{Cross-posted to Broadsides

All the organizations that claim to contest the present order themselves have all the puppetry of the form, morals and language of miniature States about them. None of the old lies about “doing politics differently” have ever contributed to anything but the indefinite extension of Statist pseudopodia.

                                                    — From “The Invisible Committee”

Beware of the professional activist, my friends. For they will lead you to policy slaughter and barely bother to conceal their complicity. Winning doesn’t matter to them. Change doesn’t either. Because the paycheck (plus benefits!) is what makes their slumbering efforts feel good.

Their “cause” is just another minor bump in their daily road: take out trash, pay bills, shop for groceries, feign outrage over [insert issue] and then go to sleep. Risk nothing. Quit when it gets hard or uncomfortable. Passion is sanded down to dull edge, whereby simply showing up rings their bell of attainment. Check it off.

When a doctor sleeps through surgery we call it malpractice. But when a professional activist sleeps through an action and misleads a movement we applaud their “effort.” Worse, we marvel at the failure of the professional: “Wow, that took courage.”

Sorry, but losing doesn’t take courage. It only requires not winning. And that’s easy.

The professional activist is hardwired to lose because losing keeps them in business. They celebrate the longevity of their involvement and the age of their organizations as if to spotlight their ineffectiveness: 10 years! 20 years! Send more money! Keep it going! Why? Because they haven’t accomplished anything yet. And it’s a good “job.”

Many years ago I coined the term “Activist Malpractice” in an essay of the same name. I wrote it to put a spotlight on professional activist organizations who would whip up the necessary fear and loathing toward dangers like toxic pesticides and rBGH and then settle for “solutions” like labeling the products that contained these toxins and/or agreeing to 20-year (and toothless) “phase-outs” of carcinogenic pesticides.

But wait, didn’t they say these things were killing animals and people and destroying the environment? Yes, they did. And just as quickly they turned the page and “celebrated” the mere introduction of legislation that they knew wouldn’t pass, ever be enforced and/or save one of the lives they told us these products were claiming.

But they kept their jobs. Got applauded from their largely-disengaged membership. Kept getting their phone calls returned from Capitol Hill. And sent out a new round of fundraising letters for the “next” not-so-great “effort.” We called it “doing bad and feeling good about it.”

This cycle of activist malpractice works most perfectly when it exists within the paradigm of our modern culture’s manufactured disengagement. You know, the one that says: You are helpless without an expert. Or, in the case of the professional class of activists, the one that says: Send us your money and we will solve the issue that we just scared you about. Who knew $25 could solve global warming!?

Because the professional activist needs its followers to be disengaged so that their charades can continue unabated.

Thoreau once counseled his fellow citizens in this manner: “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.” Today’s professional activists have changed that around a bit: “Let your checkbook help us lubricate the machine.”

And around and around we go, resulting in global warming activists cheering the changing of your light bulbs, health care activists cheering “the public option,” anti-war activists cheering “timetables,” and so on. The only true “winners” in any of these “causes” are the professional classes of activists, lobbyists, legislatures and regulators who’ve found that their own personal economic stimulus is based on your fears and lack of true engagement and expectation. Sucker.

Which brings me to the issue of the week (for me, at least) and a current case of activist malpractice: All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). As readers will know from my two previous posts (here and here), the State of Vermont is now proposing that ATV riders have access to state lands, including our forests. It’s an absurd idea that is certainly opposed by a vast majority of Vermonters, not least of which are the hikers, birders and campers who enjoy the non-motorized nature of – well – nature. Imagine that.

But the professional organization that is claiming to lead the grassroots charge against the new ruling is the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), a group that claims to be the state’s “largest, most effective” environmental group. Oh yeah, it also claims to be the “oldest” such group, too (see above reference to age and effectiveness).

Like any good activist organization, VNRC does an admirable job of describing the dangers and problems of the issue at hand. ATVs, they report, are loud, smelly, destructive to the environment and dangerous to both the riders and those who are forced to encounter such machines in the so-called wild. As a result of these clear and present dangers of ATVs, VNRC issues an alert to its members: Danger, danger, they declare, the big-bad Republican Governor (Jim Douglas) and his Agency of Natural Resources are threatening our public lands! And I’m sure the fundraising solicitations went out with even greater haste.

But then comes the activism. And down go the expectations.

First, the VNRC’s Jamey Fidel told the Vermont Press Bureau on the day of the public hearings on the issue that his group was “not necessarily” opposed to the first new ATV trail on public lands that was being proposed. But what about all the death and destruction they whipped us up about? Nevermind. Because they’re now being professional. But keep sending those checks!

