Shadow Elite my ass...
Read an article in the Huffington Post about the possibly scary importance of obama's 'organizing for America' group. The gist - because he and his supporters have direct email access to the whole huge mess of people who contacted him during the fall election, they have some sort of creepy power.
Now, I don't know how many of you contacted the obama campaign or administration at some point, but I did, and I'll say definitively that the only thing that he and his vaunted net-wranglers have managed to do with OFA is annoy me.
An endless string of emails from 'President Obama' or 'Joe Biden', with serious, ominous-sounding titles, and attached pleas to donate now, have generated exactly zero dollars of revenue for their organization, and have annoyed me severely.
I'm actually more than a little bitter about this. During the last election cycle, I think that many people really wanted to believe, really wanted to dedicate themselves, either their actual efforts or at least their resources, to making a better America. Instead of actually making a real attempt to harness all of this energy, obama et al went for round two of cynical clinton-era triangulation politics, and attempted to turn this groundswell of real popular hope, desire for change, and desire to be involved and make a difference into cold hard cash and political currency.
This level of cynicism makes me furious. I know, from my conversations with students, that there really are young people out there (and presumably not-so-young people as well), who really, truly do want to make sacrifices and make a difference. I hate seeing attempts to capitalize on this sort of marvelous idealism for simple personal gain. I hate it a lot.
Now, I don't know how many of you contacted the obama campaign or administration at some point, but I did, and I'll say definitively that the only thing that he and his vaunted net-wranglers have managed to do with OFA is annoy me.
An endless string of emails from 'President Obama' or 'Joe Biden', with serious, ominous-sounding titles, and attached pleas to donate now, have generated exactly zero dollars of revenue for their organization, and have annoyed me severely.
I'm actually more than a little bitter about this. During the last election cycle, I think that many people really wanted to believe, really wanted to dedicate themselves, either their actual efforts or at least their resources, to making a better America. Instead of actually making a real attempt to harness all of this energy, obama et al went for round two of cynical clinton-era triangulation politics, and attempted to turn this groundswell of real popular hope, desire for change, and desire to be involved and make a difference into cold hard cash and political currency.
This level of cynicism makes me furious. I know, from my conversations with students, that there really are young people out there (and presumably not-so-young people as well), who really, truly do want to make sacrifices and make a difference. I hate seeing attempts to capitalize on this sort of marvelous idealism for simple personal gain. I hate it a lot.