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Posts Tagged ‘dehumanization’

I can’t breathe.  –  Anthony Johnson Jr.

I remember this song from The Doctor Demento Show in the late ’70s, and recently thought about it again; if it sticks in your brain for almost half a century as it did to me, my work here is done.  The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel, Jesse Walker, Scott Hechinger, Billy Binion, IncarcerNation, Walter Olson, and Brooke Magnanti, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Simply claiming that the “age verification preserves online anonymity” does not make it so.  –  Judge Patrick Higginbotham

Policing for Profit

Cops usually make up some pretext, however flimsy, for their armed robbery schemes:

Indiana State Police…located 26 shipping containers [full of military surplus and other equipment, plus] a…forklift…and a[n entire] locomotive [stolen] from the former Jeffersonville Powder Plant…[by] former Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel…[by interrogating] Sheriff’s Office…employees [ordered to] move…the property…Defense Department…criminal investigators said the Clark County Sheriff’s Office had received $7 million in surplus property between 2015 and 2022 when Noel was sheriff.  Auction records…show…two air compressors and a generator [were] sold [in 2023]…Noel has been charged with 25 felonies…

Chauvinism (#335)

“Major events such as…the Olympics always provide an excuse for governments to ‘clean things up’ in the host cities before the guests arrive”:

French police [a]re cracking down on Paris sex workers ahead of the Olympics…Charities working in…the Boulogne and Vincennes woods…ha[ve] noted “increased police patrols ahead of the Games with heavy-handed identity controls on women working in the sex industry.”  They urged authorities [not] to…”rob, rape and assault [sex workers].”  French authorities[‘ pretext is a mythical] increase in prostitution during the Olympic and Paralympic Games which will begin on July 26 – something…[repeatedly disproven by years of reports and stud]ies…”Contrary to [government claim]s, sex workers are not in the process of arriving in large numbers in Paris where the cost of accommodation is constantly increasing ahead of the Olympics”…Other charities have denounced efforts by the French authorities to move migrants and the homeless out of the capital ahead of the Games…

The tagline quote is from an essay I wrote for Reason ten years ago; note what’s missing from their rhetoric despite its omnipresence in stories about the London Olympics?

Lack of Evidence (#1312) 

California pigs are still using “sex trafficking” myths to argue they should be allowed to assault, rape, and abduct women for merely existing in public:

…little more than a year after SB 357 became law, some [politician]s want…to once again criminalize loitering in a public place with the intent to commit prostitution.  Supporters of the bills…[vomited a lot of ugly, moronic nonsense about how cops are brave heroes whose often-violent harassment of women on the street constitute] efforts to combat human trafficking [and women are much too stupid and pathetic to make their own decisions, so cops must be empowered to force them, for their own good of course]…

The whiplash-inducing speed with which California pivots on civil rights issues is one of the reasons I tend to be such an Eeyore on these baby-step reforms, which are mostly intended to distract activists and hush timid human rights campaigners.

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1405)

The 5th Circuit is, as usual, somewhat confused:

…the 5th Circuit [has] handed down a mixed opinion in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.  The Court unanimously upheld the preliminary injunction barring [Texas] from mandating pseudoscientific “health warnings” on adult websites.  By a 2-1 decision, however, it lifted the injunction against the state’s age verification mandate…this decision does not change the fact that platforms that do not implement age verification measures will be at risk of prosecution by the Attorney General, as has been the case since the Fifth Circuit stayed the preliminary injunction last September…As the dissenting opinion by Judge Higginbotham makes clear, [lifting the injunction] violates decades of precedent from the Supreme Court [requiring]…strict scrutiny to content-based regulations that limit adults’ access to protected speech…

Shame, Shame (#1405)

These ghouls have absolutely no shame:

Marilyn Monroe, who died 62 years ago, has been [imit]ated [by] a “hyper-real” [computer]-generated digital [zombie] that lets fans engage in a conversation with [a computer imitating] the late act[ress] — wh[ich] can answer questions “in Marilyn’s signature voice and style,” according t[o]…Soul Machines…which [claims]…the…chatbot…is able to read users’ emotions and respond accordingly via…proprietary camera and microphone technology…other recent…i[mitation]s [of] dead celebrities…include an animated biopic of French singer Edith Piaf that will use [a computer] to create a facsimile of her voice and image and the Calm app’s [computer]-generated [imitation] of Jimmy Stewart reading a bedtime story

