Saturday, May 10, 2014

I Hate The War

I do love my helpers.

They've always been so kind.

The big-name blogger, for instance, who spent most of 2005 explaining to me in e-mails how I needed to lay off abortion because it wasn't an issue that matter "anymore" and there were "real" things people needed to focus on.

As with most of his 'wise' advice, I threw it in the trash.

We're a pro-choice site and I'm not 8-years-old.

I've seen the Democratic Party try to run from abortion before, I've seen it rush to ignore women completely -- that was what 1988 was about -- all of it.

I love Gary Hart.  He's a nice guy and very smart.  I've known him for years.

But he was brought down in part because of the party's attempt to run from women.

Every candidate has a book that they supposedly write.  Gary actually wrote his -- he's a writer and a very talented one.

Bill Clinton survived sex scandals while running for the presidency (and after getting into the White House) and did so because it was personal.

Huh?

Bill Clinton had a public record on women.  He had campaign books that had sections on women.

Gary Hart is not a predator, he's a nice person.

But when his scandal hit, he folded.  There was nothing he could point to.

He was a married man, running for president, on a yacht with a woman sitting in his lap.

The DNC thought much like the RNC -- oh, he's gorgeous, that's all he has to be.  Women will vote for him because he's gorgeous.

It was hilarious to hear DNC party types, in the summer of 1988, mock the GOP honchos for saying and thinking Dan Quayle would pull in women voters because he was good looking.

It was hilarious because part of their attack on that was their own sour grapes that it hadn't come to be for Gary Hart.

Had Hart gotten the nomination in 1988, he could have defeated Bush.  He's got amazing verbal skills and amazing analytical skills and would have shined in the debates.

But Hart was destroyed by the 1988 scandal.

It's fair to point out that Hart had no example to analyze.  His was the first time the press climbed over the wall they'd created for insider politicians when it came to sex.

Bill did benefit from seeing what had happened.

And Bill's a natural politician.  He can win over people not just because he's got charm but because he knows how to listen.  Too many politicians don't know how to and they think communication is raising your voice or repeating the same thing over and over.

But with Hart, the takeaway was, "Good looking politician who uses women."

He became a predator in the press.  That's also true because the press was finally climbing that wall and whomever was their first target would be nailed with all the frustration and self-hatred they carried for every story (sexual or otherwise) about a politician that they'd covered up over the years.

Bill valued women voters.

Bill campaigned to them, Bill campaigned for them.

And before some stupid ass says, "Yeah, to get in their panties," Bill's sex life is probably better known than any politicians and there's no allegation of him ever using the campaign as a way to meet women and pick them up.

Bill cared about women.  He was a sea of change politician.  He had a strong and remarkable mother and he had the good sense and luck to have grown up realizing that.

So he never saw women as a chore or something to be palmed off to someone else on the ticket or to his wife.

Hillary -- in the 60 Minutes appearance, for example -- was important to saying let's focus on real issues.  But if Bill's record (political record) had been like Gary's at this point, Bill would have struggled in 1992.

Instead, the gender quake election saw Bill benefiting from a changed electorate.

It's been really hard for a segment of Dems to grasp the changing landscape.

Take another blogger, an interesting-times blogger (that's your hint, long time community members will know who I'm referring to here).  The answer, after the 2004 presidential loss, was to walk away from women and abortion and anything to do with women i-t posted online.

That was sheer stupidity and he's a stupid, stupid man.

I felt that way before he tried to 'correct me.'

Brief backstory.  He not only called for that, he insulted a friend of mine in his post.  He implied that she was too stupid to know politics and needed to shut up.  Her crime?  Being part of a group of Democrats who supported reproductive rights.


Creep (who no longer blogs -- proof of divine providence?) and the blogger I was referring to earlier felt the need to offer unwanted and unrequested tutorials.

Women were destroying the Democratic Party.  The party needed to find core issues and stop trying to please "women and Blacks."  Well I guess I should give the two men credit for typing "women" and not "girls."

Both men, of course, would blog their support -- to the point of online groping -- for bi-racial Barack Obama.

And that was hilarious considering their e-mails -- which I still have -- which were nothing but 'various constituencies better learn their place beneath the White man.'

