Take Back The Media

Support progressive media! Check out Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book!

*Every word came out of Andrew Breitbart’s mouth, but a few words may have been accidentally left out. It’s not our fault, we swear.

Posted on behalf of @Symbolman:

I come from mining stock. One of my ancestors was blown to hell underground with a score or more of others, whose bones still lay buried under tons of rock in Colorado. My sisters blessed a statue dedicated to those brave men a few years back. I’ve placer mined gold with family in the bush of Alaska, using heavy machinery, and prospected for uranium in the bush of that incredible state by helicopters 18 hours a day for two summers, under a relentless sun. So I know something about this issue, it’s in my blood.

This is what led me and my wife in 2006 to take a trip to West Virginia to film, document and witness firsthand the coal mining technique referred to as mountaintop removal. In earlier times generations of men and machinery wrested coal (and in some areas it’s still that brutal) from the bowels of the earth with a pick and shovel. Many will stay there, forever, encased in coal, while families grieve and suffer in poverty.

But not all. The very people who sweated and died for little money, who lived by their wits off a rich land, on achingly beautiful mountains are now being mined themselves. Their bones are scraped from the ribs of these mountains, and dumped unceremoniously into coal hoppers, shipped on rail cars.

Those bones may have been burned to generate the electricity that powers the computer you are using to read this. And we have film of that outrage, and more.

Take a look at this clip from our film in progress, and watch Larry Gibson point out a family gravesite that is actively being mined by heavy machinery.

Four years later I’m still chilled to the bone when I watch this footage, like someone’s walking on my future grave… maybe they are, with a shovel, followed by a front end loader.

Larry Gibson, a patient, strong man, was in 2006 the last holdout on his mountain land which some coal companies had suggested to him was worth 450 million dollars. He refused. He not only worries about the decimation of the environment, but a whole culture disappearing. Many of the houses surrounding his don’t even have electricity. The corporations don’t want him there, and those folks aren’t getting any breaks, other than the earth being fractured daily about them.

Explosions have sent 5 ton rocks hurtling onto his property, one boulder that size killed a child in his bed. The very earth opens up and stays that way after they blow the mountains to rubble. The grass and bushes grow about these cracks and you can fall into one and there’s a good chance no one will ever know where you went. It was difficult to film in this area for just that reason alone, never mind the heartbreak I felt as I crested a hill with Larry and the expanse of decimation assailed my eyes. It took my breath away.

Larry showed us some surviving family cemetaries, the shockwaves from explosions crush the coffins and contents, and they collapse, the earth above drops into the hole where bodies have been flattened. Silver silt covers these graves, and there’s a good chance it’s poisonous. There’s a lot of poison generated by this mining technique. According to Larry the valleys are being filled with trees, tires, and whatever else the mining company can haul and dump in the darkness of night.

He showed us a scale model of the area surrounding his mountain, disassembling the mountain tops, pulling the seams of coal underneath, and dropping the fill sections into the valleys between. His mountain had been the lowest in an area that can be seen from space (use google earth), and, as of 2006, it was the highest.

You cannot imagine the destruction without witnessing it firsthand or on film. One area he showed us had been declared the largest explosion using standard explosives since World War Two. It’s flat as a pancake, “reclaimed” with grasses that would “grow on the top of a picnic table” according to Larry, but die quickly, along with pines that have no eccological business growing there.

I’m afraid to see what’s been going on at Larry Gibson’s mountain since, we’ve been working on a film about the man, sidetracked by caring for dying relatives, and beating the bushes for money to finish this film - but we’d love nothing more than to return to Larry’s mountain and show the damages four years later. We’re working in that direction.

I’d made a promise to Larry that we’d get the word out, and in the wake of the most recent deaths of miners, and the news of coal companies owing tens of millions of dollars in fines, I was reminded that this technique continues unabated. This technique floods towns, pollutes the waters so that no one in the area can even bathe in them. There is so much more, that can only be explained with film, you have to “be there” to get it, and Larry’s in the trenches. They’re done everything short of killing that man to get to his coal, and this story needs to be told.

We’ll tell it Larry. Here’s one big step towards that. This clip alone is sending shockwaves, exploding all over the internet. Maybe the sound will fall on Congressional ears, and they will finally attack this problem.

In the meantime, when you charge your cell phone, leave lights on in empty portions of your home, use some idiotic butter melting machine at the kitchen table, remember that people DIE for that energy, that revered bodies get MINED for it, that eccosytems and human beings are poisoned by the variety of chemical waste produced, that it is killing a culture.

This is war. We need to end mountain top removal and demand safety for those who lay their lives on the line, make these coal companies responsible for their actions.

The West Virginia mountains may disappear, sounds impossible, but it’s true.

