i'm going to move quickly because i've got a date tonight with a man who looks like
i'm getting a number of e-mails about al franken. having spoken the truth about big brain and lizz, people are asking me to weigh in on al franken.
he's probably a nice man and, if i can be really honest, there are times when i think he's a little sexy. but he's also been useless.
here's why.
he's gotten raves for his smack down with bill o'reilly on c-span. but let's be really honest here, he looked like a titty baby. he was on the verge of tears. not in a 'i'm so passionate' manner, but in a weak and ineffectual manner.
this week al's cozying up to the right at some idiotic conference. he thinks bantering with them passes as serious political discussion. he is mistaken.
but he's very cozy with that group. and you need to ask yourself about that.
you need to ask yourself why bob somerby, a brilliant mind that the common ills introduced me to, was on al's show and treated like a stranger who showed up at the door after midnight asking to use the phone. bob somerby knows what he's talking about. he's well spoken. but al wasn't interested in that.
jeremy glick was on. al kept chattering away about how bill o'reilly wouldn't let him speak on the o'reilly factor. (i'll take al's word for it because unlike him, i have better things to do than to listen to rush limbaugh or watching bill o'reilly.) from what i've read, o'reilly had his meltdown almost immediatly with glick but hit the 'shut up shut up shut up' roof when glick attempted to note, rightly, that actions have reactions, that our policies in the 80s could come back to bite us in the ass. and when glick attempted to discuss this on al franken's show, al did not tell him to shut up, he just cut him off and changed the topic.
or take the week long love-fest over reagan. during this non-reality based moment, greg palast (too sexy for his own good - yes, i'd do palast!) attempted to interject reality by discussing the attacks on central america (death squads, etc.) and al nearly had a heart attack.
it wasn't about 'taste' because al can go into the gutter with sexual jokes faster than any 1. it was something else.
fear to speak truth to power?
al feels the need to play a little theme every time david brock comes on. a common ills community member complained about that jingle and i agree. it's insulting and disgusting.
but can you explain to me why there's no 'now he's back in the human race' when al brings on paul peterson?
al treats paul peterson like a patron saint. peterson served under nixon. that's not the issue. john dean did so as well. john dean's gone on to be a productive member of society.
but considering that the issue de jour is social security, shouldn't peterson have to answer for what he did because make no mistake that he attacked social security more than any 1.
when clinton got into office, there was paul peterson decrying the deficit and the need to reduce it. and it was in the new york review of books that peterson attacked social security repeatedly. now al's an 'entertainer' so he may or may not be aware of history. social security, peterson's basic argument, was this huge pac man gobbling up every thing in sight.
has peterson had a transformation? if so, we'd need to address his attacks on social security which have gone on for decades?
i'll allow that al has a mushy brain. this is the man who just doesn't get it.
he's still looking at the world with his elite college eyes of youth and isn't able to discuss anything that really effects our world today. he can make gay jokes that are, quite frankly, offensive. and then reassure you that he likes gays and lesbians. he can do the 'funny' let's make fun of how foreigners speak differently bit. he can do that and so much more because in his formative years, that passed for liberal.
before the black power movement, stonewall, the second wave of feminism, you could stroke your sense of entitlement (provided you were white, male, straight and of a certain economic strata) until you juked your walls and still be a liberal.
that's what people like todd gitlin object to when they bemoan special interests. that women won't shut up and go fetch coffee or type up papers the way it was in the original days of the sds. that women, minorities and others weren't going to sit at the back of the bus waiting for big white male master to pass on a request.
'special interests' are bemoaned by the likes of todd gitlin who seem to think that their view is universal and every 1 else is just squabbling over minor details. had gitlin been born black or a woman, i doubt he'd be so dismissive of the needs of others.
he wants to claim that there are big issues we need to focus on and he wants, as a white male, to define them. we've fractured, according to gitlin. we're losing our focus, accoring to gitlin.
that's true only if your focus was on what mister whitey wants.
todd gitlin wants to control the dialogue and be allowed to establish what is important. i don't think al is thinking it through. i think he means well. but i don't think he possess the intellect to think it through and won't while everyone joins him for a circle jerk.
and that's what his show provides. that and a ton of right wing voices.
