Guns and Butter and David Ray Griffin

I'd hoped to blog last night but I was so tired. And that was just hanging around with Ava, Jess and C.I. in the morning. (My work, listening to Guns and Butter, meant I had to bail in time for that.) I did log on and mainly just stared at the screen.

Today, I was a little better and that's partly because Wally came out to join us. Wally is too funny and you can't be dragging when Wally's there making you laugh.

We all went out to dinner and that was fun as well. But news? I can tell you about what I saw going on, I can talk about the committment of the youth of California to fighting for fair treatment for undocumented immigrants. That's where I was today and that's what I saw. I did hear Democracy Now! this morning. Everyone came over right after it started (or started on KPFA which airs it twice in the morning, I'm referring to the first broadcast) and we were listening while I finished getting dressed. I can tell you NBC is replacing Katie Couric with the woman from The View. I know that because every other time C.I.'s cell phone rang it was someone with the inside dirt. I can tell you some at NBC are thinking it's a mistake. And I heard C.I. dictating the entry at The Common Ills. Gloria Steinem won an award. I remember that and I'll copy and paste it at the end. That did excite me.

But let's talk about Guns and Butter. Wednesday, it aired a speech by David Ray Griffin where he questioned the official 9-11 narrative. I wonder how he handles that? I've gotten some nasty e-mail lately just from noting the show.

Jess has forwarded the e-mails from people who track me down via The Common Ills. "How can you write this? You should be ashamed!" That's what one e-mail said. Another told me that there was no way the government could keep a secret.

Believe what you want. I'm highlighting a show. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't stand behind Alice while she's starting at the looking glass.

David Ray Griffitn dealt with that by basically noting if something was kept secret how would we know about it? He also noted that people with knowledge would either be people who had proven they could keep secrets and those who had something to hide (to avoid prison or worse).

As for the government not keeping a secret, what decade are papers on the Kennedy assasination due to be released? I forget. I know it wasn't in the sixties because they still haven't been released. And I'm getting that Joan Mellen probably really got attacked for her book. I know she got trashed by the writer for The Nation but I'm pretty sure it went beyond that. Does no one know what happened in Central America during the eighties?

So if my noting what's on Guns and Butter upsets you so much, just move along. I'd think that most people who didn't believe in what's presented on the show would either not read or just read with "Oh that's not true, but it's interesting." I thought wrong. It's much more fun to attack apparently. Jess forwarded those, at my request, because he knew I'd shurg them off and I have and will continue to.

But if you're interested in hearing something that you're not hearing on every NPR program (they all seem to cover the same exact stories, don't they?), then you should check out Guns and Butter.

The e-mails actually reminded me of Gary Hart on The Morning Show. I read Elaine's write up yesterday and, while I was staring at the computer, I listened to the show. Gary Hart says he can't give out favorite websites because he's not up on the web. That's cool. That didn't bother me. But when asked about the voting machines, he thinks it might be a concern but he hasn't studied up on it. What?

If he thinks it might be a concern, shouldn't he study up on it? Especially when he's writing about politics?

The lack of paper trail for electronic voting won't go away just because we don't look into the issue.

So that's only one reason I love Bonnie Faulkner and her show. She's not afraid to pursue something. Even if it means that she probably gets hate mail or whatever.

When I asked Ruth how I could help her out, we knew it was going to be KPFA. I listen to it over the airwaves. (Last night, listening to The Morning Show, was the first time I'd listened online. The sound quality was really good.)

Condi Rice said "No one could have guessed . . ." Do you believe that? Even now, knowing that there were games to test such an excecise, that there were reports warning of such a target (hypothetical ones going back before Bully Boy came into office)? How about knowing that infamous August 2001 PDB was titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike"?

As for the 9-11 commission, have you forgotten Max Cleland's complaints before he quit the commission?

I'm not debating these topics, I'm noting what Guns and Butter covers. I enjoy the show. If you don't, you don't. I should take a moment to say that I heard from members who were already listening to the show and were glad that I was going to be noting it and from members (and one visitor) who weren't aware of the program but were going to start listening.

David Ray Griffin dealt with the supposed extreme religion of the hijackers by noting that, among other things, many met in Vegas and enjoyed lap dances. Unless I'm mistaken, I read about that 2 years ago in Vanity Fair. Griffin asked why the names of the hijackers weren't on the flight manifesto. I've never had any problems flying but I never do it last minute. In the movie Bounce, a big deal is made about the need to get the flight manifesto right. So why aren't the names of the hijackers on the flight manifestos.

And where is the proof that the administration promised? David Ray Griffin noted that the proof was never provided. The administration claimed to have proof before we went to war on Afghanistan. Where's the proof? Not a video after the fact, but the proof before we went to war?

These are questions. I don't claim to have any answers. If the questions bother you, maybe it's because of the potential answers?

But again, there were nice e-mails, encouraging ones and thank you to those people who wrote. One person, the visitor, wrote, "I don't know what happened but I don't think I ever will if I'm not willing to listen." I agree with that.

