Ava and C.I. wrote a lengthy and insightful piece on just that entitled "TV: The reality that we're all responsible for this mess:"
We're not 'moralists.'
We don't give a damn about cursing on screen, we could care less about sex or any other life affirming act.
We do care about depravity presented as normal.
HANNIBAL never belonged on TV.
Half the crap that's aired in the last ten years on network television had degraded the world.
It has done so by glorifying violence and by treating things that are grossly offensive as though they are normal.
Gale Ann Hurd has been among those selling eternal fear.
It is any real surprise that a culture that has embraced one dystopia narrative after another would end up with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as presidential candidates?
Entertainment has spent approximately ten years now preaching death and destruction.
On TV alone, we've had JERICHO, LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE 100, REVOLUTION, 12 MONKEYS, CONTAINMENT, THE MESSENGER, Z NATION, INTO THE BADLANDS, THE LAST SHIP, FALLING SKIES, UNDER THE DOME, COLONY . . .
Why even THE CARTOON NETWORK's ADVENTURE TIME takes place in a post-nuclear war world.
You think that doesn't impact society?
"What if all that we are is simply the result of what we have thought?"
That is one of the questions Shirley MacLaine raises in WHAT IF . . . A LIFETIME OF QUESTIONS, SPECULATIONS, REASONABLE GUESSES, AND A FEW THINGS I KNOW FOR SURE.
"What if all that we are is simply the result of what we have thought?"
And that probably, more than anything else, explains how the United States has arrived at this moment where the duopoly has promoted two candidates who still can't, even after winning their primaries, promote hope.
Clinton tears down Trump -- and in the process, the Americans who support him. He turns around and does the same to her and those that support her.
And this failure of leadership in campaigning does not translate well into what leadership in office for either might actually mean.
It's really a wonderful piece.
Kat's "Kat's Korner: Encore or just hurry her off stage already?" is also wonderful so read it.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Tuesday, August 30, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, a wack job
attacks REUTERS, militias recruit child soliders, and much more.
Chaos and violence continue -- though Luay al-Khatteeb insists otherwise.
In fact, his presence outside Iraq goes to the fact that chaos and violence continue because cowards like Luay-Luay -- the real s**t f**k all the other s**t f**kers are just imitating so won't the real Luay-Luay please go home, please go home -- never go back to their homeland until others make it safe.
Coward Luay-Luay waits for others to make Iraq safe so that then he can rush in with his Iraq Energy Institute which he founded -- or Luay Jawad did or which ever name he's going by at whichever moment.
Let's again note the second most popular episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS, season one's "Consenting Adults" (written by Les Carter), Farrah Fawcett's Jill lays down some basic truth with Laurette Spang's Tracy.
Jill: Okay, let's both stop playing games. For starters, you can drop the "Tracy." It rhymes with Stacy and Macy all those other jive names hookers like to latch onto.
So Luay-Luay al-Khatteeb or Luay-Luay Jawad shows up at HUFFINGTON POST to yet again attack REUTERS:
Be that as it may, you would never know this from the Special Reports peddled by Reuter’s Ned Parker, which are often one sided, confused, and guilty of engaging in partial journalism based on a modus operandi defined by cherry picking of facts.
Luay-Luay doesn't cherry pick . . . he crack picks.
Digs in his own ass with his fingers and then waves them in the air to show the world what he 'found.'
Ned Parker's got a legacy of reporting on Iraq that stands.
It's goes back to the days of the Bully Boy Bush administration.
Luay-Luay?
He's got the kind of history public health guidelines require you share with all sex partners.
What has Luay-Luay in a tizzy this week? Last week's report by Ned Parker and Jonathan S. Landay (REUTERS):
That Shi'ite militias are committing War Crimes is no surprise.
Chaos and violence continue -- though Luay al-Khatteeb insists otherwise.
In fact, his presence outside Iraq goes to the fact that chaos and violence continue because cowards like Luay-Luay -- the real s**t f**k all the other s**t f**kers are just imitating so won't the real Luay-Luay please go home, please go home -- never go back to their homeland until others make it safe.
Coward Luay-Luay waits for others to make Iraq safe so that then he can rush in with his Iraq Energy Institute which he founded -- or Luay Jawad did or which ever name he's going by at whichever moment.
Let's again note the second most popular episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS, season one's "Consenting Adults" (written by Les Carter), Farrah Fawcett's Jill lays down some basic truth with Laurette Spang's Tracy.
Jill: Okay, let's both stop playing games. For starters, you can drop the "Tracy." It rhymes with Stacy and Macy all those other jive names hookers like to latch onto.
