Dona: It should also be noted that Dallas is on the line as well. He doesn't usually want to participate, in fact, C.I.'s the only one who has ever been able to get Dallas to participate in roundtables or "news reviews". But Dallas is on the line and can jump in at any point. So let's go to Billie first.
Billie: What a load of crap Charlie Jackson managed to fit into one e-mail. I spoke with DFW members specifically and read the e-mail to them. The response was laughter. Community members repeatedly attempted to contact that organization in the week leading up to the rally via the contact person listed at their site with the e-mail address they provided. As she refused to reply with permission to take photographs repeatedly, they soured their own event and made it clear it was another DFW event staged for a select few while posing as welcoming to the public. I may chime in on this again but this is really where Isaiah comes in.
Isaiah: Members in the area -- immediate and far away -- were outraged. The enthusiasm for the event was falling apart. I e-mailed C.I. and asked permission to represent myself on behalf of The Common Ills. I was told I could do that and represent myself on behalf of The Third Estate Sunday Review. C.I. wrote, "I don't believe anyone" meaning anyone with a community site "would have a problem with you representing yourself on their behalf; however, I can only give complete permission on The Common Ills and I'll take any flack -- I don't expect any -- for giving permission for Third." I then used the information to contact the event's media person. I explained I did the comic at The Common Ills. I explained that I would like permission to take photos. I said I would be using a traditional camera, a digital camera and a disposable camera. I explained that the photos would run at The Common Ills, The Third Estate Sunday Review, at other sites -- which I did not name since I did not have permission to represent myself on their behalf -- and in community newsletters. I gave my full name. I gave my home address. I gave my work number and the place where I work. I e-mailed that information three times. It stated if I had not provided enough information -- and as everyone joked, I provided everything but my Social Security number -- please contact me via e-mail or phone. There was no attempt made to contact me. I specifically gave my work phone because if I'm not there, a message can be taken by person or voice mail and I have a record of all incoming calls, missed or taken, so I would know if I was contacted. I honestly believed I'd get some sort of reply. By 5:00 pm, I had received nothing. Like everyone else, we were blown off.
Ty: And I need to point out that "everyone else" is not just community members. The traditional press was blown off and, after our articles ran here, we heard from others who were blown off also. I think Billie should talk about the mood up to Isaiah's e-mail.
Billie: People were saying, "Forget this." They were saying worse than that, but I'll keep it clean. It was the typical DFW nonsense. Howard Dean came to Dallas and spoke during his 2004 campaign. He spoke in front of City Hall. I had no idea how many community members had attended that. This was before The Common Ills started but that was an example that people were citing in e-mails and phone calls.
Jim: Citing in what way?
Billie: The t-shirt crowd. The ones wearing their messages of 'peace' or plugging a website. The attitude of that event was "Come out, hear Howard and go away." If you attempted to approach someone wearing a t-shirt with a message you agreed with, you were brushed off. In one case, and I won't mention the website, very rudely and that was five different people that were given a "Go to hell" look as the jerk walked away from them. But as these stories were being shared -- while we were being blown off regarding the September 1st non-rally -- the attitude was, "Typical DFW 'peace' event." It's a tight little clique that wants crowds to turn out but doesn't want to mix. You had, prior to the blow offs, real excitement. We had members coming in from Oklahoma and were all figuring out the logistics of that in terms of who could house who. And it is amazing how quickly the enthusiasm cratered as a contact person -- and you were told you needed to contact if you planned to take photos for traditional press outlets or blogs -- day after day refused to answer. I was talking to C.I. about it -- C.I. was attempting to get the enthusiasm back up -- and I said nothing would work. Then I had an e-mail from C.I. and one from Isaiah. People were still leery of the event but had Isaiah gotten a reply, the enthusiasm would have shot up. At least somewhat. I know I was watching the clock at work the last hour, before 5:00 p.m., because Isaiah was going to call me. Which he did a few minutes after five to say that there had been no reply to any of the three e-mails. The fact that Isaiah was representing on behalf of the community and Third Estate and received no reply really destroyed the enthusiasm. That's when C.I. called me and said, "I'll come to Dallas tomorrow." But I'm probably jumping ahead.