Stopping because I hear a car and I'm betting it's Betty and her kids. She wanted to see what was going out here with the immigration battle and she also wanted to visit just to visit.

Got up to open the door. It is Betty and she says "HI" to everyone. Her kids are zonked out so we're going to relax and listen to music. She may or may not blog tonight. (She can use this computer whenever she needs.) She's got an entry she just needs to read over before she posts. So you may read a new entry tonight or you may not. It is what it is.

Guns and Butter Wednesday on KPFA

Isaiah's take on Tom DeLay back in October of last year. If you missed it, DeLay announced he was stepping down today. He's out of Congress . . . the rest of the country should be very worried now that he'll be even more mobile.

I was thinking that I needed to get online and do a reminder for everybody that tomorrow on
KPFA, at one Pacific Time, Guns and Butter airs its latest episode. You can listen online and you can use the title's link to hear the archives.

I got home about a half hour ago. Maybe a little more because I caught more than a few seconds of the evening news on KPFA. I came in, turned on the radio and crashed face down on the sofa.
La Raza Chronicles came on right after and I thought, "I should get online and write something about this."

La Raza Chronicles provided voices from the activists fighting the psuedo-need, the false claim, that Congress has any legislation to offer that will improve the lives of immigrants. You should listen if you've only gotten news from the corporate media.

I was with C.I. today, trying to do my part (and thinking, "Do you have to have so much damn energy?" -- seriously, I was dragging within two hours and scoping around looking for the nearest place that had coffee). If you read the round-robin Friday, you know this is an issue C.I.'s been devoting a lot of personal time to. I read it and thought, "God, am I sloth!"

I really can be. So I told C.I. I'd help out on Tuesday. I feel like I've run a four-day, non-stop marathon. But I'll sleep without guilt tonight. About the corporate coverage, I don't watch it. I heard about it from the kids today who were really upset about the nonsense where corporate media tosses on someone saying, "Well, I think there may be some issue there but if they want me to listen to them, they need to stop waving a Mexican flag. This is America."

Two of the kids that were most bothered by this were listening while C.I. dictated the entry this morning. Let me grab it from the post. Okay, here's what C.I. said:

I'm not in the mood for nonsense today. That includes the gatekeepers who want to gripe at the young adults who bring flags of Mexico to a protest -- exactly where do they think many of the immigrants targeted are coming from? Ohio?

You should have heard the two kids when C.I. said that. They loved it. They were high-fiving and laughing while they kept repeating "Ohio" to one another.

If corporate media is picking on these kids, they need to back off. I was so impressed with their activism and their dedication. I was glad to lend my support in any way because nothing I did today comes close to what they've been doing for the last two weeks. They have made themselves heard. If corporate media's mocking them, it's because of the fact that they're scared of this activism. Anytime you can scare corporate media, you have their attention.

I get my broadcast news from KPFA so I don't know what bad media does. KPFA has done a great job covering it. If you've got some view of these kids as uninformed or not helping a cause, then you're getting your news from the wrong sources. Looking around, repeatedly today, I felt so much optimism for the future. If the United States is going to avoid going down the toilet, it's going to be because of passion and a willingness to fight and the kids have that.

I'll share one story. A young woman who was 15 was there for her parents and for her brother. He's just a little bit older. When her parents came here, her mother was pregnant with her. So she was born here and she's a citizen. And she is just devestated thinking how her brother and her parents, her family, are considered less than other people because they weren't born here. She explained how both of her parents worked, how her brother had a part-time job after school and she wanted to know why people keep saying things about how "those immigrants" just take from the system. She spoke about how she knew a young guy who is also a citizen but Latino and he was stopped on the bus by some government officials a few years back and asked if he was a citizen. He was on his way to school. She said if that can happen right now under the current laws, imagine how much worse the harrassment will be if the House or Senate bill passes?

She knew both bills and, while feeling the House bill was worse, felt like the Senate bill was only slightly better. She wondered why, with two supposedly opposing parties in Congress, no one was working to help the immigrants "Because everyone was an immigrant, even our governor, unless they were here before the pilgrims." She feels like the proposals tear families apart and that a lot of those families have children like her only older. "So you're talking about grandparents and like great-grandparents at risk of being thrown out of the country."

If I wasn't so tired, I know I'd be able to remember her word for word but I'm just too tired. (Again, I don't have C.I.'s energy levels. I don't think C.I. has them. I think C.I. just says, "Okay, this needs to be done, I'll do it and I won't complain" and then just pushes on through regardless of tired, hungry or whatever.) I'm going to try to do some more this week.

These kids need our support because they're teaching the country about democracy, they are fighting for a . . . I was going to say "a good cause" but that's really weak. For most of the ones who spoke to me today, this is for their family. It might be a parent or a grandparent or it might be an uncle or aunt or . . . We need to address the issue of immigration. Not in terms of fences or criminalization but in terms of finding a way to address a situation that our government has created via trade policies. We also need to find a way to value the contributions, the very real contributions, that are being made.

There are so many ways we could try to address that but instead we want to talk fences and criminalization and deportation. It's the fear-based nation that Bully Boy's stoked and encouraged.