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1415)

Next time you find yourself wondering why Florida is such a perpetual cavalcade of crazy, visit this link and read the whole thing, then ask yourself what kind of defective intellect could possibly fall for even 3% of this egregious bootlickery.  The single fact contained therein is that Florida politicians have economized by creating one unconstitutional float to enter into two fashionable “monkey see, monkey do” parades, the “age verification” parade and the “social media is a tool of Satan intentionally designed to destroy Our Precious Children” parade.  WWSB couldn’t find even a single employee with low enough self-esteem to sign off on this turd, so it’s simply credited to “staff”.  I suppose an intern assigned to copy-paste a press release does qualify as “staff”, so at least that much is true.

The Last Shall Be First (#1418) 

Both sides in the culture war have completely taken leave of their senses:

A newly proposed law in Missouri could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they’re found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning…[bill sponsor] Jamie Gragg…said the goal of the bill is to [define legal minors as the property of] the family that they come from [without legal rights as individuals]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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You can’t censor what isn’t said in the first place.  –  Sarah McLaughlin

Surplus Women

A classic case of “NHI”:

The family of a murdered sex worker have said police “have blood on their hands” after a man was finally brought to justice despite earlier major investigation failings..Iain Packer…was found guilty of…the “execution” of Emma Caldwell…after…[Packer] lured [her] from Glasgow’s red-light district, dr[ove] to remote woods 40 miles away, strangled [her] and dumped [her body] naked in a ditch…Packer [frequently hired] sex workers…and admitted to police in the initial 2005 investigation that he had previously [hired] Emma…[but] he was not arrested or charged for 17 years as [cops preferred to persecute] a group of Turkish men [despite other sex workers telling cops that Packer was sexually violent years before Caldwell was killed].  Packer…was convicted of 11 charges of rape against nine women among dozens of other offences…the family solicitor said: “A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer – instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again”…

Censorship Ascendant

In our increasingly-connected world governments are increasingly able to cause trouble for people who say things they dislike far beyond their own borders:

On Nov. 16, 2023, Reuters published a deeply-reported investigation about an Indian company named Appin, which…act[s] as a “premier provider of cyberespionage services for private investigators working on behalf of big business, law firms and wealthy clients.” But…Reuters has removed their reporting, and some other outlets have followed suit…[due to] a court order against Reuters…secured in India by a group operating under the Appin name…Globally, even in the United States, people are unable to read reports about Appin because a court order from half a world away limits everyone’s access to online news and information.  This…may hint at what’s increasingly the future of censorship online…authors of stories about the reporting, or even about the removals of it, face pressure now, too…Readers…can find it at Distributed Denial of Secrets…and…on Archive.Today.  But…[even] Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine [chickened out]…

Virtual Imperialism (#1202)

Governments worldwide are emulating China’s evil:

…”transnational repression” [is] a form of authoritarianism that…has becoming disturbingly common in recent years…”More than 20 percent of the world’s national governments have reached beyond their borders since 2014 to forcibly silence exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, and members of ethnic or religious minorities,” finds a Freedom House report released in February…”25 countries’ governments were responsible for 125 incidents of physical transnational repression in 2023 alone, including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations.”  Last year enjoyed the dubious distinction…of featuring the first documented cases of transnational repression by Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador…Sierra Leone, and Yemen…[though] the year’s main culprits [were] Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, and China…

If Men Were Angels (#1256)

Female “youth ministers” aren’t safe either, at least if they’re married:

[The husband of a Louisiana youth minister] has been arrested [for molesting]…children…Daniel Steven Parker [has been committing] …similar…crimes…at [least since]…2020…and [probably much longer]…

No Escape

Your “leaders” refer to this mindless brutality as “correction”:

A woman [locked in a cage by the state of] Georgia…has filed a federal lawsuit [because] she was [so brut]ally [rap]ed by a[n out-of-control screw she] had to undergo surgery…for partial uterus removal…

