Thursday, April 12, 2012

THIS JUST IN! HE'LL ALWAYS HAVE CLOONEY!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O MADE CLEAR HE IS NO FRIEND TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY. IN THE PROCESS HE HAS ANGERED MEMBERS OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY WHO AREN'T HIDING IN A CLOSET.

THAT HASN'T STOPPED PROFESSIONAL BACHELOR GEORGE CLOONEY FROM THROWING A GET-TOGETHER FOR HIM. THE ONE-TIME TV STAR ADMITS THE DECISION WAS "NON-POLITICAL, I JUST WANT TO PLAY MARTHA STEWART AND WEAR A NEW HOSTESS GOWN."

BESIDES NONE OF HIS LAST NINE MOVIES EVEN CROSSED THE ONE HUNDRED MILLION MARK INDICATING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE TIRED WITH CLOONEY AND HIS INCREASINGLY GIRL-LIKE FACE AND HAIR.

SAID THE TV-ACTOR, "I'VE FAILED IN THE MOVIES AS A MAN SO I THINK THE FACE WORK I'VE HAD DONE AND THE GIRLISH HAIR WILL LET ME START OVER IN THE ROM-COM BUSINESS, THIS TIME AS THE ONE WHO DATES CHRIS EVANS! KATHERINE HEIGL, LOOK OUT! I'M GOING TO BE THE NEW MEG RYAN!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

