The Conservative Right wants us all PORN Again !! by Howard

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The Conservative Right wants us all PORN Again !!

POSTED BY: HOWARD
UPDATED: Friday, November 4, 2005 14:44
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VIEWED: 1995
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Sunday, October 30, 2005 5:04 PM

Babes in BushWorld
Raunch culture offers good old-fashioned pleasure, Republican style.
by Lakshmi Chaudhry
October 29, 2005

Just before the Republican National Convention came to town in 2004, New York newspapers were buzzing with rumors that the city's high-priced prostitutes and strippers were gearing up for "one grand old party." The reports quickly gained currency, for no one had problems imagining randy GOP types forking over $100 dollar bills in the dark of the night to be serviced by acquiescent, uber-sexualized women--the same women likely to be condemned as moral degenerates on the convention floor the next morning. This is, after all, what passes for sexual abandon in a conservative world--the kind of "Good Old-Fashioned Pleasure" a San Diego escort agency was touting when it changed its name to "GOP" during another such convention eight years before.

For the past five years, Americans have been wallowing in this quaint version of sexual pleasure, defined by skimpy thongs, stripper poles, porn boobs and faux chick-on-chick action. In a Bush World where commerce is king, it is all-but-inevitable that the dominant image of sexuality is that of a woman on sale. In her book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine editor Ariel Levy describes the new-old female sexuality that lies at the core of "raunch culture": "A tawdry, tarty, cartoonlike version of female sexuality has become so ubiquitous, it no longer seems particular. What we once regarded as a kind of sexual expression we now view as sexuality." As an L.A. workout guru specializing in "Cardio Striptease" blithely tells her, "Stripping equals sex."

Contrary to Levy's assumption, however, this shift did not occur despite the rise of the religious Right but because of it. Sex-positive feminists, who argue for the liberatory power of sexual expression, and defend the rights of sex workers, may have unintentionally done their bit to ease the transition -- for reasons too complicated to shoehorn into this article. But make no mistake, raunch is Republican. The sexuality that reigns supreme in Bush World bears the basic imprimaturs of right-wing ideology: gross materialism, sexual hypocrisy and acquiescence in the name of empowerment. It is in every sense a conservative wet dream come true.

Market-ready and mass-produced:

The "mainstreaming of porn," a phrase that refers to the ubiquity of both pornographic norms and porn itself, was as much an economic phenomenon as a cultural shift. Popular culture in America is driven by what sells, and nothing sells as well as sex. AT&T and General Motors bought themselves cable companies to more easily offer us porn in the privacy of our living rooms, while hotel chains like Marriot, Hilton and Westin made sure we could scratch that itch on the road. And then flailing dot-com entrepreneurs, amateur exhibitionists and porn veterans alike discovered the Internet. The rest is history.

The meteoric rise of the porn industry is both the cause and effect of the mainstreaming of its product. The more we sell porn, the more "okay" it becomes. The more "okay" porn becomes, the more okay it is to sell porn -- everywhere and all the time. Today porn does not just sell sex, it sells everything -- clothes, body parts, deodorants, books, magazines, celebrities. The rise of porn has been accompanied by an enormous boom in plastic surgery, as women go to the beauty salon and under the knife to reshape their bodies to fit the porn aesthetic. In turn, the fashion industry churns out skimpier and skimpier clothes to better reveal these manufactured bodies with personalities to match.

The same companies who could once only shill sneakers in the name of revolution now find that they can finance entire industries in the name of sexual freedom. Levy decries raunch culture for "endlessly reiterating one particular -- and particularly commercial -- shorthand for sexiness," one that is "fuckable and salable." The secret of pornography's triumph, however, lies more in its construction of sexuality as a commodity than its appeal to male desire. The market requires a readymade version of "hotness" that can be sold as a product to the largest possible consumer base. The X-rated version of sexuality is simply the most obvious and well-tested choice.

Better yet, in the spirit of true capitalism, the hot porn star look is also democratic, in that it can easily be reproduced with the right attitude (and, of course, a whole lot of money). Now you and I can look like Pamela Anderson or any of the pornified, plastic-doll celebrities, as both MTV's "I Want a Famous Face" and Fox's "The Swan" eagerly revealed. Corporate America has finally learned how to apply the principles of assembly line production to manufacture a Model-T of sexuality.

