Jim: Roundtable time, this will be a rush transcript. If there's an illustration, it's done by Betty's eldest son. Participating are
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and, and me, Jim, Rebecca of
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty of
Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. of
The Common Ills and
The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of
Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of
Cedric's Big Mix, Mike of
Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of
Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of
Ruth's Report, Wally of
The Daily Jot, and Marcia
SICKOFITRDLZ. We have a number of topics to discuss and that includes e-mails. I'm going to let C.I. address the first one which is from Joe in New Hampshire who is not TCI community member Joe. This Joe is a regular reader of our online magazine who has written repeatedly since July 2006. This time he writes, "With Hillary out of the race, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm happy to read any Nader coverage you may have but I've pretty much decided I'm voting for McCain. I assume I can continue to enjoy Ava and C.I.'s feature articles on TV but will probably have to ignore the rest of the features."
C.I.: I'm not sure why that's tossed to me. First off, I won't be voting for McCain. That's been made clear at The Common Ills since it started, over and over. But I don't care who you vote for. Your vote is not my vote. I have no right to control your vote. If you're comfortable with it -- and Joe appears to be from what Jim just read -- then that's the vote you need to cast. At The Common Ills, I'm speaking for the community. In Ava and my pieces, we're trying to make a point and be funny and we're much looser and less representative than I'd have to be if I were covering the same topic by myself at The Common Ills. In terms of this edition,
we just did an editorial for this edition that I almost had to take my name off of because I don't want to tell anyone how to vote. A change was made to something like 'you should follow Nader's campaign' from you should you vote for Nader. That's why my name stayed on the editorial. And that's nothing against Nader, who the community supports, but just that I don't like "You will vote for . . ." pieces. In terms of McCain, we've got
a piece this week that will go up this edition defending him on one thing -- which deserves defending and someone deserves calling out. Speaking only for myself, I'm not out for McCain's head on a stick.
Ava and I defended him in one piece over the attacks the Obama campaign was launching on his age and that may have been why Joe singeled us out. I'm not going to write anything that I can't live with. I don't think any of us are -- correct me if I'm wrong -- and an election's an election. I'll leave it to the Katty-van-van crazies to treat it like it's the rapture and you must repent. Joe seems clear in his choice so obviously he's made the choice that is right for him. When McCain needs calling out, we'll call him out. We won't worry about tone. But if the concern is that this is going to become McCain Bashing Central, I don't think any of us would go along with that and, since Elaine and I know Cindy McCain, we will, of course, refuse to take part in anything that doesn't seem reasonable by our standards. We'll call him a wacko for his support of the Iraq War, for instance, but we're not going to join the chorus lying that he doesn't give a damn about those serving. Ava?
Ava: And as C.I.'s pointed out at The Common Ills, those serving include McCain's own son. If he says something ridiculous, we'll cover it but we're not going out of our way to include McCain. This is a site for the left and will always be more focused on that. I do know many friends, Latinos and Latinas, who are going to vote for McCain. That's not going to end my friendship with them. I'm sorry that Joe is worried that he's not welcome. We'll try to be very specific if we call out McCain supporters so that it's clear who we are calling out and that we're not calling out all of his supporters. I'm not interested in being Katty-van-van and increasing the rhetoric, raising it, until it seems like the entire world's future rests on one election. That's alarmist talk. It's "End of Times" talk. Let's all try to be grown ups and realize that elections are just elections. After two terms of the Bully Boy, you'd think we'd have a little perspective and be more interested in what people were doing to change things and less interested in who gets installed.
Dona: I've exchanged e-mails with Joe over the last two years. I wasn't aware of this one. The editorial that C.I. mentioned, along with C.I. wanting a line change -- actually several but the one we all agreed to ended up being enough -- C.I. pointed out that
war resisters could have been the editorial. That's very true. In the future, we'll probably be more inclined to do electoral pieces as feature articles and use the editorial for topics that aren't getting enough attention or for calling out the pathetic
Panhandle Media.
Jess: I want to be clear on something because I did read Joe's e-mail and it does continue past that point[read by Jim] to list websites where he no longer feels welcome, as a Democrat voting for McCain. Jim didn't read that part and that's fine. He, Ty and I debated naming those sites. But one of his concerns along with McCain being bashed over trivial matters is that we're going to become part of the chorus singing Barack's praises. That is not planned. For Barack to get praise from us, he'd have to actually stand for something. In order for him to stand for something, he'd have to receive real pressure and there's not going to be any pressure on him. I-Need-Attention-Benjamin hasn't protested him over his speech to AIPAC or
his telling CNN two weeks ago that he'd decide what to do about Iraq when he got into the White House. He's not going to be pressured and he's not going to move to the left. We're not going to turn into a Bambi fansite. Or write the "I am now a reluctant supporter of Barack" piece. It's not happening. Joe has seen it happen at various sites last week and he's concerned that it could happen here. I'm saying to Joe, "Keep reading and you'll see that it's not happening."
Ty: He was specific about, among others, Taylor Marsh and I thought I'd toss to Mike on that.
Mike: Elaine and C.I. both called Marsh's nonsense out. A few months back her position stated at her site was 'look I'm an American first, not a Democrat' as she explained she'd consider not voting for Barack if Hillary didn't get the nomination. Then it became, "If Barack's the nominee, I can't cheerlead him here because I know my readers and they know what I've said." Now it's "People, this is what Hillary wants!" Those are paraphrases. But over a few months time, she's indicated she would vote for McCain, then stated she would work for the Democratic Party but not Barack and then stated 'I'm koo-koo for Obama Puffs!' It's disgusting. I share Joe's disgust with it. I don't know the other sites mentioned but that site is a joke. I don't see it as my job to get Democrats elected. I see it as my job to tell my truth the best way I can. I would also encourage Joe to check out Ruth's site. Last week she highlighted a number of things on McCain and, though she won't be voting for him, she's not going to join in whatever ridiculous meme MoveOn is putting out.
