Tony Snow and a Law and Disorder guest

Snow: Black Underclass Is "Most Dangerous Thing In Our Lifetime"
Tony Snow is already coming under scrutiny for a series of controversial comments he’s made on his radio program. Just last week, he shared these views: "People like Jesse Jackson who have committed themselves to a view that blacks are constantly victims, have succeeded in creating in the United States the most dangerous thing that we've encountered in our lifetime; which is, an underclass that doesn't seem to be going anywhere." Tony Snow went on to criticize what he described as: "the idiotic culture of hip-hop": "You have people glorifying failure. You have a bunch of gold-toothed hot dogs become millionaires by running around and telling everybody else that they oughtta be miserable failures and if they're really lucky maybe they can get gunned down in a diner sometime, like Eminem's old running mate."

This is the man who would save the Bully Boy administration. (Item from Democracy Now!)

First off, Proof (DC12) wasn't at a "diner" but I know facts don't matter a great deal to the right wingers. But what this is really about is a White man who doesn't want to acknowledge that African-Americans do suffer racism. We suffer it all the time. It's not wallowing in victim-hood but it's also not denying a very real fact of life. I think that Snow should go to FX and ask to be in that show where the people switch races (via make up).

He's a White man who misses the good old days of separate water fountains and lynchings. He probably wets his pants anytime he's walking down a sidewalk and sees a "brother" up ahead.

If you're one of those people, let me continue my series of tips by offering you one. I'm not robbing anyone, I'm not mugging anyone. But if you see Black and think "crime," here's a tip, do not immediately pat your wallet to make sure it's still there.

You're saying to the world (of all races), "I got a wallet and it's right here. Must be something in it because I'm real worried about having it stolen."

For more on the laughable Tony Snow, check out Wally's ""THIS JUST IN! "BROKEBACK EACH OTHER'S MOUNTAINS!" SCREAMS SNOW."

Now let's talk Law and Disorder which aired Monday on WBAI. Heidi Boghosian had a remote (from the streets of NYC -- Brooklyn, I think) interview with Bill Brown about the spy cams going up all over NYC. And there was a lot more worth hearing. But Mike and I both were bothered by the contractor issue. I can feel bad when anyone dies. But I'm not going to work up a great deal of sympathy for the employees of Blackwater USA or any other contractor employee in Iraq. No, they aren't all torturing and killing.

But they went over to make money. On some level, whether they believed in the war or not, they had to grasp they'd be profitting while others suffered. The guy made a point to go over there. People are dying over there. He wanted to make a fast buck. He died in Falluja.

Like Mike, I was raised hearing how there was no such thing as an easy buck. The man had kids. He should have thought about them. You don't say, "Fast buck!" and rush to a war zone.
It was a mistake on his part. He lost his life largely because of what others had done. But to try to profit from a war is wrong and that's if it was Dick Cheney or Joe Blow down the street.

Had everything gone well, had he made it home, he would have made a fast buck off the suffering of others. I don't agree with doing that.

I'm sorry he's dead. I can pray for him. But whether or not contractor employees are screwed over isn't my concern. It's like debating the "strategy" for the war and not noting that the war is illegal. At the root, all the "fix its" that argue we can and should stay in Iraq, don't get to the root: the war was illegal.

Profitting from the suffering of others is wrong too.

That's a lesson he should have known just as surely as he should have known that there was no free ride. That doesn't mean he deserved to die a violent death. It just means that some things aren't all that surprising and I won't spend a lot of time worrying about someone being screwed over by a division of Haliburton when, at the heart of it, that person went to Iraq to make money.

Those are the breaks.

I also don't know that I feel he was targeted for being so smart. If he had conflict with his superior, well no one wants someone in a group that's always saying, "Oh, here's how it should be done." For a trained military person, he seemed to have a really hard time following orders.
If he was, as some of the stories seem to indicate, someone who "always knows best," it's not surprising that he had conflicts with his superior.

If his superior was petty and used that to put him at risk, that's not right either.

But there are some real problems in the world. I'm just not seeing this as one that I'll worry a great deal about. If he'd gone there to witness to people or to aid them or to report on what it was like in Iraq, I'd feel different. But his own mother was talking (on Democracy Now!) about how he needed to make some quick money.

I hear that a lot. Some of the guys I went to school with don't see their kids now because they wanted to make some quick money. They ended up behind bars. When one of them tells me that it's not fair, I tell them that they made choices (stealing mainly, one was armed robbery) without thinking them through. At the most basic, they should have realized that if something goes wrong, they won't see their kids.

Being blinded by dollar sides doesn't excuse your obligation to your children. Kids like things, no question. But ask a kid who has lost a parent and most (if not all) would tell you that they'd rather have a parent around.

We have a hideous economy, no question. And the way things are set up, the rule breakers and law breakers at the top get slaps on the wrists, while on the lower rung, they get sent to prison.
But when you have kids you need to give up the American b.s. fantasy of a "quick buck." That's the sort of nonsense you can hold out for when you're a kid. Growing up means learning that some responsibilites go beyond things and that maybe it's better to be poor and do without if you can be with your kids.

I don't blame him if he was focusing on the big easy because we're conditioned to. But that's as much a part of the story and to hear "Oh, it's awful, he just wanted to go to Iraq and make some fast bucks but he was killed" isn't really the story, not the whole story.

Mike and I agreed immediately when we discussed the show on Monday. I wanted to think about it a little before writing because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say here on this part but I'll share. My father died when I was little. He didn't die in Iraq. He did think he was going to make a quick buck. He worked himself crazy driving this route in really limited time and he had a car accident and he died. The only reason he pushed himself like that was because he thought, "Money for my kids!" We didn't end up with money but if we had, it wouldn't have brought him back or made it okay that he was gone. That influences how I'm seeing this (and may influence how Mike sees it because he knows my life story). My mother never said a word against him. But when I was 10, my grandfather (my dad's father) sat me down and explained the thing in terms of "lust and greed" (for money) and how that will lead you to make choices that are wrong for you and will hurt the people around you. I don't remember what the shoes were that I was whining about but I had been on my mom's case about it and how a real mother who loved me would get me those shoes. My grandfather didn't pull any punches. He told me that kind of thinking was the reason my dad, his son, wasn't with us. He really believed that he had to try to provide us with everything.

Given the choice, I'd go through life shoeless if I could just have my dad for even a year more than I did. So I don't blame the guy for thinking Iraq was a "quick buck" and I know it's conditioned in us. But I'm not going to sit here and act like he didn't have other options or he shouldn't have thought them through before he went over there.

I also don't get the whole, "He was supposed to be a bodyguard for Paul Bremer!" Was that supposed to be safer? Or is it that he didn't get what he signed up for? Talk to the soldiers over there and ask them if they got what their recruiters promised them.

Think about your own work and see if someone who's always arguing with the boss ends up getting the wanted task. There are other details to the story. I don't care for the lawyer representing the guy either. He did this with Amy Goodman (maybe Juan Gonzalez too, I think Juan was in that interview too) and he did it with Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian. It was a, "Oh good question, now instead of answering, let me get my soundbyte in." It's like he has a script whenever he appears. I think going to Iraq for a quick buck was foolilsh (my grandfather would call the guy a fool) and I think it was his choice. The same choice my father made in pursuing that quick buck. Those choices lead down a path and, at the end, there's no point in wondering how you got there.

I also thought if you were going to stress "He was a trainer for Demi Moore" you'd get her name right. If you're throwing out that detail (and it was tossed out over and over), learn the woman's name. It's not "Dem-me." It doesn't rhyme with Emmy. It'd be like saying, "He was a trainer for Cheryl Stone." Who? Sharon Stone isn't Cheryl Stone and Demi Moore isn't Demmy Moore.
(And Mike made me laugh when he noted that was a huge pet peever of C.I.'s. It really is.)

Cell Phone Use Tips

Over the past five-plus years, the American people have gotten a taste of what a triumphant George W. Bush is like, as he basked in high approval ratings and asserted virtually unlimited powers as Commander in Chief. Now, the question is: How will Bush and his inner circle behave when cornered?So far, the answer should send chills through today's weakened American Republic. Bush and his team -- faced with plunging poll numbers and cascading disclosures of wrongdoing -- appear determined to punish and criminalize resistance to their regime.
That is the significance of recent threats from the administration and its supporters who bandy about terms like sedition, espionage and treason when referring to investigative journalists, government whistle-blowers and even retired military generals -- critics who have exposed Executive Branch illegalities, incompetence and deceptions.
CIA Director Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman long regarded as a political partisan, has escalated pressure on intelligence officials suspected of leaking secrets about Bush's warrantless wiretapping of Americans and the torture of detainees held in clandestine prisons in Asia and Eastern Europe.

