To all my dear friends here at the DU:
As many of you know Takebackthemedia.com spent the better part of a year (about 5 months on the road, at times with my pregnant wife and I sleeping in the back of a car to save money to funnel into the film) making a film called “Electile Dysfunction” which included such fine folks as Greg Palast, Janeane Garofalo, Larry Flynt, Avi Ruben, David Dill, etc and which was an overview of the electronic voting debacle and corruption, racism, fraud, felon voters and also including many animations I created especially for the film.
(I actually KILLED my shoulder making these clips, still in an arm sling – guess I can blame part of that on the 50 or so political attack flash ads on our site, they took their toll on me as well :) )
Here’s a quick rundown my wife posted at KOS, we’ll be telling the entire story on about the theft of our film at TBTM with many details and proof in PL’s own words.
If there are any lawyers out there in DU land that are interested in helping us out we’d appreciate it, but we’re nearly broke over this year we spent making it, while Penny Little is running around having a great time making deals with this film, after having edited us out, slapped her copyright on the film and hails herself as a great film maker, sole owner and director, none of which is even remotely true.
If anyone wants to attend the event listed below tonight and ask her WHY she stole the film from TBTM or document and/or witness, we’d appreciate it – also if people hear of any screenings of this stolen film please PM me and tell me of the link or location so we can send folks there to document this theft for a future court date.
And if anyone wants to give her some guff about this I’d love it, but of course stay civil and don’t harm or harass her in anyway – we’re TRUE Progressives, but we don’t want to stand idly by while someone STEALS a film about a STOLEN election - the ultimate irony, don’t you think? J
Here’s the link to the version at KOS – and we’ll be creating a whole web page devoted to this at TBTM. This is despicable. How can we hold that the Republicans should be ethical if people in our own progressive clan aren’t?
Thanks to everyone for the advice and help – it’s been a harrowing year for us, and this is just icing on the cake, though we’re pretty thrilled at the birth of our little one and the joy of his presence is helping us to get through this willful rape.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/26/93323/3792Why George Bush Won the Election
A documentary about a "stolen election" itself is stolen
I know why George W. Bush won the election, and it's not because of electronic voting machines or vote fraud. It's due to a problem far more insidious; one revealed to me while making the documentary for Takebackthemedia.com - "Electile Dysfunction."
It has to do with redefining reality and the using the system itself to immoral ends.
In March 2004, had a brilliant idea to do a documentary about electronic voting. Just like my husband and friends, I wanted to DO something to help remove George W. Bush from the Whitehouse as I believed he illegally stole the 2000 election with electronic voting machines, and I didn't want a repeat in 2004. My husband, cofounder of Take Back The Media, agreed.
I was going to get to the bottom of this - expose the machines, and "save the world."
I called Penny Little, my best friend from Santa Barbara to try to sell her on the idea. She has been filming protest marches since Bush took office in 2001 and has seemingly hundreds of hours of people marching everywhere banging on buckets and waving handmade signs.
Mike and I have been to countless events with Penny and her husband Nik Green. Their friendship was one of those magical things - it's extremely rare I find people I feel I can hold as close friends, and Nik and Penny topped that list. I talked to Penny nearly every night on the phone about every subject imaginable - I felt I could trust her endlessly.
We've done street theater, met up in cities all over the country, and produced an entry that was a finalist in the MoveOn.org Bush in 30 Seconds contest based on Mike's Army of One
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/onearmy.html animation on Take Back The Media.
We'd been talking about doing a project for a long time and she'd wanted to do a political comedy series featuring herself and my husband, Micheal. She was reluctant to do the documentary idea and instead wanted to focus on half-hour formats - like what she produced for community access television.
After a few weeks, she finally began to understand we'd reach more people with the documentary than a series and have a better chance of recouping the money spent on producing the film. She agreed - we were 50/50 partners and we'd jointly own all footage.
We worked up a budget together and approached our patron saint to our causes, Jimmy Walter. Largely uninterested, he contributed some money to get us started, but ultimately much of the funding would come out of my own pocket.
Jump forward to the February 3, 2005 issue of the Santa Barbara Independent:
http://www.independent.com/news/now950.htm****
Electile Dysfunction
Left-Wing Artists Take Shots at Each Other
by Nick Welsh
Michael and Julie Stinson -- animators and longtime left-wing internet activists -- have sued Penny Little, well-known antiwar advocate and videographer, over control of Electile Dysfunction, a documentary designed to show how vulnerable electronic voting machines are to fraud and tampering. The Stinsons, who live in Carpinteria, claim they entered into an oral contract with Little to produce the film, but that Little exaggerated her skill as a film editor and that the product thus far is "amateurish."
