Jim: Welcome to our latest book discussion. We're switching it up a bit this week. We're only doing four books and we're providing excerpts at the top of each discussion. The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and me; 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; and Wally of The Daily Jot. Elaine?
Elaine: Page 165:
When Michael Kinsley in The New Republic discussed "the various alternatives" for health care reform facing Congress, he noted in parentheses that he was not talking about "the Canadian-style 'single payer' option, which has few backers." The single-payer option didn't have "few backers" among the U.S. public -- in one Wall Street Journal/ NBC poll, 69 percent of respondents supported the idea of Canadian-style, government-funded national health insurance. And it didn't have "few backers" in Congress; the McDermott single-payer bill had ninety-two cosponsors in the House, more than any other health care bill. Where the single-payer plan didn't have many backers was among Kinsley's colleagues in the media elite -- who seemed to go to great lengths to avoid discussing it.
Elaine (cont'): The excerpt is from The FAIR Reader: An EXTRA! Review of Press and Politics in the '90s, edited by Jim Naureckas and Janine Jackson.
Wally: FAIR is the media watchdog that also puts out the magazine Extra! and the radio program CounterSpin. Ruth's daughter-in-law saw the book and knew Ruth was a huge fan of CounterSpin so passed it on to her and Ruth then recommended that discuss the book.
Dona: The book explores the ways in which the media distorts reality with specific examples such as the one Elaine noted on The New Republic.
Ty: Tonight on , a guest brought up the health care plan and, should Hillary Clinton run for president in 2008, it would be beneficial that people familiarize themselves with the plan. The FAIR reader is a good place to start.
C.I.: Jumping in, another starting point is The President's Health Security Plan. In her foreword to the book, Clinton notes "And, as we move forward in this great national discussion, we must focus on these people, their health care, and their peace of mind -- not solely on theories or statistics." To which many critics would add, or soley on what benefits the insurance industry which was one of the criticisms of the plan that some today may not be aware of.
Mike: (Laughing) I didn't know we were doing research for the discussion.
C.I.: I just pulled the book off the shelf while Elaine was reading the excerpt.
Mike: Oh, okay. Well the plan in the nineties was way before my time. So I've heard of it after the fact and reading FAIR's book was surprising to me because the Clinton health care plan was not like Canada's but when someone wants to lecture on the health care plan today, that's usually what they say or offer the claim that Canada has faulty health care and we would be in the same boat if we'd adopted "their" system. So that was one of the big surprises for me, what the health care plan was as opposed to what most people thought it was.
Betty: And it was interesting to see how the insurance lobby promoted that plan and how the media shut out any discussion of a single-payer program. I'm a bit older than Mike but I honestly thought that was what was being advocated by Clinton as well. I think the right was very effective in spinning because in real time, I can remember discussions in high school where it was accepted, by students and promoted by two teachers, that this was the Canada type system instead of managed care that was like an HMO monster.
Cedric: Well part of the reason they were so effective was that the mainstream and the "left" New Republic were shutting down discussion from the start.
Mike: And the process of coming up with the plan, we discussed this in one of my classes this semester, shut out the leaders in the health care reform. Which included long term health care advocates from my area, Boston. But the press didn't want to treat what the people wanted seriously and the reader brings that point home very loudly.
Cedric: It's also interesting to read the analysis, from real time reporting, of the first Gulf War and of the Bush v. Dukakis election. It's as though no lesson was learned from that. The tactics that we are rightly objecting to with the Bully Boy were tactics his father used as well. Embedding reporters with the troops was only one example.
Betty: And I mean, gas bag Cokie Roberts, she and others were actively pressing for the first Gulf War to take out Saddam Hussein. And let's note too that just as she invented the "security moms" in 2004, in 1992 she was saying that women voters were going to be voting based on "the recent riots in Los Angeles." The insta-expert also had advice on the night of the election in 1994, advice for Bill Clinton: "Move to the right, which is the advice that somebody should have given him a long time ago."
Ty: Something I wish FAIR would do is compile a book on "None the matter" Cokie Roberts. They've covered some who are obviously right-wing and that's good and all but reading this book and knowing Ruth's comments on Cokie Roberts, I really think that it would be a service and that it would sell.
Jess: I know I'd buy it. My parents would buy it and give it as gifts. I really enjoyed this book. I know we all did but what stood out for me is the points that have been made which go to the fact that if you didn't live through that period, or weren't old enough I guess I should say, you don't grasp how skewed your view is. It's all well and good for Joe Conason and others to talk about the right-wing attacks on Bill Clinton or whatever, but the press seriously let the people down and that happened before Bill Clinton was elected or running. It goes beyond Bill Clinton and reading this book and thinking of the books attempting to set the record straight regarding the right-wing witch hunts on the Clintons, I really felt like, "Okay, this is what I'm ready for now."
Jim: You mean?
Jess: A broader examination that goes beyond an individual or a party and deals with the press itself. Both the mainstream and a rag like The New Republic that wants to claim it's of the left.
My parents are longterm subscribers of The Nation but they are very offended that New Republic writers are popping up. My mother says they're seriously questioning whether they will renew because she knows the comment Maria posted elsewhere about how Camille Paglia won praise in The Nation and she read that and wondered about it, read the issue. Now that she knows that the writer of that piece works for The New Republic, she's started looking at other bylines. The New Republic is not a left magazine and The Nation shouldn't be propping it up.
C.I.: Just to clarify, the review, by Lee Siegel, I believe, was not praising Paglia's new book. It was, however, in panning the new book, offering kind words for the infamous book that deserves no praise and received none from The Nation in real time. Considering that Susan Faludi is listed on the masthead, that Gloria Steinem appears in ads for the magazine and that Katha Pollitt, among many other feminists, has been attacked by Paglia, I found Seigel's evaluation of the infamous book revisionist and insulting. They've added Dave Zirin to their online edition and hopefully they'll be addressing the issue of reviewers but I agree with your mother, Jess, The New Republic does not belong in The Nation. The magazines are too different, their readership is too different -- for one thing, The Nation has a readership -- and when you invite those people over, you end up with reviews that are offensive.
Wally: You prefer The Progressive's art criticism, right?
C.I.: Yes, I've noted that at The Common Ills. Ruth Conniff and Matthew Rothschild regularly provide strong reviews, for instance. Generally speaking, if it's a legal book or a historical one being reviewed in The Nation, I'll read the review but otherwise I just glance at it. And I wouldn't have a problem with it, I'd just ignore it, everything can't speak to everyone, but when you're bringing in reviewers from The New Republic, there's a problem that needs to be addressed. There are more than enough writers who can review that could be asked to without providing assistance to an ideological opponent.
Jim: Agreed. We're also all agreed that the FAIR Reader is worth checking out. And we're on a similar topic as we move to a book Rebecca selected for this discussion.
Rebecca: From pages, 241 to 242, the magazine being discussed is The New Republic:
Murray Waas, who wrote the investigative domestic stories for the magazine in those years, believes the publication had forsaken its left-of-center past and become, bluntly put, "a propaganda organ for the U.S. government." Yet, its pro-contra articles carried extra weight because they could be cited by the conservative administration as evidence that even liberals now agreed with the White House policy.
"The real influence of The New Republic was that it was still considered a liberal voice," Waas told me in an interview. "For decades, it stood up to Joe McCarthy, the Vietnam War and Watergate. It had employed James Ridgeway and Walter Pincus. So it had a certain cachet when it said what it said about the Sandinistas for committing human-rights abuses or not being democratic. If the [conservative] National Review had published that kind of article, people would have said, 'This is incredible. Look at the source.' But The New Republic, with a long liberal tradition, had a credibility in saying things about the Sandinistas."
For some years, after the magazine was purchased by Martin Peretz in the mid-1970s, The New Republic had shifted rightward, adopting a strongly pro-Israel stance and endorsing the Reagan Doctrine's rough-and-tumble interventionism. "The readership, the public wasn't aware of this change," Waas said. "The magazine tried to put on the appearance of being liberal [on domestic matters, but] the things that really mattered the most to Peretz and his crowd, they controlled: Israel and Central America."
Though [Fred] Barnes's stock rose with his CW-defining articles [Conventional Wisdom] on Nicaragua, his pro-contra flacking antagonized the remaining liberals writing for The New Republic. "Barnes was just another reporter following along wide-eyes," recalled ex-New Republic editor Jefferson Morley. "He was like what the conservatives say [New York Times correspondent] Herbert Matthews was with Castro. He was just taking down what was said uncritically."
Rebecca (con't): That's from Robert Parry's Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom.
Jess: And this is the kind of book I was referring to before. This is taking on the actual system. I really enjoyed this book. Rebecca is always noting something that Robert Parry wrote whenever we get together for these editions. Reading this book, I really grasped why he was an important voice that spoke to her.
Cedric: The book takes a hard look at the process of the mainstream media and how Conventional Wisdom passes for insight and how insiders know they should never be too far ahead of the curve. At best, they should be a day ahead. That's how you suceed in being a pundit. No one's ever being punished for being wrong by spouting conventional wisdom. They are punished for speaking truths. I think both books complimented each other well.
Kat: And Parry's website is Constortium News. You can purchase his books there.
C.I.: You can purchase his most recent two books and for a third book, a link takes you to Amazon. I don't believe you can purchase this book there.
Dona: And Dallas is saying that Powell's Books can't be used for Robert Parry so we're using Amazon for the link. Our first choice is the author's own website. Our second choice is Powell's Books because they don't store information.
Kat: As noted on The Laura Flanders Show.
Dona: Right. I want to get back to Jess' point. Jess, you were talking about writers like Conason, who we enjoy reading, are covering one aspect of an important story and you found Parry's book and the FAIR one to be more what you're interested at this point. Could you elaborate?
Jess: Sure. I think, and thanks for pointing out that we like Conason's books because Ty and Jim and I are always going to the book case and pulling down Big Lies, for instance. But I get that point, or points, being made in the books. I'm less interested in Bill Clinton, which every other book weighed in on in the last few years, and more concerned with the press. I'm a journalism major so that may be why. But I'm interested in the workings that go beyond the obvious right wing echo chamber. We've got a book tonight that I think we'll address that somewhat when we get to so I'll leave it at that for now.
Kat: The point Cedric made is really the key theme to this book. You're not slammed for being wrong if you're parroting what every other pundit said. Then they flock together and do their squawk of "we were all wrong!" So they don't challenge, they don't question, they just parrot the conventional wisdom inside the beltway. That's why the chat & chews are so insulated and so worthless.
Ty: I really think this book is more effective than a lot that are coming out today in terms of reaching people because this book was published in 1992. People who might have trouble seeing what's currently happening with the press might be more comfortable with this more recent history.
Jim: Because?
Ty: Because there's enough distance. I was nodding and thinking, "I can refer to this point Parry's making in a paper" or something. It's surprising that there's so much timidity in challenging Bob Woodward or whomever today but this book has enough distance that it might make for an easier read for the squeamish. And the topic, trend, is still current and the players are still known.
C.I.: I'd agree and think that's a strong point. Rebecca gave me this years ago but I didn't read it until we picked it for this discussion.
Jim: Woah. Rebecca, are you surprised?
Rebecca: No. A) It was during the 1992 campaign and C.I. gave a ton of hours to the Democratic campaigns that year. B) And I'd been slow to start a book that C.I. had gifted me with. So it was noted at the time to let me know when I read the book I was gifted with and only then would this be read.
C.I.: And I told Rebecca on the phone that since we were discussing this I expected her to finally get around to reading the book I gave her the same year.
Rebecca: Which I'm doing now.
C.I.: Anyway, the book stayed on my shelves, through many moves, I didn't get rid of it. Rebecca gave it to me during the summer of 1992 and I wasn't doing personal reading then, my focus was on other things. And through 1994, that's where my focus stayed. At that point, it was two years and Rebecca still hadn't read the book I gave her prior so we were in a standoff. But Elaine had read it, and Rebecca of course. This was new to me and I can see the points that Ty's making. How Parry's argument shouldn't be as "controversial" as a book coming out today that comments on the Bully Boy might be. And the message is still pertinent but, due to the distance as Ty noted, it may be easier to accept.
Rebecca: I'll note that people interested in this book should also check out Robert Parry's Lost History and Secrecy & Privilege. I think he's an important writer. He's a reporter and that gives him a perspective that may be different from some of the press criticism you get. I said "different" not "better."
C.I.: I'd agree and stress Lost History just because it's focus is on the contras and how they were spun by the Reagan administration and by the press. But they're both great books and I read both when Rebecca gifted me with them. The book we're discussing, Fooling America, also charts the decline of Newsweek -- a decline I don't see as sharply as Parry -- and that will be of interest.
Jim: You disagreed with the quality declining?
C.I.: Yes and no. Parry wanted to do real reporting and had nothing but hassles at Newsweek. He knows what he's talking about and I'm not questioning that. But, let me think of the example. Okay, he's talking about how Periscope, in the magazine, went from breaking scoops to repeating rumors. News scoops to repeating gossip and uses the snide manner in which they wrote of Cary Grant's reported affair with Howard Hughes. I agree that was snide writing, but this is the magazine that reported the rumors on Jean Seberg as fact. I mean, we've talked about this here before, the rumors made it into the Los Angeles Times as blind items. They were not blind items in Newsweek. And the excuse that the writer didn't think it would be included in the print article and that the editor had a scooter accident on the way back to the office don't wash, not with me. They were sued for that and, of course, Seberg lost the baby, she miscarried. So from where I come from on Newsweek, they've always been a trashy little magazine and that's why you'll never find a great deal of highlights for it at The Common Ills. Where Parry's coming at it is looking at it as a newsmagaine and noting it's decline. He's right that it declined but our starting points on charting the magazine's sorry period are different. And just to clarify because I know some readers may have missed this topic when I brought it up some time ago. The rumors about Seberg start in the FBI. The FBI prepares them and plans to distribute them. Supposedly, Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, killed that plan. However, the same rumors do appear in the press. They were attempts to discredit her with the America public and they pop up as a blind item by Joyce Harber, when her editor passed them on and vouched for the source, but in Newsweek the rumors are presented as fact, which they weren't, and Seberg's name is attached to them. For every Jane Fonda or Paul Newman who lived through Nixon's enemies list, there were others, like Seberg, who were destroyed. She was destroyed. Newsweek took part in that destruction. Willingly or as idiotic pawn the magazine took part in it, my opinion. So it's rag to me from way back. I'm going to go way off topic but I'm not planning to note a death, unless members raise it in e-mails, that just happened. It has to do with Nixon's enemies list, so I'll note it now. Jack Anderson passed. Anderson was a target of the Nixon administration. They were plots floated to kill him. In addition to being a target himself, he passed on, in Ocotber of 1973, the Justice Department's file on Jane Fonda, thousands of pages. The FBI, the Secret Service, the State Department and the CIA were monitoring her. Phones were tapped, mail intercepted, etc. A lot of people don't talk about it now, but she sued the government and the government stelled by making a pledge, one they certainly have broken in the last few years as evidenced by the Pentagon's spying on peace activists and much more. Constitutional rights were violated, the same way Bully Boy's doing today, and, as with Seberg, they attempted to plant false rumors on Fonda. Anderson's death was noted on a news break during The Laura Flanders Show and the news anchor noted that Jack Anderson can be seen as a link between the brave muckraking period and the Watergate period, I believe. I'd add that he was important to exposing Nixon and did so regularly. In terms of the present, we're right back where we were then.
Jim: Which is a point that you made Saturday morning in an entry. And I meant to pass on that we actually got e-mails the last time you brought up Jean Seberg, positive feedback. I'm guessing I didn't pass that on, but my point is that I don't find any of that off topic.
C.I.: Let me note again, this is a great book to read. If you have fence sitting friends, seek out the book and pass it on to them because Ty's correct that it's far enough away from today that people should be able to read it with shutting their critical thought processes down. I think his take on Newsweek is informed. I just happen to date their uselessness further back than he does. And that's due to personal reasons.
Jim: Staying with a theme of "R"s, Ruth and Rebecca, and with the theme of a rag called The New Republic, we now move to our next book. Ava?
Ava: From pages 104-105:
It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Disinvestment Minister -- the men who signed the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the country's infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal, steel, health, education, and telecommunication -- are all members or admirers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has openly admired Hitler and his methods.
The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of a Structural Adjustment Program. While the project of corporate globalization rips through people's lives in Inida, massive privatization and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs. Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming pesticide.
Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the country.
While the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere near the top of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling downwards into crime and chaos. This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect breeding ground, history tell us, for fascism.
