Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Truest statement of the week

Since 2004, I’ve officiated over 250 LGBTQ+ couples, including Mayor Denise Simmons’s nuptials. When interviewed for this 20th anniversary, I was asked to show photos. I had to sort them into three piles as I’ve done with heterosexual couples, highlighting we are like everyone else: deceased, divorced, and still together.

Looking back at advances since 2004, such as hate crime laws, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA, the legalization of marriage equality, same-sex adoption, and anti-homophobic bullying becoming a national concern, among a few, the LGBTQ+ community has come a long way since the first Pride marches.

When you reside at the intersections of multiple identities, as I do, the 20th anniversary of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts is also the 70th anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education. This ruling upended this country’s separate but equal doctrine, adopted in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896.

However, victory comes with backlash.

On this year’s anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, African American and Latinx American students continue to attend not only segregated schools - whether here in Boston or across the nation. Also, they overwhelmingly attend high-poverty urban ones with metal detectors. Sadly, not only has policing while schooling doubled since 2001 to the present day, but so has the school-to-prison pipeline.

As for us, LGBTQ+ Americans, bigotry works in this political climate.

 

-- Irene Monroe, "20 Years of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts" (THE BLACK COMMENTATOR).

Gaza

From THE COMMON ILLS:

Iraq snapshot

Tuesday, May 28, 2024.  Another horrific act carried out by the Israeli government in Gaza but the pushback is so strong accountability might finally emerge.

The Israeli government's slaughter of Gaza gets worse every day and that's certainly true of actions over the weekend. 



That's a report from THE GUARDIAN of protests taking place today.  


If you thought the actions of the Israeli government couldn't get more outrageous, you were wrong as one action on Sunday demonstrated.  MINT noted, "An Israeli airstrike on Sunday hit a refugee camp for displaced people in Gaza killing at least 35 people, mostly women and children, and injuring dozens more, CNN reported citing Palestinian Ministry of Health."  That's disgusting.   Neri Zilber (FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON) observes that the Israeli government attempted to insist they struck a terrorist camp.  They might have stuck with that were it not for footage and witnesses and some press pushback.  Holly Evans, Namita Singh and Bel Trew (INDEPENDENT) report:


The charity ActionAid said its activists witnessed the attack, which it described as an “inhumane and barbaric act”. “We are outraged and heartbroken by the recent attacks in west Rafah, where Israeli fighter jets launched eight missiles at makeshift shelters housing internally displaced persons (IDPs) next to UNRWA warehouses stocking vital aid,” the charity said in a statement.

“These shelters were supposed to be safe havens for innocent civilians, yet they became targets of brutal violence. Children, women, and men are being burned alive under their tents and shelters.”

People staying at the camp described the “terrifying” scenes as the strike unfolded.

Eklas, 27, who is originally from north Gaza, said: “People died from the fire. People did not know where to run. The fire broke out in the tents. The bodies were burned. I wanted to flee from Rafah to Khan Yunis, but I did not have the money for transportation.

“It terrified us all, more than one explosion shook the place. We do not know whether to leave the camp now or whether to stay. We couldn’t sleep last night due to fear, horror, and anxiety.”



Doha Madani (NBC NEWS) quotes the Red Crescent Society stating, "It is important to note that this location was designated by the Israeli occupation as a humanitarian area, and citizens were coerced into evacuating to it."  Citing the UK's Action Aid,  ABC NEWS reveals, "The death toll in the IDF airstrike that hit western Rafa Sunday night has risen to at least 50 individuals, including civilians."  CNN adds:


Gaza's Health Ministry said those killed and wounded in the strike were mostly women and children. Video obtained by CNN shows tent-like structures on fire. The Palestinian Authority presidency urged the international community to intervene immediately. Hamas described the attack as a "massacre" and said it holds the US administration and President Joe Biden personally accountable. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) expressed horror following the airstrike, saying it "shows once again that nowhere is safe."  


Australia's ABC NEWS reminds, "The strike came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population had sought shelter before Israel's recent incursion. Tens of thousands of people remain in the area while many others have fled."  And it comes as Amnesty International is asking for probes of other recent strikes.   THE NATIONAL reports:


Amnesty International has urged the International Criminal Court to investigate as war crimes three recent Israeli strikes that killed 44 Palestinian civilians, including 32 children.

Last week, the prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Amnesty said three Israeli strikes one on Al Maghazi refugee camp, in central Gaza, on April 16 and two on Rafah, in southern Gaza, on April 19 and 20 are "further evidence of a broader pattern of war crimes" committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

"The cases documented here illustrate a clear pattern of attacks over the past seven months in which the Israeli military has flouted international law, killing Palestinian civilians with total impunity and displaying a callous disregard for human lives," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director at Amnesty.



