HELL NO, I WON’T SIGN! Moveon.org’s Lopsided Petition Campaign

Here’s the petition I’m called on to sign by moveon.org, an organization I previously supported until they came out with a members’ poll early this year in order to endorse a candidate. I voted for Hillary. They endorsed Obama. I wrote to them at that time, protesting their insistence on calling for an early endorsement.

“Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and ‘gotchas’ that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions—ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people’s daily lives.”

Instead of signing, I replied to moveon.org with the following note:

Absolutely not!!!!!! No I won’t sign. For the first time, Obama wasn’t given a pass. I watched the same thing you and the other pundits watched. Hillary had clear plans with specifics re: Iraq, Iran, crime, the economy, greening, etc. What were you, the biased media, and other messiah hopefuls watching? Poor Obama didn’t know what to do, because he can speak AT the public, and ATTACK Hillary, but can’t think extemporaneously or speak clearly to any plan, policy or issue. Unfortunately, as a lifelong Dem, previously loyal moveon.org member, I see that you’re so wrong and so blind about your early endorsement of Obama, that you can’t even see that he’s not qualified, not ready, nor vetted, nor competent to be President of the US.

ABC moderators asked relevant questions that went to character. Just because Obama finally got pegged on what Hillary’s been going through over the last year, eight years, and fifteen years. Gee, moveon.org didn’t mind when the &*?@ was slung at Hillary. You weren’t sick and tired of it then. You didn’t holler when Obama spewed back at Hillary last week for showing the contents of his mind in the form of gossip about others. That’s new politics? Moveon.org is new politics? I used to think so about the latter, but no longer, as your outrage is uneven and only applies to when “your” candidate is wounded based on his OWN POOR LIFE CHOICES. GIVE ME A BREAK!

Here’s their petition letter in full, complete with references! Okay, all fall in line. Hell, no, I won’t sign.

Dear MoveOn member,

If you missed the Democratic presidential debate on ABC last night, Editor & Publisher called it “perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.”

Moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about—verbal gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channeling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously.

Enough is enough. The public needs the media to stop hurting the national dialogue in this important election year. Can you sign the petition to ABC and other media outlets and pass it on to friends who are also fed up? Click here for our must-see video with excerpts from last night—and to sign the petition:

The petition says: “Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and ‘gotchas’ that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions—ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people’s daily lives.”

We’ll deliver petition signatures to ABC and the networks hosting future debates. And if we reach 100,000 signatures, we’ll reprint the petition in an ad campaign targeting the networks on this issue.

ABC’s natural inclination will be to ignore their critics, so we need to go above and beyond to show them that the public is truly outraged. So, please, think about some friends who may be fed up with 2008 media coverage and forward them this email. If thousands of us do that, it’ll make a huge difference.

The reaction to last night’s debate has been very consistent:

“A stinker, an absolute car crash—thanks to the host network ABC…[It] ran the gamut from banal to inane. At the end of the debate members of the crowd appeared to be booing moderator Charlie Gibson.”—The Guardian’s Richard Adams2

“Halfway through the debate, not a single question on any policy issue had been asked.”—OpenLeft.com’s Chris Bowers3

“For the first 52 minutes…Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.”—Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales.4

“We’ve revisited bitter. We’ve gone back to Bosnia. We’ve dragged Rev. Wright back up onto the podium. We’ve mis-spent this debate by allowing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to ask questions that skirt what in my mind is what we need to know now.”—Philadelphia Inquirer’s Daniel Rubin5

Shame on ABC for letting voters down with last night’s abysmal debate. Bad debates aren’t just painful to watch—they actually hurt the country by distracting voters and politicians away from big issues of the day.

Please send a message to ABC and other media outlets that we need our national dialogue to focus on the real issues facing Americans. Click here to sign the petition:

Thanks for all you do.

–Adam G., Patrick, Anna, Peter, Justin, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Sources:

1. “Clinton-Obama Debate: ABC Decides Top Issues Facing Americans Are Gaffes, Flag Pins and ’60s Radicals,” Editor & Publisher, April 16, 2008

2. “Worst. Debate. Ever.” The Guardian blog, April 16, 2008

3. “Philadelphia Debate Thread,” Chris Bowers, OpenLeft.com, April 16, 2008

4. “In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC,” Washington Post, April 17, 2008

5. “The Debate Debacle,” The Philadelphia Inquirer blog, April 16, 2008

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

HELL NO, I WON’T SIGN!