Less bang for the buck?

The most striking aspect of this booty-on-tap culture is its relationship -- or lack thereof -- to actual sex. Despite all the bumping and grinding on our televisions, none of us are more likely to get laid -- a reality that hand-wringers on both the left and the right seem to miss.

In the schizophrenic Republican nudie bar, pop nymphets like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson rise to stardom by selling their bodies even as they loudly proclaim their virginity. Debbie Cope, who makes a brief appearance in Female Chauvinist Pigs as a 19-year old willing to masturbate on camera for a "Girls Gone Wild" crew, tells Levy: "People watch videos and think the girls in them are real slutty, but I'm a virgin!" Debbie is the strange fruit borne by the unholy coupling of God and Mammon in Bush World, the epitome of its twisted message to young girls: Act like a slut--just don't be one.

As for adults, the raunch culture has brought pornography right into the bedroom. The booming relationship advice industry is now churning out sex guides to teach us How to Have a XXX Sex Life and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, published by the likes of tell-all publisher Judith Regan, described by Vanity Fair as "to the right of Genghis Khan" for her take-no-prisoners appetite for power and success. Regan characterized her offerings to the New York Times as "more outrageous and candid and at the same time more fun and friendly, like Las Vegas." A family-friendly Las Vegas, that is, as Doubleday Broadway's Kristine Poupolo makes clear, "We're not publishing to shock ... I like to think we're improving peoples' lives." This would explain her company's latest helpful title The Many Joys of Sex Toys by Anne Semans. Pornography itself has become the must-have sex toy for any couple looking to reignite that perennially endangered spark.

Yet one of the often-cited books of 2003 was Michele Weiner-Davis' The Sex-Starved Marriage. Her dire warnings about marital celibacy were echoed by newspapers that reported nearly 20 percent of all married couples have sex less than 10 times a year. While it remains unclear whether these numbers represent a new trend in marital behavior, raunch culture has clearly done little to improve the sex lives of real men and women.

Pamela Paul, Time contributor and author of The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony, lays the blame for these sexual woes squarely on pornography itself. Her recent book, Pornified, claims that the mainstreaming of porn has resulted in less sex among couples, as men spend hours surfing the Internet rather than getting it on with the real women in their beds. Contrary to all the talk about using porn to jumpstart the libido, it ends up making physical contact with real bodies seem boring, inadequate and way too much work. While Paul's hard data -- which is based on a slim 100-plus person survey -- is problematic, as is her tendency to treat pornography as the most important cause of our relationship woes, the book reveals the neo-puritanical reality of our smut-drenched culture.

What could be more conservative than a society that finds its pleasures in the distance of simulated sex rather than the intimacy of real intercourse, the transactional detachment of consumer demand instead of the emotional vulnerability of human desire?

Acquiescence in the name of empowerment

At the heart of the raunch culture -- and the reason for its triumph -- is the dubious equation of female self-objectification with sexual freedom. This logic, as Levy observes, has been whole-heartedly embraced by many young women responding to the age-old fear of male rejection. In a culture that encourages us to say "Yes! Yes! Yes!" it is difficult to demur at the prospect of playing porn star without being labeled a man-hating bitch or at least an un-sexy prude.

In Levy's words, "Raunch culture, then, isn't an entertainment option, it's a litmus test of female uptightness." To be hot today entails embracing porn-like gymnastics in the bedroom, stripper wear in our wardrobes, surgery scars on our bodies and wall-to-wall visuals of gyrating, barely clad women everywhere we go--all in the name of our liberation. Under the guise of losing our inhibitions, we are being bullied into performing a specific version of female sexuality.

Very early in her book, Levy poses a question that exposes the emptiness of the porn-equals-freedom logic: "[H]ow is imitating a stripper or porn star -- a woman whose job is to imitate arousal in the first place -- going to render us sexually liberated?" The porn-as-liberation canard relies on a confusion between pornography and pornified sexuality. Where a porn actress, stripper or prostitute imitates sexual acquiescence in exchange for a man's money, the pornified woman exchanges real sexual submission in hope of his approval. There are no prizes for guessing which woman has less power of the two.

