Invite For Collaboration Part 2:

Deygirl and I decided very spontaneously to take on this subject. One poster had mentioned that someone should write an article about the manipulation at Huffington Post. First it was suggested that the poster him- or herself should take on the job – until deygirl brought up the idea that several people could join in the endeavor.  This idea instantly hit home and got us, thanks to AdLib showing up in the right moment, going. I have to admit, I had NO clue how fast deygirl would get the ball rolling! Having had the idea of such a project on my mind for some time, I was nowhere near getting it started. But she immediately published Part 1 of the “Invite For Collaboration” and so: here we are! Processing the reactions on deygirl’s thread and piecing them together with my ideas, the project soon burst its boundaries of one single article. The sheer amount of material pointed towards an ongoing series named

Secrets From Beyond The Emerald Curtain

– An investigation into the Huffington Post and its founder –

The goal of this endeavor is to bring out the truth on this subject AND make it known to a wider public later on, either as a synopsis of all the articles or in a somewhat abbreviated version of the entire series. This will depend on our findings and what makes sense at that point. (Possible earnings out of this endeavor go solely to the administrators of Planet POV and are meant to be donated to projects to their liking that help America as well as to Planet POV.)

Moreover, by reading and working on this ongoing series many of us may become aware for the first time of the sheer magnitude of the betrayal as well as of the fierce manipulation that took place behind the scenes.Therefore the process is also meant to purge and induce healing.

A wide range of themes will be covered: how we innocently came to Huff, how we found out that the founder may never be criticized, how our opinions increasingly were muzzled and meaningful dialogue amongst each other was hindered, to connecting the dots what the misleading headlines were for, how manipulation was used on purpose and how this in the end worked so very well to establish another billion dollar empire which does neither report the news nor serve the American people. Turns out, Huffington is not the progressive she had claimed to be, her outlet with AOL as the owner is fiercely neocon and her lifestyle doesn’t even remotely match her claim that she’s someone who “fights 3rd world America” and stands for the middle class. I’m sorry, but I have to throw up, really!  Oh, never mind that she’s flying first class all the time. After all, this is the norm for every middle class champion with 6000 slaves, aka citizen journalists.

All the while the President was working extremely hard to improve the lives of everybody. Painted by the right-wing media as either a Do-Nothing-And-Ever-So-Weak-President or a totalitarian Dictator in turns or even simultaneously, Mr. Obama is silently doing the needful, step by step. According to his promise he has highest respect for the democratic process. That means, he respects the role of House and Senate. Nevertheless he is blamed for everything that is not instantly fixed, no matter how dire the situation really has been. And curiously, left-wingers, who during the Bush years were screaming for more democracy, now accused him of being a spineless wimp. Ah, the irony!

But then this tendency is VERY much to the liking of Arianna Huffington. After seeing the revenue going down once the elections 2008 were over, she started bashing the President almost before he even sat down in the Oval Office for the first time. Her concerted and relentless effort to paint the President as a two-faced, weak liar and sell-out soon bore its foul fruit. Bill Maher, another so called progressive, chimed in. The floodgates were opened. The left weakened itself by ranting against their own people while the tea-partiers got undue media attention to make it look as if they alone speak for “the American people”. After some time I realized there is nearly no mention of any protests from the left on Huffington Post.

Unruffled and calm as usual, the President continues his work, trying to do the best under the given circumstances. Many of his own people don’t have his back, accusing him not to have theirs. Moreover, by pitting President Obama and half term ex-governor Palin into a highly imaginary fight against each other (- the President has barely acknowledged the latter’s existence-) Huffington increases revenue. At the same time she abuses the two of them masterfully to deflect from her own countless shortcomings. Secretly admiring both and knowing she’ll never come anywhere close to President Obama – neither in excellency of character nor in intelligence or skills – she emulates her secret idol Palin, who has very much the same problem with the President as Huffington and by nature is very close to her own narcissistic, if not megalomaniac,  personality.

As much as I dislike Palin, I almost feel sorry for her playing a useful idiot to Huffington (and other media, for that matter). At least Palin  has something that remotely resembles core values, whereas Arianna follows what is fashionable and profitable for her at any given time. The AOL sellout and the ensuing final decay of the HP proves beyond doubt who in reality is the two-faced and inconsistent person she was painting the President to be. Sad enough, countless liberal and progressive people are still buying into her narrative, in spite of the fact that her betrayal and falseness are as obvious as Palin’s and that she is on record stating Huffington Post is NOT a progressive outlet. To drive home this point succinctly is one more important goal of this project.

So far several posters indicated that they would like to participate in the project. They and everyone else who is interested to join please contact this email: 2emeraldcurtain@gmail.com

Whoever wants, can also participate under a different name. I’m quite sure the HP accounts of those who dare to speak out – even on another outlet – are prone to be deleted if the person is easily recognizable. (Should this happen, thanks for the additional material, Arianna.)

In any case, if you choose to take part please state what you would like to write about and why, or what else you would like to do. Besides writers we need one person to create the ongoing theme/title for the series of about 15 episodes, a cartoonist to brighten up the affair and to cut right to the chase of the matter, as well as an illustrator who can bring a fairy tale atmosphere, including wicked witch and all, to the story.

The writer’s subjects range from innocently showing up at HP to the increasing censoring, the zero tolerance of criticizing the founder even mildly, disappearance of well thought out posts, stifling and muzzling of dialogue, experience of being threatened and/or banned, rude put-downs when confronting HP for anything, misleading headlines including the ensuing riling users up against the right and then ourselves on a daily basis, comparison of Palin’s and Huffington’s personalities, the influence of Huffington’s cult, the constant put-down of President Obama: political reasons or only for the money? etc.

A sales manager could prepare him- or herself in the background… Wouldn’t it be NICE to make a good buck on Huffington for a change?!? Ha! This however is only going to happen, if some of you excellent writers and artists join into the effort. A simple rookie like me won’t cut it… My dear Planeteers, you inspired me. Thank you, and sure enough more ideas are most welcome.