ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

Lying

Dear ETS!,

I just don't get it. LBJ lied about the war in Vietnam. Nixon lied about the secret bombing of Cambodia. Bush lied about the CIA selling cocaine. Now Bill Clinton is lying about having sex with Monica, and the press goes ballistic.

Am I missing something here? I always thought killing people was worse than having sex with them. I hope you can explain this puzzle.

--Wondering about Washington DC

G.P. explains: The only possible conclusion is that sex with Bill Clinton is a fate worse than death.

And He Talks Funny

Dear Eaters,

Just read you for the first time from a "Common Dreams" link to your article on Impeaching Clinton.

I liked and got a quote out of it: "The richest one percent of Americans now own more than the bottom ninety percent."--Thank you!

Here it come!!!:

Clinton also is accountable for the use of biological warfare attack on Cuba by a U.S. State Department aircraft in October l996.

Clinton ordered the missile attack on Baghdad in the summer of l993, on a bogus pretext of avenging an assassination plot against his predecessor, George Bush.

Clinton ordered combat forces to attack in Somalia, with an estimated 16,000 civilians killed as a direct consequence.

Clinton pressured Yeltsen to use the Russian military against the Duma.

Clinton tried to stop the creation of a permanent War Crimes Court with an Independent Prosecutor.

Clinton ran unopposed for nomination in l996--autocratic/anti-democratic, isn't it!

Clinton turned the "Democrats" into Republicans, and brought on the Republican Congress.

Clinton was complicit with the CIA's "Gun-4-Drugs" contra support operation with Oliver North, Bill Barr, Felix Rodriguez, Luis Posada Carrilles, and (author) Terry Reed out of Arkansas' Mena Airport and Nella Field.

Clinton turned Arkansas into a covert laundromat for BCCI drug money, with Stephens and Tysons as co-conspirators.

Clinton is also a sick creep! Imagine having someone "get-you-off" for 18 months by squirting in their face. Without ever making love to them, a natural human response. He was too cheap to just have a hooker(s) delivered, he had to toy with a human's emotions.

--Bill, via e-mail

G.P. comments: Good points, Bill--we said specifically our list was quite incomplete. But what the hell do you think a "hooker" is, subhuman? Mineral? Vegetable? Animal? Geez.

Save Bill!

Maria Tomchick,

In spite of all the "impeachable" offenses listed for Clinton in ETS!, it nevertheless remains that the actual attempt to impeach him is mostly a direct attack on the feminist movement and should therefore be resisted!

It's an attempt to unseat a duly-elected President--not by a military coup--but by "judicial" process accomplishing the same thing! A President who was (largely because of his wife) elected by women's votes! Rightly or wrongly--women had no better choice available. It's trying to turn the clock back--to pre-suffrage!

--Barbara Tomlinson, Seattle

G.P. replies: The actual impeachment efforts are an attempt by a nearly indistinguishable wing of the Corporate Party to make the other nearly indistinguishable wing of the Corporate Party squirm a little so it can redirect a bit more political graft its own way. They rarely work, but paralyze the capitol and serve to limit the power of someone elected as a lesser evil by 25% of the eligible electorate. I'm all for it.

Clinton's legal tormentors are obviously no friends of feminism. But if even a fraction of the allegations against him--allegations of repeated misconduct over a period of nearly two decades, allegations that amount to sexual assault--are true, it would be a giant step backwards for feminists not to demand his removal as morally unfit for any elected office--let alone the most powerful one in the world.

As for Hillary, feminists should make sure she's impeached, too. She's not on your side--she and hubby have signed off on a wide array of policies enormously destructive to women, especially poor women. She's no more a feminist than Thatcher or Schafly, in the sense of being a strong, intelligent woman in the public eye. Except, of course, when she enables Bill with her Tammy Wynette "Stand By Your Man" drill. The most feminist thing she could do at this point is to imitate Lorena Bobbitt.

Dishonest Heading

Dear ETS!,

"Teen Sex Is Rape"?!!! Why did ETS! give my letter such a dishonest heading? Geov clearly understood it was inaccurate since his reply begins, "All good points." "Teen sex is rape" is a good point? It was not a point that I made. Protesting rape and "scoring" sex within teen culture, and objecting to a female-negating treatment of the subject in a leftist publication, is not the same as equating all teen sex with rape.

As for Geov's reply: his original article was not about "the apparent illegality of all teen sex, no matter how consensual." It was an article about the federal court's ruling on statutory rape-intercourse between a16 year old boy and a 14 year old girl. The court made no ruling on two 16-year-olds, or two 15-year-olds, or a 17-year-old and a 16-year- old having sexual intercourse. No law, as far as I know, prohibits this. The statutory rape law used in the ruling is meant to prevent the sexual exploitation of young girls (and boys) who are considered unable to give empowered consent to intercourse with an older individual.

