Dona: As much as our readers love Ava and C.I., I love them equally. I won't argue for 'I love them more,' so save the angry e-mails. But as this edition has fallen apart -- not shaped up, fallen apart -- one thing became clear, this was coming very close to being nothing but the Ava and C.I. edition. I'm all for that. I love their writing as much as anyone. But it's not fair to use them as a crutch and we should also work to acknowledge topics that are just not working as feature articles. There are a lot of strong feelings about various topics and we can cover it in the roundtable -- although I fear people are so dejected from the failures of various drafts on the subject that they may not even want to address certain topics.
Jim: Ava and C.I. did another masterpiece TV commentary. It's amazing. They have to write a new ending for it because we've picked its bones. It works as three articles, not one. So we worked on the breaks with them, where to pull what, and they need to do a new conclusion because two large chunks are now no longer in it. We have three strong feature articles to offer and they're all by Ava and C.I. That's Dona's point. And things we're attempting are just not working. It's five in the mroning and we never start a roundtable this late but we've never had so many problems with an edition. So we're going into roundtable hoping we can address some issues that way. Ty may pull from e-mails during this to note certain topics, questions or comments. First I'm going to toss to Jess on a topic involving this site.
Jess: Joseph Cannon, a White man, decided to attack our Stan, affirmative action, Bobby Rush and assorted other topics last week. Due to his language and his attitude and his attacks, we're not in the mood for him. There are 100 US Senators. Only 1 is Black: Roland Burris. Barack is a person of color, when he won the presidential election in November, his Senate seat should have been held for a person of color. That is not racism. Attacks on affirmative action like Joe Cannon launched? That's racism. We apologize to our readers because we had highlighted Cannon's work in the past. That was our mistake. We did not realize he was a racist. Jim and Dona are journalism majors in grad school. Ava will either go into the family business or not and isn't thinking about it -- journalism -- right now. I'm in law school, Ty's working in the film industry. C.I. was never a journalism major and had her degrees long before shemet us. Those are the people who make up Third: Jim, Dona, Ty, Ava, C.I. and myself. We have a healthy respect for journalism. We do not move in changing the public record. But we also don't believe in applauding racists. The fact that we didn't know Cannon was a racist, doesn't change the fact. We can't take back what we did but we can take it out of the archives. We discussed that at length. We made the decision to delete any "Truest statement" he had. If you pull up one of those, you will now find a note explaining we have pulled it, explaining we did not know he was a racist and offering our apology. We felt comfortable with that journalistically. He is noted and quoted in other feature articles here. To delete that would require rewriting the pieces so that they made sense. We were not comfortable with that.
Jim: Thanks, Jess. Okay, Stan, let's toss to you with any thoughts on this issue.
Stan: Well, I appreciate the fact that everyone supported me. Originally, C.I. dictated a lengthy commentary that would have opened Thursday's "Iraq snapshot" and I asked that it be pulled. My reason was the snapshot gets reposted by all sites posting that day and I didn't want anyone to feel that they were forced into making a statement. Everyone did end up making a statement and I appreciate the support. I was originally uncomfortable calling Joe Cannon a racist because it is a serious charge; however, C.I. and Ava pointed out to me, "He was free with tossing it at you." And he was. I'm a racist for believing that Barack's seat should have gone to a person of color -- according to him, I'm a racist.
Marica: I'm jumping in here because I did not appreciate my cousin being called a racist and I want to be the first to say, "Joe Cannon, kiss my Black ass." But I also did not appreciate the way he screamed f-you at Stan over and over. The man's crazy. Stan's explaining his opinion and the man's snarling, "You're a racist, you're a bigot, f-you, f-you." He's insanse. And PUMA's insane for being in bed with him. He's already attacked The Confluence screaming they were bigots and sexists for comments about men. That was your first clue, PUMA, that you needed to walk away from the crazy. He's unhinged. He's not stable. And it's going to get a lot worse.
Betty: Agreed. The violence in that comment to Stan was just distrubing. I'd love to be a part of PUMA except I can't be part of racism. PUMA -- and Kat wrote about this expertly -- has made the argument that Hillary's Senate seat should go to a woman because Hillary's a woman and there are so few women in the Senate. To allow Cannon to scream that it's racism to make a similar argument regarding people of color and not call him out makes PUMA look like either racist or hypocrites. I'm not part of PUMA. I wanted to be, but I'm not.
Jim: Kat, you mentioned in the post Betty's talking about that you could return to that topic.
