A number of e-mails to the public account (common_ills@yahoo.com) are commenting on Tara Reade and her now former attorney.
Some of the e-mails are people insisting that this means Tara is lying about Joe Biden assaulting her.
First off, attorneys and clients part all of the time. If Tara didn't end the relationship, the two most likely reasons the attorney would have dropped her is (a) she lied to him or (b) she was a pushy client.
If she lied to him, I have no idea what the lie would have been.
If she was pushy and demanding? She had every right to be. I would have been if I were in her shoes. The attorney was supposed to be helping. If that was helping, that attorney is inept. To allow PBS's 'report' to go unchallenged was a serious issue. The report itself states that the 74 came via Joe Biden's campaign (read Ava and my "Media: Lies and liars all around"). NPR yesterday was promoting that 'report.' The conservative woman -- who never should have been allowed to 'report' on Tara to begin with due to the statements she made in the workplace about women who were raped (blaming them and insisting that when a woman dressed 'immodestly' or 'provocatively,' the woman was asking for rape to happen) -- again presented the PBS 'report' as valid but then notes that Tara's witnesses were referred to her by Tara. She tries to discredit Tara that way. She never tells NPR audience what the report itself states -- 200 names from Joe Biden. 74 elected to respond.
As Ava and I note in the piece we wrote Sunday, we took part in an online feminist conference on assault last Saturday. Several women participating noted that the attorneys Tara had were not challenging the various things being issued by the press. (One attorney challenged the POLITICO piece that was published last Friday. I noted that to clarify at the conference and I'll note it here.) It may have been too much for the attorneys.
If so, they shouldn't have taken the case. If they walked away because Tara was demanding more action from them, she was right to.
I've never spoken to Tara or exchanged writing with her. I don't know her.
She may be telling the truth, she may be lying.
I find her credible.
She has been under assault for weeks from Joe Biden's campaign which gets to keep its hands clean (for now). This is an organized take down.
I don't participate in that b.s. I never do.
When Sumner Redstone went after Tom Cruise (a way to defend himself to stockholders), I stood up for Tom. And I don't like Tom. Yes, I have always been friendly with Paula Wagner (his former agent and business partner). But I don't like Tom. My liking or not liking Tom did not matter when he was under attack. He did some stupid things (jumping on the couch, for example) but that was no reason for Sumner to use Tom as a scapegoat to distract from what was becoming a pattern of failures that should have had him ousted immediately.
Liars like Meryl Streep play kissy-kissy with the press. I don't. I grew up knowing they'll sell you out for any story and then they'll turn around and run with that story or not based on the way the winds are blowing. I have respect for the idea of a free press. I just haven't seen a free press in the US.
I shouldn't have to, for example, use my friendship with Jann Wenner to get a liar fired after they reported 'science' that wasn't and that was damaging to public health. I shouldn't have to use my friendship with Jann to get this or that corrected for the record. I have had no dealings with ROLLING STONE the magazine or any of its reporters since 1999 by my choice. And now that Jann doesn't own it, I certainly won't speak to its reporters. That said, ROLLING STONE's reporters were always the most fair and straight with me. (I never called Jann to complain about anything involving me. I never used our friendship in that way.)
I can be an idiot. I can be an idiot all day long. I certainly was from 2003 through 2006 when I forgot/ignored every lesson I'd learned following Vietnam. The press doesn't care. I thought they did. I thought we had a flourishing independent media on the left -- PACIFICA, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, blah blah blah. And I was happy to donate and I was happy to support. Elaine kept telling me, "You know how they whored before. They're going to do it again." She was right and I was wrong. They used the Iraq War and their pretense of caring about it to raise money. And then they got upset when they walked away from the war -- and the Iraqi people, and the war resisters, and the veterans . . . -- and people no longer wanted to donate.
I was wrong, Elaine was right. And she wasn't just right to me. Before she did her own site, when she was guest blogging for Rebecca, she noted at Rebecca's site that this media that pretended to be strong and caring about the Iraqi people was going to dump them just as soon as the Democrats got control one house of Congress. In 2006 mid-terms, that happened (they actually got control of both houses) and the media -- the beggar media, send money, send money, donate, donate -- walked away. Because they didn't want to hold Democrats accountable.
Easy to argue for the war to end when the Democrats didn't control the White House and didn't control either of Congress' two houses. You could pretend you were non-partisan and scream about ending the war because all of your demands were at Republicans.
But the minute the power changed, the beggar media revealed that they wouldn't hold Democrats accountable and would rather disappear the war to protect the Democratic Party.
