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Friday, August 20, 2021

Only Fans: Are 'Our' Banks the New Taliban?

Religious-financial complex strikes again

Platform to ban porn under pressure from payment processors.

Theocracy is the best? You could've fooled me.

So the Taliban are horrible monsters? Yes. Let's assume for a moment they're deeply religious instead of deeply flawed. Would that change the outcome of how women are being treated in Afghanistan? No. Born and raised in the Christian tradition, Dutch has seen the many ways the Bible has been 'interpreted' to suit the needs of those who interpret the holy book. Why would it be any different for the Qu'ran? Even if the Taliban were as pious as they pretend to be, women would still be banned from Afghan society.

This morning in The Guardian: "OnlyFans to ban adult material after pressure from payment processors." "Rather than lose its ability to take payments, which would effectively kill the business altogether, OnlyFans has instead chosen to ban the adult material that made its name." "Payment processing companies increasingly control what material pornography sites are able to host."

Banks are among the least ethical institutions anywhere and they really don't care. All that matters is making lots of money the easy way and nagging politicians don't help, so you gotta play nice. In 2017 the newspapers reported that Vice-President 'Mike Pence doesn’t dine alone with other women.' In private that's his choice but when he's in office it's more than just impractical. Imagine him visiting Germany and having dinner with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Alone, because it is 'Chefsache' - something to be discussed or decided at the top level. This behaviour is called the Billy Graham rule. It is a practice among some male evangelical Protestant leaders, in which they avoid spending time alone with women to whom they are not married. It is adopted as a display of integrity etc. The rule clearly worked for Mr. Graham but integrity is about more than sex. As a matter of fact when it comes to integrity, sex is hardly relevant at all.

According to his 2018 New York Times obituary 'Mr. Graham’s image was tainted in 2002 with the release of audiotapes that Nixon had secretly recorded in the White House three decades earlier. The two men were heard agreeing that liberal Jews controlled the media and were responsible for pornography.' In one of the comments it is also pointed out how his views of homosexuality were at odds with Jesus. 'Jesus didn't judge, Rev. Graham.' It matters because Mr. Graham had the ear of many presidents and was very influential.
 
Another influential American is Roy Moore. Mr. Moore served twice as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, each time being removed from office for judicial misconduct. Most people know him as the judge who 'hung a homemade wooden Ten Commandments plaque on the wall of his courtroom behind his bench' [2] 'to indicate the importance of the Ten Commandments.' "I wanted to establish the moral foundation of our law." It does get even more Talibanesque. In 2017 Mr. Moore decided to run for the U.S. Senate. He made his belief in the supremacy of a Christian God over the Constitution the cornerstone of his campaign. Even before allegations surfaced 'that he had a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32 years old' he probably never stood a chance.

“I want to see virtue and morality returned to our country and God is the only source of our law, liberty and government,”
- Roy Moore

"He’s something of a folk hero for the Religious Right." writes AU. Wikipedia is less courteous. "Moore has been considered a "rising star of the alt-right movement" by The Jerusalem Post and an "alt-right hero" by The Washington Post."

There you have it, three highly influential white men with hardly any accountability, part of a vast army trying to force their religion upon everyone. Part of their effort is telling banks not to do business with smut peddlers such as Only Fans. Banks are only to happy to oblige, they are posh just like Jeffrey Epstein and prince Andrew. Sex is not. Why do we even worry about the Taliban?

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[1] 'I can't get past his privately expressed anti-semitism (note: Jesus was Jewish) or regressive views on homosexuality (from his own website):

"It must be emphasized that even if a biological predisposition to homosexuality in some people exists, it would not change God’s opposition to the behavior. Neither would it change the fact that through the transforming power of Jesus Christ freedom from sinful behavior is always available.

In addition, many strugglers discover growing heterosexual attractions as they address underlying problems with the help of competent Christian support and counseling.

For a practical guide to overcoming homosexuality..."

Jesus didn't judge, Rev. Graham. He eschewed material comforts and humbly preached his message — something televangelist-authors, seeking adulation and revenue on a massive scale, seem entirely unfamiliar with. I don't admire 'faith' built on hypocrisy.

“A lot of the Jews are great friends of mine,” Mr. Graham said at one point on the tapes. “They swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.'

[2] It later became "a marble monument of the Ten Commandments that he had placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building."

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