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Sex trafficking
#21
(08-03-2019, 09:06 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Leave it to a Boomer to want to create a master race via some technological fantasy. At least Kurzweil only wants to help everyone live forever. (Sorry to pick on your generation, there, pbrower).

Boomer elites in Big Business are really nasty and they deserve your contempt. The rest of us are (once one gets past the extremists) aren't so nasty. But we are also powerless against our own elites unless we can subvert those elites. The narcissism that makes people especially competent at success in bureaucracies looks like a low grade of sociopathy.

The Missionary generation had its loud proponents of eugenics, and Epstein seems to have adopted much of its gibberish about breeding an elite. To this I say that there will always be a necessary elite -- that of the competent and creative able to do some real good. Those adept only at gouging and bureaucratic toadying will become irrelevant or even end up destroying the wealth they steward. The Quaker ethos -- they came to do good and they ended up doing well -- is a good model. Or the Jewish ethos -- do things well and worth doing but be righteous, and both God and economic reality will bless you. Society rewards the competent and creative fairly lest it lose them or waste them and be poorer for the loss.

It is practically more difficult, but far more just, to seek extraordinary talent from unlikely places and cultivate it than to try to breed it. I would love to have Stephen Hawking's mind, but not his ALS. I would love to have Albert Einstein's intellectual prowess but not the genes that gave him Asperger's (as someone who has it I would not sacrifice any part of my intelligence to get rid of it because my intelligence is all that I am, but if I had to become black or gay to have a normal life I would make such a choice). By cultivating such talent as there is one avoids the hazards of inbreeding.

But far worse than Asperger's or even ALS is sociopathy -- and in view of what is said of Jeffrey Epstein he seems to be a sociopath. I do not know whether genes have any connection to sociopathy, but that is a risk not worth taking. Considering that he would mostly be impregnating girls who have problems, and that for their sexual indulgence sociopaths typically exploit girls with problems, I would be scared of the results. Female sociopathy often manifests itself in prostitution, and there might be something to the old Spanish insult hijo de la gran puta (son of the great whore).

I doubt that Stephen Hawking ever did anything horrible to anyone, and Albert Einstein had some moral compass. Well, I can judge evil-doers harshly, and I see the defenseless among us as worthy of protection.

..............

Go ahead -- pick on our worst. They deserve ruin, and if they get their way they will achieve their own ruin, either in an economic meltdown as severe as the Great Depression, or at worst a war for profit that turns into consummate calamity. Monopolists and cartels are better at grabbing wealth than at creating it, and bureaucrats that generate only paperwork and rules do not create wealth. Although few people would appreciate their technological and cultural poverty, the Old Order Amish seem to have a very sane and equitable society. The ones in business seem good at what they do -- but those are small businesses with no bureaucracy. Their culture does little to foster narcissism.
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.


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#22
(08-03-2019, 11:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(08-03-2019, 09:06 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Leave it to a Boomer to want to create a master race via some technological fantasy. At least Kurzweil only wants to help everyone live forever. (Sorry to pick on your generation, there, pbrower).

Boomer elites in Big Business are really nasty and they deserve your contempt. The rest of us are (once one gets past the extremists) aren't so nasty. But we are also powerless against our own elites unless we can subvert those elites. The narcissism that makes people especially competent at success in bureaucracies looks like a low grade of sociopathy.

The Missionary generation had its loud proponents of eugenics, and Epstein seems to have adopted much of its gibberish about breeding an elite. To this I say that there will always be a necessary elite -- that of the competent and creative able to do some real good. Those adept only at gouging and bureaucratic toadying will become irrelevant or even end up destroying the wealth they steward. The Quaker ethos -- they came to do good and they ended up doing well -- is a good model. Or the Jewish ethos -- do things well and worth doing but be righteous, and both God and economic reality will bless you. Society rewards the competent and creative fairly lest it lose them or waste them and be poorer for the loss.

It is practically more difficult, but far more just, to seek extraordinary talent from unlikely places and cultivate it than to try to breed it. I would love to have Stephen Hawking's mind, but not his ALS. I would love to have Albert Einstein's intellectual prowess but not the genes that gave him Asperger's (as someone who has it I would not sacrifice any part of my intelligence to get rid of it because my intelligence is all that I am, but if I had to become black or gay to have a normal life I would make such a choice). By cultivating such talent as there is one avoids the hazards of inbreeding.