The federal court's stated reason for its ruling-which was based on notions of celibacy rather than concern about empowered mutuality--is what needed criticism. I wish Geov had made this distinction.

During one's teen years, two years can make a big difference, and statutory rape laws protecting young teens from older ones should not be criticized as oppression. It is possible that in this particular instance the 14-year-old girl actively chose intercourse from a situation of empowerment. From what I saw and experienced during my school years,and from what I see and hear today, 14-year-old girls are much more likely to be pressured, cajoled, or forced into having intercourse with boys than to actively and freely choose it. I never claimed that this individual instance was necessarily rape, and for Geov to portray my response that way is an easy way out. My point was that if someone is going to write an article, however brief, that criticizes the ruling, the issue of empowered consent and the pervasiveness of boys' misogynistic insistence on fucking girls must be raised. What nonsense to say that the article was not about "male sexual access, which deserves its own treatment." That is like saying there is no reason to talk about oxygen when discussing air. The problem does not exist in its own separate container.

Geov does make a good point in his reply when he says that "real and comprehensive sex education" is a good alternative to the reactionary promotion ofabstinence. Unfortunately, this isn't the sex education that kids are getting or the left is promoting. A real and comprehensive sex education would not be limited to reproductive issues, sexual facts, and information on birth control, which is aimed primarily at keeping girls sexually accessible while minimizing risk of pregnancy and disease. A real and comprehensive sex education would also teach students the history and current reality of gender inequality, and the way male supremacy has used sex to perpetuate gender oppression. It would include discussions of mutuality, pleasure, responsibility, and alternatives to traditional sexuality. And it would aggressively challenge teens' current sources of "education" on sexuality, which are pornography, Melrose Place-type television, violent movies, and real-life male supremacist role models. Last but not least, schools need to offer effective rape prevention programs for all students, and physical self-defense training for all girls. As far as I know, the left is not promoting any of this.

Sincerely,

Adriene Sere, Seattle

G.P. replies: Actually, I write about air all the time without mentioning oxygen. Especially in a one-paragraph item on, say, the pollution index.

"Teen sex = rape" as a statement is not just dishonest, it's despicable. It was also, in this case (forgive the headline hyperbole of equating "teen" and "minor" here), the logic of the court in a decision you chose to defend because of the age of the girl involved in the specific case. You're arguing here for a legal precedent by which all minor sex--regardless of whether it involves males--is considered rape--not "most," not "some," not "from what I see today," but whenever an outraged parent, prosecutor, and court agree. Live with it.

The original short item didn't deal at all with the legitimacy of statutory rape laws, which are the points (along with male sexual access generally) where we agree. It dealt with a court decision that explicitly recognizes as constitutional the ability of any (adult) legislative body to criminalize consensual sex of any type for any minor (not just those under 16), and regardless of the similarity (or lack of it) of age of the partner. That is specifically what I did, and still, criticize.

In a country where it is already illegal in many jurisdictions for minors to simply walk around after a certain hour (a concept endorsed by Pres. Male Sexual Access himself), your faith that this precedent in teen-bashing won't be used just isn't very convincing.

In real life, such laws are most likely to be used against kids who are a) pregnant or b) gay. Not only are they a bad idea generally (the Bill of Rights, that sort of thing), but more specifically, I fail to see how this advances our shared goals of reversing a rape culture or encouraging girls to take control of their own sexuality. Did you ask yourself, in your first sexual encounter, if you were acting legally? Does anyone?

I don't dispute for a second that the "left" (whatever that is) has largely abandoned much of whatever commitment it once had to feminist ideals (c.f. pornography). That's an easy enough target; the "left" is pretty invisible on everything else, too. But it seems to me that empowerment and education of youth--not further criminalization--is the way to go. Trusting an inherently patriarchal legal system to only use laws in the way we want is playing with fire.

A Letter From Some Kid

ETS!,

I just want to get this off my chest: I really hate the word "youth."

Not as in "youth and vigor"--that's OK with me. I mean "today's youth." Or "youth violence."

Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Thank you.

--Jesse Walker, Washington DC

Case Law?

ETS!,

I am trying to find case law on labor and Industries complaints or settlements. I am in the process of trying to fight L&I, which is demanding repayment of a claim that they overpaid me, trying to re evaluate the injury a year after the claim was settled, then attempting to restate the amount paid and collect it back. This happened after I won a small settlemnet from the employer who fired me with L&I's assistance because of the injury.

Where do I go? I do not have a lot for attorneys ($) and have heard of a similar suit where it was determined that Labor and Industries cannot demand repayment in certain cases. I am in process of filing an appeal. any help would be appreciated.