Our Blacklists and Theirs, Our Boycotts and Theirs Moral Certainty And Moral Ambiguity

Milo Yiannopoulos is more than merely sufficiently deserving of disdain and discrediting, especially as he discredited himself by advocating pedophile rape on a radio show.  He deserved both before that happened. Like so many young folk on the neo-fascist right, Yiannopoulos apparently is addicted to getting attention and he doesn't have the sense to reign it in as he tries to get attention.   I'm 100% OK with him losing speaking gigs and a book deal with a publishing house which, in a better age, probably would never have published something the creep wrote.   Frankly, I loathe him.

It does, though, make me wonder why all of these people who are in dudgeon about the disgusting things Milo Y said aren't in infinitely higher dudgeon over the pedophile porn that floods the internet with images, photos, gifs, videos and text that document the actual rape of real instead of theoretical children with text that encourages not only their rape but their sadistic abuse by adult men, much of it with themes of incest and use of power - including men dressed up in clerical drag, as teachers, coaches, police, etc - serving the very same people who advocates of pedophilia want to enable to do even more of it.  And, don't lie about it, the internet abounds with such porn apparently protected by the clearly lying disclaimers that "all models are believed to be over 18" as found on so many a Tumblr.  No one is so stupid as to believe some of the very young children being raped on them are close to 18.

If you bring up that tidal wave of porn that will show up in many an innocent word search everything from a denial that it exists to a denial that the "models" being raped aren't obviously under the magical age of 18 that is always claimed - even as the text that goes along with them claims otherwise - to the pious accusations that you're putting a hurt on someone's free speech - free press by pointing that out.   It's happened here often enough when that's brought up.  Go try it anyplace online.

If you press the issues, eventually it will turn into a rant, among the older or more informed ones names like the late Andrea Dworkin or Catharine MacKinnon will be raised.  And it's certainly not only on the alleged left that will happen.   Once the neo-fascists and the Republican-fascists realized there was both a fortune to be made in porn and that lots of right-wingers love their porn and that the same brain-dead arguments that the civil-liberties industry made to empower porn could be used to empower right-wing lies to their political benefit, the former prudes of Republicanism became full-fledged advocates of the "rights" of the porn industry.   That is the reason that there was ever a place in the neo-fascist right for someone like Yiannopoulos, the values of porn culture are all about people with more power and wealth using people without it, they are merely an extension of that use into sex as, formerly, the right advocated in terms of economic and industrial exploitation.   The libertarian-liberals of the 1960s paved the way for that through their favoring the sexual exploitation while mouthing opposition to the economic exploitation - as if porn didn't always include both.

The happiness that I and many others feel over the possible blacklisting of Yiannopoulos over his going too far is another issue.  And, don't make any mistake about it,  I'm happy if this shuts down the jerk.   The matter of blacklisting has always lent itself to anything but equal treatment.  I, frankly, don't know the answer to why blacklists we favor are good and why those - such as the Hollywood blacklist - we might disapprove of are bad.  It's not dissimilar to the politics of boycotts.   Personally, I don't think there's any way to explain why, if it's good to boycott someone like Milo Yiannopoulos if you find him repellent, it wouldn't be OK for other people to boycott what they find repellent.   Why, for example, wouldn't it have been OK to boycott Alan Ginsberg who was an open advocate of NAMBLA and pedophila or Gore Vidal or many a Hollywood director, actor, producer, who is either known or credibly suspected of exactly the same kinds of things that Yiannopoulos advocated?   Why not such organization as the Humanists or CSI(COP) who honored Vern Bullough as he, and they, openly listed his prominent activities in the Dutch pedophile advocacy publication and pedophile group, Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia which advocated that child rape be legalized?

I have no problem with blacklists and boycotts of anyone who advocates the sexual or economic exploitation of children.  I'm not even sure I'm still opposed to the boycotting of people who supported Stalin, though just about the last of those is long dead, now.  There are still plenty of Maoists around, however.  I don't know how you make up a list of who to boycott and who not to.  Certainly there should be a way to do that which isn't hypocritical.

I certainly don't take the civil liberties industry, Republican-fascist Supreme Court position that everything goes and no moral discernment is allowable because that simple-minded dodge of moral responsibility will only empower the worst of the exploiters if that's the rule.  That civil-libertarian pose was the starting gun to the race to the bottom which has brought us both the massive increase in pornographic abuse and the eutrophic decadence of Trumpism.

Oh, and, quite sincerely, despite Andrea Dworkin sometimes going a bit over the top, I consider Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon to be far more heroic than the civil liberties icons who enabled both the porn industry and the Republican-fascists.  I consider them far more worthy of respect than either Ginsberg or Vidal.   

Update:  No, I didn't watch Milo Y on Maher's show, I don't want to share a sexual orientation with him, thankfully, after he outed himself as a fan of child rape, I don't have to suspect I might.  A. I don't have a TV and I dumped cable years before I dumped TV.   B. While he might have some good people on his show from time to time,  I loathe Bill Maher.  C. What I've seen in clips from his show leads me to suspect that it is, essentially Jerry Springer with rich people on instead of poor people.  D.  I have never heard Milo Y when he was anything other than a total and massive asshole Brit twit.  Listening to the radio program that, I hope, finished his reign of assholishness was bad enough. E.  I did read that during the show Milo Y.  presented himself as a champion of "free speech" and that the fascist-right is the home of the higher free-speechiness, these days.  Which, by the way, supports what I said. 

Update 2:  I'm not interested in what that illiterate lab-clerk thinks she's thinking.  It's not as if she's ever read anything I wrote.  What gets said at Eschaton has a high probability of being both uninformed and stupid.  When it's said by Tlaz, that probability reaches into the realm of effective certainty. 

Update 3:  OK, I'll put out the challenge to Tlazolteotl, the dimmest wit of Duncan Black's "brain trust"  who was stupid enough to name herself after a goddess that eats shit.  Come over here and read what I said, then say it here and I'll point out how stupid what she said is.  Go tell her I challenged her.