sorry, too stoned to write

by jackie sheeler on July 3, 2009

that got your attention, didn’t it?

if i lived in portugal, i might actually be too stoned to write.

or not -- since decriminalizing ALL drug use eight years ago, fewer people in that country use drugs today than did back when using was illegal. and the dreaded influx of slavering junkies searching for a safe place to shoot up never materialized. check out this short docuclip from the BBC:

amazing? no, predictable. but this is america, and we don’t need evidence if we can have a war instead, even one so unwinnable, expensive and disastrous as the infamous “war on drugs” has turned out to be.

in fact, we are so determined to keep drugs away from people at all costs that our egregious policies have created a set of international laws around painkiller prescriptions so monstrous that few underdeveloped countries can comply with them. the result? people with cancer and HIV die screaming, with nary a tab of oxycontin nor shot of morphine to give them so much as an hour of relief. can’t be too careful with those opiates, you know. what if these people became addicted?

can’t you just picture it: armies of deathbed junkies slavering through the hospital corridors, tumors in hand, searching for that next one.

as terry j. allen so eloquently put it:

Few actions so perfectly combine stupidity and cruelty as denying pain relief to the dying because narcotics can be addictive.

meanwhile, alcohol is not only legal, not only tolerated, but absolutely celebrated by the american political elite, who can hardly hold a fundraiser without a few magnums of Cristal. despite the whimpering lush beneath the park bench two blocks away from the white house, the one who couldn’t find anything to drink that night and so is hiding from his DDT horrors like somebody out of an updated scene from the days of wine and roses.

oh stop it, jackie, you left-wing hippie liberal drugloving so-and-so. if our fearless leaders are, even today, even in the year of our lord 2009, introducing legislation that would send pot dealers to jail for the next quarter century (at our expense, of course), then you’ve got it all wrong.

uh, unless they live on rhode island, where legal pot distribution centers are set to open shortly.

i must be confused. are you?

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iran revolution rant

by jackie sheeler on July 1, 2009

i’ll let the video speak for itself.

if this piece resonated with you, please share it with your network.

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yes, the rumor is true: michael jackson died last week

by jackie sheeler on June 29, 2009

and so did:

Army SSG Paul G Smith, 43, of East Peoria, IL
Army SSG Joshua A Melton, 26, of Carlyle, IL
Army SPC Chancellor A Keesling, 25, of Indianapolis, IN
Navy MCPO Jeffrey J Garber, 43, of Hemingford, NE
Army 1SG John D Blair, 38, of Calhoun, GA
Army SGT Ricky D Jones, 26, of Plantersville, AK
Army SGT Rodrigo A Munguia Rivas, 27, of Germantown, MD
Army SPC Casey L Hills, 23, of Salem, IL
Army 1LT Brian N Bradshaw, 24, of Steilacoom, WA
Army SPC Joshua L Hazlewood, 22, of Manvel, TX

that’s the military body count from iraq and afghanistan. nobody went moonwalking in front of the fucking apollo theater for any of them.

civilian body count for the same period — again, just one week, last week — in that area is estimated at 174.

can  you say imbalance?

not to disparage michael jackson. i loved his music, went to his shows, bought his records. worried about his face and his habit of sleeping with children.

yet one life, however talented or celebrated it may have been, is not a millionfold more significant than another. you’d never know that watching american TV, reading american newspapers and blogs, or sitting by my living room window where four out of every five cars driving down west 116th street have “billie jean” blasting out of their radios.

we should carry on like this over every single person killed in our senseless wars. every soldier, sailor, child, journalist, housewife, laborer, cook. every single one.

if they, who lived more-or-less unsung lives, are left to die unsung, the murdering will never stop.

our national obsession with celebrity in such a bloody world is obscene. the iranian people are risking everything they have — life, limb, freedom, home — in demanding justice from their dictatorial leaders. if we had done in 2000 what they are doing right now, several hundred thousand dead might still be living. (for that matter, the whole mortgage-fiasco-market-meltdown might also have been averted, but that’s a topic for another day.)

but no. we sat in front of our televisions, then as now, and watched the world unfold on those tiny, twisted screens, with a bag of chips and a frosty bottle of beer on the coffee table.

and most of us don’t even know enough to be ashamed of this. it’s simply the american way.

