What kind of a reporter is Jeremy Diamond?
A pretty lousy one.
This is from his Rand Paul report at CNN:
Instead of attending his committee
hearing, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate spent his time
blasting Clinton as "oblivious" to and denying requests for additional
security at the Benghazi consulate. The compound was later attacked by
terrorists who killed several diplomats there, including U.S. Ambassador
to Libya Chris Stephens.
"The Benghazi
thing is going to be very difficult for (Clinton) to dig out of that
hole because people want their president to be someone who will defend
American missions, diplomatic missions around the world," Paul, who was
in Washington Wednesday, told WVLK radio that morning.
"killed several diplomats there"?
Four people were killed in the immediate attack (a number of CIA agents died in the days after). The four were Chris Stephens, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty.
And, no, Smith and Doherty weren't 'diplomats.'
But the whole 'report' is a joke.
It's nothing but an attack on Senator Rand Paul.
I don't recall the media having a fit when Barack missed Congressional hearings to campaign for president.
The double standard is amazing.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, April 23, 2015. Chaos and violence continue, Twitter stupidity continues, we examine a liar whoring for Barack by (mis)representing Gerald Ford, how the liars self-exposure will never be forgotten, the Pentagon is caught lying about 'success' in Iraq, and much more.
Twitter is where informed debate goes to die.
If you ever doubt it, check out the nonsense that's always spewing from Khalid Latif's Twitter feed. Most recently, that would include this:
Gerald Ford?
You deeply stupid idiot.
Do you know anything about anything?
Or do you just Tweet to flaunt your gross stupidity?
The idiot is trying to say Barack is innocent of blame for Iraq -- just like Gerald Ford is innocent of blame for Vietnam.
And the idiot says that because in American any idiot can say anything.
Gerald Ford is highly responsible for Vietnam and anyone who bothered to review Ford's Congressional record would know that.
They'd know that Ford supported the Vietnam War, they'd know that they hectored and mocked President Lyndon B. Johnson for not doing more -- more killing, more lying -- to increase the death totals.
Ford is completely culpable for Vietnam.
He served in Congress and was a cheerleader for the Vietnam War. That was true under Johnson and it was true under Nixon's administration as well.
Here's US House Rep Jerry Ford (as he was billed while in Congress) sharing with his constituents in his weekly newsletter (the date for this one is July 23, 1969) entitled "Your Washington Review by Congressman Jerry Ford" (PDF format warning, click here):
WHO IS BLOCKING PEACE IN VIETNAM? Self-examination and self-criticism may be a healthy exercise but to hear some Americans, one would believe that the failure to achieve peace in Vietnam is the fault of the United States and its South Vietnamese Allies. But let's look at the record:
[Jerry lies and lies some more. We're not include his 7 lies and if that bothers you, it bothers me that he's a liar who didn't just serve on the Warren Commission -- investigation into the assassination of JFK -- and didn't just whore -- claimed CIA missions were at risk and that's why things had to be kept from the public -- but he also spied on his fellow commissioners for the FBI who feared that the Commission would not back the narrative of a lone gunman.]
While President Nixon works diligently for peace, what is Hanoi doing? It negates our efforts at Paris, it violates agreements for a demilitarized zone, and it continues an aggressive war against civilians and soldiers in South Vietnam. Let's put the responsibility for war or peace where it belongs -- on the communist aggressors of North Vietnam.
Some people would insist that Khalid Latif needed to stop speaking. I hope he never does. I hope he keeps opening his uninformed mouth and sharing his idiotic views that are not based in fact so that everyone realizes he is the Village Idiot.
Because that's what he is.
It's not all he is.
He's also the Tavern Whore.
Swinging that ass to sell it for Barack.
Cheap little Tavern Whore.
Barack is responsible for the Iraq War.