Jim: Isaiah, anything to add to that?
Isaiah: Billie summarizes the feeling perfectly. I had to call her and 15 other people who were going to get the word out. I had hoped I would be saying, "We got a reply." That wasn't the call I made because that wasn't what happened. I called Billie first because I knew she had to pick up her kids from day care and didn't want to delay that. Then I called C.I. who was at Mike's and C.I. asked if I thought anyone would attend the rally? I said I doubted it. The mood was iffy by now and as the news spread, it was only going to get worse. I said something about it would take a real gesture to draw any interest and I meant from the organizers. C.I. sighed and said, "I'll fly out tomorrow morning. Will that make any difference?" And yeah, it would. Yeah, it did. I said I'd spoken to Billie already but would pass on to the other people I had to call that C.I. would be there and I heard Wally in the background tell C.I., "I'll go too." So I think when I got off the phone with C.I., I had Wally, C.I., Ava, Jess, Mike and Elaine confirmed as coming to town for the rally.
Billie: And this was late. I mean this is after 5:00 p.m. on Friday when people had pretty much written the event off. This was a holiday weekend and people had already made other plans. But those who could still make it, the reaction was, "If they're flying in, then I'll try to be there."
C.I.: I don't want to cut anyone off so if there's something to add, please do, and Dallas, you're welcome to speak as well; however, I do want to address that ____ false claim of Charlie whatever his name is "Too bad you didn't think to contact me about any of your issues or complaints. I'm not a journalist, but I usually try to go directly to organizers or other sources for verification...particularly if I don't get a response from a media contact."
Dona: That's what had Jim roaring with laughter, that b.s. The organizations had declared one media contact. They had supplied her name and her e-mail address. Forget for a moment that they had blown off multiple members, Isaiah contacted her on behalf of this site and The Common Ills and that was made perfectly clear. She was the designated media contact. The organizations picked her, we didn't. Isaiah had three attempts to contact her and she didn't reply. Three attempts on our behalf. She was quoted in the Dallas Morning News so we know she wasn't dead. Instead of whining to us, Charlie needs to figure out why their media contact person blew off everyone but especially why she refused to respond to Isaiah. If Isaiah didn't provide enough information -- possibly the woman needed to know his blood type as well -- his phone number was provided. The fact that your media contact failed at her job is not our problem.
Billie: I dropped my kids off at Sunday school, told my mom to take them to her house after church, and drove straight to the hotel you were all staying at. I was reading the almost final draft of both pieces. During this time, Isaiah was on a laptop checking his AOL account repeatedly. Before the articles posted, Isaiah had checked his account, Ty loaned me his laptop and I checked my e-mail account and Dallas was using his laptop to check his account. The media contact did not respond to any of us. Obviously Isaiah was the one to respond to since he wrote multiple times and was designated to represent Third Estate and The Common Ills. Dona was saying, "If there's any kind of an e-mail, we will work it into the articles." It was very clear to us, and to other members present who groaned every time Dona said that, that if the designated press contact responded before the article was published, the response would be included. If it was, as Jim put it, "My aunt was sick or my house was sprayed for bugs so I was busy last week and I apologize . . ." it would have been included. On Tuesday, C.I. called me and asked me to check with members as to whether or not they ever, after the event, heard a word from the contact person? I checked, no one did.
Jim: So Charlie, next time you write one of your e-mails about how someone should have checked with the organization, you might instead want to not waste our time and check to find out why your press contact refused to respond to her e-mails. That's your breakdown. Defocus all you want, but that's your breakdown.
Jess: There was no reason to check with Charlie or anyone. Yes, we had three outstanding e-mails that received no reply, via Isaiah. But we don't need to check with an organization -- a half-assed, b.s. organization that can't even stage a rally correctly -- to write about their disaster. We flew from Boston to Dallas. Betty flew from Georgia. Cedric had a wedding so he wasn't able to go. But Rebecca, Elaine, Mike, Jim, Wally, Ty, Dona, Kat, C.I., Ava and myself
flew from Boston to Dallas on a day we had better things to do. But we flew out and we reported two first hand accounts. Charlie, your event was a failure. Accept the blame you and others have earned. We didn't need to speak to you or to anyone organizing the event to know it was a failure. I've visited the DFW area with Ava and C.I. about five times now. When I saw Fort Worth was the location, right away I knew there would be a problem. That you and others didn't indicates how out of touch you are.
