The Common Ills: Speaking the unspeakables (and living to tell)

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Speaking the unspeakables (and living to tell)

According to an e-mail, I "wouldn't dare" quote or link to the right-wing site Hot Air, specifically the piece I'm about to link to and quote from. But why wouldn't I? Hot Air's having a big laugh at the lies of Barack Obama. I've called out those on the left who've enabled those lies. I'm more than willing to grab Matthew Rothschild or Amy Goodman by the neck and rub their little snouts in the mess they've made. Here's what the right-wing site Hot Air is carrying, Jazz Shaw's "President McCain is clearly a warmonger:"

I sure wish we had elected that Obama guy back in 2008. If we had, we wouldn’t be looking at staying in Iraq even longer. Obama would have -- at a minimum -- gotten out of Iraq on the same schedule that the warmonger Bush had set up.

Of course, there's still the matter of Afghanistan. If we had elected Barack Obama, I can assure you that he would have set up a firm plan to begin a major draw-down of our forces by this year and gotten the rest out in short order. But not President McCain! Oh, no! We just found out this weekend that he's close to signing an agreement to keep not only training details, but special forces and air power in country until… are you ready for this? Until 2024.

The Cult of St. Barack humiliated themselves by whoring themselves, by destroying their own belief systems to promote one person -- did they never grasp that and how against their 'communal' positions that action was. I hope the whole world laughs at those whores. I hope everyone -- including the whores -- hears the laughter. A little shame might force some accountability.

And excuse me, but here on the left, what is our cry: "No accountability, no justice!" It's time for accountability.

And we'll return to that topic in the next entry but I felt Jazz Shaw's piece was worth noting at the top and I already have our opening for the other entry figured out so we brought Shaw's piece in here.

But before we do, I've been awfully damn nice to David Swanson.

For those who don't know, David Swanson sought out Rebecca online, began e-mailing her, asking her questions and then forwarding her e-mails around. She only found out because whatever the idiot's name it (a middle aged man who claims to be a represenative of the 'hip-hop generation') was out of the country and had his e-mail account set up for auto reply which is how the following (which David denies/lies about to this day) bounced back to Rebecca. I have no idea why it bounced back to Rebecca. I have no idea to this day how that happened. But I do know David's denied it repeatedly and I do know he's insulted Rebecca to people who've raised the issue with him.

Rebecca didn't lie.

Screen snap.

Rebecca's got the entire e-mail. David's forwarded her e-mail to the man. And when it bounced to Rebecca's site, she first asked him why he was forwarding her e-mails and he lied. He said he'd never done that. He called her crazy. As you can see above, Rebecca got a 'reply' to an e-mail David Swanson wrote Yearwood. That bounce back includes his comments and all of her e-mail that David was forwarding to Yearwood.

It has been embarrassing to watch David Swanson repeatedly lie for the last four years that he never forwarded Rebecca's e-mail. We all knew he did it, we'd all seen the messages that got bounced back to Rebecca from Yearwood's automatic reply.

Yet David denied it.

Called Rebecca "crazy" when she confronted him on it.

David denies that he'll ever change his mind
But he always changes
David denies
But he's left his love behind
-- "David Denies," written by Aimee Mann, Joey Pesce, Robert Holmes and Michael Hausman, first appears on 'Til Tuesday's Welcome Home.

Lots of luck denying it now, David Swanson.

What ticked me off the most about this, why we're posting the screen snap and demonstrating what a liar David Swanson is, was an e-mail from community member Tori expressing outrage that not only has Swanson refused to cover Leon Panetta's statements from yesterday in any form (extension of US troops in Iraq beyond December is a done deal), but he'slinking to the idiot Jar Jar Blinks whom Whore Amy Goodman brought on Democracy Now! yet again.

Boys and girls, that's how it works. You're not an expert because you know a damn thing, you're an expert because you take part in the circle jerk, you're an expert because you engage in mutual masturbation. (It's what Bob Somerby decries at a higher media level -- yes, MSNBC is higher than the Beggar Media -- around Chris Matthews.)

No one is wronger than Jar Jar Blinks who turned tail and ran from Iraq in 2003 and got a cute little legal settlement from an airline that he tried to ride to greater fame -- yes, boys and girls, he arrived in this country and learned the only thing he ever did which is: Anyone can sue. Jar Jar whored it for Barack to the point that you kind of picture him naming his vibrator or dildo "Barack." Barack was going to save us, Barack was going to end the war. Ava, Dona and I have had with that jerk years ago. He's a damn liar. The SOFA was explained to him, he refused to listen. His groovin' on Barack was more important to him.

So instead he continued to preach THE LIE (as did David Swanson) that the Iraq War ended in 2011 and that was because of the SOFA. Neither David Swanson nor Raed Jarrar knows a damn thing about contract law but they were allowed to present their 'expert opinion' because they engage in the circle jerk. So the idiot Raed -- who obviously WAS 100% WRONG about the SOFA but still can't take accountability -- gets pimped yet again by Amy and then by David.

I'm sick of this damn s**t. I'm sick of the fakes and the frauds. Last time I wrote here similarly, I received an e-mail -- which I immediately noted here because if you forward Rebecca's e-mails, your own e-mails have no privacy here -- from Davy Swanson explaining how hard is to tell the truth about Barack and how he has to do it bit by bit. He meant it was hard to do because of the reactions of others. But in reality, it was hard for him to tell the truth because that's who he is.

