For more on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) - including recent developments - please see past alerts here (or here), and check out Will Potter’s work at GreenIsTheNewRed.com.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle - info [at] kinshipcircle.org
Date: Mar 20, 2007 3:33 PM
Subject: ACT TODAY/ Invite Congress To AETA Briefing On Hill
Kinship Circle Primary - PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST
Equal Justice Alliance Hosts AETA Briefing On The Hill
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 * 2:00 to 3:30pm
Do your elected officials know about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)? Do they understand its negative impact on First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly?
1. Copy/paste flyer below into an email to: YOUR federal Representative and Senators.
2. Include a brief note about why you want AETA repealed. See talking point in press release below flyer.
3. For a HIGHER RESOLUTION copy of flyer to Congress, email: kinshipcircle [at] brick.net
4. DELETE ALL REFERENCES TO KINSHIP CIRCLE BEFORE SENDING FLYER/COMMENTS TO REP AND SENATORS. The message is from YOU, not Kinship Circle
To identify your federal legislators and find contact info, try:
Congress.org - www.Congress.org
USA Senate - www.senate.gov
USA House of Representatives - www.house.gov
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Filed under: Censorship — Kelly @ February 15, 2007 1:19 pm
Last week, PZ reported that an atheist You Tuber’s account had been suspended after he posted a video in which he “read some excerpts of violent passages from the Koran, with no commentary at all”. Apparently the heathen in question, one Nick Gisburne, is just the latest in a long line of heathens to face the awesomely soul-crushing wrath of You Tube. And atheists aren’t the only ones offending You Tube’s delicate sensibilities; last week, I favorited Anna Nicole Smith’s anti-fur ad (shot for PETA), only to find a few days later that the video had been removed and the user’s account suspended. Now, I highly doubt that PETA asked You Tube to remove the vid and ban the user - because they actually encourage people to download and post their stuff far and wide, from You Tube to MySpace to…well, whatever the yung’uns are into nowadays. Not to mention, the user’s profile gave the impression that s/he represented PETA, what with the distinctive moniker (PETATV) and the exclusively PETA video archive.
As an RIAA spokesperson famously put it when asked about the spectacle of file-sharing lawsuits against innocent grandparents, “when you go fishing with a driftnet, sometimes you catch a dolphin.”
Well, with its 100,000 DMCA takedown notices aimed at YouTube users, now it’s Viacom that is netting its share of dolphins. Among the 100,000 videos targeted for takedowns was a home movie shot in a BBQ joint, a film trailer by a documentarian, and a music video (previously here) about karaoke in Singapore. None of these contained anything owned by Viacom. For its part, Viacom has admitted to “no more than” 60 mistakes, so far. Yet each mistake impacts free speech, both of the author of the video and of the viewing public.
If they are making these kinds of blatant mistakes, who can tell how many fair uses of Viacom content they also targeted in their 100,000 takedowns? Hundreds? Thousands? If Viacom made a clear mistake and your clip contains no content from Viacom-owned copyrighted works, sending a simple DMCA counter-notice to YouTube may be enough to do the job. But if you’re attempting to make a fair use of Viacom’s works, it may make more sense to go to court to assert your rights. More information about your options is available at the Fair Use Network.
Has your video been removed from YouTube based on a bogus Viacom takedown? If so, contact information [at] eff.org — we may be able to help you directly or help find another lawyer who can. In this situation, as in so many others, EFF will work to make sure that copyright claims don’t squelch free speech.
Quite fittingly, the EFF recorded their call and uploaded it to You Tube:
Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek reviewsThis Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary that takes on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings board - and received an NC-17 for doing so:
On its Web site, the MPAA comes off as a folksy little organization dedicated to serving the greater good by helping parents “make informed decisions about what their kids watch.” The MPAA ratings board doesn’t want to spoil a good time, it just wants to make sure little Johnny isn’t warped for life by hearing the F-word or catching a glimpse of pubic hair. And what’s so bad about that?