Billie: And I live in Fort Worth. This isn't Fort Worth bashing. But we are and forever will be "Cowtown." We've got the cattle auction and not a lot more. Even community members in Dallas were calling me to ask exactly where, this is with the street address, the event was being held? As one article points out, people have driven into Dallas for years. The State Fair, the Dallas Cowboys -- when they were in Dallas proper, concerts, events, to party, to do business, to attend conventions. I love Fort Worth and I love it because the pace is a little slower than in Dallas. But you don't stage a DFW event in Fort Worth.
Jim: Let's talk about the temperature because it was hot. Wally, who lives in Florida, got a sunburn that Saturday.
Wally: I should note C.I. and Ava were insisting everyone put on sunscreen and my attitude was, "Sunscreen? I'm from the Sunshine State!"
Billie: Well it was hot. And this "You can walk to the event from the train station" was nonsense. Or "at 12:30 we will have vehicles available to take you there." Well if vehicles are available, and this was why everyone was calling me asking exactly where the event was, how far is the event from the train station?
Isaiah: And this is the Trinity Express which connects the DFW area. It is not a Fort Worth train. Fort Worth does not yet have a train. To stress, as the group did, that you should take public transportation requires that they hold an event where public transportation is readily available.
Ava: And every 45 minutes or hour and five minutes or whatever the wait on the Trinity Express was is not public transportation. Public transportation is buses and trains, like that light rail --
Billie: DART express.
Ava: DART, thank you, that runs regularly throughout Dallas.
Billie: It needs to be noted that the party that night had over 1500 people there. I saw Dona, Jim and Ava taking notes repeatedly. C.I. was signing for at least two members who are deaf or I know C.I. would have been taking notes. I'm sure C.I. was registering the input without taking notes. I'm sure others of you were taking notes as well.
Isaiah: Exactly, all of those people weighing in and how many complaints came in on that article from community members?
Ty: None.
Isaiah: Exactly. I don't know what that guy thinks he is entitled to.
Jim: What he's entitled to is to speak with his media contact person and ask her why she didn't do her job.
Dona: Okay, then I think we're done.
C.I.: No, we aren't. Members expect me to speak up for them and there are issues we didn't cover here but we covered in the roundtable. I'll do this as quickly as possible. As Diana's oldest son, who goes to El Centro, noticed first, the organizations made no attempt to reach out to college students. Let's be really clear, community members in Texas care about ending the illegal war. They are not apathetic. They are not Bully Boy or War cheerleaders. They crave an event where they can register their opposition to the illegal war. Not one member knew about that event until the Tuesday before it when it was included in that day's "Iraq snapshot."
Charlie needs to take a look at how that happened. College students were shut out. Speakers did not go to local colleges to promote the event, they did not post information. We spoke on Saturday to a member who works at one of Dallas' public libraries. No information was posted at any of the Dallas branches and, had they been given information, it would have been posted on their bulletin boards. No postings at bus stations or train stations. No effort to get word out on the event. I believe a press release was sent out on Wednesday. Whatever day we quoted the press release in the snapshot, it was after Tuesday, was when the organization finally released -- online -- a press release. On a hot day, on a holiday weekend, they planned a nine to five event. Do they really think anyone wants to put in eight hours on their day off? Or, for that matter, to put in eight hours standing outside in the hot sun? In terms of East Texas members, again, no efforts made to reach out. How do you plan an event, line up name speakers, and expect people to come when you're not actively working to get the word out on it? That only underscored the impression that the event was a private party. This Charlie can kiss my ass because the number one complaint I heard was, "Everyone in the country is going to think, 'Bully Boy is from Texas and they support him' as a result of this sorry event." My concern isn't some stupid little whiner, my concern is being sure that Texas isn't again misrepresented. Texas has always been an active region for this community. And there was no way in hell that the organizations' failures were going to be pushed off on Texas. Charlie needs to stop whining and figure out exactly what his intention is because if he wants to do anything other than throw sparsely attended parties, he's got a lot of work to do. The DFW's local NBC channel does a report on how police are short on bullets due to the illegal war and I've got over 60 e-mails on that, Billie was the first to note it. There's a rally staged and no member knows about it? You damn well better believe the problem is with the organizers. Now when we got to . . . Help me out, I'm blanking. Where we got off the Trinity Express.
