#Censoring a woman by banning her from using the internet

[coochiequeens]

Russia gave her a harsher sentence for placing stickers in a grocery store then they do men who kill women.

17 Nov 2023

Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko has been sentenced to jail for seven years after being found guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military by replacing a handful of supermarket price tags with messages criticising the war in Ukraine.

The 33-year-old, known as Sasha, is one of thousands of Russians to be detained, fined or jailed for speaking out against Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour amid an escalating crackdown on free speech and opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

Skochilenko was arrested in her native St Petersburg in April 2022, after an elderly customer at the supermarket found the slogans on the price tags and notified the police.

“The Russian army bombed an arts school in Mariupol. Some 400 people were hiding in it from the shelling,” one read, in reference to Russia’s brutal siege of the southern Ukrainian city. Another said, “Russian conscripts are being sent to Ukraine. Lives of our children are the price of this war.”

Judge Oksana Demiasheva delivered the verdict on Thursday hours after Skochilenko, who has a congenital heart defect and coeliac disease, had made a final statement to the court, asking for compassion and to be set free.

As well as the prison term, the artist was banned from using the internet for three years.

Skochilenko, wearing a colourful T-shirt decorated with a large red heart, reacted with shock to the sentence, covering her face and wiping away tears.

Supporters shouted “shame” and “we’re with you Sasha”, the AFP news agency reported.

Skochilenko’s lawyers left without giving any comment.

Skochilenko’s arrest came about a month after authorities adopted a law effectively criminalising any public expression about the war that deviated from the Kremlin’s official line.

Human rights group Memorial – now banned in Russia – said police spent 10 days interrogating supermarket staff and inspecting security camera footage before arresting the artist.

“They sometimes give less for murder than for five price tags in a supermarket,” Boris Vishnevsky, a politician linked to the opposition Yabloko party, told AFP.

“Hopefully, someday, the pendulum will turn the other way.”

Skochilenko was accused of committing what the state prosecutor described as a serious crime out of “political hatred” towards Russia. He had asked for her to be jailed for eight years.

Skochilenko admitted to swapping the tags but denied that the text written on them was false. She said she was a pacifist who valued human life above all else.

“How weak is our prosecutor’s faith in our state and society if he thinks our statehood and public safety can be ruined by five little pieces of paper?” she said in court.

“Everyone sees and knows that you are not judging a terrorist. You’re not trying an extremist. You’re not even trying a political activist. You’re judging a pacifist,” she said.

Skochilenko’s friends and supporters said the verdict was a disgrace [Olga Maltseva/AFP]

Amnesty International condemned the verdict.

“Her persecution has become synonymous with the absurdly cruel oppression faced by Russians openly opposing their country’s criminal war,” it said in a statement.

Memorial has designated Skochilenko a political prisoner and has launched a campaign calling for her release.

She has already been in detention for nearly 19 months, meaning that her overall term will be reduced by more than two years, since every day served in a pre-trial detention centre counts as 1.5 days of time served in a regular penal colony.

But she has struggled in custody due to pre-existing health conditions, and her need for a gluten-free diet, according to her lawyers and her partner.

According to OVD-Info, a prominent rights group that monitors political arrests and provides legal aid, a total of 19,834 Russians have been arrested between February 24 2022, when Russia began its invasion, and late October 2023 for speaking out or demonstrating against the war.

Also on Thursday, opposition politician Vladimir Milov was convicted in absentia of spreading false information about the army and sentenced to eight years. Milov, who was once Russia’s deputy energy minister and is now an ally of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has left the country.

[aiqingdemeimiao]

seeing america take steps to ban abortion (with rumours of the right to be prescribed contraception being the next to fall) is terrifying. i really don't think americans understand just how much of the world uses america as a litmus test for what they can get away with too. if women lose rights in america, a lot of other countries are going to point at you and go "see! women don't need those rights! even the west agrees!".

here, we now only have the right to an abortion if you have a medical condition that makes pregnancy unsurvivable (backed up by evidence from three separate doctors) or if there is something wrong with the development of the baby.

"i don't want a baby" isn't a reason.  "i can't afford a baby" isn't a reason. "i was raped" isn't a reason.

as a result, many women get back-alley abortions for unwanted pregnancies caused by their husbands forcing them into sex (marital rape is not a crime - just assume all chinese men are rapists and save yourself some time). and even more common is a pregnant woman being taken by her husband to a secret doctor who will illegally test the sex of the foetus and do a d&c (often without anaesthesia or pain relief, or properly sterilised instruments) to remove it if it's female. men don't want daughters, even with the new 3 child policy in place.

adding onto this, contraception (both birth control pills and things like vasectomies) are heavily controlled and restricted too. the government wants as many children to be born as is possible these days, due to our top-heavy ageing population. the only way for women to truly be safe is to completely abstain from heterosexual relationships (and pray to god you don't get raped).

feminist groups pushing for reproductive freedom and spreading knowledge of how to stop yourself getting pregnant have all been censored off the internet. simply typing "6b4t" (east asian feminist slogan) into chinese social media can get your account - which is tied to your real life identity - banned and lead to a visit from the police.

i don’t want to see american women end up like this. i don’t want to see you censoring your posts and typing in code to get desperate women to safehouses to end unwanted pregnancies without the police surrounding the building. i don’t want to see you creating a black market for abortifacients and contraceptives because you can’t guarantee a doctor will prescribe them to you. and i really do not want to see women across the world end up like this too because america has set the example. 

american women have got to fight this now because it’s much easier to protect something you already have than to attempt to reclaim something once you’ve lost it. 

[nftdawnio]

On top of a picture of the Sistine Chapel, two dildos with straps on them are flopped towards each other. The woman wearing fishnets and blue nail polish goes by the name Cryptonatrix. Since late 2020, she has been selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with adult content, like this one, which is called the Sistine Chapel of Smut. But she says it went away soon after she first put this NFT up for sale on the market Rarible. Natrix says, "They cut me off." "It was a major letdown. I was more upset about how nobody else seemed to care… Because a lot of people want this space and decentralization to work against censorship, but I realized early on that no one cares about that unless it affects them, and very few people would actually fight for the real values of decentralization. This can be a big problem for people on the outside, like sex workers, who don't get much help from the public. (Rarible did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.) Web3 is supposed to be a new model of the internet, free from the restrictions that plagued the centralized Web2. However, censorship of sex workers still happens in this brave new world. Allie Eve Knox, a sex worker who started selling NFTs of her work in 2020, says, "It's still the same. They still have to follow the same rules. They're still governed by FOSTA/SESTA, which means… they censor us, they don't let us be on their platform, and they don't play nice with us." "Web3 or any other kind of technology won't change that." Knox calls herself on Twitter a "vixen, goddess, cryptocutie, and findomme." She says that major NFT marketplaces "shadow ban" (or hide) the content of sex workers in the same way that Web2 social media sites do. Also, sex workers still have to use social media sites like Instagram and Twitter to market their NFTs to a wider audience of people who buy adult content. And at the end of the day, the people who collect NFTs and praise Web3 still live in a world that puts sex workers in the background. "So-called Web3 is really just a reflection of this bull&%$# dystopia we live in, and I can't expect things to be different there," says Cryptonatrix, who also goes by Natrix. Still, some sex workers who have already sold NFTs aren't giving up on their new source of income, even though it's become an even smaller part of their income during the ongoing crypto bear market. "As long as there is room for us to do our own thing, we will do our own thing," says Natrix. "Sex workers are always the most creative people in whatever we do, whether or not anyone else wants to notice it." How sex worker NFTs are doing From VCRs in the 1970s to bitcoin (BTC) in the early 2010s, sex workers and people who make adult content have always been some of the first people to use new types of technology. In the same time-honored way, many people tried out the recent NFT craze before everyone went crazy about Punks and Apes. But these days, when the economy is bad, it's not a very popular or profitable way for sex workers to make money. Based on what she has seen in the NFT community as a whole, Natrix thinks that less than 100 sex workers are actively minting NFTs right now. But she doesn't use NFT platforms like TreatDAO, CumRocket, and Unique that are designed for sex workers (more on that later). Fans. But there are only a few platforms like that, and one of the more well-known ones, NASFTY, has a website that is "under renovation," so no one knows when or how it will come back. On its website, TreatDAO says that it has "450+ creators," but it doesn't say how many of those creators are also active users. In an email to CoinDesk, a representative from CumRocket, which is still in beta, said that "8,703 buyers and 2,027 creators" have signed up to use the platform so far. SpankChain is the Web3 company for sex workers and people who make adult content that has been around the longest. About 60 models have used the platform to mint and sell their NFTs, says Knox, who works with the platform.

Maya Kendrick, who is 26 and lives in Los Angeles, used SpankChain to make her first NFTs in September 2021. She says, "It was a lot easier than I thought it would be because SpankChain took care of all the technical stuff." Kendrick also found a way into the larger NFT world through her newly created NFTs. She says that the other project creators are "super welcoming" and "happy to have more sex workers in the space." Still, NFTs don't make up much of her income. Knox is the same way. What's next for adult NFTs? There are a lot of gray areas when it comes to what "adult" or "NSFW" content is and isn't. Many people who work in the sex industry don't like how platforms label their naked pictures as NSFW, even if they don't look that different from a photographer's naked pictures. The latter, on the other hand, is often categorized as art and can still be found on NFT platforms. Web3 supporters, on the other hand, say that bigger powers shouldn't decide what is "safe" for internet users to see, sell, and buy and what isn't. The future of the web is all about getting rid of these gatekeepers, they say. Creators like Kendrick think that Web3 content platforms will end up like their Web2 counterparts, like OnlyFans, which started out as a marketplace for sex workers and then threatened to kick them off the platform when it became popular. "The people who run those platforms are still trying to run them like businesses, and we are still a liability to those businesses," she says. There are other reasons why NFTs are not the end of the world for people who work in the sex industry. The NFTs in a collector's wallet are visible online, and Natrix says that buyers might not want other people to see their wallets full of pornographic items. This makes it harder for creators of adult content to follow a classic NFT success model, in which buyers of a certain collection work together to promote the project and each other's purchases to build community and raise the value of the work they've all invested in. Natrix says that collectors don't get together over sexual content. Even though the market is in a bear market right now, the creators who talked to CoinDesk plan to keep selling NFTs. The technology gives sex workers another way to make money, and since they are in a precarious position on so many platforms in Webs 2 and 3, they can always use more ways to make money. Kendrick says, "You go on the platforms that will take you until they won't." "I can see why sex workers use any platform they can find until they get kicked off." https://nftdawn.io/sex-workers-are-still-censored-on-web3/?feed_id=1898&_unique_id=6311ef937b8bf

[potteresque-ire]

hello, ily metas! thank you for taking the time for them. i hope you dont mind an ask with two follow up questions to your metas i'm curious about: 1) has mxtx rly been sentenced? i have seen others also share this news but other fans have quickly dismissed and gotten pissed at these reports for being fake news that are bad for mxtx, and as fearmongering. 2) for those who want to support yizhan but not the ccp, do you have advice how to navigate fan support and interaction with their media?

Hello! I apologise for the late reply!  You’ve brought up some interesting points, so please forgive me for responding with an essay.

First, about MXTX — This is a follow-up to this post.

Unfortunately, this is all we got—all everyone has got about MXTX’s current situation: on 2020/11/10, she was sentenced in Hangzhou Shang Cheng District’s People’s Court (杭州市上城區人民法院). No details were given on her verdict, due to “人民法院認為不宜在互聯網公布的其它情形”  (“The People’s Court decided it inappropriate to announce further details on the internet”). Here’s a link with the screenshot that showed all the information released about the case that day.

There are enough copies of similar screenshots to this one online, with the differences dependent on where the publisher pulled the information from the same website: 中國裁判文書網, an online archive of verdicts run by China Supreme People’s Court. There’re few reasons, therefore, to believe the information on the screenshot was fake. The link I used was Sina’s Financial News, which I believe is trustworthy enough for China’s standard.

It is also important to note, of course, that two scenarios may still render this screenshot irrelevant. 1) The verdict, which was not mentioned in the screenshot, was “not guilty” and 2) the name listed in the case, 袁依楣, was not MXTX at all.

Few have seemed to suspect 2) to be a possibility. Her real name might have been prior knowledge among some fans, or the combination of her surname and city of residence. 1) has been the where the concern / debate is.

I included China’s rate of conviction in the original post for this reason: acquittal is exceedingly rare (<0.1%) for the arrested in China. This short article discussed some reasons.

So, is it possible that MXTX is now a free woman? Yes. Is it likely? Not at all.

Still, since the probability that MXTX is imprisoned isn’t 100%, is spreading this news smearing her name? Fear-mongering?

I can only answer for myself, Anon, but my answer is no for both questions, which is why I’ve felt comfortable posting about her case. MXTX’s alleged “crimes” are things we already knew she did, or common practices among Chinese IP writers. We know she penned MDZS and other BL works; we know MDZS, in particular, has an 18+ element. She was said to have sold merch based on her works, but that wasn’t unusual at all for writers in Jinjiang, where she published her writing. Even those who don’t like her have seemed to agree that it was her writing that got her into trouble, not some other crimes she could’ve committed.

IMO, a guilty verdict doesn’t tell us as much about her as it does about the judicial system, the business practices of her country. It’s worth re-mentioning that media giants such as Tencent are closely tied to the government; Tencent’s WeChat, for example, is part of China’s Great Firewall and is used for surveillance, for censorship and removal of political dissidents. What MXTX’s case hints at is this: the government has (very likely) convicted her, while its close allies are continuing to use her works—works that got her into legal trouble in the first place—to make money. Some fans of MXTX have questioned if the courts have censored the details of the case to save the embarrassment of the rich and powerful, calling what has happened to MXTX 人血饅頭 (“human blood steamed buns”), an idiom used to describe the act of profiting out of someone elses’ life.

As for fear-mongering, here are my thoughts ~ it would’ve been fear-mongering if the public has access to the facts, and not years after they happen. Specifically, it would’ve been fear-mongering to leak the rumours of MXTX’s sentencing, when the judicial system is transparent and the case details will soon be published for all to see. Why? Because “fear” comes from the unknown, and “-monger” is the unnecessary promotion, stirring-up of this fear.

