Ty: First up, Randi e-mails to ask, "Is C.I. a communist, what's with all the links to Workers World and Party for Socialism and Liberation?"
C.I.: Communism is a part of the left. In college, I studied poli sci and I'm not leery of presenting the left at The Common Ills. Everyone doesn't have to be a Democratic in order to get linked to, nor should they. I'll leave that garbage to The Nation where you have to pretend to be a Democrat if you're not one. In terms of Workers' World, they are a strong outlet and one of the reasons they are so strong is that they are a Communist Party outlet. They don't pretend otherwise, they don't hide in a political closet. As a result of living openly and not hiding, they are able to tap into a very rich history. That means stronger reporting because they're not just learning of some historical issues this week or month. They have a perspective they can bring to an issue that is largely lacking in the bulk of other so-called 'independent' media. Again, it comes from not hiding in a political closet. It comes from knowing who you are and connecting with those who came before you. One of the biggest failures of so-called 'independent' media is in refusing to allow Communists or Socialists to speak regularly unless they'll take to the political closet and try to pass for Democratic. We have always presented left voices at The Common Ills and continue to do so because we are a resource/review for the left. My only problem with Communists are with the closeted ones who want to hide. It's self-defeating and immature. It hurts the left and leads to too much self-censorship. No one should be afraid to say they're a Democrat, a Green, a Socialist, a Communist, what have you. And when outlets like The Nation refuse to include non-Democratic voices -- or refuses to unless they'll pretend they are Democrats -- they not only limit comprehension, they also limit the scope of the left and deserve all the attacks they get from the right-wing. It doesn't get more timid that The Nation and they invite those generic, catch-all attacks on the left by presenting a very limited view of what the left is in the United States.
Ty: Kat, on Friday, you wrote about Hillary and Donald is very unhappy that you waited until after the primary to write that.
Kat: Hmm. Well, a number of us wanted C.I. to tell that story. For those who didn't read it, Hillary Clinton, as First Lady, encouraged a despondent group of high schoolers to actively work on an issue and to force politicians to listen to them. I tied that into Iraq and based it on her statements in March and after. In terms of not writing about it before? Betty wanted that and another personal story told here by C.I. Back in January. C.I. was of the opinion that it would be seen as attempting to influence the election. C.I. wasn't endorsing anyone at that point. After, when it could have been noted, we had already had a long discussion -- all of us -- about whether or not we wanted to go there. For me, going there individually was something I was comfortable with. People can form their own opinions today. But did I want to build my case on it? My case for why to support Hillary? I don't think so and we all didn't think so. My own judgement is that the approach Hillary encouraged the high schoolers on was the approach she was speaking of in March and later -- about 'hold me accountable. Put me to work for you.' But back then, the Barack campaign was using a number of anecdotes to make arguments that were unfounded and we didn't want to be guilty of the same thing. I think the anecdote is telling and I'm comfortable sharing it now. But I didn't want anyone to base a vote on an anecdote from a decade ago. Prior to January, and I'll toss to Betty, this almost came up.
Betty: In the summer or spring of 2007, I decided to support Hillary's run for president. It was not an easy decision for me in terms of worrying about the reaction from others. I called C.I. to say I'd made my decision. I was asked if I was comfortable with it and I said I was. C.I. said something like "great" and changed the subject. I responded, "Woah!" And I made the point that I was really worried what the reaction would be. C.I. said there were many reasons to support Hillary and my decision was my decision. C.I. and I discussed the reasons for my support. I shared that I was still worried some would be hurt by my decision -- I mean all of us participating in this feature. C.I. shared three personal stories about Hillary. After which, I hoped everyone would be okay with my decision but I knew I had made the right one. One of the stories was the one Kat wrote about. That almost got noted here in October. The primary season wasn't upon us. It was killed at the last minute because Jim didn't think it was well written. He thought C.I. should share it in a roundtable. When that was a possibility, it was already the primary season. You need to remember what was going on then. One example, in Houston, Texas back in February, Barack reduced his timeline for withdraw of combat troops in Iraq to ten months. One sentence. But Tom Hayden turned it into an embarrassing lengthy column. We didn't want to be doing that. We didn't want to use a personal anecdote to try to influence an election. We tried to stay on the issues. Like Kat, I agree the anecdote goes directly to what Hillary was saying in March and later. I wish we'd shared it but I know why we didn't and can live with that call.
Ty: Shirley, not community member Shirley, e-mails to say she's "very disappointed in my fellow Green Jess for not supporting Cynthia McKinney's run for president. Greens need to stick together."
