Email This to a Friend
The Pledge We Can Believe In
Hollywood elites can't get enough of Barack Obama. But would they promise to live by his rules?
3. I believe that we must repair our public schools, reestablish a commitment to a first-class public education for all, and break down social and economic barriers that divide our country into haves and have-nots. I therefore will withdraw my children from private school and immediately enroll them in the public schools in my neighborhood (i.e., any of the various neighborhoods in which I have a residence. See #2)
4. I agree that the children are our future and that no child should be punished with a child of their own or a sexually transmitted disease because of pre-marital sexual activity. Because I appreciate the enormous impact our culture has on our youth I pledge not to participate as an actor, writer, producer, crew member, or back-end participant in any movie, television production, or new media venture which glorifies teen sex and/or minimizes the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
5. I support Barack Obama’s commitment to fight for every job in Michigan and to refuse to accept that good jobs are never returning. I therefore will purchase and/or lease only domestically manufactured cars, SUVs, and other modes of transportation. Nothing herein shall permit me to own a private jet. See #1.
6. I believe that George W. Bush has ruined the American economy, set back the progress of the middle class, and thrown us into another Great Depression. To do my part to revive the American economy I will restrict all travel for pleasure to the United States. I therefore will give up any and all foreign travel for non-business purposes until unemployment is below 3% and the middle class ceases to be invisible. (I will indeed see many of them at Yosemite or Disney World.) In addition the Cannes Film Festival will be replaced by the Newark Film Festival.
7. George W. Bush has decimated the middle class and shifted the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and poor. I therefore will pay federal taxes at the marginal tax rate in effect at the time President Bill Clinton left office (39.6%).
8. I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and that every American is entitled to affordable health care regardless of pre-existing illness or injury. Therefore, I will provide any and all individuals whom I employ in whatever capacity at any residence or business (or at my request by another employer) with comprehensive medical and dental insurance.
9. I believe in tough diplomacy and that America should never kowtow to petty dictators. Therefore I will affix my name to a petition to Raul Castro demanding that he free all political prisoners and hold free and democratic elections forthwith. I will not appear in or participate in any glowing biopic of him until he meets these conditions.
10. I believe we must give all American youth hope, hope for good jobs and hope for opportunities for advancement. To that end and to increase employment and internships for needy youth I will forgo placement of my own children, children of relatives and friends, and children of hangers-on in jobs and internships with companies I do business with.
<- Prev Page 2 of 2
Jennifer Rubin is PJM's Washington, DC, editor. She also blogs at Commentary’s Contentions.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
38 Comments
1. Seth Levy:yeah… good luck with that one.
Jul 4, 2008 - 4:36 am 2. Bob:Don’t hold your breath! Being a celebrity liberal means wanting the government to run things without disturbing your luxury lifestyle, not doing your individual part to solve these so-called global crises.
Jul 4, 2008 - 4:40 am 3. Jbl:God, this is good.
Can you write another one for rock stars, that they pledge to stop touring until the planet is healed, and that they stop producing CD’s or any petroleum-based product, that they print their posters on recycled paper, and their tee-shirts on bamboo fabric? And they only use one square of toilet paper?
Then can you write one for Democratic members of Congress, where they swear off the private jets, too, and voluntarily keep their offices at 73 degrees in summer and 67 degrees in winter? And that they must drink wines made in Virginia or Maryland so as not to waste energy transporting California, Australian, French, Italian or Long Island wines to their restaurants? They should also stop doing Sunday interview shows because the transportation, lighting and energy involved in broadcasting and receiving their hot air is wasteful. Also, their hot air creates carbon dioxide, which is killing the planet.
I swear, if all of these people do all of these things, I will begin to take their urgent scolding seriously, and will do my part, because I’ll finally believe the dire crisis of Global Warming / Climate Change is all they say it is.
Jul 4, 2008 - 4:56 am 4. Wayne:A brilliant concoction. I hope that it gets far more publicity.
Jul 4, 2008 - 5:05 am 5. Jbl:Perhaps Obama can also sign a pledge to not engage in pointless political theater meant to distract the nation from the fact that he spins and flip flops more than Linda Blair in the exorcist and has nothing but rhetoric behind him.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/democratic-conv.html
Jul 4, 2008 - 5:16 am 6. Hyperpotamus:It’s a good idea, but the list would be better if it was shorter. You stretched a little to get to 10 items. Shorten it to the ones that really matter – 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 – and you’d have something.
