Digby’s latest Post Stock market highs — and high unemployment: the new normal? struck me today because of a comment that Thurbers made on my post last night.

“We the People” are closer to the abused employees and/or the defrauded customers of Amy’s Baking Company. We are the real victims, but despite our numbers we are the ones with the least recourse and the least power to change the narrative.

- Thurbers comment 8 Firedoglake

It reminds me of the spot on Onion story, American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress.

I’m really sick of how “the economy” is the stock market. It. Is. NOT. I also know that the constituents of unemployed and underemployed aren’t out there putting pressure on congress or the President.  (I’m thinking of paraphrasing SF Writer Harlan Ellison,  ”Dear Obama and Congress. Fuck you. Hire me!”)

When I was traveling cross country to see my sick mother two years ago unemployment was the real issue on people minds, I asked them why they thought the media was writing about the deficit. They didn’t have an answer. I asked if they had heard of Pete Peterson. Nobody had. “Would it surprise you to know that he is a billionaire and is making sure the media cover the deficit and ignore unemployment? Did you know that he is spending at least 500 million dollars to make sure the press cover this?” Nobody had heard of him.

One guy (an owner of a Popeye’s chicken franchise) said that there was probably some billionaire (he suggested George Soros) spending lobbying money to demand more government jobs. Or maybe the Unions were. I said, “Soros isn’t spending his money on this. The unemployed aren’t spending their money on this, they think it should be obvious. I don’t know what the Unions are doing, but they aren’t the force they once were.”

So my question is, if our elected representatives aren’t pushing for jobs, our liberal billionaires aren’t pushing for jobs, and we don’t have any highly paid lobbyists pushing for jobs, is there anyone who “counts” pushing for jobs? (And by that I mean someone who could get the attention of our congress, President or media.)

The media don’t want to write about the lack of jobs because “Stock market!” and frankly those stories are boring, nobody wants to write them and nobody wants to read them. Gawker is having a series on them and it’s like reading the sad stories on “Queen for a day” that women would tell so they could get a washing machine.

It feels like the unemployed have no leverage, no voice and nobody who is going to be their voice since they don’t have anything to give to the people who should be listening and who can make changes.

There is no sense of urgency about this problem in DC. Remember the urgency during the airlines slowdown? Inconvenience the politicians it’s, HAIR ON FIRE TIME. Millions unemployed year after year? They quote Jesus, “The unemployed will always be with us.”

The media need deadlines. Where is the ticking time bomb of this issue? Where is the disaster coverage of this disaster?

And why the hell aren’t the conservatives trying to hang unemployment around Obama’s neck?  Because it might help unemployed people get government jobs? How many jobs are the trumped up Benghazi scandal creating?

I didn’t mean this to be yet another long-winded Vulcan post, but Digby’s blog still doesn’t have a place to comment and so I’m bringing it to you.

I’d like to think that DC responds to events, but after new gun laws following Newtown got voted down, even though the majority of the voters wanted them, I’m thinking we need more than an event,  you need a goddamn money canon to shoot cash down the halls of Congress.

People sometimes talk about the people marching on Washington to get their attention. (“This time let’s bring real pitchforks!” They don’t care, only the hotels and restaurants in DC care. What will get their attention is if we jam more money down their throat than the other people bribing them. Since we can’t do that, then we need to cut off their money streams so that votes actual count for something again.  The reason that everyone is talking about getting money out of politics is that until that happens my voice is drowned out.

Speaking of money. I want something good to come out of the IRS scandal. Something the right doesn’t want.

I want Congress to rewrite the 501 c code laws. People are complaining about the IRS? Well the IRS is complaining too. “Give us better bright lines so we can define what “social welfare groups” can and can’t do.

I want them to change the rules so big corporations and rich individuals can’t give anonymous money.  I want to chase away the people who want to hide behind  front groups.  ”But that will hurt liberal groups too! Yeah right, as if George Soro is trying to hide. You don’t hide unless you are afraid that people will use that information against you. If they aren’t doing anything wrong what are they afraid of? I’m looking at you Ham Rove. Sure they will find another way, 527′s, laundering money through belief tanks and dead people foundations, but if they want to cry about the IRS thwarting them, let’s really give them something to cry about.

 Photos top: Shane Gorski bottom: RhonsTopModel Creative Commons Attribution license

Cross dressed at Spocko’s Brain

Have you watched Amy Bouzaglo of  Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro on Gordan  Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmare (Season 6 episode 16)? It was gripping TV which led to a social media disaster. At tomorrow’s press conference we’ll see how good her PR team from Rose+Moser+Allyn Public and Online Relations is at their job. Based on this early story in the Phoenix Business Journal I think they are going to be very successful. Why? Because they will be deploying techniques used by conservative politicians in the media.
UPDATE 5/20 PM: I wrote this earlier today and just found out that the press conference is canceled and the PR firm has resigned.  Here is the story in the Phoenix Biz Journal h/t to @barbinnebraska for the update.

For non-watchers I realize I’ve started in media res and you probably haven’t been following along, so here is video from the episode where Ramsey’s production team films what happens before, during and after the show at ABC Bakery Boutique & Bistro. To compound the problems caught on cameras, someone on their Facebook page started responding to criticism. Here is the Buzzfeed link about that. You will note that they have already taken the first step that politicians take when something terrible goes out on social media. “We were hacked!” Later they might change that message, see my section below, Social media “melt down” on Facebook.

I do not like “reality” TV, because I know that via the editing process you can change almost anything. These shows also have a certain standard arc they go though, all that differs are the characters and how they respond.  This episode is different because Ramsey didn’t follow though on his standard,”Then we fixed things and it’s all better.” The reason he gives for breaking the format is that the owners would not listen to his advice.

Fixing a Meal vs. Fixing a Reputation

I was thinking about the reason I wanted to write about this story. As much fun as it is to watch people fighting, what I really want to look at is the rehabilitation process. Why? Because Dick Cheney. Because Mark Sanford. (Not to mention “wide stance” guy and “has sex with prostitutes while wearing a diaper” guy. )

The rehabilitation process is important because the main stream media will not fight it from happening.  If they actively fought it that would make them partisian. The best they can do is, “he said, she said, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. ” The media doesn’t write the story, “Dick Cheney says, blank” which has been proved a lie.” Why would they? It’s not news. It’s history, everyone “knows” what happened. Meanwhile the RW media can push the new, “Dick Cheney was the hero we needed” story.  History is written by whomever owns the media — and has a good spin team.

