Where was Anthony Weiner on the ACORN Vote? Where was he when the lying pieces of shit that eventually went after him were going after his allies like NPR and Planned Parenthood? Where he when they were going after other innocent people like Shirley Sherrod, Mary Landrieu, or lying while being employed by the census?
He wasn't paying attention, or he was standing with Breitbart against real progressives, that's where.
If he'd been paying attention, he would have thought twice about doing stuff that could easily be used against him, and he wouldn't been sending naked pictures of himself to random people on the internet who may have been Republican plants.
If he'd been paying attention maybe he would be have spoken out and called Breitbart a liar, before Breitbart came for him.
I'll save my energy for people who are willing to to stand up for me. He was a member of the "throw 'em under the bus" brigade as much as the next person in congress, until it happened to him. He never came out called Breitbart a liar until the one time he knew he wasn't lying. How typical of a politician.
Two years ago I wrote a diary, First they came for ACORN, which has turned out to be sadly prophetic.
The Democratic congress people who voted to defund ACORN will regret it when they become the next target of these despicable attacks. Divide and conquer, it's the oldest trick the book. When conservatives realized how quick progressives are to throw their brethren under the bus they'll decided to prey on that, by making fake videos and framing a long time progressive organization for something despicable. If they succeed in severely harming ACORN with this fraud, they will not stop with ACORN. They will continue their campaign of making fraudulent videos to disgrace every progressive organization, politician, and candidate, out there. ACORN may be the first to fall to this new type of propaganda smear campaign, but they will not be the last.
We cannot let their hoax stand. The future of the progressive movement depends on it.
And now one of those congressmen has had it happen to him. I hope the rest of the Democratic caucus takes that as lesson. It's time you speak out, before there is no one left to speak out.
A lot of the activists I know have spent the last few years looking over their shoulders, checking with people's friends before they talk to them off the record, making sure their doors are locked, alarms are on, social media accounts are clean, and email accounts are logged out. We have a motto "Don't put on the internet what you don't want in the newspaper tomorrow". A lot of us have been smeared, threatened, had our offices vandalized, been spied on, dealt with provocateurs, etc. Living like that, it's hard to comprehend how a congressman could be so careless as to have photos of himself he didn't want to share with the world on his official twitter account.
The truth is he, like the rest of the Democratic Caucus, has been looking the other way while an organized campaign to take down the progressive movement is executed by the right. I have a problem taking a stand for someone who fucked up through their own stupidity and was willing to throw me to wolves last week. I'll save my energy and loyalty for those who've really earned it.
We were right in the beginning to believe Breitbart hacked his account. Mark my words, if not next time, the time after that he will have. Breitbart is just trying to make sure he has enough credibility to use against Obama in the next election.
We have all have a choice, we can stand up to corporate liars and propagandists, and refuse to believe anything they say until it's been validated by a trustworthy third party, or we can watch them kill the progressive movement. Where do you stand?