Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

I got an email from MoveOn.org today. They want me to write a letter to the editor of my local newspaper because

I have some tremendously upsetting news: Late Friday, President Obama overruled EPA science and blocked crucial new protections against smog pollution that have been years in the making.

Yeah, well, we got the news on Friday. Today’s Monday.

Here’s what they want me to do:

Will you write a letter to the editor of your local paper reminding folks that environmental protections like these smog rules protect our health AND strengthen our economy?

Our website will give you some tips and make it easy for you to submit the letter to a newspaper near you. And your letter will help persuade folks in your community that we shouldn't be tearing our government down—we should be making it work.

President Obama tried to bury this news by announcing it hours before Labor Day weekend. But on Labor Day we need him standing up for the kinds of health and safety protections that working folks and labor unions have spent decades fighting for, not repeating Republican talking points about how we don't need them.

What's more, Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out that this anti-smog rule would actually create clean energy jobs: "It would have forced firms to spend on upgrading or replacing equipment, helping to boost demand. Yes, it would have cost money—but that's the point!"

Dear MoveOn: do you think my letter to the editor will change Obama’s mind? Do you think a thousand or ten thousand letters will do any good?

We need to stop trying to influence this guy as our only strategy, especially with weak efforts like this. My time would be totally wasted writing a letter to the editor, it won’t change a thing.

Obama will do whatever he wants to do. He’s counting on winning re-election by spending big money which he will collect not from the likes of us but from corporations and banks. In the absence of a credible primary challenge, it could work. I’d vote for Obama over Perry, for example. He could actually save his money.

I shudder to think that I’ll have to listen to all his lies as we get closer to November 2012. Here’s the transcript of Obama’s Labor Day speech in Detroit (the city that has been devastated by the recession that he has done not enough to alleviate):

So that’s what we’re fighting for, Michigan. We’re fighting for good jobs with good wages. We’re fighting for health care when you get sick. We’re fighting for a secure retirement even if you’re not rich. We’re fighting for the chance to give our kids a better life than we had. That’s what we’re doing to restore middle-class security and rebuild this economy the American way -- based on balance and fairness and the same set of rules for everybody from Wall Street to Main Street. An economy where hard work pays off and gaming the system doesn’t pay off, and everybody has got a shot at the American Dream. That’s what we’re fighting for.

Can you count the lies? He hasn’t fought for good jobs with good wages. Ok, give him something for health care, although his plan is a windfall for the insurance companies many of us would like to see disappear. And "fighting for a secure retirement even if you’re not rich”??? That’s such a big fat lie. And so on. Don’t miss the part about the same set of rules for Wall Street as for Main Street.

Dear MoveOn, you could help by helping your followers find an alternative to Obama in 2012. We need to do something that has a chance of success. I may not know exactly what that is, but I know it isn’t writing letters to the editor.

Let’s get real.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 9/05/2011 05:49:00 PM