How delighted I was to receive an email from Common Dreams, showing signs of skepticism finally at President Obama’s growing betrayal of American progressives. After censoring CD participants who criticize the Democratic Party for its capitulation to corporate centrism, even banning the persistent voices from its online discussions, the blogosphere giant now purports to have examined it stats and rediscovered its radical base. I’m thrilled that CD has met its enemy, and it is not us, but I wish their epiphany wasn’t about who’s left to tap for money.
How can we but surmise that Common Dreams enjoyed financial support from Obama’s Dems, for toeing the party line? They paid the bills, the dream was blue.
Now that Obama is in office, and his progressive supporters don’t have the charm of his new globalist friends, Common Dreams has to go back to stickball with the rest of us with no access. I’d be a lot more inclined toward sympathy for Common Dreams if it showed some remorse for having cast aside so many while it co-opted the common dream to make it about Barack Obama.
Here’s the fund raising letter from Common Dreams, saying all the right things, just like President False Hope himself.
July 24, 2009
Dear Friend of CommonDreams.org,
When Americans voted overwhelmingly for ‘Change’ last November 4th, I, like so many of you, was hopeful.
Hopeful that we’d bring our troops home. Hopeful for a major commitment to safe, renewable energy.
Hopeful that Wall Street and corporate lobbyists would no longer be able to treat our elected representatives like puppets on a string.
Hopeful that Guantánamo would be closed and the torturers would be prosecuted. That the post-9/11 trampling of our civil liberties would be reversed.
Hopeful that President Obama would rally the people around a bold, progressive overhaul of our sickly healthcare ‘system.’
Hopeful that the neglected investments in our people, our future, would begin again.
But frankly, seven months into the new administration, my hope is fading.
I have days when I think we’ll never overcome this system.
But I never have a day when I think about giving up.
Four times a year we ask you to support our work. Will you help today by making a secure online donation today to our Summer Appeal?
Two of the most popular articles on CommonDreams.org these past months were writings by longtime activists, Paul Hawken and Derrick Jensen.
Two tireless fighters against the system.
It was clear from the stats on our site that the words of these two progressive thinkers resonated with you, and with all of our readers.
Paul Hawken has been warning against the accelerating decline of Planet Earth for decades. As he said in his May 3 speech to graduates of the University of Portland, Oregon, “If you look at the science about what’s happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data.”
But he also spoke of hope: “. . . if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”
Last I checked, I still had a pulse.
Jensen’s prognosis for civilisation is even more sober. Still, even he urges us to resist – by voting, running for office, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting. And, he says, “when a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to alter or abolish it.”
Altering or abolishing a government is not for the faint of heart.
But sitting idly, silently by while our planet, our government, and our society self-destruct is not for people like you and me.
Common Dreamers were so inspired by the words of these two writers, they forwarded them to thousands of others to read.
Thousands of people like you, who will use the information to help fuel the fight for truth.
The fight for what’s right.
The fight for what the majority of Americans say, in poll after poll, they want – and yet are being denied by a government that is bought and paid for by corporations and a tiny percentage of people who hold the vast majority of wealth in this country.
Jensen ends his article with a call to action: “We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.”
The time to get confrontational is now.
Because tomorrow might be too late.
Please help us continue to inform and inspire and ignite change by making a secure donation today. Or, you can use our print and mail form, which includes our mailing address, to send a check
Thank you so much.
Gratefully,
Craig Brown
Executive Director
for the whole CommonDreams.org teamP.S. Please consider signing up to make a monthly donation. And don’t forget to ask your employer about a matching gifts program. Please pitch in today!
