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A Different Bomb by Pete Townshend
Petetownshend.com ^ | January 2002 | Pete Townshend

Posted on 01/14/2003 5:24:16 AM PST by CincinnatiKid

A Different Bomb By Pete Townshend January 2002 For 'Cloud'

This past week a friend of mine committed suicide. She was a forty-something actress, recovering from alcoholism. Although I am a recovering alcoholic myself I knew her best through my work as a fund-raiser for treatment for those needing alcohol and drug rehabilitation. We first met about seven years ago. One day, in an open counselling session at which adult men and women of all ages were present, she suddenly revealed her central issue. From as early as she could remember, as an infant girl she had been sexually abused on a regular basis by her father, and in his presence by several of his friends. At first, she referred to her father as a 'priest'. Later she revealed that these were members of some kind of religious cult. A charity with which I am involved paid for her to go for treatment for depression at The Priory last year. She was greatly improved when she came out. Partly I think because her story was believed. She had felt safe, and various innovative new therapeutic techniques promised to help her further. She became a day patient.

Within a few weeks she started to slide again, pleading to be allowed to go back in for further live-in treatment. There were no further funds available to pay for this. After a month or two, emotionally speaking she was back where she had started: at a rockbottom. Her friends endured an oscillating love-loss relationship with her. She was funny, honest, energetic and smart. But she was often desperate for affection, attention and help. As a result she could be exhausting. For all of us who helped her, including several women who themselves experienced similar sexual abuse as children, her suicide was both a tragedy and an act of brutal insanity. What pushed this woman to the brink was not self-obsession - though God knows she enjoyed her share, like any individual ensnared in alcohol or drug addiction - it was the fact that she discovered her father was in a new relationship and had access to some young children.

It seems then that the greatest terror for an adult who remembers sexual abuse is the thought that other children might suffer as they did.

In my writing in the past - especially Tommy - I have created unusually unmerciful worlds for any infant characters. I am often disturbed by what I see on the page when I write - never more so than when I draw on my own childhood. Some people who were abused in their childhood have written to me to say how much they identify with the character of Tommy. But what is powerful in my own writing, and sometimes most difficult to control and model, is the unconscious material I draw on. It is what is unconscious in me that makes me scream for vengeance against my friend's abusers, rather than an adult understanding of what went wrong.

I remember no specific sexual abuse, though when I was young I was treated in an extremely controlling and aggressive way by my maternal grandmother. This is not unusual. It might be described by some as insignificant. Almost everyone I know experienced similar stuff at some time or other - many friends experienced more extreme 'abuses' and have no obvious adult vices as a result.

On the issue of child-abuse, the climate in the press, the police, and in Government in the UK at the moment is one of a witch-hunt. This may well be the natural response triggered by cases like that of my friend who committed suicide. But I believe it is rather more a reaction to the 'freedoms' that are now available to us all to enter into the reality of a world that most of us would have to admit has hitherto been kept secret. The world of which I speak is that of the abusive paedophile. The window of 'freedom' of entry to that world is of course the internet.

There is hardly a man I know who uses computers who will not admit to surfing casually sometimes to find pornography. I have done it. Certainly, one expects only to find what is available on the top shelf at the newsagents. I make no argument here for or against 'hard' or 'soft' pornography. What is certain is that providers of porn feel the need to constantly 'refresh' their supply. So new victims are drawn in every day. This is just as true on the internet as it is in the world of magazines and video. However, what many people fail to realise is how - by visiting their websites - we directly and effectively subsidise pornographers. This is true whether we do so unwittingly or deliberately, out of curiosity or a vigilante spirit. Vigilante campaigners I have contacted on the internet tell me that many porn sites that claim to feature underage subjects do not - in fact - do so. Many that are 'genuine' do feature much the same content on the inside as they do on their free pop-up pages that litter search engines. So why do these pornographers bother with us at all? They can't be getting rich. Why can't they remain secret?

As someone who runs a 'commercial' website of my own I am fully aware of how direct the avenue is between the provider and the user of any internet site. I am also aware - as are most people today I think - of how easy it is to trigger the attention of an internet service provider (ISP) when certain 'buzz-words' are used in a search. These are, in effect, words - or combinations of words - that alert attention at the ISP.