  International rights groups and leaders who for months have demanded a cease-fire in Gaza expressed renewed horror as images emerged from Israel's Sunday bombing of a tent camp that had been set up by forcibly displaced Palestinians in Rafah, with women and children making up the majority of the 45 people who were reportedly killed in the attack.

Emergency workers toldNBC News that the death toll was likely to rise, as many people had been trapped in the encampment as it was engulfed in flames.

NBC reported that the strike took place less than a mile away from a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical facility, where at least 180 injured people arrived on Sunday.

"We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe," said MSF on social media.

Muhammad Al-Mughir, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense, told NBC that the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood that was attacked had been designated a "humanitarian area" in Rafah, from which more than 800,000 people have been forcibly displaced this month as Israel has launched a ground invasion. More than 1 million people have been forced to flee to Rafah since October, when Israel began its siege in Gaza.

The bombing came two days after the International Court of Justice issued its latest order to Israel regarding its assault on Gaza, telling the government that it "must immediately halt its military offensive or any other action in the Rafah governorate" and that the ICJ was not convinced by Israel's claims that it was taking steps to protect civilians. 


Daniel Hurst (GUARDIAN) reports that Doctors Without Borders is demanding action:
 
The global president of Médecins Sans Frontières has urged Australia to impose sanctions on the Israeli government, saying he has “run out of words” to describe the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the collapse of the health system.

Dr Christos Christou is due to meet the Australian foreign minister, Penny Wong, on Wednesday to request “immediate, concrete actions to hold Israel to account” for its conduct during the war.

“Australia must apply appropriate sanctions on Israel, as it would to any other global state that refuses to comply with UN security council resolutions,” Christou told the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday.


 Christou said Israel was conducting an “indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign” and “pursuing a policy of deliberate deprivation, only allowing a trickle of food and water to enter Gaza”.

Let's take a pause here for a moment.  Doctors Without Borders is calling for action from the Australian government.  Hmm.  I'm not a citizen of Australia.  But if I were and I was Tweeting multiple times a day, you can be sure that would be all over my feed and you can be sure I'd be writing about it and calling out my government of Australia.  I call out the US government all the time.  I've called out White House occupant Bully Boy Bush and presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden here and never did so in a weak manner.  

That's why you need to avoid fake asses like Caitlin Johnstone.  So strong, so vocal . . . when it comes to US or UK leaders.  But she doesn't live in either.  She lives in Australia, she's a citizen there.  Excuse me, she's a coward there.  She's failed to her own government accountable over and over.  She didn't trash them for their refusal to stand up to the UK over Julian Assange.  She never holds them accountable because she's a scared, little coward.

That's a big story, Doctors Without Borders taking that stand.  But Caitlin's in hiding yet again.  Oh, she's still Tweeting.  Useless garbage.

And trying to round up votes for Donald Trump.

That's right:

The thing about claiming Trump would be worse on Gaza is that you don't even know that's true. It's a completely baseless and unfalsifiable assertion. Biden's adamant refusal to put up any resistance at all to Israeli insanity is such a drastic deviation from the norm for US presidents that it's entirely possible replacing him with almost anyone would be an improvement.

We don't link to trash.  And she'll claim that she's being misunderstood and there's more to her words.  

Yes, if you click "more" you can read more.  Why you would I don't know.  But she needs to just sit her tired ass down and lefties in the US need to stop promoting her.  She's not our ally.  Do you grasp that yet, Heidi Boghosian?  Stop pimping this piece of trash.

If you did click "more" you'll find her writing of how people don't know that Trump would be worse for Gaza.

That's so sad.  She's physically repulsive, she's a coward and, it turns out, she's also stupid.  I don't have time to spoonfeed the willfully ignorant so I'll just note one example that demonstrates she's yet again talking out of her ass: December 5, 2017.  Go see what Donald did that day and then play the game of pretense that Caitlin wants to play.  Only a fool, only a damn fool, would go along with her nonsense.  

She's not left.  She's not a friend of the left.  She is promoting false equivalencies and doing what the corporate media did in the leadup to the 2016 election: Normalizing Donald Trump.  It's time for US lefties to stop promoting her.


Back to Gaza.  As the truth was repeated more and more, the Israeli government moved over to the claim that it was a mistake.  Doha Madani and Chantal Da Silva (NBC NEWS) explain:

The strike drew condemnation from world leaders just days after the United Nations' top court ordered Israel to halt its offensive on the southern Gaza city, where more than a million people had sought refuge.

