MoveOn.org pretends it only wants realistic change (the email)

Want a poster?
This is the message from MoveOn.org that inspired this (linked) post.

From: "Nita Chaudhary, MoveOn.org Political Action" <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>

Date: November 10, 2008 14:03:36 pm EST

Subject: Want a poster?

Victory Poster Can you chip in $20 or more to support our big new campaign to support Obama's progressive agenda? If so, we'll send you we'll send you a full-sized poster of this amazing "Victory" design. Click below: Poster Click here to get a poster

Dear MoveOn member,

As President-elect Obama (isn't that still so fun to say?) reminded us in his speech on election night, this victory itself is not the change we seek—it's a chance to make that change. To win things like clean energy, health care for all Americans, and an end to the war in Iraq, we need to keep fighting alongside Barack Obama.That's why we're launching a massive new campaign to help pass Obama's progressive agenda.

And to raise the money for that campaign, we've decided to offer an amazing Shepard Fairey "Victory" poster to everyone who donates $20 or more.Can you help launch our campaign to back up Obama—and get this beautiful poster to celebrate our win? Click below:

http://pol.moveon.org/shepposters/?id=15094-6281706-gs9Tytx&t=6

We know that change won't be easy. The oil companies won't give up their stranglehold on our economy without a fight. Already, pundits are starting to say that our economic crisis makes real reform impossible—when really, it's more necessary than ever.

Think of all the people who came together to make this amazing victory possible. If we can keep organizing—if we can keep getting stronger—we can win the changes we dream about.But that'll take resources. So please chip in at least $20 to our grassroots campaign. And you'll get to own this little piece of history as well—a beautiful way to remember our victory, and a small token of our thanks. Click here:

http://pol.moveon.org/shepposters/?id=15094-6281706-gs9Tytx&t=7

Thanks for all you do.–Nita, Daniel, Laura, Justin and the rest of the team

Want to support our work?We're entirely funded by our 4.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here [de-linked].

---

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to xx xxxxx on November 10, 2008. To change your email address or update your contact info,click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

MoveOn.org pretends it only wants realistic change - Fwd: Want a poster?

MoveOn.org claims these are the central concerns for the Obama White House: clean energy, health care for all Americans, and an end to the war in Iraq.

Here's my question: if it is only the changes they list here that Obama intends, then what is the big deal? What divided us for the whole campaign? Are we all just a bunch of idiots??!

The items listed by MoveOn.org are "do you still beat your wife" kinds of issues. They are Miss America questions. They are soft-shoe and easy listening for the dull-witted masses. What else would they be, though? This is from the "General Betray Us" folks suddenly turned earthy and populist. It is these populist misleadings by groups who are so virulently campaigning for left-wing agendas that makes them so despicable. What is the real agenda? It is not (1)health care for all, (2) end of the Iraq War, or (3) clean energy. These are populist, not progressive (so-called) or liberal ideas. But, that said, I am glad even MoveOn.org is getting behind them.

1. Health care for all has been a thing that the Democrats have owned since Prez Clinton and Lady Hillary tried to make it so. Good for them, but I hope the approach is different this time around. I hope it is less Sweden and Canada (40% taxes might be fine if I can live through a heart attack and receive a colonoscopy every year without going into debt, but what if I can't afford food because retail prices rise 40% or more, too??!), more SMART regulation and streamlining of the bull involved with insurance and health care.

Shame on the GOP for not taking the knife of regulation and sticking it into insurance companies that are letting the under-covered and the poor to drop dead or live in misery rather than develop truly reasonable coverage alongside government. Not that this is an insurance problem -- it is a national problem. Our leaders need to act on it or they are not our leaders, they are elected lobbyists for insurance companies and eventually the voting will reflect this and they will be fired.

Insurance companies are getting rich while everyone from the poor to the middle class insured (under-insured) cannot afford to see doctors for "preexisting" conditions that include acid reflux and back pain. They must instead either ring up large bills or claim poverty and live in an ER waiting room to be helped.

To say "this system sucks" is a generous estimation of American health coverage and insurance and how it interacts with the humans on the one end and the doctors on the other. It is failing us. Utterly failing many, not only the uninsured. Failing. Is that a word Americans like to hear? No. So, fix it. It is failing. FAILING.

