Friday, June 25, 2004
Soldiers and Responsibilty.
Recently, American citizens have been claiming that the soldiers involved in the prison abuse were "poor kids who just following orders."
Any soldier in a democracy is obligated, by national and international law, to question, protest and if at all possible, refuse orders which he or she knows to be illegal. Any failure to do so on the part of the soldier is grounds for legal action in the form of a court martial.
Soldiers are not children. In a democracy, they are responsible adults. Regardless of the consequences, they must take responsibility for all their actions. They do not cease to be citizens because they are temporarily in the service of the citizenry. They may not blame their officers, and their officers may not blame their superiors. No one may blame the commander in chief, regardless of his position on the world stage, or anything he might have said. The ultimate Commander In Chief -- the citizenry and its laws -- will not accept such excuses, either morally or legally.
The World War Two generation does not need to be reminded why "just following orders" is no longer accepted as a valid legal argument. The World War Two generation should be reminding their children and grandchildren of the reasons.
Soldiers are obligated and should be fully trained to know the international law concerning all their actions, including the proper, humane and legal treatment of all prisoners. The complete soldier should and would be ashamed to use the excuse of being a child, or of "just following orders."
Would you want to live in a country where it was any other way?
Donna Barr
US Army, 1970-1973
Clallam Bay, WA
Recently, American citizens have been claiming that the soldiers involved in the prison abuse were "poor kids who just following orders."
Any soldier in a democracy is obligated, by national and international law, to question, protest and if at all possible, refuse orders which he or she knows to be illegal. Any failure to do so on the part of the soldier is grounds for legal action in the form of a court martial.
Soldiers are not children. In a democracy, they are responsible adults. Regardless of the consequences, they must take responsibility for all their actions. They do not cease to be citizens because they are temporarily in the service of the citizenry. They may not blame their officers, and their officers may not blame their superiors. No one may blame the commander in chief, regardless of his position on the world stage, or anything he might have said. The ultimate Commander In Chief -- the citizenry and its laws -- will not accept such excuses, either morally or legally.
The World War Two generation does not need to be reminded why "just following orders" is no longer accepted as a valid legal argument. The World War Two generation should be reminding their children and grandchildren of the reasons.
Soldiers are obligated and should be fully trained to know the international law concerning all their actions, including the proper, humane and legal treatment of all prisoners. The complete soldier should and would be ashamed to use the excuse of being a child, or of "just following orders."
Would you want to live in a country where it was any other way?
Donna Barr
US Army, 1970-1973
Clallam Bay, WA
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
The Goon Show
Re: Will Thomas: A Powerful Political Commentary: With Trembling Fingers.
"Oh, please.
I'm not surpised by any of it. This is where Viking Economics has been heading for at least 900 years. World War Two was just the last fart of European Conquest and Colonization (except the Germans did it to white people, and that is just a BIG no no -- but it took that to get Europe to at least admit that Colonization was wrong, and no damn fun when it's done to YOU. Lord help us when the Murkins finally learn that lesson....).
America is based first to last on ripping off territory, stealing resources, wiping out the locals, cramming governments down people's throats, forced religious conversion, destructions of local cultures and languages, plantations of cheap labor (and if we can't get it here, we'll get it in China -- our system doesn't work without it). Hell, we INVENTED concentration camps and eugenics.
Why is anybody surprised when it comes in one more disguise?
Any American loves his libery -- he just hates his neighbors'. Why do you think we make our children recite religious loyalty oaths in school?
Sooner or later, any charade gets exposed. Our little pretend freedom dance has gone on a long time -- and it took the Internet to lay it all wide open for everybody to see.
Otherwise, this would be just another American Fight For Freedom and Democracy.
You know it would. Nobody would know. Nobody would care.
We have our Way of Life, don't we?
Doing my little "I told you so" Cassandra dance again...
(Why am I so gleeful? I hate being right on this point, don't I? Why am I so happy being so RIGHT? Oh, fuck. I AM an American. Self-righteous first to last. AGGGGHHH!!!! Runs screaming from room. Not a sausage).
Donna Barr
Clallam Bay, WA
(There's a reason I moved up here. Not just the beach. 2005 or 2007 are going to be VERY VERY bad. The Makah tribe is withdrawing back into itself, in preparation for when the States go down the tubes. I have a bed for any friends who need to abscond).
(Oh shit.. this is the GOON SHOW. We're living in the Goon Show! Goon as in Thug. Show as in theatricals and propaganda and bullshit. Oh, my knees! My little knees!).
Re: Will Thomas: A Powerful Political Commentary: With Trembling Fingers.