a good point was made by a female comedian on the majority report this week. the right doesn't spend their air time obsessing over the left. she compared it to the way some women are always trying to figure out what some man thinks. (i don't do that. if a man can't communicate with me, i settle for sex until that loses its appeal or else i move on.)
all this time spent on right wing guests and center guests (howard fineman is not a guest worth having) prevents al from being exposed to the voices that could challenge him.
now look, i never expect that al will open a segment with 'joining us today is the 1 and only angela y. davis. angela, we're thrilled to have you with us.' but why does he insist on having on people like fineman, for instance? (i'd love it if he'd book angela davis for his show.)
amy goodman is a journalist. a damn good 1. why not highlight her? why not book her on a regular basis? why not bring on naomi klein more often?
i am some 1 who doesn't claim to be the most informed. the common ills did a post about how important it was for us to share voices that speak to us because we never again want to feel we're in the wilderness the way we were after 9-11 when the mainstream media took a hard right like never before. i treasure that post and have to confess that i felt very alone after 9-11.
i had my friends and we would say 'bush is out of control and destroying everything this country stands for.' but i didn't know about voices that were reality based.
thanks to the common ills, i've learned of important voices that speak to me. i know naomi klein is out there, for instance. i know i can count on inspiration from katrina vanden heuvel. i've learned of howard zinn who, sad to say, was some 1 i knew nothing about. matthew rothschild, the editor of the progressive, was a name i had no idea of. i have been turned on to him by the common ills and have gone back and read his 'mccarthyism watch' and his 'this just in' and he is some 1 i could have related to long ago - if i'd have known he was out there.
i've talked about this in e-mails with c.i. of the common ills because i think this is really important. i want to address it here. i could count on gloria steinem. she's a true hero. and i knew of her because i self-identify as a feminist. i knew a little of robin morgan who's equally courageous. and a now leader, i knew about them.
but the mainstream media had excluded voices from the left for some time now. i could see that meet the press didn't offer gloria steinem as a guest and be outraged by that (i still am). but with their pushing of the weekly standard staff, for instance, and other media following that lead, it truly did seem like there was steinem and the brave women at ms.
but i didn't know about the progressive. i didn't know about in these times. i didn' t really know about the nation. as some 1 who had read the new republic (a hideous magazine), i wasn't very curious to pick up the nation. and there was nothing in the mainstream media that would prompt me to do so.
the common ills provided me with a reality i didn't know existed. i am now some 1 who makes a point to watch democracy now. i never even heard of it before the common ills.
i was, maybe like some of you, someone who would turn on nightline and groan at ted koppel's nonsense. but i'd think well he's not pat robertson.
and he's not. but he and nightline do not provide a dialogue. they provide a forum for the right wing and the center to have a dialogue. and the left was left out.
there are rumors now that nightline may be scrapped. or that koppel may be replaced. a year ago, that would have bothered me to no end. these days i realize it truly doesn't matter.
nightline does nothing of real value. unless your goal is to watch as the center and the right find common ground (by going to the center-right).
i had no illusions in the 90s that i was getting to hear the left in the mainstream media. but i was under the wrong impression that my concerns were minority concerns shared by only feminists like myself. i was wrongly under the impression that the most i could hope for was maybe the new york times would do a story, one, on a given week that actually said some thing that spoke to me.
my friend elaine told me about the common ills and kept saying 'you're online all the time, you can make time to visit the common ills.' i resisted because what was the point? more center people chatting up a storm? thank you, but if i wanted that, npr exists already.
but she was on my ass about this. and on thanksgiving she would not shut up to any 1 at the table about how npr had put on the husband of a woman who works for cheney to critique john kerry's campaign and hadn't told their listeners that very important fact.
i, and every 1 else at the table, heard that story over and over. the only thing i can compare it to is when elaine read naomi wolfe's fire with fire and we all had to hear about that over and over.
but i finally got around to reading fire with fire and found it to be a brilliant book.
and npr is treated with kid gloves by too many people i know. we feel like since it does address some real news in between whoring itself out to corporations and the stock market, we can't come down too hard on it.
so i thought i'd do a quick look-see at the common ills. i read that post (when npr fails you, who you gonna call? not the ombudsman) and was blown away. there was a sensibility i could relate to. and i found myself going back to the web site and before i knew it, i was visiting it non stop.
