Friday, November 11, 2016

How Clinton Lost, by the Numbers, and More


In order to understand how Trump became president, it is helpful to look at the actual numbers. The following statistics are taken from the United States Election Project.

Voting Eligible Population1:
2008: 213,313,508
2012: 222,474,111
2016: 231,556,622

1. As distinguished from Voting Age Population, which is a much higher number.

Votes cast for highest office (nearly always less than votes cast):
2008: 131,304,731 (61.6% turnout)
2012: 129,070,906 (57.9% turnout)
2016: 119,500,978 (53.1% turnout)

It's important to note how voter turnout has declined since 2008 when the excitement for "Hope and Change" was fueling one of the highest turnouts (by percentage) in the last couple decades. Turnout this time was pathetic--seemingly representing the unfavorable ratings of both candidates (Clinton 59% and Trump 60% as of August 31, WSJ).

Votes Won:
2008: Obama: 69,498,516 (52.9%)
2012: Obama: 65,915,795 (51.1%
2016: Clinton: 59,861,516 (47.7%)

2008: McCain: 59,948,323 (45.7%)
2012: Romney: 60,933,504 (47.2%)
2016: Trump: 59,639,462 (47.5%)

In all three elections, the Democratic candidate took the majority of the vote--yet, this year, Clinton lost the Electoral College, echoing 2000 when Al Gore beat George W. Bush in votes and still lost the Electoral College. According to Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:
Donald Trump won the electoral vote due to a margin of about 100,000 votes spread across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. This critical difference represents about 0.04 percent of registered voters, a statistical speck.
The real issue is that voters did not support Hillary Clinton as they had Obama. Trump received fewer votes than either McCain or Romney and still managed to win the Electoral College because Clinton, although receiving more votes than Trump, received a whopping 6 million fewer votes in 2016 than Obama received in 2012, and nearly 10 million fewer votes than Obama received in 2008.

This would seem to indicate that the most liberal or progressive voters, who long proclaimed their refusal to vote for Clinton, kept their word and stayed home (or voted 3rd party).

Third Party Role

Many had hoped this might be the year of the 3rd party candidate, especially in the spring. But the final numbers reflect an essential binary system in this country: Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson won 3% of the vote and Green Party candidate Jill Stein took 1% (both of these are considerably, however, from 2012, when Johnson received 0.9% percent of the vote and Stein took 0.3% percent). Overall, roughly 5 million people cast votes for third party candidates this year.

In Florida, with 29 Electoral College votes, Trump bested Clinton by nearly 129,000 votes in the state, while Johnson and Stein took home more than 268,000 votes between them. Winning Florida would not have been the difference-maker for Clinton, but this outcome was likely repeated in many swing states. There are echoes of the 2000 election that Al Gore lost (also winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college), when Ralph Nader (Green Party) won nearly 100,000 votes in Florida while Democrat Al Gore lost the state by just 537 votes--that was the difference maker in that election.

Here are the six states won by Trump where the 3rd party vote could have shaped the outcome (from the Hit and Run Blog at Reason.com):
Arizona: Trump beat Clinton by four points; Johnson and Stein between them collected 5 percent. But most of that went to Johnson (3.8 percent), so it's unclear whether Trump or Clinton was hurt more by the other options on the ballot.

Florida: Trump eked out a win by just 1.4 percent here. Johnson, Stein, Castle, and Rocky De La Fuente of the Reform Party between them collected 3.2 percent. Enough to cover the spread, but how many of those votes would have otherwise gone to Clinton? Stein got only .7 percent.

Michigan: Trump won this ordinarily blue state by about .3 percent, and Stein got 1.1 percent, so Democrats who feel all Green votes are rightfully theirs are going to be seething at her over this one. Meanwhile, Johnson got 3.6 percent.

Pennsylvania: Trump won by about 1.1 percent. Stein's .8 percent isn't enough to cover that spread; Johnson's 2.4 percent is, but again we don't know whether he was drawing more from Trump or Clinton.

Utah: Trump beat Clinton here by about 17 percent. Sounds like a pretty big victory, but it's still less than McMullin's 20.9 percent. In this case you could make the case that the real spoiler was Clinton: If she weren't on the ballot, nearly all of her supporters surely would have preferred McMullin to Trump, perhaps allowing the independent to deny the Republican six electoral votes.

Wisconsin: Here, on the other hand, Stein's 1.1 percent is just enough to bridge the 1-percent margin between the winning Trump and the losing Clinton. But then what does Johnson's 3.4 percent do to the results—or, for that matter, the nearly half a percentage point that Castle won while running to Trump's right?
It seems that between Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the 3rd party votes could have swayed the election in Trump's favor. But that seems less than genuine.

Clinton could not garner anywhere near the enthusiasm among liberals and progressives that Obama generated, and add that to her image (even among Democrats) as a liar who is both greedy and disingenuous about it, and she shot herself in the knee. Or rather, she shot her own party in the knee, and perhaps again in the groin and the chest for good measure. Because, in her mind, IT WAS MY TURN, DAMN IT!

Where Do Democrats Go from Here?

As a progressive and not a Democrat (I have no party loyalty--my vote is based on values choices), the biggest thing that cost the Dems the White House is Clinton's insistence that it is her turn, which began when she lost to Obama in 2008, upsetting her plans and forcing her to wait. So she waited, and over the next 8 years she locked the party down to the point that only Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley (who never was relevant) dared challenge her.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), as Wikileaks as shown, was in Clinton's pocket to the point that DNC leaders were handpicked by Clinton, first Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who was later forced to resign), and then Donna Brazile (as interim-director of the DNC).

Wasserman Schultz was running the DNC when it cut off Sanders' access to the DNC voter database for a supposed access violation by the Sanders campaign. Sanders sued and was quickly allowed full access once again. However, emails made public by Wikileaks show that the DNC (which was in full support of Clinton) was also gathering info about Sanders voters for their database. Hmmmm....

Later, it was Brazile, while still working for CNN, who provided debate questions in advance (see here and here) when Clinton faced off with Sanders.

What would have happened if the system had been fair? It is quite possible, with the youth vote supporting him, Sanders would have defeated Clinton just as Obama had in 2008. But Clinton had learned her lesson, there was no way she was not going to control EVERY detail of the primary election so that she came out on top.

You can search by topic for specific emails on this at The Heavy. You can read ALL of the DNC emails made public here (July, 2016) and here (Podesta).

The Independent (UK) makes a strong case that Sanders would have defeated Trump in a head to head match. The numbers from polls taken in the spring support that conjecture. For example:
A poll by NBC News-Wall Street Journal on May 15 said Ms Clinton would beat Mr Trump by three points, but said Mr Sanders would win by 15 points.

A CBS News-New York Times on May 3 gave Ms Clinton a six-point advantage over Mr Trump, but said Mr Sanders would win by 13 points.

At the same time, Fox News said Ms Clinton would lose to Mr Trump by three points, but said Mr Sanders would win by four.
Emphasis added.

Ah, what might have been. Instead, we have at least four years of the most hateful, divisive president in my lifetime. If we thought George W. Bush was bad, we will soon be looking back at Bush as the "good old days."

If there is one lesson the Democrats can learn from the fiasco that was the Clinton campaign, it is to listen to the voters. The GOP did that (against the wishes of the establishment) and they won the White House. Will the Dems learn from this disaster? If history is any proof, likely not.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

"It's Still the Same United States," Says Derek Thompson at The Atlantic

I saw this article on Google + so I went to read it, because it sure doesn't feel like the same United States to me. It does not even feel like my country, a place where my values and beliefs can be at least tolerated if not accepted or shared. The actual minority (fuck the Electoral College) who elected Trump are shouting down anyone who is concerned that Trump might actually, you know, do what he has promised.

