Tune in today, June 28th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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From: Harold Bronson

Subject: Prostests Plus

You are so right about protests not working. And, the taxpayer expense and inconvenience to deal with them.

Otherwise, if you didn’t see Jordan Klepper interviewing Trumpers in Mississippi three days ago on

The Daily Show, you will not be surprised, but astonished.

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

What SCOTUS did was catastrophic for women everywhere.

I was 18 and a senior in high school and seeing someone 7 years my senior. He believed in the ‘pull out’ method for birth control.  Of course I got pregnant and wound up having a back room abortion -as Roe was not decided- which was a NIGHTMARE. Fast forward 10 years and I had already had 2 children. I was excited to have a 3rd but my ob/gyn strongly recommended termination as the baby would have a myriad of birth defects. After much discussion with my husband and Dr, we chose to terminate. It was done in the hospital and was an entirely different experience. It was a difficult decision to make but I do not regret either to this day.

It’s so interesting that men have been trying to control women’s right to choose and in 2022, after 50 years of women being free to choose, we are going backwards.  Beyond disturbing.  Time for women to take back our country and Get Out To Vote… power is in the polling booth.

SL

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Re: Keffals

THANK YOU, Bob, for alerting me to Kefals. I’m glad she’s out there fighting and educating. If only we had a progressive political party in this sad country that was listening to her and moving us forward to a better world. If only.

Thanks again,

David Hutchison

70 year old geezer and the father of a trans woman and a cis son, both in their 30s

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Protests Don’t Work

Bob-
Correct protests don’t work, but money does.  So we are going to have to be surgical and precise.  We should start with Texas first-Austin City Limits and South by Southwest should pull out.  Sponsors of these events should be boycotted until they agree to pull sponsorship and participation in any events taking place in Texas.  All those Teslas-every woman should stop driving a Tesla and cancel any orders until Musk relocates and moves corporate offices from Texas.  Sports-same thing. Stadiums in Texas include AT&T, Minute Maid, Dr Pepper Ballpark-you get the drift I am sure that there are more-demand they pull out.  Current sponsors of ACL include Honda, Uber, Hulu, Tito’s Vodka, Miller Lite, Bulleit.  Pressure them to pull out.  When we, the 80% of the people who believe that a woman’s right to choose is a guaranteed right, show the state of Texas that there will be financial impact from its actions they will recalibrate.  And it will be a warning to the other states.  Let’s go-state by state.  There are 25 states that are harming women. Time to get active.  Money talks and is likely our own leverage and pressure point.  This is war.

Alix Gucovsky

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Re: Protests marches don’t work

Bob:

Exactly.

Street demonstrations have little effect today than in the past marches of the first Civil Rights Era (Generation SCLC & MLK) and the Anti War heyday of Abbie Hoffman-Jerry Rubin (Generation Chicago 7).

In his 1993 essay collection The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance,  Richard Schechner has an essay entitled “The Street as the Stage.” The Street was the location or communal “stage” for presenting social outrage and advocating for social change. That was where, as they said, The Whole World was Watching. It might still galvanize some people, but it’s now more about the “experience” (I went down to the demonstration…and all I got was a T-shirt) than rendering real social change.

But those days are gone forever.  As a performance theorist steeped in the “Theater of the Oppressed” and Brecht, Schechner would no doubt now understand that the “screen is the stage” and will remain so. If performance is to be effective as a political tool it has to be where the people are: online.

Brecht on TikTok: now we’re talking about a revolution!

BTW, man, we’d be hard pressed to find many who remember what the “Theatre of the Oppressed” means or knows Brecht, who famously said, “He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.”

robert vellani
burlington, nc

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

I am writing to you as an upper-middle class woman who works a white collar job in a red state. After the opinion came out, my California-based employer sent out a company-wide email to reassure us that our health insurance will continue to cover family planning and abortion care. The company also expanded our travel budgets to reimburse employees who go out of state for medical care. While I’m glad my company took action, I can’t help but feel ashamed, guilty and sad as I grapple with my own privilege…

If I’m being honest with myself, this Supreme Court decision will not really impact me. I have the money and the resources to go to a blue state if I ever had to. While it would be inconvenient and frankly, stupid, to have to travel for abortion care, I will undoubtedly still have access to it.

