Hey, all you red-blooded straight Red State guys who voted for Bush because he was going to rid your world of those disgusting homosexuals? Pastor Niemöller* is holding for you on the white courtesy phone:
(Washington Post) Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of “the Director.” That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.
The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.
“I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”
Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, “it’s a running joke for us.”
A few of the printable samples:
“Things I Don’t Want On My Résumé, Volume Four.”
“I already gave at home.”
“Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves.”
It’s sort of like shooting fish in a barrel to point out that the Bush maladministration’s priorities are way out of whack, considering that they are pushing for their Medicare Prescription Drug (Companies Will Really) Benefit (By Screwing Over Senior Citizens), a permanence to Bush’s Tax Cut (To The Wealthiest 1% of Americans), and an elimination of the (Paris Hilton Might Have To Pay Some) Estate Tax, all in the face of massive deficit, funding Iraq, and rebuilding New Orleans.
But now they want to take vital resources that could be working on some serious terrorism investigations (how about capturing bin Laden or al Zarqawi?), domestic security, or crime fighting issues to concentrate on the legal production of legal pornography consumed by consenting adults legally in the privacy of their own homes?
The article goes on to point out how difficult it is to get obscenity convictions due to varying “community standards” and First Amendment concerns. So…
Applicants for the porn squad should therefore have a stomach for the kind of material that tends to be most offensive to local juries. Community standards — along with a prurient purpose and absence of artistic merit — define criminal obscenity under current Supreme Court doctrine.
“Based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions,” the memo said, the best odds of conviction come with pornography that “includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior.” No word on the universe of other kinks that helps make porn a multibillion-dollar industry.
Of course, the Just-Us Department puts forth the oft-repeated line about how pornography is harmful to women, children, and other living things (like poor Jenna Jameson, pictured, who’s burdened by the oppression of a successful career and millionaire status), but it’s really about the Religious Reich losing the culture war. They can’t stand sex and they can’t stand that you like it.
Popular acceptance of hard-core pornography has come a long way, with some of its stars becoming mainstream celebrities and their products — once confined to seedy shops and theaters — being “purveyed” by upscale hotels and most home cable and satellite television systems. Explicit sexual entertainment is a profit center for companies including General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (the two major owners of DirecTV), Time Warner Inc. and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains.
But Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called “a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general.”
Good luck with that, AbuGhraibo Quaintzalez. For some reason, you see, stripping people, smearing them with shit, forcing them into oral sex, strenuous positions, and naked human pyramids, that’s good old-fashioned American intelligence gathering activities… unless the participants engage in those activities, film them, and attempt to sell them over the internet or on DVD.
Pastor Niemöller was a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent eight and one-half years in a Nazi concentration camp. His famous poem reads:
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out–because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out–because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out–because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Or as I reworded a few months ago…
First they came for the homosexuals and transgendered, and I said nothing, because I was not a homosexual or transgendered.
Then they came for the swingers and fetishists, and I said nothing, because I was not a swinger or fetishist
They they came for the cohabitators and the divorced, and I said nothing, because I was not cohabiting or divorced.
Then they came for the married men who masturbate to internet pr0n, and there was no one left to speak up for me.