Ruth: No, I'm not. If I see something to call out, I will call it out. But you have to remember, I'm a Democrat and there's very little Republicans can do at this point in my long life that would shock me. So I'm more apt to roll my eyes. I would have called out Bomb-Bomb-Iran if he'd done the song last week. Something like that, where he raises the level, I'll call out. But I'm not interested in repeating talking points from Democratic blogs. A) I don't read those websites. B) What I write may be dull or boring or badly written, but it's got my name on it and I wrote it. Anything else and I couldn't live with it and would just shut the site down tomorrow.
Rebecca: I'm going to jump in because I can guess which sites Joe named in his e-mail and they are appalling. "Reluctant supporter for Obama." I've gotten the same "Come over to the Dark Side, we will rule the world" crap e-mails everyone else participating has. I'm not joining the bandwagon and I will assume that those "Reluctant" supporters popping up last week decided to believe the promises of 'future riches.' Sell your soul and you have nothing.
Jim: Okay. Melinda is very mad at me because I didn't note her comment. I was going to try to do so last week but we didn't have a mailbag or a roundtable. So I'll note it here. Melinda says we left a very important movie star off the list, Liza Minnelli.
C.I.: Can I grab that? First, there are many left off the list and if there was someone you wanted noticed, by all means e-mail. On Liza, absolutely. The period is 1060 to 1979. Liza emerged as a movie star during that period. She has an Oscar that she earned. Every few years a studio or network toys with the idea of doing a Mame remake. Liza is the best choice for that role and never mentioned. She has the screen stature needed for the part, she obviously has the voice to sing the score and she would be able to bring a different shading the part. I know Liza and that's why I'm grabbing this. I'm not even sure that everyone participating has seen her movies and I want to be sure that she gets her earned praises. She is a huge talent. And a very nice person. Along with stellar performances in
The Sterile Cookoo and, of course,
Cabaret, she was amazing in
Stepping Out -- after the period we're discussing but I will note that -- and, like many actresses, suffered from the lack of roles for women.
New York, New York is already slowing being reconsidered. I think
Lucky Lady is badly paced but that she, Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds rise above the plodding direction.
Jim: So there you have it, Melinda, strong agreement from C.I. on your choice. And I'll add I'm sorry it got so long for your point to be included here. Jewell e-mailed to ask why we didn't note Hillary's speech last week?
Betty: I'll grab that. There was a lot of discussion about the speech while we were writing. The edition, the four parts ["
Piggies on parade," "
What Did You Do In The War, Mommy?," "
Norman Solomon remembers 'the ladies'" and "
Ms.went from playing dumb to outright insulting"] were already sketched out by Jim, C.I. and Mike before we got to planning the edition. We were all agreed, when we heard about those four articles, that we wanted to write them. Hillary's speech was announcing she was suspending her campaign. That didn't please us, needless to say. But it made the need to call out the sexism all the more important. We also knew that her speech would get praise.
Wally: And from some of the same people who used sexism to attack her while her campaign was active. They'd want to weigh in with their happiness because they got what they wanted. Like Betty's saying, it was, in fact, a comment on the speech in many ways. We wanted to address what she was going through the entire primary. We knew the pigs like Tom Hayden would praise her in a "I come not to bury Caeser, I come to praise" manner. I think we made the right choice on that. There are always things that we run out of time for, while we're working on the editions, but a "Let's talk about her speech" article was not anything we were intending to write. It was a great speech but we knew the reaction would be "I loved it! She's out!" and we didn't want to cover the speech because we weren't glad she's out.
Ty: And the e-mails on the four-part series were intense. People loved it and we're glad. Joanne loved it and also pointed out typos. We don't have time to fix them. We're all coming down from the work we were doing to get the vote out for her and, to steal from Kat, it is what it is.
Jim: And Sharon wanted it noted, in her e-mail on the series, "We're not stupid. And people like Norman Solomon better start grasping that. We have eyes. We saw what went down. We don't need their half-assed, semi-criticism of the sexism used. Everyone minimizing the sexism needs to be put on notice that we no longer consider you media critics. You never said a word and Amy Goodman, Norman Solomon, Janine Jackson, Katrina vanden Heuvel and all the rest, you are disgusting." Of the four features, the one on Solomon drew the most e-mails. The second one was the feature on
Ms. magazine. Those were the ones that warranted the most specific to one feature e-mails. And, of course, the biggest number of e-mails came in on Ava and C.I.'s "
TV: The Ugly People's Orgy." They've already written
their commentary this week and I asked them to knock it out early so they could address some questions in this roundtable. If it wasn't done, they'd beg off and say they don't talk about the process while doing it. But Jeff wanted to know how hard it was to write that since it was just about a TV drama and they had been covering news programming.
Ava: C.I.'s pointing to me. You know it was hard to write but it was harder to watch
Swingtown. It's a really bad show. Our big concern was we hadn't done a commentary focused just on entertainment since the writers strike. So you're going back many, many months. And we did wonder if we'd be able to jump back into it and all of that. Which is one of the reasons we did it, fear is a great motivating factor. Specifically to Jeff's question, we knew we'd tackle the issue of "Go Your Own Way." Other than that, after we decided to do strictly entertainment TV, we didn't know anything we were going to write about. With public affairs or 'news' programming, we knew A, B, C, D, etc. and only wondered about the order. So this was going back to the old way where we toss things back and forth and have no idea where we're headed and then one of us says, "We need to put something on paper." We start doing that and it flows. It was good to know we could still do that.
