Third Estate Sunday Review

Truest statement of the week

2012-01-29T22:37:00.000-05:00

Mic check. Mic check. I want you to know that we all should have known better when Mr. Obama said that he was for change and peace. I want you to know that we should have known better when he started to run and he went to the Black Caucus to ask for their support. When they asked him why hadn't he supported the issues of the Black Caucus, his words were he did not want to be tainted by the Civil Rights Movement. We all know that Fannie Lou Hamer only wanted to vote. This is what Mr. Obama did not want to be tainted by; therefore, when we choose not to support Mr. Obama we want him to remember all of his words where he did not want to be tainted by the Civil Rights Movement, he said stop whimpering, stop whining, stop yammering. So we want to say to Mr. Obama when we don't show up to vote, stop whining! Stop whining, Mr. Obama! We no longer believe that you will stand for anything. You never stood for the First Amendment right of free speech. You never stood for the Fifth Amendment right to have an attorney. You never stood for anything that didn't support the corporations. We are standing for all of the people not the corporations. Mr. Obama, we are going to send you back home to Chicago where you helped destroy the projects. We need someone who stands for housing. We need someone who stands for jobs. We need someone who will be true to the words they say. Goodbye Mr. Obama.

-- Ralph Poynter, husband of political prisoner and legendary attorney Lynne Stewart, speaking at the protest outside the Apollo Theater which was shut down for Barack's private fundraiser. On last week's. Black Agenda Radio, hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, (airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network), they played the speech.

Truest statement of the week II

2012-01-29T22:25:00.000-05:00

Of course, it's important that U.S. troops and Pentagon-paid contractors have been withdrawn. Indeed it's a huge victory for the U.S. and global anti-war movements who made it imperative for President Obama to enforce the U.S.-Iraq agreement requiring just that. But the U.S. war is not over. U.S. troops have left Iraq, but thousands are streaming into Kuwait and onto Navy ships cruising just "over the horizon." Maybe just a few hundred uniformed U.S. troops will be left in Iraq, but 15,000 or more State Department-paid mercenaries are pouring in, doing the same things--guarding the biggest-in-the-world U.S. embassy, training Iraqis to use the weapons we're still flooding the country with, "special operations"--that continue the instability. The contractors include some of the same armed men whose Pentagon-paid violence led to such outrage in the past. Americans may have forgotten, but Iraqis certainly remember.

-- Phyllis Bennis, "It's Already Too Late in Iraq" (US News & World Reports).

A note to our readers

2012-01-29T22:10:00.001-05:00

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 K itchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

What did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week

Ralph Poynter's speech in Harlem. (Amy Goodman 'forgot' to report on that too.)

Truest statement of the week II

Phyllis Bennis telling the truth about the war.

Editorial: The Iraq Liars

We had three more features to do when time ran out. We went with the editorial and hope to return to the two other next week. This is our Iraq feature. And, yes, we did adujst our photo of the front page of The New York Times' Sunday Review to make the paper yellow -- e.g. the paper practices "yellow journalism."

TV: Covering for their own

Ava and C.I. cover things that others sweep under the rug, that others spend their entire lives denying. This is another brave piece by two of the strongest feminists online. And grasp that while GLAAD and NOW get mad at two episodes of Working It, they stay silent about 30 Rock's ongoing homophobia, about their ridicule of men who dress as women (Paul), and more. Ava and C.I. also take on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman and Ralph Nader. And to repeat, this site is no longer interested in Ralph Nader. He's got a book to sell so he whores. Fine and dandy but we're not interested. As Elaine said, "Screw you, Ralph Nader."

Amy Goodman's Exception For The Ruler

Amy Goodman lied about the protest against Barack Obama in Harlem. She's not the only one who lied, but she is among the liars. She who ridiculed the media for under-reporting protests against wars and against Bush, whores for Barack and lies about the protest. She refuses to do a correction even after it's been pointed out to her that she's wrong. She refuses to do a correction even after Glen Ford and others take the matter public. She's a whore.

From the TESR Test Kitchen

This is a short feature. We did it once to round out an edition. Then we did it a second time. E-mails and stats on those TESR Test Kitchen pieces show they're very popular. So we'll try to work in at least one a month.

Radio highlight of the week

Glen Ford and Chris Hedges discuss the National Defense Authorization Act and how it is a threat to Americans.

Photo of the month

A short feature on how the Barack returned to the mother ship.

CPB failing the mandate for diversity (Ava and C.I.)

One of the great things about Ava and C.I. being on the road nearly every week (usually with Wally and Kat) is that they get exposed to so much that we would miss otherwise. We'd never heard of Undercurrents, for example. It's heard on about 100 stations around the country. (In our area, it sometimes plays on KPFA as a special. The next closest radio station to us would be in Sacremento.)

Mumia finally in General Population

Good news for political prisoner Mumia.

NPR does inclusion (Ava and C.I.)

A note from Ava and C.I.

Rosie Torres: Living with a burn pit survivor

An important story about how the damange from burn pits harms lives by the wife of an Iraq War veteran exposed to a burn pit in Iraq.

Homeless Women Veterans

Senator Patty Murray wants answers on what the VA's doing for homeless women veterans.

LGBTQ protesters: 'Gay families matter!' (WW)

Repost from Workers World.

Highlights

Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.

We'll see you next week.

Peace.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Editorial: The Iraq Liars

2012-01-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

Participating in the Debate feature at US News & World Reports last week, Phyllis Bennis and US House Rep. Dennis Kucinich both observed that the Iraq War wasn't over. But it's a point that escapes the corporate media coverage which repeatedly proclaims that all US troops have left Iraq. (We know from our e-mail that that is not the case. US troops remain in Iraq.) And sometimes they add that all have come home. (Again, we know from our e-mail that troops have been placed all around in Iraq in surrounding regions.)

It's the same media that spent last week telling you that "about 200" or "over 200" people had died in Iraq from violence since December 18th when the actual number was at least 428 by Friday. Yes, that is over 200, it's also double the number the press repeatedly insisted upon using.

Undercounting the dead, how the press has specialized in that throughout the Iraq War. They sold the Iraq War, they just didn't want to claim the deaths they were responsible for.

Anymore than they want to tell you about the political crisis and how the White House insisting Nouri al-Maliki remain prime minister despite the 2010 election results caused the crisis.

Most of all, they want to tell you that the Iraq War is over. And you should believe the press . . . because they told you that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction and was connected to 9-11 and both of those claims turned out to be . . . false.

The press is lying to you all over again. They lied to start the war, they lie to continue it.

They lie and they distract. They ignore the issues that matter to waste your time and distract you with garbage about who slept with who. Newt Gingrich's many marital problems are well known and have been in the 90s and in the '00s. But what makes the cover of The New York Times' "Sunday Review" today?

Gail Collins trashy column which notes her prurient priorities in the first paragraph ("sexual misbehavior"). She and the paper have nothing better to do than dig through Newt's already well documented marital record. It doesn't tell you that you shouldn't or should vote for Gingrich because of what he might do as president. But it does distract you and turn us into a nation of gossipy little gutter snipes -- dumb ones at that, eager to laugh at and enjoy others' misery.

In typical New York Times' fashion, on page 10 of the "Sunday Review," they run an editorial entitled "Unfinished Business in Iraq." Unfinished business in Iraq is buried. Gail Collins' smutty column is front-paged.

TV: Covering for their own

2012-01-29T21:00:00.003-05:00

Noting the lousy sales for Ani DiFranco's new album, yesterday Kat pointed out that many reviewers are reviewing Ani's politics and not the lousy album she produced. Which had us thinking about how politics allows bad shows to be treated as if they're wonderful. We could have grabbed one last week; however, it was a 'to be continued' and we wanted to be fair.

Let's start there, with 30 Rock which has a great many problems even before you notice that Tina Fey's unable to lose the pregnancy weight. We first checked to see if NOW had called 30 Rock out. Of course not. Even worse, GLAAD praised it.

But GLAAD is a useless group, one Anne Heche rightly attacked when their spokesperson called Ellen DeGeneres ABC sitcom "too gay for TV" on Jay Leno's show. For those whose memories don't stretch back to the late 90s, Ellen had come out of the closet on her self-titled sitcom and in real life. It was the cliff hanger for season four. Season five was what happens after you come out. And what happens after you come out is, apparently, GLAAD trashes you as "too gay." However, if your program includes homophobia, GLAAD praises you, as they did 30 Rock.

For those who have forgotten, Tracy Morgan let his homophobia and sexism run free over the summer. As we noted back in June, Tina Fey's response was to compose a comedic essay, turning the whole thing into a joke. Only we weren't laughing. We take homophobia and sexism as serious as we do racism whereas Tina's only concerned with racism.

And that's why her show has been so homophobic as we have repeatedly noted over the years. The only way to be gay on her show is to flounce in a stereotypical manner and you're never part of the group, you're either a nemesis or you're a one-episode character. And because you're gay -- or, rather, because you're gay on a homophobic show -- most of your comments will revolve around sex.

But not to worry, GLAAD has never called out 30 Rock. Ever. And, in fact, they praised them, their Herndon Graddick did, declaring of the episode we're focusing on for this piece, "I thought it was hilarious. We've been called worse than trash bag manufacturers and look forward to seeing the second part next week."

Yes, Tracy Jordan (Morgan's character) does call Glad the trash bag company to apologize when one of his homophobic rants outrages the LGBT community. Presumably Graddick saw the entire episode (he does insist he's eager to the see the second part, doesn't he)?

What's the message of the "People Are Idiots Too" (that GLAAD praises)? That homophobes are lovable. "He really is a good person," Liz (Tina Fey) insists to a group of stereotypical gay men protesting outside NBC.

It gets worse.

Confronting Tracy not on his homophobia but on the problem he's caused for the show, Liz asks him if he knows how many of his co-workers are gay? She then points out an open door at people passing by, "Him, him, her when she's drunk, I genuinely don't know."

Of the four people only "I genuinely don't know" applies to a series regular. She's referring to Lutz. The two gay men? Extras we've never seen before as is the woman.

And, excuse us, but gay "when she's drunk"? What kind of comment is that on lesbians or homosexuality? Is Tina Fey suggesting sobriety as a "cure" for being gay?

But apparently, because a man with GLAAD found it hilarious, it's okay.

Just like it was okay for GLAAD to declare Ellen "too gay for TV" when Ellen was under fire from idiots who insisted that the show be pulled because the actress and the lead character were gay. Yeah, that's GLAAD, never helping the LGBT community, never standing up for the LGBT community. During the same period, GLAAD rushed to inform America that Mel Gibson wasn't a homophobe. (We all now know better though some of us knew better in real time.) Why, GLAAD wanted you to know back then, Mel was genuinely surprised that anyone found anything in Bravehart homophobic.

Yeah, GLAAD, and D.W. Griffith was surprised people called out the racism in Birth of a Nation, so what's your damn point?

Repeatedly, GLAAD has been in the business of picking on the unpopular while excusing and ignoring homophobia from the popular and powerful.

30 Rock offers no regular gay character, re-enforces stereotypes about the LGBT community repeatedly, turns "gay" into a joke repeatedly (we covered the program's homophobia last February) and GLAAD's just happy to giggle along with the show instead of issuing demands such as the need for a regular gay character. What a pathetic organization.

On the 30 Rock episode, Matt Lauer appears at one point to read a statement from Liz where she says he's "not hateful," Tracy's just an idiot. Which leads to Tracy tossing a flat screen TV and forming a protest led by idiots. And it's time for more hilarity.

The reality is that Tracy Morgan and Tracy Jordan's statements were hateful -- Jordan's far less because he didn't threaten to kill anyone. And the reality is that they were never dealt with, they were just swept aside with, "Tracy's so stupid but he be lovable."

Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin were dismissive of the outcry over the summer. (Alec denies he was dismissive.) But there was one cast member who didn't dismiss the remarks. Does anyone remember that?

Cheyenne Jackson. Though he plays straight Danny, Cheyenne is out and openly out in real life. As it has been on TV since at least the days of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, sitcoms are more than happy to hire gay actors to play straight (Sheila Kuehl), they're just not big on including gay characters in the mix.

Most critics are referring to the "two parter" of "People Are Idiots Two" and "Idiots Are People Three" but actually it was a three-parter. "Dances Like Nobody's Watching" kicked things off with Tracy upset that Liz wasn't paying attention to him and warning that he would do something crazy to get attention. The other episode that's aired is "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell." What do all four episodes have in common?

No Cheyenne Jackson.

Where's Danny?

Is Danny not being used because the actor wouldn't be a dancing monkey and pretend that homophobia was okay or funny?

It's a question people should be asking.

They should be also be asking why 30 Rock demonizes gay men, portraying them as willing to marry and deceive a woman to advance, of being a backstabber incapable of having friends, of being devious and . . . Goodness, we're getting to 1950s stereotypes of gay men, aren't we. But GLAAD never says a word.

Did you know that GLAAD joined in the dog pile on Work It? That they declared the show "harmful"? Their action alert included:

While the show’s pilot does not explicitly address transgender people, many home viewers unfamiliar with the realities of being transgender will still make the connection. As the ad states, by encouraging the audience to laugh at the characters’ attempts at womanhood, the show gives license to similar treatment of transgender women.

“This show could contribute to the high levels of job discrimination that transgender Americans face and will give license for people to mock and ridicule those whose gender expression might not fit with what society considers the norm,” said GLAAD’s Acting President Mike Thompson. “The media should use this as an opportunity to address the huge number of inaccurate or offensive images of transgender people in news and entertainment today.”

Oh, "home viewers unfamiliar" might be deceived into believing these two straight men were trans? Anyone mistaking them for "trans" would actually be mistaking them for gay because their working knowledge would be so small, a reality GLAAD ignores.

Seeing a man on TV dress as a woman and be mocked for that, be made fun of, called a "shh-man" and worse? Seeing him hire someone to sit on him for sexual pleasure? Seeing him put a woman on a leash and walk her through a dog park while he is dressed as a woman?

It's strange that GLAAD never objected to any of that -- either for what it implied or for what impression it might leave with viewers. All of those things? They didn't happen on Work It. They happened on 30 Rock. That's Paul, Jenna's sometimes boyfriend. Who on top of everything else is a sexist who is fond of saying "as the man in this relationship" -- while in full drag.

It's not funny. And, again, it goes to how the Republican Tina Fey (Republican until the last decade, of Republican parents, and only a nerdy Republican would have been in college worshiping Amy Grant) portrays gays and trans-genders and cross-dressers and more. But GLAAD will look the other way every damn time. 30 Rock will get away with one insulting stereotype after another and GLAAD will never object.

Before we move beyond the issue of homophobia, we need to note our agreement with Marcia (see her "The joke that is Sundance") that there is no justification for Robert Redford's film festival hosting an event in which Morgan was given the Spotlight Initiaive Award. It hasn't even been a year since Morgan's homophobic and sexist remarks surfaced and all he did after that was p.r. to save his own ass. None of which warrants an award.

But then 30 Rock's racked up a ton of awards and it really hasn't deserved them either. Used to be, the show's tired jokes were recycled from season to season. So you'd get, in season five, Matt Damon's character saying that as a pilot he got a discount at Sunglass Hut and this seasons you get Criss (James Marsden) telling Liz, "I called Sunglass Hut and got my credit limit raised 80 bucks!" But now the rip-offs come much more quickly and within the same season. For example, on the first episode of this season, Jack (Alec Baldwin) riffs on Liz secretly wanting to see Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve -- riffs at length. Then, three episodes later, 30 Rock opens with a trailer for MLK Day.

They really don't have anything left and are just spitting out their own fumes these days.

And that more or less describes Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!

The last months have not been good for the program. There was, for instance, Amy again chatting up her good friend and frequent guest Juan Cole on live TV and radio when Cole lets slip that he's a CIA contractor and Amy fidgits nervously to avoid exploring on air what she already knew. There's been criticism from CounterPunch's Alexander Cockburn, "On Amy Goodman's Democracy Now one was far more likely to hear CIA-consultant Juan Cole issuing fervent support for the entire intervention than rather any vigorous interviewing of informed sources about what was actually happening on the ground in Libya."

Last week, Glen Ford joined the growing chorus calling out Democracy Now! when the show wrongly reported of a protest against Barack Obama, "A crowd of around 100 protesters with Occupy Wall Street and other groups demonstrated outside of the Apollo" ("Headlines, January 20, 2012). At Black Agenda Report, Ford explained the crowd was about 400 and called out "the left flank of Obama's apologists and protectors" including Amy Goodman's show, "But Democracy Now!, whose politics has undergone a palpable turn to the right during Obama's time in office, told its audience that only about 100 people protested, when in reality, the MoveOn section of the demonstration alone approached that number. In this sense, Democracy Now! is worse than the police at reporting demonstrations it doesn't support."

Interestingly enough, Amy Goodman wasted three pages (147-149) of her Exception To The Rulers (copy and pasted with help from brother David Goodman) denouncing NPR and The New York Times for undercounting the crowd at an October 26, 2002 protest. NPR would go on to correct their error on air. A week after her error aired, Amy Goodman has offered no correction. But then she's always been too busy pretending to be Last Journalist Standing to ever issue needed corrections.

Last week came the most telling and embarrassing Democracy Now! moment of all. The morning after the State of the Union Address was delivered by US President Barack Obama, Amy invited Ralph Nader on her program to join her in whoring for Barack.

Whoring?

Ralph rattled off about "lawless militarism" in the speech, that Barack's unable to use the word "poverty," that Barack "says one thing and does another," etc. Goody Whore then asks him what to tell people who ask, "What is the alternative here? Mitt Romney? Newt Gingrich?" Like a cheap whore, Ralph Nader replies the answer is to put pressure on Barack and whimpers about the pressure from the corporations on Barack.

The whole thing was an embarrassment and this publication will never again encourage anyone to ever listen to Ralph Nader again. Nader wants the microphone, so he'll whore now.

We're not in the mood.

The entire segment was a testimonial. The Obama campaign used testimonials in 2008. They were often successful at them. They put lipstick on a bunch of cheap hookers in the summer of 2008 who would lie that they were for Hillary but were for Barack now (we called out one whore who delivered that performance on Democracy Now!, where all the frauds eventually go). This testimonial relies on the premise that you will relate at the beginning and therefore buy into the conclusion: So it starts with the expression of outrage and then ends with a sigh of 'oh, well, what can we do?'.

The testimonial exists to strip you of your anger and your power and turn you into a meek little lamb shuffling off to slaughter.

That it would come from the mouth of Ralph Nader is beyond disappointing.

Let's deal with the what-can-you-do aspect first. What can you do? You can vote a protest vote which does include voting for whomever is on the GOP ticket. You should not, however, try to protest vote by writing in the name of another Democrat. As we reported in 2008, writing in the name of a Democrat (such as Hillary Clinton) in many states will result in your vote being counted for Barack.

In addition, you can protest vote by not voting. That's the option that we're currently entertaining. (We're not advising anyone else to follow our lead, we're merely disclosing.)

You can also vote for a third party or independent candidate.

Have you ever heard of those?

See, we thought every adult knew about that option but it's one Ralph Nader failed to mention on Democracy Now! despite the fact that he ran for president in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Yet now all he can offer is "put pressure" on Barack?