But far worse than Asperger's or even ALS is sociopathy -- and in view of what is said of Jeffrey Epstein he seems to be a sociopath. I do not know whether genes have any connection to sociopathy, but that is a risk not worth taking. Considering that he would mostly be impregnating girls who have problems, and that for their sexual indulgence sociopaths typically exploit girls with problems, I would be scared of the results. Female sociopathy often manifests itself in prostitution, and there might be something to the old Spanish insult hijo de la gran puta (son of the great whore).

I doubt that Stephen Hawking ever did anything horrible to anyone, and Albert Einstein had some moral compass. Well, I can judge evil-doers harshly, and I see the defenseless among us as worthy of protection.

..............

Go ahead -- pick on our worst. They deserve ruin, and if they get their way they will achieve their own ruin, either in an economic meltdown as severe as the Great Depression, or at worst a war for profit that turns into consummate calamity. Monopolists and cartels are better at grabbing wealth than at creating it, and bureaucrats that generate only paperwork and rules do not create wealth. Although few people would appreciate their technological and cultural poverty, the Old Order Amish seem to have a very sane and equitable society. The ones in business seem good at what they do -- but those are small businesses with no bureaucracy. Their culture does little to foster narcissism.
Your final paragraph in and of itself is an indication that there are two schools of thought as to how the current 4T will play out. Either the monopolists will continue to score victory (dread), or the modern-day equivalent of the proletariat will somehow find a way to conquer. With the first one, the status quo will continue to usurp power until there is nothing more. The top 3 percent will probably own most everything; perhaps the bottom 97 will be given enough crumbs so that they hopefully ( in their view) will not rebel and create the present-day equivalent of the Bastille or Boston Harbor. The second one gives the proles a better chance at creating a more just society, but this cannot happen unless they allow themselves to stand up and be counted.
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#23
(08-03-2019, 03:19 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:
(08-03-2019, 11:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(08-03-2019, 09:06 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Leave it to a Boomer to want to create a master race via some technological fantasy. At least Kurzweil only wants to help everyone live forever. (Sorry to pick on your generation, there, pbrower).

Boomer elites in Big Business are really nasty and they deserve your contempt. The rest of us are (once one gets past the extremists) aren't so nasty. But we are also powerless against our own elites unless we can subvert those elites. The narcissism that makes people especially competent at success in bureaucracies looks like a low grade of sociopathy.

The Missionary generation had its loud proponents of eugenics, and Epstein seems to have adopted much of its gibberish about breeding an elite. To this I say that there will always be a necessary elite -- that of the competent and creative able to do some real good. Those adept only at gouging and bureaucratic toadying will become irrelevant or even end up destroying the wealth they steward. The Quaker ethos -- they came to do good and they ended up doing well -- is a good model. Or the Jewish ethos -- do things well and worth doing but be righteous, and both God and economic reality will bless you. Society rewards the competent and creative fairly lest it lose them or waste them and be poorer for the loss.

It is practically more difficult, but far more just, to seek extraordinary talent from unlikely places and cultivate it than to try to breed it. I would love to have Stephen Hawking's mind, but not his ALS. I would love to have Albert Einstein's intellectual prowess but not the genes that gave him Asperger's (as someone who has it I would not sacrifice any part of my intelligence to get rid of it because my intelligence is all that I am, but if I had to become black or gay to have a normal life I would make such a choice). By cultivating such talent as there is one avoids the hazards of inbreeding.

But far worse than Asperger's or even ALS is sociopathy -- and in view of what is said of Jeffrey Epstein he seems to be a sociopath. I do not know whether genes have any connection to sociopathy, but that is a risk not worth taking. Considering that he would mostly be impregnating girls who have problems, and that for their sexual indulgence sociopaths typically exploit girls with problems, I would be scared of the results. Female sociopathy often manifests itself in prostitution, and there might be something to the old Spanish insult hijo de la gran puta (son of the great whore).

I doubt that Stephen Hawking ever did anything horrible to anyone, and Albert Einstein had some moral compass. Well, I can judge evil-doers harshly, and I see the defenseless among us as worthy of protection.

