6/10/2006

did you get the memo?

did you get the memo?

time to rally the troops to once again save npr/pbs.

save npr?

wasn't the mc-millions supposed to do that?

and on those mc-millions, in a decade or 2 will people look at that money the way people now see donations from big tobacco?

regardless, the seasons are changing, the dems are telling us, again, they'll save us. funny how they couldn't talk that talk during the alito confirmation hearings.

but now they'll save us.

thanks, i'll save myself.

how about dems just try to do your damn job?

that would be wonderful.

but it's time to save pbs and npr.

i'm looking at countless e-mails on that and wondering why they bother to send this to me?

i'm all for serious issues.

npr?

pbs?

pbs. i have satellite tv. i don't need public television.

before you say 'well you rude, rich bitch," who does need pbs?

people who can't afford cable and satellite could have a few more viewing options with pbs.

but pbs doesn't give a damn about those people. it's still not moved to digital (how much money have they wasted on that move anyway?) but that is the plan. get out of broadcast, move to digital.

take the 'public' (even more so) out of public television.

i'm supposed to save a corporation that doesn't give a damn about the people who need them the most?

i've got sundance. i've got a million channels. i did watch the barbra streisand special. (fly boy also bought me the boxed set of all the specials.) that's about the only thing i've HAD to see on pbs in years.

so i'll take a pass (again) on pbs.

i'll take a pass on npr which is possibly more useless than pbs. national petroleum radio is what dennis bernstein likes to dub them (and did so friday on ). it's a wonderful point.

there is no public in npr or pbs.

but we're all supposed to rally around and save them again so they can stab the people in the back again.

gina & krista did a poll of the community (noted here with permission) and if this effects pacifica, we'll care. it probably doesn't. (if it does, we'll hear about it and join the fight.) pacifica doesn't get the funds that npr does from the government because pacifica won't agree to the censorship that npr regularly does.

want to save public radio? don't e-mail your congress members about npr or pbs. use the time to grab a person, sit them down and get them to listen to pacifica. they'll end up aware that there is an alaternative. get the word out.

1 out of 10 listeners contribute, i believe that's the figure. it would be wonderful if every 1 could contribute (fly boy and i did in the latest round) but every 1 can't. that's reality. those who can need to do so for their own listening pleasure and because others can't. increasing the number of listeners around the world increases the chances that more people can contribute.

so do something useful, get the word out on pacifica.

the not so fresh air of terry gross won't be missed. boo hoo for terry 'all i did was ask.' yes dear, but whom did you ask, whom? not any 1 that could talk about the war in a realistic manner. terry thinks realism comes via dexter filkins of the new york times. three years into the war and the anti-war movement remains invisible on what is supposed to be national public radio with the exception of a report or two or three on cindy sheehan. terry gross can probe in mind numbing detail how a craftsman (and they're usually always 'men') came to see driftwood as the perfect medium to express himself in, she just can't address anything that effects our lives.

steve and renee might have to get real jobs. cokie might have to do a few more corporate convention speeches. every 1 will live. if times get hard for them, good. they might be forced to reconsider their own actions when they pushed the stock market as a way of covering labor issues. they might have to think, 'i wouldn't be existing on ramen noodles right now if only i'd said "this is crap, people are having hard times, we need to report it!" ' they never would. they can't.

they try to sell the idea that they have an upscale audience. brings in the corporate underwriting. (never raising unplesant issues keeps the corporate underwriting.)

we've got 2 wars waging right now. i really don't have time to try to fish crap out of a toilet yet again which is how i see npr and pbs.

let 'em die if they can't survive on their own.

how many millions did they give newt? bill bennett?

they always have money for that. they always have money for everything but the people.

they can kiss my ass.

they're crap and we kid ourselves each cycle that we'll save them and they'll appreciate it.

they don't.

i advocate that every 1 sit this 1 out.

let pbs and npr realize what happens when the natural audience they have betrayed sits it out.
let them work to get us back.

they were never 'left.' they were attempting to provide a better job representing the public. those days are gone.

i think it's past time people quit kidding themselves that any of their efforts to save funding in the past were appreciated.

nothing changes.

they won't even fire mara liar liason even though she regularly breaks every ethic and code of her profession. if that was a leftist going on about republicans, she would have been told 'you are a reporter, not a columnist - you can't work here and do that pundit gig anymore.' but she's a right winger, who reportedly assured roger ailes she was a republican before she started appearing on fox 'news' - so every 1 looks the other way when she all but calls for the heads of congress members on charges of treason.

you want to fight to save that, you go right ahead.

but there are serious battles to be fought.

this isn't 1 of them.

let them fight to save their own damn ass for a change.

let them see how far that gets them.

when they finally face a real cut, a deep 1, that can't be restored, maybe they'll learn to appreciate the audience?

until that happens, screw them.

maybe you can use the time to protest the war, protest the war on women, protest any number of REAL issues. or maybe you can just use the time to take a moment to relax?

zoing out in front of the tv is more productive than attempting to 'save' a so-called friend.

npr and pbs are a spouse that you repeatedly catch cheating.

now hillary would forgive that.

but is hillary clinton now the standard for the left?

i hope not.

be sure to read c.i.'s "NYT: Everybody wants to be a war pornographer" and "Other Items (Robert Jay Lifton on Democracy Now)" - they are amazing.
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6/08/2006

flashpoints (dahr jamail was a guest)

i'm covering flashpoints tonight and that's it. it's actually past the time i had said i would forget about blogging if blogger/blogspot wasn't up. but mike called and said it was up. i'll keep it short in case it goes down again.

flashpoints. bradley wrote and he's a huge fan of flashpoints. i am too. but i'm not going to cover every minute of the show. i write about what stands out to me and what i'm in the mood to write about. i don't do requests.

so here's what stood out to me on flashpoints.

the knight report. i really enjoy that feature. it covers a ton of material and it's too much for me to cover. here's what robert knight covered tonight: zarqawi and how's he's been 'dead' before.


robert knight ran it all down regarding 'the latest in a series of death reports' about the 'bruised but remarkably preserved corpse' since the house was 'vaporized' in 'the u.s. strike.'

he noted that 'almost exactly a year ago . .. june 2, 2005,' it was announced 'he was killed and buried in falluja.' 'before that death . . . in march of 2004 [it was] reported that he was killed . . .' 'a year later, in may of 2005 . . . claimed that zarqawi was killed yet again . . . during . . . operation matador' 'In september of last year, yet another death report . . .' 'but in november . . . november 20, 2005 . . . was killed . . .'

nora (who may be norah, i'm still learning names) made a point that few in the media had when she addressed the issue: 'alleged al Quada leader.'

she spoke with the one & only dahr jamail and asked him about the timing of this "news"?
the timing?

'i think that is really the most important of the issues. the fact that haditha was getting the attention it fianlly deserved . . . more and more was coming out . . . the damn had finally broke . ..' but now it's out the window. It 'couldn't have come at more convenient time for' the american administration. dahr pointed out that it was knocking everything else out of the news cycle.

on the subject of rumsfeld naming number of dead that zarqawi is allegedly responsible for, dahr said 'in my opinion over 250, 000 Iraqis have died as a result of this illegal invasion/occupation.'

the displaying of zarqawi's photos reminded him of the person put up on the screen (in 1984) for the 'hate time.' he wondered, 'who will we blame the catastrophe of iraq on now?'

then he spoke of when saddam hussein was arrested and the reaction he heard from iraqis,
'well is capturing saddam going to get me more electricty . . . is it going to get me a job' - a long list.

what's next?

'the level or propaganda I think will only continue to increase . . . . i think we should continue to expect more propaganda . . .'

he noted that the way "reporters" are "reporting" 'they're leaving the door open to that path' of connecting iraq to al qaeda to osama.

nora wondered what was happening that they wouldn't hear about and dahr said that truth would be the victim.

he noted that we'd probably not here about a lot of things: 'women's right in Iraq . . they've gone back at least a 100 years. . . . when are we going to start hearing about collective punishment' by the u.s. military.

he noted ramadi and called it 'the key event' comparing it to falluja in april of 2004 and noting that the city was already surrounded, snipers in place, etc.

he and nora then discussed the 2 500-pound bombs and who was killed by them. he noted he hadn't heard a thing about civilian casulities. he noted that it was 'the equivalent of a small car bomb. . . . without a doubt there were civilian casulities'

dennis then conducted an interview with a guest who pointed out that zarqawi was brought to iraq by the occupation, a product of the occupation. this isn't a victory for freedom, it's a symptom of the occupation.

he saw the announcement on tv at midnight and saw the prime minister surrounded by americans to make the announcement. he wondered of the puppet government, 'what kind of a government is that? . . . he's surrounded by the americans on the right and on the left . . . this is a puppet government.'

so that was flashpoints. i hope you listened. if you missed it, you can hear it at kpfa or at flashpoints - both archive.

i'm going to throw in c.i.'s iraq snapshot but i also want to note that c.i. was all over this zarqawi nonsense from the first thing this morning.