In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike “a tragic incident," his office said, clarifying comments made in Hebrew that could be translated in English as either “a tragic mishap” or “a tragic mistake.”

“We are investigating the case and will draw conclusions, because this is our policy," he said. 


Another investigation where the government investigates its own actions?  We've seen this before repeatedly since October 7th and know how this ends.   As the Israeli government attempts to pretend it's nothing unusual, others don't rush to agree.  BBC's Paul Adams,Matt Murphy report:

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday, at Algeria's request, to discuss the Rafah strike.

In a statement on Monday, UN secretary general António Guterres said the strike had "killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict".

"There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop," he said





We have said repeatedly that no place is safe in Gaza. Not shelters. Not hospitals. Not the so-called humanitarian zones. 

We have also warned that a military operation in Rafah would lead to a slaughter. 

We’ve seen the consequences in last night’s utterly unacceptable attack. 

Whether the attack was a war crime or a “tragic mistake,” for the people of Gaza, there is no debate. What happened last night was the latest – and possibly most cruel – abomination. 

To call it “a mistake” is a message that means nothing for those killed, those grieving, and those trying to save lives.


It was not a mistake.  It was a miscalculation on the part of the Israeli government which thought it could get away with it.  Of course, it would think that, it's gotten away with so much in the last months.  But times are changing.  CNN notes:

A growing list of countries, world leaders and aid agencies have now condemned the strike, saying "there is no safe space in Gaza."

Here are some of the international reactions:

  • "Horror must stop": UN chief Antònio Guterres issued a blistering condemnation. "There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop," he said. The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the strike on Tuesday, according to a UN diplomat.
  • "Abomination": UN relief chief Martin Griffiths criticized Netanyahu's response to the attack. "Whether the attack was a war crime or a 'tragic error' for the people of Gaza, there is no debate. What happened last night was the latest – and possibly most cruel – abomination," Griffiths said.
  • "Unbearable": French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "outraged" by the strikes and called for a ceasefire. Germany described the "images of charred bodies, including children, from the airstrike" as "unbearable." The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Israel must implement the ICJ ruling. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the strike a "massacre" and said his country “will do everything” in its power to hold Israeli officials accountable.
  • "Heartbreaking": A US National Security Council spokesperson said the strike was “heartbreaking," adding that the United States was “actively engaging” with officials in Israel to determine what happened. The spokesperson also said "Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians."
  • "Complete disregard for the lives of civilians": Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) strongly denounced the strike and called for an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" in Gaza. MSF said the airstrike on the camp "shows the complete disregard for the lives of civilians." MSF nurse activity manager Gaia Giletta said from Gaza that "we are shocked by the continuous attacks on civilians, and we have no words to describe the horror of what we've seen here."
  • "Hell on earth": “The images from last night are a testament to how Rafah has turned into hell on earth," said Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The scenes from Rafah last night are harrowing, Lazzarini said, and some victims “were reportedly burnt to death."
  • Strike could hinder hostage talks: Qatar said Israel’s strike on the Rafah camp could “hinder” negotiations aiming for the release of hostages and reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. The Qatari foreign ministry said the strike is a “serious violation of international laws” and expressed concern that it “would complicate the ongoing mediation efforts.”
 
MINT notes reactions as well:


The attack triggered a global outrage against Israel. A US National Security Council spokesperson said Israel "must take every precaution possible to protect civilians".

Egypt condemned the "targeting of defenceless civilians", calling it part of "a systematic policy aimed at widening the scope of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip to make it uninhabitable".

Jordan accused Israel of "ongoing war crimes", Saudi Arabia condemned "the continued massacres", and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed "to hold these barbarians and murderers accountable".

Qatar condemned a "dangerous violation of international law" and voiced "concern that the bombing will complicate ongoing mediation efforts" towards a truce.


Everyone waits to see what Joe Biden's reaction will be.  He has looked the other way for months while turning over billions of US tax dollars to the Israeli government.  He has looked the other way while arming the Israeli government.  He has invoked supposed "red lines" that never have any actual meaning.  He is losing support among the youth, among African-Americans and among Arab Americans and the November presidential election looms.  Is he going to do the right thing or continue to support and take part in a genocide?


This latest atrocity has the Biden administration’s fingerprints all over it. The IDF’s onslaught on Rafah has proceeded over the past three weeks after the White House gave it the green light. Just two weeks before Israel attacked Rafah, Biden signed a supplementary military assistance bill passed with bipartisan support that included $26 billion in funding for Israel.

