The US has waged a series of wars and military interventions in the
nearly 75 years since the end of World War II. Since the dissolution of
the Soviet Union nearly three decades ago, it has instigated an unending
and expanding bloodbath, beginning with the First Gulf War in Iraq in
1990–91 and the war in Yugoslavia.
For two decades, in what Bush called the “wars of the twenty-first
century,” the US invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001, followed by
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia. Entire societies have been
destroyed and at least one million people killed, with millions more
transformed into refugees seeking save haven for themselves and their
families.
-- Niles Niemuth, "The class struggle in the United States and the fight against war" (WSWS):
Monday, May 13, 2019
Truest statement of the week II
Everyone’s rights are at risk from the confluence of surveillance and
corporate control. But Facebook isn’t alone in acting as the
government’s enforcer. Google banned Presstv Iran from uploading new
content on Youtube and all of its Gmail platform. Twittersummarily banned 2,000
accounts for “engaging in a state-backed influence campaign.” Their
crime was expressing opinions in favor of the elected government of
Venezuela. The explanations for the censorship are vague but government
demands are always a part of the picture.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Facebook and the Farrakhan Distraction" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Facebook and the Farrakhan Distraction" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Monday morning.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following
And what did we come up with?
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Monday morning.
Let's 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.
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?
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- Editorial: When is enough actually enough?
- TV: NETFLIX continues to underwhelm
- Joe Biden, frenemy of the earth
- Refuting the propaganda
- Peggy Lipton
- Political videos to catch
- Alyssa Milano steps in it again
- Best tease
- This edition's playlist
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: When is enough actually enough?
Deborah Haynes did some strong reporting on Iraq for THE TIMES OF LONDON (including exposing the Iraqi government's hype of the train system running -- with no passengers, as Haynes discovered). Four years ago she stated (above) "History will regret the Iraq War."
Sadly, that war still drags on. Next year there will be yet another general election in the US. Bully Boy Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have occupied the White House and still the Iraq War continues. It makes no difference, apparently.
The media is rushing to declare Joe Biden the nominee for the Democratic Party. Should he be the nominee, that will mean that every presidential cycle since the illegal war started, the Democrats will have someone on the ticket who supported the Iraq War (John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden again).
It's time to be very clear that support for the Iraq War is not presidential.
TV: NETFLIX continues to underwhelm
WINE COUNTRY is a new movie on NETFLIX and, bad news for director Amy Poehler, it's neither a CITIZEN KANE or a YENTL. While those first offerings (from directors Orson Welles and Barbra Streisand) showed cinematic skill, WINE COUNTRY just sort of is.
What is it? A comedy about friendship -- script by Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski -- that finds Rebecca (Rachel Dratch) turning 50 and five of her friends celebrating with her for three days in California's Wine Country. The film plays out weakly -- 103 minutes of I'VE GOT A SECRET -- while you wait for each character to offer their big reveal. 'I know I'm married to an ass!' 'I don't have a job, I was fired!' 'Everyone excludes me!' 'I may have breast cancer! I'm afraid to get the results of my test!' 'I'm so desperate for love, I'll be a doormat for this young woman until I learn self-respect!'
"Wait," you say, "that's only five. There are six characters!"
Are there? Are there really?
Co-writer Emily Spivey appears to have failed at writing her own character Jenny. Jenny is completely uninteresting and you forever forget she's even in the movie. She and Liz should have beefed up her part or cut the character and, in fact, by the time Amy was signed on to direct, that should have been a call she made.
Amy fails a lot. The opening sequence, for example, is filmed fine but scored with some 4/4 march music that goes on endlessly and is annoying. It's as though, without that same, never-ending music, Amy doesn't think she can build transitions as she checks in on each character.
And everyone's talking and talking and talking.
This should have been a quick establishing scene or series of scenes but instead it's a dull exposition and yet, despite having set up the premise at the start, characters repeatedly are trotted out throughout the film to explain that they are six friends together to celebrate a birthday.
So much of this could have been fixed in editing. Why it wasn't is a question Amy needs to answer.
We'd also argue she needs to answer for the casting. For example, why would anyone cast Jason Schwartzman as eye candy? It's a nothing role and he's not good looking enough to end up in bed with one of the women. She does better casting her own brother in a small role but, time and again, you wonder: Where's Molly Shannon? Or any other SNL alumni? Cherry Jones is flat out awful as the tarot card reader. Why didn't that role go to an alumni of SNL? Laraine Newman, to name but one, could have worked that role into something funny and off kilter.
