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So Batman fanatic Jack Thompson is crusading against video games now? This is the same guy who went after 2 Live Crew back in the early 1990's, but since they are currently residing in the 'Where are they now?' file Thompson needs a new target, I guess.

Do we really want corporate America influencing Our educational system?

Have you ever heard about Channel One?

I wouldn't be surprised if in the future someone gets suspended for wearing a "bit torrent" t-shirt on anti-piracy day or something...

Sillier things have happened.

I think all reasonable human beings should be expected to draw the line somewhere. Here's why you shouldn't shop at Walmart, ever:

• They abuse their employees (see also NYT article)
• They destroy the social fabric of neighborhoods
• They engage in capricious censorship (see more here)
• They purchase from overseas suppliers with ZERO regard for the sweatshop conditions under which the materials were manufactured. Even Nike agreed this was reprehensible.

I've seen R rated movies at Wal Mart. I never buy due to the fact that I don't want to use my dollars to support a group that censors things it doesn't care for.

In general, not carrying an item is not censorship. However, the case is a bit fuzzier when your record label's single largest distributor calls up and tells your producer that either you change the lyrics in your album or they drop the thing altogether.

Same goes for mass-market book and magazine publishing, video games, you name it.

An old article from the Boston Globe

Rock Out Censorship calls for a boycott of WalMart

Here's a page of helpful links about WalMart and its practices in a number of areas.

Basically, WalMart has huge market share, especially in music sales. They have so much, in fact, that they routinely force recording artists to alter lyrics or cover art in order to get the CD sold in Wal-Mart stores. While it is their right to choose what is sold and what is not, it runs counter to the entire notion of free speech when a CD is buried because its lyrics offend some Christian Wrong preachers with market power. So if you can, try to get your cool new cam somewhere else. And check around for better Wal-Mart stories; the link I included is probably far from the best, and their list of transgressions goes on and on.

And remember, shop smart... shop S-Mart!

From Biafra's Bio:

(I hope that slashdot doesn't munge the links this time)

1985

Infamous Senate anti-music hearings are staged by Senator Al Gore and his cohorts as a favor to his wife Tipper and her openly bigoted fundamentalist friends calling themselves the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC). Among the PMRC's demands were the censorship through a labeling system of warning stickers, the "Reassessment of contracts" of artists whose lyrics are, "sexually explicit", "anti-Christian" or mention suicide or homosexuality. "Expert witnesses" called by the Washington Wives blame rock music for gang violence, suicide, murder, devil worship and sexual perversion. Frank Zappa stands virtually alone in opposing the PMRC and sensing their significance. The music industry above and below ground keeps their head in the sand, preferring to sleep through the hearings.

April 15, 1986

Two weeks after Dead Kennedys are publicly targeted by Susan Baker of the PMRC, Biafra's house in San Francisco is raided and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police officers. Cops even ransack the cat-box hoping to find - well? ask them. "Frankenchrist" albums and Giger posters are taken from the house and the Alternative Tentacles/Mordam offices.

June, 1986

Biafra and four others are charged in Los Angeles with one count each of "Distribution of Harmful Matter to Minors". They are the first people in American history to face criminal charges over a record; three years before the attack on 2 Live Crew. Biafra and other supporters form No More Censorship Defense Fund to cover the money to fight the charges. Defendants face a possible one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law had never been used before. The L.A. City Attorney's office admits to L.A. Weekly reporter Don Bolles that they kept files on several other PMRC-targeted musicians, but chose Biafra because it was, "a cost effective way of sending a message". The prosecuting attorney later says one of his goals was to destroy Alternative Tentacles. Fund-raising and the ensuing media circus delay the completion of the follow-up album to Frankenchrist, the appropriately titled Bedtime for Democracy .

August, 1987

Charges against Biafra and the other defendants are dismissed after a three-week criminal trial in Los Angeles. Even though Frankenchrist was not found to be obscene; Biafra, Dead Kennedys and Alternative Tentacles records are subsequently banned from a multitude of chain stores nationwide. This is exactly the type of de-facto censorship Tipper Gore and the PMRC had in mind. By this time, controversy has vaulted Biafra's spoken word performances from coffeehouses to the college lecture circuit, where he is brought in to "lecture" on censorship. For the first time the media is more interested in Biafra's political views than music-industry shoptalk on his latest music album. His documentation of Tipper Gore and the PMRC's ties to fundamentalist Christian extremists is no longer dismissed as lunatic. He also appears as an FBI agent in the Tim Robbins-John Cusack film, Tape Heads, wearing the same blue pin-stripe suit he wore at the trial.