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Fox News Identifies Mark Sanford as a Democrat [a guest post]

by George Held on June 27, 2009

Fox News, the only “fair and balanced” news service, the one that  “gives you the facts, then lets you decide,” has once again misidentified an erring Republican pol as a Democrat by placing a “(D)” after South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s name under his image as he addressed a Columbia, SC, press conference on June 24. In 2006 Fox made the same “error” under the name of FL Rep. Mark Foley (What is it about GOPersons named “Mark”?) when he appeared on the tube to address charges that he was doing a Michael Jackson on Congressional page boys.

Fair being fair, we urge other network news programs to balance the fairness by putting an “(R)” after the name of Democrat malefactors. Some examples:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer (R, NY) eating humble pie with wife Silda serving

President Bill Clinton (R) claiming he did not have sex with that woman

Gov. Rod Blagojevich (R, IL) denying he offered to sell a US Senate appointment

OJ Simpson (R) vowing to track down his wife’s murderer (Some say Mr. Simpson is already a Republican.)

“Drink Apple Juice.  OJ will kill you.”

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sexism in the arts? in america? nah…. right?

by jackie sheeler on June 22, 2009

what ela writes here is, sadly, true for women in most (if not all) of the arts, it’s not just an issue in filmmaking. please take the time to read through her letter — yes, it’s long — and forward it to others. though i’ve met ela briefly, i don’t know her well; but i do know her husband, an honest and honorable man, gifted artisan and musician.

__________________________________________________

June, 2009

Dear friend and ally,

On June 30th this year I’ll be turning 38. It was twenty years ago that I used to sneak out of school in order to write my first screenplay. In lieu of a literary criticism paper, I handed in a 260-page epic screenplay about the childhood and adolescence of John Lennon. He was my hero at the time because no matter what people thought about him, he knew he was good. I received an “F” on my term paper, but my English teacher took me aside during lunch and said: “I had to fail you, but I know you’ll win no matter what we do to you in school.”

People often ask me when they learn that I’m a filmmaker: “You want to be a star? You want to be Stephen Spielberg?” With enough practice, I got good at answering this question:

“No, I don’t work this hard to be a star. I’ve put in thousands of hours of unpaid labor because I care deeply about the artwork that I create. The stories I tell, and how I tell them, really matter to me. I think my work will make a difference to people.”

Twenty years later, I sit to write this letter, facing two shelves filled with over twenty screenplays. Modesty aside, I would need many pages to recount even a portion of the positive feedback that I’ve received over the years, the enthusiastic phone calls, the awards, the requests for meetings; a judge at the IFP Market telling me that of the 150 scripts she read that summer, mine was one of her top three favorites; another judge resigning in protest after the jury didn’t select my script as one of their five finalists; a manager calling to say that he couldn’t get my script out of his head; an agent telling me that it was the first time in ages that she laughed out loud reading a script; a notable producer of hit movies imploring me not to make any changes to my script because she thought it was perfect. When I began to direct shorts, the response was the same: “Shorts this perfect are so rare, I just want to weep” was a comment I received from a festival director.

And yet, the past years were marked with tears and heartaches. One enthusiastic response after another would lead me to hope and end with a bout of weeping on my husband’s shoulder. No matter how familiar and by now, routine, the disappointments would be, the tears would come each time. And after a good cry, or two, or several, I would get up, wipe my knees, and keep going.

I often tell other filmmakers who lose heart: when it comes to pass [rejection] letters, you’re in great company, from Van Gogh to the Beatles to Stephen King to J.K. Rowlings.

So the million dollar question is, as one of my writing students once asked after reading two of my scripts: “Why are these scripts not made? What better scripts could people possibly be reading?”

