Good evening. We'll start things off with Democracy Now!
London Mayor Calls for Iraq Withdrawal, Galloway Praises Iraq Resistance
As Bush exchanges words with Zawahiri, two of the most vocal critics in Britain of the Iraq occupation are speaking out once again. Rebel Member of Parliament George Galloway has been on a tour of the Middle East where he said the resistance in Iraq was made up of ordinary Iraqis defending their country against "foreign invaders." Galloway said, "It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony." Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party over his outspoken remarks about the Iraq war. Meanwhile, London Mayor Ken Livingstone on Thursday called on the British Government to withdraw troops from Iraq to prevent further attacks against Britain. In an op-Ed in The Guardian newspaper, Livingstone wrote "The London bombings demand clear thinking, not rhetoric. People's lives depend on the decisions made. These must be for every community to aid the police; to treat Britain's Muslim community with respect... And for Britain to withdraw from Iraq."
See what's happening there? England gets bombed but they don't all start running around screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Remember Pru's realistic response and how devoid it was of panic and "OH MY GOD!"s?
What happened to us was anytime somebody showed a spine and spoke out, they got attacked by the right, the center and some on the left. Even right now there was this dopey bull awhile back as people rushed to defend a blogger and kept saying, "See! He didn't quote Galloway! That was someone else!"
The point is you fight back. You don't try to back your way down the court, you charge down the court. But we don't get that here. We end up trying to defend ourselves and we don't know the first thing about defense.
"He didn't quote Galloway!" isn't defense. "It was someone else at his site!" isn't defense.
Defense is, "What of it? Wanna make something of it?"
But we all try to look so "reasonable."
And it's nonsense.
"They keep moving the line!" someone on the left whines about the right. Yeah, well who lets them do that?
You fight each play. You don't interrupt the ref to say, "Oh, they're right, give them the ball."
That's what you're doing when you make statements like, "He didn't quote Galloway!" That's how you end up with the list of undesirables that we're supposed to all stray away from.
The other side plays to win and we play like we're okay with being last in the league. And that's if we even show up for the game.
My prof stopped me on my way out of class today. I was thinking there was a problem with the paper I turned in. Turns out he just wanted to tell me that what Elaine and C.I. did really spoke to him. He said he's so sick of sites that don't defend or worry about who to mention because mentioning someone might mean they're not "reasonable." He pointed out that people like Joan Baez and others made a name for themselves because they spoke in a way that touched people. That's why the right attacks them. And when we back off a Jane Fonda or anyone else to be reasonable we're backing off our history and some of our strongest speakers.
It's like the people who have been strongest in the league are being blacklisted. We could brag about our championship season but that would mean noting them. So instead we have nothing to brag about.
We need to stop giving away our bragging rights.
I haven't heard from Lachelle yet but Bobbi did write in to say that the comments helped. She said she's especially thinking about what Lee Anne offered.
So that's great.
I want to make sure everyone's checking in with Betty. Kat e-mailed me "Can you hear Thomas Friedman?" It's hilarious. And check out Kat's review of Midnight Serenade because my parents are in love with that CD. My sister says it's kind of funny to watch them dancing in the living room when they play that CD on. And don't forget to check out my buddy Cedric. He's doing great work.
The weekend's upon us. I'll be working with Third Estate Sunday Review tomorrow night and may not post here. It'll probably be an all nighter but we're all hoping it won't be. It was so cool to get done early last time.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Reality's not looking so good
Good evening. We'll start again with two headlines from Democracy Now!
14 Marines Killed in Deadliest Roadside Bombing Of War
In Iraq, Pentagon officials have concluded it was a massive bomb that killed 14 Marines on Wednesday in the western city of Haditha. The Marines were driving in a 25-ton lightly-armored amphibious troop carrier that was not designed for coming under such attacks. It was the deadliest roadside bombing since the war began. In the past two weeks, at least 31 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in roadside bombings. According to the Knight Ridder news agency, bombs killed more coalition troops in July than in any previous month of the war. U.S. officials admitted on Wednesday that troops are now being targeted with more powerful and more effective bombs.The 14 Marines were all members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, based in Brook Park, Ohio. Six more Marines from that Batallion died on Monday.
Two Ex-Detainees Report Being Held in Secret U.S. Jails
Amnesty International is calling on the Bush administration to disclose the locations of the government’s secret jails that were set up around the world after the Sept. 11 attacks. This comes after two Yemini men publicly claimed that they were held in secret underground U.S. jails for more than 18 months. The two men were arrested separately but reported being held in almost identical conditions. One of the men was arrested in Jordan, the other in Indonesia. Both were jailed in Jordan where they were reportedly tortured. Each says he was then flown to an unnamed underground jail where he was held in solitary confinement for at least six months. Then they were taken to a second underground jail. Amnesty's Sharon Critoph said "To be 'disappeared' from the face of the earth without knowing why or for how long is a crime under international law and an experience no-one should have to go through. Critoph went on to say "We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of US secret detentions around the world."
I'm so into Democracy Now! that it's hard for me to remember a time when I wasn't. The violence in Iraq continues. The invasion didn't change it or the occupation. The election, for all the talk of purple stained fingers, didn't change a thing. Makes you wonder how long a person can live in denial because there are people still living in denial. Still convinced that the roses we were promised would be thrown on our path are just waiting around the corner.
We are the cause of the unrest. We're occuyping another nation. We've been doing so for over two years now. The Iraqi soccer time, at the Olympics, spoke of wanting us to go home. Now you can believe the Bully Boy or the Operation Happy Talkers if you force yourself to but you're going to have to force yourself to.
And if you're ready for reality you should check out Elaine and C.I.'s posts from last night. Those two were on fire. Dad printed up their posts to take to work and Ma's been e-mailing them out to people. So please take the time to read Elaine's "Casualties continue to mount and the Democratic Party needs to find some ideas and a platform that's not 'more of the same'" and C.I.'s "Impunity leads to further silence" because they are powerful posts from powerful voices.
When I was no campus today, I got a lot of back slapping and thumbs up from buds just because I know C.I. and Elaine. Tony's been passing out print outs of both.
In a nation where too many play safe, Elaine & C.I. cut to the heart of the matter and that about says it all. We can't, in the face of the Downing St. Memos, continue to avoid asking the tough questions. Like Laura Flanders says, "Don't leave politics to the politicians." Politicians just want to tell us safe answers. The war is unjust. That may not be a safe answer, people ignored Pope John Paul when he said that, but it's reality.
A lot of the e-mails I was reading today were about the posts Elaine and C.I. did so I know most of you already caught them. But if you missed them, please read them.
Megan e-mailed to offer some advice to Lachelle. She says that if it's not something physical, then Lachelle needs to ask herself if there's a trust issue involved. Megan wonders if Lachelle's been wondering if her boyfriend's being faithful.
Beau wonders if Lachelle has some issues that she's avoided dealing with "like a trauma that she's avoided dealing with?"
Andy wonders if maybe it's over and that's what's going on "like maybe she knows it's over on like 1 level but hasn't owned up to that yet completely?"
Lee Anne writes that she went through something similar and it was part of "coming out of the closet for me." She wonders if Lachelle is dealing with similar issues?
Lawanda writes that sometimes "love just fades slow." She thinks that this is what is happening.
But everyone agreed that Lachelle needs to tell her boyfriend right away that she's not interested in sex right now. I hope that something up here helps, Lachelle. And maybe Bobbie will see something up here that helps her too.
Beau likes the Democracy Now! stuff but wonders why I use it. That came up in a thing with The Third Estate Sunday Review. We were talkinga bout the power we had and all and how we could use it in a responsible way or not.
So like I use it because what is "mainstream news?" Mainstream news is just mainstream because it is what everyone talks about. So I do this stuff from Democracy Now! to help raise awareness of a show I really believe in. And C.I. does a post on it each Monday through Friday.
And like Francisco, Maria or Miguel will pick some headlines at the end of the week, in Spanish and English, to try to raise awareness too. And Third Estate Sunday Review reruns that. And Elaine will note stuff and Rebecca has too. And I mean if a lot of people with their own blogs or sites were doing that, think of how popular Democracy Now! would be and how aware people would be of it?
Think how much better and smarter we'd be as a nation if when we were talking news, we weren't all going, "I was reading the Boston Globe today . . ." or "I was watching ABC's World News Tonight . . ." but instead were saying, "I saw this thing on Democracy Now! today . . ." and the other person was saying, "Oh I saw that too!" I mean we'd be more informed and more aware. So that's my part in trying to make sure people know and stuff.
And maybe somebody sees my link and visits the site or makes a point to listen to the show on radio or watch it on TV, that's really incredible. But like even if they don't, if they just come here and get the little taste of Democracy Now! they're getting informed and they're also aware of Democracy Now! and know it's out there.
Because there are people that don't watch news or listen. Maybe they don't have a dish or maybe there's no Democracy Now! on the airwaves in their area. And maybe they're like Charlie, who's a Common Ills member who's been really kind about my site in his e-mails to me, and they're computer access comes from a public library? Charlie actually listens to Democracy Now! on the radio. But if someone didn't have that option, and a lot of people don't, and they come here and they've got like 15 or 20 minutes of access time, they're getting a little bit of Democracy Now! here.
Or if you're a Common Ills member and you get the gina & krista round-robin, you know that members of The Common Ills community want to know what's going on. They're looking, when it comes to excerpts or highlights, for information they can digest quickly. Gina and Krista did the poll on that and did some follow up interviews and like Wally said, "I don't have time to read through The New York Times and visit every blog and every magazine so I go there to get the summary of what's important and what's happening and being discussed." (Wally's an e-mail bud so I think he'll be fine with being quoted. If he's not, I'll remove it tomorrow.) Like the outside the U.S. mainstream news posts that C.I. does on Sundays or the indymedia's ones on Thursday, those are seen by members as informative and giving them what they need without them having to surf all over.
If you've got your own computer and all the time in the world, great for you and you can check out everything you need but a lot of people don't have all the time in the world or their own computer. Or they don't like pop ups and they want summaries or excerpts for that reason or they have a really slow computer and it's not worth it to them to click on a link. And that's what was so great about Gina and Krista's poll because they also included that test and people scored really well on the issues even if they were respondents who said they never go to links.
So that's why I do it, Beau.
Now let's wind down by noting CounterRecruiter cause that's another site I really believe in.
Black Recruits Say No, Bucking Historical Trends
While African-Americans have traditionally made up a significant percentage of the US Armed Forces, the numbers of Black enlistees is on the decline, reports the Dallas Morning News.
In fiscal 2001, which ended 19 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, nearly 23 percent of all new Army recruits were black – as in each of the previous five years. So far in fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, only about 14 percent are. That's a decline of nearly 40 percent in the proportion of black recruits – when the Army never needed them more.
And the war in Iraq seems to have a lot to do with the drop in numbers - not just fear of dying in the war, but opposition to the war itself.
And maybe someone says
14 Marines Killed in Deadliest Roadside Bombing Of War
In Iraq, Pentagon officials have concluded it was a massive bomb that killed 14 Marines on Wednesday in the western city of Haditha. The Marines were driving in a 25-ton lightly-armored amphibious troop carrier that was not designed for coming under such attacks. It was the deadliest roadside bombing since the war began. In the past two weeks, at least 31 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in roadside bombings. According to the Knight Ridder news agency, bombs killed more coalition troops in July than in any previous month of the war. U.S. officials admitted on Wednesday that troops are now being targeted with more powerful and more effective bombs.The 14 Marines were all members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, based in Brook Park, Ohio. Six more Marines from that Batallion died on Monday.
Two Ex-Detainees Report Being Held in Secret U.S. Jails
Amnesty International is calling on the Bush administration to disclose the locations of the government’s secret jails that were set up around the world after the Sept. 11 attacks. This comes after two Yemini men publicly claimed that they were held in secret underground U.S. jails for more than 18 months. The two men were arrested separately but reported being held in almost identical conditions. One of the men was arrested in Jordan, the other in Indonesia. Both were jailed in Jordan where they were reportedly tortured. Each says he was then flown to an unnamed underground jail where he was held in solitary confinement for at least six months. Then they were taken to a second underground jail. Amnesty's Sharon Critoph said "To be 'disappeared' from the face of the earth without knowing why or for how long is a crime under international law and an experience no-one should have to go through. Critoph went on to say "We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of US secret detentions around the world."
I'm so into Democracy Now! that it's hard for me to remember a time when I wasn't. The violence in Iraq continues. The invasion didn't change it or the occupation. The election, for all the talk of purple stained fingers, didn't change a thing. Makes you wonder how long a person can live in denial because there are people still living in denial. Still convinced that the roses we were promised would be thrown on our path are just waiting around the corner.
We are the cause of the unrest. We're occuyping another nation. We've been doing so for over two years now. The Iraqi soccer time, at the Olympics, spoke of wanting us to go home. Now you can believe the Bully Boy or the Operation Happy Talkers if you force yourself to but you're going to have to force yourself to.
And if you're ready for reality you should check out Elaine and C.I.'s posts from last night. Those two were on fire. Dad printed up their posts to take to work and Ma's been e-mailing them out to people. So please take the time to read Elaine's "Casualties continue to mount and the Democratic Party needs to find some ideas and a platform that's not 'more of the same'" and C.I.'s "Impunity leads to further silence" because they are powerful posts from powerful voices.
When I was no campus today, I got a lot of back slapping and thumbs up from buds just because I know C.I. and Elaine. Tony's been passing out print outs of both.
In a nation where too many play safe, Elaine & C.I. cut to the heart of the matter and that about says it all. We can't, in the face of the Downing St. Memos, continue to avoid asking the tough questions. Like Laura Flanders says, "Don't leave politics to the politicians." Politicians just want to tell us safe answers. The war is unjust. That may not be a safe answer, people ignored Pope John Paul when he said that, but it's reality.
A lot of the e-mails I was reading today were about the posts Elaine and C.I. did so I know most of you already caught them. But if you missed them, please read them.
Megan e-mailed to offer some advice to Lachelle. She says that if it's not something physical, then Lachelle needs to ask herself if there's a trust issue involved. Megan wonders if Lachelle's been wondering if her boyfriend's being faithful.
Beau wonders if Lachelle has some issues that she's avoided dealing with "like a trauma that she's avoided dealing with?"
Andy wonders if maybe it's over and that's what's going on "like maybe she knows it's over on like 1 level but hasn't owned up to that yet completely?"
Lee Anne writes that she went through something similar and it was part of "coming out of the closet for me." She wonders if Lachelle is dealing with similar issues?
Lawanda writes that sometimes "love just fades slow." She thinks that this is what is happening.
