After perusing your website, I conjectured you’d be interested in my post titled, “sweetest nookie”. In this post, you’ll find some notions about how Lenny, were he around today, might comment about the recent kerfuffle in the Middle East.

Anyway, you’ll find the hyperlink to the post just below

toodles

http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2006/08/sweetest-nookie.html

You’re Australian, so I’m not sure if you really get a sense of what the climate in America is right now. The sex thing, sure, you’re absolutely right, in the scheme of things — not that important. But in a way, it is. I’ll get back to that.

First off, you mention the Pakistani earthquake. What a fucking travesty, and the Western World’s lack of response — what a goddamned statement about how friggin’ shallow we are. Pakistan is 98% Muslim. They’re all brown-skinned. Hell, they’re probably TERRORISTS. Fuck ‘em! If they die, that’s all right! This is probably what some folks have been thinking. How absolutely wrong.

Pat Robertson’s recently come out saying that Muslims are doing the devil’s work and are on a campaign towards world domination. Outcry? Nope. 46% of Americans, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll done lately believe Muslims are likely to resort to violence, and that they have a negative view of the faith as a whole.

Me, I’ve taught Muslims and have known some very, very devout ones, and they have been, without a doubt, some of the kindest, most gentle, forgiving people I have known.

The Tsunami hit a WHITE TOURIST area, and that got the majority of the media’s attention. If whites hadn’t been involved, the response, I bet, would have been slower.

Hurricane Katrina, yes, only 2,000 or so died, but it’s woken the US up to the fact that it’s a dual-classed nation and the poor don’t fucking exist. It’s a huge source of American shame right now, and as such, is still a big topic.

As far as the comments on American companies kow-towing to demands of censorship from the Chinese government, you’re fucking right, where’s the controversy? Everyone’s all cheering that Google’s standing up to the US gov’t on “privacy” laws, (while giving in to the Chinese on censorship simultaneously) but the reality is, Google’s just covering their financial ass so their competitors (who freely acquiesced to the gov’s demands) can’t discover the trade secrets that makes Google the top search engine in the world.

You’re absolutely right — as far as ignorance goes, no one has as much a corner on that market as Americans — no offense to my American friends — and because they’re ignorant, because they don’t go behind the walls of their very infotainment-based news, ie CNN, they don’t even know how much they don’t know.

But back to the issue in my post.

You know and I know that to get people interested in change, you need to hit them where it hurts. “They’re gonna take away my porn?! FUCK THAT!” Everyone wants their porn.

Lightness aside, the climate of America today is fast becoming the climate depicted in George Clooney’s Good Night, And Good Luck, about the House Un-American Committee. Objecting to the government’s stance on anything today is slapped with an “unpatriotic” label. Anyone who objects, is silent. They’re terrified to speak up and be labelled as a pinko leftie who sympathizes with the Murdering Terrorist Bastards.

There is an atmosphere of fear, and despite thoughts there would be a backlash of anger and speaking up after the whole ridiculous reelection of Georgie, it has been the opposite. Things have quietened. The death toll in the war isn’t mentioned as often. Hell, even the wire-tapping has failed to ruffle many feathers. Bush could be impeached time and again, but he hasn’t. Cheney should have to resign — he fucking shot someone while in office — and he isn’t.

Things are mighty fucked up in the States, and there’s little, if any, movement to change it. Where are the massive demonstrations? Where are the youth, who should be up in arms, shouting, “MY AMERICA DOESN’T SUPPRESS RIGHTS! MY AMERICA CELEBRATES FREEDOMS, DOESN’T MOCK THEM!”

The youth are nowhere. They’re apathetic. They couldn’t give less of a shit about all of this. They’re more concerned with polyphonic ring tones and what Britney Spears did on the weekend. The youth are the embarrassment of their country, because they’re the only ones with nothing to lose, and the ones with the balls to fight, yet they choose not to.

So, if picking a popular, vacuous topic like the protection of the right to “free speech” on porn and such is the way to fire up a little controversy, then so be it. I’m pandering to the masses in a way that I hope gets a few more people on page with the fight.

And you’re right, too, in that the internet voice isn’t as valuable as we would hope it to be. My work was also plagiarized by that whore on AdultFriendFinder, too, so I know where you’re coming from. But I’m not just speaking in terms of having an internet voice — I’m wanting to see those demonstrations, demanding their America be a truly free place where dissent is encouraged, because DISSENT is what MADE America. How ironic.

Being Canadian, it’s tragic, watching the downfall of a nation, and that’s what’s happening. The Canadian dollar is inching towards 90 cents on the American — up from 65 cents just three years ago. Give the Yankee buck a parachute — it’s gonna need it.