..............

Go ahead -- pick on our worst. They deserve ruin, and if they get their way they will achieve their own ruin, either in an economic meltdown as severe as the Great Depression, or at worst a war for profit that turns into consummate calamity. Monopolists and cartels are better at grabbing wealth than at creating it, and bureaucrats that generate only paperwork and rules do not create wealth. Although few people would appreciate their technological and cultural poverty, the Old Order Amish seem to have a very sane and equitable society. The ones in business seem good at what they do -- but those are small businesses with no bureaucracy. Their culture does little to foster narcissism.

Your final paragraph in and of itself is an indication that there are two schools of thought as to how the current 4T will play out. Either the monopolists will continue to score victory (dread), or the modern-day equivalent of the proletariat will somehow find a way to conquer. With the first one, the status quo will continue to usurp power until there is nothing more. The top 3 percent will probably own most everything; perhaps the bottom 97 will be given enough crumbs so that they hopefully ( in their view) will not rebel and create the present-day equivalent of the Bastille or Boston Harbor. The second one gives the proles a better chance at creating a more just society, but this cannot happen unless they allow themselves to stand up and be counted.

We are drifting away from the seedy behavior of Jeffrey Epstein into the realm of prediction of the end of this Crisis. I intend to take this discussion elsewhere without mention of that horrible person, an example of sexual exploitation with its basis in a perverse sense of privilege that fraudulently claims the mantle of divine purpose. As I saw in an old issue of American Heritage Magazine on how the planters of the South before the Civil War saw  their relationship with slaves... those planters had saw themselves as the best thing to have ever happened to slaves who were beneficiaries of their loving direction and care. The child molester often sees his relationship with a child as the best thing that ever happened to the child because that child gets a special relationship with the molester who provides goodies in return for what almost everyone sees as sexual exploitation.

We are late enough in this Crisis that the theme of its culmination is already well defined. I see it in the intensification of inequality that will need repression and conformity to enforce its inhuman nastiness. I look at a trend within the Republican Party that involved Lee Atwater, Karl Rove going further down the line, and someone like Steve Bannon as a full-blown fascist intent on destroying democracy in practice while leaving the formality of a Constitution but reality in state terror. Sure, there are elections, but those are rigged so they have no meaning; Congress is responsible in practice to lobbyists instead of to constituents; a secret police enforces the will of some Party on behalf of its corporate supporters.

If I had to choose between a Depression as severe as that of the 1930s or military apocalypse, then I will take the Depression. The last one gutted the power of monopolists and their retainers, and that may be just what we need to revert to an economic pattern compatible with freedom and Constitutional government. Except for the economic elites of the 1920s, life was generally better for Americans in the late 1930s because of a shorter work-day, meaningful retirement pay for people who should have retired (I am guessing that elderly workers in industry had horrible rates of industrial accidents that killed and crippled them), and more equality. Teenagers were more likely staying in high school (the norm of a high-school education began then), which made them more productive workers once they joined the workforce. Ask any employer whether he wants to hire high-school dropouts. Kids still in high school, sure, as their lives still have some structure... but not drop-outs.

A fascistic America will be nightmare enough to Americans, but just wait until you see how it looks outside to people far away. Nobody will want to be in its thrall, and it will create far too many enemies. America won its wars (it was really fighting two separate wars at once) with Germany and Japan because it was much more decent, and it could make its victories stick because nobody had a reason to strike back in the wake of defeat. A fascistic America facing a democratic Japan would have lost the war much as the  Russians lost the Russo-Japanese war and would have been stripped of an empire that included the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska... injustice has an amazing capacity for social implosion.

But the bureaucracies are gone. I cannot predict what will happen to the federal bureaucracy, but we can all predict what will happen to the bureaucracy of Sears.

But even without war, a thoroughly-vile social order plants the seeds of its own destruction. Donald Trump is trying to govern like a dictator, and if he can't find enough collaborators he might have to watch his back from law enforcement, the Armed Services, the Intelligence services, the courts, and the media. Our system of checks and balances so far have stopped one effort to establish a despotic President. The biggest check is a free election, and the 2018 midterm election looked very free and fair.