But everyone agreed that Lachelle needs to tell her boyfriend right away that she's not interested in sex right now. I hope that something up here helps, Lachelle. And maybe Bobbie will see something up here that helps her too.
Beau likes the Democracy Now! stuff but wonders why I use it. That came up in a thing with The Third Estate Sunday Review. We were talkinga bout the power we had and all and how we could use it in a responsible way or not.
So like I use it because what is "mainstream news?" Mainstream news is just mainstream because it is what everyone talks about. So I do this stuff from Democracy Now! to help raise awareness of a show I really believe in. And C.I. does a post on it each Monday through Friday.
And like Francisco, Maria or Miguel will pick some headlines at the end of the week, in Spanish and English, to try to raise awareness too. And Third Estate Sunday Review reruns that. And Elaine will note stuff and Rebecca has too. And I mean if a lot of people with their own blogs or sites were doing that, think of how popular Democracy Now! would be and how aware people would be of it?
Think how much better and smarter we'd be as a nation if when we were talking news, we weren't all going, "I was reading the Boston Globe today . . ." or "I was watching ABC's World News Tonight . . ." but instead were saying, "I saw this thing on Democracy Now! today . . ." and the other person was saying, "Oh I saw that too!" I mean we'd be more informed and more aware. So that's my part in trying to make sure people know and stuff.
And maybe somebody sees my link and visits the site or makes a point to listen to the show on radio or watch it on TV, that's really incredible. But like even if they don't, if they just come here and get the little taste of Democracy Now! they're getting informed and they're also aware of Democracy Now! and know it's out there.
Because there are people that don't watch news or listen. Maybe they don't have a dish or maybe there's no Democracy Now! on the airwaves in their area. And maybe they're like Charlie, who's a Common Ills member who's been really kind about my site in his e-mails to me, and they're computer access comes from a public library? Charlie actually listens to Democracy Now! on the radio. But if someone didn't have that option, and a lot of people don't, and they come here and they've got like 15 or 20 minutes of access time, they're getting a little bit of Democracy Now! here.
Or if you're a Common Ills member and you get the gina & krista round-robin, you know that members of The Common Ills community want to know what's going on. They're looking, when it comes to excerpts or highlights, for information they can digest quickly. Gina and Krista did the poll on that and did some follow up interviews and like Wally said, "I don't have time to read through The New York Times and visit every blog and every magazine so I go there to get the summary of what's important and what's happening and being discussed." (Wally's an e-mail bud so I think he'll be fine with being quoted. If he's not, I'll remove it tomorrow.) Like the outside the U.S. mainstream news posts that C.I. does on Sundays or the indymedia's ones on Thursday, those are seen by members as informative and giving them what they need without them having to surf all over.
If you've got your own computer and all the time in the world, great for you and you can check out everything you need but a lot of people don't have all the time in the world or their own computer. Or they don't like pop ups and they want summaries or excerpts for that reason or they have a really slow computer and it's not worth it to them to click on a link. And that's what was so great about Gina and Krista's poll because they also included that test and people scored really well on the issues even if they were respondents who said they never go to links.
So that's why I do it, Beau.
Now let's wind down by noting CounterRecruiter cause that's another site I really believe in.
Black Recruits Say No, Bucking Historical Trends
While African-Americans have traditionally made up a significant percentage of the US Armed Forces, the numbers of Black enlistees is on the decline, reports the Dallas Morning News.
In fiscal 2001, which ended 19 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, nearly 23 percent of all new Army recruits were black – as in each of the previous five years. So far in fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, only about 14 percent are. That's a decline of nearly 40 percent in the proportion of black recruits – when the Army never needed them more.
And the war in Iraq seems to have a lot to do with the drop in numbers - not just fear of dying in the war, but opposition to the war itself.
And maybe someone says
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Casualty count and interview with Ava
Good evening, we'll start out with Democracy Now!
21 Marines Die in Iraq OverTwo-Day Period
Fourteen Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed early today in western Iraq making it one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces in months. Seven more Marines died on Monday.
Coalition Death Toll in Iraq Tops 2,000
The overall U.S. military death toll in Iraq has now topped eighteen hundred and the total number of coalition troops killed has passed 2,000.
You read the two things above and you start wondering what planet the people saying, "Oh no, we're winning!" are living on. Yes, the deaths are hidden away and our lap dog press won't fight back on that, but what is the magic number we hit before we can start having a honest dialogue?
And what's Hillary Clinton's magic number?
Everyone here knows I love the book What's My Name Fool? If you haven't read it, look it up. But here's something C.I. passed on by the author of the book, Dave Zirin's latest at CounterPunch.
Rafael Palmeiro and the Politics of Distraction
A close compatriot of President Bush squats in a scandal so malodorous it led news shows from coast to coast. It's a scandal that some say is too hot for Bush to comment on. But there was the President, speaking without a stammer or stutter on this issue of pressing national concern.
There was only one curious twist. The scandalized bosom buddy was not the bosomy Karl Rove, but Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro. Yes, in an era of war and economic crisis, Bush took time to rush to the defense of a four-time All-Star who has become the highest profile casualty of Major League Baseball's steroid testing program.
Bush called Palmeiro a "friend" and said, "He's testified in public [to being clean], and I believe him.... Still do." Presidential lickspittle Scott McClellan also made clear at a White House press briefing that Palmeiro has the full support of the Oval Office. It no doubt will puzzle future generations (or present ones, for that matter) why the President felt compelled to comment on what a 40 year old ballplayer may or may not have ingested. But the reasons are clear enough. This is a case of how the Bush administration's Politics of Distraction have turned around to nip the President in the tush. It all began at the January 2003 State of the Union address when Bush inexplicably took time to talk tough on steroids. As New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady grinned next to the First Lady, Bush put the plague of steroids on the front burner of the national consciousness. This was Politics of Distraction 101, a classic ploy to give the public something to chew over instead of those two pesky countries the US armed forces happened to be occupying.
Now, I'm dropping the e-mail discussion tonight because I want to put up an interview that I did.
Last night, I gave you a heads up to a roundtable that would be going on at The Common Ills. I couldn't reach C.I. due to morning meetings but I did reach Ava. If you haven't read the roundtable you should. Here's my interview with Ava from this morning.
So I had talked to Gina and Krista and I think the roundtable was great but I thought there were going to be more topics?
Ava: That was a many hour discussion, every topic you can imagine was addressed. We were looking at it and thinking what hell is was going to be to type up all our notes and get it posted.
If you check the time signatures, you'll see that it's that there's a little over three hours between that post and the first one C.I. did this morning. We were up so late on that. There would have been no sleep at all if we'd included all the topics that came up. Dona was saying before the roundtable and during it that we needed to stick to the main topic. We went over everyone's statements with them and asked what they were fine with. People pulled some of their statements to help us out and in some cases because of other reasons.
Dona didn't pull a statement, did she?
Ava: No. How did you know?
She's always really precise and focused in the stuff at The Third Estate Sunday Review. What about C.I.?
Ava: C.I. was much more active than in the transcript but you know the fear of "dominating the discussion."
Right. Did you think anything should have stayed?
Ava: I thought everyone, except Dona, eliminated something that was worthwhile but in terms of the practical deadline we were up against, I'm grateful people were willing to part with a comment or comments. You know this from participating at The Third Estate Sunday Review but in case anyone else doesn't, nothing was "improved." What's up there is what was said. Things were taken out, things were not added.
I loved it but I did wish there was more C.I. and also more Ruth. Gina and Krista said told me they were nervous.
Ava: Gina & Krista had a great thing at the opening, a great back and forth but they both agreed to pull that and it will go into their round-robin Friday. They have my notes and C.I.'s notes and they've got permission to pull any other comments that were made but didn't make it up in the entry. Ruth actually only pulled one sentence. But she'd said beforehand that she was really wanting to listen so I wasn't surprised that much. When she spoke, this is Ruth's way, it was worth hearing. But as I'm remembering it, she only pulled one sentence.
And for all the Rebecca lovers like me, we got to hear from Rebecca.
Ava: Rebecca probably pulled the most of anyone. Her feelings were that even though her name would be next to the statements, it would be the usual attack C.I. and no one else. So she pulled a number of comments and said she'll probably address those topics when she gets back from vacation. But C.I. asked her to participate in some way and she said, "I'll be there for the full thing" and she was. She stayed on the phone while we were going over quotes and making sure that everyone could live with what they'd said or felt that they were important to the discussion. C.I. wanted Betty and Ruth off first because both had early, early mornings. Both ended up staying on the line though. But Rebecca kept saying to go over her's last.
I was really glad Gina and Krista and Ruth were brought in.
Ava: Dona was the one who said to make it a roundtable. C.I. had all these e-mails from members and knew it had to be addressed. Dona said roundtable and for a moment it was going to be a Third Estate Sunday Review type roundtable but Dona felt it would be more effective this way. At which point, C.I. wanted some voices to take part that might not take part on those roundtables. Three members were invited but had to decline. Two because they didn't feel they'd have anything to add and Keesha who really wanted to be a part of it but couldn't work it out for time reasons. I think we had a very strong mix and I think the point was to get Krista get out there and talking because the round-robin is private because she's hestitant since the earlier episode. You spoke to her, how is she today?
She's great. C.I. had spoken to her and Gina had spoken to her and she's not beating herself up for not catching that thing. She's taking C.I.'s attitude of "I could be wrong and often am." And feeling like you have to put it out there or do nothing. So I think it was really productive for her. I thought everyone came off well and Kat and Elaine included. But I was sort of surprised that C.I. really was like the moderator.
Ava: Well a great deal was taken out by C.I. You know, because you've talked about this, that at our roundtables, C.I.'s talking about topics that wouldn't make The Common Ills or going into more depth but at The Common Ills there's this sort of "voice of authority" that could come out and C.I. tries to avoid doing anything that could be read as "end of story." So a lot of things were pulled, by C.I., and many of them were to the point and a lot of them were funny.
I think it was very effective. I noticed that there wasn't a Daily Howler excerpted today.
Ava: My understanding on that, me speaking for me, is that C.I. wasn't in the mood for it. I think C.I. ended up getting two hours of sleep. This all came about because the members wanted it addressed. C.I.'s going through the day "dead tired" to use a popular expression and my understanding was that the last thing C.I. even wanted to do was look at The Daily Howler.
If a member sent it in, it would have gone up. But C.I. wasn't going to seek it out. It's an issue of time and too much time was wasted on Tuesday, even before the roundtable, on The Daily Howler.
Understood. So what did Jim think about being mentioned so much in the roundtable?
Ava: You know Jim, he loved it.
I like it when you or Jim or Jess talk about that sort of thing, the whole beginnings. Because all of you guys at The Third Estate Sunday Review work like this tight group, including C.I., and it's easy to just assume that's how it always was.
Ava: Well you know how it is, you spend time with people, you get to know them. Everyone knew everyone except for me and C.I. I include C.I. and that's me speaking for me. But everyone else had this whole history, even if it was a brief one. I knew Dona. But yeah, it was confusing and there's no need to act otherwise. I mean the whole DIY movement is about making connections and interacting and it would be dishonest for us to present ourselves as this group of people that just came together and instantly knew each other and what each other liked and thought. We're all friends now and we're a very tight group, no question. But that could be any group of people with a common purpose that worked together and that's Jim's point in terms of talking about this topic and mine as well.
Thank you for talking about this. You're my first interview I did myself.
Ava: Well I'm sure I was boring but anytime. And thank you for catching that Kat's final thoughts didn't make it up. If anyone read the roundtable last night, Kat did have final thoughts but C.I. and I were rushing to get that together, up and done.
21 Marines Die in Iraq OverTwo-Day Period
Fourteen Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed early today in western Iraq making it one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces in months. Seven more Marines died on Monday.
Coalition Death Toll in Iraq Tops 2,000
The overall U.S. military death toll in Iraq has now topped eighteen hundred and the total number of coalition troops killed has passed 2,000.
You read the two things above and you start wondering what planet the people saying, "Oh no, we're winning!" are living on. Yes, the deaths are hidden away and our lap dog press won't fight back on that, but what is the magic number we hit before we can start having a honest dialogue?
And what's Hillary Clinton's magic number?
Everyone here knows I love the book What's My Name Fool? If you haven't read it, look it up. But here's something C.I. passed on by the author of the book, Dave Zirin's latest at CounterPunch.
Rafael Palmeiro and the Politics of Distraction
A close compatriot of President Bush squats in a scandal so malodorous it led news shows from coast to coast. It's a scandal that some say is too hot for Bush to comment on. But there was the President, speaking without a stammer or stutter on this issue of pressing national concern.
There was only one curious twist. The scandalized bosom buddy was not the bosomy Karl Rove, but Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro. Yes, in an era of war and economic crisis, Bush took time to rush to the defense of a four-time All-Star who has become the highest profile casualty of Major League Baseball's steroid testing program.
Bush called Palmeiro a "friend" and said, "He's testified in public [to being clean], and I believe him.... Still do." Presidential lickspittle Scott McClellan also made clear at a White House press briefing that Palmeiro has the full support of the Oval Office. It no doubt will puzzle future generations (or present ones, for that matter) why the President felt compelled to comment on what a 40 year old ballplayer may or may not have ingested. But the reasons are clear enough. This is a case of how the Bush administration's Politics of Distraction have turned around to nip the President in the tush. It all began at the January 2003 State of the Union address when Bush inexplicably took time to talk tough on steroids. As New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady grinned next to the First Lady, Bush put the plague of steroids on the front burner of the national consciousness. This was Politics of Distraction 101, a classic ploy to give the public something to chew over instead of those two pesky countries the US armed forces happened to be occupying.
Now, I'm dropping the e-mail discussion tonight because I want to put up an interview that I did.
Last night, I gave you a heads up to a roundtable that would be going on at The Common Ills. I couldn't reach C.I. due to morning meetings but I did reach Ava. If you haven't read the roundtable you should. Here's my interview with Ava from this morning.
So I had talked to Gina and Krista and I think the roundtable was great but I thought there were going to be more topics?
Ava: That was a many hour discussion, every topic you can imagine was addressed. We were looking at it and thinking what hell is was going to be to type up all our notes and get it posted.
If you check the time signatures, you'll see that it's that there's a little over three hours between that post and the first one C.I. did this morning. We were up so late on that. There would have been no sleep at all if we'd included all the topics that came up. Dona was saying before the roundtable and during it that we needed to stick to the main topic. We went over everyone's statements with them and asked what they were fine with. People pulled some of their statements to help us out and in some cases because of other reasons.
Dona didn't pull a statement, did she?
Ava: No. How did you know?
She's always really precise and focused in the stuff at The Third Estate Sunday Review. What about C.I.?