All that will be left are the killing fields.

@Symbolman and TBTM Julie are environmentalists and co-authors of Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book

Creators of The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book Target Sarah Palin, Ask that she end violent rhetoric.

What Sarah Palin is doing and has done in the past is beyond the pale. She is inciting those who cannot tell the difference between Heaven and Health, Satire and raw Truth, inflamed minions, to potential acts of violence with her dangerous words, flying in the face of simpering media “outrage” to post ever more viral hatespeak on her Facebook page, poorly cloaked in sports analogy.

After the vote on Healthcare, she supplied a handy list of democrats she vociferously intimated “Teahadists” to hound, or potentially attack, with a graphic that pointed out the “enemy” with targets. At least one of targeted democrats’ family members home propane line was cut, and bricks have flown at democratic headquarters throughout America, including Alaska. While another, even more ignorant Alabama resident did the urging, Sarah Palin supplied the raw material for those who are just waiting for the word to move on their supposed nemeses.

Slathered with the putrid sweat of Republicans screaming the Healthcare vote would result in Armegeddon, these folks who live on the edge of sanity may be pushed over by hero worship of their “Leader” Palin, to actually attack and kill a democrat, or a liberal. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that before this shrill rhetoric is declared as dangerous and illegal as shouting “Fire” in a movie theatre is for the common safety of all communities.

Her words: Warning: Subject to New Politically Correct Language Police Censorship

We decided to Satirically “target” Sarah Palin with her own words, graphics and actions. We wish neither her, or democrats, nor anyone physical harm, and instead have skewered her before, exposed her POLICIES, gutted her like a rogue moose - with humor and political cartoons, cloaked in a coloring book, The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book. THIS is the WAY, not shilling for violence.

According to Sarah Palin, the graphic on this page is not a problem. Well, is it?

Humor is one thing. Specifically targeting Congressmen and women with gun sights while hair-triggered, ravening hordes of barbarians who crave empowerment crouch, ready to spring is quite another.

As is usual, her hatespeak, like Limbaugh and Beck, is called “Humor” when they are caught red-handed crossing the line, but the media only employs “False Equivency” to tone it all down.

The media uses one lone nutcase, who threatened President, Pelosi, and Reid a year ago for a foil, claiming ONLY that he was arrested for offering to kill Eric Cantor, a whining asshole we look forward to watching live a long frustrating life - to make the case that EVERYONE is doing it, and that this “leftist” (the Right Wing framing for anyone who is left of them) proves their point. Not True. Ridiculous. They are covering for the GOP, who everyone KNOWS has crossed the line, especially so when GOP members of Congress inflamed ignorant, frothing potential killers from the back of the Capitol building itself.

Here, Sarah. This is what it feels like. Maybe you’ll want to show some class now and act like an actual Human Being. We know you like to kill and all, but these are PEOPLE you are trifling with. It’s not an antfarm, They are Americans, as patriotic as the rest of us, simple misguided and beguiled by you and the media that vaults someone so vicious and ordinary, like you.

Show some courage, Sarah Palin, stop the hate talk. We all suffer for it, and you diminish those that came before you that fostered civilisation, instead you seek to destroy the fabric of civility that binds a culture.

Enough.

Disclaimer: We do not wish harm to Sarah Palin, or indeed anyone, this graphic is Satirical and meant to educate. We have staged a mellow protest of Sarah Palin before, as audience members at the TONIGHT SHOW where she appeared in March.

Who needs teleprompters when a studio can simply insert canned laughter?

I’ve dealt with sound engineering for 30 years, as a film maker, interviewer, musician, working with master reel to reel tapes/decks at EMS Music in Seattle in the 80’s as a sound duplication engineer, or setting sound levels for my and other bands in live situations at shows. I won a Hollywood award for animation in 2000. I know sound. And it’s my opinion that audio portions of Sarah Palin’s March 2nd appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight show were added or amplified, edited before broadcast to make it appear that Sarah Palin was more welcome than she was.

I know. I was there.

They added laughter where there was none during uncomfortable portions. Well, there was some laughter. Mine, of derision. During those pregnant pauses in her performance I was laughing long and loud, couldn’t help myself as much of what she was saying was utterly surreal, ridiculous, hypocritical - nonsense, spewed platitudes, pushed buttons. I was seriously thinking of leaving as it was getting hysterically unfunny.

After sitting through the taping of the show in the studio I can recount many portions where there was little or no laughter or response, but at the later broadcast they are smoothed over with applause and laughter that WERE NOT THERE at the taping. Groans, hoots, grumbling, or just dead silence - all missing.

