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• Weinstein's dug himself a very deep hole. He can't admit his anti-porn campaign has failed utterly, irreparably damaged AHF's reputation and made him a laughingstock.

  Therefore he must press on with yet another Quixotic attempt to prove the earth is flat.

  Knowing how good he is at collecting fraudulent petitions, he may well get this monstrosity on the ballot. If he does, I hope we'll be more effective in fighting it than we have been his other attempts thus far.

  He's struck out in every inning thus far, but mainly due to the good sense of public officials and not because of our industry's pitifully inept campaigns to counter his.

  Let's hope we learned something from the last few rounds before we get in the ring for the next round.

  • I didn't think the industry's showing in Sacramento was "pitifully inept" (at least not portrayed that way)... Am I wrong?

    • No, that was one of the places where FSC did fairly well, although the fact that Hall's bill passed the Assembly definitely denies them bragging rights. In 2004 a similar bill didn't even make it out of committee. This one might well have passed had it not been for the self-interest of the Senate, which saw it as politically radioactive whichever way they voted.

      The active involvement of performers in last phase of the final battle was somewhat helpful, but very late to the game. The FSC should have had performers out in front from the beginning. Weinstein's endless search for the working performer who would stand next to him demonstrates why he's gotten so far. He understands a thing or two about PR that this industry just doesn't get.

      What was done wrong? Where to begin?

      FSC was warned six months in advance that AHF would inevitably succeed in shutting AIM down with nuisance litigation if producers didn't step up with whatever money and legal resources were needed to keep AIM up and running so AHF's claims that we had no working safeguards system would remain demonstrably false. The producers did nothing. AIM folded. AHF turned its dire portents into self-fulfilling prophecies due to the complete lack of political savvy and general stinginess of those producers who could and should have put their resources toward keeping AIM alive.

      In the political rumble the followed, the FSC fucked up by framing the whole controversy in economic terms re lost jobs and decreased tax revenues, which was the starting position of the FSC, played right into AHF's hands. One side was all about performer health and safety and the other was all about money. Hello, this is a pro-labor blue state where libertarian arguments play to the minority right.

      Then there was the long period when the anti-condom-mandate position was represented in mainstream media by producers. Steve Hirsch is a smart, articulate guy, but he's still a guy and very much a business owner rather than a worker. His griping about how condom pictures don't sell was never likely to inspire sympathy among voters. It played right to Weinstein's stereotypes of industry leaders as greedy and insensitive to matters of performer safety.

      Then there was the failure to challenge the petitions AHF used to get Measure B on the ballot in the first place. There were gross violations of election laws in the manner in which those petitions were presented and considerable evidence to suggest that many of the signatures on them were fraudulent. The L.A. city attorney wanted them thrown out. The industry didn't lift a finger to disqualify those petitions and thus a measure that shouldn't have and needn't have ended up on the ballot.

      The assumption that popular support for First Amendment rights would shoot Measure B out of the saddle, but very little was done by industry leadership to make the argument about free speech rights while it continued to whinge away over the money, which is what you get when you hire a Republican lobbyist to run a campaign every time.

      What the FSC, which sees itself, rightly, as representing a legitimate business that shouldn't need defending to exist, failed to take into account is public hostility toward this particular business. People tend to consume porn or despise porn but very few support it on principle. The principle needed to be made clear in order to overcome voter prejudices toward this work and those who do it largely created by mainstream media misrepresentations. Pornography may be popular but pornographers aren't. Anyone who thought we'd win at the ballot box hash''t talked to any voters recently.

      When performers did get actively involved, which came much later than it should have because nobody reached out to them or attempted to organize them and they pretty much had to do it themselves, it proved a game-changer in Sacramento, but look at the scale of the damage to this industry already done before that happened. Why weren't performers out in front of this issue first? They have both credibility and sympathy from the public that industry big-shots do not and never will.

      Even when it was obvious that the industry's political strategy was failing, they clung to it, making vague threats about the industry leaving town if it didn't get its way. Like anyone gives a shit. Most L.A. residents would be happy to see it go away. This city has an economy larger than those of many whole nations. The loss of porn revenues would be a pin-prick to anyone other than those in the business.

      Finally, there was a dismal failure to get hard, scientific proof out there that our methods were working and that AHF's arm-waving about threats to the public health was bullshit. AHF's claims should have been aggressively challenged by medical professionals as well as by performers from the outset.

      I could go on, but it's all history now and the damage is done. No, there will never be mandatory condoms in porn, but the idea that there should be is now considered respectable because it was never effectively rebutted. This battle will rage on because Weinstein can't afford to let it go and because we failed to discredit his nonsense and resist his sabotage of our excellent existing system at the beginning.

      This business has a lot to learn about practical politics and it doesn't appear to have learned much so far.

      • I appreciate the response. I just wanted to make sure that I hadn't misinterpreted the performers showing in the state legislature, but I see where initial comment comes from. Based on your response, it seems to me at least, that there is idealogical vs pragmatic divide within adult industry, that, from the begining has leaned decidedly in the corner of idealogical.

        What I mean is, instead of understanding the realpolitik (pragmatic) of what was happening between AHF, CAL/OSHA, and members of the state legislature (mainly Isadore Hall), the adult industry's belief in the idealogical (in this case 1st Amendment rights) and the belief that the courts would ultimately decide in their favor lead to a lack of organized decicive action to take AHF head on, so to speak, from the outset. This has allowed AHF to gain too much traction which has made the fight with them longer and more drawn out (though from what I've read, it doesn't seem anyone from the industry realized how far AHF had gone in gathering ammunition against AIM; Tim Tritch, etc.). Is my analysis correct so far?

        And I see what you're saying about the lack of a comprehensive strategy when FSC focussed on the monetary performance rather than the labor issue of the industry itself...

        • Basically my point, though I wouldn't say ideology was the issue. I don't think most producers care much about Amendment One unless or until it becomes an issue for their companies in particular. Actually, I think the free speech issue, ironically, got too little play from out side, as it is a legitimate objection to the kind of compelled speech AHF was pushing. Compelled speech is also a First Amendment violation, but that aspect of the proposed laws got little attention from the producers.

          I think mainly, like bad generals fighting the last war instead of the one they're in, the industry leaders were accustomed to fighting obscenity charges and had no clue how regulatory law could be used to the same purpose as obscenity prosecutions, a point I tried to make when I met with some of them at the outset of the whole thing.

          Where you're absolutely right is in our observation of the failure to comprehend, much less deal with, the realpoliik of the situation. This was not a matter of belief. This was a matter of political inexperience. Los Angeles is a very complex political environment and I don't think the industry had ever paid much attention to how things operate here. As it turned out, neither did AHF, who insanely took on L.A. Board of Supervisors - the most powerful governing body in this community. Suing them wasn't realpolitik on AHF's part, as I think they're beginning to see. That old adage about not fighting city hall definitely applies here. I suspect the nightmare of trying to enforce Weinstein's proposed regulations and the loud objections to it made by public health officials were probably more effective than anything our side managed.

          Let's hope we learned something last time because there is another battle looming on the horizon.

      • Your insight and words of wisdom are greatly appreciated as I am just catching up to the history of things that have went on before I came around. Your insight and words are greatly appreciated. Your knowledge is priceless.. Thank you..

        • You're certainly welcome. You'd think the folks at FSC might think I could be helpful, but I was most definitely not at the table when the decisions were made.

          Frankly, I look forward to a day when I won't have to relive these experiences again.