04-11-2018, 07:03 PM
(04-11-2018, 01:09 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:(03-28-2018, 08:33 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:(03-27-2018, 04:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have yet to see rock, jazz, folk, or country musicians lose their credibility for accusations of sexual misconduct. Classical musicians? Likewise. College professors? Most are too obscure. A-list physicists, mathematicians, or liberal-arts scholars? Too obscure to be noticed. Business executives? Too anonymous to be noticed.
It could be that the entertainment industry is much more tolerant of rogues until they go way too far. News media and public television are less tolerant. The fate of Fatty Arbuckle awaits someone... except that Fatty Arbuckle (1887-1933) was likely innocent.
The hypocrisy of sexual-harassers running as 'family values' candidates often leads to political implosion -- for which 'conservatives' seem more vulnerable.
But I saw a feature online a couple of days ago about musicians who weren't very nice people. Chuck Berry, for examples, was well noted for his digressions, but the list also included Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown.
Tried to find the link to this but couldn't.
One thing there has been surprisingly little discussion about is the seizure of Backpage.com and the simultaneous closure or suspension of some other website such as TER. Craiglist pulled their entire personals section, at least for the time being. I would be especially interested in hearing how Eric, the site's main astrologer, views this and what the likely future is for sex workers (the now politically correct term). And when might the PTB finally realize that the prohibition of this activity hasn't worked any more than it did with liquor nearly a century ago? The subject of human trafficking has rightly swept the society away into an ocean of emotion, but do the innocent need to suffer along with the guilty. Many if not most sex workers will now lose the prime screening tool they had to weed out the bad apples and those perceived to be a danger.
I had never heard of Backpage.com until reading of its shutdown by the Feds apparently for advertising sexual encounters. I cannot be sure that bans on prostitution really work. Were we angels there would be practically no prostitution.
Human trafficking often implies prostitution as one of the most lucrative activities for human trafficking. Prostitutes under control of traffickers are often helpless victims unable to escape. As I see it, the economic exploitation is far more objectionable than the sex.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.