Linked within his piece, is this commentary from George Farah on Democracy Now! -- "Secret Debate Contract Reveals Obama and Romney Campaigns Exclude Third Parties, Control Questions" (Do listen carefully, and then fact-check it out):
People, you are so-o-o being hoodwinked, bamboozled and blinded with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! {smdh} Obama (like Romney), did what was "scripted" for your entertainment and distraction -- no more, no less.
Just like in 2008 -- he had nothin' tonight. Man, was it painfully obvious! Definitely not a good look.
Democracy Now's, "#ExpandTheDebate# with Jill Stein (Green Party) and Rocky Anderson (Justice Party) was kinda interesting. Too bad they couldn't have been there in person to check these two liars though.
I love Bruce Dixon! Ever since I started following him on Black Agenda Report, I've had little, if any disagreement with his point of view. Here again, he's hit the nail on its proverbial head regarding both the Changeling and Romney during this non-debate -- they're definitely "more alike than they are different" (and the Changeling knows it, hence his dismal showing up, or rather, not showing up last night).
He's such a damned pawn of white supremacy. He seems to forget -- they've been at this for far longer than he. He let them tell him what to say, how to say it and to whom he should say it; they told him what to do, how to do it and to whom he should do it (most of them "Other"; all of them poorer than he is), for over four damned years -- all so he could have his undercover-megalomaniacal, yet fragile ego stroked. {smdh}.
And then, for good measure, they work him the hell over today, asking for example, in this NYT piece (yeah, The New York Times! I don't care how they opened, or penned this piece -- they have hardly been the Changeling's BFF) -- why he didn't do, what they told him NOT to do! Sure, they mentioned Mitt, but the Changeling was their target. And puppet that he is, he deserves to be.
Okay folks, this is the closest I could find to some real "dog whistling." But you know what? It works exactly the same with people!
As the owner coaxes the response he wants from the pup with his, "Okay, ready?" -- I couldn't help but notice how creepily his method is mimicked by both political parties through the MSM. They say, "Okay, ready MSM? Whistle just like we showed you, and all their heads will turn (away from the important stuff)." All that hullabaloo about Romney's "47%," secret fundraiser comments not long ago certainly bears that out.
What cracks me the hell up about the Changeling's supporters though, is the utter hypocrisy with which they got bent about what Romney said -- when the Changeling did the exact same thing, in the exactsame, high-roller, secret fundraiser setting!
You may not remember, but I'll bet those "bitter Pennsylvanians" sure do! I wrote a post about Mayhill Flower's, then-explosive audio of said, little get-together in San Francisco, back in 2008, but the audio has been mysteriously removed (the transcript is still there, but hearing it drip from the Changeling's lips at the time, was so -- Romney-esque)!
At any rate, here's Bill Moyers explaining how nothing about elitism's dog whistles and money-talk has changed much (except maybe it's getting a little tanner and a lot more invasive):
Hate to disappoint you Mr. Moyers, but no matter how many signs citizens put out all over this land declaring the opposite, many if not most, do see the forest for the trees. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that our democracy is, has been and likely will always be, for sale.
I can't say what caused the attacks on the American embassies in both Libya and Cairo. Was it the film? Was it the, "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore!" response to the destruction of a sovereign nation and the decimation of its people by America and the "usual suspects?" No one can say definitively. But, Glenn Greenwald has, as Brother Asa over at AfroSpear said to me once, "hit the nail right on the head and through the wall" with his, The tragic consulate killings in Libya and America's hierarchy of human life.
3) It is hard not to notice, and be disturbed by, the vastly different reactions whenever innocent Americans are killed, as opposed to when Americans are doing the killing of innocents. All the rage and denunciations of these murders in Benghazi are fully justified, but one wishes that even a fraction of that rage would be expressed when the US kills innocent men, women and children in the Muslim world, as it frequently does. Typically, though, those deaths are ignored, or at best justified with amoral bureaucratic phrases ("collateral damage") or self-justifying cliches ("war is hell"), which Americans have been trained to recite.
It is understandable that the senseless killing of an ambassador is bigger news than the senseless killing of an unknown, obscure Yemeni or Pakistani child. But it's anything but understandable to regard the former as more tragic than the latter. Yet there's no denying that the same people today most vocally condemning the Benghazi killings are quick and eager to find justification when the killing of innocents is done by their government, rather than aimed at it.