Worse, when the hearing finally happened, VNRC showed just how atrophied its grassroots muscles have become: Out of 250 people in the room, an estimated 15 were opposed to the new rule – and probably about two were associated with VNRC (both employees). Nice showing. But keep sending those checks!

Unfortunately, it gets worse. At the hearing, the VNRC’s Fidel got his chance to testify and he more than blandly reads and otherwise mumbled through a thoroughly passion-less recitation of the documented problems with ATVs and the hurried “process” by which the ANR has reached its decision (read: give me more time to raise money!).

Next up to testify: Fidel’s VNRC colleague, Jake Brown, the group’s communications director. And he begins with this: “I’ve owned an ATV for eight years and I ride it as much as I can on the weekends.” Sorry, but you can’t make this stuff up.

Memo to the VNRC staff: Have your “communications director” read your documentation on the environmental threats of ATV use, please.

And what’s that feeling I’m having: Oh, that’s the grassroots rug being pulled out from under me. Thanks, VNRC. Where do I send my check?

It’s called “activist malpractice.” Pure and simple. They raise money to protect the environment and they cower like scared sheep when the opportunity to truly protect it arises. They scare the public with the facts and then they fold like a cheap suit when it comes to the solutions. They scare the public enough to raise some cash about the dangers of ATV riding by day, and then mount an ATV by night and the weekends to frolic in the benefits of their “labor.” Shameless.

Ironically, I approached Fidel at the hearing to ask him a few questions. Specifically, I asked him if he thought Brown’s boasting of riding an ATV on weekends undercut his testimony about the environmental destruction of the so-called sport. His reply: “Not at all.” Of course not – just keep sending the checks!

But Fidel wouldn’t allow me to ask any more questions because he was “busy.”

“Call me at my office and I’d be happy to talk with you about it,” he told me.

“Tomorrow?” I inquired.

“No, I’m going on vacation tomorrow. Call me the week after next when I get back.”

The public comment period for the new ATV rule ends on June 22nd. Don’t count on the VNRC to be generating oppositional comments because its point-person on the issue is on vacation. But keep sending those checks!

Activist malpractice, indeed.

(Cross-posted on Broadsides.org}

Big day. Well, if you care about all things wild in Vermont. Because the Agency of Natural Resources will be holding a public hearing tonight in Montpelier (Pavilion Auditorium, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.) to take testimony regarding its plans to allow all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) access to state-owned land.

Proponents of the letting these gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting and otherwise just noisy and obnoxious machines onto Vermont’s public lands are trying to soft-pedal these new rules, claiming that the newly proposed ATV trails will just be “short connectors” to already existing off-road-vehicle trails on private lands.

Yeah right. If you’ve bothered to follow snowmobile or ATV issues in Vermont, you know that when you give these renegades an inch they take a mile – literally.

Make no mistake, the ANR’s proposed rule to allow ATV access to public lands – no matter how short the original connector trails are – is a huge change in public policy that will almost certainly lead to more and more ATV access to state lands, including our publicly-owned forests. The organized ATV groups – like VASA  – don’t hide the fact that they want to ride practically anywhere they can put it in four-wheel drive and rip it up.

The irony in the ANR’s proposed new rule is that ATV proponents are admitting that these new trails are necessary partly due to the current illegal riding by ATVers. Just read these words by VASA’s Danny Hale, as told to John Dillon of Vermont Public Radio:

Unfortunately there’s a fair amount of illegal use already taking place on state land. And what we’re trying to accomplish with a managed trail system is give people a chance to recreate where it’s legal, so that’s going to take a large number of the illegal riders right out of the picture.

Got that? In case you don’t, let me explain: The ATV riders are riding illegally on the public’s land now so, instead of enforcing the laws banning it, the state should change the laws to make it legal.

I’m guessing you’ve got to be around a lot of burned hydrocarbons to come up with that argument.

Unfortunately (and predictably), mainstream environmental groups like the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) aren’t showing a lot teeth when it comes to fighting back against this proposed ATV land grab. The Vermont Press Bureau, for example, writes in this morning’s papers that, according to the VNRC’s Jamey Fidel, the group “isn’t necessarily opposed” to the first new connector trail being proposed in Island Pond.  

Why – oh why – is it so hard from groups like VNRC to take a firm stand? But that’s another story for another time I suppose.

To the group’s credit, VNRC does document the very real and acknowledged problems with ATV riding: pollution, noise, flora and fauna damage, water run-off issues, interference with non-motorized forms of recreation and even rider safety. But with a laundry lists of problems like this, VNRC ought to be flying the “ban ATVs flag” as high as they can.