After years of learning, practicing, and teaching, after years of query letters, phone calls, meetings, film markets, panels, classes, LA trips, networking, more networking, even more networking, my scripts – those ones that this market reader liked better than the 150 scripts she read that summer – those scripts sit on a shelf. After years of trying and falling and getting up and trying, something finally dawned on me: maybe I’m not the most unlucky bastard that ever lived. Maybe I’m female.

I have an Iranian friend living in NY who recently returned from her trip back home. She told me that it was easier to be a woman in Iran because there is no pretense there about sexism. It’s overt. It’s policy. It’s “the way things are”. What’s hard about being in the US, she said, is that women are disempowered by the myth that western women are liberated. The glass ceiling hurts every time we bash our heads against it but it’s entirely invisible. Have you ever run into a pane of glass?

Little hints of this invisible blockade pop up on a rare occasion: a male student of mine with a fraction of my experience gets hired to direct a feature film; a manager tells me that he can’t sell my script because the lead is a girl; an executive won’t read my road movie because it’s an ensemble with three female leads and, according to this executive, “women on the road has already been done.” One producer urged me to pass my script to another director since I haven’t made a feature before, while her husband was line-producing a $7M movie, starring Bruce Willis, directed by a first-timer – you can guess their gender.

Those hints feel far and few between. Overall, society’s message to me as a woman born in 1971 is that sexism is a thing of the past. But if I’m ever so liberated, why is it that no matter which direction I turn, I walk into a glass pane and land on my ass? The answer, I’m convinced, is not out there; it’s inside myself.

I teach screenwriting and consistently notice the different regard that I feel for my male and female students. No matter how “enlightened” I think I am, I find myself having higher expectations of the guys in the class. I just assume they have more experience, more confidence, more intelligence…? I’ve recently noticed that when I receive quality work from a woman, I feel surprise. When I see amateur work from a man, I think “hmm… for some reason I had him pegged as an experienced writer.” For some reason.

So if I, a woman filmmaker, the liberated one who’s not afraid to use the word “feminism” in a sentence, if I carry the misinformation that was handed to me about women’s inferior abilities and intelligence, what thoughts do other people carry? What “feelings”, stemming from fear and prejudice, and mistaken for intuition, dictate their decisions? What do the well-intended producers, executives, agents, managers and investors, feel when my script comes across their desk? With what concern do they thumb through my script, the one with the name “Ela” on it, the one with a female in the leading role?

If they’re anything like me, enlightened and all, they glance at the script and expect amateur work. If they get as far as reading a few pages, they’re pleasantly surprised that I can write. If they get as far as reading it entirely, if they get past the fact that the lead is female (unlikely), if they get far enough to even consider packaging or selling or producing my film as an even remote possibility – and I’m happy to say many have gotten that far – then they have to muster up the confidence that I, a first time female director, could complete a meaningful, powerful and – profitable – movie. Beware of glass panes.

I once had a notable producer pick up my script and tell me that mine was the strongest work on their slate. The higher-up in the company, however, while working to attach “bankable names” (ie. movie stars) to their other projects, refused to package my script. “If an investor takes interest in it without us having to package it first, then I’ll produce it,” they explained. We parted ways.

There is no petition to draft. There is no policy to fight. Yet, of the 250 top-grossing films in any given year, 6% are directed by women; of the 50 top-grossing movies each year, roughly 5 star or focus on women. In 80 years of Oscar history, with 200+ directors receiving a nomination for best director, 3 nominations went to female directors. No woman director ever received an Oscar.

It would be so much easier if someone would just flat out say it: “You’re not a director. You’re a girl.”

So now what? Given the reality in which I exist, what do I need to do to move forward? Statistically, I have twenty times less of a chance to get a film made than my male colleagues. But this doesn’t mean that my goal is impossible, it just means that I have to work twenty times harder. So I will.

I know my films will get made. I know that I’m a wise investment, that my films will have wide appeal, and dare I say: wide impact. But how do I get my films to their rightful owners – to their audience?

