You have got to be kidding me...

Okay, sometimes I think people are just plain ole crazy.

This may sound like a tangent, but it's not. I know that everyone and their brother has seen the billboards on the side of the road with a picture, a one-word value, and a the request to "pass it on." If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find it here: Pass It On.

I don't know about you, but I've got no problem with these billboards. They're not preachy, they're not in-your-face religious, and they actually promote something other than booze, places to drink booze, places to watch girls take their clothes off while you drink booze, or other forms of entertainment.

They promote things like vision, unity, strenth, perseverence, and courage. What's wrong with those things? Well, nothing, unless you happen to be The Portland Alliance. The Portland Alliance supposedly roots for the little guy, something I've got no beef with. From their website: "

The Portland Alliance is the city's oldest alternative progressive newspaper. The Alliance reports on the issues ignored or distorted by the corporate-dominated mainstream press, asking the hard questions you won't hear on the evening news or read in your daily newspaper.

The Alliance was founded in 1981 as part of an effort to bring Oregon's progressives together in one coalition to oppose the growing power of conservative forces in this state. While that coalition did not take root, the newspaper created to give that coalition voice did. Shifting to a more local focus, The Portland Alliance has been providing a voice eversince for environmentalists, trade unionists, social justice activists, and others who are usually shut out by the mainstream press.

Over the years the Alliance has broken stories missed by the mainstream press. In the 1990s we produced an award-winning series about health care and the homeless. In 2000, our coverage of Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker's ties with homophobic Christian groups made national news and placed the controversial police chief under greater public scrutiny. That same year, we ran an exclusive report on the health risks facing the poor, Native Americans and other people of color who rely on fish from the polluted Willamette River - a story reported several months later in the pages of The Oregonian.

Honestly, I think that's great. That means that some folx in the fourth estate are still doing what they're supposed to do, which is bring about social change by telling the public what's out there. They're not supposed to interpret the events for people, but I'll save that for another rant. So, considering these guys root for the little guy, you'd think that an ad campaign feating Ghandi, Mother Teresa, and a rabbi and priest sitting down to play checkers would be right up their alley, huh? Well, it might be, except for one minor problem.

The man who's financing this ad campaign happens to be a Christian and a conservative.

From the Denver Post:

Anschutz is known as a devout Christian and political conservative. One of his political heroes is William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian and member of Parliament who, in the early 1800s, challenged the British government to abolish the slave trade.

Anschutz, notoriously publicity shy, nonetheless provided a promotional blurb on the back cover of a biography about Wilberforce published in 2002.

Anschutz also has been one of the biggest contributors to the Republican Party, including the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2000.

Yet, no aspect of the "Pass It On" campaign mentions politics. A few messages include religious figures. One poster features a portrait of Mother Teresa and the script: "Reaching beyond yourself. Compassion. Pass It On." A billboard features the last Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi, with the text: "What makes Gandhi Gandhi. Soul." A TV commercial shows a rabbi, a Christian clergyman and a Muslim cleric happily playing checkers.

I know, I know, I know. Promoting those horrible things, like showing someone famous who overcame dyslexia (Whoopi Goldberg) or reminding people that sometimes doing what's right is hard (Tienamen Square) is just so evil and it needs to be exposed. So, the Portland Alliance sets out to do just that!

Pissed off about "Pass It On."

Since there are some things that I want to point attention to, I'll quote some of the article here.

"While some of the individual ads express positive messages with which few would argue (Mother Teresa and the phrase, "Reaching beyond yourself"), others are transparently pro-war (emergency workers raising the American flag in the rubble of the World Trade Center and the words, "No setback will set us back"). Though the Foundation's campaign was planned before the attacks on the East Coast on Sept. 11, it was "expanded upon" afterwards, according to the OAAA. The new additions are easily identifiable. "anonymous [sic] activist research nerd" characterized "Pass it on" as a "vague, nonsensical propaganda campaign;" but perhaps some people are falling for it. Others have taken to billboard liberation-style culture-jamming and have edited signs to send an anti-capitalist message instead.

How exactly, and someone spell this out for me in small words and diagrams because I'm obviously a stupid conservative, is the phrase "No setback will set us back" pro-war propaganda? I can see if it had said something like "Now, we'll go and kick their asses," but it doesn't. It just, in my mind, shows a testament to the human spirit and the American determination to keep going.

And how in God's holy name is it a "vague, nonsensical propaganda campaign? I mean, seriously.

And it could get worse. After Anschutz sold his railroad holdings, he retained the right to lay digital lines along the tracks; Qwest's new division, Qwest Digital Media, teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox, owned by the British right winger, Rupert Murdoch, to show digital screenings of Fox's "Titan A.E." last year. Put these two developments together and you get what Box Office Online speculates will be a nationwide digital delivery network. If the Foundation's "Pass it on" campaign is any indication of the content Anschutz plans to produce, then we're in for a lot more slick propaganda spread far and wide. When production, distribution and point-of-sale are under the control of one person or corporation like this, what you have is a vertical monopoly. Standard Oil was busted up at the turn of the last century for structuring itself in this way, but with Anschutz's highly-placed friends, such a challenge seems doubtful in the near future. Eventually, all monopolies crash under their own weight, but they often do a lot of damage in the meantime.

Why mention Standard Oil? Carnigie's US Steel is a better example of a vertical monopoly. Standard Oil was more of a horizontal monopoly.

By contrast, the collaborative investigation process that occurred on Portland Indymedia during the uncovering of this story points to the power of a truly democratic medium. The open publishing newswire on the Portland Indymedia website allows anyone to publish their own articles and photos almost instantly, without a meddlesome editorial approval process intervening. In the case of this story, not only did the participants become the media, they also did a better job, collectively, than corporate outlets like the Houston Chronicle and USA Today, which wrote about the "Pass it on" campaign but ignored the Anschutz connection.

Hmmm. A bit of shameless self-promotion? Don't break your arm patting yourselves on the back, guys. Why not present the other side of this story? Why not ask folx if the ads have had a positive effect on them? Why not point out that Anschutz has not asked for any donations, hasn't had his name put on the billboards, and in fact, isn't interested in the publicity?

Oh that's right. Because anyone who might be conservative and trying to do something positive is obviously Up To Something, and God forbid they be trying to promote values that should stretch across party lines. Since he's not doing it the way this rag thinks he should be, what he's doing isn't worth looking at.

What was that quote? Good done in the name of evil is still good, and evil done in the name of good is still evil.


And you wonder why I don't want to go anywhere NEAR "journalism"?