The couple -- who gained notoriety a few years ago for being sued by right-wing radio shock jock Michael Savage complained that Little is shopping the documentary around without their consent. Little countered, "They have never even seen the film -- I don't know how they accuse me of being amateurish." She disputed the Stinsons' notion of the contract, and said they have contributed very little to the final product, while she's done nearly all the work.
(She said all the Stinsons' animation has since been removed from her film, and would have to be replaced.) Little also said the focus of the movie has shifted to the election fraud that took place in Ohio and Florida during the recent presidential election. Little expressed disappointment that the film project would be hurt by the litigation, adding, "It's another case of the left organizing circular firing squads."
*************
You may ask, what happened to bring all this about? Obviously a contract dispute between former friends, but what does this have to do with how George W. Bush stole the election?
We watched George Bush debate John Kerry, and although nearly every news outlet reported Kerry winning the debates, Bush won the election.
John Kerry volunteered for service in Vietnam, earned three purple hearts, and is a true war hero with combat experience. How was it that he was disgraced so thoroughly by the Swiftboat Vets and didn't deserve his honors, while George W. Bush who served in the "Champagne Unit" of the Air Force Reserves who didn't endure an injury worse than a paper cut and went AWOL for over a year was promoted as a military hero?
These sorts of things are given a pass by corporate media, but there is a bigger problem in this country today: there is really no recourse - or there is only recourse for select people, and it pays to be corrupt. We're taught in school to "do the right thing," but our society promotes "grab it all fast - it doesn't matter who you injure in the process."
With the speed of communications and technology, so much information is flying at us so fast, there is no time to fix issues before the next issue pops up. Get enough issues going, the public and the media won't keep up, or interest will fade with each subsequent news item.
What is the motivation to be an honest person or do a good job if the lightening speed in which communications happen make honesty irrelevant and morals unnecessary?
Penny is quoted in the article as disputing the notion of a contract and said we contributed very little to the final film and that she's done nearly all the work. This statement couldn't be further from the actual reality than Mars is from Earth.
Obviously she's taken a page from the Republican playbook: lie and keep your opponent spinning in trying to explain why you're wrong while you go on to do more damage.
In addition to coming up with the concept, doing all the research and writing the "script" for the movie, Mike and me spending five months of our lives on the road filming, I spent the first month on the phone and in email lining up the interviews with folks like Congressman Wexler, Dr. Avi Rubin, Courtenay Strickland from the Florida ACLU, Lida Rodriguez-Taseff from the Miami-Dade Election Reform Committee, Greg Palast, getting permissions for our camera to go into the Rayburn Building in Washington DC for Adam Putnam's technology subcommittee which was studying electronic voting machines.
I wrote questions and was behind the camera with Penny for the interviews. We'd drive from interview to interview, and I'd brief Penny on who these people were and what kinds of questions we needed to ask.
I lined up many more of the interviews, but the initial folks were the toughest because people of stature - such as Representatives - wanted some kind of assurance we were professional enough and wouldn't portray them in a bad light. Once you have some bigger name folks on board, it's easier to get more interviews.
So to get these initial interviews, I asked favors of every contact I had, and have one lobbyist friend I knew in college who opened most of the doors to get us going. Without our contacts, the film simply wouldn't exist.
Additionally, early in May, I found out I was pregnant and did all of this filming and running around during my pregnancy. I poured tens of thousands of my own cash into this project, and even slept in a car in Penny's driveway for a couple weeks while six months pregnant so I could put more money towards the movie.
Just like Bush, it appears Penny Little thinks she can create a new reality and make it stick, no matter how immoral.
The hijacking of the film started in my third trimester when she knew I couldn't fly on planes.
Baby Conrad
http://web.takebackthemedia.com/julie/conrad-test.mov was born on December 27, 2004, but what should have been a joyous time Christmas and the birth of my child, was frought with distress and worry.
Penny didn't complete the film in the time we agreed - the deadline had slipped from September to October to November. She flew out to finish the film mid November, we produced and agreed to all the packaging and I made a website to promote the film:
http://www.electiledysfunctionmovie.com She then went home - and still didn't finish the film.
Night by night I was working with her on the phone until one night I couldn't get hold of her. I left messages on her home and mobile phones - it wasn't like her to not answer the phone. She wrote and email early the next morning saying there was a Hanukkah celebration at her house so the phones were turned off and she went to bed early.
I called a few times that morning and didn't get an answer.
Later that night, I get an email in my box with the subject line, "I'm in Ohio." The email starts out: "Last night I made a decision to go to Ohio. Since I figured you might not understand, I just rose to the challenge the universe presented, followed my instincts and allowed the wheels to go into motion."
Apparently part of the "challenge the universe presented" to Penny included stabbing her friend and business partner in the back.
