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Subject: Helms: Civil War, Not Civility
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1997/02/07
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
HELMS: CIVIL WAR, NOT CIVILITY
As if the gay community hasn't patiently put up with enough
from Senator Helms. The "damned lesbian" remark. The
"needing a bodyguard" remark. Now, he announces that gay
people "have the morals of alley cats."
If a U.S. Senator said that black men had the "morals of alley
cats", most of America would have little surprise if it led to
instant rioting. No justifications of the belief, no citing
of statistics about black incarceration rates, or illegitimate
births, or rates of AIDS infection, or drug use would make the
least bit of difference. The reaction would be shock,
disbelief, and cries of outrage. The Senator, one way or
another, would be pressured out of office.
Have you ever once in your life read an editorial
acknowledging that gays are enduring provocations of a
severity of which other minorities would not even dream, in
current times? Have you ever read an editorial praising gays
for their peacefulness in the face of such provocation?
The public at large feels that we have no grievance against
them, because most of them are not as extreme as Helms. At
some point, however, the public must be held accountable for
being so jaded that outright hate-mongering on the part of a
U.S. Senator produces barely a stir from them. At some point,
the general public is to answer for the fact that such a man
has endured in his career for decades and risen to such an
elevated position as to be Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee.
This has hardly been the only provocation out of the
Republican Party and the U.S. Congress. Congressman Bob
Dornan has said such things as "Don't say the word 'gay' to
me, unless you mean 'Got AIDS Yet?", and "I wouldn't trust a
homosexual with 5 dollars." Dornan associates with Dr. Paul
Cameron, who wants to put gay people in concentration camps, a
fact which the mainstream press has not even reported.
Never has the GOP leadership publicly rebuked Jesse Helms, or
many other, similar members of their party. Instead, House
Speaker Newt Gingrich actually encouraged Bob Dornan to stay
on, when Dornan was contemplating retirement.
Anti-gay bigotry is not the worst fault of Senator Helms. He
complains about the love lives of gays, but he himself is a
lover of death squad leaders. He praised Robert D'Aubuisson
of the El Salvador Death Squads as being a "deeply religious
man." He was a personal friend to Augusto Pinochet of Chile,
whose regime used such torture methods as bayonets shoved up
the vaginas of women. He has a characteristic pattern of
support and friendship for right-wing militaries that engage
in wholesale killing and torture.
If Senator Helms has not committed violence personally, it is
merely because he has others to do his will. His hands are
covered with the blood of innocents, by the thousands, in
South America.
Senator Helms is a threat to the lives and liberty of every
gay man and woman in America. He has previously introduced
legislation that would have denied gay people even their
Social Security benefits. He is on public record, stating
that sodomy laws should be actively enforced, to put us all in
jail.
Belief in non-violent change implies a certain degree of moral
conscience on the part of the larger society. There has not
been a single mainstream paper to take the blatant
hate-mongering of Helms seriously enough to make editorial
calls for his resignation. At most, they pretend that this
merely the "intolerance" of a grumpy old man, often acting as
if it is an almost endearing quality.
The word "intolerance" is far too weak for this situation. The
word that rightfully applies is "hate-mongering." It is not
merely a "difference of opinion." It is a deep cancer. It is
the rough equivalent of a Senator who says that Jews are the
Seed of Satan. It cannot be tolerated, period.
If this were still the Middle Ages, or if this were still
Colonial America, perhaps it would be more credible to advise
the gay community that we are not patient enough.
It is ironic that such people as Newt Gingrich, Robert Bork,
and Clarence Thomas are calling for "civility." Clarence
Thomas is a friend to Rush Limbaugh, who riles his audience
with ridiculous stories about gays having sex with gerbils. He
says that "lesbians are mating with pigs to perpetuate the
species."
These comments are made in a context where gay people and
lesbians are getting murdered with regularity. More than 100
gay people were murdered in Brazil alone, last year, not that
this was a new item to the mainstream press.
It is not true "civility" that the complacent of our society
really want. It is the comfort of a secure status quo, no
matter how corrupt and unjust the status quo. It is the
superficial appearance of civility- a reassuring facade where
no one calls names, no one raises their voice, no one
frightens with images of a society about to come unraveled.
Politics, in this view, is a mere abstraction, a mere matter
of "disagreements". As long as you are polite in your
phrasing, it matters little what positions are held. If you
shout "Kill the Fags", then you are "uncivil." If you talk in
high-sounding, lofty rhetoric, spouting phrases like "millenia
of moral wisdom", while you refer to ancient Roman death
penalties for gays, then this is "civil', just like former
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Warren Burger. Newspapers
will praise your record, showing pictures of you surrounded by
multiracial groups of children. The President of the United
States will lavish the highest of praise on you, when you die.
I beg your pardon, Miss Manners. Civility cannot be divorced
from social justice. A civilized society cannot treat gay
people as sex criminals, any more than it can deny women the
right to vote, or make blacks drink from separate water
fountains. It matters little whether the tone of voice is
calm or barking, the language vulgar or high-flown. Something
basic must change, or something basic must expect to fall
apart, most rudely, in due time.
Gay people keep assuming that if were are merely "nice"
enough, and our opponents are nasty enough, that surely the
tide will swing in our favor. Ever more, this idealistic
assumption shows itself to be a delusion. Right-wing figures
such as Randall Terry of "Operation Rescue" and R.J.
Rushdoony openly advocate death penalty for gays. Yet,
newspapers continue to quote Terry as if he were a legitimate
figure. Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition offered
words of admiration and praise for Rushdoony, and Bob Dole was
willing to wave the hand of Pat Robertson in the air, for all
America to see.