And I know there are many who share my values, because we have talked and cried together over the last 36 hours. But we feel like such a small minority at this point....

The article is brief, so I am sharing all of it here.

It's Still the Same United States

What did Americans really learn about their country on Tuesday night? 

 
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

By Derek Thompson

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s shocking victory, many liberals woke up Wednesday morning feeling like strangers in their own country, or perhaps, as if they were the familiar ones and it was the country itself that had become the stranger. I heard it in the voices of friends. I read it in texts from family. I found it in newspaper headlines from some of my favorite writers and in tweets and Facebook messages. What kind of a country do I live in? they asked. Something important has changed. This is not the nation I thought I knew.

But America is what we thought it was. It is still a 50-50 nation, dominated by negative partisanship, in which about half of the country will reliably vote to defeat the other half for the foreseeable future. It is still a nation of propositional pluralism—“send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me”—crossed with ineradicable xenophobia—“go back to where you came from.” It is still a country teetering on the razor’s edge of both a social-democratic revolution and 1950s-era conservatism. That’s the country Americans knew we had at midnight Tuesday morning. And it’s the nation reflected in the votes tallied on Tuesday night.

Here is what happened 36 hours ago. Hillary Clinton seems to have narrowly won the popular vote, yet narrowly lost the election, because of the geographical distribution of her support. Donald Trump won the electoral vote due to a margin of about 100,000 votes spread across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. This critical difference represents about 0.04 percent of registered voters, a statistical speck. One vote in 2,500 was the difference between electing a liberal Democrat and rewarding a candidate for the most openly racist campaign in generations.

On its own, this dramatic precarity is not an inspirational thing. But it is so much more inspiring than the prevailing idea that Trump’s victory is statistical evidence that the country Clinton-voters thought they lived in has disappeared, or utterly abandoned them, or never existed in the first place.

In some ways, the current liberal mood is the mirror image of how many conservatives felt after Obama’s win in 2008. While Democrats were triumphant, convinced that the cause of modern liberalism had finally achieved escape velocity, many conservatives were despondent, convinced that the country they thought they knew had left them behind. But the future was not an extrapolation of these hopes and fears, but rather a reversion to 50-50 divisions. Eight years later, the nation is as divided as it had been eight years before in 2000, when, after another popular two-term Democratic president left office during an economic expansion, the electorate delivered a statistical tie that surprisingly handed the White House to a Republican.

It is not self-indulgent for liberals to despair about Tuesday night’s outcome. They have many reasons to fear the near future of public policy. But it’s too early for them to despair about America. In a two-party system, the binary outcome of a vote will always be a simplified expression of the complex characteristics of the electorate. The arc of history is long, with many wobbles, and nothing about Tuesday’s vote suggests that the arrow will point in any one direction for very long.
I felt compelled to comment on the article as an antidote to the prevalent anti-liberal, anti-progressive comments that had been posted (and continue to be posted).

While there is merit to the idea that the country has not changed in any significant way, the outcome of this election was about the future of the nation--not merely the next 4-8 years, but the next 50-100 years.

It is in that sense that progressives are weeping . . . for their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

The winner of this election has been given the power to shape the nation far beyond his or her lifetime. That power comes through the ability to shape the Supreme Court.

Here is my comment, which has already been labeled hysterical by one troll.
Trump will have a GOP majority in the House and the Senate, will get between 1-4 nominations to the Supreme Court, and those justices will be there for the next 30-50 years. Add those justices to Alito and Roberts, both younger, ultra-conservative ideologues, and we will effectively be witness to the dismantling of most civil, environmental, and educational reforms enacted over the last 75-100 years, including Roe v. Wade.

With Trump and the GOP controlling Congress, we are likely to see the end of minimum wage laws, the destruction of the social safety net, and the demise of nearly every other government program serving the poorest of our citizens. The GOP seems unfamiliar with the notion that a nation is judged by how it treats the weakest of its citizens. Even conservative NYT editorial writer David Brooks gets that poverty is not a condition most people can escape, no matter how hard they try.

At the same time, corporate welfare likely will increase even more, while any and all regulation of Wall Street will end or be severely curtailed (Dodd-Frank will be gone), and most regulations protecting clean air, clean water, and preserving wilderness areas will be eliminated. Renewable energy investments will end so that the Arctic tundra can be drilled for oil. If you don't believe this, look at the people Trump is choosing to lead the transition at the EPA, FTC, etc.

Trump represents the end of American progress. If it were not for the damage he can do with appointments to the Supreme Court, it would only be a 4-8 year set-back. But he can shape the Court so drastically that it could take generations to undo the damage.

On ending progress, Trump's campaign slogan announced as much: Make America Great Again. I'm sorry, when WAS America great? Prior to the admittedly awful Affordable Care Act when millions of  people had NO health care? Prior to Roe v. Wade when women got abortions from unqualified providers, and often died from the procedures? Prior to the Civil Rights Act, when minorities could be denied service, prevented from using the same schools and restrooms, and prevented from voting? Prior to the New Deal when old people died in extreme poverty and workers had no protections from unreasonable work hours and unsafe conditions?

So WHEN was America great? When higher education was only open to the wealthy, when women could not vote, when minorities were not "full" people, when slavery was legal?

Anyone who proposes that the key to dealing with change is returning to the "good old days" has no idea HOW to change, what change is, and how change becomes successful. Trump is one of those people.

So progressives weep for the loss and wasting of American potential. For possible futures that are lost with a Trump presidency.

And just so you actually get it, Clinton was NOT the answer. She was only the slightly lesser of two evils.

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

President Trump - The End of the American Experiment, the End of Decency


I blame the progressives who stayed home or voted 3rd party rather than face reality and vote for Clinton to keep Trump from becoming president.

I blame ignorance, fear, hatred, misogyny, racism, nationalism, and the Republican-orchestrated demise of the national educational system.

Only an uneducated and ignorant nation could choose an ignorant and hate-filled man to be it's leader. Well-played.

YOU wanted this - so deal with it.

Trump is not MY president

He will NEVER be my president.

I am anti-violence, and I cannot imagine taking arms against the government. But we have been moving toward this moment for years, and now it is here. We do not have government by the people and for the people - we have fascism.

Look it up - Mussolini defined fascism thus: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

It's time for progressives and liberals to become as well-armed as the racists and the redneck militias. There will be a time, not too far away, when WE will need to retake America from the powers of fascism.

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

2016 - Worst Presidential Election [Ever?] - Still Only One Choice We Can Live with as a Nation

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." ~ Douglas Adams

Photo

What follows is an expansion of my penultimate Facebook post before I deactivated my page last week. Some of the comments to the original post were disturbingly blind to what I was trying to say. So I am saying it again, here, with more words and (hopefully) greater depth and span.

Here is the original post:
I used to believe that political differences should not be a reason to unfollow or unfriend someone. I am questioning that perspective.

This feels like one of those times in history where people will look back and ask where you stood when hatred and ignorance were chosen to lead the nation, when a ruler was chosen who brings division and destruction, bigotry and violence.

This is truly a "lesser of two evils" choice. One choice is evil as usual. The other choice is evil on a scale that we have not seen since the first half of the 20th Century.
To be clear:

Clinton is corrupt, greedy, and dishonest. She is politics as usual.

Trump is racist, sexist, hateful, narcissistic, greedy, and quite possibly a sociopath. Electing Trump is on par with the elections of Hitler and Mussolini, both of whom promised to make their respective nations great again.