Ava: C.I. was much more active than in the transcript but you know the fear of "dominating the discussion."
Right. Did you think anything should have stayed?
Ava: I thought everyone, except Dona, eliminated something that was worthwhile but in terms of the practical deadline we were up against, I'm grateful people were willing to part with a comment or comments. You know this from participating at The Third Estate Sunday Review but in case anyone else doesn't, nothing was "improved." What's up there is what was said. Things were taken out, things were not added.
I loved it but I did wish there was more C.I. and also more Ruth. Gina and Krista said told me they were nervous.
Ava: Gina & Krista had a great thing at the opening, a great back and forth but they both agreed to pull that and it will go into their round-robin Friday. They have my notes and C.I.'s notes and they've got permission to pull any other comments that were made but didn't make it up in the entry. Ruth actually only pulled one sentence. But she'd said beforehand that she was really wanting to listen so I wasn't surprised that much. When she spoke, this is Ruth's way, it was worth hearing. But as I'm remembering it, she only pulled one sentence.
And for all the Rebecca lovers like me, we got to hear from Rebecca.
Ava: Rebecca probably pulled the most of anyone. Her feelings were that even though her name would be next to the statements, it would be the usual attack C.I. and no one else. So she pulled a number of comments and said she'll probably address those topics when she gets back from vacation. But C.I. asked her to participate in some way and she said, "I'll be there for the full thing" and she was. She stayed on the phone while we were going over quotes and making sure that everyone could live with what they'd said or felt that they were important to the discussion. C.I. wanted Betty and Ruth off first because both had early, early mornings. Both ended up staying on the line though. But Rebecca kept saying to go over her's last.
I was really glad Gina and Krista and Ruth were brought in.
Ava: Dona was the one who said to make it a roundtable. C.I. had all these e-mails from members and knew it had to be addressed. Dona said roundtable and for a moment it was going to be a Third Estate Sunday Review type roundtable but Dona felt it would be more effective this way. At which point, C.I. wanted some voices to take part that might not take part on those roundtables. Three members were invited but had to decline. Two because they didn't feel they'd have anything to add and Keesha who really wanted to be a part of it but couldn't work it out for time reasons. I think we had a very strong mix and I think the point was to get Krista get out there and talking because the round-robin is private because she's hestitant since the earlier episode. You spoke to her, how is she today?
She's great. C.I. had spoken to her and Gina had spoken to her and she's not beating herself up for not catching that thing. She's taking C.I.'s attitude of "I could be wrong and often am." And feeling like you have to put it out there or do nothing. So I think it was really productive for her. I thought everyone came off well and Kat and Elaine included. But I was sort of surprised that C.I. really was like the moderator.
Ava: Well a great deal was taken out by C.I. You know, because you've talked about this, that at our roundtables, C.I.'s talking about topics that wouldn't make The Common Ills or going into more depth but at The Common Ills there's this sort of "voice of authority" that could come out and C.I. tries to avoid doing anything that could be read as "end of story." So a lot of things were pulled, by C.I., and many of them were to the point and a lot of them were funny.
I think it was very effective. I noticed that there wasn't a Daily Howler excerpted today.
Ava: My understanding on that, me speaking for me, is that C.I. wasn't in the mood for it. I think C.I. ended up getting two hours of sleep. This all came about because the members wanted it addressed. C.I.'s going through the day "dead tired" to use a popular expression and my understanding was that the last thing C.I. even wanted to do was look at The Daily Howler.
If a member sent it in, it would have gone up. But C.I. wasn't going to seek it out. It's an issue of time and too much time was wasted on Tuesday, even before the roundtable, on The Daily Howler.
Understood. So what did Jim think about being mentioned so much in the roundtable?
Ava: You know Jim, he loved it.
I like it when you or Jim or Jess talk about that sort of thing, the whole beginnings. Because all of you guys at The Third Estate Sunday Review work like this tight group, including C.I., and it's easy to just assume that's how it always was.
Ava: Well you know how it is, you spend time with people, you get to know them. Everyone knew everyone except for me and C.I. I include C.I. and that's me speaking for me. But everyone else had this whole history, even if it was a brief one. I knew Dona. But yeah, it was confusing and there's no need to act otherwise. I mean the whole DIY movement is about making connections and interacting and it would be dishonest for us to present ourselves as this group of people that just came together and instantly knew each other and what each other liked and thought. We're all friends now and we're a very tight group, no question. But that could be any group of people with a common purpose that worked together and that's Jim's point in terms of talking about this topic and mine as well.
Thank you for talking about this. You're my first interview I did myself.
Ava: Well I'm sure I was boring but anytime. And thank you for catching that Kat's final thoughts didn't make it up. If anyone read the roundtable last night, Kat did have final thoughts but C.I. and I were rushing to get that together, up and done.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Don't miss the roundtable at The Common Ills
Good evening, as usual I'll kick things off with Democracy Now!
U.S. Faced 68 Attacks Per Day in Iraq During July
In Iraq, the Associated Press is reporting that U.S. and coalition forces were attacked on average 68 times a day during the month of July. This marks a near 50 percent increase over the number of attacks that took place last July. Meanwhile the number of Iraqis killed since the new Iraqi government took power in April has now topped twenty one hundred.
UK Official Admits U.S. & UK "part of the problem" in Iraq
Meanwhile British foreign secretary Jack Straw has admitted that the presence of British and US troops in Iraq is fuelling the uprising there. Straw told the Financial Times QUOTE "although we are part of the security solution there, we are also part of the problem."
C.I. steered this my way:
Join CODEPINK and the national counter-recruitment movement in standing up to these warmongers and liars. Stop the next war now by stopping the next generation from becoming cannon fodder in this illegal and immoral war!
LATEST NEWS: National Education Association (NEA) Calls for the Withdrawal of Troops and the Protection of Student Privacy
As the support for the occupation in Iraq continues to diminish, the National Education Assocation sets a precedent by passing two items during their Representative Assembly calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the support for student privacy from military recruiters. Read more about the NEA's Legislative Actions.
***URGENT ALERT: Scrap the Pentagon's Illegal New Database***
It's recently come to light that if you're between the ages of 16 and 30, the Pentagon has been secretly collecting information about you since 2002. Data from various sources--such as your social security number, height, weight, ethnicity, email address, grade point average and cell phone number--have been merged into a giant database and outsourced to a private corporation (Be Now Inc.) with no published privacy policies or opt-out procedures.
Take action now by asking your Representative to investigate and shut down this database.
Speaking of C.I., let's note something that made it up at The Common Ills last night.
And is there a reason our big brave internet's not all over this story? Randi Rhodes was talking about the story. I'll give you a possible answer at the end so hang on to the ending.
From "One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony:"
They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed ... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming.
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. "I told you I was going to teach you who's the man," [one] eventually said.
They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.
Doctor No 1 carried a briefcase. "You're all right, aren't you? But I'm going to say a prayer for you." Doctor No 2 gave me an Alka-Seltzer for the pain. I told him about my penis. "I need to see it. How did this happen?" I told him. He looked like it was just another patient. "Put this cream on it two times a day. Morning and night." He gave me some kind of antibiotic.
I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: "What's the point of this? I've got nothing I can say to them. I've told them everything I possibly could."
"As far as I know, it's just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you'll have these scars and you'll never forget. So you'll always fear doing anything but what the US wants."
That's what we're accused of doing.
Here's a story on the speaker from the story above - Stephen Grey and Ian Cobain's "Suspect's tale of travel and torture: Alleged bomb plotter claims two and a half years of interrogation under US and UK supervision in 'ghost prisons' abroad:"
For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.
Mohammed, 26, who grew up in Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7. One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal, fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators.
In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.
He alleges that in Morocco he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5. One interrogator, he says, was a woman who said she was Canadian.
Drawing on his notes, Mohammed's lawyer has compiled a 28-page diary of his torture. This has been declassified by the Pentagon, and extracts are published in the Guardian today.
No mailbag tonight because I'm running late. I called C.I. this morning and Jess had already called. Today's important issue was beat up on a woman who reports to a woman. At least online. Everyone got into the act. I haven't read the story but I doubt it's earth shattering. Still that's all the big brave internet wanted to talk about. But not a lot of talk of the two Guardian stories. There's a roundtable going on right now that will go up at The Common Ills tonight. How important is the roundtable? Rebecca's participating from St. Croix.
I'm out the door (date) but as soon as I get back, I'll be checking to see if it's up. Peace.
U.S. Faced 68 Attacks Per Day in Iraq During July
In Iraq, the Associated Press is reporting that U.S. and coalition forces were attacked on average 68 times a day during the month of July. This marks a near 50 percent increase over the number of attacks that took place last July. Meanwhile the number of Iraqis killed since the new Iraqi government took power in April has now topped twenty one hundred.
UK Official Admits U.S. & UK "part of the problem" in Iraq
Meanwhile British foreign secretary Jack Straw has admitted that the presence of British and US troops in Iraq is fuelling the uprising there. Straw told the Financial Times QUOTE "although we are part of the security solution there, we are also part of the problem."
C.I. steered this my way:
Join CODEPINK and the national counter-recruitment movement in standing up to these warmongers and liars. Stop the next war now by stopping the next generation from becoming cannon fodder in this illegal and immoral war!
LATEST NEWS: National Education Association (NEA) Calls for the Withdrawal of Troops and the Protection of Student Privacy
As the support for the occupation in Iraq continues to diminish, the National Education Assocation sets a precedent by passing two items during their Representative Assembly calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the support for student privacy from military recruiters. Read more about the NEA's Legislative Actions.
***URGENT ALERT: Scrap the Pentagon's Illegal New Database***
It's recently come to light that if you're between the ages of 16 and 30, the Pentagon has been secretly collecting information about you since 2002. Data from various sources--such as your social security number, height, weight, ethnicity, email address, grade point average and cell phone number--have been merged into a giant database and outsourced to a private corporation (Be Now Inc.) with no published privacy policies or opt-out procedures.
Take action now by asking your Representative to investigate and shut down this database.
Speaking of C.I., let's note something that made it up at The Common Ills last night.
And is there a reason our big brave internet's not all over this story? Randi Rhodes was talking about the story. I'll give you a possible answer at the end so hang on to the ending.
From "One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony:"
They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed ... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming.
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. "I told you I was going to teach you who's the man," [one] eventually said.
They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.
Doctor No 1 carried a briefcase. "You're all right, aren't you? But I'm going to say a prayer for you." Doctor No 2 gave me an Alka-Seltzer for the pain. I told him about my penis. "I need to see it. How did this happen?" I told him. He looked like it was just another patient. "Put this cream on it two times a day. Morning and night." He gave me some kind of antibiotic.
I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: "What's the point of this? I've got nothing I can say to them. I've told them everything I possibly could."
"As far as I know, it's just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you'll have these scars and you'll never forget. So you'll always fear doing anything but what the US wants."
That's what we're accused of doing.
Here's a story on the speaker from the story above - Stephen Grey and Ian Cobain's "Suspect's tale of travel and torture: Alleged bomb plotter claims two and a half years of interrogation under US and UK supervision in 'ghost prisons' abroad:"
For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.
Mohammed, 26, who grew up in Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7. One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal, fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators.
In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.
He alleges that in Morocco he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5. One interrogator, he says, was a woman who said she was Canadian.
Drawing on his notes, Mohammed's lawyer has compiled a 28-page diary of his torture. This has been declassified by the Pentagon, and extracts are published in the Guardian today.
No mailbag tonight because I'm running late. I called C.I. this morning and Jess had already called. Today's important issue was beat up on a woman who reports to a woman. At least online. Everyone got into the act. I haven't read the story but I doubt it's earth shattering. Still that's all the big brave internet wanted to talk about. But not a lot of talk of the two Guardian stories. There's a roundtable going on right now that will go up at The Common Ills tonight. How important is the roundtable? Rebecca's participating from St. Croix.
I'm out the door (date) but as soon as I get back, I'll be checking to see if it's up. Peace.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Jimmy Carter, Guantanamo, is the New York Times anti-Catholic and a favorite post from Rebecca
Good evening. We'll start out with two things from Democracy Now! today.
Jimmy Carter: Iraq War Was "Unnecessary and Unjust"
Former President Jimmy Carter has called the Iraq war "unnecessary and unjust" and criticized the Bush administration for its handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Speaking at an international Baptist convention in Britain, Carter said, "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A." He went on to say "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."
Gov't Officials Claim Military Tribunals Were Rigged
In other news on Guantanamo, the New York Times is reporting that two government prosecutors complained last year that the military commissions being set up to try detainees were little more than kangaroo courts. The prosecutors complained that the trial system was being secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence. According to the Times, the prosecutors alleged that the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the first four defendants members tried by the military commission would be "handpicked" to ensure that all would be convicted.
Now I want to note some news from CounterRecruiter:
With recruiters still struggling to meet their reduced monthly quotas in the Continental US, the New York Times reports that the Army is turning to United States Territories:
From Pago Pago in American Samoa to Yap in Micronesia, 4,000 miles to the west, Army recruiters are scouring the Pacific, looking for high school graduates to enlist at a time when the Iraq war is turning off many candidates in the States.
The Army has found fertile ground in the poverty pockets of the Pacific. The per capita income is $8,000 in American Samoa, $12,500 in the Northern Marianas and $21,000 in Guam, all United States territories. In the Marshalls and Micronesia, former trust territories, per capita incomes are about $2,000.
Dipping into the e-mails now.
First, Bobbie e-mailed to say it was nice of people to weigh in but she doesn't feel like anyone's really helped her. Which probably is because only Bobbie can help Bobbie. We can continue to toss around ideas, I got no problem with that, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to help to her.
Second, Lachelle e-mails that she's sick of sex. Maybe she'll have something that will help Bobbie? She's got a live in boyfriend of 2 years and she doesn't want to break up with him or move out but she's really not in the mood for sex. Lachelle writes "This isn't about a bad hair day or I feel fat. This isn't about I've got a headache. I just feel really removed from him when he wants to do it and I feel like there's just really no point at all. It's hot here in Georgia so maybe that's why. But I just don't want to do it and I've kept quiet about it for like a month now and just gone on through with it. Now I don't want to keep quiet and I need to figure out how to tell ****** what I'm feeling. Any suggestions?"
I think the first question is going to be why so you'll need to think about why. That's not me telling you to hold off until you know why. If this is what you're feeling you need to share it. You 2 are sharing a place and living together and you have every right to share what's going on inside.
But I do think at some point you're going to need to know for you what's making you feel this way. You may be tired and if so that's something he might be able to help you with. Or you may have some issues you're not addressing. Or you may just be tired of him and not know it yet. Or it could be anything else.