It’s ridiculous, the ignorance and apathy in America today. As a Canadian, I shake my head. Daily. God, how I wish I could push a button to put the USA back on its path towards the American Dream, but there is no button, there is no path. It’s all just a blur of sanctimony and pomp. How sad.

(Of course, there are a few Americans ballsy enough to speak out loud, with their real names. There are many Americans who understand the world issues and have passions for them, but most of them are too scared [and probably rightly so] to speak aloud. Then there are those like pretty boy Clooney who are drawing important parallels to their past. Ultimately, the buck stops at the press… and that’s a whole other issue. When the press is owned by mega conglomerates who have their own issues they’re concerned about — profit, legislation to protect their asses — how can you trust the source? There is no journalistic integrity in America today. It’s about fucking time journalists remember their job: To report on things as they are, and to try to change the world for the better. God knows that’s why I got my fucking degree.)

The reality is there are some things that can be classified as obscene, if people ignore this and rant on about ‘freedom of speech’, and forget the other realities, of there being cases where people are bought and sold agaisnt their will over the Internet, or other forms of abuse, then where does that leave people?

The other thing I know? Is that every page I open, the only issue that matters or that has mattered, was Hurricane Katrina, even though there were less than 2000 deaths. The majority of webpages on domains will promote this as the most signficant issue, despite the reality of there being 100,000 people dead at the hands of the most recent earthquake in Pakistan (but hey, who cares they don’t have mardi gras there right?) and this may not be a sexual issue, but I find this blatant ignorance (of other issues around the word) ‘obscene’. To me, that is humane obscenity.

I don’t mean to be rude, but frankly when Americans make an issue of one thing, they magnify it like it’s the most urgent issue on this planet that supercedes every other issue. So people don’t have as much freedom to post graphic sexual images of people having enemas while swallowing ‘buckets’ (or what appear to be) of ‘cum’ or whatever other overt (for controversy purposes only) image they can find. THIS is what sexual obscenity is about. If it were about the current sexualities in blogs, then we’d all have been wiped off the Internet, and would be wiped off without so much as an apology.

The other thing, the issue of freedom of speech has been focused on ’sex’ this week, namely ‘pornographic freedom’, like that is a significant world issue or something. Yet no one in the sexual blogosphere even bothers to discuss the trade links the US has with countries such as China, where Microsoft deems it necessary to censor a blog that, no doesn’t detail sexual acts, but talks about the dismissal of a journalist in China. This is going on, and was going on before the Supreme Court issue, but hey it’s all about ’sex’ isn’t it?

please!

I’ll respond in depth later, but thanks for the very interesting comment. Being Canadian, I do miss out on some of the subtler aspects of your governance, but it’s insightful comments like this that clue the Canuck in me in. :)

U.S. politicians need money to keep their jobs. They have to run for election every 2-6 years at their own expense. Even though many national politicians are very wealthy, they can’t afford to pay for elections themselves.

The religious right is small in number, but its members do participate in the political process, and more importantly they send money to the politicians they like. So the politicians pander to them in order to keep the money flowing.

Those with a more liberal outlook, who are not offended by displays of human affection and, dare I say it, lust, tend to keep our purses closed when the politicians come around. Whose favor do the politicians curry? You guessed it.

It doesn’t help that there is a subclass of people who prey unfairly on children and women, whom the politicans can claim to be protecting when they outlaw adult films (because, as we all know, a man who watches a fuck film will run out and rape the first pussy he finds).

Even in Southern California, the base of the adult film industry, the politicians aren’t standing up to protect the jobs and income it generates for their constituents. Sad.

He’s a reporter who’s covered obscenity cases in the past, and seems to have a great working knowledge of these issues.

So, read on for some great insight into this problem we presently face, and where it originates from.

Anything that may reveal his ID has been deleted for privacy’s sake.

Because it’s been copied and pasted, the formatting will be the shits, and the perfectionist I am, I’d normally take the time to heal it, but fuck that, I’m having a bath and putting my sick ass under the covers.

