The sexual life of the Terminator is being discussed
openly and in detail in the British news media, as
well as throughout the world, everyone EXCEPT in here
in the "US mainstream news media" and in particular in
California. Another very disturbing example of the
corporatist control of the flow of news on network and
cable TV, on AM radio and even in the big city
newspapers. Yesterday, they dutifully reported on his
photo op with his "economic advisers," this morning
they are reporting on "bad polling news for Gov. Gray
Davis." The major British expose (in the London
Evening Standard) has been around for over a week. I
suppose they are "checking sources," i.e. looking for
a reason to not report it...
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/77965.php
British press reports Schwarzenegger’s groping and affair with former child actress
by Jackson Thoreau • Tuesday August 19, 2003 10:19 AM
jacksonthor@justice.com
The British media reports on Schwarzenegger's gropings
and affair with a former Little House on the Prairie
actress. Meanwhile, the U.S. media continues to ignore
reports of the Groping Governor Wannabe’s extramarital
affairs and groping sessions.
By Jackson Thoreau
Say what you want about the British media’s
fascination with sexual scandals, but at least the
press there is consistent, giving fairly equal
coverage to the extramarital affairs by both
Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the U.S. media
continues to ignore reports of California Gov. Wannabe
and Groper Arnold Schwarzenegger’s extramarital
affairs and groping sessions.
That gives more credence to the notion that the
American media reports on such aspects of a
politician’s character mostly if they involve
Democrats. If Schwarzenegger was a Democrat running
for office and not a Republican with the blessing of
the White House, CNN and Fox and MSNBC and others
would be doing 24-hour coverage on his extracurricular
sexual activities.
The London Evening Standard laid out Schwarzenegger’s
history of groping and sexual harassment against women
nicely on Monday [see
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/showbiz/articles/6270067?source=Daily%20Mail].
The Standard was one of many newspapers I contacted
and sent information after I wrote some columns on
that same subject for various Internet sites [such as
at
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/1634503_comment.php#1634648]
about a week ago. Has anyone seen any other similar
stories in U.S. newspapers? I have not.
The Standard’s story is by Wendy Leigh, author of
Arnold: An Unauthorised Biography. It’s important to
note that TV cameras actually recorded Robot Man
putting his hand on Terminator 3 co-star Kristanna
Loken’s butt while they waved to the crowds from a
balcony with Maria close by them a mere few weeks ago.
Not even Packwood would be that bold. And Republicans
and some Democrats still think this “family man” is
fit to be governor of California?
Leigh says that when Robot Man came to London in 2000,
his behavior led insiders to label him “the octopus.”
When TV interviewer Anna Richardson interviewed
Schwarzenegger about his recent movie, he reportedly
asked her pointblank if her breasts were real. “He
then pulled her onto his knee, circled her nipple with
his finger, squeezed it and announced: ‘Yeah, they are
real,’” Leigh reported.
And when Denise Van Outen interviewed him, Robot Man
“slapped her bottom, then brushed his arm against her
breast. Afterwards, he smirked: ‘It was a handful. I
never know if my wife’s watching. I’ll tell her it was
a stuntman,’” Leigh reported.
There was another interesting bit about
Schwarzenegger’s alleged affair with Gigi Goyette, who
Leigh says was a former Little House on the Prairie
actress [I couldn’t find another report confirming
that – did Goyette change her name? I’m not exactly an
expert on that TV series]. In 2001, the National
Enquirer [see
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/feature.cfm?instanceid=11259]
reported on this affair, naming Goyette. That report
said the couple met when she was 16 and he was 28 and
unmarried, and they had sex. That would be a crime, I
believe, to have sex with an under-aged girl, even in
California. They separated, only to meet again in 1989
and continue the affair for some seven years.
Schwarzenegger and his handlers have denied such
affairs and even the on-camera gropings, which are
recorded for all to see. To them, the gropings are
just friendly banter.
Still, Robot Man soon dropped out of the California
governor’s race after that report, which was not
exactly over-covered by the mainstream media [the New
York Post was among the few to mention it]. To keep
Shriver from leaving, Schwarzenegger reportedly gave
her a Mercedes SUV, a convertible Lexus, a diamond
bracelet and spa treatments worth tens of thousands of
dollars.
Of course, Kennedy women are used to such treatment
and bribes to stay married; Leigh says that Jackie
Kennedy accepted a whopping $1 million from Joe
Kennedy to stay with JFK after she tired of his
extramarital affairs. For the record, I didn’t like
the Kennedys doing that kind of crap and covering up
their affairs with bribes – that at least borders on
criminal behavior. [See, I’m actually criticizing a
Democrat.] But not even JFK was brazen enough to hold
another woman’s butt in front of his wife, as
Schwarzenegger has done on camera.
The 2001 National Enquirer did not have Goyette
confirming the affair, as Leigh’s story and a column a
week earlier in The Guardian did. The latter British
newspaper’s column at
http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,1015989,00.html
said Goyette made the claim on a TV program called
“Arnold Schwarzenegger - Made In Britain.”
On that show, Goyette described herself as not so much
a mistress, but as Robot Man’s “avenue of relaxation.”
She also explained Schwarzenegger’s fondness for
groping this way: “Sure, he will sometimes grab a
woman’s ass and say, like, ‘Hey, you’ve got a nice
ass.’ But it is just, like, his way of making them
feel better. Every woman likes to get a compliment
from time to time.”
I’ve never tried giving a woman a “compliment” by
grabbing her butt myself, but the men I know who do
usually get slapped or scolded – real fast. Some
states even arrest men for sexual assault for doing
that.