But, have no fear, the Horse Loggers for Peace will there – at tonight’s hearing that is. And you won’t have any trouble figuring out where we stand on this issue. It should be fun. Join us if you can.

Below are some great links to resources from groups who aren’t afraid to speak up and act out:

Leave it Wild

Bluewater Network

New Rules Project

(Cross-posted on Broadsides.org)

Well, ahem, never mind. At least for a day or so. Because Mr. Johnson has invited yours truly to come on his show tomorrow (Tuesday) to discuss last week’s ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court to dismiss all the charges against me and Boots Wardinski for our June, 2006 heckling of John Negroponte. Should be interesting. My appearance is scheduled for 10:15.

And, no, there is no truth to the rumor that Boots will be protesting at the WDEV studios in an attempt to brand me as a “sell-out.” At least I don’t think there’s any truth to it. But you never know with Boots. Besides, he’s been too busy sugaring to know what’s going on in the “real” world anyway. Keep sugaring, my friend.

Or maybe Mark’s just messing with me, and he’s planning to have Leahy/Sanders/Welch/and/or Douglas on the line so that I can ask the “hard questions” myself. Cool. I dare you, Mark. Because my first question would be: How is it that four career politicians can continue spinning their nonsense when they’ve so obviously missed preventing the worst economic crime in our nation’s history? At what point do they feel a sense of guilt, responsibility and/or culpability? After 10 years? 20 years? 30 years of “public service?”

Or maybe Mark’s going to have some of his journalistic peers on the line to protest my assertion that the mainstream media in Vermont has an all-too-comfy connection to the political and economic elite in this state. Again, cool. I’d ask them all this: Doesn’t the fact that a majority of Vermonters vote for both a so-called “socialist” (Sanders) AND a proven right-winger (Douglas) indicate that the media isn’t doing their job in terms of truly covering/presenting their true political inclinations? Because, from my perspective, it’s either that or the average Vermont voter is simply bat-shit crazy for pulling both the Sanders and Douglas lever.

Or maybe he’s got some dirt on me and he’s planning to make damn sure that my only option is bury my face in the woods forever.

Or maybe, just maybe, he’s a decent guy with a keen sense of humor and some thick skin who doesn’t hold grudges when snarky commenters let it rip on him. Yeah, that’s it. Until, that is, we see what he’s got in store for me tomorrow.

Tune in, my friends. And even call if you’ve got the inclination.

Until then, I’ll see you in the woods. It’s nothing but glorious out there today.

(Cross-posted at Broadsides.org)

I’ve been homebound a bit more than I’d like lately. First, with a hideous chest cold and now to avoid the soggy ground and attempt to get some inside work done. And being inside for me usually means being a slave to the radio – talk radio to be precise.

In Central Vermont, local talk radio means WDEV to me. But I’m not sure how much more I can take – especially in the morning – as Mark Johnson of the not-so-cleverly-named “Mark Johnson Show” seems hell-bent in his milquetoast pursuit of playing the media lapdog to Vermont’s power elite.

If you’ve ever listened to Johnson, you’ll know what I’m talking about: He approaches his media role not like a probing reporter but more like a member – if not a leading member – of an insider’s club of Vermont’s media, economic and political elite. In other words, Johnson takes the exact opposite path of what the late, great Joseph Pulitzer saw as the true goal of the “fourth estate’: To have no friends.

For two hours a day, five days a week, Johnson brings forth a steady stream of his fellow club members, exchanging pleasant guffaws with them and lobbing softballs in their general direction, seemingly not bothered by the shallowness of it all. It is, after all, what maintains his membership to the “club.” Because we all know the quickest way to get kicked out of the Vermont media and political elite is to actually ask some tough questions of your fellow members. Bye-bye invites to “Vermont This Week,” for sure. And so long to those 15-minute puff-pieces with Leahy/Sanders/Welch/Douglas where allowing them to regurgitate their talking points masquerades as an “interview.”

If Johnson ever does demonstrate disdain for anyone, it’s usually the poor fool who dares to call into his show and criticize the media. Johnson will not tolerate it. Never mind that the Vermont media is an atrophied shadow of what the media really should be (and getting worse by the week given the layoffs and cutbacks), Johnson will not let even the mildest media critique get by without either a hang-up and/or a stern rebuke.