Jim: Fernando wanted to know when the next entertainment one would be coming?
Ava: Again, C.I. is pointing to me. We don't know. We had toyed with the idea of one show for this week; however,
Katie Couric's important commentary came along mid-week and that obviously had to be the focus. It may be next week, it may be later on.
Jim: Katie Couric's commentary was on the sexism in the primary race and Lou wondered if we were "part of the crowd that says the fight for the nomination ends now?"
Cedric: No. Everyone here thinks Hillary should take the fight to the convention floor. We hope she does that. But that's her deicison and she'll make it. What we'll do in the meantime is focus on getting the word out on
Ralph Nader who is a worthy candidate, someone who needs attention and someone who would make a great president.
Mike: I agree, we all do, with what Cedric said. And we're all aware of the verbal attacks on Hillary Clinton and aware that she may or may not want to go to the convention floor. We had serious discussions about that last weekend, while we were working on the edition, about how do we handle it and not just here but when we were writing at our own sites over the week? And the feeling was, we could make our opinions known and note it was her decision but we didn't want to get into every day we're writing, "Convention floor!" Because maybe she won't want to and the attacks were intense. We don't want to corner her or pressure her or take part in that. What we're trying to convey is that the support is out there and it remains. And if she decides, "I'm taking it to the convention floor," she'll have our backing. She'll hopefully have backing from a lot of people. But I can tell by reading
Corrente and others that some are 'moving on' and rushing to get on the Barack bandwagon.
Marcia: So, as a community, we would work on promoting Ralph and if it ends up that Hillary's going to take it to a convention floor fight in August, that would mean this fall we would have two candidates worth promoting. If she wasn't going to take it to the floor, we would have gotten the word out on one worthy candidate. And Cedric and Mike said it very well. For myself, when we were having those conversations, I was referencing Al Gore in 2000. He fought, his team didn't and Lieberman stabbed in the back, but he fought. And you could tell it was taking a toll on him before the Supreme Court decided the election. And, for me, I didn't want to take part in pressuring Hillary to go through that. If she decides to, that's great and I'm so there. But I don't know that she'll want to.
Ruth: It's also true that if Barack implodes through some scandal, Hillary won't have to take it to the convention floor, the super delegates will be for her and since she won the popular vote, that will be that. It's the point C.I. was making about how the nomination was not decided despite the press saying it was and that what was going on now was Barack's long audition process that lasts between now and August. If some new scandal or some existing scandal flares up, he's out.
Wally: The thing that bothers me has been seeing Taylor Marsh or Vast Left at
Corrente do their embraces of Barack -- however reluctantly they want to pretend. And I do worry in terms of if she decides to fight on the floor how much support she'll have after having suspended the campaign and people having rushed over to Barack.
Jess: Well, as Ruth pointed out, a new scandal will really upset everything. Barack's presented himself as the nominee, Hillary's suspended her campaign. A new scandal means he'll be dealing directly with the Republicans on it and it will be harder for the Hillary Hatred -- which is sexism and is the press hatred of all things Clinton -- to benefit him. Jeremiah Wright, and I probably need to go on record since I'm a Green and so many in my party have disgraced themselves over this, would have sent him into a nose dive opposite McCain. The Republicans didn't go to town on that the way they could have choosing to save their ammo and let the Dems bicker over it. But I don't care who you're talking about, Abraham Lincoln or Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford or JFK, if anyone who became a president had belonged to a church where the pastor damned the United States, that would have been that for them and they never would have become president. Greens offered a lot of pathetic excuses for that which basically boiled down as "They have suffered!" Doesn't matter. Lots of people have suffered. If you want to be president of the United States, you don't belong to a church that damns the country. You can't have it both ways. You can't claim to want to be the country's leader and sit in the pews while the pastor's daming the country. It's like deciding you want to be the spokesperson for pudding and it turns out your pastor says junk food is the food of the devil. It's inconsistent and in conflict. It's got nothing to do with race though a number of Greens -- a number of White Greens -- wanted to pretend it did.
Betty: You know I agree with you on that. And you know I was pissed at all the White people trying to pass it off as something that Black churches did. I have heard slavery called out, I have heard racism called out, but I have never in my life heard a pastor damn the United States. I have belonged to the same church my entire life, yes, but I have gone to other Black churches as well when I was a young girl and stayed over with friends on a Saturday night. That's crazy talk to claim that's normal. And it feeds into the image that Blacks are less patriotic so I found it really offensive, as a Black woman, to hear all these White people treat it as normal. My community was against the Iraq War when it started and I well remember the White, conservative attacks and the claims that we must be a less patriotic people so to have the White left turn around, only a few years later, and feed into that with their whole "This is what those people do" nonsense was extremely offensive.
Cedric: Well remember that the Barack campaign fed the press Michael Pfleger and he was treated, in this time, as normal and a White guide to the African-American world. That was really insulting and like watching
City of Hope and wondering why a film on India kept cutting to Patrick Swayze. It was the same thing. And, as it finally emerged, Pfleger was a crackpot and as bad as Jeremiah Wright. Only after Wright went after Obama did the press finally 'discover' that not all African-Americans thought Wright was goodness and greatness. Only after the attacks could we turn on the TV and find African-American members of the clergy criticizing what Wright has been doing.