Billie: Union Station, in downtown Dallas.
C.I.: Thank you. When we got to Union Station, there were over sixty people there. Angry that the wrong time was posted -- at the event's website -- for how often the Trinity Express runs to Dallas. A number of people were, rightly, complaining that they should have just driven to Fort Worth. When you can't even get the basics down, when you create mass confusion, you have serious problems and they don't go to, "Oh, you didn't tell me you would write about us in a negative manner." They go to your failures. I'm probably forgetting something and my apologies to members in that area. I'm trying to rush through this but tick off the important points that members still complain about. And it is "still." For people outside the area, the event is over. For members in that area and in surrounding areas, it is not over.
Billie: The eight hours, just to pick up on that, the eight hours of the event was a big mistake. The whole timing was a huge mistake. Older members especially were not looking forward to eight hours in the Texas summer heat. A point you made, I don't think it was in the articles but C.I. wrote about this at The Common Ills, was that members were complaining about the timing and that is a good point. The event started at nine in the morning. If you're going to start that early, stage your rally at that time. Not mid-day to be followed by a march. The rally should have been before noon, the march should have been before noon. Texas is too hot to ever schedule a mid-day rally followed by a march in the summer. Older members, I'm speaking sixty-years-of-age and up, were especially dismayed by that. And let's point out that, yes, C.I. did note the event before the press release. None of us in Texas knew anything about it. I live in Fort Worth. A rally's taking place on Saturday and I haven't heard about it? I'm reading it about it the Tuesday before in C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot"? When I saw that in the snapshot, I used the link because I really couldn't believe it and the reason was because, we're talking my home town, we're talking where I have chosen to raise my family. I grew up in Dallas but chose to move to Fort Worth. My parents, my brother and my sisters all live in Dallas. My home is Fort Worth, Texas. How the hell do they plan an event in my hometown and I don't know about it and no one on my block knows about it and no one at my work knows about it and I'm learning about it from The Common Ills? I get home that evening and my answering machine is full of calls from members all over Texas that have my phone number. They're under the impression that this event is well known. ___ in Big Sandy, for instance, says, "I wish you'd told me but we're going to try to be there." I'm calling back as many as I can and explaining, "I didn't tell you because I didn't know about until I read C.I. today." I was far from the only one saying, at the party, that this is the typical area b.s. where people hold private parties and call them public but that is the pattern. And, yes, we do expect C.I. to speak up for us. I think Dallas made that point very clear at the party.
Dallas: Okay, I'll speak. Brief. Yeah, that was the fear of everyone at the party from Texas. Under 300 people show up for an event that's got Ann Wright, Adam Kokesh, Cindy Sheehan and countless others? A Saturday event? I mean, after 2004, we had to put up with that F--k The South nonsense online. We were all fully aware that what was probably going to happen was that the people of Texas would be blamed for the low attendance and not the people who planned it and planned it poorly.
Elaine: And that was a perfectly understandable fear. These were big name speakers. This was an event on a Saturday. To people outside the area, the easiest conclusion would have been, "Texans don't care about ending the illegal war." On September 1st, it was Texas. But it could be any place. September was supposed to be the month of protests. This was supposed to be the kick-off. I felt it was really important that both articles be written -- I prefer the second one because it makes me laugh -- because this is a story that needs to be told. Don't look at the numbers and say, "Well people don't care." You need to be aware that some people staging events are just inept.
Billie: I think "inept" is being kind but the mood was, "We're going to take the hit on this." We being people from Texas.
Jim: Does anyone have anything further to say?
C.I.: I wish I did. I'm sure I'll remember several other points members have raised in e-mails after we're done.
