If you're not getting how useless 'left' and 'independent' media are, you probably weren't paying attention last week.
Let's start with some history because history and context are in short supply as we look around at left and 'left' sites like COMMON DREAMS. The Civil Rights Movement is a defining moment in history, not just US history, but around the world. A non-violent movement that pushed for progress and saw a lot of success. Lives were improved, society was bettered. Many activists gave their all for the movement. Some ended up giving their lives. One such pioneer was Medgar Evers. The NAACP notes:
Throughout his short life, Medgar Evers heroically spoke out against racism in the deeply divided South. He fought against cruel Jim Crow laws, protested segregation in education, and launched an investigation into the Emmett Till lynching. In addition to playing a role in the civil rights movement, he served as the NAACP's first field officer in Mississippi.
Evers began his journey as a civil rights activist when he and five friends were turned away from a local election at gunpoint. He had just returned from the Battle of Normandy in World War II and realized fighting for his country did not spare him from racism or give him equal rights.
After attending college at the historically black Alcorn State University in Mississippi and taking a job selling life insurance in the predominantly Black town of Mound Bayou, Evers became president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL). As head of the organization, Evers mounted a boycott of gas stations that barred Black people from using their restrooms, distributing bumper stickers with the slogan "Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom." annual conferences between 1952 and 1954 in Mound Bayou attracted tens of thousands.
Evers soon turned his sights on desegregation after being rejected from the University of Mississippi Law School because of the color of his skin. The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education 1954 ruling making school segregation unconstitutional. His fight to desegregate the University of Mississippi Law School bore fruit eight years after he began when James Meredith was enrolled in 1962.
As NAACP's first field officer in Mississippi, Evers established new local chapters, organized voter registration drives, and helped lead protests to desegregate public primary schools, parks, and Mississippi Gold Coast beaches.
Evers gained notoriety in the eyes of white supremacists after becoming involved in two high-profile Mississippi cases. His public investigations into the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till and the 1960 conviction of Clyde Kennard, a Black civil rights activist framed for crimes he didn't commit, left Evers vulnerable to attack.
White supremacists made several attempts on Evers's life before succeeding on June 12, 1963. After pulling into his driveway and getting out of his car carrying NAACP T-shirts reading "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was shot in the back and died at the local hospital less than an hour later. He was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights.
A member of the Ku Klux Klan, Byron De La Beckwith, was arrested for Evers's murder but remained free after all-white juries twice deadlocked on his guilt. Three decades later, justice was finally served when De La Beckwith was found guilty of Evers's murder and sent to prison in his 70s.
Evers was buried with full military honors in front of more than 3,000 people at Arlington National Cemetery. His murder and the failure to convict De La Beckwith inspired a number of songs from popular musicians, including Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game" and "Too Many Martyrs" and "Another Country" by Phil Ochs. The 1996 film The Ghosts of Mississippi starring Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg depicts the 1994 trial of De La Beckwith for Evers's murder.
Evers's family also carried his legacy forward. Both his wife Myrlie Evers-Williams and his brother Charles became prominent civil rights activists, with Myrlie serving as chairwoman of NAACP from 1995 to 1998.
Get it? He's part of history and he's a hero. His widow is as well. And she's been a guest three times on DEMOCRACY NOW! But last week, that program couldn't find her, nor could TRUTHOUT, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES . . . It's a long, long list. And, yeah, COMMON DREAMS couldn't find her either.
Why should they have been noting her? When a Civil Rights icon endorses in a presidential race, that's news. CBS NEWS thought so.
Susan Page and USA TODAY found it to be newsworthy:
California Rep. Maxine Waters first introduced Evers to Kamala Harris when she was running for California attorney general in 2010. "I'm an admirer" of Harris, Evers said. "It takes a pretty strong person to step out into a crowd that may or may not be friendly and put yourself on the line for something that you believe in. I think she has done that."