Iraq snapshot.
al-Zarqawi is dead. Maybe. As **Sandra Lupien noted**, this is the second "death" of al-Zarqawi, according to the US government ("Earlier this year the military thought it had killed Zarqawi in another operation but later announced it had been mistaken."). Also noted by Goodman was Thomas E. Ricks "Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi: Jordian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability" (Washington Post). In that article, Ricks wrote of "a propaganda campaign" run by the US military "to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq." Andrew Marshall (Reuters) notes that "the Zarqawi myth" was fed by "U.S. forces" despite the fact that "[m]ost experts believe his foreign fighters make up only a fraction of the insurgency". The Financial Times of London is calling it "one of the biggest propaganda coup's for the US since the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003."
Brian Whitaker (Guardian of London) notes the build up "by the US and sections of the media . . . [to turn al-Zarqawi] into the main bogeyman, but the war, or civil war as it is increaingly regarded, has a momentum of its own." Whitaker goes on to note the daily deaths of "[d]ozens of ordinary people" in Iraq including the targeting of ice vendors. Jonathan Wright (Reuters) reports that news of the death has resulted "in deep splits on Thursday" among Arabs outside of Iraq and quotes Arab analysts including Diaa Rashwan ("expert on Islamist groups at the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo") saying, "Zarqawi in recent times did not represent an important element in violent operations on the ground in Iraq. Other groups which are not extreme, resistance groups not terrorist groups, have grown in strength."
The military strike which may or may not have killed al-Zarqawi involved "[t]wo F-16 warplanes [which] dropped two 500-pound bombs" on the area (China's People Daily). Reuters' Hilmy Kamal reports from that area and is told by a teenager there, "The Americans have a habit of bombing places and then claiming Zarqawi or others were there." Kamal notes that residents are "sceptical" of the claim that al-Zarqawi was there. On KPFA's The Morning Show, Sandra Lupien noted that the US military "called the operation a precision airstrike," that a woman and child died in the attack and that among the rubble/ruins of the attack were "a child's sandal" and "a backpack with a teddy bear on it." The Financial Times notes that "Television pictures of the site of the raid on the village of Hibhib showed an extensive area of destruction and a US Centcom official confirmed to al-Jazeera television that not all the casualties inflicted during the raid were inside the house targetted." KUNA reports that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was asked about the reported killing in terms of whether or not it would be a violation of the Geneva Convention and he responded he didn't think so, "if indeed he is the one who has been killed, has been at war, in a fight. I don't think you can equate it to targeted assassinations of the kind we have seen elsewhere."
Brian Conley notes that Al Jazeera was attempting to interview Zarqawi's brother in law Abu Qudama but the interview was stopped, Abu Qudama "was arrested by Jordanian police. Just before he was arrested he was denouncing members of the press for not always speaking truth about his brother-in-law, making him into an evil man, and not just a fighter for god." Conley notes that "at least one Al-Jazeera correspondent" was arrested as well.
Meanwhile the BBC reports that two posts have been filled in occupation puppet and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Actually, three posts were (finally) filled as the Guardian reports: "General Abdul-Qadre Mohammed Jassim, a Sunni Arab, . . . named as the new defence minister . . . Jawad al-Bolani named as the interior minister and Sherwan al-Waili as national security minister" (both al-Bolani and al-Waili are "Shia Muslims"). This comes after many missed deadlines that al-Maliki set for himself as well as seventeen days after the constitutional deadline of May 22nd.
The Associated Press reports on the bombs in the Baghadad that killed "at least 19 people . . . wounding more than 40." The bombs went off at in a section known as New Baghdad. Ignoring this and other realities allows Sally Buzbee (Associated Press) to declare Thursday "good news Thursday" indicating that possibly she's auditioning for a TV chat gig since such a statement has little resemblance to reporting. (In one of her most non-reporting remarks, she concludes of al-Maliki: "Thursday's events just made clear he's bound and determined to jump in and try." Well Yippee-ki-yay, Cowgirl!)
What Iraq was she speaking of? Along with the bombing noted already, Reuters reports thirteen were wounded from a bomb "planted inside a building" in Baghdad, that four corpses were discovered, that police announced today that (yesterday) Ahmed Kurdi ("judge of Dujail court") had been kidnapped . . . Fredrik Dahl (Reuters) reports that: "Gunmen shot and seriously wounded a senior Defence Ministry official . . . General Khalil al-Ibadi, in charge of food supplies for the armed forces, and his driver . . ."
This as the BBC reports that the British Ministry of Defence is investigating the death of a thirteen-year-old boy. As noted yesterday, "The Associated Press reports that British soldiers fired on civilians and did so because 100 people (presumably adults) were stoning them, Iraqi police say that the "people" were children and that a thirteen-year-old boy was killed and a twelve-year-old girl was wounded." A spokesman acknowledges to the BBC that they "are aware of reports that a 13-year-old has been killed" and states that British troops "reported that two teenage boys had been hit."
Finally, Terri Judd reports on the continued deterioration for women in Iraq. Noting that Iraq was "once the envy of women across the Middle East," Judd offers a look at the new realities which include women's heads being forcibly shaved after they refuse to "refuse to wear a scarf," being "stoned in the street for wearing make-up," being nothing but tokens who make up "25 per cent of Iraq's Provincial Council" . . . On the last item, Judd notes that women's faces are "blacked out" with the slogan "No women in politics" on "[p]osters around the city" and that women serving on the council have been told "you don't know anything" so "they just agreed to sign whatever they were told."














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6/07/2006

stupid blogger/blogspot

blogger/blogspot is full of shit.

mike and elaine lost their posts. mike's on the phone now. i'm not wasting all night while they try to get their shit together.

remember a few weeks ago? they had time, they MADE time, to accuse me of being a robot.

for that, they have all the time in the world. to fix the damn problem they've had since monday? they don't have time for that.

i think we need to seriously consider pullling all our sites and going to a for-pay site where, presumably, you would get a response when THEY screw up. as opposed to the weak-ass apologies that are meaningless (which is all blogger/blogspot gives).

i've really had it with their nonsense.


Army Lt. Refuses Iraq Deployment
Meanwhile, a US army officer has announced he's refusing his deployment to Iraq slated for later this month. The officer, First Lt. Ehren Watada, says he first asked for permission to resign his position in January. He says he wrote: "I am whole-heartedly opposed to the continued war in Iraq, the deception used to wage this war, and the lawlessness that has pervaded every aspect of our civilian leadership." Lt. Watada is believed to be the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq since the invasion. Simultaneous news conferences by his supporters are expected to be held today in his home state of Hawaii and in Olympia, Washington. Military officials told Watada he cannot attend the news conference because he is barred from speaking publicly about his case while on duty at the base.

on flashpoints tonight, they aired an interview with ehren watada. listen to that. it's real news. i'm not writing another word because blogger/blogspot will probably lose it.

people have lives. they don't need to spend an hour or more on a post just to have blogger/blogspot screw it up. and i've got a message now that 'could not connect to blogger.com. saving and publishing may fail.' so let me get this up while the message is gone.

i'm so sick of them. they can make me prove i'm not a robot but they can't do their own job.
Posted by at

6/06/2006

immigrants, molly ivins, third estate sunday review

on flashpoints tonight, a wonderful point was made about ahnuld being all ready to support his bully boy by sending troops to the california-mexico border and ahnuld was talking about the 'exit strategy.' trying to be on top of his game, no doubt. but the point was made that you don't usually talk of 'exit strategies' for your own country. well maybe ahnuld was feeling a little home sick for austria? maybe we should build a wall to protect the u.s. from ahnuld? as long as bully boy's scapegoating immigrants, why not scapegoat them all! that's what i propose. scapegoat every 1. you, me, every 1 who's not 100% native american. (and i don't mean, by 'native american,' born in the united states.)

this latest wave of scapegoating comes as the united nations notes that over 191 million people around the world live outside of their country of birth. like the governator ahnuld.


