Why the Rich Love McCain’s Tax Plan

The latest from Brave New Films….

Dear Elizabeth,

I was in a deep conversation with some Brave New Films supporters recently. They were enthusiastic about the value of our videos in spreading the truth and motivating support, but they kept asking, “How do you reach people who don’t agree with you?” Seems like a good time to explain why we ask you to forward the videos, Digg them, and encourage people to get their own free Brave New Films video subscription. Before the next debate, it is critical to get this information to as many people as possible. Every day, our 20 videos on John McCain are seen by several hundred thousand people searching and browsing the Internet for information on McCain. They are literally typing in “john mccain” into Google, where our video is the #4 result. The same search on YouTube yields several more videos from The Real McCain series, which will only increase in the coming weeks. So far, these videos have received over 11 million views. Think about it, if you didn’t know much about John McCain, what would you do? Probably two things. Type “john mccain” into Google, and ask your friends what they think. That’s where YOU come in. When you get an e-mail from us with our latest video, what happens in the next 24 hours determines how far the video will reach outside the audience who would typically watch it. The more views on the video, the higher it goes on YouTube’s most viewed pages, seen by 60 million people a month. The more people who Digg it–a critical tool to reach those outside the choir–the better chance we have of getting on the Digg homepage, which is seen by 20 million people a month. Every time we get on these top pages, we get tens of thousands of additional views from people who might otherwise have watched a cat playing the piano, a magic ping pong ball, or a pretty woman falling in the shower. We estimate that getting on the Digg homepage generates an additional 30,000-50,000 viewers. The YouTube most viewed page alone can add another 100,000 views! Anything you do that increases the number of views helps. Posting on your blog, on Facebook, on MySpace, sending emails, leaving comments on other sites, and Digging it. The important thing to understand is it’s not just the people who view it that we reach, it’s the ripple effect those views have, pushing our videos higher up Google, YouTube, Digg, and all over the Internet. And that ripple effect extends months and even years down the road. That #4 result on Google is a video we put out in February of 2007! 70,000 people watched it last week. Yes, it would be easier to spend millions of dollars on TV ads, but that is not what we do. Think about the difference in watching a video that has been sent to you by someone you know, versus skipping through a TV ad. What a difference in impact! And when you get your friends to subscribe to the free Brave New Films video subscription, they become true force multipliers by sending to people who agree, who watch, who motivate, who send to others, and help us reach many people who don’t agree with us. So, help us get the word out about McCain now before the next debate. Below are four videos that explain McCain’s stances on four crucial issues: the environment, the economy, tax cuts, and abortion. Let’s get that ripple effect going now by spreading these to everyone you know and getting them on blogs and sites like Digg.

Watch the video.

1. McCain’s Green Economy: Drill, Baby, Drill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3ecA2L-VuQ

Watch the video.

2. John McCain: Economic Disaster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4egXbhSOhk

Watch the video.

3. Why the Rich Love McCain’s Tax Plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwtayJCK5LY

Watch the video.

4. The REAL McCain is anti-choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAAYxCCT

Watch the video.

Help increase the number who know the facts, and reach those who don’t. Now is the time! Yours, Robert Greenwald and the Brave New team

From David Plouffe–What they don’t want to talk about?

Liz –

Over the weekend, John McCain’s
top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the
economy and “turn the page” to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,
they want to change the subject from the central question of this
election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past
eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

But it’s not just McCain’s role in the current crisis that they’re avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

During the savings and loan crisis
of the late ’80s and early ’90s, McCain’s political favors and
aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall
of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More
than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan
crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of
hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American
taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating,
played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud
and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign
has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many
parallels to the current crisis, McCain’s Keating history is relevant
and voters deserve to know the facts — and see for themselves the
pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.

So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we’re releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis” — it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.

Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.

The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn’t learned his lesson.

And this time, McCain’s bankrupt economic philosophy has put
our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at
risk of losing their homes.

Watch the video to see why John McCain’s failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:

http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo

It’s no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of
this election smearing Barack’s character instead of talking about the
top priority issue for voters.

But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy — and how to fix it.

Please forward this email to everyone you know.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

P.S. — The documentary will be live at noon Eastern at www.KeatingEconomics.com.

Paid for by Obama for America

Letterman’s Sarah Palin Debate Recap

David Letterman’s latest stroke of genius in his poking fun at GOP Veep nominee Gov. Sarah Palin. The sound bites are hilarious!

10/06 Today’s Buddhist Food for Thought

Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda
Monday, October 6, 2008

Mr. Toda once told me: “You can make a defeat the cause for future victory. You can also make victory the cause for future defeat.” The Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin is the Buddhism of the True Cause, the Buddhism of the present and future. We don’t dwell on the past. We are always challenging ourselves from the present toward the future. “The whole future lies ahead of us! We have only just begun!”-because we advance with this spirit, we will never be deadlocked.

Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda
Monday, October 6, 2008 (Buddhism Day by Day)

If you summon your courage to challenge something, you‚’ll never regret it. How sad it would be to spend your life wishing, “If only I had a little more courage.” Whatever the outcome, the important thing is to take a step forward on the path that you believe is right. There‚’s no need to worry about what others may think. It‚’s your life, after all. Be true to yourself.

From the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin
Monday, October 6, 2008 (Daily Wisdom)

The Nirvana Sutra teaches the principle of lessening one’s karmic retribution. If one’s heavy karma from the past is not expiated within this lifetime, one must undergo the sufferings of hell in the future, but if one experiences extreme hardship in this life [because of the Lotus Sutra], the sufferings of hell will vanish instantly. And when one dies, one will obtain the blessings of the human and heavenly worlds, as well as those of the three vehicles and the one vehicle.

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 199
Lessening One’s Karmic Retribution
Written to Ota Saemon-no-jo, the lay priest Soya and the Dharma Bridge Kimbara on october 5, 1271

The Real John McCain: Anti-Choice

GOP Fashionistas?

Beware of the GOP fashionistas!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHAT_VOTERS_WEAR?SITE=SCAND&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Please read…This is Our Nation of White Privilege?

Got this in over the weekend from my politics buddy Angel…at first, I have to admit I was hesitant in posting this here on MySpace and/or my lizwrites weblog as to not wanting to offend any of my friends and other readers. Because of its truths it conveys in our perilous times…Please read. Thanks.

The following essay was sent to me by a good friend who battled alongside me in the political trenches back in the day. Upon reading the subject line, I almost dismissed it, for I have never been one to blame my travails on some vast conspiracy or any group of people, but reading it further, I thought it worthy of passing along. My life is not one of victimhood.

We are faced with a stark choice this November; either we dare to venture forward and change the course of human events, or continue to dwell in the stew of hatred and division cooked up by almost 30 years of conservative orthodoxy and intellectual bankruptcy.

Anyway, enough of that. Here’s the story. Read and discuss.
Angel

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

September, 14 2008

By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
–White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

–White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

–White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

–White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.
“

–White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

–White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

–White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do–like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor–and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college–you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

–White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.
“

–White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

–White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

–White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

–White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.

–And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com