Co-Opting OWS: Hollywood Hotties of the One Percent

Count me among those who consider the new "99% Spring" movement just one one more phony patch of Democratic Party astroturf.

The anonymous blogger "Insider" of Counterpunch recently listed eight smoking guns proving a direct link from the 99% Spring to various and sundry Obama veal pen organizations -- most notably, MoveOn.org. That DNC front group, you may remember, came under fire from the real OWSers last fall when it ham-handedly attempted to co-opt the movement for its own fundraising and candidate- boosting purposes.

And now, they're back with week-long "training sessions" throughout the country, to instruct participants on how to peacefully protest and emulate Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. No mention of the general national strike planned by the real Occupy for May Day. As a matter of fact, they're pushing a toned-down, sanitized version of the movement, aimed squarely at the same disenchanted young people who catapulted President Obama to victory in 2008, but who have now left him in droves -- disillusioned, unemployed or underemployed and facing mountains of education debt it will take them a lifetime to repay. 

MoveOn must think the recipients of its email blasts are all naive and star-struck and in their 20s. I got yet another unbelievably annoying invite from them today, asking me to attend their peacenik training school for hip young hippies in a nearby town close to hip Woodstock. For inspiration, they included a short film to convince me it was so going to be worth it. Did it feature such powerhouse figures as Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges? Of course it didn't!

Instead, this glitzily-produced film, its soundtrack a kitschy guitar and flute piece of elevator music, featured three of today's biggest 20-something stars lecturing grizzled old me how to fight corporatism and Wall Street greed. Two of them -- Penn Badgely and Olivia Wilde -- shilled for Obama's 2008 campaign. The third, Zoe Kravitz, was only 20 at that time, but her musician father Lenny is an ardent Obama supporter and once wrote a song in support of the president. 

Badgely actually plays a rich young one percenter on the hit TV series "Gossip Girl". According to Wikipedia, the series "revolves around the lives of socialite young adults growing up on New York's Upper East Side who attend elite academic institutions while dealing with sex, drugs, and other teenage issues." Badgely was voted one of People Magazines's 25 Beauties and Hotties at 25 in 2011. And Badgely has done film work for MoveOn before -- he appeared in one of its Obama campaign commercials in 2008. What a perfect voice for a faux-Occupy ripoff.

Olivia Wilde is another one percent actress who lists among her forebears the colonialist oligarchs of the British Empire. Olivia, whose parents are hegemonic Beltway diplomats, presumes to tell us to get in the streets and put our bodies on the line. She ranked Number One on Maxim's "Hot 100" in 2009. Oh, and she has previously starred in MoveOn ads supporting Obama. Quelle coincidence.

Zoe Kravitz is apparently new to astroturf activism and politics, and as far as I can tell, this is her first MoveOn gig. But her mother was a Cosby Kid (Lisa Bonet). So she has got that elitist minority vanilla cred, too.

These meritocrats do not mention Obama in their 99% Spring film. They don't have to. But they used some of the same rhetoric he did during his last campaign to hypnotize the young and the restless. The word "change" was uttered. "Are You In?" the young millionaires ask. That's the same phrase on all the Obama ads following me all over the Internet. "Are You In?"

This latest ploy is so obvious as to be laughable. The Occupy Movement is not going to be co-opted by Hollywood tinsel and political platitudes. The Occupy Movement got started because its members were fed up with President Sellout. As "The Insider" wrote,

In MoveOn.org’s short history, the front group has proven that co-option works, but co-opting Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring has been no easy task for it this time around.

It has been a particularly tough task because the Democratic Party, which it fronts for, is beholden to Wall Street and the Obama Administration whichMoveOn.org dutifully supports, plans on raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the 1-percent during his 2012 election campaign.

Furthermore, the Obama Administration has been largely responsible for supplying weaponry to suppress the Arab Spring, including in places such asEgypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few.

MoveOn.org has to tell overt lies in order to paint the Democratic Party and its President, Barack Obama, as a friend of democracy and working class. TheBig Lie, it can be said, is only believable for so long.