Ty: If I can jump in to try to explain it to any White reader, especially if they were stupid enough to defend Jeremiah Wright who thought AIDS was a government plot to kill off African-Americans as well as damning the US, in the United States, African-Americans are not usually treated like full citizens. Our loyalties are always questioned by the larger society. As bi-racial Barack is finding out. So when you take a crackpot damning the United States, Kimberly Wilder, when you take him and turn him into "normal" and try to White Momma your way through an explanation of racism, you may think you are being helpful but you are feeding into a racist stereotype that African-Americans are less supportive of the United States than White Americans. You are saying it is normal for us to damn the United States. And long after the 2008 election is over, however it ends, there will be a number of Whites in this country who will believe that African-Americans just naturally damn the country. You were not helpful, you were hurtful and fed into the racist belief that African-Americans have divided loyalties and are not as patriotic as other Americans. That stereotype predates this election by many, many years. Instead of calling it out, you backed it up with your 'helpful' attitudes. Every White person doing that should have been called out loudly because what they were offering was racism -- intentional or not. And it's damaging and the African-American community -- not the White 'helpers' -- are the ones who will be living with the damage for many years to come.
Cedric: As Betty's mother would say, "I think you just said something."
Betty: You've made my mother's day. When she sees that you quoted her, she'll be grinning all day. That's her catch phrase whenever you make a good point: "I think you just said something." But I want to take it away from race because we've got a feature on race that we still have to write and I know I'm biting my tongue in this so as not to use stuff that could go into that. But I've seen what Mike has, the rush to get away from Hillary and embrace Barack, and, like Mike or the reader Joe, I find it disgusting.
Ruth: I wonder how much 'unity' will take place. I'm thinking about C.I.'s point about how these things fester.
C.I.: Well, Ruth's referring to last Tuesday's snapshot, after that went up, a friend called and said I was making the same point with polling data -- that these attitudes, for women, do not leap around, that they only increase -- that Susan Silver, a writer, has made for many years based on experiences. Her theory was that a man will hate someone but still work with him or play sports with him or whatever. But with women, if you don't like someone, you don't like someone. And whether you want to look at experiences or study long-range polling data on any issue, I think you see that.
Jim: And I asked you about the snapshot and you backed it up in the middle of the week. But my question is what about the polls they keep citing?
C.I.: Taken after Hillary's speech. There was going to be a bounce and you saw it. There will not be another bounce -- short of Barack offering Hillary the v.p. slot and her accepting. That's the last bounce. And it did not look promising despite the glowing write ups but remember that reporters are general study majors, they do not study polling or demography or methodology. Few of them know how to examine raw data and most think they've really done some work if they glanced at the polling questions.
Jim: Right but you also talked about the demonization and I was hoping you'd address that.
C.I.: Jeremiah Wright is not an issue, the press told the country over and over, and anyone who thinks it is is out of touch. They were able to demonize and cow for polling. People fell in line. But they didn't fall in line in the context they could control, such as letters to the editor or at the ballot box. And they won't. If tomorrow the press decided to paint everyone who watches
The Price Is Right as a drug addict, a poll on do you watch
The Price Is Right would find a large number saying "no." But ratings would demonstrate that people still watched but were aware enough to give the answers that were expected. The press can't control the ballot box, they can -- through repeated messages -- sometimes control polling outcome. But already there shtick about 'unity has taken place in the Democratic Party' has gone overboard and helped plant the seeds for the very real backlash.
Jim: Which will be big or small?
C.I.: Which will be significant. If Barack's the nominee, it will be significant in November.
Ava: Which he and his campaign do not get.
C.I.: I was waiting for Ava to continue but she's nodding to me. He doesn't get it and Ava and I note in
our piece this week that he's refusing to address sexism. He's hiding behind female surrogates who tell the press 'He's already addressed discrimination.' He used sexism. His refusal to address the topic harms him. Everything he does is filtered through a new lens. He is not the fresh face no one knows about. Anything to do with women comes with a close examination from here on out for Barack. As usual, the campaign is stupid and doesn't grasp that.
Rebecca: Well, I didn't hear the conversation but I heard of it from Jim. As I understand it you think the damage, if Barack's the nominee, will be a number of voters staying home?
C.I.: I do. I think they will say they're going to vote but they won't. People offended by the sexism, by the homophobia. You're asking people to go to a polling place in the middle of the week, a Tuesday, and give up their time that they don't have. A candidate who excites them can get them to do that. One who insults them? They have a hundred other things to do on any given day.
Marcia: I agree with that and my mother was actually polled last Monday. I heard her tell the pollster she'd vote for Barack. After she got off the phone, I told her I was surprised. She said she just told him what he wanted to hear to get him off the phone and that she wasn't going to vote for president. She thinks she'll vote in the election but not for president. And then she added, "You know Marcia, I've got so much to do, I might not even vote." And my mother does not skip elections so I was just shocked. I've tried to talk to her about Nader and she's not interested.
Ruth: Because?
Marcia: It's not one thing she can pin down. She likes his stands. But I don't know.
C.I.: Nader has failed to speak to women. McCain will pick up Hillary supporters. How many, who knows? But he's addressed it and there are women -- we've encountered them last week on the road -- who are going to vote for him. What was done to Hillary was very insulting.
Ava: And Howard Dean compounded the insult very early on by pretending he was addressing it and immediately rushing to the topic of racism. Nobody needs your damn lecture on racism, Howard Dean. We heard about racism from the press non-stop throughout the race. Did a month go by without Bill Moyers raising the issue? At that media 'reform' conference last weekend, an idiot was asked about the sexism, said about three sentences on the topic and then went off into a lengthy talk about racism. In both cases, the lack of attention given to sexism, the rush to leave the topic and run to racism, implied that sexism isn't a serious problem, that when forced to say something, you'll muster a few sentences but here's the big problem.