First, the core problem is the obscenity laws enacted by Nixon to
fight “Deep Throat.” Regardless of what the court(s) want to do, the
fact that these statutes are still on the books–though rarely
enforced–ties the hands of justices, because they can only work with
the laws they have. Those obscenity laws are clearly unconstitutional,
but no one has successfully fought them. And, of course, no politician
in this country wants to, either. So the courts are confined to act
within those, admittedly unconstitutional, laws. In this case, the court
could not have overturned those laws, because they were not in the
purview of the case.
Second, this is a constitutional issue, but not in terms of free
speech. The unfortunate fact about this country (and I am not applying
this criticism to you, as you never claimed to have researched this
topic exhaustively) is that the constitution is very little studied, and
the amendments get far too much attention. When I say “far too much
attention,” I mean the issues argued via the amendments are actually
dealt with earlier in the articles of the constitution.
In the creation of the constitution, and thus the United States
(that name is important), the framers sought to retain the individual
freedoms, perspectives, morals, and political perspectives of each
state. Indeed, the “United States” are united “States” as well as a
country; an often overlooked distinction. This is popularly known as the
“state’s rights” position, and is unfortunately connected to
conservative justices. Conservative justices do abuse this important
idea in the constitution, no doubt, but it has a vital importance.
Consider statues regulating the grazing of cattle. The needs of,
say, Texas, and far different from Wisconsin, not to mention Florida. In
Texas cattle are pretty much given free rein, legally, to graze, while
in corn and soybean intensive Wisconsin, cattle grazing is strictly
enforced. Florida, of course, has virtually no sustainable land for
cattle, so the laws are relatively scarce. It is because the United
States is such a large country both physically and demographically that
the constitution was framed such that each state retained the right to
legislate for its own needs and within its own context.
This presents a problem, of course, for obscenity. The article you
linked to was a bit incorrect in quoting the plaintiff’s attorney
stating that the previous cases couldn’t apply to the internet–these
laws were enacted for radio, which extends over local and state
boundaries. In several court cases it was established that in the case
of obscenity cases extending over local and state boundaries (like the
internet), the district courts (which are regional, and thus still
retain the local flavor, in theory) would decide the case.
Enter Nixon’s obscenity laws. As federal laws, they applied to
district courts, and thus those courts had no choice but to follow those
laws. In addition, as federal laws, the case could be moved to any
jurisdiction, thus ensuring the case would be moved to a conservative
district court. Without those laws, the system would work. And our
president and supreme court wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing otherwise.
So in the end I’m writing this not to criticize you–not at all; I
love what you do, how you do it, and that you’re bringing attention to
this. But my point is that the fault lies, ironically in this case, not
with the Supreme Court and Bush’s obvious stacking, but with the
Nixon-era laws that no one has challenged. In order to change these
laws–to abolish them–it will take either a very brave politician or a
very talented and rich plaintiff, who argues the case correctly (i.e.
not as a freedom of speech case, but as a constitution case).
And as for those local obscenity laws (these preceded Nixon), which
do indeed lead to the possibility of conservative communities outlawing
all sorts of things–what about them? Again, it is a constitutional
issue, and not free speech. The U.S.’s form of government is strongly
local, that is, it is empowered and based on the local level, which
supports the county level, which supports the state level, and to the
country as a whole. There are huge merits–and necessities–in having
local control over legislation (the cattle example), and unfortunately,
as long as that control exists, it will also allow local communities to
ban obscenity locally. That is where U.S. citizens have to start
participating in local elections (turnout averages 20%). The structure
of the constitution works–we just need to get people to the polls. Not
just for the president, but for every election.
So in the end, you have made a very good point on a very important
subject, and that is why I love reading what you write (and think). The
fault lies with attorneys in the U.S. not doing their homework, so to
speak, and initiating cases in the correct context and against the truly
bad laws (Nixon’s obscenity laws). We need to, in this country, stop
beating the “free speech” drum (in the wrong cases, of course) and
instead introduce constitutional cases, because it is in the articles of
the constitution where our freedoms are established first.

An on-going federal obsenity case:

http://pornstudies.net/news/Court-Online-Porn.htm

A documentary that (you can watch on-line) provides the background for the above case.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/view/

Knowledge is the key!

The stuff the US is doing to Google right now is a lot more scary to me. They are trampling people’s right to privacy under the guise of trying to catch child molesters and kiddy porn peddlers.

Keep up the good work Steff. I don’t like the America bashing much, but freedom of speech rules baby, no matter what country you exercise it in!!!

I’m 26, and the vast majority of people I know in my age group, give or take a decade or so, have never voted. It’s not ‘cool’ to care about politics. That’s for nerds, geeks, dorks, what have you.

I have my own personal issues with CNN, but as far as the Sharon Stone/coyote thing, the problem is that they’re playing to their market. They’re only printing what people want to read. When you have a population that would rather hear about whether or not Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes did get married than what our government is doing to our basic civil liberties and the freedoms that this country was supposedly founded on, then the blame lies squarely on the people, not the media.

America is filled with people who would rather hide their heads in the sand than look at the darker side of life. Why worry about people getting killed for nothing in Iraq when there are new shoes to buy? Why worry about some small-town, small-minded judge in South Dakota making decisions that affect your freedoms when you could worry so much more about your next Botox injection?

Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll get off my soapbox. The apathy that I see day in and day out is definitely something I have a tendency to get all rant-y about.

Great post, Steff. I never comment on anybody’s blogs, but you’ve got me almost permanenty de-lurked.