Many gays are pathetically ignorant of such facts, due to the
apathy and/or censorship of the press. Nearly one of every 5
gay people was foolish enough to turn around and vote for
Dole, so duped were they by the avalanche of propaganda. The
first battle for gay activists is to educate our own.
These conditions do not approximate a level of moral
conscience sufficient to justify peaceful appeal as a means of
change. In the 1960's, it was a time for peaceful protest. In
the 1860's it was a time for a Civil War that was a necessary
chapter to our history, because it was a situation too deeply
sick to resolve itself in any other way.
For gay people, the times bear far more similarity to the
1860's. This is true because it carries no political stigma,
to portray gays in such dehumanizing terms, that we are viewed
superstitiously as enemies of God, destroyers of civilization,
and as mere sex criminals. This is a very poor starting
point to sit down and reason together, particularly when your
adversaries will often proclaim quite proudly their contempt
for reason itself, preferring to confuse their faith in their
own superiority with a faith in God above..
This is not a situation calling for impotent expressions of
verbal protest. We must toughen ourselves both
psychologically and physically, and prepare ourselves for the
grim sacrifices that we will need to make in revolting
outright against these conditions.
I make a suggestion to all members of the gay community who
may be at wits end in their lives, who maybe have lost a
lover to violence, who are slowly dying of HIV, or who may
have wanted to serve their country, only to have their careers
ruined by a military witch-hunt. If you feel that life offers
too little to you, do not waste your exit from this world. The
word "revolution" should not be the property of smug and
powerful politicians.
There are far more uplifting ways that hatemongers like
Senator Helms could have been retired. He could have been
voted out. The media could have worked more diligently to
expose his excesses and unsavory ties. The Republican
leadership could have muzzled and marginalized him. All
parties concerned were far too accustomed to his kind of
hatred, to pay it much notice. So accustomed have they
become, that we must shake them out of their sleep, by
generating some unaccustomed reaction of our own.
Helms will neither be forced out by child-game antics like
putting a condom on his roof. There is nothing cute about
this situation.
It would have been nice if we could put faith in long-term
educational efforts, but even these avenues are being cut off.
Gay students are allowed not even to meet. The very mention
of the word in school newspapers is censored. Any attempt to
portray gay people in a positive light, no matter how timid or
innocuous, causes conservatives to scream as if their children
were being raped. You cannot educate when you cannot speak.
Like facing up to the Third Reich, it is time to wake up to
the fact that there is no room left for trust, or for
education. The only manner in which a situation that this
far-gone can be changed is by force. However much the odds
may be against us, that is nonetheless what we are called upon
to do. This is not the first-resort reaction of the immature.
It is a heavily contemplated and sad conclusion.
Take a good listen to the sounds of the packs of jackasses and
hyenas on this newsgroup. Does it sound like there is room
for reconciliation, or does it sound like the verge of
apocalypse? It must be wisdom, not to burn down God's
mansion, but this isn't a mansion- it's an insane asylum.
Perhaps it is the worst madman to light the match, or perhaps
the most sane of the lot.
How sad to become just one more battling group, like the Hutu
and the Tutsi, caught up in the same mindless stupidity of
violence, but how much sadder still to put up helplessly with
this degradation for century after century, waiting for sanity
that never comes.
Your marching orders should come from the ghost of every gay
teenager who ever jumped off a bridge, crashed a car, put a
gun to their head, hung themselves, drank paint thinner,
stepped in front of a train. The cold-blooded politicians who
create this climate should themselves experience no more
gentle of a fate.
Tom Keske
Boston, Massachusetts
===========================================================
Subject: Time for Gingrich and CIA to Go
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/01/24
Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.cia
TIME FOR GINGRICH and CIA TO GO
Yes, Gingrich, not Clinton. At least, that is the way that it
would be if we had our priorities straight.
Most gay people - and most people - get their sense of
priorities from whatever is barraging them in the media. In
other words, our perceptions and sense of priorities are
molded in large measure, unconsciously, by our own oppressors.
The liberal Boston Globe did not deem it important that a gay
man had burned himself in protest, in Rome. Today's paper
did, however, have a world news brief about 6 snakes that were
stolen in South Africa.
My fellow gay people, please do not be like your fellow
Americans, letting your brains be like Silly Putty, picking up
whatever newsprint image in which it may be pressed. These
media people obviously do not have your interests at heart.
Clinton, is he a disappointment? Maybe, who knows. I do not
believe that it is really possible to know, so poisoned is the
whole well, by the nonstop game of scandal politics that has
become the hallmark of Washington.
Someone has tapes of a lurid affair? Really? We can trust
that even seeing and hearing is believing?
A November article in the Washington Post told us, so many
years later, how the Pentagon in 1962 planned a hoax to
provide "irrevocable proof" blaming Castro in the event that a
Mercury planned orbit flight should fail.
The Nixon tapes revealed that Nixon planned to burglarize the
GOP headquarters, and blame it on Democrats. They schemed to
plant McGovern campaign literature in the apartment of Art
Bremer, who shot George Wallace. Gordon Liddy schemed to
seduce Democrats with prostitutes on a yacht, so that he could
videotape them. The CIA once produced a pornographic video of
President Sukarno of Indonesia, to discredit him by using an
actor.
Think of the technology that we have now. Observe Forrest
Gump shaking hands with Richard Nixon- looks perfectly real,
doesn't it? I have a comic tape of Nixon confessing to using
the FBI to cover up crimes- it sounds absolutely real.
See Clinton having an affair? If you want, you could show him
morphing into a Klingon, as well, just as convincingly.
We have means of propaganda today beyond the wildest dreams of
the Gestapo, and a government with little more regard for
truth.
What do we do? Believe nothing, refuse to have standards for
people whose politics agree with us? I believe that there
are no good answers- it's a problem from hell.