That's from Robert Parry's "Bush Brandishes Jail Time at Critics" (Consortium News) proving I'm not all talk. (Link takes you to a roundtable where I said Robert Parry was the online version of Seymour Hersh but that he gets far too little links.)

"So what's your beef?" That's what David Letterman used to ask Jay Leno when Leno was a guest on Letterman's show and not a host of The Tonight Show. Leno would go off on some topic. I bring that up because I'm about to go off on a topic.

Do you have a cell phone?

There was a time when a considerate person was someone who turned their ringer down low. (Better yet, put it on the vibrate option.) Those were the good old days.

Now days, something's new is happening and someone needs to note it so leave it to me and "my beefs" to cover it.

Everyone's got to have a tune on their ring tones. Everyone needs a song snippet that goes off every time the phone rings. Fair enough. If you've got a favorite song, go with it.

But here's something to remember -- a cell phone does not come with great speakers.

So when you have that thing up full blast and you think you look so cool, guess what? You don't. You sound like the fool with the tape deck in a Ford Pinto, blasting the music as loud as it will go, while everyone you drive past thinks, "What a crappy set of speakers."

That is reality, guys and gals. Your speakers suck. Unless you're going to hook up a set of speakers to your cell phone, turn the damn ringer down.

It doesn't sound cool. It sounds like crap. It's sound like a busted speaker and with all the crackling, it just makes people think, "You need a new sound system."

Maybe an elevator music version of "Hot in Here" isn't meant to be played full blast from your cell phone. Something to consider.

Let me offer one more tip. This is just for those of you using the walkie-talkie option on your cell phones. We all know you're desparately lonely and fear the world gets that you're a pariah. But hearing your friend, at full blast, respond, "Nothin', what you doing?" over and over does nothing to change our minds. In fact, we not only don't envy you, we wonder how lame you and your friend are that you have to talk, right then, at that moment, while you're on the train or in the grocery store, and yet you have nothing to say. You two don't seem exciting, we're not envious. We're just thinking, "What losers."

The Bully Boy and the NSA not withstanding, a phone conversation is supposed to be at least semi-private. Take that as a guideline.

Things to check out: C.I.'s "NYT: Taking a look at the pipeline, ignoring other things"; Mikes' "Law and Disorder, Iraq and more (including Jane Fonda quote)"; Rebecca's "flashpoints and the threepenny opera" and her "flashpoints (rita moreno) cover to cover with denny smithson (jane fonda)"; Elaine's "It's never up to an administration... It all depends upon what people force them to do."; Wally's "THIS JUST IN! THE DEALER IN CHIEF"; audio interview "Cover to Cover with Denny Smithson (Interviewing Jane Fonda)"; and audio, video or transcript of Amy Goodman interviewing "Antonia Juhasz on The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."

Hawaii and we're overrun with Fluff

Did you catch "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" on Democracy Now! Friday? That's the first of a two-part interview. The second part will air sometime next week. If you missed it, you can listen or watch online and you can read a transcript of it online as well.

If you need an overview, here's a piece from the opening of the interview that sets up the topic really well:

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you are looking at 14 coups that the U.S. was involved with. What was the primary reason for the U.S. government's involvement in overthrowing other countries' governments?
STEPHEN KINZER: A lot of these coups have been studied individually, but what I'm trying to do in my book is see them not as a series of isolated incidents, but rather as one long continuum. And by looking at them that way, I am able to tease out certain patterns that recur over and over again. They don't all fit the same pattern, but it's amazing how many of them do.

I always start with the assumption that everyone in the room knows more than I do, so most people are probably aware of the history of Hawaii. I wasn't aware of any of it. I was reading Maxine Hong-Kingston's The Fifth Book of Peace and came across a point that puzzled me. So I asked for clarification (which we all need to do but a lot of times are too afraid to so we just nod and act like we know). Well this was covered Friday on Democracy Now! and it ties in to current news plus it's something that you may not know about. (I honestly didn't until last month). Here's one of the sections from the interview about Hawaii:

AMY GOODMAN: The queen called in ambassadors from other countries for help?
STEPHEN KINZER: The queen was a little bit shocked by all this, as were her cabinet ministers. In fact, they appealed to the United States and asked, "What instability is there? Who's in danger? Tell us, and we'll protect them." The queen had about 600 troops at her disposal. That was the whole Hawaiian military force. And her cabinet ministers actually called the ambassadors from foreign countries in Honolulu -- there were about a dozen of them then -- and said, "What should we do? Do you think we should fight the Marines?" And the ambassadors quite prudently told her that that would be foolish. "You should just accept it and then try to regain your throne by some other means." That never proved possible. But even then, it was clear to the ruler of this small, weak country that there was no hope in resisting U.S. military intervention.
AMY GOODMAN: It still took a few years before Hawaii was ultimately annexed.
STEPHEN KINZER: It's a very interesting story. Immediately after the revolution, the revolutionaries went back to Washington and, sure enough, President Harrison, as he promised, submitted to the U.S. Congress a law to bring Hawaii into the U.S., but there was a great resistance to this when it was understood how the coup was organized and on whose behalf it was organized, so the Congress did not immediately approve the annexation of Hawaii.
And right at that time, the presidency changed. The Republican, Benjamin Harrison, was out of office, and the new president, a Democrat, Grover Cleveland, came in. He was against annexation. He was an anti-imperialist. He withdrew the treaty. And that meant that Hawaii had to become an independent country for a few years, until the next Republican president came into office, McKinley. And then, at the height of the Spanish-American War, when the U.S. was taking the Philippines, Hawaii was presented to the U.S. as a vital midway station between California and the Philippines. And it was at that time, five years after the revolution, that Hawaii was actually brought into the United States.

I was feeling pretty good about myself while they were discussing that because I'd just found about it recently. But then I saw something online and thought I really should note it.

This is from Friday and it's by Chris Newmarker, of the Associated Press, the article's entitled
"Native Hawaiians Honor Grover Cleveland:"

When it comes to Grover Cleveland, many Americans, even residents of his home state of New Jersey, have trouble recalling anything about him except that he is the only president ever to serve non-consecutive terms.
But 5,000 miles away, Native Hawaiians credit Cleveland with sticking up for their rights and sovereignty in the 1890s, when sugar plantation owners overthrew their queen and asked for annexation by the United States.
So it was on Thursday that three Native Hawaiians landed at New York's LaGuardia Airport, carrying about 20 leis, and found themselves getting lost on New Jersey roads as they searched for Cleveland's birthplace in Caldwell and the town's First Presbyterian Church, where his father was a pastor.
The Hawaiians are in New Jersey this weekend to pay their respects to Cleveland in Caldwell and at his grave site in Princeton.

Friday morning, I hear Grover Cleveland's name for the first time, I didn't know about his part in it (or in stopping it), and then I saw this online. I really know nothing about Grover Cleveland other than that he was a president and, as of yesterday, that he stopped the empire from grabbing Hawaii. Possibly, that's why he served only one term?

But I know we have members from Hawaii in The Common Ills community and I know C.I. shouldn't be the only one noting them. Which is one thing I wanted to write about last night but was too tired. C.I.'s holding this morning's entry at The Common Ills so that shout outs can be done to me and Kat for our entries. If that weren't the case, I'd go in detail about the subject (even though C.I. would say, "There really are other things to write about"). Instead, I'll just note that week in and week out The Common Ills is a site that goes far beyond the "White" or the "Male." This week, I laughed so hard at C.I.'s take on this person who wrote into The Nation to say that MLK 'won' and Malcolm X 'lost.' The guy didn't know anything about either man. C.I. responded with "Young, Ignorant and White" which was one of my favorite commentaries this week. So let me note that.

Let me also note Kat's "Both Sides of the Coin -- Ben Harper's Both Sides of The Gun vs. The Living Room Tour" which is great and, if you haven't already gotten Ben Harper's Both Sides of The Gun, you need to. My cousin says he'll be hosting NBC's Last Call all next week, so check that out and if that and Kat's review don't make you think, "I need to get Both Sides of The Gun," I don't know what will.

Last night, Three Cool Old Guys had a mixer at their nursing home. There were some people brought in from another nursing home. And the guys were really bummed for the first half-hour. It was depressing. I asked what was going on and got an earful.

They pointed to one group of women as an example. Right then, they were on couches, talking. This is the thrust of the conversation.

Woman 1: Girl, I love me some bread!
Woman 2: I have to have bread with every meal. I couldn't have a meal without some bread.
Woman 3: I have to cut my ice cream because I'm diabetic. I have to cut it or it's too rich for me.
Woman: Milk and cream and bread, I could live on it.