________________________________________

From Biafra's Bio:

1985

Infamous Senate anti-music hearings are staged by Senator Al Gore and his cohorts as a favor to his wife Tipper and her calling themselves the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC). Among the PMRC's demands were the censorship through a labeling system of warning stickers, the "Reassessment of contracts" of artists whose lyrics are, "sexually explicit", "anti-Christian" or mention suicide or homosexuality. "Expert witnesses" called by the Washington Wives blame rock music for gang violence, suicide, murder, devil worship and sexual perversion. Frank Zappa stands virtually alone in opposing the PMRC and sensing their significance. The music industry above and below ground keeps their head in the sand, preferring to sleep through the hearings.

April 15, 1986

Two weeks after Dead Kennedys are publicly targeted by Susan Baker of the PMRC, Biafra's house in San Francisco is raided and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police officers. Cops even ransack the cat-box hoping to find - well? ask them. "Frankenchrist" albums and Giger posters are taken from the house and the Alternative Tentacles/Mordam offices.

June, 1986

Biafra and four others are charged in Los Angeles with one count each of "Distribution of Harmful Matter to Minors". They are the first people in American history to face criminal charges over a record; three years before the attack on 2 Live Crew. Biafra and other supporters form No More Censorship Defense Fund to cover the money to fight the charges. Defendants face a possible one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law had never been used before. The L.A. City Attorney's office admits to L.A. Weekly reporter Don Bolles that they kept files on several other PMRC-targeted musicians, but chose Biafra because it was, "a cost effective way of sending a message". The prosecuting attorney later says one of his goals was to destroy Alternative Tentacles. Fund-raising and the ensuing media circus delay the completion of the follow-up album to Frankenchrist, the appropriately titled Bedtime for Democracy .

August, 1987

Charges against Biafra and the other defendants are dismissed after a three-week criminal trial in Los Angeles. Even though Frankenchrist was not found to be obscene; Biafra, Dead Kennedys and Alternative Tentacles records are subsequently banned from a multitude of chain stores nationwide. This is exactly the type of de-facto censorship Tipper Gore and the PMRC had in mind. By this time, controversy has vaulted Biafra's spoken word performances from coffeehouses to the college lecture circuit, where he is brought in to "lecture" on censorship. For the first time the media is more interested in Biafra's political views than music-industry shoptalk on his latest music album. His documentation of Tipper Gore and the PMRC's ties to fundamentalist Christian extremists is no longer dismissed as lunatic. He also appears as an FBI agent in the Tim Robbins-John Cusack film, Tape Heads, wearing the same blue pin-stripe suit he wore at the trial.

________________________________________

Just Some Guy dun said:

Why, oh why, is everything ludicrous attributed to right-wingers? I am just about as far-right-wing as you can get, and I assure that my core beliefs do not condone censorship in any form. I mean, remember the PMRC (record labeling)? That was Tipper Gore, not Pat Buchanan.

Hate to have to bring some things up to dash the illusion there, but there are some things I do need to bring up in light of your venting...

1). The vast majority of groups pushing censorship, and for that matter a lot of flatly ludicrous stuff, are right-wing--specifically, members of various political groups which are basically run by fundamentalist "Christians" in the US. (For that matter, Israel sees the same thing with ultraorthodox "Jews", and darn near every country with a signifigant Islamic population deals with fundamentalist "Moslems" of the two main denominations of their religion. For THAT matter, as I understand it, India's having the same damn problem with fundamentalist "Sikhs" and fundamentalist "Hindus".)