When Olympic swimmer Haley Clark is -- in Levy's words -- "pictured naked and bending over in Playboy, in a position referred to as 'presenting' when exhibited in the animal kingdom," to prove that female athletes can be sexy, it raises a couple of questions: Who thinks female athletes are not sexy and therefore needs to be convinced otherwise? And, whose version of "sexy" does Clark have to conform to in order to make her point?

But where Clark may at least earn greater celebrity for her public submission, girl-gone-wild Debbie Cope will have to make do with a "free" hat -- and the knowledge that her vagina has played a small but essential role in ensuring the success of a $100 million franchise. Jenna Jameson, one of the wealthiest women in the porn industry, would undoubtedly think Debbie a fool. Yet the porn star herself is part of the larger ideological apparatus that transforms porn sexuality into a culturally desirable form of femininity.

The mainstreaming of pornography has required a significant distortion of the reality of sex work. Prostitution, for example, requires women to simulate sexual pleasure during intercourse as part of their job. It comes with the territory. Yet, the working girls featured on HBO's brothel reality show, "Cathouse: The Series," present themselves as nymphomaniacs who regularly enjoy earth-shattering orgasms with their johns. Prostitution at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch isn't just lucrative -- "I'm a businesswoman" -- but also intensely pleasurable -- "I come all the time. You can't do this job if you don't enjoy it." Worse, experiences at the brothel are represented as valuable sex lessons for men to take back with them into the real world. With the mainstreaming of porn, the tricks of the prostitute's trade have been transformed into cultural imperatives for all women.

In effect, the logic of the raunch culture is eerily similar to that Christian ideal of femininity, the Surrendered Wife. Both preach empowerment through acquiescence, promising greater happiness through the fulfillment of archetypal female roles. Bush World offers women only two choices: repression or commodification.

Toward a more sex-positive feminism:

Drawing a bright line between sexual freedom and sexual acquiescence is not an easy task in a world still defined by male desire. Yet simply rejecting male lust -- à la Andrea Dworkin or Catherine McKinnon -- is not a viable option for heterosexual women. Nor is falling back on the anti-porn bigotry of older feminists, as Paul and Levy do. Where Paul's book ends up reading as a wholesale attack on all pornography, Levy resurrects tired old stereotypes of sex workers as victims.

Both authors, however, offer an important reminder for sex-positive feminists that pornography, just like every other part of the sex industry, trades sex for money. That some women may experience personal freedom or boost their sexual self-esteem in the process is entirely incidental to the job at hand. Sex-positive feminists are entirely correct to champion sex work as work, and therefore the right of women to use their bodies to earn a living -- and have fun while doing it, if they so choose. But de-stigmatizing sex work is not the same as championing a porn version of sexuality for all women.

For now, for all the talk of liberation in Porno America, women have merely exchanged one sexual tyrant for another. It is why the over-the-top displays of flesh and lust -- accompanied by a chorus of protests from dutifully outraged preachers and parents -- seem so eerily familiar, especially to women who recognize in the faces of a Paris Hilton or Pamela Anderson the triumph of our old friend, the Whore. Long exiled to the margins of men's lives and minds, she has today dethroned her arch-nemesis, the Madonna. The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

Lakshmi Chaudhry has been a reporter and an editor for independent publications for more than six years. Besides being a Senior Editor at In These Times, where she covers the cross-section of culture and politics, Chaudhry is also a blogger at AlterNet.org.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 6:37 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Clinton's Oval Office antics had much more to do with the shaping of how some view sex than anything that has occured from the Right.

I recall the angst among some OLD guard femanist at the antics of their younger, more attractive, sexually liberated and empowered sisters, calling them 'do - me' femanist. Thank also 'Sex in the City'.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:06 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Clinton's Oval Office antics had much more to do with the shaping of how some view sex than anything that has occured from the Right.

I agree. A local Middle School was recently exposed to have a large amount of Oral sex going on in the restrooms and stairwells. By large amount I mean involving several dozen girls (and presumably one or more boys, although the paper didn't mention it) in 7th and 8th grade. The girls got in trouble and many were shocked since to them its an act on the same level as kissing.

