Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n Roll

Apparently people are still having sex because there are more of them than ever. In Utah a woman bearing twins was told by her doctor that if she didn't have a C-section one of the babies would die. She declined. One of the twins came out fine, the other stillborn. Oh well, one out of two ain't bad! Not to the state, which charged the woman with murder. The media underwrote the prosecution by alleging the woman had a history of mental illness. You have to be mentally ill not to undergo an expensive and risky surgical procedure. Of more importance is that a potential life is lost to the state. It's only a step to requiring women to get pregnant. Recently the resident signed into law a bill that would provide for a separate felony count in cases of crimes of violence against a woman who is pregnant. Clearly a stepping stone on the road toward defining a fetus as a person in order to overturn Roe v. Wade, the bill is said by its right-to-life supporters to be only a ratcheting up of existing penalties to deter violence against women. How are assailants supposed to know? Pink sleeve bands? Only in the third trimester? What if she conceived the night before and doesn't even know it yet? Will all women victims be required to submit to a pregnancy test?

As millions of harm reductionists worldwide militate against drug prohibition, the U.S. drug war continues apace as a theatre of all out war. Others unidentifiable as communists or terrorists can still be killed if they can be identified as drug dealers. In Thailand for example there have been during the last year over seven thousand extrajudicial executions of alleged drug dealers. Thailand's prime minister exhorts his citizens and the world not to sympathize with drug dealers, but with gallant officers putting themselves at risk to stop drugs. Besides, says Mr. Sinhawarta, most of the killings were carried out by other drug dealers. Residents of Tulia, Texas are finally being vindicated in the scores of fraudulent drug arrests made by corrupt, racist law enforcement officials. After years in prison Tulians are now once again free to try to rebuild their shattered lives in poverty and oblivion. In accordance with a zero tolerance policy of ever escalating sternness, drug warriors have redefined meth cooking as both child abuse and terrorism because the risks posed by the practice to home and community. School officials testing students for drugs by analyzing hair samples have declared shaving illegal despite that hair friction is significant in a number of speed sports, to say nothing of wrestling. In Maine as in most states it is not illegal to be stoned, but reactionaries are bent upon closing that loophole. The U.S. congress is considering a bill which would equate a positive result urinalysis with impairment and operating under the influence. It isn't enough to be guilty of possession of a substance ON the person, but soon guilt will be tied to having metabolites of the substance IN your person. Aside from the ominous attenuation of fifth amendment protection posed by this legislation, it establishes a significant shift from guilt for doing to guilt for being.

The roots of rock n roll probably extend to the start of history, when patrists instituted mind control and lovers learned to make communication underground through art. During the ascendancy of the Catholic Church there were bans on certain scales and chords as being "demonic". Rock n roll in the 1950's was reviled by the CONspiracy as lewd and rebellious before being absorbed by the music industry. The sight of Elvis's gyrating, though fully clothed midriff was deemed too graphic for viewers; the performer was televized cropped below the waist. A retailer hotknifed the flip side of the Rolling Stones' Ruby Tuesday single because Let's Spend The Night Together was too suggestive in the 1960's. One simply didn't hear or see fuck at all, though it was the language of the streets. Today that has changed. Art now features fuck, and because it sells, the music industry cannot ignore it. But they still have to bow to the puritanical doctrines of the Christian right and so MTVideos are bleeped and masked. Because it is the language of the streets, sometimes it is mostly bleeps. Everyone listening knows the words represented by the brief dead spots in the sound track and everyone viewing knows that vague brown circle around the midriff actually sports a crack. No one is fooled, no one is protected. The message isn't only that sex is bad. The real message is You should be okay with someone you don't even know controlling what you see and hear.

U.S. attorney general Ashcroft is conducting a crusade to install the fucked up mores of monotheism not only on his own kind, but on the world at large. Essentially if it is pleasurable, superstitious sectarian stooges condemn it as sinful. Johnny boy is alleged to not drink, smoke, swear, dance or chew gum (they didn't say what he does with his penis, if any..). Believing those are "bad" things to do, he feels righteous as he denies others the right to do those things. John Walters, drug czar (czar - an unelected ruler known for ostentatious consumption and callous brutality. Perfect!) has averred There is no legitimate discussion of legalizing drugs. The White House has declared that because drugs are illegal, they have a duty to spend millions of tax dollars campaigning against citizens' initiatives to change the law. Can a country without legitimate discussion and with an administration determined to operate contrary to popular sentiment be called a democracy? Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction has ushered in a spate of renewed right wing interest in squelching sex wherever it may pop out. How much did they pay her? Despite the billions consumers pay willingly and legally for sexual services every year, the government has announced a draconian new clampdown on the "obscene", declaring "nothing is off the table", meaning that any graphic display of sexuality will be targeted. Despite all the squealing about removing religious icons from secular governmental institutions and rituals ("under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1957 as a counterpoint to "godless communism"), there is no effective separation of church and state. The U.S. is a Christian nation, with all the horrors that implies. Christian zealots in positions of authority are abusing their offices to advance their cult's agenda against anyone who is willing to take a break from the killing to get high and have some fun.

Reverend Doktor "C." Sarian

Mid Coast Sub Church of Paranoia

Church of the SubGenius 

052815