He never thought that was good enough or an answer when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. But suddenly it's the answer?

Despite being repeatedly attacked for it, Ralph Nader didn't cost Al Gore the 2000 election; however, none of those attacks on him could have done more damage to Ralph than what he did on TV and radio last week as he refused to suggest that voters even consider a third party or independent candidate. Elaine shared her outrage on Friday. She voted for Ralph in 2008. She'll never do so again. She feels betrayed and, judging from the response to her post, she's far from alone.

Tina Fey and Amy Goodman are two of the most overly praised and petted on the left. Both had some early work that demonstrated some promise; however, that promise long ago flickered out and, even more disappointing, they've become guilty of the very things their supporters supposedly oppose. How sad that what they'll protest from others, they'll accept and applaud from Fey and Goodman.

Amy Goodman's Exception For The Ruler

2012-01-29T07:40:00.001-05:00

Just in time for the 2012 political season, Amy Goodman and brother David Goodman have updated their self-stroking volume which they've now dubbed The Exception For The Ruler 2012.

Barack Obama may be in the White House but some things haven't changed. For instance, the authors still bash Bush because otherwise they'd have no one to hiss at. Barack?

He's their object of affection.

So they've updated their tome. Page 147, for example, now reads:

Protesters? What Protesters?

ON OCTOBER 26, 2002, the Democracy Now! crew headed to Washington, D.C., to cover a major protest against an attack on Iraq. Although the police in Washington, D.C., no longer issue official estimates of crowd size, they told us unofficially that there were between 150,00 and 200,000 people. The next day, The New York Times reported that "fewer people had attended than organizers had hoped for . . . even though the sun came out." NPR reported "fewer than 10,000" showed up.

In 2003, this really mattered to me; however, in 2012, I came to understand that really good reporting means getting the totals wrong. Good reporting means whoring for the White House and working overtime to ensure that they are not embarrassed. That's why, on a recent program, I reduced a protest of at least 400 people in Harlem to 100 people.

As I work hard to whore for Barack Obama and to suck up to power, I am learning that journalists are entertainers. We are not reporters. We go to places that are popular. We broadcast voices that are status quo. We are here to win popularity contests.

So let me make a confession. In the original edition of this book, I went on and on about how we broadcast political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jabar's commentaries on my show. I explained how NPR had hired him first but, due to protests, had dropped him. And I went on and on about how we broadcast him on our show. Of course, by the time the book made it into print, I had dropped Mumia's commentaries from the show. They were now broadcast by Free Speech Radio News.

I used to live in fear that a reviewer or interviewer would call me out on that. But no one ever did. Yes, I dropped Mumia. Not because of the same reasons NPR did. NPR dropped him because they got complaints from listeners. I dropped him because I got complaints from new outlets that had just begun to carry my show. So for those who read this 2012 edition and think, "Way to whore Amy!," well let me just tell you, I have been whoring for years. And years.

Those of you are 18 and older should join me in the next chapter, "Seduced by Samantha Power" where I discuss what it's like to embed with a War Hawk.

From the TESR Test Kitchen

2012-01-29T07:20:00.000-05:00

Michaelina's offers frozen foods for about a buck and the slogan "LET MAMA FEED YOU!" Praising the line in 2008, The Orlando Sentinel's Moms At Work declared, "I'm here now to tell you: Don't be scared!" We're here to tell you, they don't hire 'em to smart at The Sentinel.

See Moms At Work was tackling Michaelina's Lean Gourmet line, the line that boasts, "When you're looking to cut the calories, without cutting the taste, Mama has you covered."

No, Strange Woman, you don't.

And shoppers would do well to check before purchasing.

For example, Beef & Peppers. There's the regular gourmet line and there's the lean gourmet version. If you eat one, you will be consuming ten fewer calories.

But which one?

If you guessed the Lean Beef & Peppers, you guessed wrong. Though that is the 'diet' version of the product, at 280 calories, that's ten more calories than you'll be getting if you consume the non-diet version.

Radio highlight of the week

2012-01-29T07:10:00.001-05:00

Last week's strongest radio moment would be a discussion of the new National Defense Authorization Act. The discussion took place on Black Agenda Radio, hosted by Glen Ford (above) and Nellie Bailey (airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network) and was presented as a conversation between Ford and journalist Chris Hedges.

Hedges is the author of many books including the just out in paperback Death of the Liberal Class which we selected as one of the ten most important books of the last ten years and a top ten book of the year in 2010 and in 2011 in Martha and Shirley's survey of The Common Ills community. He is also suing President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta over the NDAA.

Glen Ford: Veteran journalist Chris Hedges fears that anyone can be thrown into prison without trial under the preventive detention bill signed into law by President Obama so Hedges has sued the president. We asked Hedges how he decided to take on the White House.

Chris Hedges: It actually wasn't my idea. Carl Mayer who has been involved in lawsuits to defend the assaults against civil liberties including the ACLU lawsuit against the FISA reform act -- of which I am one of the plantiffs -- came to me and said, "Look, under this legislation, someone like you could be, potentially because of the nebulous language, charged. You've had direct, personal contact with groups that the state has defined as terrorist organizations. There are no provisions in this legislation to exempt journalists. Would you be willing to be a plantiff?" And I said yes.

Glen Ford: Particularly ominous in this legislation is the use of the term "substantial support," not material support.

Chris Hedges: Right.

Glen Ford: And most people think they understand what material support is --

Chris Hedges: Right.

Glen Ford: -- giving money, passing a gun, something, but substantial support?

Chris Hedges: Right and it could be substantial support for something called associated forces so it leaves open such a broad interpretation that there is no protection for someone like me under this law or I think for ultimately any kind of dissident because there has been a clear effort on the part of the security state to try and tar the Occupy Movement as a movement that's an enemy of American democracy. When you look at the list or the criteria by which the Attorney General's office can investigate people for terrorism, tossing in a couple of obstructionist tactics by the Occupy Movement isn't much of a stretch. I mean, people who are missing fingers on one hand, people who store over seven days of food and provisions, people who have weather proof ammunition. I mean, they're going to have to round up my entire family in rural parts of Maine.

Glen Ford: That's their profile of the potential terrorist.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, as 'worthy of investigation.' We know that there are at this point probably tens of millions of Americans who, because of the FISA reform act, whose e-mails, home messages, all of which are being monitored by the government

Glen Ford: In terms of substantial support, that could be interpreted as speech, giving aid and comfort to someone that they declare is the enemy.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, the way the law is written is, when you read it really closely, really terrifying because it's the whim of the security and surveillance state whoever they want to go after they can pretty much do so under this piece of legislation and then, of course, the way they do it is to use the military to carry out extraordinary rendition on American city streets. And I think to listen to the Obama White House, you know Obama assured in his signing statement that he would not use this legislation to target American citizens? Well [US Senator] Dianne Feinstein proposed inserting into this legislation a clear statement that American citizens would be exempted from it and this was rejected by both the Democractic Party and the Obama White House. They had an opportunity to do it and they didn't. And we know from leaks out of [US Senator] Carl Levin's office that the difficulty that the Obama White House had with the bill was not over the denial of due process but the fact that the executive branch wanted to abrogate for itself the right to decide who, what American citizens would be subject to arrest and detention without access to a lawyer or courts by the military and who would be given exemptions. It was a debate about the prerogatives of the executive branch, it was never a debate about due process or the rule of law.

Glen Ford: Now if we don't have due process, do we have the rule of law?

Chris Hedges: Well if you don't have due process, you don't have the rule of law.

Glen Ford: Are you optimistic?

Chris Hedges: I don't have a lot of faith in the Supreme Court. We saw the case of Jose Padilla. They used to call him the sort-of missing hijacker. He was a US citizen held for three and a half years in a military brig without access to a lawyer or due process. It was challenged, went up to the Supreme Court and, before the Supreme Court took up the case, he was transferred to a civilian court and the Supreme Court said they wouldn't rule on it because it was moot. I mean, they sort of passed it. But given the composition of this particular Supreme Court, I wouldn't say I'm optomistic but I still say we have to try.

Glen Ford: Apologists for Obama say, 'Well this law is nothing new. President Bush claimed the right to detain anyone based on his own criteria and without charges. And that this is nothing new. But it is something new when you codify it into law with the benediction of the Congress.

Chris Hedges: They're right only in this sense: Under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act, they already were doing a lot of this stuff -- including, of course, targeting American citizens for assassinations. Barack Obama serving as judge, jury and executioner for Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric who was murdered in Yemen. But I think that most legal scholars saw that as a fairly radical interpretation of that piece of legislation. This [NDAA] essentially legalizes, overturns 200 years -- over 200 years -- of law to permit the armed forces or the military to carry out domestic policing. And I think the other important point about this legislation is that the 2001 act was tied to groups who were directly related to al Qaeda. This now permits this kind of war against a multiplicity of groups, many of which didn't even exist when 9-11 happened -- groups in Yemen, groups in Somolia. It's a way of sort of cementing into place the permanent war psychosis. And remember that these people can be picked up by the military, held without charges, without trial, without access to an attorney, in the language of the bill, until the end of hostilities. Well, you know, when is that? This is an endless war. The 2001 act was bad enough but, you know, at this point to pass a piece of legislation like this which goes into effect in March is catastrophic assault against what's left of civil liberties and our anaemic democracy.

Glen Ford: If this bill had moved through Congress when Bush was president, would you have expected a hailstorm of protest?

Chris Hedges: The Democratic Party is very good at expressing moral outrage against George Bush or Republicans but doing absolutely nothing to counter those activities. So yeah, you would have had the Democratic Party and the liberal establishment speaking out against it and expressing deep disgust and distaste for these measures yet at the same time I think what these people do and what they say is very different.

Again, Black Agenda Radio is a weekly program hosted by Glen Ford (above) and Nellie Bailey (airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network and cross-posted to Black Agenda Report -- usually on Tuesdays.)

Photo of the month

2012-01-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Well lookie lookie, the fairy tale comes home.

CPB failing the mandate for diversity (Ava and C.I.)

2012-01-29T06:50:00.000-05:00

One thing our CPB friends -- as well as the people at Undercurrents -- can be thankful for is that we waited until today to write about them -- meaning the program finished its fundraiser yesterday. What is Undcurrents? Not a good program for women, not a good program for equality or diversity.

The Association of Independents In Radio noted in the summer of 2006, "Conceived in response to Native Radio's request to diversify and add programming, the most striking aspect of UnderCurrents is the way it challenges conceptions of Native music and Native tastes." Your first tip off that all was not as it appeared was when the brief write-up featured five artists: Beck, Bjork, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson and Bob Marley. Native Radio, for those who don't know, is Native American radio. The closest to a Native American on that list is the half-Jewish (his father's side) Canadian Robbie Robertson (his mother's Mohawk). He's about as Native American as Cher but you'll never hear her on Undercurrents.

Among the many reasons for that is that you don't hear many women period on the program.

A 'good' broadcast of the daily program might feature eleven women and some might argue that sounds like a solid number. Hopefully, those making the argument would be unaware that Undercurrents is a five hour, commercial free, radio broadcast.

On Saturday's program (playlist here), you'll find 14 women featured if you're as generous as we were. Generous? If it's not a solo female, our rule is they had to be a vocalist. Not 'a harmony vocalist.' They had to be in the group as an equal member, the way Stevie Nicks is with Fleetwood Mac. They may not always sing lead vocals, but they do sing lead vocals. Backup singers? They're backup singers.

Our guidelines ended up eliminating, for example, the "Native Radio" classic "Respect Yourself" covered by "Native Radio" artist Huey Lewis & the News -- with female backup singers. Our guidelines did allow groups with female members who sing but didn't sing on the song played to be included in our 14.

'Some may argue, that's not fair to some women, just counting vocalists!' Yes, it is true that our system will overlook, for example, the 10-member band with a sole female flugelhorn player. We're okay with that. Bands with female "dancers" also didn't make our 14. And for those who argue that's not fair, we'll point out that host Gregg McVicar doesn't do much more than tell the name of the artist and song. Expansive for him on Saturday night's program, for example, included dubbing solo artist Tchiya Amet "a soccer mom." Amet describes herself on her MySpace pages as "basically a buppy" which, for those unaware, "a young, upwardly mobile black professional."

14 different females. But again, we've been generous. Even being generous doesn't change the fact that 16 songs (Wanda Jackson and the group Pamyua have two songs each played) out of 79 doesn't begin to approach equality.

What is it? It's 17.7% of the playlist. 17.7% of the playlist featured women (there were four bands -- only one, The Be Good Tanyas -- was an all female band).

Why does it matter?

It should matter because, in 2012, you wouldn't catch that on most commercial radio stations. (Certainly not country or popular music.) We've thankfully moved beyond that and beyond the fears of 80s "Hits Radio" about playing two female artists in a row.

And this isn't commercial radio, this is public radio meaning the American public is paying for it with pledges and with tax dollars. Their money is being used to continue and promote sexism.

It's appalling that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would give money to a program for diversity without imposing guidelines on what qualifies for diversity.

As we noted earlier, the only reason the program exists is, let's be honest, to shut up Native Radio by offering a 'diverse' program. It should be standard for any grant for diversity that diversity is defined.

17% of the performers featured are women? That doesn't qualify as diversity.

It doesn't qualify as half (50%), it doesn't qualify as a third (33%), it doesn't qualify as a quarter (25%), it doesn't even qualify as a fifth (20%).

Nor do Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, the aforementioned Huey Lewis, Tom Petty, John Fogerty, the Rolling Stones, the Cars, etc. (all featured on last night's broadcast) qualify as "Native Radio" music.

What's going on is that Undercurrents is using tax dollars and pledges to reinforce the all male canon of music greatness. It's crumbled elsewhere but a White man has managed to take tax pay dollars under the promise of creating "diversity" on air and all he's doing is playing the same White man he grew up listening to.

That's why you won't get Carly Simon, that's why you won't get Stevie Nicks, Erykah Badu, Tori Amos and assorted other women. Who will you get? The Beatles, solo Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Lindsey Buckingham, R.E.M., Duncan Sheik, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Nick Lowe, Coldplay, pre-Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac*, T. Rex, Jeff Beck, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, John Hiatt, etc.

Those aren't 'random' men. Those are staples, men played repeatedly in the month of January, over and over, in multiple shows.

They sprinkle in a Native American artist every now and then. Maybe one every hour and a half. They're not living up to diversity via Native American artist (unless Belgian-Australian Goyte is your idea of Native American) and they're not managing diversity in any other way.

If you're not getting how the canon is created and furthered, let's take a minute to explain. You choose a series of men to program over and over, you play them nearly daily. That's usually a series of American (US and Canada) men and British men, all are White. You include Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley to cut down on charges that the canon is all White. You include Joni Mitchell because if you think you're going to be accused of being a sexist for your numbers, just wait what happens when you exclude the performer whose artistic level is critically rated on the same level as the Beatles and Bob Dylan.

There's another woman they play semi-regularly: Buffy Sainte-Marie. Last week, on the road, we heard her played twice. Buffy is played because she's a Native American -- one of the few Native Americans Undercurrents plays.

And how they play her goes to how the canon works. You choose a number of men, put them in steady and regular rotation. You play their 'classics' -- songs you help make 'classics' by making them well known by repeatedly spinning them over the airwaves. You choose minor songs by women, often sexist songs (there were several this week on Undercurrents -- remember gals, make yourself a stereotype and unimportant and you will be played!) by minor female artists. You avoid any woman who projects confidence in a recording. So you have strutting males up against weak and passive girls thereby perpetuating the myth that women can't make music. (Or rock.)

Remember Buffy? She does have a collection of well known songs. So much so that her first label, Vanguard, released a collection of her sixties recordings in The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1970 and, the following year, released The Best of Buffy Sainte-Marie Vol. 2. Her well known songs include "Now That The Buffalo's Gone," "Universal Soldier," "Until It's Time For You To Go," "Cod'ine," "My Country 'Tis of They People You're Dying," "Little Wheel Spin and Spin," "Cripple Creek," "He's a Keeper of the Fire," "Gonna Feel Much Better When You're Gone," "The Carousel" and "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" (all songs written by Buffy except the last one which she wrote with Leonard Cohen). You won't hear those songs. That's how the canon works.

What you'll hear are tracks from her -- synth heavy -- 2008 Running for the Drum. You'll hear these fast synth numbers and slow ballad synth numbers up against Neil Young live performing one of his classics from the 70s -- performing it acoustic. Or Paul Simon, or any number of men. It's a way to undercut her. Ignore her strongest work, put synth work up against canon males not using synths to make her come off "sugary."

It's how the canon's always worked. It protects the males, it popularizes their songs and it works to make an argument against women. You won't, for example, hear any of Steve Winwood's embarrasing eighties synth songs -- even those are the biggest hits of his career and even though you will hear Winwood repeatedly on Uncurrents. That's supposed to compete with live recordings of Eric Clapton?

No, it's not supposed to and that's the entire point. The women they include today (excepting Joni and Native American Buffy) we'll be gone in a few years (quicker if they find success) and replaced with a new underwhelming crop and a heavy sigh of, "We play women, but the audience just doesn't seem to want those songs."

That the CPB is wasting tax payer money to preserve sexism is disgusting and should stop immediately. That we're once again the ones providing the oversight needed is even sadder. As they dole out grants, does the CPB ever bother to monitor how the money is actually spent or would that be too much workers for these employees paid with tax payer dollars?

-------------
*Christine McVie plays keyboards and is a lead singer in Fleetwood Mac prior to Stevie joining. However, the songs played are not ones Chris has a lead vocal on. It's the usual male jerk off of Freeform Music (FM radio) of the late 60s and early 70s.

Mumia finally in General Population

2012-01-29T06:40:00.000-05:00

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner of several decades. The journalist was found guilty of murdering a police officer in a fixed trial. Many Americans have spoken up for him over the years and have called for a real trial. Some 'friends' of the left have been backstabbers such as corpulent Michael Moore who, in 2003's Dude, Where's My Country?, offered 'advice' under the heading "Admit that the left has made mistakes." His example?

Mumia probably killed that guy. There, I said it. That does mean he should be denied a fair trial or that he should be put to death. But because we don't want to see him or anyone executed, the efforts to defend him may have overlooked the fact that he did indeed kill that cop. This takes nothing away from the eloquence of his writings or commentary, or the important place he now holds on the international political stage. But he probably did kill that guy.

While we agree with Moore that the left has made mistakes (plenty of them and we will continue to make mistakes), we do not agree that Mumia "probably killed that guy." We believe Mumia is innocent and though Michael may have packed on sixty more pounds to his already bulky frame since he wrote that book, that doesn't give his opinion any weight or heft.

Fortunately for Mumia (and all-you-can-eat-buffets around the country), Michael Moore is only one person. And his opinion not all that important. On the left, many have long called for a fair trial, for Mumia to be taken off death row, for him to be released.

The new year brought the news that, at last, Mumia was off death row.

That is a major news. Thankfully, a few outlets have treated it as such. One would be Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week and is hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights). Last week, they again discussed the news of Mumia. Excerpt.