We still have an economy under the control of people who see the rest of Humanity existing solely to make people already filthy-rich even more filthy rich at great sacrifices by those not rich. Increasing inequality makes an economy more unstable while throttling growth -- unless the growth is a corrupt and doomed bubble. Such bubbles devour capital and collapse, taking some bloated behemoths down with the corporate bureaucrats incapable of generating anything other than rules and paperwork useless anywhere else. Shareholders get burned, but a class the bureaucratic nomenklatura proves useless. Sure, it bought some nice real estate in the good times, but it will have to sell its McMansions for pennies on the dollar or subdivide them into apartments just to keep formal ownership while downsizing.

But we have a cycle in history, and as the dinosaurs went extinct in the K-T calamity, niches opened for larger mammals than rats. In the political and social cycle, openings emerge for lean-running small businesses in local markets. Inventories, real estate, and labor will be cheap. Small businesses will include activities in which small businesses once were commonplace, as in restaurants, retail stores from clothing places to grocery stores, and even manufacturing and banking. There was hardly a better time for starting a small business than the 1930s. People must do real work to survive, and community flourishes anew.
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.


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#24
The discussion of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged depredations upon young women as a connection to generational theory, largely sans references to him, has gone here.
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.


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#25
Epstein has brought shame on America. But Sartre and his slut brought even bigger shame on Europe. First, it happened in less decadent times; second, at least nobody claimed that Epstein was a philosophical genius on a level with Voltaire.
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#26
(08-14-2019, 08:41 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: Epstein has brought shame on America. But Sartre and his slut brought even bigger shame on Europe. First, it happened in less decadent times; second, at least nobody claimed that Epstein was a philosophical genius on a level with Voltaire.

Epstein has brought shame upon himself -- too much for him to personally handle. Of course, people can kill themselves just as much out of fear as of shame, and as a (formerly) rich Jew and pedophile he had much to dread in prison. We will never know why he killed himself... Jews are not a large part of the prison population, and in view of the neo-Nazi prison gangs, I wouldn't be talking about a bar mitzvah or trying to explain why I don't need Jesus if I were in prison and were Jewish. (I am not Jewish, but I can imagine neo-Nazis thinking that I am a Jew because I have a German-sounding surname, I am a liberal, I connect to an Enlightenment culture, and like anyone who claims any decency as a person I thoroughly despise everything Nazi. Affinities to German and Austrian culture? Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert seem not to be foci of neo-Nazi culture, but they are well received in Israel). Because he surely molested "Aryan" girls he committed the worst sin that a neo-Nazi can see in a Jew, Rassenschande, which was good for execution (for the Jew) in the Third Reich. 

Then there is the pedophile angle... and even serial killers see themselves as better than those who mess with children. Part of this may be that many violent offenders were themselves violated early and see in pedophiles what they hated in someone who betrayed the usual trust that delicate little souls need. 

Now his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is in serious legal trouble for allegedly enabling his activities. I find it hard to imagine.
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.


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#27
(07-16-2020, 06:37 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Now his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is in serious legal trouble for allegedly enabling his activities. I find it hard to imagine.

She seemed shocked by the very logical decision to deny her bail. I suspect she had plans that are now disrupted -- let's hope permanently.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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#28
(07-16-2020, 09:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(07-16-2020, 06:37 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Now his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is in serious legal trouble for allegedly enabling his activities. I find it hard to imagine.

She seemed shocked by the very logical decision to deny her bail.  I suspect she had plans that are now disrupted -- let's hope permanently.

She didn't see it coming. But nobody expects the anti-pedophile Inquisition. 

At least the Jews, Muslims, and heretics deserved better.
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.


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#29
(07-16-2020, 01:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(07-16-2020, 09:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(07-16-2020, 06:37 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Now his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is in serious legal trouble for allegedly enabling his activities. I find it hard to imagine.

She seemed shocked by the very logical decision to deny her bail.  I suspect she had plans that are now disrupted -- let's hope permanently.

She didn't see it coming. But nobody expects the anti-pedophile Inquisition. 

At least the Jews, Muslims, and heretics deserved better.



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.


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#30
Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on five of six felony charges and faces 40 years in prison. For someone 62 years old, that is effectively a life sentence.









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.


