IPOcracy: USA Goes Public

By The Masher, AlterNet
Posted on August 16, 2000, Printed on May 27, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/9646/media_mash%3A_satire_at_dnc%2C_but_where%27s_ralph

IPOcracy: An IPO for the USA

"We want people to feel the rapture of selling out," says Peter Hirshberg, the co-creator of an elaborate, satirical Web site called www.IPOcracy.com. IPOcracy is based on the notion of "taking the country public" -- the dream of many a startup dot-com company. "Public financing [of elections] isn't the answer," adds Hirshberg, "a public offering is."

IPOcracy has established an "Influence Exchange" -- a phony stock ticker that lists the rising and falling "stock prices" of different political perks, like stays in the Lincoln bedroom and an Air Force One junket (currently trading at 72 3/8 under the symbol AIR).

The site also offers a Web page for every American who wants to run for President, alongside the slogan, "Of the People, By the People, For a Sustantial Profit." If you decide to run, the site will automatically build you a personalized campaign site within minutes, complete with commericals, press releases and campaign merchandise -- proving that with little time or thought, anyone can sell out enough to have a campaign site that rivals the major candidates.

Hirshberg and co-creator Michael Markman, two successful former Apple Executives, met Shadow Convention leader Arianna Huffington at a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference (an annual West Coast insidery event for future thinkers). According to Markman and Hirschberg, a chat there with Arianna produced the idea of having an alternative convention to discuss major issues being left out of the Democrat's priority list.

"We left the meeting and kind of forgot about it, until a few weeks later we got a call from Arianna," says Hirshberg. "Arianna said, 'Remember that idea we talked about? We'll, we're doing it and I need your help.'" The rest is Shadow Convention history.

Richard Saul Wurman, the guru of the TED meetings, is a strong advocate of access to information, with an obsession for presenting data in ways easy for the public to understand. The TED conference publishes an amazing book, called Understanding, which renders gobs of powerful data in beautiful and compelling ways. The Masher loves this book, which seems to only be available online, at either Amazon or Barnes & Nobles. Apparently much of the information is also available on the Web at www.ted.com.

Tom Hayden -- Man for All Seasons

Tom Hayden has been happily omnipresent in LA during this high-intensity week of the Democratic convention. Hayden was a leftie hero at the '68 Chicago convention, and in many ways is a hero of protesters in 2000. He's the through line, the touchstone, making the links between generations and reminding the younger protestors that many of their themes and experiences span the decades.

Never fundamentally veering from his radical politics -- unlike many of his former peers -- Hayden has been hugely supportive of this new generation of protestors. During the LA activities he's spoken to a wide array of groups at virtually every request, providing a piercing historical overview of Los Angeles and the storm troopers of the LAPD (Hayden's own son Troy was one of the protestors shot by police rubber pellets during the cop riot on Monday night).

But Hayden is insider, too. A state senator from a liberal LA district, Hayden is a Gore delegate who simply says, "Gore is better than Bush and let's leave it at that." But Hayden fights on the inside with the same vigor he applies to activism, leading a (probably futile) effort to move the tepid Democratic platform back to the left.

Hayden has struggled to remain politically relevant while still radical, a tricky political challenge. The Masher salutes this effort and considers Hayden a brilliant analyst of both our problems and the appropriate solutions. Hayden's efforts to push a larger vision, as when he mixes global trade with human and worker rights, have for the most part met deaf ears among the "pragmatic" Dems -- a stance he fears will make the Democrats irrelevant to a good chunk of the voters.

Where's Ralph?

Despite thousands of enthusiastic supporters in the streets and at the Shadow Convention, the erstwhile hero Ralph Nader was nowhere to be seen in Los Angeles. The big question is, why? Nader was apparently offered a major speaking slot at the Nation Magazine event that kicked off the convention week, but he declined. That meant that the major speakers at the Nation conclave were elected Democrats who support Gore -- including Sen. Paul Wellstone, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and LA Mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigoso.

Nader's absence left the burden of carrying the Nader mantle and arguing against all the Gore guys to Barbara Ehrenreich. She succeeded with passion and eloquence, and clearly had the crowd behind her, as the elected Democrats had to hem and haw about the inadequacies of Gore/Lieberman and the righward leanings of the Democratic party. The Masher still believes that we should be fighting like hell to get Nader into the presidential debates, especially by telling pollster that you're going to vote Nader, even if come election day you'll be voting for someone else.

Presidential Debate Struggle Looms

FAIR director and TV pundit Jeff Cohen got a green light from Arianna Huffington to pitch the Shadow Convention goers on Tuesday about the Presidential debates in the fall, which will probably exclude Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan. And pitch he did.

Cohen called for citizens to put pressure on the TV networks and the Commission of Presidential Debates (CPD) to allow candidates into the debates with either 5 percent support in the polls or polls that show that at least 50 percent of Americans want them in the debates. (For more information, e-mail info@debates.org or call 202-872-1020.)

In a more militant call to street action, Cohen says that if the CPD doesn't change the debate entry rules, that there should be major demonstrations in Boston on October 3, where the first debate will take place, to protest the undemocratic exclusion of these two well-known and established candidates. Cohen says there is already organizing underway among Boston college students, and there are signs that the debate issue will galvanize students returning to campus in September.

© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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