This first came to my attention when in 1997 a man who had briefly worked for me was arrested in the UK for downloading paedophilic pornography. I was cautious of openly condemning him. He had performed in one of my musicals and was a popular figure in the soft-pop pantomime of the UK music scene. When he went to trial, the buzzword that the newspapers kept reprinting - that he had allegedly used in his regular internet searches - was 'lolita'. A few weeks into the trial The Guardian newspaper revealed that www.uksearchterms.com listed 'lolita' high on the list of the most searched words in the UK ('sex' is often No.1). It seemed to me that there was some hypocrisy going on. Who were all these people typing 'lolita' into their browsers? They were surely not all paedophiles. They may have been vigilantes. I'm fairly certain that in most cases they were simply curious of what they might find.

The terrible part is that what they found on the internet will almost have certainly found them by return. It is not to suggest that every one of them was 'hooked' as soon as they found a porn site professing to display underage subjects, it is to say that because their visit was undoubtedly recorded by the site or sites in question, the pornographers who run those sites would have found validation and commercial promise for their activity. They would then have redoubled their efforts in that area.

Many porn sites use software triggers so that when you try to leave a site upon which you may have unwittingly stumbled, another similar - or worse - site immediately pops up. When you try to shut that site, another pops up, then another, then another, the content getting more and more extreme until your browser is solid with pornography and eventually will seize up as though choking on some vapid manifestation of evil itself. Thus it is that the pornographer's validation is spawned at the same time. One site opened triggers another dozen or more - all of which you have unwillingly 'visited'. All of which will have a record of your computer's unique address.

It was obvious to me (though obviously not to the rest of the country) while the man I knew was on trial, that 'lolita' is not a word to use carelessly when searching the internet - even if one happened to be studying Nabokov for a literature degree. So I had my first encounter with internet paedophilia by accident.

Ethan Silverman, a film director friend, had made an extremely moving documentary about an American couple who adopted a Russian boy. As a charity fundraiser (and, I suppose, philanthropist to boot) I wanted to support the work of such orphanages and decided to see if I could - via the internet - find legitimate contacts to help. (I had tried many other methods and failed). The various words I used included 'Russia' and 'orphanages'. I used no words that could usually be taken to be sexual or lascivious, except - perhaps ill-advisedly - the word 'boys'.

Within about ten minutes of entering my search words I was confronted with a 'free' image of a male infant of about two years old being buggered by an unseen man. The blazer on the page claimed that sex with children is 'not illegal in Russia'. This was not smut. It was a depiction of a real rape. The victim, if the infant boy survived and my experience was anything to go by, would probably one day take his own life. The awful reality hit me of the self-propelling, self-spawning mechanism of the internet. I reached for the phone, I intended to call the police and take them through the process I had stumbled upon - and bring the pornographers involved to book.

Then I thought twice about it. With someone on trial who had once been connected with me - however loosely - I spoke off-the-record to a lawyer instead. He advised me to do nothing. He advised me that I most certainly should not download the image as 'evidence'. So I did as he advised. Nothing.

I mentioned my own internet experience to a few people close to me. The trial of the man who had been in my musical was on everyone's agenda. It became clear very quickly that some people I spoke to were sceptical of me. I think they thought that if I had searched using the right words, my exposure to that terrible image would not have occurred.

It might be strange to hear that I was glad I found it. Until then, like my ostrich-like friends, I imagined that only those who communicated on the internet using secret codes, private chat-rooms and encrypted files would ever be exposed to this kind of porn. But I learned through this accident that such images were 'freely' available through the machinery of common search engines and User-Groups, and openly available for sale through subscription via credit card. I was then concerned that there would be those 'providers' of paedophilic porn who felt the need to regularly 'refresh' their supply of images. It is a chilling thought isn't it? Even so, I found myself wondering whether that thought brought fears for me that were, perhaps, quite out of proportion with reality: maybe I was stirring my own subconscious memories; maybe I was just being pompous. Now my friend has joined a long line of suicides who were sexually abused as children, and I feel I must speak up.

Since 1997 I have been attempting to prepare some kind of document with respect to all this for wider publication. My feeling is that if internet service providers (ISPs) can be enlisted by the police and other authorities to 'snoop' and provide information about customers downloading illegal pornography, they could just as easily filter search terms - or better yet, practice combinations of such search terms on a regular basis and then block specific site names. Many ISPs do such work. It is part of their regular housekeeping. But the pornographers are rich, determined, and - in the area of under-age pornography - criminal. Banned sites are replicated, renamed and replaced in days.