Ava (con't): That's from Arundhati Roy's War Talk which is a collection of her writings and speeches.
Jim: I know Wally wants to speak on this issue, but I'll go to Elaine first because we haven't heard much from her this discussion.
Elaine: I was enjoying listening. Like Ava pointed out, this is a book of writings. There are speeches and there are introductions. I think if you don't care for fiction or you're interested in an overview or introduction to activist and author Arundhati Roy, this is good place to start. You've got a very clear view of where she is coming from and what she supports and stands for.
Jim: Which is?
Elaine: Something too threatening to The New Republic, no surprise. She's concerned about the issues that go to the heart of democracy and go to the heart of the quality of life. Quality of life for the people other than the ones sitting at the top.
Jim: Wally?
Wally: The New Republican is a rag and I was writing about them and attempting to find the things Rebecca's written about them because she's been very vocal about them on her blog repeatedly.
Rebecca: Including noting that the only real value they had in the late eighties was the glossy photos of Antonio Sabato Jr. in his CK underwear on the back cover.
Wally: (Laughing) So I'm searching and can't pull it up at her site. I go to google and find something by Dave Zirin.
Mike: Who's a real deal writer. No fluff, no pretending to be something he's not. He tells it like it is. And credit to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! because I'd never heard of him until she had him on to discuss his book.
Wally: This is from Dave Zirin's "Fighting the New Republic[ans]:"
The New Republic magazine - a pro-war Democratic Party rag - thought it would be provocative to muse about killing and torturing anti-war activists. New Republic writer T.A. Frank found it cheeky to sit in and mock an anti-war panel sponsored by the DC Anti-War Network, the DC ISO and others. He thought it would make his colleagues chuckle to wish for "John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation." The New Republic thought they would score points with their puffy beltway buddies by printing a call for someone to "take a bunker buster to [internationally known anti-war author] Arundhati Roy." The New Republic also thought they'd get away with it. They were wrong.
[. . .]
The New Republic is a magazine trying to stake out territory on the right wing of the Democratic Party. The New Republic believed it could earn street-cred among the DLC hacks upon whose buttocks their lips are permanently attached. The New Republic thought they could do this on the backs of our movement. They miscalculated, because unlike them, we have a spine.
Rebecca: It's the sort of thing that if the American Spectator did it, you'd just roll your eyes. But, this is after, after, they start airing their crappy ads on Air America claiming to be a liberal magazine. A bunker buster for Arundhati? I'm sorry, they don't do that and still get linked by feminists. And I honestly do not understand why they are linked to be left sites. I was talking about this to some friends this week and they all said this magazine was so damaging because it had sold, repeatedly, a repositioning. It promoted, it pushed it. "Even The New Republic" agrees has been a rallying cry for Republicans for decades. I'm a huge fan of Robert Parry's reporting. But I wonder how many on the left have paid attention to it because if we're going to fight the Republican-lite moves and attempted moves of the Democratic Party, we won't fight it by promoting that rag as left.
Mike: Exactly. They have passed themselves off as left and in the process real left voices have not been presented on TV. Parry talked about how they were all over the TV. When you link to them or treat them as if they are voices of the left, you're falling into the same trap that the mainstream media promotes, that these are voices of the left.
Wally: We'd read Arundhati Roy and intended to discuss another book of her's and ended up not having time that week. So I knew her writing and when I found Dave Zirin's piece, I was just shocked that the trash rag would get away with their attacks on her.
Rebecca: Which is what they do. They attacked the emerging news of the October Surprise, they and Newsweek, and they were wrong. They didn't correct their cover stories. But they were able to silence any debate by declaring that the mere discussion of the October Surprise was out of bounds. That's what they do, they try to set the parimeters of the debate and since they aren't left, they are listened to as opposed to real left voices. That's discussed in detail in Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege for those new to the topic.
Kat: I responded to this book. I thought Arundhati Roy cut through the nonsense and stated the issues clearly. I read this book during the attack on me from The New Republic supporter and promoter and the book just made me more determined to stand with those who speak to truth. I think she's a truth teller. I think some of the outrage is due to that, due to her focus on something other than what the opinion makers want to focus on and due to the fact that she's seen by small minds in this country as "the other" due to her gender and her country of origin. And to back up Rebecca's point, a feminist especially has no excuse for promoting The New Republic. Their long history is hideous enough but when they began attacking Roy, if they're a feminist, a true one, they're aware that this is one of those stand together moments.
Ava: Like Kat, I responded to this book. I enjoyed everyone we read and would recommend all but one. But this one really did speak to me. I know I'm seen as the other due to my ethnicity and due to my gender and I could grasp Arundhati Roy's points and not be threatened by them.
Elaine, you also picked this as a favorite, right?
Elaine: Yes. Because it's a brief book packed with information I think some people who might look at the other books and think, "I don't have time to read a book that's over 300 pages," they might be more inclined to pick up a briefer book.
C.I.: I'm going to jump in again because I think there's a connection between the three books that some readers might make, actually two connections. First, to take The New Republic, as the FAIR Reader and Robert Parry's Fooling America point out, The New Republic attempts to set the "safe agenda" and overrule voices that challenge. Reading War Talk will give you examples of why she'd be attacked by those playing the safety dance of conventional wisdom. She's ruled out in the same way that single-payer health care is and that the Sandinistas are.
But beyond that, two touch on an argument Parry's making, one of his larger points in Foolling America, which we didn't touch on. Conventional Wisdom was that we needed to bury the so-called Vietnam Syndrome. If we don't bury it, how can we rally the country behind more wars.
Parry charts those attempts very well and notes the Gulf War in particular, the first Gulf War.
The FAIR reader also goes to that point and it's a point, because burying it is necessary to imperalistic aims, that goes to heart of Roy's critique. All three books compliment one another very well. In an ideal world, you'd check out all three at your library and read them one after another.
Jim: They had time to read only one or access to only one, which should they choose?
C.I.: Well, if they have access to only one book then they should read it, regardless of which of the three it was.
Jim: (Laughing) Okay, badly worded question. Stick to the time issue.
C.I.: I'm not comfortable making that call. All three have huge strengths. It would depend upon what you wanted.
Dona: I'd say FAIR. If you'd read none of the three and were only going to read one, that's the one I'd recommend because, like Roy's, it's a briefer book and also because it's covering a number of issues. If one doesn't interest you, the layouts very clear, you can move to an issue that does and it's not required that you've read every chapter to understand one. Roy is understandable to us but if someone's new to the topics she's discussing it, this may not be a brief read. I enjoyed all three books but I'd say FAIR.
Jess: But I think I'd agree with C.I.'s point. You make a good case for FAIR and I really enjoyed that book and Arundhati Roy never fails to interest me. But for me, the choice would be Robert Parry's book because of the huge overview and scope. And you're recommendation is built upon something other than that, Dona, so I'd say it really does depend on what the reader's looking for.
Dona: Agreed. Let me add to my recommendation that if you're new to Roy or you have limited time, the FAIR reader.
Jim: Okay, we'll check back in on that at the end. And we took a break to debate the issue of a quote for our fourth and final book. We have no quote and I'll go into that in a moment. We're letting Betty set up the book however.
Betty: I enjoyed the book. During the break a number of issues were raised. There are issues with the book. That's not Mary Mapes is a liar! Mary Mapes is the author of Truth and Duty: The Press, The President and the Privilege of Power. It recounts her firing by CBS over the Bully Boy National Guard story.
Jim: Cedric, your comments?
Cedric: I didn't feel like it was all that. The points C.I. raised were the reasons that I read it and felt sorry for her but I honestly thought she was living in a dream world.
Jim: Explain why, because this occurred in a break, you felt she was living in a dream world.
Cedric: I don't think she's lied in her book. I don't doubt that the memos are real. I think she has a wonderful argument in favor of running with the story. I just think she's very naive. And that was the sense I had of the book while I was reading it. I couldn't put my finger on it until the quote debate came up.
Jim: Ty, explain the quote debate.
Ty: There were various sections in the book that were being cited as what should be the excerpt. Betty found a passage that was moving about Mapes' grandmother, I forget the other suggestions now. I know C.I. was adament that the quote come from the end chapters. You want to explain that C.I.?
C.I.: As I stated during the break, this book, referred to at CBS prior to publication as "the book," scared the hell out of them. It should have. Mapes writes a wonderful tale, and I'm not slamming her for that. I'm not calling her a liar. But, uhm, it's -- it's what Jim's will criticize me for when there's an entry that he feels I should have started off with a different lead. At The Common Ills, it's a conversation. That's all it is. It's a resource/review. It's not breaking news.
What Mapes does is chart her own journey. That's the way not to do this book.
Jim: Because?
C.I.: CBS wasn't scared that she'd speak of her grandmother. They weren't scared that she'd recount 9/11. All of this stuff should have been pulled from the book if the book was supposed to be looking at what happened. Now she may also be attempting to demonstrate that she's a person, a breathing, living person. But she can't do both in the book. She either takes a hard hitting look at what happened or she makes her own case.
Kat: Which was my criticism of she wants so bad to be approved.
C.I.: And she does which is why CBS breathed a sigh of relief with this book. I shared, during the break, that she needs to get on a lecture circuit. She probably wouldn't enjoy that because there are people who attack her and that would be a concern. But she's destroyed her own story. Not by lying, I want that to be clear. No one here thinks she's lying. But whether Mary Mapes is a nice person or not, I'm told she is, Mary Mapes was an investigative journalist. That's what scared the hell out of CBS. This book, when they finally read it, didn't scare them.
The end chapters are the most important outside of her addressing the issue of the panel itself.
This should have been a hard hitting book by an investigative journalist, if she wanted to make her case for her career and her abilities. Instead, it's the tale of someone who was pushed aside, trashed by her employer's employer and a hundred other things. Now Betty found a great passage, for example, that might lure a few people into reading the book. But she's already destroyed her chance for a wide audience by how she's approached this story.
Dona: Which is from a very personal angle. And I agree strongly with that. We all understand that she is wounded and this may have been the only type book she could write this early, while everything was still fresh. But it's a huge disappointment.
Cedric: "I woke up smiling on September 9, 2004" is the first sentence in the book. I'm less kind than everyone else on this book so I'll just state what I thought, "Who the hell cares?"
Ava: And while I don't know that Cedric's wording is cruel, I'd say it was blunt, it does go to what type of book is she writing? She's trying to make the case for herself when she should be, from the first sentence, making the case for her abilities as a reporter.
Jim: And Rebecca, you had a point you wanted to make.
Rebecca: Right. Why the hell did she participate? She knew the panel's make up. She was hopeful. The lesson here is, do not participate. Your sources will not be protected, you will not be protected. That lesson needs to be stated in the book. This didn't just to happen to her, as C.I. pointed out. This happened at CNN in the nineties. She seems unaware of a great deal that happened. But, from a p.r. standpoint which is my background, do not participate. Do not go along with your network. Do not be silent to the press while the investigation is going on. You are one person up against a corporation, you need to make your case repeatedly in the press. That's how you ensure that the panel judging you is fair. She notes that in the print medium, such as The New York Times, a panel was made up of journalists. That's not true of the corporations running broadcast news. People need to learn a lesson from this and from what happened earlier. The corporation will not protect you. You go public loudly and early. During the investigation. You do not agree to be silent. They weren't silent. They were leaking things all along. A point she alludes to but doesn't really underscore. They will protect the entity itself, that's their obligation. You need to protect yourself. I was appalled that after what she'd been through she wants to talk about the state of TV news in her conclusion as opposed to imparting a real lesson for journalists.
Jess: And during the break, when Rebecca raised that, I stated doing that could make you a loose cannon and end your job prospects. Rebecca shot back, rightly, that it would destroy you being seen as a company person and some might not want to hire you; however, after you've been publicly disgraced and labeled a bad reporter, a much larger pool of employers are never going to hire you.
Ava: Which brings it back to C.I.'s point. And Jim, you or someone is going to have to walk it through because you know the dance C.I. has to do, I don't mean that pejoratively, regarding this topic due to friends at CBS.
Jim: Okay, but then we're going to let Wally and Mike give the final words on all the books in this discussion since they won't be jumping in here. What's at the heart of Mapes' story?
C.I.: That a corporate parent needed a scapegoat. And that's a point that comes far too late in the book for anyone to give a damn. When she's raising the issue of the conversion to digital, the costs, a valid point, it shouldn't show up in the last third of the book.
Jim: CBS was concerned --
C.I.: And Viacom. We're talking corporate image.
Jim: Okay, that she would do a book along the lines of where the bodies are.
C.I.: Right and she didn't do that. She names one reporter for the Evening News who felt he knew everything about her story when he didn't. She is more probing of the panel. But it's written like someone who thinks CBS will welcome her back. Or maybe she's just too nice. But she's not working at CBS again short of a huge shake up or the memos being accepted, by the public, as real. One example. Julie Chen is the topic of soft press. People at CBS, especially the news department, are highly critical of Chen. Chen's married to Leslie Moonves. Now maybe Mapes was out of the circle on some perceptive criticism of Chen's abilities and work but that was a fear about this book. The most she offers is some slaps on the wrist. She gets off her Six Million Dollar Man joke about Moonves and that's really it. She speaks of the higher ups as higher ups and doesn't detail and address certain specific situations. That was CBS's fear, that they would be addressed. The whole tarmac episode is pointless. I don't mean because of the fact that Chen and Moonves were involved for years, while he was still married, but because she doesn't do anything with it. She sputters somer righteous indignation about Chen being a "news" person and hosting Big Brother but that's about it. The criticism goes much further and there's no way for me to believe that she's not aware of it.
Jim: And the book fails because?
C.I.: It fails because it's not selling. If you want your story heard enough to write a book, you need to write a book people will read. No one's concerned about the life story of Mary Mapes. I'm not trying to be rude here. They are concerned about what happened at CBS with regards to her reporting. You have to wade through too much. Someone sold her on the idea that the public had to know her. Again, she's supposed to be likeable and that comes through. But this wasn't a contest for Miss Congeality. This was an battle over the truth. And she doesn't present her case in a manner that gets to that. People at CBS who read it and spoke to me about it, didn't just breathe a sigh of relief, they were thrilled by the book. She took a serious issue and turned it into a personal story. They couldn't believe how naive she comes off. She's blaming the right wing bloggers as though they're the real issue. It takes forever in the book, almost the end of the book in fact, before she notes that these were independent voices. Bloggers didn't bring her down. What brought her down was the attack dogs of the Republican Party and Mapes can't or won't see that. But CBS is quite familiar with it. Bloggers didn't make anyone meet with Andrew Card in January of this year. A meeting she notes.
Elaine: And I can hear the frustration in C.I.'s voice so I'll leap in to give an example of where she seems hopefully off base. She offers, as apparent evidence that she's not someone of the left who just listens to the left, that she can enjoy the writing of P.J. Roarke and Maureen Dowd. Their writing styles aren't that different and Dowd's a critic of this administration but she's not the left voice so much as the contrarian voice. More importantly, and I can enjoy Dowd, she and Roarke both do things that should make an investigate journalist shake their heads in dismay.
Dona: Which is?
Elaine: If you're presenting yourself, and Mapes does, as someone who leaves politics aside when she's at the keyboard doing a story, I don't know that you cite people who aren't leaving issues aside in their writing as proof of your neutrality. I have no problem with anyone being partisan, but on my site, I'm not trying to write in a nonpartisan way. I grimaced when that popped up. There are investigative journalists, they should have been her examples. Instead she goes for op-ed writers.
Jim: Okay, and C.I. just say, "I'm not going to answer that" if it's something you feel like answering betrays something you were told.
C.I.: Or reveals. I don't think she realizes how revealing she was about people, at CBS and outside, who were supportive to her once the attacks started. She doesn't name them but her descriptions, there was no one that I didn't recognize. And Rebecca recognized two as well. If you're going to present someone as anonymous, you don't then provide the clue that's obvious.
For those who are still at CBS, they may feel especially burned. While she played softball with the bosses, they may feel especially burned. I don't think that was her intention.
Jim: The fear wasn't that she'd validate her original report, correct?
C.I.: Absolutely correct. They felt, those worried about the book, that she was so damaged on this topic, that if that were the focus, it was no problem. That it could, and she could, be easily dismissed based on the treatment she'd already received. I disagree with that. And the excerpts I was pushing for, from the back of the book, were the ones that went to the validity of her original report, that backed it up with further research since she's been fired. The worry was that she would provide a damning look at a culture inside CBS/Viacom. And she doesn't do that. She provides a sentence here or there. She also suffers from mistaken belief, genuine or not, that she was the first targeted. That is not true. CBS has been under attack for years. The bloggers were a new twist in the story but they're the same legion that Republicans have marshalled for years. Same type of attack dogs, just a different dog collar. She also wants to bring Bill Clinton into it. Why, I have no idea other than she wants to prove she's not partisan.