Michael Ratner: Heidi, we all heard the good news over the last few weeks that Mumia was taken off death row and is no longer facing the death penalty. I know there are other issues you want to talk about with Mumia and I know you just had a visit with Mumia. So why don't you tell us what's going on with Mumia, where is he, how was your visit?

Heidi Boghosian: Mumia was transferred from the facility SCI Greene where he'd been on death row for 17 years -- 17 of the past 30 years -- in that facility and he was transferred to SCI Mahanoy which is in Frackville, Pennsylvania.

Michael Ratner: SCI means?

Heidi Boghosian: State Correctional Institution. It's about two and a half hours from New York so it makes it a lot easier to visit him than in the other location.

Michael Ratner: Is that where you visited him? In his new location?

Heidi Boghosian: I've been to his new location three times.

Michael Ratner: Wow.

Heidi Boghosian: Yes. And it's actually a medium security facility. The problem is that Mumia's held in what's called Restrictive Custody in the Administrative Housing Unit there. So he was literally taken off death row and moved into solitary confinement where he is shackled and handcuffed whenever he leaves his cell, his number of weekly visits has been reduced to one and that's just for one hour -- that doesn't include legal visits which can last for several hours.

Michael Ratner: Let me ask, and I want you to go on, when you visit him, he comes into the room or where ever you visit him in shackles?

Heidi Boghosian: Yes. And it's noteworthy that years ago at SCI Greene, he also was in shackles until [Bishop] Desmond Tutu visited him a few years ago and complained that this was inhumane treatment because essentially he's behind thick plexi-glass in a small 4 by 6 roughly foot holding unit and there are little perforated holes on the side so you can hear each other. But, so now he's back in the shackles. His phone call privileges have been --

Michael Ratner: Wait a second. You talk to him through a wall?

Heidi Boghosian: Yes, you're sitting on one side of a thick plexi-glass partition. So you're in the same room but it's divided in half by plexi-glass. So, anyway, his phone call privileges have been reduced. He can only have, I think it's ten stamps and envelopes a week. And, as a writer, you can well imagine that Mumia writes probably at least ten letters a day so this is a dramatic change. He doesn't have his radio or TV.

Michael Ratner: Books?

Heidi Boghosian: I think he only has four books. At first, he had none, then they allowed him four. The National Lawyers Guild along with the Human Rights Research Fund, which is co-chaired by Kathleen Cleaver and Natsu Taylor Saito, sent a letter to the Department of Corrections on January 11th calling for him to be moved into General Population as he was supposed to have been when he left SCI Greene. And we cited, as listeners probably know, that for over a century the US Supreme Court has recognized the psychological damage that results from being held in solitary. There was a case in 1890, In re Medley. Also the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America, a few years ago, found that the increasing use of punitive segregation is not only counter-productive but it often results in violence in the facilities and also contributes to post-release recidivism and Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rappoorteur on Torture just a few weeks ago called for a ban on solitary confinement longer than 16 days, reiterating that it amounts to torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. As a result, the people's movement has really been calling the facility. We are disheartened to note that there were rumors Mumia was going to be moved into general population as of last Thursday and that has -- of this airing -- not happened.

Thursday came news that Mumia had finally been transferred to General Population. From Free Mumia:

As of 1/27/12, Mumia Abu-Jamal has officially been transferred to General Prison Population after being held in Administrative Custody ("The Hole" or Solitary Confinement) at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA for seven weeks. This is the first time Mumia has been in General Population since his arrest in 1981.

This comes within hours of the of delivery of over 5,500 signed petitions to Department of Corrections headquarters in Camp Hill, PA and a compliant filed with the support of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez.

PLEASE NOTE that while this is a victory in transferring Mumia out of the torturous Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), we call upon the closure of ALL RHU's! Furthermore, we call upon the IMMEDIATE RELEASE of Mumia Abu-Jamal and are not disillusioned by this transfer. Free Mumia!

Write to Mumia to send him some love!

MAILING ADDRESS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
#AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

Frank Kummer (Philadelphia Inquirer) quotes law professor and one of Mumia's attorney Judith L. Ritter stating, "This is a very important moment for him, his family, and all of his supporters. We are all grateful for the roles played by so many in getting him off death row after so very long."

On the Law and Disorder Radio broadcast, Heidi Boghosian spoke of how the move off death row has brought renewed energy to the call to free Mumia. Hopefully, we will see that in our lifetimes. That doesn't take anything away from the huge accomplishment in Mumia being transferred off of death row. As Michael Ratner noted on the last broadcast of Law & Disorder of 2011, "And, of course, it's still thirty years and you can't get over thirty years [imprisoned] and it's right now facing a life imprisonment sentence so it's still very difficult. But you look for -- I wouldn't call the difference between life and death a small victory -- it's a huge victory against the state. I mean, we shouldn't deny that it's the people's support that really made a difference here."

NPR does inclusion (Ava and C.I.)

2012-01-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

NPR has been providing live coverage of the caucus and primaries on the night of the contests. That's been Tuesdays and one Saturday so far. This Tuesday, live coverage will be provided of the results of Florida's 6,796 precincts.

We have critiqued this coverage as it's aired. The Iowa caucus was covered in "TV: The misguided Water Cooler Set," the New Hampshire primary was covered in "TV: The head scratchers" and the South Carolina primary was covered in "Media: The uninformed boosting ad revenues."

Last Sunday when the South Carolina coverage went up, we began hearing complaints from NPR friends. In the lead up to the primary, Morning Edition and All Things Considered had both featured female voters being interviewed in the daily broadcasts. And while, yes, this should always happen, no, it had not happened with two contests that came before. It was a noticeable and welcome change and one that lived up to NPR's diversity mandate.

We applaud both shows for the coverage they did. On one phone call after another, we repeatedly explained that the efforts were not noted because we weren't covering those two programs. We were covering the live coverage. We further explained that we had planned to review ABC's Revenge, to review it in a creative essay in which we injected ourselves into the review. That we'd done an outline Sunday morning only to have Jim tell us that we had to ("HAD to") cover the South Carolina live coverage NPR offered.

That wasn't our plan. We had each caught at least half the coverage. We didn't take notes. We weren't planning on writing anything about it. But Jim's argument was we had set a pattern. Our argument was (a) we make no promises ahead of time about what we'll cover (we made one on Fringe and ended up having to extend the life of this site as a result -- we were going to slam Fringe for its lack of female characters when a friend with the show asked if we could wait because they were adding more female characters, we agreed to forgetting that the site was supposed to go dark) and (b) if we established a pattern it was for critiquing the Tuesday live coverage.

But we agreed to do something on the South Carolina live coverage.

It was written quickly and under duress.

And while the piece did not include (and was not supposed to include) commentary on Morning Edition or All Things Considered, we will note -- even gladly note -- right now that the two programs did a strong job of being inclusive while covering the lead up to the South Carolina primary.

Rosie Torres: Living with a burn pit survivor

2012-01-29T06:26:00.001-05:00

Rosie Torres is the executive director of BurnPits 360. Her husband is Iraq War veteran Captain Leroy Torres who left the US in strong health and had it destroyed by burn pits in Iraq. He is among the many Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans and contractors who are suffering. His wife Rosie Torres has shared what it's like to be a family dealing with the effects of exposure to burn pits.

The barriers faced by those affected by toxic exposure stem from the various components that define the word Toxic Exposures and Burn Pits. It's those same barriers that for thousands of reservists and their families have left them financially, emotionally, and mentally broken. Our story is far too familiar for those that have been affected, so here is our story. I am the wife of Captain Leroy Torres, prior to his deployment I was working full time for the Department Of Veteran Affairs and he served a dual role in his community as both a full time State Trooper for the State of Texas and a U.S. Army Reservist. Our salaries combined placed us comfortably in the bracket of about $90,000 a year, but all that changed the day he stepped foot onto the airbase in Balad, Iraq. Camp Anaconda, the FOB with the largest Burn Pit in existence, the place where all of our dreams and hopes turned into toxic chemicals. The same chemicals that followed us home and have haunted us for the past 3 years.

For thousands of reservists the story goes like this, the soldier returns from war and immediately the effects of toxic exposure surface like the invisible wounds that they are. The soldier begins seeking treatment at various healthcare facilities only to discover that neither DOD nor VA is acknowledging toxic exposure from particulate matter or burn pits. The only option left if you happen to be blessed with the luxury of private insurance is to seek specialized healthcare in the private sector. Desperately seeking answers to the question of why this once active and healthy soldier can no longer function at the capacity that he/she once did. Why the once healthy father/mother, husband, wife, daughter, son can no longer breathe, why the diagnosis of cancer, why the white matter and the lesions in the brain, the fertility issues, the fatigue, the parasitic infections, the list goes on and on. The family spends their life savings traveling to access specialized healthcare from the physicians they call their heroes. The only healthcare providers brave enough to stand behind the truth of how toxic chemicals affect the body.

The family exhausts all of their finances to gain answers, the soldier can no longer work due to multiple diagnosis and symptoms immediately forcing the once successful career person to give up their life-long dreams. The reservists files an LOD which can take up to two years, the veteran files a claim with the VA which will never grant a rating compensation because there is no category for toxic exposures. All of this forces the family into an abyss of darkness, mental stress, financial stress, and denial of acceptance to their new way of life. The once productive, healthy, and functioning military family is suddenly falling apart at the seams. The gap between VA and DOD for the reservist component of the military service members wounded must be bridged by identifying the needs of those affected immediately. Too many people are losing their homes, their life savings, and their hope, hope in a system that once promised to care for them once they returned.

As I watch my husband deteriorate before my eyes, I wonder what happened to that Captain that stood tall and strong, the father that ran 2 miles twice a week with his boys, the state police officer that served on the tactical squad, and the husband that could run circles around me but instead he is now a patient of doctors from every specialty, pulmonary, neurology, Gastroenterology, Infectious disease.

As I walked into the waiting room of the State Department of Human Services to ask for public assistance I thought to myself how can this be possible. What happened to the Captain's wife, to the once full time VA employee, why have we lost our medical tricare insurance for our children, why are we asking for help? My husband holds a masters degree and we are both educated professionals, what happened to our lives? The toxic exposures from the burn pits from war happened to our lives and to thousands of others coming home. It's only a matter of time.

BurnPits360 is working on a number of issues including a national registry for victims of burn pits:

BurnPits360 is serving as a pathway of advocacy to assist veterans, their families, and civilian contractors who have been negatively affected by toxic burn pits. Contractors were assigned the task of properly disposing of any and all trash on military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations in the Middle East. Unfortunately, instead of using incinerators, the contractors disposed of the waste through toxic burn pits and now thousands of veterans have been put at serious risk.

BurnPits360 is inviting anyone that has been affected from exposure to toxic burn pits and environmental hazards to sign up on the registry. We are conducting a voluntary cohort anonymous study with Dr. Szema at Stony Brook University. The study simply requires self-reporting your information on the online registry, providing a proof of military service (DD-214), a signed legal consent form, and additional questionnaires. This study will help to provide vital information to doctors and researchers that will help properly diagnose and treat the vast array of medical complications arising from these exposures. It will provide the Department Of Defense and the Department Of Veteran Affairs with data that will allow them to develop a healthcare model for specialized healthcare specific to toxic exposures and environmental hazards.

The importance of this registry is to serve as a model for all military personnel, civilian contractors, and their families to self-report injuries and deaths from toxic exposure from burn pits and other environmental hazards. It will also assist in proving causation and the correlation between the exposure and the illness, as well as determine all areas of possible exposure. It will provide the VA with the data needed to develop legislative language for the development of a compensation and pension category specific to toxic exposures.

Most importantly, this study is completely anonymous. None of your personal information will be shared at any time. (In such cases where information would ever need to be made public, it would not be done so without the members written consent, whereas the veteran, contractor, and/or their family have the option to decline to participate at that time.)

Should you be interested in participating in the study, please contact Burn Pits 360 via email [burnpitadvocates@burnpits360.org] or by telephone [361-816-4015].

Homeless Women Veterans

2012-01-29T06:10:00.000-05:00

US, Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Her office notes:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Murray Press Office
January 23, 2012 (202) 224-2834

GAO Report Shows VA's Shortcomings in Dealing with the Rising Number of Homeless Women Veterans

In new report requested by Senator Murray, data shows that the number of homeless women veterans MORE THAN DOUBLED from 1,380 in 2006 to 3,328 in 2010 but that more data is needed

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE

(Washington, D.C.) – A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today showed that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has had difficulty in planning for and meeting the unique needs of a growing number of homeless women veterans. The study, which was requested by U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs' Committee, is one of the first of its kind to examine the troubling rise in homelessness among women who have served.

Among the key findings in the report the GAO found that:

· VA has limited data on the number and needs of homeless women veterans, and therefore has difficulty planning to meet their unique needs;

· Homeless women veterans are not always aware of the services available to them;

· VA is unevenly implementing its process to refer homeless veterans to emergency shelter until they
are admitted into transitional or permanent housing programs;

· Facilities have difficulty providing for the children of homeless veterans, and

· VA lacks minimum standards for the privacy, safety, and security of women veterans in mixed-gender housing facilities.

"While we have seen a decrease in the overall number of homeless veterans, the number and needs of homeless women veterans across the country are growing and the VA is struggling to keep up," said Chairman Murray. "I've been sounding the alarm that these veterans, many of whom are also struggling to provide for their children, are going to need unique attention from the VA. But as this report shows, the VA has not properly planned for or met the unique needs of these veterans. I'm going to be working to ensure that the recommendations in this report, including increased collaboration between VA and HUD, are followed. I'll also be working to make sure that as more women return from Iraq and Afghanistan, the VA is keeping pace with the need to track and provide the services that they need."

Senator Murray has been a leader in calling for increased services for women veterans, including those who have become homeless. Last Congress, she enacted legislation to create an employment program for homeless women veterans, including those with children. This year, she passed legislation, which extends VA's transitional housing programs for special populations, including women with children. She is also continuing to advocate for a legislative provision, included in S. 914, that authorizes VA to pay for the children of homeless veterans in the Grant and Per Diem program. Senator Murry intends to explore this issue, and others at a hearing on veteran homelessness shortly.

###

Meghan Roh

Deputy Press Secretary

Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray

@PattyMurray

202-224-2834

Get Updates from Senator Murray

LGBTQ protesters: 'Gay families matter!' (WW)

2012-01-29T06:06:00.000-05:00

Repost from Workers World:

LGBTQ protesters: ‘Gay families matter!’

By Martha Grevatt
Lansing, Mich.

Published Jan 28, 2012 11:15 AM

In Michigan, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community is fed up. LGBTQ people are mad at right-wing legislators and the support they are getting from Gov. Rick Snyder.

More than 150 people rallied outside the State House in Lansing on Jan. 19 to deliver a message: “Gay Families Matter.” The protest was organized by a coalition of LGBTQ community centers around the state, after Snyder signed a bill making it illegal for any public employer to provide domestic partner benefits.

Zachary Bauer, executive director of the Kalamazoo, Mich., Gay and Lesbian Resource Center, explained that 60 percent of the voters of Kalamazoo voted to give domestic partner benefits to city workers. The bill overturns this progressive vote. “They took away your voice,” said Bauer.

“Anytime that someone works to deny the rights of a group — rights that they enjoy — they are a moral hypocrite,” said David Garcia, executive director of the Detroit-area community center, Affirmations. “I am a gay father. My son lives with me. I am a Mexican-American. My son is being raised by many aunts, uncles and cousins. Rick Snyder is a moral hypocrite.”

“We’re residents of the state of Michigan. We deserve the same rights as heterosexual families,” added Curtis Lipscomb, executive director of KICK, a Detroit organization for LGBTQ African Americans.

Also represented at the rally were LGBTQ centers from the Michigan cities of Benton Harbor, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Saginaw; the Ruth Ellis Center for LGBTQ youth in Detroit; and the statewide civil rights group, Equality Michigan.

When Snyder exited the building, he waved but maintained his distance from the rally. He was loudly booed, and so was the bill’s sponsor, Republican State Rep. Dave Agema. Protesters followed Agema down the street, chanting “Gay families matter!” Agema complained on Facebook of being “swarmed with gay men screaming hate at me.”

Right wing targets LGBTQ community

Last year, the right wing failed to strip state employees of domestic partner benefits. An anti-same sex marriage bill passed by Michigan voters was used to try to take away these negotiated health care benefits. The right wing said granting equal benefits treats same-sex relationships as the equivalent of heterosexual marriage and is therefore illegal.

The Civil Service Commission then ruled that a state employee could choose an individual living with them — a partner, family member or housemate — to put on their insurance plan. A majority of the state legislature voted against the Civil Service ruling but lacked the supermajority needed to overturn it.

The latest bill is a mean-spirited attack on LGBTQ municipal and county workers after the right wing could not take benefits away at the state level.

The same state legislature refused to pass an anti-bullying bill to protect schoolchildren from abuse based on categories including race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. In other states, where policies “enumerated” specific types of discrimination, student complaints decreased.

Michigan was one of five states that had no anti-bullying statute until a weakened law passed last year without enumeration. The bill removed previous language that actually contained an exception for bullying driven by religious conviction.

The LGBTQ movement in Michigan will try to stop the state legislature from passing House Bill 5039, which would overturn local civil rights ordinances that prohibit anti-LGBTQ discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a similar bill in Colorado unconstitutional.

There are at least three other bigoted bills that may be voted on this year in Michigan. Senate Bill 518 forces state universities to allow students in psychology and counseling programs to refuse to counsel LGBTQ students. House Bill 4089 blocks gender reassignment surgery in prisons and other state institutions. Agema has introduced a new bill that eliminates the Healthy Michigan Fund Initiative for HIV prevention and care, making Michigan also ineligible for federal funds for these programs.

The right-wing attacks on the LGBTQ community are anti-union and anti-democratic. It is now illegal for public unions to negotiate equal benefits. The right of a local community to ban discrimination is threatened.

Meanwhile, Michigan Public Act Four allows Snyder to appoint an “emergency manager” to take over a city, county or school board, stripping power from elected governments. The EM can break union contracts, privatize schools and sell public assets, but must fulfill debt obligations. So far, most cities under receivership are majority African-American.

Activists at the demonstration on Jan. 19 eagerly signed the petitions to repeal Public Act 4.

Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Highlights

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

"I Hate The War" and "Sir Talks A Lot" -- the two most requested highlights by readers of this site and Ty asked us to note that the latter is to be credited to Ava and C.I. (C.I. wrote it based on observations she and Ava made about the State of the Union address and they wanted it written to avoid Jim assigning them the State of the Union for this edition).

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "State of the Union" -- Isaiah's highly popular comic on the State of the Union address.

"Rice Casserole in the Kitchen" -- Trina offers a recipe and a look at reality.

"United Steelworkers sells out workers" -- And we're also placing high Trina's explanation about unions. All of us are pro-union. We are not, however, pro-union selling out the workers.

"Animation" -- Betty discusses a talent she wishes she had.

"Oh, how they copy" -- Ruth noting photo copies as opposed to the real deal.

"Screw Flanders and screw Nader" -- Elaine speaking the truth.

"Whitney," "5 men, 1 woman," "no revenge," "Whitney," "Body of Proof?," "The NewsHour: Failing at the Fact Check," "South Park," "grimm" and "Desperate Housewives" -- Betty, Ann, Rebecca, Marcia and Stan cover TV.