So Luay-Luay al-Khatteeb or Luay-Luay Jawad shows up at HUFFINGTON POST to yet again attack REUTERS:
Be that as it may, you would never know this from the Special Reports peddled by Reuter’s Ned Parker, which are often one sided, confused, and guilty of engaging in partial journalism based on a modus operandi defined by cherry picking of facts.
Luay-Luay doesn't cherry pick . . . he crack picks.
Digs in his own ass with his fingers and then waves them in the air to show the world what he 'found.'
Ned Parker's got a legacy of reporting on Iraq that stands.
It's goes back to the days of the Bully Boy Bush administration.
Luay-Luay?
He's got the kind of history public health guidelines require you share with all sex partners.
What has Luay-Luay in a tizzy this week? Last week's report by Ned Parker and Jonathan S. Landay (REUTERS):
Shi’ite militias
in Iraq detained, tortured and abused far more Sunni civilians during
the American-backed capture of the town of Falluja in June than U.S.
officials have publicly acknowledged, Reuters has found.More
than 700 Sunni men and boys are still missing more than two months
after the Islamic State stronghold fell. The abuses occurred despite
U.S. efforts to restrict the militias' role in the operation, including
threatening to withdraw American air support, according to U.S. and
Iraqi officials.
The U.S. efforts had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja, participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.
All told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats.
They said men were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors taken immediately after their release.
The U.S. efforts had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja, participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.
All told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats.
They said men were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors taken immediately after their release.
That Shi'ite militias are committing War Crimes is no surprise.
Kenneth Roth
Sectarian abuse by Iraq Shia militia was even worse than believed (meaning downright awful). http://bit.ly/2bN7FOs
Unless you're a denier like Luay-Luay.
There's a reason he's no longer associated with Brookings, for example, but HUFFNPUFF won't worry about that or inform readers of that.
That the coward in exile glory thinks he can attack REUTERS is laughable.
That HUFFPUFF thinks his ravings are worth printing less so.
"Ignore the myths" proclaims Luay-Luay as he himself spreads the lies.
HUFFINGTON POST needs to stop printing his garbage.
He's now on record as a denier of the ongoing persecution of the Sunni people.
In the Arab world right now, that's bad enough.
But in ten or so years when the rest of the world is forced to admit this persecution took place, HUFFINGTON POST will look like Holocaust deniers.
It's really time that they, like Brookings, cut their ties with Luay-Luay.
And someone teach Luay-Luay how to read a byline -- Jonathan S. Landay co-wrote the piece he keeps slamming Ned Parker for.
If you've forgotten, Luay-Luay is a professional apologist for the Shi'ite militias. When they began threatening Ned Parker on Iraqi state television, Luay-Luay found that hilarious.
Sort of like the way I find it hilarious that a coward like Luay-Luay thinks anyone should listen to him.
We've been calling out Luay-Luay here for years and we've never been wrong.
Sadly, wrong is all Luay-Luay's ever been.
And the only myth is his own that Iraq's on the road to healing.
How bad are the militias?
So bad that Jar Jar Blinks is back to talking Iraq.
That's right Raed Jarrar who told the world Barack Obama would end the Iraq War and then congratulated Barack on ending the Iraq War has had to put aside his erotic fan fiction (DOWN LOW AND DIRTY WITH BARRY -- soon to be rewritten into 50 SHADES OF OIL) and speak with Brian Becker about just how bad things are.
When was the last time we noted Jar Jar?
I think it was when Ava and I rightly slammed him in "Media: The Collapse of Indymedia and its Queen" which went up the last Sunday of 2013 and noted how useless he was as an expert or 'expert' on Iraq for Amy Goodman's increasingly bad talk show:
Jarrar left Iraq long ago physically and apparently mentally and emotionally.
For example, in December, Raed offered 22 Tweets and re-Tweets. Exempting the ones promoting his appearance on Friday's Democracy Now!, how many Tweets or re-Tweets were about Iraq?
Only one. And it was a re-Tweet. Iraq's had a huge resurgence in violence in the last two years. December's already at least the second most violent month (based on deaths) of the year. But Raed never took the time to write a 160 characters or less Tweet on that.
If you go through his Tweets from September through November, you'll find no Tweet or re-Tweet on Iraq.
In fact, you have to drop back to May 1st to find the term "Iraq" on Raed's Twitter feed. That's when he retreats about an attack on a US Iraq War veteran.
1145 people died from violence in Iraq in the month of July. That is currently monthly total record (though December is not over yet). Raed didn't Tweet about it.