He was (wrongly) elected to the US Senate while pretending to be against the Iraq War. He wasn't. That was about out-lefting his Democratic opponent that Jeff Zeleny (now with CNN) and the others in the not-so-secretive cabal used to take down a Democrat and to do so with vile and disgusting tactics that we will not acknowledge here. The cabal then worked to take down Barack's Republican opponent Jack Ryan with more vile and disgusting tactics -- including exposing secrets of a divorce that were hidden to protect a child. But remember, Barack's kids are off limits. He can destroy other people's children, but no one better say a word about his little babies. The cabal protected him -- only in Chicago which is probably the most corrupt region anywhere on the face of the planet.
Before he was elected to the Senate, he was already for the Iraq War. I know that because Elaine and I attended a big money fundraiser for him and both of us intended to write big checks but we got face time with him first and his position was that the US military was already in Iraq so it was too late to oppose the war.
Grasp that this position is how he justified, once in the Senate, repeatedly voting for every Iraq War proposal and funding authorization. It's also whey he told the New York Times in July of 2004, as he was preparing to give the keynote speech at the DNC convention in Boston, that if he had been in the Senate in the fall of 2002, he didn't know if he would have voted for the Iraq War or not.
Again, the liar ran for the Senate as an anti-war candidate and ran for the presidency in 2007 and 2008 claiming that was opposed to the Iraq War and had been from the start.
So as a member of the Congress, Barack supported the Iraq War -- a detail Khalid Latif is so unfamiliar with.
As President of the United States?
Well, among many other things, he did not keep his promise to withdraw all US troops in 16 months.
The most important thing he did on Iraq was overturn the 2010 election and refuse to side with the winner (Iraqiya and Ayad Allawi) but instead back Nouri al-Maliki whose State of Law had come in second.
Khalid knows nothing of this because he's such an idiot. Here's Dexter Filkins explaining at The New Yorker in 2014:
In parliamentary elections the previous March, Maliki’s Shiite Islamist alliance, the State of Law, had suffered an embarrassing loss. The greatest share of votes went to a secular, pro-Western coalition called Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, a persistent enemy of the Iranians. “These were election results we could only have dreamed of,” a former American diplomat told me. “The surge had worked. The war was winding down. And, for the first time in the history of the Arab world, a secular, Western-leaning alliance won a free and fair election.”
[. . .]
Shortly after the elections, an Iraqi judge, under pressure from the Prime Minister [Nouri al-Maliki], awarded Maliki the first chance to form a government. The ruling directly contradicted the Iraqi constitution, but American officials did not contest it. “The intent of the constitution was clear, and we had the notes of the people who drafted it,” [Emma] Sky, the civilian adviser, said. “The Americans had already weighed in for Maliki.”
Earlier this month, POLITICO published Emma Sky's "How Obama Abandoned Democracy in Iraq: Bush's mistake was invading the country. His successor's was leaving it to a strongman" in which she explains how, in the 2010 elections, Iraqis reached for something more: a national identity. And the US government could have backed that by supporting Iraqiya's win but instead worked to undermine it so that thug Nouri al-Maliki could have a second term. This was not under Bully Boy Bush. Barack was president. Chris Hill was Barack's (hideous and destructive) US Ambassador to Iraq. She notes US Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Iraq:
Biden visited Iraq at the end of August 2010. By then, Hill had been replaced as ambassador by Jim Jeffrey. In internal meetings, one U.S. adviser argued that Maliki was “our man”: He would give us a follow-on Status of Forces Agreement to keep a small contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq after 2011; he was a nationalist; and he would fight the Sadrists. Furthermore, the official claimed that Maliki had promised him that he would not seek a third term. “Maliki is not our friend,” replied another official, Jeff Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, exasperated at the delusional nature of the discussion. But Biden had been persuaded by the arguments that there was no one but Maliki who could be prime minister and that he would sign a new security agreement with the United States. The Obama administration wanted to see an Iraqi government in place before the U.S. mid-term elections in November. Biden believed the quickest way to form a government was to keep Maliki as prime minister, and to cajole other Iraqis into accepting this.
