Monday, April 18, 2022

Snoop Dogg's new move

We're all so used to streaming.  If I can't find something on AMAZON music, I go to SPOTIFY or even YOUTUBE and listen that way.  But NME reports:



Snoop Dogg has opened up about why he chose to remove the Death Row catalogue from various streaming platforms in a new interview.

 Death Row Records was founded in 1991 by Suge Knight, Dr. Dre and Michael “Harry O” Harris. Snoop was one of the three key artists responsible for the success of the legendary west coast rap label alongside Dre and 2Pac.

Speaking on the latest episode of Drink Champs with co-hosts DJ EFN and N.O.R.E., Snoop discussed his decision to remove he Death Row catalogue from digital streaming platforms.

“First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don’t pay,” Snoop said.

“And those platforms get millions of millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels. So what I wanted to do is snatch my music off, create a platform similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu. It’ll be a Death Row app, and the music, in the meantime, will live in the metaverse.”


BILLBOARD reports on it here.  What do you think?  Is it a trend?  Will it work?  Are we going to be stuck subscribing to streams for each record label?

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:

Monday, April 18, 2022.  Turkey invades Kurdistan again,  Joe Biden remains a joke on the world stage, simpletons can't handle a real discussion regarding Russia, and much more.



Joe Biden was supposed to restore honor to the White House.  How a man who groped women, assaulted Tara Reade and whose son Hunter was corrupt would do that was anyone's guess.  But it gets worse.



Last week, Autralia's SKY TV reported on how Joe's being mocked around the world -- a popular news video, it already has a half-million views.


You know what has more views?  This SKY TV video focusing just on Saudi Arabia mocking Joe.



That video has over 5 million views.  Yes, Joe's stupidity has gone viral.  


Last week, the boob felt desperate in his efforts to rally support for his war of choice on Russia so he used the term genocide.  Joseph Scalice (WSWS) observes:


On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden declared that Russia was engaged in genocide in Ukraine. The allegation tossed off by Biden is a lie, but it is more than this. It is a political provocation consciously aimed at whipping up a public hysteria to legitimize a massive escalation of the war, including the full-scale, open participation by the United States.

Genocide is a word stamped with profound historical content. There is no graver charge that can be leveled. 

[. . .]

The last thirty years have witnessed the uninterrupted crimes of US empire in the Middle East and Central Asia. Hospitals and villages were deliberately bombed. Cities were reduced to rubble. Economic sanctions starved hundreds of thousands of children to death, and drone strikes killed them at play. Once proud civilizations are haunted ruins, picked bare by the dogs of war.

The only plausible defense that Bush, Obama and Trump could mount if they were charged with genocide, is that while they did launch and conduct wars of aggression that killed over a million Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of Afghans, they saw the deaths of men, women and children as a useful means to an end, and not as the end in itself. Their actions are undeniably genocidal.

Biden stands at the head of this blood-soaked power and accuses Russia of genocide. The charges deliberately mangle and distort both the contemporary facts and the historically established legal definition.

Biden points to specific events—corpses in the streets of Mariupol, the bombing of a train station—which may be war crimes, but which require investigation. Neither the precise details nor the perpetrator have yet been established. No evidence whatsoever has been presented that Putin is intent upon eradicating the Ukrainian people.

Nothing that has happened in Ukraine can be measured on the genocidal scale established by the Nazis and the United States and other imperialist powers. Biden’s accusation trivializes the Holocaust and does violence to history.

Biden’s accusations of genocide are not the rhetorical overreach of moral indignation. They are the deliberate and reckless escalation of conflict in service to the interests of US imperialism and they target Washington’s enemies.


Andre Damon (WSWS) notes:


Biden’s accusation that Russia is engaging in genocide is aimed at poisoning public opinion and galvanizing popular hatred of Russia. It was a transparent pretext for the White House’s announcement, just one day later, that the United States would send attack helicopters and hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine in the largest escalation of US military involvement in the war to date.

The weapons being shipped to Ukraine include 300 “kamikaze drones” known as “Switchblades,” 300 armored vehicles, and 11 Mi-17 helicopters, as well as land mines, radar, thousands of anti-tank weapons and nuclear protective equipment.

Announcing the action, the Pentagon declared, “The United States has now committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration.” This includes $2.6 billion within the past six weeks.

On Wednesday, White House press spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked, “Is it the US policy that genocide has been committed in Ukraine, or was that the president’s personal beliefs?” To this Psaki replied, “Our objective now is evidenced by the enormous package of military assistance that we put out today.”

This exchange is revealing precisely because it stands reality so neatly on its head. According to the statements from the White House, the unprecedented funneling of arms to Ukraine is a testament to how strongly the US believes Russia is committing “genocide.”

The reality is the exact opposite: The accusations against Russia are the lying justification for a policy of military escalation. First, the war plans were laid down, then the accusations were made to justify them.

The message being sent to the Russian government is that, as with similar “genocide” allegations made against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, the United States is targeting it for war and regime change.


Jen's just a dirty whore now.  She's off to cable 'news' which will embrace her because whores are what you get on cable 'news.'  She's just a soul-less creature mouthing words she knows are false but she doesn't care that her words have real world impact and peopl will die because of them.  She's the perfect fit for cable 'news.'

Not only is the US government trying to police the conversation in their push for war, so are certain celebrities.  Sean Penn is just a nut case and always has been.  Alec Baldwin is making an ass of himself and will hopefully come to his senses.  If not, by all mean, Alec, grab a gun and run into battle.  Saddest of all isn the out of work actor who has positioned himself as a savior of women but who himself has been said to be using that as a front to cover his own sex trafficking involvement.


Robert Scheer (SCHEER POST, link is audio and transcript) spoke with professor Michael Brennan whose learning how narrow the lines of debate have become.  Excerpt:


RS: Hello, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case it’s Michael Brenner, who is a professor of international affairs emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS Johns Hopkins; he’s written a number of important studies, books, academic articles; he’s taught at every place from Stanford to Harvard to MIT and what have you.

But the reason I wanted to talk to Professor Brenner is that he’s been caught in the crosshairs of trying to have a debate about what’s going on in the Ukraine, and the NATO response, the Russian invasion and what have you. And to my mind, I read, I was reading his blog; I found it very interesting. And then he suddenly said, I’m giving up; you cannot have an intelligent discussion. And his description of what’s going on reminded me of the famous Lillian Hellman description of the McCarthy period as “scoundrel times,” which was the title of her book.

