Prince Andrew: Innocent until proven guilty?

 

Prince Andrew: Innocent until proven guilty?

Being a member of the Royal Family can sometimes be a privilege and can sometimes be a liability and this has been shown by the reaction of the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and of other members of the Royal Family.

Prince Andrew has been condemned and turned into a pariah even before any case against him is dealt with in a court of Law. 

Denonciations by mass media are no evidence whatsoever. Denonciations by mass media are no verdict whatsoever.

Regardless of the lack of a verdict, Prince Andrew has been condemned by his own family and by his own mother that has thrown him to the wolves without there being any trial whatsoever. Why? To protect the Royal Family from scandal. Even military chiefs that are supposed to stand for 'innnocent until proven guilty' have turned to be cowards. The man stands accused of many things, but the man has not been convicted in any court of Law.

So, Madam, you throw your own son to the wolves to save an institution? Let's see what kind of institution your are trying to save. You eldest son before marrying his present wife was an adulterous man that had an affair with another man's wife while being married to Princess Diana. Marrying the adulterous woman does not erase the fact that the relationship started as an adulterous relationship. The mother of two of your grandchildren died or was murdered in a tunnel in France and now every goes on as if nothing had happened while your first born was having an illicit relationship. Interesting of presenting the moral values of the Church of England of which you are the Head.

Maybe some time in the future Prince Andrew will be found guilty of the crimes for which he stands accused but that time has not come yet. As any man he has the right to have his day in court, but the reaction of the Royal Family does not look like cowardice. There is no wonder then that Prince Harry chose to jump overboard and go to America. Like stated at the beginning, every man or woman is innocent until proven guilty, but the Royal Family seems to think otherwise.

Jeffrey Epstein: Why?

 

Jeffrey Epstein: Why?

When I look at the case of Jeffrey Epstein and try to understand why what happened happened the answer comes loud and clear: mental illness. We can blame the individual a thousand times, but the clear explanation is that that he could not help doing what he did. People become addicted to alcohold, tobacco, and other drugs. People become addicted to food. Perhaps he become addicted to under-age women and this was the only way he could get some kind of sexual and emotional gratification.

He was clever enough, intelligent enough, to amass an vast amount of wealth to have the kind of lifestyle that he enjoy with expensive residences, private jets and the luxuries of a very wealthy lifestyle, meeting people in the higher echelons of power and celebrity, but he could avoid doing what in the end led to his demise at an age when he could have had even more to enjoy and achieve. In spite of his inability or unwillingness to form lasting emotional relationships he could be generous and in fact supported various institutions. He was not a conventional individual. We cannot measure him according to our own standards or points of view.

In fact, we live in times where conflicting set of values coexist. We live in a world in which in some parts of the world drugs are legalised and in other parts of the world using drugs or trafficking drugs can get you killed. We live in a world in which in some parts of the world men can marry men and women can marry women and in which in some parts of the world men and women would be put to death because of homosexuality and bisexuality.

In the same world, there are places where sex with chiildren is a criminal offense and in other places sex with children is a custom leading to arranged marriages when families - not the individual concerned - make deals marrying their children to adults.

The word is full of contraditions and the age of consent tend to vary not just between countries, but within countries. We live in a world in which the fashion industries have sexualised children promoting a sort of lessez-faire, laissez-passer kind of attitudes.

Jeffrey Epstein was both a victim and a victimiser. Any human being is extremely complex and there are many sides of the same story. People can be many things at the same time. I am not the same man that I was yesterday or the week before or the year before. We are constantly evolving, experiencing and learning not just about the outside world, but also about ourselves, about our inner world.

For many years, we knew Michael Jackson's public personna, but most of us didn't know about Michael Jackson as a human being, about who Michael Jackson was in his own mind when dealing with his own weaknesses and emotional needs. We admired his music, his showmanship, but we didn't know Michael Jackson the human being that struggled. We knew about Vivien Leigh the movie star, the now legendary protagonist of Gone with the Wind, but we didn't know Vivien Leigh the woman that could barely cope because of mental heatlh issues.

What led Prince Andrew to get involved with the lifestyle of Jeffrey Epstein? We had the image promoted by the Royal Family and the mass media concerning the man who took part in a threatre of war, the man who was involved with several charities, the military man that served with distinction, the family man. The marriage to Sarah Fergusson was not a successful marriage despite the fact that even after the break up he maintained an amicable relatioship with his former wife. The real man was hidden behind his public image. We often forget that behind every celebrity there is real human being.