Social entrepreneurs building the new Jamaica

Social entrepreneurs building the new Jamaica

I have a soft spot for Jamaica because my wife has her origins their. Outside of that Jamaica has produced some wonderful music artists including the great Bob Marley.

But wait there is more to Jamaica and this article provides an insight into how social entrepreneurs are helping to inspire and change the country.

Can History Repeat Itself?

I discovered this article while reading social news at the Huffington Post. What is remarkable about this article is it accurately describes the strategy taken by the right over the last two years in the USA.
The recent elections in November provided the right with gains and proved that their strategy gained traction.

The link to this article is here.

Tea Party Origins and the future of the USA

The Tea party was started only two months into Obama's presidency was it spontaneous or was it planned.

According to various pundits on the right the Tea party was a reaction to the trillion of dollars spent on bailing out the banks and rescuing the auto industry.

Cue Ricky Santelli
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or-EKjfVCoA&feature=related

Here are extracts from an article claiming Santelli's rant was scripted.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santellis-faux-rant/

“How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?

 What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was.

 What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.”

“Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short’s Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first “exposed” a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg’s radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” That Rosenberg’s producer owns the “chicagoteaparty.com” site is already weird—but what’s even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg’s launch of the “Obama is a terrorist” campaign. It’s as if they held this “Chicago tea party” campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was.

This looks like more than a coincidence. This is now a very serious charge.

I have no insight as to whether this is true or not — but it certainly deserves a serious response from both Santelli and CNBC.  If its false, then they should say so, and demand an apology from Playboy.

But if any of it is true, well then, Santelli may have to fall on his sword, and CNBC may owe the public an apology.

Another group who have been seen as instigators of the Tea Party is the Sam Adams  Project

For what its worth The Tea Party far from being a spontaneous movement was in reality a group who continued campaigning against Obama after their chosen candidate for President  John MCain failed to win the Presidency.

Their success has been in part engendered by the Right wing media led by Fox News who have sponsored many Tea Party events and politicians such as ex governor of Alaska Sarah Palin.

What is clear though is that the impact of the Tea Party has changed the politics of The USA in the short term whether the democrats can expose the forces behind this movement will be key to them winning the 2012 elections.

THE BIGOT'S HANDBOOK

THE BIGOT'S HANDBOOK

Although this article was written in 1995 it is remarkably relevant today after the infestation of American politics By Tea Party.

Im not by nature either a pessimist or realist but in the case of Human nature I do realize that people make decisions everyday to protect their own interest's what they don't realize however, is their own interests are interconnected in ways which they are still to comprehend.