So, Professor Brenner, tell us what buzzsaw you ran into when you dared question, as far as I can see, you dared do what you’ve done all your academic life: you raised some serious questions about a foreign policy matter. And then, I don’t know what, you got hit on the head a whole bunch of times. So could you describe it?

MB: Yes, it came only partially as a surprise. I’ve been writing these commentaries and distributing them to a personal list of roughly 5,000 for more than a decade. Some of those persons are abroad, most are in the U.S.; they’re all educated people who’ve been involved one way or another with international affairs, including quite a number who have had experience in and around government or journalism or the world of punditry.

What happened on this occasion was that I had expressed highly skeptical views about what I believe is the fictional storyline and account of what has been happening in Ukraine, back over the past year and most pointedly in regard to the acute crisis that has arisen with the Russian invasion and attack on Ukraine. I received not only an unusually large number of critical replies, but it was the nature of them that was deeply dismaying.

One, many—most of them came from people whom I did know, whom I knew as level-headed, sober minds, engaged and well informed on foreign policy issues and international matters generally. Second, they were highly personalized, and I had rarely been the object of that sort of criticism or attack—sort of ad hominem remarks questioning my patriotism; had I been paid by, you know, by Putin; my motivations, my sanity, et cetera, et cetera.

Third was the extremity of the content of these hostile messages. And the last characteristic, which really stunned me, was that these people bought into—hook, line and sinker—every aspect of the sort of fictional story that has been propagated by the administration, accepted and swallowed whole by the media and our political-intellectual class, which includes many academics and the entire galaxy of Washington think tanks.

And that’s a reinforced impression that had been growing for some time, that this was not just—that to be a critic and a skeptic was not just to engage in a dialogue [unclear], but to place one’s views and one’s thoughts and send them into a void, in effect. A void, because the discourse as it has crystalized is not only uniform in a way, but it is in so many respects senseless, lacking any kind of inner logic, whether you agree with the premises and the formally stated objectives or not.

In effect, this was an intellectual and political nihilism. And one cannot make any contribution to endeavor to correct that simply by conventional means. So I felt for the first time that I was no part of this world, and of course this is also a reflection of trends and attitudes that have become rather pervasive in the country at large, sort of over time. And so beyond simply sort of disagreeing with what the consensus is, I had become totally alienated [unclear] and decided there was no point to it, to going on distributing these things, even though I continue to follow events, think about them, and send some shorter commentaries to close friends. That’s essentially it, Robert.

RS: OK, but let me just say, first of all, I want to thank you for what you did. Because it turned me on to a whole different way of looking at what happened to Ukraine—the history, reminding us of what had happened for the previous decade, not just the expansion of NATO but the whole question of the change in government that the U.S. was involved with previously. And the whole, you know, the relation of the two powers.

And the irony here is that actually we’re back in the worst moments of the Cold War, but at least in the Cold War we were willing to negotiate with people who were very serious, ideological at least, or enemies, and had some coherence in that respect. And you know, Nixon did have his kitchen debate with Khrushchev, and we did have arms control with the old Soviet Union; Nixon himself went to China and negotiated with Mao Zedong; there was no illusion that these were wonderful people, but they were people you had to do business with. Suddenly Putin is now put in a Hitler category even worse than Stalin or Mao, and you can’t talk.

And I do want to disagree with one thing you’ve done: your retirement from this. You’re only about, what, a mere 80 years old; you’re a kid compared to me. But I remember when Bertrand Russell, one of the great intellectuals that we’ve had in our history, or Western history, dared to criticize the U.S. on Vietnam. He and Jean Paul Sartre, and actually raised the prospect that we had committed war crimes in Vietnam.

And the New York Times denounced Bertrand Russell, and they actually said he’d become senile. I went all the way to Wales when I was editing Ramparts magazine to interview Bertrand Russell—which I did, and I spent some lovely time with him. He certainly was frail at the age of 94, but he was incredibly coherent in defense of his position; he had been a very strong anti-communist all of his life, and now he was saying, wait a minute, we’re getting this war wrong.


Now Noam Chomsky has upset the apple cart by discussing some realities as REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT discusses below.



Meanwhile Glenn Greenwald notes:


If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.


On censorship, let's turn to Scott Ritter.




Scott Ritter is a pedophile.  He's one busted three times.  He's one sent to prison.  At his trial, the court expert testified that therapy had not helped him.


After he went off to prison, we didn't have to note him here anymore and, other than a loud conversation with Arianna Huffington, I really didn't speak of him.  That conversation was my advocating for a warning label at HUFFINGTON POST when they featured his columns.  She wouldn't go along with it but HUFFY would use it later for political enemies.


The next time we mentioned Pig Boy Scott Ritter after his conviction was when we explained why we we were not highlighting CONSORTIUM NEWS.  I'd wanted to support Nat in his effort to keep his father's outlet alive.  But then Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of CONSORTIUM, does a video with Ritter and Joe lies.


JOE LIES.  As Lili Taylor sang in SAY SOMETHING.


When news of Scott Ritter's second arrest leaked out, Scott began lying about it and would continue that lie until 2009.  He would lie that this wasn't what it seemed, it was a frame up by the Bush administration because he was speaking out against the war.  When he was arrested in 2009, Barack Obama was president.  


Now it was never a lie, the second arrest, the first arrest.  But he put out that lie.


And there was Joe lying all these years later about how Scott Ritter was removed from corporate media because he spoke out and because lies were told about him.


No.


And I'm not going to trust whores.


Robert Parry was a nice person.  But he did lie.  At the end, he realied he hadn't helped anyone with those lies, but he did lie.  He lied in his coverage about Barack.  He lied and he identified with Barack so he justified the lies.  Outlets shouldn't identify with the powerful.  In one of his last e-mails to me, he pointed out that I had said ("over and over") here (yes, I can be redundant) that we didn't need to protect Barack, he had the Secret Service for that.  I said we needed to tell the truth and stop running interference for Barack.  Robert wrote specifically about the various figures that he felt hemmed his site in and kept them from doing the job that they should have.


(E-mail exchanges between Robert Parry and Ava myself started in 2005 and was noted many times -- starting with an addition to the bottom of this 2005 piece.)


Robert made a mistake.  A serious one but he realized it.  And he agreed that the war against Russia began under Barack -- I'd noted that war was starting up in the weeks before Ed Snowden ended up in Russia.  Robert took part in the pushback against the lies about Russia and deserves praise for that.  His work over the decades deserves lots of praise.


But I don't support Joe Lauria.  I don't support liars.  Scott Ritter was pulled from corporate media.  And let's be clear that it wasn't because of Iraq.  Scott's a Republican -- or was.  They were always allowed to speak in corporate media about disagreeing regarding the war.  It was the left that was either ignored or savaged.  