Plenty, if you’re a thinking adult who cares even remotely about the vast artistic possibilities of moviemaking, both within the mainstream and outside it. That’s the driving concern behind “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” filmmaker Kirby Dick’s exploration of the MPAA ratings board, a mysterious and anonymous group of individuals who distract us by carrying out the seemingly harmless task of providing guidelines for parents, even as they wield a disturbing degree of control — control that’s only growing and deepening — over what adults can see.
How, you ask?
An NC-17 rating — or, for that matter, no rating, if a filmmaker refuses to submit to the ratings board at all — can be the kiss of death for a small picture, or even a big one, since it severely limits how a movie can be advertised. Many news outlets won’t run advertising for NC-17 or unrated pictures, and most theater chains won’t show them. As box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian points out in the film, the difference between an R rating (which means children under 17 can be admitted with a parent or guardian) and an NC-17 one (which means no one under 17 can be admitted at all), can be millions, or even tens of millions, of dollars. That’s a potent and direct refutation of Valenti’s [Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA from ‘68 to ‘05] claim, documented in the film, that ratings make no difference at the box office.
So a film’s rating can make it or break it; it’s all about marketability. Got it. But the ratings board just wants to look out for the chillun’, right? Surely we can trust them to slap ‘adult’ content with an R and leave it be. They’re happy because their babycakes won’t see unwanted boobies (or devil titties, in fundie parlance), yet we can still have our sex and violence - everyone wins.
Eh, not so much. Seems the ratings aren’t see much about protecting vulnerable children, but enforcing morality and crushing the little guys:
The identity of these individuals is kept secret, “to protect them from influence,” Valenti has said. But according to MPAA rules, they are always parents, or people who have raised children. In stock footage used in the film, Valenti intones that they’re “neither gods nor fools,” although they throw their weight around like the former and collectively seem to have about as much sense as the latter.
In pursuit of these mysterious creatures of darkness, Dick decided to hire his own private detective to smoke out the identities of the board, and the most entertaining and exhilarating sections of “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” are the ones showing how she painstakingly located and identified each member of the group. Her name is Becky, and she’s appealingly straightforward even when being sneaky, as when she goes about collecting pictures of all but one of them, caught unawares as they go about their everyday business.
As if her ferreting out of the ratings board members weren’t enough, Becky also uncovered the makeup of the MPAA appeals board, a separate group whose identities are also kept secret. The appeals board is the group a filmmaker must submit a film to if unhappy with the rating granted by the ratings board. And as Dick shows us, the appeals guys are an even more insidious bunch of operators than the ratings crew: They include a buyer for Regal Cinemas, a vice-president of sales for Sony Pictures, the CEO of Fox Searchlight, and vice-presidents from both Landmark Theaters and Loews, as well as two representatives of religious groups, one Catholic and one Episcopalian. That means if your film doesn’t survive the MPAA’s moms and pops, those self-appointed guardians of our moral standards, you’re really in trouble, because then you have to go up against the suits and the cassocks. In other words, this is a case of big business and organized religion putting their heads together to render a moral judgment on a filmmaker’s work — a judgment that could affect how much money a movie makes, or whether it even gets released at all. That’s a nightmare at worst, and at best the punch line to a very bad joke.
Zacharek takes filmmaker Kirby Dick (as well as a few of his interviewees) to task for some silly statements, but overall it looks like a kickass film. Like most people, I assume, I’ve never given much though to the MPAA. Same with the video game ratings: I always figured, if they help parents make more informed buying decision for their kiddies, it’s fine with me. Because - or so my theory went - if they filter little Johnny’s viewing/gaming/reading/listening material, and restrict it accordingly, then there’s no good reason they should come after me.