[. . .]
I tried another tack: “It is important to build belief in the democratic process by showing people that change can come about through elections—rather than violence. The peaceful transfer of power is key—it has never happened in the Arab World.” At the very least, either Maliki or Talabani needed to give up his seat; otherwise, they would both think they owned the seats. Biden did not agree. He responded that there were often elections in the United States that did not bring about any change.
And Joe knows all about US elections that brought about no change. For example, he was on the 2008 ticket that was supposed to be about "change."
Supposed to be.
In a piece this month at Slate, Sky noted former Minister of Finance Rafi Issawi:
“Was it inevitable that Iraq would disintegrate?” I asked Rafi. No, it was not, he assured me. Iraq had been moving in a positive direction after the surge. This downward trajectory began in 2010 when the United States had not upheld the right of Iraqiya to have first chance at trying to form the government after it won the elections. “We might not have succeeded,” he admitted, “but the process itself would have been important in building trust in Iraq's young institutions.”
[. . .]
Rafi listed the Sunni grievances that had simmered until they had finally boiled over. Maliki had detained thousands of Sunnis without trial, pushed leading Sunnis out of the political process by accusing them of terrorism, and reneged on payments and pledges to the Awakening members who had bravely fought al-Qaida in Iraq--its leaders were dead, fled, or in jail. The request by provincial councils in Salah al-Din, Diyala, and Mosul to hold a vote on the formation of regions—in accordance with the Constitution--was prevented by force. Peaceful, yearlong Sunni protests demanding an end to discrimination were met by violence, with dozens of unarmed protesters killed by Iraqi security forces. Maliki had completely subverted the judiciary to his will, so that Sunnis felt unable to achieve any form of justice.
From the informed back to the ridiculous:
I'm sorry, how many Iraqis died in 2011?
That's sort of key to the point.
And it takes a xenophobe to ignore the deaths of Iraqis in their own country and to imply that their deaths don't matter.
I'm so sick of trash using Iraq as a soap box to fight their little battles unrelated to Iraq.
And, using Iraqi government figures (notoriously low balled), AFP reported 2645 deaths from violence in Iraq in 2011. (2011 is considered to have had the least violent deaths.)
Today Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 136 violent deaths.
James Bradford, you may be brain dead.
Barack claims the Islamic State in Iraq is on the run. The Pentagon insists the same. The press, like good court stenographers, jot down the claim and then go on to unquestioningly repeat it.
Until today. Tim Mak (Daily Beast) reports:
But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.
The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included.
“Taken in isolation, the map definitely gives an impression that anti-ISIS efforts have succeeded in pushing the group back along a northern and north-eastern peripheries, but it fails in one huge respect—it fails to specifically identify territory gained by ISIS during the same period,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
Oops.
Staying with the US . . .
All you folks think I got my price
At which I'll sell all that is mine
You think money rules when all else fails
Go sell your soul and keep your shell
I'm trying to protect what I keep inside
All the reasons why I live my life
-- "Crossroads," written by Tracy Chapman, first appears on her album of the same name
Not everyone has a price.
But many do.
Michael Eric Dyson has a price.
No one is above criticism. That's me, that's anyone. I like Dr. Cornel West and applaud his activism. That doesn't mean he can't be wrong or that people can't criticize him. But Michael Eric Dyson, professional whore, has not offered a critique. He's offered the usual smear job Dyson is infamous for.
In fairness to Michael, he may have once had an honest bone in his body. If so, it was probably attached to his spine and, when his spine was removed oh, so many years ago, he was left without a single honest bone in his body.
Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) offers a strong rebuttal to Dyson's character assassination of Cornel:
At CounterPunch, Ben Norton also explored Dyson's revisionary history and his attack on Cornel West. And in this community, Dyson's ugly jealousy was explored in the following:
We have long explained that these whores who sold themselves for Barack's presidency will not be able to re-assimilate after Barack leaves the White House.