The other reason I want to watch this is because Elliot Spitzer.  Because Antony Weiner. Because Jim McGreevey.  But, and this is important, the rehabilitation of reputation is different for the left vs. the right. The public and the press have different expectations and actions following a scandal.

You see I’d LIKE to rehabilitate Elliot Spitzer. I’d like to rehabilitate Antony Weiner. I’d like to stop the rehabilitation of Dick Cheney and Mark Sanford.

Are You Prepared for the Elizabeth Warren Scandals?

I’m preparing for future scandals. I’m trying to help us know how to fight and then if we lose to rehabilitate people targeted by the right.  I’m currently in love with Elizabeth Warren, she is standing up to Wall Street and if history is any guide Wall Street will strike back. Hard. Dirty hard. Clinton “Whitewater” hard.  James O’Keefe faked videotape hard. Leaked identity of Valeria Plame hard.

Now I could advise Senator Warren to not do anything wrong, but she is an imperfect human and we have seen that scandals both real and manufactured are exploited to drive people out of office. But what I want to point out is that our media environment is very different and that WE need to understand it when scandal comes a knocking, both during the first stages and then to help with rehabilitation from real or manufactured scandals. I wish I could educate the MSM about these, but the best we can do it to remind them of times they were punked by the RW.  “Hey, Jonathan Karl of ABC, what is the providence of that video/email? Has it been edited? By whom? Might they have an agenda?  Do you have the whole story? Can you use Google and the phone before you run the story?”

I’ve worked with a lots of executives to help them with messages and dealing with the press, but they usually don’t reach Amy and Samy’s heights of self annihilation. I’ve been brought in after some big mistakes though and there are a couple of considerations. First up is understanding the personality of the company, organization and person and second is which deciding on which narrative you want to activate.

 Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro Press Conference May 21, 2013

Based on the Phoenix Business Journal article I’m betting this will be their strategy.

1) Play the victim card. Gorden Ramsey is the bad guy, Amy and Samy are victims. They don’t have to do anything more than show clips of him screaming and swearing at other chefs from Hell’s Kitchen or his other American Kitchen Nightmare shows. The man can easily be shown as a frightening monster.

2) Line up supporters.  An appeal to “the tribe” goes out. They will work to line up loyal customers to talk about their great experiences.  These people will be made easily available to the press. The press might dig up just one former customer, but unless people are actively making themselves available, deadlines loom. Besides, in the face of happy customers, why search for unhappy ones? That is just “piling on” and at this point the press want to give her “a fair hearing” if they dig for bad stories they are being biased, and that is the sin that they never want to commit.

3) Work the “facts.” Note that I don’t say facts. So for example, lots of people were stunned when the owner pocketed the tips of the wait staff. They will point out that it was legal since they didn’t pay them as wait staff, but as hourly employees. However, one of the tricks is that you say even though what you did was legal, for appearances sake, you are going to change what you did. But remember, it was totally legal! (The press aren’t going to look for previous diners who felt that they were being defrauded.  Are any diners going to sue for that? Nope. Legal matter closed. Nothing to see here folks move along.)

4) Social media “melt down” on Facebook. There are a lot of “social media guru’s” out there, but coping with the press takes a different skill. There are a few ways to go here.

 A) Lie. Stick to the lie and keep lying.  The good news is that the media will take you at your word and, because they don’t comment on cases, the FBI won’t comment either. And, they can also get away with a lie because nobody at Facebook is going to come forward and say, “Here is the IP address that these comments were coming from at this date and time.  If they were hacked it was from the computer inside the house of Amy and Samy.”  Nobody at the press conference are going to call them liars since they have no proof it was them. (What if Amy and Samy admit to the PR people they weren’t hacked? Do they counsel she stick with the lie? Maybe they think of themselves like a lawyer defending a guilty criminal. After all Amy and Samy are counting on the PR team to defend them and get them off the hook in the “court of public opinion.”   Of course, there is another way but it might not fight the “I’m right no matter what you say.” personality of Amy.

B) Admit you weren’t hacked, “Yes it was us, but we were under severe emotional strain at the time, our business was being destroyed by Gordon Ramsey and Reddit and Yelpers.” Now I think they could finesse this, especially if they get Amy to cry on cue.  “You don’t know what it is like watching your last six years go up on smoke because of mean internet comments!  It will be very easy for the PR team to show the nasty comments at Reddit, members of the community can be can be very cruel to people they don’t like. They can also be very generous and supportive of others, but Amy’s actions and behaviors turned them off.

C) Play up “cyber-bully nastiness. She might say, “We got death threats! They said terrible things about us!”  Using the death threat card is smart because there is always some idiot who can be found who will say something stupid like that and nobody asks to see the exact email/threat and asks if the FBI is following up on it. Often the wording is , ‘I hope you die.” or “You don’t deserve to live.’ rarely is it, ‘I’m going to come to your home and kill you.”  All these comments work to switch the public’s perception of her from a bully to a victim.  Then her responses were simply her standing up to the online bullies. Nobody likes bullies.

5) “The Marketplace decides” follow up story. There will be the follow up to the press conference, a whole week of dining where the people who can attend are screened. If the press bothered to ask who attended you would find friends, relatives, employees of the owners and the PR firm. Anyone who isn’t a fan will clearly be an enemy who is out to do no good and has a preconceived bias.  We know that many Redditer’s will try and dine there and rate the food and service. Some might actively seek to create a fuss. Now if I was in charge of this phase of the rehabilitation I would first remind the press that anyone who says anything bad about the service or food is just doing it out of malice and to view their comments in that light. This will turn all diners into either, “with us or against us” so that even someone who claims to be “impartial” can’t be. The point is to discredit any criticism in advance.  Once you have split up the dinners into these categories you have the classic “both sides” of the story, yet the negative side has an agenda! (As if the plus side doesn’t but we don’t question them and their providence for being there during the comeback week.)