molly ivins has a hilarious look at the truth of all bully boy's bluster on gay marriage, immigrants, flag burning and more. from 'Flag Burning and Other Dubious Epidemics:'

Gay marriage, now there's a crisis. Well, OK, so there isn't much gay marriage going on here in Texas. None, in fact. First, we made it illegal. Then, we made it unconstitutional. But President Bush is all concerned about it, so I guess we have to alter the U.S. Constitution.
Gus and Captain Call (of "Lonesome Dove" fame) will be an item--with who knows who waiting in line right after them.
Also of great concern to Republicans is God Almighty, who, rather to my surprise, has been elected chairman of the Texas Republican Party. That's what they announced at the biannual convention in San Antonio this week: "He is the chairman of the party." Sheesh, the Democrats couldn't even get Superman.
Also weighing down the nation with a heavy burden is the estate tax, which the Senate will try to repeal this week. The estate tax applies to around 1% of Americans, and I have yet to find any record of it costing anyone a family farm or business. It affects only very, very, very rich people, of whom you are probably not one. And they don’t, actually, need another tax break.
These are the things we are supposed to be worrying about, and you notice that it frees us of quite a few troubles we might otherwise fret about.
The war in Iraq? No sweat.
War with Iran? We're carefree.
The economy? Hey, did you see that employment report? Well, ignore it.

since elaine's post on the most recent edition for the third estate sunday review was lost, cedric asked me to note something about it if i had anything to note. what i talked to elaine about was mainly the fact that c.i. and dona started the week having to clean up the mess that was the news roundup and both didn't get to sleep on monday morning until after the sun came up. then there was the roundtable friday/saturday. i just felt like 4 hours was too much to try to force a short story (that never came). i was for trying for about an hour and a half, maybe 2. but after 2 hours it was obvious that nothing was going to come of it and i was for ditching it then. but both dona and c.i. had sunday plans and having done so much at the start of the week, they really didn't need to sit around and wait for every 1 to grasp that there was no short story there when we could have been busy writing other things.

that's it from me. be sure to read 'TV: TESR Investigates.' (i may cover the edition again tomorrow night.)
Posted by at

6/05/2006

blogger's acting nutsy tonight so short post

elaine just called and is upset. why? blogger/blogspot (which rarely fixes any of its problems and never responds to e-mails) just lost her entire post.

this wasn't a normal post. she spent at least two hours talking to people for this post. she wrote 12 paragraphs based on the conversations. (and this was about the latest third estate sunday review so she was also present for the ordeal that was this edition.) and then? she covered three items from democracy now, covered janet coleman's cat radio cafe, noted two other details about iraq and goes to publish only to find the dumb ass blogger/blogspot has lost her post. she gets 'page cannot be displayed.'

she is so mad right now. i don't blame her. four hours working on a post? c.i. can do that but i don't know that any of us do that ourselves at our own sites (i'm not talking about group efforts).

i'm not going to post long because mike just called and said he went to publish and he's having problems too. he's got his post on his end. he can see it's not lost. but when he goes to publish it, blogger/blogspot gets hung up and it won't publish. so with both of them having problems, i'm not going to invest much in this post.

i will note that dennis bernstein interviewed greg palast on flashpoints tonight and that palast's book armed madhouse comes out tomorrow. there was also a report on the upcoming mexico elections and how the zapatistas are considering a day of protest on july 2nd (that's the day of the election) because the 3 parties refuse to recognize and represent the people of the countryside.

read ava and c.i.'s 'TV: TESR Investigates' it's hilarious. and if you are reading this on a monday night, consider yourself lucky. i saved after 'hilarious' and had no problem. (mike said to save every few paragraphs after what just happened to elaine - and as usal blogger/blogspots 'recover post' option is a sick joke that never works.) but i then thought i'd see if it would publish. if it did, i'd come back in and add some more. but it wouldn't publish.

usually, when there's a problem you get a 'test connection' now message, you click on it and blogger tells you whether or not it can connect. that's not happened but there's some screwy problem. oh, if you don't see entries tomorrow morning at the common ills, check the mirror site because if this problem continues and is universal, it may prevent posting tomorrow morning. (i'll call c.i. in a bit to give a warning.)

i'll note this by c.i. because it's worth noting and elaine was upset that she didn't have time to at least copy and paste this:

Iraq snapshot. As Amy Goodman noted, more than 85 people died from violence in Iraq over the weekend. In Baghdad today, 'commandos' raided bus stations kidnapping "at least 50 people," the Associated Press reports. The AFP notes that Major General Rashid Fulayah "contradicted earlier reports that the operation was officially sanctioned." The assailants wore "commando uniforms" and were originally thought to be part of the police commandos (militias) -- Rashid Fulayah is the "commander of the police commandos in Baghdad." Both Sandra Lupien (on KPFA's The Morning Show) and Reuters noted that 'commando' initiated kidnappings were seen as coordinated.
Also in Baghdad, the AFP reports that eleven students were killed by assailants who stopped their bus and "riddled it with bullets." Two brothers traveling to college were also gunned down in a separate attack reports CBS and AP. In a separate report, AP notes the two Sunni brothers' names were Ahmed and Arkan Sarhan and that they "were in their early 20s." Reuters reports that "the head of the local municipal council" Ghalib Ali Abdullah and his driver were killed by assailants in Baghdad. And the Associated Press notes that assailants "in two cars" killed Kadim Falhi Hussein al-Saedi "near his home in western Baghdad."
In Ramadi, CBS and the AP report, artillery was fired by "U.S.-led forces" and the "the U.S.-Iraqi Joint Operations Center" states the targets were "four military-aged males unloading a weapons cache" while Dr. Omar al-Duleimi notes that "five civilians were killed and 15 wounded."
Speaking to the hosts of Law and Disorder on WBAI this morning, Anthony Arnove (author of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) noted of the illegal occupation, "The longer the US stays the worse things will get . . . The United States has no right to be in Iraq. They used a series of lie [to wage an illegal war]. . . All those lies have now been exposed. . . . Every day the occupation is engaging in collective punishment of the Iraqi people."*
Throughout Iraq, corpses were found. In Suwayra, Reuters reports, four corpses ("stab wounds") were discovered "in the Tigris River." The AFP notes that seven corpses were discovered in Baghdad. The AP notes two of the corpses and that one "had been shot in the head" and the other was also shot in the head as well as the chest and was blindfolded.
Margaret Hassan was kidnapped in October of 2004 and assumed dead in November of 2004 (her body was never found -- her husband remains in Iraq until her body is found). Today, the BBC reports, Mustafa Salman al-Jubouri "has been jailed for life for his role in the abudction and murder of aid worker Margaret Hassan." Reuters notes that "[t]wo other defendents in the case were freed" and that "[m]ore than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003" and that "[m]ore than 40" of tose kidnapped were killed. Hassan, who had "British, Iraqi and Irish nationality," had been the "head of the Iraqi operation of the CARE International charity." In January of 2003, Hassan went to the United Nations and spoke with a number of people including UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette -- a visit she summarized on CNN as, "My message to the United Nations was . . . this is an impoverished nation over 12 years. They have not got what it takes to withstand a further crisis." Margaret Hassan met her husband Tahseen Ali Hassan in England and then moved to Iraq in 1972.
Though CARE played down her political stance, as her family notes, she "was vocally opposed to the war in Iraq." Speaking to Daniel McGrory (Times of London), her family blames the British government for Hassan's death noting "the refusal by the British Government to open a dialogue with the kidnappers." Her brother and three sisters revealed that the kidnappers had contacted Tahseen Ali Hassan repeatedly using his wife's cell phone, each time demanding a dialogue with the British Embassy for her relase; however, the British Embassy, according to Tahseen Ali Hassan, refused to contact the kidnappers (repeatedly refused, there were at least four calls and each one was passed on the British Embassy according to Hassan, the Times confirms the first call was passed on).
In the United States, CNN notes that Joe Biden called for Donald Rumsfeld (sec. of Defense, US) to step down as a rsult of the incidents in Haditha and the cover up. The senator appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and stated: "When you make serious mistakes, you step forward and you acknowledge them and you walk away. . . . [Rumsfeld] should be gone; he shouldn't be in his office tomorrow morning."
And Rumsfeld wasn't in his office Monday morning. Rumsfeld is in Vietnam. Sunday began a three day visit where he's meeting with "his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Van Tra."
CBS and the AP report that CBS reporter Kimberly Dozier will not be returning to the United States on Tuesday as had been expected. On May 29th, a roadside bomb in Baghdad injured Dozier and took the lives of Paul Douglas and James Brolan. In their joint story, CBS and the AP note: "Scores of journalists -- nearly 75 percent of them Iraqis -- have been injured, killed or kidnapped in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion." Many are also missing including French cameraman Frederic Nerac who has been missing since March 22, 2003 and German cameraman Isam Hadi Muhsin Al-Shumary who has been missince August 15, 2004. Reporters Without Borders' places the figure for journalists and media assistants killed since the illegal 2003 invasion at 97. In addition Iraqi reporter Reem Zeid and Marwan Khazaal, who were kidnapped Feb. 1, 2006 remain missing as does Agence France-Presse's accountant Salah Jali al-Gharrawi who was kidnapped April 4, 2006. (All three kidnappings took place in Baghdad.) Reporters Without Borders has an online petition that they intend to deliver "to Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to encourage him to do everything necessary to find them."
*Ruth read the Arnove quote used over the phone and will be covering Arnove's appearance in her next Ruth's Public Radio Report. (Thank you, Ruth.)
Posted by at