They have whored.
They have betrayed ethics, they have betrayed public trust.
There is no do over, there is no comeback.
Their whoring is public and follows them around like a permanent record -- all the more so in the era of the internet.
They have spent every year of Barack's presidency refusing to call him out and insisting that all is wonderful. Aimee Allison destroyed her pathetic career when, early in Barack's presidency, she posted herself on YouTube defending The Drone War. There was her attack on Palestinians to defend Barack as well.
You don't get a do over.
After stunts like that, the best Aimee Allison can hope for is to move to the right wing and become a voice there because the left will not forget what she did.
And the outrage over it will grow and grow.
Aimee's only one of many who started Barack's presidency with a prominent media post but ended up with nothing.
Whores need to talk about sex.
No one wants to hear a whore talk about war or politics.
Whoring is all they know.
So maybe Michael Eric Dyson can talk about whoring?
But his glory days ended long ago and no one takes him seriously.
It's a fate so many have met. The bonds of trust have broken due to their whoring and lies and they are now on one side of the world and those of on the true left (not partisan junkies) are on the other side of the world.
and I ride along side
and I rode along side
you then
and I rode along side
till you lost me there
in the open road
And I rode along side
till the honey spread
itself so thin
for me to break your bread
for me to take your word
I had to steal it
and I’m so sad
like a good book
I can’t put this
Day Back
a sorta fairytale
with you
-- "A Sorta Fairytale," written by Tori Amos, first appears on her album Scarlet's Walk
There is nothing but a gulf between those on the left who have ethics and those 'left' 'leaders' who chose to sell their reputations and names. There is no comeback. It is way too late for that.
We survived without you.
Amy Goodman, Leslie Cagan, Matthew Rothschild, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Nichols, Dave Zirin, Kris Welch, Medea Benjamin, Bill Fletcher Jr., Ruth Conniff, and so many others, we don't need you.
We made it through the wilderness without you.
While you whored and embraced The Drone War and/or the war on Libya or on Afghanistan to 'serve' Barack, we got along just fine without you.
We don't need you.
As you busied yourselves with seven years of whoring, we made it through just fine without you.
I speak on campuses all the time.
The youth of today, they know you whored. They don't mistake you for leaders, just temple prostitutes in the Cult of St. Barack.
Your fate is the same as Michael Eric Dyson: No one believes you and no one needs you.
iraq
glen ford
Twitter is where informed debate goes to die.
If you ever doubt it, check out the nonsense that's always spewing from Khalid Latif's Twitter feed. Most recently, that would include this:
GOP problem: Blaming Obama for Iraq is like blaming Gerald Ford for Vietnam.
0 retweets 0 favorites Gerald Ford?
You deeply stupid idiot.
Do you know anything about anything?
Or do you just Tweet to flaunt your gross stupidity?
The idiot is trying to say Barack is innocent of blame for Iraq -- just like Gerald Ford is innocent of blame for Vietnam.
And the idiot says that because in American any idiot can say anything.
Gerald Ford is highly responsible for Vietnam and anyone who bothered to review Ford's Congressional record would know that.
They'd know that Ford supported the Vietnam War, they'd know that they hectored and mocked President Lyndon B. Johnson for not doing more -- more killing, more lying -- to increase the death totals.
Ford is completely culpable for Vietnam.
He served in Congress and was a cheerleader for the Vietnam War. That was true under Johnson and it was true under Nixon's administration as well.