WINE COUNTRY needs off kilter. It only gets it from Maya Rudolph. She almost rescues the film with her performance and her way of making the scripted lines appear to be improvised. But she's the one saddled with the I-may-have-cancer storyline so she doesn't get to soar. In fact, this turkey never soars, WINE COUNTRY just runs around the barn flapping its wings and never getting off the ground.
This is especially sad with regards to Tina Fey. Tina deserves praise for attempting a different characterization with Tammy -- usually she just plays the personality we know as Tina Fey. And there are moments in her performance that are inspired. But the director always has the camera too close or lets the scene run too long -- destroying both the laughs and the character that Tina's trying to create.
Why is Amy Poehler directing?
We're honestly confused. By the time someone directs a movie, they usually do so because they have a passion to tell a story but there's no passion in WINE COUNTRY. Each scene -- and stereotypical character trait -- is just ticked off. It's as though Amy's filming her laundry list.
She has no cinematic vision either. Everything's forever in close up. Why film in wine country and not use that background? At one point, they're in a wine cellar but you don't register that until a character notes it and how immense it is. Amy then gives a quick shot of the cellar and that's it. This is directed like a single-camera sitcom and we don't mean that as a compliment.
Times have changed and are changing -- which is a good thing. In Rachel Abramowitz's long love letter to Jodie Foster (that's what fan girl Rachel actually wrote) IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET?, she rips into Elaine May accusing her of everything but the assassination of JFK. It's Elaine May's fault -- Rachel insists -- that women didn't get more directing opportunities! It was Elaine May, damn it! No, little girl, it wasn't.
Elaine was working against a system and the system didn't embrace women when she had a commercial success (A NEW LEAF, THE HEARTBREAK KID). To blame Elaine -- and Rachel found a man -- a Todd, it's always a Todd -- to back her up in a sexist, kill-Mommy narrative -- is to rewrite history and to pretend that Elaine held the power in Hollywood and not the men who were in charge of hiring people.
Elaine made real films. ISHTAR has been reconsidered critically and it is a hilarious movie. As Warren Beatty has long noted, the studio was killing ISHTAR before it was ever released. Elaine directed four strong films and she left her mark -- Rachel can scrub all she wants but Elaine has a legacy as a director.
That's why is so amazing that Rachel tries to tear her apart. When women fail, it becomes huge news -- as the commercial failure of ISHTAR demonstrates and as the failure of Jane Wanger's MOMENT BY MOMENT demonstrated before ISHTAR. Which is why, as feminists, we experience an urge to pull a punch or look away when the failure involves women.
It's an urge we try to ignore and, thankfully, these days there are so many more women directors that we can be completely honest when someone fails.
Amy has failed as a director. That doesn't mean she can't direct. Failure can be a great teacher as well as a great motivator. She could come back with a stronger hand and she might. But before she tries to direct again, she should ask herself why she's doing it? If she doesn't have a passion for it, it's not going to amount to anything but pedestrian nonsense -- which is all WINE COUNTRY is.
We long ago suggested that NETFLIX needed to build up their own inventory of movies -- we meant good movies. But these days, they can't even do a series right. We seriously question what was the point of green-lighting BONDING?
There's no story there. A show about a dominatrix and her gay male assistant could be interesting if it was the backdrop for a crime show, a mystery/suspense, maybe even a comedy with an actual overall storyline. BONDING has nothing but boredom as it struggles along. The only inspired moment was when Alex Hurt's Frank asked Pete (Brendan Scannell) to finger him -- inspired because Frank is supposed to be straight. But that really didn't justify seven episodes of a show.
Especially one that pretends to be something that it actually isn't. Zoe Levin plays Tiffany, the dominatrix. As the show moves along, we learn what a softy she is, what a sweet and misunderstood girl and the whole thing goes icky and gooey. If you're going to do S&M, do S&M. We are so sick of the typical treatment: A man is the sub for a few minutes but to reassure the audience he quickly tops the woman. See BODY OF EVIDENCE or EXIT TO EDEN or any of it. And add to that list BONDING -- which debuts with the same-old same-old the same year Gregg Araki's NOW APOCALYPSE shreds media stereotypes.
