Democrats in Name Only (DINOs) are cowards and enemies within the gate of democracy. Instead of going officially over to the Republican Party like I’m sure Sinama and Manchin intend to do in the next election, they remain in the Party as spies and sponge off Democrat funds and votes. Democrats don’t need cowards who are afraid to stand by President Biden because he is down in the polls. Because these Americans don’t understand Democratic history: Harry S. Truman was down in the polls against Dewey, but who won the election?
Month: January 2022
DINOS MOVE-RIGHT INTO GOP ARMS
Several commuters and first responders were injured when a snow-covered bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, prompting people to form a human chain to help rescue people from a dangling bus. The collapse happened hours before President Joe Biden’s scheduled visit to the Pennsylvania city to promote his infrastructure plan.
POLITICS
In Pittsburgh, Biden to talk about inflation, jobs and Supreme Court vacancy
January 28, 2022 5:09 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
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President Biden heads to Pennsylvania after saying he needs to get out of Washington more. Two big stories — the Supreme Court vacancy and the Russia-Ukraine conflict — are commanding attention. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076306261/in-pittsburgh-biden-to-talk-about-inflation-job-creation-and-supreme-court-vacan
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said that there were minor injuries and no deaths after a bridge collapsed in the city.
A two-lane bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh early Friday, prompting rescuers to rappel nearly 150 feet while others formed a human chain to help rescue multiple people from a dangling bus.
President Joe Biden visits Pittsburgh today to speak about the impact of the $1 trillion infrastructure law. The trip follows an early morning bridge collapse in the city. CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe has more on the president’s plans.
President Biden visited a bridge that collapsed in Pittsburgh just hours before his visit to deliver remarks on infrastructure. The president pledged to rebuild it and fix other bridges across the country.
PITTSBURGH DINO COP-OUTS VS FIGHTING FOR VOTER RIGHTS IN GEORGIA
Key Pa. Dems to miss Biden visit to Pittsburgh, cite scheduling conflicts
FILE – Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate, John Fetterman, speaks at a rally supporting unionization efforts at a coffee shop in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood Jan. 5, 2022. President Joe Biden will appear in Pittsburgh on Friday as the opening step in a broader campaign to promote the White House’s achievements in key states ahead of the midterm elections. Fetterman, a leading Senate candidate, and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the likely Democratic nominee in the race for governor, will be absent because of scheduling conflicts, according to their respective spokespeople.
- Keith Srakocic
FILE – Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference in Philadelphia, Dec. 14, 2021. President Joe Biden will appear in Pittsburgh on Friday as the opening step in a broader campaign to promote the White House’s achievements in key states ahead of the midterm elections. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading Senate candidate, and Shapiro, the likely Democratic nominee in the race for governor, will be absent because of scheduling conflicts, according to their respective spokespeople.
- Matt Rourke
FILE – U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., speaks during a news conference at City Hall in Philadelphia, Jan. 18, 2022. President Joe Biden will appear in Pittsburgh on Friday as the opening step in a broader campaign to promote the White House’s achievements in key states ahead of the midterm elections. Lamb, a longtime Biden supporter based in Pittsburgh, will be in attendance, his office confirmed.
- Matt Rourke
HARRISBURG, Pa. – President Joe Biden will appear in Pittsburgh on Friday as an opening step in a broader campaign to promote the White House’s achievements in key states before the midterm elections.
But two of the three leading Democrats on Pennsylvania’s statewide ballot this spring who were invited to appear with Biden will not attend, their campaigns confirmed on the eve of the president’s visit.
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading Senate candidate, and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the likely Democratic nominee in the race for governor, will be absent because of scheduling conflicts, according to their spokespeople.
Another top Senate candidate, Rep. Conor Lamb, a longtime Biden supporter based in Pittsburgh, will attend, his office confirmed.
All three had been invited to participate in a photo line with the president.
The high-profile absences come as Democrats in other states have begun taking modest steps to distance themselves from the first-term president, whose approval ratings have fallen sharply in recent months.
While Fetterman and Shapiro indicated that politics had no bearing on their schedules, their decisions to avoid Biden, particularly in his home state, could fuel further questions among anxious Democratic candidates elsewhere as they decide whether to embrace the struggling president.
“Josh Shapiro is running to be the governor of Pennsylvania and he’s focused on the issues that matter to Pennsylvania families,” Shapiro spokesman Will Simons said.
Shapiro made three appearances with Biden last summer and fall when the president’s numbers were better. But the gubernatorial hopeful has a scheduling conflict this time, Simons said, without detailing the conflict.
“Like every American should, Josh wants our president to be successful and we’ll continue welcoming President Biden to his home state of Pennsylvania,” Simons said.
Leading Pennsylvania Democrats who are not on the ballot this year did not have the same scheduling conflicts.
Those who will appear with Biden on Friday include Gov. Tom Wolf, who is term-limited, and Sen. Bob Casey, whose current term runs through 2024.
It’s been a different calculation for vulnerable Democrats who will face voters in 2022.
Earlier in the month, Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, a leading candidate for governor in another swing state, skipped a chance to appear with the president in the state, citing an unspecified scheduling conflict. and in the weeks since, several other notable Democrats have seemed to distance themselves from Biden as well.
Last week, Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke said he didn’t need the Democratic president’s assistance in his campaign for governor.
“I’m not interested in any national politician – anyone outside of Texas – coming into this state to help decide the outcome of this,” O’Rourke said, according to The Dallas Morning News. “I think we all want to make sure that we’re working with, listening to and voting with one another here in Texas.”
And this week, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 3 House Democrat, refused to say whether vulnerable Democrats on the ballot this fall should embrace the label “Biden Democrat.”
“I want every Democrat to run as Democrats who deliver,” Hoyer told Politico when asked directly about “Biden Democrats.”
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said he’s not surprised that some Democratic candidates might want to distance themselves from Biden, but he said those who do so are “stupid.”
“They’re stupid because things can turn around in politics pretty dramatically,” Rendell told The Associated Press. “You can’t hide. People end up thinking less of you for not showing up.”
Fetterman, the outspoken lieutenant governor whose campaign headquarters is based in Pittsburgh, said he’ll miss Biden’s visit in that city to attend the Democratic state committee, which begins Friday evening 200 miles to the east in Harrisburg.
“It’s great that President Biden is coming to Pittsburgh to talk about infrastructure,” Fetterman said. But he said he’ll be at the Harrisburg meeting to talk to Democrats about the midterms.
Lamb, meanwhile, one of Fetterman’s chief primary opponents in the state’s marquee Senate contest, is eager to hear Biden’s remarks on his sweeping infrastructure bill in person.
“President Biden first announced his infrastructure plan in Pittsburgh, and Conor looks forward to welcoming him back and talking about all the good jobs that bill will create in the Pittsburgh area and all over Pennsylvania,” said Lamb campaign manger Abby Nassif Murphy.
Malcolm Kenyatta, another prominent Democratic Senate contender, was not invited to Biden’s appearance because he represents a different part of the state in the state Legislature. But he heaped praise on the president when given the opportunity. Like Lamb, Kenyatta traveled to early voting states during the 2020 presidential primary to campaign on Biden’s behalf.
“The more he’s here, the better,” Kenyatta said. “I would not be offended to be called a Biden Democrat. I have always considered myself a do-something Democrat.”
The White House announced Biden’s trip on Monday after the president said last week he would look to get out of Washington more in the second year of his presidency.
Biden, who has seen his poll numbers sink in the midst of an unrelenting pandemic and high inflation, said it was important that he “go out and talk to the public” about what he’s accomplished and about why Congress needs to get behind the rest of his domestic agenda.
While in Pittsburgh, Biden will focus on the economy, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“He’ll be talking about how far we’ve come in getting our economy moving again, making more right here in America, and ensuring all workers benefit,” Psaki told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “He’ll highlight the 367,000 manufacturing jobs that our economy has created since he took office, and he’ll underscore the vital role the federal government can play in bringing workers and businesses together.”
The visit will take Biden, a Pennsylvania native, to a key battleground in this year’s midterm congressional elections. The battle to replace Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who is not seeking reelection, is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races this year.
Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said diminished enthusiasm among Democrats throughout the country is a worrying sign for Pennsylvania Democrats’ hopes of capturing Toomey’s seat and holding on to the governor’s office.
Just 28% of Americans say they want Biden to run for reelection in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Along with Biden’s legislative setbacks, Borick noted that the president’s advanced age (he’s 79) and uncertainty among voters about whether he’ll run for a second term — though he has said he will — are affecting the 2022 campaign.
But Borick said Biden “could have some rallying effect for Democrats” if he notches some legislative successes closer to the election.
Casey, a three-term senator who will next face voters in 2024, said he’s urging elected Democrats to do a better job talking about Biden’s first-year accomplishments, such as the infrastructure bill, distributing vaccines, getting money to keep schools open, expanding the child tax credit and bringing down unemployment.