"Ani DiFranco's latest falls to 286" -- Kat charts Ani's 'success' with her bad album.

"How typical," "Keep your hands to yourself, Barack Obama" & "THIS JUST IN! PRESS COVERS FOR BARRY O!" and "Brewer Gate" -- Marcia and Cedric & Wally cover Brewergate.

"Netflix" -- Stan on the problems.

"Iraq snapshot," "Diane," "continuing c.i., i grab goodman," "Ricks, Rosen, Vessar and the rest of the creeps," "Grab bag" and "2 women, 4 men" -- C.I. started a discussion and Trina, Rebecca, Marcia, Elaine and Ann continue it.

"Sir Talks A Lot," "America's back? From where?," "Barack's not a Christian," "Sir Talks A Lot and a Lot and a Lot and a Lot" & "THIS JUST IN! SIR TALKS A LOT!," "That awful speech," "The NewsHour: Failing at the Fact Check," "oh, gloria feldt, give it up already" and "Genius of the week" -- some of the State of the Union coverge in the community -- Ava & C.I. (and please note that three snapshots last week also include State of the Union coverage by C.I.), Betty, Mike, Cedric & Wally, Trina and Rebecca.

"Academy Awards" -- Kat on the nominations.

"The Approved Cover" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.

"Glen Ford's important report" -- Mike notes Ford.

"Embarrassing Pelosi" and "THIS JUST IN! U.S. FINALLY BELIEVES PELOSI!" and "The battle of the speakers comes to a close" -- Ruth and Wally and Cedric on when Pelosi is believable.

"Who gets an obit?" -- good question from Kat.

"Rand Paul" -- Ruth notes some people need to educate themselves.

"The joke that is Sundance" -- Marcia speaking some strong truths.

"Hillary Clinton's president?" -- Stan offers a strong critique.

Truest statement of the week

2012-01-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

For the Left, the big news of the New Hampshire primary has been greeted with an embarrassed silence. For there the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, for example "Progressive" Democrats of America, failed completely to put forward a candidate for peace. This failure was not unexpected since the candidate of the progressives was and is Barack Obama who is out-Bushing Bush in the war and empire department. Nor did the wing of the progressive peace movement not formally associated with the Democratic Party raise its voice in any discernible way in New Hampshire. Here is a primary which is carefully watched in a state small enough so that a grassroots effort cam have a genuine effect and reverse the tide of war as happened in 1968 and 1952. Where were UFPJ, Veterans for Peace, Peace Action, Code Pink? Missing in action. What an abject failure, a profound indictment of what is called the "Peace and Justice" movement.

-- John V. Walsh, "A Failure for the 'Progressive' Peace Movement: New Hampshire Primary" (Dissident Voice).

Truest statement of the week II

2012-01-22T12:20:00.000-05:00

Whose vote were the young libertarians able to deliver to their candidate, Ron Paul? That is another largely unreported story. The votes for Ron Paul came strongly not only from the under 40 set but among those earning under $50,000. In contrast Romney, a carbon copy of Obama on all major questions took the over $100,000 crowd and the older voters. "Proletariat Votes Libertarian" or "Proletariat Votes for Paul" are headlines which the progressives might find enlightening. At the least the Progressives might have joined Ron Paul's antiwar, civil Libertarian effort, but they did not because, you see, Ron Paul unlike Obama is not a "progressive," and the "struggle for peace and justice cannot be separated." (I have noticed, however, that progressives these days from Occupy Wall Street to the Recall Walker effort find it quite easy to leave out questions of peace in the "struggle for justice." MLK Jr. would be ashamed of them for that; but it is most convenient for Obama's re-election campaign.)

-- John V. Walsh, "A Failure for the 'Progressive' Peace Movement: New Hampshire Primary" (Dissident Voice).

A note to our readers

2012-01-22T12:10:00.001-05:00

Truest statement of the week

John V. Walsh.

Truest statement of the week II

John V. Walsh again. That's how important we think his column is.

Editorial: Silence isn't speaking out

We really don't care to be part of an Ellen Jamesian movement. Thank you.

Media: The uninformed boosting ad revenues

Ava and C.I. take on the campaign coverage. (At my request. I begged them for this. They actually wrote a review of Revenge. It was great. I said, "Now fold the campaign into this." They looked at me like I was crazy. Probably I was. They went off for 30 or 40 minutes and came back with this.)

Iraq's leader who can't lead

Our Iraq piece.

Oh, Wikipedia, how we missed you

Clarence Page did not try to assault a dolphin. We know that. We assume most of you know that. But there are some people who believe that if it makes it onto Crapapedia, it's true. Not necessarily.

Panetta takes a stand

As I noted there, we couldn't get an article on this topic to work. After three different attempts, we finally decided to just repost C.I.'s commentary from Thursday.

Look who just discovered the sisterhood

We wanted to tackle this topic last week but ran out of time.

Whose home companion?

Garrison should be off limits. For listeners.

Is the VA sterilizing its equipment?

Patty Murray and Bob Filner raising an important issue.

Stop imperialist threats to Iran (Workers World)

Workers World repost.

Highlights

And Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.

So that's what we came up with and did so early for us for a change.

Peace.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Editorial: Silence isn't speaking out

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, a number websites protested the Senate's proposed Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House's proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The proposals are both dead ("for now"). And so some might call the protests a success.

We wouldn't be among those people.

There were two forms of protests. Wikipedia offered one form of protest.

This manner of protesting was to shut down their website. Here at Third, we cursed the fact that the action took place on a Wednesday and not a Sunday. Yeah, we would have gone dark for the protest, we would have gone dark to sleep Saturday night, to awake after the sun rose on Sunday, to . . . Uh, to register our objection. Yeah.

The second form of protest could be seen by Goggle's efforts.

Like Wikipedia, Google got the word out. Unlike Wikipedia, Google didn't stop working. Google didn't silence itself.

As a general rule, we're not fond of silence as a form of protest. So many peopele in the world are voiceless that we just don't support those who have voices choosing to go silence. If that's your way of protest, feel free to do it and we're sure some people will elect to join you.

But those people won't include us.

Media: The uninformed boosting ad revenues

2012-01-22T11:30:00.003-05:00

On ABC's Revenge, the best hour long drama introduced in 2011, Emily (Emily VanCamp) is out to even the score because some people refuse to learn. When she's done with the people who wronged her father, we hope she makes a sweep of the media because there's so much work to be done there.

And they just refuse to learn.

Which is how a broad range of outlets 'predicted' at 7:00 pm Central on Saturday that Newt Gingrich had won the South Carolina Republican primary -- everyone from POLITICO to NPR.

With less than 32% of precincts reporting, with the polls having just closed . . . unless you were already in line before 7:00 pm, in which case you were still waiting to vote, news outlets guessed Newt was the winner. It was a guess. They ended up guessing right. That can happen with guessing. But don't mistake it for reporting or for responsible journalism.

That they'd guess on Saturday was especially appalling.

Saturday, after all, was the day that a winner was declared for Iowa: Rick Santorum.

You'd think that would create a little bit of a caution (if not humility), just a fraction possibly, but you'd be wrong.

You'd be wrong if you thought NPR managed to book women in equal number to men for their live coverage of the South Carolina primary. No, it was as bad as the New Hampshire coverage, just a tiny bit better than their Iowa coverage.

At least they could boast of being a tiny bit better than their Iowa coverage in one regard. In every other regard, they failed.

They failed with information, they failed with factoids.

On factoids, did you know that under Newt Gingrich's leadership, hate crimes rose significantly?It's a fact. While he was Minority Leader in the House, the number of reported hate crimes rose. Check with the Justice Department, we're not making this up.

And if his laughable claim that, in the 80s, he created jobs -- as a member of the House of Representatives -- not a Minority Leader, not even Speaker of the House -- he created 16 million jobs, is being repeated on air on NPR by NPR staff and not questioned, then let's start noting all the 'accomplishments.' Want to know the increase on reported rapes under Newt's 'leadership'? We can do this all day. But then we don't spend the bulk of our hours trying to work out an on air 'funny' in advance. Failure included research and use of time by the anchors.

The failure also included the selected music which sounded like "Hail To The Chief" -- only more pompous -- music that came in while people were still speaking or that wasn't there when people stopped speaking creating, at one point, 40 seconds of radio silence.

With Audie Cornish and Guy Raz anchoring, listeners certainly had a right to expect more.

Instead, they got less. Less prepared anchors, less prepared guests. Mainly, they got less journalism. Unless NPR considers an NPR reporter declaring of Mitt Romney's second place win ("a really bad night for Romney"), "Romney lost [laughing] so many --" The reporter never finished his sentence, so entertained with the thought of Romney 'losing.'

Shortly after that low -- possibly due to it, Audie would declare, "I know we're all talking about how it's such a drubbing, but is it that unexpected?" E.J. Dionne would rush to assure everyone that it was. Dionne's an idiot and a radio embarrassment. If you're just going to work from party talking points -- regardless of which party you're with -- NPR shouldn't put you on air. We can all read talking points if we want to. We certainly didn't need Dionne or Bill Burton ("Mitt Romney is a disaster") offering inane 'commentary.' Audie would want to serve up a slice of inane herself so she'd toss out, "President Barack Obama has joked that this campaign, it's like Survivor."

Was that funny?

We didn't laugh but maybe somebody did.

Our lack of laughter had nothing to do with rooting for anyone -- we're pretty much decided at this point that we will not be voting in the 2012 presidential election. (We is Ava and C.I. We're not speaking for Third, we're speaking for ourselves.) We could care less about this puff and pageantry -- we are totally disinterested in everything to do with the hoopla.

Our lack of laughter has everything to do with lies.

We realize that Seth Myers and others have spent months painting the GOP race -- which only just now started this month -- as a circus with no clear winner, but we don't whore. And we're actually educated.

Those two things put us miles ahead of Seth and his kind.

On the live NPR coverage, it was just amazing to them, Mitt lost. Santorum won Iowa, they told us, Romney won New Hampshire and now Newt Gingrich won South Carolina. What was going on? Is this the 2012 meltdown the Mayans predicted!!!!!

Maybe only the disinterested should be allowed to provide coverage because clearly those with vested interests -- including, apparently, NPR on-airs -- can't be counted on to tell you the truth.

Is what's taking place in the first month of primaries so unheard of? Not at all. What about the results, are these just unheard of?

Tom Harkin won the Iowa Democratic Party caucus in 1992. Paul Tsongas won the Massachusetts Democratic Party primary in 1992. Bill Clinton won the South Carolina Democratic Party primaryi in 1992 (South Carolina switched from caucus to primary in 1992).

So how is what's happening now unheard of?

Either people are lying or they're just too damn stupid to be on the air or in print.

Too damn stupid to be in print?

Danny Schechter.

Mike just named him Idiot of the Week and, goodness, did Danny earn it for his bad ZNet column. Danny was slobbering over Stephen Colbert's knob. Why? Partly because of Colbert's very weak attempt at being the new Pat Paulsen. But mainly because it let Danny pretend he was writing about that as he churned out another attack piece on the GOP.

However, using Colbert as a device to attack the GOP wasn't enough for the partisan whore. After trashing the Republicans repeatedly (while pretending he's trashing both sides), he then serves up this xenophobic nonsense, "The rest of the world is laughing not only at the politicians, but at a US electorate that seems to be taking the farce seriously." To make sure that we grasp who the "farce" is, Danny then attacks Republicans further (while remaining silent on Barack).

So how is that xenophobic?

Read what he wrote. Let's be blunt, who but a New York City White man would refer to western Europe as "the rest of the world"? He cites a UK publication trashing the GOP, then notes that the UK publication cites "the German weekly Der Spiegel" and he quotes it attacking the GOP ("club of liars, debtors, betrayers, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites and ignoramuses"), then it's on to France's Liberation, then back to England for The Daily Mail.

So that's England, Germany and France. "The rest of the world"? China's the most populous country, it's left out, the continent of Africa completely overlooked, true also of the Middle East, of . . . You get the point. Western Europe is not "the rest of the world." Unless you're a xenophobe.

(He also includes Fidel Castro but misconstrues what Castro was writing about by including Castro in his survey of diatribes against the GOP. And if Big and Breasty Schechter had wanted to play it straight, he would have included Castro's comment about Barack. But Big and Breasty spent his entire column avoiding calling out Barack.)

It's not even February yet. It won't be until next week. The country has seen two primaries and one caucus. There are fifty states. The GOP contest could play out through May. And, if so, it won't be the end of the world. Also, as we have already established, it is not at all unheard of for the three states to have three different winners and having three different winners on the Democratic ticket in 1992 didn't prevent the Democratic Party from taking the White House that year.

(Bill Clinton won when George H.W. Bush thought he could ride a 'completed' Iraq War to a second term, despite the inflation and high unemployment. Yes, 1992 does appear to be a template year analysists should be referring to.)

What we're seeing isn't reporting. It's not even "commentary" by the historical understanding of the word. What we're witnessing is what Rob Lowe describes in St. Elmo's Fire as "a bit of self-created drama."

Who's the winner in Florida? For a brief moment, that was asked on NPR and a meaningful answer was actually given: TV stations which will carry tons of ads.

The media makes a ton of money off elections if they can build up the drama. Notch it up, make some more money. So they treat it as if it's amazing and unheard and novel and new.

When it's all so damn predictable and, yes, so damn drawn out. Other countries don't spend a year and a half gearing up for an election. Not only do we do that in the US, but we have so-called journalistic outlets on the left eager to serve not news but the Democratic Party. Which is why The Nation is unreadable today. As we've noted before, the 2006 mid-terms hadn't even taken place when John Nichols decided to start writing about the 2008 election. That's all the magazine is now and to say it may be good fodder for political junkies is insulting to political junkies.

"Campaign junkies."

That's what it is, get the term right.

And that's what our media hopes to turn the country into. That's among the many reasons that we're pretty much set on not voting in the 2012 presidential election. Maybe we'll follow Emily's example and instead come up with a revenge list. Wait and hope.

Iraq's leader who can't lead

2012-01-22T06:05:00.000-05:00

That's a nice looking building. And nice to the neighborhood, Hasan Kanbolat (Today's Zaman) explained it "supplies electricity" to nearby residents.

The building is the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad. After Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spent days trashing the government of Turkey, Wednesday saw a rocket attack on the Turkish Embassy. No surprise, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari contacted Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to convey his condemnation of "the criminal act." No surprise, Nouri issued no public statement.

When it's time for trash-talk, you can't shut Nouri up. When it's time to act like a leader, Nouri's off on some toilet squeezing out another one of his brilliant plans.

As Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers' Miami Herald) reported, "No one has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, in which assailants fired three rockets at the embassy. But the timing of the assault, just days after an acrimonious exchange between al-Maliki and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raised suspicions that al-Maliki sympathizers were responsible."

Nouri and his surrogates in State of Law have spent a lot of time attacking another neighbor which, like Turkey, shares a border with Iraq. The government of Saudi Arabia, Nouri claims, is attempting to destroy his regime and replace it with "Ba'athists."

So that's two neighbors that share a border with Iraq. Want a third?

Iran. Saturday Saud al-Zahid (Al Arabiya) reported, "Commander of Iraqn's Quds Force, Brig. Gen. Qasem Soleimani has said that the Islamic Republic controls 'one way or another' over Iraq and south Lebanon and that Tehran is capable of influencing the advent of Islamist governments in order to fight 'arrogant' powers, ISNA student agency reported on Thursday."

Now that's an assertion that the government of Iraq should respond to.

Some did respond.

Alsumaria TV reported, "Iraqi Sadr Movement headed by Cleric Sayyed Muqtada Al Sadr rebuked, on Friday, Iranian Quds Forces Commander Qassim Suleimani for declaring that Iraq is subject to Iran's will and that there is a potential to form an Islamic government in Iraq. These statements are unacceptable, Sadr Movement argued assuring that it doesn't allow any pretext to interfere in Iraqi internal affairs." In addition to Moqtada's bloc, KUNA notes that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari released a statement which includes, "Iraq has not and will never be affiliated to anyone and will not be a toy in others' game or a place to settle scores between different parties." So that's Moqtada's bloc and Kurdish Zebari and Alsumaria TV also noted Kurdistan Alliance MP Mahmoud Othman objected to the statements and termed them "a blatant interference in the affairs of Iraq." Iraqiya also objected. Aswat al-Iraq reported , Iraqiya spokesperson Maysoon al-Damalouji read a statement decrying the statement and calling on the government to issue a reply.

But the government is Nouri.

And Nouri?

He's busy posing for his yearbook picture. He just wanted to be prime minister to get his picture in the annual, not because he wanted to help the Iraqi people.

Nouri remains Iraq's biggest problem. Today the Associated Press quotes Human Rights Watch's Sarah Leah Whitson stating, "Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism. Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy (in Iraq), the reality is that it left behind a budding police state."

Yes, the Nouri apologists like Reidar Visser will minimize reality and justify Nouri's actions. That's what pigs do. But the reality is that Nouri is a thug.

Even as the Vissars rooted for Nouri throughout 2010 (Reidar's BFF Nir Rosen announced at Thomas E. Ricks' bad blog that Iraq should keep Nouri as prime minister because they needed someone authoritarian as a leader -- Reidar and Nir should keep their fantasies in the bedroom), the reality about Nouri was already known. And it became only more known last week. At the end of the week, newspaper readers could catch Roy Gutman, Sahar Issa and Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reporting:

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's security services have locked up more than 1,000 members of other political parties over the past several months, detaining many of them in secret locations with no access to legal counsel and using "brutal torture" to extract confessions, his chief political rival has charged.
Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite Muslim leader of the mainly Sunni Muslim Iraqiya bloc in parliament, who served as prime minister of the first Iraqi government after the Americans toppled Saddam Hussein, has laid out his allegations in written submissions to Iraq's supreme judicial council.

And the week started with a Guardian article by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad:

"Look," he added, "the system now is just like under Saddam: walk by the wall, don't go near politics and you can walk with your head high and not fear anything. But if you come close to the throne then the wrath of Allah will fall on you and we have eyes everywhere."
He described the arrest of the Sunni vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi's bodyguards who, it was claimed by the Shia-dominated government, had been paid by Hashimi to assassinate Shia officials. (Hashimi was on a plane heading to Kurdistan when government forces took over the airport, preventing him from leaving. After a standoff, he was allowed to fly but his men where detained.)
"Look what happened to the poor bodyguards of Hashimi, they were tortured for a week. They took them directly to our unit and they were interrogated severely. Even an old general was hanging from the ceiling. Do you know what I mean by hanging?"
In the constricted space of the car he pulled his arms up behind his back.
"They hang him like this. Sometimes they beat them with cables and sticks and sometimes they just leave them hanging from a metal fence for three days. They are torturing them trying to get them to confess to the bombing of the parliament."

