This deals with Iraq but we get there by starting with community issues.
Cedric and Wally announced in all the community newsletters (starting Thursday of last week) that on Sunday of this week they would be taking a break and come back on Saturday. In addition, they did a mass e-mail to readers of their site that e-mail them to let them know of the break.
This was clear last week to community members. Some non-community members are e-mailing about that and now some community members are also e-mailing about that.
They return to their site on Saturday.
Community members are e-mailing about it because of "Editorial: I'm Out of the Game (Jess)" and "Goodbye Jess (Jim)."
This created a panic that I was unaware of until we did the roundtable last night for the gina & krista round-robin. (Note, we're adapting all caps for titles now instead of italics. Exceptions being when a publication prefers something. So WikiLeaks remains WikiLeaks, for example, and gina & krista round-robin -- per their preference remains in italics. "We" is this site and THIRD. Some others are as well.)
To deal with this site first.
I did not, as questions in the roundtable noted, do a six month extension in July. I've wanted to shut down this site forever and for years now it's been on a six month by six month basis.
Does Jess' move have anything to do with that?
No.
Most likely America will be stuck with Hillary or Donald come January. Love to see an upset but that may or may not happen.
If it's one of those two, I can probably close down.
With either of those two in office, Iraq will suddenly once again matter to the so-called 'left.'
And I'm left so let me point out that right-wing ANTIWAR.COM likes to pretend they did a good job and they did a lousy job.
They continued real time coverage but they whored for Nouri al-Maliki -- it's their in the bulk of their 'reporting,' it's in their interactions on the radio show hosted by Scott Horton.
They loved them some thug Nouri.
So they refused to cover the persecution of the Sunnis.
They also ridiculed the Ashraf residents.
They've repeatedly been unable to draw a line between Ashraf and the MEK.
You have to, for legal reasons.
And that's the point the good federal judge made, the one who forced Hillary Clinton to do her job as Secretary of State -- a detail not on her resume and one that the gas bags on TV never want to discuss -- but then the right-wing ANTIWAR.COM didn't want to discuss it either.
Right-wing COMMENTARY featured a number of writers whose opinions and thoughts were different than mine (no surprise, I'm on the left) but whose facts and focus were usually strong.
I disagree with them but I will give them credit because they did not walk away from Iraq in the last eight years.
I found their coverage incredible helpful because (a) it would lead me to further scrutiny of my own opinion and (b) it would give me insight into those who cared about the issue but saw it from the right.
The left sites walked away.
They'll claim they 'covered' Iraq.
Yes, whenever it was in the headlines, they managed to re-write a stale piece on Bully Boy Bush -- who's been out of the White House since January 2009.
They did not cover Iraq.
Genocide?
I'm really tired of hearing about the Yazidis.
That's now a p.r. operation.
It wasn't originally.
They have hooked up with a right-wing p.r. firm interested in selling ongoing war on Iraq. That's why ______'s beard is representing them (yeah, ____, I said it, and maybe you really are bi but you don't beat the men you're with, just the women which says to me you're in the closet about being gay, you self-loathe and you're taking it out on women, deal with it).
All the usual War Hawks from both sides have lined up with the Yazidis.
We're not playing that game.
As for this month's "THEY'RE STILL TRAPPED ON THE MOUNTAIN!"
Excuse me, then get off the damn mountain.
Barack hailed it as a success, the liberation effort in the fall of 2014. The Kurds sent fighters there.
Unless someone (reputable) presents news otherwise, the ones on the mountain now are there because, two years later, they never left.
The genocide was of the Sunnis but you can't sell war on that -- it would be hard because the ones against the Sunnis are the ones the US government put in charge.
So the Yazidis keep getting amplified -- but there's no great sympathy for them in the US.
They tried, the p.r. movement, selling them to churches throughout the US.
The problem there is the same problem in Iraq.
The Yazidis are seen as worshiping Lucifer (they believe in a fallen angel that other religions translate as Lucifer).
You're going to have a really tough time selling that to Christians and Muslims.
That's why, prior to 2014, they didn't get a lot of press attention even when Nouri was persecuting them.
But when they could be used to promote war, curious thing, the corporate media refused to note how they were worshiping the fallen angel.