“We have to do a much better job, and we’re starting to do it,” Casey said.
Biden to deliver strong voting rights push in Atlanta. Is it too little too late?
President Biden heads to Atlanta Tuesday to deliver what he hopes will be a powerful voting rights speech. He’s expected to urge support for two new national voting rights bills and to blast voting rights restrictions in Georgia and around the country.
It’s a pivot for Biden, whose first year in office has focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and his economic agenda, including infrastructure and the stalled $2 trillion Build Back Better bill.
WBUR is a nonprofit news organization and our coverage relies on your financial support. Please give today.
But to pass the new voting legislation, the president would first have to weaken Senate filibuster rules — something Biden endorses — but seems unlikely with two Democratic holdouts, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
So how pivotal is this moment for the president and the country? And how did past presidents pass the voting rights laws that so many of us now take for granted?
Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, joins us to discuss.
This segment aired on January 11, 2022.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/11/biden-voting-rights
WHITE TRASH AND THE DINOS
Nancy Isenberg in White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016) inadvertently referees the difference between the Pittsburgh Democrats that are afraid to be connected/meet with President Biden because he is down in the polls, and Georgia’s African American politicians and activist, who refused to meet with Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris as political protest, not fear, when the President and Vice President came to Atlanta to speak on voting rights blockage in the US Senate.
Isenberg posits that we know what class is. Or think we do: economic stratification created by wealth and privilege. The problem is that popular American history is most commonly told—dramatized–without much reference to the existence of social classes. It is as though in separating from Great Britain, the United States somehow magically escaped the bonds of class and derived a higher consciousness of enriched possibility.
After all, the U.S. Senate is not the House of Lords. Schoolbooks teach the national narrative along the lines of “how land and liberty were won,” or “how ordinary folks seized opportunity.” The hallowed American dream is the gold standard by which politicians and voters alike are meant to erasure quality of life as each generation pursues its own definition of happiness unfettered by the restraints of birth (who your parents are) or station (the position you start out from in the class system).
What can be read into the fear that Democrats in Name Only (DINO) is the same fear we see in GOP Congresspersons, i.e fear of loss of power. And an ahistorical race memory of always having the vote. And as White political elites of means and citizenship, without felony records, they have always been able to vote without legal nor governmental hindrance/restrictions. However this is a modern fiction and myth located in American history itself.
Isenberg declares that in the late-1700s, Revolutionary Virginia was hardly a place of harmony, egalitarianism, or unity. The war effort exacerbate already simmering tensions between the Patriots and those below them. In British tradition, the American elite expected the lower classes to fight their wars. During the Revolution, General Washington stated that only “the lower class of people” should serve as foot soldiers. Jefferson believed that class character was palpably real. As a member of the House of Delegates, he came up with a plan to create a Virginia cavalry regiment specifically for the sons of planters, youths whose “indolence or education, has unfitted them for foot-service.”
As early as 1775, landless tenants in Loudom County Virginia voiced a complaint that was common across the sprawling colony, there was “no inducement for the poor man to Fight, for he had nothing to defend.”
Though Jefferson sold Europeans on America as a classless society, no such thing existed in Virginia or anywhere else. In his home state, a poor laborer or shoemaker had no chance of getting elected to office. Furthermore, Jefferson’s freehold requirement for voting created “odious distinctions” between landowners and poor merchants and artisans, denying the latter classes voting rights.
Isenberg posits that political equality did not come to America in the so-called Age of Jackson. Virginia retained property qualifications for voting until 1851; Louisiana and Connecticut until 1845; North Carolina until 1857. Tennessee did not drop its freehold restriction until 1834—after Jackson had already been elected to a second term. Eight states passed laws that disenfranchised paupers, and the urban poor. Meanwhile many towns and cities adopted stricter suffrage guidelines for voting than their state legislatures did. This was true for Chicago, and for towns in Crockett’s Tennessee and pro-Jackson Alabama. He could vote for a member of Congress, but not in St. Louis municipal elections.
The heralded democrat Andrew Jackson had actually helped draft suffrage restriction for the Tennessee Constitution in 1796. He made no effort to expand the electorate in his state—ever. As the territorial governor of Florida in 1822, he was perfectly comfortable with the new state’s imposing property requirements for voting. He did not stand for universal male suffrage.
In the 1850s, as the poor white population swelled in numbers, a Charleston district grand jury recommended disfranchising the poor white men who were so “degraded” that they traded alcohol with blacks. Suffrage could be stripped away from any freeman by the planter-controlled courts. In the 1840s and 1850s, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Virginia kept poor whites at bay by retaining property qualifications for holding office.
President Andrew Johnson believed that if blacks obtained political equality, long-standing animosities would resurface between the two lower classes in Johnson’s construct (blacks and poor whites), triggering a “war of races.” Andrew Johnson’s race war was not Thomas Jefferson’s, however. He believed once liberated slaves took their place alongside their former masters; the seventeenth president was talking about a war of racial outcasts. As he saw it, the formerly dispossessed classes, one black and one white, would wage a vicious struggle for survival. Its cause: the federal imposition of universal suffrage on the southern states.
In 1866, President Johnson effectively abandoned the Republican Party. He had begun political life as a Jacksonian Democrat. As a result of Johnson’s apostasy, the Republicans passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which they passed in 1867 and 1869, respectively. The first guaranteed equal protection under the law as a right of national citizenship, and the second prohibited discrimination in voting based on “race, color, and previous condition of servitude.”
Isenberg posits that American democracy has never accorded all the people a meaningful voice. The masses have been given symbols instead, and they are often empty symbols. Nation-states traditionally rely on the fiction that a head of state can represent the body of the people and stand in as their proxy; in the American version, the president must appeal broadly to shared values that mask the existence of deep class divisions. Even when this strategy works, tough, unity comes at the price of perpetuating ideological deception.
Power (whether social, economic, or merely symbolic) is rarely probed. Or if it is, it never becomes so urgent a national imperative as to require an across-the-board resolution, simultaneously satisfying a moral imperative and pursuing a practical cause. We know, for instance that Americans have forcefully resisted extending the right to vote; those in power have disenfranchised blacks, women, and the poor in myriad ways.
Isenburg insists that we know, too, that women historically have had fewer civil protections than corporations. Instead of a thoroughgoing democracy, Americans have settled for democratic stagecraft: high-sounding-rhetoric, magnified, and political leaders dressing down at barbecues or heading out to hunt game. They are seen wearing blue jeans, camouflage, cowboy hats, and [MAGA] caps, all in an effort to come across as ordinary people. But presidents and other national politicians are anything but ordinary people after they are elected. Disguising the fact is the real camouflage that distorts the actual class nature of state power.
There is a saying in the Black Church that the Devil does not change his methodology because his old tricks works so well. This is true in American politics because all the political tricks used to disenfranchise Black, brown and poor peoples are still being used in the states. Isenberg historic analysis of American class structure and race proves my point because American politics has not changed from the 18th century to the 21st century.
WATCH LIVE: Biden speaks in Pittsburgh to promote infrastructure law, strengthening supply chain
FALLING BRIDGES IS A NATIONAL INFASTRURE PROBLEM
As Mayor of her hometown, Muriel Bowser is committed to building pathways to the middle class and making sure every Washingtonian gets a fair shot. Washington, DC is a growing and prospering city—now 700,000 residents strong. To keep up with this growth, the Bowser Administration remains focused on making DC’s prosperity more inclusive, advancing DC values, and building safer, stronger, and healthier neighborhoods across all eight wards of the District.
IT T’WERN’T WHITE TRASH THAT ATTACKED THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6
Don’t forget about January 6. The GOP wants you to forget this planned attack on American democracy. If you forget, you will let the Republicans take both the House and the Senate.
IT T’WERN’T WHITE TRASH THAT ATTACKED THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6
On Wednesday, December 1, 2021, at 5 p.m., International Programs, the Department of French and Italian, the European Studies Group, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures hosted a lecture from Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Timothy Snyder, professor of history from Yale University, entitled “History and Freedom: The Past, Present, and Future of Tyranny.”
In the second episode of our new series, “A House Divided,” Stephen Marche joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his new book, “The New Civil War,” and what another civil war might look like.
University of Chicago professor Richard Pape, who has been studying the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, tells “Face the Nation” that the people participating in the attack were “mainstream” and not on the fringe.
“The United States is coming to an end,” says Stephen Marche. In his new book, “The Next Civil War,” the Canadian author insists rising inequality, racial conflict, environmental destruction, and a lack of unified national purpose, means another American civil war is now inevitable; it’s just a matter of how. A year following the storming of the U.S. Capitol, The Agenda asks whether these fears are overblown, questions how divided America is and whether its undergone healing, or if its angry factions are headed towards serious violent conflict.
As investigations into the attack on the U.S. Capitol continue, details are emerging about the people who stormed the building on January 6. A new study from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats looks at the demographics of those who’ve been arrested. Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the principal investigator on the study, joins CBSN’s Lana Zak to discuss its findings.
