This is a talking post. Meant to do it over the weekend but didn't end up being possible.
First up, two entries:
"Rania Khalek Back From Iraq Afternoon Stream"
I went out of my way to highlight Rania on THE KATIE HALPER SHOW talking about Iraq. Both of those entries -- as e-mails note -- don't allow you to stream the video. It's been made private.
Take it up with Katie, I had nothing to do with that. I have no control over that. I think we've gone out of our way to include Katie -- solo and with her cohost -- and, honestly, if Martha & Shirley -- to name only two people -- have to wade through e-mails and I have to wade through e-mails because something that's posted publicly is made private, I don't have time for it.
So if this happens again, we'll walk away from that show.
Not trying to be rude, not trying to be mean but my plate is full already and I could've done without hearing that over a thousand e-mails have come in today complaining that the video's no longer available. I have nothing to do with that (hold on for more there) and I don't care to have the inbasket for the public e-mails clogged with complaints. The answer is: Don't link to Katie anymore. We don't have time for it. So if it happens again, we're done with it. No three strikes. Done.
A few e-mails (Martha counted 211) suggest or insist that it got pulled because of the commentary I gave in today's snapshot. I can't imagine that is the case. If it is, people need to grow the hell up because I didn't rip into Rania. I could have. I have before. I focused only on what she said and I'm not going to ever allow anyone to get away with praising the Shi'ite militias as saviors. It's not going to happen. They are killing the young protesters -- members of The October Revolution -- and the bulk of those protesters -- over 95% -- are Shi'ites themselves.
I know the Medea Benjamins fool the world with their simplistic crap. "Oh, the US bombed Iran! Oh! Oh! I'm climaxing and must insist that everything Iranian is pure and lovely -- even the government which openly harasses its own citizens! Oh, I'm cumming again!! Iran! Oh, Oh, Oh, IRAN!!!"
I'm not an idiot or a whore -- I'm not really sure which one Medea is.
But I don't live in duality, I don't play duality. I'm a little more complex than that and have been for years. I believe it was third grade when we were learning about the American Revolution and our teacher was ragging on the British and on this turncoat or that. And I spoke up and said, "But if we were in London right now, that's not how this story would be told." She had to agree.
And that wasn't me going, "Oh, I love London! I love royalty! I must be a part of that system!"
I don't love royalty, I've never wanted the US to go back under England's control.
I don't play duality, I don't like duality. Good and evil in only those stark terms? Leave that garbage to Friedrich Nietzsche -- whom I never cared for but did like the writings of his friend Lou Andreas-Salome. Too many thought systems are nothing but boxes and slots that use categories for safety and not for enlightenment. I don't have a great deal of respect for any working scheme or set up that leaves out something like Gevurah. That and din were my huge problems with Benjamin Barber's SPHERES OF JUSTICE -- a book political theorist Judith N. Shklar also rejected. I was speaking to a professor at Columbia about 15 years ago -- we were speaking on campus about Iraq, that's why we were there -- and the professor taught both Barber and Shklar's work causing me to ask how that went since the two works are in opposition. The professor insisted that they were colleagues and Barber was a former student and blah blah blah. To which I replied, "I'm glad you know the biography of the two but you clearly did not read Judith's book which is a complete rejection of SPHERES OF JUSTICE and, in fact, has a footnote in her book (FACES OF INJUSTICE) where she states that she is rejecting Barber's book."
I didn't attack Rania.
The Shi'ite militias are not 'helpful' and have not been 'helpful.'
(The Sunnis had militias as well. I got into a lengthy argument with a NYT reporter when the Sawha, the Awakenings, Sons of Iraq and Daughters of Iraq -- all the same basic Sunni militias -- were thriving. They weren't liked by Sunnis. It was something that couldn't be grasped but it was obvious and that -- and the failure to pay them on Nouri's part -- is why they fell apart. I am calling them "Sunni militias" but will note that we reported on a hearing in April of 2008 when Gen David Petraeus insisted the Sahwa were not 100% Sunni.)
As a general rule, militias are not helpful. If a country has a standing military, why do they have militias? They're not needed. And they terrorize.
Which is what the Shi'ite militias linked to Iran have done and continue to do.
We frequently scream our heads off here because people outside the community -- especially the media do not pay attention. When Iraqis were being assaulted -- young Iraqis -- because they were thought to be gay, we called it out and were the only ones outside of Iraq who did so for months and months. We worked with some people in Congress that I knew and with a mayor that I knew to get the word out -- the mayor went on Lila Garrett's KPFK show and raised the issue -- he wasn't supposed to. It wasn't an agreed upon topic. But he told me to listen and told me he would raise it. And he did. And Lila was shocked because she knew nothing about it. She was shocked on air, I don't mean after the discussion. What was broadcast made clear that she had never heard of it and this was months after it had started.
Ava and I were in Boston speaking when we found out a national publication had covered the issue. And we read the story and four sentences in, I said, "I think I wrote this. It's my cadence when I'm outraged." Sure enough I did. A national publication stole six tp eight paragraphs word for word from something I'd written a month prior on the topic at THE COMMON ILLS. I shrugged. It wasn't a big issue. The big issue was getting the word out and if swiping from me did that, so be it.
I will never forget how many people let me down on that. (Thank you to Jann Wenner who has repeatedly proven to be a friend when he was in charge of ROLLING STONE. I could make a case to Jann and if he agreed, if I could convince him, then, for example Lt Ehren Watada gets a write up in ROLLING STONE.)
I used to trade anything I had, call in any personal favors I was owed and get coverage for Iraq. But even I can't do that now. "No one cares about Iraq" is the message from cable news and broadcast news. I'm not joking. As a news topic, executives feel the story is "done and over."