6/03/2006

roundtable with cedric, betty, c.i. and myself participating

New Video Backs Claims of US Massacre in Ishaqi
New evidence has emerged in the case of another alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of US troops. The BBC has obtained video footage bolstering accusations first made by Iraqi police that US troops murdered eleven civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March. The dead included five children and four women and ranged in age from 6 months to 75 years old. The Pentagon has insisted only four civilians died in the incident and that they were killed when their home collapsed during a gun battle. But according to the BBC, the new video shows a number of dead adults and children with visible gunshot wounds. Democracy Now covered this story in March. We spoke with Knight Ridder reporter Matthew Schofield in Baghdad. He first obtained the Iraqi police report that accused US troops of the civilian killings.
Matthew Schofield: "We were talking with the police officer who was first on the scene earlier today. He explained the scene of arriving. He said they waited until U.S. troops had left the area and it was safe to go in. When they arrived at the house, it was in rubble. I don't know if you've seen the photos of the remains of the house, but there was very little standing. He said they expected to find bodies under the rubble. Instead, what they found was in one room of the house, in one corner of one room, there was a single man who had been shot in the head. Directly across the room from him against the other wall were ten people, ranging from his 75-year-old mother-in-law to a six-month-old child, also several three-year-olds -- a couple three-year-olds, a couple five-year-olds, and four other -- three other women. Lined up, they were covered, and they had all been shot. According to the doctor we talked to today, they had all been shot in the head, in the chest. A number of -- you know, generally, some of them were shot several times. The doctor said it's very difficult to determine exactly what kind of caliber gun they were shot with. He said the entry wounds were generally small and round, the exit wounds were generally very large. But they were lined up along one wall. There was a blanket over the top of them, and they were under the rubble, so when the police arrived, and residents came to help them start digging in, they came across the blankets. They came across the blankets. They picked the blankets up. They say, at that point, that the hands were handcuffed in front of the Iraqis. They had been handcuffed and shot."

news you should use from democracy now. c.i. and i had planned a joint post and then we invited betty and cedric to participate (and they graciously agreed) so it went a little later than we thought. we finished up about one a.m. my time (eastern) and we're all posting it this morning at our sites.

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I
Setup

Rebecca: So this is a joint entry and it was planned to be C.I. and myself and then I started thinking, "Why don't we see if Cedric wants to take part?" C.I. was fine with that but said that Betty should be invited because she's "trapped under Thomas Friedman" at her sight which is very true. So we invited both and it's now a joint entry of four people. When it was just the two of us, I asked C.I., "Will this be in lower case?" That is how I do it at my site and C.I. responded, "Are you going to type it up?" So no lower case if you're reading this at my site.

Cedric: That's Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty's site is Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. does The Common Ills and is part of The Third Estate Sunday Review, and I'm Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix.

Betty: Cedric and I are helping with the note taking and typing so it's not all falling on C.I. I'm thrilled to be invited to participate and even more thrilled not to have to figure out what idiotic mess Thomas Friedman's made for Betinna to clean up.

C.I.: Betinna is the main character in Betty's online, comic novel. This weekend may, or may not be, the fiction edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. Rebecca and I had discussed that and how a roundtable wouldn't be possible if it was the fiction edition, where short stories and other things are highlighted, and we wanted to address a few things. Cedric had noted something in an e-mail to me and in a phone call to Rebecca so we knew he was on the same page, to recap on why he was invited. Elaine and Mike weren't invited, nor was anyone else, but that was due to the fact that they have their own pattern for posting and also I'm not sure that they're posting this evening. If they do, it will be late because Elaine has plans. So they may be posting on Saturday instead.

Rebecca: Betty was our cut off. Four people we could handle. Besides the fact that she's always looking for a way to post an entry about anything other than Thomas Friedman, we were also curious about what she would think about the topics discussed. Add in that she got a promotion at her job and wasn't sure she'd be able to do a post this week as she got used to the new responsibilities and we really wanted to include her. But four is our cut-off for this. Anymore and Jim would be saying, "I think this should be a piece for The Third Estate Sunday Review."

Betty: I think the easiest way to start this off is to note Rebecca's grandmother's because she wrote about her last night in "more marine news and talking about my grandmother." As a result, I'm sure people are concerned. I read C.I.'s entry this morning and saw that everything was fine, then went to read Rebecca's entry and it still made me anxious, even knowing that her grandmother was fine.

Rebecca: She called me out of the blue and asked me to visit. We usually talk on the phone several times a week and see each other at least once a week. If she'd called Thursday about wanting to get together next week, it wouldn't have surprised me but when she called Thursday and asked me to come over that day, I was expecting either good news or bad news, and worried about it being bad. We had a nice visit and discussed a number of issues, personal ones, current events, etc. But near the end of the visit, I kept asking her if something was wrong because I was sure she had to have some bad news that she was waiting to break. When none was forthcoming, I worked myself up into a state of worry where I was convinced that she had some bad news about her health and this was one of those "Everything's fine" moments where, only after, you realize that the person was trying to say goodbye.


Cedric: But that wasn't it.

Rebecca: No. She phoned this morning and she was just very disturbed by the news of Haditha.

C.I.: Just to set the stage, November 19, 2005 something happened in the Iraqi town of Haditha. The military's official version, which the mainstream press was happy to parrot, was that 'insurgents' had attacked American troops, a roadside bomb had gone off, taking the lives of 15 Iraqis and a United States marine, following the explosion, 'insurgents' had began firing on American troops and, in responding with gunfire, eight insurgents were killed.


Cedric: Give an example of two who ran with the official version because you covered it this morning.

C.I.: Writing for the New York Times, Edward Wong and Hassan M. Fattah contributed "Road Bomb Aimed at Convoy Kills 15 Civilians and a Marine in Restive Iraqi Province" which offered nothing but 'officials say . . .' There is no correction to that item currently. If you access the article online, they've still not provided a correction.

Rebecca: And before we go any further, explain that paper's ads because I understood it in the second entry but you were on the phone with me for both entries and I don't think they were written the way they would have been if I hadn't been jawing your ear off. FYI, when I called C.I. I was blubbering and it took about ten minutes before I calmed down enough to explain that everything truly was fine, I was just filled with relief that my grandmother was okay.

C.I.: Hold on. Let me grab a paper so I can read it word for word. The ad runs all the time. It's an ad for the New York Times run in the pages of the New York Times. Okay, this is Tuesday's paper because I just looked at the backs of the sections to avoid flipping through them to find it. It's probably run since, more than once. They run it all the time. On Tuesday, the full page ad appeared on B8 which was the back page of "The Arts" section. It's a black and white ad, full page. You see the "T" and maybe the "i" of the "Times" in a square with an arrow, like the on you have with your computer mouse, resting on it. Big letters: "College students, meet your new research assistant." Smaller letters: "Looking for help with that research paper? Find it at TimesSelect, the premium service at nytimes.com. With TimesSelect, you'll get access to 25 years of articles from The Times -- articles on politics, history, science, art, business, sports and just about any other subject you're assigned. And TimesSelect also offers e-mail alerts whenever a new article on your subject appears." Either in the same size or slightly bigger: "Find out about our special university discount for students and faculty." Then: "Visit nytimes.com/university." Then: "TimesSelect" with "nytimes.com" beneath it. This ad runs all the time.

Betty: So the point of the ad is that they're telling college students and, let's face it, high school and middle school students, that a subscription to the Times will provide you with accuracy but if you're trying to find out about Haditha and you search that looking for November, what you find is Wong and Fattah's article which still has no correction to it?