Most recently, for example, the leader of the Vermont Senate, Peter Shumlin, was a guest on Johnson’s show to discuss the Democratic leadership’s decision to put gay marriage on its priority list for this current session. The all-too-frequent and curmudgeonly old-guy callers (do these guys ever work?) to his show bombarded Shumlin with the Republican talking points, declaring that the gay marriage issue was a “distraction” to the real matters (read: economic) facing the state.

Shumlin hung in there quite admirably, trying – time and time again – to point out that the gay marriage bill wasn’t really taking up much time and, nevertheless, was merely one bill among dozens and dozens that the legislature was more than capable of considering.

But Shumlin crossed the Johnson line when he dared to venture into even the mildest of mild media criticism. “Well,” declared an almost exasperated Shumlin, “we held a press conference yesterday about our latest economic plan but you wouldn’t know it because the media didn’t cover it.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interjected Johnson, “before you start criticizing the media…”

And Shumlin, being the good club member himself, knew that he had to back down, allowing Johnson’s rebuke to stand while shelving his very reasonable critique of the Vermont media and allowing its embarrassingly shallow coverage of the Statehouse go unchecked.

But Johnson’s at his all-time worst when he’s interviewing a fellow media club member. Take, for example, his interview today with WCAX’s Marselis Parsons. Johnson invited Parsons on after he read the news that Vermont’s own media dinosaur was considering retiring. The ensuing interview was little more than a mutual admiration love-fest: “Don’t you love what you do?”

Um, excuse me fellas, but you’re members of the media. So why don’t you loosen up your lover’s embrace long enough to ask a hard question in these incredibly hard times. You know, something like: How did the Vermont media completely blow it when it comes to the economic crisis? And why don’t we hold some of our life-long political figures accountable for fiddling while our economy burned?

Instead, we got things like: “Wow, you’ve been there for 42 years?” “I’ve only been around for half that time.” “Does it feel like it’s been that long?” “Tell me about your favorite interview?”

That, my friends, is how you remain in the club: lob softballs at your fellow club members, make no waves, and fantasize about all the accolades that might come your way after 42-years of doing little but shilling for the power elite. Oh yeah, Mark, you’re halfway there…

If Johnson ever does show disdain, it’s almost always for those who dare to criticize the media or hold Vermont politicians accountable. Instead of probing the power elite, Johnson acts as a firewall to seemingly protect them – thus assuring more bland interviews with his clubmates. “Tell me, Senator Leahy, how does it feel to be so powerful?” Yawn.

The only disdain Johnson ever shows is almost exclusively for those who dare to put a spotlight on the miserable state of the Vermont media. He simply won’t tolerate it. Much like he won’t tolerate any true people-based attempt to hold his poltical friends accountable for their dithering and/or outright assistance in bringing about the mess we’re currently in as a state and a nation.

Sadly, Johnson’s a proud member of the insider’s club and he’s not going to risk his next attempt to crawl into the laps of fellow members by – gasp! – asking some uncomfortable questions of them. There are rules, you know.

Johnson, of course, is no different than almost all of his fellow Vermont media brethren. They know how to keep buttering their bread, even if it means totally and completely bastardizing the real role of the media: Standing outside of the club so as to ask the tough questions and demand the real answers.

But one thing is for sure: Johnson gets his phone calls returned, especially when those on the other end know that little more than lobs will be coming their way. “Tell me, Senator Sanders, how does it feel to be so popular?”

Or maybe he’s just being honest because, after all, it is called the “Mark Johnson Show.” And it is, indeed, all about Mark Johnson and his cozy friendships with those who are willing to trade back-scratches and belly-rubs. Anything, that is, but make waves….

Sorry, Mr. Pulitzer, it’s a whole different era.

{The author can be reached at mcolby@broadsides.org}

{Cross-posted on Broadsides.org}

Wait a second. I’m starting to think I saw this movie. You know, the one where the president at a time of crisis rushes around in a hyperkinetic fit telling us to follow his plan or face death to nearly everything and everyone we care about. And, by now, we all know how those movies end.

In the days after 9/11, President George W. Bush grabbed the bullhorn at the site of the former-Twin Towers and went rushing into what can only honestly be called a maniacal, ill-informed, ill-targeted, tragically executed and otherwise disastrous grand plan to topple Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Why? Weapons of mass destruction, of course.

But the overly-hyped Bush, jacked up by the tales of macho-triumph being spun by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, put logic on hold and, instead, exported his fear and loathing to whip the nation into a malleable mob that would join the great suspension of logic and support any and all rash military acts as “the only thing” we could do. Well, that or face lung lesions and death from the onslaught of chemical and biological weapons that were  “just about” to rain down upon us.