They didn't learn that from President Bush. However, also shocking was the outrage by several parents that their child was being punished. How dare we enforce arbitrary standards of decency on their children.

H

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:26 AM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:

I agree. A local Middle School was recently exposed to have a large amount of Oral sex going on in the restrooms and stairwells. By large amount I mean involving several dozen girls (and presumably one or more boys, although the paper didn't mention it) in 7th and 8th grade. The girls got in trouble and many were shocked since to them its an act on the same level as kissing.

I saw an article on this (or a similar) incident just recently, and the conservative pundits they interviewed tried to put the blame on Clinton for this as well. These kids weren't even old enough to know what was going on during the Clinton era enough to be 'influenced by it.' Your average middle schooler is between 12-14, making them all of 6-7 at the MOST during the Clinton scandal; unless their conservative parents repeated to them nightly for the next 7 years what Clinton did, this is a specious argument. This is just another chance for you to say 'Oh my God, but Clinton...' and you sound ridiculous.

Admittedly, we have changing sexual mores in this country, but the right makes it out as if no one was having sex or had access to porn before the Clinton administration. Stop trying to turn the nation into the imaginary ideals of the fantasy-50's. In the real 50's - if you know your history- people had access to porn, and people had sex (sometimes even with people that weren't their spouses!). The problem with teens thinking oral sex isn't sex is that kids with sex drives are trying to adapt to parents who are becoming increasingly unwilling to teach them about sex. "Just don't do it honey!" is all the education they are receiving these days, partly because schools are scared to even teach the basics for fear of lawsuits from evangelicals.

Quote:
They didn't learn that from President Bush.

No, they're learning even better stuff - like how to lie about WMD's to the American people , how to create a culture of fear (Today's terror alert level: Chartreuse), how to set up fall guys when your minions get caught committing treason.....

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:44 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
I saw an article on this (or a similar) incident just recently, and the conservative pundits they interviewed tried to put the blame on Clinton for this as well.

I agree with you to. It was never that Clinton committed his immoral acts that was the problem. The problem was the casual acceptence of them from the media and the public. There was no outrage, no shock, no moral condemnation (besides those who'd condem a ham sandwhich to borrow a phrase).

Clinton's role was to be a part of and contribute to the culture of permissability that has permeated our society in the last 50 years. Not all of that is bad. I for one am glad we a so much more tolerant of divergent cultures, races, sex (the gender), and homosexuality). But like many movements, especially one so broad, it has gone to far in certain areas and needs to be rolled back and allowed to find a more acceptable and healthy level for society.

As for the President's 'culture of fear', I'd suggest that change was inevitable after the lasting images of American cities in chaos and nightly renditions of America at War. Its a War on Terror, your gonna need to expect to see a little fear.

Just remember, 'we have nothing to fear', not really, 'except fear itself'. That line is not about courage, its about faith. Faith in our nation, faith in our cause, faith in each other, and ultimately faith in ourselves. Some of us might even add faith in God to the list.

H

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Monday, October 31, 2005 10:24 AM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
It was never that Clinton committed his immoral acts that was the problem. The problem was the casual acceptence of them from the media and the public. There was no outrage, no shock, no moral condemnation (besides those who'd condem a ham sandwhich to borrow a phrase).

What was there to get so worked up about though? He had oral sex with someone that wasn't his spouse and got caught. He
A):Wasn't the first Pres (conservative or liberal) to have had extramarital relations in the Oval Office, and
B):We don't know what was happening in his marriage that may have made him believe that it was an acceptable occurrence (notice, he isn't divorced for it).

So what is there to condemn? I know many supposedly moral, churchgoing folk who have gotten divorces or marriage counseling for adultery; I know many happily married people who know their spouses have had affairs. The right wanted to "get" Clinton during the 90's as much as some of the left wants to "get" Bush now, and they did it by creating this magical cult of the immoral and perverted. Where a woman in her 20's is suddenly a juvenile as far as sex is concerned, but is still an adult when the conservatives need her to vote or pay taxes. Give me a break.
The government needs to stay out of bedrooms (or anywhere else people are lucky enough to be getting a little).