It went on and on like that forever. I got Three Cool Old Guys' point. I get depressed when I'm around people my age and all they want to do is talk about nonsense. (Big topic at the end of the week was Ace -- whoever that is -- getting voted off American Idol.) It must be even worse, when you're older and wiser and you have to hear that. The conversation on milk, cream and bread went on for fifteen minutes while I was listening and it was taking place before I was standing with Three Cool Old Guys. They're going to write about it for next Friday's gina & krista round-robin so check for that.

I'll just point out that we can talk about fluff or we can talk about the world around us. There's nothing wrong with bread (unless you are on a low-carb diet) but if you're not sharing recipes, I'm not sure why you'd go on and on about it like that. It was never even, "___ is the best loaf of bread" or anything like that. It was always "bread." It made me wonder exactly what I'd be talking about when I was older. Because, and Three Cool Old Guys believe this too, when you're older, you should have a little bit more to offer to a conversation than superficial.

I mean, if bread's your topic, talk about the best loaf you ever had or maybe someone in your family makes great bread or whatever. But to just go on and on with "Oh, I like bread too" seems like a waste of time.

I feel like a lot of time gets wasted with people my age. I hear way too much about American Idol and that dance show that's off right now. But especially with those contest shows, it's like people are so focused on who might win (and it's not them) that they don't care a thing about what goes on in the world. I went to lunch with some people at the office on Thursday and I felt like we'd all taken a stupid pill. The entire conversation was American Idol. And will Fantasia have a career? What about Kelly? What was the name of the guy who lost that year?

Justin. I don't even watch the show, never have, and I know his name. Honestly, I preferred it when the people I worked with were obsessed with soaps. It was stil fantasy but at least something was happening on them. I didn't watch them either but I knew Carly and Sonny and Jax's name and could follow the conversation. At the end of the lunch, one guy pointed out that I hadn't said anything. (Other than "Justin!" when they went on for several minutes trying to remember the guy's name.) I said I don't watch American Idol.

He apologized and said we'd talk about something else on the trip back to work. Guess what it was? Survivor. Which I also don't watch. But it was coming on tonight and . . .

Is that what we're coming to? A bunch of boring conversations about psudeo-reality? Sometimes I wonder. And I blame the corporate media which offers nothing but a headline on one story and then on to the next one. When the follow up, which is usually a kidnapping or some other White woman in tragedy story, it does get talked about. But they won't follow up on important stories. They won't say, "Yesterday, ___ spoke out against the administration's handling of pre-war intelligence and today ___ came forward to offer additional information. For that story, we go to ___."

There are two people I usually go out to lunch with but one's off on vacation and the other had an appointment so I ended up with the Fluff Crowd (who'll read this if they can tear themselves away from American Idol and its website long enough). We'll all listen to Democracy Now! and we can talk about things at lunch. Not just what's going on in the world but maybe someone's brother or whatever. But it seems like a lot of people aren't getting any reality/spinach in their media diet and they've come to the conclusion that obsessing over American Idol for hour upon hour (and they were talking about it after lunch when we got back to the office) is somehow going to enrich their lives.

At the start of the week, this woman came over to my desk and says she heard I follow the news. I say I try to. She says she was busy this weekend and needed to know did Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie get married?

I thought, "How do I respond to that?" Do I tell her, "They issued a statement that says: Live your own lives and quit living their life!" Do I tell her that, since she was well over forty, she was a little old to be obsessing over movie stars' private lives? I just told her that I try to follow news. She replied, excitedly, her too and said she's always surfing E! and The Star. She doesn't care for US weekly because it can be "a little too mean." If US weekly is a grown woman's idea of hard hitting journalism (and she turns from it), what does that say about the country?

Because it's not just this one woman. It's a lot of people at the office. When I got back from California, people at the office wanted to know about the trip. So I was excited and talking about protests and activists and they just wanted to know (except for the two I lunch with and the boss), did I see any movie star homes? That's saying something about the state of the country.
And more importantly about the state of distraction corporate media encourages.

My rant for the morning.

Check out Betty's "When friends are awarded, Thomas Friedman goes fugue," C.I.'s "NYT: A columnist can tell it's news -- why can't the reporting section?" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! ALBERTO GONZALES IN THE MIDST OF MADONNA UP!" but read Elaine's "My pacificism isn't a cloak I wear some days and others put on war drag" immeditately. Mike's got good reasons why in "US number four on execution, Guantanamo prisoners, strong voices."

Law and Disorder addressed PBS and Armenia

If you missed it in the panting over Katie and Tom having a baby!, (a true miracle, I'm guessing to judge by the coverage), Bully Boy issued some pardons. The name that stood out to me was this one:

Mark Reuben Hale, Henderson, Texas, savings and loan fraud. Sentenced July 10, 1991, to three years in prison.

I know what you're thinking, Neil Bush. Yeah, but move on past that.

Hale defrauded the government of at least five million dollars. He didn't even get a year for each million. So it's interesting that he now gets a pardon. From "UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FIFTH CIRCUIT_______________No. 92-4790 _______________UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus BILL WILDER, Defendant-Appellant:"

For example, Wilder enlisted the assistanceof Glasscock, Hale, and Kinney in defrauding the two savings and loans and concealing Wilder's participation in transactions through the use of sham land transfers. Moreover, Wilder agreed to release Glasscock and Kinney from liability regarding the G&K land purchase
17
We also note that the parties stipulated that Wilder's scheme to defraud the two savings and loans caused losses of over five million dollars. See United States v. Allibhai, 939 F.2d 244,252-53 (5th Cir. 1991) (upholding district court's finding that amoney laundering scheme was "otherwise extensive" because over onemillion dollars was involved), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 967, 117 L. Ed. 2d 133 (1992).

Thinking of that song where they sing "'Cause you gotta' have friends . . ." Me too. And Mark Hale was there to stick up for his buddy when Bully Boy's AWOL was all the news via 60 Minutes II. In fact, he wrote at The American Spectator that "Somehow we need to raise Johnson from the dead, ask him to make good on the promise, take CBS off the air!" (Swiping from C.I., the link goes to a cached version of Hale's comments, so hopefully no additional traffic for the magazine.)


It's good to be a Republican. You can take part in a scheme that costs tax payers over five million dollars, get a slap on the wrist by serving three years and then have your buddy Bully Boy come along to pardon you.

Are you listening to Law and Disorder? On WBAI Mondays or somewhere else? Mike and I are both writing about it tonight. Heidi Boghosian is with the National Lawyers Guild (I think she's the executive director) and one of the hosts. I think I may have mentioned her last week. But her grandparents came from Armenia so the genocide last century matters to her. (She said "early this century" at one point, I think, but I don't know anyone that's not still making that mistake -- including me. It's like writing checks the first week of January and forgetting to add another year to the date.)

I told C.I. I was writing about this and got two links. The first goes to Democracy Now! giving the history on the genocide. The second goes to an interview Amy Goodman did with Sibel Edmonds where it was mentioned that Denny Hastert got money from Turkey just when Gongress was going to put forth a resolution condeming the genocide (all these years later).

Boghosian talked about how she grew up hearing nothing about the genocide in school and how she asked her mother why people didn't know about it. That's because it didn't make the history books. Our government was in bed with Turkey and the genocide didn't matter. (Like it didn't matter when Saddam attacked people -- until later when we needed an excuse to go to war -- we looked the other way because it was beneficial to us.)

So following WWI, the genocide occurred. And PBS decided to do a program on it but they also wanted a "discussion" on it. And they included, on the panel, two people who are deniers of the Genocide. They wouldn't do a panel on the Holocaust and include deniers and it was one of the Michaels (Ratner or Smith, I think Ratner) who pointed out that denial is another form of abuse. You're denying the tragedy that happened.

I identify with the race issues when they're discussed (and don't pretend otherwise) so I asked Mike if I could grab this one and he was cool with it because he wanted to talk about the Clintons. Discussions on race always grab my interest because I don't think enough of them take place in the media. I think we hear a lot of "things are great" nonsense. I don't think we get much exploration of realities. Which is a good reason to seek out alternative media.

If there's someone stopping by for the first time, I'm African-American. I've heard it all, and on TV and radio, from "Blacks liked slavery! They had jobs and food!" to "Black women just have babies to make money!" Everything in between. Every lie you can imagine.

So I was really glad Boghosian addressed this. Especially after Dalia Hashad talked about her own experiences the week before. With regards to PBS, the news is that none of the big markets ended up carrying the panel (some smaller ones did). Boghosian said it was because of all the e-mails that came in (over 80,000). It's really sad that it takes that.

