Category: Uncategorized

Dear Friends!

I’m writing with some exciting news about my documentary on Camp Kinderland, “Commie Camp.” The film premiered on June 28th at the VisionFest FIlm Festival at Tribeca Cinemas. “Commie Camp” broke a record with two sold out showings. Thanks soooo much to everyone who came out and showed their support. It was especially great to have people featured in the documentary present at the screenings, like campers who are now grown up (see photos above. Check out more pictures here!)

Also, director Katie Halper (that’s me) won an award for  Technical and Artistic Achievement.  There are a bunch of upcoming screenings. Please come out and spread the word to your friends!

When a scandal breaks, several questions invariably arise: “Should this scandal matter? Should the media focus on it? Should voters be concerned about it? Should there be resignations, terminations, censure, prosecution, incarceration?” And what better way to address such questions than with a numerical scoring system? Rachel Maddow made an invaluable contribution to this field in her “post-Bill Clinton modern American political sex-scandal consequence-o-meter” (2011) during the first Weiner scandal. In said chart, Maddow based her scandal evaluation on two factors: the “creepy” factor and the “prosecutability” factor. The creepy factor, however, is dangerously subjective, as Maddow herself was the first to acknowledge — what’s creepy to one person may be acceptable to another.

It is this subjectivity which my system attempts to minimize. To achieve this end, I eliminate the creepiness factor, replacing it with the political hypocrisy factor. To determine the hypocrisy, one must look at rhetoric as well as policy. Do the politician’s actions violate principles he has espoused? Do they violate principles he has put into law or attempted to put into law? Note that this is different from personal hypocrisy, something perhaps distasteful, but not, I would argue, politically relevant.

Instead of “prosecutability” we opt for “lawsuit/prison potential” as a category, since sexual harassment, for example, is not always criminally prosecutable but can give rise to a civil suit.

Another departure from the Maddovian method is the scoring. Maddow uses a primarily visual assessment, placing scandals relative to each other. My approach uses a more precise and quantitative method. The scandal receives 1 point for illegal non-criminal conduct, 1 point for misdemeanors, 2 points for felonies, 1 point for rhetorical hypocrisy, 1 point for policy-based hypocrisy. Points are removed for a statements or policies that mitigate said hypocrisy. Negative scores are not allowed.

As you will see, views on LGBT issues come up frequently in this sample. It is arguably hypocritical to cheat on a spouse while opposing people who you claim violate the sanctity of marriage. Whatever moral or religious basis you have for opposing same-sex marriage almost certainly applies to adultery.

Let’s take a look at some recent scandals through this lens:

Anthony Weiner: sexting

lawsuit/prison potential: 0
rhetorical hypocrisy: 1 (never said anything about sexting, is socially liberal, received a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. But initially told the public he had been set up and had not tweeted the photo. And then told the public he was done sexting.)
policy-based hypocrisy: 0 (never supported legislation on texting, has a consistently liberal voting record, when it comes to social issues, never sought to legislate people’s sexuality or morality.)

Total score: 1

David Vitter: solicitation of prostitutes

lawsuit/prison potential: 1 (soliciting a prostitute is a misdemeanor.)
rhetorical hypocrisy: 1 (campaigned as a family values, socially conservative and Christian candidate. Compared same-sex marriage to natural disasters.)
policy-based hypocrisy: 1 (was one of the chief sponsors of the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.)

Total score: 3

Elliot Spitzer: solicitation of prostitutes

lawsuit/prison potential: 1 (soliciting a prostitute is a misdemeanor.)
rhetorical hypocrisy: .5 (condemned prostitution, but as an element of human trafficking.)
policy-based hypocrisy: .5 (cracked down on prostitution. Spitzer himself said it was fair to be labeled as a “hypocrite.” Though, to be fair, he really cracked down on human trafficking, not prostitution, per se.)

Total score: 2

Read the rest at Salon

OK. this video may be the only pro-choice version of Robin Thicke’s highly problematic Blurred Lines music video. But if there were more out there, this one would still be one of the best! It’s created by Full Frontal Freedom, which describes itself as “a coalition of independent artists and media folks – who want to use our talents to promote civic engagement.” The very funny lyrics, which were amazingly provided on the Youtube page, are after the jump.

After the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot an unarmed African-American teenager, the following words of the feminist, intellectual, activist, teacher bell hooks spread like wild fire across social media.

The growing number of gated communities in our nation is but one example of the obsession with safety…. The person who is really the threat here is the home owner who has been so well socialized by the thinking of white supremacy, of capitalism, of patriarchy that he can no longer respond rationally.

White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor…. This is what the worship of death looks like.

The words were so applicable to the murder of Trayvon Martin, that many people assumed it was written or spoken in response to the case. Actually, the quote is both timeless and prophetic, and comes from hooks’ book All About Love.

[…]

Read more at Feministing

At first it looks like a piece of abstract art. Then you start to make out human shapes. And it looks like a bunch of people wearing bathing suits and swim caps, maybe? But it’s not. This is a police X-ray imageof a trailer truck containing 94 trafficking victims from Central America, Nepal and Bengladesh. The truck, which had started its trip in Guatemala and was headed towards towards the U.S. border, but was stopped at a checkpoint outside of Tixtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas State.

According to the Mexican National Migration Institute, or INM, 78 women and 16 men 78 men and 16 women were found in the truck. […]

Read more at Feministing

If Anthony Weiner was stupid to have sextual relationships before resigning, he’s beyond stupid to have engaged in them again after being caught and resigning. But while his behavior is politically stupid, it’s not relevant to his governing.