Personal example: I received a rejection letter from my general doctor months after I lost a job in 2008 (a contract abruptly and inequitably was ended, I did nothing wrong) and could not pay on what the insurance company refused to pay. I was trying, through an intermediary group, to make sense of why they refused to pay for things, as it was not simply preexisting coverage, not reasonably, anyways. Other doctors visits, for things I was never before treated for, were completely rejected.

Conveniently, the insurance company claimed despite the contrary that I and my providers (the doctors) had not provided necessary forms. This is while the intermediary was working with me and the providers to get a reason for not covering my visits.I have the bills to prove that health coverage falls short even when one is "insured" and earning well over minimum wage. I was earning $62,000.00+ (none of your business, but I am telling you) and had coverage that cost me about 15% of each paycheck, and that was the best I could afford. It was diddly, clearly.

ERs: This is our system of care for our tired masses. Forcing ERs to see everyone, for things like colds? Our answer to coverage of all is putting the burden, in a backhanded way, on hospitals and on taxpayers (public and county hospitals gotta be funded somehow!)? Meanwhile, insurance companies investing in Peter Pan markets such as AIG must be bailed out. That's just pathetic.

After 25 years or more of failure in bringing modern, excellent health care to everyone, while other countries manage it, I wish Obama luck. However, I say we must stay away from higher taxes to fund it, for all our sakes!!! We are dangerously close to what they call the "European model" and this country does not need it. There's better ways to do it! There simply has to be -- this is a country that behaves differently than other countries in many ways, and that is why we are the only remaining superpower; that is why we are admired by other countries, even those who resent us! (Jealousy is a strong motivator in people who are not endowed with a solemn or calmed intellect.)

Since no one cares and can get organized enough to truly fix the problem, America ought to be as ashamed of itself. In this day and age, we ought to be as ashamed as we would rightfully be for slavery, child labor in the 1800s-1900s, relocating Native tribes, and other such distasteful blights on our history.

There's a term for America's handling of health care in the last 25 years or so: Disgustingly irresponsible.

2. The "Iraq War" is ended, and has been ended, really, since a new government launched there (however insecure it is, to this day). I never cease to be amazed at how much traction this idea of "ending the War in Iraq" gets, seeing as it is tantamount to race baiting. Call it pacific-spoiled-brat baiting. Now we are supporting a struggling government there, not toppling it, and thus we are fighting a war on terrorism today. A ware against some rather dangerous extremists who cannot tolerate anything but a Taliban-like Islamic state. But MoveOn.org cannot bait people by being anti-American by going against the war on terror, so they choose to use the old language. Obama did not go down that road, thankfully; he moved to a rhetoric of going after the terrorists and the people who caused Sept. 11, 2001, and talked of "responsibly" ending the War in Iraq (whatever that ever meant to him, I do not know; sounds like a deceptive change of his earlier opinion to me).

So what MoveOn.org is accidentally or intentionally saying is that they want to end the war on terrorism, as if that action is a bad thing. This is propaganda, and it is tiring. This is either an horrendous dumbing-down of the issue, or outright anti-military, anti-American sentiment. Despicable either way, but I am confident they are simply pandering to the pacifistic ideas of anyone who wishes war were a thing of the past. (Naive, yes, but tactical to exploit in a land of spoiled media-addicted college students and the like.)

3. Where the Sun does Shine: The refusal, over the past 30 years, of bringing solar and wind power to the masses, is now changed; it is thanks more to the stubborn and simple campaign by an oil man at his own cost, and with capitalist and realist motivations, not the far leftists and Al Gore's fans. I find it fascinating that there is such a tenor, in mass media, that capitalist motivations to go to clean energy is suddenly OK, because T. Boone Pickens says so. We will eventually see resentment over this, as we have seen resentment by liberals over the fact that our military is not a police force, but a force to be reckoned with.

Recently, Pickens backed down on his wind farm plans, since the oil price has dropped so low. Does that mean that the interest, as it had died in the 1970s, will go, too? In Washington, it had better not. The question is whether Washington, on this issue, will lead with the apathy of people in mind (I think you'll find that energy change is still merely a pop issue, not a "real" issue, to many) or with its eagerness to create industry and new wealth for businesses and communities. Dependence on oil, foreign oil especially, is risking our very stability, especially in times such as we are in right now, with questionable economic conditions reverberating through industry after industry.