Why am I suddenly writing this today? My friend who committed suicide was the victim of an active but secret ring of paedophiles. They are still at large today. Only those who knew my friend, and believed her story, feel any urge to speak up against her abusers. But we have no proof. It is frustrating, but for her, at least, the pain is over. Meanwhile, on the internet, vigilante groups and individuals work tirelessly and obsessively both to trace and block certain porn sites and to offer - through 12 Step programmes for sex-addiction - probably the only way out for some ensnared by addiction to what the internet has to offer.

It has all gone public now. The ISP I use allows access to User Groups by using the term 'alt' as a prefix. In 'Google' (a popular search engine) it is possible to reach a questionable array of offered sex sites with very few key-strokes, and without actually typing a single word. The pathway to 'free' paedophilic imagery is - as it were - laid out like a free line of cocaine at a decadent cocktail party: only the strong willed or terminally uncurious can resist. Those vigilantes who research these pathways open themselves up to internet 'snoops'. Many are willing to take the risk. They believe the pathways themselves must be closed. They must be totally and completely eradicated from the internet. If that is not possible they must be openly policed by active and obstructive vigilantes - not just 'snooped' by government agencies and police. I understand the police believe that snooping on the internet might lead them to active paedophiles - their philosophy being that it is the ones who are secret who do the damage. In the case of my suicide friend I would have to agree. However, in other countries children are not so precious. Brazil, Russia and Thailand all have well-known and tragic orphanages and street-children problems, and these countries probably provide source material for many sites.

In my work fund-raising in the field of drug and alcohol rehabilitation I have come across hundreds of individuals from the UK and Europe whose problems have been triggered by childhood abuse. Not always, but often, the abuse is sexual. Sometimes it is quite minor, but even in those cases - for some reason - spectacularly damaging. Not all addicts and alcoholics are victims. They are, perhaps, a minority. But among those afflicted by addiction abuse is terribly common. In some cases, what is so distressing is how little it takes. For me, a few minor incidents seem to have created a dark side to my nature which thankfully emerges only in creative work like Tommy. It is not statistically true that all abusers of children were once themselves abused. That can happen, but often - as in the case of my suicide friend - abuse is part of a reward system of power conferred from one adult person to another. But among pornographers only validation and cash matter. What is certain is that the internet has brought the sexual abuse of children into the open. It is not 'respectable' or 'acceptable' at any level of society. It is simply in the open.

Many returning from my friend's funeral had wanted to punch her father who was present. But they restrained themselves. Many present were recovering alcoholics. They are not given to witch-hunts. They are wary of hypocrisy. But given the chance, many of them would have told their own stories about what was done to them by abusers sodden with drink or numb with drugs, and possibly what they themselves did 'under the influence' that was equally reprehensible. But if abusers and their accomplices are not necessarily victims of abuse, and not necessarily men, then they are also not necessarily drunk or drugged. Booze and drugs are here to stay. But it must be time to do something more concrete to stop the proliferation of questionable pornography that seems so readily and openly facilitated by the internet.

Another danger is this: I think it must be obvious that many children are becoming inured to pornography much too early and - as I have demonstrated - the internet provides a very short route indeed to some of the most evil and shocking images of rape and abuse1.

The subconscious mind is deeply damaged and indelibly scarred by the sight of such images. I can assure everyone reading this that if they go off in pursuit of images of paedophilic rape they will find them. I urge them not to try. I pray too that they don't happen upon such images as did I, by accident. If they do they may like me become so enraged and disturbed that their dreams are forever haunted.

1 Software to filter out and block porn at home is often too complex and sweeping to do the job, or too feeble. At the moment, it's all we have. I recommend CyberPatrol - www.cyberpatrol.com - it isn't easy to set up, but it is powerful. Once it is running it begins to make the internet feel a much friendlier and safer place for our children.

- Pete Townshend


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
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To: William McKinley
To all -- please see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/821928/posts -- we had a vigorous discussion, actually started BEFORE this letter showed up last night. I, like many here, are troubled by the rush to judgement against Townshend, and we raised the 'macro' public policy arguments as well the nuances of the particular case involving Townshend. I'd like to hear your collective opinions on the "macro" issue.
41 posted on 01/14/2003 8:06:23 AM PST by WL-law
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To: marshmallow
He has been changed with "conspiracy to distribute" or words to that effect .... I'd like to know what's behind this charge.