And it shows how little corporate media (PBS is corporate media -- when you get that much "sponoship" from corporations, you're commercial) gets it to this day. They, my opinion not the hosts, wanted to get their credit for covering a topic they should be covering (and should have been covering a long time ago). But to make sure no one's offended, they'll tack on a panel and invite two people who will say, "It never happened."

From what Ruth's written about PBS (and NPR) and stuff she's told me, that's not the mission of public broadcasting. (But PBS and NPR aren't public broadcasting.) The mission is to introduce ideas. Considering the historical blackout in this country on the genocide, there's no real reason for them to finally address the issue seriously and feel the need to bring on two people to say, "Never happened!"

But when you cater to the right-wing and always try to curry their favor, you can't tackle any event without trying to make sure no one's offended by the truth.

Boghosian spoke about her mother, her father and her grandmother (her grandmother came to this country to marry). I really wish there had been more of that because I'm guessing everyone who makes a point to listen thinks of the hosts as friends to spend time with and, when personal examples can be given, I think it carries more weight. The panel bothered the hosts. I could tell that. It bothered me too. But it really bothered Boghosian because this is a story of her family. If it weren't for the genocides, her ancestors might not have relocated. The genocide is a tragedy and it's history too. But it's also very personal to people whose families were effected. Ruth wrote about the PBS thing, in the round-robin I think, where she was asking people to e-mail on it (e-mail PBS). So I know they covered it before and this was just an update. It's my mistake not to have heard the earlier coverage. But I did miss that (I'll ask Ruth to check her notes and try to find out when that was -- if she can't, Gina should be able to because I am pretty sure the request for people to e-mail ran in the gina & krista round-robin because Ruth wanted to get it out there immediately and didn't have time for a full report).

By the way, I mention Gina and she is African-American but I like Krista too. Gina and I got paired in a group working on a link panel for The Common Ills a long time ago so I've known Gina longer. I am sure Krista would look it up for me gladly but since I've known Gina longer, I have no problem calling her up for a favor. I think the fact that they paired up for the round-robin is great because of their personalities and because they can approach an issue from an African-American perspective and a White perspective. I know Krista beats herself up, to this day, for a story links she suggested. I don't think there was anything wrong with them and never did. If someone's in prison and shouldn't be, it's a story. I'll disagree with Katrina vanden Heuvel on the importance of it. He may be a robber baron but he's not in prison for that, he's in prison because he's a political threat to Putin. Political prisoners need to be highlighted. If Tom DeLay was held in prison not because of his indictment but because of some trumped up reasons, I would object and I hate Tom DeLay.

I like Katrina vanden Heuvel's writing and usually agree with her but I was surprised that time when I heard on Democracy Now! and she responded to Amy Goodman's question in a kind of gruff manner. I know she knows Russia and I don't doubt that the Yukos guy isn't a nice person but I don't believe in political prisoners. (I don't think she does either. But I know her remarks caused Krista to beat herself up because Katrina vanden Heuvel is one of Krista's heroes.) (I don't think I have any heroes, outside of my family, who aren't dead. Maybe Three Cool Old Guys and C.I., that's about the closest I'd come to heroes outside my family.)

So the point of the Law and Disorder segment to me was the power that people can have. Not just with the panel. It took people using their power to even make PBS air anything on the genocide. That didn't happen in one month or one year or one decade. If you're a Howard Zinn reader, I am, you know there are many stories that never make the history books we're encouraged to rely on. But we can make history and we can rescue history and I'd argue that Armenians and people who heard the stories in the early half of the last century rescued this story. It's an important story. To deny it by saying it didn't happen or to deny it by not discussing it robs everyone.

And, to put a modern point on it, the illegal occupation of Iraq will be written into history. We can have input in that by using our voices now and not being afraid to call it an illegal occupation (which it is). And we can continue to protest the war. It won't end it tomorrow or next week and that's true of the reality of what happened in Armenia getting out and true of ending the war. I was thinking, while I listened, what Boghosian's mother must have thought when young Heidi asked that question? It must have been pretty hard to answer because, though her mother said it nicer, the underlying point was, "Dear, they just don't care enough to talk about it." And that made me wonder what her grandmother thought. This is my guess, and I'm just guessing, her grandmother may have thought, "New country. There will be people there who will welcome me. And there will be people who will care about what's going on." If she did think that, and she might not have, I wonder how long she thought it? Maybe she's alive now and got to see the change in thinking? Or maybe she never did. But did she keep hoping in the dark hours?

I have a grandmother who's alive and one who died. The one who died, died before I was born. My grandmothers liked each other and that's apparently not to common among my friends. But Grandma (who is alive) will talk about her like a friend (they were friends). And when she's tired or the world gets too much, sometimes she'll say that my grandmother who passed (she didn't have a grandmother name because she died before there were any grandchildren) was lucky to have passed away when she did, two weeks before Martin Luther King was assassinated. When Grandma's really tired or the news is just too awful, she'll say that and talk about how the dream was alive when my grandmother died. So when I hear someone talking about generations in their family, I wonder what the earlier ones thought.

I think they'd be proud of Boghasian because she really cares about this issue and I know people who don't care about things that came before. I really got angry with a friend (who is African-American) who was griping about the banks being closed on MLK Day. He was whining about how he couldn't put money in the bank. (He doesn't trust ATMs. He does have a reason, the bank lost a deposit of his once. But he was using a teller and not a machine.) My attitude was, "Be glad you have money and maybe you wouldn't if it weren't for the people who came before." Because MLK Day honors the man but it also honors the struggle that millions were involved in. And it stands for more than just this country because the struggle inspired world wide.

I'll give another example. Do you know the phrase "hood rat"? If you don't, you're lucky. Maybe you know Ronald Reagan's "welfare queens"? That's the same thing basically. A "hood rat" is one of those smears on African-American women. That's supposed to be a woman who just wants to live off welfare and child support and turns out a lot of kids (litters like a rat). What's really hurtful about this is that "hood rat" didn't come from a White person. And it's used by African-Americans. It's supposed to be funny. I don't know. Maybe we think it's funny if we say it first? But I have to wonder how many generations that fought the civil rights fight would hear it and think "funny."

I think we're unaware of what it took to get where we are (that's all of us, regardless of race -- and I'm still learning and will be all my life*) and that hurts us as much as anything that happens today. (Maybe because if we don't know our struggles, we just keep repeating them?)

I'll wrap up but I had a blast in California and my "*" was a C.I. story that I'll tell. C.I. won't be mad but will say, "You could have written about something important, Cedric." I think this is important. C.I.'s smart. Members know that. In California as we were going to rallies and meeting with different people, someone would bring up an issue from time to time. C.I. never bluffed. C.I. would just say flat out, "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about what you're talking about. But I loved to hear about it." To me, that's smart. You don't play along and try to put it together in your head and maybe miss key points. You just say upfront that you don't know and let someone walk you through it. I think learning never stops and growing continues for your entire life. There's a lot of things I love about C.I. If I write about a passing, I'll get a call and C.I. will start out saying, "That was so great" and then get all choked up. C.I.'s very generous with the praise and very supportive. But the thing I saw over and over last week was that C.I.'s not embarrassed to say, "I don't know, please tell me." A lot of people pretend they do know. They're too worried about how they'll look and I think they end up missing out on life and knowledge because if you fake your way through, you cheat yourself.

You should check out Law and Disorder because it will make you think and you'll really enjoy all four hosts. Also, check out Trina's "Gazpacho soup in the Kitchen" which is an easy recipe even for me. No cooking at all. I do have a blender so I used the blender recipes (there are two recipes). It turned out pretty good and, if you have cooking talent, it'll probably turn out great.

2005's honor (Marian Anderson) v. 2006's shame

The stamps above are of Marian Anderson who lived from 1897 to 1993. Ms. Anderson was a singer who fought racism and was internationally known. I'll assume we all know her and say thank you to Rebecca for posting the stamps and move on to my point.

Each year, the United States Postal Service puts out many stamps. Due to Black History, they usually do a "Black Heritage" stamp. In 2005, it was Marian Anderson. This year it's Hattie McDaniels. I wasn't aware of that. It's one of the many things I learned over the week. (I think Mike's going to write about that Friday night so I'll just say I think everybody had a great time and know I did.)

Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Oscar (or attend the ceremony as something other than a servant apparently). So I guess the thinking was, "Them Blacks will just love this stamp!"

Here's the thing. We don't all love the stamp. McDaniel's is a part of history and her story is of interest but that doesn't mean she qualifies for the honor of a stamp. McDaniels played mammys and maids and did so gladly. They were stereotypes. Before someone says, "Oh that's in looking back! In looking back, everything can seem outdated!" No, in real time, McDaniels was criticized for her choices by the NAACP.

