Well they are no leader at all and we're beginning,
every day, to see that. They have replaced their loyalty for God and
serving African-American people to serving President Obama. Somehow
President Obama has rose to mystical -- and I hate to say -- to some
divine level in their eyes that he can do no wrong, he can say no wrong,
he can do no wrong and everything against him is racism. It's not
true. It's that the policy in and of itself is evil. How can the
church support him killing? We don't support anybody killing -- no less
the President of the United States. So the whole question is we have
no leadership. We haven't heard from Jesse on this issue. We certainly
will never hear from Al Sharpton because Al Sharpton is Obama's tight
brother. Al decides who gets to the White House and who does not. He's
the gatekeeper these days. And so as long as he's never going to say
anything wrong about this president -- largely because of the fact
that Al has had a problem with every major president there ever was
other than Obama. That makes Al a hypocrite. So there's the NAACP.
Well you can buy the NAACP these days.
-- Rev. Anthony Edwards speaking with Glen Ford on Black Agenda Radio (here for that broadcast) which airs on Progressive Radio Network each Monday from 11:00 am to noon EST.
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Truest statement of the week II
During a pretrial hearing in January, the government maintained that
they would have prosecuted Manning for espionage and "aiding the enemy"
whether he leaked to Wikileaks or The New York Times. In fact, prosecutors stated they saw no difference between the two. While Wikileaks and the Times are
different animals, they do have this in common: Both use their sources,
as all journalists do, and they both used Bradley Manning, to maximum
effect. The Times may have ignored Manning's initial call, but
it ultimately profited greatly from his leaks by "partnering" with
Wikileaks on both the war logs and the cables, which the Times' managing editor at the time, Bill Keller, referred to as a "treasure" that "contained the makings of many dozens of stories." Julian
Assange, the far greater profiteer, became a celebrity while his
source, who has never betrayed any personal knowledge of him, languished
in prison.
-- Janet Reitman, "Did the Mainstream Media Fail Bradley Manning?" (Rolling Stone).
-- Janet Reitman, "Did the Mainstream Media Fail Bradley Manning?" (Rolling Stone).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
A Black Agenda Radio moment.
Rolling Stone.
We're not talking about computer hacks, we're talking about reporters.
Ava and C.I. on how the media fails Bradley Manning.
Ava and C.I. did two pieces this edition. Here they're taking on notions that feminism is the copyrighted property of two individual 'leaders.'
Dona takes on a bad book.
Cindy Sheehen's show.
Cindy's latest action.
Senator Murray receives an honor.
Repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
A Black Agenda Radio moment.
Rolling Stone.
We're not talking about computer hacks, we're talking about reporters.
Ava and C.I. on how the media fails Bradley Manning.
Ava and C.I. did two pieces this edition. Here they're taking on notions that feminism is the copyrighted property of two individual 'leaders.'
Dona takes on a bad book.
Cindy Sheehen's show.
Cindy's latest action.
Senator Murray receives an honor.
Repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: The Hacks Prolong The War
Is there a bigger hack still 'reporting' from Iraq than the Reuters news agency?
This weekend they published the government figures on deaths for the month of February. They provided no check of their own because they don't keep track. That would be too much work. And they're too in-the-tank to use an independent outlet like Iraq Body Count.
So they print a questionable government's figures. A questionable government, please understand, that over 10% of its population is now openly and publicly protesting. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was appointed by the US government and is kept in place by the US government. Reuters certainly isn't the first outlet to turn into a hack to whore for the US government.
Through Wednesday of last week, Iraq Body Count counts 316 people killed by violence while the government insists it was only 136.
Reuters has 'forgotten' to report on the arrest warrants a State of Law member declared last week that his party was holding (against political rivals). Or the fact that security sources were telling two different news outlets yesterday that there were 19 warrants against members of Iraqiya (Iraqiya bested Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law in the 2010 parliamentary elections).
More and more, as you follow the Western press, you are left with the distinct impression that news agencies fancy themselves p.r. agencies -- apparently unfamiliar with the fact that the Iraqi government has already decided The Podesta Group is the US agency to give them a makeover.
News via western outlets was never great from Iraq. But there were reporters, like The Times of London's Deborah Haynes, for example, who worked to refute spin. These days far too many appear to have rejected reporting to show 'support' for Nouri.
In doing so, and it is a decision made by some, they kid themselves that it helps Iraq, that Iraq needs stability.
They kid themselves while they lie to the world.
In May, Nouri will have been prime minister for seven years. That was more than enough time to show what he could do and all he could was harden divisions among the people, all he could do was enrich himself.
But reporters forget their professional obligations and inflate their sense of importance as they make the decision to air brush Nouri in the hopes that, with a little more time, he may pull it together.
Not only does such stupidity hurt the Iraqi people, it turns the so-called reporters into hacks. If they care nothing about betraying the Iraqis, you'd think they'd at least care about dishonoring their profession.
This weekend they published the government figures on deaths for the month of February. They provided no check of their own because they don't keep track. That would be too much work. And they're too in-the-tank to use an independent outlet like Iraq Body Count.
So they print a questionable government's figures. A questionable government, please understand, that over 10% of its population is now openly and publicly protesting. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was appointed by the US government and is kept in place by the US government. Reuters certainly isn't the first outlet to turn into a hack to whore for the US government.
Through Wednesday of last week, Iraq Body Count counts 316 people killed by violence while the government insists it was only 136.
Reuters has 'forgotten' to report on the arrest warrants a State of Law member declared last week that his party was holding (against political rivals). Or the fact that security sources were telling two different news outlets yesterday that there were 19 warrants against members of Iraqiya (Iraqiya bested Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law in the 2010 parliamentary elections).
More and more, as you follow the Western press, you are left with the distinct impression that news agencies fancy themselves p.r. agencies -- apparently unfamiliar with the fact that the Iraqi government has already decided The Podesta Group is the US agency to give them a makeover.
News via western outlets was never great from Iraq. But there were reporters, like The Times of London's Deborah Haynes, for example, who worked to refute spin. These days far too many appear to have rejected reporting to show 'support' for Nouri.
In doing so, and it is a decision made by some, they kid themselves that it helps Iraq, that Iraq needs stability.
They kid themselves while they lie to the world.
In May, Nouri will have been prime minister for seven years. That was more than enough time to show what he could do and all he could was harden divisions among the people, all he could do was enrich himself.
But reporters forget their professional obligations and inflate their sense of importance as they make the decision to air brush Nouri in the hopes that, with a little more time, he may pull it together.
Not only does such stupidity hurt the Iraqi people, it turns the so-called reporters into hacks. If they care nothing about betraying the Iraqis, you'd think they'd at least care about dishonoring their profession.
Media: Epic Meltdown
Last week, we were again reminded of just how much the media fails the country when whistle blower Bradley Manning finally spoke in a military court on Thursday.
It was historic and what he had to say mattered. Or might have if he'd been heard.
Some in the media seemed surprised that Bradley supporters were "energized." They'd spent the weekend prior rallying. But more importantly, now that Bradley had stated he was the whistle blower, there was no more need to hedge with "alleged" or "accused." Knowing he was the whistle blower allowed full out support to emerge. But will support translate into anything other than lip service?
For those late to the party, Monday April 5, 2010, when WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions. Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."
So we're talking about serious things here. Unless we're Kevin Zeese who uses his time and space for nonsense.
Though Bradley didn't name Hillary Clinton in his remarks and spoke about warfare and counter-insurgency (the State Dept is over neither), it's all Zeese can focus on, "Problems which are as serious as they can be: war crimes, criminal behavior at the highest levels up to Secretary of State Clinton, unethical behavior and bullying of other nations."
Can you help anyone when you're that stupid?
Kevin Zeese whored for Barack Obama in 2008. He savaged Hillary. You'd think he'd be aware that Hillary was not president. Exactly what criminal behavior leads to Hillary, Kev?
None. And if he doubts that he can speak to Ann Wright about the cables he's convinced are connected to Hillary and she can explain (or try, he's rather dense) the nuts and bolts of State Dept cables.
In his rush to be useless, Zeese writes:
How can we avoid failing Bradley Manning? Ongoing support through the Bradley Manning Support Network continues to be essential but more than that, we need to do what we can to disseminate the information he leaked and work to create a national debate on a foreign policy that is seriously off-track.