Nouri's a thug. As Iraq's former Deputy Ambassador to the UN Feisal Istrabadi explained December 13th to Warren Oleny on KCRW's To the Point:

The critical mistake the Obama administration made occurred last year when it threw its entire diplomatic weight behind supporting Nouri al-Maliki notwithstanding these very worrisome signs which were already in place in 2009 and 2010. The administration lobbied hard both internally in Iraq and throughout the region to have Nouri al-Maliki get a second term -- which he has done. Right now, the betting there's some question among Iraq experts whether we'll ever have a set of elections in Iraq worthy of the name. I mean, you can almost get odds, a la Las Vegas, on that among Iraq experts. It's a very worrisome thing. What can they do in the future? Well I suppose it would be helpful, it would be useful, if we stopped hearing this sort of Happy Talk coming from the administration -- whether its Jim Jeffreys in Baghdad, the US Ambassador or whether it's the president himself or other cabinet officers. We're getting a lot of Happy Talk, we're getting a lot of Happy Talk from the Pentagon about how professional the Iraqi Army is when, in fact, the Iraqi Army Chief of Staff himself has said it's going to take another ten years before the Iraqi Army can secure the borders. So it would help, at least, if we would stop hearing this sort of Pollyanna-ish -- if that's a word -- exclamations from the administration about how swimmingly things are going in Iraq and had a little more truth told in public, that would be a very big help to begin with.

Oh, Wikipedia, how we missed you

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, Wikipedia elected to go dark for 24 hours to protest the Senate's proposed Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House's proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the country was the sadder for it.

Mainly because they were unable to visit Crapapedia and howl in laughter at the 'facts' presented there.

Yes, were it not for Wikipedia, "the online encyclopedia," Americans wouldn't be able to 'learn' the Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page "attempted to kill a dolphin at the Baltimore aquarium."

As they used to say on Kids In The Hall, "It's a fact!"

Panetta takes a stand

2012-01-22T05:55:00.000-05:00

Jim: We attempted to cover an important event from last week three different ways. It failed every time. In the end, we decided to just raid C.I.'s Thursday snapshot which had already covered it and covered it well.

Yesterday at the Pentagon, something major happened (here for video, here for transcript), a sitting Secretary of Defense called a press conference to talk about sexual assault in the military. That was Leon Panetta who noted, "Let me close by speaking directly to the victims of sexual assault in this department. I deeply regret that such crimes occur in the US military. And I will do all I can to prevent these sexual assaults from occurring in the Department of Defense. I'm committed to providing you the support and resources you need and to taking whatever steps are necessary to keep what happened to you from happening to others. The United States military has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault. And we will hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable. I expect everybody in this department to live up to the high standards that we have set and to treat each other with dignity and respect. In a military force, where the promise is to help each other in battle and to leave nobody behind, that promise must begin by honoring the dignity of every person on or off the battlefield."

Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates preceded Panetta in the office. The rate of sexual assault has been on the rise since the 90s. Yet Rumsfeld and Gates never addressed it publicly. If questioned by Congress in a hearing, they would offer some empty words. The same at a press conference. But they did not call press conferences to address the issue. Prior to Panetta, the pattern has been ignore it and know damn well that the press will assist you in ignoring it. Robert Gates spent several months in 2011 on a farewell tour with the press allegedly examining his performance but they never noted the military suicide rate and they never noted sexual assault.

So what the hell were they grading him on? (The answer was, they graded him on if they really, really loved him or just loved him. I was present for the "off the record" farewell photo ops between Gates and the press.)

Secretary Leon Panetta: When I was sworn into the office of Secretary of Defense, I said that I had no higher responsibility than to protect those who are protecting America. Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to try to keep America safe. We have a moral duty to keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor. That's why I've been so concerned by the problem of sexual assault in the military. Sexual assault has no place in this department. It is an affront to the basic American values we defend and it is a stain on the good honor of the great majority of our troops and their -- and our -- families. As leaders of this department, we're committed to doing everything we can to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of our people. These men and these women who are willing to fight and to die, if necessary, to protect and serve our country, they're entitled to much better protection. Their families and their dependents also sacrifice and serve and so, for that reason, we have to spare no effort in order to protect them against this heinous crime. The number of sexual assaults in the military is unacceptable. Last year, 3,191 reports of sexual assault came in. But I have to tell you that because we assume that this is a very under-reported crime, the estimate is that the number actually is closer to 19,000. One sexual assault is too many. Since taking this office, I've made it a top priority to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assault, to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career and to hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable.

There's more but we'll stop there. There was no Tailhook exposed this week. There was no rush to defuse a just breaking scandal. Panetta did what the last two serving as Secretary of Defense should have done, he showed that the Department took it seriously by making it a focus, not an aside.

Had Gates or Rumsfeld done the same at any point in their lengthy time in office (Panetta became Defense Secretary last July), they might not be the plantiffs in a law suit right now. As Burke PLLC notes:

On Feb. 15, 2011, we filed a lawsuit in Virginia federal court on behalf of 16

active duty military and veteran victims of sexual trauma, including persons

who allege they were raped by their military colleagues. The case is Cioca

et al v. Rumsfield and Gates, C.A. 11 cv 151 in the U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Virginia. Our investigation in this case continues.
Additionally, [Susan] Burke has been invited to speak on institutional failings

that have led to extensive rape and sexual assault in the military at the 2011 National Conference on Civil Actions for Criminal Acts hosted by The

National Crime Victims Bar Association and The National Center for Victims

of Crime. The conference will be held from June 20 to June 22, 2011 at the

Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Her presentation will discuss potential solutions for these issues.

If you are interested in potentially participating in this lawsuit, please contact Susan Sajadi. Read more about military rape litigation.

As disclosed before, I know Susan Burke and I know Leon Panetta. Knowing Leon is why I took a pass on this yesterday. I figured we'd string together various reports and I wouldn't have to say anything personally. But that required news actually being covered. And, of course, that so rarely happens.

At the increasingly embarrassing CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, they gave thanks for the wrecked ocean liner over the weekend. There was no news there but they had footage and opened the broadcast with it. Three days of coverage out of this, it's been a gift for Scott Pelley and for CBS Evening News . . . if not for viewers. The story was no different at ABC or NBC or PBS. (And ABC and Chris Cuomo will turn the wreck into a 'special' Friday night. Pick the bones, pick them dry. But don't pretend you've supplied news.)

Women and men in the military are at risk of sexual assault; however, victims are more often women. And, as we've seen over and over, when a story's focus can be seen as female, over and over, it gets ignored. (When Katie Couric anchored the CBS Evening News, sexual assault, breast cancer and other issues that might be seen as effecting primarily women did get covered.) The networks had plenty of time for the snow in Seattle -- a story that really only effected Seattle. They just didn't have time for major news in terms of sexual assault in the military which also included policy changes.

Secretary Leon Panetta: Over the holidays, we announced two new policies that provide greater support for the victims of sexual assault. The first policy gives victims who report a sexual assault an option to quickly transfer from their unit or installation to protect them from possible harassment and remove them from proximity to the alleged perpetrator. Second, we will also require the retention of written reports of sexual assault to law enforcement to be retained for a period of 50 years. The reason for that is to have these records available so that it will make it easier for veterans to file a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs at a later date. These two policies are the first of a broader package of proposals that we will be presenting in the coming months, many of which will require legislative action by the Congress. Today, I want to announce some additional steps that we are taking. First, I've directed the establishment of a DoD sexual assault advocate certification program which will require our sexual assault response coordinators and victim advocates to obtain a credential aligned with national standards. This will help ensure that the victims of sexual assault receive the best care from properly trained and credentialed professionals who provide crucial assistance from the moment an assault is committed. Second, I have directed the department to expand our support to assault victims to include military spouses and adult military dependents, who will now be able -- this was not the case before -- they will now be able to file confidential reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and a sexual assault response coordinator. In addition, we're going to ensure that DoD civilians stationed abroad and DoD US citizen contractors in combat areas receive emergency care and the help of a response coordinator and a victim advocate. Third, because sexual assault cases are some of the toughest cases to investigate and to prosecute, I've increased funding for investigators and for judge advocates to receive specialized training. We're also putting in place one integrated data system. The data systems, frankly, were spread among the various services. We're going to put them together into one data system in order to track sexual assault reports and monitor case management so that we'll have a comprehensive data base for information available later this year. And, finally, in addition to our focus on taking care of victims and holding perpetrators appropriately accountable, we've been focusing on what more can we do to try to prevent sexual assault. Our leaders in uniform, officers and enlisted are on the front lines of this effort -- they have to be. We must all be leaders here. For this reason, I'm directing an assessment -- due in 120 days -- on how we train our commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders on sexual assault prevention and response and what we can do to strengthen that training. It's important that everyone in uniform be alert to this problem and have the leadership training to help prevent these crimes from occurring.

They missed all the above. But don't worry, that because, for example, ABC World

News with Diane Sawyer couldn't cover the sexual assault story, they missed the big news stories. No, they had time, they made time, to show the very important YouTube video of a bird playing in the snow.

My opinion? A great deal more is needed by the Defense Dept and I would include the firing of one woman we've regularly advocated for the firing of (if you refuse to testify to Congress, you should be fired, end of story). I think the words will be measured months from now in terms of whether, in practice, much changed.

But I give Leon Panetta applause for addressing the topic. Until a sitting Secretary of Defense is willing to use time to address the topic, nothing's going to change. Until a Secretary of Defense makes clear that this issue matters at the top, it's not going to matter. Leon Panetta sent a strong signal yesterday, a needed one, and became the first sitting Secretary of Defense to do so. Much more needs to be done and I hope it is but I give Leon Panetta credit for doing more than any of his predecessors have. (And I've said here and face-to-face that I will measure his performance based on this issue and the issue of suicides in the military. Those are the issues that the press should have been grading Robert Gates on.)

Look who just discovered the sisterhood

2012-01-22T05:50:00.000-05:00

The White House wanted to distract from Jodi Kantor's book The Obamas, so they sent out Michelle Obama to insist she wasn't "an angry, Black woman." Since she made that statement to Oprah Winfrey's 'special friend' Gayle King, no one was present to point out that Kantor's book doesn't argue Michelle is an angry woman -- Black or otherwise.

And half-wit Rochelle Riley ran with the claim, writing a whole column about how Michelle Obama had been called an "angry Black woman" . . . but forgetting to point out that the term was dished by Michelle herself. Riley felt the need to summon the sisterhood to take on this phantom menace and insisted, "And that means we should be angry black women, angry white women, angry Latina women, angry men and angry patriots. That office in Washington is not a backyard tree house, one that can be the target of juvenile bullies who are spitting on the symbol we hold dear."

Bullies wouldn't spit on their own tree house. If bullies had a tree house, they would hold it dear. But making sense has never been a strong feature of half-wit Riley's writing. That also explains "Latina women."

Someone tell the dumb ass that part of writing is using words correctly. "Latina"? That's a woman. "Latino" is a male. If Riley wants to toss around Latina, she should do so correctly. Don't they have editors at The Detroit Free Press?

As for the First Lady being a symbol we hold dear, get a grip. It's a swimsuit away from being a glorified pageant for plain and unattractive women.

Here's what Americans hold dear, pay attention, Rochelle, we prize and hold dear freedom of speech which includes the right to make fun of anyone -- yes, even office holders or, yes, even the spouses of office holders.

The glowering Michelle wasn't portrayed by Kantor as an angry, Black woman but if she had been, so what?

Has she been called a lesbian? Are there rumors that she and Barack got married because they both worked for the CIA? And that she's a secret lesbian trapped in a loveless marriage? Is she also, while being a 'lesbian,' accused of sleeping around with an attorney whose death she's also supposedly somehow responsible for? Has she been accused of dressing the White House Christmas trees with sex toys?

When she's been accused of the above, she still won't have walked through half the crap Hillary Clinton had to when she was First Lady.

You remember Hillary, don't you, Roach-hell?

You wanted to summon the sisterhood for Michelle. For a woman in a ceremonial post she was neither confirmed for nor voted into, you want to get your panties up your ass crack. But when the United States had the first viable woman candidate for a presidential nomination, you didn't give a damn about the sisterhood.

For those who missed it, Roach-hell appeared on Tell Me More (NPR -- link is audio and transcript) on May 21, 2008 in a roundtable on sexism.

Here's some of what Roach-hell said on air:

But I don't think that Senator Clinton can have it both ways, to cry on cue to get votes but then to be concerned when someone says something about her pant suit. I think that the bigger issue is whether she really is the women's candidate. She's not polling the kind of women numbers the way Barack Obama is polling African-American votes. And quite frankly, every time I write a column that's critical of something that she's done, I get calls and emails - and I mean a lot of them - from women, mostly white women, saying, who said that she represents me?

When did Hillary cry on cue? She never did. Does Roach-hell not know about crying? That's surprising; considering her girth and looks, we can't imagine her as the princess of her high school. But Hillary's eyes moistened. They welled up. She didn't cry. And we're not remembering her every making "pant suits" the issue. We are aware that sexists stated she cried. We are aware that sexist had 'fun' with her pant suits.

As for your delusional claim about e-mails, how do you know the person e-mailing you is White?

Do they say, "I'm White!"?

We doubt it.

We doubt anyone e-mails Roach-hell.

But what we know is that Roch-hell Riley can't have it both ways. She can't try to summon the sisterhood to defend a glorified show model from attacks that have not taken place (though we agree with Michelle Obama, she is a very angry person) after she herself attacked Hillary Clinton in 2008.

So Roach-hell can't do feminism, she can't do science, she can't do reporting, but she must be able to do something. Possibly she should explore opportunities in sanitation?

[Roach-hell Riley's crap has previously been called out in Kat's "Rochelle Riley's lust for Michelle Obama," Marcia's "Ugly Rochelle Riley" and Cedric & Wally's "Whore Rochelle Riley wants to pretend to care about women" and "THIS JUST IN! ROCHELLE THINKS YOU'RE STUPID!"]

Whose home companion?

2012-01-22T05:45:00.000-05:00

Why is Lila Garrett looking so dour?

Oh, wait, that's not Lila Garrett, that's NPR's Garrison Keillor whose compiled a 'joke' special for fundraising purposes.

As usual, the show is heavy on the sexism and homophobia that no one ever dares to admit to, let alone call out.

But what really stood out was what a coward Garrison is.

On the same special that he declares, "Jokes take us places that civility hides from," Garrison laments that Barack Obama hasn't provided jokes. No jokes. He then goes on to note that the previous one provided plenty of jokes. We'll assume he meant George W. Bush and not Barack Sr.

And we'll assume that the coward who wants to feature Groucho jokes is a nasty little suck-up when it comes to Barry. If you can't tell a joke that makes Barack look bad, you really aren't a comedian. You're a bobby-soxer, you may be a whore, but you are no comic.

Is the VA sterilizing its equipment?

2012-01-22T05:40:00.000-05:00

Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. House Representative Bob Filner is the Ranking Member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. They are calling attention to the need to ensure that medical equipment at the VA is sterilized.

For Immediate Release
January 19, 2012
Contact:
Murray: 202-224-2834
Filner: 202-225-9756

Murray, Filner Request GAO Review of VA's Sterilization of Reusable Medical Equipment Policies and Procedures

(Washington, D.C.) -- Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) sent a letter to Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller Gene Dodaro expressing concern over reports of shortcomings in the sterilization of reusable medical equipment. In the letter, they urge the GAO to investigate whether VA's leadership is taking appropriate actions to address these problems across the system.

"On numerous occasions, VA has reported to Congress about the various investigations it has conducted and the problems these investigations have identified, which they claim have led to the development of new processes and procedures to reduce the risk of these problems reoccurring," Senator Murray and Congressman Filner said in the letter. "However, we continue to hear about the same types of quality of care incidents at VA medical facilities and we are concerned that this is an indication that VA is not effectively learning from these incidents and subsequently translating those lessons into system-wide improvements."
The full text of the letter follows:

January 19, 2012

The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro

Comptroller General of the United States

Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20548

Dear Mr. Dodaro:

We know of repeated quality of care problems throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. Some of these problems, such as shortcomings in the sterilization of reusable medical equipment, reoccur with unacceptable frequency. This raises concerns as to whether VA's leadership is taking appropriate actions, including the appropriate disciplinary actions, to effectively address the problems across the system. On numerous occasions, VA has reported to Congress about the various investigations it has conducted and the problems these investigations have identified, which they claim have led to the development of new processes and procedures to reduce the risk of these problems from reoccurring. However, we continue to hear about the same types of quality of care incidents at VA medical facilities and we are concerned that this is an indication that VA is not effectively learning from these incidents and subsequently translating those lessons into system-wide improvements.

Therefore, we request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct a review of VA's processes and procedures for responding to quality of care incidents that occur within its health care system. Specifically, we request that GAO review the following:

1. What processes and procedures does VA use to respond to quality of care incidents that occur at its medical facilities, including quality assurance reviews and disciplinary actions? To what extent do these processes and procedures compliment and inform each other? What, if any, gaps or inconsistencies exist?

2. How does VA determine which processes and procedures to use to respond to quality of care incidents? What factors contribute to why certain processes and procedures are chosen by VA over others?

3. What challenges, if any, do VA staff face when using these processes and procedures?

4. To what extent are the processes and procedures carried out consistently across VA's health care system?

5. What data, if any, does VA systematically collect with regard to its employees' involvement in quality of care incidents, including clinicians and others? How, if at all, are these data trended and analyzed? To what extent are these data used to determine what actions to take in response to these incidents?

6. To what extent does VA use the data to identify opportunities for system-wide quality improvement?

As a follow-on to the above work, we also request that GAO perform an in-depth assessment of the extent to which VA medical facilities follow the processes and procedures used to respond to quality of care incidents.

Thank you for your work to improve the care and services our veterans receive. We look forward to reviewing your findings.

Sincerely,

PATTY MURRAY
Chairman Ranking Democratic Member
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

BOB FILNER
Ranking Democratic Member
House Committee on Veterans Affairs
###

Stop imperialist threats to Iran (Workers World)

2012-01-22T05:36:00.000-05:00

Repost from Workers World:

Feb. 4 anti-war actions called to stop imperialist threats to Iran

By John Catalinotto

Published Jan 21, 2012 4:29 PM

A broad spectrum of U.S.-based anti-imperialist and anti-war organizations agreed on a Jan. 17 conference call to hold coordinated protests across the country on Saturday, Feb. 4. The demands will be: “No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran.”

The ad-hoc group that took part in the call decided that although there are only two weeks to organize, it will invite anti-war forces around the world to join in, if possible, so that this emergency action could develop into a global day of action.

All agreed on the need to stop U.S. imperialism and/or Israel from launching a military attack on Iran. There was also a consensus that the new sanctions President Barack Obama signed into law on Dec. 31 — with the goal of breaking the Iranian central bank — were themselves an act of war aimed at the Iranian people. The political activists on the call raised the danger of a wider war should fighting break out in or around Iran.

While the organizations involved had varied assessments of the Iranian government, they all saw any intervention from U.S. imperialism in the Southwest Asian country as a threat to the entire region and to peace. Some of the people on the call who are originally from Iran and who were in touch with family and friends there conveyed the Iranian people’s anger at the recent assassination of a young scientist.

There was agreement to make “no assassinations” one of the demands to show solidarity with the Iranian population as well as to condemn the U.S. and its allies for criminal activities against Iran and its people.