Here's US House Rep Jerry Ford (as he was billed while in Congress) sharing with his constituents in his weekly newsletter (the date for this one is July 23, 1969) entitled "Your Washington Review by Congressman Jerry Ford" (PDF format warning, click here):
WHO IS BLOCKING PEACE IN VIETNAM? Self-examination and self-criticism may be a healthy exercise but to hear some Americans, one would believe that the failure to achieve peace in Vietnam is the fault of the United States and its South Vietnamese Allies. But let's look at the record:
[Jerry lies and lies some more. We're not include his 7 lies and if that bothers you, it bothers me that he's a liar who didn't just serve on the Warren Commission -- investigation into the assassination of JFK -- and didn't just whore -- claimed CIA missions were at risk and that's why things had to be kept from the public -- but he also spied on his fellow commissioners for the FBI who feared that the Commission would not back the narrative of a lone gunman.]
While President Nixon works diligently for peace, what is Hanoi doing? It negates our efforts at Paris, it violates agreements for a demilitarized zone, and it continues an aggressive war against civilians and soldiers in South Vietnam. Let's put the responsibility for war or peace where it belongs -- on the communist aggressors of North Vietnam.
Some people would insist that Khalid Latif needed to stop speaking. I hope he never does. I hope he keeps opening his uninformed mouth and sharing his idiotic views that are not based in fact so that everyone realizes he is the Village Idiot.
Because that's what he is.
It's not all he is.
He's also the Tavern Whore.
Swinging that ass to sell it for Barack.
Cheap little Tavern Whore.
Barack is responsible for the Iraq War.
He was (wrongly) elected to the US Senate while pretending to be against the Iraq War. He wasn't. That was about out-lefting his Democratic opponent that Jeff Zeleny (now with CNN) and the others in the not-so-secretive cabal used to take down a Democrat and to do so with vile and disgusting tactics that we will not acknowledge here. The cabal then worked to take down Barack's Republican opponent Jack Ryan with more vile and disgusting tactics -- including exposing secrets of a divorce that were hidden to protect a child. But remember, Barack's kids are off limits. He can destroy other people's children, but no one better say a word about his little babies. The cabal protected him -- only in Chicago which is probably the most corrupt region anywhere on the face of the planet.
Before he was elected to the Senate, he was already for the Iraq War. I know that because Elaine and I attended a big money fundraiser for him and both of us intended to write big checks but we got face time with him first and his position was that the US military was already in Iraq so it was too late to oppose the war.
Grasp that this position is how he justified, once in the Senate, repeatedly voting for every Iraq War proposal and funding authorization. It's also whey he told the New York Times in July of 2004, as he was preparing to give the keynote speech at the DNC convention in Boston, that if he had been in the Senate in the fall of 2002, he didn't know if he would have voted for the Iraq War or not.
Again, the liar ran for the Senate as an anti-war candidate and ran for the presidency in 2007 and 2008 claiming that was opposed to the Iraq War and had been from the start.
So as a member of the Congress, Barack supported the Iraq War -- a detail Khalid Latif is so unfamiliar with.
As President of the United States?
Well, among many other things, he did not keep his promise to withdraw all US troops in 16 months.
The most important thing he did on Iraq was overturn the 2010 election and refuse to side with the winner (Iraqiya and Ayad Allawi) but instead back Nouri al-Maliki whose State of Law had come in second.
Khalid knows nothing of this because he's such an idiot. Here's Dexter Filkins explaining at The New Yorker in 2014:
In parliamentary elections the previous March, Maliki’s Shiite Islamist alliance, the State of Law, had suffered an embarrassing loss. The greatest share of votes went to a secular, pro-Western coalition called Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, a persistent enemy of the Iranians. “These were election results we could only have dreamed of,” a former American diplomat told me. “The surge had worked. The war was winding down. And, for the first time in the history of the Arab world, a secular, Western-leaning alliance won a free and fair election.”
[. . .]
Shortly after the elections, an Iraqi judge, under pressure from the Prime Minister [Nouri al-Maliki], awarded Maliki the first chance to form a government. The ruling directly contradicted the Iraqi constitution, but American officials did not contest it. “The intent of the constitution was clear, and we had the notes of the people who drafted it,” [Emma] Sky, the civilian adviser, said. “The Americans had already weighed in for Maliki.”