I spent the entire weekend in tears, realizing from timelines and phone calls that she had been arranging that Ohio trip for a week and never mentioned a word to me and that our friendship couldn't be salvaged. The trust was destroyed. She didn't even invite my husband to speak on behalf of Take Back The Media.
I couldn't - and still don't understand how meaningless my friendship must have been to her that she tortured me while pregnant, mined Mike's and my contacts, and ditched us when we ran out of money and she had no use for us anymore. I wouldn't treat my worst enemy the way she treated me.
Predictably, one backstabbing lead to another and another.
She sent an email to me around this time saying she would not complete the film unless I agreed to all of the terms - essentially signing over all rights to the film and footage to her. I didn't agree - that wasn't our agreement.
She got Donotconcede.org to pay for her Ohio plane flight and hotel expenses for the Ohio trip. She turned around and - without our permission - premiered "Electile Dysfunction" in a Unitarian Church somewhere in Los Angeles, sold tickets and gave the $2000 raised to Donotconcede.org. Payback for her trip to Ohio, perhaps?
She said the $2000 was towards a bus trip - that once again she went on and didn't notify or invite us to participate in.
And this - while my newborn baby goes hungry because I thought Penny Little would be good to her word and complete the film as agreed and give all the proper credits. I didn't spend ten months of my life and tens of thousands of dollars to be a bag carrier for Penny Little.
Penny claims she's an activist dedicated to the cause - but it also helps when she took part of the money allocated for the film to pay her personal expenses like rent.
I paid all of my expenses out of my own pocket, and she has a great deal of new hardware (hard drives) also purchased with money for the film that I helped obtain from an "Angel". My hardware expenses came out of my own pocket.
Penny Little knows exactly what she's doing, and her actions have been calculated to deceive and hurt and cut Mike and me out of our film. She wants the accolades and the money, and she's proven she's willing to steal from her friends to make this happen. Her lawyer claims they're making a deal with MoveOn and I'm hard pressed to try to explain her actions other than greed.
The history speaks for itself: every version of the trailers and film opened with "Take Back The Media Presents" as agreed, and both Penny and I had joint credits as Directors and Producers.
But look at the trailer she currently has posted
http://www.peopletopeople.tv/news.htm on her site, and compare that to the trailer
http://www.electiledysfunctionmovie.com/trailer4.html that was still on her site on February 8, 2005. She even removed Take Back The Media's name from the SummitNet announcement on the site - and we paid all the expenses for SummitNet!
Like George W. Bush, she knows the system is set up to make it nearly impossible to fix something once it's been stolen. Penny Little knows this, too.
This is the disturbing and destructive trend I see happening in America. Morals are a thing of the past; it's grab all you can, regardless of who is injured in the process. The court systems are not set up to handle problems at the speed at which they occur today. Too many folks see the holes and exploit the system, knowing that eventually the matter will just be dropped when it's no longer relevant.
But for now, we're trying to fight to try to save our movie and raise legal funds.
http://web.takebackthemedia.com/geeklog/public_html/staticpages/index.php?page=20040530194340861* * * * * * * * *
Postscript:
I finally saw a copy of the film TODAY - which is the first version I've seen since December 10. Some parts have gotten better, but this still in my opinion has the feel of a student film. The part where I stopped helping edit - where the Ohio section begins, is where it ceases to make any sense at all. It's disjointed, boring, and at times, embarrassing. Of course, she's likely to say, "it's still in progress." It's clear Penny is in over her head and does not know this subject.
One good example is shown in the Clinton Curtis section Penny added to the film. Embarrassing.
Nonetheless, Penny is planning to show this film even though she's been told she does not have permission. Ironic that it's called "Film As Evidence" - any of you in the LA area might want to go see what Penny is up to and ask her some questions - and perhaps document what she is doing. I'm sending some witnesses...
Sat., Feb 26, 7-10 PM Film As Evidence
Venice United Methodist Church - Sanctuary
1020 Victoria Ave. Venice, CA 90291
PROGRAM
Votergate
Preview and other breaking evidence
Robert Cohen & Russell Michaels discuss their upcoming feature
Standing Out In The Rain With Jim Crow
Election Day Voter Supression footage that is entered in the Conyers report.
Linda Byrket, Director, (also shows breaking
Georgia Election footage).
Electile Dysfunction
A darkly comic and disturbing overview of theElection with Director Penny Little.
$10 donation appreciated. No one turned away
reservations: sheri@citizensact.org
********
I’ve written to Sheri at citizensact.org and explained the situation, apparently Penny Little is going to show the film anyway despite warnings from our lawyer that she doesn’t have permission.
If you’d like to write to Sheri and let her know that this is an awful way to treat the true owners of the film (maybe send her to this KOS link) we sure wouldn’t mind.
Again, thank you my friends.
Best to all,
Symbolman