Scott was kicked out of corporate media because they learned of his second arrest.


I didn't object when Joe Lauria was publishing CONSORTIUM.  I objected when Joe lied.  


"Breaking Down Ukraine Jimmy Dore, Sean Stone, Scott Ritter & Lara Logan to talk all things Ukraine."  I posted that CONVO COUCH video on March 23rd.  And I captioned it, "Scott Ritter was convicted of and served time for attempting to have sex with a minor. That arrest was his third such arrest for that crime."

In the March 1st "Iraq snapshot," we noted:

"A really great guest.  Someone who knows what war is.  Who has been in war."  Oh, Scott knows much more than that, Dan.  Why be so modest?


Dan Cohen, maybe the first thing to do is to get honest with your viewers?


Scott Ritter has been arrested multiple times for attempting to have sex with underage girls.  When Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House,, the claim was that this was all political and it was Republicans going after Scott.  Then he got arrested after Barack Obama was president.  And this time, he wasn't given a plea deal or a slap on the wrist.  This time, he went on trial and was convicted for his actions.  He's a registered sex criminal.


And you're not telling people that, Dan?


And Alan youre off on Tucker Carlson when your own outlet is promoting Scott without noting that he's a sex offender?


Is Scott such an important voice and analyst that we need him in public disccusion?  I'm not seeing it.  But I can be wrong.


We've included the video.  We've also included reality: That he's been arrested multiple times for attempting to engage in sex with underage girls.  That he was convicted of that -- and cried in court as he admitted he did it -- and was sentenced and sent to prison for it.


Apparently, MINT NEWS PRESS doesn't give two s**ts about the safety of young girls.


Big surprise -- that's sarcasm.  There's nothing at their website that indicates that they value women.  They're like so many 'left' sites in the '00s who don't get caught in 'idnetity politics' -- their excuse for ignoring the rights of women and girls and for ingoring racism.  


Alan's  a good writer.  But he looks like a hypocrite as he goes after Tucker Carlson while his own site promotes Scott Ritter.


They don't warn anyone.  And any 14 year old girl that Scott targets next who knows of Scott from MINT PRESS NEWS -- and only from MINT PRESS NEWS -- just knows that he's someone to be 'trusted' per MPN.  


Long ago I made the proposal that Scott Ritter should come with a warning lable.  Arianna took that over to her own site and then tried to apply it to Republicans running for office.  


This was not about political differences between myself and Scott Ritter.  This is about him being a convicted sex offender who has a history of attempting to have sex with underage girls.  I have no idea why his wife stayed with him.  I don't care, honestly.  But even before the conviction, we told the truth about Scott.  We did that because a CNN friend -- who was against the Iraq War, by the way -- warned me.  I was told that there were two arrests.  Unlike Sy Hersh, we told the truth and walked away.  


I don't like him.  I don't like anyone who tries to prey on children.  


Does he have anything of value to add to the discussion.  I'm not hearing it in the video above.  Maybe you are.  But we noted what he was convicted of and we provided the needed public warning.


MPN hasn't.  


Before he was arrested the last time (and convicted) we called out a number of outlets for promoting Scott and acting irresponsible.  It is irresponsible to promote him without nting what he is -- someone convicted of attempting to prey on children.  


I don't see anything I've done as attempting to censor Scott Ritter.  I have asked that the lies stop.  I have asked that a convicted felon be identified as such (as opposed to as "a great guy") when outlets bring him on.  I do see a world of difference.  I get it that others do not.


We live in a time of stupidity.  A simple debate can't take place as Michael Brenner points out.  And certain parties think rules don't apply.  Fiorella Isabel, if you bring on a convicted felon who preys on girls and you don't disclose that to your audience, you're not just setting other girls up to be victimized, you're not being honest with your audience.


And some will find out the truth.  When they do, they may wonder why you, Richard Medhurst and others weren't honest?  You had to lie to them.  They'll then question what else you told them, what else did you lie about?  If you're not able to admit that your guest was convicted in a court of law and served time in prison, that's your first hint that this isn't a guest you should have on.  The conviction is not in dispute.  The prison time is not in dispute.  Yet you refuse to identify your guest properly.


In Iraq, Turkey is again bombing the Kurdistan and has again sent ground troops in.  I won't hold my breath waiting for YOUTUBE jawboners to find that topic, it's eluded them for years now.


ANF NEWS reports:

The Christian Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan called for an immediate end to the Turkish attacks on southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

The CPT- Iraqi Kurdistan statement on the latest wave of Turkish attacks on South Kurdistan reads:

“Last night, Turkey launched a new military operation called Claw-Lock operation in Avashin, Zap and Matina areas in the Amedy district, of Duhok province, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Prior to launching the Claw-Lock operation, the Turkish air force bombed Shiladze, Deraluk and Kani Mase and surrounding villages almost 50 times. Also, dozens of Turkish soldiers were deployed from helicopters to the mountain ranges in the Nerwa-Rekan area.

The CPT-Iraqi Kurdistan team calls for Turkey to immediately stop the bombardments and to not endanger civilian lives in Iraqi Kurdistan anymore.”

MEDYA NEWS notes:


Protests were held against the latest incursions by the Turkish military into Iraqi Kurdistan, by groups in European cities on Sunday night following initial reports by Kurdish news outlets.

Demonstrations were staged in Marseilles in France, and in Stuttgart and Dusseldorf in Germany.

The protestors chanted slogans like, ‘Dictator Erdoğan’, ‘International Solidarity’, ‘Solidarity with Kurdistan’, and ‘Terrorist Erdogan’.

Further demonstrations are planned for Monday upon a call for solidarity action by the The Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress in Europe (KCDK-E) in the following locations in Germany, Switzerland and France:

ALAHAD TV notes:

A member of the Shiite framework, Ali Al-Fatlawi, for Al-Ahad: Turkey's continued violation of Iraqi sovereignty shows the prostration of Baghdad and the submission of Kurdistan before Ankara. #Iraq
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9:28 AM · Apr 18, 2022


 

The following sites updated:





Closing with C.I.'s "The middle finger snapshot:"


Friday, April 15, 2022.

Let's kick it off with a long section of Anne Sexton's "For John Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further:"

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.
And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope.
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.
And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.
Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.
This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,
although your fear is anyone’s fear,
like an invisible veil between us all…
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face.


An e-mail asks: "So you're not going to repost Jackson Hinkle's show at your site anymore?"  No.

I have ethics.  Jackson offers little more than a cheering section, usually for Jimmy Dore.  It's not like he was leading on any issue.