However, we can't just take the attitude, "When in doubt,
throw them out." Look for someone totally uncompromised.
NO ONE will be uncompromised. One thing that is apparent,
through the funhouse of mirrors- the GOP has been out to find
a scandal, any scandal, from day one, because they hated
Clinton and his pro-gay politics. If they couldn't find a
real scandal, they would be prepared to manufacture one.
We have observed the barely-contained violence of Jesse Helms,
who wanted to shoot the President. Many in the Pentagon may
feel the same way. We cannot trust our eyes, in this circus
of hate. The legacy of Nixon teaches us: watch out for
hidden games, trust your instincts, go with whoever seems to
have a heart in the right place.
It isn't a good approach, but we have few good choices.
This latest "revelation" about a new affair seems very
well-timed, calculated to come out in the press to coincide
with the Paula Jones trial. This too-convenient kind of
timing is a clue hinting of planning. It should put us on
alert for more Nixon-type games.
On the other hand, George Bush could have been accused of a
felony obstruction of justice, hiding the savings and loan
debacle, because of his son's alleged involvement. He could
have been impeached over this also, but there was nowhere near
the media circus, or outcry from Republicans.
Newt Gingrich brought Lou Sheldon into Congress, who has
advocated roundup of gays and AIDS victims into camps. He
affectionately put his arm around Sheldon, and smiled for the
cameras. This, to the press and Congress, was not important
enough to make a big deal.
When Bob Dornan was thinking of dropping out, Gingrich urged
him to stay on. Dornan has associated with Paul Cameron, who
has also advocated mass arrest of gays. A man like this,
having a half-sister who is gay, is hardly fit to take out
your garbage, much less to be the Speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States of America.
Am I missing something, or is this not so serious as to
justify use of force against our own government, the remedy of
last resort for intolerable conditions that show little
promise of redress through the voting majority?
At the very least, it is so serious as to be a direct threat
to our lives and well-being. It should be what continues to
provoke our passions, not the unbecoming but also unproven
romantic indiscretions of a man who is at least a human being
with a glimmer of good will.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Re: PLEASE READ... GAY BASHING IN TEXAS!
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/03/07
Newsgroups: gay-net.aids
>under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"
Indivisible, unless the Texas separatist movement
gains momentum ;-)
>Yet, how in a country where prison guards can beat
> inmates for being gay can
I recall a Texas judge who said that killing a gay man was
like killing a prostitute, and he couldn't conceive of giving
as harsh a sentence. I recall a bailiff saying that raping a
lesbian should be a misdemeanor.
I recall a Republican chairman of a county advisory committee
in Texas who openly advocates death penalty for gays.
How can a country....? Because it's little better than a
Nazis country, that's why.
>you to write a letter of disgust to the people that allow
>this to happen to >Governor George W. Bush, 512-463-2000
Is this the same George W Bush whose grandaddy financed Adolph
Hitler? Whose brother's a bank swindler , the felony coverup
of which for election-year expediency cost the taxpayers
billions of dollars? The same George W Bush who told the
Ladies Auxiliary that sodomy laws should be kept on the books?
I wish that I could maintain such innocence to think that
writing letters of outrage to these cold-blooded scum are
going to mean anything.
They don't need "education", they don't need cries of
indignation- they will sneer at your "education", filter out
everything that you say. They don't give a damn about your
indignation, if the other side has more money and votes. Get
it?
The only way that I can see do deal with these yahoo hicks is
on their own level. Get guns, shoot it out with them,
assassinate the judges, the Republican chairmen of the county
advisory committees.
It you don't have the nerve, don't expect a gold star or a
Nobel Peace Prize for your patience and self-restraint.
Sorry for the bitter sound of telling it exactly like it is.
Your next best hope is the vicarious revenge of watching Texas
run out of oil, being unable to drive 90 anymore. Then, you
will watch the final scene of an of asshole from Texas riding
an H-bomb, shouting "YAHOO!" all the way. The surrealistic
madness will be delightful. Till we meet again....
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Re: Spitting image of MI5
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/04/27
Newsgroups: soc.culture.irish
>>MI5 using child Prostitutes to trap down people.
>>*******************
I've observed the CIA/FBI to be doing the same thing with me
in America. Once, I had a little kid come running up to me,
outside a hotel in Florida, asking me to help carry some stuff
into his room. The room was empty, no parents around. I was
shocked that a kid so little would be without parents in the
vicinity.
I was suspicious immediately, because the kid made such a
beeline straight to me out of nowhere.
I dropped his package in the room, refusing to so much as set
foot inside. I started up the steps to my room, the kid come
running after me, asking me questions, wanting me to come with
him.
I have no interest whatsoever in kids, and would turn in child
molesters, if I didn't shoot them myself.
I practically ran to get away from the kid. Having dealt with
government agents for so long, I've become very good at
smelling their traps and stings.
This has happened more than once.
The homophobia and the assumptions made by bigoted government
agents about gay people make me sick.
I'm just commenting to validate your observations.
The CIA, the Mossad, M15- all intelligence agencies do the
same sorts of things. You're not just imagining it.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Letter to Lott
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/06/17
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet
Dear Senator Lott,
Your remarks on homosexuality are little different than a man
who might have said that Jews were sinful because they
rejected Jesus, that they were a bad influence on youth, that
they were comparable to thieves, that they should be
"compassionately helped" to convert.
Homosexuality is little different than heterosexual
infertility. You would not tell infertile couples that they
are obligated to "try harder" or undergo treatments that you,
not they, think will work. You would not tell them that their
marriage is no longer valid.
In a Muslim society, a majority of people might think that
scriptures justify toppling a wall on gays. A majority might
think that America is the Great Satan. A majority might think
that Christianity is inherently "disrespectful" of Islam. You
would not accept that such a majority view makes right.