Hillary Comes Out A-Blazing

Poster by CaliGirl4Hillary

Hillary sure showed her stuff and guff in the ABC Debates at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center Wednesday night. She had specifics on everything. To be honest, she had so many ideas and such grasp of them that my attention wavered, and I began cleaning house while listening. However, let’s not attribute that to her being a boring candidate (vs. a messianic, charismatic one.) Dude! That’s what I want to hire her for!!! She knows this *$%^+@g stuff. She can spout it out anytime on a dime, no rehearsed speech about policy here. Try it lately? In front of millions of people? In any domain that was posed, the chick has a grasp of the problem, has a plan, a program, ideas, and solutions to solve it. She’s better at and has a much better grasp of this stuff than any of those now or formerly running.

Okay, I called it wrong. I thought George S. would give Obama a safe, but George and Charlie Gibson were both very hard on him, to where I began saying to the TV, okay let’s get to the issues. Please! But, it was great to see the candidates side by side under fire and how they handled it. As Mrs. Clinton said, she’s used to it by now.

As baby boomers, I’d say that Hillary and I are cut from the same cloth. She’s big boat, mahayana as Buddhists say. The difference is that we took a separate fork at the turn. I couldn’t stomach political and went hippy, whereas Hillary was trying to figure it out and went political. Doubters might wonder, how’s that ‘big boat’ for half of a couple who earned over $100 million over the last eight years? Well, they gave $10 million to charity. How many people can claim that? (I think that’s why that revelation didn’t have legs for very long.) They make, they give back. The Secret, Laws of Attraction. Very popular over the last year or so, right? The Clintons know how to attract money, I certainly was earning more during the Clinton years. Don’t we want that? Taking our country from recession after the Bushs’ first war to a projected surplus of $3 trillion in eight years. I’ll take more of that.

How else is Hillary big boat? She said she’ll do everything she can to make sure that one of them is the President, that Dems will close ranks. As far as her plans: she’ll get us out of the war, had steps and a plan for that, and explained that the President is Commander in Chief and must ultimately make these decisions, not the military. She talked about capital gains, energy independence, and was strong on calling together other countries to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and protect Israel from obliteration. That’s big boat. No one sails until all of us are aboard.

Oh, and where was the other guy–Obama, I mean? Looking a bit tight and uncomfie in his body to me, he faltered on a night when he (finally) didn’t get a free ride. His answers floated around without alighting firmly on the ground about: who should win the election, his 20-year allegiance to Pastor Wright, his “bitter” remarks about PA, an unrepentant Weatherman associate, and the, um, ISSUES and his POLICIES.

Hillary is always better in debates. As she thinks and speaks on her feet, I increasingly see her as a better problem solver and uniter of all sides (she made some pointed barbs, but was always the lady) while under pressure.

TONIGHT: ABC Debate Action: Blog and Comment for Hillary

TONIGHT: ABC will host a Clinton vs. Obama debate tonight April 16 at 8PM ET, 7PM CT, 5pm PM.

HILLARY SUPPORTERS: Let’s take action! Write comments to ABC news and wherever else possible, and blog during and after the debate.

Go Hillary! You can do it!

Some of My (Best) Friends Are Hillary Haters

I can’t wait for tonight’s debate. Hillary is so great in debates, clear, concise–versus Obama’s hemming and hawing, quite different from his speechifying persona.

However, I’ll admit I’m a bit concerned that Hillary is walking into the lion’s den. For someone who helped get Bill elected in 1992, debate co-host George Stephanopoulos has been excessively cold to the Clintons ever since he left the administration during the first term. Like Bill Richardson, despite Richardson’s denials, Bill Clinton made Stephanopoulos the wunderkid a household name. On today’s Good Morning America, George brought us the new negative numbers for Hillary from the ABC/Washington Post Poll showing her lagging and commenting about all she has to do is lose the next three and it’s over.

How can it be that a candidate like Hillary, who repeatedly provides a platform of programs that show deep understanding of people and our country’s situation on all levels, is seen as less attractive than a candidate who belittles others, refuses to admit he’s wrong, attacks others for his own missteps, and flip flops (oh yes, I did) on issues from trade deals with Canada and women’s choice to name a few? How can a candidate who talks to multi-millionaires, and raises $2.9 million in one day, while gossiping about the (common) people not invited to the party be seen as honest and having a “new way” of doing politics?

When I worked in corporate America at Turner Broadcasting, one of my first jobs straight off the commune, I (finally) learned how companies work, (read: most anything in the world): Everything starts at the top. Whoever the top guy is, however he sees and interacts with the world, is how he’ll perceive it, and therefore will hire the person under him, and so on down the chain based on that vision.

