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in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 5, 2003
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Recent
Stories
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
5, 2003
The War on Pleasure
Exxxtreme
Ashcroft
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
As US President G.W. Bush's Christian Petroleum
Crusade slaughters an average of one to two American troops per
day and over 3,000 Iraqi civilians since the war began, back
in the Homeland, Dubya's anointed Attorney General is leading
another crusade to slaughter our civil liberties. Now America's
erotic freedoms are squarely in the crosshairs.
Welcome to Ayatollah Asscraft's Anti-Sexual
Freedom Crusade, coming soon to a pornographer near you. It's
already come to a pornographer near me in the form of 10 federal
obscenity indictments filed by the US Justice Department against
the North Hollywood porn video company, Extreme Associates Inc.,
and it's owners, Robert Zicari, alias Rob Black, the producer
of the alleged obscenities, and his wife, Janet Romano, alias
Lizzie Borden, director of said obscenities. Penalties upon conviction
include up to 50 years imprisonment and a $2.5 million fine for
each, with a further $5 million fine levied against the company.
Now before we go any deeper into this
drama of lust and retribution, let's take a look at what Extreme
Associates does: They make movies. That's it. Movies. They don't
murder people, they don't rob banks, and they aren't being accused
of murder or robbery. They stand accused of making movies deemed
"obscene" in the exalted eyes of our American Ayatollah,
John Ashcroft, whom I nicknamed Asscraft, when just after the
9/11 attacks, he craftily took advantage of America's state of
terror to fuck us all in the ass with his USA Patriot Act. I
call him the American Ayatollah because only the leaders of frankly
religious states like Iran or Taliban Afghanistan match the degree
to which he mixes his extreme religiosity with government duties.
Our Evangelical Ayatollah isn't ashamed
to admit that he had his father anoint him when he took office
as U.S. Attorney General, as well as on other civic occasions.
That's right, he anointeth his head with oil (hmmwhich
head?), just like the Prophet Samuel did with King Saul (Samuel
I 10:1). I hear Asscraft used Crisco, a good old-fashioned Yankee
lubricant. None of that infidel olive oil or heathen K-Y jelly
for an American Ayatollah.
Of course, George II himself was virtually
anointed as President, though the oil of his anointment was more
ChevronTexaco than Crisco. The point is that neither was elected
to their current office. No wonder Boy George empathized with
Asscraft when he lost the U.S. Senate race in Missouri to a dead
man, and elevated this pompous Jesus freak loser to the position
of Most Powerful Lawyer in America.
After shoving the USA Patriot Act up
America's post-9/11-traumatized heinie (using the Crisco of Terror
to facilitate the shoving), Ayatollah Asscraft's first official
anti-sex act was to cover up the Spirit of Justice. Affectionately
named Minnie Lou, the Spirit of Justice is a tall, graciously
half-topless female statue that presided over the Hall of Justice
with dignity and style for almost a century. Asscraft put Minnie
Lou in an American-style burqa, requiring the erection of a new
set of drapes at a cost of $8000 to US taxpayers.
Not satisfied with draping innocent statues,
Asscraft has now set his Messianic sights on what he seems to
think everyone will agree is truly evil: American erotic
entertainment.
X marks the evil-doer. The last time
the federal government put on big anti-obscenity offensive, when
Bush I was in the White House, was against a company that also
began with "Ex" or "X": Xcitement Video (U.S.
vs. Xcitement Video). Defense counsel Stanley Fleishman and
Barry Fisher got the obscenity and RICO charges tossed out of
court before the case even went to trial. "Basically it
was a combination of falling into a trap we set and their ineptness,"
recalls Fisher.
America's Sex President Bill Clinton
never went after the porn industry; he wasn't that much of a
hypocrite. But the administration of Bush II, following in the
footsteps of Bush I, feels compelled to throw the Religious Right
wing of the Republican Party some red meat. Red and dripping
with body fluids. They don't even have to throw the meat very
far. After all, a prime member of the ravenous Religious Right
is leading the pack of judicial wolves.
And if this carnivorous pack has their
way, they will chew right through Rob and Lizzie and then tear
apart the rest of the heathen porn industry, even the soft stuff,
and then the raunchier R movies, certainly cable television and
as much of the Internet as they can demolish. And if that's semi-successful,
well, what about all of Minnie Lou's sister statues baring their
brazen boobies in government buildings across the land? And what
about inappropriate art or books that children might see? Censorship
is a slippery slope, anointed with Crisco and arrogance.
But surely, they won't have their way.
They can't have their way. Surely, we Americans won't allow our
precious First Amendment Rights to be devoured by fanatical wolves
in "concerned" sheep's clothing. Pornography is now
a multi-billion dollar industry. The pussycat is out of the bag,
and even the righteous, wrathful Asscraft can't shove it back
in. It's mainstream. More folks know about Jenna Jameson than
Jenna Bush. Most people are probably still too shy to go public
with their porn preferences. But the numbers don't lie; it takes
more than a few bad eggs, perverts or even "remnants"
of the Clinton years to make a multi-billion dollar industry.
America--and most of the world--loves porn.