Her comments on Clinton, and I'm not a blind follower of Clinton's, reveal a serious lack of understanding from a news perspective. Jess mentioned Joe Conason earlier. Anyone who's read Conason or Robert Parry or any number of reporters on Clinton, is going to laugh at her attempts to appear nonpartisan.
Jim: Because?
Jess: She accepts the conventional wisdom. There were serious issues involved in the attacks on Clinton, and I'm not fan of Clinton -- Bill or Hillary, but to act as though a witch hunt didn't go on time after time is to be either unaware or lying. She had a chance to really say something and she failed. To say something about the news climate. I want to hear Betty because she enjoyed the book and some people will.
Betty: I just enjoyed that she told her story. I responded to that and found her anecdotes interesting. But what I responded to was the ones about her family or something funny. And I see the point that doing that, especially since the book's not storming the charts, isn't helping her at all.
C.I.: She's in the career toilet. She doesn't deserve to be there. But that's where she is. This book could have seriously addressed the national guard story and that could have helped her career. It could have seriously addressed the problems relating to what happened to her and set her up as a media critic. Instead, it's "This is the story of Mary Mapes." That's not reaching enough people to help her in any form. She needs to go to the lecture circuit and takes questions if she wants to make the points that need to be made. They aren't made in her book early enough to matter and, in some cases, they aren't made at all.
Jim: You said, "The issue is" during the break.
C.I.: The issue is that it's not that bloggers fired upon her. The issue is how CBS responded. That's what matters to journalism. I mean, here's an example of her should have been opening if she wanted to address the culture itself:
When a panel was created to evaluate a report I worked on, I cooperated thinking we would be operating from a pursuit of the truth. In short time, I learned that CBS had hired a private investigator to look into me. I learned that the man who presented himself as someone attempting to verify the story was actually invesigating to me. By the time the panel, composed of no working journalists, issued their report, I learned that despite claims of respecting journalistic traditions and promises to protect sources, sources would be revealed. That's what happened. Here's why.
C.I. (con't): Mapes is a better writer and can word that better than me off the top of my head and probably any other time. But that's at the heart of what happened. It's at the heart of embarrassment for CBS and outrage on the part of some at CBS over the way this was handled. These aren't issues that you raise after the 200 page mark. I'm guessing on the 2000, but it was well into the book. That's what embarrasses CBS/Viacom. That this "investigation," which wasn't an investigation, wasn't about reporting. Why it wasn't about reporting is the story that they didn't want told. That's a story she comes close to at times, but never really expands on.
Jim: Okay. Wally and Mike, tell us what books to read or avoid.
Wally: I'd avoid Mapes. I felt that way before the break. It's an interesting life but I wasn't interested in it. I'd grab any of the other three books and probably Parry first because I think you need the structure he presents if you're new to the topic.
Mike: My mother read Mapes and the book made her angry because she felt it went all over the place. Not the specific criticisms that C.I. and Rebecca have made. And I think Elaine as well. But she just felt it wandered all over and was a weak book. She bought it so I read her copy. She bought it when it came out and she was really interested in reading it. She eneded up really disappointed. So I'd say avoid Mapes because I didn't care for the book either. The other three are all worth it. I'd say start with Roy because she's eaiser to get into, or was for me. Then read Parry for the structure Wally talks about and then read FAIR. All great books.
Jim: And that does it for this week's book discussion.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
"Informe: Bush autorizó programa de NSA para vigilar conversaciones telefónicas y mensajes de correo electrónico" ("Democracy Now!")
"Informe: Bush autorizó programa de NSA para vigilar conversaciones telefónicas y mensajes de correo electrónico" ("Democracy Now!")
Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" diez cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.
Informe: Bush autorizó programa de NSA para vigilar conversaciones telefónicas y mensajes de correo electrónico
El "New York Times" informa que la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA por sus siglas en inglés) ha estado escuchando secretamente conversaciones de ciudadanos estadounidenses y extranjeros sin órdenes judiciales. Al amparo de una decisión del gobierno de Bush promulgada en 2002, la Agencia ha controlado las llamadas internacionales y mensajes de correo electrónico de posiblemente miles de personas dentro del país. La misión de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional es espiar las comunicaciones en el extranjero. Aunque los funcionarios dijeron que por lo menos dos posibles atentados habían sido descubiertos mediante este programa, la mayoría de las personas espiadas por la NSA nunca fueron acusadas de un crimen. El "Times" dice que retrasó la publicación del artículo luego de un pedido del gobierno de Bush, hace por lo menos un año. El "Times" también dice que, a pedido de la Casa Blanca, omitió cierta información que según funcionarios del gobierno podía ser útil para los terroristas. Esta información se dio a conocer dos días después de que NBC News reveló que el Pentágono ha llevado registros detallados sobre las actividades de los grupos en contra de la guerra de todo el país.
El Pentágono monitorea eventos contra la guerra en todo el país
Mientras tanto, NBC News informa que el Pentágono ha desarrollado una amplia vigilancia de actos y reuniones de grupos pacíficos contra la guerra en todo el país. Una base de datos de las Fuerzas Armadas obtenida por esa cadena de noticias enumera una lista de pequeñas reuniones y movilizaciones de activistas entre 1.500 "incidentes sospechosos" durante un período de 10 meses. En la lista figura una reunión en un local cuáquero de Lake North, Florida, para planificar una protesta contra el reclutamiento militar en institutos de enseñanza secundaria. En total, la base de datos contenía una lista de casi 50 reuniones y manifestaciones contra la guerra.
Investigación europea cita evidencia de secuestros e interpretaciones de la CIA
En Europa, una investigación oficial sobre la existencia de prisiones secretas de la CIA descubrió evidencia que, según se informó, confirma recientes acusaciones de que agentes estadounidenses secuestraron y transportaron a detenidos en el territorio europeo. En un informe provisorio presentado el martes, Dick Marty, el senador suizo que dirige la investigación para el Consejo de Europa, escribió: "La información reunida hasta la fecha refuerza la credibilidad de las acusaciones sobre el transporte y detención temporaria de detenidos, fuera de todo proceso judicial, en países europeos". Marty también criticó a la Secretaria de Estado Condoleezza Rice por no dar una explicación adecuada durante su visita a Europa la semana pasada. Marty dijo que había pedido a Rumania y a Polonia información específica sobre las acusaciones de que en esos países hay prisiones secretas. Ambos países negaron esta acusación. Marty dijo que cree que las prisiones secretas fueron clausuradas y trasladadas a África del Norte.
Activistas estadounidenses realizan vigilia fuera de prisión de Guantánamo
Un grupo de activistas estadounidenses comenzó una vigilia cerca de la prisión militar estadounidense en Bahía de Guantánamo. Integrantes del grupo Witness Against Torture (Testigo contra la Tortura) marcharon durante cinco días en Cuba hasta llegar a Guantánamo. Funcionarios militares rechazaron su solicitud de reunirse con alguno de los cerca de 500 prisioneros que están detenido sin acusación. Escuchamos a Frida Berrigan hablando fuera de Guantánamo: "Estamos ayunando, la mayoría de nosotros solamente ingiere agua. Algunas personas beben jugo. Quizá mediante el poder de la plegaria sentirán nuestra presencia, nuestra solidaridad. Al mismo tiempo llamamos a las personas de Estados Unidos a que soliciten al presidente Bush, a Donald Rumsfeld, que se comuniquen con la base en Guantánamo, para que nos dejen ingresar a visitar a los prisioneros, a visitar a los soldados, a los soldados estadounidenses que están aquí. Y para que abran este moderno corazón de la oscuridad a la luz del día y a la luz del escrutinio del mundo". Escuchábamos a Frida Berrigan de Witness Against Torture.
Encuesta: Más de dos tercios de los iraquíes se oponen a la presencia de soldados estadounidenses
En Irak, ABC News y la revista "Time" realizaron una encuesta nacional a los iraquíes antes de las elecciones de esta semana. La encuesta descubrió que más de dos tercios de los consultados se oponían a la presencia de soldados estadounidenses en Irak. Tan solo el 44 por ciento dijo sentir que el país está mejor ahora que antes de la guerra.
Pentágono acusado de enviar ataúdes en flete de aerolíneas comerciales
En otras noticias sobre la guerra de Irak, una familia de San Diego cuyo hijo murió en Irak, se quejó ante el Pentágono luego de enterarse de que las fuerzas armadas trasladaron el cuerpo de su hijo a California en un flete de una aerolínea comercial. El ataúd de Matthew Holley, que murió en Irak el mes pasado, habría sido colocado en la bodega de un avión, junto con maletas y otra carga.
Informe: 20.000 soldados hospitalizados luego de recibir vacuna de ántrax
En otras noticias militares, una investigación realizada por "Daily Press" de Virginia, reveló que 20.000 soldados fueron hospitalizados en los últimos años luego de que se les inyectara una vacuna de ántrax. El diario acusó al Pentágono de haber mentido públicamente acerca de la cantidad de soldados que requerían ser hospitalizados para persuadir al Congreso y a la opinión pública de que la vacuna era segura. "Daily Press" también reveló que al menos tres soldados contrajeron la fatal enfermedad de Lou Gehrig luego de recibir la vacuna
Conversaciones de la OMC paralizadas en Hong Kong
En Hong Kong, divisiones considerables entre los países industrializados y los países en desarrollo, en la Conferencia Ministerial de la Organización Mundial de Comercio, reducen las expectativas de lograr acuerdos significativos antes de que terminen las conversaciones el domingo.El Comisario de Comercio de la Union Europea, Peter Mandelson, dijo: "Es difícil ver cómo puede lograrse un progreso en Hong Kong si las conversaciones continúan en la dirección que van. No quiero pensar en un fracaso en Hong Kong, por lo mucho que está en juego. De todos modos, no veo que sentido tendría un resultado que simplemente se encierre en una ambición escasa, disminuya los beneficios para los países en desarrollo y no abarque nuestras responsabilidades con la economía mundial".
Los negociadores se estancaron en una serie de asuntos clave de comercio. El jueves, el Grupo de los 77, coalición de 132 países africanos, del Pacífico y caribeños del Tercer Mundo, anunció que rechazará cualquier acuerdo que elimine la protección de sus granjeros y el acceso a los mercados extranjeros. Otro grupo de países en desarrollo, el Grupo de los 20, que representa a la mitad de la población mundial, acusa a Estados Unidos y a la Unión Europea de retrasar las conversaciones al negarse a recortar los subsidios estatales a la agricultura.
Mientras tanto, fuera de el encuentro, miles de manifestantes se siguen haciendo escuchar.
Alison Woodhead, de Oxfam, dijo: "En teoría, el sistema debería funcionar, pero hoy en día es manipulado a favor de los países más ricos. Los países ricos se benefician de las normas del acuerdo tal y como están. Pueden proteger sus propios mercados y destruir los mercados de los países más pobres".
Miembros del Congreso exhortan a Bush a que presione por la liberación del sacerdote Jean-Juste
Y seis miembros del Congreso enviaron una carta al presidente Bush exhortando al gobierno estadounidense a que exija la liberación del sacerdote haitiano Gerard Jean-Juste, que se encuentra en prisión. Antes de su encarcelamiento en julio, se pensaba que Jean-Juste sería el principal candidato de Familia Lavalas, el partido del presidente derrocado Jean Bertrand Aristide, si esa fuerza política se presentaba en las próximas elecciones de Haití. Amnistía Internacional lo declaró "prisionero de conciencia". Un médico estadounidense que lo revisó en prisión informó que Jean-Juste tenía síntomas de varias enfermedades graves, entre ellas cáncer. En la carta, los congresistas, entre ellos la demócrata de California Maxine Waters, le escribieron a Bush: "Su acción en este momento crítico podría salvar la vida de este gentil sacerdote".
Informe: El gobierno rechaza más de 77 mil solicitudes de préstamos para vivienda de evacuados por Katrina
En Estados Unidos, el "New York Times" informa que el gobierno negó préstamos a decenas de miles de familias de la costa del Golfo de México para reconstruir sus hogares perdidos o dañados debido al huracán Katrina. Según el "Times", la Administración de Pequeñas Empresas, el organismo federal a cargo del principal programa de recuperación de empresas y propietarios tras el desastre, procesó sólo un tercio de las 276 mil solicitudes de préstamos recibidas. El gobierno rechazó el 82 por ciento de las solicitudes de préstamos para vivienda que fueron analizadas, en total más de 77 mil solicitudes. En Nueva Orleans, parece que el otorgamiento de préstamos es mucho mayor para las áreas ricas de la ciudad que para las pobres. Herbert Mitchell, director del programa de asistencia tras el desastre de la Administración de Pequeñas Empresas, dijo al "Times" que el gobierno no puede arriesgar el dinero de los contribuyentes otorgándole préstamos a personas de bajos ingresos o que tengan una historia crediticia pobre. Mitchell dijo: "Simplemente nos manejamos con los datos demográficos de la zona".
Maria: Now in English, here are twelve headlines fom Democracy Now! Remember that the headlines are provided daily in English and Spanish and please get the word out. Peace.
Report: Bush-Enacted NSA Program Monitors Phone Conversations, E-Mails
The New York Times is reporting the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals without court-approved warrants. Under a Bush administration directive enacted in 2002, the agency has monitored the international phone calls and e-mails of hundreds, and possibly thousands of people inside the country. The National Security Agency’s mission is to spy on communications abroad. Although officials said the program had helped thwart at least two potential attacks, most people monitored by the N.S.A. have never been charged with a crime.The Times says it delayed publishing details of the program after a request from the Bush administration at least one year ago. At the request of the White House, the Times also says it has omitted information administration officials said could be useful to terrorists. The disclosure comes two days after NBC News revealed the Pentagon has kept detailed records on the events and meetings of anti-war groups across the country.
Pentagon Monitoring Anti-War Events Across the Country
Meanwhile, NBC News is reporting the Pentagon has been extensively monitoring the events and gatherings of peaceful anti-war groups across the country. A military database obtained by the network lists small activist meetings and events among 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a 10-month period. The events included a gathering at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Florida, to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. In total, the database listed over four dozen anti-war meetings or protests.
European Investigation Finds Evidence of CIA Abductions
In Europe, an investigation into the existence of secret CIA prisons has found evidence that reportedly bolsters recent allegations U.S. operatives kidnapped and transferred detainees on European soil. In an interim report submitted Tuesday, Dick Marty, the Swiss parliamentarian heading the investigation for the Council of Europe, wrote : "the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees -- outside all judicial procedure -- in European countries." Marty also criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for not giving an adequate explanation during a visit to Europe last week.Marty said he has asked Romania and Poland for specific information concerning allegations the countries played host to the secret prisons. Both countries have denied this charge. Marty said he believes the secret prisons have been shut down and moved to North Africa.
U.S. Activists Hold Vigil Outside Guantanamo
A group of U.S. activists have begun a vigil near the gates of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Members of the group Witness Against Torture walked for five days across Cuba to reach Guantanmo. Military officials rejected their request to meet with any of the 500 or so prisoners who are being held without charges.Peace activist Frida Berrigan: "We're fasting, most of us fasting just on water. Some people drinking some juice. Fasting and praying, and hoping that our intentions reach the prisoners. That somehow through the power of prayer, they will feel our presence, feel our solidarity. At the same time we're calling on people in the United States to call President Bush, to call Donald Rumsfeld, to get in touch with the base here in Guatanamo, so that we might be let in to visit the prisoners, to visit the soldiers, American soldiers here. And to open up this modern heart of darkness to the light of day and to the light of world scrutiny."
Poll: More Than 2/3 of Iraqis Oppose U.S. Troops
In Iraq, ABC News and Time Magazine have conducted a nationwide poll of Iraqis ahead of this week's elections. It found that more than two thirds of those surveyed oppose the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Only 44 percent of the country feels the country is better off now that it was before the war.
Pentagon Accused of Shipping Coffins in Freight in Commercial Airlines
In other news on the Iraq war - a San Diego family whose son died in Iraq has complained to the Pentagon after it learned that the military transported their son's body to California as freight on a commercial airline. The coffin of Matthew Holley who died in Iraq last month was reportedly stuffed in the belly of a plane along with suitcases and other cargo.