The few that have any integrity scatter like pigs if someone is made toxic. That's what Michael Tracey has tried to do with Tara Reade -- and what the Biden campaign has tried to do -- make her toxic so people run from her.
Apparently, Nathan Robinson of CURRENT AFFAIRS already has. Good to know. I don't have time promote shoddy websites and that's really all Nathan's is if he'll run because someone's made toxic.
I am deeply troubled by what was done to Gary Webb by professional hustlers like David Corn. They made Gary toxic and deprived him of a career in journalism. David whored for the CIA and David has blood on his hands. So does THE NATION for publishing crap attacking Gary. We really couldn't do much there here (this site started a month before Gary died). But check it out, we haven't walked away from anyone who was 'toxic.'
I don't play that game. When the US government went after Lynne Stewart, we didn't back away from Lynne. As noted before, I spoke out in favor of Lynne to Eric Holder repeatedly. Jamie Leigh Jones lost a civil lawsuit and MOTHER JONES tried to bury her. They attacked her in print.
No one defended Jamie. We didn't walk away from her. She was put on trial in that civil case and her rapist wasn't. Her life was put on trial. I've stated repeatedly since: I believe Jamie Leigh Jones. I don't care about if someone's 'toxic' or not. You're not going to scare me away from supporting someone.
With Tara? I don't know if she's telling the truth or not. I've noted that many times. I've also noted I find her credible. You're not going force me to run from her.
I get it, most of the country is filled with scared little bitches. That's not me. My real fear is probably fear. I overdosed on fear by 9/12/2001. I'd had enough of the national panic and turned off the TV and started speaking to various groups.
When THE NATION tried to use scare tactics in 2004, I called it out. No, it wasn't 'the torture election' and the country wasn't going to go under no matter who was in the White House in the next year. It was beneath them.
I don't like scare tactics. Try to scare me and all you'll do is make me push back harder.
I've been 'toxic' many times in my life. And it started long before I had a career. I was attacked on campus, in the campus paper (undergrad, not grad school) because I was a "liar." I was a "liar" and I was attacking "a friend of the United States." The campus paper had published a b.s. piece of nonsense raving over South Africa and how wonderful life was for Black people in South Africa. I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out the realities of apartheid. What followed consumed the entire semester. The faculty in charge of the paper told the students working on the paper that they couldn't let my letter stand. So they had 'responses' to it. In fact, there were two letters to the editor calling out my letter in the same issue that my letter first appeared. They attacked him in issue after issue. I didn't care. You don't scare me and you don't bully me. But this is why I understand what so many don't. Joe Biden doesn't get it, he doesn't get how he's setting himself up for historic failure. The people trying to smear me? They were writing letters, getting their friends to write letters, spreading rumors that I was dumping all the papers on campus into the trash, blah blah blah.
All it did was make me look better. After a few weeks, they were getting letters defending me, letters opposing apartheid. Most Americans weren't even thinking of South Africa all those years ago. By attacking me (repeatedly) they were making people wonder, "What's going in South Africa?"
As the semester wound down, _____ suddenly wanted to speak me. We actually known each other for several years -- including before college. But that didn't mean I had a defender on the paper. ____ explains that they'd like to do an interview with me. Why?
Well to put some sort of conclusion to the whole matter, I was told.
What are you talking about, you attacked me, it was an organized attack and I knew that (I'd been informed during the second week of attacks by someone on the paper that I was sleeping with and when I met one of the letter writers who confessed to me that she just signed her name to the letter -- we met at a party, she knew my name, I didn't know her name, I didn't know she'd written a letter -- I knew I was being attacked but I didn't make a point to read all the nonsense).
What it came down to is that they now had even more letters to the editor in the week before the final week of the semester. Thirty or more new letters coming in that week from people calling the paper out for running propaganda on behalf of the government of South Africa, calling the paper out for defending racism and calling the paper out for it's overblown attack on me for writing a letter that pointed out what should have been obvious all along.
The paper had a policy regarding letters, that they be published -- or at least a representative sample.
What was being offered was that I could do a sit down with a reporter of my choosing (I didn't choose to sit down with any of them -- not even the one I was sleeping with) and that way they would resolve the issue without having to publish anymore letters to the editor.
I said publish the letters. I probably added: "And then go f**k yourself" or something similar. If I didn't say the f word, I wasn't using it then. In which case I would have worked in s**t because that was always my favorite swear word and I'd used it since I was a little kid.
What the Biden campaign is doing is a lot like what the campus paper did to me. They are outraging people because the country is watching. Now that might not effect the election or it might. What it is going to effect is Joe Biden's legacy and how he is seen.