Biden has asserted that Israel is doing “all it can to ensure civilian protection,” while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan insisted that the IDF’s assault has “not involved major military operations into the heart of dense urban areas.” This line has been maintained even as over 800,000 people have fled the city. Likewise, administration officials continue to claim that killing civilians in Rafah is a “red line,” even as the IDF does this every day with impunity.

The Biden administration’s lying claims that no “major” operations are taking place in Rafah and that it opposes killing civilians are no more credible than Netanyahu’s attempt to present the bombing of the refugee camp in comments Monday as a “tragic mistake.” The fact of the matter is that as horrific as Sunday’s massacre was, it is part of a pattern of the systematic targeting of defenceless civilians by the IDF.

From the bombardment of the al-Ahli hospital killing upwards of 500 people, to the storming of the al-Shifa hospital, and the destruction of Khan Younis, millions of workers and young people know all too well the brutality of Netanyahu’s regime and what it is capable of with imperialist backing.

The imperialist governments in the United States and Germany, Israel’s two most important weapons’ suppliers, reiterated their backing for the Zionist regime after Sunday’s massacre. Adopting the Israeli government’s propaganda wholesale, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, “Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we all understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists, who are responsible for attacks on Israeli civilians.”

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr has renewed his calls for the US embassy in Baghdad to be closed after an Israeli strike killed dozens of civilians in a camp in Gaza.

In a post on X, Mr Al Sadr condemned the attack and Washington's "shameless" support for the "genocide" he charged was under way in Gaza.

"I reiterate my demand to expel [the US ambassador] and close the embassy through diplomatic means without bloodshed," he said.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 235 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 36,096, with 81,136 wounded."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

  




On bodies trapped under rubble, ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

We’re talking about a three-storey building that housed not only residents but also dozens of other displaced Palestinians in Rafah that made it to Nuseirat three days ago.

I met the neighbours. I met the family. I met one of the relatives of people still trapped under the rubble earlier today. They were telling me heartbreaking things.

Imagine escaping the air strikes in Rafah, looking for a safe space but being killed after three days of evacuating – not only being killed but being trapped where the Civil Defence teams do not have any equipment to remove or pull these people from under the rubble.

I saw Civil Defence teams doing their best to pull people from under the rubble. They were digging with their bare hands, with very basic tools. This was not the first time we have seen this scene. We have been seeing this for more than seven months now.

Unfortunately, it may come to a point where the Civil Defence teams will give up on this house because there are more people being targeted every single hour across the Gaza Strip.


April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."


Lastly,  CNN notes, "Norway, Spain and Ireland will formally recognize a Palestinian state from today — a move that will bolster the global Palestinian cause but has further strained relations between Europe and Israel."



The following sites updated:




Media: They loved him when he stayed in the lane they put him in

One of the most interesting things about the political season around the presidential elections has been watching the wavering and so-called readjustments.


Re-adjustments?


tc2

We all learn -- Let's change that.  We all have the opportunity to learn and some people actually are able to learn.  For example, you have a peanut allergy and you learn not to eat peanuts.  You adjust.  Or you're a teenager and Taco Bell tastes delicious but you get closer to your thirties -- or consume less alcohol -- and it no longer tastes the same.  


The point here is that support for a candidate is not fixed.  It can change, people can make adjustments.  And if there's a reason to do so, people should.  Progressives who voted for John Fetterman, for instance, have every right to not support him based on his actions and statements since becoming a senator.


And readjustments have taken place in a presidential campaign over the last few months -- Joe Biden's campaign is struggling with this issue while pretending otherwise.  He keeps losing support in key bases -- African-Americans, Arab Americans and the youth, for example -- due to his inability to defend innocent civilians who are being slaughtered in Gaza.  


People who supported Joe a few months ago but no longer do?


They've readjusted based on new information and observations.  That happens.  It's part of growth.  


That's not to call those still supporting Joe "stunted."  They're not.  They just are factoring other things in and that's fine.


What we're talking about is something completely different.


Cornel West.  


All the White boyz loved them some "Brother Cornel" and "Doctor Cornel" -- or have we all forgotten that?


They'd tell you why they did -- more often, they'd pretend to tell you.  They really didn't know his record.  So were they just praising him so much early on because they wanted to look like The White Guy That Supports The Blacks?


It certainly appeared that way then and is only more the case today now that they've turned on him.


We went a reverse journey.  


We weren't impressed by his decision to run for the presidency on The People's Party ticket because they stood against most of what he believed in.  Less than a week later, Cornel announced he was no longer their candidate.  He and his supporters on YOUTUBE were saying he was now the presidential nominee for The Green Party.


But he wasn't.


And we had to repeatedly clarify that.