What these two dictators from the 20th Century share with Trump is hatred -- of the "other." Oh, and they all three share many traits of the sociopath/psychopath.

Says Tony Schwartz, who was the "ghost writer" on their joint book (they split the advance and the royalties, nearly unheard of for a ghost writer), The Art of the Deal, the 1987 book that made Trump famous:
“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” 
If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.” [The New Yorker, June 25, 2016]
Emphasis added.

Respected Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner considers Trump a "textbook" narcissist, one of the primary traits of the sociopath.
According to a number of top U.S. psychologists, like Harvard professor and researcher Howard Gardner, Donald Trump is a “textbook” narcissist. In fact, he fits the profile so well that clinical psychologist George Simon told Vanity Fair, “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops.” This puts Trump in the same category as a number of infamous dictators like Muammar Gaddafi, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Saddam Hussein. [Raw Story, January 12, 2016]
Trump is very clearly a narcissist, and his behavior, lifestyle, and collection of ever-younger wives shows this in stark, very public detail.

But is Trump a sociopath or a psychopath?
Sociopaths tend to be nervous and easily agitated. They are volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage. They are likely to be uneducated and live on the fringes of society, unable to hold down a steady job or stay in one place for very long. It is difficult but not impossible for sociopaths to form attachments with others. Many sociopaths are able to form an attachment to a particular individual or group, although they have no regard for society in general or its rules. In the eyes of others, sociopaths will appear to be very disturbed. Any crimes committed by a sociopath, including murder, will tend to be haphazard, disorganized and spontaneous rather than planned. 
Psychopaths, on the other hand, are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. Psychopaths are often well educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.
So, based on this, he is a little of both--impulsive and reactive, but also able to charm and manipulate. This makes Trump a frightening prospect as president of the most powerful military on the planet.

And, no doubt, the anti-Clinton folks have dozens of examples of how corrupt she is, how she stole the Democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders (I believe she did), and how horrible she would be as president. Sure, I don't like her, either.

As I said, lesser of two evils.

Given the two options, I have more faith (belief without proof) that Clinton actually does care about some of the social causes she has taken up over the years (women's rights, children, families).

While, in my mind, there is no doubt Trump cares about no one and nothing but himself--his actions and words have proven it repeatedly over the last several decades.

Electing Trump may be looked back on one day as the moment America picked up a gun, stuck the gun in its mouth, and pulled the trigger. Let's not go there.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Donna Zerner: The Shadow Behind The Light (on her experience with Marc Gafni)


Urban Tellers®, May 14, 2016
Donna Zerner on the Portland Story Theater stage at Alberta Abbey for live storytelling
Hosted by Lynne Duddy and Lawrence Howard

Statement from Donna Zerner on performing this piece:
It took me ten years to feel safe enough to speak publicly about my experience with Marc Gafni.  I’m still pretty sure he’ll try to attack and discredit me in any way he can, but at this point the urge to tell the truth is far more compelling than continuing to silence myself out of fear of his retribution.

I’m not on Facebook (last holdout on the planet!), but I’ve been following public FB comments about the story, and am gratified that it seems to be striking a chord for many.

It felt both terrifying and liberating to tell my story.  Of course, in 15 minutes I was only able to reveal the tiniest fraction of my experiences, so it was frustrating what was left out... I could have easily spoken for hours and still barely scratched the surface.

My intention was always that the story be healing for myself and for anyone who’s been affected by a similar dynamic. It definitely has been healing for me so far, though the process of creating it was extremely challenging, a constant surrender to the Feminine. With previous stories I’ve told, I pretty much typed them out at my computer and memorized them, but this one refused to be created that way; it would only come through my emotions and my body (requiring an often excruciating reliving of experiences). I never wrote a word, and I didn’t memorize it either. I also had no idea how it would end until the final words stumbled out of my mouth that night. The process was all about surrender; it ultimately felt like a shamanic initiation.

I used a pseudonym for MG because the intention of the story wasn’t to expose or blame him, but to explore my culpability, to own my own journey. If I had named him it would have changed the tone and felt too much like an attack job. Of course there were clues sprinkled throughout as to his real identity (i.e., when I said “O.M.G.,” what I was really saying was: “Oh, MG”!).

The video doesn’t capture how heavy and intense the energy got in the room— by about two-thirds through it felt like the entire audience was holding their breath with concern and outrage, which is why I felt compelled at one point to puncture the heaviness (too intense for a bunch of Portlanders out for a Saturday night's entertainment!).

My hope at this point is that the story encourages more women (and men) in similar situations to recognize their own worth, honor their intuition, and speak their authentic truth from the heart.

Please know that I hold with me a multitude of other MG-affected women (over a span of 36 years, up to the present day), most of whom are not ready to speak up but whose suffering at MG's hands was often quite profound, and continues to this day. And of course, the damage he has caused and continues to create expands to areas far beyond his exploitation of women.

I pray for truth and healing for all affected, including for MG.

Saturday, March 05, 2016

Shrink Rap Radio #496 – Dreaming and the Dialogical Self with Prof. Hubert Hermans

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41CitNdosCL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Hubert Hermans' Dialogical Self Theory is one of the most robust and usable multiplicity-of-self models available. Dr. David Van Nuys speaks with Hermans on the dialogical self and dreams. The newest book is The Dialogical Self in Psychotherapy: An Introduction, being released today in paperback.

#496 – Dreaming and the Dialogical Self with Prof. Hubert Hermans

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Hubert Hermans is professor emeritus at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is best known as the creator of Dialogical Self Theory. He wrote books like The Dialogical Self: Meaning as movement (1993), co-authored by Harry Kempen, Self-Narratives: The Construction of Meaning in Psychotherapy (1995), co-authored by Els Hermans-Jansen, and Dialogical Self Theory: Positioning and Counter-Positioning in a Globalizing Society (2010), co-authored by Agnieszka Hermans-Konopka. He is editor of the Handbook of Dialogical Self Theory (2012), co-edited by Thorsten Gieser. 

Since 2002 he is president of the International Society for Dialogical Science (ISDS) and editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Dialogical Science (IJDS). He is initiator and chair of biennial International Conferences on the Dialogical Self, which are organized in different countries and continents. For his merits to society and science, he was, on behalf of the Queen of the Netherlands, decorated as Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2002. 

Some of Hubert’s most impressive memories was when he looked, as a 6-year-old boy, in September 1944, at the passing soldiers of the American 30th Infantry Division “Old Hickory,” who liberated his place of birth, Maastricht, from the German occupation. Some months later, he survived a bomb attack which killed many neighbors living opposite his parents’ house. He describes such autobiographical events in his book Between Dreaming and Recognition Seeking (2012), in which he applies Dialogical Self Theory to his own life.

A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Play

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Martha Stout's Thirteen Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday Life


The following is from Martha Stout, Ph.D., in her book, The Sociopath Next Door (pages 156-162). These are good guidelines for anyone who knows, works with/for, or have been involved with a sociopath. As Stout points out, sociopaths are not rare--we all are likely to encounter one (or more) at some point in our lives.

Considering that this blog has been very focused on unmasking Marc Gafni as the sociopath he is, this seems like a fitting part of that process.

THIRTEEN RULES FOR DEALING WITH SOCIOPATHS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

1. The first rule involve the bitter pill of accepting at some people literally have no conscience.

These people do not often look like Charles Manson or a Ferengi bartender. They look like us. 