They even added color to their great cartoon caper: The ridiculous color-coding of the nation’s risk alert status. That, my friends, was nothing but an elaborate psy-ops orchestrated upon each of us who drank from the chalice of American Culture enough to watch, see or read about the dangling lights of fear, fear and more fear. And they knew that when they needed something – say, a new bomber, bomb target or tax cut – all they had to do was up the fear meter and, as a result, scare/shock us into submission.

But now Obama’s got his hands on the fear joystick. And, sadly, he didn’t seem to learn much from the grand misadventures of Bush.

Obama, of course, was the unfortunate recipient of a nation spinning out of control economically. Thanks, George, indeed. So he certainly deserves a moment or two worth of understanding. But those moments are up for me.

Obama’s now rushing around with a metaphorical bullhorn of his own, yelling to anyone who will listen that we must throw one trillion dollars more to corporate criminals. That, or face a hideous economic death to anything and everyone we love.

Hmmm, smells like weapons of economic destruction to me.

And please, don’t misconstrue any of this to think I’m belittling the economic crisis this nation (and world) is facing. Sorry, but you don’t need an economist to know which the money winds are blowing today. Besides, I think those of us swimming at or near the bottom understand this economic crisis a whole hell of a lot better than the stuff-shirts who keep gallivanting before Congress with their hat in hand and their crocodile tears announcing that they’re now willing to forgo their bonuses for the year. Oh, the sacrifices!

Sorry, but that’s like letting a bank robber go free because they’ve promised not to rob again for a year.

Like Bush in his post-9/11 coronation of our new state-of-fear, Obama is flying the fear flag in the face of the economic catastrophe that has landed in his lap. According to Obama, we have no time. We have no options. And we must act now. Or else.

As much as I keep hoping for the director of this movie to step in and yell, “cut, cut, cut,” realizing it’s feeling all too familiar to last year’s movie, it’s not happening. Worse, it’s working – Obama is convincing that malleable mob to rush to action once again. Silly America, when will we ever learn?

Make no mistake, today’s economic crisis is Obama’s 9/11. It’s the defining crisis of his presidency. And, unfortunately for the believers in real change, it’s a crisis that Obama is already mishandling.

In his rush to act, Obama has entered the shark pool of big money and big influence and made nice with them all, resulting in a “solution” that can only honestly be called a maniacal, ill-informed, ill-targeted, tragically executed and otherwise disastrous grand plan to save a nation’s economy.

I know we’re in the Twitter and Blackberry age, whereby everything has to happen fast, fast and faster, and where everything that has to be said better fit in a “subject line,” but, my goodness, can’t we take a breath as a nation once in a while? We Twittered our way to war, yellow-ribboned ourselves in deeper, and now seem ready to instant message ourselves to economic oblivion.

In other words, shallow fucking haste. Or paper mache principles. Or both.

The economic crisis is now Obama’s – no matter what he inherited. He’s made it the first act in his very own presidential drama. And, sadly for us all, it will be the defining act that will ultimately pop the remaining hope balloons and send a nation back to reality: We got fooled again.

Obama had his moment served to him before Chief Justice Roberts had time to flub up his oath of office. Dangling there on the key chain handed over by the oh-so-happy to get out of there Bushies was a neon light that certainly flashed: Economic Disaster.

But Obama has failed in his response so far. He has cow-towed to the economic elite. He has bent over for only one consitutuency: The Right. And he has wielded his fear stick and told us all that we must do as his administration says or face … or face… or face… (oh yeah) the same old shit that got us into this mess: Corrupt power from the top.

Oh well, at least we all forgot about the war, the lack of health care, the lack of an adequate safety net, and the continued mockery of our dreams and ideals.

Go Obama, Go!

(Cross-posted at Broadsides.org)

Poor Rod Blagojevich. He got caught, of course, trying to negotiate a deal for how he’d go about appointing a replacement for Barack Obama’s senate seat. And the crowd went wild – liberals and conservatives alike. And, while using all the strength they could to keep straight faces, they intoned in a near-perfect chorus: How dare he? How could he? This isn’t the way things are done.

Bullshit. Old Blago was just a bit reckless.

But, cried the bullshitters, you can’t trade favors when it comes to making appointments like that. The liberal darling of the moment, Rachel Maddow, even went so far as to imply that Blago incriminated himself on her MSNBC show because he – rather laughingly – declared that what he was really trying to get in return for the appointment was a legislative promise or two.