2). For all intents and purposes, there is no functioning left-wing in the United States. The US has literally gone so far to the right (largely because of influence of fundamentalist "Christian" groups, which at one point had pretty much taken over the entire Republican Party apparatus in thirty-four states; they have apparently led to the self-destruction now of a second party [the Reform Party]. It's not all the GOP's fault, though--I'll note that in a minute) that were Richard Nixon to run today on his present political platform, he would be considered a liberal. The most "liberal" parties in the US with any large percentage of voters (the Democratic and Libertarian parties) would be considered right-moderate in most political systems in the industralised world (yes, that includes Canada, too); the largest "conservative" party (the GOP) would be hard-right in nearly any other country's political system, and the second or third-largest "conservative" political party in the US (the US Taxpayer's Party) is, for all intents and purposes, run by extreme far-righters in the US and in fact promotes theocracy as a platform. (The Reform Party, before it basically started destroying itself when Pat Buchanan got considered for nomination, probably fell in between the Republicans and Libertarians; now, for all intents and purposes, the Reform Party will probably end up as two parties, one beign slightly more left-leaning but both still firmly on the right.) One newspaper, which started in the 1800's as a "moderate conservative" paper of the times and has had pretty much the same political bent ever since it started, is now considered one of the hardest-left papers in the US. It would also probably be considered moderate or moderate-left in political spectrums in most industralised countries.

Sad to say, but the political spectrum in the US today is less like other industrialised countries and more like those in which a fair amount of corruption occurs (such as in many "third-world" nations) or which are having very serious problems with fundamentalists trying to subvert the very structure of the government itself (this is certainly true in the US, and in a lot of other places you hear about in the news--like Israel, or Pakistan and India (basically a pissing contest between Muslim fundies and Hindu fundies which could well end up in a nuclear war before it's over with) or Sudan (which is having a rather nasty civil war between Muslim fundies and Christian fundies)).

2a). On a related note, and this is very important to note with anything related to fundy movements in general--most fundy groups, especially so in the US, are basically run by power-hungry individuals. In the US at least (and probably elsewhere--there's real signs of it at least in some ultra-Orthodox communities, and among nations like Iran and Afghanistan especially), many of the people who are members of the various fundy PACs here--and especially the more decidedly active ones--are members of churches that can be described as coercive groups much as Scientology can be described as a coercive group. Many of these groups use various mind-control techniques on their members to not only have them basically allow their minister to think for them, but to specifically "block out" anything that could be averse to what the minister says (these include basically teaching that the people in the church or group are the only ones who are "saved" and that anyone who isn't "saved" is in direct league with Satan; teaching that any doubt is the result of either demonic oppression or (if someone else says it) outright possession and one needs to "pray the doubts out" or have exorcisms performed (often involuntarily); forced confession of "sins" (which have included the involuntary outing of gays in church; most Religious Right groups are homophobic at best and some (like Fred Phelps, or Donald Wildmon, or Kentucky's own Frank Simon) are downright infamous for it); telling members to only do business with "members of like faith" (including printing special directories, like the "Christian Yellow Pages") and to only watch media that is affiliated with the church because all other media sources are "worldly" at best and outright "Satanic" at worst, not to mention businesses; "shepherding" programs and "cell churches" (in most programs, the people are divided into groups of five which, in essence, play "Big Brother" on each other--if someone has doubts, the other members try to work them more into the group, in extreme cases by methods like involuntary exorcisms), and so-called "divine lies" (basically, lying about your goals or at the least being dishonest about them to lure folks in to "win more souls for Christ"--this encompasses everything from "hell house" haunted-houses which are marketed as regular haunted houses for "educational purposes" which in fact are used to make people listen to fundy preaching (and yes, sometimes the doors ARE locked and the people not allowed to leave, so yes, they are in essence forced to listen) to "pep talks" run in high schools by groups that have fundy athletes come in to prosyletise, often on the premise that these are "anti-drug" or "self-esteem" talks (most of the time, these assemblies are mandatory to attend for kids, and often the groups will take innocuous-sounding names like "Athletes Against Drugs" or suchlike to hide their fundy links) to "free pizza parties" held by fundy groups who then hold the kids for hours, not allowing them to leave (it is almost never revealed that the "pizza party" is in fact being run by a fundy group) to "stealth candidates" for political offices (which don't reveal their fundy links till elected)...). Basically, because a lot of these groups ARE essentially Bible-based cults, they can feed their members an amazing amount of horsesheisse and (because they literally have nothing else to "error-check" it with) their followers will swallow it. If anything, most folks involved are to be pitied (the only ones that really deserve hate are probably the leaders who outright manipulate their followers).