All these Words are Making me Hungry Spocko. What about Dick Cheney and Mark Sanford’s Rehabilitation?

Now what can we learn from this as it relates to the Dick Cheney and Mark Sanford rehabilitation? One of the ways that the PR firm will want to control the story is to count on the speed of the media and the reluctance of old enemies to just get tired of fighting . They also know about the inability of the press to trust their own memories and truth.  That means that in the ABC Bistro press conference  there will be no new negative Gordon Ramsey comments. Ramsey might decide that he is better served by just staying out of the whole kerfuffle and saying, “They didn’t listen to me so I couldn’t help them, I stand by what I said and I wish them well. “   If he decides to keep harping on them it will play into the narrative, “See, Ramsey is a Bully!”

Also, you will not see the 100 employees dismissed during the last year of working at ABC Baking Boutique, Bistro and Brasserie. They is not an organizer getting all these people together to reinforce their experience that Samy and Amy are difficult to work with or that they often got complaints about the food.  The absence of victims is a critical part of the success of the rehabilitation. The press can’t report on what they didn’t experience and if the people who experienced it don’t make it super easy to be found and are articulate, well too bad for them.

Imagine if we could have gotten Mark Sandford’s wife to come forward during his press conference and say, “This jerk cheated on me and he will cheat on the public too. He had the gall to break our marriage vows, lie about what he was doing and where he was spending time “hiking.” Do you think he won’t break his promises to the voters? Oh and he trespassed on our yard violating the restraining order, which I still have in force to this day. I don’t trust him in my house, you shouldn’t trust him in yours.”  This didn’t happen because she might be hoping the father of her children  could get another paying job.  Maybe she had a divorce settlement that said she couldn’t talk about anything. I don’t know her reasons and I’m not the injured party, what I do know is that if there are not protestations from the victims to the press during the rehabilitation process, the media often want to give the person a shot at a ‘second act in American life”

Dick Cheney is Creating His own Reality TV show: The Shining Black Heart of Freedom – (coming this fall on Fox!)

Dick Cheney will go to Fox and his own media channels and the co-opted MSM.  I wonder if anyone is tailing him during his rehabilitation press tour? They could demand that they get equal time to refute him. Maybe someone who wrote a book about Dick? Come on PR people at publishers! This is your shot to promote your book author! Sadly, not only won’t the MSM listen, they actively thwart people who might offer expert questions, saying, ” Trust me. I will ask tough questions!”  People who think they could ask Dick Cheney tough questions don’t usually realize just how skilled Cheney is with his answers. He is also skilled in avoiding non-deferring media. Dick is creating his own “reality” for the country. One in which he is the hero and that what he did what was right, and that people who disagree with him are just wrong.

The impact to the nation of Amy and Samy’s rehabilitation is much lower than that of Cheney and Stanford, but if you watch you can learn how it is done. If I was personally injured by Amy or Samy I might act to thwart their rehabilitation, but I’m not. However I was, and am, injured by Dick Cheney’s actions.   If you want to help the MSM and thwart his legacy, now is the time to actively bug the MSM covering him and his new documentary. Get some experts in the mix to educate the media about his outright lies and faulty assumptions he used to lead us to war.

Now I’m off to make some home made pizza!

Have you noticed the Cumulus v. Rush stories in the press lately? What makes me crazy is thinking about all the questions that could be asked of the distributors, media corporations and the people who have made money or spent money on right wing media. Sadly they won’t be asked, although if they were asked I suspect the answers would range from, “No comment.” to, “We don’t have to tell you nothin’ Poindexter” and include lots of, ” We are a private company! Now drop and give me 20 stories on missing white women!”

Although public companies like Cumulus will answer a few questions, those answers will mostly be bullshit. I also know that no one in the press will call them on their doublespeak because shut up. But if I was an old timey journalist, wearing a fedora with PRESS in the hat band I would ask ‘em. I know I wouldn’t get any good answers of course, but it would be fun to watch the squirming. Today’s journalists aren’t about making anyone squirm. Not their job. Getting deeper truthful answers? Not their job. Reporting what they say exactly as they say it? That’s their job.

Here are a few questions I would ask of media companies that syndicate Rush or make money from the ads they sell during the show. I’d start with my natural wide-eyed innocence and then proceed to my grizzled, impatient self and finally ask sarcastic, cynical questions.

1) Why don’t you treat Rush like any other poorly performing asset and dump him for something better?
Answer: [mumble mumble.] He’s a fine asset, he still has the highest ratings in the industry! Frumpy, frumpy, frumpy. There is no one better! Next question.

2) Why don’t you renegotiate his contract?
Answer: We aren’t in a position at this time to discuss contract terms.

They will compare Rush to an athlete with two broken legs. He has to be paid even if he can’t play until the contract is over. As we know from the banking industry only the little people can never walk away from an asset that is under-performing. The big boys do it all the time, why aren’t they now?.

3) Why don’t you find a way out of the contract?
Answer: [ Something, something, pause] At this juncture we don’t have that option.

Translation, “We are trying to figure something out, unfortunately his lawyers are smarter than our lawyers and they removed all the loopholes to get out of it.”

4) Why don’t you demand that Rush find a way to return to profitability? Why don’t you demand that Rush “stop insulting women” so you can reach out to advertisers other than herbal boner pill makers?
Answer: Our conversations with Mr. Limbaugh aren’t subject to public disclosure.

[Behind the scenes with ad sales guys: That fat bastard didn't even return our calls! We've GOLFED with him! I laughed at his stupid dirty jokes! We kept him on when he was popping Oxy like doughnut holes! Oh, his "people" say, "This will blow over. Advertisers will come back." we are tired of waiting Rushbo. Unlike him we have to work and live with real women . Women who put up with him when he made us money but now won't buy our line, "Sure he is a pig, but he's our pig and he's making us a butt load of money".]

If you have to ask you aren’t part of the boys’ club, questions.

The following questions should be asked but the answers are usually unstated. Everybody just “knows” the answer. To even mention them is considered naive. Questions such as:
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I used to think that if only America’s political leaders could see the unemployed in the media, and hear their stories they would act. I don’t believe that anymore.