How sedition charges against the Oath Keepers will shape the Capitol investigation
January 25, 2022
Seditious conspiracy. The Justice Department has levied the charge on 11 people associated with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
But what is seditious conspiracy, and why is the charge so rare?
Today, On Point: We’ll discuss the Oath Keepers, sedition and the Capitol attack.
We’ll also hear from the citizen sleuths who helped the FBI and DOJ identify and build a case against the Oath Keepers.
Guests
Ryan Reilly, reporter with HuffPost who will be joining NBC News next month. (@ryanjreilly)
Jenny Carroll, professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law. Director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law and visiting professor of law at Yale Law School.
Rachel Carroll Rivas, senior research analyst leading the Anti-Government Research Team and the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. (@RCR4better2mrow)
Also Featured
John Scott-Railton, a ‘sedition hunter’ and senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. (@jsrailton)
Mary, a ‘sedition hunter.’
Michael Sherwin, former acting U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia from 2020 to 2021.
Transcript: How The Sedition Hunters Helped The DOJ & FBI Build A Case Against The Oath Keepers
Much of what happened on Jan. 6 was freely and openly documented by the very people who stormed the Capitol.
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: That gave rise, almost immediately, to a group of folks on the internet who call themselves the sedition hunters. And they’re citizens who crawled the internet to look for evidence, and they help the FBI and DOJ identify the alleged conspirators. So we spoke to John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where he investigates malware, phishing and disinformation. And even though he lives in Toronto, he is an American citizen. And he told us that on Jan. 6, he watched what happened at the Capitol.
WBUR is a nonprofit news organization and our coverage relies on your financial support. Please give today.
JOHN SCOTT-RAILTON: There was one picture that really caught my attention. He was leaping over some seats in a divider in the Senate visitor’s gallery. And he was … wearing black clothing and his face masked up, had a hat and had this clutch of temporary restraints in his hand, with zip ties. And I just saw, Oh God, what is going on here?
CHAKRABARTI: So he needed to figure out: Who is this guy?
SCOTT-RAILTON: So for me, it began with a tweet where I shared a tweet of this guy. And then using Twitter, [I] started showing the process that I was going through to try to understand who he was. Well, he’s got a hat. What’s on that hat? He’s got something on his belt. What’s he got on his belt? What’s that logo? It’s Black Rifle Coffee Company. Well, that’s interesting. That says something.
What was he doing before he got into the Capitol? Was he with anyone? Well, sure he was. Turns out he was walking with a woman, became clear it was his mother. And so it was very much a process of looking for it at the time, needles in a haystack of needles, a crowd that nobody really understood. But that was massively captured in video and in picture by a lot of the participants. And so a lot of the work involved working from those images and that footage to try to understand what he’d been doing, and who these people were.
CHAKRABARTI: So then John Scott-Railton bought a picture of the man from what he calls a photo clearinghouse.
SCOTT-RAILTON: Just put up a couple of hundred dollars to buy the one time rights to that picture so that I could tweet it one time and share it with people. And have his face. And also the woman who he was with, and then find footage of him with her. And at one point, I think he refers to her as mom as he’s walking there. And then walking back even further, there were people who thought that they had spotted him at a hotel. And then it turned out that journalist at Bloomberg, William Turton, had filmed some footage from the lobby of a particular hotel in D.C., and that footage caught the guy who was in a brief encounter. And all of these pieces came together, ultimately to an identification that was fundamentally crowdsourced.
CHAKRABARTI: Now, when he says crowdsourced John Scott-Railton means the fact that citizen sleuths scoured all that footage that he just talked about. They found the photo of the man earlier in the day on Jan. 6, standing next to a woman in a plaid shirt. His mother, as you heard. Then that led them to images at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, with the man’s face uncovered. And that allowed the sleuths to crawl the internet and social media to find posts which ultimately identified the man as Eric Munchel of Nashville, Tennessee. Munchel currently faces multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit obstruction.
SCOTT-RAILTON: What was remarkable about the volunteer efforts that grew up is that they included people from around the U.S., and across the globe, all working for the same thing. And so to me, it wasn’t just a conversation about a domestic issue. It was a conversation about what can we all do to try to stop this growing anti-democratic tide around the world?
MARY: The FBI had a huge, huge problem. And it would have taken them a decade if we didn’t put all the evidence, all the footage on a silver platter for them. We’re talking about, yeah, right now it’s not that big anymore, but specifically in the beginning, we’re talking about hundreds of people who are diving through thousands and thousands of hours of footage. The FBI doesn’t have that manpower.
CHAKRABARTI: This is Mary. She lives in the Netherlands, and we are not using her last name because she fears for her safety and for her family’s safety. Mary is Black, a grandmother and active in the Black Lives Matter movement. She works as a citizen sleuth, and that work has put her in danger. Because for the last year, she spent her free time gathering information about January 6th. She provided information to investigative reporters like Ronan Farrow, and Mary says even though she hasn’t given tips directly to the FBI, she knows the FBI has used her work. For example, she’s seen photos she’s surfaced later turn up in court.
Now, Mary helped identify former Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins, a trans woman who served in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. On January 6th, Watkins came to the Capitol in full tactical gear. And there’s video of her celebrating inside as fellow Oath Keeper Donovan Crowl yells, We’ve took over the Capitol. We overran the Capitol.
Last year, Watkins’ attorney filed a motion for pretrial release, claiming that she was not violent on Jan. 6th. She claimed her role was as quote, ‘a medic.’ But over in the Netherlands, Mary found footage on the internet, showing Jessica Watkins doing much more than medical support.
MARY: And then I found a video of a group of Oath Keepers, because they split up when they were inside the Capitol. And this group was pushing against the police line in the corridor leading up to the old Senate chambers. And I saw Jessica, and I heard her voice. Because it’s also important, right, that you know how they sound if it’s possible. So I heard shouting like, Let’s get it in here, and they can’t hold us. They can’t stop this, push, push, push, push. She is literally instigating an entire mob and you see her pushing, and she even grunts. And I was like, Oh my god.
CHAKRABARTI: Mary sent that footage to New York Times reporter Christiaan Triebert, who then tweeted it out in a thread.
MARY: Two days later, the hearing was there. We see the court documents and they literally linked to the threats, and they said, Jessica Watkins is not going to be released. And she is still in jail.
CHAKRABARTI: Mary tells us she started paying close attention to the far right after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Now, while she’s not an American citizen, Mary says she still cares very deeply, especially as a Black woman.
MARY: For me personally, that had more impact. Because you’re literally looking at Nazis marching in the streets in America, right? Yeah, the connection is there. Definitely with Jan. 6th, because we see the Confederate flag inside the Capitol building. And specifically that moment had like the same impact for me, right? Like this is what white supremacy does. This is the face of institutionalized racism, the normalization of four years of the Trump administration.
CHAKRABARTI: John Scott-Railton has also been tracking far-right groups for years. And he says January 6th made efforts of citizen sleuths more urgent than ever.
SCOTT-RAILTON: January 6th happened and I felt such powerlessness. What could I do but feel anger, and frustration and fear and concern and worry and a million other things all at once? And then I did what I usually do when I feel really disempowered, which is I said, well, maybe I can investigate a little bit, maybe I can figure out something, maybe I can come to understand better.
CHAKRABARTI: Now I want to be clear about something. I’ve been using the phrase citizen sleuths. And that is a distinctly positive name. You could also call them a Twitter mob because there’s always the risk of misidentification, either accidental or willful. So we asked John, what steps did he take to prevent that from happening?
SCOTT-RAILTON: And so one thing I did consistently was to say, remember, don’t name people unless they’ve already been reported. And don’t circulate names or speculations about names publicly, because there is such a risk. And I think what’s interesting is how quickly the rest of the community also came to a similar conclusion.
CHAKRABARTI: Specifically, John told us he would not publicly name people, but instead give information first to journalists or federal investigators to validate that information. And then he would only tweet out the name after the person had been arrested or indicted or identified in the media. However, not everyone in the citizen sleuth community was as cautious.
For example, Eric Munchel was identified and named online on January 8th, well before his arrest. But John Scott-Railton says doing this work, and doing it with tens of thousands of other people around the world, gives him hope.
SCOTT-RAILTON: One of the challenges with January 6th was things were happening really fast, and there was so much that we didn’t know. But it felt like a time when it was so important to act. And I just remember a quote from Mr. Rogers, and he’s talking to his audience of kids, and I think he’s speaking. I don’t remember the details. He’s speaking to kids when they see something upsetting or troubling. And he says, Look for the helpers. There will always be helpers. And I kept feeling that in the days after January 6th, when everything felt so unclear look for the helpers and there they were. And that gave me, and I think a lot of other people, hope. That not only were we not completely powerless in the face of an awful historic event, but that there was something that we could do together that might be really impactful.