We still have US troops stationed there. We still have Iraqis suffering because of the government our country set up for them and because we don't want them to have better lives, no, we want to put a 'strong man' in charge who'll scare them to do what we want (Samantha Power said just that in 2010 when arguing for the US to back the loser in the election -- Nouri al-Maliki). (Sammy, you can deny it but I was told that in real time and the person who told me? He's the sitting US president. So let me know if you want to call him a liar. I'm sure that'll help your political career.)
But it's not a story.
Dropping bombs on the country was a story. Where the bombs landed never was. Actual Iraqi people were never the story. To this day that remains the case. REUTERS can't stop worshipping Moqtada al-Sadr, for example, but they can't be bothered with activists or the average Iraqi people.
So I don't think I was rude to Rania and also don't think that any comments I made or could have made would result in her and Katie pulling a public video and making it private.
Again, take it up with Katie Halper, she's the only one who knows what happened. And it may be something simple, like her wanting to edit it down -- the lengthy video. But, again, I don't have time to hear about or actually read e-mails about this. I don't and I won't make time for it. So if it happens again, we're done with Katie.
If I wanted to be mean, I could have done 15 to 20 paragraphs calling out Katie not just because she didn't have her s**t together -- and she didn't --but because Rania was making a very important point but got cut off. And she never got to go back to it. Did Katie cut her off intentionally? I don't believe so. But I also don't enjoy people not having their s**t together. If you don't have the clip you need, give it the f**k up and move on. Quit bringing it up, quick asking people to post a link in the comments to the clip if they can find it. It's boring as hell to any viewer who's not a cult member. Learn to move the f**k on. It irritates me.
Rania was trying to make a point about how few women are noted in lefty media. That would have been an interesting conversation.
And, point of fact, much more interesting than Sean Spicer on DANCING WITH THE STARS or making some idiotic remark about how Hitler didn't gas his own people.
Katie, I just didn't give a damn about him. And guess what? The unimportant Spicer? I made it through all four years without knowing his damn name because he matters so little but now I know his name, now that he doesn't even have the pretense of power. Because you wasted time on him.
You told us what he said, you told us his head looked like a pineapple on DWTS and that he did some weird gesture -- like Bill Clinton, you said.
I heard you. So move the f**k on. That was nonsense going on and on and on. Get your act together. When something's not working or you don't have it, drop it and move the f**k on. That's basic broadcasting. This was not a two minute thing or even a ten minute thing -- this Spicer nonsense -- clip, someone find me the clip! I want to show the clip! -- went on for almost an hour which is why it took over and hour to get to the topic of Iraq.
We highlighted a video by Sabby Sabs on Monday. (Here for her videos on YOUTUBE.) It was sad -- sad that she and Niko House had to say it -- sad that so little has changed. There's tokenism on the left and it was that way when this site started and it still continues to this day. You have a tiny number of, for example, African-Americans who can get invited onto lefty programs -- including podcasts -- and that's it. It's a needed conversation and it's sad that we're still having it today.
When it was a blog world, we had that same problem and we had it because people are unethical. CJR did a blog report that built blog 'stars' and never noted that they were friends with the people they were writing about, that they go hot tubbin' with Ezzie Klein, for example. It was incestuous circle-jerk and CJR -- which is supposed to practice a minimum of ethics that would allow it to call out other for the lack of ethics -- let their White male writers promote their White male friends who had blogs and they never had to disclose it.
June 3rd, in criticizing THE VANGUARD, I noted:
THE VANGUARD has two hosts who I am sure are very nice -- even though they apparently only know a tiny number of people who look like them, same skin color, same genitals, etc -- but they never do the work required.
It remains accurate. Everyone brings on their own friends, it's a bubble and it needs to stop. Get some damn ethics. And expand your circle to include others.
You need larger reference points and your mind's never going to develop if all you do constrict it by staying with a limited number of voices.
Grasp that I'm not asking, "Well, for balance, include a conservative voice." I'm saying there are left voices that are being shut out. Stop doing that.
We argued for Margaret Kimberley to be included. Katie brought her on -- good for Katie. Did you see anyone else though? Did you see any White host of a YOUTUBE podcast take a moment to bring on Margaret Kimberley? It's a circle jerk and it needs to stop.
Here's the video in question -- had to hunt for it, it originally aired June 10th.
It went up here Sunday. It depressed me so bad, I cried. It shouldn't have to be that way. Sabby's a strong voice, Niko's a strong voice. And there are many more. Why are we afraid to feature voices on the left if they don't have White skin and if they don't have a penis?
It needs to be addressed. It's way past time. It hurts the left. It institutionalizes racism. It keeps larger audiences from hearing important thoughts and important thinkers. It keeps us -- as a large grouping -- from growing and expanding.
It needs to stop.
And I need to wrap up.
THIRD? It's done. It may need an editorial but everything was written. You can blame me if you want, I'm not typing. Ava and I typed our piece two Sundays ago. There is a roundtable that needs to be typed up still. I'm just not in the damn mood. So it may go up Wednesday.
I'm not in the mood? I'm having serious eye problems. Saturday I was trying to get things together for the site and I had, among other things, double vision. I could barely see on Sunday. My eyes today looked like I smoked all the pot they sell on Pico Blvd (a notorious location both before legal and after legal). And, no, I didn't. I didn't have any. (Pot's never done anything for me.) But I have severe bleeding in my eyes and had laser in both eyes today to try to stop that, I'll have injections in both eyes before the end of the week. (Laser and injections -- bleeding -- is due to the diabetic retinopathy -- sadly, that's far from my only medical problem with my eyes.)
I wish I had more to offer but I just don't. I'm sorry. I wish we could post more. I wish I could've done long entries on Saturday night and Sunday night. I just couldn't see. Sorry.
E-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