Jim: Okay, well, Isaiah, for the record, could you check your e-mail account right now and see if by some miracle, you suddenly have a reply from the press contact for the event?
Isaiah: Checking. Hold on. No. No, there's nothing.
Jim: We did not pick the event's press contact. Charlie Jackson can attempt to defocus from his organization's own failures all he wants, but they picked a press contact and she apparently had better things to do than the job she was picked for. As Billie pointed out, we did interview at the party. We're not required to seek out a comment from an organization to begin with but when Isaiah, representing us, has repeatedly attempted to contact the press contact and been repeatedly ignored, Charlie Jackson shouldn't get his panties, BVDs or whatever he wears or doesn't wear in a wad. We have repeatedly covered protests and rallies here and have never before had anyone from an organization come whining in an e-mail. When we cover protests, we're interested in the people participating. We are interested in their voices. We did "'Why Are You Here' and 'What's Changed'" -- to name but one -- and none of the 100 voices was from an organization sponsoring the event. The fact that you're interested in having the last word instead of addressing why your event failed demonstrates to us not only why your event was a failure but why you still have problems. Whining in an e-mail won't change that. Billie and Isaiah, you're welcome to stay on the line and continue listening -- and welcome to chime in if you stay on the line -- but we're going to move on to another topic.
Billie: If I can add one last thing, C.I. is right. If you had e-mailed a reply to Charlie Jackson, the community would have been outraged. Maybe not the entire community, but members from my area -- ones who were ignored or ones who heard about the ignoring -- would have been outraged.
Jim: That's a good point and thank you for bringing it up. To be clear, if you blow off community members, you better not expect a personal reply from this site. I should have grasped that without C.I. pointing it out. One of the funniest things to happen, on a related note, since we started this site was to read an e-mail from someone at a daily paper who refused to respond to the e-mails from Dona, me and other students at our old campus in New York. Suddenly, we were on a 'different' level because of this site? I don't think so. Dona?
Jim: Dona was also sick last week --
Rebecca: I say from the spraying of the crowd in DC.
Jim: Rebecca says from the spraying of the crowd of in DC. We posted very late and put up "Note" so that everyone would know that. Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. helped out as much as they could with typing and editing and Dona summoned strength that even surprised me -- I know how strong she is -- but with losing Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. due to their needing to catch a plane, we were all tired and frazzled. As soon as they landed, they called to work on the note to the readers and were surprised that things were still being posted. It was that kind of a session.
"A Note to Our Readers" is really my thing with others shouting out stuff while I'm typing so I'm responsible for typos or errors in that. Trina of Trina's Kitchen did not get a mention or a thank you in the note for her participation in "Book: Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine." That was a huge oversight on my part and I apologize to her. On Mondays, Mike does his version of the note. His "Marjorie Cohn, Third" covers this and many other things. I'll add that when Mike informed I forgot his mother, I immediately went to Trina to apologize and she said "nothing to get worked up over." Maybe not for her, but we did appreciate her contribution and she needs to be noted. Mike also points out that "The Peace Resister pretends to be about peace" was recommended as a topic not only from people at The Nation but also from Rebecca's mother-in-law. I left out credit for Rebecca's mother-in-law in the note. My apologies to her. Tossing to Ty.
Ty: 32 complaints came in Sunday and Monday on "United for Peace and Some Justice?" with all maintaining that Phyllis Bennis and Eric Leaver should be taken to task for undercounting the Iraqi dead and not United for Peace & Justice. The 32 offered statements such as, this is Tammi, "They didn't write the report. Bennis and Leaver are supposed to be experts. They trusted them to conduct themselves like expert." Last Wednesday, C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" noted that United for Peace & Justice had raised the figure to over one million -- from "over 600,000 plus." 17 of the 32 complaining e-mailed to withdraw their complaint. I'm going to toss to Elaine.
