The Fight Goes On With Or Without U2

Jim Dwyer of the New York Times called it Charity Work, 'American Idol'-Style when referring to the American Express Members Project. I was backing the David-style Donors Choose against Procter & Gamble's Goliath-style Pur drinking water system (they won, of course), so I can't really complain that the "you choose" model was adapted, though I maintain the process was seriously flawed for several reasons (here and here). Oh well, no amount of complaining will change that now but that doesn't mean I'll stop making noise. Since it's a hobby of mine to write letters with no expectation of a reply (99, remind me, didn't McSweeney's have a feature like that?) I gave the head of AMEX public relations a piece of my young black mind, it's a terrible thing to copy and paste...

To: Judy Tenzer, American Express Vice President, Public Affairs and Communications – Technology and Marketing Activities

My comments have been repeatedly deleted on the Members Project message boards and my requests for an explanation have been rudely ignored. As an AMEX cardmember, I find this perplexing and more importantly, highly insulting. Especially since I've done nothing wrong. I will continue to press the issue until I'm given an answer. It's time to break out those PR skills and earn your paycheck. Here are the comments I posted on the message boards, among honest opinions by many others, that have been deleted numerous times.

[Screen Shot Attachment]

Also, the customer service "contact us" graphic on your website is currently a broken link.

Thanks,
AK

She didn't write back of course but I was soon forced to do my own follow-up:

Where are the message boards? You deleted them?? This is outrageous. The arrogance displayed by AMEX is shameful. I want my cardmember status canceled immediately.

If you felt a rumble in Manhattan on Sunday, it was her boots shaking. And what was the final corporate to corporate philanthropy handout? $2 million for the clean water project. Apparently not enough people voted overall to push the promised kitty to $5 million. Clipped nails produce weak scratch. They gave $100K to each of the four runner-ups. To put this in perspective, American Express has a market cap of over $70 billion and P&G's is almost $205 billion. They're really spreading the wealth like medicated butter on Jim Cramer's fired-up asshole.

Let's end this with "Middleground" - a concept that rarely exists in the real world - by 7 Seconds from their "Ourselves" era which turned off many fans with its blatant U2isms but I kinda dug it.