Jess: I don't wake up in bed with Cynthia McKinney. On good days, I wake up in bed with Ava. I would never support the McKinney-Clemente ticket. It would be a slap in the face to my long relationship with Ava. Ava's a Latina and I don't need a liar like Rosa Clemente lying about Latinos which she did last week on KPFA. And I don't need to hear someone who has insulted Latinos as she's rushed to refuse to self-identify with them turning around and lying about them.
Clemente's a damn liar. Last weekend, we didn't want to note the Green convention at all. Ava and C.I. talked us into doing so. They quoted some of Cynthia's speech and we were excited. We planned to do a feature this weekend. Then Rosa Clemente had to go and lie about Latinos, pretend she had a right to speak for them as well. No way would I support that ticket.
Dona: The night before that interview aired on KPFA, I had volunteered on a local political campaign all night and planned to sleep in. I couldn't. The minute that interview aired and Clemente uttered her lie, every phone line in the house was ringing. I got up and answered some of it for the next hours, Jim was also catching the phones. Some were Ava's friends, some were C.I.'s friends. Everyone was appalled. Rosa Clemente already had a barrier she created between herself and the Latino community. Lying on KPFA and pretending she could 'represent' for a community she has long insulted and ridiculed only lost the McKinney-Clemente ticket even more support. I'd be surprised if they get 1% at this point. Cynthia, curb your running mate.
Jim: How many more questions do you have Ty?
Ty: Three.
Jim: Okay, I'm going to jump in on this. Due to the speech Cynthia gave when she accepted her party's nomination and do to the hard sell Ava and C.i. did, we were going to do a feature. Not now. We're done with that "victory is 5% campaign." But I will note that the campaign is ridiculous. It's starts with an eye-sore for a campaign site. It continues with the inability to reach out. Two Saturdays ago, Cynthia McKinney became the party's nominee. How was anyone supposed to report on that? They could, for example, quote the acceptance speech. But they'd have to have a copy of it. By 5:00 p.m. PST the following Sunday, there was still no copy of it at the Green Pary's website or at Cynthia's website. There's no excuse for that. Cynthia's speech should have gone up at both as soon as she delivered it. enif it had, reporters who did not attend the convention might have reported on it Sunday or late Saturday. When the Greens had their one big debate, we noted that they needed to have that up at the Green Party website and we noted they needed to have it in transcript and video or audio to be accessible to all. The 'outreach' from the Green Party -- unlike Jess, I'm a Democrat -- is a laugh. It doesn't exist. From the Green Party officers, we heard that our criticism regarding the debate not being available was a good thing and that they'd rectify the situation when they held their convention. They did not. Everyone here thinks Cynthia gave an incredible speech. It's really too bad that people hearing about her being the nominee on Saturday couldn't read it then or the next morning. You're supposed to be a national political party, get your act together.
Ty: Gerald e-mails that Mike and Elaine sometimes cover the same topics, "Not complainin' I enjoy the different perspectives on the topics but wondering if that's planned?"
Elaine: Mike and I are generally on the phone or together when we're both blogging.
Mike: Right and sometimes we do actively say, "Let's both highlight this." Othertimes we don't. One night last week -- I won't name it so Dallas won't have to get links -- we were just too tired and just wanted to be done. For anyone who doesn't read our sites, or both our sites, we don't always cover the same topics but if you look at it for like a year or so, you'll see that we often do. I will also pass on highlights -- either ones I use or ones I'm not using -- to others. I'll call Marcia and say, "Hey, I saw this and think you might be interested. Should I e-mail it?"
Marcia: Mike always does that. He also checks in when I'm blogging to see if I'm having any problems -- technical problems -- since I'm the newest at blogging. I'm generally on the phone with Ruth right before I blog. We're talking about the day's news and what we might write about. You will see a lot of crossover between Ruth and I because of that. We're all on the phone to each other throughout the day but I mainly am speaking to Ruth right before I blog. When Wally and I were on the road in Indiana and West Virginia turning out the vote for Hillary, I was utilizing him as a sound board constantly.
Mike: And one more thing to add quickly. C.I.'s been doing an e-mail to all of us on links that there wasn't time for in the snapshot or that came out after the snapshot went up. So we also regularly raid that as well.
Ty: This is for Wally and Cedric and two e-mails came in asking if they were making a decision to keep the posts shorter?
Cedric: Wally and I do joint-humorous posts. Ideally, we want it short, a 'jot' like Wally's title says. Sometimes we can't do that. Sometimes we can. That's the ideal but last week it was more of having to do it. I'll throw to Wally.