It's as though there are two types of crimes: killing, and then the killing of Americans. The way in which that latter phrase is so often invoked, with such intensity, emotion and scorn, reveals that it is viewed as the supreme crime: this is not just the tragic deaths of individuals, but a blow against the Empire; it therefore sparks particular offense. It is redolent of those in conquered lands being told they will be severely punished because they have raised their hand against a citizen of Rome.
Just compare the way in which the deaths of Americans on 9/11, even more than a decade later, are commemorated with borderline religious solemnity, as opposed to the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of foreign Muslims caused by the US, which are barely ever acknowledged. There is a clear hierarchy of human life being constantly reinforced by this mentality, and it is deeply consequential. (emphasis mine)
Just as we can hardly deny the callousness of Qur'an-burning enthusiast, Terry Jones, nor Hilary Clinton's smirking, "We came, we saw, he died" (I must say again, I can't even believe how stupid I was, to lend any credence to the idea that this womangave two shits about the rightness or wrongness of anything) -- we've no choice but to accept Glenn's dead-on observation about the killing of Americans being considered a "supremecrime" (with the exception of the murder of Rachel Corrie in Gaza by those who believe that, "America is a thing you can move very easily..." The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment on Israel's "accidental" verdict, and her courageous stand for the Palestinian "Other" has been all but forgotten, except by maybe her family and the true humanitarians among us).
Greenwald is, for the most part, good at peeling away the most partisan of scales. Here, he points out the sick folly of both Democrat and Republican supporters:
4) The two political parties in the US wasted no time in displaying their vulgar attributes by rushing to squeeze these events for political gain. Democratic partisans immediately announced that "exploiting US deaths" – by which they mean criticizing President Obama – "is ugly, unwise".
That standard is as ludicrous as it is hypocritical. Democrats routinely "exploited US deaths" – in Iraq, Afghanistan, and from 9/11 – in order to attack President Bush and the Republican party, and they were perfectly within their rights to do so. When bad things happen involving US foreign policy, it is perfectly legitimate to speak out against the president and to identify his actions or inaction that one believes are to blame for those outcomes. These are political events, and they are inherently and necessarily "politicized".
It's one thing to object to specific criticisms of Obama here as illegitimate and ugly, as some of those criticisms undoubtedly were (see below). But trying to impose some sort of general prohibition on criticizing Obama – on the ground that Americans have died and this is a crisis – smacks of the worst debate-suppressing tactics of the GOP circa 2003...
But in this case, what the GOP and Mitt Romney did is substantially worse. As the attacks unfolded, Romney quickly issued a statement, based on the response of the US embassy in Egypt, accusing Obama of "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks" (the Obama White House repudiated the statement from the embassy in Cairo)....
These accusations were all pure fiction and self-evidently ugly; they prompted incredulous condemnations even from media figures who pride themselves on their own neutrality.
But this is the story of the GOP. Faced with a president whose record is inept and horrible in many key respects, they somehow find a way to be even more inept and horrible themselves. Here, they had a real political opportunity to attack Obama – if US diplomats are killed and embassies stormed, it makes the president appear weak and ineffectual – but they are so drowning in their own blinding extremism and hate-driven bile, so wedded to their tired and moronic political attacks (unpatriotic Democrats love America's Muslim enemies!), that they cannot avoid instantly self-destructing. Within a matter of hours, they managed to turn a politically dangerous situation for Obama into yet more evidence of their unhinged, undisciplined radicalism. (emphasis mine)
Can't disagree with any of that! Nor, any of this:
In sum, one should by all means condemn and mourn the tragic deaths of these Americans in Benghazi. But the deaths would not be in vain if they caused us to pause and reflect much more than we normally do on the impact of the deaths of innocents which America itself routinely causes. (emphasis mine)
IMHO, Salon's loss was The Guardian's gain in Glenn Greenwald. Hopefully those across The Pond will listen to what he has to say.
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UPDATE: In this discussion on Al-Jazeera's Inside Story, Greenwald, along with former National Security Council official Hillary Mann Levitt and the Muslim scholar at Georgetown, Jonathan Brown is worth watching (at least this "Hillary" has some damned sense!):
"sheridf…What a wonderful piece of “follow-the-money,” investigative writing! I have to admit, when I saw the title on my emailed subscription, I said, “Argh!, more Romney-Bain sh*it! Does it really matter when he left (besides the fact he may have lied; I mean, Hell, all politicians lie about their money and what they do to get it, if they can get away with it — ALL of them!)?
