What follows is an email I sent to Naomi Klein, today, requesting permission to freely reproduce “The Shock Doctrine”. In a nutshell, teachers could distribute a serialized version to students after school, from the the comfort of a public sidewalk where they have First Amendment rights. They would do this, hopefully, not just out of concern for their own livelihoods, but for a broader concern for stimulating deep reform in the US.

WhatInTheFuckHasObamaDoneSoFar.com is given credit in the new movie called Lifting the Veil from the same folks that brought us “PsyWar” and “Human Resources”.

The one main benefit to the financial reform effort so far is that it helps further do away with the false paradigms of “left” or “right” and “Democrat” or “Republican” – fewer and fewer people are falling for those lies anymore. Try to get an ideological conservative to explain why Republicans love spending and so eagerly give welfare to banks. Try to get your local liberal to explain why it was a good idea to make backroom deals with abhorrent corporations and drill, baby, drill. Heck, even try to get a Tea Partier to explain choosing bailout-lover Sarah Palin to keynote their convention, especially when that movement once had at least some pre-astroturf roots in protesting government giveaways.

What we have now is a group of politicians with shifting alliances on a case-by-case basis to the special interests who fund them. And currently, the most damaging one to our nation is the rise of the Bankster Party. Thankfully, we can now better identify its members.

This video needs little comment. I post it because some people think that public service unions, such as the WI teachers’ union, should get supported by American workers, no strings attached, even though (by my reckoning), American unions are quite selfish. See, e.g., my discussion in Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Union Workers. See also my diary Why are there no MLK’s of Labor?

People need to get busy organizing productively for their future, but quite frankly, a lot of us need to have a good laugh, maybe moreso. So, why not attempt to

1) provide that laugh

2) put Primary Obama / Dump Obama on the national radar

3) start the evangelizing process for Primary Obama / Dump Obama

4) provide networking opportunities

5) let people work out some of their frustrations, at least temporarily

My plan is simple – Water Balloon Obama in Effigy! Nation-wide!

This is mostly a re-posting of an answer to a comment in the FDL diary  Last Call for Nominees: Who Should Primary Obama? Just discussing Dump Obama will never turn it into a movement. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Dump Obama at FDL. Great, but that fact and $1.00 will still only get you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s. Hopefully, a sub-goal of a Dump obama movement will be to help dispel the notion that political activity which is limited to ‘making statements’, ‘raising consciousness’, etc. is some kind of slam dunk, which can never be a complete waste of time and energy. An even worse situation: a preponderance of informational activities can provide a diversion from effective organization.

This was a reply to a comment in a GOTV diary called Suppose Your Actions Swung the Election. I compare what I saw happening (and not happening), to what could have happened, that would have made a big difference.

cross posted at FireDogLake

As happy as I am to see game theory applied to politics (I’v called for this myself, many times) and, in particular, it being used against stupid and unproductive lesser-evilist voting, I can’t say that I’m happy about the lack of organization matching such diaries and comments.

I’m endlessly dismayed by the lack of leadership and moral courage I observe from people and institutions that I would otherwise expect more of. I posted a Quick Hit at OpenLeft called

“Nobody marched at the One Nation “march””

which was about a diary in FDL called

“Progressive “One Nation” Event a Bit Disappointing, We Didn’t March: ”

in which the question of the lack of strong leadership by unions naturally arises.  The contents of this diary flowed from that discussion.

Bruce Dixon, from the Black Agenda Report, wrote a very interesting diary for OpenLeft called “Moving the conversation forward — our plan in Georgia”

http://openleft.com/diary/2033…

In that diary, Dixon goes into the substantial roadblocks to primarying bad Dems, including a dearth of plausible allies inside the Democratic Party:

Though Rev. Lowery and some others are dear friends and respected elders, the traditional civil rights organizations have also been captured by corporate donors. Neither they nor labor are any use at all in challenging any elected Democrat.

Primarying these corporate Democrats has many disadvantages, some of which I’ve discussed elsewhere. The most telling for me are that

1. no news coverage on political issues makes getting people’s attention in primary seasons much harder work than it ought to be

2. once the primary season is over, you have to flog the vote out for a slate of corporate Dems who often despise your entire community.

Dixon then goes into the strategy for growing a Green Party in GA, initially in at least the black areas of the state. His plan seems reasonable and do-able, though on re-reading it, I have to confess I’m not sure if he’s only focussed on attaining state offices, for the time being! That’s how I read the diary, when it came out.

More after the flip

The fertile mind of Jeff Roby has lately come to openly ruminate about a DUMP OBAMA movement. This diary poses the open question as to what main points a DUMP OBAMA manifesto should make. What should a 5 minute elevator speech sound like? If you casually mentioned to a co-worker that you joined a DUMP OBAMA movement, and they asked you “Why?” or “What’s that about?”, what would you want to say?

One suggestion by yours truly below the flip.

Unfortunately, I can’t provide a link, because of the way that it’s encoded by msnbc.com

If you want to see it, bring up msnbc tv (from msnbc.com), and look for the July 30 video called “Bullock questions big oil ties to group”.

Turns out that Big Oil funded that campaign, which is what I suspected.