Only, that’s exactly what the MPAA is doing. And their silly ratings system, which is both vague and subjective, really doesn’t provide information, but rather acts as a form of censorship:
“This Film Is Not Yet Rated” takes on the MPAA ratings board as no other documentary has done. But it fails to ask the most important question: Why should there be a ratings board at all? Parents may claim that they need the MPAA’s guidance. But is it really such a good idea to blindly accept the so-called recommendations of a group of people whose identity and motives are unknown to us? Does that qualify as good parenting, when many newspapers (and certain online magazines) contain more specific information on a film than the MPAA provides? Shouldn’t it be part of a parent’s job to find out for him or herself what a given movie might contain, instead of allowing a faceless organization to decide what’s objectionable?
One of the arguments often made against the abolishment of the ratings system is that if we didn’t have it, we might then have government censorship. But if that were the case, as First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus points out in the film, at least movies would then be subject to judicial review, instead of the moral whims of a bunch of allegedly average parents.
The MPAA has somehow gained the trust of parents without earning it. If the MPAA had its way, we’d achieve a completely watered-down, desexualized culture, approved for a general audience. Our kids would grow up to be perfect creatures who never swore, touched anything harder than lemonade, or had anything but heteronormal sex. We could take pride in the way we protected our children; maybe we’d eventually forget how we robbed ourselves.
Yes, yes, YES!
To those parents who keep crying out for censorship in the name of Teh Children: you have bypassed my On Notice board and are officially Dead to Me! If this country is really too risqué for you, pack it up and move to China.
(Personally, I still prefer Mess O’ Potamia, but whatever. As long as it’s not Trendspotting, I’m happy.)
For starters, I have a slightly older article from MoJo that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a few weeks: The Hidden War on Women in Iraq, circa 7/13/06. The tag line says it all: “Since the American invasion of their country, Iraqi women have suffered a marked increase in sexual terrorism.”
Countless Iraqi women have become shut-ins in their own homes. Historian Marjorie Lasky has described this situation in “Iraqi Women Under Siege,” a 2006 report for Codepink, an anti-war women’s organization. Before the war, she points out, many educated Iraqi women participated fully in the work force and in public life. Now, many of them rarely go out. They fear kidnap and rape; they are terrified of getting caught in the cross-fire between Americans and insurgents; they are frightened by sectarian reprisals; and they are scared of Islamic militants who intimidate or beat them if they are not “properly covered.”
When you’re done with that assignment (yes, read the whole! thing!), surf on over to Salon and check out the poignant essay from Anthony Bourdain, Watching Beirut Die. Again, whole thing.
And speaking of Beirut - during the evacuation of foreign civilians from Lebanon, our elected sheeple managed to overlook the evacuees’ animals. Again. Guess those “lessons learned from Katrina” were a load. You can find out more about the plight of animals in the war zone - and lend some aid - via the many alerts I’ve posted on my special Katrina page. (Sadly, current events have forced me to expand the page’s scope to include all large scale disasters.) Or, go right to Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and make a donation.
Apocalyptic Christians are thrilled over the horrific bloodshed in Lebanon.
That’s because they’re hoping the End of the World is finally at hand — and only some 1,950 years after Jesus reportedly promised it would happen. […]
Watching the massacre of innocent Lebanese on television, another one of Jesus’ followers wrote, “Got that dancing feeling on the inside of me.” […]
But for Christians who pray every day for the destruction of Earth and the brutal torture of the billions of people who don’t follow their religion, the best part is when Jesus will magically suck all of the Christians from the Earth — right out of their clothes.
The awful image of millions of fat, naked Christians being hoovered into the sky may be disgusting to most people, but to the “Rapture Ready” crowd there is nothing more orgasmic.
The English term rapture comes from the Latin word for rape; Christians hoping for the Rapture are literally begging to be raped by Jesus.
Oh, I so can’t wait for that video to be leaked to You Tube!
My final link is only tangentially related to the Middle East, so bear with me for a moment. The NY Times reports that…
The PBS documentarian Ken Burns has been working for six years on “The War,” a soldier’s-eye view of World War II, and those who have seen parts of the 14-plus hours say they are replete with salty language appropriate to discussions of the horrors of war.
