Tuesday, September 27, 2022

CREEM, George Ezra

I'm always surprised ROLLING STONE is still around.  It's so far from music most issues.  But maybe that's why it's still around?  Once upon a time, the US had a ton of music magazines.  CRAWDADDY,  SMASH HITS, ROCK!, STAR HITS, MUSICIAN, SONG HITS, HIT PARADER, CIRCUS, SPIN (still around), RAVE, ROCK SCENE, TROUSER PRESS, BLUES & SOUL,  JAZZ & POP, POP WEEKLY, DOWN BEAT . . .  

One magazine, as we've noted before, is attempting a comeback: CREEM.  Steve Appleford (LOS ANGELES TIMES) reports:



For J.J. Cramer, the quest to resurrect the notorious rock magazine Creem was a lifetime goal that was always just out of reach.

He was 4 years old in 1981 when his father, publisher Barry Kramer, died of a drug overdose and left Creem to the preschooler soon listed on the masthead as “chairman.” His mother, Connie, took over running the magazine for several years. But when financial issues finally forced her to sell, the younger Kramer promised himself that one day he’d get it back.

Now, after decades of false starts and two lawsuits, Creem is back in action as a subscription-only quarterly with an active online presence. It lands this month as a sophisticated, large-format publication that is both contemporary and true to Creem’s original flavor, without slipping into nostalgia for the rock ‘n’ roll past.

Days before the debut printed magazine began hitting subscriber mailboxes in early September, Creem posted video of it rolling off the presses. “It was a surreal moment for me,” said Kramer, whose day job is attorney and global head of intellectual property for the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch. “I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t get a little choked up over it.”

Click here for CREEM's website.


And George Ezra's about to begin his UK tour:


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 Tuesday, September 27, 2022.  Some 'movement' on the political situation in Iraq while Ed Snowden is granted citizenship in Russia.


Starting with whistle-blower Ed Snowden.

Russian President Putin has granted US whistle-blower Edward Snowden Russian citizenship Snowden fled the US and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA.
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Jameel Jafar Tweets:


Think what you want about Snowden and Russia. He did an immense public service by exposing mass surveillance programs that multiple courts later found to be unconstitutional. The newspapers that happily collected prizes for their reporting on the abuses should say this clearly.


In his most recent column, Ed Snowden notes:

Our glittering nation of laws observes this year two birthdays: the 70th anniversary of the National Security Agency, on which my thoughts have been recorded, and the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act. The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President, through the National Security Council he controls.

Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), and—gasp—interfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.

In 1963, no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended, writing:

“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble…”

Many today comfort themselves by imagining that the Agency has been reformed, and that such abuses are relics of the distant past, but what few reforms our democracy has won have been watered-down or compromised. The limited “Intelligence Oversight” role that was eventually conceded to Congress in order to placate the public has never been taken seriously by either the committee’s majority—which prefers cheerleading over investigating—or by the Agency itself, which continues to conceal politically-sensitive operations from the very group most likely to defend them.

"Congress should have been told," said [Senator] Dianne Feinstein. "We should have been briefed before the commencement of this kind of sensitive program. Director Panetta... was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to Congress."

How can we judge the ultimate effectiveness of oversight and reforms? Well, the CIA plotted to assassinate my friend, American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, in 1972, yet nearly fifty years of “reforms” did little to inhibit them from recently sketching out another political murder targeting Julian Assange. Putting that in perspective, you probably own shoes older than the CIA’s most recent plot to murder a dissident... or rather the most recent plot that we know of.

If you believe the Assange case to be a historical anomaly, some aberration unique to Trump White House, recall that the CIA’s killings have continued in series across administrations. Obama ordered the killing of an American far from any battlefield, and killed his 16 year-old American son a few weeks later, but the man’s American daughter was still alive by the time Obama left.

Within a month of entering the White House, Trump killed her.

She was 8 years old.

It goes beyond assassinations. Within recent memory, the CIA captured Gul Rahman, who we know was not Al-Qaeda, but it seems did save the life of Afghanistan’s future (pro-US) President. Rahman was placed in what the Agency described as a “dungeon” and tortured until he died.

They stripped him naked, save a diaper he couldn’t change, in a cold so wicked that his guards, in their warm clothes, ran heaters for themselves. In absolute darkness, they bolted his hands and feet to a single point on the floor with a very short chain so that it was impossible to stand or lie down – a practice called “short shackling” – and after he died, claimed that it was for his own safety. They admit to beating him, even describing the “forceful punches.” They describe the blood that ran from his nose and mouth as he died.