From The Reading List
HuffPost: “Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers Indicted For Seditious Conspiracy In Jan. 6 Attack” — “Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the right-wing group the Oath Keepers, was arrested by the FBI on Thursday in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Along with 10 others, Rhodes was indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy ― the first time that charge has been brought forward in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.”
This program aired on January 25, 2022.
How deep are the ties between right-wing militia groups and U.S. service members? Malcolm Nance breaks it down.
Ayman now airs on PeacockTV.
Oath Keepers founder, 10 members charged in connection with Jan. 6
Federal prosecutors have charged the founder of the Oath Keepers and 10 other members of the militia group the Oak Keepers for the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
NPR’s Ryan Lucas joins us for the latest.
This segment aired on January 14, 2022.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/14/jan-6-oath-keepers
IS WAR STILL MADE EASY? WHITE WAR IN EUROPE & BLACK WAR IN THE UNITED STATES
Race War is Made Easy by neglect on the home front while the US prosecutes the Cold War with Russia in Europe. Putin does not what his country to be encircled by the West. This was the paranoid reason that Stalin created the Soviet Union after World War II and Putin is carry the war stick for this reason. There is a diplomatic solution, but the US and NATO want to play tough guys instead of using carrots by letting Mr. Putin understand that it is up to the Ukraine to do what is in there best interests, and joining NATO is not. Ukraine is an independent nation and the West can use it charm offensive by allowing Ukraine to become as pseudo-EU member that can travel, shop, and visit the EU and Britain like a EU member, and even visit the US with an unlimited visa. This is how Poland was able to drive out the Soviets with the help of Pope John.
The charm offensive will work. And finally stop sending those heavy arms to the Ukrainians or World War Three is guaranteed and they will find themselves starving and freezing to death like the Afghanis deserted by the revengeful West led by the US.
IS WAR STILL MADE EASY? WHITE WAR IN EUROPE & BLACK WAR IN THE UNITED STATES
Media critic Norman Solomon discusses pro-war propaganda generated by U.S. governments during military operations and the influence the media has on public opinion. From the invasion of the Dominican Republic to the current war in Iraq Solomon explores ways the media is used to bolster support for military intervention.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech in New York. In this speech, he opposes violence and militarism, particularly the war in Vietnam.
THEIR WAR VS OUR WAR: A RECAP
Why Their War versus Our War? Their war is an Empire War. Our War is home front war within the United States—i.e. Self-defense to save the Black and brown vote from annihilation. The American Empire consists of “stable” democracies that feels it must teach Communist Russia a lesson: In this case, “You must not limit the footprint of NATO.” And within this statement lies the fact that this may be the beginning of World War Three, the first ground war since World War Two, because of the actors and landmass involved. Norman Solomon in War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2005) explains how war is sold to an unwitting public. In his Prologue: “Building Agendas for War,” Solomon posits:
“Sometimes a war begins suddenly filling the national horizon with a huge insistent flash. At other times, over a period of months or years, a low distant rumble gradually turns into a roar. But in any event, the democratic role of citizens is not simply to observe and obey the exigencies of war. In the United States, what we think is supposed to matter. And for practical reasons, top officials in Washington don’t want to seem too far out of step with voters.”
Looking toward military action overseas, the president initiates a siege of public opinion on the home front—a battleground where media spin is the main weapon, and support for war is the victory. From the outset, the quest is for an image of virtual consensus behind the commander-in-chief. A media campaign for hearts and minds at home means going all out to persuade us that the next war is as good as a war can be—necessary, justified, righteous, and worth any sorrows to be left in its wake.
EUROPE
Germany baffles some allies with its refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine
January 26, 20225:10 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 4:284-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Rachel Martin speaks with Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution about Germany’s refusal to provide Ukraine with weapons for its self-defense. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1075717114/germany-baffles-some-allies-with-its-refusal-to-supply-weapons-to-ukraine
Solomon lists the wars that President persuaded American people that were in their best interest to stop the domino effect of Communism and/or to “rescue” Americans, and have the CIA install a “democratic” strongman.
WORLD
How the Ukraine crisis could reset the global balance of power
January 25, 2022 4:47 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered
CHRISTOPHER INTAGLIATA Twitter LISTEN· 8:168-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Gideon Rachman of ‘The Financial Times’ about how China and Russia could leverage the Ukraine crisis to reduce U.S. influence around the world and reset the world order. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075624785/how-the-ukraine-crisis-could-reset-the-global-balance-of-power
A lot of Americans may be bothered by war reportage, but the day-to-day news is not awfully uncomfortable for most of us, even when U.S. Military forces are directly involved. (President Biden has promised 5,000 US troops and has 8,500 standing by for deployment.) Messages that underscore the normality of an ongoing war tend to blend with the customary media landscape. Citing analysis by theorist Jacques Ellul, the writer Nancy Snow has emphasized that “propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable.” A former cultural affairs specialist at the U.S. Information Agency, she comments: “In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people that they are not being manipulated.”
POLITICS
GOP senator from North Dakota wants to tackle climate change
January 26, 20225:10 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 7:027-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota about climate change. Unlike some Republicans, Cramer says he’s willing to combat the problem by reducing carbon emissions. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1075717107/gop-senator-from-north-dakota-wants-to-tackle-climate-change
The most effective agenda-building for war is apt to seem like the logical unfolding of events at a time of crisis. The dynamic is akin to an approach that the legendary advertising wizard David Ogilvy described several decades ago: “A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
It should rivet the reader’s attention on the product. Instead of saying, ‘What a cleaver advertisement,’ the reader says, ‘I never knew that before, I must try this product.’ It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice.” Ogilvy added: “When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’ I’m for Demosthenes.
WORLD
If Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine with troops, it could still launch a cyberattack
January 25, 2022 5:02 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered
JENNA MCLAUGHLIN Twitter LISTEN· 3:193-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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With U.S. troops on heightened alert and NATO forces on standby, fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remain. But even if Putin doesn’t send troops in, he could still launch a crippling cyberattack. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075624806/if-russia-doesnt-invade-ukraine-with-troops-it-could-still-launch-a-cyberattack
A media-propelled march to war has many parallels with an advertising campaign. And such campaigns are more constant than episodic. From hard-sell messages to subtle product placement, plugs are unceasingly part of the media terrain: the process of generating acceptance is 24/7.
The propagandist “strives for simplicity and vividness coupled with speed and broad impact,” wrote sociologist Alfred McClung Lee in his book How to Understand Propaganda. The effort “stimulates popular emotional drives in existing grooves which are most likely to forward his objectives. In so doing, he must for the most part bypass factual discussion and debate of an adequate sort.” Yet at the time, the opposite might appear to be the case. The lead-in to the invasion of Iraq, for instance, involved a deluge of prewar media coverage that spanned eight months.
How the Russia-Ukraine conflict started decades before Putin — and why the West ignored the signs
Here & Now‘s Scott Tong speaks with Anatol Lieven, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the role of NATO in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and why the tension started decades before Vladimir Putin.
This segment aired on January 26, 2022.Here & Now: Editors’ Picks
Related:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/26/russia-ukraine-nato-putin
In the process, American media consumers may have believed they were drowning in facts and debates. But much of the discourse amounted to the field testing and fine-tuning of a successful public-relations juggernaut that ended up—as usual—carrying the nation into war. The oft-repeated “facts” were often not factual: the standard debates were exceedingly narrow. Oceans of ink and thousands of airtime hours concentrated on disputes over how and when to go to war. Whether you’re selling food from McDonald’s or cars from General Motors or a war from the government, repetition is crucial for making propaganda stick.
President Biden warned that s a Russian invasion of Ukraine could quickly escalate. His comments come as the U.S. continues to deliver military supplies and weapons to allies. CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion and CBS News Radio White House correspondent Steve Portnoy join “Red and Blue” with more.
Solomon declares that in a democratic society, persistent agenda-building is necessary to gain and retain public support for war. He insists that we probe and scrutinize key “perception management” techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars during recent decades, [that are illustrated in War Made Easy which include the wars promoted by Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and his invasion of Iraq].
The better we understand those ongoing techniques, the more clearly we’ll be able to see wars coming and understand what’s really behind them. Hopefully, Solomon pleads, War Made Easy will help to blow away the fog of media war and enhance possibilities for democratic participation in decisions that are truly matters of life and death.
War with Russia is a matter of life and death for the Ukrainians, the Europeans and NATO itself. And a source of dishonor for the United States.
As Afghans starve, many say U.S. policy is making the country’s economic crisis worse
Afghanistan’s economy is in a dangerous downward spiral — pushing millions closer and closer to starvation. According to the United Nations World Food Program, more than half of the country’s population is facing crisis levels of hunger.
Many experts say the U.S. is making the economic crisis worse because shortly after the Taliban’s takeover, the Biden administration froze billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s reserve assets — effectively cutting off the country’s cash flow.