Neither do we. A majority of heterosexuals think that
everything is fine enough for gays. I have yet to meet a
single gay person who thought so.
The Muslims also would be quite offended at the suggestion
that they are "backward". They, too, feel so certain that
they are willing to die for their religion.
Like them, you appear nearly beyond reason. Your shortcoming,
however, is not merely "insensitivity" or "political
correctness". This is not a minor or cosmetic problem, in
America. It is a cancer of the marrow.
Innocent minds of gay youths are stuffed with the idea that
they are dirty and hellbound, from people trying to "help"
them. The result is lives of quiet desperation, suicide,
self-mutilation. A point is reached where the damage caused
outweighs even the otherwise important principle of freedom of
religion.
America is coming out of a period of utter psychosis in its
attitude toward gays. The enormity of history, the true
insanity of it, has yet to be acknowledged to any significant
degree.
You have consorted with men like Lou Sheldon who have
advocated concentration camps. You pander to men like Pat
Robertson, who has praised books that call for our death, who
has praised religious leaders who have called for our death,
who has men on his Board of Directors who have called for our
death.
Conservative Republicans like Pat Buchanan and Gordon Liddy
have associated with Nazis war criminals.
Your government is under suspicion, at least by small numbers
of better-informed people, of covert genocide, unleashing a
man-made virus.
How much benefit of the doubt should we give? I say, when I
see Newt putting his arm around the shoulder of a
concentration-camp advocate, we should give no such benefit.
What I cannot prove, I will simply assume under the
circumstances, knowing full well that all evidence can be
suppressed.
I must judge what I cannot see, on the basis of what I can
see.
Under these circumstances, I believe that civility is not
possible or desirable. A country that wishes peace should not
have leaders who wink, look the other way, and pander to
obvious lunatics.
These are enormously serious things. Gay people, charged by
propagandists with being "militant' have for the most part
been if anything, far too passive.
Speaking for myself, I will spend my life and every breath
trying to arouse them from their sleep and their timidity. The
GOP is degenerating into a party of crackpots, little better
than a hate group. If our voting population is so apathetic
as to remain blind, I think that the GOP has crossed enough
lines, that they should then be driven from power by any means
possible and necessary.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Sins of the Fathers
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/07/18
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
SINS OF THE FATHERS
Weird threads weave the dead in a web. What ties together the
death of Czar Nicholas II, the death of former CIA director
William Colby, and the deaths of tens of millions from AIDS?
As I became entangled and nearly strangled in the web, it put
an idea in my head too hideous to keep hidden.
The idea must have been put there by the thread-of-the-dead
web weavers of the Loom of Doom, I therefore disavow
responsibility for it. Anyway, the idea might be the
equivalent of a Nuclear Deterrent for a Nicholas or a Nixon or
a Nazis, and this justifies dispensing with the Niceness.
The tangled web began in a newspaper article by Richard Pipes,
Harvard Professor of History. He was lamenting the death of
Czar Nicholas II, 80 years ago. Nicholas, his wife, his five
children, their physician, a lady in waiting, and two servants
were murdered by Bolsheviks.
Pipes called the massacre "an ugly stain on the collective
memory of the Russian people". He called it a "tragedy" and
compared it to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. He said that
Nicholas' only desire had been "to lead a quiet family life".
This is typical of American journalism. Newsweek informed us
that Nicholas was "a very decent man."
Which is ridiculous, of course. Nicholas was a callous leader
who believed that his autocracy was a God-given right. Once,
a group of peaceful peasants, led by a priest, petitioned
their Czar and pleaded for relief. They were shot and mowed
down by the hundreds, by Cossacks. Nicholas was blind to their
horrible living conditions.
His wife, the hated Czarina, believed that "Russia loves to
feel the whip". While Nicholas was off on his disastrous wars,
she ruled the country under the guidance of the Mad Monk,
Rasputin. Nicholas and the Mad Monk Rasputin were a pair more
repulsive than Nixon and the "Mad Pat" Buchanan.
The erudite Professor Pipes failed to mention any such
details.
Of course, the typical John Q. American Public has no more
clue who Professor Pipes is, than they understand who Nicholas
II was. Otherwise, they would understand his absurd bias.
I wouldn't have known, either, if not for the help,
coincidentally that very day, from the crazy weavers of the
Loom of Doom.
Pipes is a former spook, with CIA ties. George Bush, when he
was CIA director, appointed Pipes to be the leader of a "Team
B", one of two competitive teams formed for competitive
intelligence analysis.
I discovered this fact because I was searching the web for
information about the death of CIA Director William Colby. I
suspected that he was murdered to make sure that he never told
what he knew about biowar programs and their possible
relationship to AIDS.
I had learned that Colby's wife had some suspicion about the
fact that he had drowned in the waters off Maryland, with no
life preserver. Mrs. Colby said that her husband had a great
fear of drowning, and NEVER went without a life jacket.
I happened to run into the article about Pipes, because the
liason between "Team A" and "Team B" was spook named John
Paisley.
Paisley had been a key member of the infamous "Plumbers" unit.
He was also hand-picked by George Bush.
Like Colby, Paisley also died in mysterious boating accident
in the waters off the Maryland coast. He had a gunshot wound
in the head, said to be a suicide.
For Nicholas and his lovely family, it was at least a good,
honest massacre in the open air. Would it have been better if
they had died of an improbable string of accidents and
suicides, as did so many connected to the Kennedy
assassination or the Iran-Contra affair?
Professor Pipes made me contemplate how the media can bury the
truth more callously than the Bolsheviks buried the Romanovs
in the frozen Siberian mud.