Right now in news rooms across the nation well-meaning editors are assigning someone to write a “balanced” story about the Dow breaking 15,000 that also includes some stories about people struggling to find work.  They know not to totally cheer the Dow, “See, we know that not everything is okay, so here’s a sad story of a person sort of like you, which you will dismiss in 10 seconds because it’s depressing as  hell.” ( Pam Spauling’s story “Over 55, out of work more than six months? Headhunters say you’re screwed.” made me loath my birthday and myself instead of loathing the people driving our economy. Their incorrect, destructive austerity metaphor is destroying lives as surely as bullets in our brains.)

I used to believe that personal stories, combined with cold hard statistics could break through to politicians and policy makers who would say, ‘Enough! The lack of good jobs with good wages is a national tragedy, we must fix it or I’ll never get re-elected!” I had the same delusion when it came to weapons. Silly rational Spocko. I thought 20 dead kids with their arms and legs shot off combined with 90 percent of the country behind a sensible change in gun laws would do the trick.  I was an optimist, but I am not stupid. I do know how the world works. It takes more than stories and statistics. It takes leverage.

Individual stories about the unemployed won’t force politician into working for change.  Polling data showing a desire for jobs aren’t going to move politicians to act.  You might get some pity, and a pledge for future action, but not the massive shift in actions we need RIGHT NOW.  Especially when the unemployed people whose stories finally get told aren’t donating to your re-election campaign or you don’t need to be re-elected.

The people who benefit when the Dow soars use their leverage to keep the country on course with current economic policies.  Policies which don’t include a massive jobs program in the United States, because those people don’t feel the pain the way the rest of us feel the pain.  You will note that when they do feel something they call pain, say in the form of delayed flights, they will let the politicians know and they are quickly healed, even if it is a band-aid just for them.  Who is using leverage to ease our pain?

People who read me know that I’m a big science fiction fan (my name is a clue!) but I’m also a fan of what I call “comeuppance stories” ones where a person or group of people work together to ensure the bad guys get their comeuppance. I don’t like violent revenge stories, but stories of justice. I like seeing a show of karma in this lifetime.  In the olden days journalists used to work on stories that lead to someone getting their comeuppance. You know, “afflict the comfortable.” But now these kind of stories are almost entirely seen in fiction.

These days people who SHOULD be getting their comeuppance have insulated themselves from the traditional sources of comeupatude–the press, the prosecutor, the politicians, the people.

Instead of the press creating stories that might lead to someone’s comeuppance they wait for someone else to do the heavy lifting and jump in to report on  “both sides.”

Prosecutors don’t want to go after big complex cases.  Politicians see that if you have a well-funded small group of supporters you can ignore the people. And the people, well the people can rant and rave and march and tweet, but if they don’t have leverage (via the law, politicians they own, money streams they control, votes they can cast or dirt they know) nothing will happen.

So that is why I think about ways to gain leverage. Since I’m a communicator I often think about how to use the media, but I know that you need multiple methods. I always like to point out the successes we have had interrupting the money stream of right wing media. The naysayers love to come back with, “Yes, but… Rush is still rich, Beck is back.” I remind them that this one form of leverage worked when people thought nothing ever would. (I wish that the media that cover this story would ask about the goals of the people coordinating the advertiser alert campaigns instead of listening to the straw men that are offered up by the subjects.)

We wanted advertisers to walk away from the hosts because the host was tainting their brand. They did. We wanted to create a situation in a corporation that is financially unsupportable if they wanted normal ad sources. We did.  We showed shareholders that what was an asset has become either a liability or an under-performing asset. CEOs responded as they often do with other under-performing assets in a pure capitalist environment.  They look at ways to get out of their contract.

We need to be constantly looking for leverage points to help the economy of the 99% sometimes it involves pushing for accountability, other times it involves pushing for people to enforce the laws that still exist. I have showed how with one model we used successfully against the RW media, but there are others.  I know there are more “comeuppance” stories out there. People love those stories. There is a reason that Shawshank Redemption is a lot of people’s favorite movie.

So tonight or tomorrow, as you listen to “Dow Soars!” stories and skim over the depressing bits about the unemployed, “Joe Btfsplk is 55 years old and has sent out 3,500 resumes blah, blah blah, spent retirement saving, yada yada yada played by the rules. zzzzz” think about what kind of leverage you can wield to help change things. What leverage can you develop that helps the 99%? I look forward to reading your comeuppance stories. Read the rest of this entry →

I’ve long held that the most powerful force in the country right now are lobbyists. And the lobbyist’s lobbyists are the NRA’s lobbyists.

People always ask the boring ol’ question, “What would do you do if you won the lottery or a genie granted you one wish.”(For the record if I won the lottery I’d start a Progressive think tank that attacks right wing think tanks. If it was a genie I’d like a working spaceship.)   But what would you do if you had NRA’s lobbyist power at your fingertips?  I know what I’d do. I’d hire them to work against the weapons manufacturers and the NRA’s leadership.

I ask this question because on Thursday at 12:00 Noon EDT my buddy Cliff Schecter and a great group of people are protesting the K-Street Lobbyists in DC who are paid by the weapons manufacturers and the NRA to subvert the will of the people.

WASHINGTON, DC –Riding a wave of public anger at the Senate’s failure to pass even minimal gun control legislation, a coalition of activists, advocates and campaign finance reformers will lead a march on Washington firearms lobbyists this Thursday, April 25 at NOON. The goal is to drag the lobbyists out of the shadows where they prefer to operate and expose exactly how the National Rifle Association subverts democracy.

The event will begin with a news conference in McPherson Square, where gun violence prevention leaders will lay out the web of influence controlled by the NRA and unveil a new anti-NRA artwork by Shepard Fairey, who produced the most memorable image of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

The protest will then move along the K Street corridor, symbolically holding up giant checks from the NRA made out to key lobbying firms and delivering crime-scene photos illustrating the devastating effects of gun violence to those firms’ offices.

(More here at The Political Carnival)

Now you’ve all heard the old saying, “Nobody is the villain in their own life narrative.” I’m sure that the people who convinced the senators to defy the desires of 90% of their constituents don’t think they are doing a bad thing. When I get the photos from the event I’ll put up pictures of the big checks made out to their firms. (“You are already a winner Mr. NRA Lobbyist!”)