So one of them, the one who still blogs, shows up this week with a few others.  I'm not sure what to make of the circle jerk's new and refound concern for this website?



But I'm blowing it.

That's what they tell me.

All I did this week was blog about abortion.  And that's a dead issue, they tell me.  And it runs off readers.

"You're really at risk of losing any hits," big blogger warns me.

I do love all the 'help' -- faux that it is.

It's not like they've ever linked to me, for example.

It's also not like they ever known anything as basic as a fact.

Abortion only came up once last week.

Once was enough to set them off and convince them that it was non-stop.

Not only did they have their numbers wrong, I also didn't write about it.  It was a press release from the Center for Reproductive Rights.


Martha and Shirley love idiots like this so they engaged in e-mails with these blogger boyz.

(If you're late to the party, a number of people help out with the public e-mail account including Martha and Shirley. I don't have time to respond myself.)

They tried to argue with Martha and Shirley but confronted (repeatedly) with the facts, they all fell silent except for big blogger.

I'm quoting a sentence from him, "That doesn't change that she is blowing it.  She's become a TV website and no one will take her seriously."

Except you, right?

You wrote 17 e-mails throughout the week to this website.

That seems to indicate -- as do your attempts to control what I write -- a level of fear and a level of seriousness.

We've covered TV here forever.  Before Huffington Post came along, we would do an entry every week, for example, noting the Sunday Chat and Chews.  It was so rare back then that we heard from the producers of two of the shows in e-mails.

(And one of them made a point to correct an error on their website.  Thank you for that.)

HuffPost came along and started doing that which was fine with me because we had other things to focus on.

In the snapshots, I've noted many programs.  When Iraq got noted on a scripted show, we covered it.

So the idea that TV is new here?

Or that writing about TV would harm this site?

Is big blogger even aware that, since 2005, every week since 2005, Ava and I have written a commentary on TV at The Third Estate Sunday Review?

Some weeks it's been two TV articles there, some weeks it's been three.

It's not harmed this site.  It's actually led to more visitors to this site.

Martha and Shirley (after getting the numbers from Jim) e-mailed Big Blogger to let him know the stats on Ava and my top ten most viewed pieces at Third.  It's not harmed this site one bit.

To which he then replied that he really meant the TV pieces by others.  Excuse me, by women.

Here's the week's entries up to this one:



Mike and Stan are not women.

They were reposted.

Not complaining, a number of people have written about the reposts.  That's visitors and community members.  They were wondering about it.

There are two things.

The first is, back in 2008 and 2009, I tried to sell everyone on one site.  It didn't have to be this one, it could be someone else's or a new site we created.  But we'd do one site and with all of us that would mean new content throughout each day.

It would be sort of like what Corrente had been before 2008, when it had multiple pieces going up by multiple authors.

I wanted that because it would allow me to do a lot less and because I don't like my voice being so prominent.  I'd rather be the aside.

That didn't sell.  Which is too bad because if I weren't responsible for posting something up here every day, I might not be so eager to shut this site down.  (No day off since it started.)

Second, I like other voices.

Because Rebecca asked for it, we highlight David Swanson now.  We also highlight David DeGraw, David Bacon, Francis A. Boyle and others.

And those are other voices and that's good.

But where's my promotion of this community that I'm a part of and also why aren't there women asking to have their stuff highlighted?

We did note a lot of TV this week because this community covers a lot of TV.  And because a lot of shows were winding down with finales.  And because a lot of shows were going to be renewed or cancelled.

But we highlighted strong posts from the community.

And, despite the alarm of 'caring men' who blog, our numbers didn't fall.  They increased.  As I knew they would.

Every community site carries the daily Iraq snapshot.  They do that at Keesha's request.  When the community kept pressuring for more Iraq coverage -- as other sites walked away from the topic -- I came up with the snapshot which grew and grew and grew to nightmarish proportions.  When it started, Keesha raised the issue (in the gina & krista round-robin) of reposting it.

She argued that if all the community sites reposted, then Iraq got attention.  The other sites didn't even have to write about Iraq if they'd just repost the snapshot to amplify the attention to Iraq.