If English prosecutors are anything like American prosecutors, they create a list of every conceivable charge that can faintly be construed by the wildest imagination to apply.

42 posted on 01/14/2003 8:13:41 AM PST by DuncanWaring (...and freedom tastes of reality.)
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To: CincinnatiKid
More news from England!

T Rex band member dies

Micky Finn, percussionist with glam rock group T Rex, has died at the age of 55.
A spokesman for the Mayday Hospital in Croydon, south London, said: "Michael Finn died on Saturday night at the Mayday Hospital."

His manager Barry Newby said Finn was believed to have died of kidney and liver problems, but the exact cause of death had not been announced yet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2651733.stm

Formed by flamboyant lead singer Marc Bolan in 1967, T Rex remain best know for hits such as

Get it On (bang a gong),





43 posted on 01/14/2003 8:16:11 AM PST by TLBSHOW (as I always say hold their feet to the fire...........)
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To: NMFXSTC
Did Pete actually write this article himself? (The composition, punctuation, etc. is extremely well done...something I question)

Townshend's an intelligent man and a talented prose writer, who spent the latter part of the 80's working as an editor at an English publisher.

Check out the liner notes for "Quadrophenia" or "Odds and Sods". Or his review of "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy" published in Rolling Stone way back when. Or his collection of short stories, "Horse's Neck".

44 posted on 01/14/2003 8:22:24 AM PST by Numbers Guy
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To: montag813
I think Townsend himself is a victim. His lyrics are filled with pain and hidden feelings. "Fiddle About", "Cousin Kevin" from "Tommy" may hint at abuse, "Behind Blue Eyes" shines a light on the pain within.

I agree. However if one takes it upon oneself to "research" a subject such as child pornography, one should do so in a scientifically respectable manner. He should have partnered with someone acredited in areas like this and proceeeded professionally.

Finding a kiddie porn site and plugging your CC number in is not the way to do that.
45 posted on 01/14/2003 8:27:37 AM PST by mr.pink
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To: Mo1
Barf
46 posted on 01/14/2003 8:53:19 AM PST by Windsong
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To: CincinnatiKid
While I sympathize with Townsend's scarred history, he appears to be "covering his arse."
47 posted on 01/14/2003 8:55:58 AM PST by Dr. Eckleburg
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To: CincinnatiKid
It doesn't matter what I think...

but I am disinclined to believe Peter Townshend's version of events.
48 posted on 01/14/2003 9:23:23 AM PST by SerpentDove
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To: marshmallow
He has been changed with "conspiracy to distribute" or words to that effect. That goes way beyond just looking at this stuff or even downloading it. I'd like to know what's behind this charge.

Actually, he has been charged with nothing, but is "under suspicion" of "incitement to distribute" -- which, essentially, means that by giving his credit card info (stupid, stupid, stupid!) to the porn site, he was "inciting" them to "distribute" their crap to his computer.

