From: ksm@abb-sc.abb-sc.com (Ashley)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: The truth about Tipper Gore (was:Re: the US elections...)
Date: 9 Nov 92 23:41:57 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Kaos Laboratories


In article <2AFEADF4.29425@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes...
>In article <19043@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie) writes:
>>In article <gate.LD0PTB1w165w@pil.UUCP>, alizard@pil.UUCP writes:

>>> 2. Censorship. Tippe Gore is the Vice President's wife. She is
>>> potentially much more dangerous than Marilyn Quayle, especially
>>> as her husband, unlike Dan Quayle, is going to be allowed input
>>> at the highest levels of power.
>>
>>How many times does this have to be said:  LABELS WARNING OF
>>POTENTIALLY OBJECTIONABLE OR OBSCENE CONTENT DO NOT CONSTITUTE
>>CENSORSHIP!!  
> 

>The problem I have is that I just don't trust the people who judge
>whether something is explicit or not to judge as I would.  It reminds me
>of a furor caused by a respected painting featured on the label of a
>bottle of wine.  What was the problem with this, you ask?
> 
>It had a full-frontally nude man.  *Gasp!*
> 
>But is it censorship?  No.  Only if the records are not allowed to be
>played or bought does it constitute censorship.  A mere warning label is
>not enough.  Like I said, how many people who supposedly are afraid of
>Tipper Gore boycott Paramount, Universal, Touchstone, Warner brothers,
>20th Century Fox, and other movie/TV products because they support a far
>more legitimately labelled form of censorship in the form of movie
>ratings that prohibit them from being shown to certain people? 
> 

	Janis, the problem with Tipper Gore is a little deeper than that. 
Tipper was/is the leader of a Christian Fundamentalist cencorship movement. 
Here is a little history of what she has represented in the recent past (or 
at least until her husband began to look like presidential material).

	Let us refer to the Dead Kennedys (DKs). This punk rock group was 
creating politically radical music in the San Francisco area and was world 
known and respected at the time they released their "Frankenchrist" album. 
Contained therein was a poster by H.R. Geiger. The poster depicted a 
surrealist painting of penises entering either rectums or vaginas. The DK's 
put their own warning sticker and disclimer on the cover letting the purchaser 
know about the contents. Unfortunately, this was the door through which Tipper 
Gore and the Parent's Music Resorse Comitte (PMRC) stormed through. 

	Wielding her husbands senatorial influence, Tipper Gore had the ALL 
albums by the DKs removed from the shelves and filed obsecnity charges of 
various sorts against the band. None of the other albums contained similar 
material, just angry punk songs defaming the Christain right, the military 
industrial complex, corruption of government and the current administration's 
hateful politics. It took the band MONTHS and lots of money to get their 
product back on the shelves of the stores, and the offending poster was 
removed from the "Frankenchrist" album. The band and their label had taken 
a hard blow financially.

	Removing the poster did not satisfy Tipper and the PMRC, they 
continued to push their lawsuits and filed new SLAPP suits, some even 
forbidding the group from meeting in private or in public. The object of their 
new obscenity suits was NOT dirty pictures or even the word "fuck" uttered 
several times on the album. It was a centered on several songs, but 
primarily a song called "Stars and Stripes of Corruption" that criticized the 
U.S. Government and the fundamentalist christians in a way that the PMRC 
found offensive. 

	It is important to note that the focus tof the conflict has changed 
here. No longer is the battle being fought over dirty pictures/language, 
but over ideas that Tipper Gore and the PMRC did not want to see expressed. 
Political ideas. 

	The DKs went deep into debt fighting the SLAPP suits and their 
independant record label nearly went bankrupt. This was the goal of the 
PMRC's suits. If they could sue them into non-existance, they would no 
longer be able to speak un-American satanic messages to our kids. The horrible 
truth is, all the calims and acusations made by the DKs where backed up with 
extensive research and where/are quite true. Subjects mentioned included 
Iran-Contra, the KKK, senator Jessie Helms, Watergate, El Salvador, the Iran 
hostage fiasco, etc. None of it cast a very favorable light on the powers that 
where and unfortunately we cas see in retrospect the truth of the band's 
perceptions.

	Eventually, the court battle narrowed down to focus on the lead 
singer, Jello Biafra, and unfortunatly for the PMRC, he came out victorious. 
It did succeed in crushing the band and bankrupting Jello Biafra though.

				- * - 

	During this time, Tipper gore and several other high ranking 
menbers of the PMRC came up with the warning label that they wanted to see 
on all albums containing "harmful material". The label would cover at least 
one quarter of the packaging and would read:

		WARNING
The materials whether recorded or depicted in this package may contain 
references to and/or promote one or more of the following:

Pornography, murder, homosexuality, Communist Propiganda, fornication, 
sodomy, beastiality, felatio, connilingus, rape, masturbation, lesbianism, 
(etc, etc,.....) blasphemy, animal sacrifice, *satanism and witchcraft*, 
paganism, voodoo, Nazism, the occult, bigotry, un-American values, (etc, 
etc, etc.....)

You can see clearly what this was. A hit list by the fundimentalists of 
things they would like to see wiped out. And this warning label would not 
only have been put on albums by obscure finge musicans, but was targeted 
for Michael Jackson (sexual references), Prince (sexual reference and 
blasphemy), Madonna (sexual references), Fleetwood Mac and all members solo 
efforts (Stevie Nicks's religion was judged objectionable), the list goes 
on and on....

	This label would not tell you WHAT was in the album, just scare you 
away from it, letting you think or suspect the worst about whichever one of 
the many subjects on the warning label MIGHT be depicted or advocated therein. 
It was designed to kill off any artist that the PMRC and Tipper Gore did not 
like. Records recieving this label would be available for purchase only to 
those over the age of 21 or 18 and would be salable only in special stores 
along with other "adult material" (read:porno shops).

	Tipper Gore now claims that this label was used as a bargaining 
chip to get the current warning labels on to albums. However, she was 
promoting it well after the current labeling practices came into use. It 
was/is NOT a bargaining chip. She stopped promoting it and began to act 
more liberal only when her husband began to look like a presidential hopeful.

	For more information about the Tipper Gore and the PMRC's attempts 
to censor the performing arts, please contact the NO MORE CENSORSHIP DEFENSE 
FUND in San Francisco. 

> 
>3) I think Tipper Core is fundamentally harmless
> 
>5) I think Tipper Gore was trivialized in part because she is a
>Senator's wife.

	I hope the above posting has been educational about how "harmless" 
and "fundamental" Tipper Gore really is.

>Now awaiting all the nonsense and accusations about how I support
>censorship and am a Tipper groupie and a castrating, man-hating bitch. 
> 
>Blessings,
>Janis 


	No flames for you Janis, just education. You've already won my 
admiration as being one of the more *thinking* people on this net, I believe 
that if you know about what Tipper Gore represents, you will feel a little 
differently about her. No nonsense or acusations, just some history.



			- Ashley

		Who DOESN'T think you are a castrating man-hating bitch or 
a Tipper groupie. So there!