There has not been a terrible amount of info on how "Bible-based cults" do manipulate their followers until fairly recently, largely because most folks associate "cults" with "new religions" and most folk haven't wanted to believe that "Christian" groups can and sadly do turn into coercive groups preaching far more of a god of Fear, Hate and Loathing (both of self and others) than a god of love, acceptance, and respect (which is what, at least with those folks whom I've met who I sense actually "get" what Yshua was saying, feel it's supposed to be about anyways). I also expect this is a big reason why most mainstream churches in the US haven't spoken out about "Bible-based cults" except in cases where they've been really extreme (part of this, too, might be because--sadly--coercive tactics are getting into larger and larger denominations; one of the largest fundy denominations in the US, which is in essence a Bible-based cult, was the major source of TV preachers for years and has well over one million members...a recent expose of the "Brownsville Movement" (which is centered at one of the larger churches in the US for this denomination in Pensacola, Florida) using coercive tactics is one of the major exceptions; the Southern Baptists, which have had their entire church head and seminary taken over by the fundamentalist wing of the denomination, are starting to dance close to using coercive tactics though they aren't as bad as the "traditionally" fundy denominations yet); part of that, though, may be because most fundy denominations (and especially those which are basically Bible-based cults) don't have anything to do with most major ecumenical conventions, holding their own separate worldwide conferences because they feel mainstrean Christianity is "lukewarm" at best and outright perverted by Satan at worst).

I'll also note (this is a personal aside, based on my own observations of having grown up in a family of raving fundies and having seen far more than I like of the internals of the Religious Right and fundamentalist groups in the US) that--probably because many of these folks have literally been in these groups for generations (I know of three-generation households in the group I walked away from; also, many of the younger especially are literally isolated from the outside world from birth all the way through college (fundies push homeschooling in large part so that kids CAN be isolated and not see anything that could spur them to walk away; there is now even a college being set up specifically for fundy-homeschooled kids to train them to be "political leaders for Christians", homeschooled kids being perfect fodder because they have literally been raised and brainwashed in Bible-based cults from birth), partly because walkaways from groups one has been raised in are EXTREMELY rare (pretty much most kids walk away when their parents do, or if they are forced out of their homes due to "irreconcilable differences" like the kid discovering he's gay; there are literally no statistics on kids walking away on their own (with no help from parents or exit counselors) from groups they were raised in because it is so rare), and partly because this is all they know as a result...a large percentage of those involved in Bible-based cults and in groups like the FRC are, to put none too fine a term on it, control-freaks. This is probably because the only real model they have IS the preacher, who basically uses coercive tactics (and a hell of a lot of FUD) to keep his flock "in line" and not questioning the preacher--this is especially true of folks who have been raised in such groups for generations--and so they basically take the whole "coercive-tactics"/"control-freak" thing to ALL walks of life. Literally everything from politics (a big part of why fundies want a theocracy here has to do with Control and Power over others; again, this is probably an extension of how their own ministers and deacons use Power and Control to keep the flock in line, along with the major "us versus them" mindset in such groups) to parenting (a lot of fundy parents will homeschool kids specifically to keep a maximum amount of Control and Power over them--this is also why they push so much for censorship initiatives to "protect the children", and a lot of fundies won't allow their kids to attend non-Christian colleges or allow them to attend schools with coed dorms or alcohol on campus [yes, I've had experience with this; the fact Beloit College had coed dorms and alcohol on campus pretty much shot all hell out of any chance I had of going there, even without money concerns]). Basically, to put a fine point on it, many of them are control-freaks by basis of being in groups that are run by control-freaks who use coercive tactics, and they have no other model to use (either by model of literally not knowing any better, or by model of literally being so brainwashed that pretty much they have nothing else to go by).

A good starter for exploring the mindset of which I'm talking on is here. It's a page for walkaways, specifically from Bible-based cults, run by a person who was formerly involved in one (he walked away, and now actually runs a "fight-the-right" group largely because of his experiences in the coercive group); it gives you a lot of perspective on where they're coming from, if you've never been misfortunate enough to have experienced Fundie Hell for yourself. (I honestly don't recommend the latter for anyone, especially not kids and other living things. It can screw you up for life, seriously. Look at me. ;)

2b). As another aside--this is probably not widely known by folks, but there are a lot of businesses in the US--many of them Fortune 500 companies, yet--that not only are affiliated with the Right Wing in the US, but are in fact members and actually supportive of it. An enlightening--and scary page--for starters is here--this is a page featuring info on the Coalition for National Policy, which is essentially a secretive, invite-only think-tank for the Religious Right in the United States. It features a membership list that includes, among others, many members of the Coors family, a (former) Presidential candidate, and a number of representatives to US and state legislatures. There's also a good link here that talks about the CNP and a lot more of the big names in the Religious Right...