Foreign policy? We're talking about warfare.
Kevin Zeese and his kindred want to use Bradley, they don't want to listen to him.
Why did Bradley do what he did?
Ben Nuckols (AP) quoted Bradley stating to the military court:
I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and hatred on both sides. I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists. I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized.
They can't support Bradley because they refuse to hear him.
They have had nearly three years now to address counter-insurgency. They won't do it.
They won't shut up about Julian Assange but the ethical cowards can't say a word about counter-insurgency.
If you want to defend Bradley, you don't do it with sob stories about Julian Assange. You might do it by demanding publications quoting Michael Ratner note that he works on Assange's defense. That is why he repeatedly defocuses from Bradley to bring up Assange. He also defocuses as a host on Law and Disorder Radio where they waste one episode after another raging against movies and against the Catholic Church and avoiding the really important issues like counter-insurgency.
If you want to defend Bradley, you explain what motivated him, you explain what horrified him.
That's how you get more people to connect to him.
They are supposedly an organization trying to build support for Bradley but they refuse to discuss what was done. Maybe because they don't know?
If so, it's not like the media has helped them.
Counter-insurgency is war on a native people. You isolate the figures of resistance and target them -- with violence and every other means. You try to make an example of them so that the population will not follow them.
Counter-insurgency insists that you spy on the native population. During the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the US government has enlisted anthropologists who have bastardized their training and betrayed the ethics of their profession.
When Bradley said that everyone living in Iraq was a target to be neutralized, that's what he's getting at.
Iraq was supposedly about 'liberation.' Once Saddam Hussein was removed from power, why the need for the military to stay?
To prop up a government made up of Iraqis who had been in exile for years and decades.
These politicians do not represent the people.
Counter-insurgency operations continue to take place in Iraq. The US military takes part in them. What do these operations mean?
You would think that even the cowardly like Amy Goodman could detail what counter-insurgency meant in the past to highlight what Bradley was seeing.
Instead, this is Amy Goodman's 2012 'coverage' of counter-insurgency: "I was opposed to General Petraeus becoming head of the CIA in the first place, because one of the CIA’s charges is to evaluate policy, and one of the big policies that needs to be evaluated is the troop escalation, what is called the 'surge,' in Afghanistan, the big counterinsurgency program that Petraeus put into place and then shepherded through as commander on the ground." Leave it to CIA contractor Juan Cole to distort counter-insurgency.
Readers with no idea of what was being discussed -- because Goodman never 'set' the topic -- would easily assumed that counter-insurgency was just an addition of troops.
Iraq War veteran Timothy Hsia did a strong job describing counter-insurgency at The New York Times' At War blog:
Counterinsurgency presupposes the idea that America and its military can adopt and understand a culture in a blink of an eye. A belief that a region steeped with thousands of years of culture and custom can be remade in a few short years. Counterinsurgency is full of contradictions; for example, it requires the military to be both destroyer and creator. The military is not only expected to close with and destroy the enemy, it is now also responsible for building democratic institutions and providing essential services. Moreover, a basic assumption in counterinsurgency is that there is a legitimate partner in the process that sees eye to eye with Western ideals of progress. When theory meets reality, the United States finds itself tied to partners whose goals are divergent with American ideas of progress or democratic ideals.
The people need to know why Bradley went public. Not some vague, cloudy reason, they need to know what happened.
Let's leave the safety of the left veal pen to see how the conversation's going down. This is from an exchange at Rolling Stone:
Cloudwalking knows the buzz but isn't up to debating Sean Huze. he can't even point otu that no informants ("anti-Taliban sources") were killed as a result of what WikiLeaks published. He can't take on the notion that there's one incident.
One incident wasn't what Bradley was talking about in court last week and one incident wasn't what was published by WikiLeaks.
Sean Huze is not coming over to Bradley's side. He's a lost cause. But those viewing the exchange between Huze and Cloudwalking, those on the fence or without a firm opinion (pro or con) can read the back and forth and be impressed with Huze's 'knowledge.'
It was, after all, just one incident, right?
It's not like anything except the attack on the Reuters journalists got much attention so there will be many who will think, "Oh, right, it was just one incident." In failing to address what happened in Iraq, in failing to condemn counter-insurgency, our supposed independent media imparts nothing.
If the so-called independent media gave a damn about Bradley, they would be doing features on how counter-insurgency targets the native population, attempts to splinter it so that it can be controlled or 'pacified.' Counter-insurgency has nothing to do with the stated goals at the start of the Iraq War so why do we allow the government to continue to carry it out?
Maybe because we don't know what it entails?
Despite having multiple years to address it, Democracy Now!, Law and Disorder Radio and countless other programs -- as well as publications -- have refused to address it. Kevin Zeese, while allegedly wanting to support Bradley, continues the shameful tradition today.
It was historic and what he had to say mattered. Or might have if he'd been heard.
Some in the media seemed surprised that Bradley supporters were "energized." They'd spent the weekend prior rallying. But more importantly, now that Bradley had stated he was the whistle blower, there was no more need to hedge with "alleged" or "accused." Knowing he was the whistle blower allowed full out support to emerge. But will support translate into anything other than lip service?
For those late to the party, Monday April 5, 2010, when WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." In March, 2011, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. The Article 32 hearing took place in December. At the start of this year, there was an Article 32 hearing and, February 3rd, it was announced that the government would be moving forward with a court-martial. Bradley has yet to enter a plea. The court-martial was supposed to begin before the November 2012 election but it was postponed until after the election so that Barack wouldn't have to run on a record of his actual actions. Independent.ie adds, "A court martial is set to be held in June at Ford Meade in Maryland, with supporters treating him as a hero, but opponents describing him as a traitor."
So we're talking about serious things here. Unless we're Kevin Zeese who uses his time and space for nonsense.
Though Bradley didn't name Hillary Clinton in his remarks and spoke about warfare and counter-insurgency (the State Dept is over neither), it's all Zeese can focus on, "Problems which are as serious as they can be: war crimes, criminal behavior at the highest levels up to Secretary of State Clinton, unethical behavior and bullying of other nations."
Can you help anyone when you're that stupid?
Kevin Zeese whored for Barack Obama in 2008. He savaged Hillary. You'd think he'd be aware that Hillary was not president. Exactly what criminal behavior leads to Hillary, Kev?
None. And if he doubts that he can speak to Ann Wright about the cables he's convinced are connected to Hillary and she can explain (or try, he's rather dense) the nuts and bolts of State Dept cables.
In his rush to be useless, Zeese writes:
How can we avoid failing Bradley Manning? Ongoing support through the Bradley Manning Support Network continues to be essential but more than that, we need to do what we can to disseminate the information he leaked and work to create a national debate on a foreign policy that is seriously off-track.
Foreign policy? We're talking about warfare.
Kevin Zeese and his kindred want to use Bradley, they don't want to listen to him.
Why did Bradley do what he did?
Ben Nuckols (AP) quoted Bradley stating to the military court:
I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed unwilling to cooperate with us, leading to frustration and hatred on both sides. I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists. I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized.
They can't support Bradley because they refuse to hear him.
They have had nearly three years now to address counter-insurgency. They won't do it.
They won't shut up about Julian Assange but the ethical cowards can't say a word about counter-insurgency.
If you want to defend Bradley, you don't do it with sob stories about Julian Assange. You might do it by demanding publications quoting Michael Ratner note that he works on Assange's defense. That is why he repeatedly defocuses from Bradley to bring up Assange. He also defocuses as a host on Law and Disorder Radio where they waste one episode after another raging against movies and against the Catholic Church and avoiding the really important issues like counter-insurgency.
If you want to defend Bradley, you explain what motivated him, you explain what horrified him.
That's how you get more people to connect to him.
They are supposedly an organization trying to build support for Bradley but they refuse to discuss what was done. Maybe because they don't know?
If so, it's not like the media has helped them.
Counter-insurgency is war on a native people. You isolate the figures of resistance and target them -- with violence and every other means. You try to make an example of them so that the population will not follow them.