In fact, you have to go back to March -- the 10th anniversary of the start of the illegal war -- to find Raed Tweeting about Iraq and then it's more about "pre-2003" than anything else.
Raed's nothing but a useless little bitch and he proves it all the time.
Over and over.
Raed's a blogger and he last blogged about Iraq December 15th . . .
2011.
Only Goody Whore would bring on the man who fled Iraq physically, emotionally and mentally as an expert.
It was so bad, it was embarrassing.
It was like sitting in an English Lit grad course where the topic was Edith Wharton and Raed's entire contribution was what he had gleaned from watching Martin Scorsese's film of The Age of Innocence.
It was Friday. Protests in Iraq.
Never mentioned.
Even though the previous Sunday Nouri had threatened the protesters.
Even though he had attempted to attack them on Tuesday but a flurry of political meetings forced him to pull his forces out of Ramadi's sit-in sqaure.
Even though on the Friday Raed 'shared,' Nouri had already gone on Iraqi TV and announced that this had been the last Friday protest and that he would burn down the protest tents in Anbar.
'C.I., you and Ava thought the protests mattered. There's no reason Raed Jarrar has to share your opinion.'
It was our opinion and, thing is, it was the correct critique. As we would note in "TV: A week of putrid and puerile," the day after we wrote that piece, Nouri sent his forces into a protest camp resulting in the deaths of 17 civilians:
That was December 29th when we wrote that.
If you don't get how right we were to call them out for ignoring the protesters -- them being Amy Goodman, Raed Jarrar and WG Dunlop. On December 27th, three laughable 'journalists' pretended they knew enough to discuss Iraq.
They didn't know one damn thing except how to whore.
The protests mattered and if you doubt that, let's go to Human Rights Watch, "Government security forces had withdrawn from Anbar province after provoking a tribal uprising when they raided a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi on December 30, killing 17 people." This is the assault on Anbar.
Having screwed that up, Amy Goodman ignored Iraq for two months until last week when she did a really bad segment with Dahr Jamail.
She's never covered the ongoing assault on Anbar. Darh's written an article about it now that he's joined Truthout. But Human Rights Watch, BRussells Tribunal and so many others have been covering it for weeks and weeks -- that would include this site.
And Goody Whore ignored the topic. When she finally found 'time' for it, it first had to wait for I-Need-Attention-Benjamin. CodeStink's Medea got into an altercation in Egypt. This was news to Democracy Now?
We ask that because Goody Whore never noted Lara Logan's rape in Egypt but did bring on a whore -- we use the term intentionally -- who explained she herself was sexually assaulted but it was no big thing. (Rebecca called the b.s. out in real time.) Rape is "miniscule," that's a message the Goody Whore broadcasts and promotes but let con artist Medea claim she was roughed up in Egypt and it's time to spend over six minutes with Medea.
Iraq?
It got seven minutes.
Deaths, refugees, hospitals attacked and so much more is only worth one minute more than Medea's latest drama.
Not only that, the focus wasn't on the Anbar assault.
No, it had to compete with 2004 Anbar.
Approximately 630 words went to the ongoing and current crisis.
Approximately 520 words went to Anbar in 2004.
Does that really sound like Goody Whore addressed Iraq?
No, she didn't. Like Cat Greenleaf with Oliver Stone, Goody Whore got real nervous when Dahr Jamail mentioned Barack and rushed to cut him off.
Am I wrong?
I am wrong all the time.
But overall, our record stands.
Unlike Luay-Luay, we have called things correctly repeatedly.
When the White House didn't want to face the truth about Nouri al-Maliki -- and even after it had but didn't want the American people to know -- we have told the truth on Nouri.
Before WikiLeaks revealed cables discussing the US government's view that Nouri was paranoid, we were already telling you -- years before -- about the CIA analysis that felt Nouri was the best candidate for prime minister of Iraq because his paranoia would make him easy to manipulate.
Luay Luay lies but if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt -- his 'truth' is skewed by his desire to make money off of Iraq.
Greed blinds him to realities like the fact that the militias are said to be recruiting child soldiers. Human Rights Watch issues an alert which opens:
Iraqi government-backed militias have recruited children from at least one displaced persons camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to fight against Islamic State forces. All security forces and armed groups should abide by international law and demobilize any fighters under age 18.
Witnesses and relatives told Human Rights Watch that two tribal militias (Hashad al-Asha`ri) recruited as fighters at least seven children from the Debaga camp on August 14, 2016, and drove them to a town closer to Mosul, where Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are preparing for an offensive to drive the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, from the city. The Hashad al-Asha`ri, made up of local Sunni fighters, are expected to play a key role in Mosul military operations, while the government may order the mainly Shia militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces to stay out of the Mosul fighting.
