I read it through, and predictably gagged. And mean girl that I am, I couldn't resist rifling through the garbage can of my imagination and picturing what his first draft might have said before his PR flacks cleaned it up for the bland vanilla palates of the voting public. So here, reading between the lines, is the original Barack email:
Karen --
Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.
We're doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, just forget about that multi- million dollar fundraiser I had last week that barred the press and public but with you – with chumps people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes chutzpah and an idea-bank chock full of bullshit time to build.
So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, which entails serving my oligarch lords and masters and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, even though I have never really stopped campaigning and wasting billions of gallons of jet fuel campaigning on the government dime the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start arbitrarily, a date we just picked out of mid-air today.
We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does. And I never really intended it to, at all. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made -- and make more spin and empty promises – we need free labor and unpaid interns to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest. What I have been doing up to now has been insincere campaigning. The earnest campaigning involves me trying to pretend I love my Democratic base, and it’s hard. Change will not come easy.
As we take this step, I'd like to share a video that features some folks like you who are helping to lead the way on this journey. Please take a moment to watch:
( Ed. note. I am not embedding the video. It is widely available everywhere. It is inescapable. It will make your computer melt And I am not a "folk", dammit! )
In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country. It is an organization of the imagination, in your own minds. It will have nothing to do with me. And I'll need you to send me your hard-earned dollars and work for free to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before. It is time to rebuild the Obama is Jesus meme of the 21st century, to reinvent the Obama Personality Cult to draw in as many unthinking Obamabots as I possibly can.
We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, with scripts that we provide and you will stick unquestioningly to, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new naive ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight. I still have that valuable email list from 2008.
This will be my final campaign, at least as a candidate. Of course, I am counting on all of you to demand a third term and just do away with any more campaigns. Just make me king. But the cause of making a lasting difference for our families, our communities, and our country has never been about one person. I can’t be number one free world leader without legions of fans. And I it will succeed only if we work together.
There will be much more to come as the race unfolds. Today, simply let us know you're in to help us begin, and then spread the word: like good little culties.
http://my.barackobama.com/2012
Thank you,
Barack
12 comments:
Well said. Thank You.
But what are we to do?
Thanks for this. I always enjoy your skillful editing!
I read that Obama wanted to launch his campaign on 4/4 because being the 44th President, it would be lucky for him. He apparently doesn't agree with the Chinese who consider the number 4 to be the unluckiest number, to be avoided, as the number 13 is for many Americans.
Obama the Show Horse is off to the races! Meanwhile Work Horse Hillary is busy with the world on fire. She is making him look like a slacker without even trying.
annenigma
On the important business of "what are we to do?" I suggest reading Chris Hedges' prescription in today's TruthDig, a prescription that follows his damning diagnosis of the system that got us to this point. Anything less is just words, words, words, blog, blog, blog -- and who can beat Obama or big media at that game?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_is_what_resistance_looks_like_20110403/
The left is finally waking up- US Uncut, the labor movement, people ARE taking to the streets at long last. Civil disobedience and marching bodies are increasing exponentially. And those words, words, words will inspire, inspire, inspire. "Big media" are ignoring events such as the recent "Day of Rage". They ignored the Vietnam War protest movement too... until they couldn't.
I'm guessing Obama's doing this to see just how many suckers are still out here, waiting to go back to work for him. An early market test, as it were.
I have a feeling he's in for a rude shock.
Yes, the words, from this site and elsewhere, ARE inspiring. Please continue to write and to broadcast others who also inspire, like the best commenters who are now further removed behind the NYT Paywall.
But without the follow-up, without a protest movement, without a tough push back by we the people (most of us having been standing idly on the sidelines, taking it for the past two years) the US will continue to be ruled and overruled by the monied few and their fake advocates.
Nonviolent protests work. Keeping them nonviolent is a problem. You have to police your own side as well as isolating provocateurs. And the right will have plenty of money to engage and use provocateurs. Walker in his conversation with 'Koch' revealed as much.
This time might be very different though, a lot of police and firemen are going to get hurt in state and local budget cuts. Having them on both sides of the line might keep things from getting out of hand. And this time the Democratic Party will be on the right, along with the Republicans; that means the 'Media' will be against us. The one advantage we have is the internet. This movement, if here is to be a movement, has to be organized with military precision.
Thank you so much for this.
I appreciate all that you write.
You are the people that got him elected in the first place, und so Herr Doktor what do you plan to do about the monster?
Richard
Dear Marie,
You can watch NBC again if you can find anything you like. NBC/Universal was sold by G.E. about a year ago to Comcast. By the way you did "Elect a President and a Congress" about two years ago but you don't sound too happy with your choices. You might consider that the problem IS Government and it's scope and not who runs it or you can keep electing people who promise things that they can't deliver.
Richard
Hello Richard
It wasn't a year ago for Comcast-NBC. It was approved and took effect in Jan 2011. I know that time flies, but...
I agree about one thing. Government IS the problem i.e. the elected members of Congress and the President who are shamelessly prostituting themselves to Big Money.
Campaign finance reform definitely won't change that. Big Money will simply buy whoever wins, and if they can't be bought then, they will try later, after they dig up some dirt on them, or set them up in a honey trap. Remember how GM did that to Ralph Nader and got caught? The money he won in court financed years of valuable public service. Justice.
Our country is so broken it cannot be fixed. It will fail, it's just a matter of time. For now, the only thing that stands in the way of that happening is people's ignorance. That won't last much longer.
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