The Green Party still doesn't have a nominee.  The nominee will be selected this summer at their national convention.  


But the usual liars (hey, Chris Hedges, we're waiving at you) kept insisting he was the party's nominee.


It took us awhile -- and to hear from people close to Cornel -- to grasp that Cornel wasn't lying, he was repeating what he was told.


And during all of this The White Boyz loved them some Cornel.


If you missed it, the YOUTUBERS are now behind Jill Stein.


You know Jill, don't you.  Over 70 and has had two failed presidential runs for the Green Party already.  If she wins the nomination at the convention (as many believe she will), that's the Green Party confessing to America that they are corrupt, running on fumes and incapable of growth.

Every one of the major and major-mini candidates is going to past retirement age with one exception.  Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both way over 70, Robert Kennedy Jr is 70, Cornel West will turn 71 in a few days.  And the Green Party's answer -- to stand out and show that they are different -- is 74 year-old Jill Stein?


The strongest argument for term limits and enforced retirement was made in the fall of 2020 when the 87 year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg died while sitting on the Supreme Court.  The need for term limits and enforced retirement only became clearer when Dianne Feinstein died three years later  in the fall of 2023 after months of reports on how the 90 year-old idiot didn't even know how she voted or where she was.  A total incompetent, she should have been removed from office.  There is a very strong backlash against the elderly currently and those two women are strong reasons why.


Instead of addressing the need for change, the Green Party appears to be on the verge of making Jill their nominee.  That's pathetic.


And if they do that, the only presidential nominee still with all their own teeth and whose pubes haven't turned gray will be Chase Oliver.  


Who?

 

38 year-old Chase Oliver became the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee over the weekend at their convention.  It's the same convention where Donald Trump got booed (repeatedly) and where Junior made an idiot of himself (he actually campaigned for the nomination and he lost).  

 

Chase could end up being the threat to Biden and Trump that Junior so wants to be.  But that's another story. 


The story we're telling is about racism.


For us, Cornel was a so-so candidate until he did what would be his last appearance on THE JIMMY DORE SHOW (last so far, anyway).  We're not Jimmy fans and we don't pretend that Jimmy gave him a nice interview.  Jimmy pressed him and shoved him out of his comfort zone and that resulted in Cornel's most passionate.  Cornel finally came off as a real candidate.

 

And part of him reaching that stage was realizing he had a lot of puppeteers around him.

 

When Cornel shook off the chains his White 'friends' had imposed upon him, he became a strong candidate, a very strong one.

 

And that coincided with White YOUTUBE losing interest in him.


Which is why they've wasted so much time trying to destroy him with the vapid soft-ball interviews they do with Jill Stein.  And Jill will explain that she just can't understand why Cornel went after her like that.


Sorry, Miss Jill, did the Black man wink at you?


THE VANGUARD BOYZ had the biggest racial panic.  They're so heavy drama, Zac and Gavin probably have to sleep in overnight absorbency pads.  Last week, the two White Boyz were again pimping the notion that Cornel picking Melina Abdullah as his running mate was wrong:  "someone just like him," they sneered (they mean "Black").  Melina is not just like Cornel.  She's a woman.  She's Muslim. She's approximately 18 years younger than him. She's got a family with a long history of Marxism.

 

But it really just boils down to skin color for THE VANGUARD BOYZ.


And their repeated efforts to uplift Jill Stein while burying Cornel make it clear.



Cornel and Jill Stein are not friends.  Some in the Black community -- some in the Black community who sell out to the White community and boast that they can keep the Black community "in line" -- realize the problems that have been created by the racism and fear the public might start vocalizing it and then it's bye-bye Jill.  So they rushed in for a joint-Jill and Cornel appearance.  He would be smart to avoid those and to allow her to sink in the s**t hole she not only deserves but the one that she dug for herself.


Why is Cornel so mane to her!!!!


That's what we've had to endure from White YOUTUBERS for weeks now.


Dennis Kucinich is running for Congress (again).  Before that?  He was part of Junior's presidential campaign team.  Had Dennis announced he was running for the presidency instead of Congress, people would have been right to ask why.  And they would have been right to ask what this says about Junior's campaign.


But White YOUTUBE wants you to forget that not only did Jill Stein endorse Cornel West for president, she was his campaign manager.  And yet now she's running for the Green Party's presidential nomination.  Not four years after she was Cornel's campaign manager -- months  after.

 

She wants to act as though she was assaulted by Cornel and maybe an African-American male refusing to do what Jill says constitutes an assault in her dainty mind.

 

After stabbing him in the back -- in public at that -- she wants to pretend she has no idea why the two are no longer close.  

She claims she's seeking the Green Party nomination because Cornel stopped seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination.

 

That's the hypocrisy she wants to hide behind?  If she truly believed he was worth her public endorsement, his party i.d. should not matter.  And she certainly shouldn't have turned on him for it.

 

Zac and Cody of THE VANGUARD keep insisting lately that Cornel has no shot at winning the nomination.  We, honestly, don't see a path to victory either.  Doesn't mean he won't win, just means we don't see how he does at this point. 

 

But Cornel probably wouldn't have won if he was the Green Party's presidential nominee either.

 

Yet back then, Zac and Cody were all over Cornel and insisting this was about a future and doing the right thing (they've apparently seen a Spike Lee movie or two -- probably stoned at the time, but they've seen at least one).

 

Cornel is the same person he was.  He still believes in and stands for the same things.  The only real change is he's become a stronger candidate.

 

If you've paid attention in the last six or so weeks, you've learned a very important lesson about how racism works with some of the left.  When Cornel was happy to be led by the White 'thinkers,' he was applauded but when he resorted to self-determination, he got kicked to the curb.  Basically, it translates as: Cornel, we'll let you drive Miss Daisy's car but it's her car and we'll pull you out of it anytime we want.

 

 Notes:

1) Yes, we know it's Zac and Gavin -- legally; however, spiritually, THE VANGUARD Boyz are Zac and Cody with all that entails.

 

2) If you want to see consistent coverage on Cornel's campaign, you can start with Marc Lamont Hill's coverage.

 

3) We feel very badly for  Chase Oliver that his weekend victory has largely been reduced to -- "The convention was about Junior competing for The Libertarian Party's presidential nomination and Donald getting booed."  Chase Oliver would check off a lot of boxes for a number of voters -- his calls to stop the militarization of the police,  his pro-choice stance (against government money going for them), his anti-war position, his being openly gay at a time when the fright-wing is attempting to destroy LGBTQ+ rights (we're not saying Chase is pro any rights other than gay rights and he might be one of those who identifies as LGB only -- yes, they do exist). He's an interesting candidate.  His winning the nomination should have resulted in major feature stories in the corporate press.  Maybe those are on backlog due to the Memorial Day weekend?


4) We're not endorsing Cornel.  We're on record stating for over a year now that we will be voting for the Democratic Party's nominee whomever that ends up being.  We're are, however, analyzing how a man of color was a media hero to some leftists . . . as long as he followed the 'suggestions' (orders) of the White people around him.

 

Books (Ruth, Jim, Ava and C.I.)

1summerread

 

As we did in 2021 and 2023, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. After a review posts, we try to do a discussion with the reviewer.  This go round, we're talking to Ruth about her  "LADIES WHO PUNCH: THE EXPLOSIVE INSIDE STORY OF THE VIEW" and Jim about his  "HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (Jim)." Let's start with Jim. Tell us about your book.

 

Jim: Rob Ebner is the author of my book.  It came out in 2013 and purports to catch you up on the celebrities you used to love.  The biggest problem is, most of these people aren't celebrities.  They're forgotten today and Ebner's bio sketches provide you with no reason in the world that they ever should have been famous to begin with.  It's a dull book about mostly bit players and it has a ton of factual errors.

 

Were there any people in the book you knew?

 

Jim: A few.  Take Shelley Fabares.  She's an actress and a singer.  She's had a very long career.  He can't get the basics right.  She was already a working actress before she did THE DONNA REED SHOW but that's the sitcom that made her famous.  It ran from 1958 to 1966 -- eight seasons.  He writes  that, "Shelley left in 1965 to pursue more adult roles."  Actually, she left the show in the spring of 1963 as a regular.  In seasons six and seven, she returned to do three episodes each of those two seasons. She did no guest spots in season eight.  Her last guest episode aired Christmas Eve 1964.  Her last episode as a regular aired May 9, 1963.  He then reduces pretty much everything to just a title listed.  She was the female star in BRIAN'S SONG -- a famous and popular TV movie that starred James Caan and Billy Dee Williams about the life and death of Chicago Bears fullback Brian Piccolo.  But to the author of this book, that credit -- a TV movie so good and so popular that after it aired on TV they actually started releasing it in film theaters -- is no different than an episode guesting on LOVE AMERICAN STYLE.  BRIAN'S SONG is the orginal male weepie film -- a film that makes a lot of men cry the way Bette Davis' DARK VICTORY or something similar might make audiences cry.  She played Francie on ONE DAY AT A TIME and that was a major shift for her -- Francie -- Francine Webster was Ann Romando's rival and self-centered -- a long cry from sweet Mary Stone that brought Shelley fame.  And she didn't just act in the sitcom COACH -- she was in 199 episodes of the show.  And then there's this,  "Shelley also became famous for her short-term, #1 BILLBOARD hits, 'Johnny Angel' (1962)  which sold over a million copies."  How do you have a short-term number one?  You don't get higher on the pop charts than number one.  She had a number one hit -- one that spent two weeks at number one.  Does he have any clue?


What's the scope and layout of the book?


Jim: It goes alphabetical by last name.  The scope?  Confusing.  Supposedly, these are famous people who found fame in the 50s and early 60s.  That's apparently the excuse for ignoring actual 60s stars like Burt Ward and Adam West and Yvonne Craig of BATMAN, and Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III and Michael Cole of THE MOD SQUAD, Lloyd Haynes, Denise Nicholas, Michael Constantine and Karen Valentine of ROOM 222, Susan Saint James on THE NAME OF THE GAME, etc.  Those are shows from the second half of the 60s.  But if that's too old for your focus, why squeeze in some people?  Such as Teri Garr.  That's not meant as an insult to Teri.  But she became famous in the 70s -- as a regular on THE SONNY & CHER COMEDY SHOW and then in classic films like YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and OH, GOD! among others.  


Thank you.  Ruth, your book?


Ruth: THE VIEW is a long running show on ABC daytime. The show's aired since 1997 and was created by the late Barbara Walters.  I'm not calling it a talk show because the book exposes that. The book is Ramin Setoodeh's  LADIES WHO PUNCH: THE EXPLOSIVE INSIDE STORY OF THE VIEW.  You learn that people were often told what to say on the supposed live conversation. And that's only one of the lies the show put forward.  Barbara Walters tired of her co-hosts quickly and when she was tired of you, she wanted you gone.  She would work overtime poisoning you to ABC exectuvies to get them to agree to fire you but she always wanted to pretend on air that she had nothing to do with it.  She would lie on air and make them lie on air.  They had decided to leave and Ms. Walters would lie that she was sad about that and sometimes even that she had nothing to do with the departure.  She got them fired.  She often bought their silence as with Elizabeth Hasselbeck who was loathed by viewers of the show.  After Ms. Walters got Ms. Hasselbeck fired, she then called in a favor from her friend Roger Ailes to get Ms. Hasselbeck hired by FOX "NEWS" so that Ms. Hasselbeck would stay silent.  She was a hateful and controlling woman who had to have the spotlight and would get jealous when others had it.  She loathed Rosie O'Donnell because the show was about to be cancelled and Ms. O'Donnell joined the show and made changes to the show resulting in THE VIEW becoming must-watch TV and a lot of press for the improved show.  That is when she began plotting to get Ms. O'Donnell removed from the show.  She would attack her co-hosts on air and they all lived in fear of that.  They would sometimes nod or kick under the table a co-host to warn them Ms. Walters was about to attack.


Barbara is now dead so the show is better now?


Ruth: No.  Maybe if Rosie O'Donnell were on the show.  After taking it to huge heights and leaving, she returned in 2014 and it did not go well.  She wanted improvements in the show again and that required morning meetings.  Whoopi Goldberg refused to drive in early -- an hour early -- for these meetings.  She is unengaged and she's unprepared.  Sbe wants the millions she is paid, she just thinks three hours of work a day is enough.  She is rude to her co-hosts and she really needs to go.  "Moderator" does not mean "Talks over everyone." 


Does the book make for a fascinating read?


Ruth: It does.  I highly recommend the book.  It's a page turned that you won't put down. 

 

Alright, thank you both.

 

------------------------

 

Previous book discussions:

 

"Books (Ty, Ava and C.I.)

 "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Stan, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Dona, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Ty, Ava and C.I.)

 "Book Talk (Mike, Ava and C.I.)"

 

"Book Talk (Stan, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Mike, Ava and C.I.)"


"Book Talk (Ann, Marcia, Trina, Ava and C.I.)"

 

 

 

 

HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (Jim)

Pop culture can be immediately disposable.  It's a point Rob Ebner's HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? unintentionally and repeatedly makes.


The book was published in 2013 and is available on KINDLE UNLIMITED.  The point?  To update you on where your favorites of the past are now.


Ebner applies the term "favorites" fr too liberally.  Most of these people aren't just forgotten, they were never really what you would consider "known." 


FRIENDS is not covered in the book which largely focuses on pop culture from the 50s and early 60s.  But let me use it as an example.  To say that any of the core six stars were celebrities is no stretch of the truth.  You can even include Maggie Wheeler who played Janis across 19 episodes of the series.  But when you start including minor characters that honestly weren't played by celebrities . . .