“The recruitment of children as fighters for the Mosul operation should be a warning sign for the Iraqi government,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher. “The government and its foreign allies need to take action now, or children are going to be fighting on both sides in Mosul.”
Human Rights Watch has documented that ISIS has extensively recruited and deployed children in its forces.
Debaga camp, 40 kilometers south of Erbil, currently houses over 35,000 people displaced in the fighting between government forces and ISIS. Two people living in the camp since March told Human Rights Watch that at least two militia groups engaged in the fighting against ISIS are entirely made up of camp residents. They said that these two militias, commanded by Sheikh Nishwan al-Jabouri and by Maghdad al-Sabawy, the son of the recently deceased commander Fares al-Sabawy, have been recruiting from the camp for months. Their trucks have been arriving empty, and driving away filled with men, and in some cases, boys.
The two camp residents said that two very large trucks arrived in the evening of August 14 and took away about 250 new recruits, at least 7 of them under age 18, to join Sheikh al-Jabouri’s forces. Witnesses and other camp residents said that all the men and boys volunteered to join the militias. An aid worker who was on the road saw the two trucks heading to Hajj Ali, a town about 46 kilometers from Debaga and 7 kilometers from the front lines with ISIS. They contacted local aid workers in Hajj Ali, who confirmed that the group had arrived there, stayed for one night, and then went on to join a militia nearby.
Aurélie Poelhekke
Not only ISIS uses #childsoldiers, Iraq militias also recruit children <18 .="" a="" class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://bit.ly/2bNKGBi" demobilize="" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/8fO0kJGQsl" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #1b95e0; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" them.="" title="http://bit.ly/2bNKGBi">http://bit.ly/2bNKGBi
The refugee crisis in Iraq is growing and that also doesn't convey the 'nothing but blue skies' Luay Luay would have you believe.
The crisis also includes more than just Iraqi refugees.
Borzou Daragahi
More than 4,500,000 Syria refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan & Iraq
And all of these people in need struggle in a country that the US government drops bombs on daily -- every day since August of 2014. Yesterday, the US Defense Dept announced:
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter and ground attack aircraft conducted 13 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Bashir, a strike destroyed an ISIL checkpoint.
-- Near Haditha, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position.
-- Near Mosul, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed three vehicles and a mortar position.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed a mortar system, a vehicle, five assembly areas, a supply cache, a front-end loader and denied access to terrain.
-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, a vehicle and a boat and damaged a fighting position.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL security headquarters.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
Now to address something to try to stop the flood of e-mails. Martha and Shirley informed me last night of the huge number of e-mails on Ava and my "TV: The reality that we're all responsible for this mess."
Of those objecting, the objection is that they themselves are in any way responsible for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ending up the nominees.
Jim writes the headlines. That said, it does represent our piece. Ava and I were including ourselves in the "we" and that's why we use that.
We indict the lazy media ('news'), we indict the entertainment industry (Emmys for reality TV -- get serious, it's trash), we indict a wide range of groups (including the smut merchants like Gale Anne Hurd who've made fortunes in recent years promoting garbage of a world with no hope).
But, yes, We The People is in there as well.
If it doesn't apply to you, let it roll off.
In terms of the other e-mails on the article, a lot of you wish it was longer.
Seriously?
Have you read it?
It's way too long as it is.
But, yes, we can take some questions on it for next week and develop whatever you feel needs further discussion or an aspect you wants us to go into more. (Please put "Question" in your e-mail subject heading and Martha and Shirley will route it to Ty who will probably moderate some sort of discussion piece for THIRD.)
I will deal right here with an issue Yazz raised that Martha passed on: There's no attempt at humor.
No.
There's not.
A) Jess is no longer with THIRD. If he was, he would have stopped Jim. We had no idea where Jim was headed when we all got together to write. He was making statements about Ava and my "TV: Poor sports and strip teases" from the week before. And then he told us the views. We never, ever want to know that. We don't want to repeat ourselves, we don't want to play the 'hits.'
But that number was so high that we really felt paralyzed. I'm not joking.
So we wouldn't have been very funny to begin with.
B) But at one point we had a Caitlin Jenner joke and we toyed with putting it in. But then we decided that joking would give a release and we didn't want it. We wanted the piece to make you uncomfortable and we didn't want to kid.
So, yes, Yazz, there's no attempt at humor in it. (Unless it's typos!)