But this sh*t right here?? This, is the kind of information the MSM and the Changeling’s campaign folk (full disclosure: I’m no fan of his, or them, either!) should be putting out there! Particularly given it’s horribly, negative contributions to the “framing” of our children’s, parents’ and families’ lives (which, as I think about it, speaks to yet another way the current residents of the “Big House,” continue to ignore, “big picture” issues affecting the Black community — I mean, Obesity is/has been his wife’s “signature” issue! Brava my young sister! Thank you for this work…"
Please do take a moment to tune out the MSM's dog-whistles and read this important and very relevant-to-the-Black-community piece of investigativejournalism (cuz Lord knows you won't get it from either campaign's talking heads!).
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Glenn Greenwald's got some interesting links in #2 of his "Various Matters" post. It appears there's at least ONE MSM journalist willing to confront this administration on their undying fealty to Israel. Glenn has the transcript, but if a picture's worth a 1000 words, then a video is -- priceless! Check it out:
The NAACP had hoped that President Obama would speak during its six-day confab, as he did when campaigning in 2008 and again in 2009. In 2010 Michelle Obama addressed the convention...On Tuesday an NAACP spokesman said the group was reserving a Thursday speaking spot for the president. (emphasis mine)
I think I can safely say that his tenure in the Big House, has effectively put Blacks in an untenable position. We've not demanded, nor gotten anything from him! Who's really going to take us seriously after we've sat back and let him get away with ignoring us for four (maybe eight years) with hardly a collective peep? Come on family, ain't y'all tired of asking:
**UPDATE:**Obama Administration Creating African American Education Office. Well, family, he finally threw out one of his "executive order" crumbs. Oh, go ahead -- I can just imagine all the, "See! I toldyou he cared!" happy-dancin' going on right now!
But wait a minute! Is it just me? Or did it take over three and a half years AND three months before the election to even spit in this direction? Seems to me, if it looks like a shut-the-hell-up duck, and quacks like a shut-the-hell-up duck -- it's a damned shut-the-hell-up duck! Just sayin'...
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The Julian Assange Show on RT News continues to offer up some interesting conversation that again, we need not look to the MSM to provide:
Occupy movements notwithstanding -- there appears to be little, if any, danger of popular forces creating practical, functioning, new and significant "models" here, Noam!
Arab Israelis make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s population. While they have not traditionally been conscripted by the government, many of them choose to serve willingly, either in the army or community service, thereby becoming eligible for the same social benefits that Jewish Israelis enjoy after serving.
However, the new law would make the above service mandatory for the Arab population, raising questions among a community torn between their loyalty to the Jewish state and their heritage as Palestinians. (emphasis mine)
Man! All I can say is -- that is some re-e-ally sad, split-mind shit right there.
Like many minorities here, the Druze have been trying to be "patriotic" and serve "their country" (even though the Zionists, much like "real Americans" here, see it as their country). And if they do, they get a shot at a somewhat equal and decidedly "better life" -- at least materially. But when one considers that the Druze must fight and/or kill, other Palestinians, that whole "material" thing seems a bit hollow (the Civil War springs to mind). But that's just me.
Shaul Mofaz, chairman of parliament's largest party, Kadima, told reporters Netanyahu "crassly" violated their coalition agreement on Monday when he disbanded the panel, which proposed ending sweeping exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men and penalizing them if they dodge the draft. Many Israelis deplore the privileges that the ultra-Orthodox receive, but Netanyahu is reluctant to alienate what are traditional supporters by adopting proposals they vehemently oppose...The draft privileges for the religious date back six decades, when Israel's founders granted exemptions to 400 exemplary seminary students to help rebuild great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. The numbers of exemptions have steadily ballooned over the years, and today, an estimated 60,000 religious men of military age are exempted. The pattern of studying instead of serving continues long past draft age, with ultra-Orthodox men commonly spending their lives in religious study instead of working, while collecting welfare. (emphasis mine)
Sounds a lot like those "exemptions" enjoyed by many of the well-connected, college-bound in this country, no? -- like this, one of many: Starting as a freshman at Stanford University in 1966, Romney received a series of deferments, including one for his role as a “minister of religion or divinity student,” that kept him out of Vietnam (read that here).
So if I'm reading these pieces correctly, mandatory for most Arab-Israelis -- exemptions for all ultra-Orthodox Israelis/Zionists. Hell, I'd be more than a little ticked off my-damned-self!
I had one more, but it's way too long to insert as a mere rumination. Hope to post it soon.