Her endorsement is no surprise, but it is an affirmation of Harris' groundbreaking candidacy by one of the handful of surviving leaders of the civil rights movement of the '60s − a movement that didn't always fully acknowledge the contributions of women.
"I hear criticisms along the way, that women should not be involved in politics, this and the other," Evers said, noting she was speaking as "an old-timer." She has seen that attitude change − with the first woman of color nominated for the presidency, the first Black woman sitting on the Supreme Court, and two Black women favored to win Senate seats in November.
DELTA NEWS TV found it to be news:
Myrlie Evers, civil rights leader, first female chairman of the NAACP, author, activists and widow of civil rights icon Medgar Evers today announced her endorsement of Kamala Harris for President in a new video, citing her commitment to justice, equality, and the ongoing fight for civil rights.
“Kamala Harris embodies the values that my husband Medgar Evers dedicated his life to—justice, equality, and the belief that America can and should be better,” says Myrlie Evers. “Her vision for this country aligns with the ideals Medgar fought for, and that’s why I am proud to endorse her for President. As a senator, she held the Trump administration accountable and will continue to fight those who attempt to undermine our Constitution and American values.”
But all those 'independent' outlets as well as THE PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and Saturday and Sunday evening's KPFA EVENING NEWS didn't find it to be news. It reminds us of how a minor playwright -- who was friends with then editorial-editor of THE NEW YORK TIMES Gail Collins -- got multiple front page stories when she died, an editorial when she died and multiple columns on the op-ed pages of THE TIMES while Coretta Scott King got a minor front page story and that was it. A playwright of little significance versus a part of history, a pioneer. We called it out and we called it out loudly. As sop tossed to us, one columnist that we know finally wrote a column about Coretta for THE TIMES. Well, he said it was "about" her, we noticed that it was a few paragraphs squeezed into a multi-topic column.
There's a lot of pretense by the White left and 'left' that Black Lives Matter and we say "pretense" because while they give an occasional shout out to the notion, in practice they just can't be bothered.
COMMON DREAMS attacks Kamala every day. Every day. They can't note an endorsement from a Civil Rights pioneer but they make time for a garbage column from a British man living in England to trash Kamala? "Democratic charade"? First off, he's not in the United States, there's no reason to publish his uninformed opinion. He's a Gaza-freak who's failed to advocate for Palestinians adequately in his own country but wants to pretend he's somehow holding a politician from another country accountable. We're sick of these cowards. And we're getting damn sick of COMMON DREAMS and its attacks on Kamala.
TRUTHOUT at least tries to be a little more even-handed. Nicholas Powers had a column last Thursday where he reviewed some basic facts about Black women's health and expressed his desire for Kamala to address the issue.
Hmm.
Let's drop back to the August 29th Iraq snapshot:
Starting with the US presidential election, I believe the whine goes something like this: "Kamala hasn't done any interviews!"
That's what the mail brought me yesterday. Page 48 kicks off Caroline Wanga's six page interview with the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. The two discuss a number of issues including the economy. I'll note this from the interview
Kamala Harris: I have been working on that issue for years -- with my colleagues from the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] when I was in the Senate and now as Vice President. Why? Because Black women in the United States of America are three to four times more likely to die in connection with childbirth than other women. And we know that there are a variety of reasons for that. But we also know that this is a health care crisis of the highest order, and it has received very little attention proportionate to the seriousness of the matter. So, I worked with my colleagues when I was in the Senate. We passed a number of ills. When I came in as Vice President, I continue to work on it. And one of the things I found is this: For women on Medicaid, which states can provide for postpartum care for two months up to 12 months -- and I realized when I came in as Vice President, only three states would extend Medicaid coverage for postpartum care from two months to 12 months. I don't have a problem shaming people sometimes, so I challenged the states to extend it. And now 46 states have extended Medicaid coverage for postpartum care. There is a direct connection between this and Black maternal mortality. But back to the other point about freedom of choice. The majority of Black women in America live in the South You know that in the South, we have some of the highest rates of Black maternal mortality. In the South, except for the state of Virginia, every state has an abortion ban. And what I find hypocrisy upon hypocrisy, by some of these extremists, is that the same ones saying they're passing these abortion bans because they care about women and children have been completely silent on the issue of Black maternal mortality. Don't come to us, gaslighting us about where you've been and where you haven't been, on important issues that relate to what we know every day affects our sisters, our mothers, our aunties, our grandmothers -- and could affect our daughters.