Elaine: I didn't have time for my e-mails until Friday. Jim, Dona, Mike, Rebecca, Trina and others stayed in DC through at least Wednesday. Sunny, who runs my office, was on vacation. I came back for sessions on Thursday and didn't have time to go through all the e-mails that had piled up, e-mails to my site, until Friday. United for Peace & Justice e-mailed C.I., Rebecca and myself Tuesday. On Friday, I noted the change in "Kevin & Monica Benderma, United for Peace & Justice." C.I. saw the e-mail on Tuesday and first noted the change on Tuesday in "Addendum" and called all of us to inform us of the change. Those posting on Wednesday included reposted the "Iraq snapshot" which covered the chance United for Peace & Justice made.
Cedric: In our joint-posts, Wally and I don't post the snapshot in full. We grab a section of it. In our excerpt, we included "In other peace news, United for Peace & Justice states they are using the Just Foreign Policy count for Iraqis who have died in the illegal war. The report on the state of Iraq has been updated to note the Iraqi dead during the illegal war is over a million." At Cedric's Big Mix (backup site), I repost Wally and my joint-post and then I repost the snapshot in full.
Betty: Trina and I both only post one day a week. Trina noted the change in "Kugel in the Kitchen." My site is fiction and I'm working from an outline. Trying to find a way to work in the update was a pain in the butt. Kat and C.I. spent an hour on the phone with me Saturday morning while we brainstormed ways to work it into the chapter whose big point is that Thomas Friedman did not kidnap Betinna because he was attracted to her or loved her. That's "A little bit of reality from Nicky K" and it includes: "Last week, I was shocked that United for Peace & Justice would post a report undercounting the Iraqi dead. They've since corrected their report. But that was shocked." I know this isn't a correction, it's an update. But for the record, I will never again waste my time trying to work in an update. I feel like I failed Betinna -- and she's very real to me -- wasting so much time working on United for Peace & Justice's update to something that they never should have taken place in to begin with. The point of this was to flip the storyline and lay the groundwork for some dark times coming Betinna's way. Instead, I'm obsessing on how to include the fact that United for Peace & Justice finally did the right thing. So to be clear, I will never again waste my time on an update. It completely threw off the chapter. It wasn't a correction so it wasn't needed. A point both C.I. and Kat made repeatedly as we were brainstorming for some way that I include it. I had to trash my first six paragraphs to alter the tone, which was much darker, to make Betinna's observation work. Repeating, I will not ever do that again. Ever. My first duty is to Betinna. The way the chapter originally read, Nicky K's confession was prompted by the fact that he saw Betinna's copy of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism. I had to lose that and many other details. Never again. On a good day, my sister's watching my kids, I sit down at the computer and let Betinna speak to me. Instead, I was forcing it and I hate that chapter. Never again.
Kat: Betty doesn't type up something and say, "Done!" When you read something at her site, she's gone through a minimum of five drafts. And by "drafts," I don't mean she changed a sentence or two. She may have trashed everything. She may have kept only one sentence. After she finishes each draft, she calls C.I. and I and reads it to both of us. I will hear, if I'm not at C.I.'s when she calls, "Do you really think that makes sense because I got the feeling from C.I. that it didn't?" And I'm sure C.I. hears the same thing about me from Betty. We both told her not to worry about including United for Peace & Justice. I love what went up but what she had in the first drafts was so beautifully dark -- and laying the groundwork for what's to come in future chapters -- that I insisted she forget about including United for Peace & Justice. She included the update and it took her forever to find a way. In order to do so, she had to change the tone of the chapter. If you think about it, grasp that Betinna's just had a blow to the gut, and is writing about it after, you realize how much was sacrificed to include that update. I'll back Betty up by saying there was no need for an update and United for Peace & Justice should have had their act together from the start. No offense, Elaine.
Elaine: None taken. You're entitled your opinion and I don't disagree with it. If I did, you'd still be entitled to your opinion. While I'm glad they made the change the reality is that it never should have happened. I'm sorry Betty had to go through all of that and wish she'd called Rebecca because Rebecca hasn't written about it for the reasons you're outlining.
Rebecca: I included the snapshot. It covered it. It covered the update. United for Peace & Justice does not want me to share my thoughts on it, trust me. That's the group Elaine supports, she knows my feelings and she doesn't have a problem with them. So she's got no problem with what Kat's shared.