Search Yazidis prior to 2014 and you will not find articles from British or US newspapers that do not mention the Lucifer angle.
But when they can be used to promote war, suddenly this detail just falls away.
(The US State Dept asked a number of 'reporters' to stop including that detail.)
One of the reasons I could support Hillary in 2008 was that she would be held accountable.
I hoped the Iraq War vote was a rare strain and not a character defect.
Her time as Secretary of State demonstrated it was a character defect. Both because she continued to promote war and because for all her lip service about regretting her 'mistake,' she failed to do anything to improve Iraq.
If you make a mistake at work, I bet you're required to fix it.
Not Hillary.
And to this day, the press will interview her and let her get away with "I've said it was a mistake" and yet not press her on how she fixes that mistake.
If Donald Trump becomes president, the world will go on.
Let's be clear on that.
He will not be the worst ever.
Nor will Hillary.
If either of them gets it, many people around the world will be killed -- true of far too many Americans who became president.
But the world will go on.
Donald will face lacerating criticism from the left on war.
Some will argue he will face it from the right too.
I don't think so.
Yes, there are a number who dislike him but the neocons dislike him for his comments against the Iraq War, etc. And for not buying their line of eternal war.
If he gets on board with war, they'll rally to him.
Patrick Buchanan and a few others on the right won't because they don't usually jump on the war wagon but the bulk currently displeased with Donald would rally behind him.
Hillary?
Her whores will support her.
The same sites and people who used sexism against her in 2008 will cry "sexism!" over any valid critique against her actions to try to silence criticism.
It won't work the way cries of "racism!" did for Barack.
That's because (a) sexism is still allowed in this society and (b) Hillary has an ugly past that she cannot run from while Barack was a clean slate people could project their fantasies upon.
So if either Donald or Hillary becomes president, others will suddenly rediscover Iraq.
I couldn't close down while the Sunnis were being persecuted and nobody wanted to cover it.
While the likes of Joel Wing were promoting Nouri and acting as though all was fine with Iraq.
Joel Wing doesn't give criticism, he's a mouth piece of the US government.
All he does is repeat.
And all he's concerned with is the US government's goals in Iraq.
If those goals don't benefit the Iraqi people, that doesn't appear to concern Joel one damn bit.
These goals, please remember, allowed Nouri to carry out public persecution of the Sunnis. Please remember that it was the day after the drawdown of US forces, that Nouri ordered military tanks to begin circling the Baghdad homes of Sunni politicians.
Now a lot more followed but that was ignored and so much more was.
Because Nouri was going to deliver gas and oil -- those laws the US had wanted for so long.
He never did. Ha! He was too ineffectual.
But for years, the thug was kept power by the US (he lost the 2010 election but Barack had a contract drawn up -- THE ERBIL AGREEMENT -- to give Nouri a second term).
Haider al-Abadi appears to be not all that different from Nouri. Maybe a little more ineffectual.
But the US keeps supporting him -- against Iraqi public will that he be gone -- because they think he's going to deliver the oil and gas law to them.
It's not about what the Iraqis need and it's certainly not about democracy.
But watch the Joel Wings cover for Haider repeatedly.
Because they're defining "interest" as what's in the best interest for the US government.
That's not how define a foreign country, sorry.
So, yes, I can finally quit after the election.
(And may, haven't decided. But I am sick of writing here every day.)
I knew Jess was tired.
No one, not even Ava, knew he was going to quit Tuesday night.
That had to do with frustration, with the fact that we spent hours on Sunday and now Tuesday and we didn't have a finished edition.
I understand why he quit. I knew it was going to come at some point.
I respect his decision and even applaud it.
But Wally, Cedric and I are not part of that decision.
That was Jess acting on his own.
Will others follow his lead?
Possibly.
We're all tired.
It's very difficult to stick to your beliefs.
People have whored the last 8 years.
And that's all they are: whores.
I'm not surprised, it was 2005 when I said this new crew online -- these great thinkers, these people put on the radio by fake ass Sam Seder -- were not going to save anyone. That all that had happened was the head of Cokie Roberts was cut off and a billion new Cokies sprung up in her place.