Which is perfect for this topic, by the way.

Let's pretend that Jackson Hinkle is an expert on something.  Let's pretend that he's the only one in the world who can speak to Russia.  


And let's say I have a show and can invite him on.

While Jackson is an expert on Russia, turns out that he's also been arrested three times for trying to get (trick?) underage girls online into meeting up with him for sex.   One time, he got off on a promise that he'd never do it again -- yes, sadly, the justice system was that pathetic in the '00s.  The second time, he got probation.  The third time he got sent to prison.  He is now a registered sex offender.

He is the best and only expert on the topic of war with Russia.

Do I bring him on my YOUTUBE program?

See, I'm not visualizing such an internal debate taking place for Fiorella Isabell or Richard Medhurst aor any of the other people putting Scott Ritter on their programs.

For me? 

Hell no, I'd never put someone like that on a program.  It's called ethics.  

As I noted on Wednesday, if someone wants to disagree about whispers and claims, that's fine.  Have that person on.  But if someone's been arrested multiple times and been convicted, that's not the same thing as someone being targeted with a whisper campaign or someone involved in a disputed situation (i.e. he said-she said, he said-he said, she-said-she said, they said-he said, they said-she said, they said-they said).  

We can disagree about Michael Jackson or whomever.  We weren't three.  We form our best judgments based on the abilities at reasoning that we've been given.  Michael was never convicted in a court of law.  There was the opportunity to do so and it didn't happen.  So we can disagree.  And I may roll my eyes over this or that person being on a broadcast but that's all I'm going to do.

Scott Ritter, like Harvey Weinstein, has been convicted.  The court has ruled.  

This is not disputed.  He did time in prison for what he did.  

And he is a threat to girls everywhere since that's who he stalks.

No, I'm not going to put him on a program.  

It's not even open to debate.  Why would I put other females in jeopardy?

Now Queen Bees like Fiorella, they're on their own.  There's a reason she has no female friends.  There's a reason she does a program that is nothing but men, men, men.  She's Patty Hearst.  She's been in the closet and conditioned into hostage mentality. 

As for the men involved, if this is new to you, let me say, "Welcome to our sad world."

I'm so sorry if no one ever told you that working to end a war and working for the rights of all led to the second wave of feminism precisely because too many men don't give a s**t about women.  I'm sorry that I have to be the one to impart that hard truth on you.

But it was the rank sexism in the movements of the sixties that led to the rise of second wave feminism.

Their bias is based on many things including a lack of understanding.

They don't get the way some people are targeted -- that's women of all races, that's people of color, that's the LGBTQ community.  

Ignorance, we can deal with.  We've all been ignorant of something and you address ignorance by sharing.

It also shouldn't be that hard today because it is a different world.  

The sixties had a huge shift, the seventies as well, every decade has brought us closer as a people.  

Sharing and listening has led to greater understanding.  

But ignorance was only one aspect.

And let's not just point our fingers at the men.  

Let's use Fiorella.  She's doing nothing to help other women -- that's pretty much her entire work.  She won't and the reason being is she's a Queen Bee (as defined by Gloria Steinem in REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN).  She's got to be the only woman in the room.  Otherwise, she doesn't feel special.  She wants to be the token because she's allowed herself to embrace defined standards that were imposed by a male dominated culture and I'm going to come back to that at the end, by the way, that topic and we're gong to address WSWS on a different but related topic.

But Fiorella surrounds herself with men because she hates women including herself.  She hates them, she thinks they aren't worth anything.  So she will gladly do her part to hold the rest of us down.

Her chit chatting and smiling and laughing with a man arrested three times for pedophilia -- let's call it what it is -- and a man who was sent to prison for it?

That's just fun for her.

"Look how tough I am," she's beaming not realizing that she doesn't look tough, that she looks tragic and pathetic.

So there are women like Fiorella out there.

There are also men out there that need to be called out.

"Identity politics.''

We are constantly forced to hear that term and hear it with derision.

That, we are told by various men, is what is holding the left back.

WSWS wants to tell you that it's all class issues and that's what we need to focus on.  By focusing on other things -- gender is their direct target because they know they have to whisper when they're targeting race -- we are drawing lines between one another that prevent us from working together as a group and effecting change.

We are the bad ones, they insist.  If we'd just drop our 'issues' and go along with what they deem important, there would be no problems and we'd all have Medicare For All by now, for example.

I fully support Medicare For All and I think everyone should have it.

But it hasn't happened in my lifetime and there's a good chance it won't.

However, rape has happened in my lifetime.  Girls have been kidnapped in my lifetime (including me).  We've been raped.  We've been beaten.  We've been violently murdered.

And that's not an isolated moment.

I hear the horror over gun violence -- the constant bleeting.

Gun violence is appalling.

But women and girls are the victims of violence more times a day than gun violence.  And it's just shrug and pretend that's okay?

We may never get Medicare For All.  I'm happy to work on that issue but I'm not dropping other issues.  And I'm certainly not gong to sacrifice women and girls to get Medicare For All.

If we're not all free, none of us are free.

Decrying abuse is not deflecting from larger issues.  The personal is political worked as a slogan because there is so much truth to it.  You can use Judith N. Shklar's works to back that up -- whether it's FACES OF INJUSTICE or THE QUEST FOR INCLUSION (others as well but I'd recommend those two).  

When someone who is being mistreated can grasp that this is not 'personal' in the ways that Benjamin Barber's  sad work has implied over the years, and not just their lot in life, that person can see other levels of oppression and can move from point A to point B or further as a result.  Once they see that it's not their fault or 'just you,' they are radicalized and see links and a system that needs to be taken on.  

Now there is excess in everything and sometimes "the personal is political" devolves into a lot of nonsense and an excuse to right about nonsense while pretending that this nonsense -- often 'reality' TV -- is worth recapping.  A very strong and revolutionary look can be taken at 'reality' TV -- and could even result in finding some good in that genre -- but I'm not referring to that.  I'm referring to websites that try to present as weighty when they're not.  They're not even able to use the excuse of first principles.  And, when it comes to feminism, we've had more than enough first principles writings.  We've all gone to pre-K now and are ready for weightier topics and more evolved discussions.

So the personal is political should not be used as a cop out that allows you to avoid dealing with actual issues.  

Sadly, it sometimes has been.

But the slogan still works because it is embedded with truth.  The student in class noting that she's not called on and that others of her race are not called on by the TA, is making connections and grasping that it's not just her and that there is a system of oppression taking place.  

We applaud that in other areas.  We're allowed to as leftists.  But we won't applaud it when it comes to racial consciousness and if it results in gender consciousness or sexuality consciousness, we'll outright hiss as a leftist collective.

