Initiative is a Good Thing

This week's show was inspired by a compelling blog series written by Hart Williams. Williams' research revealed some extraordinary truths about efforts to take the "local" out of local ballot initiatives and create them from afar.

Williams has written for a number of publications including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Oregonian.

Back in the Silver Age (mid eighties), I wrote 32-produced screenplays and a bunch more that were bought and never produced. I watched patiently as filmmaker after filmmaker turned my pretty little scripts into sh-t.

It's not clear exactly what the objective of Moyst is. If it's to turn on the viewer, it's only marginally successful.

..was intellectually the most difficult thing I've ever done.

Hart Williams fell into writing for sex magazines in the late '70s. "It was not so much that I wanted to be in it, as that I didn't mind doing it. I began writing audio-cassettes (we called it XXX radio) and wrote about 50 at 15-30 pages each.

Your statements that I am despised, repugnant are completely and totally false. [Ex-porn journalist] Hart Williams wrote stuff like that because he was angry that I dared point out that he's not the porn guru he liked people to believe.

More [of the news report] when I recuperate -- and no, I AVOIDED the "Night of the Stars." I don't have $100 to spare, don't feel like scamming a press pass, and have no interest in paying to see people clothed that I used to be paid to see UNclothed.

I found very rapidly that the porn people -- some of whom I have known nearly 20 years -- are still the same arrogant, power-trippy jerks they always were. The whole minuet of who greets whom, and how much acknow- ledgement to bestow is always finely calculated based on one's current level of Power in the Biz, and with whom one has been "seen" and myriad other qualifying factors.

Wisely, as it turns out, I have been keeping a low profile in my role as producer/director, preferring to let the film speak for itself.

And my "friends" of long ago evidently found me wanting in the correct Caste Systems.

But the thing that always sickened me about Hollywood (and, to be fair, New York and Washington, D.C.) is that insane lust of the hairless killer monkeys to "status" and pecking order. I am a western boy, and where I come from, we don't cotton to people putting on airs, least of all fuck film performers.

As we've gone over thoroughly, most can't really act, and are not necessarily role-models in the Fine Art of Copulation.

By the final day, I was certain that my bullshit meter is going to have to go into the shop for recalibration. Why, to hear the "actors" [In quotes so as not to offend actual actors] they're all Clara Bartons bringing healing solace to a desperately ill society. One actress actually had the temerity to suggest that they were public health workers of a sort.

I don't know if the sexologists lapped this line of horse doogie up with gusto, but the porn stars sure as hell did. They went from trying to convince people that they were human beings on Thursday to being the Second Coming by Sunday.

Now, some of it not their fault. Being fawned and drooled over like some fine Cartier watch DOES tend to give one a swelled head, but this was beyond all proportion.

I walked out thinking: "Geez, you've hobnobbed and had a swell time with the President of the ACLU, and some of the finest First Amendment Lawyers in the country. You've swapped stories, gossip and old times with your fellow print journalists. You've had a great time with internet buddies, with directors and producers and crew (few though they were, sadly), so why did your old friends the 'actors' make you feel like a leper?"

One group of newer actresses sat multiply on chairs, on the stage or on each other, rather than sully their stardom with actual manual labor.

"Sunset Boulevard" all over again. A star exists to be served, never to serve.

And so the day began with some asshole swiping my camera. It really isn't worth stealing -- the photos were worth more than the camera, but realizing that I was at a porn convocation, I had little hope that it would be turned in: looting on sets is so de rigeur that I'm sure some starlet considered the camera her due.

I ended up at Hustler, which ended my first marriage. She didn't mind the $200 each script brought, but Hustler was too much…"

The average starlet was a high school dropout [like Sindee Coxx, Brandy Alexandre], or just barely made it. An inordinate number drove Chevrolets. The industry learned to pander to their fantasies by making them into "stars" for awards shows and conventions.

Lovelace became an archetype for what writer Hart Williams calls "Linda Syndrome" - porn stars who seek acceptance from "overground" society by disavowing their porn past. Hart also labels it "Conversion Syndrome" or "Paul On The Road To Damascus." Sufferers from Linda Syndrome include Angel Kelly and Samantha Fox.

And so, on Thursday Night, with everyone approaching exhaustion, with the final speech underway, and the Important Monkeys of our Hairless Killer Ape delegation having noted our reconquest of the front row, and having plopped their pompous asses into said seats -- the better to be seen in TeeVee for (one, our token "youth" -- a rural boob stage-managed by her grasping mother, is neatly french-braided with red- white-and-blue pompoms in her hair -- don't laugh, Oprah had a crew doing a story on her for a day. She may be an airhead, but she is a TOKEN, and tokenism counts for a lot at this convention.)

I have a fairly sophisticated program for tracking website hits, and what I've just seen didn't make any sense until I remembered that I've posted here and on ACME that I think a lot of the "Kiddie Porn" paranoia is a smokescreen for a more insidious attack on civil liberties.