When the 99% Spring liberal trust fund babies protest every appearance by Mitt Romney during the upcoming campaign season, and the paramilitary police forces stand benignly by with coffee and donuts for the brave apparatchiks putting their bodies on the line, we'll know for sure how phony they truly are.

Until then, the real OWS is gearing up for the real American Spring, with weekly tactical training sessions in Zuccotti Park. Colin Moynihan, the New York Times reporter who has covered the movement locally from its inception, explains:

To prepare, organizers have held weekly practice sessions, called “spring training,” inside Zuccotti Park, where participants learn about the gong and other tactics, some of them adapted from a British activist group called the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.

Over the course of an hour on Friday, protesters practiced several tactics, including “hup,” which involves a knot of people jumping up and down (and can be used to coalesce a scattered group) and “melt,” in which protesters drift to the ground (used for a ”die-in” or to de-escalate a confrontation).

One tactic, known as “wall,” involved ranks of protesters locking elbows and trotting forward in close formation, and could be used, organizers said, to move quickly while making it difficult for the police to physically break up the group.

Organizers said the sessions, which have been followed by short marches to the stock exchange for the closing bell, are meant to teach participants to work together and instill a sense of camaraderie.

Moynihan, who has had his own taste of NYPD brutality during various camp evictions, noted that the police were watching. And waiting. Something tells me they won't be handing out goodie bags to the real protesters on May 1.  They will be striking too, and if past performance is any predictor, it won't have anything to do with solidarity with the working class.

Roll Me Over in the Clover!

So, are you miffed that you signed up for a chance to attend today's White House Easter Egg Roll and did not get picked? Attendance at this annual event is by the usual class-based, two-tiered selection process. You either received a personal invitation because you are a wealthy or famous VIP, or you waited breathlessly to find out if you were randomly selected in an Internet lottery. A lucky 30,000 common people (aged 13 or under, accompanied by a parent) were chosen, to be herded onto the lawn in five different groups of 6,000 for two hours of roiling, rolling, rollicking fun.

Begun under the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes (or, as Barack Obama mispronounced it in a recent speech, "Rooth-erford") this marks the Egg Roll's 175th anniversary. From the official WH handout: (parentheses mine)

This year’s theme, “Let’s Go, Let’s Play, Let’s Move!,” spotlights the Let's Move! campaign, focusing "on promoting health and wellness and encouraging children to lead healthy and active lives." The White House will livestream performances and events all day at whitehouse.gov/live. Follow the action on Twitter with @LetsMove and @ObamaFoodorama with the hashtag #EasterEggRoll. 

There will be celebrity (not amateurs of the underclass!)  entertainers and celebrity chefs giving cooking demonstrations in the Play With Your Food area, which surrounds the Kitchen Garden and features a mini-farmers market, and fooducation booths. (how irritating a made-up word is that?)  Sports stars (from only A-List teams) leading fitness activities in the Eggtivity Zone, singers will perform on the Rockin' Egg Roll Stage (Janelle Monae, Cody Simpson, Zendaya, China Ann McClain and the McClain Sisters), and A-list actors (not D List!) will read kids books on the Storytime Stage (Sarah Palin impersonator) Julianne Moore, (Idi Amin impersonator) Forest Whitaker, (Big Democratic donor ABC- Disney teeny bopper impersonator) Bella Thorne).

Oh, and it won't be official until Bo the Dog disguised as the Cadbury Bunny appears. Not to go off on a tangent or anything -- but have you ever pondered the monumental arrogance it took for Obama to name his dog after himself? More accurately, he took his initials (BO) and foisted them on the pooch. This would be like FDR naming Falla "Effer", or Clinton naming Socks the Cat "Beecee", or Bush the Younger calling Miss Beazley "Geebee", or to give it the full-bore dynastic patrician cred, "GeeDubyaBee".

Actually, Obama is not the first president to name a pet after himself. John Tyler called his obscenity-spewing parrot "Johnny Ty". Such extreme identification with one's pet must be a characteristic of presidents who profess to being Democrats and then suddenly reveal their true party affiliation once in office.

 The least sentimental of the White House pet owners probably was Lyndon Johnson, who posed for a photograph holding his two beagles, "Him" and "Her" by their ears.

