THE 3P MUDWRESTLE: LEGISLATING PEER-TO-PEER PORN
Former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen has long been a familiar face on the Hill, defending the music industry’s 17-year history of parental advisory labeling. The entertainment industry has undergone a storm of criticism from such cultural warriors as Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman.



Rather than continue to defend Free Speech, the RIAA has attempted to deflect blame to the internet. This obfuscation (and cynical suckup to the Right) has found a willing ear in Congress. With the appointment of GOP disciplinarian Mitch Bainwoll as CEO, the RIAA has announced it is open for business and ready to horse trade.

As the Religious Right begins to flex its political muscle, the RIAA, in response, has seen fit to cancel Ms. Rosen’s ticket. As a liberal Democrat, and in consideration of her "other job" as a highly-visible lobbyist for gay/lesbian issues, Ms. Rosen has seemingly become persona non grata in the 6 a.m. White House prayer circle.

In a modern twist of Samuel Johnson’s quote, we may say "Pornography is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

The RIAA testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 6, 2003 that peer-to-peer services facilitate the distribution of sexually explicit images of children. Andrew Lack, chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment said, "As a guy in the record industry and a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly." He goes on to quip, "P2P stands for piracy-to-pornography."

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) thundered at a KaZaA executive: "Unless you help us to help you to get rid of this material, you’re going to be under constant attack, and ultimately we’re going to have to do some things that will be very detrimental to your business."


Also weighing in, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft:

"An important step in fighting the child pornographers who use this technology is the creation of a federal task force. A federal task force would bring together the resources and expertise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal law enforcement agencies to find the best ways to track down and stop these criminals from peddling child pornography. Peer-to-peer networks are easy to use, readily accessible
and decentralized making them attractive to child pornographers. A federal task force will investigate the ways these networks are used and abused and provide the most innovative law enforcement solutions to protect our nation’s children. I look forward to working with you on this important issue."—Sen. Charles Schumer

But others cry foul, claiming that the morality issue is a diversionary tactic, and the media giants are rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic while defending obsolete distribution systems.

Philip S. Corwin, Washington D.C.—based lobbyist and counsel for Sharman Networks, claims it is a "deliberate and despicable campaign to associate us with the most vile element of society, child pornography."

According to Benjamin DeMott, a self-proclaimed "leadership class" hopes to deflect public indignation from itself with weapons of mass distractions such as talk shws, gangsta rap, cultural heroes such as Madonna and ‘bad boy’ Dennis Rodman, seeming"nightmares of depravity" that "pollute youthful minds."

One must admire the light of female adulation that MTV shines on "The Making of The Group Fannypack." The catchy hit "Cameltoe" espouses lyrics like "Is your crotch hungry girl?/ Cause it’s eating your pants."

Tommy Boy Records owner Tom Silverman is a board member of the RIAA, and he has been a leading critic of the internet. But surely the concurrent media obsession with the contents of Kobe’s accuser’s underwear is the best promotion a hit record like "Cameltoe" could receive.

Guy Trebay in the Sept. 09, 2003 issue of the NY Times interviews Randi Cardia,Manhattan mother of two, who says, "There are a lot of us out there who are appalled that someone hasn’t taken a stand against disgusting role models." Which surely conjuries a vision of teen depravity that may well have "sprung from the fantasies of Humbert Humbert."(Lolita)

We envision a mother keeping a gimlet eye on older men loitering in the shopping mall, who are themselves leering at Tweenie pierced belly buttons, thongs and butt-cracks, spaghetti straps, and midriff-baring t-shirts emblazoned with filthy words.

Obscenitycrimes.org even portrays Joni Mitchell (as quoted in a Rolling Stone interview) as being ashamed to be part of the music industry, referring to it as a "cesspool."

"It is tragic what MTV has done to the world," Joni stated. She also spoke of her dismay at the behavior of her grandchild, a three-year old girl. Evidently the child mimics the suggestive dancing she sees on the videos, gyrating and ‘grabbing her crotch.'

The Obscenitycrimes.org website goes on to remark on the appearance of Christina Aguilera on the cover of Blender Magazine. She is "almost-dressed" sporting "cliché porn-gear black heavy eyeliner, black leather bra, thigh-high black fish net stockings, legs spread, with a pair of handcuffs attached to one wrist, the other cuff resting on what is apparently meant to be an alluring fashion on the crotch of her black panties." Her interactive CD-ROM is " aimed at girls seven and older."

Children are not alone in being manipulated and assaulted by 16,000 violent and sexually explicit images in US television. All of us are desensitized by media. Children need parental guidance. I am not one to advocate government meddling in artistic endeavors. I abhor censorship and religious meddling in all its forms. I believe that children have a inalienable right to free reign in their imaginings.

