Let's talk about the year-in-review because we do it every year and now a lot of others are also doing it. The year-in-review starts out as a rough outline. I have a series of points that I'd like to make, a few core issues to touch on. Some years, I may have some napkins that I've jotted a few thoughts down on. Some years, I've got nothing but the outline.
At some point, during my New Year's Eve party, I'll step away and spend a few hours writing. The outline will be a potential map but, in the writing, I'll get caught up on this or carried away by that and, as a result, the bulk of the outline will be ignored.
A friend who's a comedian and has seen me do the year-in-review at least three times, says it's like working from his basic structure for his act and that he is improvising at points based on the reactions he's getting and thoughts that just come to him.
Point being, it's not really planned. Some years, I don't even know the title for the year until I'm finished with it. This year, at least, I already had the title 2019: The Year . . . (You'll have to wait until it goes up.)
What's going on Iraq? I am surprised the Iraqi people haven't been stopped already. They are being targeted and over 500 are dead as a result of pushing for self-determination. But I know that 'national security' types in the US are pissing their briefs and panties over the fact that the US government hasn't yet stepped in.
It shouldn't step in. This is about the future of Iraq and it should be decided by the Iraqi people.
The lack of cohesion on the part of western media, the refusal to turn this into a major story -- it's probably the international story of the year -- goes to the fact that so many are little more than outposts who cheerlead US imperialism. With no clear direction from the US government, they just don't know what to say or what to write -- it's very confusing for the whore corps today.
The Iraqi people have demonstrated actual courage and real commitment. No one should be able to determine their future for them.
But Empire walks with heavy feet and I'm honestly surprised that, as of yet, it hasn't attempted to squash them.
It's telling that Iraq is not even a topic for the debates.
Some are wondering about Spencer Ackerman's article. We noted it in an entry here. I said I might note it in a snapshot, I might not. I did. I included a Tweet about it.
It's not my job to promote Spencer Ackerman. There was so much wrong with the article -- including but not limited to ignoring The Erbil Agreement and how it badly harmed Iraq -- both with leading to the rise of ISIS and with depressing voter turnout in later elections.
It's like with Naomi Klein's book. I was fine with noting the press release her people sent to the public account. And I was fine with Ava and I reviewing it for the gina & krista round-robin. It's not my job to be her promoter. It's not my job to vouch for her.
And I wouldn't. I don't agree with her putting her nose into US politics. I didn't in 2008 and I don't now. She is a Canadian citizen. Yes, she's American because she was born to US parents. But she lived in Canada. She had to, her father was a War Resister. But she's got a home.
I'm not for dual citizenship and I never have been. I like John MacArthur -- I used to like Rick a lot more than I do now -- but I never thought he should have the right -- one he uses -- to vote in US elections and also in French elections.
I'm not for that at all.
You vote in the country you live in.
Naomi wrote an important book. It's her second important book (the other is YEAR ZERO). But, as Joan Crawford would say, this isn't my first time at the rodeo. With her earlier book -- and the essay that preceded it -- we praised her and praised her.
And then what happened?
Naomi walked away from Iraq.
I'd say she walked away from War Resisters as well but really all she did for today's War Resisters was sign a public statement or two. Despite the fact that were it not for the support of others during Vietnam, she probably wouldn't even be alive, she felt no need to be a leader on the issue of war resisters today. And, until we kept pointing that she was a child of a War Resister here over and over, she really didn't acknowledge it.
It was so frustrating listening to her on Al Franken's show -- the episode where she said s**t and didn't realize you couldn't -- in Canada, you can say it on the air. It was so frustrating because she kept talking around basic questions. Al didn't get it, he didn't know her history. But she came off -- if you knew her history -- as someone scared to death she'd be put on a watch list.
I don't know.
I find her deeply disappointing.
And I used a lot of energy to defend her back when she would cover Iraq.
A lot.
There's a friend's son, for example, who's no longer online but fancied himself a gonzo journalist and he did some good work but he also slammed Naomi -- some of the slam was sexist -- and I let him have it offline. I chewed him up and spit him out. Had I know Naomi would be ignoring Iraq in a matter of months, I would have just told him I was disappointed that he was making sexist points in his effort to take on Naomi.
I defended her, I promoted her work. Those days are gone. She walked away from an ongoing war. The war was why most of us knew of her. And she walked away. She pretended like it didn't exist while Barack was president.