To promote, stir up anything, one needs a reference level. The reference level in this scenario is this: what is the level of fear if the facts about MXTX’s (and other BL writers’) situation are known? Of course, this knowledge doesn’t make MXTX’s experience any easier or more just; it doesn’t cause her less fear. However, she isn’t the target audience of this likely-to-be-true rumour. The target audience is the public and in particular, those who consume and/or generate BL material online.

What is the level of fear among this population if the facts about MXTX’s (and other BL writers’) situation are known? It’s the (relative) comfort in knowing the government’s stance on what they do: how the administration feels about BL, 18+ BL, and their distribution methods. The comfort comes from having the right information to decide how to act accordingly. For example, if I’m a BL writer based in China and I know the court has found MXTX guilty of bypassing publishing houses but not of writing M/M romance, then I’ll know to not produce paper versions of my writing, but I can keep writing.

This reference level of fear is unavailable here, however, since the government has decided to withhold all details about the case. Without this reference level, fear-mongering becomes a ... difficult to define concept.

Are these likely-to-be-true rumours agents of fear, or are they hints on how to survive in a country that lacks transparency?

Continuing with the example of I being a Chinese BL writer, since I cannot expect to hear more facts about MXTX, this rumour is all I’ve got in choosing what to do with my hobby, in deciding whether it is safe to continue. As I’m aware that a rumour isn’t a fact, I first research on the rumour’s likelihood of truth (similar to what I’ve done for MXTX’s case), and cross my fingers that I don’t get it wrong.

By doing so, I’m turning these rumours into my survival guide.

Is it risky? Yes. Is it exhausting? Absolutely. But this is the way of life for people who live under secretive, authoritarian governments—the authoritarian element making it impossible to demand more facts. It may take people outside such regimes some time to get used to—to the lifestyle, and to the idea that, in a place where news is often synonymous with propaganda, rumours are breadcrumbs of truth that should be sieved through with equal care as one would sieve through the news. Heeding, considering the probable truth of what the authority has deemed to be fear-mongering rumours can be a matter of literal life and death. 

Take...COVID. (I apologize for bringing up this unpleasant topic!)

I shall link to an article about the early spread of COVID in Wuhan here and ask: were Dr. Li Wenliang and the seven other doctors fear-mongering? Wuhanese chose to believe in the government, but at what cost to them? What would the world be like today if they took the early COVID rumours as true and masked up like Hong Kongers—Hong Kongers who weren’t any smarter or better, but had simply learned their painful lessons from the 2003 SARS epidemic? 

(Why hadn’t the Wuhanese learned? Because the government has long changed the narrative of SARS, taught their people that the illness originated in Hong Kong.) 

(How can one learn from past mistakes if one pretends those mistakes never existed?)

You must be wondering, Anon, why I’m talking about COVID when your next question is about YiZhan. The death of Dr Li Wenliang on February 7th, 2020, sparked a demand for freedom of speech rarely seen in internet-age China. Its fury, its ferocity forced the government to change its stance on Dr Li, again an unusual move. Since January 2020, Weibo had been censoring COVID news and opinion pieces that shedded a negative light to the central government; after the death of Dr Li, the censorship apparatus stepped up, making way for the propaganda machine to kick in later and change the narrative of the pandemic.

Here are some questions without definite answers, but may be food for thought for YiZhan fans:

1) While the Chinese government’s censorship apparatus (including Weibo) might have silenced the voices of dissent, of mourning on the surface, was it more likely to pacify, or fuel the anger of netizens, many of whom had lost loved ones, many of whom were still under quarantine?

2) Less than three weeks after the death of Dr Li, a group of fans demanded even *more* censorship from the government—the closing of an internet website that had been seen as a relatively free space to express oneself. How would these netizens react, even though they knew little about these fans or their idol?  

(It was, in the context of the massive silencing of COVID discussions in China, that I learned about the ban of AO3. There had been rumours that the government would censor more websites on 2020/03/01. When I read about AO3′s ban on 2/27, my thoughts were 1) Hmm. This came two days early. 2) AO3? Really?)

(I wouldn’t watch The Untamed or know who Gg was until several months later.)

Now, Anon, this is a good time to get to your CCP (Chinese Communist Party) question.

The very short answer is no. There’s no way to support YiZhan without, to a certain level, supporting the CCP. As mentioned above, the media companies are all part of China’s surveillance system. Weibo is where freedom of speech is curbed. Our two boys have been part of the propaganda machine; the BBC article linked above had a tiny picture of Gg on it, as he was a performer in the Hero in Harm’s Way (最美逆行者), a “real-life based” drama on COVID. DD just did a show glorying the Chinese police force (and here’s a video of the same force welding doors to lock in COVID-stricken residents).

Nonetheless, here’s my first advice: please do not beat yourself up for supporting YiZhan!

Gg and Dd are people who live within the system, inside the Great Firewall. They understand the world the way their government has taught them to—not only in school, but also in the news and media. Like most youths in every country, they’re patriotic—and to expect them to be otherwise, especially because of information they don’t have, is both unrealistic and unfair. Even if they do know about certain things impermissible within the Firewall, in China (as in many Communists countries), openly expressing / performing one’s proper political leanings (ie. loyalty towards CCP) is among the most important pre-requisites for any job. This has been especially true for c-ent in recent years .

They, like most of their countrymen, are doing what they have to do.

In this case, it comes to us, our decisions on how to interact with their works. How should we deal with them, their propaganda elements?

The answer, of course, varies from person to person. Personally, I’ve chosen the approaches of “immunisation” and “restriction”. By “immunisation”, I mean learning about as much historical and sociopolitical facts from non-CCP sponsored sources; this is understandably difficult for someone who doesn’t already have some familiarity with the culture and politics of the region, and/or cannot read the language. 

Restriction means limiting my consumption of media produced by China. I avoid shows (dramas, documentaries, variety etc) featuring topics that are likely to contain heavy propaganda, such as the military, the police, Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan, and of course, anything pertaining to the CCP, from its rise to its governance of the country.

In general, I’m wary of all information presented about the post-monarchy years (post 1911), even though CCP wouldn’t begin its reign until after WWII (1949). Why so early? 1) Because CCP was formed in 1921 and so its glorification requires a change of narrative since then; 2) because the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT), which governed China between 1912 and 1949 (the so-called Republican Era 民國), would end up exiling to and setting up a new government in Taiwan.

How much propaganda should one expect in shows depicting the country post-1911? The current TV and webdrama directives (previously discussed in this post) offer some hints. Here are my translations of the relevant items:

D7) Dramas about the Republican era: Glorification of the Republican Era, the Beiyang Government, and Warlord Era requires strict control.

D10) Crime drama: crime drama is the focus of content auditing. The Ministry of Public Security (Pie note: in charge of law enforcement, ie, police) will be involved in the audit. The process of crime solving cannot be exposed; criminal psychology and motivations can however be depicted in detail. Undercover police cannot use drugs or kill, or damage the image of the police force. Criminals must be punished by law.

D12) Dramas featuring realistic topics: realistic topics must adhere to the correct world view, philosophy of life and moral values. They cannot place too strong an emphasis on social conflicts, must showcase the beautiful lives of the commoners. Regular folks should display larger-than-life sentiments and aspirations; they can pursue wealth, but must use proper means to do so; they cannot damage the public image of specific employment types, groups and social organisations. Do not preach negative or decadent world view, philosophy of life and moral values. Do not exaggerate, amplify social issues; do not over showcase, display the darker sides of society; do not preach affluence, avoid things that have no basis in real life.

D16) Dramas featuring the Revolution (Pie note: CCP’s coming to power): 2019 is the publicity period of the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Although the “Three Importances” (important revolution, important people, important events) are still encouraged, the  National Radio and Television Administration requires all departments, at all levels, to strengthen the control of content and the overall management of the industry, and focus on the auditing of content pertaining to the Sino-Japanese war and espionage dramas.

These directives (as those translated in the other post) are as vague as they are restrictive, and to err on the side of caution, production companies tend to “overachieve” to avoid going against headwinds at the censorship board. This means their products have a tendency to malign the Republican Era (D7). It means they will likely twist history in trying to depict the CCP as faultless heroes (D16). It means they'll probably present a utopian-like society and call it reality-based (D12), a society in which the good guys share the same values as the CCP and always win (D10).

Yes, my “restriction” means I skipped Hero in Harm’s Way. It means I’ve never listened to Gg’s version of 我和我的祖國 despite my absolute adoration of his voice. It means I just missed Dd’s performance in the law enforcement celebration event. It means I don’t plan on watching Being A Hero and Ace Troops.

So here’s where I’ve drawn the line, Anon, but it doesn’t mean that’s what anyone should do. Only you alone can decide where your own comfort zone is. I write these metas in the hopes that it can offer a … gateway for those who’d like to understand, with a more telescopic lens, Gg and Dd’s country—a country that holds a particularly strong hold over its citizens’ fate including, yes, their romantic fate. It’s not my wish to impose my opinions on anyone.

If I have other hopes… It’s this. Please, as long as it’s safe for you to talk, do not self-censor—especially about facts, especially on sites like Tumblr or Twitter that have long been banned by the Chinese government. I don’t mean one should go about and confront those who insist on a different version of reality. To undo opinions rooted in years of education, IMO, the process has to be voluntary, and the information is already at the fingertips of those who’re surfing these sites and wish to learn more. More importantly, open discussions of these topics may be risky for those who still have close ties to China, and keeping them safe should always be the top priority. 

What I mean is simply this ~ please do not feel obliged to agree with every perspective presented in YiZhan’s work just because you support the leads. Please do not feel you must remain silent about the CCP—its good, bad and ugly—just because your favourite stars happen to come from the country it’s ruling. And please remember: “Chinese”, as a term, has always included people who live outside CCP’s control, many of whom still fully embrace the culture, traditions and values of Historical China, a 5000-years long string of dynasties with shifting borders, ethnic makeup and customs. The Untamed is a mainland Chinese production, yes, but its genre, its manner of presenting certain traditions, wouldn’t have been developed, or flourished, without the diaspora. The CCP has only been the ruling party of one country, the People’s Republic of China, for 71 years, and as a party with foreign (soviet) roots and a record of destroying the pillar of the country’s tradition, Confucianism, it doesn’t own a monopolistic say on how every Chinese should think and act—no matter how much it insists it does—or how everyone should think and speak about China and its people.

It isn’t qualified.

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[sneakattxck]

the Adam Kovic situation ; a “brief” summary

A few things to mention before I start this post:

1) if it comes out that something I have said here is wrong, I will edit it and reblog the new version, because I am still waiting for official statements. i am not doing this to ruin his career, i am simply compiling all the information i have found after scrolling multiple 4chan boards and other forums so you don’t have to.

2) there will be NSFW content in this post, if you are under 18 please do not open the read more, i’m sorry, the tl;dr for you is adam kovic was seemingly catfished by someone (of age, there is no grooming accusations at this point) and a google drive of 4gb of photos/videos (some of which are believed to have been taken at the funhaus office) was released.

3) i will not be linking the google drive in this post as i do not want to risk any minors going to it.

4) i will be making one about the ryan situation too but that situation is still evolving.

okay now onto the actual summary, in which i am assuming you already know who adam kovic is

In the last 36 hours (from writing this post at 1am 6/10/2020) a google drive with 4GB (roughly 400 pics&videos) of adam kovic in various levels of lewdness, and in some cases straight up sex acts, made it’s way to the 4chan /pol/ board. (it is worth mentioning that this post also included two images involving ryan but i will talk about that more in my ryan post). 

however, these images actually first made it to the internet on september 7th this year, on a gay male forum in a thread discussing rooster teeth employees. the user who posted released a few images before their account was completely banned by the moderators of the forum. shortly after, another user of the same site found that the entire folder had been uploaded to an invite only gay torrent website. a couple images from the folder made it to a 4chan board for gay men on the same day, and didn’t spread too far after that.

this takes us to the last 36 hours, in which a user on 4chan makes a post on the /pol/ board with links to the entire folder. this folder consists of hundreds of images and videos ranging from workout photos, differing levels of undress, straight up nudes of his whole body, dick and asshole, him using multiple sex toys and also in this folder are a few photos and videos that include his wife during sex. (it is important to note that as of writing this we do not know if his wife consented to this content being shared and i will update as i get a concrete answer, but if she in fact did not consent, then adam has committed a crime.)

in a few of the screen recordings of videos, there is a woman visibile also in some sexual poses. 4chan ended up finding that this woman is actually an adult actress, who goes by the name of Harley Spencer. that fact combined with the fact these originated from a gay male forum i, and many others on the different sites, made the assumption that adam was catfished while sending these images and videos via instagram

it is important to note that the original leaker of these videos never ever claimed to be posing as someone underage, and the actress who was used is very much an adult, any claims of adam grooming minors is absolutely unfounded at this time

other than the chance he may have shared intimate photos of his wife without her consent, one other very large problem with these files is the location. some of these were taken at the funhaus office. below is a pair of photos that, as worked out by people on the kiwifarms forums, were taken in the office. they have obviously been censored because of tumblrs guidelines.

there are more than just these two, with other images including;

- looking down into his pants at his dick, seemingly a very sneaky angle

- him holding his dick in his underwear with text added saying “love reading your dirty talk in public”

- one of a boner through his jeans with text added saying “glad the meeting is over”

there have been no official statements put out yet, anything posted to any rt/fh subreddit is immediately removed by the moderators and 4chan did spam bruce’s twitch chat (he was streaming while this was unfolding) but neither rooster teeth, funhaus or adam have mentioned anything on this matter. the closest we currently have is adam’s wife, jess, replying to an instagram comment about the situation.

i will admit it is hard to tell what she means here, if she is someone who consented to explicit images and videos being shared and saying to enjoy the show of that, or that this is about to be a huge dumpster fire ala projared and to enjoy that show instead. as soon as i am made aware of what she meant, and her status on all of this i will update this post accordingly.

update 1: removed some details about the contents of the google drive given that probably didnt need to be shared and after receiving a couple asks explaining that i should remove them

[helenarlett-rex]

you’re a fucking freak for defending gross porn based on kids media just because “in america we have a little thing called freedom of artistic expression” shut the fuck up nobody is saying it’s illegal they’re saying it’s gross and fucking weird to do it. when will you freaks learn that protecting children is more important than your fucking weird kinks.