But you write that you can't talk to your friends about this because you don't want them to know and my feeling there is your friends know you a lot more than I do. Like maybe he's cheating or you think he is. It's not in your e-mail but your friends would know about that. Something like that could make you want to stop having sex.
There are dozens of things that could be going on and your friends would know about that stuff. So we'll open this up for input from readers but my advice to you besides tell your boyfriend immediately that you're not in the mood for sex is that you start talking to at least one friend.
I'm going to close with C.I. because I don't know what others think when they read the New York Times lately but in my Irish-Catholic house, we all think the paper's been biased over and over and it's not just our household either.
"Editorial: NYT's Lavery, is he joking or unfit for the assignment?"
So the e-mails this morning revolve around three questions:
1) Is Brian Lavery an actual idiot?
2) Is he not an idiot but he thinks readers are?
3) Is he trying to have "fun" in his reporting?
Good questions all.
As the Times continues to wage what many see as it's war on Irish-Catholics, today's the day they finally, kind of, sort of, get around to addressing a tiny slice of issues that anyone even slightly informed on the area long ago noticed was conspicuously absent from their coverage. Lavery's fable, er article, is entitled "As I.R.A. Backs Off, Loyalist Gangs Battle One Another."
Let's be real honest, in terms of news, there's no point to the Sunday paper. You might get a Shane Scott, Douglas Jehl, Felicity Barringer or Raymond Bonner piece the paper's sat on but that's prety much it. The highpoint (yes, there are a few) today is probably Amy Waldman (back on the front page with "Seething Unease Shaped British Bombers' Newfound Zeal" after apparently being exiled for the strong writing she did during the immediate after effects of the tsunami). But most of the time, you're left with a lot of reports that don't pass the news test and features that don't belong in the hard news, main section.
But apparently since none of them focus on Britney Spears, we're all supposed to shut our mouths and pretend like they are stories that truly, truly matter and are executed in hard news style. The underscored message here is "Nobody wants to work weekends! And we have to get the Sunday paper to bed early!" What's the excuse going to be when the Times switches completely to an electronic medium? Right now they're able to justify the dead main section on Sundays (followed by the anorexic one on Monday) with the "excuse" of print deadlines. When they switch to 100% electronic will we see a stronger main section, possibly even one that's really newsworthy?
I wasn't expecting real news this morning, but I also wasn't expecting the "work" of Lavery on the issue of paramility Protestants.
While working all night and a good portion of the morning, Jim had a few suggestions on how we could all get some sleep for a change -- all being Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava (Third Estate Sunday Review), Mike (Mikey Likes It!), Kat (Kat's Korner), Betty (Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man), Elaine (subbing for Rebecca at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude) and myself. They included no breaks (we'd work straight through -- which we did for thirteen hours), killing any piece that none of us could think of a way to fix within fifteen minutes (which led to three being axed), inviting Jess' parents who are up late on Saturdays to determine what are the five biggest stories breaking by midnight, letting others assemble the transcriptions Ava and I took of the roundtable (that should really be "decipher") so Ava and I had some additional time to put in on the TV review, and things I've honestly forgotten. The result was we could all get some sleep.
My own selfish hopes were: Ava and I could have a solid TV review (we both hate, loathe and despise the one we did last week and hate it with such intensity that time will not change our minds on that), I could have a Sunday that consisted of more than two hours of sleep and going through the day dragging with a headache and watery eyes, and I could enjoy the Sunday paper by going through it rested. So little happens in the Sunday paper that any minor irritants could actually lead to a humorous entry (like "Clubbing With the New York Times").
Lavery's article, his clowning, apparently beats us to the humor.
In Ireland, is he really that closed off that he thinks his examples in the morning paper suffice?
Is he truly unaware of the acts of violence against Catholics that's been going on recently? Or does he, as we wondered last night, think they've attempted to bomb their own churches in the last few days as some sort of sympathy bid?
The high point of "humor" (or maybe it's just self-amusement in a jerking off style) is most likely this statement:
But loyalist groups, referred to by a bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations that are still daubed in spray paint across much of Belfast, are unlikely even to be able to respond in any formal way to the new I.R.A., in part because there is no one to speak for them.
There is so much that is wrong with that sentence but let's note the "bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations." Coming off like an old grump still complaining that Eritrea's independence meant redrawing the maps, Lavery (who's stationed in Ireland) can't make any sense of the "bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations." Is that something a Times reporter should be joking about (let alone admitting -- if true)? Can we next expect Sheryl Gay Stolberg to turn in a report where she notes, "Congressional committees are like confusing. I just can't keep track of them. And why do they use names like 'Ways and Means' anyway?"
Maybe he's truly bewildered. If so, the Times should consider his article today a cry for help (if not for reassingment).
Maybe that's how he missed this news last week:
If they are openly and brazenly stating that that they are no longer engaged in moving away from paramilitarism and criminality and instead are intent on escalating their killing spree with the LVF, Peter Hain (Northern Ireland Secretary of State) is now under a moral obligation to declare their ceasefire to be at an end. If he fails to do so he jeopardises the basis of the entire political process.
That statement was made by the MLA's Naomi Long. ("MLA!" Yes, Lavery, more "three letter abbreviations.") And she made the statement in Belfast, the location from which so many of Lavery's pieces are filed. She even sits on the city council of Belfast. So she should be easily reachable by Lavery. But maybe phone directories, like "three letter abbreviations," also confuse Lavery?
(She graduated from Queen's University, which is in Lavery's rolodex or programmed on his speed dial since he quotes Adrian Guelke "a professor of comparitve politics at Queen's Univesity in Belfast.")
As he rushes to tell readers that "it almost seems the loyalists have already switched their focus, from fighting the I.R.A. to fighting one another" he somehow missed the following:
The Associated Press reported that loyalist extremists planted a homemade grenade outside a Catholic family's home in Ballymena. The bomb detonated, causing minor damage. Arsonists badly damaged one Catholic-run pub in the village of Martinstown, and caused minor fire damage to the outside of another pub in nearby Rasharkin with two gasoline-filled bottles. In addition, two Catholic churches in Ballymena were vandalized with paint-filled balloons and painted-on anti-Catholic slogans. No injuries were reported.
That apparently ancient history was reported July 27th, Lavery's dateline for this article is July 30th, three days later.
As members blame the paper in total for the slanted coverage that's repeatedly presented the IRA as the only paramilitary force in Ireland and as the only one involved in any and all violence, maybe the fault actually lies with their "man in Ireland" Lavery? Maybe they're not running reports on the above incidents and many other similar ones because Lavery's not filing any? And maybe, if he's not joking, the reason is because LVF and other "three letter abbreviations" bewilder and confuse him? Maybe he just can't get it straight in his hand so he passes on reporting on their actions?
If so the brand name that is the IRA may account for Lavery's continued focus on them. Or as Mike said when I called him this morning to get his take on Lavery's report, he's like someone trying to pass himself off as a sports fan who nods along while the talk is of the Lakers but gets a dazed, confused look when someone brings up the Cavaliers. (A sports analogy so surely the Times can grasp that.)
Is the joke not a joke? Is Lavery seriously owning up to not being up for the job? That would certainly explain the reporting. It would also read a little better for the Times since having done such a poor job reporting on the conflicts, Lavery's not earned the right to crack wise and the main section (with the exception of the floating op-ed by Bumiller) isn't supposed to be the pages from which someone auditions to be the next Dave Barry.
Maybe his reference to "bewildering array of three letter alphabet groups" is actually a confession that the bewilderment may be on the part of some Times readers (not all, Saturday's letter page demonstrated that many readers are more on top of the situation than is Lavery)?
Maybe he's confessing that since he's done so little in the past to report on those groups, introducing them into the discussion today would prompt head scratching on the part of the readers?
While the paper's come down hard on the IRA (and on Sinn Fien and on Catholics not willing to play good token and denounce Gerry Adams), it's left readers with the impression that violence comes from only one direction. Lavery's taken part in that so if "bewildering array" was his attempt at a joke, let me repeat, he hasn't earned the right to make jokes about an area he's done such a poor job of reporting on.
And while there's never been an innuendo Lavery hasn't been willing to pin on Adams, note the reassuring statement he offers for Ireland's own Jerry Falwell:
. . . Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionsit Party, which has no criminal connections, . . .
As long as he's on the stand as a character witness for Paisley, would Lavery like to address whether or not Paisley in fact created the paramilitary group Third Force? And explain to the jury what happened to the imported arms from South African?
Wait, Lavery, we're not done yet. What of Paisely's repeated remarks, public ones, that Pope John Paul II was the anti-Christ? Now we realize you were too busy cracking wise to report on actual events, but maybe while sending hearts and flowers to Paisely, you might have thought twice about that considering his infamous public remarks? Then again, maybe thought's not Lavery's strong suit?
Could you explain also why some critics suggest that Paisely violent rhetoric has aided in the recrutiment of paramilitary Protestant organizations?
And, if we can drop back to 1968, since you're vouching for Paisley, could you interpret for us his cry at a rally of "I will kill all who get in my way" which seems to beg for a reporter to hold off on the hearts and flowers, don't you think?
David Ervine is quoted in the article, is Lavery unaware of Ervine's 1997 allegation that the Democratic Unionist Party Lavery's vouching for attempted to prevent unionist paramilitaries from engaging in a 1994 ceasefire?
We could go on and on (the January 27, 1999 reading of names by Paisley which was seen by some as issuing death warrents, for instance). But maybe the sad truth came out in the paper today: Lavery's assigned to cover an area that he finds "bewildering" and it's all so over his head that he can't function?
Maybe the one-sided reporting has not resulted in bias but in ignorance? Maybe it's spread through the paper as everyone assumed that if anything were happening other than the IRA, Lavery would surely be reporting on it?
The imposed narrative at the Times has led to many questions (still unanswered is why they felt they could get away with no correction for their referring to Sinead O'Connor as "Mr. O'Connor") because it's come off petty and uninformed. Lavery's reporting, as he bends over backwards to vouch for questionable people (non-Catholics only get vouched for), has led to a great deal of anger. Before they next begin applying terms like "bullies," they might want to take a serious look at the coverage they've provided. There's been no rumor they haven't been willing to tar Adams or Sinn Fien with. Somehow actual facts don't stick to Paisley. It's interesting the way that's worked out. The Times might want to look into how that happened?
Last thing, Rebecca's thing on The Common Ills is getting a lot of positive e-mails. Remember she's on vacation and Elaine's subbing for her right now (and doing a great job).
Jimmy Carter: Iraq War Was "Unnecessary and Unjust"
Former President Jimmy Carter has called the Iraq war "unnecessary and unjust" and criticized the Bush administration for its handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Speaking at an international Baptist convention in Britain, Carter said, "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A." He went on to say "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."
Gov't Officials Claim Military Tribunals Were Rigged
In other news on Guantanamo, the New York Times is reporting that two government prosecutors complained last year that the military commissions being set up to try detainees were little more than kangaroo courts. The prosecutors complained that the trial system was being secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence. According to the Times, the prosecutors alleged that the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the first four defendants members tried by the military commission would be "handpicked" to ensure that all would be convicted.
Now I want to note some news from CounterRecruiter:
With recruiters still struggling to meet their reduced monthly quotas in the Continental US, the New York Times reports that the Army is turning to United States Territories:
From Pago Pago in American Samoa to Yap in Micronesia, 4,000 miles to the west, Army recruiters are scouring the Pacific, looking for high school graduates to enlist at a time when the Iraq war is turning off many candidates in the States.
The Army has found fertile ground in the poverty pockets of the Pacific. The per capita income is $8,000 in American Samoa, $12,500 in the Northern Marianas and $21,000 in Guam, all United States territories. In the Marshalls and Micronesia, former trust territories, per capita incomes are about $2,000.
Dipping into the e-mails now.
First, Bobbie e-mailed to say it was nice of people to weigh in but she doesn't feel like anyone's really helped her. Which probably is because only Bobbie can help Bobbie. We can continue to toss around ideas, I got no problem with that, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to help to her.
Second, Lachelle e-mails that she's sick of sex. Maybe she'll have something that will help Bobbie? She's got a live in boyfriend of 2 years and she doesn't want to break up with him or move out but she's really not in the mood for sex. Lachelle writes "This isn't about a bad hair day or I feel fat. This isn't about I've got a headache. I just feel really removed from him when he wants to do it and I feel like there's just really no point at all. It's hot here in Georgia so maybe that's why. But I just don't want to do it and I've kept quiet about it for like a month now and just gone on through with it. Now I don't want to keep quiet and I need to figure out how to tell ****** what I'm feeling. Any suggestions?"
I think the first question is going to be why so you'll need to think about why. That's not me telling you to hold off until you know why. If this is what you're feeling you need to share it. You 2 are sharing a place and living together and you have every right to share what's going on inside.
But I do think at some point you're going to need to know for you what's making you feel this way. You may be tired and if so that's something he might be able to help you with. Or you may have some issues you're not addressing. Or you may just be tired of him and not know it yet. Or it could be anything else.
But you write that you can't talk to your friends about this because you don't want them to know and my feeling there is your friends know you a lot more than I do. Like maybe he's cheating or you think he is. It's not in your e-mail but your friends would know about that. Something like that could make you want to stop having sex.
There are dozens of things that could be going on and your friends would know about that stuff. So we'll open this up for input from readers but my advice to you besides tell your boyfriend immediately that you're not in the mood for sex is that you start talking to at least one friend.
I'm going to close with C.I. because I don't know what others think when they read the New York Times lately but in my Irish-Catholic house, we all think the paper's been biased over and over and it's not just our household either.
"Editorial: NYT's Lavery, is he joking or unfit for the assignment?"
So the e-mails this morning revolve around three questions:
1) Is Brian Lavery an actual idiot?
2) Is he not an idiot but he thinks readers are?
3) Is he trying to have "fun" in his reporting?
Good questions all.
As the Times continues to wage what many see as it's war on Irish-Catholics, today's the day they finally, kind of, sort of, get around to addressing a tiny slice of issues that anyone even slightly informed on the area long ago noticed was conspicuously absent from their coverage. Lavery's fable, er article, is entitled "As I.R.A. Backs Off, Loyalist Gangs Battle One Another."
Let's be real honest, in terms of news, there's no point to the Sunday paper. You might get a Shane Scott, Douglas Jehl, Felicity Barringer or Raymond Bonner piece the paper's sat on but that's prety much it. The highpoint (yes, there are a few) today is probably Amy Waldman (back on the front page with "Seething Unease Shaped British Bombers' Newfound Zeal" after apparently being exiled for the strong writing she did during the immediate after effects of the tsunami). But most of the time, you're left with a lot of reports that don't pass the news test and features that don't belong in the hard news, main section.