Kat: And I didn't Friday. I was too tired. I didn't want to pull up their sites, I didn't want the drama. I may address it next week. I may not.
Ruth: If I can jump in -- and Kat, stop me if I say something you intended to write about --
Kat: If you say something I intended to write about, I will applaud you because it will mean one less thing for me to do. Go for it, Ruth.
Ruth: Okay, well, I just think PUMA is struggling right now. I do not mean it is losing members. I do mean that it is no longer sure what it stands for. In what I consider the two leading PUMA blogs, I see a split that the two women try to paper over. One blog promotes the outrage so many felt --
Rebecca: And still feel.
Ruth: And still feel over what took place in 2008. The other wants to smooth things over to the point of arguing PUMA means "People United Means Action." Which is just silly because it was "Party Unity My Ass" and when you rewrite history, you weaken yourself.
Rebecca: Well "Party Unity My Ass" is the better slogan to begin with because it speaks of power. It speaks of standing up and refusing to go along. I found it hilarious when that was the slogan, how many outlets refused to print it or say it. They'd act like "ass" was a bad word. And, if you think about it, they use that word on air and in print. The only difference was, PUMA was seen as a female movement. So when women say "ass" it, apparently, needs to be censored.
Ruth: And I agree that "Party Unity My Ass" is the better slogan. It is a tougher slogan. "People United Means Action" sounds like something NARAL would come up with. The whole point was PUMAs would not be pushed around. But I do think they're struggling and trying to figure out what PUMA means after Barack's sworn in.
Betty: Are you using that as an excuse for their being in bed with Cannon?
Ruth: Absolutely not. There is no excuse for that. What I am attempting to do is note that they have a number of problems and I would include their purpose with their inability to make it clear that they support neither racism or hypocrisy.
Betty: I'm done with them. It's a White movement for White people. Were that not the case, they would have called out Cannon because that is offensive. It is offensive to scream Stan is a racist when he is making the exact same argument that the PUMA movement made for Hillary's seat. For PUMA to ignore that garbage coming from someone associated with them is to give permission for that garbage. I'm sorry but I am so sick of supposed movements that regularly leave people out. Whether it's women, people of color, the LGBT community, I'm sick of it. And that "I'm sorry" is aimed at C.I., not Ruth. I'm not mad at Ruth. I'm not mad at C.I. either. But "I'm sorry" because I know my statements mean C.I. will pull PUMA Pac from the links at The Common Ills.
Ava: C.I.'s nodding but rushing to write down what Betty's saying, I was shaking my hand so I wasn't taking down what Betty was saying.
Jim: And if Ava's already shaking her hand, it means we need to watch the time because Ava and C.I. take the notes for this and we don't want to wear them out. Stan, back to you for any more thoughts on this.
Stan: I honestly did not expect it. If I thought I was going to be attacked and called a racist, believe me, I wouldn't have put a comment up. I was with community member Eddie at work and he was showing me his favorite blog sites while he was on break at work. We read that and I thought I'd offer my opinion and never assumed I'd get f-you, over and over, let alone called a racist and a bigot. My week was busy enough, I didn't need to cause myself aggrevation. I had no idea Cannon was as mentally unstable as that.
Jim: Betty moved out here -- California where the core six, Wally and Kat are -- on Monday. As a result of that, Ava, C.I., Kat and Wally cancelled last week's engagements. They were going to be in Texas. They couldn't cancel everything. Rebecca and Ruth offered to fill in for the things that couldn't be cancelled. Stan heard about it and wanted to go for a number of reasons including he'd never seen Texas. So they were there speaking about the illegal war and also hanging out with community members who live in Texas.
Stan: Right. And I didn't have to log on to blogger to leave my comment. Eddie said that when I decided to comment. He just puts in his e-mail address and name when he commented in the past. But I thought Cannon might be interested enough in what I was saying that he'd want to know who I was. So I logged in with my Blogger/Blogspot i.d. And until he started hurling his insults, I really did think we would be in agreement on the core issue. The whole thing was a surprise. I was still not believing it happened when C.I. called. Then we went to speak and after that I got back online. Other than that, it was a good week and I really enjoyed Texas. I'm sad to say it's kind of a blur but when I get the photos developed, I hope I've got a clearer idea on what is where and all. It was fun meeting community members and it was fun traveling with Ruth and Rebecca.