 And who would have guessed that dour-looking George Washington had a sense of humor about his pets -- his four hunting coonhounds were named Tipler, Drunkard, Tipsy and Taster.

A few presidents would be prime candidates for the animal hoarding shows so popular these days. Theodore Roosevelt of course was a life-long and obsessive collector of animals, both dead and alive, with favorites being dogs, cats, pigs and ponies. And taciturn Calvin Coolidge seems to have been one of those humans who more closely identified with animals than people. Besides scores of dogs, he owned a donkey, two lion cubs, an antelope, a pygmy hippo, a couple of raccoons, a black bear and a bobcat. 

But I digress from whatever theme I originally started out with. Actually, I don't think I even had a theme. Forgive me, people. It's Monday. Happy belated Easter and Passover to all!

My Re-election Pledge: To Always Roll Over for Corporate Interests (graphic by Kat Garcia)

An Army of Propagandistas

When the opposition party is so misogynistic that it makes Ted Bundy look like Sir Galahad, all you really have to do to seduce a nation of women into pulling the lever for you is to be your own charming self. When the chair of the RNC utters such crazy talk as calling the Republican War Against Women as fictional as a war against caterpillars, all you have to do is sit back and let the creepy crawly jokes proliferate. Rance Priebus, the inventor of the caterpillar non sequitur, is one slimy species himself. Rance Priebus Rancidus, an easily identified garish garden variety. When he is disturbed, orange horns pop out of his head and emit a foul-smelling spray.

Fight for Larval Liberty!

  

It's nonsense like this, as well as the more psychopathic anti-birth control and anti-choice invective emanating from the right wing fringe that has enabled President Obama to score double-digit leads over Mitt Romney in recent polling. He has wasted no time in "targeting" women in battleground states. Following his pal Rahm Emanuel's advice to "never let a crisis go to waste", he is hosting a women's conference at the White House today to further cement his feminist cred. He has chivalrously called for the admission of rich lady golfers to Augusta. He boldly bumped New York Times editor Jill Abramson from her commencement address gig at all-female Barnard.

And later this month, the Obama Victory Fund is sponsoring a two-day training session for potential Obamettes. Become a propagandista in the president's All-Girl Army! Show how strong you are by putting your money and energy behind a charismatic male politician and become his unpaid shill. Join the BarryWAC, contribute to the BarryPAC.

Warning: this extravaganza for the Ladies Who Lunch is obviously not designed for the 99% -- though if you're under 35 or over 65, you can buy the cheap tickets at "only" $250, with no Barry face time included. From Politico: 

The Obama campaign is hoping to train an army of women at the DNC's national issues conference in Washington, D.C., later this month.

The two-day convention will include remarks by President Obama and strategy meetings on American women, values and the 2012 election as well as economic security and strengthening the middle class.

Confirmed training sessions include: "Talking to Your Neighbor: Persuading Women Voters," "Digital Organizing: Effective Social Media Strategies," "Talking about the President’s Accomplishments," and "Crafting Your Personal Narrative."

A photo with Barry as part of the Army of Women admission package will cost you $15,000. If you fork over $75,800, you'll get a group photo, special seating, special dinner, and your name mentioned in public.

The readers' comments to the Politico article came from the usual tripartate crowd -- the left, the right and the Bots. A sampling:

I don't think Obama has my interest in mind at all. Look at the cost of the tickets.. I am an average American who makes average wages and there is no way I can afford to buy a ticket. If he really wants to train "an army of women", he needs to do it for free.

So.... Omama's camp is going to train an "Army of Women"? by highlighting how the administration “has helped create economic security for women" and convince them to Talk about the President’s "Accomplishments," Hmmmmmm... Tough Task ahead!

The "Talking about the President’s Accomplishments" class will last a total of 30 seconds. Included in the corriculum will be: "We got Bin Laden" and...um...hold on I'll think of it.....

 I think women should be proud and I do well to set a fine example for my daughter's. I encourage my daughters to be independent thinkers who will work to care for themselves and to never rely on anyone to provide for them. Obama is not emphasizing the strength of women at all. He is simply trying to produce more people to sing his praises in the guise of raising women up. More importantly, he is trying to use this as an opportunity to raise money.