A few comments. The interview is not online. I have no idea if it will be posted or not. Currently at ESSENCE, Jasmine Browley has an article about Kamala and the opportunity economy that went up this week and Robyn Mowatt looks at political style.
Second, the cover notes "COLLECTOR'S EDITION." If you're a subscriber
like me, you may grimace. But they used a real sticker that peels off
-- not a paper label that's basically glued to the cover -- and it's
very easy and doesn't tear the cover when you remove it. After I
removed it, I scanned for the image above (notice no tear in the lower
corner) and took the cover off the magazine. It's now framed and up in
my home office.
If you read the quote above and then read Nicholas' article, you're left with the realization that has no idea that this interview exists. Which goes again to our 'independent' and 'left' media which can constantly tell us about what made the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES, ESQUIRE or any other White corporate outlet repeatedly ignores the Black press over and over.
Last week, Kamala Harris debated Donald Trump -- see "Kamala destroys Donald (Ava and C.I.)." Somehow, that just wasn't good enough for our left and 'left' media.
And it wasn't important to them -- COMMON DREAMS ran with a bad column by Robert C. Koehler that concluded with, "But in her 'victory,' what deeper truth did Harris advance? What not-yet-existing country did she envision and present to the American people . . .and the world? I heard the clichés, especially the military clichés, but I didn't see the vision." We don't link to trash. But you can find the column, GOOGLE the quote if you have to. You will then see that he didn't quote Kamala once from the debate. He quoted Donald over and over. But on Kamala he went to outside the debate because he's ticked off by an endorsement Kamala received. Then he has the nerve to end his bad column, which refused to quote Kamala, asking his audience to identify some "deeper truth" Kamala addressed -- after refusing to quote her. No, that's not journalism.
It also wasn't important to Koehler that Donald lied about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. He reduced that lie to one single sentence, "In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants are 'eating dogs and cats -- the pets of people that live there'."
The lie had been out there for days before the debate. To it's credit, COMMON DREAMS had covered the lie before the debate in Brett Wilkins' "'Racist Piece of Sh*t' JD Vance Spreads False Rumors of Pet-Eating Haitian Immigrants." In the debate itself? Here's the exchange via ABC NEWS' transcription:
DAVID MUIR: We're going to turn now to immigration and border security. We know it's an issue that's important to Republicans, Democrats, voters across the board in this country. Vice President Harris, you were tasked by President Biden with getting to the root causes of migration from Central America. We know that illegal border crossings reached a record high in the Biden administration. This past June, President Biden imposed tough new asylum restrictions. We know the numbers since then have dropped significantly. But my question to you tonight is why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act and would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: So I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported. And that bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now over time trying to do their job. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States. I know there are so many families watching tonight who have been personally affected by the surge of fentanyl in our country. That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings. But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill. And you know why? Because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And understand, this comes at a time where the people of our country actually need a leader who engages in solutions, who actually addresses the problems at hand. But what we have in the former president is someone who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And I'll tell you something, he's going to talk about immigration a lot tonight even when it's not the subject that is being raised. And I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your, your desires. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. President Trump, on that point I want to get your response.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I would like to respond.
DAVID MUIR: Let me just ask, though, why did you try to kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: First let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids.
DAVID MUIR: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I've seen people on television
DAVID MUIR: Let me just say here this ...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager.
DAVID MUIR: I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager.