Earlier this month, POLITICO published Emma Sky's "How Obama Abandoned Democracy in Iraq: Bush's mistake was invading the country. His successor's was leaving it to a strongman" in which she explains how, in the 2010 elections, Iraqis reached for something more: a national identity. And the US government could have backed that by supporting Iraqiya's win but instead worked to undermine it so that thug Nouri al-Maliki could have a second term. This was not under Bully Boy Bush. Barack was president. Chris Hill was Barack's (hideous and destructive) US Ambassador to Iraq. She notes US Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Iraq:
Biden visited Iraq at the end of August 2010. By then, Hill had been replaced as ambassador by Jim Jeffrey. In internal meetings, one U.S. adviser argued that Maliki was “our man”: He would give us a follow-on Status of Forces Agreement to keep a small contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq after 2011; he was a nationalist; and he would fight the Sadrists. Furthermore, the official claimed that Maliki had promised him that he would not seek a third term. “Maliki is not our friend,” replied another official, Jeff Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, exasperated at the delusional nature of the discussion. But Biden had been persuaded by the arguments that there was no one but Maliki who could be prime minister and that he would sign a new security agreement with the United States. The Obama administration wanted to see an Iraqi government in place before the U.S. mid-term elections in November. Biden believed the quickest way to form a government was to keep Maliki as prime minister, and to cajole other Iraqis into accepting this.
[. . .]
I tried another tack: “It is important to build belief in the democratic process by showing people that change can come about through elections—rather than violence. The peaceful transfer of power is key—it has never happened in the Arab World.” At the very least, either Maliki or Talabani needed to give up his seat; otherwise, they would both think they owned the seats. Biden did not agree. He responded that there were often elections in the United States that did not bring about any change.
And Joe knows all about US elections that brought about no change. For example, he was on the 2008 ticket that was supposed to be about "change."
Supposed to be.
In a piece this month at Slate, Sky noted former Minister of Finance Rafi Issawi:
“Was it inevitable that Iraq would disintegrate?” I asked Rafi. No, it was not, he assured me. Iraq had been moving in a positive direction after the surge. This downward trajectory began in 2010 when the United States had not upheld the right of Iraqiya to have first chance at trying to form the government after it won the elections. “We might not have succeeded,” he admitted, “but the process itself would have been important in building trust in Iraq's young institutions.”
[. . .]
Rafi listed the Sunni grievances that had simmered until they had finally boiled over. Maliki had detained thousands of Sunnis without trial, pushed leading Sunnis out of the political process by accusing them of terrorism, and reneged on payments and pledges to the Awakening members who had bravely fought al-Qaida in Iraq--its leaders were dead, fled, or in jail. The request by provincial councils in Salah al-Din, Diyala, and Mosul to hold a vote on the formation of regions—in accordance with the Constitution--was prevented by force. Peaceful, yearlong Sunni protests demanding an end to discrimination were met by violence, with dozens of unarmed protesters killed by Iraqi security forces. Maliki had completely subverted the judiciary to his will, so that Sunnis felt unable to achieve any form of justice.
From the informed back to the ridiculous:
If you think 54 U.S. casualties in Iraq in 2011 was a "WAR" but 435 in Chicago in 2011 wasn't, you may be brainwashed.
1 retweet 2 favorites I'm sorry, how many Iraqis died in 2011?
That's sort of key to the point.
And it takes a xenophobe to ignore the deaths of Iraqis in their own country and to imply that their deaths don't matter.
I'm so sick of trash using Iraq as a soap box to fight their little battles unrelated to Iraq.
And, using Iraqi government figures (notoriously low balled), AFP reported 2645 deaths from violence in Iraq in 2011. (2011 is considered to have had the least violent deaths.)
Today Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 136 violent deaths.
