St. Clair writes: "Poor ISIS. Try as they might, the men in black still can't out-terrorize their enemies or, more pointedly, even their patrons. For the past three years, decapitations have served as the money shots for ISIS's theater of cruelty."
Workers dousing a burning vehicle at a base controlled by rebel fighters with the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham in Idlib, Syria. Activists said the base was hit by an airstrike. (photo: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)
A Comedy of Terrors: When in Doubt, Bomb Syria
By Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch
13 February 16
oor ISIS. Try as they might, the men in black still can’t out-terrorize their enemies or, more pointedly, even their patrons. For the past three years, decapitations have served as the money shots for ISIS’s theater of cruelty. Then on New Year’s Day the Saudis upstaged ISIS by audaciously chopping off the heads of 47 men, including a prominent Shia cleric.
This act of brazen butchery is made all the more horrific by virtue of the fact that the Saudi head-slicers recently landed a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, largely at the insistence of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who personally vouched for the petro-autocracy’s acute sensitivity to matters of civil liberties and the humane treatment of prisoners. Then again the drone-troika of Britain, France and the U.S. also enjoy seats on the council, so perhaps the Saudis have earned their slot after all.
With his peculiar fondness for porcine heads, Cameron is probably the Kingdom’s most un-kosher ally, but he is far from Saudi Arabia’s only political cheerleader. Showing a stunning lack of judgment, Comandante Bernie Sanders says his Syrian strategy relies on the Saudis taking the lead in the fight against ISIS. “They’ve got to get their hands dirty,” Sanders inveighed to Wolf Blitzer on CNN. “They’ve got to get their troops on the ground. They’ve got to win that war with our support. We cannot be leading the effort.”
Apparently Sanders skipped the briefing on how ISIS’s apocalyptic ideology has been fueled by fire-breathing Wahhabi preachers financed by the Saudi royal family. The red senator also seems ignorant of the fact that ISIS functions as shock troops for the House of Saud in its proxy war against Iran, now raging in Yemen and Iraq, as well as Syria. You’d think that Bernie would be getting better advice from his friends in Israeli intelligence.
Sanders’ policy on Syria is naïve to the point of doltishness. But Hillary’s Syrian war plan—shared by most of her Republican rivals—borders on the pathological. Having not missed a minute of sleep haunted by the corpses of Libya, Mrs. Clinton is now stumping for the dismantling of Syria, using the carefully cultivated domestic anxiety over ISIS as the pretext. The cornerstone of Hillary’s rogue scheme is the imposition of a no fly zone over that embattled country.
Sounds like a relatively benign plan, right? But wait. ISIS doesn’t have an air force. They don’t even a have drone. Russia, of course, is flying daily sorties in Syrian air space, at the invitation of the Syrian government, such as it is, and some kind of confrontation would be inevitable. Still, Hillary doesn’t flinch. She has zealously vowed to shoot down any Russian plane that violated her unilateral ban.
Yet NATO’s latest recruit, Turkey, jumped the gun. Erdogan’s trigger-happy generals didn’t wait for any such fanciful legalisms and downed a Russian jet for momentarily breaching (perhaps) Turkish airspace. Then Turkamen fighters gleefully trained their machine-guns on the plane’s pilots as they slowly parachuted toward the desert. Vladimir Putin fulminated boisterously to his domestic audience, but prudently declined to retaliate against the Turks, perhaps intuiting that it would snap a tripwire for a full-frontal confrontation with NATO.
Everyone has been consulted about the future of Syria, except the Syrians themselves. Why? Because simply, Syrians don’t matter. They are quite beside the point. Thanks to fresh reporting by Seymour Hersh, we now know that the subtext for Obama administration’s Syrian strategy, dating back to Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, has been largely geared toward ensnaring Russian in the Levantine quagmire. This is chaos theory marketed as foreign policy.