Quote:
Clinton's role was to be a part of and contribute to the culture of permissability that has permeated our society in the last 50 years.

Need I remind you that the Republicans have been in control of the government for the vast majority of the last 50 years? And all but 8 of the last 25? That Reagan had an affair that ended in a remarriage to Nancy (from Jane Wyman), and Bush Jr. snorted coke in his past and let his daughters drink under age while he was in office (the daughters, not the coke). Sorry, 8 years of Clinton did not suddenly send this country on a moral nosedive; that's Rush, O'Reilly, and Hannity talking (and notice how fast THEY shut up about how Bush's life/relationships are personal - I love how they are personal with GWB, but morally 'out there' with Clinton.

Quote:
it has gone to far in certain areas and needs to be rolled back and allowed to find a more acceptable and healthy level for society.

It has gone too far according to the right, probably not far enough according to the left. Who's right? Beats me; if we as a society aren't ready for it, it'll slow down on its own - or speed up if we are, in fact, ready for cultural shift. I personally think porn, t.v., and games aren't the problem, I think the problem is parents who don't want to raise their kids (who then get into trouble, leaving parents pointing the finger). And bad parenting has no party affiliation, I assure you.

Quote:
As for the President's 'culture of fear', I'd suggest that change was inevitable after the lasting images of American cities in chaos and nightly renditions of America at War. Its a War on Terror, your gonna need to expect to see a little fear.

And whose fault is that? Jingoists over at Fox news and CNN who think that telling people that they are going to die every day is a good idea, that's who. Osama is not hiding under your bed, and your next door neighbor does not have the SARS, or the Avian Flu. The US Gov't plays into this freakshow by having scare days when "something is gonna happen, go buy duct tape" and then nothing ever does. It's bullshit; we have people in this country, especially Fox watchers, that think anyone brown is going to blow up their house. That is a culture of fear, and it fostered upon the uneducated masses by the GOP as a means of controlling their votes. It's the same with morality - "Watch out America, porn stars are coming to rape your children, and Bill Clinton sent them! Let's go back to the imaginary 50's culture of I Love Lucy!"

It's a shell game, and I think eventually Americans are going to figure it out.

Quote:
Just remember, 'we have nothing to fear', not really, 'except fear itself'. That line is not about courage, its about faith.

That line (from FDR's 1932 speech, for those that don't know - just throwing that out there for anyone who wants to read it; it's a masterwork of speech and is still taught in Lang. Arts to this day) is about faith, but not in the way that you imply.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance

Those words are opposed to the very unreasoning, unjustified terror that has paralysed us as a nation, thanks to people that try to scare us into believing we are at death's door every single day.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 11:37 AM

DREAMTROVE

So the right is all sex-trade and strippers? Why don't they show up at my meetings!? Seriously. We could use some cartoon anti-feminist republican strippers at our meetings, instead of just a bunch of staunchy old men. :)

But seriously folkes. Both sides have their "we hate sex" contingent. On the left, it's the feminists, on the right it's the christians. But this isn't politics. It's monopocapitalism.

Yep. Another great non-word. But let me explain.

The image of slutney spears strip singer is a creation of Viacom, as is "gangstarap," regurgipop, and the whole overhyped talentless superstar thing. This is the new image, almost solely crafted by one company. Even country music is now a creation of Viacom.

Here's how it works. You take a person who is on your team, and you excentuate something meaningless about them. Like their parents own hilton hotels or they used to be a deputy head of the crips. Then you take that and say this makes them a star. You hire coaches to make them sing and dance at a level that might pass in a school play, and you add lots of flash and computer back up rhythms, you follow them everywhere with papparzzis and give the extreme details on everything they do.

The consumer becomes ultra obsessed with the life this person lives. Yes, this is the obsession. They don't care dick for the person usually, or the person's not existant talent. They want that life. And a dream life for most people has lots of sex in it. And of course money, and flash. If it doesn't glitter, the customers won't buy.

So who or what is Viacom? All of you people know already. Viacom/CBS is one half of the skull and bones empire, which I'm sure Chrisisall is familiar with. The other half is of course Time Warner. Typically Viacom has been a democrat, as has skull and bones, but with Bush as the Bonesman in Chief, all bets are off. I'm sure that the bones have no loyalty besides to themselves and the dollar bill.