Report: 20,000 Soldiers Hospitalized After Anthrax Vaccine
In other military news - an investigation by the Daily Press of Virginia has revealed that 20,000 soldiers have been hospitalized in recent years after receiving an anthrax vaccine. The paper accused the Pentagon of publicly low-balling the number of troops that required hospitalization in order to persuade Congress and the public that the vaccine was safe. The Daily Press also revealed that at least three soldiers developed the fatal Lou Gehrig's disease after receiving the vaccine.
WTO Talks At Standstill in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, considerable divisions between industrialized and developing countries at the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization are lowering expectations for significant agreements before talks end Sunday.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson: "It is hard to see where progress can be achieved in Hong Kong if talks continue in their present direction. I do not want to contemplate failure at Hong Kong. So much is at stake. Equally, I see no point in an outcome here that simply locks in low ambition, diminishes benefits for developing countries and falls short of our responsibilities to the global economy."
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. Negotiations have stalled on a number of key trade issues. On Thursday, the Group of 77 -- the coalition of 132 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the Third World -- announced they would reject any deal that eliminates protections for their farmers and access to foreign markets. Another group of developing nations, the Group of 20 -- which represents half the world’s population -- accused the US and European Union of holding up talks by refusing to cut state agricultural subsidies.Meanwhile, outside the meetings, thousands of protesters continue to make their voices heard.Oxfam's Alison Woodhead: "The system in theory should work, but at the moment it's rigged in favour of the richest countries. The rich countries benefit from the trade rules as they exist at the moment. They're able to protect their own markets and destroy the markets of poorer countries."
Congressmembers Press for Release of Rev. Jean-Juste
And six members of Congress have sent a letter to President Bush urging the US government to demand the release of jailed Haitian priest Gerard Jean-Juste. Before his imprisonment in July, Jean-Juste was considered to be the leading candidate for the Family Lavalas -- the party of ousted Presdient Jean Bertrand Aristide -- were it to run in Haiti's upcoming elections. Amnesty International has called him a "prisoner of conscience." An American medical doctor who examined him in prison two weeks ago reported Jean-Juste has displayed symptoms of a number of serious medical conditions, including cancer. In the letter, the congressmembers, including California Democrat Maxine Waters, write Bush: "Your action at this critical time could save the life of this gentle priest."
Over 77,000 Katrina Home Loan Applications Rejected
In this country, the New York Times is reporting hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast families are being denied government loans to rebuild homes lost or damaged in Hurricane Katrina. According to the Times, the Small Business Administration -- the federal agency in charge of the main disaster recovery program for businesses and homeowners -- has processed only a third of the 276,000 loan applications it has received. Of those that have been reviewed, the government has rejected 82 percent of home loan applications – over 77,000 rejections. In New Orleans, approved loans appear to be heavily tilted towards wealthy neighborhoods over poor ones. Herbert Mitchell, director of the Small Business Administration’s disaster assistance program, told the Times the government could not risk taxpayer money by lending to people with low incomes or poor credit history. Mitchell said: "We're just dealing with the demographics in the area."
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Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" diez cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.
Informe: Bush autorizó programa de NSA para vigilar conversaciones telefónicas y mensajes de correo electrónico
El "New York Times" informa que la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA por sus siglas en inglés) ha estado escuchando secretamente conversaciones de ciudadanos estadounidenses y extranjeros sin órdenes judiciales. Al amparo de una decisión del gobierno de Bush promulgada en 2002, la Agencia ha controlado las llamadas internacionales y mensajes de correo electrónico de posiblemente miles de personas dentro del país. La misión de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional es espiar las comunicaciones en el extranjero. Aunque los funcionarios dijeron que por lo menos dos posibles atentados habían sido descubiertos mediante este programa, la mayoría de las personas espiadas por la NSA nunca fueron acusadas de un crimen. El "Times" dice que retrasó la publicación del artículo luego de un pedido del gobierno de Bush, hace por lo menos un año. El "Times" también dice que, a pedido de la Casa Blanca, omitió cierta información que según funcionarios del gobierno podía ser útil para los terroristas. Esta información se dio a conocer dos días después de que NBC News reveló que el Pentágono ha llevado registros detallados sobre las actividades de los grupos en contra de la guerra de todo el país.
El Pentágono monitorea eventos contra la guerra en todo el país
Mientras tanto, NBC News informa que el Pentágono ha desarrollado una amplia vigilancia de actos y reuniones de grupos pacíficos contra la guerra en todo el país. Una base de datos de las Fuerzas Armadas obtenida por esa cadena de noticias enumera una lista de pequeñas reuniones y movilizaciones de activistas entre 1.500 "incidentes sospechosos" durante un período de 10 meses. En la lista figura una reunión en un local cuáquero de Lake North, Florida, para planificar una protesta contra el reclutamiento militar en institutos de enseñanza secundaria. En total, la base de datos contenía una lista de casi 50 reuniones y manifestaciones contra la guerra.
Investigación europea cita evidencia de secuestros e interpretaciones de la CIA
En Europa, una investigación oficial sobre la existencia de prisiones secretas de la CIA descubrió evidencia que, según se informó, confirma recientes acusaciones de que agentes estadounidenses secuestraron y transportaron a detenidos en el territorio europeo. En un informe provisorio presentado el martes, Dick Marty, el senador suizo que dirige la investigación para el Consejo de Europa, escribió: "La información reunida hasta la fecha refuerza la credibilidad de las acusaciones sobre el transporte y detención temporaria de detenidos, fuera de todo proceso judicial, en países europeos". Marty también criticó a la Secretaria de Estado Condoleezza Rice por no dar una explicación adecuada durante su visita a Europa la semana pasada. Marty dijo que había pedido a Rumania y a Polonia información específica sobre las acusaciones de que en esos países hay prisiones secretas. Ambos países negaron esta acusación. Marty dijo que cree que las prisiones secretas fueron clausuradas y trasladadas a África del Norte.
Activistas estadounidenses realizan vigilia fuera de prisión de Guantánamo
Un grupo de activistas estadounidenses comenzó una vigilia cerca de la prisión militar estadounidense en Bahía de Guantánamo. Integrantes del grupo Witness Against Torture (Testigo contra la Tortura) marcharon durante cinco días en Cuba hasta llegar a Guantánamo. Funcionarios militares rechazaron su solicitud de reunirse con alguno de los cerca de 500 prisioneros que están detenido sin acusación. Escuchamos a Frida Berrigan hablando fuera de Guantánamo: "Estamos ayunando, la mayoría de nosotros solamente ingiere agua. Algunas personas beben jugo. Quizá mediante el poder de la plegaria sentirán nuestra presencia, nuestra solidaridad. Al mismo tiempo llamamos a las personas de Estados Unidos a que soliciten al presidente Bush, a Donald Rumsfeld, que se comuniquen con la base en Guantánamo, para que nos dejen ingresar a visitar a los prisioneros, a visitar a los soldados, a los soldados estadounidenses que están aquí. Y para que abran este moderno corazón de la oscuridad a la luz del día y a la luz del escrutinio del mundo". Escuchábamos a Frida Berrigan de Witness Against Torture.
Encuesta: Más de dos tercios de los iraquíes se oponen a la presencia de soldados estadounidenses
En Irak, ABC News y la revista "Time" realizaron una encuesta nacional a los iraquíes antes de las elecciones de esta semana. La encuesta descubrió que más de dos tercios de los consultados se oponían a la presencia de soldados estadounidenses en Irak. Tan solo el 44 por ciento dijo sentir que el país está mejor ahora que antes de la guerra.
Pentágono acusado de enviar ataúdes en flete de aerolíneas comerciales
En otras noticias sobre la guerra de Irak, una familia de San Diego cuyo hijo murió en Irak, se quejó ante el Pentágono luego de enterarse de que las fuerzas armadas trasladaron el cuerpo de su hijo a California en un flete de una aerolínea comercial. El ataúd de Matthew Holley, que murió en Irak el mes pasado, habría sido colocado en la bodega de un avión, junto con maletas y otra carga.
Informe: 20.000 soldados hospitalizados luego de recibir vacuna de ántrax
En otras noticias militares, una investigación realizada por "Daily Press" de Virginia, reveló que 20.000 soldados fueron hospitalizados en los últimos años luego de que se les inyectara una vacuna de ántrax. El diario acusó al Pentágono de haber mentido públicamente acerca de la cantidad de soldados que requerían ser hospitalizados para persuadir al Congreso y a la opinión pública de que la vacuna era segura. "Daily Press" también reveló que al menos tres soldados contrajeron la fatal enfermedad de Lou Gehrig luego de recibir la vacuna
Conversaciones de la OMC paralizadas en Hong Kong
En Hong Kong, divisiones considerables entre los países industrializados y los países en desarrollo, en la Conferencia Ministerial de la Organización Mundial de Comercio, reducen las expectativas de lograr acuerdos significativos antes de que terminen las conversaciones el domingo.El Comisario de Comercio de la Union Europea, Peter Mandelson, dijo: "Es difícil ver cómo puede lograrse un progreso en Hong Kong si las conversaciones continúan en la dirección que van. No quiero pensar en un fracaso en Hong Kong, por lo mucho que está en juego. De todos modos, no veo que sentido tendría un resultado que simplemente se encierre en una ambición escasa, disminuya los beneficios para los países en desarrollo y no abarque nuestras responsabilidades con la economía mundial".
Los negociadores se estancaron en una serie de asuntos clave de comercio. El jueves, el Grupo de los 77, coalición de 132 países africanos, del Pacífico y caribeños del Tercer Mundo, anunció que rechazará cualquier acuerdo que elimine la protección de sus granjeros y el acceso a los mercados extranjeros. Otro grupo de países en desarrollo, el Grupo de los 20, que representa a la mitad de la población mundial, acusa a Estados Unidos y a la Unión Europea de retrasar las conversaciones al negarse a recortar los subsidios estatales a la agricultura.
Mientras tanto, fuera de el encuentro, miles de manifestantes se siguen haciendo escuchar.
Alison Woodhead, de Oxfam, dijo: "En teoría, el sistema debería funcionar, pero hoy en día es manipulado a favor de los países más ricos. Los países ricos se benefician de las normas del acuerdo tal y como están. Pueden proteger sus propios mercados y destruir los mercados de los países más pobres".
Miembros del Congreso exhortan a Bush a que presione por la liberación del sacerdote Jean-Juste
Y seis miembros del Congreso enviaron una carta al presidente Bush exhortando al gobierno estadounidense a que exija la liberación del sacerdote haitiano Gerard Jean-Juste, que se encuentra en prisión. Antes de su encarcelamiento en julio, se pensaba que Jean-Juste sería el principal candidato de Familia Lavalas, el partido del presidente derrocado Jean Bertrand Aristide, si esa fuerza política se presentaba en las próximas elecciones de Haití. Amnistía Internacional lo declaró "prisionero de conciencia". Un médico estadounidense que lo revisó en prisión informó que Jean-Juste tenía síntomas de varias enfermedades graves, entre ellas cáncer. En la carta, los congresistas, entre ellos la demócrata de California Maxine Waters, le escribieron a Bush: "Su acción en este momento crítico podría salvar la vida de este gentil sacerdote".
Informe: El gobierno rechaza más de 77 mil solicitudes de préstamos para vivienda de evacuados por Katrina
En Estados Unidos, el "New York Times" informa que el gobierno negó préstamos a decenas de miles de familias de la costa del Golfo de México para reconstruir sus hogares perdidos o dañados debido al huracán Katrina. Según el "Times", la Administración de Pequeñas Empresas, el organismo federal a cargo del principal programa de recuperación de empresas y propietarios tras el desastre, procesó sólo un tercio de las 276 mil solicitudes de préstamos recibidas. El gobierno rechazó el 82 por ciento de las solicitudes de préstamos para vivienda que fueron analizadas, en total más de 77 mil solicitudes. En Nueva Orleans, parece que el otorgamiento de préstamos es mucho mayor para las áreas ricas de la ciudad que para las pobres. Herbert Mitchell, director del programa de asistencia tras el desastre de la Administración de Pequeñas Empresas, dijo al "Times" que el gobierno no puede arriesgar el dinero de los contribuyentes otorgándole préstamos a personas de bajos ingresos o que tengan una historia crediticia pobre. Mitchell dijo: "Simplemente nos manejamos con los datos demográficos de la zona".
Maria: Now in English, here are twelve headlines fom Democracy Now! Remember that the headlines are provided daily in English and Spanish and please get the word out. Peace.
Report: Bush-Enacted NSA Program Monitors Phone Conversations, E-Mails
The New York Times is reporting the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals without court-approved warrants. Under a Bush administration directive enacted in 2002, the agency has monitored the international phone calls and e-mails of hundreds, and possibly thousands of people inside the country. The National Security Agency’s mission is to spy on communications abroad. Although officials said the program had helped thwart at least two potential attacks, most people monitored by the N.S.A. have never been charged with a crime.The Times says it delayed publishing details of the program after a request from the Bush administration at least one year ago. At the request of the White House, the Times also says it has omitted information administration officials said could be useful to terrorists. The disclosure comes two days after NBC News revealed the Pentagon has kept detailed records on the events and meetings of anti-war groups across the country.
Pentagon Monitoring Anti-War Events Across the Country
Meanwhile, NBC News is reporting the Pentagon has been extensively monitoring the events and gatherings of peaceful anti-war groups across the country. A military database obtained by the network lists small activist meetings and events among 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a 10-month period. The events included a gathering at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Florida, to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. In total, the database listed over four dozen anti-war meetings or protests.
European Investigation Finds Evidence of CIA Abductions
In Europe, an investigation into the existence of secret CIA prisons has found evidence that reportedly bolsters recent allegations U.S. operatives kidnapped and transferred detainees on European soil. In an interim report submitted Tuesday, Dick Marty, the Swiss parliamentarian heading the investigation for the Council of Europe, wrote : "the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees -- outside all judicial procedure -- in European countries." Marty also criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for not giving an adequate explanation during a visit to Europe last week.Marty said he has asked Romania and Poland for specific information concerning allegations the countries played host to the secret prisons. Both countries have denied this charge. Marty said he believes the secret prisons have been shut down and moved to North Africa.
U.S. Activists Hold Vigil Outside Guantanamo
A group of U.S. activists have begun a vigil near the gates of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Members of the group Witness Against Torture walked for five days across Cuba to reach Guantanmo. Military officials rejected their request to meet with any of the 500 or so prisoners who are being held without charges.Peace activist Frida Berrigan: "We're fasting, most of us fasting just on water. Some people drinking some juice. Fasting and praying, and hoping that our intentions reach the prisoners. That somehow through the power of prayer, they will feel our presence, feel our solidarity. At the same time we're calling on people in the United States to call President Bush, to call Donald Rumsfeld, to get in touch with the base here in Guatanamo, so that we might be let in to visit the prisoners, to visit the soldiers, American soldiers here. And to open up this modern heart of darkness to the light of day and to the light of world scrutiny."
Poll: More Than 2/3 of Iraqis Oppose U.S. Troops
In Iraq, ABC News and Time Magazine have conducted a nationwide poll of Iraqis ahead of this week's elections. It found that more than two thirds of those surveyed oppose the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Only 44 percent of the country feels the country is better off now that it was before the war.
Pentagon Accused of Shipping Coffins in Freight in Commercial Airlines
In other news on the Iraq war - a San Diego family whose son died in Iraq has complained to the Pentagon after it learned that the military transported their son's body to California as freight on a commercial airline. The coffin of Matthew Holley who died in Iraq last month was reportedly stuffed in the belly of a plane along with suitcases and other cargo.
Report: 20,000 Soldiers Hospitalized After Anthrax Vaccine
In other military news - an investigation by the Daily Press of Virginia has revealed that 20,000 soldiers have been hospitalized in recent years after receiving an anthrax vaccine. The paper accused the Pentagon of publicly low-balling the number of troops that required hospitalization in order to persuade Congress and the public that the vaccine was safe. The Daily Press also revealed that at least three soldiers developed the fatal Lou Gehrig's disease after receiving the vaccine.
WTO Talks At Standstill in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, considerable divisions between industrialized and developing countries at the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization are lowering expectations for significant agreements before talks end Sunday.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson: "It is hard to see where progress can be achieved in Hong Kong if talks continue in their present direction. I do not want to contemplate failure at Hong Kong. So much is at stake. Equally, I see no point in an outcome here that simply locks in low ambition, diminishes benefits for developing countries and falls short of our responsibilities to the global economy."