2. In a contest between your instincts and what is implied by the role a person has taken' on--educator, doctor, leader, animal lover, humanist, parent--go with your instinct.

Whether you want to be or not, you are a constant observer of human behavior, and your unfiltered impressions, though alarming and seemingly outlandish, may well help you out if you will let them. Your best self understands, without being told, that impressive and moral-sounding labels do not bestow conscience on anyone who did not have it to begin with.

3. When considering a new relationship of any kind, practice the Rule of Threes regarding the claims and promises a person makes, and the responsibilities he or she has. Make the Rule of Threes your personal policy.
One lie, one broken promise, or a single neglected responsibility may be a misunderstanding instead. Two may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you're dealing with a liar, and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior. Cut your losses and get out as soon as you can. Leaving, though it may be hard, will be easier .now than later, and less costly. 


Do not give your money, your work, your secrets, or your affection to a three-timer. Your valuable gifts will be wasted.

4. Question authority.

Once again--trust your own instincts and anxieties, especially those concerning people who claim that dominating others, violence, war, or some other violation or your conscience is the grand solution to some problem. Do this even when, or especially when, everyone around you has completely stopped questioning authority.  Recite to yourself what Stanley Milgram taught us about obedience: At least six out of ten people will blindly obey to the bitter end an official-looking authority in their midst. 

The good news is that having social support makes people somewhat more likely to challenge authority. Encourage those around you to question, too.

5. Suspect flattery.
Compliments are lovely, especially when they are sincere. In contrast, flattery is extreme and appeals to our egos in unrealistic ways. It is the material of counterfeit charm, and nearly always involves an intent to manipulate. Manipulation through flattery is sometimes innocuous and sometimes sinister. Peek over your massaged ego and remember to suspect flattery.


This "flattery rule" applies on an individual basis, and also at ' the level of groups and even whole nations. Throughout all of human history and to the present, the call to war has included the flattering claim that one's own forces are about to accomplish a victory that will change the world for the better, a triumph that is morally laudable, justified by its humane outcome, unique in human endeavor, righteous, and worthy of enormous gratitude. Since we began to record the human story, all of our major wars have been framed in this way, on all sides of the conflict, and in all languages the adjective most often applied to the word war is holy. An argument can easily be made that humanity will have peace when nations of people are at last able to see through this masterful flattery. Just as an individual pumped up on the flattery of a manipulator is likely to behave in foolish ways, exaggerated patriotism that is flattery-fueled is a dangerous thing.
 

6. If necessary, redefine your concept of respect.
Too often, we mistake fear for respect, and the more fearful we are of someone, the more we view him or her as deserving of our respect. 


I have a spotted Bengal cat who was named Muscle Man by my daughter when she was a toddler, because even as a kitten he looked like a professional wrestler. Grown now, he is much larger than most other domestic cats. His formidable claws resemble those of his Asian leopard-cat ancestors, but by temperament, he is gentle and peace-loving. My neighbor has a little calico who visits. Evidently, the calico's predatory charisma is huge, and she is brilliant at directing the evil eye at other cats. Whenever she is within fifty feet, Muscle Man, all fifteen pounds of him to her seven, cringes and crouches in fear and feline deference.

Muscle Man is a splendid cat. He is warm and loving, and he is close to my heart. Nonetheless, I would like to believe that some of his reactions are more primitive than mine. I hope I do not mistake fear for respect, because to do so would be to ensure my own victimization. Let us use our big human brains to overpower our animal tendency to bow to predators, so we can disentangle the reflexive confusion of anxiety and awe. In a perfect world, human respect would be an automatic reaction only to those who are strong, kind, and morally courageous. The person who profits from frightening you is not likely to be any of these.


The resolve to keep respect separate from fear is even more critical for groups and nations. The politician, small or lofty, who menaces the people with frequent reminders of the possibility of crime, violence, or terrorism, and who then uses their magnified fear to gain allegiance, is more likely to be a successful con artist than a legitimate leader. This too has been true throughout human history.

7. Do not join the game.
Intrigue is a sociopath's tool. Resist the temptation to compete with a seductive sociopath, to outsmart him, psychoanalyze, or even banter with him. In addition to reducing yourself to his level, you would be distracting yourself from what is really important, which is to protect yourself. 


8. The best way to protect yourself from a sociopath is to avoid him, to refuse any kind of contact or communication.
Psychologists do not usually like to recommend avoidance, but in this case, I make a very deliberate exception. The only truly effective method for dealing with a sociopath you have identified is to disallow him or her from your life altogether. Sociopaths live completely outside of the social contract, and therefore to include them in relationships or other social arrangements is perilous. Begin this exclusion of them in the context of your relationships and social life. You will not hurt anyone's feelings. Strange as it seems, and though they might try to pretend otherwise, sociopaths do not have any such feelings to hurt. 


You may never be able to make your family and friends understand why you are avoiding a particular individual. Sociopathy is surprisingly difficult to see, and even harder to explain. Avoid him anyway.

If total avoidance is impossible, make plans to come as close as you can to the goal of total avoidance.
 

9. Question your tendency to pity too easily.
Respect should be reserved for the kind and the morally courageous. Pity is another socially valuable response, and it should be reserved for innocent people who are in genuine pain or who have fallen on misfortune. If, instead, you find yourself pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath,


Related to this--I recommend that you severely challenge your need to be polite in absolutely all situations. For normal adults in our culture, being what we think of as "civilized" is like a reflex, and often we find ourselves being automatically decorous even when someone has enraged us, repeatedly lied to us, or figuratively stabbed us in the back. Sociopaths take huge advantage of this automatic courtesy in exploitative situations. 

Do not be afraid to be unsmiling and calmly to the point.
 

10. Do not try to redeem the unredeemable.
Second (third, fourth, and fifth) chances are for people who possess conscience. If you are dealing with a person who has no conscience, know how to swallow hard and cut your losses.


At some point, most of us need to learn the important, if disappointing, life lesson that, no matter how good our intentions, we cannot control the behavior--let alone the character structures--of other people. Learn this fact of human life, and avoid the irony getting caught up in the same ambition he has--to control.


If you do not desire control, but instead want to help people, then help only those who want to be helped. I think you will find this does not include the person who has no conscience.


The sociopath's behavior is not your fault, not in any way whatsoever. It is also not your mission. Your mission is your own life.  


11. Never agree, out of pity or for any other reason, to help a sociopath conceal his or her true character.
"Please don't tell," often spoken tearfully and with great gnashing of teeth, is the trademark plea of thieves, child abusers--and sociopaths. Do not listen to this siren song. Other people deserve to be warned more than sociopaths deserve to have you keep their secrets.

If someone without conscience insists that you "owe" him or her, recall what you are about to read here: "You owe me" has been the standard line of sociopaths for thousands of years, quite literally, and is still so. It is what Rasputin told the empress of Russia. 


We tend to experience "You owe me" as a compelling claim, but it is simply not true. Do not listen. Also ignore the one that goes, "You are just like me." You are not.
 

12. Defend your psyche.
Do not allow someone without conscience, or even a string of such people, to convince you that humanity is a failure. Most human beings do possess conscience. Most human beings are able to love.
 

13. Living well is the best revenge.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

A Regularly Updated List of Current Articles on the Marc Gafni Controversy

Marc Gafni (Screenshot from YouTube)

Here is a listing of all known (at this time) articles about Marc Gafni that have appeared since the December 25th New York Times article.

After the list of current articles, there is a list of articles on Gafni that have appeared on this blog, dating back nearly a decade (May, 2006).