"Oh, please.
I'm not surpised by any of it. This is where Viking Economics has been heading for at least 900 years. World War Two was just the last fart of European Conquest and Colonization (except the Germans did it to white people, and that is just a BIG no no -- but it took that to get Europe to at least admit that Colonization was wrong, and no damn fun when it's done to YOU. Lord help us when the Murkins finally learn that lesson....).
America is based first to last on ripping off territory, stealing resources, wiping out the locals, cramming governments down people's throats, forced religious conversion, destructions of local cultures and languages, plantations of cheap labor (and if we can't get it here, we'll get it in China -- our system doesn't work without it). Hell, we INVENTED concentration camps and eugenics.
Why is anybody surprised when it comes in one more disguise?
Any American loves his libery -- he just hates his neighbors'. Why do you think we make our children recite religious loyalty oaths in school?
Sooner or later, any charade gets exposed. Our little pretend freedom dance has gone on a long time -- and it took the Internet to lay it all wide open for everybody to see.
Otherwise, this would be just another American Fight For Freedom and Democracy.
You know it would. Nobody would know. Nobody would care.
We have our Way of Life, don't we?
Doing my little "I told you so" Cassandra dance again...
(Why am I so gleeful? I hate being right on this point, don't I? Why am I so happy being so RIGHT? Oh, fuck. I AM an American. Self-righteous first to last. AGGGGHHH!!!! Runs screaming from room. Not a sausage).
Donna Barr
Clallam Bay, WA
(There's a reason I moved up here. Not just the beach. 2005 or 2007 are going to be VERY VERY bad. The Makah tribe is withdrawing back into itself, in preparation for when the States go down the tubes. I have a bed for any friends who need to abscond).
(Oh shit.. this is the GOON SHOW. We're living in the Goon Show! Goon as in Thug. Show as in theatricals and propaganda and bullshit. Oh, my knees! My little knees!).
Saturday, June 19, 2004
They Started It -- Let's Finish It.
"Gay agenda," huh? "Protect Marriage," huh? Okay, if they want to start this fight, I'm coming out swinging.
Yes, the gays have an agenda and want "special rights" -- they want to raise their kids, have jobs, go to school, join the military -- without harrassment and bigotry. Damn straight they have an agenda. And if these are special rights, I'm glad I already got 'em.
So, since the bigots are counting on us to be nice and timid and mannerly, I'm taking advantage of the fact that I HAVE no manners:
I went to:
http://www.afa.net/contact.asp
And sent this:
"Any count reflects that the heterosexual nuclear family kills and abuses (sexually, emotionally and physically)more children by far than any other form of human bonding institution.
The heterosexual nuclear family is an invention of the industrial age, and destroyed the original and natural multi-leveled extended family in the interest of corporate profit. This construct used children as child laborers, and left children at home with one parent, who often did -- and still does -- succumb to stress and does violent harm to the child. With no older females to watch the action of a male parent, children are open to the abuses of an unsupervised parent, if that parent is unbalanced or immature.
The Christian Churches have been fooled into backing this pernicious and child-destructive institution.
Stop being used. Get rid of the heterosexual nuclear family. Return the human family to the normal, natural, child-protecting construct of the extended family."
Statistically, I dare anybody to argue with me on this one.
If they want to attack... we'll give 'em an attack.
>^..^<
"Gay agenda," huh? "Protect Marriage," huh? Okay, if they want to start this fight, I'm coming out swinging.
Yes, the gays have an agenda and want "special rights" -- they want to raise their kids, have jobs, go to school, join the military -- without harrassment and bigotry. Damn straight they have an agenda. And if these are special rights, I'm glad I already got 'em.
So, since the bigots are counting on us to be nice and timid and mannerly, I'm taking advantage of the fact that I HAVE no manners:
I went to:
http://www.afa.net/contact.asp
And sent this:
"Any count reflects that the heterosexual nuclear family kills and abuses (sexually, emotionally and physically)more children by far than any other form of human bonding institution.
The heterosexual nuclear family is an invention of the industrial age, and destroyed the original and natural multi-leveled extended family in the interest of corporate profit. This construct used children as child laborers, and left children at home with one parent, who often did -- and still does -- succumb to stress and does violent harm to the child. With no older females to watch the action of a male parent, children are open to the abuses of an unsupervised parent, if that parent is unbalanced or immature.
The Christian Churches have been fooled into backing this pernicious and child-destructive institution.
Stop being used. Get rid of the heterosexual nuclear family. Return the human family to the normal, natural, child-protecting construct of the extended family."