Jim: Okay, we're going to move on to other topics. "Barack's fan club poses as journalists" resulted in a record number of e-mails from 'names'. Most agreed with us. One who did not was Anthony Arnove -- mentioned in the article. He e-mailed to stress that he and Howard Zinn were not attending the so-called peace ball this week. I added a note to the article. I also posted "The hosts" which is a copy and paste of the 'peace' ball's website page where they list who the hosts are. We didn't make up that fact. Anthony Arnove is not participating, nor is Howard Zinn.
Mike: But their names are listed as hosts.
Jim: Don't go there, Mike.
Mike: I can imagine. Well let me speak for me and for me only: Don't let your name be listed as a host if you don't endorse the event. Don't say, "Well I'm not attending," if you're allowing your name to be listed. And don't kid me that you couldn't get your name pulled from your friends Busboys & Poets event if you really wanted it pulled. There's no need for anyone else to comment and I'd prefer they not. My name is Mike McKinnon, those are my remarks. My public e-mail address is irishmike02@yahoo.com if anyone has a problem with my remarks.
Jim: And our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com, to toss that out there. Ty has something on e-mails.
Ty: Though nothing like the response to one of Ava and C.I.'s TV commentaries, we are getting a ton of e-mails on "Editorial: The bum works for you." We tried to expand on that for a feature article and it didn't work. I think we need to introduce it as a topic here.
Elaine: Well let me start. In 1961, the country was better off economically. Real wages were higher and the cost of living was much less. At such a time when the government was presumably supplying the needs and wants of a significant portion of the people, a president could get away with "Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." The reality is that was forty years ago and no one needs to hear that damn s**t again. The reality is that the country has screwed over the economy and the citizens. The reality is that the last eight years has seen very little done for the people so don't pull that ask not crap today. It's time for the American people to demand that their country work for them. This idea that the people are going to sacrifice, uh-uh. No. They have sacrificed. The working-class and the poor have sacrificed over and over and over again. There is no more sacrifice left for them to make. It is gone as surely as the American middle class is gone.
Cedric: I feel like I need to applaud on that. Say it again, Elaine. I agree with everything she just said. That editorial, as I remember it, was largely C.I., Elaine and Jim. Maybe Ava? I'm talking about the seeds for it and the sketching out. We all ended up writing it. But I know C.I.'s the one who brought up that speech and how Barack was asking for the common person to sacrifice again. And I just remember how as the three or four of them bounced around ideas, I just thought, "That claptrap has been used to hold Americans back for years." And I firmly believe that now. It's not high minded, it's not our better natures, it's one more stunt pulled by the establishment to keep us from demanding what we are entitled to. Call me Cedric X.
Wally: He's laughing. And I am too but I agree. Why shouldn't you ask what your country can do for you? The United States exists to provide for the general welfare. When is that going to happen again? And I know -- I don't know. I don't know what's going to get written this edition. The whole thing's fallen apart and outside of Ava and C.I.'s articles, I have no idea what's going to make it in. But this sacrifice bulls**t is bulls**t and C.I. was noting Barack's call for us to sacrifice two weeks ago and how it was only going to get louder. We all hope to do something on a section in Friday's "Iraq snapshot" but in case that doesn't make the cut, I want to include Barack's comments on Social Security right now. This is what he said to The Washington Post's editorial board:
We're also going to have a discussion about entitlements and how we get a grasp on those. Uh and uh, you know, like i think everybody here is familiar enough with the budget problems to know that as bad as these deficits that we're running up over the next -- that have already been run up -- have been and despite the cost of both TARP and the stimulus, the real problem in our long term deficit actually has to do with our entitlement obligation and the fact that historically uh if our revenues ranged between 18 and 20% of GDP they're now at 16. It's just not sustainable so we're going to have to uh craft a uh what George Stephanopoulos called a grand bargain and I-I try not to use the word grand in anything that I say but uh but we're going to have to shape a baragain. This, by the way, is where there are going to be some very difficult choices and issues of sacrifices and responsibilty and duty are going to come in because what we have done is kick this can down the road. We're now at the end of the road and uh we are not in a position to kick it any further.
Wally (Con't): Again, that's Barack Obama. Speaking last Thursday.
Cedric: And we thought that was so important, Wally and I, that we made that our excerpt from the snapshot for our joint-post. My grandmother's on Social Security, Wally's grandfather's on it. We take this issue very seriously and very personally. And this crap that Barack's repeat right-wing talking points is disgusting but what's he's saying beyond that is even more disgusting.