(And it ain't the tracking program you THINK it is)

Somebody from the Government has been searching my website for: search="xxx free" "free pics" "porn free" "teens" "hard core" "head" "blow" @rec.arts.movies.erotica&child love @rec.arts.movies.erotica&hart williams

search="child porn"

And hits from several .gov servers. etcetera. You get the picture.

Now, I note a BIIIIG bust of a kiddie porn network made the news today, with 46 arrests in several countries. The interesting fact that caught my attention was that, while the investigation took place in ten or more states, only three arrests were made in the US.

But let me state for the record, in case there's ANY QUESTION about it:

I find the sort of mind that likes kiddie porn to be sick.

I find the concept of child pornography repulsive.

I would turn in ANYone I suspected of dabbling in it in a New York minute, and have called the FBI Internet Task Force in San Francisco about just such material in the past -- as their records ought to show.

Got that? Is that clear? Is that explicit enough Big Brother?

Now, STOP SURVEILLING ME!

The decision, Kelo v. New London, Conn., raised a public outcry, led by libertarians and conservatives who advocate limited government power. The spate of ballot proposals is being bankrolled largely by libertarian organizations controlled by New York City real estate investor Howie Rich. The groups, Americans for Limited Government and the Fund for Democracy, have donated $4 million to ballot drives in eight states.

"It's about one of the core freedoms that our country was built on," Rich says. "People work very hard to own a small business, a home or property. The government is there to protect the right to that property, not to take it away."

leading people to believe their state governments are doing a poor job.

Main Entry: shenanigans
Function: noun plural
Text: 1 playful, reckless behavior that is not intended to cause serious harm -- see MISCHIEF 1
2 wildly playful or mischievous behavior -- see HORSEPLAY

The aim is to slash state spending, with the potential for deep cuts in health care, education, and other social services. But are these local initiatives really "home" grown? This week, NOW investigates how organizations associated with one wealthy New Yorker, Howard Rich, are secretly providing major funding for ballot measures.

There is a reason that we make laws in a deliberative body. The initiative process is meant to be an "in case of fire, break glass." There are always unintended consequences, and, as we've seen several times in the past, what you think you're voting for and what you're actually voting for turn out to be two different things. When people outspend the local opposition five to one and more, I can't see that as anything other than hard-core used-car sales techniques, used to bully the voters into taking up questions that legislatures are more properly constituted to address.

Sounded like familiar territory. Back in the day, the press and public broadcasting in particular, took a rather morbid interest in uncovering the Dark Designs of my old employer, U.S. Term Limits. The press was forever interested in unmasking who gave us money, why they gave us money and what our real (evil, dark and dastardly) goals might be. Were they as interested in the lobbyists, labor unions, assorted interest groups and politicians who spent great sums opposing us? Not really. They were good folks. And sources.

Anyway, the patterns in the story were familiar for good reason: the man pulling the levers behind the Montana and other efforts, it seems, is none other than my old boss, Howie Rich.

It's PBS, what did you expect? PBS is ubber liberal leaning, and libertarians are the few people can hold a debate with them on intellectual issues, so they need to label them "radical".

On Tuesday, between 40 and 50 supporters of the Marijuana Policy Project's initiative campaign in Nevada attended a county commission meeting in Las Vegas to protest the commission's nonbinding resolution opposing MPP's initiative. MPP Campaign Manager Neal Levine made a statement before the commission, explaining, "According to Nevada Revised Statutes 281.554, government officials and employees are prohibited from expending public funds, time, or resources to oppose or support a ballot question. This rule applies to the Clark County Commission."

Despite the clear legal precedent — a Nevada Supreme Court decision in 2002 and a Nevada attorney general's opinion in 2004 — that prevents public officials from weighing in on ballot questions, the commission's lawyer opined that the resolution debate could proceed. The commission then voted unanimously to oppose MPP's initiative, which would tax and regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol.

Following the commission's vote, the campaign filed a formal complaint with the state's attorney general, asking him to prosecute the county commissioners and other public officials — like Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Detective Todd Raybuck, and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Stan Olsen — who have spent taxpayer money to oppose MPP's initiative, which will be on the November 7 ballot.

The possibility of sending the county commissioners, sheriffs, and police to jail for illegally campaigning while on the public dime has generated a tremendous amount of news coverage by diverse media outlets, including the ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC television stations in Las Vegas; the NBC and CBS television stations in Reno; and the Associated Press, the Las Vegas Sun, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

I'm not sure if I'm voting for TABOR or not, but not because I think TABOR is too extreme. I think it's not extreme ENOUGH. I WANT useless programs to be cut. If something happens, and my income decreases, something has to give (maybe I get rid of cable or stop going out to eat). I would have to make a budget cut. Same thing for government. It's time to tighten the belt. I'm not sure TABOR goes far enough!

"Every time an initiative comes up that some group doesn't like -- especially the group of established politicians in the state capital -- you hear the complaint: THIS IS BEING FUNDED FROM OUT OF STATE!

It's a common complaint. As a person who helps out with petitions for initiatives in many states, I find this a bit odd.

As a supporter of citizen political involvement, I see my work as "doing good," helping citizens effectively have their say against establishment voices, at those expert in drowning out dissent.

What do I get? Called an 'outside influence.' Oh, horrors.