Statistically, I dare anybody to argue with me on this one.
If they want to attack... we'll give 'em an attack.
>^..^<
Rape Victim
25% of all woman in the coming generation in the United States can expect to be raped by the male population.
25% does not reflect attack by psychotics or maniacs. It reflects the fact that every woman is
born into a war-zone.
100% of women should be prepared to accept the following reality:
100% of the men who to try to rape a woman should look like this:
They shouldn’t have any eyes. That’s what their victims’ thumbs are for.
Their knees should be broken. A woman should learn to kick hard as she can right into this vulnerable joint.
Their faces should be smashed. After the knee-kick, when he bends over in agony, a woman should target the next kick for his mouth.
All their joints should be broken, starting with the feet up. A woman should think of the chickens she as cut apart, and work up his whole body, metatarsals, ankles, knees, hips, lower back, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulers. Not the neck -- she doesn’t want to kill him.
Their teeth should be all broken from their mouths.
They shouldn’t have any ears. A woman should take them firmly in her fingers, and rip them off the sides of his head.
They shouldn’t have any noses. All women should carry a small clasp knife, and have it in their hands whenever they must move in the dark, or alone.
Their tongues should be cut out.
Their scalps should be ripped off.
Their genitalia should be torn from their roots.
Then they can be left, helpless to ever harm any woman, ever again.
Don't ever hesitate. For every part you don't rip off, break or crush, another woman, another girl, with get thrown down and penetrated like a rotten melon. Swallow your nausea, remember your fellows, do your duty.
The crippled, mutilated, broken bubbling wheezing barely human hulk that crawls through life after healing, whimpering for pity, whimpering helplessly for revenge, just plain whimpering --
This is what a man should look like who tried to rape a woman.
25% of all woman in the coming generation in the United States can expect to be raped by the male population.
25% does not reflect attack by psychotics or maniacs. It reflects the fact that every woman is
born into a war-zone.
100% of women should be prepared to accept the following reality:
100% of the men who to try to rape a woman should look like this:
They shouldn’t have any eyes. That’s what their victims’ thumbs are for.
Their knees should be broken. A woman should learn to kick hard as she can right into this vulnerable joint.
Their faces should be smashed. After the knee-kick, when he bends over in agony, a woman should target the next kick for his mouth.
All their joints should be broken, starting with the feet up. A woman should think of the chickens she as cut apart, and work up his whole body, metatarsals, ankles, knees, hips, lower back, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulers. Not the neck -- she doesn’t want to kill him.
Their teeth should be all broken from their mouths.
They shouldn’t have any ears. A woman should take them firmly in her fingers, and rip them off the sides of his head.
They shouldn’t have any noses. All women should carry a small clasp knife, and have it in their hands whenever they must move in the dark, or alone.
Their tongues should be cut out.
Their scalps should be ripped off.
Their genitalia should be torn from their roots.
Then they can be left, helpless to ever harm any woman, ever again.
Don't ever hesitate. For every part you don't rip off, break or crush, another woman, another girl, with get thrown down and penetrated like a rotten melon. Swallow your nausea, remember your fellows, do your duty.
The crippled, mutilated, broken bubbling wheezing barely human hulk that crawls through life after healing, whimpering for pity, whimpering helplessly for revenge, just plain whimpering --
This is what a man should look like who tried to rape a woman.
Masters of the Universe
"It's just a joke," the menfolk say.
"Ladies, don't get mad at me."
It’s a man’s right -- a man’s duty -- to define women,
to put us in our place, tell us who we really are.
How else would we know?
"You're a lady if you're gentle, and good, and quiet," they say.
"If you open your mouth, you're just a woman."
They say, "Be nice, be convenient,
do nothing that will make us notice you,
if what we see isn't pretty."
"Bitch" is what they call you
if you get in their way.
Men are upset by ladies who don't act like ladies.
It's understandable --
If I had part of my internal anatomy
hanging outside my body
in a thin, vulnerable, soft, crushable sack of skin,
I'd be paranoid and defensive, too.
I'd want an apology for EVERYTHING,
not just for airplanes gone wrong.
I'd be that worried about who I am.
Who do they think they are?
All men are equal, they say.
Their dignity is natural, they say.
Women have to earn dignity, they say.
Women have to earn human status.
Debate: Do women have souls?
They brand us with all their weakness.
They are gossipy, and they back-bite --
so we talk too much.
They cringe away from taking a moral stand --
so we are cowardly.
They turn white, or grey, and even faint,
at the sight of blood --
so we, who calmly see more human blood in a month
than most of them will see in a lifetime,
are afraid of blood.
