Robert Greenwald's Santa Bush

Click image above to view video at YouTube

I'm on Robert Greenwald's email list and received this from his BraveNew Films project earlier tonight, so I thought it would be fun (as well as somewhat depressing) to post their new Holiday greeting video. I've admired many of his political documentaries over the years, so I was happy to give him some free (if limited) publicity here. If you're not familiar with his work, he's the man behind such excellent films as Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism and those are just the ones I've seen over the past few years. Yes, he's an unabashed librul, but his films are meticulously researched and constructed and if you see any of the ones mentioned above, they will definitely challenge your perspectives about their topics. They will likely enlighten you, outrage you and give you enough material to be discussing them for days on end ... The one that really got to me was Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price and if you watch it, you will definitely shed more than a few tears when he chronicles the everyday lives of two young Chinese factory workers who produce some of the cheap crap that Wal-Mart foists off on the bargain hungry American public.

I've boycotted that *store* for over 20 years once I fully realized the impact they were having on rural communities, where they have literally wiped out of existence the traditional small town stores. For example, in the small town (here in Iowa) where my mother lives, the opening of a *store* in a nearby larger town virtually wiped out her home town's long standing collection of town square stores ... so much so that even the struggling JC Penney couldn't make it, not to mention the decades old "Mom and Pop" stores. To this day, that once vibrant town square is but a shell of itself and full of empty, long unused spaces ...That's not retail "progress," it's literally genocide for the hard working folks who toiled for years in those stores to eke out a decent living. Nevermore, I quoted the Raven, will I spend one thin dime in those places and I haven't ever since.

But back to the Santa Bush video ... it's a parody of The Night Before Christmas, cleverly written to chronicle some of the $hrub's final affronts to various sorts of regulatory rules that he has managed to nullify with the stroke of his hard hearted pen, all to the benefit of his gang of cronies who have controlled this country and economy for the last eight years. Yes, it will make you laugh, it will make you cringe, it will likely make you angry (unless you don't believe in environmental issues, climate change or reproductive rights for women) ... but most of all, it's a call to action. People need to wake up and demand so much essential fundamental change from their government if we're to survive as a democratic nation. I know the nation has been suffering a bad case of scandal fatigue, constitutional rape and utter disrespect for the rule of law for the last eight years, but if we're to pull ourselves out the hole that this "fictitious president" (thanks, Michael Moore) has dug us into, we're going to have to shake off our bad case of Stockholm Syndrome and get to work to help goad our new President elect in the right direction. As Greenwald urges, it's time to do something!

I'll get down from my soapbox now and conclude with a quote from one of my journalistic heroes, the late, great and much missed Molly Ivins: "The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."

Too bad the $hrub ignored her wise advice... Bless you Molly, tears still come to my eyes when I invoke the wonderful person and writer you were!

Ornament blogging will resume sometime this weekend, so do stop back again soon....