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Billionaires for Bush! Beautiful Trouble!
We have been discussing strategies to educate voters whose only sources of information is the Corporate Media, about important issues
Does anyone remember how Billionaires For Bush used Opera Singing, Costumes, Street Theater, Satire and Acting to talk about eg, Healthcare, which they called 'Wealthcare', reform in a fun way??
A not too with it Republican actually thought they were FOR Bush but didn't like the way they were 'making him look bad':
“Shut up! You are not helping the President get re-elected. You are making the Republican Party look like a bunch of out-of-touch elitists! Assholes!”
Email from an exasperated Republican
Which was the point! Lol!
Here's some video of them interrupting an AHIP conference. AHIP was spending 5 million dollars a week trying to kill health care reform. Billionaires for Wealthcare is a grassroots network looking to stop them - with song.
They did lots of stuff like this during the Bush era, 'praising' Bush and Billionaire friends etc.
Since any attempt to get Progressive Dems elected is going to be up against huge amounts of Corporate money, I was wondering about ways to overcome that to some extent, using whatever tools are available to help get the message.
Billionaires for Bush operated in several states during the Health Care debate, (and during the Bush years).
On this site there are suggestions about how to conduct successful campaigns. They use Billionaires for Bush as an example of how to get a message across using all the techniques they used.
Billionaires for Bush: Beautiful Trouble
“Some people call you the elite,” George W. Bush joked to his wealthy funders, “I call you my base.” Whether candidate Bush meant it as a joke or not, the Billionaires for Bush (B4B) campaign used humor, street theater and creative media actions to show the country how true the quip was. Working to expose how the Republican Party serves the interests of the super-rich, the Billionaires also addressed the broader issues of economic inequality and corporate greed.
An early version of the campaign in 2000, “Billionaires for Bush (or Gore),” had spread virally via the internet and mainstream media exposure. It rebranded itself for the 2004 election, taking as its crusade the defeat of Bush. The New York City chapter took the lead, assembling talented volunteers, among them professional designers, media producers, and actors. It then put the campaign pieces in place. A stylish logo swapped the Republican elephant with a piggy bank stuffed with bills. Satirical slogans — “Repeal the First Amendment,” “Free the Forbes 400,” “Corporations are people too” — adorned bumper stickers, buttons, and a slick website, mimicking the look of Bush-Cheney propaganda. A songwriter produced tuneful renditions of what the super-wealthy really think, performed by meticulously rehearsed singers. The members themselves adopted personae, with names and
costumes to match, spoofing iconic versions of the .01 percent: the Monopoly-style robber baron (Phil T. Rich), the dim-witted heiress (Alexis Anna Rolls), the trust-fund fuck-up (Monet Oliver D’Place), and so on.
Soon, the Billionaires could be found talking down to “the little people” at Bush-Cheney campaign events, left-wing rallies, and street corners. They could also be found all over the mainstream media, garnering thousands of hits, including multiple features in the New York Times and on network and cable TV. Even the chant “Watch more Fox News, then you’ll share our right-wing views!” made it to air… on Fox News.
Media coverage was generated by carefully planned hoaxes, such as the appearance, to a throng of adoring billionaires, of a Karl Rove impostor at a GOP fundraiser. Other times, the campaign outsmarted the authorities to attract the media glare, such as when it held a croquet match on Central Park’s “Great Lawn,” from which a half-million anti-Bush demonstrators had been banned by New York’s mayor. The media was smitten by the Billionaires’ glamour and charmed by their say-the-opposite-of-what-you-believe theatrics.
An early version of the campaign in 2000, “Billionaires for Bush (or Gore),” had spread virally via the internet and mainstream media exposure. It rebranded itself for the 2004 election, taking as its crusade the defeat of Bush. The New York City chapter took the lead, assembling talented volunteers, among them professional designers, media producers, and actors. It then put the campaign pieces in place. A stylish logo swapped the Republican elephant with a piggy bank stuffed with bills. Satirical slogans — “Repeal the First Amendment,” “Free the Forbes 400,” “Corporations are people too” — adorned bumper stickers, buttons, and a slick website, mimicking the look of Bush-Cheney propaganda. A songwriter produced tuneful renditions of what the super-wealthy really think, performed by meticulously rehearsed singers. The members themselves adopted personae, with names and
costumes to match, spoofing iconic versions of the .01 percent: the Monopoly-style robber baron (Phil T. Rich), the dim-witted heiress (Alexis Anna Rolls), the trust-fund fuck-up (Monet Oliver D’Place), and so on.
Soon, the Billionaires could be found talking down to “the little people” at Bush-Cheney campaign events, left-wing rallies, and street corners. They could also be found all over the mainstream media, garnering thousands of hits, including multiple features in the New York Times and on network and cable TV. Even the chant “Watch more Fox News, then you’ll share our right-wing views!” made it to air… on Fox News.
Media coverage was generated by carefully planned hoaxes, such as the appearance, to a throng of adoring billionaires, of a Karl Rove impostor at a GOP fundraiser. Other times, the campaign outsmarted the authorities to attract the media glare, such as when it held a croquet match on Central Park’s “Great Lawn,” from which a half-million anti-Bush demonstrators had been banned by New York’s mayor. The media was smitten by the Billionaires’ glamour and charmed by their say-the-opposite-of-what-you-believe theatrics.
The site has lots of suggestions on how to use various techniques to get a message across.
A few, with links on how to do it:
Make it funny
Brand or be branded
Know your cultural terrain
Do the media's work for them
Enable, don’t command
Delegate
Show, don't tell
Think narratively
Create levels of participation
Balance art and message
Don't dress like a protester
Make the invisible visible
Just thought it might be something that could be used IF we find some candidates who need help fighting the Corporate money that will be used against them.
The Billionaires for Bush managed to get on the Media without having to pay for ads.
Anyhow, just something to think about ...
30 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.
One day Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that Dow will finally clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: as people worldwide celebrate, Dow's stock value loses two billion dollars. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can't.
The reality hits Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: we have created a market system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and the people who appear to be leading are actually following its pathological dictates. If we keep putting the market in the driver's seat, it could happily drive the whole planet off a cliff.
At conference after conference, the Yes Men try to wake up their corporate audiences to this frightening prospect, in the process taking on some of the world's biggest and baddest corporations. Just one example: as Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It's a gut-busting laugh riot - one of several in the film - to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people.
One day Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that Dow will finally clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: as people worldwide celebrate, Dow's stock value loses two billion dollars. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can't.
The reality hits Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: we have created a market system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and the people who appear to be leading are actually following its pathological dictates. If we keep putting the market in the driver's seat, it could happily drive the whole planet off a cliff.
At conference after conference, the Yes Men try to wake up their corporate audiences to this frightening prospect, in the process taking on some of the world's biggest and baddest corporations. Just one example: as Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It's a gut-busting laugh riot - one of several in the film - to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people.
I'll have to see that. Dedicated to the people of Bhopal!
Thanks for the link!
Response to sabrina 1 (Original post)