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. Negotiations have stalled on a number of key trade issues. On Thursday, the Group of 77 -- the coalition of 132 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the Third World -- announced they would reject any deal that eliminates protections for their farmers and access to foreign markets. Another group of developing nations, the Group of 20 -- which represents half the world’s population -- accused the US and European Union of holding up talks by refusing to cut state agricultural subsidies.Meanwhile, outside the meetings, thousands of protesters continue to make their voices heard.Oxfam's Alison Woodhead: "The system in theory should work, but at the moment it's rigged in favour of the richest countries. The rich countries benefit from the trade rules as they exist at the moment. They're able to protect their own markets and destroy the markets of poorer countries."
Congressmembers Press for Release of Rev. Jean-Juste
And six members of Congress have sent a letter to President Bush urging the US government to demand the release of jailed Haitian priest Gerard Jean-Juste. Before his imprisonment in July, Jean-Juste was considered to be the leading candidate for the Family Lavalas -- the party of ousted Presdient Jean Bertrand Aristide -- were it to run in Haiti's upcoming elections. Amnesty International has called him a "prisoner of conscience." An American medical doctor who examined him in prison two weeks ago reported Jean-Juste has displayed symptoms of a number of serious medical conditions, including cancer. In the letter, the congressmembers, including California Democrat Maxine Waters, write Bush: "Your action at this critical time could save the life of this gentle priest."
Over 77,000 Katrina Home Loan Applications Rejected
In this country, the New York Times is reporting hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast families are being denied government loans to rebuild homes lost or damaged in Hurricane Katrina. According to the Times, the Small Business Administration -- the federal agency in charge of the main disaster recovery program for businesses and homeowners -- has processed only a third of the 276,000 loan applications it has received. Of those that have been reviewed, the government has rejected 82 percent of home loan applications – over 77,000 rejections. In New Orleans, approved loans appear to be heavily tilted towards wealthy neighborhoods over poor ones. Herbert Mitchell, director of the Small Business Administration’s disaster assistance program, told the Times the government could not risk taxpayer money by lending to people with low incomes or poor credit history. Mitchell said: "We're just dealing with the demographics in the area."
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Blog Spotlight: Rebecca on Goldie, Ruth and Robert Parry
Rebecca was on a hot streak this week and we pretty much wanted to post everyone of her entries. But C.I. made the case for this one because it spotlights one of Rebecca's readers, it's a young voice and their accomplishments need to be recognized, and the young woman spoke truth this week when others regularly take a pass. With that kind of an argument, we were all on board.
That said, if you don't regularly read Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, you're missing a lot including a very strong week for Rebecca. As Rebecca notes, we have a book by Robert Parry in this week's book discussion.
"goldie and ruth and robert parry"
it's the weekend. i'm here. i'm not sure what to think of saturday blogging. i intended to do it 2 saturdays and then determine what i wanted to do.
i'm going to go ahead and carry it through the month and then decide.
with the reach out i'm doing to attempt to stop the confirmation of alito, there are honestly evenings when i'm too tired. and after 3 or so hours talking about alito, the last thing i want to do is write about him.
(though note, my position on alito is known. i don't shy from expressing it.)
i'm going to note robert parry's "Is Bush Leveling With America?:"
George W. Bush is winning praise from the major U.S. news media for finally leveling with the American people about the difficulties in Iraq. But Bush is still making many of the same false or fuzzy assertions that guided the United States through the first 1,000 days of war.
By refusing to correct or discard these fallacies in four recent speeches and in other comments on Iraq, Bush seems to be holding to an unrealistic course that will lead to an ever-lengthening list of dead American soldiers and Iraqis.
For instance, one of Bush’s favorite arguments continues to be that the U.S. invasion was justified by the goal of imposing democracy on Iraq because "democracies are peaceful countries" -- and, therefore, presumably an Iraq with democratic institutions should become peaceful.The internal contradiction of this rationale -- from the leader of "the world’s preeminent democracy" which invaded Iraq in 2003 under false premises -- goes unnoticed by the U.S. press corps even though it watched the invasion unfold. In an Orwellian fashion, the news media accepts that Bush’s going to war was evidence of his peaceful intent.
Bush’s notion that democracies are intrinsically "peaceful" is also not supported by history. Democracies as diverse as the United States, France, Great Britain and India have fought wars against neighbors, in colonial possessions or in nations far away -- Vietnam, Mexico, Algeria, South Africa, the Philippines, Cuba and Kashmir, to name a few.
The United States and other powerful democracies also have supported proxy wars in even a longer list of countries. U.S. interventions of various types have touched nearly every country in Latin America and many of the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
War Hysteria Democracies also have shown themselves to be no more immune from war fever than autocratic states, as was demonstrated by the war hysteria that swept the United States in late 2002 and early 2003.
As Bush's supporters poured French wine into gutters and ran trucks over Dixie Chicks CDs, the U.S. political debate was drowned out by full-throated calls for invading Iraq. Skeptics were largely silenced, often excluded from the major media. Constitutional checks and balances did nothing to slow Bush’s rush to war.
consider that your set up to tomorrow's third estate sunday review because 1 of the books we are going to be discussing is robert parry's fooling america.that is an important book to me. it's 1 that i've given to friends over the years at christmas time. (i've also given robert parry's other books and enjoy them all but i think this book is overlooked in terms of the other books he's written because when i meet people who've read parry, more often than not, they've never heard of this book.)
the holidays are upon us and many people will gather for new year's eve. when you're around people, i hope you're discussing things that matter. i know my high school readers are taking these conversations into their class rooms. i am glad and i am proud.goldie e-mailed. she's 15. she's a regular reader. and she's either enjoying her winter break or about to be. she said she takes the issues raised by all of us in the common ills community to her classes. she takes them into the hallways on breaks. she takes them to lunch period.goldie wrote that i encourage her. no, goldie, you encourage me. you fill with me awe. you're carrying your weight and then some at a time when so many adults are acting like children, you've got a little more on your mind than junk.
goldie credits her mother with getting her to care about the world. she writes that her mother 'is an inspiration' and she must be to have raised such a wonderful, caring and committed young woman.
goldie read what c.i. wrote about talking about the war this week and making it an issue with the people around her and she wanted to comment on it but writes that she wasn't sure she'd sound smart enough.
goldie is more than smart enough and i'll share her comments here. i already shared them with c.i. over the phone this morning and c.i. echoes that goldie, so don't hesitate to share.
1) 'i am already bringing up the war on a regular basis and i read that and thought, "i'm doing all i can do." i was wrong. the plea or challenge forced me to leave the usual groups of people and raise the issue with others. i am really glad i did. a year ago, there was a group of kids in my school that i totally wrote off thinking they just didn't get it. a year ago that was true but today it is not.'
2) 'with people who still do not get it, after i raised the issue with them, i felt good about myself. maybe they haven't been forced to think about but i raised that issue and if they shot me down, some did, they had to deal with the issue for that moment.'
3) 'i had no idea that the mood in my school was so against the war. i told you i read the common ills religiously and that i'm kind of intimidated. my mouth dropped when a girl told me she was so glad i was talking to her about the war because she heard me talking about it in classes all the time and always wanted to say something to me but felt like she wasn't "smart" like me. she is very smart and the sharing we did was probably the best conversation i had. i also ended up with a new friend.'
i hope others talked about the war this week. if you're some 1 like goldie who raises the issue regularly, i hope that, like goldie, you found a way to do even more this week.
we really need to be using our power.
bully boy is addressing the nation tomorrow.
aren't we honored? don't we feel lucky?
he's only speaking because there is shock over his authorizing the nsa to spy on americans. he's in damage control.
but people are waking up to reality.i want to note ruth's morning edition report because it is as a must read as always. i love ruth. she's compared me to her friend treva before and i take that as a huge compliment.
That said, if you don't regularly read Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, you're missing a lot including a very strong week for Rebecca. As Rebecca notes, we have a book by Robert Parry in this week's book discussion.
"goldie and ruth and robert parry"
it's the weekend. i'm here. i'm not sure what to think of saturday blogging. i intended to do it 2 saturdays and then determine what i wanted to do.
i'm going to go ahead and carry it through the month and then decide.
with the reach out i'm doing to attempt to stop the confirmation of alito, there are honestly evenings when i'm too tired. and after 3 or so hours talking about alito, the last thing i want to do is write about him.
(though note, my position on alito is known. i don't shy from expressing it.)
i'm going to note robert parry's "Is Bush Leveling With America?:"
George W. Bush is winning praise from the major U.S. news media for finally leveling with the American people about the difficulties in Iraq. But Bush is still making many of the same false or fuzzy assertions that guided the United States through the first 1,000 days of war.
By refusing to correct or discard these fallacies in four recent speeches and in other comments on Iraq, Bush seems to be holding to an unrealistic course that will lead to an ever-lengthening list of dead American soldiers and Iraqis.
For instance, one of Bush’s favorite arguments continues to be that the U.S. invasion was justified by the goal of imposing democracy on Iraq because "democracies are peaceful countries" -- and, therefore, presumably an Iraq with democratic institutions should become peaceful.The internal contradiction of this rationale -- from the leader of "the world’s preeminent democracy" which invaded Iraq in 2003 under false premises -- goes unnoticed by the U.S. press corps even though it watched the invasion unfold. In an Orwellian fashion, the news media accepts that Bush’s going to war was evidence of his peaceful intent.
Bush’s notion that democracies are intrinsically "peaceful" is also not supported by history. Democracies as diverse as the United States, France, Great Britain and India have fought wars against neighbors, in colonial possessions or in nations far away -- Vietnam, Mexico, Algeria, South Africa, the Philippines, Cuba and Kashmir, to name a few.
The United States and other powerful democracies also have supported proxy wars in even a longer list of countries. U.S. interventions of various types have touched nearly every country in Latin America and many of the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
War Hysteria Democracies also have shown themselves to be no more immune from war fever than autocratic states, as was demonstrated by the war hysteria that swept the United States in late 2002 and early 2003.
As Bush's supporters poured French wine into gutters and ran trucks over Dixie Chicks CDs, the U.S. political debate was drowned out by full-throated calls for invading Iraq. Skeptics were largely silenced, often excluded from the major media. Constitutional checks and balances did nothing to slow Bush’s rush to war.
consider that your set up to tomorrow's third estate sunday review because 1 of the books we are going to be discussing is robert parry's fooling america.that is an important book to me. it's 1 that i've given to friends over the years at christmas time. (i've also given robert parry's other books and enjoy them all but i think this book is overlooked in terms of the other books he's written because when i meet people who've read parry, more often than not, they've never heard of this book.)
the holidays are upon us and many people will gather for new year's eve. when you're around people, i hope you're discussing things that matter. i know my high school readers are taking these conversations into their class rooms. i am glad and i am proud.goldie e-mailed. she's 15. she's a regular reader. and she's either enjoying her winter break or about to be. she said she takes the issues raised by all of us in the common ills community to her classes. she takes them into the hallways on breaks. she takes them to lunch period.goldie wrote that i encourage her. no, goldie, you encourage me. you fill with me awe. you're carrying your weight and then some at a time when so many adults are acting like children, you've got a little more on your mind than junk.
goldie credits her mother with getting her to care about the world. she writes that her mother 'is an inspiration' and she must be to have raised such a wonderful, caring and committed young woman.
goldie read what c.i. wrote about talking about the war this week and making it an issue with the people around her and she wanted to comment on it but writes that she wasn't sure she'd sound smart enough.
goldie is more than smart enough and i'll share her comments here. i already shared them with c.i. over the phone this morning and c.i. echoes that goldie, so don't hesitate to share.
1) 'i am already bringing up the war on a regular basis and i read that and thought, "i'm doing all i can do." i was wrong. the plea or challenge forced me to leave the usual groups of people and raise the issue with others. i am really glad i did. a year ago, there was a group of kids in my school that i totally wrote off thinking they just didn't get it. a year ago that was true but today it is not.'
2) 'with people who still do not get it, after i raised the issue with them, i felt good about myself. maybe they haven't been forced to think about but i raised that issue and if they shot me down, some did, they had to deal with the issue for that moment.'
3) 'i had no idea that the mood in my school was so against the war. i told you i read the common ills religiously and that i'm kind of intimidated. my mouth dropped when a girl told me she was so glad i was talking to her about the war because she heard me talking about it in classes all the time and always wanted to say something to me but felt like she wasn't "smart" like me. she is very smart and the sharing we did was probably the best conversation i had. i also ended up with a new friend.'
i hope others talked about the war this week. if you're some 1 like goldie who raises the issue regularly, i hope that, like goldie, you found a way to do even more this week.
we really need to be using our power.
bully boy is addressing the nation tomorrow.
aren't we honored? don't we feel lucky?
he's only speaking because there is shock over his authorizing the nsa to spy on americans. he's in damage control.
but people are waking up to reality.i want to note ruth's morning edition report because it is as a must read as always. i love ruth. she's compared me to her friend treva before and i take that as a huge compliment.
Blog Spotlight: Cedric takes a look at megachurches and a megabully
One of the best things about having various people in the community run their own sites is that you can get a variety of takes. For instance, Cedric regularly addresses chuches and religion. Kat addresses music. Wally provides a jot of some key point. Seth brings several perspectives and topics to his site. We could go on, but we think we've made our point. We'll make one more point. Cedric's trying for a conclusion to his latest entry. He had hoped to finish it on breaks from helping with this edition. It will go up today and we told him quit worrying about links because he's still got to put more of those in. But you need to read his latest today and we will be spotlighting it next week.
"Megachurches and a megabully"
It's been a busy week so there's not been time to post or to remove a link until now. All week I kept thinking, "Tonight."
Tonight, we'll be at Three Cool Old Guys' nursing home. This is the first time we'll be trying out the Christmas program. We've also had to figure out which six songs to sing in church Christmas Day because since some megachurches seem to think you don't celeberate Jesus Christ's birthday in church, we got told we should add some more songs because we're expecting a few more people than usual. The Sunday school classes have been working on a play too. It's about the first Christmas, of course. The older kids have been working on sets and costumes and it's going to be the littlest ones playing the parts so that should be really nice. Our preacher's got a sermon he's working on and he always does a great Christmas one but with the news that some churches won't be having a service, he's really trying to make this one even better.
If you didn't hear about that, the McChurches decided Sunday's a day to close shop. They're sending out DVDs that people can watch at home instead of coming to church. I really don't get why a church would think a Sunday was a day they needed to close shop.
One woman who used to go to our church hinted to her aunt that she was interested in attending Christmas Day. She felt nervous because she left our church for a McChurch. They had stuff that she felt was important. I guess a bowling alley or a basketball court or something. But she didn't have to sound off. People are always welcome at our church and especially on Christmas Day. No one would have thought anything except maybe that she was celebrating Christmas with her aunt and that's why she and her kids were there.
Maybe I'm a Scrooge here but I never thought Jesus was concerned about whether or not your church had a game room. I did assume that he was concerned whether you met on Sunday or not.
But maybe when you're in one of those megachurches where you don't know each other, it's easy to skip a Christmas Sunday and so they figured they'd save some money on the electric bill?If you think I'm coming off flippant, you're right. I am really bothered by that and the message it sends. Both my grandmothers never made Sunday school if it fell on a Christmas Day because they were busy getting the big lunch ready but they did show up for the service. I've also know people who couldn't make it on Christmas Day for different reasons and that's cool. But isn't the point to know that each Sunday the church is there?
And what about people who travel? We used to go on a road trips a bit when I was a kid and on a Sunday, my dad would always look for a church and we'd go in there. What if someone sees a McChurch and they get excited and run up the steps only to find that the doors are locked?
So that bothers me.Here's another thing that bothers me. Pop Politics. I've pulled their link.
If you missed it, Kat wrote about people leaving comments on one post there were just dogging this one guy. And she also quoted me. I thought the guy who wrote the original post made a bad link between rap and Dylan. Now, I understand from Jess that they maintain they weren't suggestiong a link. Like when Bully Boy says "Iraq" and "9/11" in the same speech or sentence, he's not implying a relationship either? That's nonsense.
And it was nonsense that the guy Bernie tried to force Kat into correcting her opinion. First off, the only opinion offered (other than that people CAN have whatever opinion they want) was my opinion. And even though she provided a link to my site and clearly showed what I said, he didn't have the guts to demand I correct my comments. Instead, he just wanted to try to force a woman into making a correction. What a big man, huh?
So that could have been the end of it. Kat replied to his e-mail saying, "Write what you want and I'll post it at my site." But that wasn't the end of it. His boss had to come along and imply that Bernie was a better writer than Kat. Again, that's not what she says she said. But it was up there for anyone to see and everyone saw it. (Including Three Cool Old Guys who got a copy and paste e-mailed to them.)
So when she did that, and you read it right, "she." A "she" felt the need to say Kat couldn't write as well as her boy. And "she" wants to be considered a feminist. But I guess that was already a question after she was okay with him trying to force Kat to change her words.
So we did a roundtable on that and we did an editorial about adults who were too scared to write about the war. And then Sunday morning as we were ready to post, we had to stop. She went whining to C.I. C.I. writes her back in this long e-mail, I haven't seen it but we were waiting three hours because C.I. was trying to be fair the way C.I. always does.
I learn from Jess that she claims Sunday night she never got the e-mail so C.I. had to write her again. But she said she wanted "peace."
First thing she writes on Monday, Jess reads it, and she's just slamming Kat all over again. This is how she gets peace?
She keeps writing over and over and Jess said it didn't read like it was friendly e-mail. C.I. had told her that we contacted Ryan. That's the guy who was being dogged, the whole reason Kat wrote to begin with. She was really getting on Jess' nerves writing all the time.
So Jess didn't even reply. Then Monday Ava sees the thing where the woman still can't do her own work. Jess and C.I. have explained how Ryan was found via a google search. But that's not good enough for the woman who needs everything handed to her I guess. They went over how to find him in an entry at The Common Ills. But she's too lazy to do her own work.
I won't say busy since she had enough time to e-mail over and over.
So Ava writes Ryan and tells him that now she's claiming her e-mail to him got bounced back and can she give out Ryan's e-mail to her. Ryan writes Ava back and tells her to forward the thing to her.
Which Ava does with, and I did read this, the most dry e-mail in the world. Ava's aunt doesn't trust the woman and told Ava not to form any kind of relationship with her. So Ava writes her in this dry e-mail and the woman writes Ava back screaming at Ava in a "what's your problem!" e-mail. And still slamming Kat, according to Jess.Ava replies in a dry e-mail.
Remember this is all going on while the woman supposedly wants "peace."C.I.'s telling Jess and Ava, "Don't read her if she's upsetting you. I'm not reading her, you don't have to read her. We've replied to her. We'll just ignore her and see if the peace offer was sincere or not."
Then Tuesday evening or afternoon, Eddie e-mails to The Third Estate Sunday Review and to C.I. that this so-called peace includes the woman delinking from The Common Ills.
As Jess said, the woman wrote over and over and over. Everytime he went into the public e-mail account for The Common Ills, there was another e-mail from the woman. "It was like she was spoiling for a fight," Jess said. But in all those e-mails, it never occurred to her to say, "I delinked from you."
She had time, over and over, to run down Kat. That's all she really seemed to want to do, to gripe and scream and trash Kat.
And on top of this, she writes Ryan and calls the e-mail an "apology" in the title of the e-mail but all she does there is trash Kat and then, at the end, write, "I'm sorry you won't be visiting Pop Politics again." That was her apology? Why did she even write the guy. It really ticked off him and his wife. (Mike has the interview on that.)
So Jim calls Jess and asks if Jess has seen Eddie's e-mail? Jess hasn't but gets into The Common Ills members account and there it is.Like Jess said, she screamed, she griped, she couldn't stop trashing Kat all while claiming she wanted peace, the woman's name is Christine something, and though she e-mailed over and over Monday and Tuesday she never once says, "I'm delinking."
So that was it. It was obvious that there was no desire for peace.
It was all about, "I don't want people to know I say I'm a feminist but I trashed a woman at my site and compared her to a man while implying that she wasn't as good as a man. And I don't want people to know that as the boss of Pop Politics, I was okay with a man trying to force Kat to correct her opinion and that he wanted the correction passed off not as his comment but as if the thought just occurred to Kat herself."
Well I guess she wouldn't want people to know about that. I also bet she wouldn't want people to know that while on her site she acted like Ryan was treated poorly by the people leaving comments and that she didn't support that, when she herself writes Ryan she's rude to him and never once says anything about the way he was treated. She's too busy attacking Kat yet again.
And the best so-called feminist can do apology wise to Ryan is to say, "Sorry you won't be visiting Pop Politics anymore."
Wally's trying to figure out how to write about this instead of just linking. He doesn't want to upset C.I. C.I.'s not mentioning it at The Common Ills or hasn't so far. I told Wally that C.I. always tells us to write what we want at our sites.
C.I. says that and C.I. means that. If C.I. doesn't like something, C.I. just avoids it.
The way C.I.'s avoiding Christine now.
C.I.'s not going to be mad at me or Wally or anyone for writing what we think. C.I. knows that we CAN have opinions. Christine's the one who has a heart attack and explodes when anyone has an opinion she doesn't agree with.
I won't be quiet on this. It wasn't right what happened. It wasn't right that after Christine started saying she wanted peace, she keeps attacking Kat, she bites Ryan's head off in an "apology," and she screams at Ava in an e-mail. Christine needs to get a grip.
Is she too scared to write about the war? I don't think she is. I think when you trash people who speak out, Kat, Bright Eyes for "When A President Talks To God," go down the list, then it's clear where you are on the war. You support it. If you didn't, you'd say so. You've got time to write about every dopey TV show in the world.
Three years is coming up, three years of a war, and she can't weigh in on that. If she can't find her voice, people will have to go by her actions.
And I don't know what kind of feminist links to and promotes a magazine that wishes harm, violent harm, on Arudhati Roy?
So I think we have our answer. If it's the wrong answer, she needs to find her voice on the war.
And if she has any common sense or decency, she needs to offer Ryan a true apology. Not a lecture, not a thing on how awful a writer she thinks Kat is or how wrong she thinks Kat was.
By the way, Bernie and Christine have a problem that Kat didn't address Bernie's opinion. While he's demanding a correction, they're bothered that Kat focused on the comments and not the writing of Bernie. Is that not something?
So I delinked from Pop Politics. It was a bad site anyway.
The only reason I linked to begin with was because C.I. had asked us all to link to it. C.I. was trying to be supportive to Christine because she wasn't doing Ms. Musing anymore and she was depressed and trying to make Pop Politics into something. There's a guy there who had a thing on Bob Woodward that was worth reading. And Wally liked the sports. There was a woman who wrote seriously about issues and discrimination that transgendered persons face. But there was just a bunch of nonsense that wouldn't cut it as good conversation in a junior high cafeteria.
She's like a cheerleader for the mediocre. She can't write about the war but she can write about any medicore TV show.
So the link's gone and we're all the better for it. If she is pro-war, that certainly explains why her "peace" offer wasn't sincere. But, my opinion, it was never sincere. She just knew she had embarrassed herself and wanted to try to keep people from finding out. That's why she continued to attack Kat every chance she could grab after she initiated her "peace."
By the way, if she'd just taken the high road the way C.I. tried to, she wouldn't have the mess on her hands she does. C.I. didn't post about Bernie's demand of a correction. C.I. didn't even post about the fact that while demanding a correction from Kat, Bernie quotes her at Pop Politics and gets the quote wrong. He drops out a word and changes another one. And this is while he's demanding a correction? And at Pop Politics, you had no idea of how rude Bernie was to Kat and how he ran her down as stupid. He saves that for the private e-mail. So when Kat told C.I. about the second e-mail from Bernie, C.I. was already "bothered" and then Christine goes and posts, in reply to Maria, that Bernie only posted at Pop Politics because Kat doesn't have comments at her site so he couldn't get his say any other way. Which is a lie. And it's a lie because Bernie was demanding a correction. And it's a lie because Christine knows about it.
If she had just waited to see if Bernie and Kat could work out some understanding, if she'd stayed out of it, the way C.I. was doing, none of this would have happened. But she can't pass a chance to slam Kat and that comment showed it. She made the mess, she has to live with it.
She can scream at C.I. or Ava, at Ryan or Jess, but it's her mess and it's her problem.
And being okay with a man demanding a correction of a woman's opinion, especially when I'm the one commenting on Bernie in Kat's original post and Bernie was too scared to take it up with man but okay with trying to bully a woman, isn't feminism. She can claim it if she wants, but her behavior speaks louder than her words. And much louder than her words on really bad TV shows that she gushes over. But she couldn't stop focusing on Kat and start trying to figure ou what she created this whole mess in the first place.
I'll be posting before Christmas, but we're trying to really focus on getting our program together.
Happy holidays to everyone. Peace on earth. Despite Bully Boys and Christines.
"Megachurches and a megabully"
It's been a busy week so there's not been time to post or to remove a link until now. All week I kept thinking, "Tonight."
Tonight, we'll be at Three Cool Old Guys' nursing home. This is the first time we'll be trying out the Christmas program. We've also had to figure out which six songs to sing in church Christmas Day because since some megachurches seem to think you don't celeberate Jesus Christ's birthday in church, we got told we should add some more songs because we're expecting a few more people than usual. The Sunday school classes have been working on a play too. It's about the first Christmas, of course. The older kids have been working on sets and costumes and it's going to be the littlest ones playing the parts so that should be really nice. Our preacher's got a sermon he's working on and he always does a great Christmas one but with the news that some churches won't be having a service, he's really trying to make this one even better.
If you didn't hear about that, the McChurches decided Sunday's a day to close shop. They're sending out DVDs that people can watch at home instead of coming to church. I really don't get why a church would think a Sunday was a day they needed to close shop.
One woman who used to go to our church hinted to her aunt that she was interested in attending Christmas Day. She felt nervous because she left our church for a McChurch. They had stuff that she felt was important. I guess a bowling alley or a basketball court or something. But she didn't have to sound off. People are always welcome at our church and especially on Christmas Day. No one would have thought anything except maybe that she was celebrating Christmas with her aunt and that's why she and her kids were there.
Maybe I'm a Scrooge here but I never thought Jesus was concerned about whether or not your church had a game room. I did assume that he was concerned whether you met on Sunday or not.
But maybe when you're in one of those megachurches where you don't know each other, it's easy to skip a Christmas Sunday and so they figured they'd save some money on the electric bill?If you think I'm coming off flippant, you're right. I am really bothered by that and the message it sends. Both my grandmothers never made Sunday school if it fell on a Christmas Day because they were busy getting the big lunch ready but they did show up for the service. I've also know people who couldn't make it on Christmas Day for different reasons and that's cool. But isn't the point to know that each Sunday the church is there?
And what about people who travel? We used to go on a road trips a bit when I was a kid and on a Sunday, my dad would always look for a church and we'd go in there. What if someone sees a McChurch and they get excited and run up the steps only to find that the doors are locked?
So that bothers me.Here's another thing that bothers me. Pop Politics. I've pulled their link.
If you missed it, Kat wrote about people leaving comments on one post there were just dogging this one guy. And she also quoted me. I thought the guy who wrote the original post made a bad link between rap and Dylan. Now, I understand from Jess that they maintain they weren't suggestiong a link. Like when Bully Boy says "Iraq" and "9/11" in the same speech or sentence, he's not implying a relationship either? That's nonsense.
And it was nonsense that the guy Bernie tried to force Kat into correcting her opinion. First off, the only opinion offered (other than that people CAN have whatever opinion they want) was my opinion. And even though she provided a link to my site and clearly showed what I said, he didn't have the guts to demand I correct my comments. Instead, he just wanted to try to force a woman into making a correction. What a big man, huh?
So that could have been the end of it. Kat replied to his e-mail saying, "Write what you want and I'll post it at my site." But that wasn't the end of it. His boss had to come along and imply that Bernie was a better writer than Kat. Again, that's not what she says she said. But it was up there for anyone to see and everyone saw it. (Including Three Cool Old Guys who got a copy and paste e-mailed to them.)
So when she did that, and you read it right, "she." A "she" felt the need to say Kat couldn't write as well as her boy. And "she" wants to be considered a feminist. But I guess that was already a question after she was okay with him trying to force Kat to change her words.
So we did a roundtable on that and we did an editorial about adults who were too scared to write about the war. And then Sunday morning as we were ready to post, we had to stop. She went whining to C.I. C.I. writes her back in this long e-mail, I haven't seen it but we were waiting three hours because C.I. was trying to be fair the way C.I. always does.
I learn from Jess that she claims Sunday night she never got the e-mail so C.I. had to write her again. But she said she wanted "peace."
First thing she writes on Monday, Jess reads it, and she's just slamming Kat all over again. This is how she gets peace?
She keeps writing over and over and Jess said it didn't read like it was friendly e-mail. C.I. had told her that we contacted Ryan. That's the guy who was being dogged, the whole reason Kat wrote to begin with. She was really getting on Jess' nerves writing all the time.
So Jess didn't even reply. Then Monday Ava sees the thing where the woman still can't do her own work. Jess and C.I. have explained how Ryan was found via a google search. But that's not good enough for the woman who needs everything handed to her I guess. They went over how to find him in an entry at The Common Ills. But she's too lazy to do her own work.
I won't say busy since she had enough time to e-mail over and over.
So Ava writes Ryan and tells him that now she's claiming her e-mail to him got bounced back and can she give out Ryan's e-mail to her. Ryan writes Ava back and tells her to forward the thing to her.
Which Ava does with, and I did read this, the most dry e-mail in the world. Ava's aunt doesn't trust the woman and told Ava not to form any kind of relationship with her. So Ava writes her in this dry e-mail and the woman writes Ava back screaming at Ava in a "what's your problem!" e-mail. And still slamming Kat, according to Jess.Ava replies in a dry e-mail.
Remember this is all going on while the woman supposedly wants "peace."C.I.'s telling Jess and Ava, "Don't read her if she's upsetting you. I'm not reading her, you don't have to read her. We've replied to her. We'll just ignore her and see if the peace offer was sincere or not."
Then Tuesday evening or afternoon, Eddie e-mails to The Third Estate Sunday Review and to C.I. that this so-called peace includes the woman delinking from The Common Ills.
As Jess said, the woman wrote over and over and over. Everytime he went into the public e-mail account for The Common Ills, there was another e-mail from the woman. "It was like she was spoiling for a fight," Jess said. But in all those e-mails, it never occurred to her to say, "I delinked from you."
She had time, over and over, to run down Kat. That's all she really seemed to want to do, to gripe and scream and trash Kat.
And on top of this, she writes Ryan and calls the e-mail an "apology" in the title of the e-mail but all she does there is trash Kat and then, at the end, write, "I'm sorry you won't be visiting Pop Politics again." That was her apology? Why did she even write the guy. It really ticked off him and his wife. (Mike has the interview on that.)
So Jim calls Jess and asks if Jess has seen Eddie's e-mail? Jess hasn't but gets into The Common Ills members account and there it is.Like Jess said, she screamed, she griped, she couldn't stop trashing Kat all while claiming she wanted peace, the woman's name is Christine something, and though she e-mailed over and over Monday and Tuesday she never once says, "I'm delinking."
So that was it. It was obvious that there was no desire for peace.
It was all about, "I don't want people to know I say I'm a feminist but I trashed a woman at my site and compared her to a man while implying that she wasn't as good as a man. And I don't want people to know that as the boss of Pop Politics, I was okay with a man trying to force Kat to correct her opinion and that he wanted the correction passed off not as his comment but as if the thought just occurred to Kat herself."
Well I guess she wouldn't want people to know about that. I also bet she wouldn't want people to know that while on her site she acted like Ryan was treated poorly by the people leaving comments and that she didn't support that, when she herself writes Ryan she's rude to him and never once says anything about the way he was treated. She's too busy attacking Kat yet again.
And the best so-called feminist can do apology wise to Ryan is to say, "Sorry you won't be visiting Pop Politics anymore."
Wally's trying to figure out how to write about this instead of just linking. He doesn't want to upset C.I. C.I.'s not mentioning it at The Common Ills or hasn't so far. I told Wally that C.I. always tells us to write what we want at our sites.
C.I. says that and C.I. means that. If C.I. doesn't like something, C.I. just avoids it.
The way C.I.'s avoiding Christine now.
C.I.'s not going to be mad at me or Wally or anyone for writing what we think. C.I. knows that we CAN have opinions. Christine's the one who has a heart attack and explodes when anyone has an opinion she doesn't agree with.
I won't be quiet on this. It wasn't right what happened. It wasn't right that after Christine started saying she wanted peace, she keeps attacking Kat, she bites Ryan's head off in an "apology," and she screams at Ava in an e-mail. Christine needs to get a grip.
Is she too scared to write about the war? I don't think she is. I think when you trash people who speak out, Kat, Bright Eyes for "When A President Talks To God," go down the list, then it's clear where you are on the war. You support it. If you didn't, you'd say so. You've got time to write about every dopey TV show in the world.
Three years is coming up, three years of a war, and she can't weigh in on that. If she can't find her voice, people will have to go by her actions.
And I don't know what kind of feminist links to and promotes a magazine that wishes harm, violent harm, on Arudhati Roy?