*Laughs* Fucking freak he says… Gross and fucking weird he says… While talking to author, Helen Arlet… You’ve obviously never read any of my books. You don’t even know what gross and weird is...

Also I love how your response to my factual statement about the fact that these things are protected was just, “shut the fuck up”. Oh man, you really put me in my place with that one. How will I ever respond to that?

This will probably be the last time I respond to one of these so I'll try to be thorough. I know what I am about to say may be hard to grasp, because it has to do with people's rights as well as with personal responsibility, and you seem to be the sort who thinks rights only apply to you and responsibility only applies to others, but try to follow me if you can… 

This has nothing to do with some kink regardless of how "gross and fucking weird" you think it is. I don’t know what gives you the right to decide what’s gross and weird... Most asexuals probably think whatever you are into is gross and weird. Where as I on the other hand think your tastes are pretty weak sauce... That's not the point though. The issue here is censorship.

For starters, it's not just America that has protections for artistic freedom. America was just the one example I used because it was the easiest for me to explain off the top of my head, but lots of countries have them. I already stated that before but you obviously weren't paying attention. Just like you weren't paying attention when I told you about internet safety precautions and said that it's not my responsibility, or anyone else's, to keep your kid from getting into porn. That's your responsibility. If you want to let your little crotch goblin have free run of the internet without restriction or supervision that's on you. It's not my fault if your kid finds porn anymore than it is if he ends up in a chat room with a bunch of pedophiles asking him to send pictures and tell them what his address is. 

The internet is not a safe place and if you are going to let your children be on it you should have safety precautions installed and be monitoring them regardless if cartoon porn exists or not. I mean, do you honestly think that the only way kids are going to get into porn is on accident by searching for a cartoon character? Trust me, if you give a kid a way to get into porn, they are going to get into it the moment you aren't looking. I can't even tell you how young I was the first time I figured out how to get access to porn. And I didn't even have internet back then… You keep talking about how important it is to protect children but your answer to actually doing that is the equivalent of telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it… while you let the baby play with steak knives… 

That's why I stood up in defense of this issue. Because there is already a solution to it but you keep ignoring it in favor of a different one that doesn't work and makes no sense. You sit there and say that no one is saying it's illegal, but your argument is that it should be. So let's say we give you what you want. Cartoon porn is no longer allowed. There are still a million other things on the internet that kids shouldn't find that they are going to find. What's the answer to that? Do we ban EVERYTHING we don't want children to see? Do we censor the internet to the point where it's useless just to make sure irresponsible parents who won't take simple precautions don't have to worry about what their kids are going to find? And who gets to decide what is okay for kids and what isn't? I'm not saying porn is okay for kids. It isn't. But we are talking about more than just porn now.

We have people who come into the library I work at all the time and steal any book they can find that has anything to do with LGBT topics so those books won't be in the library anymore. They do this just so their children won't see anything LGBT. I even got an email the other morning from a woman telling me that she will never come back because we have LGBT materials and she doesn't want her child's "innocence" corrupted. As a transgender woman this kind of censorship is especially harmful to me because not only does it mean I have a hard time finding access to library materials relevant to me, but no one else can either and now I have to live in a community where people are growing up intolerant of me because all they know about me is what their bigoted parents are telling them. I can’t even go out in public without disguising myself as a man because I’m afraid I might get shot. This is what censorship for the sake of the children has led to.

Again, I don’t think children should have access to materials intended strictly for adults… but as long as those materials aren’t illegal I think adults SHOULD have access to them, whatever they are, regardless if it’s something I personally get or not. I won’t support censorship in any form because once we open that Pandora’s box of censoring one thing, it just leads down the slippery slope of censoring other things that some people might actually need. And I especially won’t support it when the only reason for it is because “children might find it” when again, as I already said, there are already ways in place to prevent them from finding it. It’s not my fault if you won’t use the things we’ve put in place to handle that.

But let’s be honest with ourselves here… You aren’t actually “worried about the children”. If that’s what you were worried about you’d be advocating for a lot more than just the removal of cartoon porn from the internet. And you wouldn’t be shitting on porn filters and safe searches either. “The children” is just a crutch you’re using to make yourself sound more self righteous when the real problem is that you don’t want these things to exist because you think they are “gross and fucking weird” am I right? What happened…? Did you accidentally stumble onto some My Little Pony smut and that picture of that bright pink, cartoon horse made you feel funny down in your pants and threatened your manliness? Well don’t worry… I won’t tell anyone…

[tark-msi]

IS CENSORSHIP THE DEATH OF CONTENT CREATIVITY?

Censorship, unquestionably, is not just a deterrent to an individual's expression of creativity, but in fact, the very curtailment of their freedom. Since ages past, Censorship has been a tool utilized by ruling bodies, be it kings, queens, priests, religions, or in the present case, democratic governments, to curb expressions of dissent either by an individual or communities. Although an ancient tool, it is still quite popular and in wide use by modern governments worldwide, granted its severity differs from nation to nation. However, foremost, presenting facts: Censorship is always a product of the essentially dominant zeitgeist, which is without exception defined by the ruling social class (more often than not conservative), which wants to maintain the status quo of a specific region. Censorship is no new subject, and to better understand, we have to study both the present and the past. Even today, this is an issue that will undoubtedly affect our country's future.

Let us first state the precise definition of Censorship: "Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.” This is a standard definition of Censorship. However, what people fail to realize is that Censorship's scope spans far and wide beyond the scope of just entertainment and news media. Not to mention the methodology of implementing censorships.

Nevertheless, how about we first trace the history of Censorship up to the present date. The first, most famous instance of Censorship is known to have happened in ancient Greece, where the great philosopher Socrates was charged with "corrupting" the youths and was henceforth executed. ‘Censorship by death’ might seem a thing of the past but is still very much a part of the present world. Censorship keeps reappearing as a blot in the history of humankind, as a sinister spectre. We remember the brutal killings by the church in the 16th century against the progress of science, the mass Censorship of literature in the 17th century by James I, the bloody Censorship in the 18th century during the Reign of Terror, not to mention the censorships implemented by Great Britain when India began its freedom struggle. Even in recent times, Censorship is an ever-looming presence. It was only 40 years ago when Indira Gandhi had implemented the emergency curtailing any and all criticism against the Government. Unfortunately, it is no revelation that India is right now going through a phase where a new kind of Censorship might emerge. A Censorship where there will not be a need to suppress the truth since the truth itself might stop existing hidden under the dirty disguise of propaganda and the veil of patriotism. This Censorship is the courtesy of ******** **** belonging to *** party.

From the examples, it can be easily surmised that no single incident exists where Censorship as a practice led to a positive result. More often than not, Censorship has been a product of conservative social practices and orthodox morality. It is always geared towards thwarting the path of progress. In maintaining the status quo. Several justifications are given in favour of Censorship. All valid reasons in themselves, but the rampant misuse made by the privileged few seriously casts a shadow of doubt on the systemic of Censorship. As previously mentioned, Censorship is subject to a conservative morality, and furthermore, a tool by the Government. These two forces combined only work to hinder the freedom of speech of the average citizens. Severe direct criticism against the ruling body or the upper class is not taken kindly. The so-called 'sentiments' being hurt belong only to the Savarna Heteronormative world, when they feel an 'attack'. But when it comes to the straight-up unconstitutional portrayal and slurs against the Queer and economically depressed classes, our democratic system invariably fails at protecting their constitutional rights.

Censorship is beyond a doubt the bane of content creativity. The combination of the psychological aspect and malignancy of censorship further create sinister dynamics worth our study. In an environment riddled with Censorships, there is psychologically established a safe zone and a danger zone in the individual's mind, creating an isolation of ideas and further constriction of mind. For fear of physical and mental harm, the user/creator remains within the arbitrarily made safe zone, created and defined by those in power. Once the zones are psychologically established, they start taking social roots. The safe zone creepily and silently becomes the core of social values. Hence, in essence, Censorship, in proxy with social values, becomes unquestionable. This further extends the safe zone in the social environment. Stepping out of that safe zone results in facing the wrath of the society itself. It, of course, is an obvious fact that societal norms are ingrained in an individual since infancy and hence get rooted inside the mind. Again, gaining a psychological aspect and here we witness the vicious circle of isolating the information and categorizing it as right or wrong, not through any critical judgment but simply because it becomes a predefined entity by an arbitrary authority (The ruling body). A fixed societal system then leads to a stale system of information where nothing new or creative can exist; rather, nothing new or creative is allowed to exist.

Additionally, Censorship is not merely an act of banning or removing certain content or proliferation of specific ideas. It is a sheer exercise in redacting the truth and hiding it behind a veneer of lies. Just like creativity can be expressed in multitudes of ways beyond the limited scope of media, similarly there exist nuanced censorship practices aimed at crushing deviant and creative modes of thinking. Censorships aimed at creating only one designated path. The different types of Censorship are: Censoring certain content (Removal), spreading false information to overshadow facts (Misleading), capturing means of information (Hijacking), Destabilising communications (Isolation of areas), Interference in collecting data, active prevention of expressing of one's views (Banning protests), ignoring or refusing to acknowledge specific outlets of expression (Disregarding), the threat of harm to relatives or the personnel themselves, and in the most extreme case Censorship by Death. With the coming of the digital age, the act of Censorship has become far more nuanced and harder to detect. And while the people keep struggling to find new ways of expressing their creativity\ the hounds of censorship keep up the chase. The freedom of the Internet is like a double-edged sword. Finding accurate facts among the propaganda and Whatsapp forwards is like trying to find a needle in the haystack. Perhaps part of the issue lies with the overload of information that has become possible with the Internet culture of our time.

Without a doubt, all the blame and critical talk surrounding Censorship should fall on the Government, regardless of the party. The Government's responsibility is to listen to the people's voices, not dictate that voice. A common argument in favour of Censorship is that Government is trying to protect the people from harmful, negative or disturbing media and discouraging its promotion. Media such as child pornography, disturbing and traumatizing videos of murder and gore, texts which might not be suitable for specific age groups. Fair enough. But my question is, why doesn't the Government try to eradicate the problems themselves? How is it that no action against the crime itself is taken? The very existence of such media is proof of how miserably our Government is failing.

Moreover, when someone raises these issues explicitly, those people are silenced on the grounds of spreading 'disturbing' content. Media handles spreading hate violence against communities, and misogynist content are allowed to do what they want willy-nilly, but porn websites are like the ultimate taboo, Oh! What a ruin of 'Indian values’. The ‘disturbing’ content which so endangers our peace and freedom is nothing more than the artist holding a mirror to the society. The artistic freedom exists in the fact that the artist can hold the mirror in any angle to show the dirty side-lines which nourish our established societal foundations. Censorship only exists to break those mirrors. It is an inability to confront the rotten reality, to face the cost of maintain the status quo. We are concerned about the children seeing the scars on a woman’s naked body; Mind! We are not concerned about the scars but about the nakedness! But why ashamed now, when you so proudly beat her up in front of your own child? We are concerned about an abuse in a TV show; Mind! We don’t care about the abuse, but about the fact that it is being hurled at our shining, virtuous culture! But why worried now when the abuses you threw on the young Dalit boy, are being thrown back on you? His are the abuses which are probably the fairest.

An interesting incident comes to my mind, which will also serve as a nice metaphor. Back in February, one of our glorious leaders invited a foreign leader for a political visit. They were supposed to tour certain parts of the country, to show its beauty. In preparation, we made walls along the roads! For very good reasons surely, and not to hide the dirt and the poverty lining the streets. So, the tour continued and our leaders travelled our beautiful country through those clean, immaculate, and wonderful roads, lined with walls on either side. I think the name of the walls was ‘Censorship’. And so it is, that we kill and wall off creativity and the truth. Because the fact is there is no one truth. The diversity and the creativity are all their own forms of truth. All those paths exist for us to explore and learn. But censorship allows only one road. The clean one. Which only the virtuous, the rich and the clean can walk.

Baudrillard's insight into the creation of reality is incredibly useful and a much-recommended read. His much-acclaimed theory has been, how in the present age of information explosion, the one who controls the flow of information is the one who controls reality. We have already witnessed how dangerous Censorship can be during Stalin's reign, where around 80000 people simply vanished. A similar pattern can be seen today with mob lynching and murders of journalists and reporters who dare to raise their voice against fascism. The riots, the protests, the beatings and the killings are the signs of our time. Hence it is not just the threat of ‘Death of creativity’ that we face, but it is almost a matter of life and death. Only us, the people can stand against it and openly raise our voices by our Freedom of expression and speech. The question remains: When will we come together to fight it?

By- Aditya Singh

[thainews1]

Should Your Child Watch TV News? Surprising Opinions of Top Anchors

More than ever, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing, news events on TV. It seems that violent crime and bad news is unabating. Foreign wars, natural disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of child abuse, and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention the grim wave of recent school shootings.

All of this intrudes on the innocent world of children. If, as psychologists say, kids are like sponges and absorb everything that goes on around them, how profoundly does watching TV news actually affect them? How careful do parents need to be in monitoring the flow of news into the home, and how can they find an approach that works?

To answer these questions, we turned to a panel of seasoned anchors, Peter Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley--each having faced the complexities of raising their own vulnerable children in a news-saturated world.

Picture this: 6:30 p.m. After an exhausting day at the office, Mom is busy making dinner. She parks her 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son in front of the TV.

"Play Nintendo until dinner's ready," she instructs the little ones, who, instead, start flipping channels.

Tom Brokaw on "NBC News Tonight," announces that an Atlanta gunman has killed his wife, daughter and son, all three with a hammer, before going on a shooting rampage that leaves nine dead.

On "World News Tonight," Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner with more than 300 passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong airport.

On CNN, there's a report about the earthquake in Turkey, with 2,000 people killed.

On the Discovery channel, there's a timely special on hurricanes and the terror they create in children. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is coming.

Finally, they see a local news report about a roller coaster accident at a New Jersey amusement park that kills a mother and her eight-year-old daughter.

Nintendo was never this riveting. See here ข่าวไทย

"Dinner's ready!" shouts Mom, unaware that her children may be terrified by this menacing potpourri of TV news.

What's wrong with this picture?

"There's a LOT wrong with it, but it's not that easily fixable," notes Linda Ellerbee, the creator and host of "Nick News," the award-winning news program geared for kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.

