In this year’s US presidential election campaign, we’ve heard endless speeches about saving the middle class .. middle-class tax-cuts … helping home-owners.  Both sides - Republican and Democrat.

I don’ recall any speeches or advertising about reducing poverty, programs for the poor, etc.  Now I certainly don’t expect concern for the poor from the Republican side, but I remember a strong Democratic concern for the American poor and reducing poverty.  From the sixties until the nineties.

Suddenly, it seemed, Clinton and friends discovered Hollywood and big money and concern for the middle-class.  Overnight, poverty had been eliminated - at least as a matter of concern.

Growing up Catholic in the fifties, the poor were part of the conversation, if not part of the family:  our relatives in post-war Eastern Europe; the children in the mission territories of Africa and the South Pacific, among others.

In the sixties, brave politicians created the Great Society and the War on Poverty to help the poor in this country.  The Peace Corps spread abroad to work in developing nations.  We heard the words poor and poverty as part of the national conversation.

Today, it seems, we have a battle betwwen the middle-class and the super-rich.  Who gets what and who gets to pay for it.  Certainly no headlines on poverty or the poor.

And that’s just about poverty here in the US.  Around the world, more than a billion people subsist on less than a dollar a day.  We hear almost nothing about them - unless there’s an explosion or tsunami.  The US sends about $25 billion each year to developing countries.  That’s a buck a day for 25 days for a billion people.

So what do we do now?

First, check the action at www.blogactionday.org

Then take one action, today, to help.  Write a post.  Send a check.  Tell a friend.

Thanks.

Love to all.

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Is it just me or are the presidential candidates playing the Midway instead of the Big Tent? Shouldn’t Paris be in the Sideshow while McCain and Obama tame the terrorist tigers and master international tightrope walking in the Center Ring?

Jeez! Tire gauges and Miss Cowchip, I’ll give you $5,000 - No, I’ll give you $7,000. Drill here, drill there.

We’re talking about being arrogant enough to think we can be the leader of the free world - that kind of arrogance is a good thing. We’re looking for someone who’s the best and the brightest - that’s not elitist, that’s smart. We need a leader who’s looking down the road 20 or 30 years and not just to the next congressional election.

Either we’re all grown-ups here or this kind of lowest-common-denominator high-school-gotcha campaigning will determine who leads us further down the road in the same handbasket we’ve been in for the last generation.

After waiting for 10 or 15,000 emails to arrive flogging Traffic Secrets 2.0,  Voice of Reason Rick Butts takes on the super-affiliate army pitching legend John Reese’s latest bag of tricks.

Rick seems to think that affiliates are just whores for promoting a product that returns them a commission … if they compromise their principles for personal gain.  Somehow he can tell who’s sincere and who’s not.

He admits that John Reese 1.0 had something good to offer in 2005.  “It was a seminal work of great value.”  Rick doesn’t seem to know or care about what’s in TS2.0.  He “simply cannot imagine a “course” being worth more than a couple hundred bucks”.

OK.  I get it … I guess.  It’s not ok to sell a load of crap - unless it’s only a couple of hundred bucks.

Does it make sense to pay for something that saves the business owner time and trouble enough to justify the $ outlay?  Or is the Free University of the Web with its massive time investment the only way to go?

In less enlightened business universes, one doesn’t expect to purchase a million dollar business for free or $47 or $4997.  But then I guess there aren’t as many magical beans available outside IM.

Dr. Mani weighs in with a prescription for his friend John Reese and fellow gurus.  Child-like is good and childish is bad.  So “man up” if you’re a pro.

It would seem that working at the controversial edge gets response, while playing nice and polite gets lost in the noise. Is John really that thin-skinned, or is this all part of marketing the message?

Read the good doctor’s  Rx at  Blogging for Influence and Attention.

Don’t take my word for it folks.  Read John Reese’s grilling of Mark’s canard about Apocalypse 2.0.

The Death of Twitter joins the ever-lengthening obit list on the www.

So stop spamming for fun and profit, and follow the gladiators in their fight to the death of (your choice here).

Bert & Harry Piel proved it in the 60’s.  David Ogilvy put it this way, “People don’t buy from clowns.”

Denny Hatch  shows his sense of humor in this take on the Legal Sea Foods ads on the sides of Boston’s trolleys.

Maybe Krusty will disagree.

Patrick Ruffini sees a possible Presidential future in the current Mac/iPhone/iPod halo. No, not for Steve Jobs, but for Barack Obama. Obama as product, packaging and positioning.

Dick Zigun says he supports plans to redevelop Coney Island on a grand scale, but not if it means turning it into a mall.

The Mayor of Coney Island has been working since 1980 to preserve the old landmark neighborhood and promote a future fitting the magical  nexus of sand and sea and four subway lines.  His not-for-profit Coney Island USA “interprets the past and experiments with the future of American popular culture and offers a growing panoply of arts events and exhibitions rooted in the traditions of P.T. Barnum, vaudeville and Coney Island itself”.  High aspirations in a time and place about a century removed from the glory days.

But there remains a loyal tribe steeped in the hustle and carney scene around the Bowery and the Sideshow - an underground hipster vibe on the fringe of the city, only minutes away from the LES.  Unique and worth preserving?

Zigun: “People find the seediness charming, and I realized that in terms of the way capitalism works and real estate works, you can’t become enamored of the seediness,” he said.

“That’s not what Coney Island was in its heyday.”  Read more in the NYT
So, the mantra today on the web is “keep it raw”: people are suspicious of polished video and website design.  That’s not what marketing was in its heyday, either.  Simple and aw-shucks is fine.  But with good production values - well-lit with perfect sound, and a well-executed script.

Look at the sideshow - in the seediest of surroundings, absolute pros gathering the thirsty crowds with rehearsed and polished pitches, getting them in the tent with previews of the highly practiced and professional stars of the show, and best of all collecting the toll as they turn the tip.  The production values are spectacular considering the price of admission and the scene.

Rick Butts really kicked the hornets’s nest with his recent post on launch overload, triggered by the Stompernet launch.

Seems he hasn’t had enough yet.

Go read Unsubscribe From Whomever Emailed You Stompernet

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