As of Jan. 19, the organizations that called the actions or endorsed later included the United National Antiwar Coalition, the International Action Center, SI! Solidarity with Iran, Refugee Apostolic Catholic Church, Workers World Party, World Can’t Wait, American Iranian Friendship Committee, Answer Coalition, Antiwar.com, Peace of the Action, ComeHomeAmerica.us, St. Pete for Peace, Women Against Military Madness, Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality-Virginia, WESPAC Foundation, Peace Action Maine, Occupy Myrtle Beach, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Bail Out the People Movement.

Individual endorsers include authors David Swanson, “When the World Outlawed War,” and Phil Wilayto, “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation’s Journey through the Islamic Republic”; and U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general.

The list is expected to grow steadily as word spreads. Right now people can follow developments on the Facebook link: No War On Iran: National Day of Action Feb 4, www.facebook.com/events/214341975322807/.

There will also be updates, giving times and places of demonstrations, at the International Action Center website: www.iacenter.org.

Catalinotto represented Workers World Party on the Jan. 17 conference call.

Highlights

2012-01-22T05:30:00.001-05:00

"Semi-scandal? Is that like semi-sweet?" and "Bankrupt Solyndra wants to give out bonuses"
-- Ruth on Solyndra.

"Ani's awful album" and "AniDiFranco is petty and jealous of other women" -- Kat on Ani.

"Never trust 'blonde' men over 70" and "Does Robert Redford use a curling iron?" -- Marcia on Robert Redford.

"Take Three" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.

"The failure" -- Elaine on the AWOL peace groups.

"Syria" -- Mike weighs in on Syria.

"Well they'll worry about the economy tomorrow" and "THIS JUST IN! IT'S A TEEN FAN CLUB!" -- Cedric and Wally on the White House priorities.

Truest statement of the week

2012-01-15T22:30:00.000-05:00

This means Latino voters must decide for themselves which candidate to vote against. Obama failed us, sure, but his administration's sickening fondness for suddenly, permanently removing brown, Christian parents from the lives of their children is not just failure. It is cruelty. And when 97 of every 100 victims of Obama's deportations are Latino, it is not just a civil liberties issue. It is a hate crime.

-- Pablo Manriquez, "It Would Behoove Barack Obama To Immediately Stop Pissing Off Latinos" (Huffington Post).

Truest statement of the week II

2012-01-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure which straw broke the camel's back when it came to my love affair with Barack Obama. It was certainly long before the National Defense Authorization Act, which the president signed on New Year's Eve, ensuring that his successors will be able to detain any of us for as long as they want without due process of law. A couple of days after that glorious first Tuesday in November three years ago, when he appeared at his first post-election press conference, flanked by what might as well have been the board of Goldman Sachs to announce his transition team, a bad taste started to form in my mouth.

From the too-small-to-matter stimulus package, ironically pushed through at the height of his electoral mandate, through the secret negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry to keep prices artificially high, I quaintly, but halfheartedly, defended Obama. As we continued to use drones to kill innocents across the world in our quest to end terror (as if such a thing were possible), breezily deported record numbers of troops, and clamped down on whistle-blowers, I grew confused. As progressive African-American members of Obama's administration were targeted by right-wing demagogues, while the president refused to stand up for them; as promises for greater transparency went by the wayside; as the mettle to fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo Bay atrophied; as significant progress in our preparations to mitigate the effects of climate change went unfulfilled, my confusion gave way to sullenness and even anger.

-- Brandon Harris, "Blacks for Obama? Don't Assume That Anymore" (The Daily Beast)

A note to our readers

2012-01-15T22:10:00.001-05:00

Truest statement of the week

First timer Pablo Manriquez wins the honors.

Truest statement of the week II

As does first-timer Brandon Harris.

Editorial: Whatever happened to the working press?...

All the above worked on the editorial. That's the only piece for which this is true.

TV: The head scratchers

Ava and C.I. wrote this piece covering the new TV show The Firm and NPR's live coverage of the New Hampshire primary.

About those Archie comics (Dona)

It was Golden Globes. Dona and Jim decided they wanted to go. Usually the rest of us are tagging along. So it was C.I., Dona, Jim, Ava and Jess. That made doing the edition a little rough. To help out, Dona did a feature by herself. This is already hugely popular in the inbox.

Bennett and NOW are a Judas to all womankind!

After the Golden Globes, at the first party, Jim called to ask how the edition had worked out. I (Ty) told him not good. And explained two planned pieces ended up unworkable. He said he'd ask Ava and C.I. if there was anything they could cover? They replied that they had already started drinking and didn't have the time. Jim put them on the phone. They ended up agreeing to write something but "quickly" and (on the phone later) I'd have to do links because the iPhone they were using wasn't letting them insert the links.

Who's left? The top 5 UK progressives

This is the piece that all the above except Jim, Dona, Jess, Ava and C.I. worked on. We had fun with this and even more so when it became the only thing we worked on that worked.

Burn Pits Symposium

PSA.

MLK Day = New Year of Fightback (Workers World)

Repost from Workers World.

Highlights

Mike and the gang wrote this.

2011 archives by week

Archives of last year's edition.

And that's what we came up with.

Peace.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Editorial: Whatever happened to the working press?

2012-01-15T22:00:00.001-05:00

Yes, a case could be made that a bunch of stenographers have forgotten their working class roots in an attempt to blend, but we're not talking about that.

No, we're wondering whatever happened to a working press? A functioning one?

One that didn't necessarily have scoops but did at least report news.

More and more, we're starting to wonder if the Tehran crisis (the 444 day seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran -- dubbed "American held hostage Day XX" by Ted Koppel) happened today, would they even note it?

Yes, there's the 2009 gala which finally emerged in the news last week. As the unemployment rate surged to 10.2% in October 2009, the Obamas celebrated with a lavish Halloween party with Johnny Depp greeting guests while wearing his Mad Hatter costume. As the right-wing Big Journalism notes, only after the news pops up in Jodi Kantor's The Obamas does the corporate media report on a White House gala that they should have reported on three years ago.

But we're thinking of an incident from last month and one from last week.

See, the party? Unseemly. But no one was physically harmed or in fear.

December 28th, the Associated Press 'reported' that 2 American contractors were released by the Iraqi government. 'Reported'? The two contractors were released December 28th, after being held for 18 days. The AP never reported on the two until the 28th. Neither did any other US outlet. And AP only reported it, only reported it, because US House Rep. Peter King had issued a press release on the matter:

Washington, D.C. -- Today, U.S. Rep. Peter T. King, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, welcomed news that his work has helped secure the release of three security contractors, including two U.S. citizens, who had been detained in Iraq since December 9.
The three men, Army veteran Alex Antiohos of Long Island, New York, National Guardsman Jonas March of Savannah, Georgia, and Kevin Fisher of Fiji, all contractors for a security firm, were detained by Iraqi Army forces in Mahmudiyah, part of the infamous "Triangle of Death," and held until early today without being charged with any crime.
Immediately after learning of the men's detention from Antiohos' wife Melissa last week, King pressed the State Department for help in securing their release. Last Wednesday, King wrote a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, urging that the men be released. King's staff followed up by personally pressing Iraqi officials at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington for the release of the men.
King said: "I am pleased that these three men have been released after having been detained for no reason. With the unfortunate and clearly deteriorating security situation in Iraq and with al-Qaeda in Iraq still very active, these men were in increasing danger with each passing day.
"I appreciate the efforts of officials at the Department of State and U.S. Embassy Baghdad, as well as individuals at DoD and the White House who worked to secure the men's release. Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA) and Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who represent Jonas March, were also very engaged and deserve great credit for this good news."
Antiohos, March, and Fisher were reportedly detained while escorting a logistical convoy simply because the Iraqi Ministry of Defense officials did not like the "mission request authorization" paperwork that had been issued by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. The men were never charged with any crime.

That was news. It might have been embarrassing for the Obama administration, but it was news. Time and again, the common theme in what the press refuses to report is that it might embarrass Baby Barack.

Last Friday, came news that 4 Americans were arrested in Baghdad -- two men, two women -- carrying firearms, with silencers. It didn't make the State Department press briefing on Friday -- as a topic introduced by spokesperson Victoria Nuland or by the reporters present -- and it didn't make the US news outlets. (As C.I. noted Saturday, the unofficial official word in the Iraqi media is that the 4 have been released.)

You can dismiss the party and many well. It's only evidence of greed, after all -- a sin, not a crime. But Americans taken into custody in Iraq? That's news. That's real news. And it shouldn't require a member of the Congress issuing a news release for the US press to feel they can finally mention it.

TV: The head scratchers

2012-01-15T20:30:00.002-05:00

Last week's theme seemed to be confusion. Whether watching NBC or listening to NPR, America was blurting out a collective, "Huh?"

On NBC, three hours were spent introducing the new drama, an update of John Grisham's The Firm. A lot of money went into this show and CBS, still insisting that NBC stole the series from them, has a lawsuit against NBC that's easier to follow than the onscreen drama. With all that money involved, how does the show come off like a seven-year-old trying to tell a knock-knock joke?

"Knock-knock -- Wait. Wait. Knock -- Oh, somebody says -- Say, 'Who's there?' Peaches. Wait! No, lemon! No, uh, orange! Orange you glad I didn't -- wait! Say, 'Orange who?' Go ahead. Say it now."

If you're not getting the problem, you didn't watch. Back in 1988, Justine Bateman hosted Saturday Night Live and took part in a Family Ties skit which found the Keatons going into a flashback, then into a flashback within the flashback, then . . .

The Firm is a thriller. Or it's supposed to be. It picks up ten years later -- from the novel and the Sydney Pollack directed film. If you've forgotten, Mitch and Abby moved to the south when Mitch went to work for 'The Firm' -- a law practice so ruthless that it made the mob look good. In fact, Mitch enlisted the help of the mob to put away 'The Firm.'

In the TV show, Mitch (Josh Lucas) and Abby McDeer (Molly Parker) are informed by the feds that the mob is now after them -- seems the feds went ahead and prosecuted the mob which now wrongly believes Mitch must have ratted them out. Mitch tells the feds to shove their witness relocation program offer but Abby tells him she's pregnant and they decide to enter the program. Then, years later, the mobster dies and Mitch and Abby (and daughter Claire) leave the program -- against the fed's recommendation. Then Mitch starts his own law practice with his private detective brother Ray (Callum Keith Rennie) and office manager Tammy (Juliette Lewis). And then Ray gets an offer to joina firm. He doesn't want to join a firm. Even Abby tells him, Mitch, you don't want to join a firm, you like being your own boss. But he joins the firm. And apparently doesn't notice all the repeat looks between his friend and his new boss. And then he ends up with someone with the firm as a witness to something and he and the man are trapped in a hotel room and someone's banging on the door and screaming "Hotel security!" but Mitch says if they're really hotel security they'd have a key and not be yelling "hotel security" so don't let them in and the man tells Mitch he can't take it anymore and the man jumps off the balcony to his death and . . .

And if you followed all of that, first, congratulations. Second, you might not have followed it on TV. All of that -- and so much more -- was told in a non-linear manner. The show started with Mitch 'modern day' phoning Abby and telling her they were going to have to go on the run again. What!!! Flashback to the hotel. Then flashback to an earlier time. And on and on. Quantum Leap didn't skip around this much.

It's meant to keep you guessing and maybe it will work for some people but it also runs a risk of alienating the audience. If, for example, you're curious about the case where Mitch is defending a young boy who may have killed a school mate, if you're really interested in that, you're not going to want to jump around in the pilot to a hundred other story strands and never have that one developed. Or maybe, in the pilot, you were more interested in the young woman accused of murdering an elderly woman, another one of Mitch's clients, and felt like the show should have provided some resolution there -- or to either legal case. Or maybe you just don't like jigsaw puzzles.

There are a hundred ways the storytelling on the show can alienate and the ratings proved that something did. The two hour pilot debuted last Sunday and it lost viewers each half hour.

Something was pissing them off. Maybe it was the look of Josh Lucas?

Lucas has startling blue eyes and was, one would guess, hired in part because he's good looking. In Sweet Home Alabama, for example, he was very good looking. On The Firm, not so much. And if you read comments on the show (we checked out viewer response after a friend with the show passed on four critical pans of it), a lot of people are attempting to fix Lucas' look. Most think the problem is that he needs a shave.

That may be. It is true that if you're on trial for murder, you really don't want your lawyer -- assigned by the court or not -- showing up to defend you with two-day old stubble.

But we don't think that's the problem.

The problems are the camera and the wardrobe. Let's start with the latter. Does no one know how to dress men on this show? Lucas is wearing suits that look off the rack and as if they didn't fit him in the store. Every jacket he wears tends to be too large and makes it appear he has a bustle under the jacket. They're also lousy fabric (in terms of filming) and lousy colors (ibid). Now for the camera work.

Pollack, for the film, gave Tom Cruise a different look in the role of Mitch. His cheekbones and forehead were more prominent and it added to an energy for the film. Pollack had the camera angle down to capture Cruise (and others in the film). The film's unique look (which tended to make many look like a Bratz doll) is not translating to the TV show successfully and Lucas, already wearing a too-large and unflattering suit, is coming off rat faced and fat as a result of the angles. (Lucas is not fat, he is not rat faced. He is a very attractive man -- though watching the show you might not ever guess that. We're not making fun of his looks, we're noting that the worst camera angle possible is being used.) It's so bad, the casual viewer might wonder if NBC has rebranded Cannon and discovered the new William Conrad.

The pilot was really bad because, in two hours, you have a right to hope at least one of the multiple storylines might be resovled. Thursday, the show moved to NBC's last hour of prime time and piled on even more starter stories but did actually manage to resolve two minor storylines (a man who had falsely confessed to one murder had, in fact, murdered before and Abby handled a student's cheating on a test without implicating her daughter Claire who saw the cheating). But though that was a tiny step forward, the episode itself was a huge step backward.

In the first regular episode, Molly Parker moved to forefront. Parker is very pretty but, as Shirely MacLaine notes in Terms of Endearment, "pretty isn't enough." The writers haven't created a compelling character for Molly and her little teaching story isn't just a distraction, it's a bore. Sorry but people aren't watching a thriller where one man's jumped to his death and we now know that Mitch's boss is attempting to have him killed so that they can watch middle school children cope with testing and home work.

The only one with a strong handle on a character from the start of this show was Juliette Lewis. She's taken over (from the film) in the Holly Hunter part. That's the most difficult part there is. In the book, it's underwritten and an embarrassment (as most Grisham females are). In the movie, Holly Hunter just created it out of scratch. She flooded the nothing role so much that not only was Tammy a full bodied human being, but you forgot about all the criticism that had dogged the various rewrites of the script and how Meryl Streep had turned down the rewrite that her as a partner in the film because it was so underwritten despite being promient in terms of screen time.

If Juliette Lewis had just decided to mimic Holly Hunter, that would have been a treat all by itself. Instead, she's put her own mark on Tammy and its original and interesting and you always feel like when the director's said action, Tammy didn't just come to life. That she was in the midst of sharing a dirty joke or planning a hook up with Ray or some such business right before the scene started. She comes across real and alive. And Thursday night, she was barely on the show.

If the show gets an axe -- barring a miracle in the ratings for this Thursday, that's very likely -- it should at least serve as a TV jumping point for Juliette Lewis. We have been very lucky over the years to note some of the most gifted performers in shows that got the axe. We championed, for example, Ty Burrell when the Water Cooler Set ignored him. We noted his comic chops. Now, of course, he's the lifeforce of Modern Family. We're not recommending the show be pulled, we think the problems are fixable. But if it is pulled, Juliette should get credit for being the one thing that worked on the show.

How do you fix the show?

If NBC is serious abot the show, if they're willing to stand by it and give it a second season, they need to do something bold that indicates they'll take risks and that they're not your standard procedural. Meaning someone needs to die at the end of the first season. In terms of impacting Mitch, it would have to be Abby or Claire. A thriller that requires your lead characters to go on the run? We'd argue Claire's the baggage there and point out that Abby (in the film) was far more interesting once she was assisting with the plots (drugging Avery on the island, for example). So kill off Claire. Let Mitch's actions have consequences. Demonstrate this isn't The Practice with gunfire twice an episode.

And when Mitch, Abby, Ray and Tammy start over, stop being so damn genteel. Mitch can't pay the lease on his storefront law offices but he's living in a huge house, tastefully decorated? And this is before he goes into partnership with the new 'Firm.' That might have played in the 90s, but in the midst of an economic recession, the country's not really buying it. (Check audience reaction, we did.)

Plot longterm storylines. Slow reveals are not longterm storylines, they are storylines you tease out. Longterm storylines are stories that effect the characters and change everything. If NBC wants to stand by the show, season two should be Ray's betrayal of Mitch. The show needs to be taking major chances with the characters (and giving the actors material worth digging into).

Immediate fixes? Get Lucas in some clothes that fit with colors and fabric that film well, stop shooting overhead and start resolving at least one case in a single episode.

Will we be listened to? A number of you feel we were listened to last week. The second half of "TV: The misguided Water Cooler Set" addressed NPR's live coverage of the Iowa caucus. New Hampshire was last week and All Things Considered was back with 'special' live coverage. A number of you noted how great it was to have Melissa Block as anchor after last week when Robert Seigel anchored and women were barely part of the proceedings. Melissa as anchor did improve things. With her as anchor, every segment had a woman in it, true. That was a huge improvement after last week which, over five hours, featured only three women (Mara Liasson, an Iowa public radio employee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz).

But mainly, Melissa acted as a concealer, not a fix.

We listened to four hours (we believe there were more hours, but we were streaming, we were in London, and our stream went out and we couldn't get the stream back up -- and don't get us started on the time difference). In addition to the various GOP candidates making 'victory' speeches, here are the voices we heard.

1) Melissa Block (NPR).
2) Ari Shapiro (NPR).
3) Mara Liasson (NPR).
4) Bob Smith (Republican politician, Newt Gingrich endorser)
5) E.J. Dionne (Washington Post columnist)
6) Matthew Continetti (Weekly Standard columnist)
7) Tom Ridge (Republican politician, endorser of Jon Huntsman)
8) Robert Smith (NPR)
9) Don Gonyea (NPR)
10) Andrew Kohut (Pew Research Center)
11) Charlie Bass (Republican politician, endorser of Mitt Romney)
12) Tovia Smith (NPR)
13) Jennifer Donahue (New Hampshire Institute of Politics)
14) Ron Elving (NPR)
15) Andrea Seabrook (NPR)
16) John Sununu (politician, Mitt Romney endorser)
17) Ben Philpott (member station KUT)
18) Tim Scott (Republican politician from South Carolina)
19) Frank Guinta (Republican politician from New Hampshire)
20) Doug Wead (Ron Paul adviser)
21) Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democratic US House Rep.)

Over four hours, we heard 21 voices and only six of those were women?

Yeah, that's an improvement from 3. But we do get that 15 of the voices were men? While it's good that we learned NPR does have women covering individual campaigns (in Iowa, they had to use an Iowa public radio person because NPR had no one assigned to Michelle Bachmann's campaign), we noted, yet again, that opinion columnists sharing 'analysis' were all men.