Why not have these training session in each state? Some of the price of the airplane tickets could go to pay for the training. Statewide training would be more productive and easier to manage. Statewide training would work better being able to focus on each individual States special interests and needs as well would adapt to the demographics of those particular states. I can't afford to go to Washington the plane tickets alone would block me and then add on to it the tickets. It almost feels as though it is exclusive to the rich women, and not to the Middle class women. I am for Obama, but find that the costs of things are prohibitive. I was excited when I heard about this program, but now that I see the costs, it is unrealistic. And so just like the GOP things go to the rich.

And finally this, my own personal favorite from a male Bot named Michael: You just never liked Obama...If thats th case then fine, But belive me their are alot of women and young ladys out there in Amrica who are more then eager to hear a message of hope and how the world and men would be far far worse off without strong women. Mabye the message that women are better left at home to procreate for men and cook and provide only for the family, mabye that message better suits (R) women. After all Santorm see's women as too weak mentally and physically to serve in our fine military, Gingrich..... well what really needs to be said about him...My point (before i get off of track ) IMHO only one party truly represents the ideas of modern women and truly wants to invest in the future of women and thats the (D) I have not seen one peice of legislation in the last four years come from any (R) person that supports anything regarding womens rights...

Get With the Program, Ladies!

One Nation of Suspects, With Justice for None

Here's just one of many shocking takeaways from this week's Supreme Court decision (Florence vs Board of Chosen Freeholders) allowing strip searches for all prisoners, regardless of the alleged offense: Anthony Kennedy is a judicial pretzel of twisted logic. In his opinion for the majority, Kennedy surmised that since most of this country's mass murderers and serial killers also had records of minor traffic offenses in their pasts, it follows that all traffic offenders might also be mass murderers and serial killers. So making everybody strip naked before joining a filthy, overcrowded jail population will make them safe, make their fellow prisoners safe, and make the poor overworked guards safe. The American citizen has officially been presumed guilty simply by virtue of existing. Keeping. Us. Safe. Sound familiar?

Lead Plaintiff Albert Florence

The Constitution is not just being chiselled away, little piece by little piece. It's being pounded to dust by the sledge hammers of all three branches of government. In the eyes of The Homeland, we are all potential terrorist threats. And the terror comes in endless forms.  Justice Kennedy rationalized that one peachy-keen reason for strip searches is that enforced nudity will allow jail personnel to detect disease and parasites, including.... scabies! Kennedy should keep his medical opinions to himelf, because nobody can detect scabies with the naked eye. Scabies are teensy little mites that burrow under the skin and cause intense itching, mainly at night. Diagnosis is made by taking skin scrapings and examining them under the microscope.

We as a nation are suffering a massive infestation of psychic scabies. The fear of the unknown has crept under our collective skin and made us all nuts. Terror has become a cottage industry. The Supreme Court decision is just one more manifestation of how bin Laden won. Our democracy is not just beginning to be subsumed by the quicksand of  totalitarianism -- it has already been sucked in up to its eyeballs.

That President Obama's Justice Department had filed an amicus brief in the recent court case in support of strip searches should come as no surprise. This administration is going down as one of the most authoritarian and repressive in modern history. No Democratic president since Woodrow Wilson has seized upon, and fomented, fear like this one. It was during World War One that the Espionage Act was passed, making it a crime to be anti-war. It is no coincidence that Bradley Manning is now being charged under the Espionage Act for his heroic whistleblowing of war crimes. It is no coincidence that the same government which forced Bradley Manning to stand naked in his jail cell for weeks is now urging that millions more citizens suffer the same humiliation. Strip-searching is simply a corollary to indefinite detention without charge, and the self-proclaimed right to assassinate people by secret decree. It's an all-inclusive program of The Naked and the Dead.

Let's be clear -- the unfettered strip-searching of suspects has little to do with safety, and everything to do with the cowing of the underclass, and sexual humiliation -- and since the majority of inmates are male, and black -- emasculation. This is especially true for Muslim prisoners, for whom forced nudity is the ultimate horror. Look at Abu Ghraib. Look at Gitmo. Now, look to Rikers Island in New York, the world's largest penal colony.