For more starters...both the Coors family (yep, as in Coors Breweries) and the Waltons (yep, as in Sam's Wholesale/Wal-Mart--as in, before Sam Walton died, one of the single richest individuals on the planet, worth more than Bill Gates, and only surpassed by the Sultan of Brunei; the Waltons collectively are still in the top 100 of the richest people on the planet) are heavily involved with the Religious Right, outright subsidizing them and being sympathetic to concerns (to give examples--the Coors family supported Amendment 2 in Colorado, which would have rescinded civil-rights laws that included sexual orientation; the Waltons have made it a policy not to carry albums with "Tipper-stickers", refused to carry heavy-metal magazines for a long time, and refuse to provide "morning-after" contraceptives even though they will provide Viagra). Needless to say, these are two of the biggest companies in the US. Another interesting one is AmWay--AmWay in and of itself has been accused of using coercive tactics with its sales representatives, but is also run by fundamentalists with links to the CNP and AmWay has been known to bankroll fundy groups in past. Not even home shopping is immune--as it turns out, the person who owns Home Shopping Club, Home Shopping Network (the off-hours version of HSC that shows up on a lot of "Christian" TV stations and also used to show up on the "Family Channel") and PAX TV is a major bankroller of the Religious Right (more on that below).

For even more shockers...a lot of times, Religious Right groups deal in a fair bit of "cloaking". The Arthur S. DeMoss foundation (a Religious Right group that pushes "Christian Reconstructionism", has actually endorsed Christian Identity groups on occasion, and pretty much is a major funding source for the Religious Right; it was founded by the widow of a Religious Right supporter who happened to be a multi-millionaire) hides most of its nastier stuff by not only doing innocuous-sounding adverts for adoption and "Power for Living" (basically a book which hawks fundamentalist Christianity), but has sympathetic multi-million-dollar stars like the woman from "Children of a Lesser God" and Jeff Gordon (great...have NASCAR drivers hawking fundamentalism to the kiddies...Jeff Gordon, probably more than anyone in NASCAR short of the Pettys, is seen as particularly "kid-friendly" and as a general, All-American "Wheaties"-box boy) and NFL stars hawking for them. (Knowing that group, I'm almost willing to bet that either a) they might not have been too forthcoming with these folks other than that they were a group promoting a book about "Christian living", or b) a hell of a lot of people in show-business need a good expose like there has been with Scientologists in Hollywood...more info on the Arthur S. Demoss Foundation here and here [thank you Google...it seems that Pathfinder is not wanting to behave well].) The Family Channel, until recently, was owned by the same folks who brought you Pat Robertson and the 700 Club--it was renamed from the "Christian Broadcasting Network" to make it sound like it offered "family-friendly" programming and to hide its links to the Religious Right (as Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition had started to get a rather bad name). In fact, the Family Channel was sold to FOX, which does have some links to the right in the US (though not as bad as, say, Coors).

PAX TV, which is a TV network set up by a fundamentalist (again, using the exact same canard that the "Family Channel" did in its Pat Robertson days--as a purveyor of "family-friendly entertainment" which conveniently neglects to mention its links to the Religious Right) and which is largely carried on "Christian" TV stations, is heavily bankrolled by Home Shopping Club and Home Shopping Network (which--not exactly coincidentially--also showed on the Family Channel on off-hours and shows on a lot of "Christian" TV stations in off-hours) and--even worse--is also owned 20 percent by CBS and NBC was planning to buy 32 percent in PAX TV (this would be over 400 million dollars). More info here, and more info on PAX here...for that matter, the very head of Focus on the Family (which spawned off Family Research Council as a lobbying wing), James Dobson, makes a rather healthy living selling parenting books promoting "tough love" and "discipline".

Even besides all THAT, a lot of the major Religious Right groups get a lot of funding from members, and many of them can actually get it tax-free (by either setting up separate "political" wings when the heat from the IRS gets too much, or by setting it up with roughly the same tax exemptions a church would get). There are also local businesses...as one guide has advised, if you want to boycott teh Religious Right you almost have to look through one of the directories made for the Religious Right or avoid every business with an ichthus-fish on it...and besides all THAT, Religious Right groups are increasingly going stealth or relying on certain "code words" within the community like "Family", "Heritage", or names confusingly similar to existing groups (one anti-abortion "counseling center" actually named themselves "PPC, Inc." and based themselves in the same building as the local Planned Parenthood office; a legal group that bankrolls and supports lawsuits friendly to Religious Right causes is named "American Center for Law and Justice"; a really amazing number of Religious Right groups use "Family" or "Heritage" or "Christian Life Center" (in the case of churches) because these are actual code words in the fundamentalist community for fundy-friendly causes).