But technically, really, is it truly a culture? There is no image that Viacom did not forge themselves. It is a culture of one. A culture by dictation. What I would term a Cultural Desert, or even a Cultural Void.

Not surprisingly I don't think the liberal overanalysis actually has anything to do with reality. Not major changes to human sexuality with some pseudo-feminist slant from the world of wishgul thinking. It's image in a can, with one maker.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 2:53 PM

SEVENPERCENT

Since DT and I were already discussing similar issues in the Libby thread, and it relates to something I said earlier, I thought I'd post this article I was just reading.

The conservative, evangelical, abstinence-only crowd is doing just about all it can to sabotage women's health issues in America, under the guise of "policing morality." Take a look at this.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/31/MNG2LFG
JFT1.DTL#storystory

Here's the gist of the article:

Quote:
A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teen-agers could encourage sexual activity.

They're so scared that someone in America might actually be having more fun than they are that they'd risk the health of kids. Good folks.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:14 PM

HOWARD

The point is that they preach one thing
and do another.

It is very 1950's a facade of Godly conformity
married to sleazy exploitation.

This is a problem of conversion between the
economic conservatives who are not into
religion and the social conservatives who are.
Bush needs them both but in many ways they
are two different groups entirely.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:14 PM

HOWARD

The point is that they preach one thing
and do another.

It is very 1950's a facade of Godly conformity
married to sleazy exploitation.

This is a problem of convergence between the
economic conservatives who are not into
religion and the social conservatives who are.
Bush needs them both but in many ways they
are two different groups entirely.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 9:52 PM

DREAMTROVE

7%,

Interesting idea.

I think that there are health issues related to endemic spread of disease. If someone made the argument that liberals wanted such diseases to spread they'd be rightly branded a looney.

I think the phrase "conservatives oppose" is honest but misleading. Conservatives as a group undoubtedly do not oppose, but those who oppose may be conservatives.

I really don't have a lot of tolerance for this sort of christian lunacy that thinks it can legislate healthcare.

I support RTL, sure, but that's a right wing opposition to a left legislation of healthcare, or that's how we would see, as a right to life from the point of view of the foetus, but this sort of stuff in the story you just printed...

... it's crackpots. Sadly, it's crackpots on my side. If you have any suggestion of ways I can maybe get them to shut up, it would be greatly appreciated.

:)

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 8:09 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:

No, they're learning even better stuff - like how to lie about WMD's to the American people , how to create a culture of fear (Today's terror alert level: Chartreuse), how to set up fall guys when your minions get caught committing treason.

Only that you're wrong on all 3 accounts. There was no lie about WMD. Sorry, but you can repeat that lie yourself as much as you want, it'll never become true. The terrorist , not Bush, created the mess we're in now. Don't EVER forget that. Blame them for the cold blooded murder of 1000s. And who was set up? Who committed treason? So far, all Scooter Libby is accused of is being a bone head and not getting his facts straight. Valerie wasn't some deep, covert operative, so don't try to claim she was. Scooter wasn't indicted for any act of treason. Get your facts straight.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 8:28 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
There was no lie about WMD. Sorry, but you can repeat that lie yourself as much as you want, it'll never become true.

Oh, so they found them? That's nice. That "proof" they kept parading in front of us bore fruit? I must have missed that.

Quote:
The terrorist , not Bush, created the mess we're in now.

True. Bush just made it worse.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 11:01 AM

DREAMTROVE

Auraptor give it a rest. There was a lie about WMD. It went like this

In the beginning there were WMDs.

We sold them to Iraq.

That's how we knew he had them.

When Bush 41 went to war in kuwait, saddam destroyed the WMD becasue he was afraid of being found out.

Bush wanted a war with Iraq. Okay, no, that's nto fair. Bush wanted a cheeseburger. Cheney and PNAC wanted a war with Iraq.

So Tenet told them about the WMDs.

At this point, it was an error. Tenet didn't know they had been destroyed.

Colin Powell took the info to the UN. A resolution was passed against Iraq. The WMDs were still long gone, as they had been for a decade.