Shah Mehrabi, a professor of economics at Montgomery College in Maryland and board member of Afghanistan’s central bank, joins us with more. https://www.youtube.com/embed/43wHU4M9uXE?rel=0&wmode=transparent
This segment aired on January 26, 2022.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/26/afghanistan-economy-hunger
Newshour – Ukraine tension: US ‘lethal aid’ arrives in Kyiv – BBC Sounds
Ukraine tension: US ‘lethal aid’ arrives in Kyivhttps://emp.bbc.co.uk/emp/SMPj/2.44.11/iframe.htmlReleased On: 22 Jan 2022Available for 25 days
Artillery shipments arrive in Ukraine as Russia’s troops build-up on the border Read more More episodesProgramme Website
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xv5kbpyxsyf
Germany has declined to join allies such as the US and UK in shipping weapons to Ukraine. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says weapons exports to Ukraine aren’t a good idea right now.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington has made no concessions to the main Russian demands over Ukraine and NATO, in a written response delivered to Moscow
The letter from the US is its formal response to Russian demands that include NATO’s withdrawal from eastern Europe.
Russia has massed around 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine. It’s calling on the country to be barred from NATO membership.
Hew Edwards presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Sarah Rainsford in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, and Barbara Plett-Usher in Washington.
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary journalist and filmmaker John Pilger. He discusses the scandal surrounding Boris Johnson over Downing Street parties during Coronavirus lockdowns, growing US tension with Russia over Ukraine amid the backdrop of NATO enlargement to Russia’s borders, tensions with China and the West’s need for a perpetual enemy, the continuing persecution of Julian Assange and much more.
WAR ON THE HOMEFRONT
If you’ve been injured at a construction site or in any other kind of accident, dial # 250 on your cell and say ‘THE BULL’ or visit http://www.msllegal.com
LAW
Flaws plague a tool meant to help low-risk federal prisoners win early release
January 26, 2022 5:00 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
CARRIE JOHNSON Twitter LISTEN· 7:357-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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A prisoner looks out of his jail window as protesters gather outside the federal detention center in Miami on June 12, 2020, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd.Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Thousands of people are leaving federal prison this month thanks to a law called the First Step Act, which allowed them to win early release by participating in programs aimed at easing their return to society.
But thousands of others may still remain behind bars because of fundamental flaws in the Justice Department’s method for deciding who can take the early-release track. The biggest flaw: persistent racial disparities that put Black and brown people at a disadvantage. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1075509175/flaws-plague-a-tool-meant-to-help-low-risk-federal-prisoners-win-early-release
President Biden’s news-making press conference on Wednesday touched on voting rights, Build Back Better, and the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Joy Reid and her panel discuss how the Biden administration is grappling with these issues, as the Senate sits on the verge of determining the fate of federal voting rights legislation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is being called out for comments implying African Americans are not Americans.
While addressing questions about voting rights, McConnell said, “If you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
On “Start Your Day,” hosts Sharon Reed and Mike Hill discuss McConnell’s comments and the continued fight for voting rights legislation.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is cracking down on “woke” teachers, and he’s created a tip line for parents to rat them out. It’s one of his latest moves that proves he’s no moderate. A political panel made up of Elie Mystal, Jeremy Peters and Mona Charen discuss.
POLITICS
After 10 days in office, Virginia Gov. Youngkin is facing blowback over new policies
January 25, 20225:02 PM ETHeard on All Things Considered
BEN PAVIOUR LISTEN· 3:263-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration is pushing a conservative agenda including banning masks in schools, firing professors and urging parents to report critical race theory. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075624841/after-10-days-in-office-virginia-gov-youngkin-is-facing-blowback-over-new-polici
Nikole Hannah-Jones: ”A healthy society does not ban ideas and it does not ban books.”
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson spoke about the need to pass Democrats’ voting rights bills.
AMERICAN PROPHETS VS AMERICAN PROFITEERS
Malcolm Nance visits with Stephanie Miller every Wednesday. Malcolm is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
THEIR WAR AND OUR BLACK AND BROWN VOTE
Mary L. Dudziak in Cold war Civil Rights: Race And the Image Of American Democracy (2000) quotes Martin Luther King Jr. on America’s destiny: “Abused and scorned though we may be as a people, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America.”
After 22-years, this is still a truism that remains relevant for African American, as well as brown Americans. In fact, this is deja vu in 2022 as Russia camps on the border of Ukraine and the U.S. threatens to deploy 8500 soldier to join NATO in Ukraine’s defense, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells the Democrats in the Senate not to believe that the Black and brown American votes are being threatened by the Filibuster. A post-1965 Reconstruction twice-told-tale.
Washington — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. calls for immediate implementation of voting rights
Dudziak posits that the story of civil rights and the Cold War is in part the story of a struggle over the narrative of race and democracy. The U.S. Government tried to project a story of progress. Having moved from slavery to freedom, surely America had a government that facilitated social change. Democracy, it seemed, was the site of an inexorable march toward justice. Yet as the civil rights movement gained strength, and as the movement faced the brutality of massive resistance, the government would find it impossible to contain the story of race in America.
When nine schoolchildren tried to enforce their constitutional rights to attend Central High School in Little rock, their action, and the outpouring of resistance they engendered, exploded the careful story of American racial progress that the Supreme Court’s Brown decision was said to symbolize. When demonstrators faced Bull Connors’s brutality in Birmingham, the blows they received pushed race in America firmly into the Kennedy administration’s foreign affairs agenda.
MLK: Give Us the Ballot
Soviet manipulation of American racial problems ensured that race in America would be an important Cold War narrative. U.S. Government effort to contain and manage the story of race in America was a component of the government’s broader Cold War policy of containing communism. Yet within this framework, the Cold War was simultaneously an agent of repression and an agent of change.
The government’s response to the movement was driven in part by whether activists supported or detracted from the Cold War/civil rights frame. Those who spoke out of turn, especially to an international audience were silenced. Struggles in the streets of American cities continually pushed the boundaries and redefined the narrative. The government’s inability to control the story force American leaders to promote stronger civil rights reform. However, just as cold War ideology limited the federal government’s vision of social change, the international referent also limited the nature of the government’s commitment to reform.
To the extent that reform was motivated by a desire to placate foreign critics, reform efforts that safeguarded the nation’s image would best respond to that concern. With Brown and Little Rock, formal equality could protect the image of American constitutionalism even if the reforms supported by the federal government would not lead to meaningful social change in the communities affected. It was only when the movement demanded more in the 1960s that more extensive change would be required. When the international gaze later shifted in Vietnam and to civil unrest, the international leverage for civil rights reform receded.
It has been a familiar refrain among historians of American race relations to look back at the 1960s, at that decade’s promise of racial reconciliation, and to ask what went wrong. Perhaps a failure of resolve, perhaps a lack of consensus about the means or extent of social change, perhaps the forces of resistance led to the failure of America’s second reconstruction Amid these notes of despair there seems to be an implicit assumption that if only the historical actors had been good enough, strong enough, or wise enough, perhaps the story might have turned out differently.
The years following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are viewed as a time when a notional commitment to reform fell apart. Some argue that after critical milestones were achieved, a consensus about social change no longer existed. Others suggest that with the emergence of black Power and the antiwar turn of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., the movement splintered and thereby lost effectiveness.
The Miss Black and Gold Court and the Gamma Beta Brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Present: One Vote, One Voice The videos included are two separate speeches Martin Luther King Delivered about the importance of voting.
Divergent voices had always been present within the movement. And within the nation as a whole, a consensus that social change was necessary never congealed around a unitary vision of racial equality, and always coexisted with a strong and brutal tradition of dissent. One part of the more complex story is that during the mid-1960s, the movement lost a crucial element of leverage. The Cold War, now embodied in the Vietnam War, played a role in the eclipse of the domestic reform agenda as international attention turned to other matters.
The Cold War is back (my words).
YOU GOT YOUR WAR–WE GOT OURS
I love history because writers/journalist like Norman Solomon in War Made Easy: How Presidents And Pundits Keep Spinning US To Death (2005) and how media propaganda draw US into wars. It’s funny how President Biden refused to spin his first year accomplishments until he tanked in the polls, but war with Russia which threatens to brake out into World War Three and converts it into instant spin.
However, I find war on some foreign soil is not worth it when their is a war going on here on the home front. The history of this war goes back to Reconstruction and President Hayes when the freedmen were disenfranchised. Now the Filibuster is being used for the same purpose by 50 Republican Senators and 2 DINOs. This is a declaration of war on native soil as far as I’m concerned.
Putin has his point. Like Stalin, he does not want his country encircled. Yet NATO because it is being backed up by the US Military, refuses to understand this point of history. 20 years in Afghanistan does not seem to be enough and Americans do not perceive the spin that got them there; a post for another time, and our fellow Americans spinner who spun US there!