The rubble of modern Syria has become a multi-national bombing range, a kill zone of neo-Cold War contention. Each new act of domestic terrorism, from Paris to San Bernardino, has been used to rationalize more airstrikes on Syria, even though the killers in both slaughters seemed mainly to be attempting to impress the terror network, which is like blaming Jodie Foster for inspiring John Hinkley’s wild fusillade at Reagan and his entourage.
Even Putin, that prickly hero to some precincts of the anti-imperialist Left, has upped the ante by threatening to launch a nuclear strike against ISIS in response to the bombing of a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai, even though there’s no direct evidence that the bomb was planted by the mad men of Daesh. Not to be outdone, Ted Cruz, the natural-born Canadian, has vowed to make the sands of Raqqa glow, despite the fact that few Americans could point to Raqqa on a map or explain why this city of a quarter-million people should be incinerated in retribution for the murderous rampage by the Bonnie and Clyde of San Berdoo.
The war on terror has exploded in the face of the West, with spreading mayhem across the Middle East and unraveling conditions on the home front. One chilling measure of the savage toll from 14 years of war is the rate of military suicides in the US, which now total more than 4000 since the first cruise missiles struck Afghanistan. There is a desperate motive to externalize the blame for this bleak situation, to target a scapegoat. The rancid resumes of ISIS and the despotic Assad regime make Syria a convenient landscape for more imperial bloodletting. There’s not even the faintest flicker of an anti-war movement left to impede their shameful enterprise.
In this comedy of terrors, the apex predators are the familiar ones circling overhead, waiting to blow Syria apart and plunder its bones.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=13111"><span class="small">William J. Astore, TomDispatch</span></a>
Saturday, 13 February 2016 15:58
Astore writes: "The word 'affluenza' is much in vogue. Lately, it's been linked to a Texas teenager, Ethan Couch, who in 2013 killed four people in a car accident while driving drunk. During Ethan Couch's destructive lifetime, has there been an American institution similarly showered with money and praise that has been responsible for the deaths of innocents and inadequately called to account? The answer is hidden in plain sight: the U.S. military."
U.S. special operations personnel prepare to board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan, February 25, 2012. (photo: U.S. Department of Defense)
The US Military Suffers From Affluenza
By William J. Astore, TomDispatch
13 February 16
he word “affluenza” is much in vogue. Lately, it’s been linked to a Texas teenager, Ethan Couch, who in 2013 killed four people in a car accident while driving drunk. During the trial, a defense witness argued that Couch should not be held responsible for his destructive acts. His parents had showered him with so much money and praise that he was completely self-centered; he was, in other words, a victim of affluenza, overwhelmed by a sense of entitlement that rendered him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Indeed, the judge at his trial sentenced him only to probation, not jail, despite the deaths of those four innocents.
Experts quickly dismissed “affluenza” as a false diagnosis, a form of quackery, and indeed the condition is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Yet the word caught on big time, perhaps because it speaks to something in the human condition, and it got me to thinking. During Ethan Couch’s destructive lifetime, has there been an American institution similarly showered with money and praise that has been responsible for the deaths of innocents and inadequately called to account? Is there one that suffers from the institutional version of affluenza (however fuzzy or imprecise that word may be) so much that it has had immense difficulty shouldering the blame for its failures and wrongdoing?
The answer is hidden in plain sight: the U.S. military. Unlike Couch, however, that military has never faced trial or probation; it hasn’t felt the need to abscond to Mexico or been forcibly returned to the homeland to face the music.
Spoiling the Pentagon
First, a caveat. When I talk about spoiling the Pentagon, I’m not talking about your brother or daughter or best friend who serves honorably. Anyone who’s braving enemy fire while humping mountains in Afghanistan or choking on sand in Iraq is not spoiled.
I’m talking about the U.S. military as an institution. Think of the Pentagon and the top brass; think of Dwight Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex; think of the national security state with all its tentacles of power. Focus on those and maybe you’ll come to agree with my affluenza diagnosis.