Counter-insurgency insists that you spy on the native population. During the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the US government has enlisted anthropologists who have bastardized their training and betrayed the ethics of their profession.
When Bradley said that everyone living in Iraq was a target to be neutralized, that's what he's getting at.
Iraq was supposedly about 'liberation.' Once Saddam Hussein was removed from power, why the need for the military to stay?
To prop up a government made up of Iraqis who had been in exile for years and decades.
These politicians do not represent the people.
Counter-insurgency operations continue to take place in Iraq. The US military takes part in them. What do these operations mean?
You would think that even the cowardly like Amy Goodman could detail what counter-insurgency meant in the past to highlight what Bradley was seeing.
Instead, this is Amy Goodman's 2012 'coverage' of counter-insurgency: "I was opposed to General Petraeus becoming head of the CIA in the first place, because one of the CIA’s charges is to evaluate policy, and one of the big policies that needs to be evaluated is the troop escalation, what is called the 'surge,' in Afghanistan, the big counterinsurgency program that Petraeus put into place and then shepherded through as commander on the ground." Leave it to CIA contractor Juan Cole to distort counter-insurgency.
Readers with no idea of what was being discussed -- because Goodman never 'set' the topic -- would easily assumed that counter-insurgency was just an addition of troops.
Iraq War veteran Timothy Hsia did a strong job describing counter-insurgency at The New York Times' At War blog:
Counterinsurgency presupposes the idea that America and its military can adopt and understand a culture in a blink of an eye. A belief that a region steeped with thousands of years of culture and custom can be remade in a few short years. Counterinsurgency is full of contradictions; for example, it requires the military to be both destroyer and creator. The military is not only expected to close with and destroy the enemy, it is now also responsible for building democratic institutions and providing essential services. Moreover, a basic assumption in counterinsurgency is that there is a legitimate partner in the process that sees eye to eye with Western ideals of progress. When theory meets reality, the United States finds itself tied to partners whose goals are divergent with American ideas of progress or democratic ideals.
The people need to know why Bradley went public. Not some vague, cloudy reason, they need to know what happened.
Let's leave the safety of the left veal pen to see how the conversation's going down. This is from an exchange at Rolling Stone:
Cloudwalking knows the buzz but isn't up to debating Sean Huze. he can't even point otu that no informants ("anti-Taliban sources") were killed as a result of what WikiLeaks published. He can't take on the notion that there's one incident.
One incident wasn't what Bradley was talking about in court last week and one incident wasn't what was published by WikiLeaks.
Sean Huze is not coming over to Bradley's side. He's a lost cause. But those viewing the exchange between Huze and Cloudwalking, those on the fence or without a firm opinion (pro or con) can read the back and forth and be impressed with Huze's 'knowledge.'
It was, after all, just one incident, right?
It's not like anything except the attack on the Reuters journalists got much attention so there will be many who will think, "Oh, right, it was just one incident." In failing to address what happened in Iraq, in failing to condemn counter-insurgency, our supposed independent media imparts nothing.
If the so-called independent media gave a damn about Bradley, they would be doing features on how counter-insurgency targets the native population, attempts to splinter it so that it can be controlled or 'pacified.' Counter-insurgency has nothing to do with the stated goals at the start of the Iraq War so why do we allow the government to continue to carry it out?
Maybe because we don't know what it entails?
Despite having multiple years to address it, Democracy Now!, Law and Disorder Radio and countless other programs -- as well as publications -- have refused to address it. Kevin Zeese, while allegedly wanting to support Bradley, continues the shameful tradition today.
Media: The cracks in our foundation
Women's Media Center did a piece in January about the responsibilities of a host with a guest who crosses a line with word choice. It's a shame they weren't also concerned with factual errors because Robin Morgan is hosting Women's Media Center Live With Robin Mogan and, more and more, people are starting to ask why?
Last Sunday's theme was the movie show and guests included Jane Fonda who had this to say:
To go back to the women as directors, there have been a lot of really really successful movies directed by women; Hurt Locker, When Harry Met Sally, Mamma Mia, Bridesmaids, Lost in Translation, Zero Dark Thirty, It's Complicated, the animated film Brave.
Eight films. Directed by women? Unless Rob Reiner had an operation that he forgot to tell us about, When Harry Met Sally . . . was not directed by a woman. (Nora Ephron wrote the script). Bridesmaids? Directed by Paul Feig. Brave had three directors, one of which, Brenda Chapman, is a woman.
Mistakes happen and it doesn't have to be the end of the world. But shouldn't the host know the topic when the topic is the theme of the entire hour?
More importantly, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty were directed by one woman: Kathyrn Bigelow. She's the only woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director Feature Film. And yet neither Jane nor Robin bothered to name the director.
How can you talk about the need to support women when you don't support in your own convestations?
It was really interesting to listen to Robin and Jane talk about how women needed to be hired as directors. Did we need producers to hire more women or investors, wondered Robin while Jane felt the answer was to be found with "women in decision making positions."
Which had us remembering Jane never hired a woman to direct. Not for any of her IPC Films or Fonda Films projects. Not even with the TV movie Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee, she hired a man (the ridiculous Frank Pierson, who ruined the film). More importantly, she oversaw 26 episodes of a sitcom entitled 9 to 5 and never managed to hire a woman to direct. Despite the fact that women had made strong inroads into directing for television in the seventies. For instance, Joan Darling would direct the classic episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show "Chuckles Bites The Dust," direct an episode of Rhoda, an episode of M*A*S*H, four episodes of Phyllis, an episode of Lee Grant's sitcom Fay and much more throughout the 70s. But in 1982 and 1983, no woman was judged good enough to direct the really bad sitcom 9 to 5. Linda Day was another woman who made a name for herself as a TV director. During the time Jane was producing 9 to 5, Linda was directing episodes of Archie Bunker's Place, Newhart, Benson, Alice, WKRP in Cincinnati and Too Close For Comfort. But she was never offered 9 to 5.
So clearly, the problem will not be addressed simply by "women in decision making positions." Jane's a strong woman, a feminist of many decades and she had the power to decide who directed. So clearly the answer isn't just "women in decision making positions."
We were reminded that Zero Dark Thirty had a $40 million budget and how few women directors get a greenlight from a studio, let alone get a budget like that. And we thought of our friend Amy Pascal who was responsible for that greenlight. We thought about how Pascal gave greenlights to producer Laura Ziskin (the Spider Man franchise). And we thought about Drew Barrymore who, like Laura, moved from Fox to Sony. We thought about how it was Amy who saw the potential in a film based on the Charlie's Angels TV series and set about developing it before handing off production to Drew Barrymore's company -- handing off production and a $93 million budget. And we thought about how, when Kathryn and her film were being demonized, Amy didn't stay silent, she fired off a response. We thought about Amy who busts her ass every hour of the day trying to make the best pictures possible and who is always as eager to find a good project with a story about a woman as she is to find a good project with a story about a man.
We thought about how if you were going to discuss "decision makers," you could actually note a woman who makes a difference, note her by name.
But that wasn't to be. And women weren't recognized.
This was demonstrated in the segment itself by Jane and Robin being on a program that they're in charge of (they founded Women's Media Center with Gloria Steinem) and unable to talk about women. Jane praised Quentin Tarentino's latest splatter porn at length. Then she took to praising Silver Linings Playbook leaving us to wonder if Jane knew the meaning of loyalty? We thought Lily Tomlin was Jane's friend.
So it was a bit strange to listen to the praise for a film by the director who screamed and screeched at Lily, "I'm just trying to f**king help you, you understand me! I'm just being a f**king collaborator! I'm trying to help you figure out the f**king picture, okay, bitch? I'm not here to be f**king yelled at! I haven't been working on this thing for three f**king years to have some f**king c**t yell at me in front of the crew! I'm trying to help you, bitch!"
This is the work that Women's Media Center praises? A film directed by a man caught on film screaming bitch and c**t at a woman?
Next time, Jane and Robin extoll the wonders and layers of O.J. Simpson's work in The Towering Inferno?
As bad as that segment was, it was other segments of that broadcast the demonstred Robin Morgan was pure Sour Grape Gal. She'd already dismissed guest Melissa Silverstein when Melissa was attempting to discuss Kathryn Bigelow. And when Bigelow popped up in actress Kathy Bates' remarks?