Saddam said I don't know what you're talking about. This was the first "lie" about WMDs.

Then the UN said "fine, we'll send you inspectors"

Inspectors went, found nothing.

The CIA looked into it, and found nothing.

Iraqi contacts of the CIA said "oh, saddam panicked in the gulf war and destroyed them." This apparantly was also not a lie.

Cheney got impatient and pressed for war. He could tell that further research was unlikely to back up the previous claims. Cheney exaggerated the certainty of the claims and then said something to the effect of everyone is behind me on this.

Bingo! The WMD lie. Yes, this was a big fat WMD lie. And then he kept making it, and other claims. It was very clear that the bulk of the CIA and the bulk of the military and police intelligence community as well as the UN workers did not believe that Saddam Hussein was currently in possession of WMDs at the time and theat he was capable of launching an assault on the USA and intended to do so. The was wrong on all accounts. The bulk of the intelligence community did not believe this. Cheney knew it was wrong, and said it anyway, repeatedly. Then the president in true monkey see monkey do fashion made the lie to the American people.

This is why it was necessary to rearrange the CIA into homeland securtiy and to sabotage Valerie Plame. It wasn't a vendetta, it was an effort to alter the intelligence community to support the statement and ones like it in the future that Bush Administration officials might have to make in order to fullfil the PNAC agenda.

So absolutely it was a whole lot of lying going on. What began as an error became a lie when the BA failed to admit the possibility that it might have been in error.

BTW, the cheeseburger story is true. While the plans for war were being drawn up, the president was preoccupied with a search for a cheeseburger. I can sympathize with that. I just wish he weren't president. I think he could be good doing something else, like appearing on an episode of Jerry Springer.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 4:34 PM

WORKEROFEVIL

Chartreuse! That needs to be a terror alert level so very much!

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 6:44 PM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Only that you're wrong on all 3 accounts. There was no lie about WMD. Sorry, but you can repeat that lie yourself as much as you want, it'll never become true. The terrorist , not Bush, created the mess we're in now. Don't EVER forget that. Blame them for the cold blooded murder of 1000s. And who was set up? Who committed treason? So far, all Scooter Libby is accused of is being a bone head and not getting his facts straight. Valerie wasn't some deep, covert operative, so don't try to claim she was. Scooter wasn't indicted for any act of treason. Get your facts straight.

This was the best you could do? I notice you couldn't attack any of the logic of my posts as they related to the actual topics of women's issues or Clinton's role in advancing sexual boundaries; instead you went after a throwaway line of sarcasm I used against Hero.

But even in that line, the facts are pretty much straight and narrow. No WMD's were found in Iraq, no Iraqis were on the 9/11 flights, Saddam and Osama weren't calling each other, your neighbor doesn't have the Ebola, Bush lodged us into a quagmire, and, last I checked, Plamegate isn't over, so we'll see how those treason charges come along (but, hey, Scooter's up on Perjury charges - remember how serious cons claimed they were when Clinton did it? Why are they being called frivolous charges now?)

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

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Thursday, November 3, 2005 5:32 PM

DREAMTROVE

Lynch,

newamericancentury.org is the PNAC website. Since you know already that I think PNAC is the antichrist, then why do you think this will win me over. Anyway, I'll read it later, but I've read and heard their justification many times. I just saw Bill Kristol give it again in an interview.

Problem with it does not even begin to describe the situation. Congress voted for something that contained one sentence about force as a last resort. That's not a declaration of war. Congress should automatically impeach any president who takes something which is not a declaration of war and uses it as a declaration of war. It may be way late for that, but they should do it, be they or the president democrat or republican, and they should do it out of hand without regard to any other issues at hand, because, and only because, it is a very serious violation of the constitution of the united state that any president in order to be president must have sworn an oath to uphold.

As for WMDs, I don't think I did blame it entirely on Bush. I blame it on PNAC, and their stooges. Clinton being the major one, I blame him a lot. I don't see why, when faced with the overwhelming evidence that Bush is really just a continuation of Clinton, people would even consider supporting him. Right wing people that is.

I'm not saying go elect a Democrat. Please don't. Give us a better republican. I have to set a higher standard than "not a democrat." That's just not good enough.

