Monday, February 27, 2023

Editorial: Susan Benjamin needs to step aside from leading CODEPINK

We look at Susan Benjamin and wonder many things.   Including why she thought using Medea as her stage name would be a good thing?  

Is she going Greek on us?  In which case, why would a woman supposedly working for peace want to be some Greek help-mate to a man?


Is Susan going Shakespearean on us?  If so, how is that Medea -- who kills children -- a model for what Susan Davis wants to be.

 

peace fake

 

Susan Benjamin, pictured above in Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Peace Fake,"  is the face of CODEPINK and has been for many years.  For far too many years.  20 years should be enough.


She's as bad as Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden -- long past the time they should have sat their tired asses down.


Susan didn't end the Iraq War.  The 20th anniversary of the start of that war is nearly upon us.  And Susan will remember it because it might get her some coverage in the media.  That's all it's really about to her.

Before Barack Obama was sworn in as president (the first term), Susan had joined with UFPJ and others to flee Iraq.  She'd dropped the issue repeatedly throughout 2006 and 2007.  The queen of the fake asses, making like the Red Cross rushing off from one disaster to the next -- basically  running to wherever news cameras were.


She was a lousy 'leader.'

Age has not made her any better.


She'll be out being the face of CODEPINK yet again -- the White face, right?


We can remember conversations with CODEPINK in 2005, when we still spoke to them, and they assured us that they were fully aware that they were seen as a group of White privileged women of a certain age.  But don't worry, they insisted, they were bringing in young people and they were bringing young people of color.


Two decades later, where are these mythical young people of color?  Every time we look up, it's Medea yet again crying for attention. 


If this was a serious group, they should've handed off the baton long, long ago.  But they refuse to do so -- over and over..


Do they not get that Susan Benjamin does not appeal to young people.  She's not relatable.  


Susan should move to the back and allow young people to move to the front -- even just younger people would be an improvement.  


There are young women in CODEPINK who make a difference.  Every now and then, they do an action that's amazing.  But they don't move up to leadership and they don't get to be the face of the organization.  Instead, day after day, it's elderly Susan Benjamin.  Out of step Susan Benjamin, in fact.


Suse got a little upset and took to Twitter recently.  She wanted the country to know that 'feminist' that she is, she had no problem standing on stage with a registered sex offender and War Hawks and homophobes and racists and transphobes.  Left to her own devices, she Tweeted, she would be up on that stage.  However, members of CODEPINK made it clear to her that this was not acceptable.


Guess what, Susan, it's not acceptable.


And that others had to point that out to you just goes to the fact that you can't represent CODEPINK anymore.  As Aretha sang, "It's a different world then where you come from."


CODEPINK needs to have young people leading it and young people as the face.   Susan can offer commentary -- like that column that 'feminist' Susan writes with a man every week.  But she needs to step back from leadership.  She's too damn old and she's out of step.  


If CODEPINK is more than a vanity project, she needs to step aside so that it can grow.


Otherwise, it's going to die with her.  And maybe that's what she wants.  And maybe the name she's going with isn't Medea -- maybe she means Media Benjamin because all it's ever been about for her was getting press attention.