24 Comments

1. Ify:

   Any word on why the guy who said he murdered this girl was in Bangkok. Possible because the economies of Laos Cambodia, Thailand and the Phillippines depend on 8 year old and older girls selling their bodies for sex. This guy was in his perverted heaven.

   18 August 2006, 7:52 pm

2. Stan:

   More like “male” heaven. Pedophilia is a little like rape, imo. It is encouraged and encoded in everything we are being programmed to understand as male sexuality, with an official sanction to regulate it. Sex tourism in places like Thailand are places where those with the means can indulge their fantasies about having sex with 13-year-old girls… and we pathologize it here (when people are “caught”). We say “pedophile” like it is something outside the “norm,” yet we infantalize women and “teen” porn is one of the most popular of all categories… just as we act like rape is committed by “rap-ISTS”… as if they are from another planet, even as domination and eroticized violence defines male sexuality. What is the coercive and nearly universal custom here of having women shave their legs and armpits (and more and more now, their pubic hair) if not attempting to make them more childlike?

   18 August 2006, 9:06 pm

3. DeAnander:

   paedophilia is “a little like” rape?

   unless children can give informed consent — and w/in a radical analysis of power and consent I do not see how they can — then paedophilia when acted out in the real world is rape…

   a side issue in depilation is the connection with class. nearly all ruling elites in the N hemi have a tradition of valorising lighter skin colour

   18 August 2006, 9:24 pm

4. DeAnander:

   … dammit. it’s this keyboard, I swear it is…

   … valorising lighter skin colour and lighter body hair. the ruling phenotype in Japan is taller, lighter of skin, and not hirsute; they have traditionally looked down on the indigenous Ainu, who are “dark and hairy”. the aristocracy of Rome and Greece, though they had a fondness for patriarchal beardiness in older males, iirc practised male depilation (scraping hair from the body), and so did Egyptian aristos. I think Polynesian aristos (alii nui in Hawai’i) also used sharpened shells to depilate both female and male bodies.

   in addition to the paedophilic attempt to keep women’s appearance barely pubescent, I think there is a parallel thread: rejection of the “animal” aspect of humans, an attempt to distance ourselves from the “lower orders of creation”, to “sanitise” ourselves. then of course depilation, cosmetic use, etc. require the devotion of time and spare wealth to narcissism, which makes them suitable conscpicuous consumption markers (cf Veblen Theory of the Leisure Class and the peculiar confluence of uselessness and predation in aristocratic tradition). peasants don’t have a whole lotta time to sit around plucking their eyebrows.

   so the uneasy dogma of human exceptionalism (species hubris) meets racism (hairier/darker phenotypes are seen as “closer to animal,” inferior, apelike), misogyny [the repudiation of the "animal" and of biological reality is perhaps at its most intense in male squeamishness and denial about the realities of mammalian reproduction and the female body] and gynophobia, and class marking (cosmetic narcissism as a status activity) at this nexus between sexism and paedophilia… add in a goodly dose of a hankering for “purity” (and the perverse appeal of destroying purity) and it’s a powerful meme cluster, or perhaps to borrow JHK’d favourite offensive term, a meme clusterf**k…

   18 August 2006, 9:37 pm

5. Stan:

   My bad…

   …is a *lot* like rape (as it is conceptualized… it IS rape when practiced) inasmuch as it is discussed as if it is outside sexual “norms.”

   That’s the thing about this picture, which is from a video that has been played incessantlyon tv for the last couple of days… no one is mentioning that this kid is being paraded around as a minature sex object… there is plenty of talk about the bad “stage-mom,” but “stage” doesn’t get to the heart of what is going on here. This kid is not reciting lines from Hamlet. She’s being paraded around like a showgirl.

   I heard a song by one of my favorite people recently…

   …teaching our girls to please and teaching our boys to kill…

   18 August 2006, 9:37 pm

6. DeAnander:

   misquote — the picayune, obsessive archivist in me corrects that to now our daughters have learned how to please / and our sons how to kill — but thanks for remembering the lyric I plan to put the whole CD (and more) up for free as mp3 when I can get the time to do some web design.