Did you ever see the movie, Thank You for Smoking? It’s based on a very funny book written by the only funny conservative I know, Christopher Buckley.  It’s about a tobacco lobbyist and how he convinces himself that what he is doing is right, and how it pays his mortgage. He works with two other lobbyists. One for the gun lobby and another for the liquor industry. They call themselves the MOD squad for Merchants Of Death.

The other day I was telling my friend Cary Grant (not his real name) about how sad, but unsurprised, I was that the NRA lobbyists had ensured that the Senate couldn’t pass a bill to increase gun safety. He said, “Why don’t you become a lobbyist?”

That kind of blew me away. I’ve been fascinated with the power of lobbyists for awhile now and like to hear and read stories how it’s “really done.” Not the TV versions, but the behind the scenes stuff where someone sends you a check for 200 million dollars and says, “Block this bill” or “Get the votes for this bill to pass, don’t tell me how you do it, just do it!” and then the team sits down, plans the strategy and then starts setting up meetings for doling out money to politicians, belief tanks, writers, pollsters, golf trips and restaurants.

I’ll bet there are the Power Point presentations with statistics and 3D Graphics with great ideas for Op-Eds to write.  Do they still use hookers and blow these days? Do they come up with bumper sticker slogans? Catch phrases? (“When seconds count the police are only minutes away!” Is my current favorite.) I know they set up fake grass roots groups, I’m sure they have social media methods to amplify the words of true believers beyond their actual numbers.

They really are powerful, and if they are anything like the rich powerful people I know, they are pretty thin skinned and try hard not to be self reflective. So they will ignore the protest, won’t look at the giant checks with their names on it or the photos of the kid killed by guns.  Why? Because 1) these people aren’t paying them 2) they are depressing. 3) mortgage is due every month.

Nobody wants to see pictures of dead kids mangled by guns, that’s so pre-Boston marathon.  (BTW, I just watched the movie 9/11: The Falling Man and I wonder if seeing photos from Sandy Hook would have made a difference in the vote. I think showing them to the public wouldn’t have made a difference, but what if they were shown to the NRA lobbyists and our “representatives?”)

Now to do some lobbying jobs you need a certain amount of moral and intellectual flexibility, especially if you don’t believe in what the client is pushing. But most people doing this are either believers or can rationalize the belief for the mortgage.

I’m not going to throw stones at anyone (or should I say throw bullets?) I have my price, it’s in Quatloos, but I have one.  If I was them instead of focusing on all the damage that weapons do, I’d focus on what I saw as all the good that they do. I’d never want to focus on the dead for three reasons. 1) They aren’t paying me.  2) they are depressing. 3) Mortgage. So I’d focus on positive things and abstract things. Don’t think of the 10′s of thousands of dead, think of the millions of non-dead. Don’t think of today’s headline dead:

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I had a dream last night where I approached SF from Sausalito at night on the water. I was in a pick up truck with Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing and as we came over hill I was suddenly in a sea kayak at water level. The sun started hitting the city from the east with a dark sky behind it. The reflected lights off the buildings looked like fireworks. I remember in the dream trying to take a picture with my cell phone and knowing it wouldn’t do justice to the image. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my life.

When I woke up I had this thought and tweeted it:

I’m a photographer, I’ve done sea kayaking before. I just spent a while looking for a photo that captured that image, but couldn’t find one. The one above is the closest.

Now I could try and recreate it, but I really wish I had a machine where I could capture the image directly from my mind and post it online for you. I also wish I had a way to share the wonderful feeling that went with it. I knew I was seeing something extraordinary and I wanted to share that beauty with others.

Earlier that night I had another dream.

Both of these dreams can be attributed to the new SyFy TV show Defiance and the recent Boston bombing. The show was just okay and was filled with standard SF action tropes. But it had one thing that I really liked.

The town of Defiance (formerly Saint Louis) celebrated humans and aliens people who, after a long war, finally said, ‘Enough’ and put down their weapons. The show portrays humans and aliens living together in a community where we don’t judge people by the shape of their heads or planet of origin, but by the content of their character.

When we find out who was behind this bombing, let’s keep in mind that an entire race of people, nation, region, city or state were not behind this. If the person is a brown person, (let’s say from Iran) we should have the sense to not go after all brown people and bomb Iran. Just like if the bomber is a white male from Mississippi, we should have the sense to not go after all white males and bomb Mississippi.

America doesn’t have to be the country that attacks an entire state because of the actions of a small number of people from there. Or worse, the state next to it. That would be kind of crazy. We are better than that. If we haven’t been that in the past, we can be again in the future. Read the rest of this entry →

I used to work with a great organization called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Beyond their four tenents of social justice, simple living, spirituality and community, they also had some interesting bumper-stickers. I’m a sucker for a good bumper-sticker.

One from Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace. work for justice.”

I was thinking about that today after listening to Kevin Gosztola talk about his coverage of the Bradly Manning trial on the Sam Seder show. (You can listen to the show here, or watch it here, tell Sammy Spocko sent ya.)

Kevin talked about the Manning case, the legal definition of a whistle blower and how the government was all hopped up to get justice, but he was struck by how this cry for justice (and punishment) wasn’t being applied to people who had committed war crimes. Kevin is there every day, he knows how Manning was treated. He knows how he has suffered and what it has been costing Manning for trying to help expose bad actors.

And I thought. “How is the failure to bring war criminals to justice impacting me personally?”

I think we have to make these failures of justice personal, otherwise it doesn’t matter, it’s just stuff happening to names out there.  (As we know, for the right wing making it personal means they or immediate family members have to be impacted, for those of us with a functioning empathic brain, it can be your family plus other humans and even animals.)

Then, after listening to Sam’s show, I was reading DSWright’s FDL piece about how the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has exposed offshore tax havens. The records detail the offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories.

The leaked files provide facts and figures — cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals — that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike.

Most of the companies exposed are based in Europe, there aren’t as many US companies on the list. But maybe that is a good thing, because after the Wall Street Banking Scandal I don’t have a lot of hope that simply exposing wrong doings in the US will lead to prosecution or justice.