Nobody expects Hollywood to give young people hope or to care about the middle class. But we know they care about their cars and jets and houses and where their kids go to school. Ask them to give those things up for Obama.
Jul 4, 2008 - 6:20 am 7. misanthropicus:[...] Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed. [...]
I heard this speech a few weeks ago on radio and while I found it tragicomical, I also detected in it yet another proof of the Obamas’ parochialism and obtusity.
Now, leaving aside Michelle’s recurring “comfort zone” thing (wasn’t this “comfort zone problem” the subject of her Princeton graduation thesis?), Michelle and Barrack haven’t overcame their mental condition of welfare children & affirmative action recipients and simply cannot understand that most Americans are not slacking and don’t need pushing and prodding in order to show up for a job interview.
Despite the good incomes of most of their lives, both Michelle and Barrack still live in a small, small world, where foodstamps come on the 3rd of the month, so come the county checks, the whitey humiliates them asking for 9AM job interviews, “Student retention program” vans prowl on unsuspecting, normal, next-door modafuckers, self-esteem workshops are a pre-requisite for reciving food-stamps, toddler pregnancy prevention workshops have mixed results, “programs” address problems, community activists provide help and succor, and careers are on county social services’ ladder, DMW or who knows what community affairs thing (Michael Barone’s very revealing finding: the majority of Obama’s supporters come from the tenure/tenure aspiring-to/inertial class, hardly a
national progress-inducing category, this state & city workers and tenured university fauna).
Naughty chance willed Michelle and Barrack on a different social trajectory, yet their minds are irremediably nested in the culturally minuscule environment described above, environment of cultural indifference or of parochial views & ambitions (cultural indifference: the would-be bridge-building president who can
transcend cultural difference never travelled abroad in his life-time! I understand that Osaka, Kiev, Glasgow, Melbourne or Buenos Aires are far away – but Montreal, Vancouver, Porto-Rico or Puerto Vallarta are a just here, man! But then, all those places are inhabited by typical white people, often bitter.)
Now back to Michelle’s discourse: “Hey, but there isn’t such a thing as free lunch in life, and you folks sure deserve all these, and Barrack will take care to receive them. But Barrack will also require you to work, to move out of your comfort zone, and I tell you that there is light at the end of this tunnel built by whitey – look at me, I am a hospital community affairs officer!” (What is
actually a 300K/year hospital community affairs officer doing? This is completely beyond me!)
Yes – we have entered the house of parochial community activist as US president. Michelle and Barrack, our (possible) new presidential couple are so – the continental America is just a larger landscape of the 176th @ 234th ‘hood where folks who can’t get by shoot the breeze and wait for the 3rd. of the month, and since Michelle & Barrack know very well the problems normal American folks out there face, they will help. But show up at the interview; even if you can’t do it tommorrow, may be next week – we understand difficulties!
Jul 4, 2008 - 7:00 am 8. Ed Wallis:“I am in a welfare state of mind…”
11. I believe we must give all American youth a chance to hope, to change their world for a better America. To that end, I will never again support Socialist and Socialist-leaning politicians such as Barack Hussein Obama.
Jul 4, 2008 - 7:56 am 9. Believing In Obama « Tai-Chi Policy:[...] Democrats, Politics. trackback Over at Pajamas Media is a pledge for Hollywood Liberals to sign, if they truly believe what they say about the state of our country, and Obama. Just in case anyone wants to actually walk the [...]
Jul 4, 2008 - 10:50 am 10. Olivia:Oh Jennifer,
Jul 4, 2008 - 11:05 am 11. Charlie (Colorado):They only have one pledge:
Do as I say, Not as I do.
Because I appreciate the enormous impact our culture has on our youth I pledge not to participate as an actor, writer, producer, crew member, or back-end participant in any movie, television production, or new media venture which glorifies teen sex and/or minimizes the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
Damn. So much for Romeo and Juliet.
(Other than that, though, it’s hilarious and timely.)
Jul 4, 2008 - 12:09 pm 12. ZEITGEIST:[...] FROM JENNIFER RUBIN, a Hollywood Pledge. [...]
