LiP, an all-volunteer, not-for-profit media project, brings a unique, accessible, and well-edited mix of radical politics, culture, sex, and humor, guided by a serious structural critique of power and social change, and a gleeful engagement with pop culture. The intent is to frame the project of social change as simple common sense, and to show active engagement and participation in the community as a vibrant, emancipatory practice, rather than the onerous, leaden practice we believed is being projected by many progressive media projects. Rejecting orthodoxies across the political spectrum, LiP seeks to provide intellectual tools for our readers' mental and political growth and self-defense.

"LIP is what radical journalism should be (but rarely is in the U.S.): sharp, witty, unafraid to challenge conventional wisdom (including conventional left wisdom, which is often unbelievably screwed up), and willing to let people like me write sentences for them with multiple parentheticals like those above. No wonder I love it. LiP is also visually attractive, and the fact is, it's nice to read a left zine that doesn't look like shit. So there you have it: Read LiP: it's smart, funny, and doesn't look like shit!"
—Tim Wise, antiracist activist and author of White Like Me: Notes From a Privileged Son

"LiP is marvelous. There's nothing that comes close to it in the culture today. Witty, but substantial, a product of a brilliant and diverse collection of excellent writers and contributors, mostly young, LiP is a must read."
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian, professor, and author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie, and Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War

What We Believe and What We Intend

The Actual Mission: LiP takes creative aim at a culture machine that strips us of our desires and sells them back as product and mass mediocracy. Brazen, audacious and presumptuous, LiP combines a biting aesthetic consciousness with a structural understanding of power. Refusing to be colonized by despair, cynicism or apathy, LiP gives voice to those working for a sustainable society rooted in cooperation and diversity. LiP confronts the miserabilist capitalist system with dangerous humor, liberated eroticism and Informed Revolt.

"If there is a Pandora's Box in the magazine world, waiting for the ruling class to open it and be zapped in a dozen unpleasant ways, welcome to LiP. Every issue comes bearing new surprises, articles that make me shout "Yes! And it wasn't even written by a Chicana/o!" Finally, compas: If you think this is just some predictable leftie journal, check out the article "Who Needs Ends When We've Got Such Bitchin' Means?" And please, por favor, give me more of your lip..."
Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

“ . . . I like LIP. It’s tough, smart, and takes no prisoners . . . read everything in it.”
—Andrei Codrescu, author & frequent contributor to NPR

A Bit of History

Read some LiP history in the Online Journalism Review, "Cutting the Cord With Print"

LiP #1 hit the streets on January 1st, 1996 and was distributed by hand to about a dozen independent bookstores and coffee shops around Chicago. Printed entirely on "liberated" paper and laser printers, stapled together by hand, and written in an over-the-top style guaranteed to alienate all but the most dogged, all 100 copies of the debut issue sold out. You can safely blame this encouraging response for all of the subsequent LiP we've foisted off onto an unsuspecting world.

“Yeah, you’re going to make it with articles like '3rd Wave Capitalism and the Information Economy.' Sure you are . . . ”
—Motivational Detractor

At its beginning, LiP was a zine in the purest sense—self-published, distributed by hand, and had all the trappings of many zines: low production values, little or no editing to speak of, a willingness to express unpopular or marginalized opinions and analysis, and as much attitude as could be mustered. The back cover featured a full-page drawing of an emaciated man clenching jailbars and screaming.

Another way to describe it would be to say that it was purely a vehicle for self-expression, and that considerations of quality and thoroughness did not intrude on the process. It was crudely stapled together, causing several readers to comment that reading LiP had actually given them bloody fingers.

The zine community was supportive: LiP received positive reviews from Factsheet Five, Zine World, and the Alternative Press Review, among others.

“Radical politics with a refreshing sense of humor and uncluttered style.”
—Zine World

LiP evolved. Many new contributors and editors came, then went or stayed. From March 1999 through April 2004, due mostly to high print production costs and an aggressively lazy approach to fundraising, LiP existed as an online-only project, and garnered 2002 nominations for "Best Online Culture Coverage" from Utne, and "People's Choice: Content E-Zine" from the Austin, TX-based alternative art and media festival, South by Southwest.

“An original and ambitious online progressive magazine.”
– Paula Kamen, author of Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution

"LiP is a sharp, edgy online magazine that pulls no punches."
—The Blacklisted Journalist

The current print incarnation of LiP lumbered into the world on April, 2004, and was immediately nominated for "Best New Magazine" by Utne, "Best East Bay Zine," and garnered "Best Magazine" nods from Clamor and the East Bay Express. More importantly, our all-volunteer, not-for-profit group brought a unique, accessible, and well-edited mix of radical politics, culture, sex, and humor, guided by a serious structural critique of power and social change, and a gleeful engagement with pop culture. The intent was to frame the project of social change as simple common sense, and to show active engagement and participation in the community as a vibrant, emancipatory practice, rather than the onerous, leaden practice we believed was being projected by many progressive media projects. Rejecting orthodoxies across the political spectrum, LiP seeks to speak primarily to a "not-yet-activist" audience, and attempts to provide intellectual tools for their mental and political growth and self-defense. LiP also sometimes seeks simply to have some potentially useful fun.

LiP was also awarded two 2006 Project Censored awards, for Anna Samson-Miranda's "Brave New World: Surveying Privacy in the Age of Surveillance," and "Trust Us, We're the Government: How the U.S. Government Stole $137 Billion of Indian Money," by Brian Awehali.

"There is not nearly enough alternative media in the U.S., and an outfit like LiP that does print and online work with creative flair as well as meaningful substance, and especially an outfit that seeks to reach out beyond typical progressive audiences much more deeply into mainstream daily life and constituencies warrants attention and support from all quarters. Give LiP a close look! And then your support, as well. "
—Michael Albert, editor of ZNet and co-editor and co-found of Z Magazine

Where We're Headed

World domination, of course. These painfully earnest good intentions couldn't possibly be genuine or for real, right? We're just hoping to build enough cred with a hip audience full of the much sought-after 18-30 demographic to sell out for enough to really make it worth it so we can retire to an island, some magazine gig that actually pays, a university position at a second-rate state school, or to some bohemian urban set full of opinionated do-nothings.

However, if we fail to achieve those goals, one thing we'd like to do is set up a trio of LiP offices: One in Oakland, one in Toronto, and another in either Curitiba, Brazil or Caracas, Venezuela. LiP editorial members and contributors, in this obviously imminent future, will be able to rotate between offices on a semi-regular basis. (They'll work on well-meaning but ultimately useless "carbon credit" programs to offset the damage their jet travel will be doing to the atmosphere).

We also intend to continue printing LiP at a local worker-owned press, using vegetable-based inks, and 100% recycled paper. We believe we're headed eventually towards a completely tree-free LiP magazine that doesn't involve ceasing publication. We're expanding our editorial group and contributor base; we're well-distributed throughout the US and Canada; and our ambitious 2006 web site redesign may well change the way the world looks at our web site, forever. We intend to remain reader-supported and independent.

You should really check out the features archive, and the back issues page. The best way to see where we're going is to see where we've already been. Glib prose like you've found on this page isn't half as useful as the matter we've actually devoted the better part of a decade to conceiving, writing, editing, and publishing.

If you're interested in getting involved, please visit our contribute page, and be sure to sign up for the LiP Media Picks mailing list--"the best of the rest of the web," delivered once a week, free, to your inbox. Sign up.

LiP Magazine
P.O. Box 3478
Oakland, CA 94609