Needless to say, unfortunately, the Religious Right isn't exactly hurting for money and, short of ALL of their members walking away combined with a massive economic crash that disrupts nearly the entire worldwide financial system to the point that it forces us to go back to barter or most of their members walking away combined with a massive boycott of ANYTHING the Religious Right has their fingers in, they aren't going to be hurting for money anytime soon. :P

2c). Media that isn't tied with the Religious Right somehow is often basically bullied into submission. As noted above, a lot of folks in fundy groups have a very "us versus them" viewpoint to begin with--they literally believe they are fighting Satan and all of us not in a fundy group are practicing Satanists as a direct result. :P If ANYTHING is reported whatsoever that is in the LEAST critical of the Religious Right, they will protest (even if they don't read the paper or watch non-"Christian" TV because it might be "Satanically influenced") because, in essence, they will be informed about it and told to raise forty kinds of hell over it. And they will. In droves. (A Pensacola paper found this out when they basically exposed the "Brownsville Movement" as a Bible-based cult; "20/20" did an expose of the "Brownsville Movement" and likewise were damn near pilloried (of course, most fundies were already boycotting anything relating to Disney because {horror!} they dared give equal rights to gay couples for benefits and had a "gay Day" there, but that's beside the point)...my family raged for days about the expose because "Oh god, they make us all out to be cultists or something" (I hate to inform them, but, well, if the shoe fits...I'd think instead of ranting at ABC maybe you should do some serious soul-searching on whether the chuch is doing the Right Thing or not, but then again, I walked away and I dare to be sensible about the whole thing instead of getting my panties in a wad)...read your newspaper's editorials everytime someone dares suggest that the Religious Right and theocracy or even putting the Ten Commandments in schools might possibly not be the be-all, end-all to the world's problems to get an idea of just WHAT kinds of cain they do raise.) Burger King and Pepsi, among others, have literally been bullied out of running certain adverts or sponsoring programs because of letter-writing campaigns by the American Family Association (a hard-line Religious Right lobbying group which has some decidedly homophobic tendencies); many ABC affiliates were likewise bullied into not carrying "NYPD Blue" during its first two seasons for the same reason.

3). Now, to a direct point I was going to mention--hate to break it to you, but the PMRC is by no bloody means liberal. Tipper Gore (and Al Gore) are (as noted above) right-moderate AT MOST; the other co-founder, oddly enough, just happens to be Elizabeth Dole, wifey of Bob Dole and onetime candidate for the 2000 GOP nomination for President. One of the founding members was Susan Baker (wife of Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III (R)).

More to the point, though, the PMRC has many a link to Religious Right groups. First off, they have carried advertising in PMRC literature for "Back In Control Training Center" and other "training centers"; Back In Control was basically an inpatient program run by two former LAPD officers which was advertised to "de-metal" or "de-punk" kids, which was in effect a brainwashing center with links to the Religious Right and which has claimed, among other things, that Wiccans are Satanists and that the Magen David (the Jewish star) is a Satanic symbol and that if kids are wearing "gothy" or "metal" clothing this is a sure sign of Satan-worship. Back In Control has also worked with a lot of police departments and schools, and (ObSlashdot) is one of the groups that is directly responsible for kids being harassed and worse after Columbine for wearing "goth" clothing. (More info here,here (in passing, but in direct relation to how Back In Control Training Center has been heavily promoted by the PMRC), and here.)

Also, they've promoted and used material from Bob Larson Ministries; for those who aren't aware, Bob Larson is a "foamin' fundy" radio preacher who, among other things, promotes censorship and the whole Religious Right agenda. Among other things, he's called peace symbols and the Nike swoosh Satanic symbols (no, I'm not making this up) as well as the good old canard about the Magen David supposedly being a Satanic symbol. More info here (or the newer version here--the "Bob Larson Fan Site"--trust me, the kinds of horsesheisse Larson spews is the kind that must be seen for itself to be believed), and a lovely expose in a British Columbia Christian mag here. Yes, the PMRC actually promoted material from this nut :P

Incidentially, you can confirm all the info above by getting a copy of the book "50 Ways To Fight Censorship" by Dave Marsh (head of Rock and Rap Confidential, and the guy who coined the phrase "rock and roll" incidentially). It's out of print, but most better libraries do have a copy, and if you can't find it there, there are all manner of online bookstores who could probably scare up a copy for you.