49 posted on 01/14/2003 10:05:48 AM PST by NYC GOP Chick
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To: netmilsmom
But I can't help but wonder whether he wrote this piece to exercise a demon and to try to leave a paper trail of innocence if he needed to so profess it in the future...because by the time he put this piece on his site, he had learned that ISP's have records of visitors.
50 posted on 01/14/2003 10:37:56 AM PST by Donna Lee Nardo
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To: MosesKnows
All porn should be outlawed, period. It is all abuse.
51 posted on 01/14/2003 10:43:44 AM PST by Donna Lee Nardo
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To: CincinnatiKid
Victim of child abuse, victim of the "alcoholism disease", victim this, victim that! Now, I know why I never liked Tommy while being a fan of the band. Petie oughta get over it, stop his "research" and start enjoying his wealth. What's this victim obsession? I went to a writer's group a couple of weeks ago and a couple of old broads were reading their weepy short pieces there - one about a street bum, sorry "a homeless person", and the other about a halfwit, sorry "a victim of something or other". I walked out, just as I couldn't finish reading the piece above. Is there all there is to life, victimhood? Petie was promising a new Who album a few weeks ago, he ought get off his arse and start working on that!
52 posted on 01/14/2003 11:01:09 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Someone left the cake out in the rain I dont think that I can take it coz it took so long to bake it)
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To: netmilsmom
This is hardly a validation. This kiddy-porn ring was busted about a year ago. Townshend knew that the police had his credit-card number and was trying to give himself a cover. I still don't buy it.
53 posted on 01/14/2003 11:49:58 AM PST by Calico Cat
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To: Calico Cat
I recall hearing about that ring some time last year. Does the date the ring was busted coincide with the time Townshend wrote this document?
54 posted on 01/14/2003 11:54:45 AM PST by new cruelty (Read this tagline, then see the movie!)
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To: CincinnatiKid
This does sound plausible. A friend was looking for "haiku" information for her daughter, spelled it wrong, and wound up at a Japanese porn site. I've had a porn site come up accidentally after mistyping a URL. And (as I mentioned in another thread), I know of a guy who was looking at the Usenet one night at work that was so upset by what he stumbled upon that he beeped his manager in the middle of the night (I know the manager). The kind of thing described here can and does happen. And once you view those images, they may be stored on your hard drive. And as he said about "boys", some keywords do have "code word" meanings to the point that I've often taken to typing "-sex" (i.e., exclude pages with the word "sex" in them) into searches to prevent seeing sex sites. If you have a filter or AOL, you might not see them but if you don't and search for the wrong word, you sure can.
55 posted on 01/14/2003 12:28:41 PM PST by Question_Assumptions
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To: new cruelty
This ring was busted before 9-11-01. My speculation is that Townshend has been visiting these sites for a long time, heard that one he visited was busted, and began a public 'crusade' against kiddy-porn because he knew what was coming and wanted to give himself cover.

His latest excuse: he was trying to encourage adoption of Russian orphans. While 'researching' this topic, he stumbled into some Russian kiddy-porn rings.

It's so weird that his research leads him again and again into child pornography. What a coincidence! I've been online for four years, have been doing research for four years (including research on foreign adoptions) and have never encountered this garbage. If I had, I certainly would have contacted law enforcement (Pete, in the Russian-child-porn story, says that he didn't contact the police, despite the fact that he saw a 2-year-old boy being raped. Niiiice. His concern wasn't enough that he would contact ANYONE until he was sure that his credit card number was in police possession.)

Busted, Pete. End of story.
56 posted on 01/15/2003 11:19:09 AM PST by Calico Cat
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To: Question_Assumptions
Oh, it's possible you could run into these sites accidentally. It's not possible to 'accidentally' give them your credit card number. It's quite suspicious that Townshend was interested in 'researching' subjects that consistently led him to encounter child pornography.
57 posted on 01/15/2003 11:20:19 AM PST by Calico Cat
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To: CincinnatiKid
bump
58 posted on 01/15/2003 1:17:01 PM PST by TLBSHOW (Free Republic The #1 Stickest site on the web where the hardest part is clicking away...........)
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To: Calico Cat
This ring was busted before 9-11-01. My speculation is that Townshend has been visiting these sites for a long time, heard that one he visited was busted, and began a public 'crusade' against kiddy-porn because he knew what was coming and wanted to give himself cover.

Wrong. Pete Townshend originally posted his “Different Bomb” piece in January of 2001, at least a half a year prior to the FBI handing over names to the UK. When he found out about the names being handed over, he reposted his entry, and subsequently posted more on the subject. He was not even aware he was on the list until the press showed up at his door. BTW, he was a priority 3 on the list, meaning his was of the lowest priority, and would not have even been contacted by the police for quite awhile.

59 posted on 01/16/2003 11:45:10 AM PST by Mrs.Liberty
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To: Mrs.Liberty
"He wasn't aware he was on the list until the press showed up at his door"

What? I was under the impression that HE called the press to deny that he was a pedophile. He knew he was on the list and was doing some spin, as far as I can see.

And Townshend was on more than one list. More 'research' of his--on Russian orphanages, because of his concern for having Russian orphans adopted in England (by who? Certainly not by him or his friends)--got him into yet another kiddy-porn site that he evidently left either a URL or a credit-card number on.

As I stated before: odd how his research led him into kiddy-porn more than once.

His career is over.
60 posted on 01/16/2003 10:17:22 PM PST by Calico Cat
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