It doesn't matter that we throw them down
wet and bleeding and screaming,
an expelled and chopped-off product of our flesh,
in the flood of blood we live with all our lives.
We aren't human, we have no souls.
We let them breathe.
We let them walk.
We let them be everything,
boy and man and old man.
We let them have existence on this planet
as something more than a little slimey
drop
of testicle-snot.
Without us, the only thing they'd be able to do is ooze.
It must be hard, to know you're a parasitic breeder
with a broken chromosome.
It must be why they have wars.
If they can’t get mutual mass death
to build themselves an illustion of meaning,
they’ll inject profundity into a ball game.
Basketball is the game of the gods,
if that’s all they can get.
They’ve been known to rip out each other’s bleeding hearts
over the outcome of a ring-toss game.
And because we don’t get
how important these games must be,
they say we’re under them,
less than them,
weaker of comprehension.
Even black men do this to women.
You'd think they'd know better.
When it comes to treating women like shit,
all men are equal.
"Don't be bitter," they say.
Our history is the most bitter of histories.
To every nation and every place,
we have been the Ultimate Enemy.
The Ultimate Prisoner.
The worthless vessel.
The lowest, most polluted scum.
Our blood was too filthy to spill.
But not to be burnt.
We have no honor.
Our honor has been the honor
of the place of the penis.
"Honor" to a woman has meant whether or not
she has ever had a penis in her.
Or whose penis.
Or how many penises.
A cigar is always a cigar.
Can you imagine anything
more depraved or grotesque
as a sign of honor?
Of purity?
Of worth?
What kind of low besmirched mind
could have discovered this
as a means of defining
the worth of a human being?
And they think they're better than us?
Women have been kept,
controlled,
offered only submission or starvation --
repressed,
trapped,
enslaved,
burnt,
beheaded,
hanged
for centuries.
For millenia.
Thousands of years.
If it's funny, or petty, or to be forgotten,
then the Holocaust is funny.
If it's to be forgiven, or buried,
or if we need to get on with our lives,
then the Middle Passage needs to be buried.
Six million Jews?
Three and a half million of them female.
30 million blacks?
16 million of them the mothers of the race.
How many more burned in the witchtrials?
How many burning under the phosphorous bombers?
How many beaten because they were convenient to a temper --
beaten legally, with a stick no thicker than a thumb?
How many brutalized for Superbowl Sunday?
God help them --
if we ever ask for our reparations.
They can bow down and groan
at the mere thought of the pay-back --
if we ever get our 40 acres and a mule.
Screw that "if."
I want my beast of burden.
I've fucking got the dirt.
"It's just a joke," the menfolk say.
"Ladies, don't get mad at me."
It’s a man’s right -- a man’s duty -- to define women,
to put us in our place, tell us who we really are.
How else would we know?
"You're a lady if you're gentle, and good, and quiet," they say.
"If you open your mouth, you're just a woman."
They say, "Be nice, be convenient,
do nothing that will make us notice you,
if what we see isn't pretty."
"Bitch" is what they call you
if you get in their way.
Men are upset by ladies who don't act like ladies.
It's understandable --
If I had part of my internal anatomy
hanging outside my body
in a thin, vulnerable, soft, crushable sack of skin,
I'd be paranoid and defensive, too.
I'd want an apology for EVERYTHING,
not just for airplanes gone wrong.
I'd be that worried about who I am.
Who do they think they are?
All men are equal, they say.
Their dignity is natural, they say.
Women have to earn dignity, they say.
Women have to earn human status.
Debate: Do women have souls?
They brand us with all their weakness.
They are gossipy, and they back-bite --
so we talk too much.
They cringe away from taking a moral stand --
so we are cowardly.
They turn white, or grey, and even faint,
at the sight of blood --
so we, who calmly see more human blood in a month
than most of them will see in a lifetime,
are afraid of blood.
It doesn't matter that we throw them down
wet and bleeding and screaming,
an expelled and chopped-off product of our flesh,
in the flood of blood we live with all our lives.
We aren't human, we have no souls.
We let them breathe.
We let them walk.
We let them be everything,
boy and man and old man.
We let them have existence on this planet
as something more than a little slimey
drop
of testicle-snot.
Without us, the only thing they'd be able to do is ooze.
It must be hard, to know you're a parasitic breeder
with a broken chromosome.
It must be why they have wars.
If they can’t get mutual mass death
to build themselves an illustion of meaning,
they’ll inject profundity into a ball game.
Basketball is the game of the gods,
if that’s all they can get.