No Difference (#1359)

Another victory for US evangelical prohibitionists:

Ghana’s parliament has passed a [horrifying] new bill that imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of [merely] identifying as LGBT…[and] a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBT…groups.  [Politicians] heckled down attempts to replace prison sentences with community service and counselling…The bill, which had the backing of Ghana’s two major political parties, will come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law…[but] he previously said…he would do so if the majority of Ghanaians want him to.  Gay sex is already against the law in Ghana – it carries a three-year prison sentence…[but] activists fear there will now be witch-hunts…

To Molest and Rape (ROTW #6)

Give sexually-aggressive thugs power over teens; what could possibly go wrong?

…[A Nebraska cop named] Juan Casado Moya [has been charged] for [repeatedly molesting]…a 16-year-old [girl]…at…the…school…[where]…he [was assigned to spy on, harass, and intimidate]…student[s.  He has been rewarded with a paid vacation]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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We should be perfectly clear about the ultimate goal of Axon, its network, and the people behind The Fall of Minneapolis: They want to make it easier for police to kill people without consequence.  –  Radley Balko

Regular readers of this blog need no introduction to Radley Balko; in fact, many of my longest-term readers were introduced to me via a guest-blogging stint on his old blog, The Agitator, in July of 2012.  If you are unfamiliar with his work, let me simply say that he is quite possibly the greatest living criminal justice journalist, and that is neither hyperbole nor flattery.  His thoroughness and dedication are truly awe-inspiring, and I couldn’t be as fair and measured as he is when discussing horrifying injustices and nauseating atrocities if there were 10 million bucks riding on it.  His latest project is a massive three-part debunking of copsucking authoritarians’ ongoing “effort to retroactively justify Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd“, and the third part includes a section on “excited delirium”, a fictional syndrome used to exonerate cops from culpability when they asphyxiate black people with their shockingly-brutal and sadistically thuggish arrest tactics.  I’ve been paying attention to this peudoscientific claptrap for some time now, so given what I already know about “NHI” and sex workers being among the police state’s perenial guinea pigs for new evils, this probably shouldn’t have surprised me:

Excited delirium…posits that some people just spontaneously die during intense, high-stress interactions with police, through no fault of law enforcement.  It’s…highly dubious and not supported by any major medical organization.  Over the last several decades, there’s been a concerted effort to pressure medical examiners to diagnose excited delirium when the real cause of death was positional asphyxia.  This not only exonerates cops who kill, it encourages police practices that will lead to more deaths…The origin of excited delirium is shonky and steeped in bigotry…it…was first described in the mid-1980s by Miami medical examiner Charles Wetli after a wave of black sex workers were found dead under mysterious circumstances.  Because some of the women had cocaine in their system, Wetli theorized that there must be something about the physiology of black women that causes them to spontaneously die after mixing cocaine with sex.  Despite the absurdity of Wetli’s theory, it precluded homicide as a manner of death, which made it much more difficult for police to investigate the possible murders.  It wasn’t until a victim was found in a similar state as the other bodies, but had no cocaine in her system, that the city’s chief medical examiner reviewed the…other cases…[and] found evidence of asphyxiation that Wetli had overlooked.  Police eventually arrested a serial killer named Charles Henry Williams for the murders…

…The Miami debacle should have been an embarrassment that ended Wetli’s career.  It did not.  The controversy isn’t even mentioned in his fairly long New York Times obituary.  Instead, he failed upward, becoming the chief medical examiner in Suffolk, County, New York…[where he] continued to develop his theory in ways that proved convenient for law enforcement.  He expanded excited delirium to also include black men, particularly those who die in police custody.  “Seventy percent of people dying of coke-induced delirium are black males, even though most users are white,” he once said.  Instead of concluding that perhaps this was because police were more likely to use excessive force against black men, Wetli added, “It may be genetic”…Wetli’s work eventually landed him a lucrative side gig with Axon International, the company that makes the Taser (formerly known as Taser International), who began to pay Wetli to testify as an expert witness at the trials of police officers accused of brutality…

There’s a great deal more; this is just a small sample.  Jesse Walker suggested that the best way to read the piece is to start with part three, covering the big picture, following links back to the first two parts as you go; that seems wise to me, given the depth and density of the piece,  But however you read it, read it you should.  And if you aren’t already following Radley’s work, you really need to correct that.