   Nikki and I recorded a tune over 20 years ago about beauty pageants… I’ll have to dig it up from the audio archive. “There’s no pageant like a beauty pageant / like no pageant I know / everything about it is appealing! / no pimples or stretch marks or bulging thighs! / and meanwhile with the profits they are reeling, I get the feeling, it’s all a lie…”

   interestingly the dichotomy is not just virgin/whore — it’s also virgin/mother, with mother (a woman whose body shows visible signs of maternity) considered unattractive, and “virginal whores” considered the apex of attractiveness… there is some commonality here with the insanity of the antibiotic culture and the suicidal contempt for biota in general: patriarchal culture has only contempt and disgust for life processes, and reverence and awe for death processes.

   18 August 2006, 9:52 pm

7. DeAnander:

   btw it’s ok stan, I knew what you meant. not your bad really, I just barrelled off down a nearby track as usual.

   18 August 2006, 9:54 pm

8. elaina:

   I don’t know if what I’m commenting on is ADDING to the meme clusterfuck or not, but it seems worth mentioning that nowadays, without at least some sort of admission to said memetic mangle’s dominion, many women are unable to usurp social boundaries- say, get a “good job,” or land a “good man”. This is quite pervasive- I remember how much ribbing I got as a kid for having a moustache and a unibrow- from other boys and other girls. I started shaving between my eybrows in high school, and plucking, etc.

   And being a good, working-class drone I know that you can go to the Kmart, nowadays, and pick up a pack of wax strips for five bucks that lasts a month, give or take a week, and spend very little time “depilating” your face or whatever body part. SO it seems that the emulation meme has swung around, in some ways. Or maybe what I’m noting is exaptive, like a meme of a meme. It’s cheaper and less time-consuming to emulate this “upper class,” and so the percieved effect of the meme is dumbed down a bit, in relation to that particular class analysis.

   Or maybe I just need to go to bed.

   18 August 2006, 10:23 pm

9. Ify:

   Thanks for the response. Thanks for being interested in this stuff. One more thing I don’t understand. Do you know how hard it is for a woman to get out from under the oppression of sexual abuse or sexual slavery. I don’t understand why the man who did it denies it, conservatives try to suck the life out of the people who try to bring it to light, lawyers try to shed doubt on the girl it happened to. Sexual slavery traders go through elaborate means to keep these girls lock up. Its almost like once a sexual abuser starts on one of these girls getting her out is like reaching into a black hole. I don’t understand why it would be important to a guy to have access to a teen or a small girl or a small boy. I thought what you described about eroticizing violence came naturally to men. Does mutual equality between men and women work ? Weird how we let so many young girls be open to those repulsive fantasies. Are you afraid you will lose the respect of other men especially military men by being a feminist ? Do men get weaker if they move toward a love ethic as my buddy bell hooks might call it. I know they lose credibility.

   18 August 2006, 11:41 pm

10. DeAnander:

    “memetic mangle” is good. I like that.

    yes there’s an interesting phenomenon that takes place when an aristocratic attribute like cosmetics, perfume, high heels, depilation, fancy hairdos, meat eating, etc. becomes “vulgarised” — first it seems to be somewhat questionable, i.e. aped by the demi-mondaine fringe of the society where the aristos go to play: actors, actresses, high-end prostitutes and so on take up mannerisms and fashions of the aristos they work for. then it becomes a “daring” fashion for the young of the bourgeoisie or equivalent (wearing silk stockings, an antique aristocratic habit, was considered “fast” and daring for middle- and working-class girls in my Mum’s youth, but perfectly normal for upper-class girls). it was axiomatic for decades if not centuries in traditional British society that the rich — rich young people particularly — were allowed to do things which would disgrace any middle-class or working-class person, but it was all right because “they are different to us.” (underscoring the real meaning of kapu, as defining behaviours and resources off limits to everyone except certain members of an elite) … anyway, then it becomes normalised and a marker of respectability, and refraining from it becomes a marker of old-fashioned ways, rural ignorance, eccentricity, etc.

    facial makeup in the Western world was the province of aristocrats (and actors, and high-class prostitutes); then it was generalised downward — to lower class prostitutes who, like packaged food, are often required to provide their customers with an ersatz experience of the upper-class consumer experience, and to “respectable” young women of the slightly “fast” set. from there it becomes everyday, and by the 1950s among the bourgeoisie it is considered eccentric and slovenly for a woman from a respectable home to venture out of the house without “putting her face on.”