So I think we have our answer. If it's the wrong answer, she needs to find her voice on the war.
And if she has any common sense or decency, she needs to offer Ryan a true apology. Not a lecture, not a thing on how awful a writer she thinks Kat is or how wrong she thinks Kat was.
By the way, Bernie and Christine have a problem that Kat didn't address Bernie's opinion. While he's demanding a correction, they're bothered that Kat focused on the comments and not the writing of Bernie. Is that not something?
So I delinked from Pop Politics. It was a bad site anyway.
The only reason I linked to begin with was because C.I. had asked us all to link to it. C.I. was trying to be supportive to Christine because she wasn't doing Ms. Musing anymore and she was depressed and trying to make Pop Politics into something. There's a guy there who had a thing on Bob Woodward that was worth reading. And Wally liked the sports. There was a woman who wrote seriously about issues and discrimination that transgendered persons face. But there was just a bunch of nonsense that wouldn't cut it as good conversation in a junior high cafeteria.
She's like a cheerleader for the mediocre. She can't write about the war but she can write about any medicore TV show.
So the link's gone and we're all the better for it. If she is pro-war, that certainly explains why her "peace" offer wasn't sincere. But, my opinion, it was never sincere. She just knew she had embarrassed herself and wanted to try to keep people from finding out. That's why she continued to attack Kat every chance she could grab after she initiated her "peace."
By the way, if she'd just taken the high road the way C.I. tried to, she wouldn't have the mess on her hands she does. C.I. didn't post about Bernie's demand of a correction. C.I. didn't even post about the fact that while demanding a correction from Kat, Bernie quotes her at Pop Politics and gets the quote wrong. He drops out a word and changes another one. And this is while he's demanding a correction? And at Pop Politics, you had no idea of how rude Bernie was to Kat and how he ran her down as stupid. He saves that for the private e-mail. So when Kat told C.I. about the second e-mail from Bernie, C.I. was already "bothered" and then Christine goes and posts, in reply to Maria, that Bernie only posted at Pop Politics because Kat doesn't have comments at her site so he couldn't get his say any other way. Which is a lie. And it's a lie because Bernie was demanding a correction. And it's a lie because Christine knows about it.
If she had just waited to see if Bernie and Kat could work out some understanding, if she'd stayed out of it, the way C.I. was doing, none of this would have happened. But she can't pass a chance to slam Kat and that comment showed it. She made the mess, she has to live with it.
She can scream at C.I. or Ava, at Ryan or Jess, but it's her mess and it's her problem.
And being okay with a man demanding a correction of a woman's opinion, especially when I'm the one commenting on Bernie in Kat's original post and Bernie was too scared to take it up with man but okay with trying to bully a woman, isn't feminism. She can claim it if she wants, but her behavior speaks louder than her words. And much louder than her words on really bad TV shows that she gushes over. But she couldn't stop focusing on Kat and start trying to figure ou what she created this whole mess in the first place.
I'll be posting before Christmas, but we're trying to really focus on getting our program together.
Happy holidays to everyone. Peace on earth. Despite Bully Boys and Christines.
Blog Spotlight: Kat channels the Black Eyed Peas
The brave Kat, the musical Kat. Our Kat and we stand with her. Some don't. Their loss. There's a typo in this that C.I., of all people, caught. Of all people because C.I. and typos . . .
But it's Bridget Fonda. We're adding the "d." Otherwise, it is at it appeared.
"Ryan, remember this is Heddy we're talking"
I had the best night last night.
There's something about waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When it finally does, you were expecting it.
Wally, thank you for doing the "Community Jot." I saw that and was able to catch up on what was going online while I was out having fun last night.
To Ryan "Kansas" and his wife, my apologies that you weren't given an apology but were instead lectured about me. What can we do with someone obsessed?
Not much.
I'm feeling a little like Bridget Fonda in Single, White Female but I imagine it must be worse for you because while I can crack jokes about "Heddy," she wrote and led you both to believe it was an apology.
Are we really so surprised that someone who seems to believe I should write 'like a man' in order to win her approval can't apologize to someone she's wronged?
No.
And anyone who assumes that there is only one way to write isn't someone that we should concern us with too much.
But I am sorry for you (Ryan) and for your wife. I did feel a fire storm was brewing over there.
I'm sorry that instead of addressing that at her site, "Heddy" decided to make me the focus. I'm also sorry that when she finally writes the "apology," she's still made me the focus (she's not the first to be obsessed with me) instead of addressing what happened to you.
But do you think she ever apologized to Arundhati Roy? Do you think she ever wrote her?
Let's picture how that would go:
to: Arundhati Roy
from: Heddy
title: Apology from All Puff and No Politics
Arundhati,
C.I. passed your address on to me. I did try to write you but you mispelled something in your address because it's your problem, the problem is never me, it is always someone else. And of course I'm only writing because an obvious point, that I may have hurt you, wasn't obvious to me because I didn't see it on TV in a push up bra.
I think you need to understand that when Kat wrote that I was endorsing attacks on you, she was obviously wrong. Just because I link to and regularly promote an anti-feminist rag that wished you harm and treated your safety as a joke, just because I continue to promote them, doesn't mean that Kat has any right to question my feminism! Sorry that you won't be visiting All Puff and No Politics anymore.
Heddy
I think that's how it would go. I think she'd continue to be obsessed with me.And isn't that easier than addressing a serious issue like what happened to you?
Or explaining why she promotes a magazine that encourages attacks on Arundhati Roy?And Heddy's busy trying to chase down "complexity" in TV portrayals of men behind bar. Or trying to track down quotes she can put up since, and are we surprised, thinking is beyond her.
A thinking person would have realized that was no apology to you.
But why think, or examine, when you're convinced that you're always right?
We're all wrong. The whole world is wrong. Heddy's right.
She was, guessing here, right to laud shows like Veronica Mars as "good" for women and young girls. As Veronica's become the woman who cried false rape, she has nothing to say on that. She's too busy slobbering over how Rob Thomas may be the next Joss Whedon!
Surely that is the most important topic facing the world today.
In her mind.
If you're a Black Eyed Peas fan, you may know "Going Gone." You may know the chorus that Jack Johnson offers since it's from his song "Gone." It's a message lost on Heddy. Maybe if I substitute some words? I'll sub four words and they will all be in caps. Otherwise, this is from The Black Eyed Peas with Jack Johnson, "Going Gone:"
You see yourself in the mirror
And you feel safe coz it looks familiar
But you afraid to open up your soul
Coz you don't really know, don't really know
Who is, the person that's deep within
Coz you are content with just being THE QUEEN BEE TOKEN
And you fail to see that its trivial
Insignificant, you addicted to material
I've seen your kind before
You the type that thinks souls is sold in a store
Packaged up with inscent sticks
With them vegetarian meals
To you that's righteous
You're fiction like books
You need to go out to life and look
Coz what happens when they take your material
And you already sold your soul and its
[chorus]
Gone
Going
Gone
Everything gone
Give a damn
Gone be the birds when they don't want to sing
Gone people
All awkward with their things
Gone.
Ryan, think about it this way, you're anti-war. And Heddy is still trying to figure out where she stands. So it's okay that you're attacked, that I'm attacked, that Bright Eyes is attacked and that Arundhati Roy is attacked. If you ask me, I'd rather be on Heddy's hate list.
I'd rather be with people like Bright Eyes and Arundhati then the old rag. If you think about it like that, I think you'll see that being on Heddy's hate list is actually a plus.
Like The Black Eyed Peas warn, "What's worse is your soul gonna be gone" (gone, going gone). So Heddy's got bigger problems than me. There's a world out there and wars going on and we need voices who acknowledge that. She can't. Her problem. Take comfort in that, Ryan.
the common ills
the third estate sunday review
the daily jot
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
mikey likes it
kats korner
bright eyes
conor oberst
arundhati roy
black eyed peas
jack johnson
But it's Bridget Fonda. We're adding the "d." Otherwise, it is at it appeared.
"Ryan, remember this is Heddy we're talking"
I had the best night last night.
There's something about waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When it finally does, you were expecting it.
Wally, thank you for doing the "Community Jot." I saw that and was able to catch up on what was going online while I was out having fun last night.
To Ryan "Kansas" and his wife, my apologies that you weren't given an apology but were instead lectured about me. What can we do with someone obsessed?
Not much.
I'm feeling a little like Bridget Fonda in Single, White Female but I imagine it must be worse for you because while I can crack jokes about "Heddy," she wrote and led you both to believe it was an apology.
Are we really so surprised that someone who seems to believe I should write 'like a man' in order to win her approval can't apologize to someone she's wronged?
No.
And anyone who assumes that there is only one way to write isn't someone that we should concern us with too much.
But I am sorry for you (Ryan) and for your wife. I did feel a fire storm was brewing over there.
I'm sorry that instead of addressing that at her site, "Heddy" decided to make me the focus. I'm also sorry that when she finally writes the "apology," she's still made me the focus (she's not the first to be obsessed with me) instead of addressing what happened to you.
But do you think she ever apologized to Arundhati Roy? Do you think she ever wrote her?
Let's picture how that would go:
to: Arundhati Roy
from: Heddy
title: Apology from All Puff and No Politics
Arundhati,
C.I. passed your address on to me. I did try to write you but you mispelled something in your address because it's your problem, the problem is never me, it is always someone else. And of course I'm only writing because an obvious point, that I may have hurt you, wasn't obvious to me because I didn't see it on TV in a push up bra.
I think you need to understand that when Kat wrote that I was endorsing attacks on you, she was obviously wrong. Just because I link to and regularly promote an anti-feminist rag that wished you harm and treated your safety as a joke, just because I continue to promote them, doesn't mean that Kat has any right to question my feminism! Sorry that you won't be visiting All Puff and No Politics anymore.
Heddy
I think that's how it would go. I think she'd continue to be obsessed with me.And isn't that easier than addressing a serious issue like what happened to you?
Or explaining why she promotes a magazine that encourages attacks on Arundhati Roy?And Heddy's busy trying to chase down "complexity" in TV portrayals of men behind bar. Or trying to track down quotes she can put up since, and are we surprised, thinking is beyond her.
A thinking person would have realized that was no apology to you.
But why think, or examine, when you're convinced that you're always right?
We're all wrong. The whole world is wrong. Heddy's right.
She was, guessing here, right to laud shows like Veronica Mars as "good" for women and young girls. As Veronica's become the woman who cried false rape, she has nothing to say on that. She's too busy slobbering over how Rob Thomas may be the next Joss Whedon!
Surely that is the most important topic facing the world today.
In her mind.
If you're a Black Eyed Peas fan, you may know "Going Gone." You may know the chorus that Jack Johnson offers since it's from his song "Gone." It's a message lost on Heddy. Maybe if I substitute some words? I'll sub four words and they will all be in caps. Otherwise, this is from The Black Eyed Peas with Jack Johnson, "Going Gone:"
You see yourself in the mirror
And you feel safe coz it looks familiar
But you afraid to open up your soul
Coz you don't really know, don't really know
Who is, the person that's deep within
Coz you are content with just being THE QUEEN BEE TOKEN
And you fail to see that its trivial
Insignificant, you addicted to material
I've seen your kind before
You the type that thinks souls is sold in a store
Packaged up with inscent sticks
With them vegetarian meals
To you that's righteous
You're fiction like books
You need to go out to life and look
Coz what happens when they take your material
And you already sold your soul and its
[chorus]
Gone
Going
Gone
Everything gone
Give a damn
Gone be the birds when they don't want to sing
Gone people
All awkward with their things
Gone.
Ryan, think about it this way, you're anti-war. And Heddy is still trying to figure out where she stands. So it's okay that you're attacked, that I'm attacked, that Bright Eyes is attacked and that Arundhati Roy is attacked. If you ask me, I'd rather be on Heddy's hate list.
I'd rather be with people like Bright Eyes and Arundhati then the old rag. If you think about it like that, I think you'll see that being on Heddy's hate list is actually a plus.
Like The Black Eyed Peas warn, "What's worse is your soul gonna be gone" (gone, going gone). So Heddy's got bigger problems than me. There's a world out there and wars going on and we need voices who acknowledge that. She can't. Her problem. Take comfort in that, Ryan.
the common ills
the third estate sunday review
the daily jot
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
mikey likes it
kats korner
bright eyes
conor oberst
arundhati roy
black eyed peas
jack johnson
Alternative spotlight: Ruth's Morning Edition Report
There's only one Ruth which is a shame because we could use more like her. If you're new to Ruth, you're in for a treat and note her commentary on Bill O'Reilly below. Ruth began covering NPR and Morning Edition for The Common Ills when NPR seemed to be getting a pass. She expanded that coverage to include Pacifica Radio which is also public radio. These days, that's her focus for the most part because she'd rather focus on programs you may not be aware of than cover Morning Edition and NPR now that watchdogs like Media Matters regularly address the problems with NPR coverage.
Check out the book discussion in this edition because one of the books was recommended by Ruth.
"Ruth's Morning Edition Report"
Ruth: Let's start out by noting CounterSpin. A guest this week is community favorite Naomi Klein. I'm glad to know that Diego listened Friday. He e-mailed to ask if it were "Ny-o-mee" or "Nay-o-mee." I believe that would depend upon how she pronounces her own name since either pronuciation is acceptable. Diego wrote that he loved the entire broadcast and intends to listen each week. If, like me, you listened Friday to WBAI, you may want to listen online at FAIR's site since the interview with Ms. Klein was interrupted.
The beginning of each program addresses recent headlines and I enjoy both the critiques and the humor offered in those. Steve Rendell and Peter Hart covered them this week. Diego asked that I please note Bill O'Reilly's falsehoods. Mr. O'Reilly, as most already knows, sees a war to worry about everywhere but in Iraq which explains both his priorities and why he has so much difficulty with facts. Mr. O'Reilly is convinced that there's a war on Christmas.
He has announced that two cities, Plano and Dodgeville, are strong centers of this supposed insurgency. In Plano, Mr. O'Reilly maintains, combat has grown so fierce that the schools have barred red and green clothing. No doubt Toby Keith is strumming his guitar and preparing a ditty. But before anyone air bombs the city of Plano, it should be noted that red and green clothing is not banned in Plano schools nor has it ever been. In Dodgeville, Mr. O'Reilly maintains, children are not allowed to sing Christmas songs and that the songs have been rewritten in this extreme attack on Christmas. Hold the white phosphorus. The reality is that the children do sing Christmas songs and they also sing, as part of a musical the children put on, their own words to the melodies of traditional Christmas tunes.As a reliable informant, Bill O'Reilly's record is matching up with Ahmed Chalabi's.
On the war, CounterSpin noted that until the Bully Boy used the 30,000 figure for Iraqi casualities, the press was not very interested in the topic. The press was so disinterested that the question that prompted an answer on this topic came not from the press, but from a citizen at one of Bully Boy's speeches. The number itself is based upon tabulating civilian deaths reported by the media and other studies have placed the fatality count for Iraqis at a much higher number.
Richard Bernstein and the New York Times' attack on playwright Harold Pinter was noted for its linkage of the Sandanistas with al Quaeda. The linkage was a dubious one and I'll trust that we all grasp that and move on to Juan Williams.
Juan Williams enjoys sitting around for the Fox "News" cameras. It is apparently an easy job that does not require that Mr. Williams be fully awake. Which would explain why, as CounterSpin pointed out, Mr. Williams made no real effort to correct William Kristol's fales claim that Richard Pryor was a "Reagan-ite." Mr. Pryor, who attended a function at the Reagan White House in honor of MLK, was on record as saying that obscenity to him was the Ronald Reagan claimed to be fighting communism by killing people. Those do not sound like the words of a Reagan-ite and, more curious, Juan Williams had reported on those statements for NPR following Mr. Pryor's death.
For those interested in the creation of a Department of Peace, please check out KPFT's Open Journal from Friday. Treva was en route to New Orleans, I believe, when she phoned to ask if I was listening? I was not until she gave me the heads up. Congress member Dennis Kucinnich has introduced a bill for the creation of a Department of Peace since 2001. Currently, there is a proposal in the Senate as well. The proposal is discussed in great detail and, unless I am mixed up on this, during this program a wonderful live version of John Lennon's "Imagine" was also featured. I usually prefer to focus on news in my listening choices; however, I was busy thinking of issues raised by Open Journal and dealing with an unusually active Elijah who was opposed to a nap on Friday, loudly opposed. He was strongly in favor of the music played on KPFT's Radio Active which was reason enough to listen but I also enjoyed the host bringing on his daughter to introduce a favorite song.
