Young ladies are being grabbed off bus stops and forced into prostitution…and it’s happening in our own back yard. – Sharee Sanders Gordon
Another entry in the clueless celebrity division of “sex trafficking” fetishism:
Hollywood actress Gillian Anderson says the growing problem of human trafficking must no longer be ignored, and hopes her new film [Sold] about a young Nepali girl sold as a sex slave will highlight the horrors of the trade…Anderson…rose to fame playing Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files…
Remember, kids, an actor doesn’t actually have to be skeptical or rational to play a rational, skeptical character on TV. But really, Anderson’s right at home in a story based on ridiculous, exaggerated conspiracy theories, so I guess it makes sense.
A Tale That Grew in the Telling
This otherwise-typical collection of “sex trafficking” tropes contains an interesting inflation; prohibitionist politician Jeffrey Chiesa claimed that his favorite masturbatory fantasy “is most likely to occur at large stadiums or arenas with a steady stream of events”…in other words, he’s claiming that the so-called “trafficking” occurs at the stadium itself, merely than in the host city. It’ll be interesting to see if this particular absurdity catches on.
The need to see all transactional sex as coercive is a mental illness:
The Gucci handbag often gives her away. Along with the expensive lingerie, the sex toys, the designer watch and the multiple iPhones. But the dead giveaway is the tattoo, often of the pimp’s street name, marked on the back of her neck or the inside of her wrist.* Sometimes, there is another woman in the hotel room known as the “bottom bitch” who is in charge of…ensuring the working girl hustles seven days a week and has sex with up to 15 men a day…young girls…are being trafficked by pimps…having sex with countless men and never seeing a dollar of their earnings**. Everyone agrees they are victims…The girls are often beaten to keep them in line and some are fed drugs to get them addicted…[usually they] are hostile and refuse help, often suffering from Stockholm syndrome…
**See “The Widening Gyre” below.
*Except for the money they use to buy the Gucci handbags, expensive lingerie, designer watches and multiple iPhones, of course.
When the facts don’t fit the theory…
…South Carolina…investigators are looking…for…indicators that [arrested masseuses] were involved in a larger-scale human-trafficking operation…the women…specifically told authorities they weren’t [coerced]. One…drove a BMW and another a Mercedes, and each explained to authorities that “this was just their job”…but the…case does share some similarities with many recent cases…that have been described as human trafficking. From Colorado to Michigan and from Alabama to the Carolinas, dozens of…trafficking rings have been uncovered. Many times, the businesses are masquerading as…massage parlors, but they offer no licensed therapists…
The obtuseness of both cops and reporter is almost Pythonesque.
This particular myth-element has grown so large, it has become a cultic totem:
April Bentley…stood alongside more than 50 volunteers …on the steps of the Milwaukee Central Library to promote the campaign dubbed “Unlucky Thirteen,” which…is meant to call attention to sex trafficking …through the number 13 — the average age a person starts being trafficked for sex…
As is typical, Bentley’s experiences supposedly took place decades in the past…much too long ago to actually check on.
Through EPCAT USA, the leading anti-trafficking policy organization…the travel industry is taking an active role against sex tourism…with continued support ECPAT USA can continue fighting for these child victims of exploitation. A gift of $50, $100, $250 or any amount will be used to…advocate for improved…laws…Raise awareness that children are being commercially sexually exploited…Equip…students to fight this problem…[and] collaborate with ECPAT affiliates around the world…
There’s a PhD dissertation in examining the absurdities people will believe without any proof whatsoever if they’re part of a moral panic:
Sharee Sanders Gordon…an…attorney in Los Angeles, said…One middle school…is having a serious problem with prostitution…“Young ladies are being grabbed off bus stops and forced into prostitution…and it’s happening in our own back yard”…According to Gordon, a pimp in San Diego County brands his girls with tattoos inside their mouths, as if they were property. The branding is all part of the pimps’ indoctrination process…
However horrible a fad law is already, Louisiana politicians can figure out a way to make their version worse:
Governor Jindal signed four bills into law that will crack down on human trafficking in Louisiana…HB 1025…[creates] the crime of “unlawful purchase of commercial sexual activity” and…expands the definition of “racketeering activity” to include pornography involving juveniles [and] computer-aided [violation of any prostitution law]…It…[also permits] the court to seize…personal property…HB 569…[establishes]…human trafficking courts…HB 1105 …requires posting of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline in outpatient abortion facilities. Often perpetrators of human trafficking force women and children to undergo abortions so that the victims can continue working in the industry…HB 1262…requires that, prior to undergoing an…abortion, a woman must be provided with information on coerced abortions and human trafficking…
Yes, the first law defines any sex worker who advertises on the internet and any client who contacts her via the internet as a gangster. Note also the increasing connection between “sex trafficking” hysteria and abortion restrictions, which activists have been predicting for several years now.