Let’s begin with one aspect of that affliction: unbridled praise. In last month’s State of the Union address, President Obama repeated a phrase that’s become standard in American political discourse, as common as asking God to bless America. The U.S. military, he said, is the “finest fighting force in the history of the world.”
Such hyperbole is nothing new. Five years ago, in response to similar presidential statements, I argued that many war-like peoples, including the imperial Roman legions and Genghis Khan’s Mongol horsemen, held far better claims to the “best ever” Warrior Bowl trophy. Nonetheless, the over-the-top claims never cease. Upon being introduced by President Obama as his next nominee for secretary of defense in December 2014, for instance, Ash Carter promptly praised the military he was going to oversee as “the greatest fighting force the world has ever known.” His words echoed those of the president, who had claimed the previous August that it was “the best-led, best-trained, best-equipped military in human history.” Similar hosannas (“the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known”) had once been sprinkled liberally through George W. Bush’s speeches and comments, as well as those of other politicians since 9/11.
In fact, from the president to all those citizens who feel obliged in a way Americans never have before to “thank” the troops endlessly for their efforts, no other institution has been so universally applauded since 9/11. No one should be shocked then that, in polls, Americans regularly claim to trust the military leadership above any other crew around, including scientists, doctors, ministers, priests, and -- no surprise -- Congress.
Imagine parents endlessly praising their son as “the smartest, handsomest, most athletically gifted boy since God created Adam.” We’d conclude that they were thoroughly obnoxious, if not a bit unhinged. Yet the military remains just this sort of favored son, the country’s golden child. And to the golden child go the spoils.
Along with unbridled praise, consider the “allowance” the American people regularly offer the Pentagon. If this were an “affluenza” family unit, while mom and dad might be happily driving late-model his and her Audis, the favored son would be driving a spanking new Ferrari. Add up what the federal government spends on “defense,” “homeland security,” “overseas contingency operations” (wars), nuclear weapons, and intelligence and surveillance operations, and the Ferraris that belong to the Pentagon and its national security state pals are vrooming along at more than $750 billion dollars annually, or two-thirds of the government’s discretionary spending. That’s quite an allowance for “our boy”!
To cite a point of comparison, in 2015, federal funding for the departments of education, interior, and transportation maxed out at $95 billion -- combined! Not only is the military our favored son by a country mile: it’s our Prodigal Son, and nothing satisfies “him.” He’s still asking for more (and his Republican uncles are clearly ready to turn over to him whatever’s left of the family savings, lock, stock, and barrel).
On the other hand, like any spoiled kid, the Defense Department sees even the most modest suggested cuts in its allowance as a form of betrayal. Witness the whining of both those Pentagon officials and military officers testifying before Congressional committees and of empathetic committee members themselves. Minimalist cuts to the soaring Pentagon budget are, it seems, defanging the military and recklessly endangering American security vis-a-vis the exaggerated threats of the day: ISIS, China, and Russia. In fact, the real “threat” is clearly that the Pentagon’s congressional “parents” might someday cut down on its privileges and toys, as well as its free rein to do more or less as it pleases.
With respect to those privileges, enormous budgets drive an unimaginably top-heavy bureaucracy at the Pentagon. Since 9/11, Congressional authorizations of three- and four-star generals and admirals have multiplied twice as fast as their one- and two-star colleagues. Too many generals are chasing too few combat billets, contributing to backstabbing and butt-kissing. Indeed, despite indifferent records in combat, generals wear uniforms bursting with badges and ribbons, resembling the ostentatious displays of former Soviet premiers -- or field marshals in the fictional Ruritarian guards.
Meanwhile, the proliferation of brass in turn drives budgets higher. Even with recent modest declines (due to the official end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan), the U.S. defense budget exceeds the combined military budgets of at least the next seven highest spenders. (President Obama proudly claims that it’s the next eight.) Four of those countries -- France, Germany, Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia -- are U.S. allies; China and Russia, the only rivals on the list, spend far less than the United States.