C.I.: Correct. And in case anyone's been asleep for the last few weeks, the official version has come undone. Civilians were killed. For more on that, you can listen, watch or read the transcript of "Haditha Massacre: Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military Try to Cover it Up?" from Tuesday's Democracy Now!

Cedric: Before we go any further, can I ask what the service, the paper's, provides?

C.I.: I can't tell you the full service because I rarely go to the website. Links to articles we discuss each morning are usually coming from members' e-mails. There are tiers. For instance, the op-ed columns are now "behind the wall." You can't access them without paying for them. The opposite of the Wall St. Journal which makes those available to everyone at their website but makes people pay for news content. The first tier, as I understand it, is somewhere around fifty-five dollars for a year. That allows you to read the content online, new content, and allows you to search a certain number of articles, I believe. I subscribe to the print edition and the way it works for me is, if I log in, I can see anything in that day's paper with no charge, I can also see anything in the last seven days for free. After that, for anything older, I'm able to see 100 articles a month for free -- articles in the archive that I would be charged for otherwise.

Cedric: Okay. Sorry to go off topic.

C.I.: No, it's a question that pops up in the e-mails and now I can pull that post it off the computer. That's what I know of it, what little I know. I'm sure, and I'll even give the phone number out, that anyone at 1-800-698-4637 can answer any questions on it and, if I got a number wrong on that, it's 1-800-NYTIMES.

Cedric: Thanks. If anyone's wondering, my nephew's doing a college course, this summer, he's still in high school, and he's nervous about the research paper that will be a part of the class.

C.I.: Well, instead of signing up for something, just call me and I'll e-mail whatever he needs. I really do not go online that often and have never had more than ten of my hundred alloted articles for the month. So let me know, he can then look at what it has to offer, and if he likes it, you can go on from there.

Cedric: I will gladly take you up on that kind offer to test drive the Times. And I will get us back on topic by noting something, on Haditha, from the Iraq snapshot on Thursday. This was what a young girl, one of the survivors of what looks like a slaughter of Iraqis by US marines in November 2005 had to say: "They killed my father in the kitchen. They killed my mother, and my sister Noor. They killed her when they shot her in the head. She was only 15 years old. My other sister was shot with seven bullets in the head. She was only 10 years old."

Betty: That stuck in my head. More than any back and forth or "investigation is ongoing" or anything else, that stuck in my head. That little girl that Cedric quoted is only twelve-years-old. I forget her name.

C.I.: Safa Younis.

Betty: In front of her, she saw her father die, she saw her mother die, she saw two sisters die. Safa is just twelve-years-old. And that's what she saw. And if you spoke to other Iraqis, you'd probably hear some with similar stories.

Rebecca: Because this is the occupation.

Cedric: The illegal occupation. Dahr Jamail made a point on Tuesday's Democracy Now! about how this, Haditha, is getting attention but most of the other incidents haven't and, at this rate, won't. He specifically tossed ou Falluja and I want to note that. For a few reasons. First off, Jim, Dona, Ava, Ty and Jess always point to the Iraq coverage at The Common Ills as why they were reading from the first day.

C.I.: To cut you off for a second, it was the second day. There was a tiny post on a Friday, outlining the intent, as I saw it, and noting it would probably all be tossed aside quickly. Which it was. But when they say the first day, they mean the first day of real posts. But what happens is, I end up with e-mails saying things like, "It's so great that from your very first post, you were addressing Iraq." That's not true and if I come across those e-mails, I reply to correct that. So let me correct it here. It's the sort of thing that with a larger group, I'm biting my tongue on because there are more important things to discuss and everyone has a point to make. But this will go up at The Common Ills and I want it to be clear there.

Cedric: Okay, second day. What grabbed me was music. First thing I ever contributed for the site, December of 2004, was noting a song that I felt we should all take a moment to appreciate. On Falluja, all I had was what the mainstream provided. That's an issue I've learned about since. That is a huge issue to Dahr Jamail and to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! as well. They always note it. But the reason I'm noting it is because most people don't. That's really true. They ignore it. Or they tossed it out at the end of 2004 and 'moved on.' There are over, I googled, 200 entries at The Common Ills on Falluja. That's how you spell it, "Falluja." If you're highlighting and they spell it "Fallujah," that's how they spell it, so I also searched that. And I realize from trying to find stuff via google on my own site that google doesn't catch everything. But that's what it takes, it takes more than that probably, to get people to pay attention. You can't talk Iraq and not mention what happened in April of 2004 and in November of 2004.

Betty: I would agree with that. Rebecca called me when WBAI, during pledge week, had Robert Fisk's speech on the history of Iraq. That was a powerful speech and I was listening at work. The woman who had the desk next to me was listening and, after the speech, which may have been forty minutes long, she was asking me about Falluja. She knew the mainstream, rah-rah coverage and that's all she knew. She was under the impression that people had been allowed to leave in November, she didn't know about the April events, and that it was just Saddam Hussein's "gang" left inside. She didn't understand why "the British guy," that's what she called him, would go on about Falluja because wasn't that a "good moment" for the country?

Rebecca: So what did you tell her?

Betty: I told her about the fact that it wasn't just men. It was young boys and that many had tried to leave but were turned back. I talked to her about the use of white phosphorus, I talked about how the hospitals were under seige and not allowed to come to the aid of people. And -- are they talking about Mexico?

Rebecca: I'm listening to Flashpoints, sorry. Yes, Dennis Bernstein's speaking to a man named John about of the elections in Mexico. The election is July 2nd, by the way. Marcos and the Zapatistas.

C.I.: I'm not listening because I'm taking notes but I would guess it was John Gibler, independent journalist.

Rebecca: That sounds like the name.

Betty: Sorry to lose focus. But, just to tie what we heard in, that's on a Pacifica station. On a Pacifica station, you can hear that. You can't hear that on a lot of other stations.

C.I.: And we'll come back to that in the second half. There are three breaks planned if they're needed. This first one is the long one -- where, for Betty, she'll be sitting down with her kids for dinner.


II
Race

Cedric: When we left off Betty was making a point about Pacifica Radio.

Betty: Rebecca had Flashpoints on and they were discussing the upcoming elections in Mexico in a way that was quite a bit more than the soundbyte manner of NPR. Cedric had brought up Falluja and some people have no idea of what happened in that city in April of 2004 and November of 2004 which led me to explain how I had listened at work to WBAI to hear Robert Fisk's speech on the history of invasions in and war on Iraq. A woman whose desk was next to mine before I got a promotion at work had been listening as well and what she heard was, really, a revelation to her. She does follow the news on cable, reads the Atlanta Journal-Constitution each day, tries to keep up and she was finding out that there was a great deal she hadn't been informed of.

Rebecca: Did she become a Pacifica listener?

Betty: Not yet. She has kids like I do and that's probably the biggest problem with listening online. If you're at the computer, and you only have the one computer, you've got a kid wanting to put in their Barbie game or whatever. Or else, you're all over the house running after them, in which case, there's little or no listening. But what did change was that she listens WRFG. At five o'clock, you can grab headlines, I do, from Democracy Now! as you're entering traffic after work and headed to daycare to pick up the kids.

Cedric: Could you give the information on where it is on the dial?

Betty: Sure. It's 89.3 FM, WRFG. So five to six, you've got it right there, on the airwaves and it works well there because in the morning, you're dropping the kids off and forget about paying attention to anything other than what's going on in the backseat. For me, the way it works out is that I'm alone in the car for the headlines and the first ten to fifteen minutes after depending on traffic. Then it's grab a parking spot, go inside and get the kids, come back and grab the last twenty-five minutes which, when it's hot like it is now, the kids are usually just listening along. They're tired and it's hot, in fact, today it was so hot there wasn't even any griping among them. So that's usually the whole make it home trip, that hour.

Rebecca: And your co-worker is listening to Democracy Now! through that station?

Betty: Yes. She's someone who tries really hard to keep up and we can grab that hour except on Friday when Democracy Now! starts a half-hour earlier but, to be honest, if it was on at the same time on Friday, the second hour would be lost on me in the car because there is no too tired on Friday, on Friday, the kids are always too alert, too active and too vocal to follow anything on the radio after they're in the car. Just a little over on the dial, and I'm not giving it's position, is WABE and I have no use for it. It's NPR. Drive time is the second of two hours of All Things Considered which, strange considering the title, really offers very little to consider.

