RUSSELL SIMMONS, AKA LEMON PLEDGE, FORGOT HE WAS WRITING FOR HUFFINGTON POST AND LET HIS HOMOPHOBIA FLY IN "BARACK AIN'T NO PUNK."
HE MEANT, "BARACK AIN'T NO F**," FOR THOSE WHO MISSED IT.
A LOT OF BLACK AMERICA STILL THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH HOMOPHOBIA AND RUSSELL GOT SUPRISED TO BE CALLED ON IT. THE ARTICLE'S BEEN CHANGED, A NEW OPENING PENNED, A NEW TITLE GIVEN BUT, AS THE URL STILL ATTESTS, LITTLE RUSSELL DICKLESS SIMMONS THOUGHT HE COULD USE HOMOPHOBIA:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/barack-aint-no-punk-i-app_b_3914371.html
RUSSELL THINKS THIS IS THE WORLD OF 80S RAP AND HE CAN PRETEND LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. SAD THING IS, HE'S PROBABLY RIGHT.
BUT HE'S ALSO A DAMN HOMOPHOBE AND HE NEEDS TO BE CONFRONTED ON IT.
WHERE ARE THE LAUGHS THIS GO ROUND? WE FIND NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT HOMOPHOBIA.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Sunday, in the Bay Area, there's an event:
Sunday, September 15, 2013
12:30pm to 5:00pm
Walnut Park
downtown Petaluma, CA
downtown Petaluma, CA
Speakers:
Daniel Ellsberg - Pentagon Papers whistleblower, supporter of Chelsea Manning and Edward SnowdenJill Stein - 2012 Green Party Presidential candidate
Norman Solomon - author, activist, community organizer
Therese Mughannam-Walrath - Palestinian peace activist
Michael Nagler - Director, Metta Center for Nonviolence
Marc Armstrong - Director, Public Banking Institute
Kamal Prasad - food issues activist
Also speakers on:
- Immigration issues
- Stopping mass incarceration
- Fukushima nuclear plant
- Unite Here labor campaign
- Labeling GMOs
Entertainment:
The Pounce & Denounce PlayHouse - Occupy Petaluma's own theater troupeDe Colores with special guest, Francisco Herrera (Música de las Americas)
Spoken Word & Drums by Masaba (the Last Poets), &
Michael Rothenburg (100K Poets for Change)
Many Social Justice, Environmental, Labor, and Community Organizations will have Informational booths/tables.
The event is produced by the Petaluma Progressives and is cosponsored by KPFA 94.1 FM, the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County, The Bohemian and the Committee for Immigrant Rights, Sonoma County. It takes place at Petaluma Blvd South and D Street, downtown Petaluma. It is free to the public.
Tamales, Rice, Beans, Other Goodies & Drinks Available.
For more info, call 707.763.8134
Or by email: info@progressivefestival.org
A KPFA friend asked if we could note the event and note that, from one p.m. to three p.m., KPFA will be covering the event live. That's over the airwaves (94.1 on the FM dial) in the Bay Area and around the world online (KPFA offers live streaming and archives -- some archived program is archived briefly, I didn't think to ask how long this would be archived, sorry).
From an announcement to a quandry, what's wrong with this paragraph:
George W. Bush once flubbed an aphorism (granted, an easy to flub aphorism) about being fooled once, shame on the fooler, being similarly fooled twice, then the shame was on you.1 Barack Obama has turned the scenario on its head. Obama was not fooled by Bush and the neocons pushing for an attack on Iraq. In 2002, while a United States senator, Barack Obama said, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. … That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”2 For Obama, invading Iraq would be a dumb war.
That's Kim Petersen (Dissident Voice) making a common mistake. Barack Obama was not a US Senator in 2002. He was in the Illinois state legislature. He would run for the US Senate in 2004. And his opposition to the Iraq War?
And I'm so sad
like a good book
I can't put this
Day Back
a sorta fairytale
with you
a sorta fairytale
with you
-- "A Sorta Fairytale," written by Tori Amos, first appears on her album Scarlet's Walk
For those who can't remember, let's revisit former President Bill Clinton's 2008 remarks:
"But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "
[. . .]