The trashing of Tara Reade that he is responsible for is just like what he did to Anita Hill.
This is his legacy now: Destroying women.
Now Tara tomorrow may show up and say, "It was all a lie." Or she might say, "I was only harassed not assaulted." I don't expect that to happen but it could.
If it did?
I'd stand by everything I've said here and at THIRD.
I've noted I do not believe Christine Blasey Ford. And I'm sorry I have to keep saying that but it is pertinent to this. When Christine was telling her story, I never went after her, I never tried to make her life or life events into some claim that she was lying about being assaulted.
She may be telling the complete truth. I could have read her wrong.
Whether I did or not, she had every right to speak her story. She had every right to do so without being smeared or attacked or put on trial.
Tara Reade has the same right. Every woman or man coming forward has that right.
If their assertion is incorrect, then address the assertion.
Don't you ever try to shame a survivor.
I don't know what happened to Tara Reade. I don't know what happened to Christine Blasey Ford. I will not shame them or anyone else. I will not try to make them toxic. I will not try to bully them into silence. I will not go along with that ever.
And shame on anyone who lacks the character to do the same. If we're using me as the benchmark of character, we are in a lot of trouble. A lot.
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Just adding a closing comment or two before someone e-mails.
First, does no one see the hypocrisy in claiming that Tara and the law firm parting is 'proof' that she's lying when just days ago we were being told that her being represented by the law firm was proof that she was lying (one of her attorneys once donated to Donald Trump!!!!!)?
Moving on . . .
Yes, it's true I don't have a high opinion of myself and that my own assault is probably why that is. But whether that's a reason why I approach things the way I do or not, I will call friends in the press for others but not for myself. I have no interest in reading or hearing commentary on my work or my life. But I will pick up the phone and tell someone that they need to back off or do a correction or cover something. I was happy, for example, to pick up the phone and beg -- and I really did beg -- for coverage on Lt Ehren Watada. There are many non-political things as well and many predate this century. One, I was happy to ask Jann to get someone to review Corey Hart's third album. I was happy to get someone fired at a national newspaper when they published lies about Janet Jackson. I am thrilled that the writer of that bad piece not only had a lengthy correction published but never again wrote for that paper. There was a pile on taking place on Janet (as disclosed before, I've known Janet for years and we are friends) and that writer thought anything could now be written about Janet, any lie at all. That's the sort of thing that causes me to make calls. Or when Jane Fonda's MONSTER-IN-LAW was coming out and an e-mail was forwarded to me about the organized plan to trash the movie "because we can't let her have a platform." Because Jane was speaking out against the war and the press had sold the war. When I got that e-mail, I didn't just make calls, I made threats. It's like when that idiot Susan Collins was editor of THE NEW YORK TIMES and she replied in that e-mail to a reader that just because Maureen Dowd was then the only female columnist the paper had, Maureen being on vacation didn't mean that they needed to get women to fill in for her. A large part of the destruction of Gail's image as a 'feminist' is due to the fact that we got that e-mail and we circulated it like crazy within the feminist community.
I do have friends in the press and some are good people. But even a friend had a reporter trash me about ten years ago. Has it been that long. I've known that man since grade school. Whatever. They lie and they lie again. That's the press. I've said it before, the only real film about the press in the last fifty or so years was the Valerie Bertinelli TV movie ROCKABYE. Back in the days of Ben Hecht, films about the press tended to get it right. In the time since, most white wash and worship the press.
There was one other point I need to make but I'm blanking. If I remember, I'll come back and add it but note "ADDED." Wait, I think I remembered. Ronan Farrow sees "conspiracies" is a critique that came out this week. No, he doesn't. Ronan knows the power dynamics. That's what he sees and that's what he reports on. I was hoping his own mother -- my former friend -- would make that point in one of her endless Tweets but she didn't. I'm not Ronan's friend. I knew him as a child and a young man only as the son of a friend. So this isn't me sticking up for a friend. Ronan knows the power dynamics at play. He knows how it works in the film industry and he knows how it works in government. He knows how people work hard to conceal the truth. Rose McGowan was right, Meryl Streep knew all along about Harvey Weinstein. She lied to the world when she said otherwise. And it's right there in Ronan's book. When Meryl learns Ronan is getting ready to publish an investigative report on Harveys assaults, what does Meryl do? Try to conceal it. She argues to Ronan that Harvey does such good things with his money so Ronan shouldn't be publishing anything negative about Harvey. Ronan knows the power dynamics. He's not doing 'conspiracy' reporting. Ronan's work is not above criticism -- no one's is -- but he is not a conspiracy theorist.
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