But apparently since none of them focus on Britney Spears, we're all supposed to shut our mouths and pretend like they are stories that truly, truly matter and are executed in hard news style. The underscored message here is "Nobody wants to work weekends! And we have to get the Sunday paper to bed early!" What's the excuse going to be when the Times switches completely to an electronic medium? Right now they're able to justify the dead main section on Sundays (followed by the anorexic one on Monday) with the "excuse" of print deadlines. When they switch to 100% electronic will we see a stronger main section, possibly even one that's really newsworthy?
I wasn't expecting real news this morning, but I also wasn't expecting the "work" of Lavery on the issue of paramility Protestants.
While working all night and a good portion of the morning, Jim had a few suggestions on how we could all get some sleep for a change -- all being Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava (Third Estate Sunday Review), Mike (Mikey Likes It!), Kat (Kat's Korner), Betty (Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man), Elaine (subbing for Rebecca at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude) and myself. They included no breaks (we'd work straight through -- which we did for thirteen hours), killing any piece that none of us could think of a way to fix within fifteen minutes (which led to three being axed), inviting Jess' parents who are up late on Saturdays to determine what are the five biggest stories breaking by midnight, letting others assemble the transcriptions Ava and I took of the roundtable (that should really be "decipher") so Ava and I had some additional time to put in on the TV review, and things I've honestly forgotten. The result was we could all get some sleep.
My own selfish hopes were: Ava and I could have a solid TV review (we both hate, loathe and despise the one we did last week and hate it with such intensity that time will not change our minds on that), I could have a Sunday that consisted of more than two hours of sleep and going through the day dragging with a headache and watery eyes, and I could enjoy the Sunday paper by going through it rested. So little happens in the Sunday paper that any minor irritants could actually lead to a humorous entry (like "Clubbing With the New York Times").
Lavery's article, his clowning, apparently beats us to the humor.
In Ireland, is he really that closed off that he thinks his examples in the morning paper suffice?
Is he truly unaware of the acts of violence against Catholics that's been going on recently? Or does he, as we wondered last night, think they've attempted to bomb their own churches in the last few days as some sort of sympathy bid?
The high point of "humor" (or maybe it's just self-amusement in a jerking off style) is most likely this statement:
But loyalist groups, referred to by a bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations that are still daubed in spray paint across much of Belfast, are unlikely even to be able to respond in any formal way to the new I.R.A., in part because there is no one to speak for them.
There is so much that is wrong with that sentence but let's note the "bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations." Coming off like an old grump still complaining that Eritrea's independence meant redrawing the maps, Lavery (who's stationed in Ireland) can't make any sense of the "bewildering array of three-letter abbreviations." Is that something a Times reporter should be joking about (let alone admitting -- if true)? Can we next expect Sheryl Gay Stolberg to turn in a report where she notes, "Congressional committees are like confusing. I just can't keep track of them. And why do they use names like 'Ways and Means' anyway?"
Maybe he's truly bewildered. If so, the Times should consider his article today a cry for help (if not for reassingment).
Maybe that's how he missed this news last week:
If they are openly and brazenly stating that that they are no longer engaged in moving away from paramilitarism and criminality and instead are intent on escalating their killing spree with the LVF, Peter Hain (Northern Ireland Secretary of State) is now under a moral obligation to declare their ceasefire to be at an end. If he fails to do so he jeopardises the basis of the entire political process.
That statement was made by the MLA's Naomi Long. ("MLA!" Yes, Lavery, more "three letter abbreviations.") And she made the statement in Belfast, the location from which so many of Lavery's pieces are filed. She even sits on the city council of Belfast. So she should be easily reachable by Lavery. But maybe phone directories, like "three letter abbreviations," also confuse Lavery?
(She graduated from Queen's University, which is in Lavery's rolodex or programmed on his speed dial since he quotes Adrian Guelke "a professor of comparitve politics at Queen's Univesity in Belfast.")
As he rushes to tell readers that "it almost seems the loyalists have already switched their focus, from fighting the I.R.A. to fighting one another" he somehow missed the following:
The Associated Press reported that loyalist extremists planted a homemade grenade outside a Catholic family's home in Ballymena. The bomb detonated, causing minor damage. Arsonists badly damaged one Catholic-run pub in the village of Martinstown, and caused minor fire damage to the outside of another pub in nearby Rasharkin with two gasoline-filled bottles. In addition, two Catholic churches in Ballymena were vandalized with paint-filled balloons and painted-on anti-Catholic slogans. No injuries were reported.
That apparently ancient history was reported July 27th, Lavery's dateline for this article is July 30th, three days later.
As members blame the paper in total for the slanted coverage that's repeatedly presented the IRA as the only paramilitary force in Ireland and as the only one involved in any and all violence, maybe the fault actually lies with their "man in Ireland" Lavery? Maybe they're not running reports on the above incidents and many other similar ones because Lavery's not filing any? And maybe, if he's not joking, the reason is because LVF and other "three letter abbreviations" bewilder and confuse him? Maybe he just can't get it straight in his hand so he passes on reporting on their actions?
If so the brand name that is the IRA may account for Lavery's continued focus on them. Or as Mike said when I called him this morning to get his take on Lavery's report, he's like someone trying to pass himself off as a sports fan who nods along while the talk is of the Lakers but gets a dazed, confused look when someone brings up the Cavaliers. (A sports analogy so surely the Times can grasp that.)
Is the joke not a joke? Is Lavery seriously owning up to not being up for the job? That would certainly explain the reporting. It would also read a little better for the Times since having done such a poor job reporting on the conflicts, Lavery's not earned the right to crack wise and the main section (with the exception of the floating op-ed by Bumiller) isn't supposed to be the pages from which someone auditions to be the next Dave Barry.
Maybe his reference to "bewildering array of three letter alphabet groups" is actually a confession that the bewilderment may be on the part of some Times readers (not all, Saturday's letter page demonstrated that many readers are more on top of the situation than is Lavery)?
Maybe he's confessing that since he's done so little in the past to report on those groups, introducing them into the discussion today would prompt head scratching on the part of the readers?
While the paper's come down hard on the IRA (and on Sinn Fien and on Catholics not willing to play good token and denounce Gerry Adams), it's left readers with the impression that violence comes from only one direction. Lavery's taken part in that so if "bewildering array" was his attempt at a joke, let me repeat, he hasn't earned the right to make jokes about an area he's done such a poor job of reporting on.
And while there's never been an innuendo Lavery hasn't been willing to pin on Adams, note the reassuring statement he offers for Ireland's own Jerry Falwell:
. . . Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionsit Party, which has no criminal connections, . . .
As long as he's on the stand as a character witness for Paisley, would Lavery like to address whether or not Paisley in fact created the paramilitary group Third Force? And explain to the jury what happened to the imported arms from South African?
Wait, Lavery, we're not done yet. What of Paisely's repeated remarks, public ones, that Pope John Paul II was the anti-Christ? Now we realize you were too busy cracking wise to report on actual events, but maybe while sending hearts and flowers to Paisely, you might have thought twice about that considering his infamous public remarks? Then again, maybe thought's not Lavery's strong suit?
Could you explain also why some critics suggest that Paisely violent rhetoric has aided in the recrutiment of paramilitary Protestant organizations?
And, if we can drop back to 1968, since you're vouching for Paisley, could you interpret for us his cry at a rally of "I will kill all who get in my way" which seems to beg for a reporter to hold off on the hearts and flowers, don't you think?
David Ervine is quoted in the article, is Lavery unaware of Ervine's 1997 allegation that the Democratic Unionist Party Lavery's vouching for attempted to prevent unionist paramilitaries from engaging in a 1994 ceasefire?
We could go on and on (the January 27, 1999 reading of names by Paisley which was seen by some as issuing death warrents, for instance). But maybe the sad truth came out in the paper today: Lavery's assigned to cover an area that he finds "bewildering" and it's all so over his head that he can't function?
Maybe the one-sided reporting has not resulted in bias but in ignorance? Maybe it's spread through the paper as everyone assumed that if anything were happening other than the IRA, Lavery would surely be reporting on it?
The imposed narrative at the Times has led to many questions (still unanswered is why they felt they could get away with no correction for their referring to Sinead O'Connor as "Mr. O'Connor") because it's come off petty and uninformed. Lavery's reporting, as he bends over backwards to vouch for questionable people (non-Catholics only get vouched for), has led to a great deal of anger. Before they next begin applying terms like "bullies," they might want to take a serious look at the coverage they've provided. There's been no rumor they haven't been willing to tar Adams or Sinn Fien with. Somehow actual facts don't stick to Paisley. It's interesting the way that's worked out. The Times might want to look into how that happened?
Last thing, Rebecca's thing on The Common Ills is getting a lot of positive e-mails. Remember she's on vacation and Elaine's subbing for her right now (and doing a great job).
Friday, July 29, 2005
Marines killed, War Resister imprisoned, Bully Boy's war goes on
Good evening. As usual, let's kick things off with Democracy Now!
Marines Killed In Iraq
In Iraq, resistance fighters killed two Marines with guns and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq. The attack was followed by a massive US attack in the area, with US warplanes pounding the area with high-tech bombs. The Marine deaths brought the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq this week to 10. In Baghdad, meanwhile, a car bomb exploded near a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol.
War Resister Benderman Sentenced to 15 Months
A US Army mechanic who refused to go to Iraq while he sought conscientious objector status was acquitted yesterday of desertion but found guilty of a lesser charge during his court-martial. Sgt. Kevin Benderman was sentenced to 15 months in prison on the charge of missing movement. He also was given a dishonorable discharge from the military and a reduction in rank to private. If he had been found guilty of desertion, he could have faced five years in prison. Still, his sentence appears to be the harshest yet given to an Iraq war resister.
You gotta wonder if the reality of this invasion/occupation has hit Bully Boy's family yet? Do Jenna & Barbara defend the war or do they, like most people our age, shake their heads and talk about how disgusting the whole thing is?
And did either of them get a job? Wasn't one of them supposed to be teaching in Harlem by now?
Let's go to the e-mails. Bobbie's question had a lot of you weighing in. Some, like Rose, felt that Bobbie might be "one of those people who just don't like sex. There are people like that. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you realize it. If you don't realize it, you'll never understand what's going on." Others like Miko felt that Bobbie needed to think seriously about the partners she's had. "Maybe she attracts a certain kind of guy?" wondered Suzie along the same lines of Miko. Jordan waded in to the fray wondering if the whole thing wasn't rushed and maybe Bobbie needed more foreplay and build up. Mac felt that if the whole thing last three minutes, Bobbie needs to seek out some guys with more stamina. Lou felt Bobbie needed to think about it and ask herself what was missing.
I think everybody had some good advice and that if Bobbie pieces it all together, she'll know what's what. I think Lou's thing is really like the framework and what Bobbie should be thinking about as she asks herself about the input from everyone.
Bobbie wrote already to say thanks for linking to Rebecca's thing yesterday and that she really enjoyed it. She really enjoyed what Rebecca had to say about The Common Ills. No problem.
From the excellent site CounterRecruiter, I want to note this:
The House Armed Services subcomittee recently discussed how the war in Iraq is hurting recruiting, according to an article in Star and Stripes, the "Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community."
"Deep into a four-hour congressional hearing on why the active Army and its reserve components are missing recruiting goals, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., turned a spotlight on the elephant in the room.
The war in Iraq, Snyder said, is unpopular with many Americans, a fact that needs airing, given the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military.
It's a fact that needs airing everywhere including in the media which has reported on one poll after another recently about how many people want the troops brought home now but has yet to do one of their stories where they let people speak. You know the type of stories I mean because we saw them when there was more support for the war. A reporter goes to a town and gets various people to quote. So now that those of us opposed to the war are in the majority where are those stories?
I think most of you know I consider Cedric a great bud but even so, you should really read his latest post this weekend if you haven't already. I also want to thank Elaine for her very kind words last night. Ma said to pass on Kat's review of Carly Simon's latest. And don't miss Betty's "Facing Down Patti." Got to hit the door but I hope everybody has a great Friday night and weekend. Peace.
Marines Killed In Iraq
In Iraq, resistance fighters killed two Marines with guns and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq. The attack was followed by a massive US attack in the area, with US warplanes pounding the area with high-tech bombs. The Marine deaths brought the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq this week to 10. In Baghdad, meanwhile, a car bomb exploded near a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol.
War Resister Benderman Sentenced to 15 Months
A US Army mechanic who refused to go to Iraq while he sought conscientious objector status was acquitted yesterday of desertion but found guilty of a lesser charge during his court-martial. Sgt. Kevin Benderman was sentenced to 15 months in prison on the charge of missing movement. He also was given a dishonorable discharge from the military and a reduction in rank to private. If he had been found guilty of desertion, he could have faced five years in prison. Still, his sentence appears to be the harshest yet given to an Iraq war resister.
You gotta wonder if the reality of this invasion/occupation has hit Bully Boy's family yet? Do Jenna & Barbara defend the war or do they, like most people our age, shake their heads and talk about how disgusting the whole thing is?
And did either of them get a job? Wasn't one of them supposed to be teaching in Harlem by now?
Let's go to the e-mails. Bobbie's question had a lot of you weighing in. Some, like Rose, felt that Bobbie might be "one of those people who just don't like sex. There are people like that. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you realize it. If you don't realize it, you'll never understand what's going on." Others like Miko felt that Bobbie needed to think seriously about the partners she's had. "Maybe she attracts a certain kind of guy?" wondered Suzie along the same lines of Miko. Jordan waded in to the fray wondering if the whole thing wasn't rushed and maybe Bobbie needed more foreplay and build up. Mac felt that if the whole thing last three minutes, Bobbie needs to seek out some guys with more stamina. Lou felt Bobbie needed to think about it and ask herself what was missing.
I think everybody had some good advice and that if Bobbie pieces it all together, she'll know what's what. I think Lou's thing is really like the framework and what Bobbie should be thinking about as she asks herself about the input from everyone.
Bobbie wrote already to say thanks for linking to Rebecca's thing yesterday and that she really enjoyed it. She really enjoyed what Rebecca had to say about The Common Ills. No problem.
From the excellent site CounterRecruiter, I want to note this:
The House Armed Services subcomittee recently discussed how the war in Iraq is hurting recruiting, according to an article in Star and Stripes, the "Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community."
"Deep into a four-hour congressional hearing on why the active Army and its reserve components are missing recruiting goals, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., turned a spotlight on the elephant in the room.
The war in Iraq, Snyder said, is unpopular with many Americans, a fact that needs airing, given the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military.
