Ruth: In "Polls and the embarrassing Atul Gawande," I wrote, "Are you confused by the (tiny) increase in support for the Afghanistan 'surge'? I was. I was confused by that and a number of other things and Jayson (my grandson) and I were shopping today. So I texted C.I. (Without Jayson present, I would not have texted. I am too old to operate texting alone!) So she called me about 90 minutes later (she was speaking when I texted) and walked me through it and several other issues." As I explained, I could go into at my site but I wanted to take it over here. There was an increase in support for the Afghan War after Barack Obama's speech, a small increase, but an increase none the less.
Jim: Okay. C.I.?
C.I.: The president of the US has many roles including commander in chief. A speech like the one Barack gave will generally see an increase of some sort in favorable polling. This is expected, this is predictable and that's what Ruth and I spoke of.
Marcia: Because the media fell down on the job, Big and Small. But especially Little Media. They gave lame, b.s. 'presentations. This was what Ava and C.I. were addressing last weekend in "TV: Oh what a difference a name change makes." Ruth's point was since this was known by the media, or should have been, why weren't the shows on Pacifica, etc., out in full force to combat the lies. They didn't even bother to call Barack a liar despite the fact that the speech had one lie after another, many of which had earlier appeared in George W. Bush's speeches and been called out then.
Jess: And I see that point. For one thing, combatting the lies -- and labeling them lies -- would have really cut into the tiny bump the war received in the polling. It might have even been able to eliminate it which would have been a real accomplishment.
Jim: And it was doable.
Jess: And it was doable. But they didn't do that. Why?
Rebecca: Because they refuse to call out Barack. I'm nixing Kathy Kelly and Jody Williams for "truest" this week and the reason is because both women used limited time to praise Barack's 'elequence.' Call out the lies? And stop lying. He's no elequent. He's start-stop-start-stop-pause-pause and it's a joke. Like Ava and C.I. have said many times, he's speaking like Sandy Dennis and he's our first method president. So he wasn't elequent in the spoken and he didn't write the speech, as we all know. So just stop wasting our time with that bulls**t. I'm not in the mood. And I'm not in the mood to hear how nice you just know he is. He's not nice. To the Pakistanian people dying from US drone attacks, he's not nice. To the people in Afghanistan and Iraq dying from the continued wars, he's not nice. How smug and self-righteous must you be to call a War Hawk nice.
Elaine: Agreed and every time they do that, they not only come off as simpering, they make it that much harder for people to speak out honestly. Stop sniveling, stop cowering. Stand up and speak out. With no apologies. I'm so damn sick of this. Everyone here, everyone participating in this roundtable, has spoken out repeatedly. We aren't the only ones. But those of us who are doing that are the ones who are carving out the space for other people to speak out. When C.I. first started speaking out against the Iraq War, in February 2003, one month before it started, she had to take on the Bush mirage. He was immensely popular. She had to speak the truth and not couch it or sugar it up. She carved out a space, campus by campus, for Bush to be criticized. She wasn't the only one doing that. But you don't carve out a space with timid criticism and lavish praise.
Stan: I agree with Elaine. If you're not going to call out a War Hawk, do us all a favor and shut the f**k up. Seriously. We're out there, we're doing it and we don't your weak ass, "I love him but he's wrong." Just shut the f**k up. If you can't be a grown up and call out a War Hawk, you've got no business even speaking. Not from the left. And everytime you apologize for him or minimize his actions or praise them in some form, you are continuing the illegal wars. That's reality.
Ruth: I agree with Stan completely. That is why we needed real outrage and real anger expressed after Barack Obama's speech on Afghanistan. We did not get that from any of our 'trusted' 'voices.' We got a bunch of "Blessed be, Barack, for he shall deliver us . . ." garbage. We were so far from reality that the number of people approving of the Afghanistan War actually increased.
Betty: Agreed but let me drop back to Rebecca's point because that's 100% for me. I don't need Kathy Kelly telling me how wonderful she just knows Barack is or how elequent. I need her to speak out to the War Crimes. I need her to speak out for the voiceless. If she wants to play fan bulletin for Barack, she can do that but she shouldn't expect anyone to take her seriously.
Jim: Kat's nodding. Kat?
Kat: Well, I mean, if you're going to call out Barack, call him out. What are you worried about? Some liar's going to call you a racist? Deal with it. Ralph Nader had to deal with it, anyone telling the truth about Barack has to deal with it. It's not the end of the world and most people won't believe the lie. In fact, fewer and fewer believe it each time that little stunt is pulled. They've used false charges of racism for too long to silence criticism of Barack.