The Supreme Court decision is just one more manifestation of this country's institutional racism. If you are guilty of walking while black or brown, the next big thing after being stopped and frisked will be getting hauled off to jail and being forced to strip naked, and worse. Writes D.L. Chandler:

Last year alone, the NYPD stopped and questioned almost 700,000 persons, 87 percent of them being either Black or Hispanic. The low level of arrests made by way of this aggressive program is another matter deserving of investigation. Further, one of out of ten African-American men are in prison. According to research from the American Leadership Forum, 1 out of 3 Black boys born in 2001 have the potential to spend a lifetime in jail.

Should a person with a few unpaid parking tickets or missed court dates for a rent hearing be subjected to the same cavity search of a known murderer? The sensible answer is that the criminal proven to have the more violent record should be treated as such. The wide-sweeping assumption that every person with a traffic violation or similar minor offense needs to be treated like the town’s biggest drug dealer is a foolish one.

The practical ramifications of the Supreme Court ruling remain to be seen, says the ACLU. Will police use it as an excuse to strip-search Occupy protesters the next time they're arrested on trumped-up charges of blocking a sidewalk? Judging from the Obama Administration's own amicus brief, the authoritarians have this possibility very much in their paranoid little minds. In oral arguments, according to Steve Bergstein of the Z Magazine blog, a Justice Dept. lawyer said:

"Protesters...who decide deliberately to get arrested... might be stopped by the police, they see the squad car behind them. They might have a gun or contraband in their car and think hey, I’m going to put that on my person, I just need to get it somewhere that is not going to be found during a patdown search, and then potentially they have the contraband with them.” This position would probably be identical to that advanced by a Republican presidential administration.

The arguments, and ensuing decision, justify strip searches because your very presence within an incarceration facility automatically strips you of your civil rights. The legality of your arrest is not taken into consideration. The security of the institution always supersedes individual rights. Wide-ranging deference must always be paid to corrections personnel, says the Obama Justice Department and the concurring Supremes. They don't mention the fact that said corrections personnel are more and more likely to be underpaid and unscreened security guards in private prisons. Or that a lot of the smuggling of contraband into jails is done by corrupt guards and wardens. 

The ultimate irony, of course, is that the liberal members of the Court did not side with the Obama Administration on this one, and for that moment of sanity we should be grateful.

I had been wondering if perhaps the Justice Department would start an investigation of the Supreme Court on suspicion of influence peddling and corruption and financial malfeasance in light of the Citizens United ruling and canoodling with the Koch Brothers. There are indeed grounds for charging Clarence Thomas will failure to disclose his finances and ties with his wife's Tea Party group. There is precedent; Abe Fortas was forced to resign during the Johnson Administration after it was revealed he was on the take from Wall Street. But if past performance is any indication, Eric Holder and his boss will most likely view the judicial jokesters as useful idiots to run against during the campaign.  

Government corruption is nothing new. What is new is that all three branches and their apparatchiks are in it up to their scalps. The wrong people are being strip-searched.

Stay tuned for a grade F for the United States when Human Rights Watch comes out with its next report. As Glenn Greenwald noted in his excellent column today, the strip-searching of detainees is also a blatant violation of international human rights treaties.  

We are exceptional, all right. Exceptionally sadistic.

Arianna Cries While Unpaid Bloggers Strategize

That class action suit by former unpaid Huffington Post bloggers, seeking a one-third share of the site's multimillion-dollar sale to AOL, has been thrown out. A judge decided that since the plaintiffs were once satisfied with the glory of simply getting their stuff published on Arianna's popular site, they have no legal basis to demand their fair share now. Just because it turns out she was making money hand over fist on ad clicks, and then reaped a $330 million bonanza from the sale, doesn't mean the people who made The HuffPo what it is deserve one penny of compensation. You can't rewrite the terms of an agreement retroactively, ruled U.S. District Court Judge John Koeltl this week. Next time, be savvier and demand to get paid for your work upfront, he suggested.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the decision. Their argument is that an unconscionable unwritten contract can't supersede Wage and Hour Laws. Slavery is still illegal, even if the slaves seem happy. Maybe this is the case that will finally make Justice Clarence Thomas open his mouth. But I doubt it.