    somehow the trend is bucked by the radicalised young women of the 1960s, the 2nd wave feminist movement and the “hippie/natural” social scene; for a brief moment in the 1970′s there is a subculture in which not wearing makeup, not perming/dyeing hair, not shaving the body is considered attractive in women (so long as they are young and otherwise pretty, of course). but the marketeers are not happy with any trend which reduces conspicuous consumption, and it wasn’t long before heavy makeup made a comeback — on glam-rock boys (the aristocracy of pop culture) and thus back down to ordinary people…

    and truly, anything which is not forbidden becomes compulsory. first makeup and shaving are considered inappropriate or disreputable for “nice” young ladies, but only 2 generations later, refraining from makeup and shaving is considered inappropriate or disreputable for the same class of women. and of course, for the proletariat to engage in these consumption habits they must be vulgarised and mass-produced down to affordable levels, which brings us to the age of extremely cheap makeup (some of it not very good for the skin or metabolism of the user), do-it-yourself home hair dyeing and perming kits, etc.

    I think another source of the recurring revulsion against female body and facial hair is good ol’ overconformity. we (primates, with our avanced pattern-recognition wetware) notice that men on average are more hairy than women on average. and we insist that there must be no ambiguity between the gender castes — categories Man and Woman must be absolutely distinct and mutually exclusive. so we insist that women must be even more hairless than women naturally are — a rigid, compulsive exaggeration of what is actually a fairly slight sexual dimorphism (far more slight than that of many other mammals).

    I’m still mystified by the place in all this of the famed “metrosexual male”, the fad for body depilation among men (started I think by the imho silly fancy of bike racers that shaving their legs would reduce their air friction, giving them a tiny but relevant edge — I think competitive male swimmers also started shaving sometime in the 1980s). the fad for hetero men (only safely “manly” looking men of course) to look “pretty” by shaving, even wearing makeup, throws a bit of a wrench in the works — David Beckham for example (a remarkably good looking man, but also — one has to notice — very Aryan, an athlete, married, etc., therefore heavily defended against any accusations of sissiness).

    I have a feeling that if I understood the history of e.g. hair straightening in the African-American community there might well be a similar arc — that at one time it was the mark of “fast women,” then became respectable (and nappy hair became the marker of poverty, rural backwardness, or eccentricity); then nappy natural hair became briefly fashionable during a time of political consciousness and activism, then rather quickly the cosmetic interventions of straightening and bleaching reappeared as “normal”.

    btw, I thought wax strip depilation was fairly time consuming — takes time to heat the wax, time to apply, etc. my impression was that the “convenience” method of depilation for the masses was hair removal creams
    

    “…depilatories contain a highly alkaline chemical–usually calcium thioglycolate, calcium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide–that dissolves the protein structure of the hair, causing it to separate easily from the skin surface…A depilatory can cause second- or third-degree burns, and possibly scarring, if its formula is too strong or if an inactive ingredient in the product heightens its effect.”

    google

    sodium hydroxide, btw, is the chemical name for lye, the powerful alkali traditionally used for making soap and in the processing of hides. (also a means of suicide for the domestic labouring classes in traditional English life). I suspect that the use of lye to dissolve the hair from hides during the tannery process is what led to its repackaging for personal cosmetic use by the proletariat (who, due to their work and family obligations, needed an “efficient” way to ape their betters in the matter of depilation). this migration of industrial processes and chemicals into domestic or other realms is a repeating pattern under capitalism — for example the morphing of pesticides into poison gas, and poison gas research back into pesticides packaged for domestic use. there has been over C20 a tremendous migration of toxicity from the factory into the home. but that’s a whole other topic.

    I am constantly intrigued by the strange correlation of aristocratic and “feminine” markers. why is it that women (an underclass) are the vermiform appendix of the culture for markers of antique aristocracy like facial painting, wig wearing, depilation, colourful clothing, long nails, perfume, and high heels? I suspect it has something to do with industrialism, Taylorism, and militarism being adopted wholesale as markers of masculinity. but it’s only a vague feeling.