We noted that, also yet again, every Republican politician was a man. Where was Nikki Haley? Her office told us NPR didn't contact her. But, you insist, Haley is the Governor of South Carolina. This was the New Hampshire primary. Ben Philpott was on to discuss South Carolina (specifically how it was make it or break it time for Rick Perry with that primary). Tim Scott is a politician from South Carolina. Why wasn't Nikki Haley even sought as a guest? She's weighed in. She endorsed Mitt Romney some time ago.

After last week's piece went up, we heard from a Republican consultant. We know her. She e-mailed us via this site and said, "Call me to discuss the coverage." We did. Though she's often on TV commenting, she wasn't asked to appear on NPR and she's noticed that other Republican women aren't. Her argument is that NPR is purposely leaving women out of the coverage and attempting to subliminally suggest that women do not vote Republican.

We've often noted NPR's sexism on air (such as, with Ann, that women made up only 18% of Terry Gross' guest list for 2010 on Fresh Air). So, to us, it doesn't seem that NPR needs much prompting to go sexist and under represent women.

But she asked us if we'd talk to other Republican women? She arranged for us to talk to ten other Republican women -- including two office holders. They're not joking. They honestly feel this way. They honestly feel that NPR is slanting the coverage, purposely presenting an abundance of men to ensure that their largely female audience is left with the impression that GOP equals male party (and that women in the audience, therefore, will not be tempted to vote Republican in November).

Again, our own opinion is that NPR needs no excuse to go sexist. For example, we weren't at all surprised that with Renee Montagne on leave (her father passed away at the end of last year, our condolences and sympathies), NPR has decided to team Steve Inskeep up with David Greene. The last thing NPR needs is two male hosts in the morning and the last thing the increasingly 'jovial' Inskeep needs is an on air roll dog. But that's NPR which is sexist every damn day, on every damn program. If it ever had a functioning ombudsperson, this issue would be loudly called out. (A woman who lies that she can't call out Fresh Air because it is not produced by NPR is not a functioning ombudsperson. Especially when NPR ombudspersons have always been happy to rush to defend Terry Gross in their ombudsperson space, such as when Terry used the n-word on her show repeatedly.)

But that's our opinion. Our opinion is not the only opinion or the supreme opinion or the ruling opinion. It is one of many competing to be heard.

The Republican women we spoke to have an opinion. It deserves to be heard and evaluated as well. And they're seeing conflict of interest.

NPR's guidelines don't just require that NPR avoid conflict of interest, the guidelines require that they avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

They've got the appearance right now with several Republican women. They need to address this issue. Out of 21 speakers on your live coverage, ten of -- at least ten -- should have been women. Their failure to ensure that was the case creates not only the appearance of a conflict of interest but also confusion.

The Republican consultant who asked us to call her and then set us up with ten other women was worried we might drop the issue because "you're Democrats." Yes, but let there be no confusion on this point, we are feminists and we do not support sidelining women, not because of their political beliefs, not for any reason.

About those Archie comics (Dona)

2012-01-15T08:15:00.003-05:00

Having long established that I am the Archie comics fan of this gang -- and the only one -- and having written a piece on them last month, a number of e-mails last week were directed to me (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. ) and expressing annoyance over a new Archie comic.

"How bad could it be?" I wondered. "I mean it's got Sabrina the teenage witch as a guest star."

Yep, that's how bad. Archie . . . Meets KISS.

If the idea sounds dated, it's because it is. As are the 'jokes.'

Betty: Well, it can't be easy getting around town looking . . .

Paul Stanley: Looking like what?

Reggie: Face it -- you stand out!

KISS formed in 1973 and got their first gold record in 1975. By 1977, they were so popular, they appeared in the Howard The Duck comic book which was quickly followed by their own comic book. Point being, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and two other members (they've changed over the years) have been around for nearly forty years now. And their face makeup is well and widely known. For 13 years, they without their makeup, from 1983 to 1996. The makeup returned at the start of 1996 and has remained ever since.

So the 'jokes' about the KISS look spoiled about 40 years ago.

But they're all over the comic. In Pop's malt shop, Gene Simmons will ask the Archie gang, "Do you have any idea what you're up against?" Veronica will reply, "Four nerds who got locked in a costume store." At which point, apparently, readers are supposed to exclaim, "Oooh, snap!"

But do it quick because the lameness of it all is quickly topped by KISS allowing Veronica to give them a 'makeover' -- putting Gene in a sweater vest, and worse for the others.

The story involves some spell Sabrina cast which accidentally released zombies on Riverdale. Now KISS and the kids must try to stop the zombies. This is a multi-comic story, believe it or not, and Archie Meets KISS is actually the second of four issues, the ad inside the comic calls it a "mini-series" and advised you that you can have "ALL Four Only $11.99" (limited time offer) so "BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO ROCK!"

And did I mention that on the last page of issue two, we learn that Archie is now a zombie!!!!!

It's supposed to be so scary.

I find the ad for Life With Archie far scarier: Betty and Veronica both sit in Archie's lap and the ad proclaims "Archie marries Betty & Veronica!" Well if Archie can meet KISS, can Archie Goes HBO Big Love be too far behind?

It gets worse? The cover of Archie: The Married Life features Veronica cupping Archie from behind and Betty face to face with him with the tag "TWO WORLDS, TWO LOVES, TWO DESTINIES" and the promise that this can be yours ("Fine out what happens after the 'I do's") for only $19.99, this "Archie COMICS GRAPHIC NOVEL." Do we really need graphic novels from Archie?

I would say no but here we are talking about graphic novels and here we are talking about Archie comics and that was the whole point of the KISS tie-in, getting word out on a series of comic book titles that are largely forgotten while the buzz circles each month around this DC title or that Marvel one. In that regard, the tie-in, four-part mini-series is already a hit.

Bennett and NOW are a Judas to all womankind!

2012-01-15T07:30:00.007-05:00

Last week, we (Ava and C.I.) defended ABC's Work It in "TV: The misguided Water Cooler Set." It's a funny show, with one breakout performance, and not to be taken seriously at all (as we explained in great detail).

Last week NOW released an 'alert' on the show.

Well . . .

NOW tried to release an alert.

We were in London, but we were ready to immediately reply at The Common Ills. (As Ruth noted.)

However, NOW didn't know how to publish online. (As Ruth noted.) So you'd click their 'alert' and be taking to a page with tags and no alert. This happened over and over, day after day, until finally we stopped checking after Thursday.

NOW finally learned how to operate the computer, congrats.

The same NOW which, in 2008, sold out women.

There's no denying that. It's not open to debate. It's why then-NOW president Kim Gandy's hand-picked successor was defeated in a vote. It's why Kim Gandy had no traction with the White House and the administration made clear that her "baggage" meant they didn't have any appointment for her.

It's why she ran to the Feminist Majority Foundation and a position that is a significant demotion from her past work.

NOW has a new president. And we've noted her, we've noted NOW.

But our days of being nice when NOW plays the idiot ended in 2008.

So we'd, first of all, advise NOW to get a damn sense of humor.

Oh, did that hurt?

Too damn bad.

Second, we'd advise you to STOP LYING.

Work It is a minor sitcom. Even should it become a major ratings hit (doubtful at this point), it will always be a minor sitcom. Why you would risk your organization reputation with a dishonest critique is beyond us. Why you would resort to lying is beyond us.

NOW could hate Work It. As we noted last week, most critics did.

That's fine.

But what's not fine is LYING.

And that's what NOW does in their 'alert' that you can finally read online.

Let's reply to NOW's nonsense.

NOW:

The first episode included lines such as: "Women are taking over the workforce. Soon they'll start getting rid of men. They'll just keep a few of us around as sex slaves . . . Not the kind of sex you like . . . Just kissing and cuddling and listening," and "When women take over, they'll make pride illegal."

That would be the character we identified last week as repulsive. He's physically repulsive, he's emotionally repulsive. He's also a minor character. What did he have? Two tiny scenes. And how much of a loser is he? Not because he's unemployed (it's a recession) but because, he informs, he lives with his ex-wife . . . and her new husband. In the second episode, he says, "[. . .] I wish I had something they [women] wanted." The whole point of the character is that he's supposed to be repulsive.

Is NOW arguing that good television is television where everyone speaks nicely and says nothing objectionable, that conflict is no longer key to drama? Or that, if Taxi were made today, they'd need to ditch Danny DeVito's Louie de Palma?

At times they lie, at other times Lisa and company just come off stupid.

If you don't understand drama and the need for conflict, you probably shouldn't attempt to "analyze" a TV show.

NOW argues, "The script is obsessed with ticking off every supposed difference between the sexes." We disagree but, then, so does NOW: "And, of course: Men just don't get women, even their long-suffering wives. They need to literally walk in women's shoes to empathize with the other half of the population."

So, Lisa, which is it: Differences or commonalities. Because the show we're watching had the two male leads learning about commonalities but you're insistent that it's a show about differences. You can't argue both ways.

And, again, Lisa, if you're too clueless to analyze entertainment, then just find another task. We'll help your lazy ass at the end with that. But right now, let's just note that the journey is at the heart of most American drama. The self-discovery. And that the popularity of Joseph Cambell has only increased that. So when the characters on Work It discover commonalities and you object, you're objecting to the path of the protagonist in drama and, in doing so, explain to the world that you either lack or failed to absorb a liberal arts education.

Lisa and NOW also upset by this: "For instance, women eat itty-bitty lunches, while men crave giant subs." Who is generalizing women here? We'd argue it's NOW.

We see the wife and the daughter eat throughout the show's first episodes. They didn't eat itty-bitty.

At the job, we saw two women, hired for their looks (as their boss makes clear in the pilot), eat tiny meals. (A third ate a salad, about the size she'd get at a fast food place on the dollar menu.) That's a shocker? (The real shocker is that all three of the women -- not new hires -- were in the office eating lunch when they should have been out selling drugs since that's their job. NOW missed that.)

So, in the real world, women hired for their looks and expected to maintain those looks must never address the costs of that? Because to do so would upset NOW?

So now NOW's insisting that TV programs not only must deny that sexism exists but also that it costs women?

You go, Lisa, you go back to whatever self-taught drama class you attended.

It's obviously not one that helped you understand characters:

The stereotypical female characters in the office include the blonde princess, the driven bitch, and a slight variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (this version's on hand to help the lead male character, Lee, become a better man and woman).

First off, the standard of quality sitcoms remains The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Have you ever watched the pilot? The thing about a pilot (and why we don't review a show based just on a pilot) is that it takes time for characters to flesh out in a sitcom. If CBS' The Class had been as strong at the beginning as it was as the midway point, it would still be on the air.

Second off, that's not how we saw the three. "Blonde princess"? We could be wrong. We saw the blond as an airhead. We figured that, a la Jessica Lange's character in Tootsie, she would find her own strength over time watching the leads express their strength. "The driven bitch"? Wow. We've seen that character with a penis in a number of shows -- including The Office -- but never heard him called a bitch. A jerk or an ass, at most, but never such hostility as to hiss "bitch." Who's sexual stereotyping here and deciding that competition at work, that wanting to be the best equates with "bitch"? Who's really afraid of strong and powerful women? Right now it looks like Lisa Bennett and NOW are afraid of strong and powerful women. And please note that elsewhere Lisa will lament that the women at the office aren't seen as capable or smart but she'll attack the lead salesperson, the one focused on her job, as a "bitch"? Wow, Lisa, you really are a piece of work. As for "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," we'll assume Lisa identified with that character, hence the praise.

The woman, like Lisa, is a drip, a dope and a coward. She's easily intimidated and desperate for approval. Don't see how that qualifies as "Pixie" or "Dream Girl." But then, we have full lives, unlike Lisa.

Lisa and NOW declare:

Other clichés are trotted out, too, like straight men's fascination with lesbians and this classic: "I'm Puerto Rican, I'd be great at selling drugs." Even book clubs where women read about coming of age (and dying) in Rwanda are played for laughs. Aren't women and their interests just silly?

Let's take that one at a time, okay?

Other clichés are trotted out, too, like straight men's fascination with lesbians

A large number of straight men are fascinated with the thought of two women (or more) together. And Work It isn't the only show offering that. We've yet to see NOW take on other shows. They could go with The League on FX, in fact, they could go after most of the FX programming. But they didn't. They waited for a show that the critics savaged and then, a week after it was savaged, they showed up to attack it.

There's a word for that. It's not "brave." It's bully.

Is the fascination with two women overplayed? Possibly. But we're not seeing how a fantasy of two women together qualifies as sexist or something NOW needs to call out.

Could Lisa please explain to us what's offensive about two women having sex with each other? And then could NOW please issue an apology to the lesbian community for Lisa's 'explanation' of how two women having sex is offensive?

and this classic: "[But] I'm Puerto Rican, I'd be great at selling drugs."

We dealt with that throwaway line last week. What happened since?

Desperate Housewives.

NOW, where's your alert?

Gabby wanted information and was battling with the drug rehab attendent/receptionist. What does she tell him? That she knows a lot of people hooked on drugs and she will tell them not to go there. Who is Gabby? ABC and prime time's most prominent Latina, the only Latina star currently on network TV, Eva Longoria.

And Gabby knows a lot of people hooked on drugs?

Hmm. Again, where's the alert?

Oh, and who went to rehab? Carlos. The most prominent Latino male on ABC prime time.

Where's the alert, NOW?

Even book clubs where women read about coming of age (and dying) in Rwanda are played for laughs. Aren't women and their interests just silly?

Book clubs played for laughs? Oh, goodness, that is a shocker. We've seen one sitcom after another in the last years portray reading clubs as a joke. That includes, last season, 30 Rock where Liz Lemmon ditched the book to watch the video and that includes, this season, Last Man Standing where Tim Allen's character delivered riffs on it. Is NOW unaware of all the book clubs jokes that have been going on for the last ten years?

The line the "pixie" delivers about the book is, "It's about a girl who comes of age during a spelling bee in Rwanda. Spoiler alert: She dies!" And she screams, "She dies!" The book is made fun of -- and sounds like a blend of several titles -- but it's not a joke about Rwanda and maybe NOW and Lisa need to pay attention and be honest. It's the yelling of "She dies" that gets the laugh (as is evident when the husband passes the book along to his wife).

NOW:

"Work It" might be easy to write off, if it weren't so offensive. [. . .] And Lee's wife has to remind him to "stop comparing prostate exams to the pinball scene in 'The Accused'" -- no matter how old the reference, is gang rape ever good fodder for a joke?

The wife calls him out for comparing it to rape. September 10, 2006 the most famous TV portrayal of a prostate exam aired. It lives on eternally in syndication.

If you're not smart enough, if you're not well-versed in TV, you don't need to be analyzing a damn thing. You need to find something you're good at -- surely, Lisa, there is something -- and focus on that.

But in the world of TV, there's "Stewie Loves Lois." That's an infamous episode of Family Guy where Peter has a prostate exam. We're not shown in at is happens. We 'see' it in Peter's flashback as he explains what happened. And it's The Accused.

If Lisa doesn't know that, we're not surprised. But, as with the law, in TV criticism, ignorance is no excuse. Since that episode has aired, it has entered the cultural lexicon. We thought it was wonderful that the wife on Work It called out that nonsense.

We could go on and on refuting the nonsense.

But the point is that NOW was useless and a bully.

Lisa, pay attention, this is where we set your sorry ass straight.

NOW chose to pick on a sitcom a week after it had been repeatedly trashed and after it debuted to lousy ratings. That was 'brave' to them.

Remember what we said here last week, "There were many things for media watchers to call out last week, serious issues. How sad but telling that they were more comfortable attacking a sitcom and looking the other way while NPR served up a broadcast far more offensive than the sitcom ever could offer."

Yeah. Women were rendered invisible on NPR's live Iowa coverage (only three women is invisible). You might think that the National Organization for Women would be interested in calling that out. But instead of addressing a real issue, they gorged on a trifle. Work It could be the number one show on TV and would do no serious damage to anyone. NPR's refusal to book women in equal numbers to men is not new and is not helpful to women. But Lisa Bennett's too stupid or too cowardly to call that out.

Here's a hint for Lisa and NOW: What everyone's writing about at Entertainment Weekly or E!? It's covered. Address some actual issues, address things that actually matter. In 2010, Terry Gross booked how many women? (Only 18% of her guests were women.) Where was NOW? When NPR repeatedly ignores women, where's NOW? When last week's live NPR New Hampshire coverage featured 21 voices, how many were women?

When NOW and Lisa are ready to tackle those issues, they might have something to say about the media worth listening to. Until then? As Maria McKee sang (and co-wrote) in"Why Wasn't I More Grateful (When Life Was Sweet)," "Some people like to complain about every little thing, Some folks just never stop bitchin'." And that's neither entertaining nor enjoyable.

--------
Title is tongue-in-cheek and references Abby (Cristin Milioti) shouting, "Liz Lemmon is a Judas to all womankind!" at the end of 30 Rock's "TGS Hates Women." 1-16-12: The characterization paragraph has been tightened up since this published. "'Blonde princess?'" was previously a much longer, run-on sentence, for example. Thank you to Ty for typing this from our longhand draft on legal pad (we had to leave for the Golden Globes), if we'd done it ourselves (as we should have) we would have caught the problems with that paragraph which are now fixed.

Who's left? The top 5 UK progressives

2012-01-15T07:00:00.002-05:00

When Rolling Stone makes a list of so-called important lefties, you just roll your eyes knowing how Jann Wenner manipulates every list the magazine runs and tell yourself it's a list of men Jann wants to sleep with and women he thinks would make good roll hags. But when it's The New Statesman, that's another kettle of fish altogether.

And you might puzzle over the assertion that neoliberal Rachel Maddow (War Hawk under Bush, War Hawk under Barack) is on the list or that so is the blogger whose family allegedly had close ties to/ran death squads in El Salvador, as well as other B-list celebrities. Not enough talent in there to make for a good episode of Password. And nothing remotely left for the bulk of the list. Where's Michael Ratner, for example? Cindy Sheehan? Cynthia McKinney? It's all so confusing.

At least until you discover the piece is 'written' by TV personality and Johann Hari lackey Medhi Hasan. In a token of good will across the Atlantic, we decided to match the 'work' Hasan did by compiling one of our own.

Who's left? The top 5 UK progressives

1) Tom Hardy. With one smouldering look, he explains how empire and conquest was once so appealing! Said to cause global warming in the panties of many women and in the briefs of 1 out of 10 men.

2) Patricia Routledge. Reportedly her Hyancinth Bucket was based on the posers at The New Statesman.

3) Mark Watson. Essayist, thinker, geophysicist and monologist. More responsible for the state of England than the Royal Family and David Cameron combined.

4) Alice Goodwin. The deepest thinker in all of Great Britian. When the Dahli Lama is perplexed, he calls Alice. An educator of the soul (hence the glasses).

5) Ben Cohen. The economic guru of England. Macro, micro, Indonesian, Polynesian, Ben Cohen can sniff it out. In his spare time, he also likes a good round of football.

Just five? Well the UK is much smaller than the USA. But we think our list is as comprehensive as that of The New Statesman. As a bonus, the people on our list are actually talented!

Burn Pits Symposium

2012-01-15T06:30:00.001-05:00

Many veterans and contractors in the US suffer from exposure to burn pits. For some the exposure has cost their lives. Next month, the first ever scientific symposium will be held in New York.