Arianna, meanwhile, has just blogged from one of the many international greedwashing-disguised-as-do-gooder forums for the One Percent that she attends on a regular basis. Ironically, during the same week that her starving stable of former writers was getting thrown under the bus in court, she was at Oxford for something called the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. This is yet another pricey confab where the global elites can gather, preen and brag about how they have the power to make the lives of the lesser people (excluding unpaid writers) throughout the world so much better.  Attendance was by invitation only -- but, gushed Arianna, "I wish everyone could be here!"

As usual, today's Arianna blog is all about Arianna and her crocodile tears, and not the details of the hopeless people the convention purportedly addressed. No mention of how this hypocritical author of Third World America is getting to keep that contested third of her AOL haul, thanks to the American judicial system:

It was exhilarating -- and deeply moving -- to hear example after example of social entrepreneurs making quantifiable improvements in lives all around the world. As Stephan Chambers, chairman of the Skoll Centre, put it: "I have cried every day this week. Remember as I tell you this, that I'm male. And British. And from Oxford." I actually cried every hour. But, remember, I'm female. And Greek. And from Cambridge. I also cried when Roy Sekoff, our founding editor, texted me that his father, Arthur, had passed away. Besides being a huge supporter of HuffPost (which he rightly felt contained some of his funny, feisty, passionate DNA), he was an eagle-eyed evaluator of my hair whenever I appeared on TV -- good or bad, he let me know about it.

But enough about your coiffure, Arianna. Let's get back to that court case. The lead plaintiff was labor activist Jonathan Tasini, who wrote over 200 blogposts for the crying kleptocratista.

 He framed the suit as a class action on behalf of an estimated 9,000 bloggers for the website. Now living in Sydney, where he is writing a book and blogging at www.workinglife.org, Tasini (said) that he planned to keep up the fight for compensation. "We're using the lawsuit to spark a movement and an organising effort among bloggers to set a standard for the future because this idea that all individual creators should work for free is like a cancer spreading through every media property on the globe."

Tasini is the same journalist who once successfully sued The New York Times for copyright infringement. The 2001 Supreme Court ruling in his favor stated that the newspaper wrongfully re-licensed his and other freelancers' published work.  The paper was found to have illegally profited by selling their work to such independent data bases as LexisNexis, and it was ordered to award the pool of plaintiffs $18 million.

(I have never submitted an op-ed to The Times, but as part of the caveat for posting comments, they absolve themselves from liability for your content at the same time they reserve their rights to same. The Gray Lady, like any royal, shall have her cake and eat it too -- she can use readers' work in the future, for whatever purpose she wishes. One change made about a year ago is that readers' comments are no longer searchable via Google or other engines. And of course, readers wishing to comment more than 10 times a month must now pay for the privilege, as per the paywall*. The Times also generates revenue via its Google-ized ads on the readers comment pages. That's the main reason I don't submit comments as much as I used to.)

When Tasini filed his lawsuit last year, Arianna was deeply affronted that some people are just not willing to be slaves. You should be grateful we don't pay you, she says, because working for free amounts to Freedom itself! Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. From the Los Angeles Times:

But while our staff writers have deadlines and commitments, as well as specific assignments, our bloggers can post as frequently or infrequently as they like -- and write about whatever they like, whenever they like, or not at all," Huffington said. "On top of that, they can crosspost their work on their own sites or elsewhere -- they own the rights to their work and can repurpose it in any way they choose."

People blog on HuffPost for free for the same reason they go on cable TV shows every night for free: either because they are passionate about their ideas or because they have something to promote and want exposure to large and multiple audiences," Huffington said. "Our bloggers are repeatedly invited on TV to discuss their posts and have received everything from paid speech opportunities and book deals to a TV show."

If you thought Arianna might have been so upset by the lawsuit that she took Tasini's posts off her site, you'd be wrong. They are there forever, generating ad revenue ad infinitum, enriching the Huffington heirs and investors for generations to come. 