YOU GOT YOUR WAR–WE GOT OURS
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine
Crisis John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.
THEIR WAR: THE AMERICAN EMPIRE VS RUSSIA
Backstory
WORLD
Threat of Russian invasion escalates as both sides amass troops at Ukraine border
January 23, 20227:59 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
ROB SCHMITZ Twitter LISTEN· 4:594-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Ukraine’s military is preparing for a potential Russian invasion. Meanwhile, the UK’s foreign ministry issues a communique on Russian plans to install a pro-Moscow leader after a possible invasion. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/23/1075168707/britain-says-putin-has-plans-to-install-a-pro-moscow-leader-in-ukraine
The Cold War grows gets more and more tense as both the USSR and the US try to get the upper hand through the volume of nuclear weapons and strategic launching sites – including Cuba. Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
l
Why Their War versus Our War? Their war is Empire War. Our War is home front war—i.e. Self-defense. The American Empire consists of “stable” democracies that feel it must teach Communist Russia a lesson: In this case, “You must not limit the footprint of NATO.” And within this statement lies the fact that this may be the beginning of World War Three because of the actors and landmass involved. Norman Solomon in War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2005) explains how war is sold to an unwitting public. In his Prologue: “Building Agendas for War,” Solomon posits:
Sometimes a war begins suddenly filling the national horizon with a huge insistent flash. At other times, over a period of months or years, a low distant rumble gradually turns into a roar. But in any event, the democratic role of citizens is not simply to observe and obey the exigencies of war. In the United States, what we think is supposed to matter. And for practical reasons, top officials in Washington don’t want to seem too far out of step with voters.
Looking toward military action overseas, the president initiates a siege of public opinion on the home front—a battleground where media spin is the main weapon, and support for war is the victory. From the outset, the quest is for an image of virtual consensus behind the commander in chief. A media campaign for hearts and minds at home means going all out to persuade us that the next war is as good as a war can be—necessary, justified, righteous, and worth any sorrows to be left in its wake.
EUROPE
Putin has persuaded most Russians that the Ukraine crisis is NATO’s fault
January 25, 20227:19 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
CHARLES MAYNES LISTEN· 3:113-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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The U.S. and NATO are readying troops for possible deployment to Eastern Europe to deter Russia from invading Ukraine. The Kremlin says Western governments and media are creating “hysteria.” https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075488934/putin-has-persuaded-most-russians-that-the-ukraine-crisis-is-natos-fault
Solomon lists the wars that President persuaded American people that were in their best interest to stop the domino effect of Communism and/or to “rescue” Americans, and have the CIA install a “democratic” strongman.
Past War History
A lot of Americans may be bothered by war reportage, but the day-to-day news is not awfully uncomfortable for most of us, even when U.S. Military forces are directly involved. Messages that underscore the normality of an ongoing war tend to blend with the customary media landscape. Citing analysis by theorist Jacques Ellul, the writer Nancy Snow has emphasized that “propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable.” A former cultural affairs specialist at the U.S. Information Agency, she comments: “In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people that they are not being manipulated.”
EUROPE
The White House responds to the Ukraine crisis by amping up pressure on Russia
January 25, 20227:20 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
SCOTT DETROW Twitter LISTEN· 3:233-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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President Biden has threatened serious sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, and 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on heightened alert. We examine what this crisis means for the White House. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075488941/the-white-house-responds-to-the-ukraine-crisis-by-amping-up-pressure-on-russia
Solomon declares that the most effective agenda-building for war is apt to seem like the logical unfolding of events at a time of crisis. The dynamic is akin to an approach that the legendary advertising wizard David Ogilvy described several decades ago: “A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
It should rivet the reader’s attention on the product. Instead of saying, ‘What a cleaver advertisement,’ the reader says, ‘I never knew that before, I must try this product.’ It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice.” Ogilvy added: “When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’ I’m for Demosthenes.
A media-propelled march to war has many parallels with an advertising campaign. And such campaigns are more constant than episodic. From hard-sell messages to subtle product placement, plugs are unceasingly part of the media terrain: the process of generating acceptance is 24/7.
EUROPE
Would a push by the U.S. military deter Russia from invading Ukraine?
January 24, 20227:23 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 7:147-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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As the State Department orders relatives of embassy staff in Kyiv to leave, NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst about where the diplomatic effort goes from here. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/24/1075264780/would-a-push-by-the-u-s-military-deter-russia-from-invading-ukraine
EUROPE
Why Russian President Vladimir Putin is escalating the threat of war with Ukraine
January 23, 2022 8:08 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
SARAH MCCAMMON Twitter LISTEN· 5:545-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Sarah McCammon talks with U.S. national security expert Andrea Kendall-Taylor about what is motivating Russian President Vladimir Putin as he escalates the threat of war with Ukraine. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/23/1075168714/why-russian-president-vladimir-putin-is-escalating-the-threat-of-war-with-ukrain
Threat of Russian invasion escalates as both sides amass troops at Ukraine border
January 23, 20227:59 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
ROB SCHMITZ Twitter LISTEN· 4:594-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Ukraine’s military is preparing for a potential Russian invasion. Meanwhile, the UK’s foreign ministry issues a communique on Russian plans to install a pro-Moscow leader after a possible invasion. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/23/1075168707/britain-says-putin-has-plans-to-install-a-pro-moscow-leader-in-ukraine
EUROPE
Putin has persuaded most Russians that the Ukraine crisis is NATO’s fault
January 25, 20227:19 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
CHARLES MAYNES LISTEN· 3:113-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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The U.S. and NATO are readying troops for possible deployment to Eastern Europe to deter Russia from invading Ukraine. The Kremlin says Western governments and media are creating “hysteria.” https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075488934/putin-has-persuaded-most-russians-that-the-ukraine-crisis-is-natos-fault
Solomon lists the wars that President persuaded American people that were in their best interest to stop the domino effect of Communism and/or to “rescue” Americans, and have the CIA install a “democratic” strongman.
A lot of Americans may be bothered by war reportage, but the day-to-day news is not awfully uncomfortable for most of us, even when U.S. Military forces are directly involved. Messages that underscore the normality of an ongoing war tend to blend with the customary media landscape. Citing analysis by theorist Jacques Ellul, the writer Nancy Snow has emphasized that “propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable.” A former cultural affairs specialist at the U.S. Information Agency, she comments: “In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people that they are not being manipulated.”
EUROPE
The White House responds to the Ukraine crisis by amping up pressure on Russia
January 25, 20227:20 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
SCOTT DETROW Twitter LISTEN· 3:233-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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- Transcript
President Biden has threatened serious sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, and 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on heightened alert. We examine what this crisis means for the White House. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075488941/the-white-house-responds-to-the-ukraine-crisis-by-amping-up-pressure-on-russia
Solomon declares that the most effective agenda-building for war is apt to seem like the logical unfolding of events at a time of crisis. The dynamic is akin to an approach that the legendary advertising wizard David Ogilvy described several decades ago: “A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
It should rivet the reader’s attention on the product. Instead of saying, ‘What a cleaver advertisement,’ the reader says, ‘I never knew that before, I must try this product.’ It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice.” Ogilvy added: “When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’ I’m for Demosthenes.
A media-propelled march to war has many parallels with an advertising campaign. And such campaigns are more constant than episodic. From hard-sell messages to subtle product placement, plugs are unceasingly part of the media terrain: the process of generating acceptance is 24/7.
EUROPE
Why Russian President Vladimir Putin is escalating the threat of war with Ukraine
January 23, 2022 8:08 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
SARAH MCCAMMON Twitter LISTEN· 5:545-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Sarah McCammon talks with U.S. national security expert Andrea Kendall-Taylor about what is motivating Russian President Vladimir Putin as he escalates the threat of war with Ukraine. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/23/1075168714/why-russian-president-vladimir-putin-is-escalating-the-threat-of-war-with-ukrain
In an interview with CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that while there’s an urgent need for diplomacy to resolve the crisis in eastern Europe, it’s up to Russia, not Ukraine, to show flexibility.
President Joe Biden on Thursday cleaned up comments he made a day earlier, to say any Russian incursion into Ukraine would lead to a severe and unified response by the United States and its allies. In Berlin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken also presented unity. But as Biden himself admitted Wednesday, the transatlantic alliance is not unified over how to punish Russia. Nick Schifrin explains.
EUROPE
The White House responds to the Ukraine crisis by amping up pressure on Russia
January 25, 20227:20 AM ETHeard on Morning Edition
SCOTT DETROW Twitter LISTEN· 3:233-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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President Biden has threatened serious sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, and 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on heightened alert. We examine what this crisis means for the White House. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075488941/the-white-house-responds-to-the-ukraine-crisis-by-amping-up-pressure-on-russia
Friday on the NewsHour, the U.S. and Russia remain in a heated standoff over Ukraine after a meeting between the American secretary of state and his Russian counterpart. Then, how Taliban rule, a historic drought and bitter cold worsen food scarcity in Afghanistan. And, David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart take stock of the president’s first year and the failed voting rights push in Congress.
