Spring has sprung… except for the northeast where it’s still snowing! But here in FloriDUH, government officials are prohibited from saying the words “climate change.” The madness will never end.
This week marks the 12th anniversary of George W. Bush’s illegal, immoral and horrific war against Iraq. Twelve years ago last night, he addressed the nation, explaining lying to us about why we had to go to war.
Those words are even more infuriating now, as we’ve been living with the consequences of his actions ever since.
It was just three years later that I first met Cindy Sheehan. Her son Casey went to Iraq to “fight for our freedoms” and, for his trouble, was killed. Cindy wrote the book, Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey through Heartache to Activism, about her transformation into our nation’s most fervent peace activist.
Today, she joined me from Washington DC, where the Spring Rising action that she put together was in full swing – a combination protest, teach-in, peace action and more to work against and raise awareness of our endless wars.
In the past decade, Cindy Sheehan has been maligned, vilified and otherwise attacked relentlessly, all because she’s been very outspoken in her fight for peace. The nastiness she’s experienced has become commonplace online.
I was attacked mercilessly a few weeks ago after my defense of Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech in which she called for equality for all women. Apparently, she’s still being hit hard, because she tweeted this today:
Happily blocking trolls because life is too short to talk to rocks!
— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) March 20, 2015
Ashley Judd made the mistake of tweeting during a basketball game!
Like any rabid Kentucky basketball fan, actress Ashley Judd was watching the South Eastern Conference championship game between Arkansas and Kentucky and live-tweeting her reactions Sunday night.
Judd said she thought Arkansas was playing dirty. This was enough, apparently, to set off a stream of misogynistic invective. “When I express a stout opinion during #MarchMadness I am called a whore, c—, threatened with sexual violence. Not okay,” she tweeted.
Judd is a survivor of rape and incest.
She told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts she would press charges, presumably against those who issued physical threats, and she expressed remorse for accusing Arkansas of playing dirty.
The nasty harassment is still ongoing.
As are the ugly cyber comments aimed at the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, an actual journalist who, after reading both DoJ reports and lots of other testimony and information from Ferguson, wrote an article titled, “‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was Built on a Lie.”
As much as I believed the narrative, Capehart’s research shows that we were likely misled.
Rather than looking at his work objectively, the haters just started hating… he’s been called a “race traitor,” “House negro” and worse.
And then there’s Monica Lewinsky, who addressed the bullying head-on (no pun intended) in a TED talk last night.
Let me reiterate, Mean People Suck!!!
Flashback Friday
We end each week by digging into my music radio archives to soothe the savage beast that feeds on all this adversarial news! Today, we had a double-header. From June 15, 1999, Jonny Lang (then a still-young 18-year old, now 34!). And our second session today was with Shelby Lynne on August 9, 2000, just after the release of her brilliant album, I Am Shelby Lynne… which still holds up beautifully today.
And that’s it for this week. I’ll be back Monday to do it all over again, radio or not![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
I guess my observations would be the following:
1. I feel very badly for Cindy Sheehan and her loss. I really did admire her in the beginning for her anti-Iraq War campaign to get Bush to meet with her in Crawford.
I didn’t support her run for office. I don’t think she gave voters enough of a reason to get rid of Nancy Pelosi or why on other issues besides war/peace she’d be a good candidate.
I also don’t like her hanging out with conservatives like Justin Raimondo.
2. I still think Patricia Arquette could have phrased her appeal differently. I don’t think that is either trolling, or being mean to her. It’s just an observation. This may be something we and others will always see differently, but I expressed my points, in an entirely civil fashion.
3. I wish Ashley Judd the best of luck, just wish she had run against Mitch McConnell.
4. I’m glad Monica Lewinsky gave her talk. It is time for more civility on the Internet – and also time that people gave a rest over harassing her over the mistake she made decades ago at this point. It was a consensual affair between her and a politician, and that politician – Mr. Big Bill – is also to blame for what happened. Maybe more so because she was an intern at the time, and he had power over her.
5. As to Capeheart’s article, well, I agree. It doesn’t seem like Michael Brown had his hands up for any long period of time, nor did he say “(my) Hands up don’t shoot”. All that is true. Still, I don’t think the forensic/eyewitness evidence gives perfect clarity to the claim that Wilson is telling the whole truth about a) what occurred in the car b) afterward. Yes, Mike Brown was shot in the car. Was all the struggle in the car his fault/initiation? Yes, Mike Brown was moving toward Wilson when the fatal shots were fired. Can we be certain it was for an aggressive reason? I don’t think there is conclusive evidence for the latter – still – frankly.
“Hands up don’t shoot” might be a lie, or a misremembering, but that doesn’t mean Wilson is still telling the entire truth. 24 eyewitnesses contradicted him. That still seems a bit rotten to me, in Denmark.
BTW, I have no criticisms whatsoever of Jonathan Capehart, he is a great reporter.
And mean people do suck.