But will Americans defend porn? Well,
we damn well should. That's right, Brothers & Sisters,
Lovers & Sinners: This can't be put off just because
you don't find the victims appealing. Word is that some people
in the porn industry don't like Rob and Lizzie because they may
have bounced some checks, and they make disgusting movies-what
I call erotic horror. First off, the bounced checks, well, that's
Hollywood; we've all been there (at least those of us not born
with a "silver foot" in our mouths, like the Bush men),
and that deserves a trip to small claims court or maybe a civil
lawsuit, not a federal obscenity indictment.
Others say Rob and Lizzie broke "the
rules," that they show stuff other pornographers won't show,
including everything on the Cambria List. The so-called Cambria
List, said to have been drawn up in January, 2001, just after
Bush II took office, by First Amendment Attorney Paul Cambria,
is supposedly a guide to what pornographers should not portray
if they want to avoid obscenity prosecutions. This do-it-yourself
censorship list (no government agency required) includes many
"taboos" that most Americans would find pretty tame,
like "No blindfolds" and " No food used as sex
objects" (so much for the old whipped cream routine, let
alone a nice cucumber), or even discriminatory like "No
bi-sex."
Obviously, most pornographers (who now,
thanks to the Internet, produce and distribute their products
not just from the San Fernando Valley, but from any bedroom with
a webcam in the world,) don't take the Cambria List seriously.
But more and more of the bigger players are now attempting to
abide by it. Such is the chilling effect of Asscraft's Anti-Sex
Crusade, even if the Anointed One never wins a case. Keep in
mind that one of their primary tactics is to bleed their victims
of cash. Mounting an effective defense is always expensive, even
when you're really innocent. Trial by bankruptcy. No wonder so
many nervous pornographers are passing the Cambria List around
these days.
Leaping like spider monkeys on speed
far beyond the straitlaced List, the films of Extreme Associates
feature graphic gang rape and lust murder (all simulated, of
course; these aren't snuff films!), real beatings (always with
the performer's explicit consent) and consumption of every kind
of body fluid known to humanity (they do draw the line at bestiality,
as well as anything involving children).
I must admit I've never actually seen
an Extreme Associates film. Although I'm somewhat intrigued by
the fact they incorporate occasional political and religious
themes, I don't think I'd like to see them because, quite frankly,
Rob and Lizzie's graphically violent erotica does not sound like
my cup of love juice. Unlike Dubya, I don't like to watch blood
and guts, whether they're fake or real, accompanied by sex or
not. I don't like watching horror movies, so I don't watch them.
I also didn't look at the snuff photos of Saddam's murdered sons
that the Bushies paraded around the world. I didn't watch Arnold
Schwarzenegger pushing a woman's head into a toilet in "Terminator
3: The Rise of the Machines." And (as of this writing) I
don't watch Extreme Associates movies.
The point is nobody makes me watch them. Nobody makes anybody
watch them. As the late great First Amendment attorney Stanley
Fleishman (or maybe it was his partner Barry Fisher, or maybe
it was his client Max Lobkowicz) once said: The only people being
forced to watch these movies are the judge and the jury in this
case.
And please remember who is doing the
forcing, Brothers & Sisters: Ayatollah Asscraft and
his Pittsburgh Pussy US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, the Anthony
Comstock and Carrie Nation of our day. "Sneak and peek,"
indeed.
Now that's what I call nonconsensual
sex. I mean, Rob and Lizzie may have really twisted imaginations,
but they don't force the performers in their notorious "Cocktails"
videos to eat sperm mixed with spit, piss and puke (ugh, I'm
retching just writing about it), and they don't force me or you
to watch it. They are simply exercising their First Amendment
rights to make disgusting movies. Just like other pornographers,
just like horror moviemakers, just like slasher and adventure
movie producers, just like a lot of music video producers, just
like a lot of tabloid photojournalists and TV news producers,
just like a lot of artists, just like any of us in the Free Speech-dependent
communications game.
And all of these games, the porn industry,
the mainstream movie industry, the music industry, television
news, the art world, the legal profession, Internet webmasters
and cruisers, all American freedom-lovers ought to put aside
our differences in taste, and just say no to Ayatollah Asscraft.
He may have buggered America with the Patriot Act. But he's only
just so crafty.
We might not agree on what makes good
porn or a good movie or even what's good. And for the most part,
we won't admit we personally get turned on by any of it. But
we can stand up to blatant Puritanical government censorship
perpetrated by this oily Assfucker.
Nothing against anal sex, mind you, or
other forms of sodomy, which are now perfectly legal between
consenting adults all across this great horny land of ours, according
to the recent US Supreme Court ruling Lawrence vs. Texas.
Unlike Lawrence and his lover, Ayatollah
Asscraft is greasing his way up our collective American behinds
without consent. But then, a crusade is a war, and this is an
essential part of the War on Freedom in the Homeland. Because
if Rob and Lizzie go to jail for making and selling their movies,
then possession of their movies becomes illegal, and that's just
one more thing in your bedroom (well, maybe not your bedroom)
that the government can bust you for
If you'd like to join my campaign to
maintain our civil liberties, including our sexual liberties,
call my office at 213.749.1330 or email me at liberties@blockbooks.com.
Don't wait for the knock on your door.
Dr. Susan Block
is a sex educator, host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and
author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her
website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
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