Rebecca: Well just remember he's fighting to preseve Bush's big tax breaks for big money but he wants sacrifice from the working class? No, again it's an issue where the common person gets screwed. I don't have a personal stake here, I'm loaded. In fact, if I have a personal stake, it would be arguing to preserve the tax cuts for the rich. I haven't done that and I won't do that. It's outrageous that he thinks he can get away with asking for sacrifice from the people who have lost out for the last eight years. That's disgusting.
Ava: Can I just make one point -- and C.I. and attempted to make this when we were trying to make this topic an article. Social Security, Barack says, needs fixing. We're in the midst of an economic meltdown. That should be Barack's focus. Social Security is fine. It's not in a crisis. It's not facing a crisis. A minor adjustment may need to be made in 2040. No sooner. That's 31 years away. We have an economic meltdown in this country. Barack's job should be to deal with that. If he's tinkering around with Social Security, he's not doing his job.
Mike: I agree with that completely. And since he's now saying that the economy will probably still be bad in 2009, I don't see how he has the 'luxury' to monkey around with things that are not an immediate crisis. I think we should take the attitude of every hour he spends working on the solvent and non-crisis Social Security is an hour he should have spent on the American economy. And the bum does work for us. I loved that editorial. We need to remember that and we need to remember we're calling the shots. That's the other thing the JFK bulls**t did, it twisted and subverted the power relationship. Presidents serve us. They work for us. This isn't England, they're no damn kings and queens. They are employees and we do not glorify or worship them.
Betty: I am so sick of the giddy Barack crowd. It reminds me of the Americans who get giddy over Fergie or Princess Di. It's really disgusting. And it's become a money maker. You know CNN's decided every day's 'historic' because they want to pump up ratings. That's all this is. It is the same media that sold you the Bully Boy after 9-11 and now it's selling you Barack and you are such a lunatic that you will buy it.
Jim: She didn't mean Mike.
Betty: No, I didn't. Sorry. "You" is the bulk of the American people. Ruth and I were talking about that last week.
Ruth: Right. I thought we were all opposed to the last eight years. On the left, I thought that. I thought we were opposed to press conferences that were staged, to presidents who prescreened questions. Now all of the sudden we accept that behavior?
Betty: And all the money wasted? Isaiah's comic two weeks ago, can we get it inserted in here, even in small form?, was correct. In 2004, the press was outraged that big inauguration parties were being planned because the country was at war. Right now, we're still at war and our economy has tanked. But the same press won't call it out.
Ava: I'm answering for both of us. We've talked about this, we know how each other feels. Sarah Palin, for an upcoming documentary, speaks about Tina Fey and Katie Couric -- among others. Of those two women, she argues that she was exploited by both. We don't disagree with that call. As Palin herself should know, that's what Couric's job is. She is supposed to make the powerful uncomfortable. Any interaction with them should result in expolitation that gives her viewers something lively to watch. Hopefully, it illuminates as well -- that is journalism -- but she's on broadcast TV and it's about ratings. We're not slamming Katie by agreeing with Palin, we're noting the nature of the beast that is TV news. Now Katie behaved the same way with Barack. Instead of it receiving the praise and amplification that her Palin segments did, she got boos and hissses. We didn't boo and hiss her for either. She's supposed to ask questions, she's supposed to put people on the spot. She did her job. Her job is expolitation. That is what the press does. You can dress it up in fancy words but that is the press. They show up when things go wrong. They exist on conflict. No conflict, no news. It's the model, it's the template. Katie did her job and did it very well. That doesn't make Palin wrong. I've explained how she is right.
Jim: And Tina Fey?
Ava: We've addressed Tina Fey at length. Remember how I said Katie was the same way with Barack? She was. She got slammed for asking him a question repeatedly. She had to ask it repeatedly because he refused to answer it. Katie, on her job as anchor, showed no bias. I think she needs to self-check on some of her comments to Letterman and others but behind the anchor desk, on the Evening News, she was consistent. Saturday Night Live was not fair, was not consistent. They invented slams at Hillary. It started long before Palin entered the race. They attacked Hillary with a vengence. They only increased the hatred when Palin entered the race. They made her look ridiculous and Tina Fey has tried to blame that on Seth as the writer. However -- and we've pointed this out in our commentaries -- Tina's responsible for her voice. She chose to pitch her 'Sarah' voice higher. Sarah Palin's voice is lower than Tina Fey's. But Tina wanted Sarah to come off an airhead so she made it higher. That's the first thing she did. She continued to distort who Palin was. Now not only was Barack not held up to ridicule, you had Tina sexualize Palin. That was Tina Fey, that was not in the script. No one wrote, "Palin hikes up her skirt to flash her leg." Tina did that on her own. She added many such touches and turned Palin into a joke. She did so intentionally and she did so out of spite and malice.