And now, below that, is the beginning of an archive of other posts/articles from around the Web about Gafni and his abuses. These articles go back to the first known piece in 2004.

December 26, 2015:
December 27th:
December 29th:
  • Soon followed a second article from Oppenheimer at Tablet Magazine, part 2 of the NYT article.
  • Also on the 29th, the Jewish Telegraph posted 4 quotes by ex-Orthodox rabbi Marc Gafni not in The NY Times article.
  • Matthew Gindin posted Some Thoughts On Marc Gafni at his blog, Seeking Her Voice.
  • Joe Perez "leaked" the supposedly "official" Integral Institute Report on Marc Gafni: Summary and Conclusions (circa 2008) , then deleted it. It became fully available online on Dec. 30th. To its discredit, there are several issues with this document, not least of which is the inclusion of material post-2008, with an addendum noting that it had been updated in 2011 and 2014. An "official" document of this nature is not updated, unless of of course it's NOT official. There is also the issue that those who know Gafni and his writing see his language and perspectives all over the text, again confirming it as unofficial, and in fact, pro-Gafni propaganda. What this DOES show is the lengths to which Gafni will go to cover his ass - forgery, lies, manipulation. 
December 30th:
Also on December 30th:
NOTE: In all fairness, Robb Smith and Corey DeVos made Integral Life a Gafni-free place in 2011, a decision that had been in the works for a year or more, but coincided with Gafni's affairs that cost him his book contract with Sounds True, as well as damaging two wonderful women I had the privilege of speaking with and getting to know.

December 31st: 
January 1st:
January 2nd:
January 3rd:
January 4th:
January 5th:
January 6th:
January 7th:
January 8th: 
January 9th:
  • The post you are reading appeared. As of 1.20.2016, it has more than 1,800 views.
January 10th:
January 12th:
January 13th:
January 14th:
January 17th: 
January 18th:
January 19th:
January 20th:
January 21st:
January 22nd: 
January 25th:
    January 26th:
    January 30, 2016:
    January 2016:
    February 2, 2016:
    February 3, 2016:
    February 8, 2016:
    • From Hevria, by Gafni's 3rd ex-wife: I Admit It, I Was Using Gafni Too - The last half of this article contains a survey of Gafni's victims (up to 2006) give by the author as part of her research for her MA in Clinical Psychology.
    February 18, 2016:
    February 22, 2016:

    February 29, 2016:
    March 1, 2016:
    March 2, 2016:
    March 3, 2016:
    March 4, 2016:
    March 7, 2016:
    March 12, 2016:

    As readers of this blog are well-aware, I have been tracking and reporting on Gafni and his predatory behaviors since May of 2006, when three women (Gafni was 46, they were in their 20s) in his Israeli Jewish community came forward about him having affairs with each of them and swearing them to secrecy. [Other reports placed the number at five women, three of whom filed complaints with the police, as well as others from the community and from Jerusalem who came forward when the story broke.]

    Here are some old posts from this blog:
    Marc Gafni on the Web, prior to this recent episode. [In progress]

    While Marc Gafni's sexual abuses (2 statutory rapes in the 1980s) go way back (as well as a series of incidents in Boca Raton in the brief time he was there), the 2004 story by Gary Rosenblatt in the Jewish Journal was the breakthrough piece.

    September 30, 2004 (The is the first known article that exposes Gafni's abuses):
    October 4, 2004:
    October 12, 2004:
    October 13, 2004:
    October 14, 2004:
    December 20, 2004:
    2004 - 2008:
    May 11, 2006:
    May 15, 2006 - September 13, 2011:
    • Rabbi Marc Gafni and Sexual Improprieties at NHNE Pulse - This post covers Rabbi Marc Gafni & Sexual Improprieties by Ken Wilber (Ken's original statement, May 15, 2006, the letter from Bayit Chadash, Gafni's apology and claim to sickness, Gafni's recanting of his original apology and now total denial of wrong-doing, and links, most of which do not work now); Love and Suffering: Dr. Marc Gafni Reemerges by Robb Smith in Integral Life (November 3rd, 2008 - includes Spiritual Teachers Letter From Sally Kempton, Gabriel Cousens, M.D., and John Kesler); Marc Gafni's Sexual Impropriety Re-Emerges – Will Integral Leadership Step Up this Time? by William Harryman at Integral Options Cafe (September 12, 2011); and Where I Stand by Robb Smith at Integral Life (September 13, 2011)
    May 18, 2006:
    May 19, 2006:
    May 23, 2006:
    May 25, 2006:
    June 16, 2006:
    June 27, 2006:
    May 1, 2007:
    July 17, 2008:
    July 20, 2008:
    • Trial by Internet? An “archetypal spiritual drama” by Jeff Bell and Greta DeJong at The Catalyst (This was Gafni's article, written by him with Bell; the rumor is that he seduced the editor/publisher/founder of the magazine, Ms. DeJong, to get this published. Gafni frames himself as "the hero of a spiritual epic.")
    January 9, 2009:
    May 26, 2010:

    February 13, 2015 (with several updates):
    September 1, 2015:

    Sunday, January 17, 2016

    Why So Few of Marc Gafni's Survivors Have Come Forward

    As of today, only two survivors of Marc Gafni's (also known as Mordechai Gafni, Mordechai Winiarz, or Mordechai Winyarz) abuses have come forward with their names and their stories. They are the two who were youngest (that we know about) and who were raped (Judy Mitzner Rogers and now Sara Kabakov). Gafni's 3rd ex-wife came forward with her story, both in a deposition by email many years ago, and recently in a first-person account in the Times of Israel, of  life being married to Gafni, but she has chosen not to have her name attached to those stories.

    [See also, Marc Gafni: Beneath and Behind the Denials]

    A Little Background

    Gafni has denied that he raped Sara, claiming the "relationship" was about love in the recent NYT story about him.
    Mr. Gafni was quoted saying they had been in love. He added, “She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her.” In a recent interview, the woman, who asked not to be identified, said that she stood by her account from 2004 and that the encounters were not consensual.
    Gafni's story does not mesh at all with the way Sara experienced his molestation (which was statutory rape, but the statute of limitations has expired):
    I remember clearly that when he tried to touch me, I pushed him away, repeatedly. I remember saying “No!” over and over again. No one had talked to me about sexual abuse, but I remember knowing intuitively, with every cell of my body, that this was wrong.

    This pattern repeated itself, from the fall of 1980 through the spring of 1981. I became a girl disconnected from the world around her, inhabiting instead one full of contradiction and betrayal. I was trapped in a horrible situation with no way out that I could see. If I told, I would be blamed and shamed for what had happened.

    Each morning after being molested, I would wake up and walk into the living room, and see him wildly shuckling, rocking back and forth while beating his chest. He said he was doing teshuvah, repenting for what he had done the night before, and he told me that I should join him in doing teshuvah, too. I didn’t pray or do teshuvah, but just stared at him in disbelief. He really believed that I was a partner in sin. And then it would happen again: After every fervent bout of repentance, he would wake me up in the middle of the night the following week.
    Does the young girl in the picture below look like she's "14 going on 35"?


    Sara did not come forward with her story, in her own name, until her essay, January 12th, 2016, at The Forward (linked to above). She had told it, publicly, once before--anonymously--to Gary Rosenblatt for his 2004 expose on Gafni's abuse history.