My lack of hope in prosecution really sucks. I don’t wanna be one of those cynics saying, “Whatta ya goin’ to do? Them with the gold make the rules.”   In the past, especially during the Bush years, here was my trajectory when I read or heard a story about a failure of justice. “That’s wrong! That’s not just illegal, it’s unjust, it’s morally repugnant!”  Then I would think, analyze the situation and ask myself,  “What can I do about it?”  Finally I’d act.  Those were my three stages: Anger, analysis and then action.

So today, after hearing about natural and corporate people dodging taxes around the globe.  I wondered “When these corporations and people are exposed for their thieving ways, will there be any justice? If not, how does that affect me?”

Both war criminals not brought to justice and companies that get away with defrauding and robbing people affect me. And it’s not just knowing that tax dodging costs individual taxpayers $1,026 a year. There are other ways that it hurts me, some small and some life transforming.

How about you? Can you see how justice failures impact your life?

One way I see it is in my economic situation, while the billionaires like Pete Peterson and the media go on about cutting deficits as if it Mr. Deficit is going to come into your house and take the food out of your mouth, the actual economy does lead to keeping food out of mouths.

Another way that I’m impacted are my  attitudes. I’m a real person (although only half human) my attitude toward the future have changed. There is a reason we see lot of dystopian SF these days.  The optimism of Star Trek was a selling point, “We will survive, grow and explore.” A negative attitude toward the future is shared by millions, and though you can’t always see it directly, it changes lives. It also moves markets. I wish politicians and prosecutors would understand this.

Prosecution of war and corporate criminals leads to hope. Hope leads to job growth.

Of course markets themselves don’t have emotions but that doesn’t stop  smarmy shows like “Marketplace” from attributing emotion to “the market” as if it were a person or, more usually, a deity we need to sacrifice human lives to make it happy.

I’m often amused how Marketplace often gives an arbitrary collection of stocks reasons for going up or down. “The Austeritians said the Dow looked pretty this morning so stocks were up 12 points. The tech-heavy NASDAQ  took a dive after the cute barista at Starbucks didn’t smile at him this morning. “Bonds were constipated as usual and are taking Kaopectate. “

I look at my usual anger, analysis and then action pattern and I now see how justice failures are affecting me. So what’s the action I can take? Help push for prosecution of war and corporate criminals could be one.  I don’t think we can count on prosecutors to take on exposed war and corporate criminals when they see something exposed. If we don’t push them, they will go after the little guys and whistle blowers because they have less resources.

Prosecutors need encouragement. So the next time you see a story that makes you angry that you fear is going to be a justice failure, consider how to push for prosecution or other justice.

Bringing justice to certain cases can have a much bigger impact on others than you realize.

“If you want hope, work for justice.” -Spocko

Photo by Ryan Heaney released under a Creative Commons Share Alike license.

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain

“Former Sen. Joe Lieberman is joining the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. Lieberman — Al Gore’s vice presidential running mate in 2000 and a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 — will co-chair AEI’s American Internationalism Project, an effort to rebuild a bipartisan consensus about big foreign policy questions.” Politico

David Atkins over at Hullabaloo, thinks this is Lieberman’s natural resting place. Personally I thought he would get some job in Israel, like being their Ambassador to the US or the senator from the great state of Israel. Maybe he tried for Pope and was rejected, “But Jesus was Jewish!” But one thing is clear, he no longer has to answer to the people who voted for him (did he ever?). Whose bidding does he do now? How much are they paying him, and why? Of course his known policies will be in line with the desires of the people paying him. My question is, “Shouldn’t we be able to know who those people are?”

Now the media doesn’t care so I guess we shouldn’t care, after all, he’s a private citizen and not working for our government while getting money from a foreign state or anything… But when he starts showing up on the Sunday morning shows, it would be good to know who is funding the AEI and Lieberman.   Just saying he works for the AEI doesn’t tell me enough.

Being the curious sort, I went over to the AEI SourceWatch page made by my amazing  friends at the Center for Media and Democracy  The article covers their history, links to other right wing organizations and where they get their funding from. The most current info they have is from seven years ago:

“In 2006 AEI reported that its income was $28.4 million. Of this it states on its website that “individual contributions of more than $10 million provided the largest share of the revenue base, followed by $6 million in corporate support, and $4.7 million from foundations.”

They also had an interesting comment about the guidelines they have for their scholars and fellows.

“AEI scholars and fellows are required to disclose in their published work any affiliations they may have with organizations with a direct interest in the subject of that work. AEI discloses the source of project-specific donations to research on subjects in which the donors have a material interest.”^[24]

Nice, but can you see the loophole? I can already hear the response, “Senator Lieberman never actually published anything, he just talks about issues on TV. And, “The money that pays his salary comes from lots and lots of companies, so no one company is backing his views.”  Way to cover up those big donations from defense manufacturers and oil companies, AEI, very enterprising of you!

I wonder if Politico called up AEI and asked, “So could you tell us who funds you?” Even getting a no or their standard answer would show us something.  If I called I would expect, “We are a private foundation and we don’t have to reveal that information.” Yes, but what are you afraid of AEI? Some other group might poach your donors? People might know who actually pays the bills and what percent they pay? As we all know, “Those who pay the bills something something the piper.” My point is that belief tanks like AEI shouldn’t be afraid of revealing who funds them. Why the secrecy? Are they ashamed of their views?  I thought being a conservative means never having to say you are sorry for your ideas. Don’t they trumpet them and “double down” on them?

Today over at Salon Alex Pareene has a column on the competitive advantage of deficit hacks. In the piece he talks about the debate between Krugman and Joe Scarbrough. Besides discussing the specific encounters between the two he makes the observation about the hacks:

“They do not care if they constantly repeat themselves, even if what they are constantly repeating is wrong”.

It’s an excellent column. Especially this part,

“Also, frequently, people are being paid to repeat the same awful ideas over and over again, and unfortunately usually there’s more money to be made repeating bad ideas than good ones. (Hence: Lanny Davis.)”