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#31
Jeffrey Epstein Victims Sue Banks They Allege Were 'Facilitating' Sex Trafficking Operation

“Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions,” said a lawyer.
Mary Papenfuss

Two major banks used by the late Jeffrey Epstein are being sued for allegedly “facilitating” and profiting from his sex trafficking operations involving girls and young women.

Two anonymous Epstein accusers filed lawsuits against Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday.

The lawsuits, which use similar language, allege that the banks knowingly benefited from “assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization to successfully rape, sexually assault, and coercively sex traffic” the women — despite knowing about Epstein’s operation, as The Wall Street Journal first reported.

The suits are seeking unspecified damages and ask to be certified as a class action, according to Bloomberg.

Epstein died of an apparent suicide in jail in 2019 before he could be brought to trial, but he had been convicted of sex crimes in Florida before he was charged with running a sex trafficking operation.

His longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison in June for grooming young girls for Epstein to abuse — many as young as 14.

The banking institutions knew “they would earn millions of dollars” in fees for facilitating Epstein in his illegal operation from 1998 to 2013, and “chose profit over following the law,” according to the lawsuits.

Using a bank for various transactions gave Epstein’s operations the “appearance of legitimacy,” according to the filing against Deutsche Bank. Epstein could not have maintained the sex trafficking operations without the “assistance and complicity” of banks, the suits contend.

“Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions,” Bradley Edwards, a lawyer at Edwards Pottinger, one of the firms bringing the suit, said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “We will not stop fighting for the survivors until everyone is held responsible.”

JPMorgan has not responded to the suits. A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank said in a statement, “We believe this claim lacks merit and will present our arguments in court.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jeffrey-e...f4a542cef4
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.


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#32
These days, accusations of sex trafficking are as dangerous as sex trafficking. QAnon believers accused Democrats of being sex traffickers. Alex Jones fed the flames with Pizzagate. It's the ancient anti-semitic blood libel. Jews are killing children and drinking their blood. The Nazis are their descendants, and they are the ancestors of QAnon.

https://youtu.be/hDXJ9OUco04?t=2136
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#33
(11-29-2022, 02:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: These days, accusations of sex trafficking are as dangerous as sex trafficking. QAnon believers accused Democrats of being sex traffickers. Alex Jones fed the flames with Pizzagate. It's the ancient anti-semitic blood libel. Jews are killing children and drinking their blood. The Nazis are their descendants, and they are the ancestors of QAnon.

https://youtu.be/hDXJ9OUco04?t=2136

True. Witchcraft used to be a pretext for burning at the stake. This said, any accusation of horrific crimes  must have a solid basis for any indictment and prosecution. Due process and the presumption of innocence must apply.

Bankers are not free to facilitate illegal transactions, which in part explains statutes against money-laundering. 

What did the bankers know, and when did they. Deutsche Bank is one of the world's most corrupt banks.
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.


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#34
[Image: ?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s...n-logo.png]


By: City News Service
Posted at 12:29 PM, Feb 21, 2023
and last updated 10:10 PM, Feb 21, 2023

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A month-long anti-human trafficking operation targeting suspected traffickers and prospective commercial sex customers resulted in 48 arrests in San Diego and National City, authorities announced Tuesday.

Operation Better Pathways, which was held between Jan. 9 and Feb. 10, involved law enforcement surveillance of "areas known for sexual exploitation in San Diego and National City."

Undercover officers posed as people offering sex for sale, resulting in the four dozen arrests for alleged crimes ranging from human trafficking of a minor to assault with a deadly weapon. Additionally, 41 other people -- including eight children -- were offered support services as a result of the operation.

Those arrested are being referred for possible state and/or federal criminal prosecution, according to the California Attorney General's Office.

In a statement, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephen said, "I personally visited the National City and San Diego City locations that this operation targeted and what I saw was appalling. Young women being openly trafficked in broad daylight, with individuals paying for sex lined up like they were going through a fast-food drive thru."

More than 1,300 human trafficking cases were reported in 2021 in California, more than any other state, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The California Attorney General's Office statement on Operation Better Pathways states that human trafficking is prevalent in the hospitality, commercial sex, domestic work and construction industries, and victims are also found among migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, providers of residential care and in California's garment sector.

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/s...ional-city

Comment: exploitation, and not sex, is the problem.
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.


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