    In the months following the end of Gafni's abuse, she tried to tell someone what had happened to her twice. Both times she was ignored or dismissed. When she was 18, she had the courage to finally tell her parents, but their response was, "How could you let him do that to you?" And we wonder why girls and women do not tell their stories.
    Over the years, when I told people about the abuse I endured at Gafni’s hands, many asked, “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” That’s a good question. But a better question is what happened when I did tell. It was almost as if I had told no one. People in the Jewish community who had the power and stature to make the abuse stop did not step up.
    * * * *

    rogersjudy70

    On the other hand, Judy Mitzner told her story and had a friend, Susan, to support her (both Judy and Susan were threatened by Gafni to stay silent).
    I didn’t wait until years later to reveal what happened, as many do. I spoke out in 1986 right after it happened, and so few would even listen let alone accept it as truth.  I continued to tell my story, continued to cry out for help on so many levels and so little was done.  I was shuffled around and told to keep quiet even by those who knew the truth.  No one wanted to believe that this could happen in the Rabbinate. 
    A few days after Gafni first raped her, she finally had a chance to tell her friend Susan what had happened.
    It was then that Susan told me that she had already heard from Mordechai. He had called her prior to Shabbat “warning” her about my “delusional” stories, my emotional instability and attempting to compel her into allegiance. Susan diligently listened to the facts, my fears, and unequivocally assured me of her loyalty and confidence in my credibility. She told me that he had made inappropriate advances to her in the past. Susan was there for me through what would be the remaining eighteen months of hell. We were kids trying to figure out how to handle this trauma with no help or support from our parents or the community. I don’t remember much after that conversation.

    I do remember telling my parents with Susan by my side what had occurred. I remember how they blamed me since it was I who left the house to begin with. I remember the next year and a half of harassment and mental games.
    Judy suffered 18 months of harassment by Gafni before he moved on. Around the end of that time, he moved (was sent?) to Boca Raton, FL, where he is alleged to have continued to sexually manipulate young, female members of his Temple, before then moving (escaping?) to Israel.

    * * * *

    It's interesting that, so far, only survivors from Gafni's abuses as a rabbi have come forward. In addition to them, a group of former students and more than 100 rabbis (many of whom defended him until 2006 and the Israel abuses) have signed onto a petition seeking to stop Gafni from committing further abuses, naming John Mackey of Whole Foods, Esalen (where Gafni had been scheduled for a workshop in February, now canceled by Gafni), Ken Wilber, and others as supporters who need to withdraw their support. [Please sign the petition if you have not already.]

    The sources of the stories, aside from the original New York Times piece, and a follow-up piece a week later by the New York Daily News, have mostly been Jewish as well (The Forward, The Times of Israel, Tablet Magazine, and a few others).

    Why So Few Survivors Come Forward

    It is believed that only 15.8 to 35 percent of all sexual assaults are reported to the police (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013; Wolitzky-Taylor et al, 2010) [1, 2]. And if the survivor knows the perpetrator, the real number is much lower:
    • When an offender is an intimate partner or former intimate partner, only 25 percent of sexual assaults are reported to the police.
    • When an offender is a friend or acquaintance, only 18 to 40 percent of sexual assaults are reported.
    • When an offender is a stranger, between 46 and 66 percent of sexual assaults are reported. (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003) [3]
    So, overall, reporting is pretty minimal--but it is even lower when the survivor knows the perpetrator.

    Those who do not report sex offenses offer one or more of the following reasons:
    • Fear of reprisal
    • Personal matter
    • Reported to a different official
    • Not important enough to respondent
    • Belief that the police would not do anything to help
    • Belief that the police could not do anything to help
    • Did not want to get offender in trouble with law
    • Did not want family to know
    • Did not want others to know
    • Not enough proof
    • Fear of the justice system
    • Did not know how
    • Feel the crime was not “serious enough”
    • Fear of lack of evidence
    • Unsure about perpetrator’s intent (D. Kilpatrick et al., 2007; U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013; Wolitzky-Taylor et al, 2010) [4, 1, 2]
    In my experience, it's common for women (and men) not to report out of fear of reprisal, or because they just want to forget that it ever happened and move on, or because they took [many] showers after it happened so there is no forensic exam evidence, or because they are afraid they will be made to appear responsible for getting molested or raped (of which the police are often guilty), especially by defense attorneys.

    If the survivor knows the perpetrator, there is even more fear, and more self-recrimination, and more doubt that it was not consensual ("maybe I led him on," or "maybe I misunderstood' or "I could have gotten away somehow" or "why did I freeze").

    As a result of the low reporting rates, only 9 percent of rapists are prosecuted. Of those, only 5 percent result in a felony conviction. And only 2-3 percent of rapists are sent to prison for even one day.
    • 97-98 percent of rapists get away with it, and walk away, free to assault again.

    Sociopaths Are Predators Who Often Do Not Rape

    When the offender is a psychopath or a sociopath, all of the usual rules are confused and confusing.

    As I mentioned in a previous post, psychopath and sociopath are often used interchangeably. I tend to use the term sociopath for those whose childhood likely created their pathology, while most researchers believe psychopaths are born with deficits in neural networks or some other physical pathology in the brain. Robert Hare (creator of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, the most widely accepted scale) is the expert on this topic.

    It's important to note that all psycho- or sociopaths are antisocial personality disordered (APD) and narcissistic, but not all of those with APD or narcissism are psycho- or sociopaths.

    Marc Gafni is a sociopath.

    Aside from the first two women mentioned at the top (Sara and Judy), Gafni has never been accused of rape, and possibly has not committed an outright rape (by legal definitions). However, he has manipulated women into willingly having sex with him through seduction and, some survivors claim, mind control.

    Terry Patten (a former "friend" of Gafni's) comments on the "mind control" aspect of Gafni in his recent blog post.
    The egregious violations I saw firsthand were not primarily sexual. What in my experience has been most outrageously diabolical is his unique way of getting inside people’s heads and subtly casting a spell on them, and then using that influence to influence or manipulate others. To be used in this way is a form of abuse. To add sexuality to it, is even more hurtful.
    [Emphasis added.]

    This skill is common to socio- and psychopaths. It's called cognitive empathy, and it's inherent in the "Dark Triad."

    According to Daniel Goleman:
    But there can be a dark side to this sort of empathy – in fact, those who fall within the “Dark Triad” – narcissists, Machiavellians, and sociopaths (see Chapter 8 in Social Intelligence) – can be talented in this regard, while having no sympathy whatever for their victims.
    Jackson MacKenzie is the author of Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People (2015), and also has a blog called Psychopath Free. In a post on sexual manipulation, she talks about how seduction by a psycho- or sociopath can feel authentic and intimate, until it doesn't.

    Here is an excerpt from that article:
    Sex with the psychopath seemed perfect at first. They knew exactly where to touch you, what to say, and when to do the right things. You were perfectly compatible in the bedroom, right?

    Well, sort of.

    Like everything else, the psychopath also mirrored your deepest sexual desires. That’s why it felt so incredibly passionate and flawless when you were together—and that’s why it feels like rape during the identity erosion....

    You find yourself in a desperate situation, needing their sexual approval and flattery to feel attractive. They use this to control their targets. They pull away in order to make you seem desperate, needy, and slutty. In the idealize phase, they couldn’t get enough of you. But once they have you hooked, they begin to play mind games. 
    What is described here is the idealize phase and the identity erosion phase, two of three stages of socio- and psychopathic seduction. Shahida Arabi (author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Self-Care) uses slightly different terminology:
    • Idealization Phase
    • Devaluation Phase
    • Discard Phase
    Arabi is speaking about narcissists here, a type of personality disorder that is inherent in those with sociopathic or psychopathic pathology.
    The idealization phase (which often happens most strongly during the early stages of dating or a relationship) consists of putting you on a pedestal, making you the center of his/her world, being in contact with you frequently, and showering you with flattery and praise. You are convinced that the narcissist can’t live without you and that you’ve met your soulmate. Be wary of: constant texting, shallow flattery and wanting to be around you at all times. This is a technique known as “lovebombing” and it is how most victims get sucked in

    The devaluation phase is subsequent to this idealization phase, and this is when you’re left wondering why you were so abruptly thrust off the pedestal. The narcissist will suddenly start to blow hot and cold, criticizing you, covertly and overtly putting you down, comparing you to others, emotionally withdrawing from you and giving you the silent treatment when you’ve failed to meet their “standards.”