The murders of 30 million could be buried as easily as a
murder of a CIA Director, or a spook or two, or a few dozen
scandal witnesses.
Superpower governments have a means of sheer terror to keep
enemy governments at bay. If they dare attack us, we will
raze them to the ground with nuclear weapons.
What restraint exists for a hated minority or a group of
"undesirables" against its own superpower government? An
attack against gay men, prisoners, retarded, or racial
minorities with covert chemical weapons or biological weapons
is an attack no less than Pearl Harbor.
The double-standard that exists in the measure of morality for
acts of State, versus acts of individuals, is nothing short of
insane.
If attacked by an enemy government, most of our citizens would
feel no compunction at all about dropping nuclear bombs in
retaliation, if our lives were threatened. We would kill
children, grandmothers, babies, fathers, mothers, sons,
daughters by the thousands or millions, and consider it
justified.
We feel little national remorse over Hiroshima. Yet, when one
family of Nicholas II is murdered, we wail over the "tragedy"
and "ugly stain".
There were good reasons to murder the Czar's entire family. If
they were alive, there would always be people who would want
to put them on the throne. The autocracy had to go, as a
natural unfolding of history. Nicholas was merciless against
his political enemies. Why should he not be removed with an
assurance of finality? How bizarre, to celebrate a new
democracy, by enshrining a dismally failed autocracy.
Perhaps if the Czar had envisioned the retaliatory brutality
that would one day be visited on his entire family, he would
have been a bit less callous with the peaceful petitions of
the peasants.
What deterrent could there be for a rogue aristocrat, who gets
a grand ambition, as aristocrats so predictably do, to clean
up their world of misfits, criminals, and undesirables? The
purging would not be such a despicable idea, if undesirability
were not something to be measured through the eyes of
aristocratic arrogance.
For the sake of their families, for their children's children,
do they develop such schemes. They want to make a world free
of crime, of drug users, of homosexuals, of "inferior" races,
so their children can live charmed and innocent lives.
How insulting, to dare to pretend that two homosexuals,
"shacked up" in a loft in Greenwich Village, could possibly be
compared to a REAL family?
Because of their fine families, and their family lines, they
feel superior to the misfits and undesirables. They boast the
size of their families as a stamp of their virility. They
parade their families as signs of their respectability. They
inform you endlessly, that nothing is more important than
their families.
How to deter them, then?
The House of Romanov would probably have continued its callous
ways. See how the cruel attitudes are perpetuated, trained,
taught, instilled from one generation to the next, whether in
Russia or America.
The Daddy was a financier of the Nazis. The son becomes
President of the United States. A California fundamentalist
favoring death for gays works for the reelection campaign.
The sons become Governors of states, also run for President,
tell the Ladies Auxiliary how sodomy laws make a fine
statement for family values.
The Daddy was a John Bircher. The son is a darling of the
Christian Coalition, who criticizes the existence of single
mothers and gay parents. The Christian Coalition praises
other religious leaders who advocate death of gays. Their
leader talks of the need for "purges" and "holy fumigating".
The Daddy was an ardent fan of the dictator Franco, and of
Senator McCarthy. The son is a pundit who praises the courage
of Hitler and says that homosexuality is "not only immoral but
filthy". He comes to the defense of Nazis war criminals.
If the fathers had been executed for their crimes against
humanity, or had even been held humanely in prison, they would
have had no sons or daughters, at all. The family line was
never meant to be.
Spooks, geopolitical strategists, visionaries, madmen, wealthy
and powerful men: sometimes, they know that they can't be
caught in their dirty secrets. They own the press or can
intimidate it. They can murder and get away with it.
Scandals do come out, sometimes, 30, 40, 50 years later, when
there is no one left who is powerful enough to be threatened
by the truth. There is also no one left to punish.
How does one deter the corrupt and powerful? They control
their world, too completely, in the present. All that they
cannot control with certainty, is the course of the distant
future.
You cannot use a nuclear deterrent against your own country.
What can you use to deter covert acts of genocide, committed
by persons too powerful to be caught or punished?
If you cannot execute the war criminal, you can execute their
family name. Conservatives justify death penalty, in spite
of the chance of killing an innocent in error, because it is a
"deterrent" that saves net lives. How many net lives are
saved, if you kill hundreds or even thousands of descendents
of fascists, as a deterrent to would-be, future fascists?
Thirty million people are dying of an epidemic that may have
started in Cold War madness. If this is true, there would be
great justification in deterrent.
What standards of proof are needed? What if Japan had
attacked San Diego with biological weapons, instead of Pearl
Harbor, with conventional weapons. They planned to do this at
the end of the war, as we planned to use banned chemical
weapons against them. What if we weren't sure what they had
done?
The standard of proof that we would use as a nation would be
simply whether we overall believed that they did it, or
overall believed that they did not.
What different standard of proof should underground, guerilla
death squads use, to punish the worst crimes against humanity?
When we bomb Iraq, we feel little guilt over the collateral
damage of dead innocents. When a government commits
aggression, suffering of innocents is tolerated. If a
daughter or niece of a Khadafy gets killed, we say how it will
"teach him a lesson."
The threat of attacking future family can cut both ways. So
does the nuclear threat- there is no new lesson, here.
Is the concept madness? If anyone complained, you could do
what conservatives do so well- quote the Bible, cold as ice:
'The sins of the Fathers shall be visited on the Sons."
Therefore, a word to the wise, to all potential fascists: If
you have secrets, confess them while you can. Take your
punishment. Future generations, when they discover your
crimes, and have no one left to punish, are likely to think
just like this, and punish your descendents in your place, be
they innocent or otherwise. Maybe it will be the cruel logic
of deterrence, or perhaps it will be simply to vent a rage too
great to contain.
