Jim: Roundtable time again. Focusing on the media this roundtable. Remember our e-mail
address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and common_ills@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; 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); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the
illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.
Ty: I'd like to start with USEFUL IDIOTS. Aaron Mate? WTF?
Betty: Oh, I know, is that permanent?
Isaiah: What's going on?
Ty: He's a co-host of USEFUL IDIOTS now.
C.I.: He's joining Katie Halper for the program while the other host is taking time off to finish a book.
Betty: Oh, good. I was afraid it was permanent. He's nothing like the other host. On a good day, you could describe him as "dry." The humor's not really there and won't be. He's like having Ash as a co-host.
Marcia: ALIEN reference! Good one. Ash is the droid that Ripley doesn't trust in ALIENS because of his actions in ALIEN. Yeah, Aaron Mate is a droid in terms of personality.
Rebecca: Why didn't they get someone with energy? Or charisma?
Ruth: Or a woman? Why did the temporary substitute need to be a man?
Dona: An e-mail from Chan notes that WSWS has become a joke and that they have trashed and ridiculed "rightly NYT's 1619 Project for being fact free but they went after Kyle Rittenhouse in f act free manner themselves and refused to correct the record and continued attacking him with lies from the media that had been proven false. I really wish you had called them out for that. I am glad that you have stopped highlighting them."
Jim: Chan is correct. C.I. actually raised that and argued we should do a parody of it.
Trina: We should have. The rank hypocrisy. I'm not over it. They repeated lies about Rittenhouse. Any lie. I found one that had been distributed by an outlet that was a joke. It wasn't even an real outlet. The whole thing was a joke. And WSWS was repeating that joke but taking it for fact and not crediting the source. Was that because that because they knew it wasn't true or is it just because they long ago learned it was harder to propagandize if they sourced their accusations?
Betty: They really hit hared on the 1619 Project and they were right to. Lying -- as the NYT project did -- to make racial charges is outrageous. But that it just what they did with Rittenhouse. And they should have instead been accusing the corporate media for lying. I have no respect for WSWS anymore.
Cedric: Marcia was the one who first raised the Rittenhouse issue in this community. She waited until the trial started. Which was the way to go. I didn't pay attention to the media drumbeat. This was about a kid and this was from a click-bait media. The refusal of WSWS to look at the actual facts was bad enough but they put their entire weight behind trying to crush a kid? That's outrageous when the corporate media does it. It's pathetic when so called Socialist media tries to. Marcia waited until the trial and the first thing she did was point out some of the questionable claims being promoted by the media.
Ava: Hold on. We need to get this on the record. November 9th, Marcia wrote "Gaige Grosskreutz belongs behind bars" and this is from that:
I'm not getting into the whole Kyle Rittenhouse thing. He's standing
trial. If he's guilty, I hope he's convicted. If he's not guilty, then
peace be with him. He's a kid -- and was when he shot people -- and
there's a blood lust around this case that disgusts me. So I'm not
getting into it or taking sides and I'm trying to let justice be carried
out.
I saw this at CNN:
On Monday, Grosskreutz, a paramedic out that night, testified that he
believed the teenager was an active shooter and so pursued him and
unholstered his own concealed firearm. He testified that he put his
hands up when Rittenhouse pointed his AR-15-style rifle at him but
believed Rittenhouse did not accept his surrender. Rittenhouse shot him
in the right bicep.
"I was never trying to kill the defendant," Grosskreutz said. "In that
moment, I was trying to preserve my own life, but doing so while taking
the life of another is not something I am capable or comfortable doing."
However, Grosskreutz also admitted that he pointed his gun at Rittenhouse before he was shot.
"When you were standing three to five feet from him with your arms up in
the air, he never fired, right?" defense attorney Corey Chirafisi said.
"Correct," Grosskreutz said.
"It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with
your gun -- now your hand is down pointed at him -- that he fired,
right?" Chirafisi asked.
"Correct," Grosskreutz responded.
The paramedic also testified that his concealed carry license had
expired, and he also admitted he incorrectly told investigators his gun
had fallen out of his pants earlier in the night.