…Grosse Pointe Park [Michigan] residents demanded that the Metro Times be banned in the city and in libraries…[the excuses] went beyond typical complaints about obscenity when some charged the…tabloid’s advertisers with promoting human trafficking…the editor…countered that [sex work] ads are no more sexually explicit than many of the books on public library shelves. And she said that complaints about sex trafficking should be taken to police, not to librarians…officials…[insisted] that constitutional freedom-of-speech guarantees would trigger a lawsuit…The…Library Board…then voted…to stack the Metro Times out of sight…Patrons…will have to ask for copies from now on…
Forget about states or even cities; a New York politician claims he can place the “epicenter” of “sex trafficking” on one particular street:
…Sen. Jose Peralta…said…“Roosevelt Avenue is a mecca of human trafficking in Queens and throughout the five boroughs…[gangs] are participating in bringing women from all over the world…right to Roosevelt Avenue…It’s really a hub and epicenter of human trafficking”…
This article includes the following telltale indicators of “sex trafficking”:
Warning signs include sleeping bags in nail salons…or workers who appear exceptionally young…a young girl might refer to an older man as her…”daddy”…Other signs might be security measures…[such as] barbed wire inside a fence or bars covering the insides of windows…
A young woman leaves home after telling friends that she was in some kind of trouble; naturally, all possible explanations are instantly discarded in favor of the panic du jour:
A 17-year-old Washington girl missing for the last [month] left a chilling message in her journal…”If you’re reading this, I’m either missing or dead”…Authorities fear she’s become a victim of human trafficking…The blue-eyed brunette left behind her cellphone, ID, bank cards and the eyeglasses she needs to see…”She had been telling some people for a while that she was involved in something, that she was in over her head, that she was scared. But they couldn’t get any more information than that out of her,” [said] her…mother, Lynda Jorgenson…
Cops and prosecutors do their best here to make a perfectly ordinary escort service, much like the one I owned, seem like a sinister and nefarious criminal conspiracy; of course, any sex worker or client can tell this was written by a pompous clown:
Investigators say [Amber Batts, who is] accused of sex trafficking to roughly 800 clients in [Alaska] maintained a slick website and multiple payment methods — which led straight to her bank account [as opposed to where?]…“The website advertises for escort services…and is organized into different sections, including a…‘providers’ (listing the women being trafficked)…the Blog section… describes a sexual encounter for money.” The material on the website also included advice for patrons of the sex trafficking ring…
Other countries teach their young people math and science; we indoctrinate ours in ridiculous myths and teach boys to demonize their own sexuality:
…20 [high school] seniors…watched a documentary about child sex trafficking and wanted to do something about it…The students…visited with a [cop] who specializes in [persecuting sex workers] and talked with [a politician]…”Harsher punishments for johns,” said Ben Prewitt. “If there were harsher punishments, the demand would go down”…Prewitt wanted [paying for sex] to be a felony with a requirement to be registered as a sex offender…the average age of a victim is 16 with some as young as 8…Jeff Goode said he used to live behind three strip clubs…and saw some of the ugliness surrounding the places…
That “as young as 8” is popping up often now; look for the focus to shift to that number soon.
…Tim Taylor of the Metro Atlanta Human Trafficking Task Force…isn’t Tim Taylor. His real name is Paul Michael Libri. He has a criminal record and currently faces trial for impersonating a police officer…Libri…is seen as a pest by police officers – someone in the way when they are trying to solve trafficking cases…
…anti-human-trafficking advocates raised concern about the arrests of adult females [in FBI raids]…even adult women in the sex trade likely began as trafficked children…“The vast majority of those people…are currently victims, or they have been victims,” said Lauren Hersh…Traffickers and pimps subject their victims to a process called “seasoning,” involving rape and forced drug use to break down the woman who is to be sold…
Lauren Hersh is a prosecutor who resigned in disgrace for railroading men for rape; she’s a sleazy prohibitionist whose most recent scheme involved trying to set up fake sex worker organizations to lobby for imposition of the Swedish model. Also note the latest “trafficking” fantasy-term no actual sex worker ever heard of.
There’s never a shortage of politicians willing to lick Swanee Hunt’s arse:
The city of Boston has launched an initiative to reduce demand for prostitution…by going after the men who buy sex…Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced the program…at a [prohibitionist circle-jerk]…Boston…is partnering with Demand Abolition…to develop and implement campaigns…to disrupt the commercial sex industry…
It’s hard to imagine how this article could be more fellatory:
…Young women who used to be dismissed as bad-girl prostitutes are now recognized as victims…That’s where Arizona is now, as police, prosecutors and courts look for realistic ways to deal with people whose histories left wounds and unspeakable scars…Making the effort to identify victims of sexual trafficking among minors arrested for…other crimes is part of the new paradigm…Gov. Jan Brewer gets credit for naming a task force…to look into how little girls become merchandise in the sex trade…Take a moment to savor this shining example of public officials doing absolutely the right thing.
In an effort to combat prostitution and sex trafficking, California’s Oakland police department is engaging in…public humiliation…On a new website, the department lists the mug shots of alleged pimps and johns, along with their names, dates of birth and charges…Kevin Wiley…describes Oakland as “the hub of the West for child prostitution.” Oakland and Eastern counterpart Atlanta, he says, tend to be entry points into “the circuit,” a human-trafficking ring that cycles victims around the country…Prostitution is becoming more…closely associated with shootings, homicides and the illegal drug market…“We don’t have a lot of resources,” he says. “But the ones we have, we dedicate 110%”…
Jeez, retarded development again.
I’m in my fifties and I still haven’t been trafficked for sex.
Simple: That means that there is somebody that was trafficked in their last life, at 37 years before they died. See, it all averages out!
Which is why you should always check inside a potential partner’s mouth to be sure they aren’t already someone else’s property.
Trafficking hysteria has not only nuked the fridge, it’s entrenched itself institutionally and legislatively. It’s more like the red scare or the war on drugs than your normal, garden variety moral panic.
Still reckon it’s going away soon, Maggie?
Yep. Just because a moral panic goes away doesn’t mean the harmful laws and aftereffects it spawned also go away; remember, the prostitution laws spawned by the last “sex trafficking” panic still haven’t gone away, and the drug war has persisted long after the majority of Americans know its rhetoric is bullshit.
But there’s still plenty of folk believe drug war propaganda and plenty of Americans who think communism is a threat and everyone who believes in taxes, welfare, global warming or public health insurance is a commie.
Whattya say, krulac?
You wanna gang up on Maggie with me again?
Tell her about the Red Menace.
“Plenty of folks” believing something does not a moral panic make. There’s a blatant difference between the Satanic Panic and the fact that lots of US evangelicals still believe in witchcraft & demonic possession.
When have I ever “ganged up” with you against Maggie?
Communism being a threat? Well, the philosophy is certainly a “threat” to Liberty, Self Determination, and Democratic Rule – but it’s a manageable one. It’s a greatly REDUCED one also – since every nation that has adopted Communism has put it’s people in deep misery. Not to mention the fact that Communist leaders are responsible for some of the most horrifying usurpations of civil liberty and mass exterminations in the history of man. That little tidbit of “bad press” has, thankfully, put a damper on the spread of Marxism.
Socialism … I really don’t have a problem with, as long as they enact their means legally – but they never have the courage or tenacity to do that. They are too lazy to implement their philosophy via the tools given them by the Founding Fathers. For instance, if you want guns banned – then the correct Constitutional remedy would be to repeal the second amendment. If you want to expand health care as a “right” then the correct Constitutional remedy would be to pass an amendment to the Constitution which expands the power of the Federal Government so that it can provide it.
However – to do those things it would require 38 of 50 states supporting those amendments. That’s a huge burden for passage – but it SHOULD be a huge burden. The Founders wanted to ensure that the Constitution wouldn’t be changed by a minority of Americans – on a “whim”. But see … since the ideologies of Socialism and Marxism are anti-democratic and do not value the judgement of the masses … it’s not surprising that they seek to enact change in unlawful ways – such as …
– Manufactured Mass Panics about Global Warming designed to scare the masses into giving up their rights to property and expanding government authority.
– Manufactured Mass Panics about Health Care designed to scare the masses into giving up their freedom of choice and expanding government authority.
– Manufactured Mass Panics about Guns designed to scare the masses into giving up their Constitutional liberties and expanding government authority.
– Manufactured Mass Panics about Human Trafficking designed to scare the masses into giving up their civil liberties and expanding government authority.
Soooo … as you can see … it’s all REALLY about expanding government authority.
And as a libertarian on most domestic issues – I do not agree with giving Sheila Jackson Lee, Harry Reid, John Boehner or Mitch McConnell OR Obama more authority.
Hell, I wouldn’t trust those chumps to wash my truck (and it’s paid for). No way am I joining any bandwagon to give them more authority.
And, by the way … I’m not at home … but I’m on travel in a distant (cold) land. So I can’t really spend a grunch of time debating things here.
It amazes me that people do not think through these things logically… they are quick to believe random statistics that hold no water but are skeptical when those stats are proven wrong…
We should make prostitution illegal because 1 in 8 women are raped every day .. Rape is already illegal.. legalizing prostitution will not change that.
We should make prostitution illegal because kids are being kidnapped and forced to provide sexual services by their pimps… Abduction is already illegal.. legalizing will not change that…
Pimps us drugs to control sex workers… drug manipulation is already illegal.. If prostitution were legal, pimps forcing people to take drugs to create an addiction would still be illegal.
Where is the logic… Too many people think human trafficking and prostitution is the same thing..
There is no logic because in Western Civilization we are all spoiled rotten and no longer act on logic – but emotion.
Because we don’t have anything to worry about – we need to INVENT things to worry about iaw “Driskill Mountain Syndrome”.
We were evolved to live a struggling existence but we no longer have to live such. There’s a huge hole now in our existence. We have to manufacture “struggle”. You can’t manufacture “struggle” logically – so you have to rely on EMOTION and FEELING to manufacture it – and you have to get good at ignoring logic completely in order to keep up the illusion of struggle.
The way I deal with this inherent need for struggle is I try to live a life … OF struggle. The hookers? They are an element of danger to me – and for many reasons. Danger is an element of struggle. I try to physically struggle. I’m an old man but I still do a very tough job. In my part-time job as a bouncer, sometimes I have to go up against guys much younger and faster than me (even though most of them are smaller … and … drunker) – there’s still an element of struggle there. When I’m in the gym (and I’m in there five days a week 0500 every morning unless I’m deployed somewhere) – I don’t go in there and say … “Ah, I’m an old man – and that’s too much weight to me!” No – I try to lift it and it’s excruciatingly painful – that’s struggle. I don’t take elevators and I don’t use escalators (unless I’m carrying a shit-ton of luggage – and in that case I’m already struggling).
But most people are too lazy to build a “struggle” routine into their lives. So they plug themselves into a “Matrix” of imaginary ones.
Interesting idea. Makes a lot of sense to me. While I am physically lazy (but not overweight, so no “computer nerd” body), I like to play games that simulate struggle of different kinds and what annoys me most with today’s gaming industry is that most games are too easy.
This creation of fantasy “threats” may indeed be a compensation mechanism. Of course, it also is a good mechanism for controlling the little-thinking masses that may just accept even really stupid threat scenarios because they are starved for “danger”/”struggle”.
And it gets used, see for example the moronic escalation for justifying spying on everybody on the Internet: Started with “jobs lost” due to copyright infringement. (But after a while people were not impressed anymore and it becomes more and more obvious that it is not even true.) Then went to “child porn”. (Which gets equaled with child abuse, but strangely those after child porn do nothing to fight child abuse, as the child porn consumers produce all the nice numbers of “success” they want. It seems these people care not one bit about what is done to children and most child abuse does not get documented on video anyways… ). Now it is “terrorism”. (Which is utterly moronic, as real terrorists are rare and do not communicate insecurely. The FBI had even to start to manufacture “terrorists” because they could not find any.)
The effect is indeed that individuals emotionally assess of things that should have been assessed rationally, with the unsurprising results of utter failure in the typical case. This neatly also eliminates democracy, because only a small, sophisticated minority sees through it and the rest is easily steered into the desired direction. The scary thing is that an unchecked government universally morphs into totalitarianism, and then, much later in some instances, collapses.
OMG!
I’ve seen traffickers picking up young girls right from out front of our local school!
Even worse: These people produced (!) said girls just to be able to traffic them later!
When I was a teenager the first page of my diary always read “If you’re reading this, you’re dead!”.
Re: Maier’s Law
I think the cops know perfectly well that woman are getting into prostitution on their own and that trafficking is just a cover-up. They couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to actually believe the trafficking storyline. They give reporters the trafficking story since they know it’s a popular story now and it makes them look good to be out there rescuing woman forced into it rather that the true story of arresting woman who are doing this voluntarily.
The statistics do not corroborate what the cops are “saying”..
If they truly felt these girls were victims.. the arrest rand booking rate for prostitution would be in favor to the men.. and that is not the case.
For every 10 sex workers arrested, only 1 john gets arrested… if these girls are truly victims.. it would be the other way around.
Could you imagine a woman walking into a police station wanting to report a rape against her and then find herself with a fine because of the act against her?
If they wish to continue this rhetoric, then they need to also admit to victimizing victims 9 out of 10 times they make a bust.
Yeah, if its so evident that the traffick stories are not true what we must ask ourselves is… WHY ARE THEY TELLING THEM? They must have a gain.
They DO have a gain. It’s in expanding the control and authority of government.
Indeed. And if you look a bit further, that does come with tons more money and the thing all bureaucrats live for: The ability to waste more lifetime of others in order to make themselves feel important.
Ok, krulac and Celos. So if its in a REAL INTEREST of “government” and “bureucrats” then ITS NOT A MORAL ISSUE. There are material gains for them. So they are not dumbasses that believe in fairy tales but very clever people that is fully aware of what they are doing, RIGHT?
Then pro-rights activists should design their agenda and strategies in order of that reality. Its pintless to show “government and bureucrats” that traffick is a “myth” as Maggie says, as IT DOESNT MATTER, bcause they WANT IT TO EXIST, its their gain! Do u have any idea about what we should do then?
The South Carolina story has already been taken down? Perhaps the editors thought that few would accept that a women driving around in a Mercedes was also being chained to the bed in a basement somewhere.
The Alaska story is a great example of how overused the word “exploitation” is.
“Batts stated that her take was $100 out of the $300 charged for an hour of service”.
Batts provided administration, organization, advertising, background checks, advice, rooms, travel expenses, technological help and so on. All of this does not come free, and would have to be paid for one way or another. Getting $200/hour remains an excellent rate, over 25 times higher than the Alaska minimum wage.
Looks like Anji Dean was missing for all of a day. No updates for three weeks about whether she was trafficked or not.
I couldn’t find any updates on it; do you have a link?
Here was the news article I found (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/missing-us-teenager-anji-dean-found-alive-safe-1456083). The lack of follow-up for three weeks leads me to believe the trafficking angle may have been exaggerated.
Andrea Lavigne looks suspiciously like a real-life Helen Lovejoy. The comments on the Alaska story were overwhelmingly one of disbelief in the printed story.
“Won’t someone PLEASE think of the Children” will soon replace “E Pluribus Unum” as our national motto.
Looking for the link to the PhD thesis about “the absurdities people will believe without any proof whatsoever”. The link in the paragraph is actually to one such absurdity, not the thesis. Do you have a link or the publishing information?
I’m sorry if I expressed that poorly; by “there’s a dissertation in it” I meant that there’s enough material there for someone to do a dissertation, not that one actually exists yet.
I see. A pity, because that could have been an interesting thing to read. Thanks for clearing that up.
Maggie, I’ve told u bfore that i STRONGLY DISAGREE with ur tesis. For u, “human traffick” is a myth. U are used the following words calificate it: stupidity, absurdity, histeria… u say that who support those histories are “mental illness”, that they just say that bcause they are under a “moral panic”.
I think that u haven’t understand anything.
And as u, many other “pro rights” activists are. They use to think as u that our aouthorities are “wrong”. Thay they see ghosts where there aren’t anything (see for example http://marijkevonk.com/the-myth-of-trafficking/)
Listen to WHO tell us about human traffick. Not the SWs themselves, but our authorities and famous ppl concerned with the issue. We are not talking about morons, but police officers, politicians, presidents of NGOs, and academics from prestigious univeristies. Do u think they really believe in such weird histories? Are u really stupid enough to believe that educated people can be fooled in that way!? Come on Maggie. Lets tell everybody what we all know.
Many ppl have been kidnapped, jailed and forced to travel under violence to other countries. Yeah, u know as me that its true. But maybe u will know it by another name: DEPORTATIONS. Oh-oh, now we dont laugh yeah? Thats what “traffking myth” supporters are backing, for them “liberate” ppl is to jail them and sent them back to their home country. Are they stupid? No way, in fact they are very clever. TOO CLEVER. To cover their own abuses, they create others. Thats what any criminal knows.
U laugh at the history of the tatoos. Im sure u know other here, the one of the woman tattoed in her wrist in Spain (http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_101525.shtml). I met those girls, in fact I was close friend of them. What really happened is that a group of girls (around 5) decided not to pay the “police tax” and work independently. Such audacity could not pass unpunished, so police decided to arrest them and the people they were living (their relatives) presenting them as their “pimps”. Well, here u have what is behing the human traffick and forced prostitution histories: corrupt police rings. So that histories are fake? AND? THEY ARE EXTREMELY USEFUL!!! They let the real PIMPS to commit crimes while they present themselves as “rescuers”, the good boys. Do u think u u laught when u hear those histories? Oh, they must be laughing much louder Maggie! They know that all is a big mountain of stinky dog shit. But they keep lying, and the bigger the lie the better. As long as they can keep the “trafficking myth” as the official version they will be able to mantain huge subventions (swedish law came with a huge budget to police departments), cover their own crimes and deport immigrante people while telling everybody they are “saving” them.
So Maggie, the traffic tales are not silly. They are a very intelligent strategy. They have managed to make society to believe a lie while they hide the reality. Abolitionists are not stupid, credulous ppl. In fact they’re really clever, indeed.
I think you must have misunderstood what I’ve been writing for years if you believe that what you just proposed is “strong disagreement” with what I’ve written. I have on many occasions explained exactly why these narratives are promoted by those who promote them. It’s the ones who believe the hysteria who are gullible fools, not the ones who invent and promote it.
Indeed. “Inventing” and “promoting” them is done by everything from “marketing” to “psyops” (and individual scam artists riding on this). These people get more effective when they understand that what they create is just fantasy “horror-stories”, used to control the masses. Of course, most foot-soldiers in this are just stupid believers, but the leaders use this myth to create and extend their power-base and know exactly that it is a synthetic construct.
Once again, Bob Altemeyer’s – “The Authoritarians” (free on the web), explains the mechanisms nicely and with scientifically sound validation by experiment. The leaders put out some fictional “existential threat” and the followers go crazy believing in it and in admiring their leaders. It is basically a prevalent personality defect in humans that kills rationality when exploited.
Celos, I like ur division between leaders and foot soldiers. They told us that traffickers are fooling us but… what if the liar is anyone else? I cant stand when speaking with anyone he or she tells me that many prostiutes are trafficked and they are not free. Hum, I say, How do u know that? I ask. “Well, EVERYBODY KNOWS, its what media and police says…” Oh, yeah, u havent see it. So u have the same reasons to believe in it as a 6 yrs old child has to believe in Santa Claus, right?
They are fooling us as we were innocent, small children.
(Anyway I think that many ppl also just say that bcause they are plenty aware that to disagree with govt is very dangerous and they dont want any trouble at all)
It is not my division, it is a research result from Altemeyer: He identifies “authoritarian leaders” as the ones giving the directions (and caring only about being leaders, no matter what evil thing they have to do) and “authoritarian followers” as the mindless foot-soldiers that just want to follow and believe, again no matter what. And he has observations and numbers from scientific experiments to back this up. The conclusion is that you cannot reach these people, their minds are shut. Who you have to reach are those that are unsure and undecided.
My question is, Maggie, do u think that the ones who promote traffick campaigns REALLY believe in them? I mean, not the religious or feminist morons, we know they are fanatics. Lets look up: the politicians, police officers and other public authorities.
I want u to answer me WHY they promote those beliefs. Whats the TRUTH behind the myth.
I’ve written about this over and over and over again; I’m honestly not sure how you could’ve missed it. The most important reason (of several) is to serve as an excuse to deport dark-skinned people while pretending not to be racist, by claiming they didn’t want to migrate in the first place and dismissing their protests that they did indeed migrate voluntarily as “Stockholm syndrome”. Another important reason is to serve as a new excuse for the burgeoning police state now that the drug war and “terrorism” have declined sharply in popularity. But for the Christian & neofeminist groups who first invented the narrative (both this time and the last time in the late 19th century), the motive is simply to provide a socially-acceptable excuse for persecuting whores.
YaY. Now we are talking! U have pointed that they have a HIDDEN AGENDA. Oh Maggie, HOW I LOVE to hear this. Thats what I’m claiming endlessly here in Spain, but main positition between pro rights activists is that when traffick supporters will see the “truth” they will change their mind. No, no, no and ten thousand times NO! It’s IMPOSSIBLE to change their mind bcause they are HIPOCRITS that cover their REAL INTERESTS under beutiful justifications. U have told almost all the reasons that lie behind the traffick myth: deport poor inmigrants (or worse their life conditions so thay can be exploited even more easily), justify new interventionist politics and expanssion of the public expenditure (of course many of this money falls down their pockets). and prosecute and abuse not just SWs but all the people who thinks different to them.
Just one more question. I know that, as here, in the States many supporters of the criminalization of prostitution are policemen. They usually are the main suport that abolitionists have, in fact the greatest abolitionist organization here called APRAMP (Translated “Association for the reintegration and assistence to the prostituted woman”) got last year two POLICE medals as prize for its efforts.
Which interest do u think the police has in this? It’s supposed they should fight crime, but if there is no crime here… Why they have become the spearhead in war on whores?
1) Police want more power, no matter how they get it.
2) Police are cowards who prefer to arrest nonviolent people who can’t hurt them.
3) Criminalization of sex work creates a pool of victims they can rape without consequences.
You couldn’t speak more clearly. U made me happy, Maggie 😀
So, well, we are not talkin’ bout “moral issues”, “gullible people” that “ignore” the reality. They are not stupids. They are EVIL.
This is a difficult question. Those that understand what is going on are certainly “evil”. That would be the leaders. But most are just stupid followers that do not get it. Altemeyr thinks (and I agree), that this are people that are deeply afraid of any change and anything they do not understand, and that is a lot. These people are not necessarily “non-intelligent”, but they do not user their mental capabilities when it comes to what has them in fear, they prefer the fear to thinking about things, even if they could. In role-playing terms, you may say they have low “wisdom” scores, where wisdom is what you use to direct the application of your other skills, including intelligence.
Their leaders then use this to make them more afraid up to the ultimate point where they try to destroy everything different, because they fear it so much. Basically decent people of this nature will torture, rape and kill when manipulated in this way.
This scheme can be observed in any moral panic, be it political, religious, about drugs, pornography, prostitution, evolution, the classic war-situation, etc. Somebody stands to gain a bit and doing huge damage in exchange does not bother them at all. That definitely is “evil”. Typically you can also observe all forms of harm amplification in there. This is never about “helping” or “protecting” anybody, this is about creating and using fear-induced aggression against some group that often is selected to be the ones least likely to fight back effectively.
So are people that are deeply in fear and lash out in a direction they have been manipulated to lash out in evil? I do think they represent failed human beings that did not manage to reach mental independence and emotional control. In a sense, these people are small children in adults bodies. (Sometimes I think this is what happens when a cow or a chicken gets reincarnated: Basically almost nobody at home in there that gives directions, all basic evolved emotional system.) But “evil”? I do not think they qualify. “Evil” requires some level of understanding on the part of the one doing it, and I doubt that is there. These people are a huge danger though when manipulated in the right way, just look at all the past and present totalitarian regimes.
Yep, u are right. When I speak about the evil ones, they are the ones who KNOW what’s happening. The “followers” or “footsoldiers” (I call them “lemmings”, for an old nintendo game I loved heh) of course they dont know anything OR DONT WANT TO KNOW. We have a sentence here that is “arrimarse al Sol que más calienta” that can be roghly traslated as “get closer to the hotter Sun”. They are oportunists, they dont mind the truth, they just know that there is one politically correct opinion and they repeat it. If it changes, then their mind also changes.
So they are not the problem. They repeat what the EVIL LEADERS say. That must be our objetive, to uncover them and show everybody what lies behind the kind abolitionism; the worst and most terrifying horror. No abolitionist want to “help” prostitutes but HARM them. They are wolves in sheeps clothing!
Way too simplistic, Celos.
Have you read Orwell’s Killing an elephant?
Leaders have no more scope for self-direction than do the followers. Often less. The institution they are imbedded in and the way it interacts with other institutions dictate most of their ‘decisions’.
Those who are more able to resist the pressure to conform are generally no more intelligent, emotionally mature nor less ‘evil’ than those who collaborate. Often it is simply because they are already committed to an incompatible institution (e.g. communists and Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany).
Is someone who can see what is going on but is still unable to resist really more ‘failed’ or just more tragic.
You are confusing “figureheads” and actual “leaders”. A leader is somebody that does lead, not somebody that is supposed or expected to lead. (For an example, look at Putin. That one is definitely a leader and not in a good way…)
I really recommend Altemeyrs work, the definitions are excellent and the findings explain a lot about the dynamics between leaders and followers in the authoritarian spectrum.
Funny, I would have chosen Putin as a typical example of a ‘leader’ caught within the logic of his own institution with very little scope for free action.
In the face of the cowboy capitalism that flourished under Yeltsin the Russian State was faced with a choice between a return to centralised totalitarianism or the same sort of vassalage to big business you see in most Western countries. In Russia (as in the US) that basically means the oil and gas mafias would get to run the show.
As with Stalin before him, there still would have been Putinism without Putin and if he had tried to diverge too far from it he would have been replaced by someone ‘more Putinist than Putin’. The personal consequences for Putin of being replaced by an even stricter despot probably would have been severe.
That’s why revolutions so often come out the way they do. They might be initiated by wide-eyed idealists who are after ‘good’ outcomes but eventually the institutional logic of the new system they have set up takes over. Former revolutionaries become the new dictators or they are quickly replaced by those who do.
LOL – “13” is my lucky number. I have it on the back of one of my bouncer shirts. One of the customers said to a bartender … “Why did he pick 13? That number is bad luck!”
Bartender says … “No, it’s LUCKY for him … UNLUCKY for you if he gets upset with you!”
I was not aware that Louisiana law now made me a “gangsta”.
I can ride with that!
No! No! No! Stop ruining my fond memories of Scully!
[…] Maggie ruins my fond memories of Scully. […]
“Remember, kids, an actor doesn’t actually have to be skeptical or rational to play a rational, skeptical character on TV.”
Heheh…part of exactly what I warned my kids about actors and celebrities through the years. Anderson has always been a case in point.
To this 58-year-old, her “Scully” character remains the most-desirable female character in all of TV and movies, with the character’s combination of rational, logical, analytical thinking and very-feminine sensitivities. But the actress herself? Anderson’s always seemed to me to be an air-headed ding-bat, the type I’d avoid at a party.
So, lesson repeated, kids: a sexy face, and a famous prime-time role don’t a credible source make, especially when that source happens to have a potential for earning money from their half-baked rantings.
The contradictions brought to light by this Oakland case need all the publicity it can get. Oakland is an “End Demand” city, and the Alameda County DA’s office has been downright evangelical about pushing this agenda. How telling, then, that the Oakland PD are some of the biggest “traffickers” going, by their own working definition. This speaks volumes about what utter bullshit these policies actually are.