It is not I who threaten you. It is an idea, too natural to
escape future generations of minds, that will retrace the same
lines of thought.
The unpleasant peasants, unable to peacefully petition the
patricians, turned to sedition, showing great disloyalty to
the royalty, running the automobiles of the autocrats off the
Freeway to Freedom and the Highway to Heaven. They pulled the
carcass of the czar from the car and gave it a burial, most
bizarre. They left it in Russia, in ruin on the road, and ran
over it with the Road Rage of Revolution. The Madness of
Carmageddon reigned supreme.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Congress is a Mess
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/07/31
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
CONGRESS IS A MESS
The recent documentary by a gay North Carolina man, about Jesse
Helms, was credited in the press for not being too strident in
condemning Helms, for portraying him as a "flawed human being"
but "not a monster".
Is the same Jesse Helms that I know? I haven't seen the film
yet, but I have to wonder how hard-hitting of an expose it can
really be.
I found the same attitude when I was once in North Carolina to
join a protest outside Helms' office. The leader of the small
action had said how he "loved" Helms. At the time, I thought
that this attitude was very big of him, but over time I question
more whether it is the right attitude.
Take a reality check: Have you ever ONCE in your life picked up
your newspaper and read an editorial that sounded like this:
In contrast to the centuries of bloody fighting in
Northern Ireland, in contrast to the days of black power
salutes and bloody race riots, the gay movement has been
remarkably peaceful and civilized, an uplifting example of
working patiently through the system. With only minor
exceptions, it has been a rare movement almost completely
free of violence. Gay people deserve credit for bearing
with such grace the vicious attitudes sometimes held in
the highest levels of government. The historical
treatment of gays by our country's institutions is nothing
less than a national shame.
If you have, I have not. I have not once heard gays credited for
peacefulness. Because we have been so largely passive, we are
merely judged by a different standard. We are considered unruly,
nasty, immature for hurling condoms in protests, considered
"aggressive" for being too noisy.
On the other hand, the Right skillfully uses language
manipulation to vilify us as "militant" almost every time that it
opens its mouth.
So why, then, do we constantly expect a pat on the back for
making our criticisms of people like Helms so bland? In respect
for the truth, I'm afraid that we need to be a little more
strident.
Are we talking about the same Helms who once filed legislation to
deny Social Security benefits to elderly homosexuals, as if we do
not pay Social Security taxes all our lives, the same as anyone
else?
Helms is well known as being a friend to many right-wing
dictators, including Augusto Pinochet of Chile. Pinochet's
government tortured and killed by mutilating genitalia,
electroshock, shoving bayonets up the vaginas of women.
It wasn't just Communists getting this treatment- it was union
leaders, liberals, government critics.
Helms said of Roberto D'Aubisson, the notorious death-squad
leaders "All I know is that he is a very religious man".
In Chile, a teenager was brutally murdered for taking pictures of
Pinochet's army. He had a tire put around his neck and was
burned alive. Helm's fumed when an American ambassador attended
the boy's funeral. He called the boy a "terrorist".
The hypocrisy of Helms is not limited to his support of Big
Tobacco, while he condemns ours "deadly lifestyle". He also has
had little-known personal involvement, looking the other way at
drug-running, as did so many prominent conservatives, when it
served the purposes of their brutal Contras.
To hell with the phony "responsible" attitudes of gays who want
to water down the truth. Helms is NOT merely a "flawed human
being"- he IS a monster. Perhaps, the truth is that there are no
monsters more monstrous than "flawed human beings". The word
"flaw" should not be taken to mean "minor defect".
A lesson of morality- minor indiscretions, a single act of
unprotected sex, can ruin of life. There is no mercy, no
compassion from reality. It is the way that it simply is, and
therefore has to be.
Similarly, the minor human flaws that lead to the embrace of
right-wing dictators should not expect to have compassion from
reality. The consequences of those flaws are too serious.
Helms and his prominence are a symptom of something ailing the
whole of Congress, and ailing our country. The consequences can
be no less serious than an HIV infection, no matter how minor or
how common the flaws that caused that infection.
Bob Dornan joked that he didn't mean to say "lesbian
spear-chucker". He meant to say, "lesbian spear-CARRIER". Ha.
Ha. No wonder he's a part-time fill-in for Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh is of course the hero to all freshman Republican
Congressman. Limbaugh gets laughs, bellowing to an audience,
"Did you know, ladies and gentlemen that progressive homosexuals
are showing up in hospital emergency rooms needing gerbils
removed....".
Dornan associates with Paul Cameron, who wants to mass-arrest
gays. Dornan once said that he "wouldn't trust a homosexual with
5 dollars".
Newt Gingrich is supporting Dornan in his attempt to return to
Congress. Dornan wanted to quit, before his last , contested
election. Gingrich personally urged him to stay on.
Robert Novak once bullied Gingrich, asking him, with incredulous
tone, "SURELY you're not saying that an employer doesn't have a
right to fire homosexuals, if he considers all homosexuals to be
immoral?" Gingrich replied "No, no of COURSE not. Of COURSE
employers have a right to fire homosexuals."
This is the man who has a gay half-sister. This is the man who
served divorce papers to his wife when we was in the hospital.
This is the man who put his arm around Rev. Lou Sheldon who has
declared "total war" on gays.
The groups run by people like Gary Bauer, if you search their
literature, cite statistics from Paul Cameron. Cameron has said
that homosexuality must be "destroyed". He advocates closing ALL
gay establishments.
Dobson's group backs people like Randall Terry, who as advocated
death penalty for gays.
The Religious Right drips venom, then claims it "loves" us. It
is like a rapist who then claims that he "loves" his victim and
asks her to marry him. The sickness of it makes the crime even
worse.