Sorry if you mistook me for a democrat because I said the president lied.

But he did lie. Not at first. But later on. After everyone was clear that it was unclear whether or not saddam hussein still had the WMDs, they lied, and said it was clear.

No facts that come to light in the future could possibly make that lie into truth.

Because the lie, as I stated before, quite clearly I thought, was that Bush, and more particularly Cheney, and also Rice, many many times indicated that there was no dispute in the intelligence community, that everyone was solidly behind their certainty that Iraq was still in possession of the WMDs. And that was simply not true. And everyone knew it. There was very much a debate, and there was no consensus. And now it looks like the dissent that was alledged not to exist, actually turned out to be correct, and it seems there were no WMDs. But now, even if there were WMDs, the lie would still be a lie.

But my problems with this war do go far far beyond that.

1. This war was set upon with the belief that Saddam Hussein had short range capabilities (no one even claimed he had long range, they assume iraqis would have to get into the US with the weapons to attack us.) Going to war without proper intelligence groundwork first would have put the men and women of our armed forces at incredible risk, had Saddam actually still had the WMDs.

2. It is a pre-emptive war. The Docrtine of Pre-Emptive War was renamed the Bush Doctrine because of this. But before that it was the Hitler Doctrine. Pre-emptive was has always been a uphamism for imperialist invasion. This is unacceptable for America. It's beyond unacceptable, it's an act of treason.

3. It's an act of social militarism, an effort to bring about social change, local to Iraq in this case, through military action. This is a tenet of militant state socialism.

4. This plan was thought up by the boys at PNAC, almost every one of them a former Socialist or Communist Party member. You can look them up one by one. There's a pretty strong commie influence there.

5. Need I say more? Has the US become the Soviet Union? Is this our goal? When we've finally accepted torture and indefinite detainment camps will we become Nazi Germany?

6. It's a plan that was made up by commies, and set into motion by the Clinton govt. It's a continuation of the Clinton serial war for global change. It's a nightmare. It's WWIII.

7. The world hates us now. And right they are. We are becoming a monster. Can we please at least ask Bush to resign, and at best publically execute him for high treason?

8. Can we please not continue this charade indefinitely while Hillary replaces George who replaced Bill, and then later, when Jeb replaces Hillary, we will have set up the twin dynasty, and this war will go on. By then, remember, Chelsea will be elligible to run for president. After her, Jenna.

9. Clinton killed over 1/2 a million Iraqis in his bungled campaigns. He killed nearly or possibly a million people worldwide in serial war. Bush is aiming to do the same. Is there any way to stop this insanity?

10. I think you get it. I hate these guys. I hate their war. And it has nothing to do with terrorism. I'm half tempted to say Bush, or rather Cheney, blew up the towers himself to create a justification for the war, which it is widely known, and you have admitted, had already been planned.

BTW, and I apologize to the left as I say this, but I say it because I think it's true. I don't think Bush needs to be taken down like a dog because he's too far right. I think he's too far left. But he should be taken down like a dog for high treason against the united states of america, and it should start with valerie plame, move on to the Iraq war, and all the underhanded help we've given to al qaeda, and then perhaps it should consider looking into how and why the twin towers here in new york came down.

Now I think you truly grasp how I feel about this war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, bad guy, taking him out, the right thing to do. But this war isn't even close to legal. Someone said assassinate him, fine by me. Here's another one. We spent $200B in Iraq and $1T total in related expenditures. If we had offered even $100B to Iraq for Saddam Hussein to step down, it would have given him pause. There were many reasons and many ways to get rid of this f&^%&r. But that's aside from the issue. Completely. There are many leaders like this in the world. There's Kim Jong Il. But this is why we have resources diplomats and the CIA. It doesn't mean let's go all Nazi imperialist and blow up the world and see if we can't make Al Qaeda a household name and the folk hero of a billion people. Thanks a lot Mr. Bush. Now get the f^&k out of my site, George W. Bush, and let some actual American who's not a Saudi pawn step in and try to begin the long hard task of putting it back together.

And just think, I haven't even begun to rant about his support for communist china, his lack of support for corporate america, his offenses against the basic civil liberties of the constitution.

Really. Need I go on?

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