"Watching blood and gore on TV is NOT good for kids and it doesn't do much to enhance the lives of adults either," says the anchor, who strives to inform children about world events without terrorizing them. "We're into stretching kids' brains and there's nothing we wouldn't cover," including recent programs on euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book- banning, the death penalty, and Sudan slaves.

But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity of parental supervision, shielding children from unfounded fears. "During the Oklahoma City bombing, there were terrible images of children being hurt and killed," Ellerbee recalls. "Kids wanted to know if they were safe in their beds. In studies conducted by Nickelodeon, we found out that kids find the news the most frightening thing on TV.

"Whether it's the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or what happened in Littleton, you have to reassure your children, over and over again, that they're going to be OK--that the reason this story is news is that IT ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News is the exception...nobody goes on the air happily and reports how many planes landed safely!

"My job is to put the information into an age-appropriate context and lower anxieties. Then it's really up to the parents to monitor what their kids watch and discuss it with them"

Yet a new study of the role of media in the lives of children conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that 95% of the nation's children ages 8-18 are watching TV without their parents present.

How does Ellerbee view the typical scenario of the harried mother above?

"Mom's taking a beating here. Where's Dad?" Ellerbee asks.Perhaps at work, or living separately from Mom, or absent altogether.

"Right. Most Moms and Dads are working as hard as they can because we live in a society where one income just doesn't cut it anymore,"

NBC News correspondent Maria Shriver, the mother of four--Katherine, 13, Christina, 12, Patrick, 10, and Christopher, 6--agrees with Ellerbee: "But Moms aren't using the TV as a babysitter because they're out getting manicures!" says the 48-year-old anchor.

"Those mothers are struggling to make ends meet and they do it because they need help. I don't think kids would be watching [as much TV] if their parents were home organizing a touch football game.

"When I need the TV as a babysitter," says Shriver, who leaves detailed TV- viewing instructions behind when traveling, "I put on a safe video. I don't mind that my kids have watched "Pretty Woman" or "My Best Friend's Wedding" 3,000 times. I'd be more fearful if they watched an hour of local news.That would scare them. They might feel: 'Oh, my God, is somebody going to come in and shoot me in my bedroom?'"

In a move to supervise her own children more closely since her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, became Governor, Shriver scaled back her workload as Contributing Anchor to Dateline NBC and set up her office at home: "You can never be vigilant enough with your kids," she says, "because watching violence on TV clearly has a huge impact on children--whether it's TV news, movies, or cartoons."

This view is shared by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which states: ""TV is a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior...studies find that children may become immune to the horror of violence; gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems; and resort to anti-social and aggressive behavior, imitating the violence they observe."

Although there are no rules about watching TV in 49% of the nation's households, TV-watching at the Schwarzenegger home is almost totally verboten:

"We have a blanket rule that my kids do not watch any TV at all during the week," she notes, "and having a TV in their bedrooms has never been an option. I have enough trouble getting them to do their homework!" she states with a laugh. "Plus the half hour of reading they have to do every night.

According to the Kaiser survey, Shriver's household is a glaring exception to the rule. "Many kids have their own TV's, VCR's and video games in their bedroom," the study notes. Moreover, children ages 8-18 actually spend an average of three hours and 16 minutes watching TV daily; only 44 minutes reading; 31 minutes using the computer; 27 minutes playing video games; and a mere 13 minutes using the Internet.

"My kids," Shriver explains, "get home at 4 p.m., have a 20-minute break, then go right into homework or after-school sports. Then, I'm a big believer in having family dinner time. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting at the dinner table and listening to my parents, four brothers, and my grandmother, Rose. We didn't watch the news.

"After dinner nowadays, we play a game, then my kids are in bed, reading their books. There's no time in that day for any TV, except on weekends, when they're allowed to watch a Disney video, Sesame Street, Barney, The Brady Bunch, or Pokemon."

Beyond safe entertainment, Shriver has eliminated entirely the option of her children watching news events unfolding live on TV: "My kids," she notes, "do not watch any TV news, other than Nick News," instead providing her children with Time for Kids, [Teen Newsweek is also available], Highlights, and newspaper clippings discussed over dinner.

"No subject should be off-limits," Shriver concludes, "but you must filter the news to your kids."

ABC's Peter Jennings, who reigns over "World News Tonight," the nation's most-watched evening newscast, emphatically disagrees with a censored approach to news-watching: "I have two kids--Elizabeth is now 24 and Christopher is 21-- and they were allowed to watch as much TV news and information anytime they wanted," says the anchor. A firm believer in kids understanding the world around them, he adapted his bestselling book, The Century, for children ages 10 and older in The Century for Young People.

No downside to kids watching news? "I don't know of any downside and I've thought about it many times. I used to worry about my kids' exposure to violence and overt sex in the movies. Like most parents, I found that although they were exposed to violence sooner than I would have liked, I don't feel they've been affected by it. The jury's still out on the sex.

"I have exposed my kids to the violence of the world--to the bestiality of man--from the very beginning, at age 6 or 7. I didn't try to hide it. I never worried about putting a curtain between them and reality, because I never felt my children would be damaged by being exposed to violence IF they understood the context in which it occurred. I would talk to my kids about the vulnerability of children in wartime--the fact that they are innocent pawns-- and about what we could do as a family to make the world a more peaceful place.

Jennings firmly believes that coddling children is a mistake: "I've never talked down to my children, or to children period. I always talk UP to them and my newscast is appropriate for children of any age."

Yet the 65-year-old anchor often gets letters from irate parents: "They'll say: 'How dare you put that on at 6:30 when my children are watching?' My answer is: 'Madam, that's not my problem. That's YOUR problem. It's absolutely up to the parent to monitor the flow of news into the home."

Part of directing this flow is turning it off altogether at meal-time, says Jennings, who believes family dinners are sacrosanct. He is appalled that the TV is turned on during meals in 58% of the nation's households, this according to the Kaiser study.

"Watching TV during dinner is unforgivable," he exclaims, explaining that he always insisted that his family wait until he arrived home from anchoring the news. "You're darn right they waited...even when my kids were tiny, they never ate until 7:30 or 8 pm. Then we would sit with no music, no TV. Why waste such a golden opportunity? Watching TV at mealtime robs the family of the essence of the dinner, which is communion and exchange of ideas. I mean, God, if the dinner table is anything, it's a place to learn manners and appreciation for two of the greatest things in life--food and drink."

Jennings is likewise unequivocal in his view of junk TV and believes parking kids at the tube creates dull minds: "I think using TV as a babysitter is a terrible idea because the damn television is very narcotic, drug-like. Mindless TV makes for passive human beings--and it's a distraction from homework!

"My two children were allowed to watch only a half an hour of entertainment TV per night--and they never had TV's in their bedrooms.It's a conscious choice I made as a parent not to tempt them...too seductive..."

Adds Ellerbee: "TV is seductive and is meant to be. The hard, clear fact is that when kids are watching TV, they're not doing anything else!"

Indeed, according to the National Institute on Out-of-School Time and the Office of Research Education Consumer Guide, TV plays a bigger role in children's lives now than ever before. Kids watch TV an average of14 to 22 hours per week, which accounts for at least 25 percent of their free time.

"Dateline NBC" Anchor Jane Pauley, intensely private, declined an interview to discuss how she and her husband, cartoonist Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury") handle TV-watching with their three teens, two of whom are fraternal twins. But in a written response, she agreed that kids need to be better protected from the onslaught of violence: "I was a visitor at a public elementary school not long ago, and was invited to peek in on a fourth-grade class on 'current events.' The assignment had been to watch the news and write about one of the stories. Two kids picked the fatal attack on a child by a pit bull and the other wrote about a child who'd hanged herself with a belt! They'd all watched the worst blood and gore 'News at 11' station in town. The teacher gave no hint that she was as appalled as I was. My response was to help the school get subscriptions to "Time for Kids" and "My Weekly Reader." People need to be better news consumers. And tabloid TV is very unhealthy for kids."

On this point, Ellerbee readily agrees:"I really do believe the first amendment STOPS at your front door. You are the boss at home and parents have every right to monitor what their kids watch. What's even better is watching with them and initiating conversations about what they see.If your child is watching something terribly violent, sit down and DEFUSE it. Talking makes the ghosts run...and kids can break through their scared feelings."

Adds Pauly:

"Kids," she maintains, "know about bad news--they're the ones trying to spare us the bad news sometimes. But kids should be able to see that their parents are both human enough to be deeply affected by a tragedy like Columbine, but also sturdy enough to get through it...and on with life. That is the underpinning of their security."

"I'm no expert on the nation's children," adds Jennings, " but I'd have to say no, it wasn't traumatic. Troubling, shocking, even devastating to some, confusing to others, but traumatizing in that great sense, no.

"Would I explain to my kids that there are young, upset, angry, depressed kids in the world? Yes. I hear the most horrendous stories about what's going on in high schools from my kids. And because of the shootings, parents are now on edge--pressuring educators to 'do something.' They have to be reminded that the vast majority of all schools in America are overwhelmingly safe," a fact borne out by The National School Safety Center, which reports that in l998 there were just 25 violent deaths in schools compared to an average of 50 in the early 90's.

Ellerbee adds that a parent's ability to listen is more important than lobbying school principals for more metal detectors and armed guards: "If there was ever a case where grown-ups weren't listening to kids, it was Littleton. First, don't interrupt your child...let them get the whole thought out. Next, if you sit silently for a couple of seconds after they're finished, they'll start talking again, getting to a second level of honesty. Third, try to be honest with your kid. To very small children, it's proper to say: 'This is never going to happen to you...' But you don't say that to a 10-year-old."

Moreover, Ellerbee believes that media literacy begins the day parents stop pretending that if you ignore TV, it will go away. "Let your kid know from the very beginning that he or she is SMARTER than TV: 'I am in control of this box, it is not in control of me. I will use this box as a useful, powerful TOOL, but will not be used by it.' Kids know the difference.

"Watching TV," Ellerbee maintains, "can makes kids more civilized. I grew up in the south of Texas in a family of bigoted people. Watching TV made me question my own family's beliefs in the natural inferiority of people of color. For me, TV was a real window that broadened my world."

Ironically, for Shriver, watching TV news is incredibly painful when the broadcast is about you. Being a Kennedy, Shriver has lived a lifetime in the glare of rumors and televised speculation about her own family. Presenting the news to her children has therefore included explaining the tragedies and controversies the Kennedys have endured. She was just eight years old when her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated: "I grew up in a very big shadow...and I couldn't avoid it," she admits. "It wasn't a choker, but it was a big responsibility that I don't want my own children to feel." Yet doesn't her 15- year marriage to megastar Schwarzenegger add yet another layer of public curiosity close to home? "My kids are not watching Entertainment Tonight--no, no, never! And I don't bring them to movie openings or Planet Hollywood. I think it's fine for them to be proud of their father, but not show off about him."

How does she emotionally handle news when her family's in it? "That's a line I've been walking since my own childhood, and it's certainly effected the kind of reporter I've become. It's made me less aggressive. I'm not [in the news business] to glorify myself at someone else's expense, but rather to report a story without destroying someone in the process. A producer might say: 'Call this person who's in a disastrous situation and book them right way.' And I'm like: 'Ahhhh. I can't even bring myself to do it,' because I've been on the other side and know the family is in such pain."

A few years ago, of course, the Kennedys experienced profound pain, yet again, when Shriver's beloved cousin, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was killed in a plane crash, with his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette. A blizzard of news coverage ensued, unremitting for weeks. "I didn't watch any of it...I was busy, " Shriver says quietly. "And my children didn't watch any of it either."

Shriver was, however, somewhat prepared to discuss the tragedy with her children. She is the author of the best-selling "What's Heaven?" [Golden Books], a book geared for children ages 4-8, which explains death and the loss of a loved one. "My children knew John well because he spent Christmases with us. I explained what happened to John as the news unfolded...walked them through it as best I could. I reminded them that Mommy wrote the book and said: 'We're not going to see John anymore. He has gone to God...to heaven...and we have to pray for him and for his sister [Caroline] and her children."

Like Shriver, Jennings is personally uncomfortable in the role of covering private tragedies in a public forum: "In my shop, I'm regarded as one of those people who drags their feet a lot at the notion of covering those things," he explains. "During the O.J. Simpson trial, I decided not to go crazy in our coverage--and we took quite a smack and dropped from first to second in the ratings. TV is a business, so when a real corker of a story like Princess Diana's death comes along, we cover it. I think we're afraid not to do it. We're guilty of overkill, and with Diana, we ended up celebrating something that was largely ephemeral, making Diana more than she was. But audiences leap up!

"I was totally opposed to covering John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s funeral, because I saw no need to do it. He wasn't a public figure, though others would say I was wrong. On-air, I said: 'I don't think the young Mr. Kennedy would approve of all this excess...' But we did three hours on the funeral and it turned out to be a wonderful long history lesson about American politics and the Kennedy dynasty's place in our national life.

"Sometimes," Jennings muses, "TV is like a chapel in which we, as a nation, can gather to have a communal experience of loss.We did it with the Challenger, more recently with JFK Jr.'s death and we will do it shortly, I suspect, though I hope not, with Ronald Reagan. It's not much different than what people did when they went West in covered wagons in the last century. When tragedy struck, they gathered the wagons around, lit the fire, and talked about their losses of the day. And then went on. Television can be very comforting."

In closing, Ellerbee contends that you can't blame TV news producers for the human appetite for sensational news coverage that often drags on for days at a time:

"As a reporter," she muses, "I have never been to a war, traffic accident, or murder site that didn't draw a crowd. There is a little trash in all of us. But the same people who stop to gawk at a traffic accident, may also climb down a well to save a child's life, or cry at a sunset, or grin and tap their feet when the parade goes by.

"We are NOT just one thing. Kids can understand these grays...just as there's more than one answer to a question, there is certainly more than one part to you!"

[tcm]

Interview with Mark A. Vieira, author of Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934)

Mark A. Vieira is an acclaimed film historian, writer and photographer. His most recent book, Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies is now available from TCM and Running Press.