Elaine: Which only makes it worse. Women were hectored and lectured -- by Mark Karlin, Tom Hayden, Normy Solomon and others -- that they shouldn't take pride in Hillary's run, that they shouldn't vote out of any indentification based on gender. And African-Americans were never given the same speeches by these 'leaders'. We were told from the moment that Hillary won New Hampshire that we weren't voting smart, that we weren't smart. And every other week it was time to celebrate bi-racial Barack as Black. There was no celebration of women, there was no encouragement, while the race was on, to take pride in the history being made. So now, after sexism was used non-stop, when you are forced to mention it for a few sentences and then rush off to racism, the attitude is, "I've heard that speech before." Look at the press coverage from any outlet, for any week, from New Hampshire to Puerto Rico and you will see that over and over. It is good to vote based on race, it is bad to vote based on gender. "Look at all the African-Americans flocking to Barack, isn't it wonderful?" versus "Look at these bitter women supporting Hillary." That's how it played out over and over.
Mike: So after sexism was used nonstop by the media -- and include that supposedly liberated and supposedly left media of beggars like The Nation, Democracy Now!, The Progressive and all the rest -- when you rush forward to say, "Yes, sexism is a problem. But so is racism. And it is historic that Barack was able to run. And it is blah blah blah." No, you're again insulting. And no one's in the mood for it. There was never a real discussion of race in the United States during that period, but as C.I.'s pointed out at The Common Ills, how could there be when a bi-racial man at the center of the coverage was repeatedly called "Black"? But lip service was paid over and over to the idea that a discussion on race was taking place. The same wasn't done for gender.
Wally: And Bill Moyers is the perfect example because Crazy Bill can't shut up about racism. It really makes you wonder what he did all those years ago in Marshall, Texas. A city, by the way, that still has a White side and a Black side as Cedric and I found out when we were getting out the vote for Hillary in Texas. Bill Moyers doesn't tell the truth about Marshall because the town wouldn't be the way it is today if it was all the happy talk Moyers puts out on it. But, like Elaine said, wait, it was Ava, when did Bill ever do the examination of gender? Never. Shelby Steele come on down and let's talk race. Jeremiah Wright come on down and let's talk race. Over and over he did his segment on race. He never did a segment on gender. Not even during Women's History Month. In March, his "public television" show didn't feel the need to note Women's History at a time when a woman was in the race for the presidential nomination of a major political party. But if you notice, there aren't a lot of women on his show anyway. He can do lengthy sit downs with men over and over but few women ever get invited on. And, as Ava and C.I. have pointed out, when it's a segment with a man and a woman, Bill's tossing to the man repeatedly. That crap needs to be called out but no one will. He's the Great God we're all supposed to worship.
Cedric: I agree completely. And I'm glad Wally said it. And let's point out something else, he'll interview people from various points on the right spectrum. They can be Republicans or some other point on the spectrum. And admit that publicly. And he'll chat with them. But if you get on his show from the left you either better be a Democrat or willing to pretend. How does Mr. Public Television get away with ignoring Greens, Socialists and others week after week? How is that reflecting the diversity in the country or giving voice to those shut out by corporate media? Isn't that why PBS was invented?
Jess: Which is a good point but I've got a feeling Jim's about to move on and I want C.I. to clarify the statement about Nader. Kim Gandy, president of NOW, interviewed in a recent roundtable by Amy Goodman said she couldn't vote for Nader.
C.I.: Well she's not alone in that. And it's a handicap for Nader. I think there were numerous mis-steps by his campaign last week. He should have had something that targeted issues women would respond to. His platform is one women can get behind. But in a week when sexism was being discussed, he, due to the news cycle, is charting how his critique and questions of the NBA were accurate. There's a place for that but, especially when that's being emphasized and when you do have disenchanted Democrats, you really do need to do a reach out. McCain did and that's why he'll benefit. He could have talked about, for example, college. He could have addressed the skyrocketing tuition. That's something that women care about -- as do men -- and they could have heard about that and said, "Let me take a look at Nader." He could have -- and still should -- addressed the imbalance in the VA, where women are receiving worse care than men, who aren't receiving even good care. What Kim Gandy is referring to is many things but for most women it is the 2000 statements about aboriton and the Supreme Court. To many, those statements to
Rolling Stone and amplified elsewhere, came off as flippant or uncaring. It created a wall between and some potential female supporters. There are other things from the past as well. But the point is, in this campaign, he can address them. And if he does, he'll change the dynamic. On the abortion issue, he could steal it from the Democratic Party. The Democrats are using abortion as a threat to get people to vote for Barack. That is what we noted they'd do months ago and it's what they will continue to do through the election if Barack's the nominee. But they're not going to make speeches on abortion, the Obama campaign. If they do, it will be through surrogates. So distanced and weak. Nader could steal the issue from them and shore up support.
Rebecca: You really think he could seize that issue from the Democrats?