Kathy Bates: I think it's still pretty pale male when it comes to directors, unfortunately. I see very few, of course there's Kathryn Bigelow, who's really stepped up there and does the kind of hard films that we've seen other men do over the years. That's kind of hard, about fighitng, about war, about those kinds of subjects. About male bonding and we don't see that much in a lot of the young female directors, I think that are coming up now necessarily.
Robin Morgan: Right. I'll be interesting when we someday win an Oscar for a female director who actually can do a film about female bonding and still win the Oscar for it, instead of, you know what I mean.
Yeah, we know what you mean, nothing's ever good enough for you, is it?
We're supposed to celebrate women but never the ones you decide aren't worth celebrating.
We're supposed to yet again turn off our brains and let you make all the decisions.
And that's one of the main reasons so many women don't want to claim feminism today.
What 26-year-old woman wants to hear some cranky, 72-year-old set out the rules she's supposed to be living her life under?
This is an ongoing problem and it needs to be addressed. Feminism is about making decisions, decisions that are right for you. What's right for one of us may be exactly wrong for some one else. That's why feminism is about choices.
And the only choice that women are being presented with these days are edicts from Gloria and Robin. As Rebecca's "what kat said" and Kat's "Go away, Gloria, just go away" have pointed out, 'leadership' has been around for a long time now.
Betty Friedan, as Rebecca points out, was moved aside to make room for Gloria when Friedan was still in her fifites. Another strong point to make is that Betty had less than ten years as leader. By 1972, she had been pushed aside. Robin and Gloria are on their fifth decade of 'leadership.'
At a certain point, you need to learn to step aside.
And when you do, you should take your edicts with you because feminism isn't your playground, you don't own it.
Some will argue that the women aren't leaders. They certainly don't offer much leadership, true. But they do grab up all the public attention. Last week, for example, Gloria Steinem, showed up on PBS' The NewsHour and peeled off this howler, "No, of course, women can't have it all as long as we have to do it all, until -- I mean, we have realized -- and the majority of Americans fully agree -- that women can do what men can do."
There was Gloria engaging in nonsense about 'having it all' and presenting it as a possibility in the future. Just last June, we were all stuck having to explain that feminism did not promote that notion and along comes Gloria.
As Rebecca Traister (Salon) pointed out back in June:
No, my proposal is this: We should immediately strike the phrase “have it all” from the feminist lexicon and never, ever use it again.
Here is what is wrong, what has always been wrong, with equating feminist success with “having it all”: It’s a misrepresentation of a revolutionary social movement. The notion that female achievement should be measured by women’s ability to “have it all” recasts a righteous struggle for greater political, economic, social, sexual and political parity as a piggy and acquisitive project.
But, hey, there's Gloria talking about the day "having it all" arrives.
There should be other faces the media can go to. Gloria should be turning down interviews and referring the media to other women. In fact, if she had carried out what she attempted in the seventies -- touring with Flo Kennedy, for example -- she could have been introducing younger voices over the last ten years.
Instead, the public faces remain Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan -- both women over 70. At what time do you bow out gracefully? At what point do you let others chart the future? Jane Fonda blazed a trail as a producer -- as a very successful producer. Her work allowed other actresses to claim their own power. Do you really think Barbra Streisand would've gotten a studio to back her in directing Yentl if it weren't for the groundwork Jane did as a producer? Do you think the paths of women like Dawn Steele, Sherry Lansing, Amy Pascal and Stacey Snider weren't influenced by Jane?
As a successful producer, a high profile one, and a woman, Jane had the industry imagining what could come next. She deserves so much praise and credit for where women are in film today. But she's not running around trying to produce her or anyone else's next film. She did her part in blazing a trail. She's handed off the baton to those who will run the next leg of the race. That doesn't mean she disappeared or she gave up acting or she gave up her writing, activism or fitness. It does mean that she's secure in herself. She's happy with what she's accomplished and she's happy to see women in the industry attack that glass ceiling.
Gloria and Robin would do well to be a lot less possessive of feminism and a lot more trusting of where the next groups of female activists can take it.
Last Sunday's theme was the movie show and guests included Jane Fonda who had this to say:
To go back to the women as directors, there have been a lot of really really successful movies directed by women; Hurt Locker, When Harry Met Sally, Mamma Mia, Bridesmaids, Lost in Translation, Zero Dark Thirty, It's Complicated, the animated film Brave.
Eight films. Directed by women? Unless Rob Reiner had an operation that he forgot to tell us about, When Harry Met Sally . . . was not directed by a woman. (Nora Ephron wrote the script). Bridesmaids? Directed by Paul Feig. Brave had three directors, one of which, Brenda Chapman, is a woman.
Mistakes happen and it doesn't have to be the end of the world. But shouldn't the host know the topic when the topic is the theme of the entire hour?
More importantly, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty were directed by one woman: Kathyrn Bigelow. She's the only woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director Feature Film. And yet neither Jane nor Robin bothered to name the director.
How can you talk about the need to support women when you don't support in your own convestations?
It was really interesting to listen to Robin and Jane talk about how women needed to be hired as directors. Did we need producers to hire more women or investors, wondered Robin while Jane felt the answer was to be found with "women in decision making positions."
Which had us remembering Jane never hired a woman to direct. Not for any of her IPC Films or Fonda Films projects. Not even with the TV movie Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee, she hired a man (the ridiculous Frank Pierson, who ruined the film). More importantly, she oversaw 26 episodes of a sitcom entitled 9 to 5 and never managed to hire a woman to direct. Despite the fact that women had made strong inroads into directing for television in the seventies. For instance, Joan Darling would direct the classic episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show "Chuckles Bites The Dust," direct an episode of Rhoda, an episode of M*A*S*H, four episodes of Phyllis, an episode of Lee Grant's sitcom Fay and much more throughout the 70s. But in 1982 and 1983, no woman was judged good enough to direct the really bad sitcom 9 to 5. Linda Day was another woman who made a name for herself as a TV director. During the time Jane was producing 9 to 5, Linda was directing episodes of Archie Bunker's Place, Newhart, Benson, Alice, WKRP in Cincinnati and Too Close For Comfort. But she was never offered 9 to 5.
So clearly, the problem will not be addressed simply by "women in decision making positions." Jane's a strong woman, a feminist of many decades and she had the power to decide who directed. So clearly the answer isn't just "women in decision making positions."
We were reminded that Zero Dark Thirty had a $40 million budget and how few women directors get a greenlight from a studio, let alone get a budget like that. And we thought of our friend Amy Pascal who was responsible for that greenlight. We thought about how Pascal gave greenlights to producer Laura Ziskin (the Spider Man franchise). And we thought about Drew Barrymore who, like Laura, moved from Fox to Sony. We thought about how it was Amy who saw the potential in a film based on the Charlie's Angels TV series and set about developing it before handing off production to Drew Barrymore's company -- handing off production and a $93 million budget. And we thought about how, when Kathryn and her film were being demonized, Amy didn't stay silent, she fired off a response. We thought about Amy who busts her ass every hour of the day trying to make the best pictures possible and who is always as eager to find a good project with a story about a woman as she is to find a good project with a story about a man.
We thought about how if you were going to discuss "decision makers," you could actually note a woman who makes a difference, note her by name.
But that wasn't to be. And women weren't recognized.
This was demonstrated in the segment itself by Jane and Robin being on a program that they're in charge of (they founded Women's Media Center with Gloria Steinem) and unable to talk about women. Jane praised Quentin Tarentino's latest splatter porn at length. Then she took to praising Silver Linings Playbook leaving us to wonder if Jane knew the meaning of loyalty? We thought Lily Tomlin was Jane's friend.
So it was a bit strange to listen to the praise for a film by the director who screamed and screeched at Lily, "I'm just trying to f**king help you, you understand me! I'm just being a f**king collaborator! I'm trying to help you figure out the f**king picture, okay, bitch? I'm not here to be f**king yelled at! I haven't been working on this thing for three f**king years to have some f**king c**t yell at me in front of the crew! I'm trying to help you, bitch!"