KPFT's After Hours is a favorite program of my grandson Jayson. It was airing in the early morning hours of Sunday but now has switched to late night Fridays. (Jayson, let me know if I got this wrong.)
KPFA's The Morning Show featured strong programming all week. I think my favorite discussion was on the issue of the out of control rent in the San Francisco area and how it effected families, traffic and so much more. While a subject that does not effect me directly since I do not live on the west coast, I found it to be highly informative and involving. For me, that is a key factor in why I listen to The Morning Show. The discussions can cover any topic and they always involve me regardless of topic. A topic that they addressed throughout the week was executions with a focus on the excution of Stanley Tookie Williams.
Jayson pointed out that Andrea Lewis was spelled "Andre Lewis" two Saturdays ago. That was my typo and not a letter lost when C.I. spaced my copied e-mail into an entry. Dallas got the spelling correct for the tag but neither he nor C.I. noticed it in the entry. My apologies to Ms. Lewis. Ms. Lewis hosts The Morning Show with Philip Maldari who did a strong job this past week in the discussion on the coast line.
On Monday, WBAI's twice a month hourly program Law & Disorder aired. I wish this were a weekly show because the issues tackled are important ones. If you have not sampled this program yet, I will note a comment Tracey made. She was not feeling well Monday and spent the day. This was her first time listening and she enjoyed the interview style which involves the hosts handing off to one another throughout an interview.
A number of e-mails came in on KPFA's Sunday Salon expressing praise for the discussion on Iraq so I will note this Sunday's program. If you are seeing this after it originally posted, remember that Sunday Salon is archived:
Tomorrow at 9:00 am
Sunday Salon
This week on Sunday Salon...
In our first hour...
We'll follow-up 2 hours of live wrap-up coverage from the World Trade Organization's meetings in Hong Kong. Our guests will analyze what inside and outside the meetings, and what it all means moving forward.
In our second hour...
Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz joins us in-studio to talk about her new book Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War. Plus, an interview with poet, artist, libertarian theologian, and Nicaraguan Catholic Priest Father Ernesto Cardenal.
Listen to past shows, get contact and reference info for guests, see announcements of upcoming programs, and more at: SundaySalon.org
A number of e-mails also came in regarding the report I pulled last week. C.I. has a natural tendency to grab all the blame, and none of the glory, so to be clear, I made the decision. I was not asked to pull it. I did address, for most of the report, the issue that has been a topic in the community all week and most of last week. I was not asked to take that out. C.I. phoned Sunday morning to explain that an e-mail had come in and shared the e-mail with me. Based upon the contents of the e-mail, I decided to pull the report. I did not have the time to rethink the report and this was a large portion of the drafts I had already done on legal pads.
The sentiment of the community is that the e-mail was not a genuine one. I do not know that I can support that sentiment. I think it may have been genuine. Bear with me. When words have so little meaning, as I feel the person in question grants them, you can write anything and mean it at the time. So I am not sure that, at the moment she wrote the e-mail, she did not mean it.
I am sure of a few things which I will share now.As part of the sixties wave of feminism, I do not know any woman who felt she was speaking out so that someday a show akin to Gidget could be praised at length. Gidget was a silly show with entertainment value perhaps. Certainly Sally Field went on to many genuine accomplishments. But as war raged in Vietnam, as women sought to give voice to issues that society felt were "personal problems" (two examples: rape and domestic abuse), we had some serious battles on our hands. I do not think those battles are over.
I think the battles are just as serious today and I do not believe that feminism benefits from silence on the issue of the current war or in uncritical "shout outs" to TV shows. While anyone, feminist or not, is welcome to write about whatever topic they choose to, writing about a topic with the platitudes that were to be found in the "women's magazines" at the time was the reason Ms. and other magazines were needed.
In my (college) days we spoke of "contributions." Were you making a contribution or not? If someone is offended that her (or his) silence on the war is questioned, they would be better served (as would be their readers) if they attempted to address the issue of the war instead of hiding behind hurt feelings.
It also bears noting that a show starring a woman is not necessarily a feminist program nor is it necessarily good for women. Tracey and I watched both Commander-in-Chief and Veronica Mars this week together. I wanted her perspective in case my age was an obstacle to recognizing some noteable advancement. Neither of us saw anything praise worthy in terms of feminism with either shows.What I saw was some fluff pretending to be serious and I did not grasp how either show could be seen as empowering by feminist. Tracey saw nothing of value either so I doubt my disinterest was due to my age alone.
Women's magazines of the period were happy to cheer uncritically this form of entertainment and, as stated before, one of the things feminists of my generation were taking on was that sort of journalism.
A woman or man is entitled to pursue any path they desire. However, if they identify as feminist, the label requires some grasp of feminism and the application of that grasp in their writing otherwise they are just churning out "copy." From television to children's literature, from movies to professions, women of my generation were dedicated to examing and addressing a variety of topics from a feminist perspective.
To remain silent on the issue of a Veronica Mars now false claim of rape would not have happened with women of my generation. We took issues like rape very seriously and we railed against harmful portrayals and harmful coverage. Someone who feels her feminism has been questioned might be better served in focusing less on her hurt feelings and more on her silence regarding the war and a lack of any critical examination in her "Here is what to watch! And it stars a woman!" advertising copy.
In closing, Kat is a wonderful writer. Never having been afraid to challenge conventional wisdom or sacred cows, she is also a brave writer. The demand, by a male, that she "correct" her opinion was offensive enough. When a woman stays silent on that or endorses it, she calls her own feminism into question. When she decides that the template for Kat's own writing is the criteria defined by a pedestrian writer, a male writer, she calls her own feminism into question.Kat's writing is full of life and full of passion. Most importantly, she writes from a feminist perspective. That is a perspective that women of my generation fought hard to have heard so I will not support anyone, male or female, feminist or non-feminist, criticizing her for not playing it down the middle of the road in accepted, mainstream terms.
Having checked out the woman's site, I felt I was reading any paper USA's generic Sunday arts coverage. I saw "writing" that was a few sentences stringing together a bunch of links to other people's writing on TV portrayals of men in prison. I saw no feminist perspective in that "writing." I saw no thought in that "writing." It read like someone attempting to hop on the bandwagon and win approval from the mainstream by repeating claims coming from the mainstream. It would not have passed for feminism when I was a young woman and it does not pass for feminism today.
counterspin
iraq
larry bensky
andrea lewis
kpfa
the morning show
sunday salon with larry bensky
ruths morning edition report
the common ills
wbai
radio active
after hours
steve rendell
peter hart
kpft
feminism
Check out the book discussion in this edition because one of the books was recommended by Ruth.
"Ruth's Morning Edition Report"
Ruth: Let's start out by noting CounterSpin. A guest this week is community favorite Naomi Klein. I'm glad to know that Diego listened Friday. He e-mailed to ask if it were "Ny-o-mee" or "Nay-o-mee." I believe that would depend upon how she pronounces her own name since either pronuciation is acceptable. Diego wrote that he loved the entire broadcast and intends to listen each week. If, like me, you listened Friday to WBAI, you may want to listen online at FAIR's site since the interview with Ms. Klein was interrupted.
The beginning of each program addresses recent headlines and I enjoy both the critiques and the humor offered in those. Steve Rendell and Peter Hart covered them this week. Diego asked that I please note Bill O'Reilly's falsehoods. Mr. O'Reilly, as most already knows, sees a war to worry about everywhere but in Iraq which explains both his priorities and why he has so much difficulty with facts. Mr. O'Reilly is convinced that there's a war on Christmas.
He has announced that two cities, Plano and Dodgeville, are strong centers of this supposed insurgency. In Plano, Mr. O'Reilly maintains, combat has grown so fierce that the schools have barred red and green clothing. No doubt Toby Keith is strumming his guitar and preparing a ditty. But before anyone air bombs the city of Plano, it should be noted that red and green clothing is not banned in Plano schools nor has it ever been. In Dodgeville, Mr. O'Reilly maintains, children are not allowed to sing Christmas songs and that the songs have been rewritten in this extreme attack on Christmas. Hold the white phosphorus. The reality is that the children do sing Christmas songs and they also sing, as part of a musical the children put on, their own words to the melodies of traditional Christmas tunes.As a reliable informant, Bill O'Reilly's record is matching up with Ahmed Chalabi's.
On the war, CounterSpin noted that until the Bully Boy used the 30,000 figure for Iraqi casualities, the press was not very interested in the topic. The press was so disinterested that the question that prompted an answer on this topic came not from the press, but from a citizen at one of Bully Boy's speeches. The number itself is based upon tabulating civilian deaths reported by the media and other studies have placed the fatality count for Iraqis at a much higher number.
Richard Bernstein and the New York Times' attack on playwright Harold Pinter was noted for its linkage of the Sandanistas with al Quaeda. The linkage was a dubious one and I'll trust that we all grasp that and move on to Juan Williams.
Juan Williams enjoys sitting around for the Fox "News" cameras. It is apparently an easy job that does not require that Mr. Williams be fully awake. Which would explain why, as CounterSpin pointed out, Mr. Williams made no real effort to correct William Kristol's fales claim that Richard Pryor was a "Reagan-ite." Mr. Pryor, who attended a function at the Reagan White House in honor of MLK, was on record as saying that obscenity to him was the Ronald Reagan claimed to be fighting communism by killing people. Those do not sound like the words of a Reagan-ite and, more curious, Juan Williams had reported on those statements for NPR following Mr. Pryor's death.
For those interested in the creation of a Department of Peace, please check out KPFT's Open Journal from Friday. Treva was en route to New Orleans, I believe, when she phoned to ask if I was listening? I was not until she gave me the heads up. Congress member Dennis Kucinnich has introduced a bill for the creation of a Department of Peace since 2001. Currently, there is a proposal in the Senate as well. The proposal is discussed in great detail and, unless I am mixed up on this, during this program a wonderful live version of John Lennon's "Imagine" was also featured. I usually prefer to focus on news in my listening choices; however, I was busy thinking of issues raised by Open Journal and dealing with an unusually active Elijah who was opposed to a nap on Friday, loudly opposed. He was strongly in favor of the music played on KPFT's Radio Active which was reason enough to listen but I also enjoyed the host bringing on his daughter to introduce a favorite song.
KPFT's After Hours is a favorite program of my grandson Jayson. It was airing in the early morning hours of Sunday but now has switched to late night Fridays. (Jayson, let me know if I got this wrong.)
KPFA's The Morning Show featured strong programming all week. I think my favorite discussion was on the issue of the out of control rent in the San Francisco area and how it effected families, traffic and so much more. While a subject that does not effect me directly since I do not live on the west coast, I found it to be highly informative and involving. For me, that is a key factor in why I listen to The Morning Show. The discussions can cover any topic and they always involve me regardless of topic. A topic that they addressed throughout the week was executions with a focus on the excution of Stanley Tookie Williams.
Jayson pointed out that Andrea Lewis was spelled "Andre Lewis" two Saturdays ago. That was my typo and not a letter lost when C.I. spaced my copied e-mail into an entry. Dallas got the spelling correct for the tag but neither he nor C.I. noticed it in the entry. My apologies to Ms. Lewis. Ms. Lewis hosts The Morning Show with Philip Maldari who did a strong job this past week in the discussion on the coast line.
On Monday, WBAI's twice a month hourly program Law & Disorder aired. I wish this were a weekly show because the issues tackled are important ones. If you have not sampled this program yet, I will note a comment Tracey made. She was not feeling well Monday and spent the day. This was her first time listening and she enjoyed the interview style which involves the hosts handing off to one another throughout an interview.
A number of e-mails came in on KPFA's Sunday Salon expressing praise for the discussion on Iraq so I will note this Sunday's program. If you are seeing this after it originally posted, remember that Sunday Salon is archived:
Tomorrow at 9:00 am
Sunday Salon
This week on Sunday Salon...
In our first hour...
We'll follow-up 2 hours of live wrap-up coverage from the World Trade Organization's meetings in Hong Kong. Our guests will analyze what inside and outside the meetings, and what it all means moving forward.
In our second hour...
Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz joins us in-studio to talk about her new book Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War. Plus, an interview with poet, artist, libertarian theologian, and Nicaraguan Catholic Priest Father Ernesto Cardenal.
Listen to past shows, get contact and reference info for guests, see announcements of upcoming programs, and more at: SundaySalon.org
A number of e-mails also came in regarding the report I pulled last week. C.I. has a natural tendency to grab all the blame, and none of the glory, so to be clear, I made the decision. I was not asked to pull it. I did address, for most of the report, the issue that has been a topic in the community all week and most of last week. I was not asked to take that out. C.I. phoned Sunday morning to explain that an e-mail had come in and shared the e-mail with me. Based upon the contents of the e-mail, I decided to pull the report. I did not have the time to rethink the report and this was a large portion of the drafts I had already done on legal pads.
The sentiment of the community is that the e-mail was not a genuine one. I do not know that I can support that sentiment. I think it may have been genuine. Bear with me. When words have so little meaning, as I feel the person in question grants them, you can write anything and mean it at the time. So I am not sure that, at the moment she wrote the e-mail, she did not mean it.
I am sure of a few things which I will share now.As part of the sixties wave of feminism, I do not know any woman who felt she was speaking out so that someday a show akin to Gidget could be praised at length. Gidget was a silly show with entertainment value perhaps. Certainly Sally Field went on to many genuine accomplishments. But as war raged in Vietnam, as women sought to give voice to issues that society felt were "personal problems" (two examples: rape and domestic abuse), we had some serious battles on our hands. I do not think those battles are over.
I think the battles are just as serious today and I do not believe that feminism benefits from silence on the issue of the current war or in uncritical "shout outs" to TV shows. While anyone, feminist or not, is welcome to write about whatever topic they choose to, writing about a topic with the platitudes that were to be found in the "women's magazines" at the time was the reason Ms. and other magazines were needed.
In my (college) days we spoke of "contributions." Were you making a contribution or not? If someone is offended that her (or his) silence on the war is questioned, they would be better served (as would be their readers) if they attempted to address the issue of the war instead of hiding behind hurt feelings.
It also bears noting that a show starring a woman is not necessarily a feminist program nor is it necessarily good for women. Tracey and I watched both Commander-in-Chief and Veronica Mars this week together. I wanted her perspective in case my age was an obstacle to recognizing some noteable advancement. Neither of us saw anything praise worthy in terms of feminism with either shows.What I saw was some fluff pretending to be serious and I did not grasp how either show could be seen as empowering by feminist. Tracey saw nothing of value either so I doubt my disinterest was due to my age alone.
Women's magazines of the period were happy to cheer uncritically this form of entertainment and, as stated before, one of the things feminists of my generation were taking on was that sort of journalism.
A woman or man is entitled to pursue any path they desire. However, if they identify as feminist, the label requires some grasp of feminism and the application of that grasp in their writing otherwise they are just churning out "copy." From television to children's literature, from movies to professions, women of my generation were dedicated to examing and addressing a variety of topics from a feminist perspective.
To remain silent on the issue of a Veronica Mars now false claim of rape would not have happened with women of my generation. We took issues like rape very seriously and we railed against harmful portrayals and harmful coverage. Someone who feels her feminism has been questioned might be better served in focusing less on her hurt feelings and more on her silence regarding the war and a lack of any critical examination in her "Here is what to watch! And it stars a woman!" advertising copy.
In closing, Kat is a wonderful writer. Never having been afraid to challenge conventional wisdom or sacred cows, she is also a brave writer. The demand, by a male, that she "correct" her opinion was offensive enough. When a woman stays silent on that or endorses it, she calls her own feminism into question. When she decides that the template for Kat's own writing is the criteria defined by a pedestrian writer, a male writer, she calls her own feminism into question.Kat's writing is full of life and full of passion. Most importantly, she writes from a feminist perspective. That is a perspective that women of my generation fought hard to have heard so I will not support anyone, male or female, feminist or non-feminist, criticizing her for not playing it down the middle of the road in accepted, mainstream terms.
Having checked out the woman's site, I felt I was reading any paper USA's generic Sunday arts coverage. I saw "writing" that was a few sentences stringing together a bunch of links to other people's writing on TV portrayals of men in prison. I saw no feminist perspective in that "writing." I saw no thought in that "writing." It read like someone attempting to hop on the bandwagon and win approval from the mainstream by repeating claims coming from the mainstream. It would not have passed for feminism when I was a young woman and it does not pass for feminism today.
counterspin
iraq
larry bensky
andrea lewis
kpfa
the morning show
sunday salon with larry bensky
ruths morning edition report
the common ills
wbai
radio active
after hours
steve rendell
peter hart
kpft
feminism
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