Perhaps that explains why, when I e-announced my concerns about media bias against Hillary to my list of long-time women friends, a few flamed me. I received several all caps emails with slurs about Hillary, saying she’s a liar, showing a list of her “accomplishments” that looked like she’d attended only teas and never sponsored or passed any substantial legislation. When I read them, my impression was that she could have done them while she was getting her hair done. They were insulting and meant to be so. The hate mail came from women who make their living in the body-mind-spirit domains, which made their spewing all the more shocking to me. Okay, they’re not really my best friends, but I’ve known one for 35, the other for 15 years. This was about 1.5 months ago when I first began blogging. Although we’d agreed to disagree, they continued to push at me, sending me Hillary hate mail, until I said, “Okay, I get it, you’re trying to convert me. Please stop sending me this stuff.” They got it.

According to how Obama consistently reacts, my act of pointing out this hate would be seen as an offense and worthy of counter-attack. To me, it’s the same kind of backhanded dig he made when he said, “Uh, she’s alright,” about Hillary. I know high school snubs when I see them. I guess these are Ivy League ones that the big boyz play.

So I’d really like to get back to the issues, and hope the candidates do so in a lively debate this evening on ABC. Riverdaughter’s doing just that, in her tax day post in which she refers to Hillary’s new proposals for keeping manufacturing in the US.

But I can’t end without telling about an exchange that happened recently that caught me off guard . . . again. A young friend in his twenties whom I’ve known since he was a child, visited me recently, and couldn’t believe that I was supporting Hillary. He repeatedly blamed her and Bill for the poor current economy, and said what a liar and how disgusting Hillary is. We went around for several rounds, until I finally said he wasn’t going to convince me of anything and vice versa, pointing out that he was blind to his automatic sexist brain-washing. He protested, “but you know me, I’m a good guy.”

What shook me up actually was several times during our debate, he said, “I wouldn’t be caught associating with Hillary if I were you. I really wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be supporting her, you know, when the *@#! goes down.”

Now what was that? What’s going down? What’s going on here?

NYC Media Protest Eye Witness Report and Commentary

On the far sidelines of Friday’s Today Show an estimated 100-150 Hillary Clinton supporters expressed their voices, “carrying signs” to protest the media’s misogynist treatment of her. What a dedicated, resourceful crowd, brought together by pro-Hillary bloggers from NYC and North Carolina, spearheaded by Murray and KittyNC respectively.

The event’s press release contained quotes of some of the unconscious commentator clips from the YouTube video in my April 10, 2008 post. I have the press release and was going share some of those slurs here, but as I began typing them in, I lost the desire to repeat them, and send them out into the Universe one more time. Maybe another day. You can watch the video and catch them all.

I’m coming around to this: If there’s nothing glaring, I’m going to switch my focus, at least I’m going to try. Yes, I’m a stickler for fairness. But I think it’s more important, and healthier too, as so many great bloggers do, to promote Hillary’s accomplishments, platforms, and programs than it is to be a media victim. I did say “nothing glaring,” AND I will try to accentuate the positive.

On the other hand, I’m a child of the sixties and practice both seemingly contradictory yogas: I will never stop protesting. I will always want to make love not war.

DNC “Partybuilder” an Oxymoron

Thanks to a sharp commenter on TaylorMarsh.com, we’re aware of how unaware the DNC.

On their website “partybuilder” (is that a new oxymoron, kids?), there’s an event announcement and sign up for: NATIONAL RALLY FOR BARACK OBAMA!! Here’s the rest of the announcement from democrats.org:

(Organizing)

April 12, 2008 – 12 noon

Please help get the word out. Tell all your friends. Send text messages, emails, and make phone calls.

This is a nationwide rally to be held simultaneously across Amercia…all over the country, in all cities and states to send a unified voice in support of Barack Obama. The event will be coordinated to occur everywhere at the same time !

We need your help ! Time is of the essence !

Refer everyone to http://www.newswatchdogservice.com to register to attend/volunteer for this event or contact 1voice4obama@newswatchdogservice.com

Time:	Saturday, April 12 at 12:00 PM
Duration:	3 hours
Host:	rita collins
Location:	NATIONAL (Baltimore, MD)
Associated Groups:	Baltimore City Democrats

Signup for ‘NATIONAL RALLY FOR BARACK OBAMA!!’

Will you attend:
How many attendees total: 0 (incl. yourself)

Would you like to volunteer?

———————————————————————–

(I didn’t want to give them so much large, bold type, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of it.) Probably shouldn’t even give it this much juice; not even sure if I should tag it.

I hate to send anyone there needlessly, except to complain, but here it is: http://www.democrats.org/page/event/detail/organizing/4vmxk

See for yourself. (shaking my head) Just doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem right.

I was so shocked (what’s wrong with me?) to see the call to action right there on their website that I didn’t think to write a comment to the poster. I did, however, write to the DNC:

What is the DNC thinking?