Jul 4, 2008 - 1:01 pm 13. Peter Shalen:There’s one unreasonable detail here. Newark doesn’t have resort hotels or a beach front. It should be the Atlantic City film festival.
Jul 4, 2008 - 1:28 pm 14. tanstaafl:Of course “Hollywood elites” wouldn’t live by Obambi’s rules.
(Nor does Obambi, for that matter, generating a monstrous “footprint” in flitting about the country, soon to be flitting about the planet)
Hollywood elites wouldn’t dream of actually living by Al Gore’s version promulgated in “An Inconvenient Truth”. Not to mention Al Gore himself, whose individual “carbon footprint” in one month more than surpasses that of 32 individual American households for a year.
(As an aside, do you know how much egregious wasting of planet resources goes into the making of one single “Hollywood” film ?)
It really is all about do as I say, not as I do.
We are drowning in hypocrisy, glub, glub, glub…
Jul 4, 2008 - 1:47 pm 15. tanstaafl:(wasn’t this “comfort zone problem” the subject of her Princeton graduation thesis?)
I read that (sort of)
Tedious, Ungrammatical
Even for age 21.
(tanstaafl knows better than anyone that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, but I don’t want no gubbmint provided lunch, neither)
Jul 4, 2008 - 2:05 pm 16. sbourg:Great article…….but in tune with Barack’s and Hillary’s “wish-list”, you forgot that everyone deserves not just medical and dental care for life, but also mental health care. Everyone who needs one deserves a shrink.
Jul 4, 2008 - 2:58 pm 17. ic:C’mon, only little people have to abide by rules.
Jul 4, 2008 - 3:14 pm 18. Dave Surls:“…you forgot that everyone deserves not just medical and dental care for life, but also mental health care.”
Obviously, mental health care is an important issue to left wing loons.
Jul 4, 2008 - 3:22 pm 19. schnargley:I see no problem with this. I think that our Hollywood elites should get a pass on these commitments. They deserve it. They have already suffered enough to bring our country to reform, equality, and social justice through incessantly speaking out, especially when they are in Europe. Some have even suffered trauma at having had the consider the possibility of even moving to Europe if another conservative presidency is elected.
Where is your compassion?
Jul 4, 2008 - 6:11 pm 20. Michael:There should be one more. In view of the devastation George Bush has wreaked on the economy and the tremendous loss of good jobs and Hollywood’s absolute commitment to the highest possible wages for the American worker, they should pledge to stop doing so much of the production and post production work on their movies in foriegn countries where the labor is cheaper. They should shoot every scene, and process every piece of film, here while paying whatever the various unions involved demand.
Jul 4, 2008 - 11:19 pm 21. Any takers? | Cold Fury:[...] pledge for Lear-jet liberals that I, for one, can most certainly believe in. Category: The Loony Left ♦ [...]
Jul 5, 2008 - 6:48 am 22. vb:It would be fun to see a JayWalkers-type video at some Hollywood opening, where celebs are asked to sign the Obama Pledge. Would they not read it and sign, or would they read it and rebuke Obama’s ideals?
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:25 am 23. Michael Canzano:Pledge # 11 … I will hate all typical white people. I will embrace Socialism with all my heart and half brain. I will ask God to damn America.
Jul 5, 2008 - 9:42 am 24. Rick:American Christian Infidel
Pledge #12……Jews are responsible for the hoarding of wealth in America. I pledge to uncover Bush as a Jew in the closet. I will also pledge that kidyid, similarly a Jew, will never be able to afford Health Care for his family.
Jul 5, 2008 - 12:01 pm 25. Suzi:Obama sat in his black SUV and didn’t bother to respond…as Hollywood elite went in to bask in his glory!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvw9hA9tDI
Jul 5, 2008 - 2:09 pm 26. tanstaafl:Some have even suffered trauma at having had the consider the possibility of even moving to Europe if another conservative presidency is elected.
Stephen Baldwin said last week (mocking his bro’ Alec ) that if Obama were elected, he would leave the country.
S. Baldwin’s Observations on Hollow-wood
Jul 5, 2008 - 3:03 pm 27. misanthropicus:RE tanstaafl: [...] Some have even suffered trauma at having had the consider the possibility of even moving to Europe if another conservative presidency is elected. [...]
