Randi talked about the debt of gratitude owed to Lara Logan, George Carlin, and Larry Flynt. Strange juxtaposition, that. I would not quarrel about the first two, but Larry Flynt is due no gratitude from me. It is touching that Randi sticks up for her friends, but nobody can tell me who my friends should be. If that last phrase sounds familiar, it should, since it is paraphrased from Randi. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Larry Flynt is a perfect example. Perhaps someone could explain precisely for what I might owe Mr. Flynt a debt of gratitude.

Lara Logan is a courageous reporter doing a dangerous job, trying to report the real scoop from Iraq. George Carlin was an extraordinary political satirist. Larry Flynt is nowhere near in the same league. He can claim to be a great fighter for free speech all he wants, but I think he belongs in a league with his friends Max Hardcore and Chester the Molester, breaking down the barriers to ever more demeaning portrayals of women as sex objects. Wake up and smell the coffee, Randi; Flynt is using you to shore up his own credibility.

Well, his court fights to defend his crap have have paved the way to assure rights for others who are not publishing crap, but who likely would not have had the resources to fight the battles.

I get that you find Flynt's business repugnant, but maybe it's analogous to supporting the ACLU though they fought for the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, IL. By virtue of his business, Flynt is no less entitled to his Constitutional rights than anyone else, and he's been a valiant defender of them. Moreover, he also created an organization - the name of which escapes me - that looks for worthy cases having nothing to do with pornography where they can provide legal support to journalists and publishers being denied their First Amendment rights.

I obviously can't make you like or be be grateful to Flynt, but I can at least answer the question about "why?"

Actually this s due to the fact that Flynt is highly political and has launched some excellent investigative work - notably during the Lewinksy business, he investigated and published reports on the indiscretions of each of the republicans who were posturing and preening for the morally 'outraged' public.

You can see the FISA troubles top his home page:
http://www.larryflynt.com/

You can read the outline to his book:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id...=result#PPR9,M1

If his political agenda doesn't make up for his porn business (for which I'm grateful!) then I ask that ou bear in mind that as offensive as you find Flynt, that's how repulisve I find Carlin's work ( Out of respect for those here that's all I'll say about that ) - but my point is that there's room for all types in our tent.

The guy has high points:









Lol!

But he also has had some...low points.

Meh...maybe Carlin wasn't that bad...
This is still funny:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/664434/

I don't know anyone in my world who defends gang rape - including Randi Rhodes. Thanks for the information, Hamoth. I had no idea, as to the specifics of Larry Flynt's low points.

Does his political activism blank out his low points? I'll leave that to others to figure out, as I am neutral on this subject, because I know nothing (ignorant) about Larry Flynt's magazines or other enterprises - except what I have read on this board about his gallant political activism for free speech. And, I think I caught glimpses of his self-named movie.

I may look into his low and high points NOW, but I don't know, I might have other stuff that's higher on the agenda at the moment - like, say, looking at one of Randi's definitions of what REAL obscenity is: "dogs eating dead people in Iraq."

It's all about priorities, I guess. In other words, I'm tired of arguing with others about what "kind" of porn I don't like or do like. It's been done ad nauseum on this board a lot, and it gets kind of repetitive.

Oh I have to agree with the take on protecting free speech. Why do some famous talking heads attack the ACLU, biting the hand that feeds them. I can name at least three what I would call sleeze journalists that bash the ACLU on a regular basis to entertain their audiences. Now one of these people is facing at least one lawsuit and he is on his own, trying to set up a private legal trust fund. Brilliant I tell ya, brilliant.

He's kinda racist too.

I don't think he was defending the actual rape - he was using it to criticize a morally uppity town for doing in actuality what was to him an obscene scribble in a dirty magazine.

It simply lacked sensitivity and understanding.

Oh yes, Larry Flynt is so misunderstood by those overreactive humorless feminists. He really is on their side, doing what he can to liberate women, if they would just look beneath the surface. At least Thom Hartmann seems to think so.

