Let’s begin by giving a shout-out to yet another local boy who’s running for President – this time LA’s oddball gay Republican Fred Karger, without whom we wouldn’t have today’s story. It is Fred’s noble lawsuit against the horrific anti-marriage outfit ironically named the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) that uncovered some of their sleazy internal strategy documents. So let’s first celebrate by watching one of Mr. Karger’s strange campaign commercials – some of the weirdest since Mike Gravel’s in 2008. (Well, that and Herman Cain.)
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But really, what’s crazier, that or this:
So, speaking of NOM, on just about the same day those freaks called for a boycott of Starbucks because of that company’s support for marriage equality, secret memos were released detailing this malevolent group’s divisive strategy for defeating gay marriage here in 2008 (Prop 8 ) and in Maine the following year, by turning blacks against gays:
“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies… Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots.”
How much more evil can you get, conspiring to get two minorities hating on each other? And the best they could find was MLK’s crazy-ass niece? What can you and I do about this?
Well, one thing we can do is to go to our local Starbucks right now and order a big-ass MOCHA with whipped cream on top! And while you’re at it, make sure to let Starbucks know that you support and appreciate their new pro-marriage equality stance, by clicking here and thanking them.
But wait – there’s more!
It wasn’t just blacks that NOM quasi-pandered to, striving to appeal to their allegedly greater homophobia – it was also Latinos. Their memo further prescribes:
“The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity – a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.”
That reminds me – it was NOM who got together with the Carly Fiorina for Senate campaign back in 2010 and sent a bus all over the state with a cute Mexican family painted on the side, and a few goofy anti-gay Mexicans inside, hoping that Latinos’ supposed homophobia would convince them to vote for the nasty anti-immigrant CEO. Didn’t work. I helped the Courage Campaign chase that bus around the OC, and wrote about it here and here.
It seems like we should do something about that too. And fortunately there are Starbucks on just about every corner, if you hadn’t noticed. We’ve had enough coffee for now, let’s instead get one of their excellent artisan sandwiches or pastries, and some healthy green tea.
But that’s still not all!
For an organization supposedly driven by “moral” quirks, the new documents – like the above Fiorina bus – show the group to be notably partisan, i.e. specifically pro-Republican Party. Their strategies for dividing blacks and Latinos from gays were presented as “driving a wedge into the Democratic base,” and in 2008 was specifically intended to “sideswipe Obama“ – whom they obviously and wrongly assumed was pro-gay marriage. (Last I heard, the 51-year-old constitutional scholar is still “grappling” with the issue, sigh…)
Is the GOP happy being the anti-gay party, the anti-equality party? How much of Republican anti-gay orthodoxy is the malicious doing of parasitic groups like NOM? They’ve now managed to get three of the four main GOP Presidential candidates to sign their pledge:
“to pass a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which bans federal benefits to married same-sex couples, and to establish a presidential commission “to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters.”
Ron Paul, bless his heart, refused to sign such an un-American pledge. The mad puritan Rick Santorum, well you know his heart was in it. And the pathetic Mitt Romney, who once boasted that he’d be a better supporter of gay rights than Edward Kennedy, will kiss any ass he has to to show how “conservative” he is, until he’s got the GOP nomination wrapped up and can shake the old Etch-a-Sketch again.
All very dispiriting. I feel we have to do something else. I’ve got it – get your loved one, parent, friend or relative a Starbucks gift card! This is something anybody can appreciate – just click on the image here, and let them know it’s for marriage equality!
FINALLY…
With all this patronizing of Starbucks, I feel I should remind you not to neglect your local mom-and-pop coffee houses, which you’re invited to plug in the comments section – not to mention Peet’s, which actually has the BEST coffee. It’s all good – we are going to need a LOT of caffeine to stay on our toes – because the Truly Miserable and Hateful amongst us never stop thinking of ways to hurt our country, And we have to keep thinking of ways to STOP them!
And as for NOM, let them drink Santorum.
Posted here at the Ellis and Brookhurst Starbucks, 3/29/2012.
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PS. Oh! Damn! Forgot the whole Jerbal / Schubert-Flint connection. People will be mad at me. Enjoy this blast from the past. Good times! Marriage equality shall return…….
This is pretty much one of the lowest things I’ve seen in politics. Then again, Fred Karger’s ads for Republicans are up there too.
The funny thing is that if Karger had wanted the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate this year, he might have had a chance at it.
Fred’s commercial is pretty weird, with what looks like blue phalluses (or phalli) flying around terrorizing the local population. When it turns out that they are frisbees didn’t make me (or the young men under there spell) feel any less disturbed.
He might actually be one of the more normal of the GOP (Gay Old Party), as he doesn’t seem to hide his quirkiness.
This Starbucks/Gay Rights thing is mostly political distraction and political opportunism. It is a a “wedge issue” and distraction tool for both parties. It appears to be being propelled mostly by Starbucks and responded to or reacted to by the political and religious Right.
Read why Occupy Oakland and other Occupies have voted to support B.D.S. and it’s support of Palestinian Liberation. Then read about the History that Starbucks C.E.O. has with Israel and the political/financial support he has given to the war of Israel over Palestine.
Neo-Liberal capitalistic economic engines often work hand in hand with Liberal Cultural Agendas and often use the later as handy tools for distracting the masses from investigating and critiquing the larger political agenda.
I’m sympathetic to the position of the “peace parties” in Israel. But I cannot see the eternal I-P debate as being a “core issue” for Occupy. Focusing on it seems like a way to kill it — or at least marginalize it — as has happened with many left-wing (and right-wing) movements before this.
People in Occupy are highly attentive to concerns about being co-opted by the Democratic Party. We should be equally attentive to not being co-opted by the BDS movement. If it makes you personally not want to support Starbucks, that’s up to you.
Well said. Now everybody google B.D.S. movement. and Occupiers get back to occupying Wall Street and preach rejection of corporate commerce.