C.I.: I think that works just reading, but what anyone reading will miss is that on "strange, considering the title, really offers very little to consider" was delivered in Betty's parody of NPR.

Betty: My "White voice." Everyone on NPR sounds exactly the same. And they also have this way of speaking at the end of the piece that seems to be an attempt to make you go, "Hmmm."

Cedric: No matter what the stories is, they always think they're "Things That Make You Go Hmmm."

Betty: If I can stay on that for just one more second, in Atlanta, the PBS problem, the Whiteness of it all, is brought home even more because all the programming seems geared to White people and about White people. To give an example that people brought up today at work, tomorrow there will be a special on skincare --

Rebecca: What?

Betty: I'm not making that up. The woman's name is Adrienne Denese and everyone's making fun of her at work. It's going to teach us how to avoid aging -- public monies for Mary Kay basically. But who is that audience? There's a saying, I bet Cedric knows it --

Cedric: "Black don't crack."

Betty: Right. I mean, African-Americans do get wrinkles. But it's just one more example of WPBA causes the very large Black community in Atlanta to scratch their heads and wonder who they think watches?

Cedric: Do you watch a lot of public television?

Betty: I don't have cable. Or "satellite" since that's now the big thing. Don't have it, won't have it. If broadcast TV ends, the kids can watch their DVDs. TV's never going to be something I'm going to waste money on. Not with three kids. So when we get home in the evening, they'll watch Arthur and I'll work on dinner. In the morning, they're watching Maya and Miguel. Teletubbies is really too young for them. And I really think they should move Sesame Street much earlier. It broadcasts at ten a.m. I don't think most kids catch it.

Cedric: And it's probably the only show for kids where there's actually different races.

Betty: Right. And you get asked that by your kids. I used to lie and say Francine, on Arthur, was "mixed." But my oldest got too smart for that. With the hair on the characters on Arthur, when kids get to a certain age, they know it's drawn White. I've really gone off topic, sorry.

C.I.: Don't apologize. These are points worth making. Someone needs to be saying it and good for you for doing so.

Cedric: Because there is no "public" in public television. It's White with a few guests brought on. That's all they are, guests. And that's not how it was when I was a kid but these days you're more likely to see a Big Red Dog, Clifford, than you are to see an African-American character. And, as Ava's pointed out, Maya and Miguel is a fifties show airing today. Maya's not really that active. Miguel's the adventurous one and Maya's basically saying, "Oh you boys, be careful." There's a lot of social conditioning going on with that show. The muppet characters on Sesame Street really were a breakthrough and that's obviously one person's idea and never what PBS wanted to reflect. On their own, they go for White characters in gender roles. Even when the characters are animals, they have characteristics that clue you in that they're White, either the bits of hair that are drawn on their heads or the person hired to voice the character. But let's get back to the war.

C.I.: Wait, no. For this section, let's focus on race. At The Third Estate Sunday Review each week we've tried to fit time in to address the topic but it hasn't been possible and if it is a fiction edition, there won't be a roundtable or an easy way to address it outside of fiction, so since that's a topic that's come up, let's stay on it.

Cedric: Well, we're always wanting to discuss KPFA's The Morning Show, there are many shows but that's the program most of us have started noticing really will address race.

Rebecca: The hosts are Andrea Lewis and Philip Maldari. It's a two hour broadcast, Monday through Friday.

Cedric: I really like Andrea Lewis. Betty had a good phrase for her.

Betty: "Down home." She's just really comfortable on air. She can do the serious interview or she can be funny. She's just really down home on air and I have to say thank you to Kat here because my chances of hearing online are limited, Kat knows that and makes a point to put in a cassette most mornings and I get a weekly shipment. Kat always apologizes that she doesn't have time to turn the tapes into a weekly best of but she'll note which things she thinks I'll really enjoy. When I'm cleaning the house on the weekends, I'm listening to The Morning Show. And not to take anything away from Philip Malderi who does a fine job himself but, as a Black woman, I listen and wonder why we don't have a thousand Andrea Lewises all over the airwaves. What we get instead is a lot of women with an attitude on air that translates as, "Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to prove to you that Black women can speak and think." Andrea Lewis is just down home. Like most non-Whites, it's never occurred to her, nor should it, that we can't have an opinion and express it.

C.I.: That's a point that Ty really wanted made, when we've talked about this for The Third Estate Sunday Review. That the relationship on air between Andrea Lewis and Philip Malderi is very much an equal one, Malderi is White, and that there's a balance there that you don't get very often. For those who've never heard the show, it's two hours, like Rebecca pointed out, and it's a morning show that has news breaks, anchored by Sandra Lupien, and they have guests on who discuss issues of the day and the arts. And among the many issues they are comfortable addressing is race.

Cedric: And I agree with that summary you just gave but I want to add to it because you listen to Pacifica and when you say that, it's going to make sense to people who listen to Pacifica. They're going to understand even if they don't listen to KPFA. But if they're listening to commercial radio, they're going to be nodding, if they think they get it, and thinking, "Soul Food on the radio!" They're going to be thinking it's Tom Joyner or something where there's this one big guy, and it's always a guy, surrounded by a lot of people on air who basically say, "You are so smart, tell us more."

Rebecca: Or they're going to be thinking, it's a bunch of ha-ha, "And then I went to the beauty parlor and, girl, let me tell you."

Betty: I was just thinking that. I'd call it the shuck-and-jive hour, shows like that. And in terms of radio, that's really often all you get. The thing Ty's pointed out where the Black staff member or co-anchor is basically there to say, "You White Guy are so smart and I am so lucky to be at this mircophone with you." Where they're scraping and bowing the whole time. They may do it for jokes or, if it's a more serious program, they may do it from a kind of eternal wonder position. But that's your one model and then you have the loud laughter, "So she comes up to me in front of all the ladies at the beauty parlor saying, 'It's not a weave. I have my hair processed.' And I said process! Girl, looks like your hair done been served! Ah-huh. Ah-huh. Ah-huh." On Fraiser, they had a character called Dr. Wendy and she was that type. Look, I'm from the south. There are women like that, I know them and some of them are wonderful friends, but that's one of two types we get and there are so many other types. You just don't hear them.

Cedric: And to fall back to Tom Joyner, he does the male of that character over and over and then his voice will get a little higher and it will be the and-now-we-get-serious moment. When we were all in California, Ty would be asking, "Who is that woman?" about Andrea Lewis. Over and over. And his point was, because by the first day, he knew who she was. We'd all be listening as we went here and there and all over, but his point was, this is an African-American woman that is like many women we know, she's smart, she's funny, she's obviously educated, and where is she on the radio? She's on KPFA and good for that. But where are women like her otherwise? I'm sure there are other women like that because she's not some creature that just landed on the planet. But I mean, what we get instead is "Gossip to Go with Flo."

C.I.: Florence Anthony.

Cedric: C.I. told me last week, when I brought this up, that Flo had gone to Howard University and graduated from there and I was shocked because --

Betty: Wait! Flo, went to Howard University?

Cedric: Yeah.

Betty: What a waste. There are some people at work that listen to her "Gossip to Go" thing. She also does that magazine . . .

C.I.: Black Elegance Magazine.

Betty: That's it, thank you. But I mean, for an educated woman to be doing that? God, I'll shut up before I start sounding like Bill Cosby.

Cedric: (Laughing) I know exactly what you mean. When C.I. told me that, I was just floored, Flo at Howard University? So why does she want to come off like the loud woman screaming into her cell phone on the bus?

Rebecca: I'm sorry, I don't know her. Fill me in.

Cedric: It's just a waste of a few minutes each day as she summarizes whatever made the gossip page in the New York Post --

C.I.: Where she used to work.

Cedric: That would explain why she plugs it. It's just trash. And Betty's "Ah-huh, ah-huh, ah-huh" really applies to her. If she were in Vegas, she'd be screaming, "Drum roll!" after every sentence but she's not funny. There are women like her and they can be very nice women. I'm not picking on that so much as I'm pointing out that that's what we get instead. We get a million Flos and if there are Andreas, we have to search high and low, long and hard just to find them.

Betty: Because, and I'll wrap up on this, when that's one of two types presented and only two types are presented, Flo doesn't come off as Flo but as one more touring in a never ending minstrel show.

Rebecca: I know we want to get back to the war, but we've just talked about portrayls or, maybe, access is the better word. Do we want to talk about anything else since Betty just pulled a Dona and said "wrap up"?

