The Obamapalooza World Tour

Jerusalem and Berlin

Berlin

Jerusalem

Now, THAT’s how you woo the world! Our erstwhile allies are all pretty darned tired of being bullied. Maybe it’s not too farfetched to hope that Americans might finally get tired of being bullied too.

The Bushies (including John McCain) reacted to Obamapalooza just as everyone paying attention would expect. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice issued orders the night before Obama left to State Department employees in all the scheduled tour stops that they must not attend any speeches or events or aid Obama (or the other two US Senators on the tour) in any way when they’re in-country. But since assisting US leaders – or even arranging their events, as has been done for McCain’s travels – when they’re in-country is part of the diplomatic corps’ job description, most pointedly ignored the orders.

This is going to be a fun election.

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Health Insurers On The Warpath

As the economy continues to slip deeper into recession and the Presidential race becomes ever more one-sided in favor of real change, America’s Health Insurance Plans [AHIP] are hitting the road to defend their practice of “Murder By Spreadsheet.” Or, as one energetic activist calls the offensive, the Deceive America Tour.

AHIP is the trade and political lobbying association of DC insiders and overpaid executives for the health insurance industry. The industry that has wrecked health care delivery by bankrupting public hospitals, been targeted for racketeering suits under RICO, routinely refuses to pay claims while throwing families into bankruptcy, and continues to cripple American business competition in foreign trade with nations whose businesses do not hold primary responsibility for citizens’ health care costs.

2007 estimates of the number of uninsured Americans reached more than 75 million adults – 42% of all adults age 19 to 64 were uninsured or ‘underinsured’ – and the US has fallen to 47th in the world on life expectancy at birth. This week AHIP launched its Campaign for an American Solution tour in Columbus, Ohio, purporting to have A Plan to cure America’s health care woes without having to pay for any sick people’s actual health care or forego their profit margins, golden parachutes, luxury limousines and multi-million dollar salaries.

AHIP calls it a “listening tour” outreach, which means they’re quite likely to encounter some loud protests wherever they go in this effort to protect their bottom lines from reality. The speculative futures market in human suffering is just far too lucrative to lose, and the insurance hacks illegally practicing medicine these days have no intention of backing down.

Please check out the tour schedule for when these folks will be coming to your area, then you may wish to contact one of the single-payer activist groups listed below to lend your presence to the protests. It’s well past time for America to join the modern world.

National Organizations:

Physicians for National Health Program
Guaranteed Health Care [California Nurses Assn/Nat. Nurses Organizing Committee]
Health Care Now
Everybody In & Nobody Out

Everybody In & Nobody Out supports state organizations working at the grassroots level for universal care, and offers links to those state organizations. You can also find lists of state groups in your state at the other national organization sites.

Filed under Activism, Class War, Coalitions, For-Profit Insurance, Health Care, Marketing | Comment (0)

Olympic Torch Run Protests

…all the respect it deserves

In the wake of China’s crackdown on civilians and Buddhist monks and priests in Tibet, its links to Myanmar’s military rulers and genocidal juntas in Sudan’s Darfur region, this year’s Olympic Torch Run is meeting with anti-PRC protests along its route. Protests last week in London and Paris turned violent and were met with crackdowns of their own. The flame arrived in San Francisco Wednesday morning, a city with the largest number of Chinese residents in the US, and it was met with protesters.

The Dalai Lama told reporters outside Tokyo on Wednesday that he supports China’s hosting of the Summer Olympic Games, but insisted no one has a right to tell protesters “to shut up.”

The torch run seems a particularly good target for protest of China’s dismal record on human rights. The run was invented for the 1936 games in Berlin by Carl Diem, leader of the German Olympic Committee as a favorable propaganda vehicle for Hitler’s Third Reich.

So don’t be fooled by right-wing denunciations of the ongoing protests as the torch makes its way across the globe. It is a spectacle that never occurred in ancient Greece, but was invented to serve Adolph Hitler and announce him to the world he was about to throw into massive, murderous turmoil with his dreams of conquest and hatred of ethnic minorities and Jews. Linking the torch run to its notorious beginnings is apropos as a vehicle of protest against China’s brutal policies and involvement in ethnic and religious violence across the globe.

REMINDER: Don’t forget, kiddies – This is Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, brought to you again this year by the David Horowitz Freedom Center!

Filed under China, Foreign Policy, History, Marketing, Propaganda, Protests | Comments (2)

Mark Penn’s Conflicted Interests

…finally catch up to him.

Clinton loyalist and Hillary’s chief political strategist Mark Penn stepped down from his position on Sunday night due to conflicting interests through his PR firm Burson-Marsteller. Clinton campaign loyalists are breathing a sigh of relief, though there is some doubt that the damage Penn did by crafting Clinton’s weak campaign strategies can be rectified in time to allow Mrs. Clinton a realistic shot at the Democratic nomination over her rival Barack Obama.

The conflict came to a head last week when Penn met with the Columbian ambassador the the U.S. in his role as Burson-Marsteller chief executive overseeing a PR campaign to help secure passage of a “fast-track” bilateral trade treaty with the US. In her role as Senator from New York, Clinton is officially opposed to the treaty along with other members of the Democratic Party leadership. Penn’s PR firm also represents clients such as the country’s largest mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, and the Blackwater Worldwide mercenary outfit blamed for many civilian deaths in Iraq.

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Filed under Campaigns, Diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, Hypocrisy, Marketing, Party Primaries, Presidential Candidates | Comment (0)

Political Ad Accountability

It never ceases to annoy me that the politicians (yes in my own democratic party this time) freely use scare tactics and other forms of gross manipulative techniques to win votes. This pragmatic, whatever works mindset is exactly what got our country to the point of being governed by big business.

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