I decided to follow in the footsteps of writer-director Deborah Kampmeier, who after years of throwing herself at glass ceilings and windows and walls, decided to quit waiting for a greenlight. She contacted every person she knew and asked them for money. Dollar by dollar she collected $35K and made the film “Virgin”. The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and she went on to make her second feature for roughly $4M, starring Dakota Fanning. She is now in development on her third feature. It took her several years to find backing for her second feature; this was no easy feat. But the traction that her first feature created, coupled with her persistence, began the momentum that is now her career.

Thinking I would do the same, I sent out a plea to my email list: if I raise $100 from 1000, I explained, I can make my film. My email list consists largely of people who have signed up for my screenwriting workshops, so I offered a $150 workshop voucher in exchange for the $100 contribution (good deal, no?) I sent this notice to the 2100+ people on my email list and one week later (drum roll please…!) I received 3 contributions. One of them from my sister. I suppose that $300 is a start…?

I was due for another bout of tears, and when I was done, I got up to wipe my knees and engineer the next idea. I decided to make it personal.

That’s where you come in.

I went on to make a list of every human being I could think of that I ever had meaningful contact with. You’re receiving this letter because we know each other, because we had an impact in each others’ lives. As I compiled my list, I saw your face in my mind and thought about the experiences that I shared with you. We may have been classmates back in the 6th grade, or we met last weekend at a seminar. You may be a former teacher, or student, an employer, a fellow activist, synagogue-goer, or maybe we met on a blind internet date before I was married. You may be a producer I met at a film market, an agent I queried who sent me an encouraging word; you’re a lawyer who gave me advice and didn’t charge me, or a festival director who took the time to tell me how you feel about my work. You may be someone I haven’t met who received this through a friend of mine, or you may be the English teacher who gave me an “F” and told me I would win. Wherever and however it is that we crossed paths, I thought about you, specifically, and felt hopeful that you would back me. I may not be rich with money, I thought to myself, but I’m rich with friends.

This list kept growing, and is now 670 people strong.

If each person that I send this letter to contributes only $100, I’ll be able to direct my first feature.

This is all I ask.

For some of you $100 is a large sum, many of you are raising children, or are struggling artists yourselves. If you don’t contribute, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you support me in spirit but can’t afford to do more. If, on the other hand, you’re in a position to contribute more than $100, you would offset those folks who can’t afford to contribute.

Either way, what you can certainly do is forward this letter to your list and tell everyone you know that by contributing only $100, they’ll have a hand in making a meaningful and entertaining film, the catalyst to the many more rich and significant films that will follow.

If you’re a writer or filmmaker yourself, and you’d like to learn more about the craft, your $100 contribution will earn you a $150 voucher towards any of my workshops, valid for one year. In the fall, after I complete the production of this film, I’ll be offering weekend workshops in screenwriting, directing, and film producing. For descriptions, check out www.TheIndependentFilmSchool.com

If you’re not interested in workshops, what I can offer is to thank you with a film credit. Based on logistics and scheduling, I may also be able to invite you to visit the movie set as a background actor or a production assistant (PA), should this interest you. If you have children, I’ll be particularly enthusiastic about having them on set.

Dear friend and ally, I sat down at 8am this morning to write this letter. I was terrified. Even though I’m a writer, I don’t have the words to capture what this really means to me. How do I sum up my life’s work in a letter? It’s what I’ve devoted every waking (and sleeping) hour to in one form or another from the time I began this journey. I wish I could find a poetic and irresistible way of saying it, but truth be told, it’s simple: even a minimal donation will make waves. It will change my life and have a ripple effect beyond that. It will be the catalyst to intelligent and inspiring films – ones made by a woman. Please don’t assume that someone else will pick up the slack. Given the small amount that I’m asking for, it will take every person who receives this letter to respond favorably. This is one time in our relationship with each other that I ask you not to procrastinate, not to be apathetic, not to assume that you can’t make a difference, not to fall for my façade of “the successful artist” when in truth, I’m in need of help. I dare you to care. I will think of you and remember you when I see your name on the list of donors. It is now 8am the following the day. It took me the entire day to draft these four pages, to write and re-write it, giving it my all to try and find the words to really and truly reach you.