I hope the Obama Admin focus on these things, and I hope this type of change succeeds. Fully! Since all these are good things, and they don't require infantile deception and snippets of facts, I hope MoveOn.org can focus on them, too, and not the other things, such as making all conservatives out to be ogres.

Here's a copy of the message (linked) that inspired this posting, for what that is worth.

Today there's Bill Maher; before there was... Chevy Chase?

A BLAST FROM THE CYNICAL PAST:

Chevy Chase: I wanted Carter to Win

Chevy Chase, in a recent CNN interview, the cynical man proudly proclaimed himself as being (allegedly) a funny man who hoped to humiliate Ford out of the White House with his take-offs of the president. I think that insincerity has "paid off" in droves: Chase is the butt of more jokes about a formerly (possibly never) funny man than Jim Belushi (except some argue Jim B. was never funny -- a bit harsh, but only a bit).

Considering that, I guess Chase admitting that he was always a cynic, especially while flopping about as Gerald Ford on Saturday Night Live, cannot hurt him.

It is disappointing to know someone I (and millions) once found pleasantly humorous proves he was incapable of being funny without doing it for deliriously ill-willed reasons. Chevy Chase needed to retire somewhere between Spies Like Us and his appearance on the annual Amnesty Int'l fund-raising event, "Secret Policeman's Ball" in 2007 or 2008 (whichever he was on, he sucked). Probably far closer to the wrap-up of Spies Like Us.

Today Chase is closer to a cynical goof-ball the likes of a Simpson's TV clown than he is to his SNL pal, the short-lived John Belushi, and such time-proven talents he worked with back then, as Gilda Radner, Dan Ackroyd and Steve Martin. (I am, of course, ignoring that Martin did that remake of The Pink Panther. It was a Razzies nominee. One more move like that and he's dead to me, simply dead. Pink Panther 2 is coming.)

Chase: I just went after him. And ... obviously my leanings were Democratic and I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out, and I figured look, we're reaching millions of people every weekend, why not do it."

Over the years, "Saturday Night Live's" political satires have become a mainstay of the show, sometimes to startling effect.

CNN: You mean to tell me in the back of your mind you were thinking, 'hey I want Carter ' ...

Chase: Oh, yeah.

CNN: And, 'I'm going to make him look bad.'

Chase: Oh yeah. What do you think they're doing now, you think they're just doing this because Sarah's funny? No, I think that the show is very much more Democratic and liberal-oriented, that they are obviously more for Barack Obama. [That was the '70s], out of the Nixon era, and it was not unlikely that I might go that direction.

CNN: I talked to one political pundit who said, 'I think Chevy Chase cost Ford the presidency.'

Chase: When you have that kind of a venue and power where you can reach so many millions of people and you've become a show that people watch, you know, you can affect a lot of people, and humor does it beautifully, because humor is perspective and has a way of making judgment calls.

Chase also comments in that interview that Ford and he later became friends. Fascinating. Especially seeing these comments. I suspect there is a difference here in the two men that Chevy never understood. I can only suggest it, as I have no proof: Gerald Ford was a respectful man. Chevy Chase isn't and he wasn't back then, either. He is not only no longer funny, he is cynical. Just like Larry King's favorite comic, Bill Maher.

Aside from that vitriol, have a read of this. Chase was actually given space in the NY Times a while after Ford's death to reflect on the man he panned so mischievously. "If it hadn’t been for the courage of Mr. Ford’s wife, Betty, for admitting to an alcohol problem, I would never have received the help I needed in the early 1980s at the Betty Ford clinic," Chase wrote. Read the whole commentary at the NY Times site.

Bill Maher on Larry King: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

Special Feature: comedy on CNN!

So funny yet still nobody tuned in.

Bill Maher appeared on Larry King the day after the presidency was won by Barack Obama.

Really, Mr. King? You're attempting to hold some cultural and news relevance (judging from the ads for your program) and the best you can do is the garrulous atheist with a pompous smirk (and presumably some dark, unresolved Daddy issues)? What? Obama's aunt not available? Jon Stewart too busy to come by and chat about the fun times both of you have had over the years, pretending to be newsmen? No Chevy Chase retrospective on political parody with a cynical flair? It could mean Larry King is losing his booking effectiveness. Or that he thinks Bill Maher is the new -- who? Saul Bellow? Not sure even Saul Bellow would like that, despite Maher's success and their shared distaste for anything traditional (outside of cynicism, that is).