And Glenn Greenwald Tweets:

As a reminder, US courts repeatedly ruled the programs Edward Snowden disclosed to us and enabled us to report were *unconstitutional and illegal violations of Americans' privacy rights*. I can't imagine the serf-like mentality needed to oppose this.
theguardian.com
NSA surveillance exposed by Snowden was illegal, court rules seven years on
Appeals court says intelligence leaders who defended dragnet – which was revealed by Snowden to the Guardian – were not telling the truth


Meanwhile, Turkey continues to terrorize Iraq.  ANF NEWS reports:

Iraqi and Yazidi Kurdish women made a press statement yesterday (Sep. 25) at the Al Mound Hall in Baghdad concerning the increasingly ongoing Turkish air strikes against Iraq.

The Iraqi and Kurdish women stated that they took a step against the invasion attacks carried out by the invading Turkish state in South Kurdistan in an attempt to “stop Turkish aircraft that put the peace and security of the region in jeopardy and kill the Kurdish people.”

Interviewed by Rojnews, the activists said that they wanted to collect 1 million signatures to denounce the invasion attacks of the Turkish state.

Esma Shemeri, deputy head of the Peace Message Organization and an activist, called on the Iraqi government to object to the invasion of the Turkish state. She stressed that the Iraqi government should take a stand against the Turkish violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

Ala Qeytan, head of the International Inanna Media Institution, stated that all political parties in Iraq should support their campaign in order to end the occupation of the Turkish state. “The Turkish violation of Iraqi sovereignty should be taken to the United Nations. Furthermore, Iraqi forces who want to remove the Turkish state from Iraqi territory should be endorsed,” Qeytan added.


Meanwhile, October 10th, Iraq held elections.  All this time later -- thirteen days shy of one year -- still no prime minister, still no president, still on Cabinet of Ministers.  There has been talk that this week will some sort of a power-sharing alliance announcement.  Though that hasn't happened, there has been movement on the political stalemate today -- movement backwards.   Mohammed al-Halbousi, the Speaker of Parliament, has announced his resignation.  AFP notes:


The speaker "is not planning to resign but by allowing a potential vote of confidence to go ahead he is expecting his coalition partners to back him strongly", Sajad Jiyad, a fellow at the Century International think-tank, told AFP.

He said the aim was to "end any further attempts to unseat him.

"This will cement his position as political leader of Iraq's Sunnis and put pressure on" Shiite and Kurdish parties to form a government, Jiyad added.


I'm reading a lot of garbage elsewhere and don't want to link to the nonsense.  Mohammed al-Halbousi?  THE NATIONAL, for example, wastes of ton of words but never says anything.


Mohammed was the only national figure that could be voted in after the October 10th elections.  They couldn't decide on who should be president or who should be prime minister, but they could decided on who should be Speaker of Parliament.  


And the decision was made all the easier -- pay attention at THE NATIONAL -- because Mohammed became Speaker of Parliament . . . in September 2018.  All they did in 2022 was retain him in the post -- not as a 'caretaker' but as the new Speaker.  That's the only progress they made and when he was (re)voted in, the attitude was: We had an election to just retain the same people?


We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:


For Immediate Release:

Media Contact
communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022—October 1, 2022 is the 14th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Yet, jihadist terrorist violence on the African continent has increased since the founding of AFRICOM and NATO’s destruction of Libya resulting in civilian casualties and instability, which the West has used as pretext and justification for the continued need for AFRICOM. Since its founding, coups carried out by AFRICOM-trained soldiers have also increased.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is organizing an International Month of Action Against AFRICOM in October. This is an effort to raise the public's awareness about how the presence of U.S. military forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.

Despite its rhetoric, the purpose of AFRICOM is to use U.S. military power to impose U.S. control on African land, resources and labor to service the needs of U.S. multinational corporations and the wealthy in the United States. It also serves as a major boon to “defense” contractors.

AFRICOM is a direct product of NATO via the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which originally took responsibility for 42 African states. In 2003, NATO started expanding; four years later, in 2007, EUCOM commander James L. Jones, who was also NATO commander of operational forces, proposed the creation of AFRICOM.

NATO has become a huge global axle in the wheel of the military industrial complex, which includes more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world as well as  joint bases or relationships with almost all African countries. These are all controlled by the U.S. empire for realizing the U.S. policy of Full Spectrum Dominance, which is driven by the ferocious appetite of international finance  capital.