Raquel Stecher: Twenty years ago you wrote Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood for Harry N. Abrams. Why did you decide to revisit the pre-Code era with your new TCM-Running Press book Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: That’s a good question, Raquel. There were three reasons. First, Sin in Soft Focus had gone out of print, and copies were fetching high prices on eBay and AbeBooks. Second, the book was being used in classes at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Third, Jeff Mantor of Larry Edmunds Cinema Book Shop told me that his customers were asking if I could do a follow-up to the 1999 book, which had gotten a good New York Times review and gone into a second printing. So I wrote a book proposal, citing all the discoveries I’d made since the first book. This is what happens when you write a book; information keeps coming for years after you publish it, and you want to share that new information. Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood told the story of the Code from an industry standpoint. Forbidden Hollywood has that, but it also has the audience’s point of view. After all, a grassroots movement forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code.

Raquel Stecher: Forbidden Hollywood includes reproduced images from the pre-Code era and early film history. How did you curate these images and what were your criteria for including a particular photograph?

Mark A. Vieira: The text suggests what image should be placed on a page or on succeeding pages. Readers wonder what Jason Joy looked like or what was so scandalous about CALL HER SAVAGE (’32), so I have to show them. But I can’t put just any picture on the page, especially to illustrate a well-known film. My readers own film books and look at Hollywood photos on the Internet. I have to find a photo that they haven’t seen. It has to be in mint condition because Running Press’s reproduction quality is so good. The image has to be arresting, a photo that is worthy in its own right, powerfully composed and beautifully lit—not just a “representative” photo from a pre-Code film. It also has to work with the other photos on that page or on the next page, in terms of composition, tone and theme. That’s what people liked about Sin in Soft Focus. It had sections that were like rooms in a museum or gallery, where each grouping worked on several levels. In Forbidden Hollywood, I’m going for a different effect. The photo choices and groupings give a feeling of movement, a dynamic affect. In this one, the pictures jump off the page.

Raquel Stecher: Why did you decide on a coffee table art book style format?

Mark A. Vieira: Movies are made of images. Sexy images dominated pre-Code. To tell the story properly, you have to show those images. Movie stills in the pre-Code era were shot with 8x10 view cameras. The quality of those big negatives is ideal for a fine-art volume. And film fans know the artistry of the Hollywood photographers of that era: Fred Archer, Milton Brown, William Walling, Bert Longworth, Clarence Bull, Ernest Bachrach and George Hurrell. They’re all represented—and credited—in Forbidden Hollywood.

Raquel Stecher: What was the research process like for Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: I started at the University of Southern California, where I studied film 40 years ago. I sat down with Ned Comstock, the Senior Library Assistant, and mapped out a plan. USC has scripts from MGM, Universal and the Fox Film Corporation. The Academy Library has files from the Production Code Administration. I viewed DVDs and 16mm prints from my collection. I reviewed books on the Code by Thomas Doherty and other scholars. I jumped into the trade magazines of the period using the Media History Digital Library online. I created a file folder for each film of the era. It’s like detective work. It’s tedious—until it gets exciting.

Raquel Stecher: How does pre-Code differ from other film genres?

Mark A. Vieira: Well, pre-Code is not a genre like Westerns or musicals. It’s a rediscovered element of film history. It was named in retrospect, like film noir, but unlike film noir, pre-Code has lines of demarcation—March 1930 through June 1934—the four-year period before the Production Code was strengthened and enforced. When Mae West made I’M NO ANGEL (’33), she had no idea she was making a pre-Code movie. The pre-Code tag came later, when scholars realized that these films shared a time, a place and an attitude. There was a Code from 1930 on, but the studios negotiated with it, bypassed it or just plain ignored it, making movies that were irreverent and sexy. Modern viewers say, “I’ve never seen that in an old Hollywood movie!” This spree came to an end in 1934, when a Catholic-led boycott forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code. It was administered for 20 years by Joseph Breen, so pre-Code is really pre-Breen.

Raquel Stecher: What are a few pre-Code films that you believe defined the era?

Mark A. Vieira: That question has popped up repeatedly since I wrote Sin in Soft Focus, so I decided which films had led to the reconstituted Code, and I gave them their own chapters. To qualify for that status, a film had to meet these standards: (1) They were adapted from proscribed books or plays; (2) They were widely seen; (3) They were attacked in the press; (4) They were heavily cut by the state or local boards; (5) They were banned in states, territories or entire countries; and (6) They were condemned in the Catholic Press and by the Legion of Decency. To name the most controversial: THE COCK-EYED WORLD (’29) (off-color dialogue); THE DIVORCEE (’30) (the first film to challenge the Code); FRANKENSTEIN (’31) (horror); SCARFACE (’32) (gang violence); RED-HEADED WOMAN (’32) (an unrepentant homewrecker); and CALL HER SAVAGE (’32) (the pre-Code film that manages to violate every prohibition of the Code). My big discovery was THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (’32). This Cecil B. DeMille epic showed the excesses of ancient Rome in such lurid detail that it offended Catholic filmgoers, thus setting off the so-called “Catholic Crusade.”

Raquel Stecher: It’s fascinating to read correspondence, interviews and reviews that react to the perceived immorality of these movies. How does including these conversations give your readers context about the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: Like some film noir scholars, I could tell you how I feel about the film, what it means, the significance of its themes. So what? Those are opinions. My readers deserve facts. Those can only come from documents of the period: letters, memos, contracts, news articles. These are the voices of the era, the voices of history. A 100-year-old person might misremember what happened. A document doesn’t misremember. It tells the tale. My task is to present a balanced selection of these documents so as not to stack the deck in favor of one side or the other.

Raquel Stecher: In your book you discuss the attempts made to censor movies from state and federal government regulation to the creation of the MPPDA to the involvement of key figures like Joseph Breen and Will H. Hays. What is the biggest misconception about the Production Code?

Mark A. Vieira: There are a number of misconceptions. I label them and counter them: (1) “Silent films are not “pre-Code films.” (2) Not every pre-Code film was a low-budget shocker but made with integrity and artistry; most were big-budget star vehicles. (3) The pre-Code censorship agency was the SRC (Studio Relations Committee), part of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA)—not the MPPA, which did not exist until the 1960s! (4) The Code did not mandate separate beds for married couples. (5) Joseph Breen was not a lifelong anti-Semite, second only to Hitler. He ended his long career with the respect and affection of his Jewish colleagues.

Raquel Stecher: How did the silent movie era and the Great Depression have an impact on the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: The silent era allowed the studios the freedom to show nudity and to write sexy intertitles, but the local censors cut those elements from release prints, costing the studios a lot of money, which in part led to the 1930 Code. The Great Depression emptied the theaters (or closed them), so producers used sexy films to lure filmgoers back to the theaters.

Raquel Stecher: TCM viewers love pre-Codes. What do you think it is about movies from several decades ago that still speak to contemporary audiences?

Mark A. Vieira: You’re right. Because we can see these films so readily, we forget that eight decades have passed since they premiered. We don’t listen to music of such a distant time, so how can we enjoy the art of a period in which community standards were so different from what they are now? After all, this was the tail end of the Victorian era, and the term “sex” was not used in polite society. How did it get into films like MIDNIGHT MARY (’33) and SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (’34)? There were protests against such films, and there were also millions of people enjoying them. What they enjoyed is what TCM viewers enjoy—frankness, honesty, risqué humor, beautiful bodies and adult-themed stories.

Raquel Stecher: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Mark A. Vieira: One thing struck me as I wove the letters of just plain citizens into the tapestry of this story. Americans of the 1930s wrote articulate, heartfelt letters. One can only assume that these people were well educated and that they did a lot of reading—and letter writing. I want my readers to read the entire text of Forbidden Hollywood. I worked to make it accurate, suspenseful and funny. There are episodes in it that are hilarious. These people were witty! So I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures, but more so that you’ll dive into the story and let it carry you along. Here’s a quote about SO THIS IS AFRICA (‘33) from a theater owner: “I played it to adults only (over 15 years old). Kids who have been 12 for the last 10 years aged rapidly on their way to our box office.”

[itnews452]

Should Your Child Watch TV News? Surprising Opinions of Top Anchors

KIDS AND THE NEWS

More than ever, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing, news events on TV. It seems that violent crime and bad news is unabating. Foreign wars, natural disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of child abuse, and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention the grim wave of recent school shootings.

All of this intrudes on the innocent world of children. If, as psychologists say, kids are like sponges and absorb everything that goes on around them, how profoundly does watching TV news actually affect them? How careful do parents need to be in monitoring the flow of news into the home, and how can they find an approach that works?

To answer these questions, we turned to a panel of seasoned anchors, Peter Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley--each having faced the complexities of raising their own vulnerable children in a news-saturated world.

Picture this: 6:30 p.m. After an exhausting day at the office, Mom is busy making dinner. She parks her 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son in front of the TV.

"Play Nintendo until dinner's ready," she instructs the little ones, who, instead, start flipping channels.

Tom Brokaw on "NBC News Tonight," announces that an Atlanta gunman has killed his wife, daughter and son, all three with a hammer, before going on a shooting rampage that leaves nine dead.

On "World News Tonight," Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner with more than 300 passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong airport.

On CNN, there's a report about the earthquake in Turkey, with 2,000 people killed.

On the Discovery channel, there's a timely special on hurricanes and the terror they create in children. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is coming.

Finally, they see a local news report about a roller coaster accident at a New Jersey amusement park that kills a mother and her eight-year-old daughter.

Nintendo was never this riveting.

"Dinner's ready!" shouts Mom, unaware that her children may be terrified by this menacing potpourri of TV news.

What's wrong with this picture?

"There's a LOT wrong with it, but it's not that easily fixable," notes Linda Ellerbee, the creator and host of "Nick News," the award-winning news program geared for kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.

"Watching blood and gore on TV is NOT good for kids and it doesn't do much to enhance the lives of adults either," says the anchor, who strives to inform children about world events without terrorizing them. "We're into stretching kids' brains and there's nothing we wouldn't cover," including recent programs on euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book- banning, the death penalty, and Sudan slaves.

But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity of parental supervision, shielding children from unfounded fears. "During the Oklahoma City bombing, there were terrible images of children being hurt and killed," Ellerbee recalls. "Kids wanted to know if they were safe in their beds. In studies conducted by Nickelodeon, we found out that kids find the news the most frightening thing on TV.

"Whether it's the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or what happened in Littleton, you have to reassure your children, over and over again, that they're going to be OK--that the reason this story is news is that IT ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News is the exception...nobody goes on the air happily and reports how many planes landed safely!

"My job is to put the information into an age-appropriate context and lower anxieties. Then it's really up to the parents to monitor what their kids watch and discuss it with them"

Yet a new study of the role of media in the lives of children conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that 95% of the nation's children ages 8-18 are watching TV without their parents present.

How does Ellerbee view the typical scenario of the harried mother above?

"Mom's taking a beating here. Where's Dad?" Ellerbee asks.Perhaps at work, or living separately from Mom, or absent altogether.

"Right. Most Moms and Dads are working as hard as they can because we live in a society where one income just doesn't cut it anymore,"

NBC News correspondent Maria Shriver, the mother of four--Katherine, 13, Christina, 12, Patrick, 10, and Christopher, 6--agrees with Ellerbee: "But Moms aren't using the TV as a babysitter because they're out getting manicures!" says the 48-year-old anchor.

"Those mothers are struggling to make ends meet and they do it because they need help. I don't think kids would be watching [as much TV] if their parents were home organizing a touch football game.

"When I need the TV as a babysitter," says Shriver, who leaves detailed TV- viewing instructions behind when traveling, "I put on a safe video. I don't mind that my kids have watched "Pretty Woman" or "My Best Friend's Wedding" 3,000 times. I'd be more fearful if they watched an hour of local news.That would scare them. They might feel: 'Oh, my God, is somebody going to come in and shoot me in my bedroom?'"

In a move to supervise her own children more closely since her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, became Governor, Shriver scaled back her workload as Contributing Anchor to Dateline NBC and set up her office at home: "You can never be vigilant enough with your kids," she says, "because watching violence on TV clearly has a huge impact on children--whether it's TV news, movies, or cartoons."

This view is shared by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which states: ""TV is a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior...studies find that children may become immune to the horror of violence; gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems; and resort to anti-social and aggressive behavior, imitating the violence they observe."

Although there are no rules about watching TV in 49% of the nation's households, TV-watching at the Schwarzenegger home is almost totally verboten:

"We have a blanket rule that my kids do not watch any TV at all during the week," she notes, "and having a TV in their bedrooms has never been an option. I have enough trouble getting them to do their homework!" she states with a laugh. "Plus the half hour of reading they have to do every night.

According to the Kaiser survey, Shriver's household is a glaring exception to the rule. "Many kids have their own TV's, VCR's and video games in their bedroom," the study notes. Moreover, children ages 8-18 actually spend an average of three hours and 16 minutes watching TV daily; only 44 minutes reading; 31 minutes using the computer; 27 minutes playing video games; and a mere 13 minutes using the Internet.

"My kids," Shriver explains, "get home at 4 p.m., have a 20-minute break, then go right into homework or after-school sports. Then, I'm a big believer in having family dinner time. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting at the dinner table and listening to my parents, four brothers, and my grandmother, Rose. We didn't watch the news.

"After dinner nowadays, we play a game, then my kids are in bed, reading their books. There's no time in that day for any TV, except on weekends, when they're allowed to watch a Disney video, Sesame Street, Barney, The Brady Bunch, or Pokemon."

Beyond safe entertainment, Shriver has eliminated entirely the option of her children watching news events unfolding live on TV: "My kids," she notes, "do not watch any TV news, other than Nick News," instead providing her children with Time for Kids, [Teen Newsweek is also available], Highlights, and newspaper clippings discussed over dinner.

"No subject should be off-limits," Shriver concludes, "but you must filter the news to your kids."

ABC's Peter Jennings, who reigns over "World News Tonight," the nation's most-watched evening newscast, emphatically disagrees with a censored approach to news-watching: "I have two kids--Elizabeth is now 24 and Christopher is 21-- and they were allowed to watch as much TV news and information anytime they wanted," says the anchor. A firm believer in kids understanding the world around them, he adapted his bestselling book, The Century, for children ages 10 and older in The Century for Young People.

