indigenous individuals, or of foreign ethnicity with dark skin. Unlike pale-skinned males frothing at the mouth to annihilate others for merely existing as fellow human beings who didn’t look like them or believe as they did.
Involved was a series of hearings and prosecutions of the accused comprised of nothing more than religious fervor and fanatical farce propagated by white men acting as self-styled dictatorial demigods. (A bit like a recently penned Supreme Court opinion.)
This tyrannical trampling of justice included religious paranoia fueling mass hysteria, false accusations, family rivalry, greed (of course), and failure to follow due process of law. That last one is a decided understatement.
Puritans were flagrant violators of what would eventually become free exercise of religion under the First Amendment to our Constitution, opposing many traditions of the Protestant Church of England.
The ignominious irony is Puritans themselves were subject to religious persecution, having fled England for North America due to hostile policies of King Charles I.
Here’s how women were accused of witchcraft in 1692. First, someone got it in their hapless head that a personal loss, illness or death was caused by “witchcraft” and entered a complaint against the alleged witch with a local magistrate.
Local magistrates were prominent male members of their religious congregations, in direct consultation with male religious leaders about matters of judicial proceedings in Salem Village of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
If a complaint was deemed credible, as it so often arbitrarily and capriciously happened, the accused was arrested and brought for public interrogation, wherein they were “pressed” for a confession. A polite term for extorted, forced, or corruptly compelled.
If a male magistrate conveniently decided the complaint was well-founded, the now prisoner was sent before a superior court, with “witnesses” summoned before a grand jury.
A person, once again most likely female, could be indicted on such concrete charges of afflicting someone with witchcraft or making an unlawful covenant with the devil. Not a scrap of objectivity in sight. (Kind of like a recent Supreme Court majority opinion.)
Rationale of the fanatic fringe for these fabricated charges included claiming to be a prophet, being guilty of sexual relations with the devil, bewitching men, or for simply being what was referred to as a cunning woman.
Cunning woman. Therein lie the crux of this crucible. And perhaps men shouldn’t so easily succumb to “bewitchery” of women while blaming the devil and everyone else for their palpable weakness. This while they continue to claim masculine superiority, moral and otherwise.
Once indicted, the defendant could and often did end up on trial that same day, only to be executed mere days later. Common methods of execution for convicted witches were hanging, drowning, and burning. At the stake.
If you’re hunting for demonic acts, look no further.
It is estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 people—mostly women—were executed for witchcraft both in Europe and the American colonies over several centuries.
The reality is it’s neither a witch hunt nor inappropriate for modern-day men to be held accountable in a court of law for their accused crimes. The rule of law demands it. Their fascist idea of “law and order” compels it, as no man is above the law.
At least the former president and his corrupt cohorts will be given due process in the 21st century, accused of crimes far more specific and definitive than witchcraft, sex with the devil, or being cunning. They won’t be hanged or publicly burned at the stake within hours of conviction.
Convictions that won’t be handed down by a puritanical misogynist religious extremist. Unless, of course, that’s who these same so-called conservative Christians have been single-mindedly and sickeningly appointing to the bench with laser-like fascist precision—and blatant disregard for democratic constitutional procedure, basic human decency, or professional ethics. (Sort of like that recent Supreme Court opinion.)
These blowhard misogynist bigots crying “Witch hunt!” will receive a fair trial with a prosecutor required to prove guilt as opposed to fabricating it, regardless of maniacal efforts to deny justice to everyone else. Especially the women they, and their ancestors, have persecuted as witches and cunning women for centuries.
We women didn’t start the fire, or instigate and perpetrate witch hunts. Men like the former president have no one to blame but themselves and their toxic pious patriarchy for present-day and historic transgressions.
Their projected claims of “witch hunt” are so very telling.