Jim: Okay, tossing to Ty with a complaint specific to this site but true of all sites. Ty?
Ty: Actually, that's to Jess.
Jim: Sorry. Jess.
Jess: Yeah, Dona asked me to check e-mails to this site. Normally, I don't anymore unless Ty's on vacation because Ava and I, and now Dona, are among the ones helping out with the members accounts and the public account at The Common Ills. But Dona pulled Jim off the e-mail account of this site after Charlie Jackson e-mailed because she was afraid if he wrote again, Jim would respond via e-mail. So I saw an e-mail from James that is one that comes in from time to time. He'd received a reply from Dona and he was confused because she mentioned something in it that indicated it had been written late at night and it hadn't arrived until that morning. No one hear sends out e-mails. We respond, save it to the draft folder and then one of four people send them out. Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq and Raw Story early on explained problems with us sending them out. Even Sunny, if she's replying for Elaine, saves to draft and one of the four designated senders sends out the e-mail. When we respond, we don't usually mention time to avoid confusion. Sometimes we do. And less and less people will get responses as a result of an e-mail I wrote being passed on. We'll include comments, questions and criticisms in e-mails but after I got burned, no one's going to go out of their way to reply to strangers. If I could add something not related to this topic, I also support United for Peace & Justice. It's not just Elaine. She's been a vocal champion of the organization and that really is the primary organization she supports. That's true of me as well. I understand Kat and Betty's point -- and Rebecca's -- and am not offended but I do credit them for changing the count. I do think it was a mistake to include the undercount to begin with -- and that's putting it mildly -- but it took character to update it.
Jim: Tonya e-mailed about "Book: Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine" which she bought on Tuesday and says the discussion really peaked her interest; however, she thinks it was a "huge mistake" not to go into the human abuse "more because everyone's talking about that in all the reviews." Dona's handed me a note and says Mike, Wally and Cedric especially need to talk on this because they've had the least participation.
Wally: If you see a dog laying on the side of the road, it may grab you. And you may just focus on that. You may not wonder about the conditions that allowed for it to be hit. It would be very easy to talk about just the human rights abuses. That is Klein's starting point in her book. And I've read some of those reviews that focus on that. I honestly think, since they don't build from that, they've just read the opening which is very powerful but just lays the first step. Before the discussion, we outlined several things that needed to be hit upon. We all knew the human rights abuses -- which are touched on collectively and Jim notes an individual case at the end -- would be covered in all the reviews but other things might not be. So we elected not to make that our foucs and we think that was in keeping with the book itself.
Cedric: Exactly. Because what is one of the biggest problems Naomi Klein identifies: that human rights abuses do not happen in a vacuum and yet they are treated by many human rights organizations as if they do. C.I. and Ava led the pre-discussion discussion on the book and raised this issue. I believe Ava worded it along the lines of, "Are we going to be Nicholas Kristof and work up outrage over individuals while missing the larger picture that allows all of these abuses to take place or are we going to be serious?" I had honestly marked a passage on abuse because those things grab you. I was planning to discuss that. But the point was clearly made by Ava and C.I. to all of us: If you read the book, you will be grabbed. But are you going to grasp the underlying causes or just play "Oh, that poor man. Oh, that poor woman."?
Mike: Right. Elaine came in to the pre-discussion having done a lot of work compiling notes on the Asian Tigers and she ditched that, all of her work, because Ava and C.I. were correct. It's really easy to go, "Oh, the tragedy!" And to focus on one or two examples. The reality is that many examples aren't in the book. It would take a multi-volume series to cover all the individual abuses. And it's easy to run with that and to sensationalize the book, in my opinion, and avoid addressing the issues that promote the abuses and allow them to continue. We're also not doing a book report. This isn't, "Hey, read our discussion and skip the book!" We're not spoonfeeding. But at the same time, we are thinking about what really needs to be noted and about what won't get noted. Ava and C.I. ended up grabbing the topics they did because no one else wanted them. I'm not even sure if they suggested the topics. But they were on the list that we agreed to in the pre-discussion and they grabbed them because no one else did. Jim also made it clear to them, and to the rest of us, that they needed to speak because in an earlier roundtable, they hadn't.