NATO continues today in the form of AFRICOM facilitating wars, instability and the corporate pillage of Africa. This hypocrisy explains why 17 African nations abstained from the March 2 United Nations resolution condemning Russia. One African state, Eritrea, even voted no. Their experiences with NATO and AFRICOM ensure skepticism of self-proclaimed noble motives.

Motives such as bill H.R. 7311, the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act',' a racist affront to African sovereignty designed to dictate what bi-lateral relations African states are permitted to have.

That is why we call on our friends and allies to endorse this month as an individual or organization. Beyond that, we are calling on you to participate each week using our calls to action, for which we have provided materials on our webpage. Each week’s call to action ranges from watching our kick-off webinar to organizing mass actions like banner drops, facilitating teach-ins using our materials and spreading the word using BAP’s custom graphics.

The Black Alliance for Peace calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures. Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.

We demand:

  • The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

  • The demilitarization of the African continent;

  • The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

  • The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.


Thee following sites updated:





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Monday, September 26, 2022

Hey look, Stevie, it's Cher doing in 1969 what you think you just did this year

Poor Stevie Nicks.  She's trying to be woman-positive but erasing a woman in the process.  ROLLING STONE reports:


Stevie Nicks has dropped a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” putting her own witchy spin on the classic Sixties protest anthem.

Nicks recorded the song earlier this year in Los Angeles with producer Greg Kurstin, longtime guitarist and session legend Waddy Wachtel, and backing vocalist Sharon Celani. Her rendition contains the spirit of the original — which Stephen Stills wrote about the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles — while her husky vocals contribute a current feel.

“I’m so excited to release my new song this Friday,” Nicks wrote on social media earlier this week. “It’s called ‘For What It’s Worth’ and it was written by Stephen Stills in 1966. It meant something to me then, and it means something to me now. I always wanted to interpret it through the eyes of a woman — and it seems like today, in the times that we live in — that it has a lot to say…”



Problem?  A woman interpreted already.  And did so years ago.  3613 JACKSON HIGHWAY is the album.  It's the first track on that 1969 album by . . . Cher.

Nice try, Stevie.  Please play again.

Here's Cher singing the song.


Maybe Stevie missed the album?  But she did watch Glenn Campbell's TV show.  She's talked about that in interviews.  Oh, look, here's Cher performing "For What It's Worth" on Glenn's TV show.




Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Monday, September 26, 2022.  The western media gloms on one death while ignoring another and Iraq may be close to ending the ongoing political stalemate.


Over at COMMON DREAMS, Julia Conley wants you to know that US 'progressives' like AOC are up in arms and expressing 'solidarity' with some protesting in Iran over the death of 21-year-old Mahsa Amini.  It's great Julia Conley that you've finally discovered a Kurd -- it's not as though you've written of any Kurds in Iraq despite the fact that they are being terrorized by the government of Turkey.  In fact, here's RUDAW reporting yesterday on the latest Turkish attack:


Akre’s acting mayor Shaaban Barwari told Rudaw that alleged Turkish warplanes had struck villages in Dinarte district at 11:30pm on Saturday.

A local villager from Amedi, Ramzi Sargali, told Rudaw’s Nasser Ali that Turkish aircraft has been bombing the area for almost three months and while no casualties have been inflicted, it is causing fear among the local population. 

Turkey launched its latest operation, dubbed Claw-Lock, on April 18 targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in the mountainous areas of Metina, Zap, Avashin, and Basyan in Duhok province. The operation is the fourth stage of Ankara’s Claw operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region, with the first stage starting in 2019. 


If you were a sentient human being, you might ask why this death, of all deaths, is getting so much play but that would require a brain -- wouldn't it, Julia?


And a brain might mean you'd ask why members of the US Congress are so up in arms over a death in Iran that has nothing to do with the US while they ignore -- as does Julia Conley -- the death of a 15-year-old girl in Iraq last week, a death that said to be the fault of the US military.  You'd think members of the US Congress would be asking what happened in Iraq.


At INSURGENTE.ORG, Hafsa Kara-Mustapha notes that the Iranian death is beloved by western media because it takes place in a country that doesn't "toe the Western line" and that an investigation was launched in Iran and that Iranian officials offered condolences to the family.  The coverage, Hafsa notes, seems created to "inspire riots in resource-rich countreis" and that we've seen that before.  Meanwhile, 15-year-old Zainab Essam al-Jaszli was shot last week near Camp Bucca in Baghdad by US forces without any Western media reporting on the murder "demonstrating once again that it is not about human rights."