McDaniels is a complicated figure and certainly worthy of discussion. She is not, however, worthy of the one stamp we can count on each year -- the one where we can see one of our own applauded for accomplishments.

I'd like to know who decided Hattie McDaniels was the person to pay tribute to this year? My guess? Some White person.

Probably a Gone With The Wind freak who thinks "those people must love that movie because McDaniels won an Oscar for it!" Yeah, that's what we like to do, sit around watching movies about the Civil War where all the characters of color are just happy to be serving Miss Scarlett and bound in slavery. That's our idea of a feel-good movie.

No, "those people" don't all swoon over the love affair between master Scarlett and her Confederate lover Rhett. We don't get all excited in the rooting that things will work out for them (slavery will prevail?) and then feel sad that the plantation system has crumbled.

I'm thinking only under the Bully Boy could the post office make such a ridiculous choice, such an insulting choice.

McDaniel's life is a complicated one and it is certainly worthy of discussion and debate. It is not, however, worth being noted in the Black Heritage series over the very real accomplishments of African-Americans, past and present, who have worked to dispell stereotypes and to advance the cause of civil rights. In the end, the best that may be said of her is that she achieved when others couldn't. Saying that requires examining how she managed that feat and there's not a great deal of pride in that story.

Will 2007 find us honoring Amos & Andy?

I'm posting because I should be the first one who landed. Mike thinks he's going to post tonight but he's getting home late (Wally's getting home the latest, I think). Rebecca's got three entries today so check her out and note that when the rest of us were unable to post she carried her weight and then some. Thank you to Rebecca.

I'll note one thing from Democracy Now! today and call it a night:

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, 81, Dies
And the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. has died at the age of 81. For the past half century he has been a leading anti-war and civil rights advocated. During the 1960s as chaplain of Yale University he was a leading critic of the Vietnam War and strongly advocated the use of civil disobedience to protest the war. In one of the most celebrated trials of the 1960s he faced charges along with Dr. Benjamin Spock and others of conspiracy to encourage draft evasion. He was also an early supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and took part in some of the first Freedom Rides. Courage, he preached over the years, was the first virtue, because ''it makes all other virtues possible.'' In the 1970s he went on to become a senior minister at the Riverside Church in New York. And in the 1980s he played an instrumental role in the anti-nuclear movement.

If you missed the program today, read C.I.'s "Democracy Now!: The Death of The Village Voice?" and you'll know why you need to catch it. Now.

Law and Disorder addressed covert racism

I wasn't sure if I had anything to write about. In fact, I thought I didn't because I'm doing a thing for the gina & krista round-robin about the demonstrations. But Mike came over just now and told me he was writing a little about Law and Disorder. We listened to that a little while ago while we were eating dinner and Mike reminded me that I had a bit to say about the first story.

This was only my second time listening. Ruth's Public Radio Report got me interested in the show and it was one of those "I'll listen" that gets put off. By the way, that's why I'm all for noting Pacifica programs. How many months has Ruth been noting Law and Disorder? I've now listened twice in a row and stuff like that doesn't happen overnight. You hear someone say, "Listen to this!" and, if they're excited, you think about it. If I never listened to it, I think it made a difference just knowing it was out there, just being aware of it. So if you're thinking, "Well, I don't have a blog . . ." remember that you have a mouth. You can use it. And even if someone doesn't listen to the thing you recommend, they know it's out there.

I'm going to focus on the first segment which was Dalia Hashad (of Amnesty and one of the four co-hosts of the show) speaking with the others (Heidi Boghosian of the National Lawyers Guild, Michael Ratner of the National Lawyers Guild). She was in Houston and she's not Anglo/White. She was at a Joe's Crabshack type place (it wasn't Joe's Crabshack) and she was treated in the most rude mannder.

She still left a tip (smaller than she would have elsewhere but still a nice size tip) and when she said that, there were a few groans. I don't mean on the show, I mean as we were listening. But C.I. and my opinion was that if she hadn't left anything, it would have justified the service to the server and other wait staff. The staff would have said, "See, that's how those people are."

I've been in that situation before, a lot of times, and I used to not leave a tip. If someone else doesn't want to, they shouldn't. You shouldn't reward bad service. But one Sunday after church, on my grandmother's birthday, we all went out to eat. The food was pretty good . . . when it arrived. We had to remind the waiter repeatedly (it was over a half-hour after we had ordered before we got our food). My aunt ended up doing our refills because we couldn't get more iced tea no matter how much we asked. So she just got up, went over and grabbed a pitcher of tea, filled up everyone's glasses, then went and grabbed another one. Our waiter would snap "I'm busy!" whenever anyone tried to wave him over. We noticed that the other four tables he was going to were tables he visited all the time. The people at those tables were white. We were African-American.

Like Dalia Hashad said, you're never sure if it is a case of racism. Maybe we somehow offended the waiter? Maybe he just didn't like where our table was located? Maybe he thought he was going to all the tables but would get called to the kitchen before he got us and he didn't realize that?

Or maybe someone at the table looked like an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend so he didn't want to come over? Or an old teacher? You never can be sure because racism still is a big issue but it's covert now. Decades ago, they would have denied you service and said, "You're black, get out."
(Or worse.) Now days, it's more covert.

So after the meal, we were all decided not to leave a tip. The waiter hadn't earned it and our party was so large that an automatic tip was tacked on. But my grandmother was really bothered by that. She felt the guy was racist. And she felt like if we didn't leave a tip, he'd feel good about himself. We leave and leave no tip, he's going to tell himself he did the right thing.
So we left a nice tip.

In that situation, you need to do what you feel like. If you don't want to leave a tip, don't. It's not been earned and, I'd argue, that they should actually being paying you after treating you so rudely. But my grandmother's point is one that I act on now. I want them to come to the table after we leave and see a tip and not have the excuse of "Oh, they didn't tip, no surprise" -- I want them to see the tip and think, "I wasn't even nice to them." Maybe a few of them will feel bad. Maybe, the next African-American customer that comes in will get a little better treatment than we got.

Dalia Hashad also talked about how then she is traveling to New York City for the taping of Law and Disorder and at one point, I think in the train station, she's waiting and it's packed. There's one seat that no one's sitting in but a woman has her cup of coffee in the seat. Dalia Hashad walks over and asks nicely if it's the woman cup of coffee? It is. And she finishes eating her muffin before she finally picks up her cup of coffee. Those things are hurtful.

And because racism's covert you're left wondering exactly what the problem was. Maybe the woman didn't want anyone sitting on that side of her? Maybe she's just a mean person? Maybe it was because of race? But, like Dalia Hashad pointed out, these things happen over and over in a week. (Probably in a day for some people.) It's really hard just to forget it. It's like a missing tooth and you know it's gone but your tongue keeps going back to the empty socket. It does a real number on you. And let's say that Dalia Hashad was white, super wealthy and whatever. If that had happened to her still, she would've wondered what was wrong with her. But race probably wouldn't have been one of the questions she wondered about. When race could be a factor (and often is) it is really hurtful because we're told racism is over or at least not that bad but then we come up against something like that and realize how some people really see us which then makes you wonder, "Well what about other people I know? Do they see me that way too but they're just more polite?" It just does a real number on you and not just when you're walking away but for the rest of the day and there have been times for me where it's been for the rest of the week.

So I was really glad they addressed the issue and that they did it by letting Dalia Hashad talk about her experiences. It happens to everyone and it doesn't matter how you speak or how you dress but she speaks very well so you know you can eliminate that factor and the way she was dressed. I know that it made me feel better. There was one time I went to a large box store to get new tires and was left waiting for an hour while people who came in after me (White) were rushed in and out. I probably spent a day blaming myself because I drove up in wind pants and t-shirt. I kept telling myself, "I should've dressed up." It was probably the middle of the next week before I thought, "Forget that." It was a Saturday morning. I was going in to get my tires, not going to Sunday school. I didn't need to wear a suit and tie to expect even adequate service.
But that's what you do afterwards, you start thinking "Well should I have dressed differently" or "Did I sound stupid?" So hearing her speak about it, I think if you could relate to that situation, you really were glad that it was someone so well spoken that was addressing it.

It shouldn't happen to anyone. But I know that I go to that or clothes immediately because you do start blaming yourself when it happens.

If you missed it and this sounds like a topic you want to hear about it, you can listen to it at
Law and Disorder.