But do check out Tasini's blog, linked above. He calls New York Times reporters "dolts" in one recent entry. Made my day.

* In theory. The Times today reduced its number of freebies from 20 to 10. I guess it was their idea of playing an April Fools joke on the 99%.

Political Fundraising Sampler

Full disclosure -- I am on many political mailing lists, most of them inadvertent on my part, probably stemming from one forgotten petition signed five years ago. Others are on purpose. For example, I have signed up to be on the lists of several Republican extremists, only because their stuff is so entertaining. Otherwise, I might have missed Herman Cain's skeet-shooting attack on a stuffed toy rabbit. Herman's mother never read him The Velveteen Rabbit at bedtime. I can guarantee it.


Today, all the politicians are desperately sending out their last-minute appeals for cash, to try and meet their monthly and quarterly quotas. You might be surprised by the variety in tone, content and yeah, basic politeness.


The first to arrive was simply titled "Hey" from Barack Obama. He is obviously a very busy man, and he wants you to be aware that when he does deign to write to you, it's always on the fly. He's got to court the weighted votes at the $37,500 big ticket "campaign events." He has moved far, far beyond the human niceties. Here's what he wrote:

Karen -- 

I need you with me on this one.

Tonight's deadline is our biggest yet, and I need everyone pitching in.

Give $15 or whatever you can:

Let's go, 

Barack

Normally I ignore Obama for America crap, but the bald arrogance and naked money grubbing of this one ticked me off mightily.... I need.... I need...give...let's go. So I wrote back in the little answer box at the bottom of the email, so somebody can either stuff it in the circular file where emails go to die, or more likely, become part of my permanent record:

What a rude email! No please, no thank you. Just "hey" and "let's go?" Earth to Barack -- it ain't all about you, Buddy.

Send me $15 or whatever you can, right this minute. My bills are coming due. I need you with me on this one.

Hey, let's go--

Karen

Then came this one from Rick Santorum. The guy may be a demented whackjob, but at least somebody taught him how to beg politely.

Friend,

Please see the note from our finance director below. We are only $47,000 away from meeting the goal we set earlier this week.

If you haven't yet given this month please visit our webage and make a donation of $25 or whatever you can afford right now.

We need every penny we can raise to make our case in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

Thanks.

Rick

Sent from my mobile device

The third (and certainly not the last -- the day is still young) is from former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson. So far it is my favorite -- it offers substance and information and connects with the audience in a way the previous two don't even try to. It concentrates not on Alan, but on the voters. It even pokes gentle fun at fundraising. Alan writes:

Dear Karen:

A month ago, I wrote a note called "The Myths That Are Killing Us" – the hard myths that no Republicans, and very few Democrats, ever challenge. Here was my list:

1. The Government can't create jobs. (Tell that to FDR, who created four million jobs in three months.)
2. Tax cuts reduce the deficit. (Doesn't it bother them that a man named "Laffer" came up with this one?)
3. A fetus is a baby.
4. The poor have too much money.
5. Cutting the federal deficit will end the recession.
6. The rich are incentivized by tax cuts, while the poor are incentivized by lower wages, no benefits, an end to the minimum wage, and unemployment.
7. An unwanted child is God's will.
8. Everyone who wants health insurance has it.
9. The problem with education is the teachers.
10. The "free market" satisfies every human need.
11. There is no discrimination in America anymore.
12. The distribution of wealth and income are irrelevant.

Well, this list seems to have provoked a lot of thought among us. Since I regard what we do as a collective endeavor, I want to share with you some of the best of this crowdsourcing by our audience – 20 more destructive myths:.

1. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War.
2. The environment can protect itself.
3. It is better for America to be feared than loved.
4. Only the wealthy create jobs.
5. America is a Christian nation.
6. Human beings are not the cause of climate change.
7. Minority women have children in order to qualify for welfare.
8. President Obama wants to take away our guns.
9. The more we spend on the military, the safer we are.
10. Corporations use tax cuts to hire people.
11. The unemployed are lazy and stupid.
12. Rich people are smarter than everyone else.
13. We will never run out of oil.
14. Invading foreign countries wins hearts and minds.
15. Science is a matter of opinion.
16. Instigating unnecessary wars shows your support for the troops.
17. Corporations are people.
18. Money is speech.
19. You can get any medical treatment you need, in any hospital emergency room.
20. One gender is better than the other, one race is superior to all others, and there is only one true religion.