"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004* and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break.
"This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
"*" It was 2003 when it was first disappeared as Glen Ford has pointed out.
Barack took no stand against the Iraq War as a US Senator, instead choosing to vote to fund it over and over. In 2008, Ted Glick became a two-bit whore for the Cult of St. Barack. At the start of 2007, he was much more honest about just how warlike and centrist Barack Obama actually was (and is).
Today Iraq makes Ana Marie Cox's number one item the topic of Syria's crowded out of the news in recent weeks. In a column for the Guardian, she notes:
Hey, there's still a war going on there! A milder, less deadly one, but sectarian conflict did not end with the official US military exit (over 5,000 armed private security contractors remain). Of all the other stories Americans should be aware of as the Syria debate continues, this is the most significant – and not just because the disaster looms so large in American memories, but because of the disaster that continues today – and has recently escalated. Car bombings and suicide attacks were killing a manageable 200-300 people per month last year; in July, that number was 900, and 700 in August – the deadliest months in five years. While far less than the 2,500 per month that died at the height of US involvement, the higher tolls are linked to Sunni extremists morbidly encouraged by the chaos next door in Syria.
Arming or aiding the Sunni rebels in Syria could give Iraqi Sunnis even more reasons to react with greater violence to the repressive techniques of the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Ana Marie Cox is correct that contractors remain. Marines remain to guard the US Embassy and consulates. The US military remains as 'trainers.' As Ted Koppel pointed out in December of 2011, various others would (and did) remain behind. And we'll yet again note Tim Arango's September 25th New York Times report which included, "Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to [US] General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."
On the ground in Iraq, violence continues. Twin bombings result in a large death toll on the edge of Baquba. AP identifies the location as Umm al-Adham village. AFP reports, "Iraqi officials say a bomb has struck a Sunni mosque during prayers north of Baghdad, killing 28 people in the latest eruption of violence to rock the country." at least forty-one more people are said to be injured. BBC News adds, "Two roadside bombs were detonated as worshippers left the al-Salam mosque after Friday prayers, police said." Lu Hui (Xinhua) reports:
At least 30 people were killed and 42 others wounded around midday when a car bomb hit worshippers as they completed their Friday prayers and went out of a mosque in the town of Ottomaniya, 15 km southwest of the provincial capital city of Baquba, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, one was killed and five others were wounded in a roadside bomb attack near a Sunni mosque in Qarataba, some 110 km northeast of Baquba, he added.
Raheem Salman, Isabel Coles and Mark Heinrich (Reuters) explain the two bombings "occurred about ten minutes apart in the ethnically and confessionally mixed city, situated around 65 km (40 miles) northeast of the capital Baghdad. The second explosion tore through a crowd of people who had rushed to help those hurt in the first blast." KUNA notes the death toll rose to 35.
The attacks comes during an already violent September. Through yesterday, Iraq Body Count counts 403 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month.
In other violence today, National Iraqi News Agency reports a Mosul home invasion has left 6 family members dead, Khalaf Humeed Mohammed (Board Chair of Shura county local council) was shot dead in Mosul, a Ramadi sticky bombing left one police officer injured, an Ishaqi car bombing targeting a bus filled with people journeying from Samarra to Balad and left 3 dead and twelve more left injured, and, early this morning, 1 Khadija preacher was shot dead and a Alaadheim car bombing left four people injured.
One week shy of the nine month anniversary, the ongoing protests in Iraq continue today. Iraqi Spring MC notes protests took place in Ramadi, in Falluja, in Tikrit, in Mosul and in Baiji.The protesters are demanding basic rights and freedoms. They have to demand them because Nouri fails to honor the most basic promises fails to honor the most basic promises government makes to its citizens. AP notes today, "Members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority have been protesting against the Shia-led government since December, angered over what they see as second-class treatment of their sect and what they see as unfair application of tough anti-terrorism measures."
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