Cedric: Yeah, but that would probably be better to hold on. In terms of topics. I mean, you know what we're talking about, Rebecca, but there are a lot of people who will be scratching their heads over this and thinking, "Wait? They don't all go around grinning and laughing every minute of the day?" Probably not in this community, but there are people who have really strong stereotypes. And I don't just mean racists. There are people who -- I don't know how to word it.

C.I.: How about this. Colin Powell is seen as a living miracle because he can speak and think. And it's a bit late in the game that that should come off as somehow an exception to a race. But in terms of who is given access in the mainstream media and who is denied, Colin Powell stands like a giant just for how he carries himself because, despite reality, strides made still aren't reflected in the media?

Cedric: Yes. Yes, I'd agree with that.

Betty: I would too. I'm not a fan of Powell's and I know no one here is. But he comes off as an exception only because White America isn't presented with more reality.

Rebecca: Well, if I can add on a few more seconds here, can we talk Powell without talking Harry Belafonte since, if the mainstream media created Powell as the "good one," they spent a lot of time demonizing Belafonte recently?

Betty: I'm glad you brought that up because I read C.I.'s thing responding to someone's impression that this community had a war with The Nation. I don't think there's any more ridiculous claim. But if someone wants to toss that out, I'll toss back, "Is there a war with Black people?" There's Patricia J. Williamson and then whom? And I'll be honest, that thing of Katrina vanden Heuvel's pissed me off.

C.I.: She wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post and an expanded version was at her blog, Editor's Cut. She's the editor and publisher of The Nation. Cedric wrote about it, so he should probably do the set up.

Cedric: Well, she wrote a piece about the way people are talking, the political discourse. And to prove that it was on all sides, she included many examples, one of which was Harry Belafonte.You didn't agree with the column?

C.I.: Me? No. I noted that here. I don't buy into the tone arguments. People should speak in their own voices. That includes Flo. The problem is when the range of voices is so narrow that a wide variety isn't presented. But people should speak in their own voices. She was, KvH, calling out to our better natures, that was the theme of the column. More power to her but I think we need a lot more voices and they need to speak in the way that suits them. I wrote about it because she got trashed online, basically called a hypocrite, and I didn't see it, the column, as being hypocritical when contrasted with a TV appearance either the same day or the next day.You were offended by the inclusion of Belafonte in the examples and I honestly hadn't read the examples.

Cedric: I had a real problem with that, more so than the tone argument. I didn't think it read "reasonable." I thought she'd entered into, unwittingly, racially charged territory and that it was a mistake on many levels to have included him in her call outs.

C.I.: Because he was already under attack and had been for a lengthy period. He'd even been disinvited to the Coretta Scott King funeral. So for the publisher of The Nation to join in the chorus of tsk-tsk Belafonte was upsetting.

Cedric: Right. And that sets it up. Harry Belafonte was trashed and there was no reason for someone on the left, considering all that he'd gone through, to engage in, "He shouldn't have."

Betty: And it's not that he's above criticism. It's that there was a reaction, which she probably wasn't aware of, in the African-American community of "back off." We were tired of it. We were tired of the nonsense. I didn't speak to anyone who wasn't tired of it and sick of it. Whether they had grown up admiring him, as I did, he's an important person in my family, or whether they didn't care for him, they were sick of seeing him trashed. To her credit, she was comfortable with him in terms of being able to discuss him as she would anyone else. You could argue, and I hate this term, that she was "color blind." I hate the term because I don't think we can afford to be because we don't have racial parity in this country. But I think she was comfortable enough with him, in terms of her thoughts of him, I didn't think she hated him, to treat him as she would anyone esle. But where she came into the dialogue, because possibly she wasn't aware of what was going in, the reaction to the trashing of him, it was, my attitude, "Back off."

Cedric: The comfort factor was something I hadn't given her credit for and hadn't thought of it so I'm glad you brought that up. That's probably true. To her, it was probably one more example of how a statement or statements, and I agree with his statements, but there's a reaction, like Betty said, that she was completely unaware of. And my attitude was, and still is, I don't need you to tell me your non-endorsing opinion of this African-American who is under attack. This wasn't Michael Jackson where someone was accused of a crime --

Betty: Again!

Cedric: (Laughing) Again. This is someone who has lived his entire life in a way that uplifts so many of us and encourages so many of us. At a time when he was under attack, I didn't think her including him was helpful, needed or wanted.

Rebecca: It was personal, the attacks on Harry Belafonte and the reaction. And it's easy to say, "Well, that's how I would treat anyone." But I don't think that allows for the reality of the attacks or the reality of the times or, for that matter, the mood of the country. I disagreed with the entire column. For me, "I'm not ready to make nice," like the Dixie Chicks sing. I have no interest in being seen as "reasonable." We don't live in "reasonable" times. My reaction was, "Why is she including him?" I didn't see his statements as equivalent to others included. And maybe I'm remembering this wrong but it seems like only days after Amy Goodman was interviewing him on Democracy Now! and he was talking about the reactions to his comments and then I got even madder that he was included in the column.

Betty: I loved that interview Amy did. But back to Katrina vanden Heuvel, I think she is trying to rally and to inspire and that is needed in these times. I don't fault her for that. I don't even think it occurred to her that including Belafonte would be hurtful, nor do I think it was intended as such. But I do think it struck many as hurtful and it's something that bothers me even now.

Cedric: Just to repeat, and then we can close, one more time, I want to thank C.I. because I was really bothered by it and thought, "Well I can't write about this. The community, and that includes me, likes Katrina vanden Heuvel. " And that only made me more upset. So I called C.I. for input and was told, "Write it. I'll link to it. Just write what you feel and speak in your own voice and it's not a problem." I appreciated the support.

C.I.: Don't be silly. We all support one another in the community. We're going to take the second break and then return to the issue of the war.

III
Back to Iraq

Betty: We looked over the other two sections and the first one was our intro and the second was about race. In this section, we're going back to the war. And we're going to start off with Rebecca talking about her grandmother.

Rebecca: The news of Haditha, and this was before othe incidents began breaking in the news, just really upset her. The alleged crimes upset her, but what upset her even more was the reaction. Which is "oh, that bad Bully Boy!" She wondered if this was how our own "descent into hell" as a nation really began. And she is under no illusions that the last six years have been beneficial to Americans or the Constitution or the world. There's an effort to heap all the blame on the Bully Boy. He is to blame for setting the tone and creating the conditions under which the alleged abuse would have taken place. But she's bothered that those who are alleged to have participated in crimes are not responsible for their own actions.

Cedric: Which is how it's playing out in the discussions. Not with Michelle Malkin who's on a tear that the media's just going after the military. They're not. They're not even going after the accused. We're running behind --

Betty: My fault. It was supposed to be a short break, but one of my kids had an upset stomach.

C.I.: Not a problem. I used the time to run to the store.


Cedric: Yeah, no one was just sitting there thinking, "When is Betty getting back?" Rebecca and I ended up deciding that we'd do Mike a solid and open with a Democracy Now! news item when we posted this at our sites and Rebecca also noted that if this is tagged, we should do it at the top like Betty's been pointing out for some time because long entries don't get read, although mine never get read.

Rebecca: Hold on one minute. Sorry, I wanted to check something. C.I. published and republished Friday morning while we were on the phone together and the tags were never read in terms of showing up.

C.I.: Tags, quickly. I don't mind spending time exploring the real topic but I don't want to waste it on tags. There are people who never get read and they contact Technorati and get no reply nor is anything done so that they are read. I don't like tagging, it takes up too much time and Rebecca's the one who discovered it and thought it was a way to get the word out on the community. If it's not showing up anywhere and that continues, I'll stop tagging gladly. It's been a hassle from day one. The time it takes could be spent cross-posting at the mirror site or on any other number of things.

Rebecca: Okay, so Cedric got cut off, sorry.

Cedric: No problem. I was going to note the Hannah Arendt quote that went up at The Common Ills Friday: "Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing." Who is guilty? If the Haditha reports are true, who is guilty?

Betty: Because in the coverage, it's Bully Boy alone. I have no problem with directing his share of the blame to him, and it's big, his share, but at what point are we going to stop saying, "Oh, well these things happen." That's what bothered your grandmother, right?

Rebecca: Yeah. She was very bothered by that. In Abu Ghraib, it became a lot of "Oh, but we can't punish these poor soldiers because they're not responsible and they're getting all the blame."

Cedric: If I hire the assasin, I'm just as guilty as the person who did the killing. So it's perfectly well and good to portion out to Bully Boy but the idea that we're going to look the other way on the individuals who may have actually killed someone is really sad.