And we think that makes us look cool.

Really, it makes you look stupid.  

You're not just a pothead comedian in your basement, you're a moron who doesn't know the first thing about anything and maybe shouldn't be hosting a program due to your extreme stupidity.


This shared consciousness, this awakening that leads to change?  Karl Marx addressed it.  The term wasn't coined  when he was writing about it but that's the whole point of the worker grasping that he has shared grievances with another worker.  That's what's behind the concept of class consciousness.

If Marx were alive today, hopefully, he'd be addressing the barriers to class consciousness.  Those do include that some can't see beyond certain identifiers -- meaning that their inability to relate to what a transgendered person or a young gay teen has to endure creates a barrier that prevents working as a collective.

Identity politics is not the problem for all the derision heaped upon the term.  The derision itself is a sign of discrimination.  Certain people -- men and, yes, sadly women as well -- feel that their 'improtant' issue is getting less attention or none at all because this or that 'fluffy' issue is getting attention.

You saw that with the reaction of some to what happened to Chris Rock.  You saw a lot of writers on the left -- at DISSIDENT VOICE for example, insist that time was wasted on the topic.

A man was assaulted.  Now, yes, Chris Rock is my friend.  But that doesn't change the fact that he was assaulted on live television at a global event.  That was broadcast around the world live and now lives on forever on YOUTUBE and elsewhere.

A man was assaulted and that's a distraction?  Talking about it is a distraction?

A Black man was assaulted for the 'crime' of offending a woman's 'honor' and that's not worth addressing?  Even with the historical practice in the US of justifying assaults on African-American males on the grounds that some woman's 'honor' had been besmirched?

I'm so sorry that your little pet issue -- in the case of DISSIDETN VOICE, a program that's been going on for over a decade but that the writer had just discovered that week -- didn't get the attention you felt it deserved.

Welcome to my world where Iraq is ignored completely in the US.  

We are the country that destroyed Iraq.  You can say the UK and Australia helped.  But we are the country that destroyed Iraq.  Our government's actions ensured the destruction -- and it's an ongoing destruction.  They are a land of orphans and widows. 21 is the median age in Iraq and that's not the result of a baby boom, that's the result of the massive deaths that have resulted from this war.

An ongoing war.  US troops remain on the ground.  The US continues to occupy Iraq.  

How many Iraqi politicians will it take to say the US needs to leave before the US leaves?

A major report on the ongoing assault on Iraq's LBT community is released this year and everyone in the US ignores it.

The 19th anniversary of the ongoing war took place last month and the US couldn't be bothered.  

So, yeah, I get your frustration.

But don't pretend that the assault of Chris Rock wasn't actual news and didn't deserve actual discussion and actual analysis.  


The US destroyed the rights of women in Iraq.  

I have called that out here.  If I don't call out this Scott Ritter nonsense, what message am I sending?

I'm first off saying that he's a good guy and trust him and remember that when he rapes you so that you can pursue me as an accessory to that assault since I not only refused to identify him as a convicted sex offender but also used my platform to promote him as someone to listen to and to trust.

Second, I'm saying that it's okay for women to be assaulted and we should just take it.

Iraqi women have showed real bravery and strength throughout this ongoing war.  

But I'm going to back off from calling out a bunch of pampered men for bringing a convicted sex offender on their program and promoting him?

What message would that send?

So ____, no, I don't need you to "smooth things over."  One of the YOUTUBERS who has been promoting Scott wanted me to know in an e-mail that they could fix this and if I'd just agree not to mention it again, everything would be okay.

What will be okay?

Do you really believe i want to be a part of your circle jerk?

Kid, you're not that important.  Equally true, DAILY KOS and others tried to make me a part of their circle jerk almost two decades ago.  Nope.  Didn't want it.  A friend mentions me on their NPR pgoram and my response was, "Please don't eve do that again."  Or when ALTERNET was linking to us and I'm the one who tells them to me off their blogroll.  

You're under some foolish notion that I'm in fear over this topic having fall out.  That I'm afraid this site will be harmed or I will be if we don't have your support.

The only thing I'm in fear over regarding this topic has nothing to do with you or your other YOUTUBERS.  As I said in the roundtable last night for the gina & krista round-robin, I'll address it tomorrow, late tomorrow.  I'll sleep in.  I'll work out.  Then I'll write it myself, type it, not dictate it.  I'll take my time posting it.  Because I'm just too damn sick of having to relive.

I was assaulted.  

And I was lucky because there was no debate on it.  I was young (single digit age), I was kidnapped from my school and I was taken off and assaulted.  There was no way to play blame the victim.  I was lucky in that regard.  

A lot of people aren't.

But I really don't like having to relive this and certainly not on someone else's time table.  

I have no fear of calling out Scott Ritter.

I know he needs to be called out and I have had to do so over and over since 2004.  But, no, it's not something, the topic itself, that I want to spend each morning with.  

Tina and I have talked about how your day can be gone, shot to hell, Tina Turner, when you're forced into these conversations about abuse.  And I feel forced into it now.

That's why I am appalled that it has to be me yet a-damn-gain.  Just once, I'd love to see one of you supposed strong and brave men step up and call out Scott Ritter on your platform.  Just one damn time, it would be great to hear you say that what he did was wrong and that it is appalling that elements of the left are embracing him.  Instead, I have to victimize myself -- that is what it feels like -- and relive an experience to call out what needs to be called out.

If the YOUTUBER e-mailing me truly wanted to 'help' me, he'd be using his program and platform to state he was wrong to bring Scott Ritter on his program and to promote him.  He'd be saying that he stands with those who have survived assault and not with the convicted sex offender.

But he can't relate to that and so he can't relate to me.  And his ignorance is the real barrier preventing us from all working together.  It's not identity politics that's the problem, it's that he's more comfortable identifying with a convicted sex offender than he is with the survivors of assault.

I watch from the US amazed at the way the Iraqi girls and women keep fighting for their rights and against various assaults.  They are inspiring and they will avenge the injustices that were imposed on their country.  The US government was fine to make them the sacrificial lambs.

And, sadly, in the US some elements of the left are happy to make females here their ritual sacrifice as well.  It's not right and it's not liberation and it's not about building a class consciousness. 

Alice Walker has spoken often about how she uses her work to create the world we could have and it's a shame that far less talented people can't see that using their platforms to promote a convicted sex offender is not creating anything of value.