The most powerful figures in Congress treat gays as if they are
fingernail dirt, period. Their phony "compassion" is a ploy to
make themselves appear respectable, and gain more support.
Neither gay groups nor the media have done a sufficiently
heavy-hitting expose of the rotten underside of hate in the
Religious Right.
The media waters down the truth because they 1) don't want the
rabble to get roused, and 2) are prone to cow-tow to whoever is
in power. Timid, watered-down truth is not a tonic to cure an
illness this deep.
Consequently, my dear gay people, you must learn to start
steeling your hearts. The sympathetic pat on the back that you
get for being "responsible" in the eyes of the straight world is
not medicine sufficiently strong to cure what ails our country.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
========================================
Re: "The President Has Told the 'Truth'"
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/09/08
Forums: alt.politics.org.cia
>It's fashionable among JFK conspiracy circles to disparage
>Oswald's marksmanship
How far we've come. We used to assassinate Presidents with
bullets, now we assassinate Presidents with bimbos. So much more
civilized.
More contemptible than Clinton's sleaze is his naivety. What
does it take for such fools to get it through their heads that
will have NO secrets? Every little secret weakness will be known
and exploited with skill.
J. Edgar Hoover played the same game like a pro, much better than
Kenneth Starr. He knew the dirty sex secrets of everyone in
Washington, and used it for hardball power games.
I recall how the Republicans once schemed to seduce Democratic
Congressmen aboard a yacht, so they could get it on videotape. I
can just picture their mock, moral indignation, had they
succeeded.
I can equally picture them stonewalling, fighting furiously to
destroy the reputation of any accuser, if the shoe were on the
other foot, and a President of their own were on the line.
Probably, we'd have a few investigative reporters showing up as
corpses in bathtubs, ruled as suicides, and that would be the end
of it.
I seem to recall George Bush having allegations of infidelity,
too, but I don't recall any $40 million spent to investigate it.
The accusation came and went with little fanfare or press.
Back in Nixon's day, the Republicans got caught at the game. Now,
it would probably work flawlessly. The Democratic bozos would not
only be caught in the act, they'd be clueless that they'd been
tricked.
What is scarier, the liberal sleaze and stupidity, or the fascist
power games?
What it most difficult to believe about Monica Lewinsky is that
she would have kept a semen stained dress as a "souvenir". What,
she thought it was so romantic?
It looks like blackmail intended from the word "go". All the
more so, when the woman is an improbable friend of a former Nixon
dirty trickster, Linda Tripp.
How ironic it is also, that in a country where political murders
have occurred right under our noses, and pass virtually without
comment, that everyone gets so excited and indignant about a
sleazy sex affair.
It's a repulsive theater of the absurd, all around.
If our political leaders had any brains, they would go through
life with grim faces and worried expressions, as if they were
walking on eggs and tiptoeing through a mine field, because that
is essentially what they ARE doing.
Yet, here they are, thinking that this is a time to pee so
carefree into the wind.
They are much too caught up in their little games, power trips,
ego trips, the world of polls and votes. What they need is for
something to jolt them back into the realization of the
seriousness of it all.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass
===========================================================
Subject: GOP House of Whoreship
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/09/27
Forums: bit.listserv.gaynet
GOP HOUSE OF WHORESHIP
The GOP sucks up to Pat Robertson so hard, there ought to be a
sodomy law against it.
The ink had barely dried on the press reports of Robertson's
latest crackpot tirade against gays, blaming us for hurricanes in
Florida, yet here comes the GOP leadership, trotting out for the
Christian Coalition's "Road to Victory" rally.
The mainstream press would never dream, of course, to risk
rocking the boat by detailing the full truth of the worst of
Robertson's many excesses. He has issued high words of praise
and admiration for R.J. Rushdoonie, another religious crackpot
who advocates death for gays. The Christian Coalition's Board of
Directors is also said to have death penalty advocates in its
number. The Christian Coalition also issued a praising review of
a book that called for death penalty.
Robertson's deep hankering for violence is obvious to anyone who
cares to see it. Despite their public proclamations against
violence, their rhetoric has been peppered with references to
"hand-to-hand combat", "leaving enemies in body bags", "guerrilla
warfare". He got laughs from his flock suggesting that the
Secret Service should stop protecting Clinton, and let him be
shot. He says that Washington is "infested" by "termites", and
is in need of "holy fumigating", a phrase strongly reminiscent of
the Nazi depiction of Jews as "vermin", and the poison gas that
was ultimately used as a means to try to wipe them from the
earth.
The deep attitudes of the Religious Right make it clear that
these are not mere figures of speech. Robertson is perfectly
serious when he proclaims that God's wrath will destroy the
country, literally, if homosexuality is tolerated.
Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Dan Quayle, Oliver North were all
present for Robertson's rally. It is clear that there is nothing
that Robertson could say or do that would make the GOP finally
draw the line. Religious conservative are central to the GOP
strategy, and they would never dare to disown them.
Trent Lott's comments comparing gays to alcoholics are tame,
compared to what has been standard conservative fair. We have
been compared to rapists, to murderers, to child molesters, to
people who have sex with animals, to animals themselves, to
Satanists. There is no such thing as a comparison so irrational
or outrageous that it will not make perfect sense in the twisted
minds of religious bigots.
When the sodomy case came before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice
Warren Burger said that gay sex was "more heinous than rape".
The state of Georgia District Attorney Michael Bowers once
proclaimed in an interview that gays their constitutional rights
already, because we had "the same rights as rapists".
In the most classic of Nazi propaganda films, "The Eternal Jew",
the villain is a rapist Jew, who whines for sympathy because he
is "a poor Jew", but he is executed.