June 30th will mark twenty years from the time I wrote my first screenplay. I hope to celebrate it on July 1st by walking into my production office and beginning the work that I was born to do.

With love and appreciation,
Ela Thier

_______________

Watch a short clip from the film and get more info about the project here. There’s an excerpt from the feature script here.

And contribute here. I did.

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is armstrong williams a parrot or a moron?

by jackie sheeler on June 16, 2009

his piece on the the congress pundit blog yesterday demonstrates an abundance of both qualities.

williams, long-time house nigger for the conservative wing of the GOP, really outdoes himself  in this brief but idiotic post that lays blame for the entire economic meltdown in obama’s lap, asking how the president can claim to have created millions of jobs when the unemployment rate increased from 8%-9.4% during his (brief) tenure.

he writes as if the subprime mortgage ponzi scheme, lehman brothers, AIG and eight miserable years under president bush had never happened. poof! democrats win an election? the slate of republican history is wiped squeaky clean.

housenig2if only it really worked that way! if only we could wipe america’s slate clean of all the double-dealing republican dirt that’s been forced down our throats. just think: deregulation that allowed banks and brokerages to lend as much as 40 times more money than they actually had would never have passed, the mortgage feeding-and-flipping frenzy would never have started, we wouldn’t be at war in iraq nor torturing middle eastern men on cuban soil.

i can’t even count the billions of dollars and millions of jobs that would have been saved — rather, which would not have been lost in the first place — if your party’s blatant insanities had been prevented.

without your kind of republicans, armstrong, we would not be where we are right now. how DARE you write about our economic crisis as if it started on january 20th when you know quite well it started during the reign of GWB,  as a direct result of his disastrous crone-bootlicking policies. you may think you’ve got some kind of special license to smear obama just because you’re “black like him” but you don’t.

you write as if the bankrupting & bailout of detroit was the beginning and end of our financial problems when it’s nothing more than icing the cake.

obviously, i voted for obama and continue to support him. that doesn’t mean i agree with the course he’s taken, particularly around the bailouts — whether of wall street or detroit. there’s no such thing as “too big to fail” in a capitalistic society; if capitalism is the true foundation of our economy then mismanaged, over-leveraged, bonus-squandering firms will and should go out of business, ripple effects notwithstanding. and it’s not as if shoveling billions of dollars their way has made anything better. oh, but wait — TARP was enacted under bush. ah. no wonder only detroit gets a mention in your post.

whether i agree with our president’s solutions or not, one thing is perfectly clear: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY WAS A DIRECT RESULT OF EIGHT YEARS OF UNCHECKED PARTISAN REPUBLICAN POLICY. you motherfuckers created this mess and now you’ve got the brass balls to complain about how the cleanup job is being handled? well, you’ll have to do more than a bit of whining to earn that stance. you’ll have to do something like make a constructive solution, propose an alternative, and stand behind it.

but that’s not how you operate. you’re the kind of guy who takes back-room money to use your media soapbox in support of a program that was known — especially within the black community — to be seriously flawed. the quarter-million dollars that bush handed over for that little plum assignment was likely the easiest money you ever made. maybe what you’re really pissed off about is that the payola party is over. obama simply doesn’t operate that way. but if he did, a moron like you would never make it to the shortlist.

you should get down on your knees and thank god that the unemployment rate rose ONLY 1.4% over the last five months. what with the shitpile your party left behind we’re lucky it didn’t go up 20%, 30%. are you kidding me? do you seriously think doddering john and his simpering sidekick could have done a better job here, and would have held the rate down below its present level?

think again.

 in closing, i’d like to rewrite the last sentence of your post:

“When you have a liberal Democratic Congress lead by a liberal Democratic president, it is a prescription for fiscal disaster.”

it should read:

“After eight years of a conservative Republican Congress led [note grammatical correction] by a conservative Republican president, your entire economic system will be left in a shambles.”