With respect to its toys, the military and its enablers in Congress can never get enough or at a high enough price. The most popular of these, at present, is the under-performing new F-35 jet fighter, projected to cost $1.5 trillion (yes, you read that right) over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons system in history. Another trillion dollars is projected over the next 30 years for “modernizing” the U.S. nuclear arsenal (this from a president who, as a candidate, spoke of eliminating nuclear weapons). The projected acquisition cost for a new advanced Air Force bomber is already $100 billion (before the cost overruns even begin). The list goes on, but you catch the drift.
A Spoiled Pentagon Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry
To complete our affluenza diagnosis, let’s add one more factor to boundless praise and a bountiful allowance: a total inability to take responsibility for one’s actions. This is, of course, the most repellent part of the Ethan Couch affluenza defense: the idea that he shouldn’t be held responsible precisely because he was so favored.
Think, then, of the Pentagon and the military as Couch writ large. No matter their mistakes, profligate expenditures, even crimes, neither institution is held accountable for anything.
Consider these facts: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are quagmires. The Islamic State is spreading. Foreign armies, trained and equipped at enormous expense by the U.S. military, continue to evaporate. A hospital, clearly identifiable as such, is destroyed “by accident.” Wedding parties are wiped out “by mistake.” Torture (a war crime) is committed in the field. Detainees are abused. And which senior leaders have been held accountable for any of this in any way? With the notable exception of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski of Abu Ghraib infamy, not a one.
After lengthy investigations, the Pentagon will occasionally hold accountable a few individuals who pulled the triggers or dropped the bombs or abused the prisoners. Meanwhile, the generals and the top civilians in the Pentagon who made it all possible are immunized from either responsibility or penalty of any sort. This is precisely why Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling memorably wrote in 2007 that, in the U.S. military, “a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” In fact, no matter what that military doesn’t accomplish, no matter how lacking its ultimate performance in the field, it keeps getting more money, resources, praise.
When it comes to such subjects, consider the Republican presidential debate in Iowa on January 28th. Jeb Bush led the rhetorical charge by claiming that President Obama was “gutting” the military. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio eagerly agreed, insisting that a “dramatically degraded” military had to be rebuilt. All the Republican candidates (Rand Paul excepted) piled on, calling for major increases in defense spending as well as looser “rules of engagement” in the field to empower local commanders to take the fight to the enemy. America’s “warfighters,” more than one candidate claimed, are fighting with one arm tied behind their backs, thanks to knots tightened by government lawyers. The final twist that supposedly tied the military up in a giant knot was, so they claim, applied by that lawyer-in-chief, Barack Obama himself.
Interestingly, there has been no talk of our burgeoning national debt, which former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen once identified as the biggest threat facing America. When asked during the debate which specific federal programs he would cut to reduce the deficit, Chris Christie came up with only one, Planned Parenthood, which at $500 million a year is the equivalent of two F-35 jet fighters. (The military wants to buy more than 2,000 of them.)
Throwing yet more money at a spoiled military is precisely the worst thing we as “parents” can do. In this, we should resort to the fiscal wisdom of Army Major General Gerald Sajer, the son of a Pennsylvania coal miner killed in the mines, a Korean War veteran and former Adjutant General of Pennsylvania. When his senior commanders pleaded for more money (during the leaner budget years before 9/11) to accomplish the tasks he had assigned them, General Sajer’s retort was simple: “We’re out of money; now we have to think.”
Accountability Is Everything
It’s high time to force the Pentagon to think. Yet when it comes to our relationship with the military, too many of us have acted like Ethan Couch’s mother. Out of a twisted sense of love or loyalty, she sought to shelter her son from his day of reckoning. But we know better. We know her son has to face the music.
Something similar is true of our relationship to the U.S. military. An institutional report card with so many deficits and failures, a record of deportment that has led to death and mayhem, should not be ignored. The military must be called to account.