C.I.: Based upon what I'm hearing from friends with the Obama campaign and the DNC, yes. And based upon the
Harper's roundtable which was pure nonsense. Five White men plotting the destruction of the Republican Party and the dominance of the Democratic Party. Five White men telling you the world has changed. If it had changed all that much, maybe it wouldn't have been an all White, all male panel. Any reader should have grasped it that it was just more of the same. Thomas Schaller was the only one who was aware that abortion rights are the majority position in the country -- or aware enough to note that -- and Kevin Baker's saying that it's "a waning issue." This push is nothing new. Drop back to 2004, look at the Kerry campaign. Look at the post-election analysis when idiots were saying that the Democrats needed to drop abortion, that it had cost them the election. Look at
The Daily Toilet Scrubber, run by Henry Hyde's little buddy that we're supposed to believe is a Democratic now and all of his attacks on abortion rights as well as on women. There has been a very real push to abandon abortion rights. Nader could seize that issue. Cynthia McKinney could seize it. A libertarian could seize it. The last Democratic candidate to speak willing on the issue was really Bill Clinton. But let's not emulate him, after all, he was only elected president twice. If I can go on a little bit more --
Jim: Absolutely.
C.I.: I was talking about how now there is a test for Barack whenever it comes to women, as a result of the sexist primary season. That has raised awareness and the closest thing to that in recent times is the treatment of Anita Hill in 1991. Women are watching with a similar view to what they did in 1992. Ralph did a wonderful thing that we highlighted at The Common Ills last week where he was talking about the struggles that have helped this country progress and he spoke of women's suffrage. Great. If anyone saw that, they realized he was inclusive. If he could do that with abortion, he'd be seeing some real increases. And the Democrats do not want to discuss abortion. Remember, one of the 'leaders' on the national campaign is Nancy Pelosi who doesn't talk about abortion anymore. She stepped away from it as she revealed to Leslie Stahl on
60 Minutes in October 2006. There is a way to let people know that they are included in your plans for a presidency. The same prism that women will be looking through, the LGBT community will look through as well because a candidate who uses homophobia is a candidate they are always second guessing. I'm referring to Barack. A simple statement by Nader to the effect that, "Americans believe in marriage and marriage should be open to all Americans" would generate excitement. It would also generate press coverage which the campaign needs. And let me repeat a point I make repeatedly regarding Howard Dean's coverage. Howard Dean did not, as the MSM likes to pretend, suddenly pop onto the scene in 2004 with all this support or late 2003. The MSM ignored him and shut him out. The campaign was smart enough to realize that they could sell Dean to other media. It's how he ended up on the cover of
The Advocate when his national name recognition was not that high. The MSM does not break news in most cases. They notice what is bubbling up elsewhere.
Jim: Let me ask a question that's going to produce groans. You criticized the Democrats last week, and we all agree with you, for not responding to McCain on Iraq with their own plan. You said that they offered one-liners and smears and the take-away to the average voter not paying close attention was that McCain had some plan for Iraq and the Dems apparently had none. Barack's not for withdrawal, we know that. But if he were for it, how would he sell it?
C.I.: I'm going back to that awful roundtable in
Harper's. All of them accept -- and Schaller pushes -- the idea that you can't win and oppose the illegal war while "troops are on the ground." That's not just a mistaken perception, it's a historical lie. Democrats picked up Congressional seats due to the withdrawal in Vietnam. The first president elected after the withdrawal was Jimmy Carter. He was an 'unknown' and an 'insurgent' to read the press then -- sound familiar -- and he was running against Gerald Ford who was the incumbent. People can remember Ford as a bumbler as the parody version makes clear but it's equally true that Ford's faults were nothing compared to Richard Nixon, whom he replaced, and that America was collectively breathing a sigh of relief when Ford took over the presidency. So this notion that supporting withdrawal hurts Democrats is a myth. They all want Barack to stress the money, in the Harper's roundtable. That's a mistake.
Jim: You stopped. I want the commercial that Barack could do.
C.I.: Marcia's groaning. I'll give it, but Barack won't do it and I'll go into why after. Here's the commercial. Headlines of the death toll in Iraq, cut to Barack's somber face. "America entered into a war they never should have. The war has gone on for five years even though there were no WMDs. The war continues to go on. John McCain is promising you US soldiers will remain in Iraq. Text of the rising cost on the screen. In my family, we do what you do. We don't buy something we can't afford. We all know that. But somehow Washington never learned that lesson. It's time to for leadership and that requires grown up action. It's time for adults to say enough and end the war that should never have started. Maturity is confronting a mistake head on, not ignoring it." Then the "I'm Barack and I approved this message." That's off the top of my head. But that would be a winner for Barack. It takes the argument for withdrawal and stresses that adults fix things and don't just let them continue. It takes the position to an issue of maturity. And, if you missed it, that's an issue Barack needs to shore up. So in that commercial, he would be saying he's more mature, he's the grown up. And any response from the McCain camp would likely look petty and create the impression that the Obama campaign wants to about McCain. But Marcia, he's not going to do that. He wants to increase the size of the military, he wants to pursue new wars. This commercial would be an anchor around his neck if he were president. So I didn't just give them a tip they're going to use.
Marcia: I certainly hope not.
Jim: Okay, Dona, e-mail.
Dona: One of the problems is how tired we all are from everything. Kat, Ava and C.I. are on the road every week. The rest of us are not so used to doing it over and over. I don't remember if it was West Virginia or Kentucky when we all started hitting the road -- some of us just on weekends -- but we have really been pushing it. And certainly Marcia and Wally have because they were on the ground in Indiana from three weeks before the primary. But I say all of that to explain to Miles why we forgot what he pointed out in his e-mail Thursday: It's summer, where's our fiction edition?
Ty: We had all forgotten about that. When Dona mentioned his e-mail, we were like, "Oh yeah, it is June."
Cedric: And there were e-mails and phone calls about it. Ava and C.I. didn't think there was anyway for them to make their article this week into a short story. They were too tired and there were too many factual things and quotes that had to be included in it. So we're hoping for next week.