It's a fact that needs airing everywhere including in the media which has reported on one poll after another recently about how many people want the troops brought home now but has yet to do one of their stories where they let people speak. You know the type of stories I mean because we saw them when there was more support for the war. A reporter goes to a town and gets various people to quote. So now that those of us opposed to the war are in the majority where are those stories?
I think most of you know I consider Cedric a great bud but even so, you should really read his latest post this weekend if you haven't already. I also want to thank Elaine for her very kind words last night. Ma said to pass on Kat's review of Carly Simon's latest. And don't miss Betty's "Facing Down Patti." Got to hit the door but I hope everybody has a great Friday night and weekend. Peace.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Labor Union calls for an end to the war, Cedric talks about two roads
Good evening. Let's start things off with Democracy Now!
AFL-CIO Convention Calls for End to Iraq Occupation
Under major pressure form its membership and dissident unions that pulled out of the federation, the AFL-CIO has passed a resolution calling for a "rapid" return of all U.S. troops currently in Iraq. The resolution came at the group's national convention in Chicago. The group US Labor Against the War called the resolution a "major shift in policy." The groups says that the AFL-CIO General Executive Council had tried to push through a watered-down resolution that did not clearly call for a prompt end to the occupation. This attempt was headed-off after one of the leaders of Labor Against the War put forward an amendment calling for an end to the occupation.
Gene Bruskin, US Labor Against the War: The resolution was an historic one because it ended decades of silence from the labor movement and actual support for the U.S. government on the issue of foreign policy. As Henry Nicholas, president of 1199 AFSCME of Philadelphia said when he rose to the mic to condemn the war, "In my 45 years in the labor movement, this is my proudest moment. We have finally stood up to this war and said, 'Enough is enough.'"
Good news because we need some leaders today and we don't see any in D.C. Jane Fonda, the AFL-CIO, Bright Eyes are standing and accounted for.
Anyone else going to join them? Made me think about one of Ruth's Morning Edition Reports where she talked about how the change comes from the people not our elected leaders. And what she told The Third Estate Sunday Review when they interviewed her:
"I guess," Ruth says slowly, "I'd say we're at the turn of the tide. That's my guess. That's what it feels like to me. The Bully Boy's played every card trick he can play. It's over. We've had over four years of floating along on a fantasy but now reality is seeping in. Maybe I'm being too optimistic but it really feels to me like the tide has turned. Finally. It's past time to bring the troops home from a war they never should have been sent to fight. I don't think that's going to happen tomorrow or next month but I think we will be hearing more calls for that and, hopefully, the troops will be brought home. But, based on the way I remember it, I'd add that the call and the pressure have to build and build before anything is accomplished. Keep fighting."
And that's one of the great things about The Common Ills community. Cedric and me were on the phone last night and talking about that and how it can be easy to think that there's no one listening and all and that maybe you're in this alone. But then something like The Common Ills comes along and you realize that you are not alone and that there are a lot of people who feel like you do. Cedric was talking about some guy that I never heard of who does some Chinese proverb or something and Cedric was going that in the time that The Common Ills has been going, that guy has flipped and flopped on the war. Or the guy's been saying, "We need to listen to James Dobson." Or the guy's saying, "I didn't know that guy was for the war!" This idiot has been blogging and flip-flopping for months. Cedric goes, "You gotta have a core. You gotta have things you believe in. Otherwise you never stand for anything."
And that reminded me of a thing Rebecca wrote. There's so much coming out of that community and it's amazing what's been created. I would say, "What C.I. has created" but I know I'd get a lecture from C.I. about how members made that community. And it's so great that the community has so many voices. And we've got members doing blogs like Cedric and me and Rebecca and Betty and Kat. And we got The Third Estate Sunday Review. And you got members like Isaiah and Ruth doing stuff over at The Common Ills. And like for six months, you had Folding Star blogging. And don't forget the gina & krista round-robin or the UK Computer Gurus newsletters. So there's just a lot that's come out of this community in a really short time. And like Rebecca's on vacation and Elaine's filling in for her which is so cool and I think Elaine's doing some amazing stuff and understand why Rebecca and C.I. were always saying that Elaine needed to blog.
I think Dad was the one who found "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" but that's probably one of my favorite things at The Common Ills on Iraq. It's important to to speak out against the war and not be like some kind of Thomas Friedman twisting in the wind.
Let's dip into the e-mails. Bobbie has a question today. She's 19 and says she doesn't get why sex is so important because "it's nothing but three minutes of heavy breathing and a little sweat."
It would be real easy to make a joke but I think Bobbie is really serious. So I'd offer that maybe she needs to find a better level of lover and not some guy fumbling around in the dark. But I'm going to toss this out to everybody and share your thoughts and some more of my own tomorrow.
Now I want to close with a post of Cedric's from yesterday cause I was the new kid for a long time and I know it can be hard and all finding your voice and all and figuring out what you're trying for. I think Cedric's doing a great job and I think all of his posts are worth reading. Here's his thing from Wednesday. If you haven't checked him out, please get over to his site:
Two women, two paths, one leads to killing, the other to peace
A lot of talk about Hillary Clinton these days since she gave that speech Monday at the DLC gathering.
With my friends, she blew any credibility she had left in that one non-shining moment in time. There's not a lot that she's really done that any of us point to anyway. And we all know the Democratic Leadership Council for their attacks on Jesse Jackson (Sr.) so we see it as a racist organization that tries to stomp out anyone who doesn't want to sell out to the highest corporate bidder.
That Clinton thinks she needs to lick the boots of the DLC would mean she's an idiot. That Clinton thinks the DLC represents America would still mean that she's an idiot. No matter what hypothesis you can come up the conclusion is the same: she's an idiot.
Over at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Rebecca came out some time ago against Hillary Clinton as a 2008 primary candidate. I'm going to back that up. Hillary Clinton is now officially a joke. Not the wronged wife you're sorry for. Not the junior senator from New York who makes one mistake after another (usually out of cowardice) that you can excuse by saying, "Well she's new to the Senate." She's made herself disgusting.
There was a time when the DLC had the illusion of power. It doesn't now. But they hitched their star to the former First Lady this week and they and their hate driven policies got back into the spotlight which is what they wanted. Hillary Clinton let them use her for that, for whatever reason. She has made herself disgusting.
As she "moderates" her positions repeatedly, we see that African-Americans are a group she has little concern for. She goes to Ohio to speak to the DLC. Where was she at the recent NAACP conference?
Where has she been on our issues? She can't be found. And I heard that and more repeatedly since Monday. The woman has an image problem now and she has only herself to blame for that.
As she has rushed to push each talking point of Operation Happy Talk, it's become quite clear that she's not very concerned with the actual dying in Iraq. Whether it's Iraqis or (to use Ava and C.I.'s phrase) those fighting in the coalition of Operation Enduring Falsehood, Clinton just can't be bothered. Yesterday Elaine pointed out what a war monger Hillary Clinton has become. It Takes a Village to Destroy a Village would be her next book, I'm guessing.
Lawanda, a woman from my church, said tonight after the service that Hillary Clinton has sold moral convictions to prove herself as a war monger and I'd agree with that 100%. Lawanda said she used to feel sorry for Clinton due to Monica Lewinsky but that those days are long past. "Her husband cheated on her," Lawanda explained, "that only gets you so much sympathy. She's destroyed it with her continued support for a war that neither she nor anyone in her family will fight, a war that goes against church teachings I'm aware of. If she truly was the devoted follower so many have claimed over the years she would long ago have said, 'In the name of Jesus, I'm asking that we stop this immoral war and the killing.'"
Harsher words came from the choir director who says she's got blood lust dripping on her power lust.
On the other hand, there was praise for Jane Fonda and her decision to start out a speak out tour against the war. The differences between the way the two women were spoken of was pretty amazing. But as my preacher said to me after the service, they've chosen different paths, one leads to killing and the other to peace. As his wife said, "Mrs. Clinton appears to have forgotten that Jesus was the Prince of the Peace."
There's a drawing that Isaiah did for The Common Ills of Jane Fonda that I'd like to put up here but in case it doesn't work, you can see it by clicking here.
I really like how Cedric weaves it all together and how he talks about what the people at his church were saying.
AFL-CIO Convention Calls for End to Iraq Occupation
Under major pressure form its membership and dissident unions that pulled out of the federation, the AFL-CIO has passed a resolution calling for a "rapid" return of all U.S. troops currently in Iraq. The resolution came at the group's national convention in Chicago. The group US Labor Against the War called the resolution a "major shift in policy." The groups says that the AFL-CIO General Executive Council had tried to push through a watered-down resolution that did not clearly call for a prompt end to the occupation. This attempt was headed-off after one of the leaders of Labor Against the War put forward an amendment calling for an end to the occupation.
Gene Bruskin, US Labor Against the War: The resolution was an historic one because it ended decades of silence from the labor movement and actual support for the U.S. government on the issue of foreign policy. As Henry Nicholas, president of 1199 AFSCME of Philadelphia said when he rose to the mic to condemn the war, "In my 45 years in the labor movement, this is my proudest moment. We have finally stood up to this war and said, 'Enough is enough.'"
Good news because we need some leaders today and we don't see any in D.C. Jane Fonda, the AFL-CIO, Bright Eyes are standing and accounted for.
Anyone else going to join them? Made me think about one of Ruth's Morning Edition Reports where she talked about how the change comes from the people not our elected leaders. And what she told The Third Estate Sunday Review when they interviewed her:
"I guess," Ruth says slowly, "I'd say we're at the turn of the tide. That's my guess. That's what it feels like to me. The Bully Boy's played every card trick he can play. It's over. We've had over four years of floating along on a fantasy but now reality is seeping in. Maybe I'm being too optimistic but it really feels to me like the tide has turned. Finally. It's past time to bring the troops home from a war they never should have been sent to fight. I don't think that's going to happen tomorrow or next month but I think we will be hearing more calls for that and, hopefully, the troops will be brought home. But, based on the way I remember it, I'd add that the call and the pressure have to build and build before anything is accomplished. Keep fighting."
And that's one of the great things about The Common Ills community. Cedric and me were on the phone last night and talking about that and how it can be easy to think that there's no one listening and all and that maybe you're in this alone. But then something like The Common Ills comes along and you realize that you are not alone and that there are a lot of people who feel like you do. Cedric was talking about some guy that I never heard of who does some Chinese proverb or something and Cedric was going that in the time that The Common Ills has been going, that guy has flipped and flopped on the war. Or the guy's been saying, "We need to listen to James Dobson." Or the guy's saying, "I didn't know that guy was for the war!" This idiot has been blogging and flip-flopping for months. Cedric goes, "You gotta have a core. You gotta have things you believe in. Otherwise you never stand for anything."
And that reminded me of a thing Rebecca wrote. There's so much coming out of that community and it's amazing what's been created. I would say, "What C.I. has created" but I know I'd get a lecture from C.I. about how members made that community. And it's so great that the community has so many voices. And we've got members doing blogs like Cedric and me and Rebecca and Betty and Kat. And we got The Third Estate Sunday Review. And you got members like Isaiah and Ruth doing stuff over at The Common Ills. And like for six months, you had Folding Star blogging. And don't forget the gina & krista round-robin or the UK Computer Gurus newsletters. So there's just a lot that's come out of this community in a really short time. And like Rebecca's on vacation and Elaine's filling in for her which is so cool and I think Elaine's doing some amazing stuff and understand why Rebecca and C.I. were always saying that Elaine needed to blog.
I think Dad was the one who found "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" but that's probably one of my favorite things at The Common Ills on Iraq. It's important to to speak out against the war and not be like some kind of Thomas Friedman twisting in the wind.
Let's dip into the e-mails. Bobbie has a question today. She's 19 and says she doesn't get why sex is so important because "it's nothing but three minutes of heavy breathing and a little sweat."
It would be real easy to make a joke but I think Bobbie is really serious. So I'd offer that maybe she needs to find a better level of lover and not some guy fumbling around in the dark. But I'm going to toss this out to everybody and share your thoughts and some more of my own tomorrow.
Now I want to close with a post of Cedric's from yesterday cause I was the new kid for a long time and I know it can be hard and all finding your voice and all and figuring out what you're trying for. I think Cedric's doing a great job and I think all of his posts are worth reading. Here's his thing from Wednesday. If you haven't checked him out, please get over to his site:
Two women, two paths, one leads to killing, the other to peace
A lot of talk about Hillary Clinton these days since she gave that speech Monday at the DLC gathering.
With my friends, she blew any credibility she had left in that one non-shining moment in time. There's not a lot that she's really done that any of us point to anyway. And we all know the Democratic Leadership Council for their attacks on Jesse Jackson (Sr.) so we see it as a racist organization that tries to stomp out anyone who doesn't want to sell out to the highest corporate bidder.
That Clinton thinks she needs to lick the boots of the DLC would mean she's an idiot. That Clinton thinks the DLC represents America would still mean that she's an idiot. No matter what hypothesis you can come up the conclusion is the same: she's an idiot.
Over at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Rebecca came out some time ago against Hillary Clinton as a 2008 primary candidate. I'm going to back that up. Hillary Clinton is now officially a joke. Not the wronged wife you're sorry for. Not the junior senator from New York who makes one mistake after another (usually out of cowardice) that you can excuse by saying, "Well she's new to the Senate." She's made herself disgusting.
There was a time when the DLC had the illusion of power. It doesn't now. But they hitched their star to the former First Lady this week and they and their hate driven policies got back into the spotlight which is what they wanted. Hillary Clinton let them use her for that, for whatever reason. She has made herself disgusting.
As she "moderates" her positions repeatedly, we see that African-Americans are a group she has little concern for. She goes to Ohio to speak to the DLC. Where was she at the recent NAACP conference?
Where has she been on our issues? She can't be found. And I heard that and more repeatedly since Monday. The woman has an image problem now and she has only herself to blame for that.
As she has rushed to push each talking point of Operation Happy Talk, it's become quite clear that she's not very concerned with the actual dying in Iraq. Whether it's Iraqis or (to use Ava and C.I.'s phrase) those fighting in the coalition of Operation Enduring Falsehood, Clinton just can't be bothered. Yesterday Elaine pointed out what a war monger Hillary Clinton has become. It Takes a Village to Destroy a Village would be her next book, I'm guessing.
Lawanda, a woman from my church, said tonight after the service that Hillary Clinton has sold moral convictions to prove herself as a war monger and I'd agree with that 100%. Lawanda said she used to feel sorry for Clinton due to Monica Lewinsky but that those days are long past. "Her husband cheated on her," Lawanda explained, "that only gets you so much sympathy. She's destroyed it with her continued support for a war that neither she nor anyone in her family will fight, a war that goes against church teachings I'm aware of. If she truly was the devoted follower so many have claimed over the years she would long ago have said, 'In the name of Jesus, I'm asking that we stop this immoral war and the killing.'"