This is the work that Women's Media Center praises? A film directed by a man caught on film screaming bitch and c**t at a woman?
Next time, Jane and Robin extoll the wonders and layers of O.J. Simpson's work in The Towering Inferno?
As bad as that segment was, it was other segments of that broadcast the demonstred Robin Morgan was pure Sour Grape Gal. She'd already dismissed guest Melissa Silverstein when Melissa was attempting to discuss Kathryn Bigelow. And when Bigelow popped up in actress Kathy Bates' remarks?
Kathy Bates: I think it's still pretty pale male when it comes to directors, unfortunately. I see very few, of course there's Kathryn Bigelow, who's really stepped up there and does the kind of hard films that we've seen other men do over the years. That's kind of hard, about fighitng, about war, about those kinds of subjects. About male bonding and we don't see that much in a lot of the young female directors, I think that are coming up now necessarily.
Robin Morgan: Right. I'll be interesting when we someday win an Oscar for a female director who actually can do a film about female bonding and still win the Oscar for it, instead of, you know what I mean.
Yeah, we know what you mean, nothing's ever good enough for you, is it?
We're supposed to celebrate women but never the ones you decide aren't worth celebrating.
We're supposed to yet again turn off our brains and let you make all the decisions.
And that's one of the main reasons so many women don't want to claim feminism today.
What 26-year-old woman wants to hear some cranky, 72-year-old set out the rules she's supposed to be living her life under?
This is an ongoing problem and it needs to be addressed. Feminism is about making decisions, decisions that are right for you. What's right for one of us may be exactly wrong for some one else. That's why feminism is about choices.
And the only choice that women are being presented with these days are edicts from Gloria and Robin. As Rebecca's "what kat said" and Kat's "Go away, Gloria, just go away" have pointed out, 'leadership' has been around for a long time now.
Betty Friedan, as Rebecca points out, was moved aside to make room for Gloria when Friedan was still in her fifites. Another strong point to make is that Betty had less than ten years as leader. By 1972, she had been pushed aside. Robin and Gloria are on their fifth decade of 'leadership.'
At a certain point, you need to learn to step aside.
And when you do, you should take your edicts with you because feminism isn't your playground, you don't own it.
Some will argue that the women aren't leaders. They certainly don't offer much leadership, true. But they do grab up all the public attention. Last week, for example, Gloria Steinem, showed up on PBS' The NewsHour and peeled off this howler, "No, of course, women can't have it all as long as we have to do it all, until -- I mean, we have realized -- and the majority of Americans fully agree -- that women can do what men can do."
There was Gloria engaging in nonsense about 'having it all' and presenting it as a possibility in the future. Just last June, we were all stuck having to explain that feminism did not promote that notion and along comes Gloria.
As Rebecca Traister (Salon) pointed out back in June:
No, my proposal is this: We should immediately strike the phrase “have it all” from the feminist lexicon and never, ever use it again.
Here is what is wrong, what has always been wrong, with equating feminist success with “having it all”: It’s a misrepresentation of a revolutionary social movement. The notion that female achievement should be measured by women’s ability to “have it all” recasts a righteous struggle for greater political, economic, social, sexual and political parity as a piggy and acquisitive project.
But, hey, there's Gloria talking about the day "having it all" arrives.
There should be other faces the media can go to. Gloria should be turning down interviews and referring the media to other women. In fact, if she had carried out what she attempted in the seventies -- touring with Flo Kennedy, for example -- she could have been introducing younger voices over the last ten years.
Instead, the public faces remain Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan -- both women over 70. At what time do you bow out gracefully? At what point do you let others chart the future? Jane Fonda blazed a trail as a producer -- as a very successful producer. Her work allowed other actresses to claim their own power. Do you really think Barbra Streisand would've gotten a studio to back her in directing Yentl if it weren't for the groundwork Jane did as a producer? Do you think the paths of women like Dawn Steele, Sherry Lansing, Amy Pascal and Stacey Snider weren't influenced by Jane?
As a successful producer, a high profile one, and a woman, Jane had the industry imagining what could come next. She deserves so much praise and credit for where women are in film today. But she's not running around trying to produce her or anyone else's next film. She did her part in blazing a trail. She's handed off the baton to those who will run the next leg of the race. That doesn't mean she disappeared or she gave up acting or she gave up her writing, activism or fitness. It does mean that she's secure in herself. She's happy with what she's accomplished and she's happy to see women in the industry attack that glass ceiling.
Gloria and Robin would do well to be a lot less possessive of feminism and a lot more trusting of where the next groups of female activists can take it.
Books: Grow up, Sachi (Dona)
Like most people, I'd never heard of Sachi Parker, new 'authoress' via help from Frederick Stroppel, before Lucky Me. Sachi is the daughter of Shirely MacLaine and if you're thinking that's about the only reason anyone might be interested in her, well guess what her topic is . . .
That's right, mother Shirley.
I had toyed with reading the book because it was so obvious from the cover (a cute photo of a Sachi and Shirley) and the full title (Lucky Me: My Life With -- And Without -- My Mom, Shirley MacLaine) that this was pure trash. And anyone who really loves reading loves reading some trash every now and then to howl and share with those around you, "You won't believe what happens next!"
My main concern was Mike had interviewed C.I. on President's Day and Mike had asked about the book because Ava and C.I. had reviewed Shirley's I'm Over All Of That and Other Confessions almost two years ago and they had noted that Shirley didn't mention her daughter in the book. C.I. hadn't read Sachi Parker's book but clearly thought the book was offensive. I asked her if she'd be bothered by my reviewing it and she said not at all but she wouldn't read the book herself.
She doesn't need to.
In a series of responses to Mike, C.I. sketched out Sachi Parker as a selfish child who couldn't accept that she got the mother she got. That's really what comes through in page after page. (C.I. knows Shirley very well and knows Sachi somewhat.)
It's really amazing to me that a 56-year-old woman wrote or 'wrote' this book. It's poorly written -- even with a co-writer -- and that maturity of the author appears to be somewhere around 14-years-old.
C.I. noted that Sachi had complained repeatedly over the years about Shirley not giving her money to go to college and wondered if that crap was in the book? Yes, it is. And not just when Sachi's 18. She goes into it then and keeps coming back to it and coming back to again.
As C.I. pointed out, she could have asked her uncle (Warren Beatty) for money, she could have applied for grants and loans, but she did nothing.
There's a part of me that wonders if Sachi's functional mentally. I'm not trying to be rude, I've just never encountered this level of immaturity in a grown up.
For whatever reason, the book tells us, Shirley didn't want to give Sachi money for college.
Well you find your own way. Do you know how many people are in college right now working their way through? I went on grants and loans. My parents couldn't afford to send me to college. I have no plans to write a book trashing them for it.
From the book, you get the idea that Shirley didn't want to raise a useless Hollywood kid who needed the parent's money to get through life. She wanted a resourceful child.
If that was the case, Shirley didn't get what she wanted anymore than Sachi did.
It's not just that Sachi can't find money for college.
In the book, Sachi claims that she asked her mother for money when she was pregnant at the age of 27. This was apparently, "Bankroll my life and my child's and my child's father's life for the next few years so I can have this baby."
Shirley took a pass.
Sachi had an abortion and presents it as her mother's fault.
She was not a 15-year-old girl. She was 27. She and her partner David can't afford a baby that they both say they want? She's 27?
See, she explains/whines, they both can't try to be actors, she writes, and afford a baby and David's parents didn't have any money.
At 27, what your parents have or don't have really isn't the issue. At 27, you should be paying your own damn bills and, if you want a child, maybe it's time for you and your boyfriend to get real world jobs and stop expecting someone else to pay your way?
Selfish and entitled -- Sachi Parker reeks of both.
She goes on and on for page after page about inconsequential childhood moments that she tries to turn into mega-events to paint Shirley as the bad woman. Take, for example, all the pages wasted on the issue of the missing plane tickets. The school says Sachi and another student had the tickets. Sachi and the student insist that the school had them. The tickets are missing and very expensive. Shirley wants to know what happened to them. She isolates the girls and questions them individually until Sachi lies and says her friend sold them to make money.
How this is supposed to make Shirley look bad is beyond me but Sachi clearly thinks that she's been wronged in that childhood moment.
