SocraticGadfly: #GoldmanSachs, Village Voice, prostitution, disgust

March 31, 2012

#GoldmanSachs, Village Voice, prostitution, disgust

OK, multiple disgust revealed in this Nick Kristof column.

The first disgust is that Goldman Sachs is a partial owner of the alleged sex trafficking website Backpage. Not that surprising, whether or not, per Kristof, top brass at Goddam Sachs knows about this latest issue. (Contra Saint Nick, having seen Goddam Sachs cybersquat on solar energy public land sites, sell against its own major investors, etc., I'm NOT inclined to give its top brass the benefit of the doubt.

The second disgust is that Village Voice Media owns part of this site. That said, given that VVM's national group of alt-weeklies (including, here in Tejas, the Dallas Observer and Austin Chronicle -- I can't remember what Houston's alt-weekly is) were making money off escort services, albeit, I hope, ones that didn't dip into actual trafficking, years ago, long before the rise of the Net made such things more private/discreet. Again, disgusting but not surprising. Disgusting also, to the degree that such places are exploitative (and I'm not a "gender feminist," so I'm not going to tar with a broad brush) an allegedly liberal site like VVM was into them.

The third disgust? That Goddam Sachs is a partial owner of the allegedly liberal Village Voice Media.

What if some editorialist on staff at one of the stable of VVM products decided to go all Matt Taibbi and rag on Sachs week after week? How long would she or he last? And, will anybody try it?

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