 

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This is treating people like inventory in a way I’ve not seen.
–  Jutta Williams

Torture Chamber

This will continue until journalists stop obediently referring to senseless violence as “correction”:

A [typical and representative New Hampshire screw has been] charged…with [the] murder…of a patient at [the] prison psychiatric unit [last year]…Matthew Millar [committed the murder by] kneeling on Jason Rothe’s torso and neck for several minutes on April 29 while Rothe was face-down and handcuffed…Rothe…[never] committed [any] crimes but…was committed…in 2019…and transferred to the prison unit in 2022 [under the claim that] he posed a risk to himself or others…

A Broker in Pillage (#1074)

This will continue until there are federal criminal charges for “officials”, both political and corporate, who conspire to rob people this way:

In Arizona, citizens can still lose their houses over minuscule tax bills, despite a unanimous 2023 Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to paralyze the practice nationwide…Christine Searle, a 70-year-old retiree, faces the loss of her home—valued at [$376,800]—over a mere $1,607.68 in back taxes…Maricopa County…[inflicted] a tax lien…on her home…then allowed [a] company [to] purchase…the lien [and] foreclose on her home, meaning Searle lost her home and all its equity…Arizona is not the only state that has permitted local governments to transfer tax liens…to [cron]ies.  In Nebraska, for example, private investors have been known to buy out tax debt without formal correspondence with the homeowner.  Once notified, those unable to satisfy their debt in full—plus interest and fees—have watched as the county treasurer gave the deed to their property away to the [legalized]…robb[er]…

Welcome to the Future (#1265)

Everything I read about modern corporate work makes me happier I became a whore:

Depending on where you work, there’s a significant chance that [computer algorithms are] analyzing your messages on…popular apps.  Huge U.S. employers such as Walmart, Delta Air Lines, T-Mobile, Chevron, and Starbucks, as well as European brands including Nestle and AstraZeneca, have turned to a seven-year-old startup, Aware, to [eavesdrop on] chatter among their [peons.  Their masters]…can see how employees of a certain age group or in a particular geography are responding to a new corporate policy or marketing campaign…[the software] can also identify bullying, harassment, discrimination, noncompliance, pornography, nudity and other behaviors…[yet supposedly] doesn’t have the ability to flag individual employee names…[except] in the event of [whatever the corporate client chooses to define as “]extreme threats or other risk behaviors[“]…

The Red Umbrella (#1327)

As long as sex work is marginalized, sex workers will be targeted for violence:

A St. Louis man [has been] charged…with shooting a sex worker at his residence…Norman B. Nelson…[shot the woman] around 3:18 a.m. on Jan. 22…[she] was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition…

The Next Target (#1332)

Prohibitionist politicians’ real goal is total government control of the internet:

Belgium’s Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) is [using censorious German politician Tobias Schmid’s KIVI tool to]…“automatically search…the Internet, looking for freely accessible pornography, among other things.”  Adult content is…automatically flagged by the system as “suspicious,” triggering human review…In addition to pornography, KIVI is also trained to detect categories like “extremism, hate speech, swastikas or the glorification of drugs”…in…images, texts and videos on all websites, as well as apps like “Telegram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok…VKontakte and…Bitchute”…With the Belgium partnership, Germany’s provincial regulatory authority from North Rhine-Westphalia is now on the road to becoming…“largely responsible for the introduction of a European porn detector”…Belgian authorities…[are also planning] “to expand the use of KIVI to cover hate speech”…

The Last Shall Be First (#1350) 

Both sides in the culture war have completely taken leave of their senses:

A new bill in Wyoming…would declare that gender-affirming care is “not in the best interest” of transgender youth within the state.  The bill would apply this presumption to custody battles, guardianships, and even the rules around Child Protective Services…A non-affirming parent who divorces an affirming parent could use the provisions to take a transgender child in a custody battle…A grandparent or relative who does not approve of a transgender youth’s gender transition could…[demand to] be appointed emergency guardian…Even worse, Child [“]Protective[“] Services could be weaponized against transgender youth in the state…

Creepy Coppers (#1397)

Some cops don’t limit themselves to one type of creepiness:

A Racine [Wisconsin cop] was arrested after [exposing himself to another man in a gas station bathroom, and when his fellow cops searched his phone they found]…videos of child pornography…Preston Kite…[contacted the other man on] the [gay hookup] app Sniffies…[but] he…was not expecting…to…see a [wanking pig] in full [magic clown regalia, and was therefore understandably]…scared [that this was a porcine scheme to ruin his life.  The man beat a hasty retreat] and…took a picture of the [pigmobile] parked [outside, which]…was [the one] assigned to Kite…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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What I see is that you don’t have a problem with my profession, as long as it’s practiced by other, lesser women you can pay; you’re just upset because a woman you clearly still have proprietary feelings about might want to make a career of fucking other men beside you.  –  “Not Your Place

If their victims were anyone other than sex workers and clients, these Stasi wannabes could be arrested and charged under stalking laws.
–  “Out of Their Tree

Reality is reality, and it doesn’t change just because one person…is unhappy with the results.  –  “Beyond the Pale

Immature men who want to be “heroes” without putting in the work and brainpower necessary to become, say, defense lawyers or medical researchers, instead console their pathetic fee-fees by becoming cops or by calling the cops on women who dare to try to make a living outside of kitchens, sweatshops, elementary schools or secretarial pools.  –  “Wannabe Heroes

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They just threw him out like trash.  –  Gretchen Hankins

If Men Were Angels

This will continue until fools stop teaching children unquestioning obedience to “authority”:

A [typical and representative] pastor of an independent Baptist church in…Warsaw [Virginia] is facing 30 felony charges [for molesting and even raping children]…at the church between 1981 and 1997.  Albert Benjamin Wharton…has [worked for]…seven churches in Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida over the past four decades[, so there may be many more victims]…

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#667)

It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony corporation does it:

Universal Health Services…is the nation’s largest psychiatric hospital chain, with 185 inpatient…facilities and dozens of acute care hospitals…More than 21,000 inpatient psychiatric beds—or one in six across the country—are operated by UHS, which brought in $13.4 billion last year.  In recent years, the company has been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits and investigations…UHS facilities admitted patients who didn’t need to be there…failed to provide adequate treatment…billed insurance for unnecessary services…improperly used physical and chemical restraints and isolation….[and] used suicidal ideation to “justify almost any admission”…thousands of foster kids have been [condemn]ed in recent years to UHS’s psychiatric facilities, where they typically stay for weeks or months, sometimes leaving far worse off than when they arrived…a symbiotic relationship has developed between…[“]child welfare[“] agencies, which have too many kids in custody and not enough places to put them, and [fascist] companies like UHS…Kids often come back to facilities again and again, acting out more with each admission…To UHS and its competitors…foster kids are “a gold mine”…

Believe Them

Mississippi demonstrates exactly what it thinks of its subjects:

Some 215 bodies were found in a pauper’s cemetery… just outside of Jackson, [Mississippi]…intended for people who have no known family, but…relatives…were never contacted by officials.  Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the families of Marrio Moore, Dexter Wade, and Jonathan Hankins, who were all buried in the cemetery without the knowledge of their families…the deceased are put in body bags and placed into…graves [so shallow that]..the stench [of decomposition is]…drawing buzzards…Wade was [not a prisoner; he was run over by a cop driving a pigmobile, then his]…identification [was ignored and his]…family was not notified…[so they] thought he was missing until…recently…

The Mob Rules (#1322)

Partisan fanatics want you to believe this is fundamentally different from very similar laws in Arkansas and Utah, because “red and blue”:

…the supposed “harm” of social media to teen mental health just isn’t supported by the data.  But it seems it’s never enough to stop savior-complex folk…[like] Jim Steyer, who has more money and ignorance than sense, trying to quietly push a California ballot initiative that would adjust the California constitution in an unconstitutional (by the US Constitution) manner to falsely claim that social media is deliberately harmful to kids, and that people should be able to sue social media for a million dollars any time any kid anywhere is “harmed” in a manner…that the…company should have magically stopped.  He submitted the proposal…right before the holidays when most people weren’t paying attention, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta has a comment period open that ends on January 17th…Bonta’s office has supported a variety of problematic “protect the children online!” laws, including the Age Appropriate Design Code that a district court has already noted was pretty clearly unconstitutional

Winding Down (#1342)

Politicians are terrified that the state is losing ways to destroy peaceful citizens’ lives:

California’s…governor…Gavin Newsom…[vetoed] bills that would have decriminalized four naturally occurring psychedelics and authorized Amsterdam-style cannabis cafés.  Senate Bill 58…was similar to a groundbreaking ballot initiative that Colorado voters approved in 2022, [and] would have eliminated criminal penalties for adults 21 or older who use psilocybin, psilocyn, mescaline, or dimethyltryptamine…But [Newsom claims]…it would be [“]reckless[“] to stop threatening psychedelic users with arrest and jail…Assembly Bill 374…would have allowed dispensaries, with local approval, to serve marijuana along with noncannabis food and beverages, which is currently illegal.  It also would have explicitly allowed live music…[but] Newsom [is] “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing” [war on]…smoking

A Moral Cancer (#1388)

SCOTUS says it’s OK for politicians to specifically target black people with prohibitionist laws:

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a California law that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes, leaving the state law in place…The ban’s challengers…told the justices that the law “has shut the doors to one of the Nation’s largest markets for flavored tobacco products and thereby banned a product (menthol cigarettes) that has been lawfully sold for nearly a century,” [and which are used by 77-88% of black American smokers]…

Vulture Watching (#1394)

SCOTUS also says it’s OK if deranged Idaho politicians let women die and ruin doctors’ careers if they try to prevent that:

The Supreme Court [has] allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.  The justices said they would hear arguments in April and [if any women die before that it’s just tough luck]…the Biden administration has argued that hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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People who believe that the human psyche and human culture are both the products of Divine ordination have either never fallen in love, or else they think God is a sadist.
–  “Since the Model Came Out

Human beings don’t exist to serve you, to be “empowered” by you, or to be defined in relation to you.  –  “Up for Grabs

The police are terrorists; their job is to inspire terror of violating the whims of politicians by inflicting violence on people who are legally innocent of any wrongdoing.  –  “The Cop Myth

I call sex work a harm reduction method for monogamy because it is.  –  “Because It Is

Hollywood has its collective head so far up the collective prohibitionist rectum that it has to bend over backward describing an actual pimp as a “male madam” and a “sex fixer” rather than simply admitting that the truth about sex work doesn’t resemble a bad screenplay full of evil “traffickers”, pathetic “victims” and brave “rescuers”.  –  “R.I.P. Scotty Bowers

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The Swedish model is not “partial decriminalization”, and I wish people (especially reporters; we expect lies from politicians) would stop pretending otherwise.  Sex workers are still criminalized under it.  Imagine robbery itself were not illegal, but everything about it (including, say, “entering a business with intent to rob” and “possessing stolen money”, etc) still was.  You would call anyone crowing that “robbery was partially decriminalized” an idiot, and you would be right.  So please, don’t be an idiot.  The Swedish model is not decriminalization of any kind, “partial” or otherwise.

Things that are still illegal under various Swedish model regimes (they’re not all the same):

  • seeing clients at a specific place, such as a home (often enforced by compelled eviction)
  • talking to or assisting other sex workers
  • having any support (maid, driver, etc)
  • advertising

The Swedish model also criminalizes all normal human connection a sex worker might have, including friends, romantic partners, landlords, sometimes even adult offspring.  Sex workers can be evicted, expelled from university, deported, committed to institutions, or have their children ripped from them.  Their persons can be “searched for evidence” (guess where), and they can be caged to force them to testify vs their clients.  Still think it’s “partial decriminalization”?  No?  Then don’t be a damned stooge parroting prohibitionist propaganda.

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