Rebecca: The plan is for next week to be the fiction, summer read edition. That will depend on inspiration as well as on time. It's funny because Ava was talking about how she and C.I. were nervous about doing the entertainment review last week because they felt rusty and that's how I feel going into the summer read edition. Anyone else?
Dona: My big concern is always will we have enough pieces. I'm the least interested in the quality. Jim's more concerned about that. I'm more like, "Good! Another piece!" If you're new to that regular summer read, it will contain an editorial which will not be fiction, it will contain highlights, Jim's note and Ava and C.I. on TV. Marcia will be new to it in terms of writing if she wants to participate.
Marcia: I'm looking forward to it. I don't know how much help I'll be but having seen them the last three summers, I'm really curious to see how they're put together.
Jess: Expect to be more puzzled about how they're put together after the edition is finished. There is no rhyme or reason and when we're short on ideas, we'll ask anyone participating who keeps a journal -- that's Dona, Elaine and C.I. -- to grab one and read from it as we search for another idea. I'm honestly not looking forward to it. I think our best was in 2005 and then in 2007. I think it would be smart to say, "And now we're done with it." I have the same sort of apprehension that Rebecca was talking about.
Kat: But it is what it is. And readers know that. I think, from what I've heard in terms of feedback, the big thing is always, "Yea! You tried a fiction edition!" And that's due to the fact that so many used to offer summer reads -- at one point even Rolling Stone was offering them -- and now they don't. It's not like we're promising Nabokov, just a quick read for summer time. And, what everyone's forgetting, is that Jim, Ava and C.I. and Wally as well on the last two, usually come up with a humor piece when we think we have nothing. So unless you're Jim, Ava, C.I. or Wally, there's really not that much pressure. I don't want us to scare Marcia before we're even starting that edition.
Marcia: I think I'm already there.
Jim: Well, it's not like these normal editions where all the pieces go through numerous drafts and discussions. We generally do a basic discussion where we're tossing out ideas. People add a little to ideas they like. Then we generally break up into groups and some will be finished just by one group, some will need rounding out but it's actually a lot easier in terms of the process. That's why, back in March, I suggested we do a fiction edition and everyone shot it down. But everyone was tired and I think it would have been a much easier edition. Ty?
Ty: Lewis, community member, wants to know how C.I. is supposed to write anything with Jim peering over the shoulder?
Jim: I'm laughing. That's in reference to Friday morning's entries. Dona, Wally, Jess and I were on the road with Kat, Ava and C.I. all last week. Friday morning's entries went up right before noon EST. The time stamps on them is when they were started. "
Other Items" is basically as it was written that morning with no additions. "
Pelosi v. Reid," the first section is as written that morning. But C.I. was on the phone discussing The New York Times article and writing it on the laptop and I was saying, "No, no! You have to save that for Third." I'm sure it was a pain in the ass. Finally, we had to go to speak so nothing went up and C.I. told me, "If anyone complains about that, I'm blaming you." After we got done speaking, C.I. got back on the laptop to redo the second part of the first entry and I was reading over the shoulder still. A lot of time I am saving something for this site, no question. But, in my own defense, I was also aware that Ava and C.I. were going to be covering the topic here and knew if a lot of things went into it, like too much on Dr. Kathy, they wouldn't be able to cover what they'd already been discussing and would instead have to find a completely new angle. So my motives were semi-pure for a change. If I'm around when C.I.'s writing, or Mike or anyone, I'm usually reading over their shoulders.
Ty: Barbara e-mailed to note that we used to do "What we're listening to" and that it was always interesting for her to read and that she figures it was quick to write so she wonders why we don't do that anymore?
Dona: There's never time. We're planning a shorter edition this weekend with Ava and C.I.'s article and this transcript piece being the two big pieces so we can do it this weekend and will for Barbara. But the reality is that when you get all of us discussing music it can go on forever. If we just made it a top ten list of what was playing during the edition with no comments, it would be a very quick piece to write.
Wally: And Dona's right that the discussions do go on a long time but I like doing those. And from the discussion, we'll maybe have one or three sentences for each CD we list. It's a time waster, yes, but it's also an enjoyable time.
Cedric: I'd second that.
Jim: Okay, we need to wrap up and Dona says Ruth, Kat and Elaine have spoken the least. That may not turn out to be true in the transcript because there's a section that I know will be pulled from the transcript. I've got one more e-mail I have to note. Jonas should have been noted last week and we didn't have time to do a roundtable or mailbag. He writes: "With Hillary out, I'm on board with Nader. I know the best case scenario is Nader wins and we get a president who truly wants change and wants to improve the living conditions for all Americans. But can we talk about what happens if Nader loses. I assume McCain might become president. Have we accomplished anything? That's my father's argument and if you can give a strong enough argument, he's willing to listen."
Ruth: Oh, I wish C.I. was taking this. What have I accomplished in voting for Nader if he loses? I have voted for a candidate I truly believe in which is never something to minimize. I have said the existing two-party system is not serving the country. Now you know why I mainly listen. But I really do think it matters that you vote for what you believe in. Whomever you are voting for, you should believe in them. If you are not able to, you should go for the least worst, sure. But when you have the chance to vote for someone who you believe in, that's who you should go for. If Barack's the nominee, Mr. Nader has my vote and I will have a vote I am proud of.