NOW APOCALYPSE is on STARZ. These days, more and more of what you'd expect NETFLIX to offer can be found elsewhere. And that's happening as NETFLIX keeps axing favorite shows. Add SANTA CLARITA DIET to the list of casualties. After the fallout from the mass cancellations of MARVEL shows, NETFLIX began floating to the press the notion that they really only needed three seasons of a show to be successful. This was blindly accepted by the press in the same way that they accept NETFLIX's claim of streams for TV shows and movies.
A real press would have pondered that claim. They only need three seasons? Then the show is dead. But it's still attracting viewers? Really? Is TV LAND ruling the ratings with reruns? And do thirty episode shows really make it big in syndication?
NETFLIX is still running in the red and still borrowing money. As yet, their 'model' has failed to turn a profit. Why is the media in the US so shy about making that point or about questioning the claims the NETFLIX execs make? It's almost as though the whole thing is a Ponzi scheme and the press is afraid telling the truth will cause it to all toppled to the ground.
Too much money is going out and too little is coming in. How is that a successful business model? And no money should have gone into WINE COUNTRY. The shooting script should never have made it into production. That it did -- that BONDING got a green light -- raises serious doubt about the future of NETFLIX.
What is it? A comedy about friendship -- script by Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski -- that finds Rebecca (Rachel Dratch) turning 50 and five of her friends celebrating with her for three days in California's Wine Country. The film plays out weakly -- 103 minutes of I'VE GOT A SECRET -- while you wait for each character to offer their big reveal. 'I know I'm married to an ass!' 'I don't have a job, I was fired!' 'Everyone excludes me!' 'I may have breast cancer! I'm afraid to get the results of my test!' 'I'm so desperate for love, I'll be a doormat for this young woman until I learn self-respect!'
"Wait," you say, "that's only five. There are six characters!"
Are there? Are there really?
Co-writer Emily Spivey appears to have failed at writing her own character Jenny. Jenny is completely uninteresting and you forever forget she's even in the movie. She and Liz should have beefed up her part or cut the character and, in fact, by the time Amy was signed on to direct, that should have been a call she made.
Amy fails a lot. The opening sequence, for example, is filmed fine but scored with some 4/4 march music that goes on endlessly and is annoying. It's as though, without that same, never-ending music, Amy doesn't think she can build transitions as she checks in on each character.
And everyone's talking and talking and talking.
This should have been a quick establishing scene or series of scenes but instead it's a dull exposition and yet, despite having set up the premise at the start, characters repeatedly are trotted out throughout the film to explain that they are six friends together to celebrate a birthday.
So much of this could have been fixed in editing. Why it wasn't is a question Amy needs to answer.
We'd also argue she needs to answer for the casting. For example, why would anyone cast Jason Schwartzman as eye candy? It's a nothing role and he's not good looking enough to end up in bed with one of the women. She does better casting her own brother in a small role but, time and again, you wonder: Where's Molly Shannon? Or any other SNL alumni? Cherry Jones is flat out awful as the tarot card reader. Why didn't that role go to an alumni of SNL? Laraine Newman, to name but one, could have worked that role into something funny and off kilter.
WINE COUNTRY needs off kilter. It only gets it from Maya Rudolph. She almost rescues the film with her performance and her way of making the scripted lines appear to be improvised. But she's the one saddled with the I-may-have-cancer storyline so she doesn't get to soar. In fact, this turkey never soars, WINE COUNTRY just runs around the barn flapping its wings and never getting off the ground.
This is especially sad with regards to Tina Fey. Tina deserves praise for attempting a different characterization with Tammy -- usually she just plays the personality we know as Tina Fey. And there are moments in her performance that are inspired. But the director always has the camera too close or lets the scene run too long -- destroying both the laughs and the character that Tina's trying to create.
Why is Amy Poehler directing?
We're honestly confused. By the time someone directs a movie, they usually do so because they have a passion to tell a story but there's no passion in WINE COUNTRY. Each scene -- and stereotypical character trait -- is just ticked off. It's as though Amy's filming her laundry list.