Maddow’s knuckle-dragging competition at FOX News displayed a similar sense of “outrage,” only more so since Blago, the other key players and the seat in question were all wrapped in the “evil” D-word: Democrat.

The rules are clear, they all sang, you cannot seek anything in exchange for a political appointment.

Sure, this is a fine theory – not to mention one that ought to be followed and enforced. But, sorry silly talking heads, this is far from the political reality. And, of course, you know it.

Fast forward to today’s news that President Obama will be appointing New Hampshire’s Republican Senator, Judd Gregg, to be his Secretary of Commerce, an appointment that will lead to yet another open senate seat to be filled by a sitting governor.

When news of the potential Gregg appointment first broke last week it was portrayed as little more than a clever “trick” by the Obama team to either look bipartisan by even considering it or by knocking Gregg out of the Senate so that New Hampshire’s Democratic governor, John Lynch, could appoint a replacement – thus securing the coveted 60-seat filibuster-busting majority the Democrats desire.

As a result, the pundits scoffed at the Gregg pick. There’s no way Gregg would give up his seat and stick it to his Republican colleagues, they all chirped.

But that was last week. Because this week – today, in fact – a deal has apparently been reached: Gregg and Governor Lynch have agreed that a Republican will be appointed to take Gregg’s place once his appointment is confirmed. And not only that, they’ve also apparently agreed that whomever they appoint will also agree not to run for the open seat in two years.

So let’s tune into the MSNBC and FOX News pundits to feel their current outrage for the obvious “conditions” that were secured for a political appointment: Nothing. But. Silence.

Bullshitters, indeed.

And the most comical aspect to all of this is that these same news organizations are reporting this morning that the Obama administration has “not been involved” in any of the negotiations surrounding a possible replacement for Gregg. Cue the laugh track.

From a political perspective, I can understand why the Republican cheerleaders are keeping quiet on this one. But what about the liberals? They’re being asked to both “shut up” about the appointment of yet another Republican to the Obama cabinet and “ignore” the deal to appoint another Republican to replace him.

Geez, who put the “kick me” sign on their backs? But, being the good liberals that they are, they’ll just play along, pretending, of course, that maybe – just maybe – Obama will flash his mega-watt grin at them sometime soon.

The good news is that there’s at least one Democrat who won’t be keeping quiet on this New Hampshire deal: Rod Blagojevich. I’ll bet his lawyers are preparing the subpoenas right now for each and every player in the “Gregg deal” in order to prove what we all, unfortunately, should know: Our career politicians are little more than money and power whores.

And once they’re done with their dirty dealing, they rest of us still won’t have the jobs we need, the health care we deserve or the peace we desire.

Until we wake up.

(Cross-posted at Broadsides.org)

Yes, the news is true. And, yes, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.

For those who don’t know and/or forgot (like I almost did), Food & Water – under the direction of yours truly – launched a campaign against Vermont’s own Cabot Creamery in 1995 when we learned that they were about to allow their farmers to use the Monsanto corporations synthetic bovine growth hormone (rBGH), Posilac. And, last week, Cabot announced that it was, indeed, going to be “listening to its customers” and banning the use of the cow drug by August of this year. Like I said: Victory! Yeah right.

There was one grammatical error in Cabot’s announcement however: They said they were listening to their “customers.” But what they should have said was “customer.” Because Cabot’s nearly-fifteen years of flinging their noses at their real customers who were demanding an end to its rBGH use was really stopped by one, single “customer”: Wal-Mart. Yep, it was the mega-retailer who let Cabot know that they were looking for hormone-free dairy products. And when Wal-Mart said, “jump,” Cabot said, “how high?” – especially when, according to dairy industry insiders, Wal-Mart is now responsible for nearly 25% of Cabot’s sales.

But, for the sheer fun of it, let’s step back and look at how Food & Water secured this “victory.” In the spring of 1995 as Food & Water was preparing to unveil a similar anti-rBGH campaign against Land 0’Lakes, an employee of Cabot Creamery approached me with the news that he had obtained an internal memo from Cabot’s headquarters that he was certain I would be interested in. The Cabot employee was right: The memo acknowledged that Cabot farmers were not only being allowed to use rBGH but that its use was well underway. And this was a time when Cabot was publicly declaring a “wait and see” attitude about Monsanto’s cow drug.

After confirming the authenticity of the memo and a few phone calls with Cabot’s executives, a campaign was born. As we said at the time, we weren’t about to go after the Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes for its use of rBGH and then ignore the same consumer and animal welfare transgressions by our neighbors, Cabot Creamery (at the time, Food & Water was headquartered in Walden, Vermont, a mere five miles up the road from Cabot).

