DAMMIT TAVIS!! - Guess YOU don't want to be "Accountable" anymore

Okay, because I'm always telling folk - "Don't step to me, unless you're willing to own your shit - and  if you're not, I WILL call you on it." - I have to own my own shit.  I was WRONG about Tavis Smiley for all these years.

There!  That feels good!

When I read this, Tavis Smiley Ends State of Black American Union Show, Continues Media Lockdown of Obama's Black Critics at Black Agenda Report, all I could say was "Dammit Tavis!!"  Bruce Dixon paraphrases the gist of the "announcement" thusly:

Tavis's cancellation announcement, a brief video on his tavistalks.com web site is long on folksy introductions, self-congratulation, thank-yous, and goodbyes. The reasons he offers for ending the annual event are brief and unconvincing. Ten years ago, he offers, “...there was only one syndicated black radio show... there was only one black TV network... we didn't have an African American president... (and) we no longer have to wait for one day a year in February to discuss issues that matter to us...” on TV.  (emphasis mine)

NOW, having an African-American president matters to you when it comes to publcly holding his ass "Accountable?"  After AL-L-L-L your bullshit, faux outrage at the Changeling snubbing the Black community by sending his wife instead of coming his damn self to the (what we now find, is the - final ) SOBU to discuss issues that matter to us before the election??!!   So NOW you're saying the damned mainstream media IS discussing issues that matters to us??  Since when, Mr. Smiley?  Since now that you've really got yours (thank you Walmart, PBS, NPR, PRI, et al)??  What a damned hypocrite you are Mr. Smiley.

Turns out - as PLENTY of people warned me - it wasn't about OUR SHIT after all!!  Was it ever?  Now, I don't think so.  Dammit Tavis!!

Seems to me, it was about ALL the shit they SAID it was about (You, Your Ego and dem dollar bills y'all)!!  And this fumbling, bumbling explanation for pulling the cork on the SOBU is enough for me to believe that everything they said was true (couldn't embed it, but please DO listen):  TAVIS ANNOUNCES END OF SOBU.

I'm too mad right now to expound - maybe later...

h/t to willyjsimmons over at Cinie's Place for this reminder:

Liberty City 6 - will the third time be a charm?

Last Wednesday here in South Florida, Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie made clear his plan to try the Liberty City 7, er 6 yet again. They were seven, but the jury in the first trial acquitted one of them (here are the recent details with links to all of the background "news you can use" articles beginning in July of 2007 when the government first "uncovered" this terrorist plot: 'Liberty City 6' To Be Tried For Third Time).
Like those oh, so elusive WMDs that precipitated our occupation of Iraq, draining both our human and monetary capital, this farce is yet another exercise in fear-mongering. Somebody tell me how these damn-near homeless, assuredly greedy yet undeniably gullible Black men, could perpetrate this massive act of terrorism in America with no guns, no explosives, no knowledge of making said explosives, no apparent prior connection to Al Qaeda and most importantly - no damn money???
But for Mr. Batiste saying on tape he wanted to "kill all the American devils" coupled with the urging of the FBI informant who offered these men $50,000, hiking boots and a camera (he bought them a camera to take surveillance photos of buildings that al Qaeda wanted blown up) if they would pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda, no one, I repeat NO ONE, would give two shits about the likes of Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Agustin and Rotschild Augustine and Lyglenson Lemorin, the seventh of the group who was found not guilty in the first trial. Hell, Louis Farrakhan's been talking about "American devils" since his rise to power in the Nation of Islam and nobody's ever charged him with terror conspiracy. And I certainly need not go into the Church Committee's final report on the FBI's COINTELPRO shenanigans to point out why all this prosecution is so much entrapment bullshit.
Two juries to date have said the government has no evidence to show that these men were ever a real terrorism threat - TWO! Yet the government, after having spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 - $8 million taxpayer dollars, plans to go ahead and spend a minimum of $1 mllion more - with the same evidence used in the prior two trials! I guess the prosecutor's decided if he tries this case over and over and over again, it will make it so.

UPDATE: The third trial's been set for January 6, 2009. See CNN's "Wannabes or terrorists? Third jury may decide"

The Ohio Debate - Men Still Behaving Badly

Watching the Democratic debate in Ohio, I could not help but think, "Here we go again, yet another exercise in men behaving badly." I don't know why, but I expected better of Brian Williams. Tim Russert, not so much - though he did surprise me in appearing to break up the media "love fest" by asking Sen. Obama a couple pointed questions - never mind the answers were predictable. What was with all the video clips of Sen. Clinton? Could they at least have shown an equal amount of Sen. Obama? They seemed to intentionally present them to evoke an image of a woman too "temperamental," rather than one who'd reacted honestly to some political machinations by the Obama campaign. While the moderators gave Sen. Obama more than ample time to eloquently dodge the Minister Farrakhan question until Sen. Clinton momentarily backed him into a corner (with a wink and a nod, he finally "rejected" the minister's endorsement, reassuring the Jewish community he was no under-cover anti-Semite), they repeatedly cut Sen. Clinton off time and time again, particularly during her health care explanations on which she is head-and-shoulders above the senator from Illinois. Luckily for Sen. Obama, there are far less people concerned with appearing sexist in this country than appearing racist.