As pointed out in yesterday's snapshot, Omar Ali (Liberation) notes A.N.S.W.E.R.'s San Francisco chapter held a teach-in the afternoon of March 25th at the First Unitarian Chuch on Franklin. The topic of the teach-in was the Iraq War. Speakers included Dr. Jess Ghannam, Nazila Bargshady, Dr. Henry Clark, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Richard Becker and Gloria La Riva. Ali notes, "The teach-in was well attended by progressives from many different movements and communities. The diversity of the attendees demonstrates the sense of unity of different strata of the working class of this country in opposition to the war against the Iraqi masses.
We included some of Iraq War veteran and March Forward co-founder Mike Prysner's speech in yesterday's snapshot. A number of e-mails state that the video with Omar Ali streams visually but there's no audio. I didn't know that. I was using my own notes of Mike's speech. Since there are problems with the stream, we'll note some more of his speech (I didn't take notes during the other speeches)
Mike Prysner: Families would come to us whose children had been killed, whose children's limbs had been blown off, who came to us begging for some kind of monetary compensation because they were left with absolutely nothing. I saw literally thousands of detainees who did absolutely nothing except be a military age male who happened to live in a village that was picked at random to be raided one night and who was brought into detention facilities to be tortured and humiliated. You know, for me personally, as I said earlier, I wanted to go to this war. I believed very much in it. I believed very much in the military and our country. But all of the lies and indoctrination that we were being fed couldn't match reality because I had other teachers beyond the president and the military commanders and those were the Iraqi people. And there are several people who will always be burned in my memory, they're the ones who taught me the truth and taught me which side I was on. It was men who were urinating themselves, pleading through sandbags on their heads in detention facilities. It was a father who was shot through the neck and as he was dying saying over and over, "I just want to see my family, I just want to see my family." And the number one person, the one that really did it for me was -- I have a little sister who's now 18 so she was about 8 at the time I deployed. I got her name tattooed on my arm before I -- before I left. Her name's Rachel. And we were ordered at this one point to kick these families out of their home for whatever reason. And there was this 8-year-old girl who looked exactly like my sister and it was my job to drag her out of her house as she was crying, as her parents were crying, as her siblings were crying, arrest the males in her family, put them on a truck and send them to those detention facilities. And I couldn't stop looking at her face because it was my sister's face. And I realized that this girl was exactly like my sister, that man who was shot was exactly like my father and that these people were just like my family. And so what happened was, I couldn't stop seeing that everything that we were doing to the Iraqi people, I was doing to my own family. Because they are our family, they're our brothers and sisters. And so this was the breaking point for myself and so many others. And the daily violence, the daily abuse, the daily humiliation all by an unwanted foreign invader, led to a widespread popular uprising against the occupation. And no rank-in-file soldier who has been to Iraq can say that they don't understand why the Iraqi people stood up and fought back. In fact, that's the main factor why the majority of US troops ended up opposing the war: Because it was clear that the resistance of the Iraqi people was justified. But the US government had a plan for the popular rebellion too. They used the tactics of divide and conquer and shredded a once united country. And in it's wake, they left a country completely destroyed. And it's difficult to overstate the level of suffering and destruction that the Iraqi people now deal with. And anyone believing the lie that the war in Iraq was somehow out of care for the Iraq people, one just has to look to the wave of the war within the US military to see how true that is, to see how much this government cares about its own soldiers -- let alone Iraqis. Today, in the wake of the Iraq War, there's an epidemic of suicides in the US military -- where, for the past three years more active-duty soldiers are killing themselves than are being killed in combat. This is a staggering, shocking number. Thousands already have been abandoned and left to die alone with the guilt and trauma of what they've been sent to do, hundreds of thousands of families thrown into chaos by loved ones they no longer recognize. Suicide and suicide attempts are at such a staggering record breaking rate, they can only call it an emergency situation. You can only call it a crisis that this government has refused to respond to in any meaningful way. I've traveled to different bases that have high rates of suicides and the numbers are staggering. Among veterans there's 950 suicide attempts a month. But when you see these peoples' faces -- I mean, I met people who jumped out of their window in the middle of the night because they heard voices speaking in Arabic every time they turned the lights off. I've met people who can't eat because they can't hold their utensils because they shake so bad. And these same people, when the go to the doctors in the army and say "I need help," they're told that they're fine and that they have to go on other deployments. And they can go a million times a day to every doctor, every chaplain, every leader that they have in their chain of command and they'll be told the same thing. It will always be written into the history of this war that during this time the US government allowed a wave of preventable suicides through it's US military and did absolutely nothing to stop it but not only did nothing to stop it but actively tried to deny soldiers their access to treatment, to deny them compensation. This is what they're doing now as they try to save precious tax dollars -- you know the same people who spared no expense writing blank checks for new weapons systems. And of course if you can witness the truly shocking, devestating effects of the war on US troops, one can only imagine the level of psychological trauma experienced by Iraq's entire population who didn't do just one tour or two tours but lived 20 years under constant bombing and nine years of brutal occupation. None will bear the scars of the war deeper than the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi people have suffered and the suffering continues to this day. In many ways, that's due to the fact that the US government refused to utilize trained people and instead put thugs in power to scare the people with the hopes that a scared people couldn't fight back against the empire. The thugs get bored and consumed with their self-hatred so they lash out at others. Sometimes it's women, sometimes it's Christians, sometimes it's the LGBT community, sometimes it's . . . Anyone who isn't in the thug class is at risk of targeting in Iraq. Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project has released a video on being gay in Iraq which the Huffington Post has posted to their site. There is no closed caption but here's a transcript of the video.
Ahmed's Story: Surviving Persecution Against LGBT in Iraq
War and sectarian violence in Iraq forced thousands to flee for their lives and seek refuge elsewhere.
These people are stranded, unable to return to Iraq without risking their lives.
Ahmed had to flee Iraq as after the war intolerance towards homosexuality increased.
Neighboring countries fail to provide adequate protection to the growing number of refugees in Ahmed's situation.
For the safety of Ahmed and his family, identities have been concealed.
Ahmed: I was studying medicine in Baghdad University but after the war everybody starts to express every hatred he has. I don't support Saddam [Hussein -- ruler the US overthrew with the Iraq War] and I don't like him but at least there was law somehow. Sadly, my ex-boyfriend that I met four years ago and I was devoted to him for four years, I gave him my life, I gave him everything. He was the first boyfriend for me. He lost his job and he started to ask me for money, okay? Immediately, I started to give him, I give him everything I have. But then he started to ask for more and more. I told him, "My love, I cannot any more because my parents are suspecting. You know, I may lose my parents. He said, "I don't care about your parents." I had a lot of private pictures between me and him. He said, "You remember the photos we had?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Imagine that I will send the CDs to your uncles." I said, "No, you're joking." One day my sister called me. She said, "You have to flee Baghdad now. I have just received a call." She said that six of my uncles -- I have eight uncles -- they received a small envelope under the main gates of their houses. A letter was written with the CD: "Your son is one of Baghdad's biggest gay bitches." They made a meeting, those uncles, and they decided they want to make an 'honor' killing. And they want to shoot me in front of people. I said, "Are they serious?" She said, "Sure they are serious. You have to flee now. I prefer that you live in a far place rather than seeing your name on a rock on a grave." I said, "Do you hate me?" She said, "No, no. Just please, for God's sake, you have to flee."
Ahmed was able to escape to a neighbouring country, where he joined other family members.
Ahmed: I had a kind of stable, calm life. You know, I lived with my mom and dad, they loved me so much. I have my own friends and I had a boyfriend there.There was a small shop called Sense for perfumes and I liked some of their perfumes. I went there and I am paying. At that moment, I felt a hand is grabbing my hair and two hands grabbing and pulling my hands. I looked at them. I was shocked. The religious police. They say, "You're a f**. Is that how a man has to look like?" Then we went to the high court. The judge, he said, "You know, you are accused for being a homosexual. I want to tell you something, you don't deserve to live and you are a shame for your family, for the Iraqi nation, or for the Muslim nation. God, he took a lot of time. More than you deserve." In that jail, a police man entered. He said, "I know your story and I feel sorry for you." I was so happy. I said, "At last there is a good guy here." He said, "I want you to stand up." I said, "Okay." I stood up. He said, "I want to make sure. Are you really f**got?" Then he said, "Yeah, it seems that you are." Okay, then he tried with me. I refused. I refused. I refused. I clenched and clenched and spass-ed my muscles so as he won't be able to rape me fully. He was so mad. And he said, "You bitch. I will turn your days to hell in this jail.
Ahmed's parents were able to get him a conditional release from jail, prior to his trial.
They then contacted IRAP.
With the help of the Iraqi Refugees Assistance Project, Ahmed is now living safely and openly in the United States.
In Iraq, however, violence against the LGBT community is resurging.
Support the work of IRAP and help others like Ahmed.
Visit RefugeeRights.org to donate.
Imagine living in Iraq today and being gay (or just being thought to be gay). Huffington Post notes, "As Reuters reports, death squads have been targeting two separate groups -- gay men, and those who dress in a distinctive, Western-influenced style called 'emo,' which some Iraqis mistakenly associate with homosexuality, since the start of this year."
Near the start of last month, Trudy Ring (SheWired) reported:


A recent wave of violence in Iraq has resulted in the kidnapping, torture, and killing of about 40 people perceived to be gay or lesbian, with the murder weapon sometimes being a concrete block to the head.
The killings began in early February after an unidentified group put up posters with death threats against "adulterous individuals" in largely Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and Basra, reports the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. The threats listed the targets' names and ages, and gave them four days to change their behavior or face divine retribution.
Some of the murders have been carried out by smashing the victims' skulls with concrete blocks or pushing them off roofs of tall buildings, says a report from two other groups, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq and Iraqi LGBT.
Again, imagine living in Iraq today and being gay (or just being thought to be gay). And, yes, it was better for Iraq's LGBT community under Saddam Hussein. As it was for Christians and for women and for minority groups in general.
What pretty words. What a shame his Special Envoy to Iraq spits on those words, betrays Iraq's LGBT community, stays silent as they're targeted and killed, ignores the persecution.
As we noted yesterday, the Special Envoy Martin Kobler appeared Tuesday before the United Nations Security Council where he yammered away for approximately 20 minutes and also handed in a written report/statement which was 17 pages long. Though he was supposedly concerned about violence and targeted groups and though he made his focus the first three months of the year, he couldn't bring himself to mention the targeting of Iraq's LGBT community. He could talk about the so-called 'honor' killings but not in relation to gay men or lesbians. Ban Ki-moon assured the world's LGBT community just last month that they were not alone. Just yesterday, his Special Envoy to Iraq, made clear that, in fact, Iraq's LGBTs are very much alone. Martin Kobler made very clear that the United Nations, as represented by him in Iraq, will gladly and always look the other way while thugs go on killing sprees. One of the slogan of the United Nations is, "It's your world." But apparently that doesn't apply for LGBTs. Someone with the UN to address whether Ban Ki-moon was lying or if Martin Kobler just doesn't understand how offensive what he did yesterday was?
Also smelling up the room was US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice who didn't say a word about the exclusion and silence despite the fact that she presided over the Security Council hearing. The White House is aware, see this White House announcement, that this is LGBT Pride Month. But Barack mouths a lot of pretty words he apparently doesn't mean. This was made clear today when the White House announced they would not issue an executive order barring discrimination against LGBTs on the part of contractors awarded State Dept or Defense Dept contracts. Byron Tau (POLITICO) reports:
Obama is under pressure from some gay activists to endorse same-sex marriage -- and his refusal to address discrimination through executive order is unlikely to help him among those in the community who are hoping for a more forceful stance on equality from the White House.
"I don't know if the White House is politically homophobic, actually homophobic, or just afraid of doing anything that might risk some attention," Heather Cronk, the managing director of GetEQUAL.
"He's not going to have hoards of gay folks running over and voting for Romney," Cronk said, admitting that Obama stands little chance of losing votes to Republicans over the issue. "The problem [is] that the White House is making a calculation."
And making it clear that they aren't that 'gay friendly,' let alone the fierce advocate for gay rights Michelle used to insist Barack was.


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