Playboy, Penthouse and other sex-themed magazines will no longer be sold at Army and Air Force exchanges — a move described by the stores' operators as a business decision based on falling sales, and not a result of recent pressure from anti-pornography activists.
I take the exchanges’ word for it that this move was strictly based on lack of sales and not because of the rampant numbers of sexual harassment and abuse incidents among the ranks- which is the reason I first suspected.
However a group called
Morality in Media applauds the decision as a move toward more decency in our world:
Morality in Media, a Washington-based anti-pornography group, called the decision "a great victory" in its campaign against sexual exploitation in the military, and said it would continue to urge operators of Navy and Marine Corps exchanges to follow suit.
Though disturbed that military members have easy access and exposure to risqué publications, Morality in Media seems to have no problem accepting the lack of morality displayed through the
actions of the US Army and Air Force.
The Army regularly invades sovereign countries in aggressive acts of colonial occupation, tortures and murders their people with abandon, robs their resources, and leaves their land poisoned and hopeless.
The Air Force is keen on releasing huge, explosive ordinance from the sky, anonymously blowing to bits any innocent soul who happens to unfortunately wander underneath their flight paths.
These truths seem to escape the morality microscope of Morality in Media, who deem racy images on paper and screen as an abomination more worthy facing, rather than the stark reality of murderous, military thugs.
It’s a shame MIM doesn’t “regularly direct national awareness campaigns to help the public understand the consequences” of
war rather than work to censor bawdy representations of sexuality and raunchy language. Can the supposed “obscenity” of these activities really prevail in importance over the infinitely more and blatantly obvious obscenity- the savagery and barbarity of
war?
"We had military families calling us after seeing porn on the shelves," [MIM spokeswoman] Iris Somberg said Thursday. "The exchanges are supposed to be a safe place for families to go do their shopping."
It’s a shame Ms. Somberg is also not concerned about the actual physical safety of native people, threatened daily doing “their shopping” in the numerous war zones created by the US military. I’m certain those folks are more concerned about that reality than being exposed to a rack of nudie magazines.
And isn’t it disturbing that those within the military’s ranks object vociferously to having their children exposed to such publications but see no problem supporting and raising their children in a culture of hired killers, committing acts of death and destruction on the orders of deranged despots?
"The joint chiefs of staff said we need to change the culture," she [Ms. Somberg] said. "One way to do that is to not have this material sold on base."
Ms. Somberg, you need to do far more “to change the culture” than eliminate a few magazines showing nude, young women from the view of these mercenaries. This action will not alter the reality that the “culture” you wish to change is one that fosters and rewards individual-destroying conformity, fanatical allegiance, unbending obedience, and inhuman behavior; a culture that cannot be allowed to continue if human existence and liberty is to thrive and prosper. This culture must be branded no less than uncivilized and its willing participants subject to societal ostracism.
Let us make “efforts to educate and influence on the dangers and harms” of
war and
nationalism to foster this far more necessary and compelling change to the "culture." Then we can deal with lesser perversities.
Resistance is Mandatory
No rulers
No masters
NO CONSENT