One of the things that most people don’t know is that belief tanks like Heritage and AEI don’t just hire and pay right wing ideologues they also have people training them to talk to the media and PR people pitching them to be on the various TV shows. They also are constantly writing and placing Op-Eds for newspapers and speeches for conferences.

So Lieberman, whose number was on producers’ speed dial at the Sunday shows, will now need to talk to the AEI booker. “Yeah, we can get you Joe, no problem. He even has his own IFB and can pop in from our studio. Oh, by the way, I’ve got some other Fellows that you can talk to the next time fraking comes up. Call me.”

This is the way these shows work. Sadly there isn’t really a mirror image organization of the AEI for the left. The left has developed some of this infrastructure during the Bush years, but now that the “progressive” Obama has won, they don’t have the same support since funders think, “we won, we can stop campaigning.”  

As Parenee says:

 ”Pete Peterson and a few others have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and decades of their lives making the exact same argument, and setting up organizations that pay others to make the exact same argument, until a majority of Beltway centrists internalized the argument and began making it themselves, over and over again.”

We need to have someone pushing back against the failed ideas of the right wing.  So I guess it will have to be us.  Maybe I should do it. I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.

UPDATE: 3/12/2013. I spoke to someone at AEI today and he said that they don’t reveal their donors. This was what I expected. But then I asked, “Why?” He said that it’s just their policy and suggested I talk to his boss. I wrote her an email and asked her all my questions. I’ll update again if I get a response.

Fired ACORN Worker Wins $100,000 Settlement From Republican Con-Artist James O’Keefe

Former San Diego ACORN worker, Juan Carlos Vera will receive $100,000 in a settlement from federal criminal and professional liar James O’Keefe, after being secretly video-taped in violation of California law by the Rightwing propagandist. The tape was just one in a series of similar videos, all deceptively edited as part of his 2009 ACORN “pimp” hoax series.

The story of the settlement was originally broken by Wonkette, which published the 3-page settlement document [PDF], yesterday.

    -Brad Friedman, Brad Blog

I was listening to the Emmy award winning comedian David Feldman’s show yesterday talking about the great new film “Janeane From Des Moines” and Feldman kept asking questions about the Presidential candidates that the film maker met and filmed during the Iowa caucus.  He wanted to know, “How can they sleep at night?” specifically he wanted to know how they reconcile in their minds their actions and policies they promoted and their proclaimed Christian beliefs. Jane Wilson, the film maker, had a very insightful response.

“People who are quote unquote evil never see themselves as [evil]”

- Jane Edith Wilson, Film Maker Janeane From Des Moines

For years people asked me about right wing radio hosts,  ”Do they really believe what they say or is it just an act for the money?” My response is, “Does it matter? I can’t see into their soul, all I know is what they publicly say, and what they do. And what they say is nasty. I will act to lessen their impact, because I think it is the right thing to do.” Then I proceeded to develop a program to separate them from their sponsors and their money. That was my way to go after an institution and individuals that I believe are bad for our democracy and our country.

If you are someone in power, who believes that a left-wing institution, group or person is bad for your goals there are a number of ways you can go about destroying them.  If you need to act quickly one shortcut is to manufacture “evidence” of wrong doings at that institution or from that person. This is useful when you can’t find any real wrong doings. For a price someone will do this for you. It’s good to get someone who believes in your same cause, so they can think they are doing good. But if you can’t find that person, get an actor who will pretend they are doing good. Another trick is to play the journalism “free speech” card so that you can get support from people who love journalism and free speech.

Last year I attended what I called “James O’Keefe University” to learn his techniques and methods. He talked about his real desire to be an actor and how his editing of videos was just like the editing of videos TV news shows do all the time. He encouraged people to do what he did. He then showed clips from the Daily Show from before they were revealed to be deceptively EDITED.  It was all presented as great fun. Stickin’ it to those hypocritical liberals!  I found the entire seminar profoundly depressing for a number of reasons.

First, the people funding O’Keefe, the Koch’s via Americans For Prosperity, understood just how powerful O’Keefe’s deceptive practices were, especially when teamed with the RW media and the more little O’Keefes they can unleash the better.

Second, AFP easily filled rooms with hard core right wingers whose internal beliefs convinced them they were doing heroic work taking down “bad guys” like ACORN. One of their biggest targets? Unions!

Third, and this was the one that hit me the hardest, there was nobody on the left who would fund me to go after Right-Wing institutions like O’Keefe did ACORN, but in an ethically and legal fashion. I have a track record, I have skills, but unlike O’Keefe, I didn’t have a Koch sugar daddy to support me taking on right wing institutions and media.

The AFP  seminar a.k.a “O’Keefe University” pushed the idea of “Citizen Journalist” while using the O’Keefe’s deceptively edited videos as a model for winning. And why not? As far as the Kochs and AFP is concerned O’Keefe was wildly successful.  As Brad Friedman put it:

Thousands of ACORN workers were left unemployed by the O’Keefe/Giles/Breitbart stunt after the U.S. Congress also fell for it. In 2009, shortly after the deceptively edited tapes were released, they passed legislation, signed by President Obama, that federally defunded the four-decade old community organization which had advocated to end predatory lending practices and helped millions of low- and middle-income Americans obtain housing loans and legally register to vote. The group was forced to shut its doors in the wake of the manufactured scandal.

O’Keefe achieved Koch’s and AFPs goals, and it was cheap.  Based on what O’Keefe has said I estimate it cost 70K for the cross country, illegal-taping tour of ACORN offices, 100K for this current settlement and let’s say 130K for those high-priced Republican lawyers. $300,000 to destroy ACORN. What a bargain!  Of course hopefully this settlement will lead to more.

If you knew you could take down Fox News or the Heritage Foundation for $300,000 would you? What if you didn’t have to manufacture evidence to do it? Would you do it then?

Many of you might remember the Book Salon that I hosted with Martin Hickman who wrote the book, “Dial M for Murdoch” In the book he described how a small team consisting mostly of a politician, some journalists and a lawyer exposed the phone hacking scandal at News of the World which led to it being shut down. They did the work legally using real journalism, the legal system and political pressure on a merger deal. I’m pretty confident that something similar could be used on New Corps properties here in the US.  But will anyone? Since Obama won the election does that mean that we stop focusing on right wing media institutions and get back to helping people? It would be nice, and that is the attitude of a number of funders, they really don’t want to fight the right. I think that’s a mistake, because the RW media and institutions are more vulnerable now than they have been in awhile.  Shall we let them regroup? Did they back off attacking us when they had the White House and the senate?