    The narcissist makes you seem like the needy one as you react to his or her withdrawal and withholding patterns even though the expectations of frequent contact were established early on in the relationship by the narcissist himself.
    Part of this process for the predator is that he will try to make you think that if you could stop being so “needy,” “clingy,” or “jealous,” then he will become the loving partner he was in the beginning of the relationship [except, that was all a show].

    This is a form of gaslighting he uses against his victims. It's how sociopaths control their victim's "legitimate emotional reactions to their stonewalling, emotional withdrawal, and inconsistency."
    During the discard phase, the narcissist abandons his or her victim in the most horrific, demeaning way possible to convince the victim that he or she is worthless. This could range from: leaving the victim for another lover, humiliating the victim in public, being physically aggressive, and a whole range of other demeaning behaviors to communicate to the victim that he or she is no longer important.
    Gafni has done this repeatedly over the years. Each of the women who claim he victimized them have experienced this process (including, in part, Judy and Sara, who were raped).

    Idealization Phase: Gafni woos them, seduces them, tells them how special or unique they are, then begins a sexual relationship with them. He asks them to respect the "sacredness" of the container in which they come together (read: stay silent). Over time he demands more and more of their time and energy, cutting them off from supports who might question his motives.

    Judy Mitzner was quoted in the New York Daily News:
    It started with compliments and extra attention, eventually leading to the night when the rabbi appeared in her basement bedroom.
    In an earlier statement, from 2004, given to Gary Rosenblatt, editor of Jewish Journal, Judy offered more detail:
    Mordechai Winiarz paid attention to me. He told me how intelligent and special I was. I spent many Shabbat lunches with him and his wife feeling like I had finally found a family. I began keeping kosher and abiding by the laws of modesty. Mordechai had awarded me JPSYer of the Year.
    In a 2006 article in Forward, it was reported that an Orthodox couple in Boca Raton was interviewed for a Ma’ariv profile on Gafni. The couple claimed that Gafni "sexually preyed on their 23-year-old daughter" while acting as visiting rabbi in Kfar Saba (a city in the Sharon region, of the Center District of Israel). Gafni is alleged to have told her that he wanted to leave his wife and marry her.
    “We taped him saying to our daughter, ‘I love you very much. I dream of the day we will be together,’” the couple told Ma’ariv. “When the story became known, Gafni left Kfar Saba.” The couple’s daughter told Ma’ariv that she subsequently found out that Gafni was having similar relationships with other young women.
    This is how the sociopath seduces and charms--and Gafni was doing this as a young man. Reports I have heard from survivors over the last decade confirm similar experiences.

    Devaluation Phase: Gafni begins to lose interest, insults them if they don't perfectly parrot his "teachings," covertly at first, then overtly, and in front of others. He will lose sexual interest, and at this point the woman will discover (if she has not already), the depth of his porn addiction. The sex will become demeaning, calling the woman a whore and similarly offensive things.

    Gafni did this with his 3rd ex-wife, according to a deposition she gave by email in 2006.
    While we were being intimate, he would demand that I repeat, "I am a whore." I reluctantly went along with this at first. Eventually I refused to say it. ... Additionally, he viewed pornography on a regular basis; including paying money to have memberships to certain sites. Eventually his computer and email were so full of pornography that he paid tens of hundreds of dollars to get it cleaned, for fear that someone may see it and that he would lose his job.
    The sociopath begins to compare her to other women or other "lovers," become emotionally distant, or close her out with silence if she fails to meet his needs or standards. He will make her feel she is needy and irrational. As Arabi points out:
    Since the “hot” aspect of this phase relies on intermittent reinforcement in which the narcissist gives you inconsistent spurts of the idealization phase throughout, you become convinced that perhaps you are at fault and you can “control” the narcissist’s reactions.
    Arabi goes on to outline the border zone when the victim begins to understand fully who the sociopath is, and likely feels trapped--she realizes now that she has become the victim.
    You are mislead into thinking that if you just learn not to be so “needy,” “clingy,” or “jealous,” the narcissist will reward you with the loving behavior he or she demonstrated in the beginning. The narcissist may use these and other similar words to gaslight victims when they react normally to being provoked.
    Discard Phase: At this point, he is done and ready to move on (if the woman has not already escaped or started speaking with the "other women" he has been sleeping with). Or he will stop hiding his other sexual relationships and even flaunt them. Often, according to Arabi, the goal for him is to humiliate the woman and make her feel worthless.

    Here is how his 3rd ex-wife described her experience of being discarded:
    January 2002: Dear God, I’m confused. He has this “teaching partner”. He spends all of his time with her. I don’t like the energy between them. I have pleaded with him to stop working with her. He refuses. Claims I am being jealous, needy. I asked if they are having an affair. He went off into a loud round of denial. Says I am insecure, delusional. Please God, help me stop being so jealous, so sad, so needy.
    She was correct--he was sleeping with his teaching partner, as well as students. Then there is this, an example of how the energy suck of narcissists (as mentioned, all sociopaths and psychopaths are narcissists) causes physical illness as well as psychological confusion:
    Oxford, May 2003: Please God, help me. I am sick…often. I am having these migraine headaches. My skull is exploding. I can’t breathe. My chest is sealed shut. I am a shell. When I go outside people come up to me rambling about how my husband is sleeping with this woman who comes to his classes. He promises me it’s all lies. All I know is that I am hurting, God. Physically, emotionally, mentally. I am not well. Please God let these headaches end.
    Sometimes, the discard phase includes a "smear campaign" in which the sociopath portrays the woman as unstable, needy, or otherwise dysfunctional. Among his support network, this often works, according to Arabi, because his network is other narcissists/sociopaths, people pleasers, empaths, and those who are easily swayed (this is so true of Gafni). Further,
    This smear campaign accomplishes three things: 1) it depicts you as the abuser or unstable person and deflects your accusations of abuse, 2) it provokes you, thus proving your instability to others when trying to argue his or her depiction of you, and 3) serves as a hoovering technique in which the narcissist seeks to pull you back into the trauma of the relationship as you struggle to reconcile the rumors about you with who you actually are by speaking out against the accusations.
    Gafni has a history of getting others around him, his supporters, to help him defame his accusers, as well as his victims. This is from Russ Cushin, in the Jewish Week, who orchestrated a letter of support (with other former students of Gafni's) for the petition initiated by rabbi David Ingber to stop Gafni from abusing again.
    A computer technician, Cashin said that during the time he was in the maggid program he was asked by Gafni to search the Internet for information on two of Gafni’s most outspoken critics. “He wanted to rebuild his reputation and wanted me to dig up material on them to taint their reputation.”
    In the prior quote from Arabi, she mentioned hoovering. Hoovering is a term used to describe the way narcissists (and sociopaths) try to suck prior victims back into the trauma bond, and thereby replenish what calls their "narcissistic supply." The sociopath will attempt this with feigned offers of an apology or "clearing the air," which Gafni has done with several survivors of his abuse.