Yet they bring Scott on their programs.  They don't identify him as a convicted sex offender. They joke with him and smirk with him and sometimes they even lie for him: 'Scott was banned by the media because he spoke out against the Iraq war!'  No, Scott was kicked off corporate media when they learned the truth.  It's up here, in real time.  A CNN friend called me and said not to note him, that CNN had just learned of his arrest for attempting to meet up with a young girl for sex.  And that CNN was further shocked to learn that this was his second arrest for it.  He's now got three arrests and he's been sent to prison for it but keep repeating the lie that his speaking out against the Iraq War is what got him kicked off TV.  You look like a cheap whore but then, outside of a carnival, most mirrors reflect reality.


I've had to deal with this topic repeatedly this week including Tuesday in a snapshot that I dictated but scrapped.  

I will note that is it very disappointing what so many are doing.  It's especially sad with regards to Jackson Hinkle because he's only 22 yet not only has instilled the worst of an oppressive patriarchy, he's also bound and determined to actively participate in furthering the worst.  How sad.

And I'm pulling a section.  It'll go into Saturday's entry.  There was a need originally to include it -- it's related and it would ensure peak readership for this post that I want people to read, I want the word out on Scott Ritter.  But as I look over the snapshot, I'm seeing that it will actually overwhelm what came before, or stands a good chance of doing so.  It'll go up Saturday in whatever I post that night. 


We opened with Anne Sexton and we'll wind down with her again, from "Flee On Your Donkey:"

Anne, Anne,
flee on your donkey,
flee this sad hotel,
ride out on some hairy beast,
gallop backward pressing
your buttocks to his withers,
sit to his clumsy gait somehow.
Ride out
any old way you please!
In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That's what it means to be crazy.
Those I loved best died of it—
the fool's disease.

 


The following sites updated:



Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, April 18, 2022.  Turkey invades Kurdistan again,  Joe Biden remains a joke on the world stage, simpletons can't handle a real discussion regarding Russia, and much more.



Joe Biden was supposed to restore honor to the White House.  How a man who groped women, assaulted Tara Reade and whose son Hunter was corrupt would do that was anyone's guess.  But it gets worse.



Last week, Autralia's SKY TV reported on how Joe's being mocked around the world -- a popular news video, it already has a half-million views.


You know what has more views?  This SKY TV video focusing just on Saudi Arabia mocking Joe.



That video has over 5 million views.  Yes, Joe's stupidity has gone viral.  


Last week, the boob felt desperate in his efforts to rally support for his war of choice on Russia so he used the term genocide.  Joseph Scalice (WSWS) observes:


On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden declared that Russia was engaged in genocide in Ukraine. The allegation tossed off by Biden is a lie, but it is more than this. It is a political provocation consciously aimed at whipping up a public hysteria to legitimize a massive escalation of the war, including the full-scale, open participation by the United States.

Genocide is a word stamped with profound historical content. There is no graver charge that can be leveled. 

[. . .]

The last thirty years have witnessed the uninterrupted crimes of US empire in the Middle East and Central Asia. Hospitals and villages were deliberately bombed. Cities were reduced to rubble. Economic sanctions starved hundreds of thousands of children to death, and drone strikes killed them at play. Once proud civilizations are haunted ruins, picked bare by the dogs of war.

The only plausible defense that Bush, Obama and Trump could mount if they were charged with genocide, is that while they did launch and conduct wars of aggression that killed over a million Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of Afghans, they saw the deaths of men, women and children as a useful means to an end, and not as the end in itself. Their actions are undeniably genocidal.

Biden stands at the head of this blood-soaked power and accuses Russia of genocide. The charges deliberately mangle and distort both the contemporary facts and the historically established legal definition.

Biden points to specific events—corpses in the streets of Mariupol, the bombing of a train station—which may be war crimes, but which require investigation. Neither the precise details nor the perpetrator have yet been established. No evidence whatsoever has been presented that Putin is intent upon eradicating the Ukrainian people.

Nothing that has happened in Ukraine can be measured on the genocidal scale established by the Nazis and the United States and other imperialist powers. Biden’s accusation trivializes the Holocaust and does violence to history.

Biden’s accusations of genocide are not the rhetorical overreach of moral indignation. They are the deliberate and reckless escalation of conflict in service to the interests of US imperialism and they target Washington’s enemies.


Andre Damon (WSWS) notes:


Biden’s accusation that Russia is engaging in genocide is aimed at poisoning public opinion and galvanizing popular hatred of Russia. It was a transparent pretext for the White House’s announcement, just one day later, that the United States would send attack helicopters and hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine in the largest escalation of US military involvement in the war to date.

The weapons being shipped to Ukraine include 300 “kamikaze drones” known as “Switchblades,” 300 armored vehicles, and 11 Mi-17 helicopters, as well as land mines, radar, thousands of anti-tank weapons and nuclear protective equipment.

Announcing the action, the Pentagon declared, “The United States has now committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration.” This includes $2.6 billion within the past six weeks.

On Wednesday, White House press spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked, “Is it the US policy that genocide has been committed in Ukraine, or was that the president’s personal beliefs?” To this Psaki replied, “Our objective now is evidenced by the enormous package of military assistance that we put out today.”

This exchange is revealing precisely because it stands reality so neatly on its head. According to the statements from the White House, the unprecedented funneling of arms to Ukraine is a testament to how strongly the US believes Russia is committing “genocide.”

The reality is the exact opposite: The accusations against Russia are the lying justification for a policy of military escalation. First, the war plans were laid down, then the accusations were made to justify them.

The message being sent to the Russian government is that, as with similar “genocide” allegations made against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, the United States is targeting it for war and regime change.


Jen's just a dirty whore now.  She's off to cable 'news' which will embrace her because whores are what you get on cable 'news.'  She's just a soul-less creature mouthing words she knows are false but she doesn't care that her words have real world impact and peopl will die because of them.  She's the perfect fit for cable 'news.'

Not only is the US government trying to police the conversation in their push for war, so are certain celebrities.  Sean Penn is just a nut case and always has been.  Alec Baldwin is making an ass of himself and will hopefully come to his senses.  If not, by all mean, Alec, grab a gun and run into battle.  Saddest of all isn the out of work actor who has positioned himself as a savior of women but who himself has been said to be using that as a front to cover his own sex trafficking involvement.


Robert Scheer (SCHEER POST, link is audio and transcript) spoke with professor Michael Brennan whose learning how narrow the lines of debate have become.  Excerpt:


RS: Hello, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case it’s Michael Brenner, who is a professor of international affairs emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS Johns Hopkins; he’s written a number of important studies, books, academic articles; he’s taught at every place from Stanford to Harvard to MIT and what have you.