Oh, and if you wondered whether the PMRC still has links to the Religious Right...the answer, darling, is an emphatic yes. The present head, one Barbara Wyatt, just happens (ironically) to also sit on the board of Focus on the Family (!)...more info here (again, thank you Google; the more recent version is here, btw), and here.

And BTW, just for the record--I don't have an agenda, other than being a walkaway from a Bible-based cult who really does not the US to descend into a theocracy (I lived under one for all intents and purposes for 25 years of my life; trust me, it sucks, and it will suck twenty times worse if they can get their theocracy nationwide) and who knows all too well both the mindset these folks operate under and the real danger (to freedom and, ultimately, to the psyches of both their memberships and those who are family to them) these groups ultimately present. In essence, I don't want the rest of y'all on Slashdot to have to put up with what I had to put up with for 25 years of my life, and an especially hellish thirteen years after I walked away and I had to live in a household of which the majority of people were raving fundies (and the rest of my family was, slowly but steadily, being assimilated by the Bible-Based Cult Of Borg). It sucks. Bigtime. :P (I note this because, when I made a little post exposing the agenda of the Family Research Council, I was accused of having an agenda. Sorry, I've got no more of an agenda than a kid who's been abused has in getting the abuse to stop. :P)

Regarding the letter to the Family Research Council--I honestly wish you the best of luck there.

I also think you will probably have better luck having an in-depth conversation on the merits of Red Hat versus Slackware with the walls of your home than convince the Family Research Council of the fact the software is flawed and even blocks partisan material.

This is largely because the Family Research Council would consider this a feature and not a bug. :P

For those who aren't aware--the Family Research Council is, essentially, the lobbying arm of a group called Focus on the Family. FoF is probably the largest Religious Reich organisation in the US now (yes, even bigger than the Christian Coalition) and basically split off Family Research Council some years back in order to preserve their tax-exempt status. (As an aside, often state FoF branches will operate under different names to hide their affiliation with FoF.)

To be perfectly blunt, FoF and its affiliates have an agenda--to basically get as many raving fundamentalists in office as possible and to get the fundamentalist vote out, in hopes of getting enough people in office to essentially turn the United States into a fundamentalist theocracy. If you want to get a good idea about the "face" politics they support, just look at the political platform of (recently dropped out) presidential candidate Gary Bauer--this is the guy who founded Family Research Council when it was split off of FoF.

To these folks, pushing censorware is just another way of them "saving" us--whether or not we particularly want to be "saved" or not--and making the US into a "nice Christian nation again". (Many of these folks, by the way, also subscribe to "Christian Reconstructionism"--that is, the canard that the Founding Fathers actually meant the US to be a theocracy.) This is also why they tend to run "stealth" candidates (candidates who do not reveal their links to Religious Reich groups until elected) specifically to things like school boards--they want to get them young so they can indoctrinate them young, because they know that if they're gotten young they likely won't walk away. (This is also why they push homeschooling a lot, by the way, as well as vouchers for private schools--it's been the actual stated goal of many Religious Reich groups to get the school system totally dismantled so that kids are forced to go to sectarian schools.)

FoF's president, Bob Dobson, also makes a rather lucrative career selling books on "disciplining your kids"--usually involving a mix of censorship, forcing God down their throats, and liberal amounts of spanking the kids (part of the reason corporal punishment is NOT illegal in the US--or, for that matter, why the US is the only nation besides Somalia which has still not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child--is because fundamentalist groups like FRC lobby heavily against such laws, claiming that it'll take away their right to "spare the rod and spoil the child" or to "raise their kids as they see fit". In some cases where it has crossed the line into child abuse, some fundies have even argued in court that the state prohibiting them from beating the living hell out of their kids is a violation of their First Amendment rights to religion and that beating the hell out of their kids is actually a duty of their religion).