Jim: Her show got renewed.
Ava: Only because Kath & Kim is so wretched. I'm not joking. NBC owns a stake in it and they're too close to syndication to cancel it. But the show's a flop. It's had every chance in the world and it still can't hold onto the lead-in it gets from The Office. People would rather shut off their TVs for thirty minutes and come back for ER than sit through 30 Rock. It's a bomb.
Jim: Okay, we had pretty good participation. Another article we were trying to write that just wasn't working was about Roland Burris, who was finally given the oath last week. I'm pausing. Okay, I'm going to ask C.I. about this and we all agreed we'd close with this. I was pausing because Ava had to grab the note taking. C.I.'s "I Hate The War" went up Thursday and you can refer to it for further reading. One point C.I. made was that we did not endorse Roland Burris. That seems to be confusing to two drive-bys. We said seat Roland Burris. It's a point Stan attempted to get across as well. To have endorsed Burris, we would have needed to have lobbyied for him before Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed him. Once he was appointed, he was the Senator. Something the state's supreme court found and, finally, even Harry Reid and Dick Durbin had to admit. We called for the Senator to be seated. Now C.I. was working on the lobbying efforts as was Elaine. I assume Ava as well? Yeah, she's nodding. We noted Elaine and C.I.'s work and they noted it at their sites while it was going on. We forgot to include Ava. But the three of them were working members of Congress and the press advocating for Burris to be seated. And there was a funny -- I found it funny -- exchange at one point that I overheard.
C.I.: Barack's people wanted me to note that he was for Roland Burris. He'd done a 360 and completely flipped. He originally was against it. He said Burris shouldn't be seated. When the pressure was applied -- and especially the reaction of the African-American community -- he flipped. And a friend on Barack's transition team was yelling at me that I had to note the flip because I had called him out -- Barack out -- for saying Burris shouldn't be seated.
Jim: And C.I. refused to note it. And was yelling back.
C.I.: The argument I made -- there were numerous arguments in the community -- but the one I made was, Barack's been elected president. It is no longer his seat. He doesn't have any say over it. So it would be stupid for me, having made that argument, to then begin saying, "Roland Burris should be seated and Barack Obama thinks so!" I've already said Barack's opinion on this is meaningless. And it is. And if I had wanted to really go to town back then, I could have pointed out that he promised the people of Illinois he wouldn't run for president and would serve out his term which he did not do so having broken that promise, his actions having resulted in the need for an appointment, he should really keep his nose out of it.
Jim: And I wanted that story shared for a few reasons and you can consider this "Jim grabs the closing thoughts." You need to have to standards. You need to stand for something you believe in. You can't just stand for it when it's popular or when it's fun or easy. And we're not seeing that in the left today. It's already been pointed out how we supposedly hate stage managed press conferences but the left is refusing to call out Barack's use of them. We're seeing dozens and dozens of examples of that and its really disgusting. The conversation I overheard took place over speakerphone and the guy was yelling that if C.I. wants Burris seated, well Barack saying he should be seated will help because Barack's so popular. And C.I.'s shooting back, paraphrase, 'My whole point was it's not Barack's business. That was my point when he was against Burris. To now argue that we need to listen to Barack, just because we now agree, on the replacement would undermine everything I've argued." Every week we do an editorial here and there are some that we've outgrown, there are some that we probably wouldn't recognize. But we've never lied. I can't figure out what the hell has gone wrong with The New York Times' editorial board but not only are the editorials badly written, they're badly argued. C.I. noted a shameful editorial recently. We should have noted it here. The paper was advocating for more resources for the national census. Fine. Not a bad position to take. But how do you argue that case? The paper decided to argue it as Democrats benefit from a solid census so they should argue for better funding. How do you do that and, when its census time next, argue with a straight face if it's a Republican president or Republican controlled Congress? That editorial was an embarrassment and it also risked turning the census -- which is nothing but raw data -- into a partisan issue when it shouldn't be that at all. A paper allowed a one-sided and short-sighted editorial to be published on what should have been a non-political issue. And the media watchdogs ignored it, didn't call it out. That was the topic of the piece I was advocating for. So that's the roundtable. We're going to try to come up with some short features and an editorial. Don't be surprised if this reads like the Ava and C.I. edition because they will have three pieces they wrote this week.