OUR WAR: AFRICAN AMERICAN VS THE FILIBUSTER & THE DINOS & A DRED SCOTT SUPREME COURT
An attempt by Senate Democrats to advance a landmark voting rights bill failed yesterday on the Senate floor. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane joins CBSN to discuss the latest from Capitol Hill.
In 1967, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King spoke with NBC News’ Sander Vanocur about the “new phase” of the struggle for “genuine equality.”
The Florida Senate Education Committee recently passed the “Individual Freedom” bill which would prohibit schools and private businesses from making White people feel “discomfort” when teaching or training about historic racism.
Rarely seen footage of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking to students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967, where he delivered his speech “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?”
Melissa Murray and Jonathan Capehart discuss the ever-closing web surrounding former President Donald Trump, as more information about what really happened on January 6th comes to light.
Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for the New Yorker, talks about her new reporting on the activism and paid affiliations and lobbying of Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that Justice Thomas does not acknowledge conflict with cases before the Supreme Court from which he should recuse himself.
With the Supreme Court’s approval rating at a new low, Justice Clarence Thomas last fall defended the court against the growing criticism that it has become too politicized. Meanwhile, Thomas is married to someone who is extremely politically active on the far right–Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas, an American attorney and conservative activist. Legal expert Elie Mystal joins Joy Reid with his analysis.
South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, former chairman of the RNC Michael Steele and former DNC chair Howard Dean join Jonathan Capehart to discuss the path ahead for President Biden’s agenda in the face of grim new polling from NBC News.
MLK: Paul’s Letter to American Christians
CLOWN DIPOMACY SEEKING WAR WITH THE WRONG OPPONENTS
I have never thought clowns were funny. But some people, especially those in the US Senate calling for war seem to love clownish behavior. War on any level has a price in blood and treasure, but these diplomatic clowns will never pay the price. Only young men and women will. The problem that these clowns is that they can appeal to the prejudices that lay within the American soul, that Trump tapped into. The main being race. Somehow China–a nation composed of peoples of color does not look right being rich and powerful; and Blacks and browns voting in force is a betrayal of White Privilege; and because the Russians are paranoid about being surrounded by its enemy NATO, it has no case. Clowns are like that.
CLOWN DIPOMACY SEEKING WAR WITH THE WRONG OPPONENTS
At a press briefing on Thursday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called for a full US boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
POLITITIANS THAT SPEAK WITH A FORKED TONGUE
The big business of the Olympics: Corporate sponsors silent on human rights abuses ahead of Beijing
PlayJanuary 20, 2022
The U.S. is sticking with its diplomatic boycott of China over human rights concerns ahead of the Olympics, which is set to begin Feb. 4. But athletes are heading there — as are big American companies.
Now, members of Congress are asking Coca-Cola and other corporations to consider a more critical approach to China.
Host Tonya Mosley speaks with Republican Rep. John Curtis of Utah.
This segment aired on January 20, 2022.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/20/businesses-olympics-china
“I’d like to be able to be in a position where I could say they’re meeting their commitments — more than their commitments — and be able to lift some of it, but we’re not there yet,” President Biden says at White House news conference.
SPORTS
Saturday sports: Olympics in less than 2 weeks; no Djokovic at Australian Open
January 22, 20229:22 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
TOM GOLDMAN Twitter LISTEN· 5:085-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Two television networks are keeping key on-air personnel in the U.S. for the Winter Olympics. Also, the Australian Open proceeds without the top-ranked male player. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/22/1075049602/saturday-sports-olympics-in-less-than-2-weeks-no-djokovic-at-australian-open
UNLAWFUL POLITICAL STATEMENT AT MEXICO GAMES IN 1968
In Senate floor remarks on Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) warned of the threats posed by China.
AMERICANS IF THEY WISH TO KEEP THEIR REPUBLIC HAD BETTER INVESTIGATE
On Wednesday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke on the Senate floor about China and communism, as Scott proposed an amendment, which Durbin blocks over the GOP blockade of State Department nominees including the Ambassador to China.
Highly-contagious omicron could spread quickly through crowded ICE facilities
January 2, 20228:01 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
EYDER PERALTA Twitter LISTEN· 4:514-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Eyder Peralta speaks to Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, on the threat omicron poses to those being held in immigration detention facilities. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/02/1069739357/highly-contagious-omicron-could-spread-quickly-through-crowded-ice-facilities
On the Senate floor, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) made clear he will not help his fellow Senate Democrats change the filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation.
POLITICS
What’s at risk for Republicans as members spread lies about 2020’s election?
January 13, 20227:17 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 7:367-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s A Martinez talks with Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota about voting rights, and acknowledgement that there was no widespread fraud in the presidential election. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/13/1072678597/whats-at-risk-for-republicans-as-members-spread-lies-about-2020s-election
Martin Jacques, former senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, said on Thursday at A Dialogue on Democracy in Beijing that there are two problems in the Western concept of democracy. “The first is the lack of any serious historical context, and the second is the failure to understand and respect cultural difference,” he said.
Martin Luther King Jr. III, Martin Luther King Jrs son, speaks at a “Deliver For Voting Rights” rally in Washington DC on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Virginia’s first Black woman lieutenant governor says we need to move on from slavery
January 13, 20225:11 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
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Virginia’s Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, pictured on the campaign trail, speaks with now Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears after a rally in Fredericksburg, Va., Oct. 30, 2021. Youngkin and Sears, both Republicans, won election on Nov. 2, and will be sworn into office Jan. 15, 2022.Steve Helber/AP
On Saturday, Republican Winsome Sears will make history in Virginia by becoming the first Black woman to hold statewide office when she is sworn in as lieutenant governor alongside the governor-elect, Republican Glenn Youngkin. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/13/1072153233/virginias-first-black-woman-lieutenant-governor-says-we-need-to-move-on-from-sla
On March 28, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press to discuss his historic five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
POLITICS
Florida’s DeSantis proposes a voting map that cuts 2 majority Black voting districts
January 21, 20225:26 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered
VALERIE CROWDER LISTEN· 3:063-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Governor Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., has weighed into the redistricting fight in Florida by proposing his own controversial congressional redistricting maps that dilute minority voting power. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074872926/floridas-desantis-proposes-a-voting-map-that-cuts-2-majority-black-voting-distri
President Biden on Thursday made his case for voting right legislation directly to Senate Democrats and heatedly denounced the Republican efforts to put limits on voting. But Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reiterated that she would not support a change to the 60-vote threshold or weakening the filibuster. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, a key lawmaker close to the issue, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.
How a WWII veteran’s act of voting inspired a teenage Martin Luther King Jr.
January 14, 20225:15 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
JARROD SPORT LISTEN· 3:113-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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In 1945, U.S. Army veteran Maceo Snipes returned home to Taylor County, Ga., where he became the first African American to cast a vote in his county’s primary. A day after he voted, he was murdered. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1072980492/how-a-wwii-veterans-act-of-voting-inspired-a-teenage-martin-luther-king-jr
CLOWN DINOS (DEMOCRATS IN NAME ONLY) LIKE MANCHIN AND SINAMA MAKE ALL DEMOCRATS CRY
As this year’s midterm elections approach, the Senate is preparing to vote on two key voting rights bills that are critical to President Biden’s legislative agenda, but Democrats might not have enough support to pass the bills. NBC News’ Leigh Ann Caldwell and Mike Memoli have the details.
POLITICS
State laws that add restrictions on voting are a serious problem, Waldman says
January 14, 20225:15 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 5:295-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s A Martinez talks to Michael Waldman, president of the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, about the fight for voting rights. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1072980433/state-laws-that-add-restrictions-on-voting-are-a-serious-problem-waldman-says
President Biden’s news-making press conference on Wednesday touched on voting rights, Build Back Better, and the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Joy Reid and her panel discuss how the Biden administration is grappling with these issues, as the Senate sits on the verge of determining the fate of federal voting rights legislation.
RACE
Important parts of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy are often glossed over
January 17, 20224:18 PM ETHeard on All Things Considered
ADRIAN FLORIDO Twitter LISTEN· 4:084-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Ongoing fights for voting rights and racial justice have sparked a reckoning over how Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is often invoked in that work. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/17/1073661284/important-parts-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-legacy-are-often-glossed-over
CNN’s Van Jones reacts after Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said America is “not a racist country” in the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress.
POLITICAL DIPLOMATIC CLOWNS ARE DETERMINED TO DESTROY THE GLOBAL SYSTEM BY DESTROYING CHINA AS ECONOMIC COMPETITION TO THE UNITED STATES & THE WEST AND MAINTAIN WHITE HEGEMONY
If you thought the US-China trade war disappeared with president Trump, think again. Taha Arvas explains, ‘In Brief.’ #USChinaTradeWar
HEALTH
The omicron surge has yet to peak in many areas of the U.S.