Rebecca, who made her money in p.r., knows a great deal.  And she knows how to attract readers.  And she was the first to offer and prove that writing about television would bring a greater number of eyeballs to her site.

So finding a topic other than Iraq and reposting the snapshot was a way to reach even more people who otherwise wouldn't know anything was going on in Iraq because the country fell off the media radar.

Reposting them this week?  It was a no brainer.  The elections took place last week and already the press was drying up on the topic of Iraq.

Reposting some of the community TV coverage would bring new eyeballs to this site.  And did.

It also allowed me to support the community because there are people who didn't know what other sites had.  I'm not talking about community members, I'm talking about readers and drive bys.

This community is pro-woman and I'm a feminist.  And the reposting -- which wasn't just TV -- also allowed us to have a better number of women represented.


In case you're late to the party, this is a list of the community sites:



The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.


In 2004, when this site started, there weren't a lot of women doing sites that addressed anything political.  I'm very proud of the community that we have built and that there are so many great voices, strong voices, women and men.  But I'm especially glad that so many women have stepped forward and started their own websites (and I'm also thrilled with the community newsletters).

What happened this week?  It's what's going to happen from now on.

I was less worried about highlighting Wally and Cedric because I sometimes join them in a joint-post and that goes up here as well when that happens.

We've always said more voices not less.  That's the key.

And, no offense to the people highlighted prior to this week, I'm just not in the mood to be the minority voice at this site.  Kat will have three reviews going up by Monday -- three album reviews here.  I'm thrilled.  But I'm not so thrilled about the fact that day after day, there's this man and that man at the site I started and -- unless I've found a woman at Workers World -- I'm the only woman.

So we'll be supporting the community and since the community includes so many women, it will also allow a better balance to come back to this site.  No offense to the Davids or Francis, but I did not create a site, I did not give up so much time, so that it could be overtaken by men.

With the exception of their ObamaCare press releases, we've noted everything the Feminist Majority Foundation has ever asked for.  And we'll continue to.

But where are the other women.

David Swanson's writing important pieces -- the few times I've caught his radio show, he's had important discussions.  (The few times?  I cover TV with Ava.  I watch a ton of programs and read a ton of scripts every week.  I am sick with all the crap from the serial cheater's upcoming show.  And trying to decide whether to cover that awful show because I'd be doing so in part because that asshole destroyed a friend of mine.  Anyway, point being, I don't have a lot of time.) He's also comeback from the abyss when too many of us on the left are eager to slam ourselves against the rocks and die whoring.

Francis is "controversial."  A friend at The Nation, about six weeks ago, told me I "really" needed to stop highlighting Francis A. Boyle.  He's just too "controversial."

Good.  We've always courted controversy.

I don't think he's controversial at all, though.  I think he's telling some truths that we'd be embracing if a Republican was in the White House.  But because it's a Democrat, we say Francis is "controversial."  Just like Seymour Hersh has gone from applauded investigative journalist to a man who can't be published in the US and who is slammed by various partisan whores on the left.

David DeGraw is killing himself to get attention to Occupy and to help it rebuild.

As someone who puts so much time into trying to get attention for Iraq, I know the struggle.  More than I admire Occupy, I admire DeGraw's efforts.

We've always noted David Bacon, as far back as 2005 at least.  David is the last of labor reporters we'll probably see.  He does great work on that and on immigration.  And he keeps his head down with regards to whatever the 'hot topic' of the week is supposed to be on the left. He stays focused on his mission.

So there's no reason not to highlight the Davids and Francis.

But there needs to be more women because I did not create a site and pour so much time into it for it to become like every outlet on the left:  More men than women.

Elaine and Trina outraged Blogger Boy.  In his final e-mail, he trashed them.

How come?

See, it's never what these bossy sexist say it is.  They lie, they whore, they spin.

It usually boils down to the fact that some woman refused to be controlled by a man.

Elaine and Trina's posts that were reposted here?

Neither had a thing to do with TV.

They were weighing in on the Lois Lerner contempt citation.

That's what Blogger Boy found threatening.

Regardless of whether it's posts like that or TV or music or whatever, what happened this week will continue.  I want more voices up here and I don't want this site to suffer from The Deanna Durbin Syndrome (100 Men and a Girl).




It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.







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