But the reason I wanted to talk to Professor Brenner is that he’s been caught in the crosshairs of trying to have a debate about what’s going on in the Ukraine, and the NATO response, the Russian invasion and what have you. And to my mind, I read, I was reading his blog; I found it very interesting. And then he suddenly said, I’m giving up; you cannot have an intelligent discussion. And his description of what’s going on reminded me of the famous Lillian Hellman description of the McCarthy period as “scoundrel times,” which was the title of her book.

So, Professor Brenner, tell us what buzzsaw you ran into when you dared question, as far as I can see, you dared do what you’ve done all your academic life: you raised some serious questions about a foreign policy matter. And then, I don’t know what, you got hit on the head a whole bunch of times. So could you describe it?

MB: Yes, it came only partially as a surprise. I’ve been writing these commentaries and distributing them to a personal list of roughly 5,000 for more than a decade. Some of those persons are abroad, most are in the U.S.; they’re all educated people who’ve been involved one way or another with international affairs, including quite a number who have had experience in and around government or journalism or the world of punditry.

What happened on this occasion was that I had expressed highly skeptical views about what I believe is the fictional storyline and account of what has been happening in Ukraine, back over the past year and most pointedly in regard to the acute crisis that has arisen with the Russian invasion and attack on Ukraine. I received not only an unusually large number of critical replies, but it was the nature of them that was deeply dismaying.

One, many—most of them came from people whom I did know, whom I knew as level-headed, sober minds, engaged and well informed on foreign policy issues and international matters generally. Second, they were highly personalized, and I had rarely been the object of that sort of criticism or attack—sort of ad hominem remarks questioning my patriotism; had I been paid by, you know, by Putin; my motivations, my sanity, et cetera, et cetera.

Third was the extremity of the content of these hostile messages. And the last characteristic, which really stunned me, was that these people bought into—hook, line and sinker—every aspect of the sort of fictional story that has been propagated by the administration, accepted and swallowed whole by the media and our political-intellectual class, which includes many academics and the entire galaxy of Washington think tanks.

And that’s a reinforced impression that had been growing for some time, that this was not just—that to be a critic and a skeptic was not just to engage in a dialogue [unclear], but to place one’s views and one’s thoughts and send them into a void, in effect. A void, because the discourse as it has crystalized is not only uniform in a way, but it is in so many respects senseless, lacking any kind of inner logic, whether you agree with the premises and the formally stated objectives or not.

In effect, this was an intellectual and political nihilism. And one cannot make any contribution to endeavor to correct that simply by conventional means. So I felt for the first time that I was no part of this world, and of course this is also a reflection of trends and attitudes that have become rather pervasive in the country at large, sort of over time. And so beyond simply sort of disagreeing with what the consensus is, I had become totally alienated [unclear] and decided there was no point to it, to going on distributing these things, even though I continue to follow events, think about them, and send some shorter commentaries to close friends. That’s essentially it, Robert.

RS: OK, but let me just say, first of all, I want to thank you for what you did. Because it turned me on to a whole different way of looking at what happened to Ukraine—the history, reminding us of what had happened for the previous decade, not just the expansion of NATO but the whole question of the change in government that the U.S. was involved with previously. And the whole, you know, the relation of the two powers.

And the irony here is that actually we’re back in the worst moments of the Cold War, but at least in the Cold War we were willing to negotiate with people who were very serious, ideological at least, or enemies, and had some coherence in that respect. And you know, Nixon did have his kitchen debate with Khrushchev, and we did have arms control with the old Soviet Union; Nixon himself went to China and negotiated with Mao Zedong; there was no illusion that these were wonderful people, but they were people you had to do business with. Suddenly Putin is now put in a Hitler category even worse than Stalin or Mao, and you can’t talk.

And I do want to disagree with one thing you’ve done: your retirement from this. You’re only about, what, a mere 80 years old; you’re a kid compared to me. But I remember when Bertrand Russell, one of the great intellectuals that we’ve had in our history, or Western history, dared to criticize the U.S. on Vietnam. He and Jean Paul Sartre, and actually raised the prospect that we had committed war crimes in Vietnam.

And the New York Times denounced Bertrand Russell, and they actually said he’d become senile. I went all the way to Wales when I was editing Ramparts magazine to interview Bertrand Russell—which I did, and I spent some lovely time with him. He certainly was frail at the age of 94, but he was incredibly coherent in defense of his position; he had been a very strong anti-communist all of his life, and now he was saying, wait a minute, we’re getting this war wrong.


Now Noam Chomsky has upset the apple cart by discussing some realities as REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT discusses below.



Meanwhile Glenn Greenwald notes:


If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.


On censorship, let's turn to Scott Ritter.




Scott Ritter is a pedophile.  He's one busted three times.  He's one sent to prison.  At his trial, the court expert testified that therapy had not helped him.


After he went off to prison, we didn't have to note him here anymore and, other than a loud conversation with Arianna Huffington, I really didn't speak of him.  That conversation was my advocating for a warning label at HUFFINGTON POST when they featured his columns.  She wouldn't go along with it but HUFFY would use it later for political enemies.


The next time we mentioned Pig Boy Scott Ritter after his conviction was when we explained why we we were not highlighting CONSORTIUM NEWS.  I'd wanted to support Nat in his effort to keep his father's outlet alive.  But then Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of CONSORTIUM, does a video with Ritter and Joe lies.


JOE LIES.  As Lili Taylor sang in SAY SOMETHING.


When news of Scott Ritter's second arrest leaked out, Scott began lying about it and would continue that lie until 2009.  He would lie that this wasn't what it seemed, it was a frame up by the Bush administration because he was speaking out against the war.  When he was arrested in 2009, Barack Obama was president.  


Now it was never a lie, the second arrest, the first arrest.  But he put out that lie.


And there was Joe lying all these years later about how Scott Ritter was removed from corporate media because he spoke out and because lies were told about him.


No.


And I'm not going to trust whores.


Robert Parry was a nice person.  But he did lie.  At the end, he realied he hadn't helped anyone with those lies, but he did lie.  He lied in his coverage about Barack.  He lied and he identified with Barack so he justified the lies.  Outlets shouldn't identify with the powerful.  In one of his last e-mails to me, he pointed out that I had said ("over and over") here (yes, I can be redundant) that we didn't need to protect Barack, he had the Secret Service for that.  I said we needed to tell the truth and stop running interference for Barack.  Robert wrote specifically about the various figures that he felt hemmed his site in and kept them from doing the job that they should have.


(E-mail exchanges between Robert Parry and Ava myself started in 2005 and was noted many times -- starting with an addition to the bottom of this 2005 piece.)


