Today's "Move to Amend" email: Fashioning Faux Movements

Scroll down to read Move to Amend's email, which pissed me off enough to write the following back to them:
____________________

To whom it may concern,

I'm an open-minded nerdy woman who makes a living differentiating between evidence-based information versus a lot of hype in the field of weight management.

This email insults my intelligence. You claim an internet blog is "proof" that the progressive movement is co-opted and underwritten by "rich Democrats". False equivalency just muddies the water.

There are dozens of progressive organizations, that get the vast majority of their money in small donations from middle class individuals. For that matter even Organizing for Action collects it's money mainly from middle class individuals. I personally only give money to independent progressive organizations (which means not the DNC, DSCC, DCCC or even directly to Obama, or Organizing for Action) because the independents (like DFA, PCCC, Emily's List, etc.) spend my money doing what I expected (and not by supporting Blue Dogs for instance).

Look it may come as a surprise to you but we are in a class war, and yes it has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans per say. It has to do with corporate control (by the financial elites) of our government, with the end result lowering our quality of life in every way imaginable.

However, there are actually some rich people who aren't greedy sociopaths, who care about their employees, the environment, human rights, etc., etc. If those rich people put money behind something--which they have nothing financially to gain from--then that's hardly comparable to the Koch brothers, or the Waltons throwing their money at making laws that increase their bottom line (at the expense of humanity and the planet).

Seriously, if you really believe what you've tried to say in this email you can't have thought very deeply about it.

Both the right and the left are beginning to come together on overturning Citizens United and the "corporate personhood" baloney. That's because those are the folks that are awake to what we are really up against--corporate control of our government by the financial elites.

You have also insulted all the hardworking regular-people at progressive organizations across this country, and I think you owe them an apology.

I'll be unsubscribing.

Sincerely,
DR

___________________________
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Move to Amend <info@movetoamend.org> wrote:

The National Campaign to End Corporate Personhood and Demand Real Democracy!
Move to Amend

Dear DR,

In our public statements, we often identify ourselves as the only grassroots coalition working to amend the Constitution so that legal entities have privileges, not inherent human rights, and to state that money is not protected political speech. Our goal is to build a grassroots democracy movement.

The key word is “grassroots.” We believe that it is through this model that the voice of the people is heard, and our success proves the effectiveness of this organizing model.

It isn’t about partisanship; it is about people coming together to wrest control of our Democratic Republic from corporate rule, and to enact proper reforms so “we the people” can run this country.

Too often we allow ourselves to become divided along conservative or progressive lines by groups and organizations affiliated with or funded by the two major parties or their wealthy supporters.

Both sides bang the “grassroots drum,” but few, if any, are modeling a real grassroots approach; and many receive funding from clearly partisan and corporate sources.

These two recent articles prove the point:
The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats by John Stauber. Stauber tells the story of how the progressive movement was highjacked by a cadre of very wealthy corporate Democrats:

"The self-labeled Progressive Movement that has arisen over the past decade is primarily one big propaganda campaign serving the political interests of the Democratic Party’s richest one-percent who created it. The funders and owners of the Progressive Movement get richer and richer off Wall Street and the corporate system. But they happen to be Democrats, cultural and social liberals who can’t stomach Republican policies, and so after bruising electoral defeats a decade ago they decided to buy a movement, one just like the Republicans, a copy."

Study: Tea Party Organizations Have Ties To Tobacco Industry Dating Back To 1980s by Elizabeth Fernandez. Most of us are now aware of the corporate funding behind the Tea Party, but few of us know that the Tea Party is a tobacco industry-sponsored effort that began long ago:

“From previously secret tobacco industry documents available at the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, IRS filings and other publicly available documents, the study authors traced a decades-long chain of personal, corporate and financial relationships between tobacco companies, tobacco industry lobbying and public relations firms and nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party.

The research uncovered the tobacco industry’s ongoing opposition to health care reform, dating back to a major campaign waged against President Bill Clinton’s proposed 75-cent cigarette tax to help finance it.”

Under no circumstances do we wish to undermine the good work that is sometimes achieved by the people in these groups. We only wish to point out that The People’s voice cannot be heard through a microphone bought and paid for by the ruling elite.

That’s why your financial support is so important to the success of our mission. Move to Amend is grassroots in every conceivable way, and we are dependent on you to fund this movement.

Please help the real and growing democracy movement by making a contribution today: https://movetoamend.nationbuilder.com/donate.
Thank you for your support!

Ashley Sanders, Ben Manski, Daniel Lee, David Cobb, Egberto Willies, George Friday, Jerome Scott, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Laura Bonham, Nancy Price

Move to Amend National Leadership Team

PS -- Don't forget to tune in to our online radio show, Move to Amend Reports tonight at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Egberto and Laura's guest is Craig Aaron, president of Free Press. They will be discussing corporate control of the media. Catch the archives and tune in live online here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/movetoamend.

MOVE TO AMEND

PO Box 610, Eureka CA 95502 | (707) 269-0984 | www.MoveToAmend.org

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.