I also want to note "'What I Didn't Find In Iraq' by Bully Boy" because I really like that feature. It's a parody of an op-ed by the Bully Boy and how that happened? Friday, Jim was talking about Joseph Wilson's "What I Didn't Find In Africa" repeatedly (Wilson wrote that, discrediting a claim by the Bully Boy for war, and as a result, the administration attacked him and outed his wife Valerie Plame who had been a CIA agent). After hearing that over and over, C.I. suggested that we think what Bully Boy might say if he had to write an op-ed with the same title? We all liked the idea and C.I. urged us to work on while we were behind the idea and to also knock out something on Friday so it would be one less thing to worry about. I think it was like eleven o'clock (maybe later) but we went ahead and thought up ideas. Everyone thought up at least one idea and we worked on them solo and then came back to fit it together and rewrite. Ty had the shortest one and it falls in the middle which is the only thing that anyone else had input on. Here's Ty's (and if you haven't read the feature it's surrounded by longer items):

I did not find Waldo. But I looked real hard.

That still makes me laugh. Ty didn't believe that we liked it, he kept saying it was "sleight" but I think it's funny and so did everyone else.

Robert Parry on KPFA's Living Room this afternoon

Wasn't planning on blogging and normally wouldn't at this time of day. But normally, I'd be at work.

I wanted to note that Rebecca's favorite Robert Parry will be interviewed on KPFA today at noon PT, two CT and three ET on a program called Living Room. She'd note it if one of my favorites was interviewed and Parry's someone whose writing I like to. We discussed at least two of his books at The Third Estate Sunday Review. He was also nice enough, when Ava e-mailed him about ABC changing Colin Powell's words up in their press release on Barbara Walter's interview with Powell, to note Ava and C.I.'s coverage on that. He did that even though Ava wrote him that she wasn't asking for a link but she wanted to get off her chest how angry she was that ABC had changed up Powell's words. So when not asked for a link, when someone says not to link, he still provided one. That's a pretty nice guy. You should already know that he's a real journalist who could be working for the mainstream and making big bucks. He did before, he won awards and praise. But he got sick of the way something's couldn't be covered and something's got buried. So he started his own news organization, Consortium News. That should make you want to listen. So go listen.

I'm on Jess's laptop by the way. So thank you, Jess. And I'm in California, so thank you C.I. That's why I didn't blog last night. I'd called to compliment everyone on their work on the immigration issue and got invited out. I talked to my boss and he pointed out that I had time off and "You never turn down a free trip!" So here I am and thank you, again, to C.I.

Want to thank independent media? Pay attention to it. So check out Robert Parry on Living Room today.

Jean Dominique and Law and Disorder

Haitian Government Urged to Reopen Probe Into Killing of Jean Dominique
And in Haiti, the group Reporters Without Borders is urging the Haitian government to reopen an investigation into the killing of the pioneering radio journalist Jean Dominique. He was gunned down in the courtyard of Radio Haiti Inter on April 3rd 2000. Dominique was profiled in Jonathan Demme' documentary The Agronomist two years ago.

That's from Democracy Now! and I didn't know the name Jean Dominique.

This is from Haitia Progres, April 2000, "The Assassination of Jean Dominique: Is it part of Washington's offensive?"

At 6:15 a.m. on Apr. 3, a gunman entered the courtyard of Radio Haiti Inter and shot to death pioneering radio journalist Jean Dominique, 69, as well as the station's caretaker, Jean-Claude Louissaint. Dominique, who was just arriving by car to prepare for his hugely popular 7:00 a.m. daily news roundup, was struck by one bullet in the head and two in the neck. He was loaded with Louissaint into an ambulance, but both men were pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Haitian Community Hospital in Pétionville.
In recent weeks, Dominique had been sharply critical of the U.S. government's heavy-handed meddling in Haitian elections and bullying of Haitian President René Préval, to whom Dominique was a close friend and advisor.
Are agents of Washington behind Jean Dominique's brutal murder? Is this just the opening salvo of a more violent stage in the wide-ranging campaign to intimidate the Haitian government and people into following Washington's directives?
That is the suspicion voiced by Haitians on radio call-in shows and street corners since the killing. For them, this is just the latest act of aggression in an escalating war which Washington is waging to see that its neoliberal agenda eventually goes through in Haiti. Vilifying articles in the mainstream press, warnings from diplomats, hold-backs of international assistance, and killings by the "forces of darkness" have all been part of a growing offensive to block the return to power of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his party in what has become known as the "electoral coup d'état."

I also googled "Democracy Now" and "Jean Dominique" and found this:
"Haian Journalist Michele Montas Discusses Haiti and the Unsolved Murder Of Her Husband:""

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go for a minute to a tape one of the last interviews that Jean Dominique did. Dan Coughlin, now head of the Pacifica network, was in Haiti a few weeks before Jean Dominique was killed. This was Jean Dominique's last interview broadcast in the United States.

JEAN DOMINIQUE: Throughout Haiti now, more and more poor citizens are asking questions. What questions? There has been with President Preval many attempts to put in practice what the constitution calls “decentralization”. What does that mean? That means that the small communities are actually able to take their own offers in their hands. That's power to the local government. That's decentralization. Contrary to the Haitian tradition of centralization, everything in the national palace. Now, every community has a chance to put in their hands their business, the business of the community, which is a fantastic step for democracy, actually. And because of this decentralization process, actually in process, the poor citizens are saying that we are the masters of our destiny. We can now start taking care of ourselves. And they are saying if we have to vote for the local government we have to participate, because those people will be our people. We are going to hire them the same way we can in four years fire them. So, the sense of citizenship is actually emerging and spreading. That's a wonderful step in the process of democracy in Haiti. Maybe our masters don't like this process. Maybe in the paradise of our big brothers, they don't like that those poor, desperate, illiterate, dirty people can take their destiny in their hands. But I think that they're wrong. They are wrong with their own principle, because a town meeting in the United States is not a revolutionary, is it? When a citizen goes to a town meeting to discuss things about his town, his city, he's a normal citizen. We want our democracy based on town meetings. We want our democracy based on the Jefferson principles. Is Jefferson contrary to Washington D.C. now?

AMY GOODMAN: Jean Dominique, one of his last interviews before he was assassinated April 3, 2000. Interesting last comment, is Jefferson contrary to Washington now? When I interviewed him as well, he was talking very much what Washington’s interests were in Haiti. Who assassinated your husband?
MICHELE MONTAS: I don't know, but from investigation that has lasted three years, three long years, I can say that so far, all of the available evidence leads to the party in power, to the La Velas party.
AMY GOODMAN: At the time the murder stunned the country, Haiti's president declared three days of mourning and ordered the national palace draped in black.
MICHELE MONTAS: Yes, indeed. There was a great deal of pain and suffering on the part of the Haitians when it happened. Jean was a symbol of Haitian democracy because of his long fight since the Duvalier years against dictatorship and for the participation of the majority of Haitians to the affairs of the country. As he said it earlier in his interview. And the question is to be asked, why was Jean Dominique killed? More and more, you're asking yourself whether it was not because of this democratic agenda that he was killed. A very good extent Jean supported, you know, whole movement for democracy in the 1986, 1987, and way before that also, and supported the La Velas movement as a whole in 1990, very strongly so. And in 1994. However, there were a number of trends which Jean found disturbing when the La Velas movement became the La Velas party. The former La Velas. When Jean identified the fact that a number of people within the group were not particularly democratic people. The way that the candidates of the party were chosen for the 2000 elections did not represent a real democratic aspirations.



You might have already known about him. I didn't and I'm not embarrassed to admit that.

Betty's not posting tonight. She's got her chapter ready and just wanted to do a read over it and "fine tune" it some. But Blogger was a problem tonight and she said she needs to get to bed because she's got to take two of her children to the doctor's early tomorrow morning. I told her not to worry about it and that I'd note it here and I'd pass it on to C.I. later so C.I. could give a heads up at The Common Ills tomorrow.

Betty did ask me if I could note this from C.I. Betty wanted to work that in but when Blogger went down, she couldn't get in to work some more on her chapter. She's been working on this chapter every day since Friday. She puts in a lot of work on everyone. I just look around the news and see what's something I want to talk about or what's something I don't know about.

I think of her and Wally as the community humorists. But Wally would be the first to tell you that the longest he ever has to ponder a post is an hour. Betty spends hours thinking before she writes one word.

So maybe you learned about someone new, like I did, or maybe you just got a review but I'm going to wrap up here.

I will note that I listened to Law and Disorder this week because between "Ruth's Public Radio Report" Mike's "Rummy, Conid, Dave Zirin and Law and Disorder", I knew I better get off my lazy rear and check out the show they both can't stop talking about.
WBAI archives and the Law and Disorder website are two places you can listen to it.

