Tuesday Reads

Prostitution is certainly not "work" of any kind.

But if prostitution is not labor, what is it? The answer is simple. Sexual slavery; contractual rape. Continuing on her points already made, Kollontai reasoned that “Prostitution arose with the first states as the inevitable shadow of the official institution of marriage, which was designed to preserve the rights of private property and to guarantee property inheritance through a line of lawful heirs.”[6] This is a summation of what Engels described in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State; that prostitution allowed for men to engage in carnal relations outside of their marriage. In the society that gave birth to prostitution, women were either the de facto property of men, or their de jure property, as in the case of wives. The prostitute was essentially a slave, with no rights or autonomy of her own; her entire existence was devoted to serving men. This continued in the age of feudalism, where prostitution was highly organized and ubiquitous, in order to maintain the chastity and faithfulness of men’s daughters and wives, who remained their property. But it is capitalism that has brought forth the full horrific nature of prostitution, where now the whole lot of woman is threatened with prostitution if they cannot afford to feed themselves and their families, or pay their bills, afford an education, or any of the other necessities working people struggle to obtain and secure. Again we see the separation of prostitution from labor; the prostitute in capitalist society is the woman who cannot make an existence by labor alone. The prostitute is not even considered a human being, but rather a commodity. They are below even the lumpenproletariat, that great mass that contains both those almost totally squeezed dry by capitalism, as well as the criminal element of society, which are still recognized as human. This is the class to which the pimp belongs to.[7] The pimp is a parody of the parasitical capitalist who profits off the labor of the working class; in the case of the pimp, he profits off the dehumanized woman turned commodity.
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Obituary: Actor Robert Peter Williams, 89, best known for his sitcom work in the television series Soap and Benson, died after a battle with prostate cancer.

Apparently, St. Louis-born Robert decided as a young man he wanted to become an actor, and the last name of "Williams" was simply not showbiz enough. He changed it to the nearly impossible to pronounce, let alone spell, "Guillaume." Somebody like Mike Connors simply couldn't use his real name because it wasn't marquee material. Robert, though, wanted an unpronounceable and unspellable name so people wouldn't forget who he was.

Evidently Robert (I am not going to type that last name again) changed the last name legally, for in the obit linked, his wife wound up with the same last name as Robert's phony one.

He won several Emmy awards for his sitcom work.

After suffering through a period of unemployment during the ’70s, he was cast in an all-black revival of “Guys and Dolls” as Nathan Detroit, which debuted on Broadway in 1977 and secured him a Tony nomination. He also guested during this period on sitcoms such as “All in the Family,” “Good Times,” “Sanford and Son” and “The Jeffersons,” which led to the supporting role of Benson in “Soap.”

After leaving “Benson” behind, he starred in TV movie “John Grin’s Christmas,” a black retelling of “A Christmas Carol” that was Guillaume’s directorial debut. He tried another sitcom in 1989, “The Robert Guillaume Show,” playing a marriage counselor. The series lasted four months before ABC pulled the plug.

He returned to singing in 1990 in the Los Angeles production of “Phantom of the Opera” and on Broadway in the lead role of “Cyrano — The Musical” for four months beginning in November 1993. He also performed regularly in concert.
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One less Flake will be in the United States Senate after next year.
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