i was seeing some 1 take on the new york times and share my disgust over their appeasement, their disinterest in real news, their fudged facts and all the other problems with the paper of record.
and in the 1st month, i mainly read the pull quote of any article highlighted on the site. (i read the times each morning. not all the way through. i read the front page until i'm pissed off. then i flip through the rest of the paper. and let me be clear that i mean pissed off by pedistrian reporting. i expect that the paper will cover 'bad news,' i expect that the news can be a downer.
but when articles have no basis in reality and exist, as the common ills called, part of some operation happy talk, i'm done with the main section of the paper.)
but i went from noting the headline topics and summaries of democracy now! to actually watching it on my tv. and i started visiting the daily howler and the progressive. and i learned so much.
i learned that i wasn't isolated in my beliefs, it was just that the mainstream media tried to isolate me, tried to isolate us all. i can, and do, listen to the majority report now. janeane garofalo is some 1 i always enjoyed but i wasn't keen to listen to her program because i was so disgusted with what passes for news. but i ended up giving her show a try and it's great. (i don't listen when she's not on.) i learned about laura flanders and i make it a point to listen to her show as well.
at some point in december i was writing these long e-mails to c.i. of the common ills. and c.i. would ask 'can i quote you?' (back then, the e-mail wasn't over 3,000 a week and c.i. could reply to every e-mail.) i would always say no because a) i'm still learning and b) i didn't think i was going to be the next hannah arendt so what was the point?
c.i. kept e-mailing me that it wasn't about every i being dotted or every comma in place, it was about speaking your truth and that we needed more voices not less. c.i. also suggested in 1 e-mail that i should consider blogging to which i laughed my ass off.
then when my best friend elaine was trashed on unfiltered by lizz no-brain winstead, i wrote c.i. and said, 'i am ready to blog, talk me through this.' c.i. spent forever in i.m. with me and i kept saying 'i can't do this, never mind' because it was so beyond my computer skills.
but c.i. kept me focused and now, though i'm still learning, i can do enough to make sure 1 more voice is out there. the al franken show could do what c.i. does.
but instead it treats voices from the left as sidebars and doesn't really allow you to know what resources are out there.
i also mention the common ills because i disagree strongly with c.i. over unfiltered. and a few people have wondered if i was taking swipes at c.i. between that and my comments in the 3rd estate sunday review about how c.i. can face each day with hope.
those aren't swipes at c.i. if you're coming here for that you will be disappointed. i really do think it's great that c.i. can always start off filled with hope each day. that's what makes the common ills so important. if c.i. was as cynical as me, i don't think the common ills would have become huge community it has.
i'm more jaded. and honestly take a fuck-it-all attitude.
and when 3 e-mails came in saying 'you really socked it to c.i.' i immediately e-mailed c.i. and said 'i am sorry if people are seeing it that way and can we talk about this?' and c.i. e-mailed back that we do not have to agree about everything. (similar comments were later posted in reply to people e-mailing c.i. with comments about our 'smack down.')
it really is about more voices being available and that what i say may reach some people that don't go to the common ills. and when the 3rd estate went to work on a story critizing the new york times coverage of the plame gate issue this wednesday, c.i. brought me in on the article as well to add my own feelings as well.
you know that i love the kids at the 3rd estate. they are groovy beyond words. but i was so touched by c.i. bringing me in on that because if there were any hard feelings, that wouldn't have happened.
i'll disagree with c.i. here over unfiltered or any thing else that we might disagree on. but if you're coming here expecting a flare up or an old fashioned cat fight, you'll be disappointed.
i wouldn't be blogging if it weren't for c.i. and the common ills.
there is no hatred, anger or malice towards c.i. and i know most of you get that. but there are 3 people who keep e-mailing wanting a smack down. and if you are 1 of those people, you need to go elsewhere.
and i need to go elsewhere because my date is here! if it turns into an overnight date (fingers crossed, legs uncrossed) there may or may not be an entry tomorrow. but i will focus on sex.
i'm in love with sex again. the lynne stewart thing has me so upset still but i'm going to try to be more positive because i know the only way to help her and ourselves is to utilize my anger and shock. so i will be talking about sex in the next post. and i will also highlight some of the smart, brave and, i'm sure, gorgeous people speaking out for her. we're in this together and we're going to bring about change. it may not happen tomorrow but i am going to stay positive that it will happen.