As someone who doesn’t try to pass laws controlling people’s sex lives, Weiner didn’t violate any of the principles or policies he espouses. When, however, socially conservative Republicans are caught soliciting prostitutes or trying to have gay sex in a bathroom, they demonstrate a double standard and hypocrisy. They engage in the very behavior they want to be illegal for other people but not for themselves. This is the difference.

[…]

Read more at Policymic

The number of women who have accused San Diego Mayor (D) Bob Filner of sexual harassment is now 13. That’s 13 women who were violated by a man who told one woman who worked for him to come into work without panties; put his hand in a woman’s bra, forcibly kissed multiple women, abused his position of power and political connections, hit on women in what should have been political meetings. I’ve written about why what Filner did was very different from what Weiner did and how the media conflates the two as part of the same culture of sex scandals. But what Filner did was categorically worse than what Weiner did. He violated women who did not consent. And he engaged in unlawful behavior. Grouping the two men together trivializes sexual harassment and the importance of consent.

But it looks like Filner may be worse than we thought. Among the 13 accusers, at least 8 are female veterans and members of the National Women’s Veterans Association of America (NWVAA) in San Diego. Almost of of these women are survivors of sexual assault in the military. And some of them think Filner intentionally preyed on them.

Eldonna Fernandez was raped three times while serving in the military. She met Filner at a National Women’s Veterans Association of America “Healing and Hiring Fair.” She recalls,

“He looks at my card. He looks at me. He says, ‘Fernandez. Are you married? Do you have a husband?’ Very quick, very direct. I said, ‘No, I’m divorced.’ ‘Well, you’re beautiful, and I can’t take my eyes off you, and I want to take you to dinner.’ I was really shocked and I was like, ‘Uh, OK.’”

He then allegedly left a Fernandez a voice mail saying “Hi, it’s your newly favorite congressman, Bob Filner. You know, the one who fell in love with you at your last speech,” Her speech was about being raped.

Read more at Feministing

Insanely, some women, ironically, have praised Kate Middleton for having a boy. Sexist responses to the royal baby’s gender are especially off, since a new law would have made a female heir much more exciting and historical.

Newsweek and Daily Beast editor-in-chief (and fancy British lady) Tina Brown said on Tuesday: “As soon as William really kind of emerged into the public eye, you had this wholesome prince and his choice of Kate Middleton turns out to be absolutely impeccable. I mean, once again, she does the perfect thing.” And on Monday, CNN Royal Contributor Victoria Arbiter, also English, gushed:

“My first thought, I have to say, was this is how brilliant a royal Kate is. There are women throughout British royal family history that have panicked not being able to deliver a boy, and here we are, Kate did it first time. So it does mean, of course, the change in the next succession conversation is over for another 30 years or so, but we’re celebrating and thrilled that Kate has had a healthy, bouncing baby boy.”

(Arbiter claimed in Twitter that she was being tongue in cheek. But does she sound and look tongue and cheek here?) […]

Read more at Policymic

Reporter Helen Thomas died at home in her Washington DC apartment, surrounded by her loved ones. She was 92 and had been ill for years, according to a friend.  Covering every president from JFK to Barack Obama, Thomas was an excellent reporter, in her own right, whose no-nonsense, probing questions made George Bush uncomfortable. But on top of these achievements, Thomas was a pioneer for women journalists and was a first in many things. For instance, Thomas

• is considered the first woman to write about things not considered the “women’s beat,” which the AP defines as “the soft stories about presidents’ kids, wives, their teas and their hairdos.”
• was the first female White House bureau chief for a wire service (for UPI in 1974)
• was the first female officer at the National Press Club (also in 1974)
• was the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association
• was the first female member of the Gridiron Club, a news society.

Thomas was forced to retire from Hearst after making insensitive comments that were considered controversial about Israel. The backlash against Thomas revealed the bias and double standard in the media, when it comes to the Middle East.

Read more at Feministing

The influential Christian conservative organization Family Research Council (FRC) is hard (no pun intended) at work, trying to save us from pornography.  On Wednesday, in Washington DC, (the porn capital, incidentally) the FRC hosted a lecture, with the catchy title “Porn in the Dorm: The Impact of Pornography on College Campus Life.” Dr. Patrick F. Fagan, director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI)–“which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data”—delivered the talk and power point presentation. Fagan, who served as President George H.W. Bush’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy for the Department of Health and Human Services, warned that “For college students, the use of pornography is especially problematic” with the potential to “destroy their education, their relationships and their future.”

And how does porn manage all this? According to Fagan’s 2009 paper, “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family, and Community,” on which he based his lecture, porn works through the mind, the, heart and the body, creating a “Distorted Perception of Reality, “ “Aggression and Abuse,” “Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancies,” infidelity, divorce and separation.

His grand thesis is that pornography is an anti-Christian vestige of a sick pagan world: “What we really have is a pagan sexuality, which is totally different from a Christian sexuality. Homosexuality, infidelity, euthanasia, infanticide – these were all common sexual practices of pagan Rome. Christians were for being very different, for being monogamous, faithful.” Using the precise tools of social science to which his organization is dedicated, Pagan explained in his talk that, “There’s a pagan sexuality which is a pan-sexuality which is the erotic. Abortion, homosexuality, infidelity, pornography, euthanasia, infanticide all of those things were just the common sexual practice of pagan Rome and Christians were for being very different. Monogamous, faithful, struggling, etc…you know the chastity, purity.”

Read more at Salon