This booking tells us volumes about Larry King without even watching the program, for its timing and topic. I did watch and then I read part of it. The oddest bit is when Maher proclaims the "real Americans" to be those other than some slice that Palin referred to as "real Americans". That is, that "real America" is not the 80% who are white, not small town Americans, and not "Joe the Plumber" types. The man is unhinged -- but it is good to see that people such as Palin get on his nerves. The weaker they are, the quicker they screw up. He hides behind humor so that his commentary can quickly turn from "here's the real deal" to "hey, it's just comedy, man!" Because he has his own firm ideas, but he is at heart a smarmy, spoiled bully. He is like the rich kid with all the toys in the neighborhood, punching holes into everyone else's hopes and egos, just because no one's punched his lights out for it yet. Give it time.

Oh, and while I'm at the place of this girlish-lipped, Hollywood metro-sexual bagman: Thanks, HBO, for encouraging his brand of jolly (ignorant, unscientific) atheism, freely vacant of relevance, and rich with one-sided vitriol. If HBO won't punch his card, someone is going to eventually suck some wind out of his black sails.

Maher: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

Here's a simple reason: Maher cannot find anything funny about Obama because he would not dare look, or even want to ask it. To keep his scam going, he will work at it, but he's fool enough to admire Obama too heartily. There is no softer spot for a liberal than their messiah. Just like some TV anchors and supposed journalists (Olbermann, Matthews at the top, and when resistance is low, Campbell Brown, Couric, Gibson, yadda yadda), Maher has a one-eyed view. He can seemingly only make jokes about what he hates. That's not humor, that's bullying. You're simply a punk with friends who let you bully. Such cynicism, such laughing at things you do not comprehend much less appreciate has worked for bullies and satirists for a long, long time.

However, good satirists aren't shameless publicity hounds who crave their own like-minded folks, as Maher sure seems to.

Here's another jewel from this freak-mouth, via the Huffington Post (in 2006), on the same CNN show:

During the live broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live, Bill Maher suggested to Larry King that [the former] Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. (Watch the clip from the live broadcast and read the transcript on the site)

BM: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. Ken Mehlman. Ok, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been, people have suggested, he doesn't say...

I guess this is funny to Mr. Hell in a Hand Basket because what? All conservatives hate gays? So this would be ironic is Mehlman were gay? I guess to Maher this was like the irony of Hitler apparently having some Jewish ancestry. What a totally despicable man this whining preacher of un-God is. Why is he considered funny, because, like the guys of Jackass, he's so thoroughly much of an ass that it is entertaining to watch him? Or is it because his views make sense to people? He's cynical, not satirical. Satire, aside from most SNL skits of the past 25 years, is funny. Cynicism, however, is only funny only to those who share in an unwillingness to see others' views as legitimate. You know, like fascists.

Bill Maher: the fascist of funny, the czar of cynical comedy. Fully backed by HBO.So, why should you be backing HBO? I would prefer not. Maybe I will drop HBO, because I have had thoroughly enough of Maher. Perhaps bringing HBO to its knees will be the way to end his reign of smug, cynical, godlessness words of terror.

- jR

Seriously: Obama invites the crisis of satire? FastCompany.com

Can We Laugh at Obama? | Culture Nuggets | Fast Company

After witnessing two years of emotional wrangling and finger-pointing, most of us are relieved to put the election season behind us. But as the nation transitions from the erratic, divisive Bush-era into the historically momentous presidency of Obama the [rhetorician], some journalists are declaring crisis mode on a flourishing art form: the political satire. Bush-impersonations have gone past the point of cliché, but no comedian is yet to figure out how to nail the uniquely relatable stateliness of Barack Obama. And most importantly, would audiences even respond if satirists like [Jon] Stewart mocked the messiah-like figure of so many Americans?

I think I may start to do stand-up then. And I won't even be zealous about it, just exaggerated, absurd and mocking. Who knows? I might actually get my own radio program, because God knows it is the only medium even remotely friendly to Obama-panning humor. Can't say that of print or TV.

Powered by ScribeFire.