She has no cinematic vision either. Everything's forever in close up. Why film in wine country and not use that background? At one point, they're in a wine cellar but you don't register that until a character notes it and how immense it is. Amy then gives a quick shot of the cellar and that's it. This is directed like a single-camera sitcom and we don't mean that as a compliment.
Times have changed and are changing -- which is a good thing. In Rachel Abramowitz's long love letter to Jodie Foster (that's what fan girl Rachel actually wrote) IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET?, she rips into Elaine May accusing her of everything but the assassination of JFK. It's Elaine May's fault -- Rachel insists -- that women didn't get more directing opportunities! It was Elaine May, damn it! No, little girl, it wasn't.
Elaine was working against a system and the system didn't embrace women when she had a commercial success (A NEW LEAF, THE HEARTBREAK KID). To blame Elaine -- and Rachel found a man -- a Todd, it's always a Todd -- to back her up in a sexist, kill-Mommy narrative -- is to rewrite history and to pretend that Elaine held the power in Hollywood and not the men who were in charge of hiring people.
Elaine made real films. ISHTAR has been reconsidered critically and it is a hilarious movie. As Warren Beatty has long noted, the studio was killing ISHTAR before it was ever released. Elaine directed four strong films and she left her mark -- Rachel can scrub all she wants but Elaine has a legacy as a director.
That's why is so amazing that Rachel tries to tear her apart. When women fail, it becomes huge news -- as the commercial failure of ISHTAR demonstrates and as the failure of Jane Wanger's MOMENT BY MOMENT demonstrated before ISHTAR. Which is why, as feminists, we experience an urge to pull a punch or look away when the failure involves women.
It's an urge we try to ignore and, thankfully, these days there are so many more women directors that we can be completely honest when someone fails.
Amy has failed as a director. That doesn't mean she can't direct. Failure can be a great teacher as well as a great motivator. She could come back with a stronger hand and she might. But before she tries to direct again, she should ask herself why she's doing it? If she doesn't have a passion for it, it's not going to amount to anything but pedestrian nonsense -- which is all WINE COUNTRY is.
We long ago suggested that NETFLIX needed to build up their own inventory of movies -- we meant good movies. But these days, they can't even do a series right. We seriously question what was the point of green-lighting BONDING?
There's no story there. A show about a dominatrix and her gay male assistant could be interesting if it was the backdrop for a crime show, a mystery/suspense, maybe even a comedy with an actual overall storyline. BONDING has nothing but boredom as it struggles along. The only inspired moment was when Alex Hurt's Frank asked Pete (Brendan Scannell) to finger him -- inspired because Frank is supposed to be straight. But that really didn't justify seven episodes of a show.
Especially one that pretends to be something that it actually isn't. Zoe Levin plays Tiffany, the dominatrix. As the show moves along, we learn what a softy she is, what a sweet and misunderstood girl and the whole thing goes icky and gooey. If you're going to do S&M, do S&M. We are so sick of the typical treatment: A man is the sub for a few minutes but to reassure the audience he quickly tops the woman. See BODY OF EVIDENCE or EXIT TO EDEN or any of it. And add to that list BONDING -- which debuts with the same-old same-old the same year Gregg Araki's NOW APOCALYPSE shreds media stereotypes.
NOW APOCALYPSE is on STARZ. These days, more and more of what you'd expect NETFLIX to offer can be found elsewhere. And that's happening as NETFLIX keeps axing favorite shows. Add SANTA CLARITA DIET to the list of casualties. After the fallout from the mass cancellations of MARVEL shows, NETFLIX began floating to the press the notion that they really only needed three seasons of a show to be successful. This was blindly accepted by the press in the same way that they accept NETFLIX's claim of streams for TV shows and movies.
A real press would have pondered that claim. They only need three seasons? Then the show is dead. But it's still attracting viewers? Really? Is TV LAND ruling the ratings with reruns? And do thirty episode shows really make it big in syndication?
NETFLIX is still running in the red and still borrowing money. As yet, their 'model' has failed to turn a profit. Why is the media in the US so shy about making that point or about questioning the claims the NETFLIX execs make? It's almost as though the whole thing is a Ponzi scheme and the press is afraid telling the truth will cause it to all toppled to the ground.
Too much money is going out and too little is coming in. How is that a successful business model? And no money should have gone into WINE COUNTRY. The shooting script should never have made it into production. That it did -- that BONDING got a green light -- raises serious doubt about the future of NETFLIX.