(Fake ass Sam? He wasn't against the Iraq War. He only pretended to be. He was "Ad Nags" until THE NEW YORK TIMES threatened to pull their ads on AIR AMERICA RADIO unless he stopped that site making fun of their reporter. And they only bought those ads so they could protect themselves from criticism. What else? Oh, he embraced homophobic Simon Rosenberg and let Simon prattle on about this and that -- endorsing war on Iraq for example. Did it on air. Was called a sell out on the show's blog in real time. Lost a ton of listeners over that. There are so many more stories I could tell -- I have known Janeane for years, after all. But I'll leave it at that.)
And they'll probably continue to whore but the public will be outraged by President Hillary Clinton going to war so these whores will look as ridiculous as Cokie did in 2005 and they will be replaced. By a few real voices but mainly by whores, that's how it works.
Let's do some praise for a moment.
The Non-Jane Arraf award goes to Trudy Rubin.
Trudy is someone I don't always agree with but I always enjoy reading. And she's never forgotten Iraq.
And she's not whored.
Jane whores for whomever's prime minister. That's what she did at CNN, it's what she did for every outlet afterwards. It's why, finally, most outlets are not taking here seriously anymore.
But Trudy is the anti-Jane and deserves praise.
Tim Arango and Loveday Morris are two other US correspondents who deserve praise for the body of their work in the last years.
Now back to slamming.
And let's go to the dead.
Michael Ratner died. And a circus went on among faux left sites.
And I was sent press releases and coverage that I was supposed to highlight.
And I refused.
And then came the angry e-mails from his friends.
To which I say, I knew Michael.
I applauded him many times.
By 2009, he was a disgrace and an embarrassment.
Take the case of Lynne Stewart. I pleaded her case here constantly.
I also used every friend and contact in the administration to plead her case.
We ended up using a frame for the narrative specifically because ____ at the White House said, "This will embarrass" Barack.
Meanwhile, Michael's the head of the Center for Constitutional Rights and they're meeting secretly with Barack and not informing anyone -- not even donors of what was discussed.
They want access for themselves.
They weren't pleading for anyone.
Michael would rag on Barack for a week or two over some illegal action (Libya) and then he'd go back to making nice.
He was an embarrassment.
So was Danny Schechter.
As with Michael's death, this is the first time I've noted Danny's death.
Danny ticked me off by reposting Ava and my writing at his website which received funding from George Soros.
I am on record opposed to Soros' blood money.
But because Danny did that, to this day Ava and I are accused in e-mails of being on the Soros payroll.
Danny didn't ask to repost, Danny did not say he was reposting and there certainly was no payment for it.
We didn't ask him to take it down, we've never asked anyone to take anything down that they've reposted.
Danny also attacked Tina Turner (who is a friend of mine).
We wrote a piece -- Ava and I -- noting Ike was a terrorist and he terrorized Tina and decrying the efforts of Danny and a few other men to, after Ike died, make Tina responsible.
Danny sent one angry e-mail after another to me.
(I met Danny in 2003 when we kept bumping into each other on college campuses. I was speaking out against the war, he was preparing his documentary on the war.)
Sorry, I don't play on abuse.
Ike beat her.
Far more than is recorded in I, TINA, Ike beat her.
I will not take part in your little boy desire to praise your hero who has died.
And is part of the reason he was your hero because he beat up women?
I have no idea.
But Danny would beg for money and insist that he told as much truth about Barack as he could in order to stay afloat.
Then go under.
If you present yourself as a truth teller and can't tell the truth, shut up.
(And I don't say "s___ ___" very often. You can count on one hand the number of times each decade I will use that phrase.)
He refused to cover Iraq anymore -- because, as he explained in an e-mail to me, it hurts Barack.
And, sure Barack, didn't keep his promise.
But, Danny insisted, if that's pointed out, it'll just make him walk away completely.
Danny, you're dead now.
The Iraq War continues.
How'd your silence work out again?
Jess' piece? Loved it.
So many people walked away from Iraq.
And did they care about the illegal war?
Clearly, they didn't (and don't) care about the Iraqi people.
The war was just a device for them to criticize Bully Boy Bush with.
And I'm dictating this and we've actually got to board a plane so that'll be the final thought and we'll copy and paste from Third to note all the community sites because I mentioned a number of people above.
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.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
Iraq