In the aftermath, we saw garbage. At ZNET, for example, an idiot showed up to float some conspiracy theory about David Muir and how did Muir 'knew' Donald would bring this up. How? Because he and Vance were already bringing it up and Vance was called out before the debate.
The debate was Tuesday night. Yet it wasn't until Thursday that COMMON DREAMS finally took the attack on immigrants seriously -- as opposed to treating it like a joke (which they did in two columns prior to that). By that time, the rage Donald's lies has stoked were causing serious problems. David Badash reports:
“Due to a bomb threat that was issued to multiple facilities throughout Springfield today, City Hall is closed today,” the City of Springfield wrote in a Facebook post, saying it had “received a bomb threat that has prompted an immediate response from local and regional law enforcement. As a precautionary measure, the building has been evacuated, and authorities are currently conducting a thorough investigation. Our primary concern is the safety and well-being of our employees and residents. We are working to address this situation as swiftly as possible.”
The statement adds the bomb threat came via an email at 8:24 AM that was “sent to multiple agencies and media outlets.”
Just one day ago, City Manager Bryan Heck in a video denounced the rhetoric used in the presidential race, while promoting the city’s growth, which has been improved local businesses say, by the influx of immigrants.
Donald Trump used hatred and fear to mobilize his base and the result was an unsafe environment. But COMMON DREAMS couldn't and wouldn't focus on that. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and COMMON DREAMS won't focus on that.
Now again, COMMON DREAMS did grasp, days later, how vile and disgusting and dangerous the lie was. That does put them ahead of THE PACIFICA EVENING NEWS which, on Friday, started a 'report' on this issue with "what he [Joe Biden] describes as attacks on the Haitian immigrant community." What he describes? As opposed to actual attacks on the Haitian immigrant community? Because that's what they were.
And the attacks from the demagogue team of Donald and JD have continued. On this morning's FACE THE NATION (CBS), Margaret Breenan confronted Vance on his newest lie.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yesterday, you posted a video, the origins of which CBS cannot confirm, claiming Africans are grilling cats in Dayton. Haiti is not Africa. Dayton is not Springfield. But putting all that aside, what is your intent in furthering the focus on these people? You're not talking about how to surge federal funds to help with safety, hospitals, and schools. You're talking about this…
SEN. JD VANCE: Margaret is your argument really, that it's a huge difference if migrants are grilling cats 20 miles away from Springfield rather than downtown Springfield? And would it change if the video was 20 miles closer to where these things allegedly occurred? My point here is that the American media ignores these stories. Everybody who has dealt with a large influx of migration knows that sometimes there are cultural practices that seem very far out there to a lot of Americans. Are we not allowed to talk about this in the United States of America? Margaret, because the American media is more interested in fact checking innocent people who are begging for relief than they are in investigating some of these claims. I'm going to talk about what my constituents are sending me. That video was actually filmed by a constituent. That video was filmed by a person who is worried about what's going on in these communities. I'm going to talk about it because that's what I need to do as the United States senator for Ohio, is represent Ohio and actually make sure that people's concerns get their voice.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Again, as a representative of Ohio, these are officials from Ohio, including the Dayton police chief who said there is no evidence of what you just claimed as being verifiable or true. CBS confirmed- we were able to confirm this video, and it was of the Proud Boys marching through Springfield yesterday. We know hate groups have been amplifying the concerns about Haitians for weeks. What exactly- what constituency are you trying to appeal to here by putting this at the center of the conversation?
SEN. JD VANCE: Margaret, first of all, whatever some local mayor said about this case, I am hearing from dozens of constituents who are concerned about these issues. They are allowed to be concerned about these issues, and I think it's shameful how the American media ignores them.
Some are trying to cover this -- NPR here; however, we think they're missing the point. JD repeated this morning on one program after another that he was not at fault, he was merely bringing up what his constituents were telling him.
While it is his job to represent his constituents, he's under no obligation to repeat lies -- told to him by constituents or whomever.