Betty: I think there's responsbility at both ends and on up the chain of command between. And instead, I feel like, and I'm more disappointed in the left here, there's this attitude of, "We must not criticize the soldiers involved."

C.I.: That attitude . . . One of the things that's often asked is, "Where is the outrage over this war?" A lot of people are outraged. But it's equally true that there's a lot of attempts to divert that outrage and to tap it down. Abu Ghraib was a scandal on many levels but what happened to it? It became this elephant in the room that we can only talk about in the most general terms.

Cedric: I wrote this down from something you put up on Friday: "Pay attention to what Sandra Lupien noted on KPFA's The Morning Show this morning, Donald Rumsfeld said 'Things that shouldn't happen, do happen in combat.'" I think I got the implication but I was hoping you'd talk about that.

C.I.: What that reminded me of first of all was Rumsfeld's idiotic comment about the looting, how it was just one vase. And we know that it was easily over 14,000 pieces that were stolen. People should have been outraged about the looting but instead it became, "Oh well, these things happen in a war." These things happened because the concern was with protecting other things, such as the oil fields. By the same token, Abu Ghraib became a "these things happen." And here comes Rumsfeld to talk about an alleged massacre and to say, "These things happen." And the fear is, he'll be successful at it because no one wants to call out the individuals who allegedly did the killing. That's sad and it's honestly sick.

Rebecca: Which was my grandmother's feeling, that's what had bothered her so much and why she called and asked me to visit that day. If it's not called out, it creates another lowered expectation, another pass. We're no longer appalled by Abu Ghraib and the next massacre will be a yawn. A shrug. It's like Betty said, it's the left here that's refusing to confront the reality. They're too busy directing all the blame to Bully Boy and letting off the accused perpetrators of the act.

C.I.: And if, in the face of these allegations, can't express disgust and can't draw a clear line that says the behavior is not acceptable, for any reason, under any reason, then what are we saying about ourselves and about our country?

Betty: Well you saw, and Elaine covered this, you saw the usual bullies, and the left has bullies, come along and say, "Oh don't you dare call those men 'baby killers!' I will come after you if you do!" Well what did they do? Are we going to invent new terms to avoid calling killing "killing"? Is that where we are now? Have we all left the reality based world?

Cedric: And this on the day that someone got sentenced for Abu Ghraib.

C.I.: He didn't really. I almost included in that in the snapshot but I assumed everyone knew it. Santos Cardona was sentenced to X number of days of hard labor. I think it was something like seventy days. He'll lose about $600 dollars a month for twelve months. His lawyer is calling it a win for Cardona. And it is. It's very much a win for him. He's found guilty of a multitude of crimes and he's basically walking. I believe his lawyer pointed out that the hard labor doesn't include any prison time. While it's one thing for your heart to go out to the people put in that situation and to say that people being punished shouldn't be just the low-level ones, it's another to say, "Go torture Iraqis and don't worry because there's no real consequences." But that's the message. By the same token, this effort to point only to the top sends a message.

Rebecca: What does everyone think about the investigation into Ishaqi?

Betty: That's where the BBC just got a hold of the tape and, from the tape, it appears that a slaughter went on but that, Friday, the military finished their investigation into the events and cleared everyone, right?

Cedric: I don't know what to think about that.

C.I.: I think we were played. I think the administration knew they had a scandal with Haditha. At which point they floated to the press that there was another scandal being investigated.

Cedric: Why do you say that?

C.I.: The story for the weekend is "Military cleared!" That's the headline. Look at tomorrow's papers and see how many run with that, I bet many will. There are three scandals right now and most people are having trouble, if they're not following it closely, keeping up. They'll see "cleared" and they'll think it's Haditha or they'll think, "Oh, that's that scandal." They probably won't know Haditha by name.

Cedric: So you think it was leaked on purpose?C.I.: I think that's very likely. You've got a scandal breaking. Suddenly you want to leak about a supposed ongoing investigation into another? No. If you wanted to leak, you would have leaked while it was ongoing. It's only after Haditha captures attention and it's known that a finding, and they knew what the finding would be, that Ishaqi is leaked. It was damage control, plain and simple. What do you think, Rebecca, you're the one with the p.r. experience?

Rebecca: I agree with that. Look at Haditha where the leaks revolve around charges. It's not completed yet but they have a sense of where it's headed. The Ishaqi one, they knew where it was headed, it was, as you point out, winding down when it was leaked. This was damage control and it's a laughable investigation and one that should have been prevented from releasing a conclusion since the conclusion was written prior to the BBC's announcing that they had just gotten a hold of a tape. That's a bit like a jury coming back in with a decision while someone who's been watching the trial stands up in the court room and screams, "It wasn't him! I killed her and here's how!" I can't imagine a judge would say, "Shut up and sit down. Jury deliver your verdict." They would investigate the person's claims. The fact that the BBC broke the news of the tape, I believe Thursday evening our time, and Friday morning the conclusions of the investigation are released indicate that it was damage control because a real investigation would say, "Let's look at that tape." But it was judged important to do damage control and the results had to come out on Friday so that all weekend people could say, "Oh, they were cleared." Confusing Ishaqui with the other two investigations.

Betty: I didn't know that the man sentenced on Friday wasn't going to be serving time. For Abu Ghraib. That's really sad. And it does send a message which says there are no serious consquences. If you're serving and you say, "I'm not going to do that because it's wrong and I don't want to go to prison," the logical reply, now, is, "Oh, but you won't go to prison." And I think that gets at the problem. When all we're doing is saying, "Oh, it's all the Bully Boy's fault!" and when we're refusing to say, "These actions are horrible, they're criminal, and they must be punished," we're saying that we'll tolerate anything and look the other way because, darn it, nobody better use a word like "baby killer."

Rebecca: I think you're exactly right and to get back to the "Where is the outrage?" -- when even the left won't express their disgust and their outrage over torture and killing, then go ahead and pack it in. Don't expect the cheerleaders for the Bully Boy to express outrage. We've gone from the nonsense of everyone is guilty, Hannah Arendt's point, to one where "Only the Bully Boy is guilty." And that's only by the left. Others don't even offer that much. So another massacre happens and people are a little less shocked, a little less appalled. The war's never going to end if we're all going to supress our outrage over crimes and make a point to say, "Oh well, the Bully Boy put them there! It's his fault!" He started the illegal war, he trashed our understanding of warfare from just and unjust wars on down the line, he set the tone. But the people participating in war crimes need to be held responsible. Whether it's someone who commits one in Iraq or Bob Kerry with his war crimes in Vietnam which we're also supposed to just forget because he gave a p.r. conference where he owned up to being "troubled." Too bad other war criminals, at other times, didn't realize all they had to do was say, "I'm troubled by my actions" and they'd get off scott free as well. There's no sense of scope or magnitude, just a lot of idiots weighing in with, "Look what the Bully Boy has caused!" Well what has he caused? Can we talk about that? Can we talk about the actual events and expect to be allowed to hear that war criminals must be held accountable at every level? I don't think so. My grandmother who can see hope in any situation doesn't either. That's why she really feels that our reaction to Haditha, as a nation, may be the real beginning of a "descent into hell." Bully Boy's done awful things but the difference here is that we're confronted with murder and our attitude is, "We can't and mustn't talk about the actions of the ones who allegedly killed. We must only talk about the Bully Boy." If that's where we are, then forget about right and wrong. People can do whatever they want in Iraq and they should know now that the right will look the other way and the left will play Pin-the-blame-on-the-Bully-Boy. It's very sad. And he may have pushed the nation into lowered expectations on accountability, but the nation's responsible for embracing it.

C.I.: Unless anyone else has a closing thought, I think Rebecca just covered it all in her summary?

Betty: Nothing to add. Thanks for inviting me.

Cedric: Just to back up Rebecca, if you're okay with this, get used to more because there was a huge failure to discuss it, just a rush to blame Bully Boy. A rejection of consequences and an ignoring of the fact that Iraqis died. Or maybe it doesn't matter when it's Iraqis? The message that was sent out was very disturbing. Can I use the slogan?

C.I.: Cedric's referring to a slogan that we avoid at The Common Ills because it's a p.r. created slogan created in order to avoid discussion and debate. Go ahead.

Cedric: "Support the troops." In what? And which troops? The left proved that they could do so blindly as they bent over bakwards to avoid discussing what happened on the ground as they rushed to carry every bit of the blame to D.C. Not a proud moment.
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