Cedric: Related to what Kat's saying, you shouldn't worry about false charges but you also shouldn't go out of your way to make false charges at others. I have no respect for Paul Street who wants to claim credit for bravery when there was more bravery shown by Ava and C.I. in calling out Barack. And unlike Paul Street, Ava and C.I. have never felt the need to falsely charge entire states with racism.
Ann: Absolutely. I don't know how White people read Street's recent stunt but Cedric and I were talking about it and his 'red' state war and talking about just how disgusting he was. He's been falsely called a racist and now he'll turn around and falsely call others a racist? One of the things I'm proudest of in 2009 is that this community hasn't falsely called anyone a racist to make ourselves look better. I'm sorry, I'm Black, I deal with real racism every damn day and I don't need the sop Paul Street tosses out. I'd also agree that Ava and C.I. were much stronger in their critiques. A lot of Paul's critiques were weak and would only get weaker at ZNet where he often would weaken his article by leaving comments.
Trina: Well, to be clear, I'm not really into forgiveness when it comes to those who called whole states racists. My state --
Mike: Big Mass!
Trina: -- went for Hillary in the primary. And some of the attacks were shocking. We experienced nothing like what Kentucky, for example, did but I'm just not into this nonsense. And as Kat said, racism was always a false charge used to silence people. We were supposed to be shocked and shamed.
Rebecca: Which goes to Gloria. Gloria Steinem. They did cow her and later Robin Morgan as well. They falsely screamed racism and both women were cowed. We weren't in the mood for the bulls**t and it didn't work on us. And having stood stroong for real principles and real beliefs, we're really not in the mood for lectures from the likes of the cowardly Jeff Cohen or any of the rest of the liars who couldn't speak out in 2008.
Dona: Most people participating read their own e-mail. Elaine's assistant Sunny generally goes through Elaine's e-mail and here it's mainly Ty and me with some help from Jim. My point is that if you read the e-mails, you got used to all that crap. There was an organized effort to intimidate and bully people into silence. I've exchanged e-mails with a number of bloggers on the left -- a few that challenged the spin and more who didn't -- and there was a campaign of intimidation. Those of us who refused to be intimidated really aren't in the mood for baby steps. I can't stand, for instance, Kevin Zeese. And exactly when is he going to call Barack out? Not flatter him, call him out?
Ty: Kat said long ago, we're talking July of 2008, that Kevin needed to take the training wheels off his 'criticism' of Barack.
Kat: Actually, I was using C.I.'s phrase about "kick off the training wheels." But Kevin and I exchanged e-mails over that and he was convinced that he was Mr. Bravery and Mr. Outspoken with that weak-ass criticism. And he's still not able to offer a strong critique.
Ty: It's embarrassing. They wouldn't write this crap about Henry Kissinger, why are they doing it for Barack? I'm sick of it. And they better grasp that not only are their weak attempts preventing any pressure from being brought on Barack, they're also driving huge numbers of people away. Why do you think The Daily Toilet Scrubber finally called Barack out last week? Because continuing to tongue Barack's ass was destroying their hits and readership.
Wally: Kat, Ava, C.I. and I are on the road every week and I can tell you that half the crap these 'brave' 'voices' toss out wouldn't fly on any college campus among real activisits. And we keep hearing, over and over, "Why isn't he being pressured? Why isn't he being called out?" You can look at Cindy Sheehan who's not interested in prettying up death and destruction and frequently that's all you can look at in terms of leaders or 'leaders' -- and I rate Cindy a real leader.
Ava: Wally's exactly right and, on the road, we're not just speaking out against the Iraq War, we're trying to carve out a larger space for the left to speak out and you don't do that with apologies or by minimizing Barack's crimes. You don't do that by offering him flowing praise for every minor negative criticism you offer. We go in front of groups and we speak and we speak out. Not on bended knees, we stand up and we call out.
Mike: And that's really obvious because, think about it, before Barack who did the left criticize the most of any pundit? Who was always weak and ineffectual?
Jim: Who?
Mike: Alan Colmes. Always trying to say something 'nice' and always trying to be agreeable. And no one could relate to that. If something's outrageous, it's outrageous. You can't give it a make over. There was no happy ending for Alan Colmes and there won't be for all these cowards who refuse to call out Barack.
Cedric: I just want to echo Dona's point about the e-mails and how annoying they were. They try to intimidate you and bully you and that's regardless of whether the e-mails from Joe Blow or the sad, sad Tom Hayden.
Jim: Okay, we're going to let that be the last word. The e-mail address for this site is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and this is a rush transcript.