My heart breaks for the poor and vulnerable girls and women who have been stripped of their bodily autonomy. All day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about a memory that I’ve worked very hard to repress. While I was still in graduate school, I volunteered at the local child advocates center in a suburban county in Texas. We worked with lawyers and social workers to help abused kids make it through the justice system. All day, I’ve been thinking of one particular case… I sat in on an interview of an 11 year old girl who had been serially raped by her grandfather. The abuse started when she was a literal baby. This man’s atrocious acts were finally reported to the police after the girl told her 5th grade teacher she thought she might be pregnant. She was. And thank god she had access to abortion care. Poor children like this all over the country will now have no options but to subject themselves, and a whole future generation, to a lifetime of trauma. This is only one of many similar cases I witnessed that summer.

I am devastated and heartbroken for the suffering this will inflict on the most vulnerable girls and women in our society. Lives will be literally conceived from unimaginable trauma; but I guess the cruelty is the point with the Republican Party. I wish I knew what to do to, but I’m at a loss, too.

Best,

Farrah

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Bob,

Strong change comes with strong action. When the other side feels the fear – of poverty, of their children dying, of being impotent (yes in that way too ) in the face of power – when their lives are impacted in a real way, we will make progress. What is ‘our’ power? The power of numbers. And our positions, which provide comfort and a thick bubble of protection for their lives.

It’s time to get personal with those change makers, and change their too comfortable lives. It’s also time for us to expose their hypocrisy, to laugh at their God complexes and superiority, such as for their own daughters and sons to own their abortions as happened with gay rights. Dick Chaney changed the temperature.

But It’s time for more, for those individuals to feel the heat of righteous anger. I say those individuals because it is a tiny tiny minority exerting their power and ideology on vast numbers of people that are faceless to them and rarely pierce their bubble. Really how dare they? They dare because they have been kept unaccountable and protected from discomfort all their lives. Time for everyone who provides the cushion to remove themselves. Time for more people in restaurants to refuse serving them and tell them why. Time for teachers at Episcopal school in DC to refuse to teach their children or provide after care. Time for pharmacist staff to somehow get confused and lose their scrip. Time for drivers to take the long way round or refuse to drive them. Time for us to refuse to clean their homes, and nanny their children, and provide that thick bubble that takes away the friction of the world. They can roll up their windows and drive past protesters, heck even tear gas them, and nothing happens. It’s time to turn up the heat on their lives and make no haven where they feel unseen by the majority, no safe haven. Make them paranoid. I’m not advocating violence, but removing all support and comfort.  They have corrupted their position and no longer deserve the respect of that position and their anonymity. It’s clear that honor and oaths to country and to people are meaningless to those few. That’s a two way street of disrespect. Who is there for the right reason, to serve? Who has the heart for another? We can all discern who they are.

Striking is the only way for the masses to be seen and heard on a personal level and en masse. Women have to run and hide to have control over their own bodies. Let them feel seen in that way. And judged.

You cried along with all of us whom are older because we know our babies and what is left behind when we die are much worse and we are ashamed. Like Brene Brown says though,  shame only makes us cower  Time to move forward with righteous anger because when our babies are dying – and more will now – women stand up finally and don’t take it anymore. That time is here.

Johanna Santer

PS if your readers are afraid of getting on some list just for saying words or protesting legally on public property,  it’s already gone too far and we’re living in a police state. Take note of history and the parallels.

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Let’s not forget that bush didn’t win, he was APPOINTED by the sc, and that was decades ago.

The liars in there now will do same when a repub needs them to overcome a defeat.

That is, if there even is a defeat after all the gerrymamdering/voting barriers are erected.

You are absolutely right, Bob, the spineless dems aren’t gonna change anything, our only hope is through the big corporations.

Never thought I would say that but it’s true, they fund the candidates on both sides so BOYCOTTS and STIKES are the path forward.

As the saying goes, money swears and once the earnings calls get ugly the CEO’s/boards will have no choice but to fight for democracy and pressure real change.

A hail mary, yes, but nothing else will stop our destruction.

Make a list of corporate targets and sign me up.

DG

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

Reading through these letters, and as you said, the only thing that talks these days is money. I found https://progressiveshopper.com/ today, and I’ll be using it to make sure I support companies that support my rights. I’m pulling back non-essential spending from companies that aren’t progressive. I’ll also be looking to support local, women-owned small businesses that are pro-choice. If money is power, and women need more power, maybe these small efforts will help if enough people do it.