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squatting scumbags

by jackie sheeler on June 15, 2009

if you could care less about (a) poetry and (b) website pedigree, then this post is not for you.

i care because i’ve maintained a poetry-focused website for ten years. it’s a lot of work: not just the physical maintenance of the site, but all the interactions with contributing writers, the agonies and ecstasies of rejections and acceptances, the never-ending requests to update poems and bios that are already, by internet standards, ancient.

i’ve pretty much stopped publishing new work on poetz. too little time, too many projects, too many other well-staffed  high-end poetry sites around with which i could not, and do not care to, compete. poetz is presently an archive of the several hundred writers (some now deceased) published there and host to several very active poetry calendars.

you may be wondering what all this has to do with squatting scumbags.

a squatter is someone who buys a URL that is similar to another URL for the sole purpose of misdirecting visitors to a site of their own. it’s a cheap and dirty internet trick, one often used by obnoxious marketers. you know, the kind of marketers who fill your inbox with spam.

until now, i’d never heard of a poetic site using sich trickery against another poetic site.

e-poets.net is home to “the book of voices” and has been around even longer than poetz. the site, published by kurt heintz, has an excellent reputation and a wealth of very well-produced audiofiles in its library. it’s beautifully designed and entirely ad-free.

i cannot say the same for the site which is now squatting on a variation of the e-poets name. at the moment it hardly seems like a poetry destination at all, but more like the diary rantings of a schizo who’s gone off his meds, as the entire home page is nothing more than a long-winded screed against kurt. if you go to the squatter’s primary site (which i will neither name nor link to here because the last thing i’m interested in doing is driving traffic to a scumbag squatter) it advertises itself as being that city’s “Most Professional E-Poets Site”.

it’s not as if the term e-poets is commonly used among online poetry sites. it is not. nor is there anything even remotely professional about the page which now deceptively displays that banner.

all an honorable publisher has to do in order to draw traffic is provide consistent, professionally designed quality content. misdirecting traffic to your site by utilizing the sleazy tactics of online snake-oil salesmen is simply pathetic.

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Cheney Sets New Record [a guest post]

by Bill Britton on June 13, 2009

In order to dispel the notion that enhanced interrogation methods like waterboarding are torture, former Vice President Dick Cheney recently subjected himself to this interrogation technique and, in the process, set a new world record. The old record of 183 times was set in March 2003 by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Cheney set a new standard of 200 times in only three weeks.

42-15819098“Actually, it was quite enjoyable,” said Cheney. “The Bushes say it’s similar to part of the Skull and Bones Society initiation at Yale, where they pour Champagne Philipponnat through a split croissant fastened to the mouth with an almond glaze. Of course, I never joined, being somewhat busy chasing furburger while attending Yale.” When asked by a reporter if it was true that he had flunked out of Yale, Cheney scowled, “Executive privilege, you little wanker.”

The vice president certainly dressed the part. He came fully clad in shiny black leather shorts and laced bustier, which enhanced his physique. However, he did have some difficulty negotiating the stairway leading down to the interrogation room wearing five-inch, spiked heels. Only one newsman, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, was allowed in the room with Cheney to verify the count. Screams of “Yes, yes, yes” could be heard echoing through a ventilation duct, reminding one reporter of the final chapter in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

When the ordeal was over, Cheney exited the interrogation room, his signature smirk having shifted from the left side of his mouth to the right, with strands of toweling stuck between his teeth. “Well, boys, I did it,” said Cheney. “Next week I’m going for the world record of stacked, naked bodies. I’ve already contacted the women’s 2008 roller derby champions, the Gotham Girls of New York City. Of course, I’ll be at the top of the heap.” O’Reilly was heard murmuring, “Can I come, can I come?” repeatedly.

cheney_500

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either watch your mouth or move your ass

by jackie sheeler on June 12, 2009

what the HELL is going on around here this month?