I read that and I have to comment. Sorry. First off, the man's name is
Gaige Grosskreutz
and he's the only reason I read the article. I was at Google News and
saw the headline and was scrolling passed when I stopped and went back
up. Why? The picture. I've never seen Kyle Rittenhouse. I knew he
was a kid. I saw the picture with the CNN report on Google News and was
already to go off because I thought, "That's no kid!" I felt like I
had been duped. So I click and start reading it's not the kid, it's
that paramedic Gaige.
Now my thoughts. Liar. Need a second thought? Damn liar.
He lied to the police -- "My gun fell out of my pants." STFU.
He's an adult, he's 27 and he's aiming a gun at a kid.
His ass needs to be charged, he needs to be put in jail. I don't take
this lightly -- obviously. Which is why I'm trying to let justice be
carried out with regards to the kid and not comment on that. But give
me a break. He lied to the police, Gaige did, and he wasn't supposed to
have the gun on him to begin with -- that's what your concealed carry
license expiring means.
That man was totally in the wrong on everything and he should be in prison for pointing a gun at a kid.
Should Kyle Rittenhouse be in prison? I'll wait for the verdict. I
really do feel that there are a lot of issues at play here and I don't
want to be a voice screaming for blood when I feel like, as a nation,
we're arleady screaming for blood. It's like with a recent concert
which has descended into blame the African-American rapper. I'm not
commenting on that one either but when I see an angry mob pursuing
someone and out for blood, I really want to step back and not be a part
of that. If Travis Scott needs to be brought to justice, I'll leave
that to court. The blood letting that some people seem to be going for
disgusts me.
Jess; And they were all liars, every last one of them that the media had promoted as truth tellers. But, yes, the trial is when the truth came out. Marcia was right to call out the liars as they started getting caught. But notice that Marcia, starting there and afterwards, waited for the actual truth. Not lies made to the media and by the media, she waited until people took the witness stand. Prior to that, there was a concentrated effort to ruin a child's life. And it still goes on. That's outrageous and that's not what the left is supposed to be about. Shame on everyone who pulled that crap and especially WSWS.
Marcia: I agree. And credit to Jonathan Turley who wrote strong commentaries throughout and I would especially recommend this one.
Isaiah: And we've seen this over and over with race. I remember wanting to cry as I watched an African-American mother talk about what was done to her son -- watching on DEMOCRACY NOW! -- and then Amy Goodman lying with two White men who did a 'documentary' about the school incident and the supposed tree involved and stripping that woman and what she shared from the story because it didn't jibe with the lies that three White people -- including Amy -- wanted to promote. That's when I was done with DEMOCRACY NOW! Don't use us, don't tell our stories and then ignore us because the truths we tell conflict with your White rage. F**k you, Amy Goodman for what you did to that woman.
Wally: They dig their graves. It's like with their nonsense about the man that terrorized Iraq's women, religious minorities and LGBTQ community. The CODESTINKERS promote him as a "poet" and they do that because the US government killed him. Their 'logic' is that if the US government killed him then he must be a saint. They can't grasp that the US government can be wrong to murder someone because murder is wrong. For them, it has to be that a saint was murdered. The US government should not have murdered the terrorist. That's not justice. But a terrorist also isn't a saint. That's not reality.
Elaine: They commit to the narrative and not the facts. Truth is of little importance and this is nothing new, it's just gotten more extreme.
Mike: Yep. You start to realize how little you can trust media -- whether it's corporate media or so-called independent media.
Jim: Stan, Kat, we're about to wrap up. Did you want to jump in on anything?
Stan: I'll just recommend people read "Ruth's YOUTUBE Report" where Ruth notes ten programs you should be streaming. If you're looking for some reality, read Ruth's list and stream those shows.
Kat: I'll add the US media seems little interested in the persecution of Julian Assange. He needs to be free and I'd also recommend this Tweet from Ajamu Baraka and I hope he expands the Tweet into an article.
Jim: Thank you both. This is a rush transcript.