James Bradford, you may be brain dead.
Barack claims the Islamic State in Iraq is on the run. The Pentagon insists the same. The press, like good court stenographers, jot down the claim and then go on to unquestioningly repeat it.
Until today. Tim Mak (Daily Beast) reports:
But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.
The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included.
“Taken in isolation, the map definitely gives an impression that anti-ISIS efforts have succeeded in pushing the group back along a northern and north-eastern peripheries, but it fails in one huge respect—it fails to specifically identify territory gained by ISIS during the same period,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
Oops.
Staying with the US . . .
All you folks think I got my price
At which I'll sell all that is mine
You think money rules when all else fails
Go sell your soul and keep your shell
I'm trying to protect what I keep inside
All the reasons why I live my life
-- "Crossroads," written by Tracy Chapman, first appears on her album of the same name
Not everyone has a price.
But many do.
Michael Eric Dyson has a price.
No one is above criticism. That's me, that's anyone. I like Dr. Cornel West and applaud his activism. That doesn't mean he can't be wrong or that people can't criticize him. But Michael Eric Dyson, professional whore, has not offered a critique. He's offered the usual smear job Dyson is infamous for.
In fairness to Michael, he may have once had an honest bone in his body. If so, it was probably attached to his spine and, when his spine was removed oh, so many years ago, he was left without a single honest bone in his body.
Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) offers a strong rebuttal to Dyson's character assassination of Cornel:
Black America has plummeted to such economic depths under Obama’s watch that there is no possibility of ever reaching economic parity with whites absent a social revolution, the beginnings of which we may be witnessing in the growing mobilization against brutal police enforcement of the oppressive social order.
It is no wonder that so many members of the Black political class, especially those that style themselves as “progressives,” are now anxious to revise their Obama-era political histories to put a false distance between themselves and the outgoing administration. Which is why I found it curious that Georgetown University professor and preacher Michael Eric Dyson thinks this is an auspicious time to unleash a bloated, mean-spirited and politically flatulent assault on Dr. Cornel West, a Black public intellectual who risked his “icon” status by breaking with Obama early in the president’s first term, when the center-right nature of his corporation-serving administration became manifest.
Dyson is clearly haunted by “The Ghost of Cornel West,” as The New Republic article is titled. In Georgia, the older country folks used to say that when a “haint” (a ghost) got on top of you in your sleep, you became temporarily paralyzed – a condition sometimes called “being rode by a witch.” Dyson’s obsession with West seems to have paralyzed those parts of his brain that process political facts and issues. In almost 10,000 words, Dyson makes no reference to any substantive political issues that divide he and West, and offers only the slimmest assessment of Obama’s stance on the burning issues of the day. Given such a dirth of actual political analysis of either the Obama presidency or Cornel West’s critique of that presidency, the article is a soaring testament to Dyson’s enormous capacity for bloviation.
But, of course, there is method to Dyson’s meanness. The true purpose of his elongated smear of Dr. West is to demonstrate to Hillary Clinton’s camp that Dyson remains a loyal Democratic Party operative who is available for service to the new regime. Having observed how hugely Al Sharpton prospered as President Obama’s pit bull against Black dissent, Dyson offers unto Caesarius Hillarius (“We came, we saw, he died,” as she said of Gaddafi) the iconic head of the nation’s best known Black dissident.
It is no wonder that so many members of the Black political class, especially those that style themselves as “progressives,” are now anxious to revise their Obama-era political histories to put a false distance between themselves and the outgoing administration. Which is why I found it curious that Georgetown University professor and preacher Michael Eric Dyson thinks this is an auspicious time to unleash a bloated, mean-spirited and politically flatulent assault on Dr. Cornel West, a Black public intellectual who risked his “icon” status by breaking with Obama early in the president’s first term, when the center-right nature of his corporation-serving administration became manifest.