Leigh says that the roots of Schwarzenegger’s
attitudes on women date to his Austrian teen-age
years. His father, Gustav, worried about Robot Man’s
sexuality since he was obsessed with bodybuilding, an
activity that, rightly or wrongly, has gay
connotations. [As a former high school and college
hoopster, I have been in my share of gyms without
turning gay. But I admit I received my share of
propositions from gay men while there.]
So Gustav encouraged his son to bring girls to their
home in Graz. That paid off, Leigh reported. “By the
time Arnold was 19 and had come to England to compete
in the Mr Universe contest, his appetite for women was
well-developed — as was his crude approach to them.
Newcastle bodybuilder John Citrone told me: ‘Any time
we were in hotels or bars, he’d ask girls straight
out: ‘Do you want to come to bed with me?’ He was very
forward,’” Leigh reported. So again, why should I care
if the Republican candidate for governor of California
is a hypocritical adulterer and groper? Isn’t that
only the business of Schwarzenegger and Maria and God,
as we Clinton defenders said during the Monica days?
For one thing, the accusations against Schwarzenegger
include some that are not just extramarital affairs
between consenting adults. Some involve sexual
harassment towards women who wanted nothing to do with
Robot Man; at least one report involves him slamming
the woman against a wall after she said no. That’s a
crime in most states, even California.
That’s the most important reason for me pursuing this.
Then, I repeat what I wrote in an earlier column: If
Schwarzenegger wasn’t hypocritically campaigning as a
good family man, taking Maria and the kids with him on
campaign stops, I might give him a break. If he was
running for mayor of Brentwood, not the most populous
U.S. state with the most electoral votes in the
life-and-death 2004 presidential race in which we HAVE
to kick Bush out of the White House, I might cut him
some slack.
If Republicans hadn’t wasted millions in the 1990s
investigating President Clinton’s private life and
trying to oust him over lying about an affair, I might
say “hasta la vista” to my campaign to publicize
Republican Schwarzenegger’s extramarital affairs and
bold gropings that at least border on sexual assault.
If we knew something about what Schwarzenegger might
do as California governor, I might back off. If
Schwarzenegger would – or could – tell us his vision
for the state or speak about exactly how he will solve
California’s earthquake-sized budget woes, I might
stop writing right here.
If Bush racketeer Rove hadn’t cynically and secretly
engineered this recall after their guy, Richard
Riordan, lost in 2002, I might keep my nose in Texas.
You really think arch-conservative Rep. Darrell Issa
wanted to drop out of this race after spending $2
million of his own bucks to get the damn recall
election?
You really think Riordan just decided on his own not
to run, especially after Schwarzenegger burned him by
giving him indications he might not run and lied about
how they both supposedly worked together to maintain
suspense? You really think people like former Gov.
Pete Wilson just happen to become this political
neophyte’s campaign co-chairman? Fox News even
reported that Republican leaders – they mentioned Rove
in the story but mostly blamed a Republican California
politician in the story at
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94955,00.html -
are pressuring more conservative Republicans like Bill
Simon, who was the Republican nominee last year
against Gov. Gray Davis, and state Sen. Tom McClintock
to get out of the race to make it easier for
Schwarzenegger. So far, they have resisted the
strong-arm tactics, but you wonder how long they can
put up with cell phone calls by Rove and others who do
his dirty work.
After my columns on Schwarzenegger ran, I have
received many emails and read many other reports from
people who say they know women who were sexually
harassed or had an affair with the Terminator. Someone
who contacted me is trying to organize a group that
will speak out publicly. If you know a woman who has
been sexually harassed by Schwarzenegger and would
like to join others in speaking out, contact
stoparnold@aol.com.
Finally, it was expected that someone like Rob Lowe,
who once video-taped a sexual session of him in bed
with two women – one of whom was under-aged - during a
Democratic National Convention, would join
Schwarzenegger’s campaign. After all, they can go out
together hunting for under-aged girls to grope. [See,
I’m criticizing a Democrat twice in the same column –
a record for me.]
But Oprah Winfrey is considering endorsing Robot Man,
which would really help his support among women. If
you don’t think she should, contact the Oprah Show at
http://www.oprah.com/email/tows/email_tows_main.jhtml.
And you can also sign a petition to totally recall
Schwarzenegger at
http://www.petitiononline.com/schwarze/petition.html.
More than 600 people already have signed it in the
first few days. If Robot Man does get elected
governor, I plan to forward the petition to California
Democrats who hopefully will initiate a real recall
effort themselves. To sign a petition to oppose the
recall, go to
http://involve.progressivemajority.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=11167.
While some support me on this campaign, even fellow
progressives have told me to lay off this sex stuff
and focus on issues like Iraq and the economy. My
response is that enough people are focusing on Iraq
and the economy. Polls show that most American voters
support what Bush is doing in Iraq but not on the
economy. So if anything, we should be focusing more on
the lousy economy and Bush’s inability to do anything
to improve it as he takes another month-long vacation.
Oh wait, that’s how Bush is improving the economy, by
getting the hell out of the White House and going on
vacation. That might work better than tax cuts for the
super wealthy.
And I still think that if voters know that Republicans
like Schwarzenegger have extramarital affairs and
might have even committed assault while publicly
acting like good family men, it will affect the way
most Americans vote more than most other issues.
That’s just the way the game is played these days. I’m
not making up the rules, I’m just trying to take full
advantage of them.
Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of
We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White
House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can
be downloaded on his Internet site at
http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html.
Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier
version at
http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html.
www.geocities.com/jacksonthor
Posted by richard at August 21, 2003 11:47 AM