Good wishes,

Stephanie

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

Reading these responses, it is crystal clear that the “solution” will not come from the political arena.  And the rallying cry around nationwide strikes and boycotts, is heartening but naive.  We will never achieve a critical mass of economic hardship in a meaningful period of time.

The solution rests squarely with corporate America.  Step 1:  CEO’s declare that they are creating pathways for employees to circumnavigate abortion restrictions, either by offering transportation assistance or providing relocation services.  This is already happening at an accelerating pace.  Step 2:  CEO’s withdraw any and all revenue-generating activities from States that ban abortions.  And the ultimate, long-term Step 3:  CEO’s relocate company headquarters if they are situated in those States.  The World Cup and Olympic Organizing Committees, as well as commissioners from the major sports league could also play a huge role here.  As with most things, it often boils down to the almighty dollar.

Scott Kauffman

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

So happy to hear your readers and not down for this shit.

I have another idea:  have a general military strike.  Let’s ask young people to not enlist in the military or not show up for military employment they may have.  That’ll end all this bullshit pretty quickly and will be a real kick in the nuts to these GOP psychos.

Sara Joseph

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Bob….

So, if a woman is raped in New York City, she can not legally get an abortion, BUT she can legally carry a gun and shoot her rapist?  Seeking clarification.  What happened to “My Body My Choice”?  That manta all these nitwits were crying about for two years.  Oh, yeah…doesn’t apply to masks and vaccines for the benefit of the masses.

Welcome to America.  Don’t tread on me, right?

Kevin Andrusia

Orlando, FL

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Re: Protests Don’t Work

I feel much the same when I get emails asking that I sign a petition. Petitions! Even in the pre-Internet age they had no effect!

Do polls matter? Politicians and parties poll all the time. But surveys of the public? Nobody ever said it better than Sir Humphrey: https://youtu.be/6GSKwf4AIlI

David Basskin

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

As the commentator on German TV clearly pointed it out.

The SCOTUS and the ruling is the new TALIBAN.

..and he is correct (unfortunately).

Manfred Phemister

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Re: Protests Don’t Work

if every sex worker in America went on national strike, these so-called Christian Conservatives would change their tune within a heart beat (pun intended)

Frank Polacco

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In 1975, women of Iceland went on strike for equal rights. 90% of women walked off their jobs & homes, shutting down the entire country. The men could barely cope. Five years later, Iceland elected first female President. Now Iceland has the highest gender equality in the world.

@mhdksafa

Wikipedia: 1975 Icelandic women’s strike: https://bit.ly/3P2RihB

via Jake Gold

“The trans Twitch star delivering news to a legion of LGBTQ teens – Known online as Keffals, Clara Sorrenti’s streams are one of the few spaces in media where people can hear the news from a trans person”: https://wapo.st/39WizDj

This is what I’m talking about.

The above article is not behind a paywall, and you should read it, to understand how one spreads information today.

And for those who are squeamish, who can’t handle the truth, I advise you read it anyway, for this is the essence of promoting music in the twenty first century too.

You don’t go from the top down, but from the bottom up. Your goal isn’t to try and reach everybody, but to reach somebody, to gain traction. What did Bruce Springsteen sing, “You can’ start a fire without a spark”?

This story was reported by Taylor Lorenz in the “Washington Post.” Lorenz used to write for the “New York Times,” but the traditional reporters couldn’t handle her. Oh, it was a bit more complicated than that, Lorenz’s behavior brought up questions, but in truth those who’d dedicated themselves to being part of the system, reporters focused on the “big issues,” were upset that Lorenz was focused on social media, that’s not important, right? And Lorenz became part of the story to boot, which is a no-no. Why? This is why traditional media is on the road to irrelevance, the adherence to precepts that no longer work today.

So what we’ve got here is a single individual who decided upon their own inspiration to take up the cause, in this case amplification of trans issues. Furthermore, she wasn’t pulling punches, worried about response, worried about blowback, she just let it fly!

And, unlike the whiners, she realized that the more people commenting on her work, blowing back, the wider its reach, the more impact it was having. She was not posting just for attention, pushing buttons for the sake of it, but in truth, especially when it comes to politics, they’re all hot button issues. Have you got the inner strength to participate?

So what Keffals has done is employ the Just Chatting feature of Twitch to speak about issues. Oh, she started off just showing herself playing videogames, but Greg Abbott’s trans shenanigans motivated her to stand up.