Wally: I'm on the road with Kat, Ava, C.I. and Rebecca talking about Iraq. It's an all day thing and generally Kat and Rebecca will break off around five or at seven. They'll go back to wherever we're staying. I'm trying to go to all of the speaking and really wanted to last week so I was very limited for time and Cedric's got to be in bed by a certain time because he has work the next day. I may finish at ten or eleven, the speaking, and when I would, I immediately called Cedric and we got to work on our joint-post. What we did last week is what we would prefer to do but last week it was what we had to do.
Dona: Ava, Rebecca and Ruth haven't spoken. Ty's picked the questions so I'm counting that as his input but he can weigh in if he wants. Elaine spoke briefly but she speaks at length in another feature and I know she prefers to keep it brief. So Ava, Rebecca and Ruth need to speak in the next response.
Elaine: Rebecca's nodding at me, Dona. She's breast feeding her baby and singing softly while she stares at me and shakes her head which I assumes means she's not planning to speak right now and she's shaking her head "yes" to what I just said.
Dona: That's more than fine. Next mailbag or roundtable, we'll start with Rebecca since she's not speaking in this one. So Ruth and Ava, Ty.
Ty: This works out well because this was a question for Ruth and Marcia who both noted they'd be seeing Mama Mia! with Ruth's family yesterday. Joanie wanted to know did they like it and should she make a point to see it. Joanie writes, "It's not like the last time I went to the movies was Cannonball Run but it feels that long ago. The commercials look good but I saw one review that trashed it and that's really all it takes these days to make me run from a film."
Ruth: Marcia and I loved it. Right?
Marcia: A great movie. Popcorn summer movie, yes, but a well done one. Ruth, I think Dona's expecting more from you.
Ruth: Okay. It is an uplifting film. My grandchildren wanted to see it and Marcia and I were taking them. The youngest was ten-years-old. Due to the plot, your own feelings might make you cautious about bringing children younger than that along. Although The Princess Diaries was marketed to young children and also dealt with a similar theme regarding fathers. If Joanie liked the commercials, her fear may be that the commercials do not represent the film. Sometimes the best moments are in the commercials and the rest of the picture drags. That is not the case with Mama Mia! and I really recommend it. Everyone on screen seems to be having fun -- Meryl Streep is great -- and you will have fun watching it.
Ty: Ava?
Ava: I haven't seen the film. So I'll just repeat that Latinos don't need a non-Latino speaking for them, let alone misrepresenting them. Rosa Clemente has made it very clear that she considers it an insult to be called a Latina, she has made it very clear that she's only embracing her self-identification as Black. So she needs to get the message that you can't then turn around and lie about the Latino community. We don't appreciate it. It's all the worse because Latinos, like every other community that's not White or Black, is rendered invisible on KPFA. If we cover McKinney's campaign in the future it will be without mention of Rosa Clemente. She owes the Latino community an apology and has for nearly a decade. Most of us long ago grasped that such an apology would not be forthcoming. But she creates new tensions when, after insulting us repeatedly, she wants to take to the airwaves and 'speak for' us. I'm not interested in mentioning her after this week. I'm done with her and that's the attitude of the Latinos I've spoken to in the Bay Area -- that's their attitude as well as a huge anger at KPFA for refusing to put us on air but allowing a self-defined non-Latina to 'speak for' us. It is not a minor issue. In fact, we had thought about doing a piece on Andrea Lewis' return to KPFA today. No offense to Andrea Lewis, whom we all like, but my attitude was, "How sweet. Another Black or White host from KPFA." The Bay Area is not Pleasantville. We have Latinos, we have Asian-Americans, we have Arab-Americans, we have this whole, huge cross-section that is repeatedly ignored by KPFA. And I'm honestly sick of it. Apparently, the height of 'radicalism' in 1950 was to add 'color' to the all White programming by bringing on African-Americans. In the 21st century, that's not good enough and I'm damn sick of all the communities being ignored regularly by KPFA to turn the world into a Black and White one. I don't know which is more insulting -- that Asian-Americans are ignored or that Latinos are ignored. We are both a huge section of the KPFA area. Asian-Americans have been a huge bulk of the Bay Area's population since before KPFA started so they should probably jump ahead of us in the complaint line. That's no complaint against Andrea Lewis, but they picked the wrong weekend to debut her after allowing Black and African-American speakers to speak for Arab-Americans and Latinos last week -- while denying both communities a seat at the table.
Jim: Well said. And we'll stop there. Ty was very concerned that questions were being ingored so we did this quick mailbag to address some of the questions. There were many e-mails we didn't get to including one I read on Sunday defending the indefensible Bernie Mac. Ava and C.I. address him in this week's TV commentary.