Dear OFA: I'm Not A Special Interest Group, Either

Last summer, I was (briefly) an Organizing for America (the post-election version of Obama's campaign organization, now an arm of the DNC) online-based intern, before The Great Lifesplosion.  This has meant that, despite my growing disenchantment with the Obama administration, I'm still on the email list and get regular calls to action from the group.  Today, an OFA email landed in my inbox, with the subject line:

I am not a "special interest"

I opened it, and it was an e-blast about the emergency jobs bill, purporting to be from a teacher named Wendy.  Here's the relevant quote:

Democrats in Congress are trying to do the right thing, proposing emergency assistance for states to preserve more than 100,000 jobs like mine. They're racing back to the Capitol for an emergency session this week to pass this bill and save these jobs.

But Republicans are standing in the way. Minority Leader John Boehner is calling the bill a "payoff" to "special interests" and attacking every Democrat who is fighting for us.

But I'm not a special interest. I'm a teacher.

You know what, Wendy?  I'm not a special interest, either.  I'm a woman, a person without medical insurance, and queer.  The Obama administration has trampled right the hell over each of those facets of my identity, reasoning that we're "special interests" that they don't really have to listen to.  Hell, in the case of the insurance "reform" fiasco, they *actively* pandered to the real special interests, the insurance companies, instead of supporting uninsured people and women!  Why should I jump up and swing into action, calling my Congresspeople and spreading the word, to make sure you aren't treated like a "special interest", when the Obama administration all too clearly sees me and many others like me as "special interests" and is willing to treat us as such?


Mind you, I do support this emergency jobs bill.  Call me a socialist, w'ev.  But I am really fucking annoyed by the OFA's approach on this.  No, teachers are not a special interest.  But neither am I, and until the Obama administration is ready to acknowledge that and get to work representing me as well as you, they can go suck a bag of dicks for all I care.