Thursday, January 08, 2009

Brother, Can You Spare a Slime?

This from Larry Flynt, the creepy, wheelchair-bound founder of Hustler magazine, and Joe Francis, the sleazy Girls Gone Wild mogul: we need a $5 million dollar bailout!

According to the repulsive reprobates, the porn industry has suffered a five-billion-dollar decline in revenue, down from $18 billion last year, and needs a boost. "The government's handing out money to the auto industry," says Francis. "Why shouldn't it hand some to an industry the nation could not live without?" Says Flynt: "People are too depressed to be sexually active. This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex."

These guys insist the bailout gambit isn't just a publicity stunt, and that they are going to send a written request for bailout money to Barney Frank and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The L.A. Daily News story linked above notes that the bailout request is not being taken seriously by other members of the porn industry; but the response of Bruce Ackerman, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley -- where the porn industry is a huge employer -- should raise some eyebrows. Although he says no bailout request by any industry should be viewed as reasonable, and that the taxpayers should not bear such burdens, he also says: "I don't think you can laugh any of these requests off. I sympathize with any industry that needs help." Any industry?

Joe Francis and Larry Flynt are a couple of sleazy publicity hounds, and this whole thing is probably just a stunt (not that they wouldn't take the five bil if offered). But amid the wreckage of the principles upon which this country was founded, who knows what might happen?

1 comment:

  1. I don't disagree with you, but Flynt and Francis are just demonstrating absurdity by being absurd. In other words, satire.

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