    19 August 2006, 1:58 am

11. DeAnander:

    oh I forgot to say — a lot of the impetus for industrial processes comes from the scramble to provide cheap imitations of aristocratic habits/substances for proletarian imitation. hence, silk is too expensive/exclusive for everyone to have silk stockings so nylon becomes a big deal. celluloid collars. synthetic fabrics imitating more costly jacquards, satins, velvets, etc. articifial furs, and low grade furs dyed to imitate expensive ones. artificial food — factory farmed meat, fast-food, etc. artificial flavourings and colourings. bizarre food additives emulating the taste or texture effects of more expensive genuine ingredients. and so on.

    most cultures have “known” at some level of consciousnes or organisation that consumption at the aristocratic or top-predator rate cannot be generalised — that indiviual and social bankruptcy would result; hence, sumptuary laws. late capitalism is perhaps the first to pretend that this limitation does not exist, while acknowledging it in a backhanded way by the lousy ersatz quality of mass-market equivalents of upperclass resources and consumables. the McMansion is appropriately named — it bears the same resemblance to a genuine rich person’s mansion as a McBurger bears to a genuine high-quality steak. the culture has to bend to reality this far; but it refuses to acknowledge that even the McModel of consumption cannot be generalised.

    19 August 2006, 2:05 am

12. DeAnander:

    that was supposed to be “proletarian emulation” — sorry about the repeat.

    19 August 2006, 2:06 am

13. frank:

    Holy cow, folks- I’m not sure what y’all think- but I just returned from a showing of Little Miss Sunshine- I haven’t laughed so much at a movie in a long time; and the timing of the whole Jon Benet thing is too strange. My stomach and face hurt-I need some downtime. Be well everyone

    20 August 2006, 2:40 am

14. Yolanda Carrington:

    To De and everyone,

    This is difficult for me, but I’ve got to address this question, in reference to a paragraph in this otherwise insightful quote from De:

    I have a feeling that if I understood the history of e.g. hair straightening in the African-American community there might well be a similar arc — that at one time it was the mark of “fast women,” then became respectable (and nappy hair became the marker of poverty, rural backwardness, or eccentricity); then nappy natural hair became briefly fashionable during a time of political consciousness and activism, then rather quickly the cosmetic interventions of straightening and bleaching reappeared as “normal”.

    Unless you’re Black or you’re quoting someone, you should never use the term “nappy-hair.” The term is racist out of anyone’s mouth, but especially so from a white mouth. It’s what we oppressed folk like to call an “in the family” term.

    While I’m on the subject, it should go without saying that the following terms are off-limits for white folks as well, but unfortunately I’ve heard many a white person utter these things without qualification or irony. Here they are:

    1. “Chinamen,” “slant-eye(d),” et cetera.
    2. “Oriental” in reference to human beings
    3. [Ethnic category] + “bitch” or “bastard” (btw, “bitch” is off limits if you’re MALE, period)
    4. “Islamics” (I don’t actually know what an “islamic” is, but I heard a white guy say it); “towelhead,” “raghead,”—you get the picture.
    5. “Wetback,” “beaner,” “amigos”—you get the idea.
    6. “Nigger” OR “nigga” (Fucking duh.)

    And there’s a lot more along these lines, but it’s way too much to list in this brief space. General rule, good white folks: If it sounds trivializing, sensationalist, objectifying, or offensive to POC in any way, then it’s probably racist as holy hell. Don’t use it. If you need further clarification, please consult the appropriate person of color for guidance (by turns really fucking wrong, but really fucking necessary).

    Thanks people.

    Yolanda

    22 August 2006, 12:02 am

15. Audrey:

    Just when it seemed the whole Benetfest couldn’t get any more offensive, Geoffrey Fieger (1998 democratic nominee for governor in Michigan, and this year one of the democratic candidates for Attorney General) has arrived on the scene to prove me wrong. He was on MSNBC tonight asking why we brought a suspected child molester back to the US when we should just be leaving them in Thailand if they’re endangering children. He expounded on that bit of wisdom to add that instead of bringing him back, we should be exporting our child molesters to Thailand.

    I half expected him to produce a child rape color chart inspired by the rainbow of terror.

    22 August 2006, 1:29 am

16. DeAnander:

    Hi Yolanda, my apologies. I had no idea that “nappy” was pejorative or offensive rather than just descriptive, like “curly” or “frizzy”. My bad! an error of total ignorance rather than careless usage of a term I knew might offend. Of course the ignorance itself says something about the degree to which whitefolks are insulated even from knowing what’s offensive… (sigh) kind of like the way guys just don’t “get it” about why women are offended by [fill in the blank]…

    anyway, sincere apology and thanks for the information.

