- Marco Ceglie
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Marco Ceglie (b. 1973 in Livingston, New Jersey) is an American writer, producer, and freelance strategic media and messaging consultant.
He most recently co-founded the advocacy group The Other 98%, which made waves as an alternative to the Tea Party during their April 15, 2010 “anti-tax” rallies in Washington D.C. Ceglie countered the Tea Party again on August 28th, 2010, with his Celebrate The Dream project, which constructed a forty-foot art installation by the artist Michael Murphy. The exhibit honored Dr. Martin Luther King’s fight for social justice on the 47th anniversary of King’s “I have a dream” speech while countering Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
Between 2008 and 2010, Ceglie served as Executive Director of the non-profit Vote 18, a youth civics program that engaged teenagers to become civically involved and passionate about voting using an interactive, in-class teaching method.
As a member of the satirical media campaign Billionaires For Bush, Ceglie was chosen as the Campaign Director for the group’s National “Get on the Limo” Tour . In March 2005, Ceglie led the Billionaire “auction” of Social Security on eBay in May to protest the Bush Administration’s plan to privatize the government program. In 2006 he co-hosted the “Big Business Minute”, a satirical TV news segment that aired weekly on I.N.N. between 2005 and 2006. He also starred in “Get on the Limo”, a mockumentary produced by Oddly Honest Productions.
Ceglie also teaches Andrew Boyd’s “Culture Jamming 101” activism course at conferences and universities, and continues to appear and speak publicly both in character as a Billionaire For Bush, as well as himself when speaking about the group’s tactics and campaigns. During the 2009 Healthcare debate, Billionaires For Bush became known as Billionaires For Wealthcare, which gained wide recognition by Rachel Maddow and others after it stormed the Tea Party’s 2009 Sept 12th rally in Washington D.C.
Following the 2004 election, Ceglie co-founded WhereDoWeGo.org, a website project that provided “an ideas and discussion forum for progressives feeling lost and let down after so many months of hard work.”
In 2006, Ceglie served as the Outreach Coordinator for BringThemHomeNow.com, a website launched to raise money and awareness for four citizen groups working to end the war.
In 2007, Ceglie, along with Andrew Boyd and Chuck Collins (co-founders of Billionaires for Bush) focused the Billionaires For Bush meme in favor of preserving the estate tax. During that time Ceglie was featured in a series of New York Times articles breaking the story about the NYPD surveillance of activist groups during the 2004 RNC.
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P Convention
City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files
How to Tell a Billionaire From a Bomber
Outside of the Billionaires for Bush meme, Ceglie produces viral videos for non-profits and political campaigns. Among his most notable were his “Bush Hates Santa” video for the Center for Constitutional Rights and “No, You Can’t”, a parody of will.i.am’s YouTube tribute to Barack Obama “Yes, We Can”. “No, You Can’t” became part of the will.i.am phenomenon and was featured in the New York Times, CNN, Salon, and the Wall St. journal, among numerous blogs.
Others include his interruption of AHIP’s 2009 conference with a guerrilla musical to the tune of “Annie,” and the March 9th, 2010 “Stop Big Insurance” rally follow up with the Healthcare for America Now. The musical was feathered on Rachael Maddow’s show, CNN’s The Situation Room and many blogs.
Ceglie also co-wrote Surveillance, with Scott Cate in 2003. An early draft of the novel was self-published in 2004.
He received his BA in English Literature from Arizona State University in 2000.
Ceglie lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is currently writing Democracy is a Joke!, a non-fiction piece that explores the use of humor to effect change in the public discourse and policy.
External links
Categories:- 1973 births
- Living people
- American activists
- Arizona State University alumni
- People from Essex County, New Jersey
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