Jim: That was actually the "Mailbag" from the week prior and complaints did come in asking why Ava and C.I. didn't speak more. I'll toss to Ava.
Ava: As Dona always points out, C.I. and I are the ones taking notes. I'm speaking so now it's just C.I. We do our own version of short-hand. So any feature that's a roundtable or a mailbag or a book discussion, we're busy taking notes. Kat and Jim will also take notes on other features. If they're not written in transcript form, Kat and Jim will take notes. So you have that for starters. It's equally true that each week C.I. and I have the TV pieces where we can weigh in. Last week there was a question of do we want to weigh in on the WalkOn.org issue? The feeling was, "We take the time to write that and sure enough WalkOn.org will apologize for it." Our time was very limited. But C.I. and I did carry that concern over the issue over to our TV commentary ["TV: What does it take to cancel this show?"]. To use Betty as an example, her site really doesn't provide her with an opportunity to sound off. That is Betinna's story, not Betty's. So she is someone who needs to be heard in this format at this site. Similarly, Cedric and Wally are doing joint-posts that are usually humorous -- sometimes they're so disgusted with something that they don't go with humor -- and that's also confining. Here they can speak out and just share. So that's going to cut down on some of the issue of C.I. and I contributing to these things.
Dona: And that's not the full story. It's equally true that Ava and C.I.'s TV commentaries are, week in and week out, the thing the bulk of the e-mails are about. Ava and C.I. work very hard not to hog the glory or overshadow the rest of us. They wouldn't say that -- in any terms -- but it is true. That is, always has been, this site's calling card. Were that not true, I know for a fact they'd contribute at length during transcript pieces. Rebecca and I discussed this back in July, when we were all together out in California.
Rebecca: And I hadn't noticed it until Dona pointed it out. I now make it a point to keep my remarks brief because I do sound off at my site. Betty, Wally and Cedric really should be given the opportunity to speak more in these things. I spoke to Kat about it and her attitude is, "I try to contribute one thing."
Kat: Which is what I do but, if you'll notice, Dona had to pass a note to Jim pointing out that Wally and Cedric -- and Mike -- needed to respond to the question. Which raises the issue of what good does it do for any of us to hold back? I'm not slamming anyone -- not Wally or Cedric or Ava and C.I. -- but I'm noting that what we've attempted to create, this space, really hasn't been grabbed and Dona's offered the opinion that what Ava and C.I. did last week before we got ready for the discussion of Naomi Klein's book needs to happen each week. I see her point. Divy up topics and see if that results in what we're trying to do.
Wally: Or how about telling me? I'm laughing, by the way. I didn't realize that was being done. here's what's been done, and we haven't said a word, on our end -- the guys participating by phone. Cedric's pointed out that in many exchanges, it's very easy for men to hog all the time. So Cedric, Mike and I have tried to make sure we're not hogging the time.
Kat: Or how about telling each other? That's a good point. I had no idea that was going on. But Dona, Rebecca and I have been talking since July about how little the participation from you three has been and how we can increase it.
Betty: Meanwhile I just pipe off about anything.
Ty: And, from the e-mails, your approach results in you being one of the biggest stars of this format. So we should probably all try to follow Betty's lead.
Jim: And Dona's freaking out over the time of this feature so other topics will become individual features or we'll try to make them that.
Mike: One more thing before we wind down. Vic.
Jim: That's right. One more ommission from my note last week. Elaine did the best job explaining that last week in "Isaiah, Free Sami Al-Haj and more." Before I got to DC, I was supposed to have scanned Naomi Klein's book jacket. That was because some dufus was e-mailing Elaine disputing that she was reading the book. [See Elaine's " Cindy Sheehan, Patrick Cockburn, Naomi Klein."] So I was supposed to grab a vinyl cover of a Mamas and Papas album and put that behind the jacket on the scanner and scan it. I never did. I ran out of time. I forgot about it and when it was time to think about the illustration, C.I. had to send out a call to various community members to see if they had the book and could scan it? Vic in Canada had a copy of the book and scanned the cover for us. He should have been thanked for that last week. I rushed through the note and my apologies to Vic.