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on

Lung Health after Deplyoment to Iraq & Afghanistan

February 13, 2012

sponsored by

Office of Continuing Medical Education

School of Medicine

Stony Brook University

Location

Health Sciences Center, Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Anthony M. Szema, M.D., Program Chair

Stony Brook

University

Medical Center

This program is made possible by support from the Sergeant Thomas Joseph Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

2 WAYS TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE

* Register with your credit card online at: http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm

* Download the registration form from:

http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm and

fax form to (631) 638-1211

For Information Email: cmeoffice@stonybrook.edu

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on

Lung Health after Deployment to Iraq & Afghanistan

Monday, February 13, 2012

Health Sciences Center

Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Program Objective: Upon completion, participants should be able to recognize new-onset of lung disease after deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast (Honored Guest, Congressman

Tim Bishop

9:00 - 9:30 Peter Sullivan, J.D., Father of Marine from The Sergeant Thomas Joseph

Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

9:40 - 10:10 Overview of Exposures in Iraq, Anthony Szema, M.D., (Assistant

Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Stony Brook University)

10:10 - 10:40 Constrictive Bronchiolitis among Soldiers after Deployment, Matt

King, M.D. (Assistant Professor of Medicine, Meharry Medical College,

Nashville, TN)

10:40 - 11:10 BREAK

11:10 - 11:40 Denver Working Group Recommendations and Spirometry Study in

Iraq/Afghanistan, Richard Meehan, M.D., (Chief of Rheumatology and

Professor of Medicine, National Jewish Health, Denver, CO)

11:40 a.m. - Microbiological Analyses of Dust from Iraq and Afghanistan, Captain Mark

12:10 p.m. Lyles, D.M.D., Ph. D., (Vice Admiral Joel T. Boone Endowed Chair of

Health and Security Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI)

12:10 - 12:20 Health Care Resource Utilization among Deployed Veterans at the White

River Junction VA, James Geiling, M.D., (Professor and Chief of Medicine,

Dartmouth Medical School, VA White River Junction, VT)

12:20 - 1:20 LUNCH AND EXHIBITS

Graduate students Millicent Schmidt and Andrea Harrington (Stony Brook

University) present Posters from Lung Studies Analyzed for Spatial

Resolution of Metals at Brookhaven National Laboratory's National

Synchrotron Light Source

1:20 - 1:40 Epidemiologic Survey Instrument on Exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan,

Joseph Abraham, Sc.D., Ph.D., (U.S. Army Public Health Command,

Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD)

1:40 - 2:10 Overview of the Issue Raised during Roundtable on Pulmonary Issues

and Deployment, Coleen Baird, M.D., M.P.H., (Program Manager

Environmental Medicine, U.S. Army Public Health Command)

2:10 - 2: 40 Reactive Oxygen Species from Iraqi Dust, Martin Schoonen, Ph.D.

(Director Sustainability Studies and Professor of Geochemistry, Stony

Brook University)

2:40 - 2:50 BREAK

2:50 - 3:15 Dust Wind Tunnel Studies, Terrence Sobecki, Ph.D. (Chief Environmental

Studies Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research

and Engineering Laboratory, Manchester, NH)

3:15 - 3:45 Toxicologically Relevant Characteristics of Desert Dust and Other

Atmospheric Particulate Matter, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Ph.D. (Research

Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

3:44 - 4:15 In-situ Mineralogy of the Lung and Lymph Nodes, Gregory Meeker, M.S.

(Research Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

Continuing Medical Education Credits

The school of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brooke designates this live activity for a maximum of 6 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should only claim the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

MLK Day = New Year of Fightback (Workers World)

2012-01-15T06:11:00.000-05:00

Repost from Workers World:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day helps launch new year of fightback

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Published Jan 11, 2012 9:49 PM

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 83 years old on Jan. 15. In honor of this iconic civil rights, anti-war and social justice activist, the federal government and other public agencies close every year on the Monday following his birthday. King was martyred in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

This year the King Day holiday will take on profound significance in light of the political and social developments that have occurred over the last year. Millions have taken to the streets around the world in the fight against poverty, increased attacks on working people and the oppressed, and imperialist wars.

Since January of last year, revolutionary movements have emerged from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain and Yemen. Rebellions and general strikes led to the resignation of long-time Western-backed puppet President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and the forced removal of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

In Morocco the monarchy was shaken by mass demonstrations that were largely unprecedented in recent times. Other states throughout the Middle East, Africa and Europe saw popular movements erupt in opposition to rising food prices, the imposition of austerity and the intervention of U.S. imperialism along with its NATO allies.

Workers in European capitalist countries, especially Greece, Spain and Portugal, suffered tremendously from the ongoing world economic crisis. In Britain Black and working-class youth rose up in rebellion in response to the blatant police killing of a Caribbean-British man, who was followed and shot to death in cold blood in London.

Inside the U. S., a people’s uprising in Wisconsin was a direct response to intensifying attacks on public sector workers and their right to collective bargaining. Workers and youth occupied the state capitol in Madison for weeks and drew the attention of people throughout the world.

Occupation participants in Wisconsin paid direct tribute to their class brothers and sisters in Egypt. The progressive forces in Egypt, during the same time period, expressed their solidarity with the people in Wisconsin.

This movement of workers and youth, aimed at defending the right to organize as well as the right to quality education and a decent wage, spread to other states around the Midwest and nationally. In Ohio, legislative actions that were just as draconian as those passed in Wisconsin prompted mass action by trade unions and their supporters.

In Lansing, Mich., the conservative-dominated legislature wasted no time, after securing a majority, to enact bills that drastically cut public spending. These cuts resulted in salary reductions, massive layoffs of public sector employees and the obliteration of city services.

The passage of Public Act 4 in Michigan superseded the former Public Act 72, which allowed for the imposition of emergency management of school systems and municipalities. Public Act 4, now popularly known as the “dictator law,” provides for the nullification of the authority of elected officials, the abrogation of labor and vending contracts, and the forced payment of debt service to the banks, irrespective of the desires of the electorates or the unions.

Public Act 4 has been implemented in several majority African-American cities such as Flint and Benton Harbor. In Detroit — the largest African-American-dominated city in the U.S. — Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed a financial review panel. The appointment is an effort to justify forcing the city to accept a consent agreement that could ultimately lead to installation of an emergency manager.

Election years — from 1968 to 2012

The year that Dr. King was killed represented a watershed of mass struggle and urban rebellion. The previous year, 1967, saw more than 160 instances of civil unrest throughout the U.S. as well as the emergence of a mass youth movement in opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Although Dr. King was a proponent of nonviolent direct action, he did not condemn the rebellions that swept the country between 1964 and 1968. The civil rights leader viewed the unrest within the urban areas as a result of the failure of the U.S. system to provide adequate living conditions, decent jobs and incomes to the majority of African Americans.

In a “Face to Face” television interview conducted on July 28, 1967, just one day after President Lyndon Johnson announced the appointment of a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, Dr. King said, “I am not calling for a guaranteed annual wage as a substitute for a guaranteed job. I think that ought to be the first thing, that we guarantee every person capable of working a job.” (“Testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” 2001)

Dr. King pointed out that “this can be done in many, many ways. There are many things that we need to be done that could be done that’s not being done now. And this could provide jobs.”

In 1968, Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference set out to wage a real “war on poverty” by taking thousands of poor people to Washington, D.C., to demand jobs and a guaranteed annual income. King had founded the SCLC in 1957 in the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In March 1968, he was invited to Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike that was representative of both the class struggle and the national question.

The year 1968 was an election year just like 2012. The failure of the Democratic Party between 1961 and 1968 to effectively resolve the problems of national oppression, discrimination, economic exploitation, poverty and war played a large part in its losing the elections in 1968.

Despite the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties have different constituencies, both organizations are controlled by the ruling class of bankers and industrialists. Today, even though the Democratic Party has commanded a majority in both houses of Congress between 2006 and 2010 and has controlled the White House since 2009, rates of poverty and exploitation are continuing to rise.

The 2010 election results were a reflection of the lack of motivation on the part of working-class people and the nationally oppressed to once again support Democratic candidates without any real improvement in the concrete conditions under which they live.

The year 2011 saw an acceleration of attacks against workers and the oppressed. The only real defense against these assaults has emanated from the unions, the youth and the oppressed communities themselves.

This is why there needs to be a concerted effort outside of the established ruling class parties to address the crises now facing the majority of people inside the U.S. The response of the Department of Homeland Security to the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country — with DHS operating through local municipal administrations, many of which are led by Democrats — demonstrates that both of the capitalist-controlled parties do not want to see a real grass-roots revolutionary struggle emerge that focuses on the role of the banks and the corporations as the fundamental cause of the economic crisis.

It was the political repression carried out under a Democratic administration in 1968 that created the conditions for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That same year, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Black Panther Party as the leading threat to the national security of the U.S.

After 1967, during the height of the rebellions, the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) sought to crush the Black Liberation movement and the anti-war struggle. Scores of activists were killed and imprisoned while the National Guard and conventional military forces were deployed into the cities to smash the rebellions.

Since 2010, the FBI and other DHS branches have targeted immigrants, the nationally oppressed, Muslims, anti-war and solidarity activists for deportation, raids, targeted assassinations and grand jury subpoenas. In the final days of 2011, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides further ammunition for the ruling class to crack down on activists and organizations deemed to be threats to the status quo.

2012: Another year of momentous struggle

In all likelihood this year will also be one of protracted struggle and resistance. Signs of this are already developing, with Jan. 16 King Day actions under the banner of Occupy 4 Jobs – inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement – in New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Detroit is the focus of a growing mass struggle against the imposition of emergency management. On Jan. 2, more than 2,000 people rallied at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church to say “no” to the appointment of an emergency manager.

In a statement, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs stressed, “The same banks that caused the economic crisis and destroyed the City of Detroit’s tax base, with their fraudulent and racist predatory loans resulting in approximately 150,000 foreclosures in the past five years, now get first lien on city tax dollars for debt service payments.”

Detroit’s 9th Annual MLK Day Rally & March will be held under the theme of “Escalating the Struggle for Jobs, Peace and Justice.” Featured speakers will include contributors to the groundbreaking first-person account “Hands on the Freedom Plow,” which examined the role of women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the vanguard organization within the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

The emphasis at Detroit’s MLK Day rally will drive home the need for a cadre-developing organization, a working-class orientation, the important role of women and the oppressed, and the need to build a movement outside the ruling-class-dominated political parties. n

Highlights

2012-01-15T06:05:00.000-05:00

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Here's Nouri" -- Isaiah offers a look at wacky thug Nouri.

"Kat's Korner: Ani DiFranco's embarrassing odor" and "Kat's Korner: Adam Levine itches for one on the flip side" -- Kat turns in two musical pieces.

"4 men, 2 women" -- Ann on why she won't be voting for Nader or Green this go round and plans to instead go Republican at the top of the ticket. ("An independent campaign by Cynthia McKinney is something I would support but after the way the Green Party undercut her repeatedly to build up Barack in 2008, I will not support that. My party should be ashamed of how they treated Cynthia.")

"Whitney," "4 women, 3 men," "revenge," "Whitney," "Body of Proof," "Desperate Housewives,"
"2 Broke Girls," "The Good Wife" and "The Firm" -- Betty, Ann, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan and Ruth cover TV and Ann continues to cover radio:

"Barack finds another man to love" -- Kat on Barack's appointments.

"Fried Egg Sandwiches in the Kitchen" -- Trina offers a reader's recipe.

"Solyndra" -- Betty on Barack's scandal.

"it's no movement" -- Rebecca on the latest self-exposure from Occupy.

"Edwards case postponed" -- Ruth notes John Edwards gets a postponement on his trial.

"Rochelle Riley's lust for Michelle Obama," "Ugly Rochelle Riley" and "Whore Rochelle Riley wants to pretend to care about women" & "THIS JUST IN! ROCHELLE THINKS YOU'RE STUPID!" -- Kat, Marcia, Cedric and Wally on Rochelle Riley.

"Ford lays off workers" -- Trina on the economy.

"is he drunk?" -- Rebecca with an important question.

"A trip to an actual bookstore" -- Ruth writes an excellent essay on visiting a physical bookstore.

"Take Two" -- Isaiah digs into the archives.

"Crazy limp dicked Robert Parry" -- Mike awards Robert Parry an 'honor.' One that Parry has more than earned.

"I'm sticking with him" -- Elaine's no changing her endorsement of Ron Paul.

"Maybe I will see The Iron Lady" and "The Mod Squad" -- Kat and Stan talk movies.

"Ron Paul has strong New Hampshire showing" -- Elaine on Ron Paul.

"John Nichols should slit his own wrists" -- Mike offers a suggestion we can all support.

"Was he not paying attention?" & "THIS JUST IN! NOT A SURPRISE!" -- Cedric and Wally on the latest from the Titanic.

2011 archives by week

2012-01-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

Currently, we don't have the problem with the archives that we once did. That's due to a new template. But we may switch someday and have the same problem again. So we're putting in the 2011 archive here. We do this each year, but usually the first week of the new year. And then we put this on the permalinks to the right.

▼ 2011 (642)
- ▼ 12/25 - 01/01 (11)
- ► 12/18 - 12/25 (12)
- ► 12/11 - 12/18 (12)
- ► 12/04 - 12/11 (14)
- ► 11/27 - 12/04 (11)
- ► 11/20 - 11/27 (13)
- ► 11/13 - 11/20 (16)
- ► 11/06 - 11/13 (14)
- ► 10/30 - 11/06 (13)
- ► 10/23 - 10/30 (13)
- ► 10/16 - 10/23 (13)
- ► 10/09 - 10/16 (12)
- ► 10/02 - 10/09 (12)
- ► 09/25 - 10/02 (12)
- ► 09/18 - 09/25 (10)
- ► 09/11 - 09/18 (13)
- ► 09/04 - 09/11 (12)
- ► 08/28 - 09/04 (14)
- ► 08/21 - 08/28 (15)
- ► 08/14 - 08/21 (14)
- ► 08/07 - 08/14 (14)
- ► 07/31 - 08/07 (13)
- ► 07/24 - 07/31 (12)
- ► 07/17 - 07/24 (13)
- ► 07/10 - 07/17 (13)
- ► 07/03 - 07/10 (14)
- ► 06/26 - 07/03 (14)
- ► 06/19 - 06/26 (14)
- ► 06/12 - 06/19 (15)
- ► 06/05 - 06/12 (15)
- ► 05/29 - 06/05 (12)
- ► 05/22 - 05/29 (13)
- ► 05/15 - 05/22 (12)
- ► 05/08 - 05/15 (12)
- ► 05/01 - 05/08 (11)
- ► 04/24 - 05/01 (10)
- ► 04/17 - 04/24 (9)
- ► 04/10 - 04/17 (14)
- ► 04/03 - 04/10 (10)
- ► 03/27 - 04/03 (9)
- ► 03/20 - 03/27 (12)
- ► 03/13 - 03/20 (10)
- ► 03/06 - 03/13 (11)
- ► 02/27 - 03/06 (13)
- ► 02/20 - 02/27 (11)
- ► 02/13 - 02/20 (11)
- ► 02/06 - 02/13 (13)
- ► 01/30 - 02/06 (10)
- ► 01/23 - 01/30 (12)
- ► 01/16 - 01/23 (11)
- ► 01/09 - 01/16 (13)
- ► 01/02 - 01/09 (10)

Truest statement of the week

2012-01-08T23:40:00.000-05:00

And as we noted here last month, the American war crime in Iraq just keeps rolling on. This week saw yet another spate of mass slaughter in yet another series of bombings in the virulent sectarian warfare which was spawned, set loose, empowered and fomented by the invaders, who very deliberately -- with malice aforethought -- divided their new "Iraqi" government along strict sectarian lines, arming and paying death squads and militias on both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide to rip each other -- and Iraqi society -- to pieces. The mass murder this week is a direct result and a direct responsibility of the Americans who instigated, carried out, supported -- and praise -- the "extraordinary achievement" of this endless atrocity. "Nine years in the making," yes -- and still going strong!

-- Chris Floyd, "The U.S. in Iraq -- An Enduring Atrocity" (World Can't Wait).

Truest statement of the week II

2012-01-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Obama will campaign on how he ended the war—which began not in 2003 but in 1991; the U.S. government tormented the Iraqi people for 20 years!—and conservatives will attack him for it. Both sides will conveniently forget that (1) the U.S. government was obligated to leave on Dec. 31, 2011, under an agreement signed by Bush, and (2) Obama tried his damnedest to get the Iraqi leaders to ask the U.S. military to stay. (Contrary to claims, not all troops have left.)

And let’s be clear: An exit from Iraq hardly constitutes an exit from the Middle East. The troops moved down the road to Kuwait, “repostured” for future use.

Meanwhile, sabers are being rattled in the direction of Iran and Syria, where covert warfare is already being waged.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

-- Sheldon Richman, "Obama's Flawed Exit Strategy for Iraq" (Reason).

A note to our readers

2012-01-08T22:30:00.001-05:00

Hey --

Another late 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),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's K itchen,
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

Chris Floyd.

Truest statement of the week II

And one from a writer for Reason.

Editorial: Fleeing like guilty criminals

Guilt must be why they feel the need to vanish Iraq.

TV: The misguided Water Cooler Set

Ava and C.I. note a sitcom that was savaged as though it were Mein Kampf while the same set of critics refused to call out racism and sexism on NPR.

As Iraq falls apart . . .

And it is falling apart. The White House never should have backed Nouri al-Maliki.

10 Actors: Five keepers, five returns

Reader Corey asked us if we could do a feature on actors. This is our attempt.

Don't Steal This Look!

Did he use QT? What the hell is with the orange color?

Preventing War by the US against Iran

Francis A. Boyle warns against war on Iran.

Rally for Boston postal jobs (Workers World)

January 14th, rally in Boston to save postal jobs.

Highlights

Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.

Peace.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Editorial: Fleeing like guilty criminals

2012-01-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Well the Iraq War is an illegal war, so it's not surprising that the US would flee like guilty criminals. And, no, we're not talking about US forces, we're talking about the press.

Dan Morse (Washington Post) reported Friday, "At least 72 people were killed Thursday in a series of attacks on Shiites in Iraq, marking the deadliest day since U.S. troops withdrew last month and raising new worries about the country's sharp sectarian divisions." And where was the NPR report?

Remember NPR?

Remember all their high minded claims about how they were going to spend that McDonald money Joan Kroc left them?

Real reporting from NPR. Not just some DC stories and a lot of gas baggery, but real reporting. And as newspapers were cutting back, NPR claimed, they'd be increasing their spending to bring news, news, news.

Instead, they bring a lot of trash. Kat called out the nonsense of a group of cackling hens pretending to discuss music of 2011 while offering nothing but tabloid gossip. This is coverage worth paying for? This is news and information?

So while Iraq was targeted with bombings last week, the "Iraq correspondent" was in Bahrain. And December 31st, both McClatchy Newspapers and NPR shut down their Baghdad bureaus. December 30th, there was a protest in Baghdad, not that either of them covered it. The only news outlet to cover it was CNN via Jomana Karadsheh Tweets.