If anything, a proper education instructs students on how to approach propaganda and advertising with a skeptical mind. We are adults with experience. We acknowledge that underage people should not be exposed to predatory persons or explicit materials until they are old enough to learn to handle the emotions.

Why not teach them to resist corporate marketing? Isn’t this another business skill–similar to handling personal finances and credit card impulses? Perhaps most damaging to the young creator is the limiting of digital resources. Access to video cameras and audiovisual pop culture help them deal with their societal feelings, and the associative peer pressure ponts of promiscuity, guns and drugs. "Read only" materials and computers can only increase the sense of alienation. Students need human interaction.

Lawrence Lessig, in his new book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, quotes John Seely Brown, the Chief Scientist of the Xerox Corporation: "We are building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural tendencies of today’s digital kids. We’re building an architecture that unleashes 60% of the brain and a legal system that closes down that part of the brain."

Those lucky individuals who discover the lifetime habit of "thinking for themselves" will always be content to "entertain themselves," without a fix of electronic games or Ritalin. This is the gift of a lifetime, perhaps the greatest, that we mentors have to impart.

BLESSED BE THE CHILDREN
Our schools are in crisis. In an era of that foresees the hemorrhaging of educational and public library budgets, cuts in afterschool programs and arts funding, we are treated to the spectacle of Coca Cola sponsoring sugar-taste tests for academic credit.

Parents may not be aware that their children are subjected to an invasion of public space, as Naomi Klein suggests. With the budget shortfalls in public education becoming a national plague, corporations have stepped into the breach with much-needed classroom computers and audiovisual gear. And it comes at a price: a guarantee that students must endure mandatory advertising.

Advertising guru J. Walker Smith warns his clients against "the socialized marketing resistance against what consumers deem to be aggressive hucksterism."



A ratcheting up of noise, if you will, an invasion of public space, such as the Consumer Union warns, "YouthTalk Advertising Agency in Salt Lake City estimates that 80,000 students are exposed to our ads while standing at urinals."

Adweek and the Hollywood Reporter hosted a seminar "What Teens Want" in Oct. 2003. It promises great wisdom:

"Teenagers will spend a whopping $170 billion this
year - just on themselves. If you want your share of
this market, this is the one event you need to attend
this year to learn how to market and sell to Teens ages
12 to 17. These experts will reveal how to achieve
street credibility, and crack the code in marketing to
teens with the right talent, right attitude and right
look; lessons learned from years of catering to teens
on their own terms that is believable and authentic."

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID
But does the push medium really teach better than face time with a live teacher?

According to a recent Kaiser Foundation study, 10 percent of the babies and toddlers from 6 months to 2 years have a television remote control designed for children. And 32 percent have videos from the Disney Series "Baby Einstein." A line that includes titles such as "Baby Shakespeare," "Baby Galileo" and "Baby Newton."

The Kaiser study was based on a nationally representative telephone survey conducted last spring among 1,065 parents with children 6 months to 6 years old. The study found that more than a third of all such children had a television in their bedroom and that those who did spent more time watching than reading.

The American Academy of Pediatrics in 1999 recommended that children under 2 should not watch television and that children of all ages should not have a television in their room.

"I think the academy was trying to help parents understand that in the very early years of life, what babies and toddlers need most is adults," said Matthew Melmed, executive director of Zero to Three, a national center for infants, toddlers and families. "We’re programmed, as human beings, to learn through interpersonal relationships."

Nickelodeon alone surveys 4,000 children a week in schools, on the phone and Internet. Dorothy Singer, a child psychologist at Yale University, says, " You learn flexibility when you play imaginatively. You learn self—control and how to delay impulses. If a toy comes from TV, a kid tends to follow the story line."

Isn’t that the goal of the mad merchandising arms race? To create consumerism rather than civics?

As clueless politicians bray while taking up the scent, they are offering to put a computer on every desk, thereby combating racism and the so-called "Digital Divide." Few questions are answered regarding "where are the funds?" The technology gap is increasingly filled by corporation branding.

As Naomi Klein has noted, the privatization of prisons makes it profitable to hold onto criminals longer than necessary. Are we now turning schools into prisons, where the youthful audience passively watches Channel One, and corporations charge twice as much for advertising rates because they can boast "there is no audience erosion?"


From the Junior Achievement Website:
JA Company Program® enhances the students’ learning of
the following concepts and skills: Concepts’– Business o
Capital o Choices o Competition o Division of labor Entrepre-neur
o Expenses o Fixed costs o Goods o Incentive o Income
oManagement o Marketing o Price o Productive resources o
Productivity oProfit o Services o Stock o Variable costs

In America, "No Child Is Left Behind." But with precious learning time being diverted into science lab experiments to prove Prego spaghetti sauce is thicker than Ragu or to teach kids how to design a Nike sneaker. we are falling behind the educational standards of other countries like Japan India, China, and Finland.