Dyson is clearly haunted by “The Ghost of Cornel West,” as The New Republic article is titled. In Georgia, the older country folks used to say that when a “haint” (a ghost) got on top of you in your sleep, you became temporarily paralyzed – a condition sometimes called “being rode by a witch.” Dyson’s obsession with West seems to have paralyzed those parts of his brain that process political facts and issues. In almost 10,000 words, Dyson makes no reference to any substantive political issues that divide he and West, and offers only the slimmest assessment of Obama’s stance on the burning issues of the day. Given such a dirth of actual political analysis of either the Obama presidency or Cornel West’s critique of that presidency, the article is a soaring testament to Dyson’s enormous capacity for bloviation.
But, of course, there is method to Dyson’s meanness. The true purpose of his elongated smear of Dr. West is to demonstrate to Hillary Clinton’s camp that Dyson remains a loyal Democratic Party operative who is available for service to the new regime. Having observed how hugely Al Sharpton prospered as President Obama’s pit bull against Black dissent, Dyson offers unto Caesarius Hillarius (“We came, we saw, he died,” as she said of Gaddafi) the iconic head of the nation’s best known Black dissident.
At CounterPunch, Ben Norton also explored Dyson's revisionary history and his attack on Cornel West. And in this community, Dyson's ugly jealousy was explored in the following:
The day is coming
20 hours ago
As they attacked MLK . . .
20 hours ago
Oh that cheap liar Michael Eric Dyson
20 hours ago
We have long explained that these whores who sold themselves for Barack's presidency will not be able to re-assimilate after Barack leaves the White House.
They have whored.
They have betrayed ethics, they have betrayed public trust.
There is no do over, there is no comeback.
Their whoring is public and follows them around like a permanent record -- all the more so in the era of the internet.
They have spent every year of Barack's presidency refusing to call him out and insisting that all is wonderful. Aimee Allison destroyed her pathetic career when, early in Barack's presidency, she posted herself on YouTube defending The Drone War. There was her attack on Palestinians to defend Barack as well.
You don't get a do over.
After stunts like that, the best Aimee Allison can hope for is to move to the right wing and become a voice there because the left will not forget what she did.
And the outrage over it will grow and grow.
Aimee's only one of many who started Barack's presidency with a prominent media post but ended up with nothing.
Whores need to talk about sex.
No one wants to hear a whore talk about war or politics.
Whoring is all they know.
So maybe Michael Eric Dyson can talk about whoring?
But his glory days ended long ago and no one takes him seriously.
It's a fate so many have met. The bonds of trust have broken due to their whoring and lies and they are now on one side of the world and those of on the true left (not partisan junkies) are on the other side of the world.
and I ride along side
and I rode along side
you then
and I rode along side
till you lost me there
in the open road
And I rode along side
till the honey spread
itself so thin
for me to break your bread
for me to take your word
I had to steal it
and I’m so sad
like a good book
I can’t put this
Day Back
a sorta fairytale
with you
-- "A Sorta Fairytale," written by Tori Amos, first appears on her album Scarlet's Walk
There is nothing but a gulf between those on the left who have ethics and those 'left' 'leaders' who chose to sell their reputations and names. There is no comeback. It is way too late for that.
We survived without you.
Amy Goodman, Leslie Cagan, Matthew Rothschild, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Nichols, Dave Zirin, Kris Welch, Medea Benjamin, Bill Fletcher Jr., Ruth Conniff, and so many others, we don't need you.
We made it through the wilderness without you.
While you whored and embraced The Drone War and/or the war on Libya or on Afghanistan to 'serve' Barack, we got along just fine without you.
We don't need you.
As you busied yourselves with seven years of whoring, we made it through just fine without you.
I speak on campuses all the time.
The youth of today, they know you whored. They don't mistake you for leaders, just temple prostitutes in the Cult of St. Barack.
Your fate is the same as Michael Eric Dyson: No one believes you and no one needs you.
iraq
glen ford
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