    From GoodTherapy.org:
    When a survivor has gone no-contact—in other words, the survivor has chosen to disengage completely from the abusive person—often the person with narcissism will attempt to see if the door is still open for more narcissistic supply. He or she may “hoover” prior survivors by emailing, texting, phoning, or showing up at a survivor’s workplace or residence under the pretext of apologizing for transgressions, delivering flowers, hitting the reset button, or feigning illness or a need for assistance (money, return of belongings, etc.).
    In the 2004 Jewish Journal article cited above, Gafni said he has tried to contact Sara and "heal" the situation:
    When told of the woman's comments, Gafni said he would like the situation to be "healed," adding that his attempt to do so several years ago went unheeded.
    Here is a more detailed account of how that transpired (quoted from Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out):
    Back in 2001, survivor number one received a telephone call from Winiarz/Gafni supporter Naomi Mark, ACSW. Naomi's goal was for a survivor of childhood sexual abuse to meet with her offender. Naomi told this survivor that Marc Winiarz/Gafni wanted to make amends. She told the survivor that Mordechai Winiarz/Gafni had wrote a letter stating: “he thought the survivor was hurting because he ended their relationship instead of marrying her”. He wanted to apologize for "breaking her heart.”

    The survivor told Ms. Mark that she would not meet with the man who raped her. The survivor disclosed that she let Naomi Mark know that “the relationship” Winiarz/Gafni was referring to should be called RAPE. A far cry from what Winiarz/Gafni called a “heartache, or a fallen romance.”
    Sara was wise not to meet with him. As was Judy, who has refused Gafni's efforts to clear the air (if they were ever really made). The Times of Israel reported:
    [Gafni] claimed he has repeatedly tried to contact Mitzner “to create resolution.”
    “She has always refused,” Gafni said. “I want reach out right now, as I have many times over the years through third parties, and invite Judy into a mediated conversation where we could transform this from hatred to goodness and truth and beauty.”
    Judy's version is a LOT different.
    As for his claims that he has repeatedly tried to contact me to “create a resolution” – this is as well entirely false.  I have never heard from him nor would I want to.  He victimized me, and no mediated conversation “could transform this from hatred to goodness and truth and beauty”.
    Why would any survivor of an abuser who continues to deny his actions want to sit down with him and "create a resolution"? The ONLY valid resolution is for Gafni to take responsibility for what he has done to so many women.

    DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender

    Not only does the sociopath demean and humiliate the victim, but if she takes her experience public he will malign and discredit the woman and her experience. This has been Marc Gafni's pattern since his very first abuses as a young rabbi.

    For example, this is from the 2004 Jewish Journal article on Gafni:
    Gafni said that Judy was a troubled, unstable teenager who fabricated the story after he rebuffed her advances.
    And this from the recent NYT article:
    [Gafni] said that old claims against him were all exaggerated, the result of professional resentment, and that he had been the victim of pseudofeminist witch hunts.
    Gafni makes himself the victim of Judy in this quote from The Times of Israel:
    “For 31 years she has been encouraged to be a victim. Judy is not acting alone. She is a part of well-organized and funded social group. She received strong social approval and reward for being a hero breaking the silence, which is ironic because she has not stopped talking about this and attacking me for decades in so many different ways, causing me and my children and friends a massive amount of substantive damage and pain,” said Gafni.
    There is no "well-organized and funded social group." Judy has been alone in a desert of denials and dismissals. Only other survivors have offered moral support. She says it even more clearly:
    I would like to make something PERFECTLY clear I have always acted alone. I have never been part of a “well-organized and funded social group”. Please, if that is the case why am I the one struggling to make ends meet while he sits “looking out of his home office on Monterey Bay”?
    In the New York Daily News article, Gafni is quoted again making himself the victim:
    “This is sexual McCarthyism,” insisted Gafni, who provided polygraph tests to support his position. “What they’re doing is social media rape.”
    And
    “What they’re doing is a terrible thing,” Gafni said. “It’s an affront to all true victims. They claim victimhood in a way that’s not right, that’s false.”
    This reversal, making him the victim, is a common tactic by perpetrators, part of what Jennifer Freyd at the University of Oregon calls DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
    DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of "falsely accused" and attacks the accuser's credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
    A more nuanced and detailed version of this model appears in Freyd's Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled (2013).

    Gafni is very proficient with the attack aspect of DARVO. Here are the comments of Susan, the first person Judy told about what Gafni did to her. Susan was a 22-year-old adviser in JPSY-- she believed what Judy told her. From Rosenblatt's 2004 article:
    She said that when she took Judy's side, Gafni made harassing phone calls and threats against her.

    "He told me I would regret it," Susan said, adding that the rabbi made inappropriate advances to her, as well.
    When Judy came forward, his attacks on her were more withering and long-lasting:
    Judy said he abused her sexually on two occasions. Even more upsetting, she said, was that afterward, the rabbi tried to convince her the encounter did not happen, and then harassed her for many months. He threatened to keep her out of Jewish schools (she was seeking to transfer from public school to a yeshiva), called her home at all hours of the night and then hung up, mailed pictures to her home of naked men and had her followed.
    Trying to convince her that what she experienced never happened is gaslighting. From Wikipedia:
    Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.
    Gafni always reverses the victim-offender dynamic. He accused Judy of being "highly initiatory" in the NYT follow-up story in Tablet. He went further in the article in the New York Daily News:
    Gafni charged that Mitzner spun her story from “20 minutes of fooling around” — and claims he spurned her invitation to sleep together.

    “A one-time mistake,” he claimed. “There’s a difference between a mistake and predatory (behavior).”
    So being a 26-year-old rabbi who fondles a 16-year-old who is crying and begging him to stop is "one-time mistake," a "mistake" that actually happened twice, with him crawling naked into her bed, and with him penetrating her with his fingers? 

    He reversed the offender-victim dynamic with his 3rd ex-wife, as well, as she detailed in the 2006 email deposition:
    If I didn't agree with him on something then he would burst into a rage and tell me how stupid I was. But more than that, he would tell me how unloving, insensitive and selfish I was. Convincing me that I was the evil, selfish, unloving one was one of his most powerful tools of manipulation.
    Conclusions

    For those people who have wondered why more of Gafni's victims have not come forward, this post should have explained it for you. If not, then I failed to fully convey how difficult Gafni can make life for those who do come forward.

    Gafni's retaliations can be difficult. I have been told by more than survivor that Gafni keeps files on anyone he suspects he might have to discredit, collecting anything he can to make the person look "unstable" or unreliable.

    He also engages in DARVO with every accuser. He denies that it happened, or that he did anything wrong. He attacks the accuser and tries to discredit her (or him), or he has his supporters attack so that he can appear to take the "high ground." And if those two efforts fail, he reverses the offender (him) and the victim, and he often does it very publicly, such as in interviews.

    Then there are the statistics, cited above, showing that women who know their perpetrators are much less likely to report than if they do not know the perpetrator.

    Considering all of this, it's amazing that any of the survivors have come forward.

    REFERENCES

    All sources for quotes are linked.

    These statistical references are the exception:

    1. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, M. Planty and L. Langton, “Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994-2010,” 2013

    2. Wolitzky-Taylor et al, “Is Reporting of Rape on the Rise? A Comparison of Women with Reported Versus Unreported Rape Experiences in the National Women’s Study-Replication,” 2010

    3. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, T. Hart and C. Rennison, “Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000,” 2003

    4. D. Kilpatrick et al., “Drug-facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape: A National Study,” 2007;