Betty: Yeah, I'm going to talk about me. Cynthia McKinney used to be my Congressional rep and anyone who reads my site knows I'm a huge supporter of Cynthia. Last week, I saw a really stupid thing she wrote and if someone else had written it, Ralph Nader, for example, I would have ripped him apart. Because it was Cynthia, I first told myself I'd get calm before I blogged about it, so I set it aside for two days and then, when Wednesday rolled around, I just didn't want to bother with it. "Mr. President: Turn Away From War" is the title of the piece and it includes lines like, "We supported your candidacy because we viewed you as the best chance for ending the wars of the Bush era." There is something very disturbing about a line like that coming from a woman who ran for the presidency in 2008. You can say, "She means 'we' but she's not counting herself." Really? Did anyone else feel Cynthia hit hard against War Hawk Barack? I didn't. I was repeatedly bothered by that and repeatedly blogged on it at my site. Ralph Nader called out Barack. So now we learn, by Cynthia's words, that she ran such a tepid, timid and crap-ass campaign because she was, in fact, supporting Barack? That's how I'm reading that column and I'm really souring on Cynthia PDQ -- pretty damn quick. I'm remembering how there was supposed to be an independent presidential candidate debate and how Cynthia was the one who nixed that. I'm remembering all the ways Cynthia ensured that her campaign got very little attention and that other independent candidates did as well. And I'm remembering that in 2004, the Green Party refused to run a real campaign and am beginning to think that they selected Cynthia, and she them, as their 2008 presidential candidate solely so she would lose and not threaten Barack's chances. I called home repeatedly this week to get the pulse from my family and I don't really think Cynthia should be going door to door in Atlanta right now. Her column has enraged a lot of people who saw her as ethical. And I should have written about it at my site but I just didn't want to touch the subject.
Jess: If I could go next, I think I'd tie in with Betty. Jim's nodding. I'm a Green. And I know how weak and ineffective -- on a national level -- my party is, how craven. How we let non-Greens like Medea Benjamin into our 'big tent' at the same time she's a member of Progressive Democrats for America, for example. We don't, as Betty just noted, run real presidential candidates, we're a pathetic joke on the national level. And I share Betty's outrage over Cynthia McKinney's column and am damn proud I voted for Ralph Nader in 2008 -- I also voted for him in 2004 and remain proud of that as well. I know all the problems and then some. But last week, I saw "Greens blast the anti-choice Stupak Amendment in the Democrats' health care bill, predict voter anger and defections from the Democratic Party over the amendment" and for about fifteen seconds, I was high on my party on a national level. Then I read the press release and was reminded of what a joke it is. For example, "Feminism is one of the Green Party's key values. Until Greens gain seats in Congress and state legislatures and we end two-party control, women's rights face compromise and repeal." Really? Feminism? Have you checked your bloggers? Check your bloggers, please. The ones who attacked Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin with sexist remarks? They know who they are -- for example, the sexist pig who delinked from this site. We noticed. We haven't had time to delink from you but we will at some point this weekend. Sorry your rank sexism being called out was too much for you. But then, you walked away from the Green Party to put your mouth around Barack's balls, right? Still tongue bathing them? Anyway, despite knowing how pathetic my party actually is on a national level and despite repeatedly calling it out publicly, I was a gullible fool and idiot for about 15 seconds when I saw that headline.
Jim: Okay. Mike?
Mike: Yeah. I can think of several ways. I'll give one example. My big fan Dave Zirin thinks I'm so mean and awful to him and hold him to a standard I don't hold others too when, in fact, I actually go easier on Dave than I would on anyone else. In part because I know how sensitive he is, in part because I know he reads it and in part because he can probably write two pieces a year that I think are actually worth reading. But I always find it funny that he feels he's savaged when pretty much everyone else -- certainly Norman Solomon, for example -- gets treated more harshly than he does at my site.
Jim: Okay. I'm trying to involve the people participating by phone -- Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Ruth, Stan, Marcia, Cedric, Trina and Ann, I may have forgotten someone. So Rebecca, point to someone and get them to go next.
Elaine: She's pointing to me. I really don't have an example of a hypocrisy at my site. Not because I'm perfect but because I don't put that much time into it. On a personal level, I'm sure there are many but I really don't talk about my personal life online.
Jim: No, you don't. Rebecca, you gave me a dud. Do better this time.
Trina: She's pointing to me. Actually, I feel like a huge hypocrite. I explained at my site a two or three weeks ago the problems I was having with e-mails. We're all having this problem by the way. A right wing group is swamping us with e-mails and has been doing that for over a year. For me, it was as many as 12 a day on average, I know Elaine had even more.