No downside to kids watching news? "I don't know of any downside and I've thought about it many times. I used to worry about my kids' exposure to violence and overt sex in the movies. Like most parents, I found that although they were exposed to violence sooner than I would have liked, I don't feel they've been affected by it. The jury's still out on the sex.

"I have exposed my kids to the violence of the world--to the bestiality of man--from the very beginning, at age 6 or 7. I didn't try to hide it. I never worried about putting a curtain between them and reality, because I never felt my children would be damaged by being exposed to violence IF they understood the context in which it occurred. I would talk to my kids about the vulnerability of children in wartime--the fact that they are innocent pawns-- and about what we could do as a family to make the world a more peaceful place.

Jennings firmly believes that coddling children is a mistake: "I've never talked down to my children, or to children period. I always talk UP to them and my newscast is appropriate for children of any age."

Yet the 65-year-old anchor often gets letters from irate parents: "They'll say: 'How dare you put that on at 6:30 when my children are watching?' My answer is: 'Madam, that's not my problem. That's YOUR problem. It's absolutely up to the parent to monitor the flow of news into the home."

Part of directing this flow is turning it off altogether at meal-time, says Jennings, who believes family dinners are sacrosanct. He is appalled that the TV is turned on during meals in 58% of the nation's households, this according to the Kaiser study.

"Watching TV during dinner is unforgivable," he exclaims, explaining that he always insisted that his family wait until he arrived home from anchoring the news. "You're darn right they waited...even when my kids were tiny, they never ate until 7:30 or 8 pm. Then we would sit with no music, no TV. Why waste such a golden opportunity? Watching TV at mealtime robs the family of the essence of the dinner, which is communion and exchange of ideas. I mean, God, if the dinner table is anything, it's a place to learn manners and appreciation for two of the greatest things in life--food and drink."

Jennings is likewise unequivocal in his view of junk TV and believes parking kids at the tube creates dull minds: "I think using TV as a babysitter is a terrible idea because the damn television is very narcotic, drug-like. Mindless TV makes for passive human beings--and it's a distraction from homework!

"My two children were allowed to watch only a half an hour of entertainment TV per night--and they never had TV's in their bedrooms.It's a conscious choice I made as a parent not to tempt them...too seductive..."

Adds Ellerbee: "TV is seductive and is meant to be. The hard, clear fact is that when kids are watching TV, they're not doing anything else!"

Indeed, according to the National Institute on Out-of-School Time and the Office of Research Education Consumer Guide, TV plays a bigger role in children's lives now than ever before. Kids watch TV an average of14 to 22 hours per week, which accounts for at least 25 percent of their free time.

"Dateline NBC" Anchor Jane Pauley, intensely private, declined an interview to discuss how she and her husband, cartoonist Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury") handle TV-watching with their three teens, two of whom are fraternal twins. But in a written response, she agreed that kids need to be better protected from the onslaught of violence: "I was a visitor at a public elementary school not long ago, and was invited to peek in on a fourth-grade class on 'current events.' The assignment had been to watch the news and write about one of the stories. Two kids picked the fatal attack on a child by a pit bull and the other wrote about a child who'd hanged herself with a belt! They'd all watched the worst blood and gore 'News at 11' station in town. The teacher gave no hint that she was as appalled as I was. My response was to help the school get subscriptions to "Time for Kids" and "My Weekly Reader." People need to be better news consumers. And tabloid TV is very unhealthy for kids."

On this point, Ellerbee readily agrees:"I really do believe the first amendment STOPS at your front door. You are the boss at home and parents have every right to monitor what their kids watch. What's even better is watching with them and initiating conversations about what they see.If your child is watching something terribly violent, sit down and DEFUSE it. Talking makes the ghosts run...and kids can break through their scared feelings."

Adds Pauly:

"Kids," she maintains, "know about bad news--they're the ones trying to spare us the bad news sometimes. But kids should be able to see that their parents are both human enough to be deeply affected by a tragedy like Columbine, but also sturdy enough to get through it...and on with life. That is the underpinning of their security."

"I'm no expert on the nation's children," adds Jennings, " but I'd have to say no, it wasn't traumatic. Troubling, shocking, even devastating to some, confusing to others, but traumatizing in that great sense, no.

"Would I explain to my kids that there are young, upset, angry, depressed kids in the world? Yes. I hear the most horrendous stories about what's going on in high schools from my kids. And because of the shootings, parents are now on edge--pressuring educators to 'do something.' They have to be reminded that the vast majority of all schools in America are overwhelmingly safe," a fact borne out by The National School Safety Center, which reports that in l998 there were just 25 violent deaths in schools compared to an average of 50 in the early 90's.

Ellerbee adds that a parent's ability to listen is more important than lobbying school principals for more metal detectors and armed guards: "If there was ever a case where grown-ups weren't listening to kids, it was Littleton. First, don't interrupt your child...let them get the whole thought out. Next, if you sit silently for a couple of seconds after they're finished, they'll start talking again, getting to a second level of honesty. Third, try to be honest with your kid. To very small children, it's proper to say: 'This is never going to happen to you...' But you don't say that to a 10-year-old."

Moreover, Ellerbee believes that media literacy begins the day parents stop pretending that if you ignore TV, it will go away. "Let your kid know from the very beginning that he or she is SMARTER than TV: 'I am in control of this box, it is not in control of me. I will use this box as a useful, powerful TOOL, but will not be used by it.' Kids know the difference.

"Watching TV," Ellerbee maintains, "can makes kids more civilized. I grew up in the south of Texas in a family of bigoted people. Watching TV made me question my own family's beliefs in the natural inferiority of people of color. For me, TV was a real window that broadened my world."

Ironically, for Shriver, watching TV news is incredibly painful when the broadcast is about you. Being a Kennedy, Shriver has lived a lifetime in the glare of rumors and televised speculation about her own family. Presenting the news to her children has therefore included explaining the tragedies and controversies the Kennedys have endured. She was just eight years old when her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated: "I grew up in a very big shadow...and I couldn't avoid it," she admits. "It wasn't a choker, but it was a big responsibility that I don't want my own children to feel." Yet doesn't her 15- year marriage to megastar Schwarzenegger add yet another layer of public curiosity close to home? "My kids are not watching Entertainment Tonight--no, no, never! And I don't bring them to movie openings or Planet Hollywood. I think it's fine for them to be proud of their father, but not show off about him."

How does she emotionally handle news when her family's in it? "That's a line I've been walking since my own childhood, and it's certainly effected the kind of reporter I've become. It's made me less aggressive. I'm not [in the news business] to glorify myself at someone else's expense, but rather to report a story without destroying someone in the process. A producer might say: 'Call this person who's in a disastrous situation and book them right way.' And I'm like: 'Ahhhh. I can't even bring myself to do it,' because I've been on the other side and know the family is in such pain." Read more here ข่าวไอที

A few years ago, of course, the Kennedys experienced profound pain, yet again, when Shriver's beloved cousin, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was killed in a plane crash, with his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette. A blizzard of news coverage ensued, unremitting for weeks. "I didn't watch any of it...I was busy, " Shriver says quietly. "And my children didn't watch any of it either."

Shriver was, however, somewhat prepared to discuss the tragedy with her children. She is the author of the best-selling "What's Heaven?" [Golden Books], a book geared for children ages 4-8, which explains death and the loss of a loved one. "My children knew John well because he spent Christmases with us. I explained what happened to John as the news unfolded...walked them through it as best I could. I reminded them that Mommy wrote the book and said: 'We're not going to see John anymore. He has gone to God...to heaven...and we have to pray for him and for his sister [Caroline] and her children."

Like Shriver, Jennings is personally uncomfortable in the role of covering private tragedies in a public forum: "In my shop, I'm regarded as one of those people who drags their feet a lot at the notion of covering those things," he explains. "During the O.J. Simpson trial, I decided not to go crazy in our coverage--and we took quite a smack and dropped from first to second in the ratings. TV is a business, so when a real corker of a story like Princess Diana's death comes along, we cover it. I think we're afraid not to do it. We're guilty of overkill, and with Diana, we ended up celebrating something that was largely ephemeral, making Diana more than she was. But audiences leap up!

"I was totally opposed to covering John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s funeral, because I saw no need to do it. He wasn't a public figure, though others would say I was wrong. On-air, I said: 'I don't think the young Mr. Kennedy would approve of all this excess...' But we did three hours on the funeral and it turned out to be a wonderful long history lesson about American politics and the Kennedy dynasty's place in our national life.

"Sometimes," Jennings muses, "TV is like a chapel in which we, as a nation, can gather to have a communal experience of loss.We did it with the Challenger, more recently with JFK Jr.'s death and we will do it shortly, I suspect, though I hope not, with Ronald Reagan. It's not much different than what people did when they went West in covered wagons in the last century. When tragedy struck, they gathered the wagons around, lit the fire, and talked about their losses of the day. And then went on. Television can be very comforting."

In closing, Ellerbee contends that you can't blame TV news producers for the human appetite for sensational news coverage that often drags on for days at a time:

"As a reporter," she muses, "I have never been to a war, traffic accident, or murder site that didn't draw a crowd. There is a little trash in all of us. But the same people who stop to gawk at a traffic accident, may also climb down a well to save a child's life, or cry at a sunset, or grin and tap their feet when the parade goes by.

"We are NOT just one thing. Kids can understand these grays...just as there's more than one answer to a question, there is certainly more than one part to you!

[livingwithkami]

Shinto and Sexuality: A gift of life

With the recent ban on adult content on Tumblr, it has given way to a lot of discussion about adult content online and what is or isn't acceptable. Legitimate issues were brought up in how violence is more normalized than intimacy and sexuality, and how the bans would affect sex workers and nsfw artists greatly – Tumblr, one of the last safe mainstream social media platforms that could ensure an income and audience base is now also being ripped out from under them. I feel this is not right and even a dangerous and irresponsible decision to make. Instead of relying on bots and algorithms to moderate between adult content and all-ages content, they should hire a dedicated moderation team, and proper safety features into the site to protect minors, but also while not censoring adult content creators and their adult consumers. There were ways that worked before that do not require a site-wide ban.

Unfortunately, this issue branches from a much larger issue of bans across the internet based on how society views these topics. In many modern societies today, and even in the past, sexuality is often viewed as something very taboo or forbidden. It is something only for the minds of adults, and even then, only married adults in a strict setting with only certain positions being “acceptable”. In this, there is a high sense of rigidity, shame, and hiding in sexuality.

I do not agree with this and feel this viewpoint is very wrong. Nudity and sexuality itself should not be viewed as shameful or wrong, because there is nothing inherently wrong about them. We are all born naked, and the action of sex itself is what creates life. Why can we show and talk about gory murders in detail with a degree of normalcy, but when there is a non-explicit sex scene, it is somehow more scandalous, forbidden, and dirty? I feel strongly instead it should be something understood as beautiful, and definitely should not be seen as a taboo action, especially comparing to a gruesome murder. Learning about sexuality, and being comfortable about nudity is something I feel should be more open to explore for people of all ages, and work to remove the stigma surrounding sex and nudity.

That being said, I do strongly feel minors should be protected from eroticism, that is, something inherently intended to be erotic and presented in an erotic nature. I feel that eroticism is a more advanced area of sexuality that should be kept in adult spheres only and explored by adults only. It's important to let kids be kids and understand about their sexuality in a healthy and educational way, but leave erotic content for 18 and older. That isn't to say eroticism is what is taboo, wrong, dirty and should be hidden, but should be explored in an open, healthy, and safe way only once someone matures into an adult.

In relation to that, on the topic of showing a “female-presenting nipple” as Tumblr called it in their guidelines, such as a topless woman just lounging as a topless man would in a non-erotic way, or a breastfeeding woman, is not erotic nor should be seen as such. I personally feel non-erotic nudity and sexual educational content should not be censored at all, and erotic content can be accessed by adults-only without banning it entirely. The fact there is no understanding between these differences in content, nor any care to understand between them, and just labeling anything relating to sexuality as wrong, dirty, taboo, and forbidden to be banned - leads to many issues and shame surrounding our bodies and our understanding of sex, sexual attraction, and sexual desire.

This is such a harmful and unhealthy view in our society that is being enforced by this censorship online, and in addition has very real detriments to people's livelihood. It affects sex workers, and erotic nsfw (not safe for work) artists livelihood and ability to survive; and removes access to a safe community. In extreme cases, it is pushing sex workers into dangerous communities where their lives can be at danger either by trafficking or murder. Censorship, banning, lack of education, and hiding these topics away also leads to other broader issues that harm people greatly. Such as sexual abuse, transmission of STI's (Sexually Transmitted Infections), unexpected pregnancies, body image issues, self-esteem issues, and more. I feel strongly we must work toward being more open to educate about sex, sexuality, and our nude bodies with no shame. And for the adult sphere, adults also need to understand exploring eroticism, and erotic content in itself, is not taboo, shameful, or wrong. Understanding that those who are sex workers or nsfw artists are not inherently deviant perverts or bad people - after all, there are plenty of clients who request their services. This isn't something wrong or dirty. It's a part of the human experience, and again, nothing is inherently wrong, bad, or evil about it.

This is a large part of why I practice and why I love Konkokyo Shinto – sex and our bodies is not seen as something wrong, bad, or shameful. It's a part of nature, it is an action that is one way to bring pleasure, to express love deeply, as well as the action that creates life itself. It is something that brings love, pleasure, joy, and life. Exploring our own bodies and sexuality consensually with others helps us to understand ourselves better and helps us to learn to love and treat ourselves and each other well. Within Shinto as a whole, this is expressed in various myths and other shrine traditions too.

I'll start from one of the oldest myths, the first and most direct example of this belief and view – the creation of the islands of Japan, and the myriads of kami which populate the world. The traditional myth goes that after the first generations of kami were born from the divine universe's energy, the last generation born this way was Izanagi Okami and Izanami Okami, who were also the very first kami who got married. A famous line in this myth is when Izanagi Okami points out he has something “extra” but Izanami Okami has something “less”, so he suggests something good may happen if the extra part he had would compliment the part she did not have. And thus, the two kami are said to have discovered sex. Because of this discovery, the two kami were able to create many children, which were both the islands of Japan, and the millions of kami that inhabit the islands. In this sense, sex is viewed in an extremely respected and positive light. Without that action, nothing would exist. And indeed, even for us as humans, without the action of sex, we could never continue on in our survival as a species. It is viewed as a highly sacred, but also very natural and beautiful action. There are even sacred Kagura dances that recreate this event via an implied (not erotic or explicit, as it is a public dance where minors also attend) way between Izanagi Okami and Izanami Okami, and it is not seen as wrong or perverted.