Soon after leaving the studio I basically tweeted, “Hey, was in the belly of the beast, attended taping of Palin on Tonight show, she bombed.” Retweets abounded, let folks know that they could listen to my jeering laughter during dead spots in the interview, jokes no one laughed at, etc, and many folks cursed me for making them think about watching her on Leno that night. We all had a good chuckle - but I wasn’t laughing at the broadcast, because selective miking during a “live edit” or later additions made it appear as if I’d lied nearly as much as Sarah Palin does.

(In the interest of disclosure my wife and I created a parody “Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book” http://goingrouge.net and have sold many copies. It was featured in the Washington Post, AP, The New York Times, Buzzflash, Entertainment Tonight broadcast the cover repeatedly pre-Christmas, and in general it’s been happily received. Even right wingers have purchased copies, and loved them.)

But we had never attended a Palin “event”, and decided it was time to see her in person, so we flew 6 thousand miles round trip from the east coast to be in the audience as a sort of mellow protest, wave copies of the book to freak her out, hand them out to staff & audience at the Studio. Security waved our copies on through, and folks there were reading it during the show and cracking up at the humor. Even the camera guys.

Well, not the one Security guy during the show who told my wife to sit down, she was dancing and waving our book, and to the shows credit we weren’t expelled nor did they confiscate the books. I wouldn’t have cared if they did, we’ve been activists for a long time, and I’ve been ready on many occasions to go to jail for making folks aware of lies and distortions by media and govt, mostly during the GWBush years, when Takebackthemedia.com was an intregal part of the protest scene. Some folks have credited us with the invention of the online Flash political attack ad. Millions enjoyed my political animations from 2000 on, before the advent of YouTube.

From my seat to the right of the stage, by the band, I could tell that an average of 70% of the audience did not like Sarah Palin. Many literally sat on their hands. This is LA and I wondered when we went in, just how many people would be into Palin here. C’mon, this is LA, man! Make no mistake, the national figure for nutjobs were represented, the same insane 30% of the country that always believe in racism, GWBush, War, Torture, the Libertarians, Teabaggers were there too, and quite vocal. Throw in a shotgun microphone and you’ve got yourself a laugh riot with these guys.

Before the show they brought out a cheerleader, ginning up the audience, telling jokes, dancing around the stage. Having been a sound engineer I knew that this comedian’s secondary use was setting the sound levels for the room ahead of time.

“Okay, now everyone on the right side of the room, let’s hear it!!” “Left side of the room, applause! Give it up! Don’t let those on the right side of the room beat you!” “Now everyone, squeal like a piggy, WHEEEE - Loud!”

Behind us the sound man was tweaking levels for all manners of amplitude, to reduce murmur, bottom end rumble, they use all sorts of filters to keep out unwanted levels of noise, chatter, etc. Straight to the sound booth, who make sure there’s no “crunchy” or overamped audio, no overpowering of VU meters. Set up compression, all the good stuff.

Jay came out to raucous applause, hell, we clapped too, I like the guy, not as much as Letterman or Connan but I’m a comedy fan, and some of the show as funny. Shaun White was way cool, funny, authentic, there multiple ovations, and Adam Lambert ROCKED the house, as the latest and future incarnation of David Bowie. Lots of fun.

But when Jay brought out Sarah Palin, she was completely nerved. Watch the video, check out her breathing, she’s Freaked and talks a mile a minute. Both my wife and I agreed - when you actually get close enough, she’s just plain Creepy, and those yech vibes filled the room. Nevermind the applause sign - something that’s a staple of late night shows. My brother in law used to say, “You know why they add laugh tracks? So you know it’s Comedy.” Folks did as they were told, hooting, clapping, having a good time, hey, that’s why they were there. Me too.

The basic rules for the studio audience were simple: NO Eating, NO drinking and NO shouting anything out. Other than that, knock yourselves out, have a good time. Yet, judging by the Security surrounding the stage where Palin brought the Silly, shouting out, “Hey Sarah, How many wolf puppies have you gassed?!” would have been suicidal.

Nothing in the rules said that Laughing at all the Wrong Times would be a problem, the wrong times in this circumstance were when she was bringing the crazy that no one wanted to touch, or call her out on. And Jay, while he chided her, didn’t really put down the hammer. Ratings. Shame.

And while NBC Sold Palin, she sold her body, jiggling, teasing, pushing the cutesy-pie, what we used to call in the military, a “prick tease”. She short circuits brains, deflects the fact that most of what she says is nonsense or hateful, as lizard layers of right wing men’s brains hum a sexual fantasy tune, and women who have thrown all sense of propriety to the wind, watching her strip, want to be just like her. Rich. Stupid. The sweet “Bite Me” bitch attitude she’s honed to an art form. No, she doesn’t just “wink” - she uses her whole body to sell the package. Turn off the sound, just watch her body language. I find it whorish, repulsive, and I’m no prude.

