May Action Alert 2010 Our Monthly Newsletter

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"Politics is high school with guns and more money" Frank Zappa

The Comcast Godzilla

Comcast, now thought of as the worst company in the nation, will get worse if it is allowed to take over NBC. The prospect of one company having so much control over news and information is chilling, and people must understand what's happening. We need to make sure the rest of the country knows just how dangerous a combined Comcast-NBC would be for consumers - and that they can do something. Help FreePress place their ad that exposes Comcast and helps build a powerful grassroots movement to stop this merger.

OK for Seven Year Olds to Dress and Dance like Sexualized Adult Women on TV?

There is an uproar over 7-year-olds dancing provocatively to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" at the World of Dance competition held in April in Pomona, California. Consider the fact that one of every 7 victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement agencies were under age six. Combine that statistic with the fact that child pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry and among the fastest growing criminal segments on the internet and you will understand how toxic the World Dance Competition's decision was to use these girls in this way. Accessing online images of child sex abuse is quicker and cheaper than ever before and one study found that of the illegal child content, 44% contained rape videos and 23% featured children below the age of six. Please inform the World Dance Competition how dangerous their use of these girls on mainstream TV is. Online Form http://www.worldofdancetour.com/contact.php?mode=t

HDNet Subscribers Forced to Pay for Girls Gone Wild

For over ten years Girls Gone Wild crews troll Spring Break and Mardi Gras parties, resorts, and nightclubs, searching for attractive young women. The crew urges the women to expose their breasts to the camera, in exchange for a Girl Gone Wild t-shirt or baseball cap. Some women expose their genitals, and are urged to go to a hotel room, where they are filmed engaging in sex acts. The films are then sold on DVD via mail order. The unrated GGW seriesĘSearch for the Hottest Girl in America will feature complete nudity according to creator Joe Francis. This program is bundled on the HDNet channel, a network that is included in all HD basic packages by leading cable and satellite providers such as Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon. HDNet comes into every house that has a high-definition package. Thus many subscribers, who purchase HD cable, will receive - and pay for - the explicit videos whether they want them or not. The best solution is for Congress to pass a law requiring the cable industry allow subscribers to opt out of programming they do not want, and receive a rebate payment so that they are not charged for it. The Consumer's Union works to end anticompetitive practices of cable TV and phone companies that inflate prices and make it impossible for consumers to choose only the products they want at lower prices. We want to give consumers the right to choose only what they want. A true democracy would give full access to all its citizens for FREE. The free flow of information is essential to a healthy democracy. We also ask consumers to promote diverse and locally controlled community media outlets.

Stop Porn Culture:An International Feminist Anti-Pornography Conference

June 12-13, 2010, Boston MA. In March 2007, over 500 people gathered at a conference in Boston to help re-ignite a progressive and feminist movement against pornography.Our second national conference will once again bring together activists, academics, researchers, survivors, parents, and other concerned community members to continue developing our anti-pornography analysis and building our resistance movement. Come and join us for two days of keynotes, workshops, and discussion. Speakers include Wendy Maltz, Gail Dines, Chyng Sun, Rebecca Whisnant, Jane Caputi, Sharon Cooper, Robert Jensen, and Carolyn West.