The right has to fund liars and deceivers like O’Keefe because they know they need to cheat to win. We don’t have to, but we do need the will to fight. One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that the mainsteam media will not go after the right wing media. They hate to cover them, they would rather ignore them. As Cenk Uygur said on The Young Turks the other day, one reason nobody on cable goes after Fox is because they either have friends who work there or they expect to work there some day. 

Here’s the deal, the ideas and attitudes of the right wing media and their belief tanks are killing our country. They are the ones who push the failed austerity ideas. They push cuts to earned benefits as a “shared sacrifice” instead of demanding raising revenue. They push ideas that the economy is a deity who must be sated with the lives of your friends and neighbors to support the profits of the one percent. They attack our values and ideals. They support the destruction of our democratic institutions.  And some of them get rich doing it. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I don’t want O’Keefe’s fine to scare off people who want to do real journalism and activism against corrupt institutions and people. If we have the goods we don’t have to deceptively edit. We also have to be smart about the law. I would hate for someone to have good video that could not be used because they didn’t know the law. Here is a link to “Can We Tape?” put out by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

My friend, Angelo Carusone, at Media Matters wrote an article about the impact of the campaign to separate advertiser’s money from Rush Limbaugh one year after his attack on Sandra Fluke. Nobody is going to jail for alerting advertisers about the vile things Limbaugh has said and continues to say.  Dial Global, a radio syndication company, reported roughly $100 million in losses for 2012 and publicly cited Limbaugh as a significant contributing factor.  I celebrate this success. It was done legally and ethically.  Let’s keep pushing our success and learn from their success and failures.  The country is counting on us.

Creative Commons Attribution image by DonkeyHotey 

I’ve been listening to the fringes of talk radio for years. The people running the media companies that distribute these shows usually don’t listen. If they did they would be appalled. The hosts often say things that would never be allowed if that host worked in that company’s office.

What would get someone fired for sexual harassment or bigotry is classified, “entertainment” since supposedly off the air the hosts follow the corporate HR guidelines and their words or actions are different.

While listening to Armed American Radio, carried nationwide by Salem Communications Corporation, (NASDAQ: SALM) I heard the two hosts talk about ignoring signs about no guns in the studio. I got confirmation they did bring their guns into the studio and it sounded like they violated the corporation policy when doing so.  Salem is the top Christian broadcast radio company in the nation and the third ranked radio company overall, but no one from headquarters wanted to talk to me about the policies or consequences for violation so I wrote them one of my patented Spocko letters to ask about the apparent disconnect between their corporate stance on firearms and what their hosts are saying and doing on air.  Some of my questions were:

• How should a corporation act when the hosts both violate and mock a company’s policies about bringing firearms into the company’s office?
• Did your HR people give them permission to violate your policies?
• Have other employees been advised of guns in the office? Do other employees have any rights to safe working conditions?
• Have people who work in the same building as the radio studio been advised of firearms in the building?
• Do workers in surrounding offices have a right to know that some people either got a waiver to bring firearms into the building, or that there were/are no consequences for firearm violations?
• Does the building management have a no firearms clause in their lease? Have they been alerted that it is being violated? Are there any consequences for violation of the lease?
• Have the insurance companies who cover the liability of the corporation been alerted? Do they want to re-evaluate the premiums that the corporation is paying?

It’s been a week and HQ has not responded to my calls and letter, so I’m posting it here publicly. I’ll let you know if they respond.

 

Edward Astinger III, CEO
Salem Communications Corp

Dear Edward:

Do you know that two of your radio hosts bring loaded firearms into your studios? Please listen to the following clip of hosts Mark Walters and his producer/sidekick Sean Young aka “Seanto”  LINK.

They talk about ignoring signs saying “no food and drink in the studio” and ignoring signs that say “no guns.” To determine if they actually had guns in the studio, I contacted Mike Moran, the general manager at your Atlanta studio from which Walters was broadcasting on Sunday, January 25.

Moran spoke to Walters who confirmed that he had in fact brought firearms into the studio that day. Additionally, Walters admitted to the GM he had brought firearms into the studio(s) in the past. I haven’t yet confirmed if Young was also carrying that day, however I am copying John Peroyea, VP of Operations & GM for your Dallas/Ft. Worth station on this letter. He may be able to determine when and how often Young carried while in your Dallas studios.

Moran believes Salem has a strict policy that does not permit employees, independent contractors, customers and/or their guests to bring weapons onto your premises. Can you confirm this, and does the policy apply to your properties and leased studios nationwide? I attempted to get a copy of your firearms policies but neither Christopher Henderson, your VP of Legal and HR, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary nor Russel Shubin, Director of your National News and Public Affairs responded.

The reason I want to know your policies on firearms is because many of your company’s hosts and our nation are engaging in a national discussion on public safety. Specifically we are looking at the causes of, and solutions for, violent gun deaths. As a leader in the Christian and conservative communities, your corporate policies on this issue and how you respond to people violating your own policies regarding firearms is important.

Moran told me that Walters assured him that he won’t bring his firearms to the studio again, however, I wonder about the reliability of someone who has flagrantly disregarded your rules in the past and who ends every show with, “Carry on, carry off, carry everywhere. NEVER leave your cave without your club.”  Can Walters be trusted to put the safety of others and compliance with your policies ahead of his own “carry everywhere” brand?

I’m not sure why your staff didn’t respond to my questions or why your policies aren’t published on your website. Perhaps you consider it a private internal matter, however, considering you are the co-creator of the petition site Support Second Amendment  which you and your SRN hosts plan to present to congress, I think the public has a right to know your views on firearms in your own offices and studios.

I know you can’t oversee all your employees or contractors who rent out your studios, that’s why you set up policies. I look forward to hearing back from you or your staff.

Sincerely,
Spocko

Cross posted at Spocko’s Brain