They’ve been known to rip out each other’s bleeding hearts
over the outcome of a ring-toss game.
And because we don’t get
how important these games must be,
they say we’re under them,
less than them,
weaker of comprehension.
Even black men do this to women.
You'd think they'd know better.
When it comes to treating women like shit,
all men are equal.
"Don't be bitter," they say.
Our history is the most bitter of histories.
To every nation and every place,
we have been the Ultimate Enemy.
The Ultimate Prisoner.
The worthless vessel.
The lowest, most polluted scum.
Our blood was too filthy to spill.
But not to be burnt.
We have no honor.
Our honor has been the honor
of the place of the penis.
"Honor" to a woman has meant whether or not
she has ever had a penis in her.
Or whose penis.
Or how many penises.
A cigar is always a cigar.
Can you imagine anything
more depraved or grotesque
as a sign of honor?
Of purity?
Of worth?
What kind of low besmirched mind
could have discovered this
as a means of defining
the worth of a human being?
And they think they're better than us?
Women have been kept,
controlled,
offered only submission or starvation --
repressed,
trapped,
enslaved,
burnt,
beheaded,
hanged
for centuries.
For millenia.
Thousands of years.
If it's funny, or petty, or to be forgotten,
then the Holocaust is funny.
If it's to be forgiven, or buried,
or if we need to get on with our lives,
then the Middle Passage needs to be buried.
Six million Jews?
Three and a half million of them female.
30 million blacks?
16 million of them the mothers of the race.
How many more burned in the witchtrials?
How many burning under the phosphorous bombers?
How many beaten because they were convenient to a temper --
beaten legally, with a stick no thicker than a thumb?
How many brutalized for Superbowl Sunday?
God help them --
if we ever ask for our reparations.
They can bow down and groan
at the mere thought of the pay-back --
if we ever get our 40 acres and a mule.
Screw that "if."
I want my beast of burden.
I've fucking got the dirt.
I’m your Candidate.
I mean, I’m YOUR Candidate.
I know you’ll vote for me -- you always have.
It doesn’t matter which party you’re registered to, or which one you raid.
Vote early and often -- all the votes come to me.
No one can tell you, if you’re a married woman, that a vote for a Democrat will cancel your Republican husband’s vote. I’m not sexist. After all, I’ll get both your votes.
I’m not racist either. I make a fool of everybody, without prejudice or preference.
Once you pulled a lever.
Now you punch a card.
Soon you’ll web your vote.
It’s always been the Information Age for me.
You could sign any name to the voter roles, under any registration, in any district. Close your eyes, pick a spot. Drive around ‘till you come to a polling station. Walk past the schoolchildren -- pretend to be some other voter. Live a little! Ultimately, it all comes to me.
I’ve always been the Candidate of Choice. I’m the Dark and the Stalking Horse, and the Lame Duck. The whole zoo is in me. I’m on the hustings, and on the soapbox, and on the take. No one can buy me, because I’m already sold.
I’m not sorry for you, because it’s your own fault.
All dressed up, and no one to vote for.
Vote for me.
Vote for me.
Vote for me.
I mean, I’m YOUR Candidate.
I know you’ll vote for me -- you always have.
It doesn’t matter which party you’re registered to, or which one you raid.
Vote early and often -- all the votes come to me.
No one can tell you, if you’re a married woman, that a vote for a Democrat will cancel your Republican husband’s vote. I’m not sexist. After all, I’ll get both your votes.
I’m not racist either. I make a fool of everybody, without prejudice or preference.
Once you pulled a lever.
Now you punch a card.
Soon you’ll web your vote.
It’s always been the Information Age for me.
You could sign any name to the voter roles, under any registration, in any district. Close your eyes, pick a spot. Drive around ‘till you come to a polling station. Walk past the schoolchildren -- pretend to be some other voter. Live a little! Ultimately, it all comes to me.
I’ve always been the Candidate of Choice. I’m the Dark and the Stalking Horse, and the Lame Duck. The whole zoo is in me. I’m on the hustings, and on the soapbox, and on the take. No one can buy me, because I’m already sold.
I’m not sorry for you, because it’s your own fault.
All dressed up, and no one to vote for.
Vote for me.
Vote for me.
Vote for me.
Oh fer gods' sake.
Where is my brain?
Of COURSE when Bush keeps harping on there being a connection between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein -- it's TRUE.
The connection is the United States!
We were best buds and pards with BOTH of 'em. They couldn't have been suppressing and abusing their people without our support and pat on the back. We were all linked together at the elbows like a bunch of drunken Texas frat boys.