If his constituents, for example, tell him that 12-year-old boys are aborting their own butt babies, that doesn't mean JD Vance has to amplify it. It's a lie. He's a US senator and that's not a pass for lying.
Equally true, he's repeating the lie and he needs to stop blaming others for that.
Blaming others.
We're at a crossroads here. We care about the Palestinian people.
So we're torn by whom to vote for? Hell no.
It's not just that Jill Stein is an idiot who has run for president two times previously but still doesn't know how many members the House of Representatives has? (435.)
It's not just that she will not win.
It's the fact that a group that we're going to dub "Gaza Freaks," are working to elect Donald Trump -- a lot of them apparently are in left and 'left' media.
We need to address racism, sexism, homophobia, we need to save our democracy, we need to address the corruption of the Supreme Court, we need to restore women's health access, we need so many things.
And we're not going to get any of them with Donald Trump in the White House.
We certainly aren't going to get a cease-fire with Donald Trump in the White House.
On Saturday's KPFA EVENING NEWS, Jill Stein groupie Ann Garrison thought she'd woo and win voters over to Jill Stein and stupidity via an interview with Hassan Abdel Salam of the Abandon Harris Movement -- a group working "to defeat Kamala Harris in battleground states." If you're wondering if the slow witted group grasps that this would mean electing Donald Trump, yes, they do grasp that.
Ann Garrison: So you're looking to win a moral victory by costing the Democrats the election or helping to do so?
Hassan Abdel Salam: Absolutely.
He then offers delusions about how this is "the only way the political establishment, the Democratic Party, will listen to us is if they too encounter the very thing they fear the most a defeat on November 5th."
No, that's not what's going to happen. If you nut jobs re-elect Donald Trump, you're going to find the majority of Americans no longer give a s**t about your cause.
You re-elect Donald Trump and you're going to find yourself on a no-man's island.
Your cause will lose support and you will be a joke. No one will want to hear from you. No one will want to know you. If you think the way Ralph Nader got ostracized -- even from organizations he himself started -- in 2000 was rough, you don't know the half of it. Bully Boy Bush was an unknown quantity. We all know what another term of Trump means.
The day after Garrison's propaganda aired on KPFA, Leo Rose Rodriguez had a column published by THE MINNESOTA STAR-TRIBUNE which noted why he, despite being very concerned about the Palestinian people, was not abandoning Harris.
That's part of the story that 'left' and 'independent' media refuses to tell.
What we're calling "The Gaza Freaks" are not the only people concerned about the Palestinians in the United States. Were it just "The Gaza Freaks," no one would give a damn the same way America's ignored these attacks, this apartheid, for decades and decades.
Now, when Americans are finally waking up to reality, The Gaza Freaks want to destroy the support that's building by going off on their purity mission -- wearing their virginity promise rings -- and insisting that they will not give up their cherry until Gaza is free.
Reality, Gaza's not going to be free in 2024 or 2025. Probably not in 2026. That's not how movements work.
The Gaza Freaks are turning everyone off. The Gaza Freaks are thrilled with "The shooting?" that took place last week because they think it makes them look better (one of their own was shot after he attacked a peaceful protester for Israel).
You are unhinged and you're promoting destruction
Destruction can come from all over. For example, the Jill Stein supporter who took pornographic photos of their own children? We can help with the destruction of The Gaza Freaks by outing them on things like this. Is that really what you want us to do?
Because we're trying to be kind. And if we're struggling with kindness, you damn well better believe that a lot of other people are as well. So think very clearly in this moment. Your continued attacks on Kamala Harris are not going to help the Palestinian people. But they do send a message to the rest of us about what freaks you are and how you don't care one bit about racial justice in the US, about climate change, about the kid who was raped by her father and will be forced to give birth, about anything. Because, one more time, you don't even care about the Palestinians if you're working to put Donald Trump back into the White House.