Izanagi Okami and Izanami Okami Source: http://mesosyn.com/myth2j-13b.jpg

Next, the following myths are famous ones, wherein a “female-presenting nipple” (a pair of them) in fact saved the world, twice.

In the first myth, in summary, the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami had hidden in the cave Ama no Iwato due to immense grief. Because of her isolation and neglect of her responsibilities - providing sunlight and management of Earth's cycles - the world began to spiral into decay and chaos. The other kami came together to come up with a plan to entice her out. Prayers were chanted, divinations were done, beautiful treasures were offered, but nothing worked until Ame no Uzume no Mikoto, a goddess of the dawn, dance, femininity, womanhood, and more, danced and danced.

The atmosphere remained gloomy, but Ame no Uzume no Mikoto remained cheerful, and eventually, exposed her breasts freely. Because she unashamedly, happily exposed her breasts for all of the kami to see, they burst out in joy and even laughter at seeing Ame no Uzume no Mikoto's ecstasy and freedom amidst the gloomy atmosphere. It was because of the joy, happiness, and pleasure the exposure of her breasts brought, that Amaterasu Omikami finally peeked out of the cave, which led to her being pulled out and restoring light to the world. All thanks to Ame no Uzume no Mikoto's breasts, and, “female-presenting nipples” Hardly something to consider shameful, bad, or wrong. In fact, if she had kept them hidden, according to the myth, we may not have the Earth as we know it today, or even survived at all. The second myth is when, in summary, the Heavenly kami (Amatsukami) were going down to the Earthly realm to rule. In some myths, Sarutahiko Okami came out to greet them, and then married Ame no Uzume no Mikoto upon seeing her beauty, thus joining the Heavenly kami and Earhtly kami (Kunitsukami) as one clan of kami. However, there is another, more critical version of the myth. Where Sarutahiko Okami came to stop the Amatsukami from coming to Earth. No other Amatsukami could defeat him, and they were stuck on what to do in their desire to come toward the Earth. So, they began to consider a war against the Kunitsukami. That is, until Ame no Uzume no Mikoto again took the stage, and approached Sarutahiko Okami by herself, and bravely, unashamedly...exposed her breasts to him.

Needless to say, all thoughts of war dropped from anyone's head, and the only thought left for Sarutahiko Okami was to ask Ame no Uzume no Mikoto to be his wife, to which she happily accepted, and united the Amatsukami and Kunitsukami kami. In this sense, she saved the world once again, from a world-breaking war between the Amatsukami and Kunitsukami, instead, uniting them.

In this sense, the form of breasts are what once again, restored balance, and protected all life. Ame no Uzume no Mikoto freely showing the beautiful natural form of her naked body is what brought these blessings of joy, life, protection, restoration, happiness, and peace. I feel like we should learn from her and these myths, that when we feel comfortable and confident, and not ashamed of our natural selves, there can be much more happiness spread.

In relation to Ame no Uzume no Mikoto, in the ancient era, miko (female shamans), who Ame no Uzume no Mikoto is the protective goddess of, used to practice sacred sex work in the ancient era. There were even intimate rituals between a miko and her kami. Miko never needed to be virgins, and while even in the modern era the sexual practices of miko are no longer, and the role is only one of a shrine attendant and offering sacred dance to kami, they still do not need to be virgins. The concept of virginity has no real significance or even importance in Shinto.

Ame no Uzume no Mikoto and Sarutahiko Okami img source: https://www.univie.ac.at/rel_jap/an/Bild:Uzume_Sarutahiko_ningyo_kuniyoshi.jpeg

Of course, not ignoring the modern sensibilities, I understand the importance of modesty in the general sense of being in public – however when there is the double standard of shirtless “male-presenting nipples” being fine, but shirtless (non-erotic) images of “female-presenting nipples” are somehow seen as taboo or inherently wrong to be banned or even illegal in some cases, this should be re-examined.

Especially when one considers breastfeeding, and a non-erotic context as a general whole. Tumblr's rule of “no female-presenting nipples” was one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever read in my life. What makes a “female-presenting” nipple wrong and banned, but a “male-presenting” nipple alright? Why is a natural feature of a nude body with extra fat tissue to be banned, but one without isn't? I know the reason, of course, I know society's general viewpoint. However what I am saying is – we should sincerely reconsider this, and re-examine our values and beliefs on this particular matter strongly, as this sense of shame and restriction can be very harmful and feed into a larger problem of an unhealthy and skewed view toward sexuality, nudity, and eroticism.

The next example that is quite famous in Shinto is Kanamara Matsuri. The matsuri (festival) has a big reputation overseas for it's images of large penises, penis shaped candy, and imagery everywhere. Many foreigners believe this to be a part of the “weird, perverted, wacky” side of Japan - but it's not. All matsuri are inherently fun and joyful – it's a festival after all! But there is a very real sincerity behind it. This festival is to pray and celebrate fertility, life, sexual health, and the prevention and curing of STI's. It's not just a “wacky penis festival” but something very important for both sexual health and reproduction for couples, as well as general sex between consenting adults and safe practices. In addition, the shrine that hosts the festival, Kanayama Shrine, was famous in the past as frequented by sex workers to protect against STI's in their field of work, and that carries on into the modern day too. Kanamara Matsuri isn't the only festival to feature penis imagery, and usually the ones that do always have the same themes: fertility, sexual health, sexual virility, safety, curing and protection of STI's and so forth. There are other shrines with similar themes too, for example, some Inari shrines in Kyoto with similar imagery, and are also prayed to by sex workers for their protection and healing of STI's.

Kanamara Matsuri parade Img source: https://imgur.com/gallery/fPmmH

In the same manner as the above, in my tradition, Konkokyo Shinto, sex workers pray to Tenchi Kane no Kami-sama for protection and healing, and sex is not viewed negatively. There are many sex-positive teachings, and how nature and even faith itself reflects it. For example, how the sky is viewed like a father kami and the earth is like a mother kami, where the rain that falls from the sky fertilizes the earth to create life – implying in the same imagery as with humans. And that to practice faith single-heartedly evokes the same feeling as when one has sex with their partner, especially if they want to conceive. They are totally focused in the moment, and don't think of anything else but single-heartedness and love to their partner. I also know of priests who used to be sex workers, and of course many if not the majority of priests and priestesses are sex-positive, and are married with children of their own.

the sky and the earth img source: https://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=426773

Unfortunately, this beauty of Shinto and it's healthy relationship with nudity, sexuality and sex positivity as a natural and beautiful thing is covered with a dark cloud from modern Japanese society, beginning with the Meiji reformations in 1868 and getting worse over time. Sex as a shameful, hidden, taboo thing has trickled and spread deep into the mainstream society here.

In pre-Meiji era, nudity, sexuality, and eroticism were much more open. Shunga art is the most popular example of this pre-Meiji era openness, and some of this is still seen today in the cases of onsen, or hot springs, where one bathes naked in a public sphere with strangers. However, the positive and healthy views were unfortunately lost. In particular, a whole esteemed and open culture of sex workers was completely destroyed by the Meiji reformation. What was once a highly respected, legal, safe line of work, with a whole esteemed culture surrounding it, was completely decimated. Oiran, who were entertainers of the arts and sex workers, and yuujo, who focused on sex work, were held in high regard. An especially respected and professional oiran or yuujo were named as “tayuu”, a rank which means “best in their art” and were treated very well.

Unfortunately, all that had gone away, and it is now very dangerous for sex workers in Japan, with a lot of challenges. Especially for Japanese professionals in community-based fields, such as being a priestess like myself, society as a whole views any mention of openness about sex or sexual relations, especially in the context of work, as extremely negative and even something to be publicly shamed about.

One doesn't need to look any further than common news of celebrities or public figures sex life being exposed as a scandal, as if it's something they should never be let known. It is even more dangerous for sex workers, especially since the anti-prostitution law from 1956. Horrifically, the law states that being a sex worker is a crime, but those who seek their services are not committing a crime. There are loopholes and ways for sex workers to work relatively safely, such as working in an intimacy job that does not promise intercourse, but eventually can lead to it.Thereby being legal by receiving payment for intimacy; whereas receiving payment for intercourse itself would be illegal.

However, while there are ways around it, it’s still a hostile environment, with workers having to not stay at once place for too long. In addition, much more so as Japanese society is very much about saving face and having an external image, knowledge one is a sex worker can make them the target of extreme bullying, harassment, violence, and losing their non sex work source of livelihood /line of work, despite there being many consumers of erotic content and even gravure books openly on shelves in convenience stores. It is quite cruel and hypocritical.

If, for example, I chose to be a sex worker and a priestess at the same time, I would have to keep it completely hidden and private due to the stigma in Japanese society. While there would be absolutely no issue in Konkokyo Shinto as a shrine tradition if I was open about being a sex worker at the same time as being a priestess; there would be a massive issue from the viewpoint of society as a whole, with hostility, mistrust, harassment, and even threats against me and even the shrine itself – in some cases even on grounds of being threatening or dangerous to children, minors, and families who visit the shrine. It is really a difficult and upsetting situation. Not even only for my line of work, but often the same with teachers and educators and any line of work that would involve interaction with families and minors.

I can only wish that Japan returns to it's roots and view of nudity, sexuality, and eroticism in alignment with Shinto. That it is not seen as something wrong, bad, or dirty - but something to be celebrated, to be honored, to be prayed to the kami for assistance with – and most of all, something normal. Something a part of life. Acknowledgment that without it, we would not be here.

And, most of all, I hope Shinto can teach this around the world. That we don't need to view these topics in such a negative light. That it can be open, it can be healthy and moderated, and explored in a positive way. This recent decision of social media sites sets us back that much further. And feeds into that negative stigma which harms so many. But I think it's important to keep pushing back, to educate, and to remove stigma.

[loveactivist]

Tumblr. Staff. Policies.

Alright, everyone has heard so far about tumblrs new policy about allowing no adult content. Even though I run this simply writing blog where my page will not be affected that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna say that I think the tumblr staff is full of assholes and I shouldn’t stand up and sign petitions against the ban and in support of pages dealing with nsfw. (Please sign the petitions against Tumblrs new policy)

Tumblr has always been known for being the type of platform where you can scroll through your feed and find explicit shit come on, whether you wanted it to or not, and you just quickly scroll past it like nothing happened. But let’s be honest, that happens on every social media platform, just maybe not a full on porno coming on your feed. There’s an argument about how parents shouldn’t have to deal and worry about their young child being on a platform and having to deal with that, yet we’re in age where you could monitor your child’s social media and phone time for their safety. And second of all, it’s important to already teach your kids about internet safety before they even get onto any media platforms. We’re all very self aware of the problems that we face online, but tumblr has always been the site to be considered more “Rated R” than any other site. And I don’t think I’ve ever considered Tumblr has a “child friendly” site to begin with, but it can be since installing the “safe mode” option.

The main problems with tumblr is how it’s been like living in a porn bot apocalypse. And tumblr hasn’t cleaned it up at all. Some of my most popular writing pieces get reblogged by these porn bots, but they erase all my content and keep my likes and reblogs. That’s one of my most annoying issues, because even though they aren’t stealing my work, they’re stealing my credit. Yet besides that, you get random bots messaging you and coming up into your feed and getting rid of that problem, would’ve been for the greater good for everyone.

You know, I genuinely don’t have a problem with adults running porn related blogs whether it’s just reblogging or posting their own explicit content. Some people do it for their own pleasure, and some people actually do it on here to help their line of work. There is nothing wrong with working in rated r content, it’s obviously not the most traditional thing to do, but there’s nothing wrong with it as long as people are being safe about it. Isn’t that what’s really important? Doing things with safety and protecting yourself from danger. Yet, there are still people that use social media to solicitate minors and tumblr isn’t a site that is an exception to that. There are several blogs on this site that demonstrate pedophilia and concerning behavior, that needs to be looked out and watched for. And as terrible as this is, whether you’ve encountered it or not, but child pornography is a definite and disgusting reality here that is still needed to be taken care of. I’ve read a comment from an old man saying how young girls are the best types because they don’t fight back, and I’ve been across a blog concerning their own incest relations. Illegal activity and putting other users in dangers is the real problem, not if people decide to post pornstars or sell their own brand of lingerie.

You can watch porn anywhere on the internet, but you can’t find every nsfw artists on some porn site or even any social media platform without having to censor their own work, so they don’t get reported. And there are people that create nsfw merchandise, and there are few sites they can promote it on and Tumblr was one of them.

The funny thing is that the other half of Tumblr is made up of nsfw, and there’s honestly nothing wrong with that or to be ashamed of, because sex and sexual appeal is a big influence in the society we live in (which can’t be helped). There were other issues that Tumblr needed to resolve first. With the intentions of trying to fix a problem, they created a bigger one. They’re robbing several fantastic artists of exposure, because they like to draw porn, or because they’ve drawn a character with clevage or a woman showing her nipples, as if no one on Earth has them. Tumblr is just quickly going downhill by flagging everything, even content of people hugging and holding hands. Tumblr is like any other site where you share what you like on, but there’s several people here that decided to make a living on what they like to do and tumblr is a part of promoting themselves. Tumblr shouldn’t deprive people and the other side of their fan base from nsfw content, because they decided to want to be considered more “safe” when this site has never been looked at as a “child friendly” place, and wanting to make it more comfortable for others - give me a break, people use tags for a reason. And the only nsfw content that shows up under tags that aren’t related to that are because of porn bots. And just because Tumblr got taken off the App Store, I figured this place would love to rebel more instead of doing this since they claim to be “wide open” with “creative expression.” The reality of their decision is Tumblr isn’t supportive of those that use nsfw as creative expression, who were never going against any guidelines before, because of the pressure and the offense they felt for being taken off the App Store.

So, Tumblr you either get your fucking shit together and re-evaluate your decision, because what you did was extremely inconsiderate. And I’m not even running a blog considered “adult content.”

