America - Predator, Child Violator

Last night, in a particularly grizzly turn of an otherwise good conversation, my friend and I began to talk about mainstream America's obsession with childhood abuse memoirs--particularly stories of incest, rape, and domestic violence. She argued that people who read such stories may very well be getting off on them, using them as child-pornography. We then proceeded to discuss the obsession with pedophilia, sex crimes, and rape in the mainstream media and how such reporting keeps the public distracted from naming a greater perpetrator of violence against children--the United States government. While a serial rapist may violate and even kill dozens of victims, the United States government is responsible for the death of millions of children--surely a crime greater than rape. While the news obsesses over Internet Pedophiles, corporations lobby for loser environmental standards that cause birth defects, cancer, lowered birth-rates, and premature death. Rather than assisting the victims of such corporate crimes, the current government argues that while billions can be spent regularly on war, health-care for children is not a priority.

The issue of state violence against children is not limited to the current Republican Party. It is important to remember Madelaine Albright's quote on 60 Minutes about the U.S., Democrat sponsored sanctions on Iraq:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

The horror of our present political situation is that the crimes of America dwarf the relatively insignificant and personally brutal and devastating crimes of pedophile rapists. We must demand that the media prioritize attacking the perpetrators of global campaigns of violence against children, whether through sweatshops, bombs, sanctions, or environmental destruction, over the relatively less significant, quasi-pornographic reporting of every-day sex offenders.