Par'm me while I go bat my head against a wall.
Where is my brain?
Of COURSE when Bush keeps harping on there being a connection between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein -- it's TRUE.
The connection is the United States!
We were best buds and pards with BOTH of 'em. They couldn't have been suppressing and abusing their people without our support and pat on the back. We were all linked together at the elbows like a bunch of drunken Texas frat boys.
Par'm me while I go bat my head against a wall.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
It's Our Turn.
The original email letter:
"Somebody on this my lists started arguing about whether or not Paul Kidd is being prosecuted by the neo-cons or the Feminists, or their Uncle George in Ottawa.
This is not the point.
The point is that the comic book and fringe fandom groups have been prosecuted without any reaction from the rest of the society.
Nobody cares, because in the '50's the original artists, writers and companies in the comics industry caved in to HUAC (this is the same gang that accused the Germans of not standing up to the Nazis, but let's not go there, the hypocrisy stinks too high).
Because of their actions -- or inaction, our writers and artists can have their books banned, their books burned, their art seized, and they can be put under house arrest for what they draw. Our shops are raided, our retailers put out of business because courts have decided that "everybody knows comics are for kids." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is fighting our battles, but they have to do it alone, with nobody's support but ours.
I don't have all the details, but I'll be getting them: Paul Kidd (the writer of the game LACE AND STEEL, which I illustrated) is an Australian. His wife photographed their kids in the bath. the developer turned them in. (And again, I need to get details): when Paul attempted to explain drawings seized in his home, clarifying their details as being part of drawings done in a fandom, the prosecutor said that fandom as a group did not exist, that it was a lie.
Paul Kidd is what we used to call a Furry Artists. These people have, in the past, driven me out of my head. I mostly don't think much of their art. So what? My opinion of what they do, or my personal likes or dislikes, is not important. Just because Paul Kidd is part of this fandom is not an excuse to use what he puts on paper as evidence to convict him for child abuse, regardless of content, irregardless of how the content is intended or interpreted.
We should understand that the knee-jerk reaction to anything that looks like child abuse comes from years of that actual abuse. The industrial revolution tore the extended family apart, and children were left in the hands of the two parents alone. This is not a healthy situation for primates; no other family members are available to pull children away from stressed or unstable parents. Parents who are able to survive the extremely stressful and artificial structure of the two-parent nuclear family are to be commended for managing in a very bad situation (you know who you are, pat yourselves on the back). Too many of us bear the psychic scars of being raised in this artificial environment. Too many overburdened and un-witnessed parents succumb to the stress, and children die, children are raped. The nuclear family as created by corporate labor requirements is a notorious child-killer.
The women's movements are reacting to centuries of abuse of women and children, and the original perpetrators of the economic structures are not taking the rap -- instead, their failure is being paid for by the rest of us. As usual.
Now the neo-cons are using the backlash against child abuse to sew up their control of art and literature, and by this means, of freedom of speech and thought. They lay out their plans on their websites, for all to see (like Mein Kampf, these things are almost unreadable, and comparitively few read them, and I don't blame You).
Comic book artists and their ilk are seen as a fringe of society, and easily prosecuted. All over the world, governments are attacking them, using the excuse that they are protecting children, because they know that no one will protest the arrest and persecution of this art form.
All writers and artists need to pay attention to what is happening to our industry, and understand its history. We may be seen as a joke in the literary and artistic world -- but what is happening to us is not a joke. The neo-cons around the world know an opening for the thin edge of the wedge. They are actually taking us seriously, as artists and writers to be controlled. I guess we should call this a kind of compliment.
During WWII, a poorly-trained group of German spies, dropped off on the American coast, was turned in by one of them who didn't want to be part of the mission. This man was an American citizen, but by a goofy twist of events I'd be ashamed to use for a Desert Peach plot, he found himself spying on the country of his birth. He expected to be rewarded for blowing his less-than-eager group's cover, but instead, because Pearl Harbor had just happened, and his home (the American) government wanted an example of how it handled terrorists and spies, he was hanged. His case is being used as the precedent for the holding of American citizens as prisoners in a war in which they are given no status as citizens or prisoners of war, and remain in a legal limbo without representation or even the rights of POW's. Precedents get into a system like toxoplasmosis, and explode decades later.
I am warning each and every artist and writer around the world that the cases of artists and writers in the comic book industry, and in many odd little fandoms, will be used as precedence in their own future prosecution, for whatever reason.