She’s now got a business, 3,000 people a month pay $4.99 to support her work on Twitch. She’s making bank on Patreon too.

And she has an impact, she made it to the top of r/Conservative.

“When a tweet by Sorrenti attacking conservatives made it to the top of r/Conservative, a subreddit with nearly 1 million members, she leaned into the controversy. ‘Come watch conservative cringe with the only Twitch streamer currently on the front page of r/Conservative,’ she implored her fans. She later released a YouTube video titled ‘I got to the top of r/Conservative.'”

Keffals got into the den if inequity, you can’t penetrate Fox News with the truth but you can reach its acolytes online.

“Her scrapes with right-wing personalities happen largely on Twitter, where Sorrenti leverages one of the platform’s most reliable weapons — the ratio. A tweet becomes ‘ratio’d’ when the replies vastly outnumber the number of likes or retweets, a signal to onlookers that the original post was contentious or wrong. Sorrenti has become known among her audience as the ‘ratio queen,’ a tactic that shows the power of her fan base.

“‘I don’t think civility politics works when I’m engaging with people who don’t even view me as human,” she said.'”

You can watch MSNBC, speak to the already converted, but you’re accomplishing nothing. You’ve got to go where the haters are.

Also, Keffals is unafraid of speaking the truth, even when it’s a negative jab at her theoretical team. She tweeted that she hated liberals, and also tweeted “centrism is a disease.”

We keep hearing from the old farts that the only way to succeed is to move to the center. I wished that worked. But that’s where Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden live. Oh, forget the endless tarring of Biden as being beholden to the woke left, he was elected to beat Trump and calm the waters and what is the end result? We’re gonna end up with a Republican Congress and Ron DeSantis as our next president. If you don’t run someone who people can believe in, you ultimately lose.

I know, I know, the establishment will say young people don’t vote. Well, young people are getting older each and every day, becoming old people.

This is what the Democrats need. Someone with a profile, who will fight.

But when you get to the end of this article you will realize that Keffals’s impact is not really that great. She only has 105.2k followers on Twitter.

I tweet once in a blue moon, and I’ve got 66,684.

But Keffals garnered her number recently, which is a lot harder. That’s what many don’t understand, it’s much harder to put up numbers than it was ten years ago, there’s just too much in the channel.

But this is not a put-down of Keffals, it’s just an illustration that the paradigm works and we need more Keffals. It’s about an army, not one superstar. Hell, didn’t Elon Musk post that most of the bigwigs on Twitter, the celebrities, rarely post, if at all?

As for denigrating Twitter… You may not go there, but it’s where all the thinkers and tastemakers go. That’s where issues rise and are hashed out and by time you read about them in the straight media they’re oftentimes already old news on the cutting edge, where the sausage is being made, hashed out over a zillion tweets.

This is the reality of today. A reality that anybody who earned their stripes in the old era, employing the old model, pooh-poohs, because they don’t understand it and it’s so much harder to get a grip on it anyway. It’s not just the wilderness, it’s a jungle. But this is where the people are today. You can be paid seven figures on cable but your influence keeps getting smaller. People get their news, their ideas, online. And they want to express themselves. That’s what’s wrong with so much of traditional media, it talks down to people and doesn’t let them participate. It’s a rare article in the “New York Times” that allows comments, whereas on the “Washington Post” they’re ubiquitous, you can weigh in on almost anything. And you should read some of the comments, to get the temperature of the public. Oh, it’s a skewed view, BUT EVERYTHING IS THESE DAYS! You can’t get your information from one source, you’ve got to explore and come up with conclusions yourself. This is the flaw in the educational system, teaching to the test, people don’t know how to THINK, ANALYZE, and that’s the most important skill you should acquire in school.

This is all happening right now. It’s not the future. Online is where information is spread.

You reach so many more people online than you do physically.

What we need are more Keffals.

Want to change the world?

POST AND STREAM!

We are watching this absolutely fabulous show on HBO Max.

Considered to be the best series to ever come out of Hungary, you’ll find it on the service under its Anglicized name, “Golden Life,” as opposed to its Hungarian one, “Aranyélet.”

We are only six episodes into a three season run. But whew, I’m flabbergasted. It’s so INTENSE!

You absolutely have to watch it.