Besides the beeper bumper Mike wrote about, the first story really grabbed me. (I enjoyed it all.) This was about Scalia and how he should have recused himself from the Guantanamo prisoners' case. If you missed that story, you should listen to the program.

And if you need another reason to listen, Michael Ratner, one of the hosts, wrote this
("ABOVE THE LAW: Bush claims the right to spy on everything, including attorney-client conversations"):

And now it turns out that Bush's eavesdropping program is not only in criminal violation of FISA, but an end-run around one of the most basic pillars of our system of law: the constitutional right to counsel and the confidentiality of attorney-client conversations necessary to protect that right.
As an attorney for CCR, which has brought many of the most important legal challenges to the Bush administration since Sept. 11, I thought, when the NSA program was revealed, that we could be among the targets of the spying. We represent hundreds of Guantánamo detainees and high-profile victims of torture and kidnapping; we were winning cases against the government and successfully challenging their illegal actions in court. I had ample reason to believe that our conversations with our clients, witnesses and colleagues would be overheard, and even our families' phone lines would be tapped. Now, with the admission by the government that it has not "excluded" listening in to attorneys' conversations, I feel sure that this once absolute boundary has been crossed.
The attorney-client privilege is more than a legal nicety. It is central to the American idea of justice that all clients be able to speak in confidence with those who represent them. It is fundamental to an honest defense that attorneys have access to their clients without surveillance. In the past, when wiretaps picked up attorneys talking with clients, the statutes required turning off the tap as long as the attorney was on the line. But these basic rules have apparently been cast aside by the president.

Harry Belafonte's Calypso

So I go the door this morning and there's a stranger there. He asks, "Are you Cedric?" Yes. He hands me a package and says good-bye.

It contains a few books and the CD Harry Belafonte Calypso. He's someone C.I. knows who was coming to my area so C.I. asked him to drop off the items with me. I'd mentioned Harry Belafonte in my post on Thursday (which C.I. was kind enough to note three times at The Common Ills) and I'd called C.I. before posting. While we were on the phone, I'd mentioned two CDs I had of Harry Belafonte's. C.I. had mentioned Calypso and was surprised that I not only didn't have it but I'd also never heard the entire album (one of my albums is a collection and some songs from Calypso appear on it). C.I. recommended it strongly.

I'd forgotten about that until the stranger showed up at my door. I'll note that the last time C.I. passed on a series of books, it never arrived in the mail and that may be why C.I. asked a friend who was traveling to my area to drop off this package.

I haven't even looked at the books. I've just listened to Calypso most of the day. Over and over. It really is a great album. It came out in 1956 and was a million seller back when million sellers were a rare thing. There are eleven tracks and besides "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)," the song most people will probably know, one of my favorites, is "Jamaica Farewell."

While I was listening, I thought about how I wished I had an illustration and, if I did, I'd write a little about the album. Then I remembered that Rebecca enjoyed the album and had been scanning some covers for future posts at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude. So I called her cell but didn't get an answer. I tried Mike's home phone number (she, Fly Boy and Elaine are at Mike's this weekend) and he put her on the phone. She wasn't sure if she had it on her laptop because she has most of her jpegs on her home computer. She said she'd check and call back. She ended up networking with her home computer (don't ask me), I think, and when she called back, she said it was up at her site. So thank you to Rebecca for that.

I really enjoy Calypso. Too much so, in fact. I was washing dishes and went into the living room when "Hosanna" came on. I ended up sitting down on the couch and listening. Then, after the last track, I started the CD back up. At some point, I thought we had a light rain and probably ten minutes after that, I realized that I had left the water in the sink on. I had water all over the kitchen floor.

After I cleaned up my mess, I went back to listening to the CD. My cousin stopped by for a few minutes but ended up staying to hear the CD too. This is one of those albums that works as a whole. And you're not grabbing the remote to skip songs.

Another thing I enjoy is the fact that linear notes are reproduced. I wish new CDs would carry those. Sometimes you get a paragraph or two about the album, on a new CD, and maybe a list of thank yous but that's really about all. I have little interest in most of the "bonus" DVDs that CDs are being packaged with these days. I wonder why they don't take the time to provide linear notes but, then again, most of the CDs don't provide much worth writing about.

William Attaway wrote the linear notes, by the way. I didn't know the name but it said he is the "Author of several novels and screenplays. Mr. Attaway is currently writing scripts for television." If you click here you can learn about Attaway who died in 1986 of cancer and co-wrote six of the songs on Calypso. He lived a very interesting life, civil rights advocate, advocate before the civil rights period, even, and a writer of many forms. It notes that:

Attaway was the first black writer to write scripts for TV and films. He wrote Hundred Years of Laughter, an hour long special on black humor that aired in 1964. The hour-long special featured comedians Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley, and Flip Wilson in their first appearance on television.

So that was interesting to learn. I think my favorite song on Calypso is "Brown Skin Girl." If you're like me before this morning and have never heard the CD, you're missing out more than you know (more than I knew).

Afghanistan the forgotten "liberation"

Afghan Christian Convert Granted Political Asylum in Italy
In other news, Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen who faced a possible death sentence for converting to Christianity has arrived in Italy, where he's been granted political asylum. Rahman was arrested two weeks ago. Under Afghanistan’s laws no one has the right to contravene Islam.

That's from Democracy Now! today. Now Afghanistan's supposed to be a "win," remember? We're supposed to have "liberated" there. Forget the fact that we've let warlords control the country and that women are no better off than they were before Bully Boy's war (despite Laura Bush delivering a radio address on the need to liberate the women -- can you imagine how Rush and the right wing gang would have tarred and feathered Hillary Clinton for delivering a readio address like that). Just focus on the fact that there's no freedom of religion unless you consider freedom of religion to mean that you are free to practice a Muslim religion as much as you want.

He was put on trial and "safety" for him means escaping to Italy. Now do we still want to pretend that we "liberated" anything or anyone in Afghanistan?

There was an NPR reporter, a woman, who left NPR and decided to try to help in Afghanistan. She was interviewed by David Brancaccio when the program was still NOW with Bill Moyers. (And when it was still an hour long.) Things weren't going great then. (Moyers left the show by January 2005). And you think they've gotten better?

Her name is Sarah Chayes. Here's some of what she said on the October 24, 2003 broadcast:

CHAYES: It does technically, but there's a lot of autonomy in these provinces. Largely because frankly the leaders or the rulers of these provinces were chosen to be the proxy to drive the Taliban out of Kandahar. Sorry… to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
Because it's not just Kandahar that's under this sort of war-lord rule. It's also Herat in the west, and it's, you know, it's basically each region has its local strong man. And these people obtained a lot of weapons and a lot of money, largely from the United States.
Which was fair enough. In other words, we were not going to go in massively on the ground in Afghanistan the way we did in Iraq. And so we needed people to do it for us. And these were people who had been opposed to the Taliban, so why not go with them?
The problem was that this massive influx of arms and money to these guys gave them a kind of… it rooted them. It anchored them. And what's happened now is that they report nominally to Kabul. But very little in fact.
That's one side of the security situation. The other side of the security situation is a visible resurgence of Taliban activity. And this has been happening very… again, I don't feel in danger in Kandahar. I don't… it's not on the surface of it now very grave as far as I'm concerned.
But it's the pattern that I'm starting to feel to be a bit worrisome. Which is that there was sort of nothing for the first six months after the Taliban defeat. Then you started to see in, for example, across the border in Pakistan you started seeing Taliban showing themselves very openly in the streets with their classic clothing and all that kind of thing.
It was clearly a trial balloon to see what the reaction would be. And there was actually no reaction. And then the next phase was sermons against… in mosques against the U.S. Presidents, against the central government in Afghanistan. Against girls going to school, things like that. There were letters left in mosques and schools in Afghanistan.

That was in 2003. Things haven't gotten better. But this is supposed to be a "success."

Here's what Christian Parenti wrote recently in Christian Parenti's "Afghanistan: The Other War:"

Only ninety-eight US troops died in Afghanistan last year; but the ratio of US casualties to overall troop levels makes Afghanistan as dangerous as Iraq. While Iraq's violent disintegration dominates the headlines, Bush touts Afghanistan as a success. During his recent visit, the President told Afghans that their country was "inspiring others...to demand their freedom."
But many features of the political landscape here are not so inspiring--for example, the deteriorating security situation. Taliban attacks are up; their tactics have become more aggressive and nihilistic. They have detonated at least twenty-three suicide bombs in the past six months, killing foreign and Afghan troops, a Canadian diplomat, local police and in some cases crowds of civilians. Kidnapping is on the rise. American contractors are being targeted. Some 200 schools have been burned or closed down. And Lieut. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the senior American military officer here, expects the violence to get worse over the spring and summer.


