WP: GOP Corporate Donors Cash In on Smut

[DeepModem Mom]

GOP Corporate Donors Cash In on Smut

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2004; 6:24 AM


....Perhaps the most extensive mainstream media treatment on this subject ran four years ago in The New York Times. In a 4,000-word investigative opus, writer Timothy Egan connected the dots between porn and big corporate profits:

"The General Motors Corporation, the world's largest company, now sells more graphic sex films every year than does Larry Flynt, owner of the Hustler empire. The 8.7 million Americans who subscribe to DirecTV, a General Motors subsidiary, buy nearly $200 million a year in pay-per-view sex films from satellite, according to estimates provided by distributors of the films, estimates the company did not dispute.

"EchoStar Communications Corporation, the No. 2 satellite provider, whose chief financial backers include Mr. Murdoch, makes more money selling graphic adult films through its satellite subsidiary than Playboy, the oldest and best-known company in the sex business, does with its magazine, cable and Internet businesses combined, according to public and private revenue accounts by the companies.

"AT&T Corporation, the nation's biggest communications company, offers a hard-core sex channel called the Hot Network to subscribers to its broadband cable service. It also owns a company that sells sex videos to nearly a million hotel rooms. Nearly one in five of AT&T's broadband cable customers pay an average of $10 a film to see what the distributor calls 'real, live all-American sex -- not simulated by actors.'"...

(Corporate restructuring has changed some ownership in the last four years, but there has been no significant change in corporate profits from the "smut" business.)

For instance, Ruport Murdoch, the controlling owner of News Corp. -- which owns both the conservative Fox News and the popular and frequently salacious Fox TV -- continues to cash in. On one hand, Fox News employs commentators who promote the connection between Republicans and family values while other divisions of the company profit from sexually explicit content....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15644-2004Dec21.html

[Melodybe]

1. Yeah GOPers are pervert hypocrits, tell me something I don't know

[Ruffhowse]

2. Murdoch is THE most hypocritical participant in this arena. He pushes

far right conservatism, including cultural conservatism, through his FoxNews division, but pushes the boundary of taste with his Fox TV network and film studios, and steps well over the line with his push of hard core porn over his satellite business. What a cynical manipulator of the system. His only goal is the accumulation of wealth and power. I suspect he has no religious or moral values at all.

[Lerkfish]

5. DING!DING!DING! we have a winner!

"His only goal is the accumulation of wealth and power"

yup, that is it in a nutshell, of all GOP permutations.

[Kolesar]

3. Murdoch bought EchoStar / Dish Network

I recall rumors of that. Dish network has all these "leftist" channels like Free Speech TV and World Link.

[BrainRants]

4. Whatever happened to Dish Network carrying AirAmericaRadio? n/t

[Melodybe]

6. Murdoch owns Direct TV not Dish, I think...

[w4rma]

9. He bought Direct TV, not Dish. (nt)

[Kolesar]

12. thank you & Melodybe

[AmerDem]

7. 60 Minutes did a piece on this

about 2 months ago. They actually went to porn trade shows and most of reps. of the companies went running from the camera rather then talk about.

[UpInArms]

8. thanks for the post!

also from your link:

In his buzzed-about book, "What's the Matter With Kansas," the liberal writer Thomas Frank hypothesizes that today's winning GOP majority is the culmination of a marriage of convenience between the GOP's economic elite and social conservatives. The economic elite needs the votes of the social conservatives to win elections. And the economic elite needs to win elections to pursue the tax cuts and deregulation they seek.

Frank believes that the economic conservatives convince the masses to vote against their economic interests by creating an angry and permanent cult of victimization that diverts attention from the elites and pins all of the country's problems on the eponymous liberal bogeyman. Even as the GOP continues to consolidate and hoard its economic and political power, the Washington-based leadership and strategists of the GOP mask its lack of progress in the culture war -- even as it accomplishes its goals of tax cuts and deregulation -- by convincing the masses to rise up against their true oppressors, Sean Penn, Harvard and the New York Times editorial page.

[Bono71]

10. This is great.

[DFWJock]

11. Today's GOP:

Turning the corner on porn.

[GOPBasher]

13. "Christian Moral Values" --

Remember, that's what won the election for Bush -- if he even won, that is.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

14. DAS "Moral" RepubliKANS strike again!

[prouDem]

15. Who is more at fault?

The supplier or the buyer?

Is this the same as a bookstore that sells Playboy and Bibles?

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

16. the corporate pigs who exploit people are ---wake up idiot !

in this corner we have:
the buyer:
The perv who gets off on a cheap thrill

in this corner we have:
the supplier:
Hotel Chains,Corporate Interests making billions on explotation.

Are you dumb or just republikkkan?

[michaelwb]

17. Janet Jackson

So the real problem the Republicans have with Janet Jackson's naked breast was that it was free rather than Pay Per View? ;-)

[Oldpals]

18. Smut

This is great information. If only we had a way of getting this out to the general public. The bashing of liberals by the TV outlets over Christmas is absolutely and completely hypocritical and as they say in Europe, "over the top". That O'Reilly is able to spew his diatribe on morals and Christian values is appalling. What has happened to the US??????

[DeepModem Mom]

19. You said it, Oldpals -- welcome to DU!

[WhiteTara]

22. oh, I thought it was because it was not pink

like Britney Spears.

[TahitiNut]

20. We gotta make folks understand it's not a spectator sport.

We need to get back to the Do-It-Yourself era. :evilgrin:

[VegasWolf]

21. Well, I for one can't complain too much about porno. n/t