pacifica is trying to silence — or, at least, muffle — the voice of amy goodman. amy goodman, of all people, whose democracy now program is one of the most fearless and insightful shows on the air. the pacifica/WBAI wars have been ongoing for about ten years , and seem to be at a turning point now — but they’re turning in the wrong direction. bernard white fired, wake-up call rescheduled, amy rescheduled…

and facebook has yet to reinstate the group that it summarily executed after nothing more than a bullshit letter from a couple of bullshit lawyers representing one of the most hateful voices around, michael savage. it has yet to apologize to charles tsai for the uncalled-for and high-handed destruction of his profile.

so, there is no protection for amy goodman — probably because she doesn’t have a deep-pockets CEO for a son — while pacifica tries to nail her to the cross. there is no protection for charles tsai, who is a dayjob worker-bee just like most of us and can’t shell out hundreds of dollars an hour for a team of high-profile shysters. meanwhile, hate-jock savage is riding high and safe courtesty of his bootlack legal minions.

we need more amy goodmans, more charles tsais in this nation. we need more people who will stand up and say what they believe regardless of the possible consequences.

no_free_speech1so who is going to protect them? WE ARE.

WE HAVE AN IMPORTANT JOB TO DO HERE. if we allow corporate bullies to continue degrading and shrinking the boundaries of free speech, one day we’ll wake up and find that even our blogs now need pre-approval by some faceless committee before they go online. do you want that? i sure don’t fucking want that.

i used to believe that free speech was alive & well in the USA. we don’t exactly take activist writers and commentators out and shoot them, the way china does. that’s setting the bar awfully low, though, ain’t it?

we see in just these two examples that you don’t have to kill someone to silence them. not when money money money calls every shot, with lawyers swarming thicker than fleas in a homeless shelter. we live in a litigious, retributive nation: america has more of its citizens under the thumb a largely incompetent criminal “justice” system THAN ANY OTHER NATION ON THE PLANET: over than 7  million people. that’s about eight time the population of the entire state of montana. there are whole countries with fewer citizens than we have prisoners. we should be ashamed. i AM ashamed. and i am afraid of what may come next.

we have to get our asses moving in order to keep our mouths from being sealed. here are some things you can do:

for charles tsai and free speech rights on facebook:

if you find any other related stories, please post them to the facebook group wall, or send them my way for posting.

for WBAI:

  • attend the take back WBAI demonstration scheduled for next wednesday. download the flyer and post/pass around as many copies as you can.
  • become a fan of WBAI’s facebook page and let your friends know about it. i can’t say “strength in numbers” enough times!
  • if you join WBAI as a member by july 15th, you will be able to vote in the upcoming elections. this is critical. if you donate $25 or more, or volunteer three hours of service, you will be a full member with full voting rights and can use not only your voice, but your VOTE to turn this around. call 212.209.2800, 2826 or 2845; or contribute at www.wbai.org (and print your receipt); or mail your check/money order to WBAI, GPO Box 30540, NY, NY 10117-2112.
  • email Pacifica National Board at pnb@pacifica.org. Demand: Reinstate WBAI Management! Maintain local control of programming! call Grace Aaron (Interim Exec. Dir.) at 310. 2861011 or 310.402.4087 and LaVarn Williams (Acting General Mgr.) at 212.209.2800, 2820 or 510.333.9902
  • join the coalition to take back WBAI by adding your name or organization to the list of endorers by emailing info@takebackwbai
    COME TO THE NEXT MEETING: Tuesday June 16, 6:30-10:00 PM District Council 1707, 75 Varick St. (north of Canal St.) 14th floor, Manhattan (A or 1 train to Canal St.)

and for all of the reports and action sites listed here, please tweet, retweet, post them on your own blogs, tell your blogging friends to post them.

digg, stumble, reddit, friendfeed — use every service that you’re familiar with to get people involved in these issues.

these tools are the new underground railroad of communication. let’s use them. let’s make some CHANGE.