She feels wronged a lot. When her mother accepts an award and thanks all actors, Sachi feels left out -- even though Sachi's at that ceremony as an actor winning an award and even though Shirley only attended because her daughter was winning an award. When Sachi's career goes nowhere -- 56 years old and she's still convinced her break to movie stardom is just around the corner -- she blames her mother for that as well. At her most loony, she's raging about a lost part in Closing the Ring (she never manages to mention the title). She should have been in the film, she writes over and over. It's directed by Richard Attenborough who loved her when she was a little girl! And the part is the daughter of Shirley MacLaine's character! She paints this tale of her mother working to destroy her. It's an unbelievable tale. The actress who gets the part? Neve Campbell. It was an international production also featuring Brenda Fricker, Christopher Plummer and Mischa Barton. Neve Campbell means investors, Neve Campbell means media interest, Neve Campbell means potential ticket sales.
Like a child having a tantrum, she bellows and hollers.
Like a child, she has no understanding of the world beyond herself.
This is most obvious when she's 'writing' about Shirley's career.
And here I need to call out Penguin Group USA. If I were bringing out a title that would be considered shocking and possibly questionable, I think I would firm up everything before publication -- meaning fact check, meaning everything.
So if Sachi's supposed to be in Australia being beat up by a boyfriend and she's explaining that she had to call Shirley on the set of The Turning Point -- where Shirley was playing a mother -- and beg for money for a car, I think I'd want to be sure that I had my facts correct.
For example, Shirley can't be filming The Turning Point in 1979. The fim came out in 1977.
Moments like this run through the book leading you to not just question Sachi's integrity but also that of the publisher's as well.
Throughout the book, she whines about money. Yet when her father dies and she's promised a property as well as money and a second property but she ends up with only one property, she lets it go. Despite it being worth millions, according to her father, despite refusing to sign it over to her step-mother. She just lets a year pass and allows it to be claimed by someone else.
In what world?
That's what you end up thinking. Over and over, Sachi Parker offers up questionable tales that fall apart before your eyes if you stop for a moment to question any story she's telling.
The book's pure trash but that alone doesn't make for a good trashy read. I give this book 3 yawns and a snooze.
Radio moment of the week
Last week on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox Cindy demonstrated how you can talk about Iraq. You can talk about what happened early in the war and you can also talk about what's going on right now. Cindy grasps that Iraq didn't go into suspended animiation when the US network TV cameras left. Here guests last week were Iraq War veteran Ross Caputi and Dr. Dahlia Wasfi.
Cindy Sheehan: So, Dahlia, I want to ask you this. Of course, we are supposed to praise Obama because he ended the war in Iraq. And part of the problem is that he got a Nobel Peace Prize and people think he's anti-war because he called the war in Iraq "stupid" -- even though he said he's not against war. So what -- you're Iraqi-American, you have family there. What is your sense of where Iraq stands today?
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi: Well I'm -- I'm watching from a distance and I would sort of I think is a reflection of the repression has continued and worsened today in Iraq is that I can't talk politics with my cousins out of fear of anybody listening to the conversations and that there would be repercussions for them because of it. But I think, uhm, yes, technically, there was an official troop withdrawal in 2011 but this does not include the thousands who remain -- US military personnel who remain behind to protect at least the US Embassy. And then there are thousands of mercenaries. And, by my estimations, its the CIA administrators operating out of the Embassy and I'm not sure how many they have -- involving themselves in government affairs and civil affairs in Iraq today. But what we can see now is our legacy from the invasion and occupation -- with the government that came to power during our occupation -- is that these unbelievable degrees of repression -- including arbitrary detentions, torture, rape -- this is ongoing for Iraqi society. And this is what the demonstrations in Iraq are about today. Now, of course, the mainstream media tells us a story that, 'Well this is a Shia government and these are Sunni who are upset with that and so they are rejecting the Shi'ite government.' But from all the news that I'm getting on the ground that this is -- and they put the signs in English for western media that say, 'We are against sectarianism. We reject the tyranny of this government. We reject Nouri al-Maliki. And there's no sectarianism, this is unity.' And also as a result of our invasion, religious groups and their militias that were based in Iran crossed over into Iraq, especially southern Iraq, in the earlier years -- 2003, 2004, 2005 -- and became dominant in the south. And what also happened was under our control of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, we installed individuals who would orchestrate the death squads in Iraq. And these individuals like Bayan Jabr also was from Iran, originallly Iraq but was from Iran and was actually a high ranking member, high ranking official of the Bard Brigades. So the structure that is in place in Iraq today is absolutely -- They call it the second part of the occupation. Iraqis know exactly what is going on and they are fighting once again to have their -- basically to have their sovereignty. So this is the legacy that continue today. Most -- most of the west, as far as I can tell, is turning a blind eye to it. But this is a real liberation movement. You can call this a liberation movement. And meanwhile the US administration continues to deal arms with the Iraqi government. So it's same-old-same-old. This is very comparable to the relationship that the United States had with Saddam during the 1980s. And I believe that when Nouri al-Maliki no longer satisfies our agenda in the area then we will have to "liberate" Iraq again. So we'll see what happens. But the people, their slogan is "NO RETREAT." And they have endured enough and are willing to-to -- They have bled for their future in the past.
Wasfi and Caputi (above) are with The Justice for Fallujah Project. And the massacre that ook place in Falluja was not ignored.
Cindy Sheehan: And you were in the Marines and your unit was involved in that second siege.
Ross Caputi: Yeah, I was in the Marine Corps. I was in the 1st Battalion 8th Marines. It was a regular infantry unit and we were one of the five battalions who were part of the second siege of Falluja. And what our command told us was that, you know, all the civilians had left the city, the only people who remained in the city were 2,000 hardcore terrorists.
Cindy Sheehan: Mhh-hmm.
Ross Caputi: You know, and I accepted that. I didn't really know otherwise. I hadn't been paying attention to the media at all. I was completely uninformed about the context that set the stage for the second siege of Falluja. So I kind of just accepted that and rolled along with it. In being trucked into the city, you know, I remember seeing civilians wandering out in the desert -- women and children with sacks on their backs heading for safety. You know, I kind of at that moment said, "Okay, you know that's what they meant when they said all the civilians left. They fled for their life out into an inhospitable desert. And there were moments during the siege where we were kicking in doors and going into people's houses. And I'd see family photos up on the walls next to bullet marks and bomb blasts in the wall and stuff like that. And we destroyed an entire city -- a city of 300,000 people. We destroyed their homes. We bulldozed entire neighborhoods. We bombed the city into rubble. The entire city was destroyed after. So it really -- It really drove the message home for me. It was just incredible how many lives we ruined because of what we did. And this was all in the name of "liberation."
Cindy: Right.
Ross Caputi: Our command said that we were liberating the city of Falluja. It was absolutely absurd.
Cindy Sheehan: Dahlia, Ross and yourself met and you're married, you're partners, you're partners in the anti-war movement, you're partners in life When Ross was talking about his experience in Falluja, and he said that he hadn't really been paying attention to the media, well I was back in the states and I was paying attention to the media and I didn't really hear anything about civilians being left over in Falluja. Of course, we all were hearing what Ross was being told and his fellow Marines were being told. Do you have a comment on the media and the reports that were happening at the time of the second siege of Falluja?
Dahlia Wasfi: What I remember was it was very comparable to the images that were coming out of shock and awe -- where we just watched the bombardment and the fireballs and pillars of smoke in the city of Baghdad. I remember -- I remember there was an image on CNN of just basically -- I won't know the correct military term -- I don't know what was flying through the air -- I'll call it missiles but it was the lights of all these missiles that were -- that were aimed at the city of Falluja. It lit up the sky. That was the -- That was the mainstream, corporate media in America but I believe that by that time I was following the dispatches of Dahr Jamail. And I had actually -- I was wanting to go to Iraq at that. I had been to visit my family in February and March of 2004 and I was -- I was planning to go back as soon as I could because I had such limited time with my family in Basra so I was planning on going back to Iraq in November 2004 but I could only get as far as Jordan because the Marines had closed the main road between Amman, Jordan and Baghdad. So I was actually sitting in Jordan in November 2004 reading Dahr Jamail's reports of what might be going on in the city because he was not -- he was in the city in the April 2004 siege but not in November. And it was a very bizarre contrast between sitting in an internet cafe, people drinking coffee and tea and we had electricity and water and reading about just the decimation of a city that was really within miles of where I was so. And you're absolutely right. To this day, they'll recall Falluja as an epic battle when this is really -- to get the terminology means so much -- it was really a massacre that took place, that we were responsible for. It was led by the United States and Great Britain.