The no-names are generally no-names because they are never wars.  And Ebner lacks the talent and skill to make the case that they made any contribution at all.  


Ebner is a very bad writer who writes a brief bio like this: "Candy Leigh starred in BLONDES AND GIGGLES with Marilyn Monroe" and a paragraph later writes, "Candy Leigh's films include the biblical epic REHOBOAM SON OF SOLOMON and BLONDES AND GIGGLES."  Now if Candy Leigh had something interesting she did onscreen, some riveting moment?  It's never noted.  In some cases, even listing the real life marriages is beyond Ebner's grasp.


So we're left with dull character sketches on people we never knew and have no reason at all to want to know.


Patty Duke.  Let me do a brief sketch that could go in a book like this:


A child actress who would eventually be diagnosed bi-polar late in her life, Patty Duke came to fame on Broadway as Helen Keller in THE MIRACLE WORKER starring Anne Bancroft.  When the play was turned into a film, Duke and Bancroft would recreate their roles with both winning Academy Awards for their portrayals (Duke winning for Best Supporting Actress).  Following this film, Patty would enter the American collective conscious starring in THE PATTY DUKE SHOW where she played identical cousins Patty and Cathy.  The show's theme song became as memorable as the show itself and Patty used the fame to start a brief recording career which led to two top forty hits.  She then transitioned into adult roles starring with Barbara Perkins and Sharon Tate in the blockbuster VALLEY OF THE DOLLS -- the seventh biggest box office film of 1967.  Patty's career had brights spots in the sixties that largely ended in 1971 when, in an acceptance speech at the Emmys, she came off drunk or drugged on national television.  This sloppy appearance (which Duke decades later blamed on being bi-polar and not on her frequent drug use) took place at the same time Patty had turned her private life into a spectacle claiming that she was pregnant with Desi Arnaz Jr.'s son.  While his father Desi Arnaz publicly welcomed the idea and embraced the child when the boy was born, Lucille Ball felt that Patty was lying and saw her as drug using trash who started an affair with Lucy's underage son Desi Jr.  Baby, baby, who's the daddy was a big scandal in real time.  John Astin (Gomez on THE ADAMS FAMILY) was also a potential father per Patty.  She married William Tell to give her son Sean a father.  She would insist in her 'true' autobiography CALL ME ANNA that either Astin or Arnaz was Sean's father and she never slept with William Tell before marrying him but that, like so many of Patty Duke's claims, turned out to be another lie.  23 years after he was born, Sean took a test (1994) which determined that William Tell was his father.  


So that gives you a lively sketch.


In the book, we instead get no mention of Patty's Emmy meltdown (again, this derailed her career -- she'd followed the film VALLEY OF THE DOLLS with the hit ME, NATALIE (she won a Golden Globe for the film) and then did the TV movie MY SWEET CHARLIE (1970) to further cement her adult stature.  But all the applause stopped when she came off high or intoxicated during her rambling speech.  There is no mention of Patty's lies passing Desi Jr. off as the father or the very public comments from Desi's parents (again, his father told the press how happy he was while his mother made clear that Patty Duke was trash and she didn't believe her).  Despite the many lies in CALL ME ANNA, Ebner mentions the book and treats it as gospel.


Seriously, how much of an exposed liar can you be?  She wrote in that eighties book that the father of her son Sean was either Desi or John and she knew this, she wrote, because she never slept with William Tell until she married him and she married him only after she was pregnant to give her son a father.  That's what she wrote.  But the 90s blood test determined that Tell was Sean's father.


She's an exposed liar -- and that's not the only lie she put into that 'autobiography.'


But he ignores that.


Worst of all, he's writing about an Academy Award winning actress and he never mentions in his mini-bio that Patty won an Oscar.  That's the sort of detail you lead with.


Like Patty, Ebner's a liar.


Take his Robert Blake bio.  Blake was a child star who tried to transition to an adult actor and did so with a number of film roles in the 60s -- most famously with 1967's IN COLD BLOOD.  The film was based on the true-crime book of the same name by Truman Capote in which Blake starred as one of the two killers.


Problem?


Ebner thinks Robert co-starred with James Woods in that film.  In fact, he's so confident that he repeats that claim twice in the brief character sketch.  Robert played one of the two killers, the other was played by Scott Wilson -- not James Woods. James made his Broadway debut in 1969 and his film debut in 1972's THE VISITORS.  He did not co-star in the 1967 film IN COLD BLOOD.


Things like this pop up over and over throughout the book.


Along with the errors and the omissions, there's the reality that the brief bios aren't interesting.  A bad book on every level.