Harsher words came from the choir director who says she's got blood lust dripping on her power lust.
On the other hand, there was praise for Jane Fonda and her decision to start out a speak out tour against the war. The differences between the way the two women were spoken of was pretty amazing. But as my preacher said to me after the service, they've chosen different paths, one leads to killing and the other to peace. As his wife said, "Mrs. Clinton appears to have forgotten that Jesus was the Prince of the Peace."
There's a drawing that Isaiah did for The Common Ills of Jane Fonda that I'd like to put up here but in case it doesn't work, you can see it by clicking here.
I really like how Cedric weaves it all together and how he talks about what the people at his church were saying.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
National Guard, What's My Name Fool?, male nipples and Rendon Group
Good evening. We'll kick things off with Democracy Now!
National Guard Company Face Abuse & Extortion Allegations
In other news from Iraq, a company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty following allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted shopkeepers. This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Among the allegations is that at least six soldiers from the battalion took part in a scheme to extort over $30,000 from Iraqi shopkeepers, apparently in exchange for protection. Up to 17 soldiers are also under investigation for mistreating Iraqi detainees. A videotape reportedly exists that shows soldiers abusing a handcuffed and blindfolded detainee with a stun gun. In addition, a first sergeant has been relieved of duty after being accused of shooting a water heater during an interrogation, then turning to an Iraqi detainee and saying: "You're next." The sergeant then reportedly held his pistol to the man's head, moved it a few inches to the side and fired.
Now let's go to what C.I. wrote last night:
On the subject of books, let me note that whatever else happens in this Sunday's The Third Estate Sunday Review, there will not be a book discussion about What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States. The book, by Dave Zirin, will be noted at some point (hopefully two Sundays from now); however, when Betty called this morning, she mentioned she was having to utilize interlibrary loan for the book and wasn't sure how long it would take. Similarly, Kat's not finding it in her library. (I didn't try, honestly. I called my local independent book store and asked them to hold a copy that I'll pick up as soon as I get a chance -- and had expected to pick it up already.) The book sounds very interesting and is something we're all interested in reading and discussing but I spoke to Jess and Ava tonight and they said they'd rather wait so that Kat and Betty could participate in the discussion.
For those who have no idea what the book is about, here's a report Democracy Now! did on it last week entitled "What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States."
I've already started reading the book and I bring that up because Dave Zirin has a story at CounterPunch that C.I. sent me. It's called "Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush."
Here's a part of it.
Armstrong has devoted countless hours to the fight against cancer. There is not more money for cancer research because of the war. It's that simple. It's also not just cancer. In my hometown of Washington, DC, this $800 billion price tag means high rates of infant mortality, shuttered public hospitals, and schools in a constant and eternal state of crisis. This is a battle for priorities. If Lance wants to see victory, chuckling it up with his "fellow Texan is no way to lead this movement forward. Instead Armstrong should ride among the critical mass bikers and anti-war couriers at the national anti-war protests on September 24th in Washington, DC. Consider this an invite, Lance. Consider this a way to continue to "live strong.
I really like Zirin's writing.
Now let's hop into some of the e-mails. The topic tossed out yesterday by Belinda was about the male nipples. My buddy Tony actually e-mailed in on this. He said his are sensitive but he doesn't like to act like he likes them played with because it doesn't seem manly.
Tony, nobody thinks you're manly anyway!
Just joking. A lot of guys wrote in saying stuff like that so we'll go with Tony since if you can't embarass your friends, who can you embarrass?
Gary and Lane wrote in both saying that they like it when their's are touched but like it more when they are licked or sucked. Gary makes a point to note he's straight and Lane makes a point to note he's gay.
Common Ills community member Rachel e-mailed to say that guys are hung up about it because they think it makes them look "girly" but she's never been with a guy that didn't like it. (See Tony, nothing to worry about.) Felecia says she doesn't care if a guy likes it or not, she's not doing it because every guy she's been with always "expects me to do something." She says she never knew guys could be so lazy and that includes her being on top doing all the work.
Laveda e-mailed to say that she's never been with a guy who's liked having his nipples played with and wonders if that's because she hasn't really tried much because she doesn't like it when her's are played with and hates "guys who think grab my tits and I'm ready to go."
Beau e-mails saying this is a "wack" topic and I better watch my back because "you know who" will probably "rip you off again."
Thom says that he hates it when his nipples are touched. He says some shirts are too rough and he wears a t-shirt underneath nearly everything because of the pain.
So hopefully that gives you a cross-section of views Belinda.
Now I want to note something from Democracy Now! one more time.
Navy Hired Rendon Group Ahead of Vieques Vote
This news from Puerto Rico... Evidence has emerged that in 2001 the U.S. Navy paid one point seven million dollars to a public relations firm to increase support for a public referendum over the Navy's use of Vieques. In November 6, 2001 voters in Puerto Rico went to the polls to decide whether the Navy should be allowed to keep use Vieques for live-fire training. Voters overwhelming called on the Navy to stop using the site even though the Navy spent approximately $358 per referendum voter in their PR effort. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the Navy hired the Rendon Group to ". . . organize local leaders to build grassroots communications support . . . ensure the integrity of the voting process . . . develop methods and tracking procedures to increase support among citizens." The Rendon Group is the same PR firm that was used to help form the Iraqi National Congress - the Iraqi exile group that pushed for the U.S. invasion. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, "I think most Americans would be shocked to learn that the military had a program to 'ensure the integrity' of our voting process."
The Rendon Group is something Amy Goodman talks about in her book The Exception to the Rulers and we were just discussing that book Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review. And that's what I want to close with. I have a blast with The Third Estate Sunday Review and the discussions are probably my favorite part.
"1 Book, 10 Minutes"
We thought we were done. We had a paragraph to go on the editorial and then it was off to bed for all of us. (We hoped.) (C.I. posted an item on our last break at The Common Ills and we were hoping that would mean even C.I. could hit the sack.) But as we finished the editorial and got focused on posting the things already written, Mike asked if we were really not going to do the "Five Books, Five Minutes." Yes, we really weren't going to do that.
We'd slacked off on that during the week.
Mike was disappointed because for two weeks he'd wanted to discuss Amy & David Goodman's The Exception to The Rulers. "Great, write a review and we'll post it!" we cried (lazy, smart asses that we are.) But what Mike wanted was the give and take of a discussion. We all love Mike and he helps out here so the least we can do is help him out. With a ten minute discussion limit, we all agreed to discuss The Exception to the Rulers.
Participating are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Kat of Kat's Korner and Mike of Mikey Likes It!
Here's an excerpt from the book, pages 254 - 255:
The Bush administration recruited some time-tested help for this effort. It retained John Rendon, head of the PR firm The Rendon Group. Rendon is a self-described "information warrior," who has worked on Iraq-related issues for clients including the Pentagon and CIA. Rendon was instrumental in setting up the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, securing the channeling of $12 million from the CIA to the group between 1992 and 1996. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence retained Rendon for the invasion of Iraq.
Rendon spoke at a July 2003 conference in London about the propaganda effort around the invasion. Colonel [Sam] Gardiner attended the talk and recounts that Rendon "said the embedded idea was great. It worked as they had found in the test. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part, they did not lose control of the story."
Rendon did note one problem: "He said one of the mistakes they made was that they lost control of the context. The retired people in the networks had too much control of the context. That has to be fixed for the next war."
The themes of the invasion propaganda effort were twofold. The war on terror is a fight between good and evil (and it didn't hurt to invoke images of a Christian crusade against Islam). And Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks -- "what propaganda theorists would call the 'big lie,'" said Gardiner.
With these two concepts underlying all messages, Gardiner states that the strategic influence campaign around Iraq "distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict; caused misdirection of portions of the military operation; was irresponsible in parts; might have been illegal in some ways; cost big bucks; will be even more serious in the future."
The media had a starring role in this effort. Propaganda requires a gullible and complacent media in order to thrive. The U.S. corporate media played its part to the hilt."
Jim: Okay, Mike, get us started.
Mike: Well the book's written by two journalists, Amy Goodman and her brother David Goodman. I don't know much about David Goodman but Amy Goodman's the host of Democracy Now! which airs on TV, radio and the internet. It's a one hour news show that airs Monday through Fridays. It's something that we all count on, all of us here, to provide us with real news as opposed to stories about the latest missing blonde or the latest celebrity scandal.
Kat: News you can use. News that informs.
Mike: Exactly.
Dona: What stands out to me, and this is something C.I. and I have spoken about a lot probably starting in January or February, is the critique of The New York Times.
Jess: Which is really strong in terms of what the mea culpa covered and what it didn't and what stories still require corrections but have never gotten them. And we've addressed that at length in roundtables.
Dona: And just as important as that critique is to the present day, to citizens, I'd argue that the critique of the reporting on the atomic bom is just as important. The New York Times likes to cloak themselves in the "We are The New York Times." Yes, they are. And Jayson Blair didn't spring out of thin air. The paper has a history of pushing stories that the parties involved, reporters and editors, should have known better than to push. I'd argue it was a decision that they made to push them. It wasn't ignorance, it wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate decision.
Betty: Which goes to the points that I felt they were raising in the book, Amy and her brother, about access and how you can trade independence for access and so many do.
Ty: It's not really important to any of us to know what joke some blowhard told at a dinner party in D.C. but to make sure they're at those dinner parties, they cozy up and do the fluff treatment and all the while act like they're in the business of reporting when in fact they are more often than not concealing. That's their business.
Betty: I'm so glad you said that! I was reading the stuff on "It's Only a Summer Scandal" at The Common Ills this past week and I love the song but what stood out to me was I don't believe that Gwen Ifill ever told viewers, before her "Condi gets accountable" NewsHour interview with Rice, that she and Rice often dine together and that Condi's bragged publicly about what a great cook Rice is. I'm not a huge fan of Diane Sawyer and haven't watched her in years but when she was co-hosting Prime Time Live, if someone came on from ABC or any of it's divisions, she'd note that. If she was interviewing Carly Simon or someone else that she knew outside of work, she'd note that. Public television needs accountability and at the very least, viewers of the NewsHour, and I'm remembering this as Condi's damage control for the news of the PDB finally coming out, should have been told at the start of the interview that Condi and Ifill were close friends. The public was owed that.
Ty: And if it had been disclosed, as it should have been, the question on most people's minds would have been why is Gwen Ifill doing this interview? This wasn't "Getting to Know Condi!"This was about the public needing serious answers about a PDB prior to 9/11 that warned of coming attacks. There is no reason in the world that she should have been interviewed by a friend when the public needed and deserved answers. It's shameful that anyone would be allowed to do what she and Condi Rice did.
Kat: Agreed.
Mike: I was also amazed by the pack mentality and, for instance, Charlie Rose having his hissy fit because Amy Goodman quotes Dan Rather and Charlie's sweating about "I can't imagine Dan saying that, I'm not doubting you that he said it . . ." And then minutes later he is doing just that and Amy has to remind him, "I was just quoting Dan Rather." Or Lesley Stahl rescuing the guy --
C.I.: Richard Holbrooke.
Mike: Right so he doesn't have to answer questions from the press. Or Tom Brokaw omitting part of the title of the documentary film because it might offend the corporate sponsors.
C.I.: In fairness, it might have been a flub. He's made his share of his flubs such as his infamous comment when filling in on The Today Show about how coming to work so early that morning he was envisious or jealous, this is a paraphrase -- look it up if you care about it, of the homeless asleep on the street. Far more damning to me was his refusal to allow questions to be asked or to be concerned that a journalist was being roughed up at an awards banquet for journalists. At an awards banquet for journalists where the one being roughed up is winning an award! Or his pandering remarks to flatter Holbrooke during the ceremonies. He comes off like a first class kiss ass. And this is when Brokaw had some actual power so to see him kissing ass like that is embarrassing. And don't forget Holbrooke's own jokes.
Ava: Laughing, with the journalists in the room laughing along, that a Serb TV station had been bombed. I want to quote the Goodmans on that:
Laughter broke out in the room.
"It is an enormously important and I think positive development," Holbrooke added.
Here were hundreds of reporters supposedly upholding the highest principles of journalism, and they chuckled on cue -- at a war crime committed against journalists.Now, what would have been different if Milosevic had stood up to announce, "We just bombed CBS!" and a bunch of Serb journalists had laughed? Radio Television Serbia, whatever its faluts as a mouthpiece for Milosevic, is not a military target. We went back to our office later that night to see the pictures of body parts being pulled out of the wrecked TV studios in Belgrade. It wasn't soldiers blown to pieces in the rubble. It was the people who apply makeup, the cameramen, and the journalists who were inside. People like 27-year-old technician Ksenija Bankovic, whose mother Borka we interviewed on Democracy Now! Borka asked how journalists could laugh at the killing of her daughter, whose only crime was going to work that night. In all, sixteen media workers were killed in the bombing.
Can we get a link for that Democracy Now! report?
C.I.: Dallas is already searching. You hear those stories and it's hard to say, "Well it's the jaded press corp." It's quite frankly disgusting. The pages are 286-287 that's Ava's referring to.
Jess: Which brings up the section I was wanting to quote and I'm not sure if we have enough time but it's page 152:
The media has the responsiblity to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed.
Jim: Which is Falluja, let's be honest. Dexter Filkins turned it into a rah-rah video game. You never got the sense of the fact that a city was being destroyed, that people, males, were prevented from leaving the city. It was a turkey shoot and it was disgusting. But Filkins comes in with his rah-rah reporting and it's put it in the X-box and let's all play! Is it gallows humor? I don't know but it's not reporting.
C.I.: And Dona's indicating time's up but before that happens, let's let Mike talk about what stood out to him the most since he's the one who wanted this feature. Mike?
Mike: Well the parts everyone named are great and they're informative and anyone wanting to read a book that's going to tell it like it is needs to grab this book. I'm sure East Timor stood out for everybody. And that section was probably the one that spoke to me. Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn stayed on that story even when the media didn't care and didn't want to know and they pushed that story into the news, into the mainstream news, with their actions. It's the kind of thing that causes my mother to say Amy Goodman's a candle in darkness. And to me, that's what's so great about the book and so great about Democracy Now! because it's not "here's what everyone is talking about so we better get on message." It's about telling the story that might not get told. Or showing you the part of the story that you might not see. That's what this whole books about --
Dona: I'll play Amy Goodman, ten seconds.