Joe Biden, frenemy of the earth
Joe Biden's forever taking a dump on the hopes and dreams of Americans. Last week, he took a dump on the needs of the world. He wants to "middle ground" it on the environment. US House Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded, "This is a dealbreaker. There is no 'middle ground' w/ climate denial & delay. Blaming 'blue collar' Americans as the main opponents to bold climate policy is gas lobbyist 101. We’re not going to solve the climate crisis w/ this lack of leadership. Our kids’ lives are at stake." It's as though the former vice president once again just doesn't get it.
As HUFFINGTON POST noted:
At
a moment when mounting reports from the world’s top scientists indicate
humanity is barrelling toward climate catastrophe and ecological
collapse, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is preparing a
climate policy that appears to put the United States back on the
pre-Trump trajectory.
The former vice president’s proposal is anchored in resetting the
clock to 2016 by rejoining the Paris climate accord and reinstating
Obama-era regulations on power plant and vehicle emissions, according to
a Reuters
report published Friday. The policy is expected to maintain a role for
fossil fuels, and veer away from the Green New Deal framework that most
of Biden’s top rivals for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination have
embraced.
“Reheating the Obama administration’s regulations-plus-Paris approach
will be totally insufficient,” said Joseph Majkut, a climate scientist
and policy expert at the center-right think tank Niskanen Center.
"Four years ago with Joe! Four years ago with Joe!" Is that going to be his slogan? If you want to fall back to the past, Joe will take you there. Oliver Milman (GUARDIAN) observes:
A CNN poll in April found that climate change was the single most important matter for Democrats, eclipsing healthcare, gun control and impeaching Trump, with 96% saying it was somewhat or very important to them.
This rapid shift in priorities threatens to cast Biden’s candidacy as out of touch, even at this early stage. A climate plan deemed feeble by primary voters could harm the former vice-president in a new landscape where the Democratic National Committee is being pushed to hold a climate change-only debate and one candidate, the Washington governor, Jay Inslee, is running solely on the issue of global warming.
Some Twitter reaction:
"The timing of the gaffe couldn’t have been more stunning—it came just 72 hours after the UN released a report pointing out that climate change would help wipe out a million species in the decades ahead."
Joe: hold my beer...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/11/joe-biden-no-middle-ground-climate-change?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet …
The New York Times dedicated print space to talking about how Joe Biden hasn't said something dumb for 2 weeks.
Apparently 'middle ground' on climate change which will doom us all doesn't count.
An informal adviser to Joe Biden's campaign on #climatechange issues is also on the board of the Texas-based liquified natural gas company that gives significantly to GOP candidates
- Joe Biden is stuck in the past when it comes to everything. #Bernie2020 #NeverBiden #RacistJoe #BlueTrump https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/11/joe-biden-no-middle-ground-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR2OnK3FeJyfSeOCUFKAEFXsuR-h3X7CP0BgbyNmdgnD-tgGOwwQ9nG_TCc …
- Bernie Sanders is correct there is nothing wrong with him publicly pointing out that he disagrees with Joe Biden’s fossil fuel loving climate change policies. Criticizing a candidate’s policies is fair game in any election between democrats.
- Today @BernieSanders told @TheRevAl that @JoeBiden is wrong on the issue of climate change. It's not a personal attack or a smear to say that. It's taking a stand on the most critical issue in human history.
People for Bernie
- #Biden2020 A huge selling point for Joe Biden is his climate change denial. The middle ground ensures that climate change becomes irreversible. Once the planet's destroyed, Dems can blame Republicans forever. Brilliant! I suggest all good Dems pollute more to expedite things.
- While Biden's climate plan is obviously far too little + useless on all levels, we have to remember that 85% of his supporters will be dead within 10 years so they probably don't care too much about the climate crisis.
This is only one of Joe's problems. Danny Haiphong (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) has already pointed out:
His campaign is already fraught with scandal. “Lunch bucket Joe” been accused of making several women uncomfortable through touching, sniffing, and other obscene gestures. His campaign kick-off event was organized by prominent Comcast executive David Cohen. To make matters worse, Biden has shamed millennials for raising issues important to them, stating that “I have no empathy” for what is now thirty-seven percent of the electorate in the United States.
----
Illustration is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Joe Biden's Voting Record."