Cindy Sheehan: Ross, I was reading at your website and I was reading your report on what happened in Falluja. And you talk about seeing the White Phosphorus being used. I think that was the first time I had ever heard of white phosphorus. And we saw images of people who had unfortunately gotten in the way of that in Falluja. So can you tell my listeners about this and about what you saw?
Ross Caputi: Yes, this was on the day before they inserted us into the city and they were kind of finishing the air campaign against the city and we were supposed to be trucked into the city on the tail end of that. And it was an incredible amount of air power that they were dropping on the city. Everything from like 500 pound bombs to 2,000 pound bombs. I think I saw cluster bombs because I saw these bombs that kind of -- they looked like fireworks with lots of tiny little flashes and really rapid -- like one after the other. And I saw the White Phosphorus which is like a giant, white fireball shot out of the sky that kind of drifts down on winds. It's incredibly inaccurate. It must have covered a radius like 50 meters and there's no way to aim it. The wind can take it any which way.
Cindy Sheehan: Uh-huh.
Ross Caputi: And I didn't know this at the time but there were still up to 50,000 civilians living in the city and there were civilians taking refuge all around the outskirts. So where ever it landed, there was a high probability that it could have -- it could have hurt civilians. Any kind of indiscriminate means of warfare is a war crime and that's absolutely indiscriminate.
As Cindy demonstrated, it is possible to talk about Iraq as something other than a frozen moment in time, it is important to talk about Iraq with an actual eye on the Iraqi people.
Cindy Sheehan's Tour de Peace
As noted at Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox, Cindy's gearing up for a new action, the Tour de Peace.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Online: http://tourdepeace.org
Contact: David
Swanson david@davidswanson.org 202-329-7847
Sheehan and other riders are available for interviews.
WHAT: Gold Star
Mother and "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan will lead a Tour de Peace bike ride across the United States
from the grave of her son Casey in Vacaville, Calif., to
Washington, D.C., following the mother road, historic Route
66 to Chicago, and other roads from there on to D.C. Bicyclers will join in for all or part of the
tour, which will include public events organized by local groups along the way.
Complete route: http://tourdepeace.org/the-
WHEN: The tour
will begin on April 4, 2013, nine years after Casey Sheehan was killed in Iraq,
and 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in Memphis. It will conclude on July 3, 2013, with a ride
from Arlington National Cemetery to the White House.
WHY: This August
will mark 8 years since Cindy Sheehan began a widely reported protest at
then-President George W. Bush's "ranch" in Crawford, Texas, demanding
to know what the "noble cause" was for which Bush claimed Americans
were dying in Iraq. Neither Bush nor
President Obama has yet offered a justification for a global war now in its 12th
year. The Tour de Peace will carry with
it these demands:
To end wars,
To end immunity for U.S. war crimes,
To end suppression of our civil rights,
To end the use of fossil fuels,
To end persecution of whistleblowers,
To end partisan apathy and inaction.
Senator Murray receives an honor
Senator Patty Murray (above being presented with an honor by MOPH National Commander Bruce McKenty) is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee. Her office notes an honor she received last week:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
CONTACT: Murray Press Office
(202) 224-2834
Senator Murray Honored by Military Order of the Purple Heart
Recognized for leadership and distinguished service to our nation's veterans
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty
Murray (D-WA) was presented the Inspirational Leadership Award by the Military
Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) during a private ceremony in her Capitol Hill
offices. MOPH National Commander Bruce McKenty presented this year’s award to
Senator Murray which read:
“Since being
elected to the Senate in 1992, Senator Patty Murray has consistently served as
an advocate for veterans, military members and their
families.
“Having been
raised in the family of a disabled World War II veteran, she came to the Senate
fully understanding the sacrifices, as well as the physical and emotional scars
the veterans bring home with them.
“Senator
Murray was the first female Senator to serve on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs
Committee and serves as its Chair in the 112th Congress. She has
consistently been a tireless advocate for all veterans.
“She led the
battle for increased funding for veterans’ healthcare and increased benefits,
and profoundly recognized the importance of specialized programs for veterans
suffering from TBI and PTSD.
“Senator
Murray continues to support education and employment opportunities, better
health care for women veterans and a myriad of other programs that she believes
America owes its veterans.
“Senator
Murray’s service reflects great credit upon herself, the United States Senate
and the United States of America.”
The organization
now known as the "Military Order of the Purple Heart of the U.S.A. Inc.," was
formed in 1932 for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received
the decoration. Chartered by the Congress, The MOPH is unique among Veteran
Service Organizations in that all its members were wounded in combat. For this
sacrifice, they were awarded the Purple Heart Medal.
Click here to download high resolution
photo.
###
Meghan Roh
Press Secretary | New Media
Director
Office of U.S. Senator Patty
Murray
Mobile: (202) 365-1235
Office: (202) 224-2834
Get Updates from Senator Murray
Harriet Tubman and Working Women's Day Coalition
Repost from Workers World:
New York — The International Working Women’s Day Coalition, an alliance of community-based women’s organizations that has organized events for the past eight years, has announced plans for women’s events in Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx to celebrate women’s struggles — with a major focus on honoring the legacy of anti-slavery freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, who died 100 years ago on March 10. All events are open to the media and are free.
Monica Moorehead, from the Women’s Fightback Network and one of three coordinators of the coalition, told WW: “International Working Women’s Day, March 8, and the entire month of March provide important opportunities to reflect on the inspiring roles that women have played in movements for social justice. Just as importantly, we will show that the challenges for women come in all forms as the capitalist economic crisis intensifies. The motto for our coalition is ‘Every issue is a woman’s issue,’ which means we have the right to housing, education and health care; child care, food, union-paying jobs or a livable income; and not mass incarceration, violence, war and occupation.”
Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement and a coalition coordinator described the significance of focusing on Harriet Tubman: “Our focus on Harriet Tubman is because she dedicated her life to struggle, to fighting the brutal, vicious system of slavery. She accomplished her own freedom and the freedom of hundreds of others in life threatening situations. And she did it with less tools than we have today. We should dedicate ourselves to claiming power in this country and to fundamentally changing the economic, political and social system that destroys the lives of so many. We need to focus on women’s involvement 365 days a year, especially to get women to understand their role in changing society.”
Irma Bajar, of FiRE — Filipinas for Rights & Empowerment, the vice-chair of International Relations of GABRIELA USA and another coordinator of the IWWD Coalition, explained, “The International Working Women’s Coalition has been a growing coalition for the past eight years that recognizes that the crisis of capitalism and imperialism is the root cause of the critical issues that weigh heavily on women here in New York City and all over the globe, thus creating an inclusive space that encourages women, LGBT folks, community and our allies to unite, resist and fight back to build the women’s movement here in the belly of the beast.”
The schedule is as follows:
MARCH 9, Saturday
11:30 a.m. in Manhattan
23-29 Washington Place
Speak Out & Vigil on the theme “Every issue is a woman’s issue” at the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, where in 1911 women workers died in a factory fire.
1 p.m. March & Rally — the Coalition contingent will join a rally called by Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD) in Washington Square Park
MARCH 10, Sunday
Honoring the Warrior Spirit of Harriet Tubman
Worship Service 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
1:30 p.m. — Short film and discussion
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on the Hill, 975 Saint Nicholas Ave.
Info: 212-650-5008 Asantewaa Harris at City College of N.Y.
MARCH 16, Saturday
1 to 4 p.m.
Boys and Girls High School at 1700 Fulton St., Brooklyn
Videos and readings on Harriet Tubman, along with artwork and poetry, followed by a communal meal. Program co-sponsored by the CARE Center, a youth program.
March 24, Sunday
3 p.m.