I found it on IMDB. I was looking for the best foreign TV series. I must have Googled this a thousand times, but I came upon this new list and “Golden Life” had a great rating and we dove in.

WHEW!

You won’t know what is happening at first. And unlike in American shows there isn’t tons of money thrown at production. But it’s all there, including the 360 degree pan right out of French cinema.

So, one person is king of his domain. A Hungarian Mafia guy. He’s riding high. He’s got a mansion and so much cash that he can afford to lose some, but he’s always got to be keeping an eye out for rivals. As he should.

I don’t want to give away any plot points, but you’ve got to know, if you’re on top of the heap, someone is gonna gun for you. If you’re the number one artist, the richest person in America, I don’t care if you worked hard to get it, someone else wants what you have.

Hell, there was even a story in today’s “Times” about how Elon Musk’s compensation package at Tesla has affected all companies. The CEOs all want stock, they think they’re worth it. This guy Jeff Green made $800 million last year. Ten people made over a hundred million. Our friend Ari Emanuel made around $300 million and David Zaslav, of Warner Brothers Discovery, made about $250 million himself.

You see they want what Elon’s got, and no one is going to get in their way.

They don’t want to run an electric car company, they don’t want to go to outer space, but they do want to show up on the private jet and spend money like it’s water (not California water, but you get the idea).

You’re not even in their league. You don’t count.

Are they worth it?

OF COURSE NOT!

Will we see the poor revolt against the rich in my lifetime? I certainly hope so, but I’m not betting on it. And even if it happens, look at the result of the Arab Spring, authoritarianism. But no one could predict an overeducated fruit vendor could set off such a conflagration.

If you’re at the top people are gunning for you. They’re not happy for you, they want what you’ve got, so they can’t lord it over you, so you can lord it over THEM!

There are even boardroom coups. Funny how Tommy Mottola got rid of Walter Yetnikoff, who gave him his job, and how Michael Rapino ended up running Live Nation. Someone is your best friend today, you’re doing business together, you may have even gotten them their job, and then WHOOPS!

They want your job. They want your money. They want your girl. Just when you think you’ve made it, when you see clear sailing ahead, that’s when you’ve got to watch your back.

And if you think what I’m saying is hogwash, that just indicates you’ve removed yourself from the fray, you’ve got so little no one wants to bother to take it away from you.

And most people have never had contact with those atop the economic heap. As for the “Housewives,” they’re not really rich, because anybody with real money knows you fly below the radar, because if people found out about your wealth they’d be gunning for it.

Classic example is Donald Trump. He was committing tax fraud with impunity until he became president. I could explain it to you, but either you don’t want to hear it or wouldn’t understand it. You probably don’t even itemize, never mind move your assets through corporations and relatives, valuing them far differently from what they’re worth.

They don’t attack people online who’ve got 200 followers. But if you’re flying high, it’s just a matter of time before the hoi polloi bite back. Who do you think you are? You think you’re better than us? We’ll show you!

And then there are the ignorant who respond. They’re just amplifying the story instead of letting it burn out. You’ve got to ignore it.

The second big compensation winner is Zig Serafin, of Qualtrics, with over $500 million last year. I’ve never heard of him or his company, and if he’s smart he’ll keep it that way.

And Zuckerberg killed MySpace and then TikTok put a dent in Facebook and Instagram too. And Zuckerberg fears ByteDance much more than he fears the American government. He can run circles around elected officials and bureaucrats, but business people? That’s another story.

There’s always someone willing to work harder to topple you.

You probably made it by working harder than the person you toppled.

Or you inherited your company from your family and not only did you not have the smarts and experience your ancestors did, you don’t have the hunger. Beware, you’re a target. Can you say Edgar Bronfman, Jr?

It’s so down and dirty.

And the truth is everybody wants in. Even most journalists. They want to hang with the rich, they want a piece of that lifestyle. And those with the money know this, and manipulate them. To the point where if you’re telling the truth no one believes you!

It’s all about survival, for each and every one of us. And usually those who started out with little are the ones who end up with the most, they don’t want to go back where they once were.

I just can’t come down from this show.

“How Elon Musk Helped Lift the Ceiling on C.E.O. Pay – The gap with workers widened even further as public companies granted top executives rich pay packages partly inspired by Tesla.”: https://nyti.ms/3OqmWp0

“Golden Life” trailer: https://bit.ly/3AapB1V