Elaine: Sunny counted after Trina's post went up and she said the most on any one day was 24. Sunny runs my office, FYI. She enjoys reading the e-mails about the blog so she reads those but that's not part of her job duties and she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to.
Trina: So for me it was more like 12. And I felt really bad because I was missing all these e-mails. I'd check three or so times a week and I'd have to wade through all those e-mails to fish out my actual readers. So I've just made them spam. I said I was going to do that and, after I said that online, I did. And the hope was that I would now be able to read all my e-mails so much more quickly. However, I feel so guilty -- I'm not joking here -- about marking those e-mails as junk mail -- so that they go to that folder and not to my inbox -- that I am checking my mail even less.
Jim: Interesting. But in terms of the problem, I think everyone knows what you're talking about. Any organization sending out more than two e-mails a day on a regular basis is, my opinion, really risking pissing people off. In this case, the guy who started sending us those things never even asked if we wanted them. He just swamped us and it is a pain in the butt. And if even one of the headings sounded interesting, the group's killed the interest by sending so many each day.
Stan: I think, in terms of hypocrisy, I have a lot in me and that's been one of the great things about the left meltdown. It's forced me to confront a lot of things I would have ignored otherwise. If we -- our side -- had our act together, I wouldn't need to examine myself for the hypocrisies I'm seeing in others. But we don't. And I look today back at myself two or three years ago and I'm really surprised. On the plus, I can call it growth, I guess.
Marcia: I would agree with what my cousin just said -- and I'm jumping in before Rebecca pointed to anyone -- because I find that to be true. Who I was in 2004 or 2006? I was so very sure of myself and so very sure of every opinion I had. Now I've grasped just how many liars and spinners I mistook for truth tellers. And how I based my opinions and actions on propaganda presented as unbiased news. The left meltdown, as Stan calls it, has really forced me to do some inner reflecting. I really feel like in 2004 or 2006, I thought I had my eyes wide open but I only had one eye open and now I have them both open.
Ruth: I listen to NPR now, over Pacifica, in most cases. And I feel hypocritical about that. I do not believe NPR has gotten any better. But I've grown to notice how the same voices on Pacifica that scream and hiss about a left distortion eagerly turn around and distort the right. I really cannot stomach the hypocrisy and I find myself unable to listen to most of them. I will, for example, here a report on NPR which plays some idiotic remark made by a Republican in office and the remark is already bad and outrageous. But then I will catch it on Pacifica a few days later, being discussed, the remark will never be played, and despite the fact that it was outrageous as it was, they will work overtime to pad the remark, to stretch the truth. It is like watching the child of a next door neighbor lie. It is just frustrating and you know there is nothing you can do to stop the lying.
Rebecca: That just leaves me. On blogging and hypocrisy? I probably feel like a hypocrite every day of the week when I'm blogging. If you asked me any Sunday night, "Rebecca, what are you going to blog about?" I'd tell you something and then, once I started blogging, you'd never see that topic all week. Now sometimes there are worthwhile topics I emphasize instead, like abortion last week. But sometimes, they aren't worthwhile. They're just something that caught my attention that day. I have a very loyal and patient readership and I'm very lucky to have that.
Jim: Okay. I think most of us would disagree with Rebecca about that because there are common threads to all of her posts but okay. We still have Cedric and Ann participating by phone. So what about you two?
Ann: I'm a hypocrite because I have a deep, dark secret I've never told my husband. Not really! I just wanted to joke and freak everyone out. I should have gone with that for a little bit more. I don't think I'm a hypocrite online but I'm not doing really in depth posts. Most of the time, I'm just doing a photo post. I also haven't been doing it that long. In terms of private life? I really can't think of anything although if I could, I'd probably follow Elaine's lead and refuse to discuss my personal life online.
Jim: Cedric?
Cedric: I can't think of anything. I can think of things I'd wish I'd done but didn't do, lots of them. But in terms of hypocrisy? I really can't think of anything. Doesn't mean it's not there, just that I'm not registering it right now. In terms of our political side, the left, I can echo what everyone else has said and I'll add to that one point: Those who used the illegal war to make money -- Norman Solomon, Amy Goodman, etc. -- and who now can't even write about Iraq are the supreme hypocrites. The war didn't end, but they made their bucks and they cleared out. They profited from the war as surely as KBR did.
Jim: I'd agree with you 100% on that. Okay, let's go to Cedric's writing partner, Wally?