It is pathetic that gays are so often not merely doormats for
their own oppression, but practically welcome mats, as well. The
self-hating, self-promoting Camille Paglia tells us that we are
not respectful enough of religion, even as she warns us that many
religious folks would always be ready to wipe us out, if we are
not careful.
I would rather die with my boots on, thank you. Twisted religion
like Robertson's is richly deserving of our open scorn.
America is in need of a major Attitude Adjustment. If it fails
to manage this in the near decades to come, it loses any
legitimate right to expect that it deserves the comforts of
peacetime. A taste of true religious war, exactly as Robertson
envisions it in his secret fantasies, is perhaps the tonic that
America most needs to cure its ills, which are perhaps too deeply
rooted to be addressed seriously enough by any other avenue.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Marxist Anti-gays
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/12/05
Forums: soc.culture.zimbabwe
This comment concerns the long-winded "history lesson" by German
Marxists, trying to defame gays. I lost the original post
because of a timeout by AOL (I will change service providers over
this nonsense, soon).
The Marxists talk about the "dirt" that homosexuality involves,
allege that homosexuals are involved in secret schemes and
intrigues, talk about how "depraved" and "decadent" we are, then
they turn around and whine how abused and slandered THEY are,
because they are compared to Nazis for such talk.
Thanks to them for the most illuminating historical treatise
since "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It is a picture
of vicious crackpots, trying to make themselves sound scholarly
and respectable.
They peddle this propaganda poison in a place like Zimbabwe,
where gays are so terrorized, and have the gall to pretend that
they are anything more than haters?
Intellectualized hatred, sanitized hatred, calmly expressed
hatred, pondering hatred, is still hatred, all the same, just as
cheap.
The masquerade of moral indignation is exposed by the dripping of
the pure venom.
Hitler was full of philosophy, full of history, full of ideas
what was needed to make a better world, too. He said that
homosexuality was the "mark of Cain".
Western press praised Hitler for being so wholesome, not smoking
or drinking. They thought that his anti-Jewish expressions were
just a ploy to get raise votes. They thought that he would
moderate, now that he had acquired power.
Within little more than another decade, 50 million people would
be dead. Perhaps it was because too many decent people thought
that the crackpot ideas and the raw hatred didn't really mean
anything, wouldn't really follow through with any consequences,
could be safely ignored.
The German Marxists deserve the same fate as Hitler and
Mussolini.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
===========================================================
Subject: Clinton's Shame
From: Tom Keske (trkeske@yahoo.com)
Date: 1998/12/12
Forums: alt.religion.gay-les-bi-tran
Clinton's Shame
Bill was a Bad Boy?
In truth, Clinton if anything is too much of an Innocent to be a
President. His display of shame more than anything is a display
of his utter lack of perspective into the evils of the Real
World.
Feeling all guilty about some idiotic little affair with a bimbo,
are we?
Ronald Reagan didn't feel shamed in sucking up to a Moral
Majority when it was saying that "Heaven will rejoice when gays
are annihilated".
George Bush didn't feel shamed when he allowed a prominent
California fundamentalist to work for his reelection campaign,
who advocated death for gays.
Ronald Reagan didn't feel shame in saluting Bob Grant, the radio
host who said that gays should be mowed down with machine guns.
The Get-Clinton crowd doesn't feel shamed at the Rutherford
Foundation, which is paying the legal fees of Paula Jones. The
Rutherford Foundation is part of the Christian
Reconstructionists. The Reconstructionists advocate death
penalty for gays, as according to the Bible.
These people have outspoken contempt for democracy. Rousas
Rushdoony, their founder, calls democracy the "great love of
failures and cowards". He says, "In the name of toleration, the
believer is asked to associate on a common level with the
atheist, the pervert, the criminal". He urges Biblical death
penalty for 14 offenses, including blasphemy and adultery.
The Reconstructionists get money from a right-wing billionaire,
Richard Scaife, whom Nixon once wanted to buy the Washington
Post, in order to silence it. Scaife has CIA ties, as does Linda
Tripp, a Nixon-era dirty trickster. Scaife has been instrumental
in the crusade against Clinton.
Nixon's men, like Gordon Liddy, had outright Nazis sympathies.
Liddy admits in his autobiography to showing a Nazis propaganda
film in the White House, to his own children. He was speaking
German in the White House. He admitted to plotting murder.
Yet, people like Trent Lott, so hot to get Clinton, felt no shame
in defending Nixon, arguing that anyone could be made to look
bad, if they were subject to enough scrutiny. Bob Dole and
Robert Bork defended Nixon just as enthusiastically.
Clinton lied? How awful. George Bush never lied, he was just
"out of the loop". Ronald Reagan never lied, he just couldn't
remember.
Ronald Reagan could have been impeached over Iran-Contra. George
Bush could have been impeached for obstruction of justice, for
stalling investigation of the Saving&Loan scandal, in which his
banker son was involved.
If the Republicans want to play hardball, then the Democrats
should take off the gloves, the next time that the shoe is on the
other foot, instead of respectfully bestowing honors, hoping to
gain some political good will.
The American government never felt shame at supporting Augusto
Pinochet, installed in a CIA-backed coup. Pinochet's torture
methods included electroshock to genitals, dismemberment, shoving
bayonets up vaginas.
People like Jesse Helms, so hateful of Clinton as to warn him
about needing a bodyguard, felt no shame at being a personal
friend of Pinochet.
And here is Bill, feeling "shame", clueless to the fact that the
right-wing is characterized by shameless fascists who are out for
blood.
These same Republicans would be stonewalling all the way, if the
same charges were leveled against a Republican President. What
we are witnessing is a coup attempt, with a more civilized facade
than the coups that we ever backed in Chile or Vietnam.
It is a thin facade, behind which fascist mentality is hiding.
Tom Keske
Boston, Mass.
-----finis (end of document)