Oh yes, progressive, the new mainstream. Larry Flynt seems to qualify for both these days. He is just so COOL!

Hamoth, I imagine you are not aware of this fact, but Eric Bauman of ebaumsworld.com took credit for knocking my web site, and the site of the Free Soil candidate for President, off the Internet last summer. He was not solely responsible, but apparently he was the ringleader, according to the Wikipedia spoof site that documents the lulz. He and his pals think that sort of thing is a barrel of lulz, sending sites so much bogus traffic they overload their quota. Nice to know who your friends are, is it not? By the way, when I visited ebaumsworld.com to investigate, it triggered a phishing alarm.

Egghead, dogs eating dead people is horrifying enough, but if you have a strong stomach, you might want to take a peek at some pictures of what has been happening to children in Iraq. These are PDFs, might take a little time to download. The second one is twice as big. INNOCENT IRAQI CHILDREN - VICTIMS OF WAR & SANCTIONS IN IRAQ 1
INNOCENT IRAQI CHILDREN - VICTIMS OF WAR & SANCTIONS IN IRAQ 2

RE: "Dirty Pool" Director Richard Brooks told a story about the opening week of "Blackboard Jungle" in 1955 in New York. A gym teacher had been thrown off the roof of a school, and the movie had been blamed. Brooks said no, they had got it backwards: the movie was telling the story of what was happening in the schools, not influencing events.

I'm not defending rape at all, but if the cartoon had picked a similar act in a different venue, would that actual pool table rape have occured? A hard thing to prove, one way the other, I would think.

Mr. Jackson Katz has documented some more of these "low points." This was published last December in the Huffington Post. Dennis Kucinich Endorses Hustler
Many things are hard to prove, such as whether Dwayne Tinsley, who did a cartoon series titled Chester the Molester for Hustler, was wrongfully convicted of molesting his daughter. Flynt has also been accused of molesting his daughter. But, why take the word of these bitter daughters against these fine upstanding fighters for free speech?

It's not limited to Iraqi children. The children of our soldiers are showing up with anomalies, too, 67% of Iraq vets children have serious defects.

Yugoslavia is having similar problems...remember, 320 tons of depleted Uranium was dropped on Kosovo

http://planetquo.com/Gulf-War-Syndrome-Dep...Level-Radiation


US tax dollars at work...Depleted Uranium, the gift that keeps on giving for 4.5 billion years.

I don't think anyone actually said that, or anything that can be fairly construed as such. You're not intentionally trying to parody what you say is the perception others have, are you?

You at least implicitly asked - or at least challenged others to explain - what he's done for which one could be grateful, and you've had several answers about his fight for First Amendment rights, on his behalf and on behalf of others. You're certainly entitled to believe that doesn't balance the ledgers, or to assert he's no less repugnant a human being by virtue of the fact that not EVERYTHING he's done depersonalizes women, robs them of their individual identity, and encourages others to do the same. I suspect many here would agree with you.

But others are also entitled to disagree, and to perhaps hold different priorities and/or measures.

Now THAT's ironic. You may want to take a look at some of the most prominent court decisions in legal efforts to publicize realities like this, and to get information and pictures in front of the American public as to US soldiers who have been injured and killed. Though they thus far only have a string of court losses to show for it, Flynt Publications has been at the forefront of legal challenges and funding challenges by others. He's also been a prominent opponent of the war, and has published a lot of work from Greg Palast, Amy Goodman and the like - investigative and analytical pieces that otherwise wouldn't have been seen in the US.

Again, I don't claim these activities redeem him, or that they should for you. I don't have or know your priorities. But it's more data explaining the gratitude Randi referred to.

Check out Larryflynt.com for more info (I believe the only reference to Hustler or Hustler's more familiar content is a single thumbnail photo of the most recent edition - otherwise, it's devoted to anti-war, free-speech and related issues.