Wally: Early on, I'd worry, this was when I was writing solo posts, before Cedric and I started writing together, about taking on or making fun of some people, and it carried into the posts Cedric and I co-wrote. I'd worry especially if they were friends of C.I.'s. But I always test the jokes out on C.I. and would usually hear, "Uh, why didn't you go for ___ or ___?" So I got the point that you can't pull punches in comedy. And that remains my b.s. detector so I think that's why I can look back and say that I don't see any in my posts -- solo or joint -- online. I think, also that, along with Isaiah, Cedric and I are among the few doing humor online who can claim that they never treated Barack easier than they did Bush. We've had a "we ridicule those in power" practice across the board. I don't think most can make that claim.
Jim: Kat?
Kat: This really hasn't been a conversation, has it? Trina and Elaine tried to but instead it's just roll call. Just making an observation. Okay? Hypocrisy? Absolutely. My job online -- certainly in my music reviews -- is to have an opinion. Opinions are not facts. With facts, they're concrete and shouldn't be changing. Opinions? If you are exactly the same as you were four years ago, my question for you is, "What happened to you?" No event changed you at all? Nothing on the national or international level? Nothing in your personal life? I've experienced deaths and marriages in my family and my circle of friends and I've deepened and shallowed in the process. So I could probably list a string of things. I'll leave it at that.
Jim: It is what it is?
Kat: Oh, don't you try to start a conversation now, James.
Jim: That leaves Ty, Dona, Ava and C.I. I'll go to Ava.
Ava: I'll grab an example. And C.I. and I take the notes for transcript pieces that are then typed up in what is a rush transcript. That's what you're reading. In case that's not mentioned later on. For this edition, when we got back to California yesterday, Jim asked C.I. and me to think about something we have avoided writing here, some topic. And then he wanted us to write it. So we've got a piece called "Barack is a bastard." And he is one. We're referring to his birth. It's not something we wanted to write but it goes to why there are questions about him and we have danced around that issue for ever and a day so there's an example.
Jim: And I really like that article. I'm going to jump over to Ty.
Ty: Here's where I feel like a hypocrite. Each week, I tell myself -- it's kind of like Rebecca's point -- "Next week, I'm going to be all over some LGBT story. I'm going to pitching it and I'm going to be leading on it." Then it comes, the weekend comes, and I do no such thing. As a gay man, I don't feel like I do enough online for the community. I feel bad about that and do wonder, "Am I a hypocrite?"
Jim: In fairness, you've suggested two stories this month that we did end up writing but that just didn't make it in the writing stage. We'll work harder on that. By the way, Thursday, C.I. will post entries online and Mike will post something and that's it.
Kat: I will either post a review on Thanksgiving or the next day. And if there's big Iraq news that demands C.I. does a snapshot on Thanksgiving, we'll all be posting that day -- as we did last year when the SOFA was approved by Parliament on Thanksgiving day.
Jim: Thank you for correcting me on that. Okay. C.I.?
C.I.: I have nothing to say. I've got a killer headache and Ava and I still have to write two TV pieces.
Jim: And I've asked --
C.I.: Why I don't take something? Because the second it kicks in, I'm going to fall asleep. I'm sure I have a million hypocrisies. I don't deny it.
Jim: Okay, well let me get in an e-mail question. Not this past week, but the week before, you wrote something about the Kurds and it was about how people accuse you of siding with the Kurds and, Damien e-mailed, it appeared you weren't denying it.
C.I.: I wasn't denying it. What would be the point? Those believing that aren't going to believe a denial. It would be wasting my time to deny it to those who believe it. There are others who think I'm not fair to the Kurds. I do care about what was agreed to and it was agreed that Kirkuk would be resolved by a referendum and, despite the fact that the date for that long ago passed, it has not happened. If that promise hadn't been in the Constitution, it's doubtful Iraq would have passed it in 2005.
Jim: Okay, that just leaves Dona.
Dona: I'm trying to think of something and really don't have anything. It's probably the hour. The late, late hour. In terms of the media, I think it's amazing how many journalists feel no embarrassment over their constant need to declare their love for Barack. I remember when they all lined up behind Bush after 9-11 and how a small number of journalists did object to that and note the need for a skepitcal press. I don't hear anyone noting that need these days. I do, however, see the idiot Thomas E. Ricks making nearly weekly declarations of his love for Barack.
Jim: And that'll be it on the hypocrisy roundtable except for one thing. We thank The Nation magazine. If one of the people from the magazine hadn't e-mailed us last week -- an idiotic e-mail -- we wouldn't have had a theme this week. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and this is a rush transcript.