X
    Categories: AHF

AHF Mole Kicked Out of Adult Industry’s Measure B Summit: by Michael Whiteacre

Today’s industry-only panel discussion concerning what the adult entertainment community plans to do to overturn or avoid Measure B, the law recently approved by L.A. County voters that renders production of adult content in the county untenable, was a remarkable event – and I say this as someone who has attended such gatherings for nearly 20 years. As the large meeting room at the FSC Summit in West Hollywood began to fill up, I marveled at the sight of people who had not been in the same room with each other in ten years or more seated side by side, row after row.

Samantha Granberry

After the event started, a woman I didn’t recognize, quite dressed-up in a bright red business suit, seated herself directly behind me.

Later in the meeting, James Lee, the Communications Director for the industry’s campaign against Measure B, made his way over to the woman in red, and informed her that the meeting was only for RSVP’d members of the adult industry.

“I did RSVP,” the woman replied.

“Well, you’re not a member of the adult industry, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Lee said firmly.

She got up, and Lee walked her out the door.

The woman, Lee later informed the crowd, was Samantha Granberry, Associate Director of Media for AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) – the proponent of Measure B. She had been sent as a spy to learn what the adult industry planned as its next move. According to FSC, Granberry snuck in using a fake name.

I was immediately reminded of an exchange included in a cache of leaked AHF emails published online last year. The emails in question were written not long after AIM Healthcare had shut its doors for good after years of relentless attack from AHF and its allies.

On April 26, 2011, Whitney Engeran-Cordova, AHF’s Senior Director of Public Health, sent his boss, Michael Weinstein, a news item he cut and pasted from Xbiz:

Free Speech Coalition is calling for industry members to meet this Friday to discuss current developments with workplace safety protocols and performer STD testing. The meetings will review the current status of workplace safety and performer testing, as well as what is on the horizon for adult film productions…

The meetings are for industry members only so RSVPs are necessary to attend.

Weinstein sent a one-sentence reply:

Who could we dress up to sneak in?

If Ms. Granberry wanted to know what the adult industry had planned, she could simply have asked -– we, as a community, intend to work together, and fight relentlessly, to build on the momentum of the No on Measure B campaign to crush any and all of Michael Weinstein’s attempts to use the industry as a punching bag for PR purposes.

We will do it in the courts, in earned media, in paid media, in the halls of government, and in the streets — and we will win this war.

Mr. Weinstein, you have awakened a sleeping giant.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Spread the love
TRPWL:

View Comments (3)

  • Michael,

    That last paragraph needed a John Barry score.

    Excellent article. Today I finally read the leaked emails and was impressed with the patience, resolve, and professionalism with which AHF conducted its dismantling campaign. Porn Valley has a long way to go in this battle of wills—and that's what it is—and I think we can win it by taking a higher road than AHF has. I really appreciate your work.

    • Thank you, pal.

      What I also see in the AHF emails is a tremendous amount of group-think. Not as much a collectivist mindset as an authoritarian regime. Notice there's not a single reference to AHF's board -- Weinstein runs his organization as a dictator. A single-minded, professional, liar and manipulator who brooks no dissent.

  • Please send the mole remover to my domicile, as I currently have an issue with a gerbil that neither Ex-Lax nor my tender young Honduran paramour seem to be able to rectify. Hard working people those Hondurans. The lad has been toiling away with the vigor of a hundred Okies attempting to save an infant girl from an abandoned well.

    The worst part of this boondoggle is that I must refrain from my mid morning gin and tonic. Though eventually uncomfortable, a sober gerbil having free reign of your digestive tract is much more advisable than one doused in Bombay Sapphire.

Related Post
Leave a Comment