Robert made a mistake.  A serious one but he realized it.  And he agreed that the war against Russia began under Barack -- I'd noted that war was starting up in the weeks before Ed Snowden ended up in Russia.  Robert took part in the pushback against the lies about Russia and deserves praise for that.  His work over the decades deserves lots of praise.


But I don't support Joe Lauria.  I don't support liars.  Scott Ritter was pulled from corporate media.  And let's be clear that it wasn't because of Iraq.  Scott's a Republican -- or was.  They were always allowed to speak in corporate media about disagreeing regarding the war.  It was the left that was either ignored or savaged.  


Scott was kicked out of corporate media because they learned of his second arrest.


I didn't object when Joe Lauria was publishing CONSORTIUM.  I objected when Joe lied.  


"Breaking Down Ukraine Jimmy Dore, Sean Stone, Scott Ritter & Lara Logan to talk all things Ukraine."  I posted that CONVO COUCH video on March 23rd.  And I captioned it, "Scott Ritter was convicted of and served time for attempting to have sex with a minor. That arrest was his third such arrest for that crime."

In the March 1st "Iraq snapshot," we noted:

"A really great guest.  Someone who knows what war is.  Who has been in war."  Oh, Scott knows much more than that, Dan.  Why be so modest?


Dan Cohen, maybe the first thing to do is to get honest with your viewers?


Scott Ritter has been arrested multiple times for attempting to have sex with underage girls.  When Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House,, the claim was that this was all political and it was Republicans going after Scott.  Then he got arrested after Barack Obama was president.  And this time, he wasn't given a plea deal or a slap on the wrist.  This time, he went on trial and was convicted for his actions.  He's a registered sex criminal.


And you're not telling people that, Dan?


And Alan youre off on Tucker Carlson when your own outlet is promoting Scott without noting that he's a sex offender?


Is Scott such an important voice and analyst that we need him in public disccusion?  I'm not seeing it.  But I can be wrong.


We've included the video.  We've also included reality: That he's been arrested multiple times for attempting to engage in sex with underage girls.  That he was convicted of that -- and cried in court as he admitted he did it -- and was sentenced and sent to prison for it.


Apparently, MINT NEWS PRESS doesn't give two s**ts about the safety of young girls.


Big surprise -- that's sarcasm.  There's nothing at their website that indicates that they value women.  They're like so many 'left' sites in the '00s who don't get caught in 'idnetity politics' -- their excuse for ignoring the rights of women and girls and for ingoring racism.  


Alan's  a good writer.  But he looks like a hypocrite as he goes after Tucker Carlson while his own site promotes Scott Ritter.


They don't warn anyone.  And any 14 year old girl that Scott targets next who knows of Scott from MINT PRESS NEWS -- and only from MINT PRESS NEWS -- just knows that he's someone to be 'trusted' per MPN.  


Long ago I made the proposal that Scott Ritter should come with a warning lable.  Arianna took that over to her own site and then tried to apply it to Republicans running for office.  


This was not about political differences between myself and Scott Ritter.  This is about him being a convicted sex offender who has a history of attempting to have sex with underage girls.  I have no idea why his wife stayed with him.  I don't care, honestly.  But even before the conviction, we told the truth about Scott.  We did that because a CNN friend -- who was against the Iraq War, by the way -- warned me.  I was told that there were two arrests.  Unlike Sy Hersh, we told the truth and walked away.  


I don't like him.  I don't like anyone who tries to prey on children.  


Does he have anything of value to add to the discussion.  I'm not hearing it in the video above.  Maybe you are.  But we noted what he was convicted of and we provided the needed public warning.


MPN hasn't.  


Before he was arrested the last time (and convicted) we called out a number of outlets for promoting Scott and acting irresponsible.  It is irresponsible to promote him without nting what he is -- someone convicted of attempting to prey on children.  


I don't see anything I've done as attempting to censor Scott Ritter.  I have asked that the lies stop.  I have asked that a convicted felon be identified as such (as opposed to as "a great guy") when outlets bring him on.  I do see a world of difference.  I get it that others do not.


We live in a time of stupidity.  A simple debate can't take place as Michael Brenner points out.  And certain parties think rules don't apply.  Fiorella Isabel, if you bring on a convicted felon who preys on girls and you don't disclose that to your audience, you're not just setting other girls up to be victimized, you're not being honest with your audience.


And some will find out the truth.  When they do, they may wonder why you, Richard Medhurst and others weren't honest?  You had to lie to them.  They'll then question what else you told them, what else did you lie about?  If you're not able to admit that your guest was convicted in a court of law and served time in prison, that's your first hint that this isn't a guest you should have on.  The conviction is not in dispute.  The prison time is not in dispute.  Yet you refuse to identify your guest properly.


In Iraq, Turkey is again bombing the Kurdistan and has again sent ground troops in.  I won't hold my breath waiting for YOUTUBE jawboners to find that topic, it's eluded them for years now.


ANF NEWS reports:

The Christian Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan called for an immediate end to the Turkish attacks on southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

The CPT- Iraqi Kurdistan statement on the latest wave of Turkish attacks on South Kurdistan reads:

“Last night, Turkey launched a new military operation called Claw-Lock operation in Avashin, Zap and Matina areas in the Amedy district, of Duhok province, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Prior to launching the Claw-Lock operation, the Turkish air force bombed Shiladze, Deraluk and Kani Mase and surrounding villages almost 50 times. Also, dozens of Turkish soldiers were deployed from helicopters to the mountain ranges in the Nerwa-Rekan area.

The CPT-Iraqi Kurdistan team calls for Turkey to immediately stop the bombardments and to not endanger civilian lives in Iraqi Kurdistan anymore.”

MEDYA NEWS notes:


Protests were held against the latest incursions by the Turkish military into Iraqi Kurdistan, by groups in European cities on Sunday night following initial reports by Kurdish news outlets.

Demonstrations were staged in Marseilles in France, and in Stuttgart and Dusseldorf in Germany.

The protestors chanted slogans like, ‘Dictator Erdoğan’, ‘International Solidarity’, ‘Solidarity with Kurdistan’, and ‘Terrorist Erdogan’.

Further demonstrations are planned for Monday upon a call for solidarity action by the The Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress in Europe (KCDK-E) in the following locations in Germany, Switzerland and France:

ALAHAD TV notes:

A member of the Shiite framework, Ali Al-Fatlawi, for Al-Ahad: Turkey's continued violation of Iraqi sovereignty shows the prostration of Baghdad and the submission of Kurdistan before Ankara. #Iraq
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9:28 AM · Apr 18, 2022


 

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