And this week saw the death of a Canadian soldier and an American. C.I. noted it yesterday:

The scene of Bully Boy's other "liberation" still hasn't seen "democracy" but it does continue to see violence: in Kandahar a Canadian soldier, an American solider and eight Afghan soldiers were killed. (The name of the Canadian is Robert Costall -- only name released -- who was twenty-two.) Three Canadian soldiers were also wounded. And veterans of the Vietnam war have joined with others to insist that the United States "take responsibility for victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military."

I included the Agent Orange sentence because I think that's important but as soon as I read over the copy and paste, I started thinking it was also fitting. We don't follow up on anything. We've denied Agent Orange and we deny what's going on Afghanistan. I'm not sure if I should write "we." Obviously, I'm largely speaking of the administration (which isn't "we" -- I never gave my approval for faith-based funding or for illegal wars or for anything the administration has done) but it's true that "we" also includes the people. And if we demanded that the government be accountable for its actions, they'd have to.

It's all "the other war" unless it's Tom Brokaw getting misty-eyed for "The Great Generation."
We don't think about it, we don't care. You can throw in WWI as well. Tom Brokaw didn't think they were the greatest generation. And with Bully Boy saying "global war on terror" all the time, I've started to realize he really means WWIII.

Katrina vanden Heuvel doesn't want people making comparisons to Hitler and others of his ilk. I like her but I don't work for The Nation and I'll write whatever want, thanks for the suggestion.
Now Hitler's considered to have started WWII. There's dispute about Pearl Harbor (which leads to the US entering) but I think a lot of people would say it was Hitler's actions that set WWII into motion. (If not, e-mail me and gripe.) Who's put the "global war on terror" into motion? Bully Boy.

He didn't want to prosecute terrorism, he wanted a war. He's said it plenty of times, "I'm a war time president." So if he wants a "global war" -- what is that but another world war? "Globe" equals "war."

I remember a city council meeting that a number (a large number) of us attended. And a pastor (not my preacher) spoke in front of it. This was in 2003, a few months after the invasion. He said Bully Boy was acting like Hitler by lying us into war and this White man, at least in his fifties, starts crying. In public. And he's a city council member. And he starts going, "Don't you say that! Don't you say that! Don't you compare our president to Hitler! Don't you say he lied us into war."

Okay, with the Downing Street Memo and this week's memo, I think a lot of us can say, "He lied us into war" and if that causes someone to burst into tears, too bad for them.

But I really don't like Katrina vanden Heuvel telling people what comparisons are "good" or "bad." Maybe it works that way in the White world but she's not speaking for all cultures and she's sure not speaking for the African-American culture around me.

It's like when that creep Bernie wanted to lecture Kayne West about what to say and how to say. African-Americans don't need Whites telling them how to speak. If it irritates you, don't listen. But outside of the conservatives ones, I doubt there was any confusion about what Kayne West meant in the African-American community.

We're still fighting for our rights and we don't need a White person, trying to be helpful or not, telling us how to talk. Maybe it's not that we don't know how to speak, maybe it's that your not the intended audience?

There are cultural differences and a lot of "helpful advice" often seems like a White person is trying to tell us how to speak. It's like when the Katrina victims were testifying to Congress and that White man butted in on the African-American woman and started saying, "Don't you use concentration camps!" She's a grown woman. She can use any damn term she wants to. That was so disrespectful.

It offends White ears? Too bad. If James Brown had polled "I'm Black and I'm Proud" to White audiences, he never would have used it in a song.

You don't want to use a phrase, don't use it. You don't want to make a comparison, don't make it. But quit thinking that Kanye West is talking to you just because you saw him on the TV. A lot of people grasped what he was saying, people of all color, that some New Republic pushing, "War Got Your Tonuge?" silenced White guy didn't get it is his own problem.

And I don't think Harry Belafonte made a mistake comparing Bully Boy to Hitler. I'm proud he said it. Katrina vanden Heuvel listed that as a one of her no-no examples. I'm sorry it was a no-no for her. But in the real world, in African-American circles, we got it. We understood what he was saying. And a lot of us, including me, got it.

It's like when Aretha Franklin sang it "Sock it to me" in "Respect" and when Richard Nixon said "Sock it to me" on Laugh-In. It didn't mean the same thing. There was a racial context. And I really didn't appreciate Katrina vanden Heuvel including Harry Belafonte on her list.

I'm glad she's against the war. But African-Americans were against it in large numbers before it started and that's remained consisentent. We didn't need the mainstream media to report a little of the truth (finally) to form our opinions. We didn't need "tastemakers" with their carefully chosen words telling us how to speak or advising us of what was going on.

Next time Katrina vanden Heuvel wants to make a list of suggestions, she should focus on people of her class, her race, her education background. (I won't say her gender because she doesn't spend a lot of time writing about gender.) Leave the African-Americans and Native Americans off the list of examples and understand that although I respect you, I don't need a White person telling me how to speak or what comparisons to make.

She really offended me by putting Harry Belafonte on her list. As far as I know, The Nation has only one African-American who regularly writes for the magazine, Patricia J. Williamson. So maybe she thinks African-Americans don't read The Nation? If that's the case, we do. If that's not the case, before she tries to put words in our mouths, she might want to consider putting us in the magazine itself in something other than a "Remember Brown v. Board of Education" special issue. I see a lot of Whites writing for the magazine. I don't see a lot of non-whites. I'm assuming Liza Featherstone is Native American based upon her name and that might be a mistake on my part. But I see Featherstone and Williams and that's really it.

Instead of telling everyone how to speak, that time might be better spent trying to make the magazine more representative of how all of us, from various backgrounds speak.

I didn't realize how offended I was by that column until now.

I think it's because I don't think she was trying to offend to anyone. I think she was trying to offer some inspiration and she does that in many of her columns. But I'm serious on this, if you've got a beef with the way people are talking, stick to your own kind. Don't write suggestions for everyone. Not when everyone is represented equally in your magazine. In fact, if it weren't for the Jewish writers, the magazine would probably be overwhelming WASP.

I'd just intended to write about Afghanistan and have no idea how I even got into this topic. I think it was Bully Boy's "global war." That's a world war. WWIII on terrorism, but it's still a world war. We don't have gas chambers. We do have a government that tortures. We do have a government that rounded up people after 9-11 and it was the dark skinned people, not the ones who looked like Katrina vanden Heuvel.

She's spoken out against torture and I know she gets it and then some. But just because she doesn't make the connections other people make doesn't make them wrong. And it may go to the fact that she's writing from her own perspective while attempting to make universal statements.

I'll stop here because I've been trying to rush tonight because Mike wants to note my post. C.I.'s been asking if everyone's doing their part to note at least one other site each day. I called C.I. and said it was very nice (and C.I. notes me all the time) but that I was doing fine. But C.I. wants to be sure that everyone has a chance to be noted. (And C.I. noted Kat twice this morning. Kat said C.I. asked her not to post her review at The Common Ills until she knew she'd have time to blog at her site too because that way people clicking on her name in the review would see something new.)

I just called C.I. even though I know this is a crazy time. I said I had some strong criticism of Katrina vanden Heuvel. C.I. goes, "And?" Which made me laugh. I said, "Well I didn't want to post it if it was going to make you or the community uncomfortable." C.I. said, "Post it. Your opinion matters. If someone disagrees, they disagree. But you need to share your thoughts or there's no point in writing anything." I said, "Well, you noted you disagreed with her column but I'm going into why I disagree with it." C.I. said, "That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. She wrote her point of view and you're allowed to write your point of view. That's how free speech works. I'll make a point to note your entry tonight or tomorrow morning depending upon how time goes."

I appreicate C.I.'s support. And feel more than a little foolish for wondering if I'd get it. I know from Wally and Mike that one of the sites C.I.'s concerned about getting attention is mine. Trina's and Seth's are two others. C.I.'s never been anything but supportive and that's probably why I did worry. Like most of the community, I do like Katrina vanden Heuvel's writing. I think she's smart and often inspirational. But I think that was a really bad idea. If you have a problem with that, write me and don't gripe to C.I. Visitor or member, take it up with me. (I know, especially visitors, usually go running to C.I. and I don't want to cause a headache for C.I. Especially after last weekend's marathon, never ending session at The Third Estate Sunday Review.)

Let me add that you should check out Rebecca's "iraq in crisis and chaos - the us continuing the occupation will destroy the country" and Elaine's "Peace comes from being able to contribute the best we have" because they are both making strong points. Also Betty's posting a new chapter tonight. (It may be up already.)