Difficult move though, ’cause Europe’s kind of gone right, lately, so there is not much left left in the world… Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe of course…
Jul 6, 2008 - 4:56 pm 28. HillaryforPresident:Yeah, Zimbabwe, I can see Michael Moore with Mugabe in the same shot.
As a moderate Democrat and one of the first Nobamas, I totally agree with the article.
I just hope that the republicans, independents, conservatives and McCain democrats like me will get out of our party lines and establish a unity ticket for McCain.
This two-party system has become Anti-American as it causes too much diviseness.
I can live with my differences with most of republican principles, but I, too, is pro-life and support sanctity of marriage. And I totally disagree with the bohemian life of Hollywood.
But Lies of Obama has gone too far. We need to settle our differences and put America first!
Sorry, but I prefer Hillary more than McCain. But that’s my choice and preference.
With Hillary out of the race, let me give outright support to McCain, who deserves my vote more than Obama.
For Ron Paul and Barr and all their supporters, you now have to make a choice. McCain or Obama. It is either McCain or a lying Socialist.
If Obama wins, our chances of settling our differences as one people will also be forfeited.
Jul 7, 2008 - 2:06 am 29. HillaryforPresident:One suggestion. Can we a have a focus on Chicago and the contributions of Barry Obama in its development?
Jul 7, 2008 - 2:11 am 30. tanstaafl:Difficult move though, ’cause Europe’s kind of gone right…
Yeah, France (M. Sarkozy drives the French intellectuals/socialists nuts) Germany, Italy. Spain’s having its “issues” with the economic thing and might throw out the socialists.
Last week, I read that (given the “broken” system) people seeking healthcare in the UK will now be eligible to get treatment in some large number of EU countries. Kind of like Canadians getting tired of waiting for months on end for treatment & surgeries and comin’ on down to these abominable Lower 48 to seek treatment.
Michael Moore and Robert Mugabe hugging, despite their fat bellies and their insane minds, it might work.
Jul 7, 2008 - 1:20 pm 31. Ilkka Kokkarinen:Here’s one more that I think you simply forgot:
11. With the plague of gun crime hurting America’s communities and our need for gun control and eventual total ban on all handguns other than police and military use, I will show a good example to my fellow citizens and not allow my bodyguards to carry guns while they are protecting me and my family.
Jul 7, 2008 - 5:23 pm 32. The Pledge We Can Believe In - Southern Maryland Community Forums:[...] See #2) Figure the odds on the elite taking this pledge. It’s only for us ‘leetle peoples’! Pledge Continued __________________ An uneducated citizen is the best voter – Democratic [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 4:17 am 33. The Pledge We Can Believe In - Southern Maryland Community Forums:[...] See #2) Figure the odds on the elite taking this pledge. It’s only for us ‘leetle peoples’! Pledge Continued __________________ An uneducated citizen is the best voter – Democratic Mantra Last edited by [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:35 pm 34. Anu:Anu:
Ilkka, unless you’r a citizen of the U.S. please leave their gun laws alone. Here in Finland none of my friends ever heard of you. What are you famous for? Bodyguards…Too much watching Kevin Costner, eh? “Keep it simple”.
Jul 11, 2008 - 3:38 pm 35. Anu:As for senator Obama, he seems to promise more than one man can deliver.Maybe with madame Michelle…who knows.Is it against the law to make her the VP? Oh Lord, why am I just a “whitey”…
Pajamasmedia:
what’s moderation? I am sorry. My English is rusty.Signed: International ignorance!
Jul 11, 2008 - 3:41 pm 36. RadioActive Chief » Blog Archive » Sieg Heil to The One!:[...] not really anything totalitarian going on here? Come again? What about The Candidate Of Change promising that he will CHANGE the details of our lives…no matter what WE want to do: …he is going to give us not just new politics, but new [...]
Aug 7, 2008 - 10:27 pm 37. » Seig Heil to The One? SD Shovel:[...] not really anything totalitarian going on here? Come again? What about The Candidate Of Change promising that he will CHANGE the details of our lives…no matter what WE want to do: …he is going to give us not just new politics, but new [...]
Aug 7, 2008 - 10:43 pm 38. Ray B:“Reminder to liberal celebrities: It’s time to set your Fluctuating Patriotism Clock from “Hate America” to “Love America” on Jan. 20th. Remember, it’s “Springsteen Ahead – Falwell Behind.”
Jan 23, 2009 - 9:57 am