Fight these precedents NOW -- before you hear them used at your own trial. Don't let your colleagues go down the rat-hole because they're not part of your art, fandom, group, industry, or terminally cool circle-jerk. You're next. You people know what I write about -- you think I don't know patterns when I see them? "First they came for the trade-unions..."
I know I'm probably playing Cassandra, again...
But you do know I'm doing a lot of listening to the news and pointing at the radio and yelling, "I told you so! I told you so!" - ?
Don't give me the awful chance to do that about US.
>^..^<
The original email letter:
"Somebody on this my lists started arguing about whether or not Paul Kidd is being prosecuted by the neo-cons or the Feminists, or their Uncle George in Ottawa.
This is not the point.
The point is that the comic book and fringe fandom groups have been prosecuted without any reaction from the rest of the society.
Nobody cares, because in the '50's the original artists, writers and companies in the comics industry caved in to HUAC (this is the same gang that accused the Germans of not standing up to the Nazis, but let's not go there, the hypocrisy stinks too high).
Because of their actions -- or inaction, our writers and artists can have their books banned, their books burned, their art seized, and they can be put under house arrest for what they draw. Our shops are raided, our retailers put out of business because courts have decided that "everybody knows comics are for kids." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is fighting our battles, but they have to do it alone, with nobody's support but ours.
I don't have all the details, but I'll be getting them: Paul Kidd (the writer of the game LACE AND STEEL, which I illustrated) is an Australian. His wife photographed their kids in the bath. the developer turned them in. (And again, I need to get details): when Paul attempted to explain drawings seized in his home, clarifying their details as being part of drawings done in a fandom, the prosecutor said that fandom as a group did not exist, that it was a lie.
Paul Kidd is what we used to call a Furry Artists. These people have, in the past, driven me out of my head. I mostly don't think much of their art. So what? My opinion of what they do, or my personal likes or dislikes, is not important. Just because Paul Kidd is part of this fandom is not an excuse to use what he puts on paper as evidence to convict him for child abuse, regardless of content, irregardless of how the content is intended or interpreted.
We should understand that the knee-jerk reaction to anything that looks like child abuse comes from years of that actual abuse. The industrial revolution tore the extended family apart, and children were left in the hands of the two parents alone. This is not a healthy situation for primates; no other family members are available to pull children away from stressed or unstable parents. Parents who are able to survive the extremely stressful and artificial structure of the two-parent nuclear family are to be commended for managing in a very bad situation (you know who you are, pat yourselves on the back). Too many of us bear the psychic scars of being raised in this artificial environment. Too many overburdened and un-witnessed parents succumb to the stress, and children die, children are raped. The nuclear family as created by corporate labor requirements is a notorious child-killer.
The women's movements are reacting to centuries of abuse of women and children, and the original perpetrators of the economic structures are not taking the rap -- instead, their failure is being paid for by the rest of us. As usual.
Now the neo-cons are using the backlash against child abuse to sew up their control of art and literature, and by this means, of freedom of speech and thought. They lay out their plans on their websites, for all to see (like Mein Kampf, these things are almost unreadable, and comparitively few read them, and I don't blame You).
Comic book artists and their ilk are seen as a fringe of society, and easily prosecuted. All over the world, governments are attacking them, using the excuse that they are protecting children, because they know that no one will protest the arrest and persecution of this art form.
All writers and artists need to pay attention to what is happening to our industry, and understand its history. We may be seen as a joke in the literary and artistic world -- but what is happening to us is not a joke. The neo-cons around the world know an opening for the thin edge of the wedge. They are actually taking us seriously, as artists and writers to be controlled. I guess we should call this a kind of compliment.
During WWII, a poorly-trained group of German spies, dropped off on the American coast, was turned in by one of them who didn't want to be part of the mission. This man was an American citizen, but by a goofy twist of events I'd be ashamed to use for a Desert Peach plot, he found himself spying on the country of his birth. He expected to be rewarded for blowing his less-than-eager group's cover, but instead, because Pearl Harbor had just happened, and his home (the American) government wanted an example of how it handled terrorists and spies, he was hanged. His case is being used as the precedent for the holding of American citizens as prisoners in a war in which they are given no status as citizens or prisoners of war, and remain in a legal limbo without representation or even the rights of POW's. Precedents get into a system like toxoplasmosis, and explode decades later.
I am warning each and every artist and writer around the world that the cases of artists and writers in the comic book industry, and in many odd little fandoms, will be used as precedence in their own future prosecution, for whatever reason.
Fight these precedents NOW -- before you hear them used at your own trial. Don't let your colleagues go down the rat-hole because they're not part of your art, fandom, group, industry, or terminally cool circle-jerk. You're next. You people know what I write about -- you think I don't know patterns when I see them? "First they came for the trade-unions..."