What strikes me as funniest about such complaints is how hypocritical most are. They are often made by newspapers owned by out-of-state corporations. They are made by politicians who accept support from anywhere. They are made by groups that have accepted money from out of state for other initiatives.

Hypocrisy isn't shocking. But the implied isolationism is. Each state is supposed to be cordoned off? Nonsense. The United States was conceived as one vast free trade zone, and the free trade of political ideas is as important as any other kind of trade.

Further, the very independence of our federal republic is owed, in part, to certain French interests who helped fund our revolution.

Sure, it's nice to know who supports every initiative. Or every politician. But 'outside influence' is almost meaningless today, since no state is an island ... well, except Hawaii.

"S.I. Newhouse's contributions top $28 million"

"Groups controlled by New York media magnate and owner of The Oregononian S.I. Newhouse contributed another $17 million to oppose Oregon ballot measure campaigns in July and August, bringing his total donations to $28 million, according to new campaign finance research." The Register Guard, Sept. 12, 2006.

Man, what a month.

It was only a week or two ago that the machine of libertarian political initiatives was rolling swiftly around the West. We recently wrote about the “Kelo-plus” property rights initiatives funded by a New York real estate developer and longtime Libertarian Party activist, Howard Rich. Rich and his allies have pushed those and also parallel initiatives to limit government spending and institute term limits in states from Oregon to Arizona.

But the hired help has fouled up the works. Courts in Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan and Missouri have disqualified part or entire initiatives that otherwise would have gone to voters. The decisions come in reaction to complaints about petition-circulators’ problematic, or illegal, signature-gathering tactics."

"Looking over from Oregon, Rich’s West-wide ballot initiatives seem less an innovation than a higher-octane version of similar, previous ideas — albeit, a uniquely ambitious multi-pronged effort that has simultaneously tried to change the political landscape while flying under the radar. No, there is nothing new under the sun, just a lot more of it. What the recent court decisions striking down a number of these initiatives suggest is this: Watch for judges to strike down additional proposed ballot measures, citing fraudulent, deceptive or improper signature-gathering.

So, Howie Rich isn’t the only rich guy willing to write checks for political initiatives. (Ironically, Rich and company’s money-shuffling secrecy — fund a campaign here, have it send money to another group there — has gained them much more publicity than any of the out-in-the-open wealthy donors opposed to the initiatives.)

Watch for union activists with wide smiles with each new court decision; and libertarian activists smiling on election day.

Drawing upon a century of evidence, Matsusaka argues against the popular belief that initiative measures are influenced by wealthy special interest groups that neglect the majority view. Examining demographic, political, and opinion data, he demonstrates how the initiative process brings about systematic changes in tax and expenditure policies of state and local governments that are generally supported by the citizens. He concludes that, by and large, direct democracy in the form of the initiative process works for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

Now available in 24 states and the District of Columbia, the voter initiative process has been used to abolish affirmative action, expand casino gambling and deny educational and health benefits to the families of illegal immigrants. It has forced yes-or-no votes on issues as diverse as nude dancing and term limits, and, according to Pulitzer prize-winning Washington Post and syndicated
columnist Broder (Changing of the Guard), it threatens to subvert the American form of representative government by allowing millionaires and special interests to rewrite state laws. In this well-argued and often chilling study, Broder scrutinizes the initiative process and delves into what one critic calls a "multimillion-dollar cottage industry" populated by paid signature gatherers, pollsters and public-relations firms. He finds democracy run amok: three wealthy men changed the drug laws of five states; billionaire Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen threw cash into a campaign to publicly finance a stadium for the Seattle Seahawks, a team he owned. The public, in turn, was stunned by initiatives and counterinitiatives on which anti-abortion, anti-hunting and pro-casino gambling forces, among many others, spent a quarter of a billion dollars in the 1998 election cycle alone. The centerpiece of the book is a balanced but tough-minded analysis of Proposition 226, the so-called "paycheck protection initiative" defeated in California after a viciously fought battle in 1998. Broder dissects the sloganeering of both sides to confirm a lobbyist's cynical assessment of the campaign as "a lotta little lies fighting one big lie." As tensions rise between direct democracy and representative government in America, this book gives a provocative critique of the initiative process as a panacea for democracy's ills. (Publishers Weekly)

Do small but wealthy interest groups influence referendums, ballot initiatives, and other forms of direct legislation at the expense of the broader public interest? Many observers argue that they do, often lamenting that direct legislation has, paradoxically, been captured by the very same wealthy interests whose power it was designed to curb. Elisabeth Gerber, however, challenges that argument. In this first systematic study of how money and interest group power actually affect direct legislation, she reveals that big spending does not necessarily mean big influence.

Direct democracy is alive and growing in the form of statewide ballot initiatives. Currently, twenty-four states allow individuals and groups to propose laws for direct voter consideration and tens of millions of dollars flow into the initiative industrial complex each election cycle. This book assesses the health of the initiative process through the insights of the leading initiative scholars, top journalists, and important political consultants from across the country. The book provides a critical and balanced look into a political mechanism that is having a profound influence on American politics.