ALL YOU NEED IS HATE
                                   ...Jon Carroll

                  San Francisco Chronicle September 8, 1993



     The same film clip was on all news shows last weekend. It showed computer
images of naked young boys. The naked young boys had black bars over their 
eyes and over other parts of their bodies. In most of the images, the young 
boys were doing something innocent, like playing volleyball; one could only
imagine the use of which these images would be put by perverts.

     One was invited to so imagine by news commentators, who said the FBI
was "cracking down" on pedophiles who were transmitting these images by 
computer. "Six men" had been...it was unclear. Arrested? Convicted? 
Questioned? Anyway, there were six men; there was a nationwide ring; it 
involved computers and distressing images.

      Why was this news? Surely the FBI is smiting child pornography every 
day. Why were these pictures transmitted by computer so much more dreadful 
than the same pictures sent by mail, which is mostly how they're distributed.

     One guess is that the government is interested in controlling the 
information that is moved across computer lines, and this is one way to 
convince citizems that computer bulletin boards need the firm gentle hand 
of government intervention. And the FBI knew --- as anyone who has been paying 
attention would know --- that pedophilia would stir up popular rage.

     It is true that the sexual exploitation of children is a dreadful thing 
and deserves punishment. It does not seem to be true that this particular 
form of exploitation --- nationwide rings distributing child pornography---is
either a large or growing social problem.

     Most sexually abused children are attacked by someone they know; 
photography is not involved. Far more children are abused by poverty, by 
hunger, by random violence, by drunken parents, than are forced to pose for 
photos. Yet when the FBI wants to promote its own wonderfulness, it chooses an
infrequently occuring subset of a tiny social problem.

     Similarly, there's no credible evidence that satanic ritual abuse is 
happening on a wide-scale or organized way. As a social problem it is even 
less threatening than computerized child pornography. A yet (thanks to an odd
coalition of fundamentalist Christian preachers and avaricious 
psychotherapists) there is widespread hysteria over the topic.

     Why? One theory is that satanic ritual abuse (and probably computerized 
child pornography) is a way of deflecting attention from the real and grubby
issues of daily incest, which is not organized and has nothing to do with 
Satan or sacrifices or computerized images. Blame the devil and we won't have 
to cope with Daddy's little free will love offerings.

     Let me propose a third, complimentary theory; the Achille heel of 
humanism. Increasing, we are asked to accept that all points of view and all 
ways of being deserve respect. People resist this notion and call it 
"political correctness," but it is really nothing more than an attempt to 
elevate compassion and understanding as a primary culture values.

     The trouble is, we are not compassionate or understanding animals. We are
racists, xenophobic survival machines. We can be socialized to some extent,but 
we are still drenched in fear, and the fear needs something to hate.

     In a humanist world, hate is hard to come by. Spy novelists realized 
this early; That's why the same band of increasing elderly Nazis are belabored 
in book after book.

     The culture now has so few common enemies; we need to pump up the ones we 
have, to make them high-tech like James Bond villians, internationally 
organized like the Commies. Truth is the first victim, truth always is.
                                  #

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