How? By cutting its allowance. (That should make the brass sit up and take notice, perhaps even think.) By holding senior leaders accountable for mistakes. And by cutting the easy praise. Our military commanders know that they are not leading the finest fighting force since the dawn of history and it’s time our political leaders and the rest of us acknowledged that as well.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=32795"><span class="small">Mark Ruffalo, EcoWatch</span></a>
Saturday, 13 February 2016 15:41
Ruffalo writes: "This weekend I have the pleasure and honor of coming to London for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards for Spotlight, a film honoring the victims of a terrible injustice and celebrating exceptional journalism that brought the story to light."
Mark Ruffalo at the Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah. (photo: Victoria Will/Invision/AP)
There's No Fracking That Can Be Done Safely
By Mark Ruffalo, EcoWatch
13 February 16
his weekend I have the pleasure and honor of coming to London for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards for Spotlight, a film honoring the victims of a terrible injustice and celebrating exceptional journalism that brought the story to light.
I’m also taking this opportunity to lend my voice to residents of Lancashire who are fighting to prevent another kind of injustice, drilling and fracking in their neighborhoods. Fracking is an extreme form of oil and gas extraction that leads to water contamination, air pollution, earthquakes, illness, exacerbates climate change and turns communities upside down.
I’ve seen it firsthand in the state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds and of families have had their water turn brown and toxic. Nosebleeds are common. So are persistent rashes, trouble breathing, headaches, vomiting, hair loss and much more.
At first in 2008 and 2009 when I first visited affected residents these symptoms were anecdotal; now more than five-hundred scientific studies confirm the harms of drilling and fracking.
The United Kingdom has only tried fracking once—in Lancashire back in April 2011. That one well suffered structural failures—a common problem that leads to water contamination—and caused two earthquakes.
Lancashire County Council has since rejected two fracking applications, through long democratic processes that included many public consultations and expert testimony. As is common, the more people learn about fracking, the more they’re against it, and now the people of Lancashire decisively oppose fracking.
Unfortunately prime minister, David Cameron, supports fracking. Yet he vowed that “local people would not be cut out or ignored” and that fracking “decisions must be made by local authorities in the proper way.” In June 2015, Lancashire County did just that and decided: No fracking!
Then in November, Cameron indicated he would break his promise, announcing that the central UK government would make the final decision about whether fracking should go ahead in Lancashire. Instead of listening to local voices as promised, his ministers in London will have the final say, and will likely make a decision about Lancashire in the next month or two.
When this was announced, more than 30,000 people quickly signed Friends of the Earth’s petition calling on Cameron not to overturn Lancashire’s decision to reject fracking.
The British people agree. Polls show significant opposition to fracking and once again find that the more people know about fracking, the more they are against it.
That held true in my home state of New York, where the Department of Health performed the first public health review of fracking, along with an environmental study, and concluded that fracking poses serious public health and environmental risks. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo rightly banned fracking, and has turned the state into a national leader on clean energy solutions that will create long-term jobs and prosperity.
Today we are at the precipice of a renewable energy revolution, the cusp of a new economy that not only promises wealth and jobs but is also crucial to addressing climate change. The time for the UK to seize the clean energy future is now, not to develop dirty fossil fuels.
Along with New York and the states of Maryland and Vermont, France, Bulgaria, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, and parts of Canada, Spain and Switzerland, Scotland and Wales have all banned or suspended fracking while the risks are examined.
The only way fracking could go forward in Lancashire now is against the wishes of the people who live there, a terrible injustice. I urge Cameron to keep his word and let their decision to reject fracking stand. And I invite you, prime minister, to join the anti-fracking majority and join us in building the renewable energy future.
FOCUS | Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Ideal Presidential Candidate Would Have "Greater Acknowledgment of History"
Saturday, 13 February 2016 13:35
Excerpt: "The acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates made headlines this week on Democracy Now! in newspapers around the world and on networks, when he said he'd be voting for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders."