January 21, 20224:58 PM ETHeard on All Things Considered
ROB STEIN Twitter Facebook LISTEN· 4:014-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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The massive U.S. omicron surge appears to be following the same pattern as other countries, with infections starting to peak and quickly recede. But cases are still spiking in some parts of the U.S. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074872883/the-omicron-surge-has-yet-to-peak-in-many-areas-of-the-u-s
CLOWN TALK FROM FOX NEWS
Rep. Jim Banks, R-IN, lays out how America can get China to pay reparations for its mishandling of coronavirus. #FoxBusiness #Dobbs
GLOBAL HEALTH
Epicenter of AIDS Is Found: Africa, 1930
May 25, 20064:00 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered
RICHARD KNOX LISTEN· 4:474-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Scientists say they have pinpointed the origin of the AIDS virus. It all started in southern Cameroon in West Central Africa around 1930, according to a study published online by the journal Science. The virus that started the global pandemic — recognized 25 years ago next week — passed from chimps to humans in that area.
The reservoir of the ancestral virus still exists among chimpanzee communities in the same area of Cameroon.
Now that scientists have uncovered HIV’s origin, they’re hoping to find clues to help battle the pandemic that has since infected 60 million people around the world. Among the first tasks: studying how a virus that doesn’t harm chimps can infect humans and devastate their immune systems. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5431256#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20they%20have%20pinpointed%20the%20origin%20of,passed%20from%20chimps%20to%20humans%20in%20that%20area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_the_United_States
What the Joe Rogan podcast controversy says about the online misinformation ecosystem
January 21, 20225:11 AM ETHeard on Morning Edition
SHANNON BONDTwitterLISTEN· 4:234-Minute ListenAdd toPLAYLIST
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Joe Rogan, the comedian, TV commentator and podcaster, reacts during an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in May 2020.Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images
An open letter urging Spotify to crack down on COVID-19 misinformation has gained the signatures of more than a thousand doctors, scientists and health professionals spurred by growing concerns over anti-vaccine rhetoric on the audio app’s hit podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
The medical and scientific experts slammed Rogan’s track record of airing false claims about the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines and unproven treatments, calling it “a sociological issue of devastating proportions.” Spotify, they say, has enabled him. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074442185/joe-rogan-doctor-covid-podcast-spotify-misinformation
THE HYPOCRISY OF AMERICAN RELIGIONISTS AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE
Letter from a Birmingham Jail – Martin Luther King Jr.
WHY? BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY IN CONGRESS SUPPORTING THE BIG LIE
CNN’s Don Lemon calls out lawmakers who quote Martin Luther King Jr. but whose actions don’t align with his legacy. #CNN #News
THE VOTE IS THE BACKBONE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY WITHOUT THE FREE EXERCISE OF THE VOTE THERE IS NO AMERICA
“Hope & Fury: MLK, The Movement and The Media” is a gripping account of American history told like never before by an all-star lineup of civil rights leaders, pioneering African-American reporters who chronicled the movement, and journalists from across generations, as well as present-day activists who have adopted the tactics of their forbearers to shine a light on inequality in the modern era.» Subscribe to NBC News: http://nbcnews.to/SubscribeToNBC
THE RETURN OF THE COLD WAR HYPOCRISY
Mary L. Dudziak points out in Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image Of American Democracy (2000) that Communist China media has always published the abuses of the Negro by the United State governments both state and federal. She posits that in China, the media focused on the effect of U.S. race discrimination on the nation’s leadership in postwar world politics.
Shanghai’s Ta Kung Pao covered the May 2, 1948, arrest of U.S. Senator Glen Taylor for violating Alabama segregation laws. At the time Taylor was the vice-presidential running mate of Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace.
Senator Glen Hearst Taylor Of Idaho
On May 2, 1948, Taylor, who was white, attempted to used the “colored entrance” to a Birmingham, Alabama, church where he was scheduled to speak to a meeting of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. As the paper reported it, a police officer stationed at the door informed Taylor that “this was the colored entrance.” Taylor responded that “it did not make any difference to me and started in.” five officers then arrested Taylor, who sustained minor injuries in the process.
“They treated me very rough—anything but gentlemanly.” he later said. “God help the ordinary man.” Although Taylor violated the Birmingham segregation law, he was only charged with disorderly conduct, circumventing a challenge to the city law.
Criticizing Taylor’s arrest, the Chinese paper noted that “the Negro Problem is a problem of U.S. Internal politics, and naturally, it is unnecessary for anybody else to meddle with it” However, the issue had international ramifications:
“We cannot help having some impressions of the United States which actually already leads half of the world and which would like to continue to lead it. If the United States merely wants to “dominate” the world, the atomic bomb and the U.S. dollar will be sufficient to achieve this purpose. However, the world cannot be “dominated for a long period of time. If the United States wants to “lead” the world, it must have a kind of moral superiority in addition to military superiority.”
According to the paper, “the United States prides itself on its ‘liberal traditions,’ and it is in the United States itself that these traditions can best be demonstrated.”
Dudziak claims that the violence against the Freedom Riders was also an international incident picked up by the Chinese press. And President Kennedy had reason to be concerned with the overseas impact of the violence against the Freedom Riders, for the international reaction to these events was harsh. The United States Information Agency (USIA) later reported that accessed in terms of its impact on the American image abroad, the Alabama racial incident was highly detrimental” worldwide news accounts “presented a stark picture of developments in Alabama even though conscious distortion in free world reporting was limited and efforts to present some balance or at least exercise some restraint were common in most areas of the world.”
Some regions of the world—Western Europe, India and parts of Southeast Asia—applauded Kennedy’s action and discussed American racial progress, but still the USIA reported that editorial comment suggested that the incident “had dealt a severe blow to U,S. prestige which might adversely effect its position of leadership in the free world as well as weaken the overall effectiveness of the Western alliance.”
Meanwhile the USIA reported that “Chinese Communist wireless files to all parts of the world reflect a business-like effort on the part of Peking propagandist to sharpen the tools of their craft in a blunt exploitation of racial tensions in the United States.” Peking accounts “bore down hard on the theme that rampant racism has ‘exposed’ the savage nature of American freedom and democracy.”
The harshest international criticism of the violent March on Selma came from China. Propaganda from Peking criticized the Civil rights Act and suggested that President Johnson’s call for voting rights legislation was designed to “paralyze the fighting will of the Negroes.” Social change could only happen through struggle against U.S. Imperialism. [The Chinese press jeremiad–a warning to African Americans and peoples of color a prediction for the early 21st century.] “The law and the courts are but instruments of the ruling class for the oppression of the American people.”
Dudziak states that internalizing American history, helps us reconfigure our understanding of the boundaries of state power. State power is affected by the mirror of international criticism. Its autonomy over “domestic” matters is limited by its role in the world.
In the American Century, the United States took on a new role as a global power. World events, in that context, were part of the story of America [that Trump tried to recover]. The boundaries of domestic and foreign affairs became blurred. As we write histories of twentieth-century [and 21st century] America, an international framework for events at home will not simply serve as window dressing, providing a broader context for an internal event.
An international framework helps us discover what happened at home. External events affect internal American histories. Even the terms—domestic/foreign, internal/external—seem to collapse. What we are left with is not the natural categories of the domestic and the foreign, but instead angles of vision on one seamless narrative.
Although the Cold War is over, race in America is still an international story, [judging from the international/worldwide effect and affect of the murder of George Floyd]. In 1992, when a major riot broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of police officers charged with beating Rodney King, it was a major worldwide news event. Banner headlines and front-page photos blanketed the world press, many questioning whether this was a manifestation of what George Bush called the “New World Order.”
In 1999, when President Bill Clinton criticized China’s human rights record, the Chinese government released a report on human rights in the United States. Other nations decried the United States death penalty. And many questioned the state of racial justice in America when Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, was shot nineteen times by New York City police officers as he stood, unarmed, in the doorway of his home.
Dudziak claims that the international critique has been persistent. What has changed is the perception of whether it has strategic importance. In the absence of immediate strategic advantages there remains, however, the ever-present international gaze, and the questions of new generations about the nature of American democracy. As Locksley Edmundson put it, “Those states best technically equipped to maintain world order are not necessarily the ones whose credentials recommend them as the most appropriate guardians of a global conscience.”
Edmundson’s point was at the center of the international critique of American racism during the Cold War. World politics is no longer structured by Cold War divisions, but one aspect of international relations remains the same. We live, now as then, in a world of color. As Martin Luther King Jr. suggested, the destiny of people of color” is tied up in the destiny of America.” and justice at home will have an impact on the nation’s oral standing in a diverse and divided world.
Dr. Locksley Edmondson, Professor in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University since 1983, is a political scientist with specializations in international relations (especially concerning Africa and the Caribbean) and race relations (especially concerning the Black World).
marygravitt 