You were cool and all, but fuck you for doing this. @staff

[absynthe--minded]

something I think a lot of the kids (and older teens, to some extent? but mostly sixteen and under) need to understand is that it's brand fucking new to be able to consume all queer content all the time and actively choose to prioritize movies and shows with LGBT characters period, let alone LGBT ships

prior to this current "Golden Age of Television", if you wanted a network show with gay (not bi, not pan, not trans - gay and gay only) characters, you had... well, basically Will and Grace, and later seasons of Buffy, and Ellen before it was canceled, and occasional one-off episodes of shows like Friends or Star Trek. that was it. Xena got away with it because the queer content was plausibly deniable. you could claim Gabrielle was just her super dedicated platonic friend. also Xena was generally seen as a geeky thing and you could push the envelope more with B-grade properties like that, whose fanbases tended to stick with a show regardless of Quality. premium cable channels like HBO or Starz or Showtime would make more explicitly gay content like The L Word or Queer as Folk or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (the original), but those were generally walled off away from wide access and only happened because the subscriber-not-advertiser model enabled more risky content (and yeah, this kind of thing was incredibly risky, and was automatically classed as Adult Content and more sexually explicit just because it involved non-het couples and characters). the one-off episodes often featured lesbian characters because lesbians showing physical affection for one another was more acceptable than gay men doing the same (look up the Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss; it's a thing.)

movies were a little better but not much, in that gay men had been making films for other gay men for a few decades at that point, and there were a few lesbians directing too (the 90s brought us The Watermelon Woman and But I'm A Cheerleader, for example). but you had to go looking for those films specifically, and in the pre Internet days were limited by things like "if the movie you were searching for had a release outside of film festivals", "if the national chain of video rental places that was your only option even had a dedicated gay and lesbian section", and "how homophobic your area was". if you didn't have a dedicated LGBT bookstore, you were often left with whatever could be dredged up at the local Blockbuster, which wasn't much.

books were slightly better. especially speculative fiction. you could find some queer characters in sci-fi, or heavy queer subtext in a way that suggested the author wanted to do more but was pressured by higher ups to tone it down. and because LGBT bookstores were a thing, you could get smaller publishing houses to work with you and put your work out there sometimes. but if you were dealing with even a little homophobia, this didn't help. libraries kept most of those books in a dedicated section, making clandestine access kind of hard. and if you didn't have any other way of finding that kind of material (like a bookstore, or LGBT friends who'd loan you stuff), you often went without. even very well meaning librarians were limited by the homophobia of their surroundings sometimes.

this is the very recent reality.

fandom wasn't much better. slash existed, both m/m and f/f, but it wasn't accepted or seen as appropriate in a lot of circles. the early HP fandom had massive divides over if slash about the adult characters (or adult versions of the kids, etc) was even okay at all on a moral level because These Are Children's Books. a lot of fic archives would ban slash, as would forums and fansites with archives. some het advocates got really ugly. (and I'm not saying that every slash shipper was, by today's standards, a Good Queer or a Good Ally. lots of straight women would jump through all kinds of hoops to justify their ship, and "I'm not gay I'm just in carnal lust with you specifically" was a trope you'd see turn up now and again. but that was due mostly to lack of exposure to the queer community as a whole for everyone not just straight women, and even slash as written by straight women was more complex and complicated than I'm Jerking Off To This. lots of those fic writers defended LGBT rights outside of their work and did their part to be allies. don't assume everyone was the same.)

like with original works, you had to go looking for slashfic, and you'd face criticism if you were found reading or writing it in the wrong fandoms. sometimes there was legal action taken against slashers by the owners of the copyright - this happened to Han/Luke fans in the eighties with the Star Wars fandom, despite Lucas being okay with fanworks as a whole. there were a couple of Big Slash Fan Spaces (Star Trek TOS, Starsky and Hutch, etc) but outside of that you were essentially on your own. fanfiction.net, when it did finally launch, did a lot to change this, but FFN wasn't without anti-slashers doing their part to try and censor content they didn't like. and other posts have detailed Strikethrough and Boldthrough and FFN's bans on adult content better than I could, but suffice it to say that queer content has always been seen as more taboo than het content even if it's SFW.

things changed, gradually, but even as recently as the mid-2000s it was still a joke to be LGBT in public. stereotypically gay characters were poked fun at and made fun of. Brokeback Mountain was a huge joke and everyone mocked it. it's really only been in the last five years that "mainstream content aimed at queer audiences" is a thing at all, let alone in kids' shows. and even now there's network pushback, and fear of backlash from conservatives.

so kids, don't assume that All Queer All The Time is the easy option. we've fought for what we have and it happened because of years of baby steps. you're incredibly fortunate to have as much representation as you have. stop tearing down your fandoms for Not Being Good Enough. they're giving you a lot more than I ever got growing up.

[attackbangle36]

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[expatimes]

How will Indian Americans vote on November 3?

South Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States, and their participation in politics has increased significantly in recent years.

Bobby Jindal served as the governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016, and Nikki Haley was Trump's first choice for the role of US ambassador to the United Nations. Huma Abedin was Hillary Clinton's right-hand woman during her presidential campaign, and Saqib Ali served as a state delegate in Maryland when Obama was president. Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna are serving in Congress, and the number of South Asian Americans active in local politics is also on the rise. Belal Aftab is running for city council in California, and last year, Sadaf Jaffer became the first South Asian female mayor in America. Most importantly, Kamala Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, is the first-ever Black and South Asian vice presidential nominee.

While South Asian Americans are now more visible on the political stage than ever before, their loyalties remain diverse, resisting easy classifications.

Recent polls have shown that while most Indian Americans will vote blue in the upcoming election, 28 percent gravitate towards Trump, a notable jump from the 16 percent that voted red in the last presidential election.

Despite Trump's hostile rhetoric towards minority communities and immigrants, the support he continues to receive from a significant percentage of Indian Americans is not surprising.

Unlike South Asian Americans who come from Muslim countries, Indian-Americans, especially those who are not Sikh or Muslim, have not been subjected to the same levels of racialised surveillance as part of the US government ongoing global “war on terror”. While Indian-Americans have certainly faced racism, their roots in secular India afforded them a level of acceptance in America that Muslims fundamentally lack. As a result, while most Muslim Americans oppose Trump for his pernicious Islamophobia, Hindu Indian-Americans are more open to pledging their support to him.

Trump, after all, has pandered to the Indian-American vote, forming a close political friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi has built his entire political career on the basis of Hindu nationalism (also known as “Hindutva”), an exclusionary ideology that asserts India is a homeland principally for Hindus, and consequently denigrates marginalized religious groups, ethnicities and castes.

Earlier this year, Trump embarked on a two-day visit to India, where he praised Modi for protecting “religious freedoms” in the country and underscored the importance of US-India ties in the fight against “radical Islamic terrorism.” When Trump reached New Delhi, the city was burning in a pogrom against Muslims, which left more than 50 people dead. The violence came on the heels of nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), laws that institutionalise exclusion of Muslims from Indian citizenship and violate the country's secular constitution.

In 2019, Modi was re-elected as prime minister by stoking nationalist sentiments - threatening war with Pakistan and revoking the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir, which its inhabitants consider to be under military occupation. That same year, Trump welcomed Modi in a Houston stadium, drawing 50,000 Indian-Americans in rapturous support.

Today, the spike in Indian-American support for Trump is likely linked to the political alliance between Trump and Modi that was built on their shared hatred of Muslims, policies of increased neoliberal privatisation, and right-wing populism.

But while Trump and Modi's diplomatic friendship is now at the center of US-India relations, support for Hindu nationalism, and normalization of its adherents in US politics, is not limited to conservative circles.

Liberal politicians from the Democratic Party, who claim to champion democratic values, inclusion and multiculturalism, also have deep ties to Modi, which is reinforced by the network of Indian-American organizations that support him. These organizations are linked to the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella term that encompasses Hindu nationalist groups, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its paramilitary progenitor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, widely celebrated as the antidote to Trump, or viewed as the lesser evil in yet another election that fails to offer new options for American voters, may not appear to be as enthusiastic in cooperating with the Indian prime minister as his conservative opponent. But Trump was not the first president to honor Modi with an invitation to the White House.

In September 2014, just a few months after Modi's ascent to the top of India's government, then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden welcomed Modi to Washington, DC, with full fanfare, including a visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial and A lunch prepared by an Indian-American chef at the State Department.

The day before, 19,000 Indian-Americans had greeted Modi at Madison Square Garden in what Secretary of State John Kerry called “a rock-star reception”. Prominent liberal Indian-American personalities, such as Nina Davuluri, the first South Asian American Miss America and contributor to Michelle Obama's public health campaign, and Hari Sreenivasan, a PBS anchor, hosted the gathering.

Throughout Modi's visit, neither the members of the Obama administration nor the Indian-Americans celebrating his arrival, tried to take Modi to task for his actions during the Gujarat pogroms. Modi had been banned from entering the US for nine years - from 2005 to 2014 - due to his alleged complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in his home state of Gujarat, which left more than 1,000 people dead. The policy was implemented thanks to the efforts of Indian-American Muslims and Sikhs, according to Kashmiri-American intellectual Hafsa Kanjwal, but was swiftly overturned when Modi became prime minister.

America's diplomatic alignment with Modi - or any leader at the helm of Indian democracy, even as it slips rapidly into fascism - remains bipartisan, and Biden himself has been at the center of efforts to form a strong economic and security partnership with India since days as a senator. The Democratic presidential hopeful was one of the primary architects of the US's nuclear trade agreement with India in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which laid the foundation for the current political and economic partnership between the two countries. During this time, India started to receive aircraft, naval ships and other defense technology exports from the US.

In 2014, Biden praised Modi's “support for economic reforms” which, as of 2018, enabled a trade relationship worth $ 142b between the two countries. To this day, India remains the fifth-largest market for American defense exports.

Biden is the only alternative to four more years of a Trump presidency, and his acceptance of Modi and lack of sensitivity to Kashmiri, lower-caste and Indian Muslim suffering appear still to be as strong as they were six years ago.

In February, the Biden campaign appointed Amit Jani, an Indian-American political organizer with strong family and political links to Modi and the BJP, as director of outreach for the Asian-American Pacific Islander community; His duties included Muslim outreach.

Jani's ties to the BJP surpass mild apologia or well-intended ignorance of Indian politics. His father, Suresh Jani, is a founder of the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), an organization lobbying for Modi's BJP in the West. In 2019, his mother, Deepti, actively campaigned for Modi's re-election in India. When Modi visited the US, he stayed at the Janis' Jersey City home.

Amit Jani does not dissociate himself from his parents' ideology or activism. In fact, he appears to support it. In a 2014 article for The Huffington Post, Jani glorified Modi for reviving interest in Indian politics among the diaspora and compared his election win to that of Obama.

In May 2019, Jani was listed as an organizer for an event celebrating the Indian government draconian decision to revoke the special status accorded to Indian-administered Kashmir in its constitution. As Jani was working to organize the celebratory event, Modi had already put Indian-administered Kashmir under lockdown, cutting the region's internet and electricity, and thousands of troops there to quash protests.

Given Biden's strong political relationship with India and past praise of Modi, his appointment of Jani, a Modi supporter, was hardly shocking, but it poured salt in the wound of Muslim Americans, especially those of South Asian descent, as well as Dalit Americans.

A hashtag calling for his dismissal, #RejectAmitJani, trended on Twitter and Equality Labs, a South Asian progressive organization, published an open letter calling for Biden to “terminate Amit Jani's employment from the campaign”, which drew signatures from several grassroots Asian-American groups and respected academics.

Following the backlash, Jani was relieved of his duties and a former Muslim adviser to the 2016 Clinton campaign, Farooq Mitha, was assigned to do outreach within the Muslim American community. Mitha's appointment also stirred some controversy, as he is a board member of the controversial organization Emgage, which has been criticized for its ties to pro-Israel lobbies that have tried to censor the work of Palestine solidarity activists.

Biden has since catered to the Muslim American vote by name-dropping various atrocities against Muslims around the world in his online agenda for Muslim-American communities, such as the Uighur internment camps in China, the Saudi war in Yemen, and human rights violations in Kashmir. In July, Biden's foreign policy adviser promised the presidential hopeful would put pressure on India to change its policies regarding Kashmir and the civil liberties of Indian Muslims.

Kamala Harris, Biden's running mate, has also criticized Modi's annexation of Kashmir and has said that American cooperation with India is possible only with an appreciation for human rights and "religious pluralism." Harris is of Indian descent, but traces her roots to Tamil Nadu in South India, while most of the BJP's base is concentrated in the northern part of the country.

However, despite rhetorical support for progressive activists fighting the BJP's fascism, the constant underlying factor in both Biden and Harris's views is the importance of the US-India partnership.

If Biden truly wanted to hold Modi accountable for human rights violations, he probably would not have elevated an open Modi supporter on his campaign team. Biden aims to win both Hindu-American and Muslim-American votes, especially when lobbies, community leaders, and organizations in each demographic are powerful, moneyed donors to political campaigns.

Modi will be in power for the next few years, if not more, and a Biden-Harris presidency will inevitably broker an alliance with him, regardless of whether he changes his policy minorities facing occupation and / or marginalized by Hindu nationalism.

For liberals and leftists, who want all voting Americans to unite against the evil of Trump on the day of the election, the siren song of Modi's fascism is too far away to inspire any real outrage. Perhaps it is an indication of the conservatism of the dominant political system that both Biden and Trump possess equal proximity to a right-wing populist encouraging violence against India's minorities and steamrolling military occupation in Kashmir.

But all is not lost. The assault on minorities in India has inspired progressive Democrats to take a stand. Ro Khanna, an Indian-American congressman from California, stated that Hindu-American politicians have a “duty” to reject Hindutva. Pramila Jayapal introduced a resolution recognizing human rights abuses in Kashmir and also sponsored a Congressional hearing on caste oppression in the US, and Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have criticized the Modi government for its violence against Kashmir and Indian Muslims.

Thousands of South-Asian Americans and their allies protested against Modi this year, and a multicultural resistance demonstrated in solidarity with Kashmir when Modi spoke at the UN last year.

The mobilisation to seek unity against Trump will end on November 3. Once that happens, young South Asian Americans will focus less on voting, and return their efforts and attention to movement-building instead.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=13168&feed_id=13571