    22 August 2006, 1:39 pm

17. Melissa:

    I will be interested to find out how he got into the Ramsey’s basement.

    23 August 2006, 2:28 am

18. Yolanda Carrington:

    Hello De,

    Thanks for the apology. Still, I’m most disappointed in the fact that no one else caught your faux-pas, not even Stan. “Nappy hair/headed” is one of the most recognized ethnic slurs in the English language, and if anyone needs proof, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_slur#N.

    By the way De, this is the second time I’ve seen you use “nappy hair” without qualification (the first was in an email dialogue), but I kept silent then, which was the wrong thing for me to do. No one else on the email list spoke up then either, not even Stan, and he of all people should know better. Even if you didn’t know that “nappy” was offensive De, someone else should have.

    I’m gonna start preaching now. If I say something offensive on this blog—or any damn blog—toward oppressed peoples in any way, I want somebody to call me out. Period. I need to fucking know, so I won’t do it again. And it should not be the sole responsibility of people who are directly affected by my words to call me out, because they may or may not be present in the discussion.

    When it comes to anti-POC slurs, all Americans (POC included) are insulated from knowing what’s offensive. That’s the whole damn point of invisibilizing structural oppression and POC experience. Since I am not Latina, Asian-Pacific, First Nations, or Arab-Middle Eastern, I may or may not be up to speed on every aspect/nuance of the white supremacy and internal experience that affects my fellow people of color. How could I? But still, it’s my responsibility as a radical and a human being to get CLEAR on that shit, and not wait for sistas and brothas to educate me.

    Stan, please say something. You’re killing me here.

    Yolanda

    23 August 2006, 5:59 am

19. Elki:

    Well stated sista.

    23 August 2006, 8:02 am

20. Stan:

    Slipped right past me, but partly because I hear this term all the time… from my kids, their friends, the cousins, nieces and nephews, in-laws, boyfriends and girlfriends… all of whom are African American. They all fool with each others’ hair, and the word gets used all the time to refer casually to a *condition* (as opposed to quality) of the hair… not an excuse, but it just didn’t cause my antennae to raise. My bad.

    I agree with you, Yolanda, that it is not the responsibility of the offended and oppressed to sit around and be social Buddhas for the rest of us. Much of what we do learn, however, without putting others intentionally into that kind of role, is through the give and take of interaction with each other. I fuck up with a friend; the friend lets me know how it made her feel; I refrain from making the same mistake again. No one is giving us a manual to study 23 hours out of the day so we can spend one hour in the world without making these mistakes.

    That’s where the question of intent is important, and whether we know or don’t know that there is genuine good will on the part of those we value. If we give offense without intending to, that is certainly different than doing so on purpose. It’s still important to remediate and make amends, but it can’t qualify as an unforgiveable offense or there wouldn’t be any friends anywhere.

    We can learn in the struggle, and in friendship, without casting our friends in some perennial role as instructor. One of the strengths of the interactions I’ve seen here is the ability of most participants to be both critical and self-critical without throwing down gantlets before each other (a real danger in cyber-space, where we can’t see the human being behind the text). That you all here don’t do that (the source of many flame wars) speaks very highly of you collectively… but we all know it takes a conscious effort. (Also, I’ll admit that a few folks who seem to show up solely to initiate flame wars or hurl insults are dictatorially banished to the howling void of the rest of cyberspace… sue me.)

    Don’t know if this clarifies or satisfies; but I think we can be sure that “nappy” is now a term that is dropped in the future.

    23 August 2006, 8:12 am

21. Charles Brown:

    No Escaping Sexualization of Young Girls
    Huibin Amelia Chew hachew at gmail.com
    Mon Aug 28 13:07:52 MDT 2006

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    ——————————————————————————–

    “if we want to get to the heart of the problem, we should obsess a
    little less about whether the neighbor down the block is a dangerous
    pedophile — and … worry a whole lot more about good old-fashioned
    American capitalism, which is busy serving our children up to
    pedophiles on a corporate platter.”

    –
    http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0825-33.htm

    No Escaping Sexualization of Young Girls
    With JonBenet back in the headlines, it’s hard for a parent to avoid
    paranoia.
    by Rosa Brooks

    It’s been a good week for the media, and a bad week for parents.

    The arrest of former schoolteacher John Mark Karr in the slaying of child
    beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey launched a flurry of excited stories about
    pedophiles, child abduction and murder. The cable news stations could hardly
    hide their glee, and even the New York Times joined in.

    In a two-part series on pedophilia, the newspaper reported that many
    pedophiles now use Internet support groups to swap how-to tips on getting
    jobs as camp counselors and teachers. Increasingly, the Times said,
    “pedophiles view themselves as the vanguard of a nascent movement seeking
    legalization of child pornography and the loosening of age-of-consent laws.
    They portray themselves as battling for children’s rights to engage in sex
    with adultsÅ .”

    Great. For anxious parents, it was a week of being paranoid and creeped out
    ‹ a week to double-check the window locks, run a background check on the
    preschool music teacher and remind the kids not to enter beauty pageants,
    talk to strangers, go online or leave the house until their 40th birthday.

    True, the statistics suggest that an American child is about as likely to
    share JonBenet’s fate as she is to be killed by lightning. The abduction and
    murder of children by people outside their families is exceedingly rare.

    But as the mother of preschool girls, I know how easy it is to succumb to
    irrational panic in the face of this week’s 24/7 media obsession with
    pedophilia.

    All summer I’d absent-mindedly allowed my little barbarians to streak
    through the house naked, bodies festooned with grape jelly and Crayola
    Washable Markers. Now, with pedophiles apparently lurking everywhere,
    demanding civil rights and social acceptance, I was suddenly insisting that
    the girls put their clothes back on, right this minute, please.

    I eyed my neighbors with newfound suspicion. That guy mowing the lawn down
    the street ‹ why was he smiling at us?

    It was only when I hauled the girls off to the local shopping mall that my
    paranoid fears were replaced by all-too-rational anxieties. First, we darted
    into Abercrombie & Fitch, joining a gaggle of preteens checking out the
    T-shirts. Perhaps a slinky pink number that coyly declared “The Rumors Are
    True”? Or maybe the masculine gray one emblazoned with “Something About You
    Attracts Me ‹ I Wish I Could Put My Finger On It”?

    Well, no thanks. We headed toward Limited Too, where we found thong-like
    underwear sized for 7-year-old girls. My 4-year-old was entranced: “Mommy,
    those underpants have no walls!”

    We soldiered on, through Old Navy (where the toddler section carries clothes
    that make 2-year-olds look like Britney Spears), through Toys R Us (where
    ads for the scantily clad Bratz Babyz dolls, with their bottles and their
    painted toenails, boast that these “Babyz already know how to flaunt it, and
    they’re keepin’ it real in the crib!”), and past the Disney Store (where
    little girls can covet seashell bikinis like those worn by the Little
    Mermaid and glittery halter tops like those worn by Princess Jasmine in the
    surprisingly broad-minded sultanate of Agrabah).

    By the time we made it to CVS Pharmacy, I thought we were out of the woods.
    Wrong. Those bare-midriffed Disney princesses are everywhere ‹ even, it
    turns out, on diapers sized for people weighing 18 to 34 pounds.

    In our hyper-commercialized consumerist society, there’s virtually no
    escaping the relentless sexualization of younger and younger children. My
    26-month-old daughter didn’t emerge from the womb clamoring for a seashell
    bikini like Princess Ariel’s ‹ but now that she’s savvy enough to notice
    who’s prancing around on her pull-ups, she wants in on the bikini thing. And
    my 4-year-old wasn’t born demanding lip gloss and nail polish, but when a
    little girl at nursery school showed up with her Hello Kitty makeup kit, she
    was hooked.

    In a culture in which the sexualization of childhood is big business ‹
    mainstream mega-corporations such as Disney earn billions by marketing sexy
    products to children too young to understand their significance ‹ is it any
    wonder that pedophiles feel emboldened to claim that they shouldn’t be
    ostracized for wanting sex with children? On an Internet bulletin board, one
    self-avowed “girl lover” offered a critique of this week’s New York Times
    series on pedophilia: “They fail, of course, to mention the hypocrisy of
    Hollywood selling little girls to millions of people in a highly sexualized
    way.” I hate to say it, but the pedophiles have a point here.

    There are plenty of good reasons to worry about children and sex. But if we
    want to get to the heart of the problem, we should obsess a little less
    about whether the neighbor down the block is a dangerous pedophile ‹ and we
    should worry a whole lot more about good old-fashioned American capitalism,
    which is busy serving our children up to pedophiles on a corporate platter.

    [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

    –
    The naiveté of Americans who can’t believe their ‘heroes’ are
    committing such atrocities is ridiculous. Who ever heard of an
    occupying army committing rape?? You raped the country, why not the
    people?

    14. Imagine your 14-year-old sister…daughter…her 5-year-old sister
    were also killed… I don’t believe the troops should be tried in
    American courts… they should be handed over to the people in the
    area and only then will justice be properly served.

    It fills me with rage… The pity I once had for foreign troops in
    Iraq is gone…eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths
    in Haditha and the latest news… I look at them in their armored
    vehicles and to be honest- I can’t bring myself to care whether they
    are 19 or 39…if they make it back home alive…about [those] they
    left behind… it’s difficult to see beyond the horrors… how many more
    they’ll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will
    they rape?

    -Baghdad burning

    28 August 2006, 4:44 pm

22. Charles Brown:

    “He was on MSNBC tonight asking why we brought a suspected child molester back to the US when we should just be leaving them in Thailand if they’re endangering children.”

    ^^^^
    CB: So he could molest children in Thailand ?

    28 August 2006, 4:48 pm

23. yeranalyst:

    I’m am a somewhat paranoid person, paticularly when it comes to the media, the government, or anybody in authority. I always take the position that the media always have an agenda in how they prioritize, present, and choose content for their newscasts. The corporate media we have today is embedded with the government here as well as Iraq. Much of the media is controlled by defense contractors, right wing partisans, and the CIA. The neocons seem to have a strong influence as well.
    When I look at the time frame of the Karr-JonBenet story, I see a public relations disaster for the Bush-Blair-Israel nexus unfolding in Lebanon it is dominating the news cycle. Along with that are new polls showing Bush Iraq support dropping precipitously, and Lieberman the Quisling Democrat take a trouncing in Connecticut Democratic primary. These events are a Bush Trifecta he doesn’t want publicised. Voila, A highly suspect police sweep of some Arabs in London plotting to blow up planes with toothpaste or some such nonsense, and John Karr confessing to Jon Benet Ramseys murder.
    My bullshit sensors are starting to go off when I see the Thai police escorting Karr to the airport in a most deferential manner almost gentle, almost like he is a celebrity rather than a homicidal pedophile. Then my sensors get louder when I hear a tale that one of his police captors was singing karaoke and having a big guffaw with him in cell. Then I hear he is served champagne and Lobster Bisque or some such thing on return flight.

    I suspect that an inordinate percentage of single men of John Karrs age going to Thailand are going there as sexual tourists and are going there particularly because Thailand has a reputation for having underage prostitutes both male and female. I also suspect that they are fairly easily profiled and are easy to track.
    I would also guess that these men are susceptible to blackmail and other kinds of pressures due to their proclivities. How difficult would it be to give someone like Karr a choice between being a publicity scapegoat temporarily taking the rap for the Ramsey murder and subsequently being let go, maybe even given a financial incentive as well, or doing thirty years in a Thai prison for pedophilia.

    31 August 2006, 7:41 pm

24. Gary Goodman:

    Someone found an article on Common Dreams by none other than Thom Hartmann which was about how the JB Ramsey/Karr media circus covered up (among other things) a Federal court case in which Bush et al. was deemed guilty of criminal behavior vis-à-vis the FISA court and spying. Punishable by fines and prison (if it sticks).

    Ever since learning that the 1993 WTC Fed case where a hidden tape recording by Emad Ali Salem revealed that the FBI managed every aspect of that terror attack including the choice of LIVE explosives, all except parking the van too far away from the columns (NY Times, LA Times, Ralph Schoenman),

    that news of this evidence was pre-empted first by “Elizabeth Smart” then by “OJ Simpson”, I view all these titillating media circuses with deep suspicion.

    Anyone know what the ridiculous “Runaway Bride” story covered up? For the insanity around that story to have reached the level it did, it must have been a doozy of a coverup.

    7 September 2006, 6:40 am

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