The campaign generated enormous attention both here in Vermont and throughout the United States. While most anti-rBGH activists at the time were focused on lobbying the Food & Drug Administration or Congress, Food & Water saw the writing on the wall and, instead, directed our campaigns at the corporations seeking to use the product. I wrote an article at the time, in fact, that described the legislators and regulators as the mere “puppets” in the battle, while the Monsantos and the food corporations like Cabot were the “puppeteers.” And so we aimed directly at the folks holding the strings.

It got mighty heated, too. While our campaign generated thousands of letters, postcards and phone calls to Cabot’s offices demanding that they reverse their decision based on human health and animal welfare considerations, Cabot dug in their heels and called in their favors from Vermont’s political, media and economic elite to help them fight off the big, bad Food & Water.

The facts regarding rBGH’s link to cancer and its known contribution to animal disease and even death were mostly discarded by the rescue squad called in by Cabot to fend us off. Governor Howard Dean held a press conference to condemn us. Newspapers editorialized about our “tactics” being suspect (boycotts?). And even our peers in the consumer and environmental movement (yes, VPIRG and Rural Vermont) came to Cabot’s defense, urging us to take our campaign someplace else. Chickens. But, then again, they’re still operating at full-strength…

After hearing about Cabot’s fifteen-year change of rBGH policy, I wandered out to my barn to peruse my old Food & Water archives (stored in a horse stall, where the horses have dutifully defecated on them and found a real use for them: scratching posts). Oh boy, let the memories flow.

Here are some of my favorite moments while walking down the Cabot campaign memory lane this morning:

• After Food & Water unveiled a radio commercial targeting Cabot’s use of rBGH, Governor Howard Dean held a press conference condemning Food & Water, calling us a “terrorist group” and, while holding up a package of Cabot’s cheese, urged all Vermonters “to go home and eat two Cabot grilled cheese sandwiches.”

• Another “liberal” politician, Elizabeth Ready, a state senator at the time but later the state’s auditor, had this to say to Food & Water via the media: “Either pack your bags and hit the road or change your tactics.” And, remember, this was when we were simply asking people to “call Cabot” and ask them to stop using rBGH.

• Cabot’s spokesperson at the time, Roberta McDonald, was good for more than a few whacky comments about Food & Water, too. Following the Dean “terrorist” analogy, McDonald compared Food & Water to the Unabomber before declaring that, “locking up the leaders of Food & Water would be a better way to protect the people.” Yikes. I guess we were getting on her nerves, huh?

Funny, though, that we don’t hear the same kind of language now about Wal-Mart. I mean, they simply asked for the same thing Food & Water asked for fifteen years ago: Stop using rBGH. Oh well, I guess it’s all a matter of how you ask….

I’ll be sharing some more stories about the early years of Food & Water now that I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole of opening the old files and bringing the memories bubbling up from yesteryear. They were good times. We were fighting the good fight. We were just a decade and a half ahead of the curve of change.

Go figure.

[You can reach the author at mcolby@broadsides.org]

We interrupt the liberal-love-fest with this bit of news: Obama Orders First Air Strikes. Funny, but the starry-eyed masses don’t want to deal with this quite yet. But it’s true: Obama drew his first blood on his first week with his hand on the trigger of the world’s most bloated military enterprise. The result: At least 14 civilians dead, mostly women and children. So much for that bullshit rhetoric about “extending a hand.”

But the liberals gently sleep through the news of it all, still marshmallow-brained over the fuzzy-Obama-ness-of-being. Some things never change.

I found myself at a party over the weekend and mentioned these air strikes on Pakistan. The folks in attendance treated the news as if I were a leper: “Get away from me, I’m still celebrating,” their looks and body language told me. That’s what happens with false idols. You start to ascribe qualities to them that are as far-fetched as Santa coming down the chimney.

But this is certainly one more step in Obama’s great plan to assure the still-ruling right wing that everything will be okay under his regime. The killing will continue. The Wall Street bailouts will continue. Health care will continue to be a privilege. Capitalism is king. And the undertow of society can join the fucking Army if they want a job. Brother, can you spare some change?

Please, go to the link above and watch the video of the Pakistani people protesting the Obama administration’s missile strikes on their homes. And then, please, put away your delusions and get to work.

Or, since I know it’s all the rage on this site, ask yourselves this: What would Rosa Parks do? [Hint: She wouldn’t ignore it.]