I’m a lifelong, dedicated Democrat. As far as I can find, the DNC is not hosting any voter numbers nor tallies of the popular or delegate votes here on its website. You ARE, however, hosting a partybuilder event that’s sponsoring a nationwide Obama day! What a sham! I can’t believe this obvious bias and why this announcement wouldn’t be moderated! The DNC won’t get a cent of money or support from me until they clean up their act.

I’ll admit that last part sounds pretty hateful. Over the years, my support has primarily been at the volunteer rather than monetary level, so no loss to them. Do I sound defensive? It’s more bark than bite. Call me naive; I can’t believe each new low to which the DNC seems to go. Have they/we chosen a candidate yet?

Is it just that I finally feel old enough to bitch about this stuff? Yes. A result of technology? Yes. Or is it that everything’s so crucial right now? I won’t take this #@*! standing down, baby.

NYC Protest Against Media Bias: Friday, April 11, 8am, 2008

Here’s the information about tomorrow’s NYC protest in Rockefeller Plaza (fitting, isn’t it) organized by HillaryClintonForum.net and Veterans4Hill.com. I look forward to seeing you there. Anyone have an extra sign I can use?

Attention Hillary Supporters!

Join The Protest Against Media Bias, Hate Speech, and Voter Suppression!

New York City — Friday, April 11 (8am), 2008 @ West 48th St & Rockefeller Plaza

We demand an END to Media Bias!

We demand an END to Hate Speech!

We demand an END to Prejudice against Hillary!

We demand Florida & Michigan votes COUNT as cast!

We demand an END to Rigging of the Democratic Primary!

We are standing up and demanding an end to these abuses of power! Our protest signs & banners should: Support Hillary Clinton, Protest Media/MSNBC Bias, Protest Hate Speech & Prejudice against Hillary, Demand Michigan & Florida Votes Count, Protest Rigging of the Democratic Primary Election!

This is a peaceful protest. We do not represent Hillary Clinton but as supporters of her politics we embody her values and accordingly, must conduct ourselves respectfully at all times. Anti-Obama or Anti-McCain signs are NOT welcome.

This protest is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, the official Hillary Clinton for President campaign and is being independently organized, funded and operated.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
www.hillaryclintonforum.net
admin@hillaryclintonforum.net

Media Bias Against Hillary Exposed: Watch This

If you have any doubts about the sexist, misogynist treatment of Hillary by the mainstream media, watch this clip compilation of a gaggle of “news” show moderators, pundits, and commentators.

It pains my heart that, after watching the same thing I watched, some YouTube commenters are just as far away from realization as before they viewed it. They’re blind to their unconscious misogyny.

Which points to something I’ve been wondering about lately regarding our capacity for clearly seeing and evaluating the candidates: The way in which each person in this country and worldwide views the candidates is based on many filters. Our filters are based in who we are, our circumstances, the life we’ve lived, influences we’ve had and still have. People are passionate about this election, thank God! But can you really convince anyone to have a clear mind, to wake up, and be free of their prejudices–sexism, racism, or any -ism–if they remain unconscious of them? Isn’t that the challenge, the whole challenge of living, of human nature?

Boy, this feels pretty pessimistic for me. What is the best way to challenge blind assumptions? Time to push away from the computer and take a walk into Spring. I think that’s the optimal state to begin having that internal and external exploration and conversation. Do you? Time to meditate. Take a breath. The sun’s out. Inhale. Ahhh. Exhale. Ahhh.

Voter Numbers Missing from DNC Website

There must have been a robbery. The voter numbers seem to be missing from the Democratic National Committee’s website. Where are they? Why are the popular vote and delegate count totals missing?

Wouldn’t you think that the DNC would post the totals on their website and describe the race?

What if the martians came down (or escaped from Area 51) and asked (in an instantaneous translation into English),

What’s going on here?

Who’s in the race?

What are the totals?

Who’s winning?

Shouldn’t the party who sponsors the race be able to at least point those curious martians to the facts by having it on their website? Is this how they usually handle things? After all, it is the Democratic party home, and one would think that they’d host their own tallies. (If someone can find them–the tallies, the martians, or the DNC–please clue me in. I’ve searched high and low.)

To make a point in an earlier blog post, I quoted the voter results with and without FL that I found on a Google map, which sourced the Boston Globe and a political blog. I found it to be the clearest depiction of the simple numbers. In looking back to write a reply, thought I’d resource the numbers again and, not finding them on the dem.org website, searched Google for hours for other sources. The numbers all varied and made me dizzy. Where is the actual popular vote count to date, and how could it differ so much?

The fact that the DNC (read: Howard Dean) is subversively MIA on this is shouting its non-biased complicity in perpetuating a weird state of affairs.