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facebook rolls over & plays dead for the haters

by jackie sheeler on June 10, 2009

i’m damn mad and i want you to GET ANGRY AT FACEBOOK WITH ME.

it’s a somewhat convoluted story and i’ll do my best to get it straight, but what it boils down to is this: when some millionaire doesn’t care for a facebook group that has more than TWELVE THOUSAND MEMBERS, his money and a couple of slick attorneys can shut it down overnight – without inquiry, explanation or warning. 12,000 facebookers logged in, saw a black hole where their BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group had formerly been, and said wtf? facebook said nothing.

then, to complete the bootlicking, facebook also disabled the account of charles tsai, the young man who initially created the group. again, without explanation, warning or recourse.

now *i* am saying

WHAT
 

 

THE
 

 

FUCK?

the millionaire in question is michael (weiner) savage, an ultraconservative hater of many, a “right-wing crusader against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Barack Obama, Britain, [and] women” who uses the bully pulpit of his radio show to promote prejudice and hatred. just like bill o’reilly. his son is the CEO of  rockstar energy drinks, which savage vehemently denies co-founding.

boycottrockstarfrankly, i don’t give a flying fuck whether savage co-founded rockstar or not (though i’m happy enough to boycott that disgusting concoction — something i wouldn’t drink even before learning that its proceeds are poured into fascist organizations like the paul revere society).

but i DO give a flying fuck about facebook caving in so easily, with so little pressure.

facebook is as much a center of social action as it is of casual networking; free and unrestricted speech is the cornerstone of all social action. facebook’s actions (rather, its complete over-reactions) in this case suggest that they could care less about free speech, social action OR its members.

consider this: the weiner clan also sicced their dogs on Alternet, but that site didn’t just bend over and take it — they did more research, and published a “correction” that’s more of an indictment than an apology.

another legal warning letter went to gaywired, which had also carried a story about the boycott. the gaywired editors really did their homework, including this paragraph in their public “retraction”:

GayWired regrets naming Michael Savage as a co-founder of Rockstar and apologizes for the error. Russell Weiner, who happens to be Savage’s son, is the sole founder of the company. As the attorneys iterate, “Mr. Savage is not affiliated with Rockstar in any manner.”

GayWired presumes that a similar clarification is on its way to the Nevada Secretary of State. For according to that office, Savage’s company, Savage Productions, uses the same mailbox and is registered at the same street address as Rockstar. Also, Rockstar’s sole officer other than Russell Weiner is Savage’s wife and Weiner’s mother, Janet Weiner, who fills the positions of director, treasurer, and secretary. Ms. Weiner must be exceedingly adept at these diverse responsibilities since she is also the director, treasurer, and secretary of Savage Productions.

facebook could have done something similar. or they could simply have done nothing. but they just caved.

must every facebook user who creates a group now fear loss of their profile, their friends, connections, groups, photos, and calendar, without warning — without any good reason other than that somebody with deep pockets didn’t like it?

will i lose my facebook account over this blog post?

will you lose your facebook account over YOURS?

facebook users are not taking this lying down. other members immediately recreated the BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group. i joined it around 3:30 this afternoon, when it had about 600 members. a few hours later it was up aroun 900. go check out that group right now and see how large it’s grown — and JOIN it. create a new FB account if you don’t already have one, just to become a member of this group.

yes, it’s that important.

why? facebook is without doubt the most significant social networking site around and, unlike myspace (which is practically on life support at this point) it’s still growing like a weed. where facebook leads, others will follow, and they lead by their examples.

this is not a precedent that any of us should be willing to tolerate, and it’s OUR responsibility to speak up about it — to speak up LOUDLY and to speak up RIGHT NOW — and say NO. we are NOT going to allow any corporate hate-mongerers to dictate conversations on a public platform.

if there was some inaccuracy in the BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group, it seems to be only that michael savage was referred to as a “co-founder” of the company that his son owns and at which his wife is a senior executive. he says that’s not true. fine, then ask the group to do some fact-checking.

but to simply shut it down? wipe out the admin’s entire profile? flip the bird to more than 12,000 facebook users?

that’s nothing less than fascism in action. and we know what happens when you don’t nip that kind of cocksucker in the bud.

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