(Cross-posted on Broadsides.org and CounterPunch.org)

Oh America, you celebrate better than most. But why must you always celebrate with your blinders on? Why must you celebrate the end to the “race wars” with a nasty kick at the queers? Why must you speak of toil while keeping the toilers at bay?

I’m confused, America. I want to attend your parties but I smell of horseshit and I wouldn’t be allowed in. Besides, I can’t stop thinking about the servers at your parties. How do they feel about your $200 million inauguration? Would you like my dignity with that?, they ask.

I want you to think about class. I want you to wonder why it takes a billion dollars to win the presidency. I want you to wonder why Steven Spielberg and not Cindy Sheehan gets a seat at your party.

I want to believe. I want to say, “Yes, we can.”

I want to cry with you, America, when you feel like you’ve reached the top step. But I see many, many more steps to come. And so I cry for the 40 million of us with no health insurance. Or for the 3 million of us who lost our jobs recently. Or for the soldiers like Vermont’s own, Thomas Hermann, who ran for Congress – unsuccessfully – to really (truly) stop the war but found out last week that he’s being called back to serve yet another tour in Iraq under Obama’s army.

I want to believe, America. I’d like to celebrate. I’d like to wear the proud smile of those who pretend they’ve crossed the finish line of democracy but I can’t be fooled. For it is only the finish line of privilege that they’ve crossed. They have won, for sure. But we have lost. For we have no insurance. We have no jobs. We have no economic equality. And we have no tickets to the glittering inaugural balls.

America, I want you to listen to all of Martin Luther King’s speeches. He was making demands. He was righteously angry. He was right.

Listen to his words: “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.”

And if “amen” can be said to anyone or anything, it is not to the Rick Warrens and his homophobic rants in the name of the Jesus in his mind, it is to the words of the people who have truly risked something, fought for something, and denied themselves something so that those with nothing had a seat at the table of basic human dignity.

This is no time to celebrate, America. This is a time to push forward with all our might. And to reject false prophets. And to demand what is truly ours: Dignity. Truth. And Happiness. For all, not just those who can afford it or a seat next to it.

Oh yes, I have a dream, too, America. And it’s all about a victory in our next, glorious war: The War on Class.

Ready. Aim. Organize.

(Cross posted at Broadsides.org)

You know, sometimes reality is just more entertaining than snarky blogging. And so it is now, as John McCain apparently tries to one-up Ronald Reagan by proving he’s bat-shit-crazy BEFORE being elected to the presidency. Suspend his campaign? Huh? And while you’re at it, John, why don’t you put a big bow on the idea along with a gift note to Obama that says something like: Congratulations, you win – I’m an idiot.

The Obama campaign must have been wetting themselves with excitement when the news of McCain’s latest mental meltdown came rolling in on their Blackberries. High-fives all around, for sure.

Because, as we know, the last piece of the Obama presidency puzzle was the one that seeks to prove that he’s “presidential.” And Obama was well on his way to doing that on his own by bending over for the bailout plan, defending his Wall Street investors (in the name of Main Street, of course – wink, wink), and perfecting that “look” of concern while saying absolutely nothing of substance in the process.

But then along came America’s favorite crazy uncle, Johnny McCain, with the news that he was suspending his campaign, rushing back to Washington and – once again – “putting his country before his campaign.”

In baseball terms, it was what amounted to the biggest, fattest, non-curving curve ball to be served up during a presidential campaign since – oh – Mike Dukakis donned that silly helmet and took a spin in that dopey tank.

Whack! And Obama hit it, easy as it was, by stating the obvious and, most importantly for his campaign, “looking” presidential: “Being president is all about handling many different issues at once.” But that wasn’t the hard part; that came when he had to contain his glee until he got out of eyesight and earshot of the media, whereby he certainly continued the high-fiving and celebration of the McCain gift that just keeps giving.

While the pundits talked themselves blue about the latest McCain weirdness, it was David Letterman who was truly nailing it on his Late Night comedy show. Having been dissed by McCain — as we all certainly know by now – Letterman let his snarky side shine by putting his finger on the real reason for the McCain campaign’s suspension: He can’t tend to his senate responsibilities AND continue to work 24/7 in his efforts to keep his veep candidate, Sarah Palin, absolutely and completely hidden.

Yep, John McCain can’t multi-task. And while he wants us to believe that he’s putting his country before his campaign, it’s the opposite that’s obviously the truth.  Because his campaign can’t take the “risk” of him returning to Washington while Palin takes the reins of the campaign.

Which begs the obvious question: If the McCain campaign can’t take the Palin risk, how can the country risk a potential Palin vice-presidency?