At at least four points in the show she was getting so far out in screwball territory, or was just so damned unfunny that I couldn’t help but laugh when no others were, at the absurdity of her statements. Literally biting off yards of tongue, because at home I’m ready to throw bricks at my TV when she’s on. The TV, not Her, let’s be clear.

One: She was so happy to back John McCain’s bid for re-election in Arizona, at least for now, left the audience puzzled, confused. I Chortled with great vigor. Not in the broadcast.

Two: During the monologue when she made a crack about No Tomatoes being allowed, even the Teabaggers in the audience didn’t want to touch that one. The Sarah Sucks crowd, my people, said nothing. Crickets. The whole audience seemed stunned, and again, I howled. Not in the broadcast. Nothing. Nada. (You may recall that after someone threw a tomatoe at her in a mall, at the following Costco Book signing ALL Tomatoes were removed from the store prior to her entrance.)

I was sitting by the band. They don’t mike the BAND? C’mon.

Three: Explaining how it’s cool to write on her hand. She lied about what was on there, then sails to pluto with, “my dad, a teacher, used to come home with notes (answers?) written all over his hands…” again, dead air. No ONE was buying it, it was just too bizarre. The answer? Just ADD canned Laughter. A lie.

Four: Was directed at US. (Of course this joke was written long before we were in the audience, and hey, she kills moose, so, it’s kind of an obvious one) The Moose Joke. We feature a layout in our book of a whole, cooked moose on a platter surrounded by vegetables as a Palin “recipe”. I wrote copy about her getting beauty sleep in a crashed plane, stealing canoes from natives, packing 800 lbs of moose out after plugging it, sitting on its body as it dies, all just to get back and feed her family.

Now, If you watch the video, Palin looks hard Left, right at us, pauses, as we wave our coloring books. Don’t look for footage of the coloring books being bandied about like a prize bass, you won’t see that. And I’m not saying that was edited out, audience video is very controlled, not everyone gets seen, though they try like hell - but she looked us in the eye. Sarah doesn’t like us much. We expose many of her anti-environmental policies in our book, her cruelty to animals, destruction of ecosystems, being in the pocket of the oil companies, all in a humorous way. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve eaten moose myself, lived in Alaska for 12 years. I know Alaska. I’ve crashed in helicopters in ANWR. She’s not the Alaska I know, and doesn’t represent those fine people, or their ways.

She’s a fraud, and I was beginning to think she knows it, deep down inside, when my wife said, “She’s Very Competitive, and she’s not about to give up. We may have actually spurred her on with our antics and the book.” Oops. We’ll spur her on with some more in the next one.

But Sarah Palin is vengeful. She ever gets into office again, she might have us sent to Siberia, or worse, Wasilla.

Hold me.

The real heroes of the night were Shaun White and Adam Lambert - the audience was delighted, all of it, and blew the roof off the place when they were mentioned and appeared. Meanwhile, Leno’s show used the ambience to give Palin Cover. They sold her. Her book, her body, her celebrity, her future, all of it. And 70% of an audience weren’t buying it, but you can’t tell from the broadcast.

I know. I was there.

They should bear some responsibilty for hawking a defective product. This is corporate shilling in the worst way, not only to raise Leno’s ratings, but to push Palin on a crowd with fake laughter and applause. The applause sign is one thing, an american institution. But INSERTING Laughter for Sarah Palin? Try to realize that while you may be laughing at the things she says, because she’s a train wreck, the corporate powers that be are ADJUSTING the laughter so it appears APPROPRIATE. I worked in a mental institution. The very basic definition of insanity is “inappropriate laughter”. WHO decides what’s “appropriate”? Apparently, corporations. Not you.

Your reality no longer belongs to you. There is at this time no way of telling if a crowd actually backs a person or not. (Enter Twilight Zone music here, or Outer Limits, your choice.) Because…

Your reality has been hacked.

But not mine. I was there.

I wanted to say that Leno has earned his ratings, that he’s funny, and he is at times, and deserves his talk show.

Can’t. Not now. Sorry to say, The Tonight Show is a lie, more than ever a corporate shill that’s performing a cultural engineering service. Selling garbage, that is literally ruinous to our nation and women’s rights. That destroys the fabric of our society. It’s real.

I saw it. I was there.

I need a stiff drink.You?

Activist Micheal Stinson aka Symbolman, former Alaskan, Founder of Takebackthemedia.com is an author, satirist, animator (and gonzo tweeter @symbolman) who has appeared on FOX’s O’Reilly, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and CNN cable shows, as well as numerous radio shows. His wife, Julie Sigwart, is the brilliant cartoonist behind the hit parody “Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book” http://goingrouge.net

Micheal can be contacted at symbolman@gmail.com