And don't get me started on that. I do not like it when people of color are silenced. Her bulls**t about election night to THE PROGRESSIVE was deeply racist. If she wants to speak for Black workers, she better speak to them.
Instead, in her all knowing Whiteness, she was able to observe African-American workers from across a busy street and know what was in the minds. She didn't cross the street to speak to them -- that would have been too much work and how could she have harnessed them to put her words into their mouths if she'd actually spoken to them?
A lot of people became lunatics in The Cult of St. Barack.
We noted her book, Ava and I, and Martha and Shirley are looking at the votes now -- for their piece on the best books of 2019 -- and they say Naomi will be near the top or at the top with her book. I'm glad. It's worth reading.
But championing Naomi?
I doubt I will ever do that again. She self-presented as so much more. And, honestly, by 2008 she was just another media whore. Her latest book is good. But, no, it doesn't make up for eight years of doing nothing while pretending like Barack was taking us all to the promised land.
Beth slid over some questions she wasn't able to get to in her yearly piece -- gina & krista's round-robin Friday will be a year in look back.
Do I regret the lack of book coverage in the community?
Huh.
Oh, right. In 2018 or 2017, all the sites covered books. One community site -- at least one -- would have a book review every week. Yes, the community did do that.
I don't think there was ever the promise that it would be done year after year.
Most of our book reviews -- the ones Ava and I do together -- have always gone up in the various community newsletters. We have done some book reviews -- of books written by female music artists -- at THIRD. But mainly, at THIRD, we're covering the media.
I don't run other people's sites. If you're concerned about book coverage at other sites, you would need to ask them about it.
Do Ava and I really believe that LITTLE WOMEN is racist?
We wrote "Greta Gerwig loves little White women (Ava and C.I.)" and our argument there is that this book has been a film at least seven times, a mini-series, a TV series, etc and etc. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE -- a far superior novel -- has been a film three times. LITTLE WOMEN was made into another US film just last year. It didn't need another this year.
When someone goes to a novel that's already been made multiple times into a film, yes, it is racism if the author's White and the characters are White. As we said in the piece, it shouldn't all fall on Oprah Winfrey's shoulders. She should not be the only one working to diversify adaptations.
But that is how White women like Greta see it. "Oh, I'm just telling my experience."
Your experience as a 21st century White woman reading a book set during the Civil War and its aftermath and focusing solely on White people?
Yeah, I'd say that's racism.
The film's been made over and over. There was no need for another adaptation. There are far too many women writers whose books -- worthy books, classic books -- have not been made into films.
When I started college, women's studies wasn't an option. Didn't exist. I had to create my own lists, I had to bring the works of women into classes -- that was political theory, that was sociology and that was literature. Guess what? I never had a shortage of women once I went looking.
So to keep making LITTLE WOMEN over and over is the height of racism.
And when I demanded that my college courses went beyond White Males, I wasn't saying that just adding a few White female authors was what we needed.
No, not at all. I argued for women of color to be included. I argued for the canon to be expanded, not modified.
That Greta, a woman who comes along in life so much later than me, at the age of 36, knows so much less than I did as a college freshman? No, that's not acceptable. She presents herself as "woke" -- she's not -- and she's an idiot.
I don't have time for her racism. I didn't have time for Lena Dunham's either. I'm really tired of these 'White Girl Wonders' that the press promotes even though -- or maybe because -- all they do is reinforce racism.
WW need to connect the whiteness of media like LW to white male misogyny. I think we need to *get* that continuing to center our white classical canon, however charming our takes on it, is a losing bet b/c it upholds the white patriarchy that feeds us crumbs then f**ks us over.
@IWriteAllDay_ Little Women looks like trash. I have no interest in a movie that takes place during the Civil War and centers WW's liberation while ignoring racism
Greta's LITTLE WOMEN isn't just racist, it's also a lousy movie. Some woman wrote to slam us -- Ty passed on the e-mail -- for criticizing the movie. She noted she had called out the lack of nominations for the movie. It's not a good movie. And, here's the thing, even she gets that. She ranked her top ten films of the year and LITTLE WOMEN came in, on her own list, number ten. Films that are considered the tenth best film of a year don't generally get nominations.
How sad -- and how telling -- that one of the film's champions still only ranks the film as the tenth best of 2019 on her own list.
Before Greta (mis)directs again, she might need to read ELECTRIC LIT's "46 books by Women of Color to read in 2018."
Isaiah's been busy this week. Last night and this morning, he posted comics:
