Rape American Style
[I happened to catch a snippet of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now report on the extensive abuse of our women soldiers in our military -- rapes and the crudest forms of sexual harassment. I have reproduced the first portion below along with the website for the full report.
Such treatment of our women soldiers -- some of them still in their teens -- is a horror -- but it is only the tip of the ugly American porn scene that permeates everything to which we are exposed.
I used to be a night owl and we learned with a bit of shock one night that there was a post midnight porn channel, a Cinderella switch from a regular news source. That was about 3 decades ago. Now one can barely flip the TV dial without hitting quick shots of provocative bodies -- some just plain woman exploiting porn. And the time frames are not those that protect children. Now that I am an early riser, I have learned that the same Comedy Central channel that features Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert turns commercial sometime after midnight and switches over to gross porn running until 6 a.m. when some children at least wake up to watch their favorite children's programs.
The obsession with abuses of small children now features re-run after re-run of pictures of sweet young kids who have been raped and murdered. Such children are never allowed to die -- poor Jean Benet Ramsey!
I happen to have a lovely young grand daughter about that age and I wonder what passes through her mind with these constant repeats of horror stories about ones like herself? Needless to say, these reports are scarcely need-to-know items. We are more than 300+ million Americans now and one such story a month or less seems to be the quota for media coverage (although most of us are aware of the pedophilia that does not get reported or which has not resulted in a brutal murder -- most of this involves relatives, friends, clergy -- not random strangers).
Is no one doing more than adjusting parental controls on such items? I gather that some of our most popular entertainment "shows" are exploiting preditation lite as their hook for mass ratings. Nabokov in his Lolita had it right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita
The all too typical American male looks to be a wannabe pedophile? And the bottom line of this fixation is that our young women must be constantly on guard against rapists wherever they may travel?
I know that such things were going on when I was a teen -- and then class exploitation often made such things worse -- or at least where I was growing up in WASP country in Connecticut. But now we seem to have spread such exploitation down to the littlest ones or those barely old enough to avert a child rape charge.
I do not understand why we now seem bent on raising men capable of abusing even their own sisters, but I can't but believe that the media porn game plays a central role here. We jail people for possessing child porn? Pretty ironic in that our whole nation is being polluted by same with the simple twist of a TV dial! Ed Kent]
..............................
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/08/1443232
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
The Private War of Women Soldiers: Female Vet, Soldier Speak Out on Rising Sexual Assault Within US Military
On International Women’s Day, we look at the ongoing global struggle for gender equality and equal rights within the US military. Specialist Mickiela Montoya came face to face with the dangers of rape by her male comrades when she was deployed to Iraq with the National Guard. Eli Painted Crow served in the Army for 22 years including time in Iraq in 2004, facing challenges both as a woman and a Native American. And Columbia professor Helen Benedict is author of a forthcoming book about women veterans of the Iraq war. [includes rush transcript] Today is March 8th, International Women’s Day. Millions around the world are marking the day by celebrating advances made by women and to honor the ongoing global struggle for gender equality and equal rights. One of those struggles is taking place within the US military.
In the United States, there are more women serving in the Armed Forces than in any other period in American history. More than one hundred sixty thousand female US soldiers have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2003, which means one in seven soldiers is a woman. At least four hundred fifty women have been wounded in Iraq, and seventy one have died -- more female casualties and deaths than in the Korean, Vietnam and first Gulf Wars combined.
With the increased number of women serving in the US military, something else is on the rise too: rape and sexual assault by their male comrades. To make matters worse, female soldiers say they can’t trust the US military to protect them.
[snip]
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Such treatment of our women soldiers -- some of them still in their teens -- is a horror -- but it is only the tip of the ugly American porn scene that permeates everything to which we are exposed.
I used to be a night owl and we learned with a bit of shock one night that there was a post midnight porn channel, a Cinderella switch from a regular news source. That was about 3 decades ago. Now one can barely flip the TV dial without hitting quick shots of provocative bodies -- some just plain woman exploiting porn. And the time frames are not those that protect children. Now that I am an early riser, I have learned that the same Comedy Central channel that features Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert turns commercial sometime after midnight and switches over to gross porn running until 6 a.m. when some children at least wake up to watch their favorite children's programs.
The obsession with abuses of small children now features re-run after re-run of pictures of sweet young kids who have been raped and murdered. Such children are never allowed to die -- poor Jean Benet Ramsey!
I happen to have a lovely young grand daughter about that age and I wonder what passes through her mind with these constant repeats of horror stories about ones like herself? Needless to say, these reports are scarcely need-to-know items. We are more than 300+ million Americans now and one such story a month or less seems to be the quota for media coverage (although most of us are aware of the pedophilia that does not get reported or which has not resulted in a brutal murder -- most of this involves relatives, friends, clergy -- not random strangers).
Is no one doing more than adjusting parental controls on such items? I gather that some of our most popular entertainment "shows" are exploiting preditation lite as their hook for mass ratings. Nabokov in his Lolita had it right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita
The all too typical American male looks to be a wannabe pedophile? And the bottom line of this fixation is that our young women must be constantly on guard against rapists wherever they may travel?
I know that such things were going on when I was a teen -- and then class exploitation often made such things worse -- or at least where I was growing up in WASP country in Connecticut. But now we seem to have spread such exploitation down to the littlest ones or those barely old enough to avert a child rape charge.
I do not understand why we now seem bent on raising men capable of abusing even their own sisters, but I can't but believe that the media porn game plays a central role here. We jail people for possessing child porn? Pretty ironic in that our whole nation is being polluted by same with the simple twist of a TV dial! Ed Kent]
..............................
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/08/1443232
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
The Private War of Women Soldiers: Female Vet, Soldier Speak Out on Rising Sexual Assault Within US Military
On International Women’s Day, we look at the ongoing global struggle for gender equality and equal rights within the US military. Specialist Mickiela Montoya came face to face with the dangers of rape by her male comrades when she was deployed to Iraq with the National Guard. Eli Painted Crow served in the Army for 22 years including time in Iraq in 2004, facing challenges both as a woman and a Native American. And Columbia professor Helen Benedict is author of a forthcoming book about women veterans of the Iraq war. [includes rush transcript] Today is March 8th, International Women’s Day. Millions around the world are marking the day by celebrating advances made by women and to honor the ongoing global struggle for gender equality and equal rights. One of those struggles is taking place within the US military.
In the United States, there are more women serving in the Armed Forces than in any other period in American history. More than one hundred sixty thousand female US soldiers have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2003, which means one in seven soldiers is a woman. At least four hundred fifty women have been wounded in Iraq, and seventy one have died -- more female casualties and deaths than in the Korean, Vietnam and first Gulf Wars combined.
With the increased number of women serving in the US military, something else is on the rise too: rape and sexual assault by their male comrades. To make matters worse, female soldiers say they can’t trust the US military to protect them.
[snip]
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 7:36 AM
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