Mike: and that's why people should be reading it. Make sure you look this book up. Look it up at a bookstore or a library --
Jim: Or the link which takes you to a Democracy Now! web page where you can order it directly, it's now out in paperback.
Mike: But like if you can physically hold it in your hands and just read two pages, I think you'll realize how important this story is.
C.I.: And the link Jim's talking about does provide an excerpt to the book. So you can follow Mike's advice and read a bit of it even if you're ordering it online.
Dona: (laughing) And that was not one book in ten minutes, more like twenty. Amy Goodman and David Goodman's Exception to The Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicans, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
National Guard Company Face Abuse & Extortion Allegations
In other news from Iraq, a company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty following allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted shopkeepers. This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Among the allegations is that at least six soldiers from the battalion took part in a scheme to extort over $30,000 from Iraqi shopkeepers, apparently in exchange for protection. Up to 17 soldiers are also under investigation for mistreating Iraqi detainees. A videotape reportedly exists that shows soldiers abusing a handcuffed and blindfolded detainee with a stun gun. In addition, a first sergeant has been relieved of duty after being accused of shooting a water heater during an interrogation, then turning to an Iraqi detainee and saying: "You're next." The sergeant then reportedly held his pistol to the man's head, moved it a few inches to the side and fired.
Now let's go to what C.I. wrote last night:
On the subject of books, let me note that whatever else happens in this Sunday's The Third Estate Sunday Review, there will not be a book discussion about What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States. The book, by Dave Zirin, will be noted at some point (hopefully two Sundays from now); however, when Betty called this morning, she mentioned she was having to utilize interlibrary loan for the book and wasn't sure how long it would take. Similarly, Kat's not finding it in her library. (I didn't try, honestly. I called my local independent book store and asked them to hold a copy that I'll pick up as soon as I get a chance -- and had expected to pick it up already.) The book sounds very interesting and is something we're all interested in reading and discussing but I spoke to Jess and Ava tonight and they said they'd rather wait so that Kat and Betty could participate in the discussion.
For those who have no idea what the book is about, here's a report Democracy Now! did on it last week entitled "What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States."
I've already started reading the book and I bring that up because Dave Zirin has a story at CounterPunch that C.I. sent me. It's called "Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush."
Here's a part of it.
Armstrong has devoted countless hours to the fight against cancer. There is not more money for cancer research because of the war. It's that simple. It's also not just cancer. In my hometown of Washington, DC, this $800 billion price tag means high rates of infant mortality, shuttered public hospitals, and schools in a constant and eternal state of crisis. This is a battle for priorities. If Lance wants to see victory, chuckling it up with his "fellow Texan is no way to lead this movement forward. Instead Armstrong should ride among the critical mass bikers and anti-war couriers at the national anti-war protests on September 24th in Washington, DC. Consider this an invite, Lance. Consider this a way to continue to "live strong.
I really like Zirin's writing.
Now let's hop into some of the e-mails. The topic tossed out yesterday by Belinda was about the male nipples. My buddy Tony actually e-mailed in on this. He said his are sensitive but he doesn't like to act like he likes them played with because it doesn't seem manly.
Tony, nobody thinks you're manly anyway!
Just joking. A lot of guys wrote in saying stuff like that so we'll go with Tony since if you can't embarass your friends, who can you embarrass?
Gary and Lane wrote in both saying that they like it when their's are touched but like it more when they are licked or sucked. Gary makes a point to note he's straight and Lane makes a point to note he's gay.
Common Ills community member Rachel e-mailed to say that guys are hung up about it because they think it makes them look "girly" but she's never been with a guy that didn't like it. (See Tony, nothing to worry about.) Felecia says she doesn't care if a guy likes it or not, she's not doing it because every guy she's been with always "expects me to do something." She says she never knew guys could be so lazy and that includes her being on top doing all the work.
Laveda e-mailed to say that she's never been with a guy who's liked having his nipples played with and wonders if that's because she hasn't really tried much because she doesn't like it when her's are played with and hates "guys who think grab my tits and I'm ready to go."
Beau e-mails saying this is a "wack" topic and I better watch my back because "you know who" will probably "rip you off again."
Thom says that he hates it when his nipples are touched. He says some shirts are too rough and he wears a t-shirt underneath nearly everything because of the pain.
So hopefully that gives you a cross-section of views Belinda.
Now I want to note something from Democracy Now! one more time.
Navy Hired Rendon Group Ahead of Vieques Vote
This news from Puerto Rico... Evidence has emerged that in 2001 the U.S. Navy paid one point seven million dollars to a public relations firm to increase support for a public referendum over the Navy's use of Vieques. In November 6, 2001 voters in Puerto Rico went to the polls to decide whether the Navy should be allowed to keep use Vieques for live-fire training. Voters overwhelming called on the Navy to stop using the site even though the Navy spent approximately $358 per referendum voter in their PR effort. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the Navy hired the Rendon Group to ". . . organize local leaders to build grassroots communications support . . . ensure the integrity of the voting process . . . develop methods and tracking procedures to increase support among citizens." The Rendon Group is the same PR firm that was used to help form the Iraqi National Congress - the Iraqi exile group that pushed for the U.S. invasion. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, "I think most Americans would be shocked to learn that the military had a program to 'ensure the integrity' of our voting process."
The Rendon Group is something Amy Goodman talks about in her book The Exception to the Rulers and we were just discussing that book Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review. And that's what I want to close with. I have a blast with The Third Estate Sunday Review and the discussions are probably my favorite part.
"1 Book, 10 Minutes"
We thought we were done. We had a paragraph to go on the editorial and then it was off to bed for all of us. (We hoped.) (C.I. posted an item on our last break at The Common Ills and we were hoping that would mean even C.I. could hit the sack.) But as we finished the editorial and got focused on posting the things already written, Mike asked if we were really not going to do the "Five Books, Five Minutes." Yes, we really weren't going to do that.
We'd slacked off on that during the week.
Mike was disappointed because for two weeks he'd wanted to discuss Amy & David Goodman's The Exception to The Rulers. "Great, write a review and we'll post it!" we cried (lazy, smart asses that we are.) But what Mike wanted was the give and take of a discussion. We all love Mike and he helps out here so the least we can do is help him out. With a ten minute discussion limit, we all agreed to discuss The Exception to the Rulers.
Participating are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Kat of Kat's Korner and Mike of Mikey Likes It!
Here's an excerpt from the book, pages 254 - 255:
The Bush administration recruited some time-tested help for this effort. It retained John Rendon, head of the PR firm The Rendon Group. Rendon is a self-described "information warrior," who has worked on Iraq-related issues for clients including the Pentagon and CIA. Rendon was instrumental in setting up the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, securing the channeling of $12 million from the CIA to the group between 1992 and 1996. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence retained Rendon for the invasion of Iraq.
Rendon spoke at a July 2003 conference in London about the propaganda effort around the invasion. Colonel [Sam] Gardiner attended the talk and recounts that Rendon "said the embedded idea was great. It worked as they had found in the test. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part, they did not lose control of the story."
Rendon did note one problem: "He said one of the mistakes they made was that they lost control of the context. The retired people in the networks had too much control of the context. That has to be fixed for the next war."
The themes of the invasion propaganda effort were twofold. The war on terror is a fight between good and evil (and it didn't hurt to invoke images of a Christian crusade against Islam). And Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks -- "what propaganda theorists would call the 'big lie,'" said Gardiner.
With these two concepts underlying all messages, Gardiner states that the strategic influence campaign around Iraq "distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict; caused misdirection of portions of the military operation; was irresponsible in parts; might have been illegal in some ways; cost big bucks; will be even more serious in the future."
The media had a starring role in this effort. Propaganda requires a gullible and complacent media in order to thrive. The U.S. corporate media played its part to the hilt."
Jim: Okay, Mike, get us started.
Mike: Well the book's written by two journalists, Amy Goodman and her brother David Goodman. I don't know much about David Goodman but Amy Goodman's the host of Democracy Now! which airs on TV, radio and the internet. It's a one hour news show that airs Monday through Fridays. It's something that we all count on, all of us here, to provide us with real news as opposed to stories about the latest missing blonde or the latest celebrity scandal.
Kat: News you can use. News that informs.
Mike: Exactly.
Dona: What stands out to me, and this is something C.I. and I have spoken about a lot probably starting in January or February, is the critique of The New York Times.
Jess: Which is really strong in terms of what the mea culpa covered and what it didn't and what stories still require corrections but have never gotten them. And we've addressed that at length in roundtables.
Dona: And just as important as that critique is to the present day, to citizens, I'd argue that the critique of the reporting on the atomic bom is just as important. The New York Times likes to cloak themselves in the "We are The New York Times." Yes, they are. And Jayson Blair didn't spring out of thin air. The paper has a history of pushing stories that the parties involved, reporters and editors, should have known better than to push. I'd argue it was a decision that they made to push them. It wasn't ignorance, it wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate decision.
Betty: Which goes to the points that I felt they were raising in the book, Amy and her brother, about access and how you can trade independence for access and so many do.
Ty: It's not really important to any of us to know what joke some blowhard told at a dinner party in D.C. but to make sure they're at those dinner parties, they cozy up and do the fluff treatment and all the while act like they're in the business of reporting when in fact they are more often than not concealing. That's their business.
Betty: I'm so glad you said that! I was reading the stuff on "It's Only a Summer Scandal" at The Common Ills this past week and I love the song but what stood out to me was I don't believe that Gwen Ifill ever told viewers, before her "Condi gets accountable" NewsHour interview with Rice, that she and Rice often dine together and that Condi's bragged publicly about what a great cook Rice is. I'm not a huge fan of Diane Sawyer and haven't watched her in years but when she was co-hosting Prime Time Live, if someone came on from ABC or any of it's divisions, she'd note that. If she was interviewing Carly Simon or someone else that she knew outside of work, she'd note that. Public television needs accountability and at the very least, viewers of the NewsHour, and I'm remembering this as Condi's damage control for the news of the PDB finally coming out, should have been told at the start of the interview that Condi and Ifill were close friends. The public was owed that.
Ty: And if it had been disclosed, as it should have been, the question on most people's minds would have been why is Gwen Ifill doing this interview? This wasn't "Getting to Know Condi!"This was about the public needing serious answers about a PDB prior to 9/11 that warned of coming attacks. There is no reason in the world that she should have been interviewed by a friend when the public needed and deserved answers. It's shameful that anyone would be allowed to do what she and Condi Rice did.
Kat: Agreed.
Mike: I was also amazed by the pack mentality and, for instance, Charlie Rose having his hissy fit because Amy Goodman quotes Dan Rather and Charlie's sweating about "I can't imagine Dan saying that, I'm not doubting you that he said it . . ." And then minutes later he is doing just that and Amy has to remind him, "I was just quoting Dan Rather." Or Lesley Stahl rescuing the guy --
C.I.: Richard Holbrooke.
Mike: Right so he doesn't have to answer questions from the press. Or Tom Brokaw omitting part of the title of the documentary film because it might offend the corporate sponsors.
C.I.: In fairness, it might have been a flub. He's made his share of his flubs such as his infamous comment when filling in on The Today Show about how coming to work so early that morning he was envisious or jealous, this is a paraphrase -- look it up if you care about it, of the homeless asleep on the street. Far more damning to me was his refusal to allow questions to be asked or to be concerned that a journalist was being roughed up at an awards banquet for journalists. At an awards banquet for journalists where the one being roughed up is winning an award! Or his pandering remarks to flatter Holbrooke during the ceremonies. He comes off like a first class kiss ass. And this is when Brokaw had some actual power so to see him kissing ass like that is embarrassing. And don't forget Holbrooke's own jokes.
Ava: Laughing, with the journalists in the room laughing along, that a Serb TV station had been bombed. I want to quote the Goodmans on that:
Laughter broke out in the room.
"It is an enormously important and I think positive development," Holbrooke added.
Here were hundreds of reporters supposedly upholding the highest principles of journalism, and they chuckled on cue -- at a war crime committed against journalists.Now, what would have been different if Milosevic had stood up to announce, "We just bombed CBS!" and a bunch of Serb journalists had laughed? Radio Television Serbia, whatever its faluts as a mouthpiece for Milosevic, is not a military target. We went back to our office later that night to see the pictures of body parts being pulled out of the wrecked TV studios in Belgrade. It wasn't soldiers blown to pieces in the rubble. It was the people who apply makeup, the cameramen, and the journalists who were inside. People like 27-year-old technician Ksenija Bankovic, whose mother Borka we interviewed on Democracy Now! Borka asked how journalists could laugh at the killing of her daughter, whose only crime was going to work that night. In all, sixteen media workers were killed in the bombing.
Can we get a link for that Democracy Now! report?
C.I.: Dallas is already searching. You hear those stories and it's hard to say, "Well it's the jaded press corp." It's quite frankly disgusting. The pages are 286-287 that's Ava's referring to.
Jess: Which brings up the section I was wanting to quote and I'm not sure if we have enough time but it's page 152:
The media has the responsiblity to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed.
Jim: Which is Falluja, let's be honest. Dexter Filkins turned it into a rah-rah video game. You never got the sense of the fact that a city was being destroyed, that people, males, were prevented from leaving the city. It was a turkey shoot and it was disgusting. But Filkins comes in with his rah-rah reporting and it's put it in the X-box and let's all play! Is it gallows humor? I don't know but it's not reporting.
C.I.: And Dona's indicating time's up but before that happens, let's let Mike talk about what stood out to him the most since he's the one who wanted this feature. Mike?
Mike: Well the parts everyone named are great and they're informative and anyone wanting to read a book that's going to tell it like it is needs to grab this book. I'm sure East Timor stood out for everybody. And that section was probably the one that spoke to me. Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn stayed on that story even when the media didn't care and didn't want to know and they pushed that story into the news, into the mainstream news, with their actions. It's the kind of thing that causes my mother to say Amy Goodman's a candle in darkness. And to me, that's what's so great about the book and so great about Democracy Now! because it's not "here's what everyone is talking about so we better get on message." It's about telling the story that might not get told. Or showing you the part of the story that you might not see. That's what this whole books about --
Dona: I'll play Amy Goodman, ten seconds.
Mike: and that's why people should be reading it. Make sure you look this book up. Look it up at a bookstore or a library --
Jim: Or the link which takes you to a Democracy Now! web page where you can order it directly, it's now out in paperback.
Mike: But like if you can physically hold it in your hands and just read two pages, I think you'll realize how important this story is.
C.I.: And the link Jim's talking about does provide an excerpt to the book. So you can follow Mike's advice and read a bit of it even if you're ordering it online.
Dona: (laughing) And that was not one book in ten minutes, more like twenty. Amy Goodman and David Goodman's Exception to The Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicans, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
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