Bronx Art Space Gallery at 305 E. 140 St. at Alexander Avenue, the Bronx
Vignettes on Harriet Tubman, in Spanish and English, along with artwork and more. This program is co-sponsored by Women Workers for Peace and La Peña del Bronx.
For more information on all of these events, go to iacenter.org or Facebook at International Working Women’s Day Coalition.
Articles copyright 1995-2013 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Honoring Harriet Tubman included in NYC women’s coalition month of events
By Editor on March 1, 2013 » Add the first comment.
By Dolores Cox and Sara Flounders
New York — The International Working Women’s Day Coalition, an alliance of community-based women’s organizations that has organized events for the past eight years, has announced plans for women’s events in Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx to celebrate women’s struggles — with a major focus on honoring the legacy of anti-slavery freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, who died 100 years ago on March 10. All events are open to the media and are free.
Monica Moorehead, from the Women’s Fightback Network and one of three coordinators of the coalition, told WW: “International Working Women’s Day, March 8, and the entire month of March provide important opportunities to reflect on the inspiring roles that women have played in movements for social justice. Just as importantly, we will show that the challenges for women come in all forms as the capitalist economic crisis intensifies. The motto for our coalition is ‘Every issue is a woman’s issue,’ which means we have the right to housing, education and health care; child care, food, union-paying jobs or a livable income; and not mass incarceration, violence, war and occupation.”
Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement and a coalition coordinator described the significance of focusing on Harriet Tubman: “Our focus on Harriet Tubman is because she dedicated her life to struggle, to fighting the brutal, vicious system of slavery. She accomplished her own freedom and the freedom of hundreds of others in life threatening situations. And she did it with less tools than we have today. We should dedicate ourselves to claiming power in this country and to fundamentally changing the economic, political and social system that destroys the lives of so many. We need to focus on women’s involvement 365 days a year, especially to get women to understand their role in changing society.”
Irma Bajar, of FiRE — Filipinas for Rights & Empowerment, the vice-chair of International Relations of GABRIELA USA and another coordinator of the IWWD Coalition, explained, “The International Working Women’s Coalition has been a growing coalition for the past eight years that recognizes that the crisis of capitalism and imperialism is the root cause of the critical issues that weigh heavily on women here in New York City and all over the globe, thus creating an inclusive space that encourages women, LGBT folks, community and our allies to unite, resist and fight back to build the women’s movement here in the belly of the beast.”
The schedule is as follows:
MARCH 9, Saturday
11:30 a.m. in Manhattan
23-29 Washington Place
Speak Out & Vigil on the theme “Every issue is a woman’s issue” at the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, where in 1911 women workers died in a factory fire.
1 p.m. March & Rally — the Coalition contingent will join a rally called by Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD) in Washington Square Park
MARCH 10, Sunday
Honoring the Warrior Spirit of Harriet Tubman
Worship Service 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
1:30 p.m. — Short film and discussion
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on the Hill, 975 Saint Nicholas Ave.
Info: 212-650-5008 Asantewaa Harris at City College of N.Y.
MARCH 16, Saturday
1 to 4 p.m.
Boys and Girls High School at 1700 Fulton St., Brooklyn
Videos and readings on Harriet Tubman, along with artwork and poetry, followed by a communal meal. Program co-sponsored by the CARE Center, a youth program.
March 24, Sunday
3 p.m.
Bronx Art Space Gallery at 305 E. 140 St. at Alexander Avenue, the Bronx
Vignettes on Harriet Tubman, in Spanish and English, along with artwork and more. This program is co-sponsored by Women Workers for Peace and La Peña del Bronx.
For more information on all of these events, go to iacenter.org or Facebook at International Working Women’s Day Coalition.
Articles copyright 1995-2013 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Highlights
This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
"The stain on the left" -- most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site.
"Iraq snapshot""Iraq snapshot," "When does the conversation begin?," "LAT hides counter-insurgency," "Praise for Charlie Savage, " and "NBC censors Bradley to avoid a national debate" -- Bradley Manning coverage in the community -- C.I., Ruth, Kat and Mike.
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Sequestration" -- Isaiah takes a look at the creation.
"Ancho Lentil Tacos in the Kitchen" and "Food and the economy" -- which really is the whole point of Trina's site.
"barbra bombed" -- Rebecca breaks the news.
"THIS JUST IN! AND WHO CREATED THE SCARY?" and "Create the monster then blame others" -- Basics from Wally and Cedric.
"TV and science," "Whitney (Mark and Roxanne get closer)," "Whitney," "Whitney," "Arrow (is Black Canary coming?)," "Smash, call it Ellis' revenge," "Nikita: With Fire," "Whose body of proof?," "Where the hell is Happy Endings?," "scandal," and "No Good Wife" -- TV coverage from Betty, Ann, Marcia, Stan, Elaine, Mike and Rebecca.
"Go away, Gloria, just go away" and "what kat said" -- Kat and Rebecca asking for a change of the guard.
"The War Criminal Cries" and "THIS JUST IN! WHIMPERING WAR CRIMINAL!"-- Cedric and Wally on whiny Tony Blair.
"David Greene's Micro Mac & Cheese in The Kitchen" -- another recipe from Trina.
"p.r advice for mia farrow 'crazy cat lady'" -- Rebecca breaks it down.
"Bonnie Franklin" and "Van Cliburn -- dead and insulted by the State Dept." -- Ruth and Elaine note passings.
"Fat does not equal feminist" -- Kat takes on the fakes and frauds.
"Hitchcock" -- Stan goes to the movies.
"White House On Attack" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.
"Barnes and Rudeness" -- Ann on the bookseller.
"Fish McBites and Wendy's new cod sandwich" -- Trina weighs in on fast food.
"Hagel vote" and "Hagel and his supporters" -- Ruth and Marcia on Chuck Hagel.
"He must have sent a drone to kill the economy!" and "THIS JUST IN! THE 1 THING HE DIDN'T KILL!"-- Cedric and Wally on the one target Barack didn't detonate.
"The stain on the left" -- most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site.
"Iraq snapshot""Iraq snapshot," "When does the conversation begin?," "LAT hides counter-insurgency," "Praise for Charlie Savage, " and "NBC censors Bradley to avoid a national debate" -- Bradley Manning coverage in the community -- C.I., Ruth, Kat and Mike.
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Sequestration" -- Isaiah takes a look at the creation.
"Ancho Lentil Tacos in the Kitchen" and "Food and the economy" -- which really is the whole point of Trina's site.
"barbra bombed" -- Rebecca breaks the news.
"THIS JUST IN! AND WHO CREATED THE SCARY?" and "Create the monster then blame others" -- Basics from Wally and Cedric.
"TV and science," "Whitney (Mark and Roxanne get closer)," "Whitney," "Whitney," "Arrow (is Black Canary coming?)," "Smash, call it Ellis' revenge," "Nikita: With Fire," "Whose body of proof?," "Where the hell is Happy Endings?," "scandal," and "No Good Wife" -- TV coverage from Betty, Ann, Marcia, Stan, Elaine, Mike and Rebecca.
"Go away, Gloria, just go away" and "what kat said" -- Kat and Rebecca asking for a change of the guard.
"The War Criminal Cries" and "THIS JUST IN! WHIMPERING WAR CRIMINAL!"-- Cedric and Wally on whiny Tony Blair.
"David Greene's Micro Mac & Cheese in The Kitchen" -- another recipe from Trina.
"p.r advice for mia farrow 'crazy cat lady'" -- Rebecca breaks it down.
"Bonnie Franklin" and "Van Cliburn -- dead and insulted by the State Dept." -- Ruth and Elaine note passings.
"Fat does not equal feminist" -- Kat takes on the fakes and frauds.
"Hitchcock" -- Stan goes to the movies.
"White House On Attack" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.
"Barnes and Rudeness" -- Ann on the bookseller.
"Fish McBites and Wendy's new cod sandwich" -- Trina weighs in on fast food.
"Hagel vote" and "Hagel and his supporters" -- Ruth and Marcia on Chuck Hagel.
"He must have sent a drone to kill the economy!" and "THIS JUST IN! THE 1 THING HE DIDN'T KILL!"-- Cedric and Wally on the one target Barack didn't detonate.
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