Abu Ghraib scandal rooted in porn?
Written on 5/29/2004
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: It Was the Porn That Made Them Do It:
The [...] hypocrisy of the blame-the-culture crowd is that “normal Americans” . . . . don’t partake of the “secular” entertainment that is doing all this damage. In other words, the porn that led to prison abuse is all ghettoized in the blue states. The facts say otherwise. Phil Harvey, the president of the North Carolina-based Adam & Eve, one of the country’s largest suppliers of mail-order adult products, said in an interview last week that his business has “for years” been roughly the same per capita throughout the continental United States, with those Deep South bastions of the Bible Belt, Alabama and Mississippi, buying only 10 percent fewer sex toys and porn videos than everyone else. Even residents of the Cincinnati metropolitan area — home to Citizens for Community Values and famous for antismut battles over Larry Flynt and Robert Mapplethorpe — turned out to be slightly larger-than-average users of porn Web sites, according to a 2001 Nielsen Internet survey.
If late 20th Century porn is responsible for the Iraq prison scandals, explain the picture below the jump from August 1930.
[click for larger image]
Look at the faces in the crowd. There are young couples there, possibly on dates. No one seems horrified or disgusted. This seems as innocent as a picnic.
The Musarium has more on this, including an account of how the two men in the picture met their ends. There are 70+ images of “strange fruit” but I couldn’t look at more than half a dozen. If you can handle it, take a look at the ones in public places and the everyday crowds. And ponder what it would be like today to receive one of these images as a postcard, which is what these are. The Abu Ghraib images have been used as screensavers and wallpapers, after all: same thing, I suppose.
Filed in: 2004 US Election.
Whada way to start the day…
Great piece. I was wondering when the “it’s not their fault, blame X” crowd would come in. Those pictures are very disturbing… I remember seeing photos of hanged black men in front of a group of KKK members in my history book. Looks absolutely no different than these people.
No one likes to think that mankind is perfectly capable of such acts by itself. Rather than address this reality, we ignore our own “inner-monsters” and look to place blame. By doing so, we just create a better opportunity for it to come out and play when we least expect it.
The problem with Americans is that they think themselves to be superior than other nationalities and disregard the rights and dignities of other nationalities. americans are self-opinionated and feel a false pride in having the first functioning democratic constitution in the world; but the Americans forget that America was never free from vices, slavery ended in 1865 only; USA should feel guilty for its war - crimes in Vietnam.
Dearest Tadit Kundu,
No America is not perfect but our society is superior to anything man has yet to devise. And it is evolving so the mistakes of the past don’t happen again. We don’t have ancient traditions and tribal affiliations that keep societies from advancing. In America there is an overridding awareness for ‘the next big thing”….. do you have that mindset in your country ?
Our superiority is self-evident and doesn’t need to be proclaimed by us. It is you, the world, that proclaim it through your envy, your hatred and your immigration.
It is evident by the fact that the American society put human beings on a moon that other nation’s people only looked up and ponder as their anscestors did.
It was the American military machine that brought you this internet you are now freely expressing your opinions over it’s satellite network. There is even a good chance that the fact you are able to speak freely owes some part to the threat of American military force against those that would deny you this right.
It is evident by our elvolving military power. We have more firepower in one of our submarines than most nations have in their entire military. We have the capability to remove any nation from the globe if we chose to use our military as brutally as it is being falsely accused of. You haven’t seen us REALLY ANGRY yet… ask the Japanese.
It is evident in the number of people attempting to flee their home countries in cargo ships, the wheel-wells of aircraft, on floatom rafts. They do this to come and partake in the promise of American society.
It is evident in the number of foreign students coming to our universities to learn or sciences in the relative peace of our culture.
It is evident in the fact that we are even exchanging views on this subject. I mean what other country could you substitute in your comment? China, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Russia … the whole of Europe ?
It is evident by the advent of English becoming the global language.
It is evident by the fact that the US farmer feeds the world that can’t feed itself.
Ever wonder why the UN is in New York City, USA ???
Our pride isn’t based on false assumptions but on hard irrefutible facts.
We have a saying from a popular TV show in the 1970’s.
No Bragging….. Just a Fact.