Children with little future educational prospects will be channeled into minimum-wage McJobs, where they presumably belong. Software jobs go overseas to workers who are better educated. It is ironic that the much-vaulted Information Economy leaves the United States in fifth place in broadband deployment.

This is the Digital Divide.
Not the ownership of computers, nor copyright education manuals. We are raising a generation of children who do not develop a sense of healthy skepticism nor enjoy a sense of play. They are being prepared for a lifetime of drudgery in the Proletariat Class.

The misdirected education efforts of the RIAA and MPAA are wrong to target file browsing enthusiasts under 21; juxtapose that targeting with the equally vicious branding opportunity presented in "tweening," sending researchers on playgrounds to determine "coolmakers," "urban anthropology" or the latest —"bro-ing." When schools are privatized, as in Channel One efforts, then your children are assaulted in a public space with advertising.

And YOU are not with them in the classroom to protect their interests. It is my opinion that this inappropriate sexualizing is the reason for children mensing at nine years old. Commerciality is forcing them to grow too fast.

As Pink Floyd sez: Leave Those Kids Alone.

This is why it's up to parents to teach their children.

My kid surprised me the other day. She's 8. We stopped at a McDonald's and after we left, she was looking at the side panel of the bag. After a minute, she tossed it aside and said:

"The stuff on the side is always a lie. It says that you can get (whatever it was) for free, but you really have to pay $5."

Skepticism is taught. And not by the schools. The schools teach conformity. They teach you NOT to question authority.

Baa. Baa.

I actually believe that life experiences and self-teaching is the best way to go. You learn more, and you learn what you want to learn. I'm self-taught in many aspects of law, philosophy, history, life in general, morals, etc. This way, there is no way for me to be influenced too much by any one side, and my original decision stands most of the time.

My thoughts about all this are: Is the government supposed to take our right as parents and breast-feed our children with what they think it´s correct? When did we lose the right to educate our children to censorship?

Cameltoe is actually an anti-cameltoe song.

Take these words of advice cause its not very nice
I wanna put you all in the know
Girls dont sleep dont let your pants creep
Watch out for the Cameltoe.

: )

Cameltoe?

http://www.joked.com/view.php?id=663&item_nr=1&total=1

I didn't just post that here.


"If you want your share of this market, this is the one event you need to attend this year to learn. . ."

Not so much related to the whole article as just that snipet:

Sprite is known to have some of the most successful marketing. It's their kind of anti-marketing marketing. Like the old Grant Hill commercials where every time he says he loves sprite they show a cartoon guy of him covered in money. Turns out that the new batch of 18-24's are "cynical about marketing."

When I was young, the only tv I was allowed to see was PBS. I could watch that at any time of the day though in our house, unless of course I was supposed to be sleeping. Not to sound the old "humble roots" hornpipe, but we lived in a trailer and we didn't have a lot of "designer goods". I got Barbie once a year, twice if the grandparents were generous.

What I grew up with, not 30 years ago, is so divorced from what kids grow up with now, I can't even relate. My boyfriend's niece has watched Disney, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon for hours every day for almost all her life. She knows commercials by heart, she wants brand name toys. My niece got one of those Leap-whatevers and she HAS to have Elmo videos, toys, merchandise.

At school I didn't feel half as ostracized for not having designer clothes as kids do today. I NEVER had to watch advertisements in the classroom, and we weren't allowed access to the soda machines on campus (those were strictly for teachers and kept hidden out of sight). Ads in the bathrooms? No way! Sound like alien territory? I graduated from High School ten years ago, what the hell happened after I left?

You know how we're yelling at you to register to vote? Well, when you do vote, vote to raise local taxes. YOUR taxes pay for the schools, and when you vote against tax hikes, you starve the system to death. Bringing in corporate advertisers is definitely the death of education. Who can trust a video on global warming brought to the classroom by an oil company? Who can trust a video on economics or fairness in the workplace brought to the classroom by Wal-Mart?

Teach your kids young too that designer lables are no substitute for self esteem, and that material goods are for us to use, not there to use us.

Definitely keep the money up for schools. When I was in high school, my History teacher wanted a LaCrosse team so bad for a long time. It finally got under way when I was in my Junior year, and the school didn't give any money to start it. We needed $10,000, and I think most came from a lady who always walked her dog through the parking lot every morning. She did it because her son plays LaCrosse in Europe. Best sports team I was ever a part of.

Yes, by all means, give our schools more money... but DO NOT FORGET the most important things our kids will learn are things they get from their parents.

Tom, what great article!
You continue to write better all the time...

SUPER!