I know I'm probably playing Cassandra, again...
But you do know I'm doing a lot of listening to the news and pointing at the radio and yelling, "I told you so! I told you so!" - ?
Don't give me the awful chance to do that about US.
>^..^<
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Ffter reading The Guardian Weekly 20-4-0604, page 13 Re abuse of prisoners.
"And I hate to tell everybody who hasn't been in, but this is the way MOST armies are.
I mean, come on -- hiearchical male society mostly made up of kids? It's frat-boys with Kevlar! And the right to torture the plebs.
What do the peoples of the world expect? This is the military -- and it's what you get if you build a world where you depend on soldiers. Those of you who haven't been in and you're all drooling over the cool costumes and ideas of "honor" and other fakey shit, get over it.
And those of you HAVE been in and you're passing off the military as being full of all these clean-cut upright dedicated darlings, SHAME ON YOU FOR FAKING EVERYBODY ELSE OUT!
You know damn well that in the military, sucking shooters off the bellies of ho's is an after-work indulgence, and Freestyle Peon Harrassment is a judged event.
And for those of you who start whimpering that they're PROTECTING us -- they're part of a system that wouldn't need them if it didn't make them.
They made a world where life is more dangerous than if we lived with grizzly bears -- and I damn well say they OWE me protection. They all want to be part of this big gaudy bloody football game they call wars, they can bloody well go get slammed by it, and when they discover that oh, dear, bullets HURT and if you're in somebody's country they WILL shoot at you and they
come back all oh feel sorry for me, I'm traumatized, then they can nurse their own idiot heads because they're the ones put the worms in them in the first place.
And most of the people who get killed in wars are women and kids. If anybody put in a wall for them, they'd have to dig up the entire walk in front of the reflecting pond, and they still wouldn't have enough room for all the names, even if they bothered to count. Oh, no, you can bet that the women and kids don't get included in the body counts -- they're just twats and pups in the eyes of the military, and if they die, so what? Seen any medals or parades for dead women and kids? Or pensions? My ass.
The grizzly bears and ice storms and deep water I'm willing to live with. The fucking human armies I'm NOT. That's fair.
And life IS fair. It's greedy stupid humans (I'm being nice, including the whole bunch, instead of the slightly less than half who is ACTUALLY responsible for the Inquisition and concentration camps) and the messes they come up with that's not fair.
And the whining! God, the WHINING!"
"And I hate to tell everybody who hasn't been in, but this is the way MOST armies are.
I mean, come on -- hiearchical male society mostly made up of kids? It's frat-boys with Kevlar! And the right to torture the plebs.
What do the peoples of the world expect? This is the military -- and it's what you get if you build a world where you depend on soldiers. Those of you who haven't been in and you're all drooling over the cool costumes and ideas of "honor" and other fakey shit, get over it.
And those of you HAVE been in and you're passing off the military as being full of all these clean-cut upright dedicated darlings, SHAME ON YOU FOR FAKING EVERYBODY ELSE OUT!
You know damn well that in the military, sucking shooters off the bellies of ho's is an after-work indulgence, and Freestyle Peon Harrassment is a judged event.
And for those of you who start whimpering that they're PROTECTING us -- they're part of a system that wouldn't need them if it didn't make them.
They made a world where life is more dangerous than if we lived with grizzly bears -- and I damn well say they OWE me protection. They all want to be part of this big gaudy bloody football game they call wars, they can bloody well go get slammed by it, and when they discover that oh, dear, bullets HURT and if you're in somebody's country they WILL shoot at you and they
come back all oh feel sorry for me, I'm traumatized, then they can nurse their own idiot heads because they're the ones put the worms in them in the first place.
And most of the people who get killed in wars are women and kids. If anybody put in a wall for them, they'd have to dig up the entire walk in front of the reflecting pond, and they still wouldn't have enough room for all the names, even if they bothered to count. Oh, no, you can bet that the women and kids don't get included in the body counts -- they're just twats and pups in the eyes of the military, and if they die, so what? Seen any medals or parades for dead women and kids? Or pensions? My ass.
The grizzly bears and ice storms and deep water I'm willing to live with. The fucking human armies I'm NOT. That's fair.
And life IS fair. It's greedy stupid humans (I'm being nice, including the whole bunch, instead of the slightly less than half who is ACTUALLY responsible for the Inquisition and concentration camps) and the messes they come up with that's not fair.
And the whining! God, the WHINING!"