 Zainab Essam al-Khazali, as we noted Friday, "That's a name the US media can't seem to find.  But others are noting her name."  Including Haid Nasrallah:


Is anyone talking about Zainab Essam Al-Khazali? the 15 year old Iraqi girl who was shot and killed by US forces in Iraq yesterday. She wasn’t killed by Iran so her story does not matter to western media.
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All these days later, the US media tries to maintain a silence.  The excessively -- yes, that is the term -- cover the death of an Iranian female, Mahsa Amini, while ignoring the death of an Iraqi girl.  When I saw the interview on that with Amy Goodman, it just gave me an uneasy feeling.  A little too pat, a little to planted, a little too hypocritical.  It was Thursday afternoon when I saw that segment and I already knew about Zainab.  A death in Iran was breaking all over the media but this Iraqi death, which is the US is said to be responsible for, no one was talking about it.


As we noted Saturday, "hypocrisy" is the term foreign outlets were using to describe the US media silence. Sunday, the hypocrisy continues.  


With one exception, at WSWS, Dominic Gustavao reports on Zainab:


A teenage girl was shot dead by American soldiers as they conducted live-fire drills at the Victoria military base near Baghdad International Airport on September 20. 

Fifteen year-old Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali, a student, was working with her father on their family farm when a bullet struck her in the head. Her funeral procession was held the next day. 

The Iraqi Security Media Cell promised an investigation into the murder, which it initially described as a “random shooting.” However a statement given by Iraq’s security forces, quoted by The Cradle, confirmed the culpability of the US military: “The killing of Zainab Essam Majed coincided with the presence of training operations for the American forces … the bullet that was taken out of the girl’s head confirms that it is from one of the weapons used by the American forces in the embassy and airport.” 

The shooting has provoked widespread outrage, with locals demanding to know why American soldiers were holding live-fire exercises near residential areas. On September 22, Iraqi legislator Ahmed Taha al-Rubaie, from the Basra province, called upon the Baghdad government to summon the American ambassador and present her with a formal note of protest, along with taking legal measures to hold those responsible for the murder accountable. 

In a post on Twitter, Rubaie wrote, “Even though two days have passed since the teenage girl was killed by a bullet fired during US military exercises near the Victoria base northwest of Baghdad, the US Embassy has not bothered to issue any official apology for the unjust incident.”

He went on, “The death, which occurred as a result of the use of live rounds during military drills near residential neighborhoods, exhibits an outrageous disregard for the Iraqi blood and a blatant disrespect for the country's sovereignty.”

Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, a Shi’ite militia group that is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, demanded on Twitter that the government “present a detailed report to the Iraqi people, explaining … this cowardly incident, and how a military base can exist on Iraqi soil in clear violation of the Iraqi constitution … and sovereignty.”

It remains unclear whether the shooting was intentional, or the result of US troops recklessly firing off live ammunition near populated urban areas. In either case, it demonstrates the criminal indifference of the US occupiers towards the lives of the people whom they “liberated.” It also exposes the cynicism and hypocrisy of the leaders of the US and the other imperialist powers as they invoke concern for “human rights” to justify the use of militarism. 


As Dominic notes, both THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST have used the same person (Karim Sadjadpour) to weigh in on the death of the female in Iran while ignoring the murder of the Iraqi girl.  And, for the record, Karim is not the same person Amy Goodman brought on to cover the Iranian death.  Amy went with former VOICE OF AMERICA correspondent Negar Mortazavi.

This morning, Kumail Abbas Tweets:


A 15-year-old Iraqi girl was killed by US on Tuesday 20th September, identified as Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali. The murder of the teen by US forces has gained little to no coverage in Western media. #zainabessamalkhazali #iraq #USA #fullajah
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Ijaz Shigri Tweets:

Why #ZainabEssam, who was killed by the firing of American soldiers in Iraq, could not get the attention that #MahsaAmini's death got? Because Mahsa's death is in the interest of America and the West, and the case of Zainab Essam is directly related to American brutality.
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Meanwhile, in an article noting government protests may resume October 1st -- this would be The October Revolution, not Moqtada's cult -- THE NATIONAL's Sinan Mahmoud reports:


Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Co-ordination Framework is close to announce a coalition with Kurds and Sunnis that could not only expedite the government formation process, but also provoke the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who has boycotted the political process.

The announcement was planned for Sunday, but was postponed.

Fadi Al Shimmari, a politician affiliated to CF, said the agreement was finalised late on Sunday with two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Sunni Azam and Sovereignty coalition as well as the Christian Babylonian party.



The following sites updated:





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