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This is what happens when you want to protect children.
Even from John Denver and Oprah...
The Verbal Destruction of Tipper Gore & the PMRC
Her book:
Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society
from Wikipedia:
In 1985, Tipper Gore co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) with Sally Nevius, Pam Howar, and Susan Baker, wife of then–United States secretary of the treasury James Baker, because Gore heard her then 11-year-old daughter Karenna playing "Darling Nikki" by Prince. The group's goal was to increase parental and consumer awareness of music that contained explicit content through voluntary labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers. Their coalition included the National PTA and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The PMRC had no members, merely founders, and all of the founders were wives of prominent politicians.
According to an article by NPR, Gore went "before Congress to urge warning labels for records marketed to children."Gore explained that her purpose wasn't to put a "gag" on music, but to keep it safe for younger listeners by providing parents with information about the content of the songs. A number of individuals including Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, John Denver, Joey Ramone, and Frank Zappa criticized the group, arguing that it was a form of censorship.
Gore's relationship with Snider was particularly antagonistic, with Snider accusing her of having a "dirty mind" for suggesting that his band's song "Under the Blade" contained sadomasochistic references, when the song in fact referred to medical surgery instead. In response to such criticism, NPR further stated that according to Gore, she "wasn't out to censor the objectionable material" and quoted her as stating that she is "a strong believer in the First Amendment" who is calling for greater "consumer information in the marketplace."
The PMRC's efforts were successful and resulted in an agreement where recording labels voluntarily placed warning labels on music with violent or sexually explicit lyrics.
In 1990, Gore founded the Tennessee Voices for Children to advance youth services for mental health and substance abuse.
Contents of the book:
A Mother Takes a Stand
Where Have All the Children Gone
The Cult of Violence
Selling More than the Sizzle: Explicit Sex in the Media
Merchants of Death: Touting Teen Suicide
Playing with Fire: Heavy Metal Satanism
The Medium is the Mixer: Alcohol and Drugs in Entertainment
Rock' and Shockin' in the Concert Free-For-All
Parenting in an Explicit Society
Gore/PMRC proposals' record rating:
V - violence
O - occult
D/A - Drugs/Alcohol
X - harsh sexual content
From the Amazon book reviews, these comments:
The bad:
"If there's one thing that makes a southern belle like Tipper Gore nervous, it's the endless throbbing of the drums from the slave quarters on a hot, still southern night."
"And after my wife didn't need it anymore for school, I burned it in a fire pit."
"This is an important book for all those who want very dearly to understand the mind of puritanical, pro-censorship spokespersons. A hilarious list of rock bands, movies, and books, all with great explanations as to why they are poisoning today's youth. I got it for my husband on Christmas and it is on his 'most beloved novelty' shelf."
"Tipper Gore is an embarrassment and I'm eternally glad that people like her did not win out culturally in the long term. This book now reads like a relic of a laughable moral panic."
The better:
"I was very impressed by Mrs. Gore's ability to articulate the effects of the explicitly sexual and or violent lyrics and images which inundate our children's lives. It is a very well researched, thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of this cancer in our society. And make no mistake about it, it is a cancer."
"We do not allow children to smoke or even to be seduced into smoking by allowing cigarette advertisements in our schools. We do not allow alcohol advertisements in our school. We do not allow teachers to advocate to their students the butchering of Jews or the enslavement of African Americans. We do not allow adults to sexually seduce a willing adolescent."
"Is this censorship? Of course it is. No society has been free of censorship. Up until the 1960's our country thought nothing of censoring what it thought to be lewd and indecent. This did not in anyway threaten our freedom to criticize our government."
"An important book about a serious and important social problem in our society today. Tipper Gore is a great American and I would recommend to any serious artist that they read this book."
Just a small bit of research... reviews of Tipper's book...
and I noticed comments about "Jello Biafra"
who I had never heard of before.
One comment stated his career was damaged.
I looked him up...
Turns out... he looked like Elon Musk.
Turns out... Elon Musk enters into this little essay, too.
The question being...
what would happen if Elon bought up Twitter?
Would it turn into a Free-for-all? unfettered free speech?
Would there be just another brand of censorship?
Would conservatives have their accounts returned?
What might really happen...
while hoping we'd have our 1st Amendment back...
would it be moved out of country? away from the laws?
And... just getting accounts back and everyone's free speech...
does not really solve the problems we are facing.
 
When the major social networks... our new "town squares"...
began censoring content of members over various themes...
that were contrary to the government's stated decrees...
evidence of criminality among the politicians...
health directives...
I did some thinking on this thang.
You see...
Simultaneously there was an emergence of child pornography...
and other adult (ya, we call that stuff "adult") topics...
that were also having to be dealt with by social media directors.
Things were getting exposed... that we had never seen before.
Some things were not so cut and dry. Erotica was hard to spot.
Children's games and cartoons and cards and... so much more...
verged on the pornographic.
If you were familiar with various key codes... qeues... hints... words...
you might see it. Children wouldn't notice... at least, not at first.
It was a betrayal of their innocent trust in the world.
Trust... you know, that thing that makes us feel safe.
If these things had been more blatant...
such as naked bodies... bad words... blood... violence...
it wouldn't be too difficult
to institute a system of Parental Guidance terms.
Like Tipper Gore fought for.
Or... make it easy...
Every website would be required to rate its own content...
"All audiences", PG, PG-13, Adult, Sick, etc.
maybe even just... "questionable"... as a rating...
And, every member of social networks... also...
must rate their own content... using guidelines.
If your YouTube channel or media account involved complicated topics...
you would label it properly... and the problem would be solved.
Parents could place passwords on specific types of content.
If you did not properly label your content... you'd get fined... by FCC...
or perhaps your location... would be blocked for a period of time.
Who'd athunk... Disney might be one of those adult content sites.
Tipper Gore did not campaign to censor.
She campaigned to allow parents to be warned of bad content.
It seems a fair compromise.
After all... aren't we all having to decide...
what kind of world we want to live in...?
Aren't we having to take a really good look...
at what makes us "civilized" creatures...?
and what degrades us...? as creatures...?
Doesn't our dignity demand more of us...?
And... what is it... that keeps us from killing each other...?
Isn't it a sense of intellect... and dignity... and civilized behavior...
that allows us to live side by side with each other...?
so that... the degradation of humanity...
doesn't threaten the survival of our species...?
Shouldn't we have...
a manly respect for each other...
granting each their dignity...
expecting a thoughtful co-existence with each other...
not a psuedo-understanding... but a genuine one...
a mature one... expressed in a mature way...
Or... we could just create... hell on earth.
Pick one.
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