Torture Porn

[struggle4progress]

Here's to the pseudoliterate Puritans of the U.S. of A.

If you want to get through to the American public, don't put it in words -- put it in pictures. And if you really want the average American to perk up and pay attention, make the pictures about sex. From Janet Jackson's nipple to Iraqi prisoners' penises, nothing does it for us like sex.
<snip>
The ICRC has issued regular press releases for the past two years about prisoners being deprived of sleep for days, made to endure extremes of cold and heat, exposed to near-drowning, and tied up and forced to contort themselves for hours in positions of agony -- all of which adds up to torture by anybody's standards except, perhaps, those of Donald Rumsfeld.
<snip>
America's newspapers and magazines now know their proper role in the media arena: Their role is to tell Tom Brokaw, CNN, and Fox what pictures to show, so at least some small bit of the news can actually get through to the American public. Thank you, Seymour Hersh. Thank you, The New Yorker. Nobody reads what you have to say, but hell, if you can direct Peter Jennings and Bill O'Reilly to the pictures -- especially if they're pictures of piles of naked people with, ooh la la, leering young women in the foreground -- we'll sure as heck look at those.
<snip>
My guess is, if the only pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib had shown fully clothed prisoners being threatened by attack dogs or electrodes, the American public would have shrugged the whole thing off by now. But bring sex into those pictures, and we suddenly weep and gnash our teeth in self-loathing. There's nothing a Puritan loves better than to beat himself up over sex.
<snip>
http://www.memphisflyer.com/content.asp?ArticleID=6&ID=5947

[JSJ]

1. my question is...

..., was the sadomasochistic porn produced at Ghraib made to order for higher-ups like Rumpfelt, Bush, and Rich Cheney to get their jollies?