I don't give a damn if someone links to me or not. I believe the bald Matthew at AlterNet (he's probably long gone now) thought he could threaten me into silence. I believe bald Matthew found out I don't respond well to threats. (Alternet's Matthew and another editor harassed, threatened and spied on a 14-year-old boy. We didn't stand for it, we called them out here. Rebecca called them out at her site as well.) I didn't give a damn that AlterNet was threatening to pull the link to me.

"Oh no! I won't be linked to by a site I neither read nor respect." Hello, I was friends with Molly Ivins. I'm damn well aware of the way Altnet treated writers around the country. Like I gave a damn if they delinked. I never asked them to link to me, why would I care if they delinked. Many friends offer to link to me and I say don't do it, I say we're too controversial and we always will be because I will not kiss ass.

While it is true that I have more money than I can spend in my lifetime, it's also true that even when I had no money (having given it all away to try to stop an earlier war) I didn't kiss ass. My feelings on that subject are well known and we'll again quote from Robert Towne and Warren Beatty's script for Shampoo from the scene where Jill (Goldie Hawn) confronts George (Warren):

Jill: And stop kissing everybody's ass that comes into that shop. That's not going to put you in business. That's going to make you a kiss-ass.

George: Jill, I'm trying to get things moving.

Jill: Oh, grow up. You never stop moving. You never go anywhere. Grow up! Grow up! Grow up!

So it's never mattered whether someone linked here or not. Life went on. The sun still rose in the morning and sat at night and I didn't live in fear of offending anyone or losing any alleged 'gain.' We are a force online because we are indebted to no one. This community grew this community. We did so without help from outsiders.

But when David Swanson whines that it's hard to tell the truth, what he really means is it's hard to face being shunned by his one time supporters.

And, in fairness to him, his (weak) stands have cost him. When his site was AfterDowningStreet and Bush was in office, the whole left celebrated David Swanson.

Oh, he's brave, he's smart, he's this, he's that.

But along came Barack and David couldn't tell the truth about him in 2008 or since. He's inched close to it in 2009 and 2010 only to see that a lot of sites stopped sharing the 'linky goodness' and stopped talking him up.

Now called out here and elsewhere, he's certainly gotten braver in 2011. But it's really not that brave.

Here alone today, we've had over 16,000 visitors or 'hits.' Not huge but more than we needed. And we have two back up sites. I have no idea what David's traffic is and only looked to find out today's traffic here (I ignore it and tell those who look not to tell me because I don't want to start churning out 'greatest hits' -- where I rewrite what I know was popular so I can remain popular).

But if there had only been one 'hit' to this site today, that still would have been fine. Because I don't lie and I don't kiss ass. So anyone reading is getting what I really think and now what I think they can handle right now.

I do understand that fame can be addictive (which is why I never read my own press) and I do understand David Swanson's desire not to continue to bleed readers. But the easiest way to avoid bleeding readers is to speak in your own voice. I could not begin to write a better ___ [pick favorite writer of choice} but no one can do a better me than me. And when you're writing authentically, you don't owe anybody anything.

By contrast, if you fake it, if you pull your punches because 'people' (meaning you yourself) aren't ready for the truth about Barack, you're already losing because you're writing's weak , your focus is off and you're not being yourself.

So David Swanson's punishment is being a lousy writer today and one that doesn't write what he really thinks. He could have been a great one. He could have been fearless and called out what he knew was wrong -- what he wanted to tell you privately was wrong but didn't want to write about because people are so mean online!

As I pointed out before, David was one of the many who refused to promote Cindy Sheehan's actions when Barack came into office.

How do you do that?

How do you praise Cindy through the roof, as he did, and then do a walk away? And do it because you're afraid of what other bloggers might do or say?

I have no idea. But I'm washing my hands of it now. David Swanson, stop e-mailing me several times a day. If you had anything worth saying, you would have written about Leon Panetta's remarks. You didn't. (If I had anything to say to you, I would have replied to your non-stop e-mails at least once in the last year or so.)

I don't want to read your writing, I don't want anything to do with you. As Michelle Pfeiffer says in The Russia House, "I hope you are not being frivolous, Barley. My life now only has room for the truth."

If you believe War Is A Crime, you'd show a lot more bravery. And you certainly wouldn't link to the pathetic Jar Jar Blinks yet again making excuses for Barack the War Criminal. See, Jar Jar declares in the interview, the problem is that Barack hasn't made it clear that the US isn't staying in Iraq. Jar Jar is two-dollar whore. I don't have time for these idiots.

One o'clock in the afternoon tomorrow at San Antonio's Episcopal Church of Reconciliation, Sister Martha Ann Kirk and Sister Patricia Madigan will be giving an audio visual presentation on Iraqi women entitled "Iraqi Women of Three Generations: Challenges, Education and Hopes for Peace." Abe Levy (San Antonio Express-News) reports Sister Martha Ann Kirk went on research trips to northern Iraq where sey spoke with "more than 140 Iraqi girls and women," "from grandmothers to young girls." Sister Martha Ann Kirk states, "I have wanted for us to know the humanity of Iraqi families and them to know us at least a little through my visits. Ordinary, good people -- especially children -- suffer from wars."

Meanwhile Robert Burns (Associated Press)notes the 2003 death in Iraq of 20-year-old Spc Justin W.Hebert and how almost "one-third of U.S. troops killed in Iraq were age 18 to 21. Well over half were in the lowest enlisted ranks."

DoD currently lists the number of US military personnel killed in the Iraq War at [PDF format warning] 4478. That would mean that over 2,200 of the deaths were from the lowest enlisted ranks and about 1490 were 21-years-old or younger.

Swiping from Cedric and Wally's latest: