[Marxism] MoveOn follies

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(John Scagliotti used to be the manager of WBAI in NYC, when it really
kicked ass.)

Counterpunch Weekend Edition
June 16/18, 2006
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How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money

By JOHN SCAGLIOTTI

    Editors' Note. This is Vermont-based moviemaker John Scagliotti's
second letter to MoveOn's Matzzle. We ran John's first dissection of
MoveOn's foolish expenditures in Alexander Cockburn's CounterPunch Diary,
April 24.

From: John Scagliotti
To: Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org Political Action
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: MoveOn Iraq ad censored: fight back.

Tom: Here we go again. This time [see MoveOn's appeal below, AC/JSC ] you
want to humiliate yourself, Move On, and your members by taking their money
to buy more expensive ads on Republican-owned television stations even
after they tell you to take a hike. Then you have the chutzpah to tell us
that the Republican party is threatening to sue stations if they run your
ads. What a smart move on their part. Perhaps instead of raising money for
ads, you should raise money to pay lawyers to threaten to sue stations for
running ads by right-wing nut cases. Why not buy your own TV stations. Oh,
I forgot, they already own them all because they are rich, have paid off
Congress and the FCC in order to keep their monopoly in place. Being rich
does not make you dumb.

But mostly the right wing knows it doesn't have to spend much money on ads
because Corporate TV news departments do their bidding for free.

I hope more people are beginning to understand that buying ads on Corporate
TV Stations to get a few swing voters to switch to "our side" is a myth.
You keep pointing out that you have hired smart media-polling organizations
to prove your point. You say, "we've tested these ads, and we know they
produce a punch with voters-even among people who don't yet support leaving
Iraq." What political-industrial complex organization are you listening to
and how much is this proof costing us? I am sure you realize that the more
ads they tell you to buy the more money they make. That's their job. It is
a conflict of interest that you need to advise your contributors about
before you keep spending their money on these ridiculous ads. These media
consultants are not going to tell you that what they get paid for is to
waste of our time and money. They have proof after all.

There are those of us who think you should spend the "grassroots" members
money on alternative grassroots media and grassroots organizers in those
so-called swing districts. Hire real grassroots people who can deliver the
votes. If you dropped your expensive political media consultants and their
ads you would have bundles to spend on real organizing. TV is fun and we
all want to be on it (hi mom!) but you need to show the proof that these
media consultants can swing voters to your side via expensive TV ads before
actually asking us for more money.

Meanwhile, why don't your convene a conference with some folks who do
progressive media and ask then how you could raise and spend your
grassroots money on grassroots media and organizers to achieve real change.

Sincerely,

John Scagliotti
(grassroots media person)

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/scagliotti06162006.html

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