I've seen guys do worse things with the money they earned from businesses I wouldn't want any part of, and they appear on the society pages and at gala events.

(PS: I'm not a Hustler supporter, subscriber or reader... or even defender (save for 1st Amendment reasons), and have always found it far too crude and childish for my tastes. Yuck.)

That's just about the exact opposite of what I said. I don't think you are paying close attention to what I'm writing.



o....k....it was just a video link I stumbled onto...I'm not affiliated with that site.

DUH!!!!

Actually I think it is not so far off from what Thom Hartmann said.


Gee, no kidding. What I was wondering about, specifically, are the priorities of Randi Rhodes, why she of all people would think Flynt is owed a debt of gratitude. None of these answers impress me. Larry Flynt has a well-deserved credibility problem, for which he tries to compensate by ingratiating himself with progressives and leftists. Perhaps if the Democratic leadership were not so wary of being cast as weak on terrorism, people trying to get the truth out would not need help from the likes of Larry Flynt!

ChiffonBreath, depleted uranium is in widespread use in modern warfare. The conspiracy of silence about this supposedly innocuous weapon is appalling. Thanks for the link. I think I heard Randi say something about Obama opposing DU, but I could not find anything about his position. I did find a couple of unanswered posts on the community blogs of his web site, and Kucinich has been outspoken about it.

Well then you would be wrong.

Because were it not for his case before the Supreme Court, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Rod Parsley, Hagee and the rest of that lot of loons would have been up in America's grill a whole lot more than they already are.

Had he not been willing to fight that all the way to the Supreme Court, and had the Court not been rational at the time, you wouldn't have even been able to parody them in the press, much less criticize them.

Basically, Jon Stewart wouldn't have had a job, because he wouldn't have been able to mock their hypocrisy.

Protecting free speech isn't about ONLY protecting the speech of those you happen to like, or regard as moral. It's actually about protecting EVERYONE, even a scum-sucker like Flynt, because by doing so, we are all strengthened.

Gratitude for flynt is not a choice to support his business. To me he is a perfect watchdog for the gopers he has managed to whow to be hypocrites. His showing this, while being a smutt peddler, makes the showing delicious

That case was a test of religious privilege that could have been raised by anyone in the media with the nerve to criticize religious public figures. That the media did not have the nerve, and Larry Flynt did, does not make him a hero, it shows the cowardice of the media, or more likely complicity. Yes good things are sometimes done with ill-gotten money, but to say if not for him it would be hands off that lot is stretching, IMO.

Flynt is probably a bit scared at the moment. Max Hardcore was convicted a few weeks ago and faces some serious jail time. Flynt was the pioneer, the innovator of exquisite sexualized cruelty to women, pushing the envelope, crossing all the lines that distinguish erotica from pornography. Randi has gone beyond saying Flynt deserves gratitude; he deserves reciprocal interviews as well? She seems to think he is her friend. I urge her to reconsider that. Even you, 5by5, just called him a scum-sucker. Where is the line crossed for Randi Rhodes? He has a strange attitude about child molestation. Either he thinks it is funny, to be encouraged, or he is a child molester himself, as his daughter alleges. The cartoonist of Chester the Molester was accused of acting out his cartoons by his daughter and convicted, but his lawyers got the verdict reversed. She was making it all up for money or spite, just like Flynt's daughter? I know, innocent until proven guilty, but I have to wonder if Flynt respects any boundaries whatsoever. That he was indispensable in the fight for free speech, I just do not buy it. He got invaluable publicity from that case. It was good for business.

Hamoth, it is nice to know you stumbled on ebaumsworld and do not support its peculiar means of supporting free speech. Believe it or not, that gang that takes delight in shutting down web sites claims that is their free speech. The Internet Police, keeping the net free of what they consider offensive. The first part of that reply was not directed at you.

That summarizes my feelings quite well.