Kat: Well look it, if McCain is elected, he's going to be elected because he got the most votes. You can't worry about that. It would be like a bakery deciding to only serve glazed doughnuts because they were afraid other items would take away from that. To force something on someone, you have to rig it. Ralph will get the votes he wins. Other candidates will get the votes they win. But if McCain gets into the White House, let's lose the notion that it's the end of the world. A president is only one third of the federal government. Congress and the Supreme Court can do their jobs. If they don't, as they didn't recently, we end up with what we've been living under. I think we all got hyped into "End of Times" in 2004. I'm not going to bet my sanity on a presidential election. Many Americans don't vote because they don't think it makes a difference. The argument is that if Nader voters had voted for Gore in 2000, we never would have had the Iraq War. No one knows that. There's no indication that Bully Boy wouldn't have sued regardless. He already had plans to sue if he won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. They were ready to make the argument. Equally true is that while Al Gore did speak out against the illegal war as the drum beats got intense, he earlier was supporting it publicly. That break's never been explained. On my end, I attribute it to Gore coming across better information. There's no fact that would demonstrate he would have done that if he'd been in White House. It's all conjecture. Certainly it was more than Dick Cheney wanting war with Iraq. Based on the war patterns of both parties, there's no guarantee that Gore wouldn't have started a war in another part of the world. I like to think that because he's obviously an intelligent man, his response to 9-11 would have been different. But I don't know that. With Bully Boy, we got support from the media for his attacks. If Al Gore had been in the White House and had responded more rationally -- I do not approve of the Afghanistan War -- and the same media that wanted war didn't get it, they would have attacked him and how long would his White House have stood up to that? I don't know. But this idea that you vote out of fear needs to end. And this make every election the key moment in our lives nonsense is nonsense because every four years there's going to be another one. The Nation has turned it into a prime time soap operat's season ender. 2004 was Dynasty after the wedding slaughter. Each time, you have to raise it and raise it and soon people lose interest. And the comedowns from those cliff hangers is always rough.
Elaine: I think Ruth and Kat both made strong points and just want to try to tie them together. They're both talking about the power of your vote. That's your vote. You own it, no one else. If it matters to you, you'll vote for who you think will do the best job. That is what an election is supposed to be about. Let me take it to marriage. If you see some man or woman you want to marry, someone who is the perfect fit for you but you tell yourself that he or she wouldn't be able to make it to the alter -- probably thinking that they're out of your league -- then whomever you settle for is a comedown. And you're not getting the person you really love. So you're not going to be happy and they're not going to be happy. If, in marriage, we know that we should marry the person we love -- even while denying all Americans the right to marry, we know that -- why is it that in an election, the foundation of democracy, we tell ourselves to settle for the second choice, to walk down the aisle holding our noses? I don't want to upset anyone but my own opinion is that although Hillary should take it to the convention floor, she'll be pressured not to for 'the good of the party.' Got to kill a lot of lambs to please the Party Gods. A vote for Ralph Nader is not wasted if he doesn't win. I'll be voting for Ralph and hoping he will win. But if he loses, a message is sent. He's running a campaign on issues and the more votes he gets the more chance that the two political parties will have to grab his issues in the future. That is historically what has happened. I voted for Al Gore and I am comfortable with that vote. In 2004, I voted for John Kerry and I'm not comfortable with that. The Kerry leading into the convention and the Kerry of the convention and after were two different candidates. Like Ruth says, it's your vote and you have to own it. You have to live with it. If you're considering Nader, as Jonas notes, the best outcome is he will win. The worst outcome is that you will have said you want real change. You won't have voted out of fear. You won't have accepted the nonsense that we have no long range vision in this country and drop all our standards every four years to vote for the lesser of two evils. I think you'll also send a message to the media -- big and small -- that, no, you don't control me. Ruth wants to say something so I'm going to yield to her.
Ruth: Thanks. I am very bad when put on the spot. Call me Barack Obama. But listening to Kat's response and Elaine's made me want to add to my own. If the choice for you is between Mr. Nader and Mr. Obama and you are leaning towards Mr. Obama because you think he is 'electable' you need to ask what message you are sending? If he is elected, you are saying that homophobia is okay. That message will be picked up. It will be used by Democrats in future races because he got away with it. If he is elected, you are saying that sexism is okay. That message will be carried on long after he has left office. You are not just sending a message that the two parties are not serving your interests, you are also sending a message that Democrats cannot pander to homophobia and use sexism. You are saying, "That is unacceptable." That is a strong message to send.
Elaine: Ruth's nodding to me. Kat, jump in if you want, but the election is in November. No one knows what is going to happen between now and then. So if you are for Ralph Nader, I would encourage you to talk about that with friends. I have a friend who is scared to tell anyone she is voting for Nader. She only told me because of my blog. I worry that a number of his supporters may be supporting him and planning to vote for him but wanting to keep the support secret. So if you're for him, or even just following his campaign, it's really important that you share that.
Kat: I wasn't planning to add on anything, I think Ruth and Elaine said it all. But I will add a point on excitement. You can build excitement. 6% is great but we can take that higher. We can make sure people know Ralph is in the race and what he stands for. Say we get the support up to 33%. In most election years, that wouldn't win you the race. But we're looking at four potential candidates pulling a large number of votes: Nader, Barack, McCain and Bob Barr. I'm not for the 5% campaign but hopefully Cynthia will emerge victorious in what she's set out for. So my point here is that this isn't Bob Dole versus Bill Clinton. If Nader gets up to 33% that could be enough to make him the winner. Say Cynthia gets the 5% that leaves 95% up for grabs between McCain, Barack, Barr and Ralph. In other election cycles, he might need 50% or greater. This is do-able. And I'm cribbing badly from advice C.I. gave a young woman who stated last week she was voting for Nader but getting a lot of flack for it. C.I. responded that you're looking at a race with a lot of contenders and, if everyone stays in, it's unlikely that the winner will have emerged with 50% of the vote.
Jim: I had forgotten that. It's a good point to go out on.