I happen to be a walkaway from what may be described as a "bible-based cult", and I can say that a fair percentage of the harder-core membership of many (if not most) Religious Reich groups in the US happen to be from churches that use coercive tactics on their membership. In other words, the ones who are doing the lobbying are more than likely brainwashed, they have probably already mentally defined anyone who isn't on their side and who dares to tell them about "flaws" in the software is directly in league with Satan (most Religious Reich groups, and most bible-based cults, DO have a very "us-versus-them" attitude--many Bible-based cults even go to the point of "deliverance ministry" (even your doubts are caused by demons, and the only cure is to "pray them out" or get an exorcism...rather like some of the nastier mind-control techniques in Scientology, actually)...). It is going to take a considerably larger clue-by-four than that to make them change their minds.

The FRC has a rather long record of lobbying not just for censorship, but for the entire Religious Reich platform. On occasion, this has even gone to slandering folks who speak against them...don't be surprised if you find possibly much of the town turned against you (I've read in previous reports that the town in general is quite conservative and beholden to the Religious Reich).

Some links so that the curious may learn more (and educate themselves thereby):

Religious Reich Database F section--also info on FoF

Extended coverage of FRC from above site

ACLU's open letter to FRC

People for the American Way speaks out against FRC campaign against hate-crimes laws that would protect gay/les/bi/trans folks

PFAW's "Who's Who on the Religious Right"--FRC section

here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and even here very recently, you can see what the FRC and the rest of the Religious Reich have to say to their own members

QRD's info on FRC--this also has a lot of quotes of the FRC in their own words to their supporters

Info on the FRC from the Matthew Shephard website--more FRC "in their own words" and at their worst

EFF's "Know Your Enemies--includes info on FRC

Walk Away--a good resource not only for those walking away from "bible-based cults" but also gives you a glimpse of the mindset these groups have--important in debating them. (The head of Institute for First Amendment Studies is himself a walkaway from a bible-based cult.)

And since I don't want to just talk about them without providing some way to fight the Religious Reich (otherwise I wouldn't have posted the damn warning about the FRC's agenda ;):

Arguing Against Faith--basically, how to debate fundies

A whole big mess of resources on how to fight the Religious Reich

Another mess of good links

and still another mess of good links

Skipp Porteous (walkaway and head of IFAS) writes on how to win against the Religious Reich

A really good expose of the Religious Reich, including info on the "code words" they use with their members

Defending Yourself Against The Religious Right

11 Things You Can Do To Fight The Religious Right--this is good for regular folks too. (As an aside--Domino's is no longer owned by fundies, but Coors Brewery is)

Major groups fighting the right wing:

EFF (as if you didn't need any more reasons to send that donation in ;)--they fight censorware initiatives)

Peacefire--the source for info on censorware, including how most censorware has just a wee bit of a fundamentalist agenda

Institute for First Amendment Studies--highly recommended. Includes info on the Coalition for National Policy (basically the "think-tank" of the Religious Reich) including membership lists. Head of group is walkaway from a fundamentalist "Bible-based cult".

People for the American Way. Highly recommended is their "Right Wing Watch Online" section.

ACLU

Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The Interfaith Alliance--progressive religious groups united for tolerance

Rock Out Censorship--naturally concentrates on music censorship, but has really good info on other school-related issues, including filtering. (I'm a wee bit biased on this one, much as I am with IFAS--I have done volunteer work for ROC before. They're a damned good group, though.)

In any case, I wish y'all the best of luck in fighting them...I'm not sure you realised just what the hell you were getting into, but if there's anything we can do to help here on Slashdot, let us know.

PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) is the name you're looking for..Tipper Gore was the first leader of this group that sought to monitor "offensive music", holding Congressional hearings and whatnot (Frank Zappa had some famous quotes at those hearings) Eventually, the music industry caved into their demands and started putting the "Parental Advisory Tipper Stickers" on albums deemed "obscene". Tipper dropped out of the scene at this point, around the 1992 elections. (Current PMRC members view this as a defection in order to get votes/money from the music industry.)

The PMRC is still around and headed by "causemonger" Barbara Wyatt, who has a definite pro-censorship/regulation agenda towards the current crop of "obscene" music..to her, labelling is not enough. Although I didn't hear any PMRC clamouring for a banning of KMFDM/Rammstein type music after Columbine, I wouldn't be surprised if those two groups and other "nazi/nihilistic" industrial acts were on the PMRC "hit list"

source:Rock Out Censorship

peace,