What viewers will see and hear when the series is broadcast in September 2007 is an open question.
A new Public Broadcasting Service policy that went into effect immediately when it was issued on May 31 requires producers whose shows are broadcast before 10 p.m. to adhere to tough editing requirements when it comes to coarse language, to comply with tightened rulings on broadcast indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.
Most notably, PBS’s deputy counsel, Paul Greco, wrote in a memo to stations, it is no longer enough simply to bleep out offensive words audibly when the camera shows a full view of the speaker’s mouth. From now on, the on-camera speaker’s mouth must also be obscured by a digital masking process, a solution that PBS producers have called cartoonish and clumsy.
In addition, profanities expressed in compound words must be audibly bleeped in their entirety so that viewers cannot decipher the words. In the past, PBS required producers to bleep only the offensive part of the compound word.
Let me guess. The chillun, chillun, oh lawdy, we got to protect the chillun’. Gawd forbid they be exposed to “salty language.” Because they’ve got to have virgin ears when they hit 18 and we send ‘em off to war, right? Kind of like the “clean underwear” admonitions our moms always gave us. When we were five.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation boosting fines tenfold on broadcast television and radio stations that violate decency standards was sent on Wednesday to President George W. Bush in a victory for conservative groups.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the measure by a 379 to 35 vote on Wednesday, while the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent last month.
Uh, yeah, because it’s not like we have more pressing issues to attend to. Like, um, the start of hurricane season, or Teh War on Terra. Dumbasses.
Getting the House bill through the Senate was listed as No. 5 on the Christian Coalition’s 2006 legislative agenda.
Oh, ok. Nevermind then.
The bill raising fines to $325,000 per violation, which Bush said he would sign, caps fines at $3 million for continuing violations.
The punishment was less than groups like the Christian Coalition and Parents Television Council had sought, but the passage of the bill could help bolster support for Republicans who are facing tough re-election races in November.
$325,000 per violation is too low? Wait a sec - aren’t Republicans against penalizing the wealthy? WTF!?
“This legislation will make television and radio more family friendly by allowing the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to impose stiffer fines on broadcasters who air obscene or indecent programming,” Bush said in a statement. “I look forward to signing this important legislation into law.”
Aheh, aheh. He said “stiffer.” Surely, that must be a fine-able offense.
(C’mon, it’s not like you didn’t see that one a-comin’.)
I already expounded this subject to near-death the other day, but seeing how it’s a) still an international issue; b) still an issue that’s pissing me the fuck off; and c) an issue that’s been the subject of several recent editorials of interest, I think an additional post is in order. Especially since very few liberals / progressives / lefties have come forward with reasonable anaylses - this alone seems excuse enough to highlight some of the more level-headed responses to the ongoing Danish/Muslim cartoon “row” (oh, how I love that word - thank you, BBC!).
What’s remarkable to me is not that cooler Islamic heads might be hesitant to open their mouths, but the near total capitulation of the “free” press here in the West to the intimidation of fringe lunatics. The disingenuous excuse offered by both print and TV outlets is that they’re refraining from displaying the cartoons out of “respect for the religion.” […]
I’ll admit it: I have no respect for religion. I think they’re all fundamentally insane. I respect any person’s right to think insane thoughts, but not to commit insane acts. Fantasize about shooting up your workplace all you want, but if you bring a Glock to work, here’s hoping the security guard takes you down first. The people burning embassies, and those offering money for the murder of cartoonists, deserve no respect at all.
Neither does the editorial reaction to all of this in the American press. Conservatives are taking a break from vilifying anybody to the left of Joe Lieberman as Maoist traitors, and are suddenly free speech advocates, railing against religious intolerance (on the other hand, I haven’t seen any turban-bombs lately in the Wall Street Journal or the Weekly Standard). But that’s to be expected. Serve Ann Coulter an excuse to stir up hatred for foreigners, and she’ll ace it every time.
Particularly disappointing, however, is the stereoty