Every one of these myths is fascinating in its own right. You could write a whole book about each of them. So to the supporters who contributed to this list, thank you. I'm listening and learning. 

And if we could just get past all of these myths, then think about what a great place this would be. 

Courage, 

Alan Grayson 

P.S. I recognize that this is a hopeless cliché, but our campaign fundraising goal for the quarter was $500,000, and as I write this, we are only $11,510 short of that goal. Really. If you would like to help us reach our goal, or if you're simply fond of round numbers, then click here.

I'll add to the list as the day goes on. And if any of you readers have some memorable political iBeggary to share, please send it in. Remember, we are facing a make-or-break midnight deadline. 

Update: An email labeled "I Tried" arrived from Rufus Gifford of Team Obama. He starts off saying he is sorry! He realized what a schmuck his boss is! Never mind... it's just a form letter:

    Karen --

Sorry to bug you on a Saturday. The FEC wouldn't let us push back their big March 31st deadline. (I tried.)
Just hours to go -- Can you chip in $15 or more?
Thanks,
Rufus

Nice to know Rufus is no doofus, and unlike his boss, realizes even the lesser people appreciate a little common courtesy when they're hit up for their meager dollars by the One Percent.

I also had received an appeal from Michelle Obama the other day, but it was hiding in the spam file and I just now found it. Whenever she writes, she wants me to "have Barack's back", which I find mildly off-putting. It casts the most powerful man on earth in somewhat of a victim role, someone who needs my protection, rather than as a public official who was elected to do the will of the people. It's boiled down to voting for the guy out of guilt. Ask not what Barack can do for you, but what you can do for Barack. And not one policy position or accomplishment does she include. All the more glaring when juxtaposed with Alan Grayson's thoughtful missive.

Reply to:

Reply to alangrayson@graysonforcongress.com

Reply to alangrayson@graysonforcongress.com

Send

Obama's Covert War

The UK-based Center for Investigative Journalism has just posted an outstanding and deeply disturbing piece on the escalation of Barack Obama's not-so-secret war in Yemen.  And it is not limited to those odious drone strikes. There was actually a naval assault on a port city earlier this month, but we are not being told if it was from our own United States Navy. One can only assume it was, since Yemen reportedly only maintains a small fleet of patrol boats. Of course, the US probably had no trouble doing some quick paint and flag-changing jobs to cover themselves and implausibly deny they had anything to do with it.   

The CIJ  estimates that between 50 and 100 civilians have been killed in the various recent attacks, and that Obama has taken a very hands-on approach to his lethal little war. The Bureau also obtained a copy of a report listing the names of all the victims of the 2009 cluster bomb attack that killed 14 militants and 44 civilians -- including a year-old baby and several pregnant women. The American government has steadfastly denied responsibility, despite photographic evidence to the contrary and email confirmation from WikiLeaks. 

One of the CIJ's main sources for its exposés has been Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye, now jailed on trumped up charges of being an al Qaeda sympathizer. Shaye, who has led media outlets to physical evidence of US-manufactured military hardware strewn around human "collateral damage",
had been set to be released from custody after a national outcry. But then Obama himself butted in and essentially ordered his Yemeni puppet government to keep the reporter chained and muzzled. You can watch a video on this travesty, featuring another great investigative reporter (Jeremy Scahill) here, and read Glenn Greenwald's equally invaluable reporting on the matter here.

This is the kind of stuff that should bother otherwise smart Obama supporters and journalists, but it rarely ever does. This is a country in the thrall of the kind of authoritarianism that has a unique photogenic appeal all its own. Obama has teflon on his teflon. Reagan would be envious.



Simply Irresistible




Composite of Drone Victims, Yemen, 2009 (Al Jazeera)