Ta-Nehisi Coates. (photo: Gabriella Demczuk/NYT)
Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Ideal Presidential Candidate Would Have "Greater Acknowledgment of History"
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
13 February 16
cclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates made headlines this week when he said on Democracy Now! that he would be voting for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Coates had previously penned a widely read article criticizing the Vermont senator for saying he did not support reparations for slavery because it was too "divisive" an issue. But on Wednesday, Coates said he is voting for Senator Sanders anyway. After his appearance was picked up by news outlets, from CNN, MSNBC and BBC to The New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a follow-up for The Atlantic titled "Against Endorsements," writing that his "answer has been characterized, in various places, as an 'endorsement,' a characterization that I’d object to. Despite my very obvious political biases, I’ve never felt it was really my job to get people to agree with me." In Part 2 of our conversation with Coates, whose book "Between the World and Me" won the National Book Award, Coates elaborates on who he would like to see elected, and much more. "If I could have anything—you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate—I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs," Coates says. He also discusses the Black Lives Matter movement, Bill Cosby and the growing number of actors and filmmakers pushing for a boycott of the Oscars after no actors of color were nominated for a second year in a row.
Transcipt
AMY GOODMAN: The acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates made headlines this week on Democracy Now! in newspapers around the world and on networks, when he said he’d be voting for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Coates had previously penned a widely read article criticizing the Vermont senator for saying he did not support reparations for slavery because it was too "divisive" an issue. But on Wednesday, Ta-Nehisi Coates told me he’s voting for Senator Sanders anyway.
TA-NEHISI COATES: One can say Senator Sanders should have more explicit antiracist policy within his racial justice platform, not just more general stuff, and still cast a vote for Senator Sanders and still feel that Senator Sanders is the best option that we have in the race. But just because that’s who you’re going to vote for doesn’t mean you then have to agree with everything they say.
AMY GOODMAN: Will you be voting for Senator Sanders?
TA-NEHISI COATES: I will be voting for Senator Sanders. I have tried to avoid this question, but, yes, I will be voting for Senator Sanders. I try to avoid that, because I want to write as a journalist—do you know what I mean?—and separate that from my role as, I don’t know, a private citizen. But I don’t think much is accomplished by ducking the question. Yes, I will vote for Senator Sanders. My son influenced me.
AMY GOODMAN: After Ta-Nehisi Coates’s appearance on Democracy Now! was picked up by news outlets, from CNN to MSNBC, to BBC, to The New York Times, to The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun and many other outlets, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a follow-up for The Atlantic titled "Against Endorsements." He wrote he answered my question about his decision to vote for Sanders because, quote, "I’ve spent my career trying to get people to answer uncomfortable questions. Indeed, the entire reason I was on the show was to try to push liberals into directly addressing an uncomfortable issue that threatens their coalition. It seemed wrong, somehow, to ask others to step into their uncomfortable space and not do so myself," he wrote.
Ta-Nehisi Coates also wrote, quote, "My answer has been characterized, in various places, as an 'endorsement,' a characterization that I’d object to. Despite my very obvious political biases, I’ve never felt it was really my job to get people to agree with me," he said.
We turn now to Part 2 of my conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose book Between the World and Me won the National Book Award. He recently moved to Paris with his wife and his son Samori. In Part 2 of our conversation, I asked Ta-Nehisi what it’s like to live in France.
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, to be honest, I have to tell you, the biggest influence that it’s had on me, I mean, just in terms of what we talked about in terms of Senator Sanders, to be in a country which has much greater social protections than we have here, a much stronger safety net than we have here, and to meet with black people over there, to meet with, you know, Maghrébin people over there, and to see that even with all of those—you know, that expansive safety net that they have that’s so much stronger than ours, it hasn’t cured racism. You know? Not only has it not cured racism, in many ways, you know, folks are struggling with the vocabulary of how to talk about it. You know, maybe curing racism is too high of a bar. But to see that it actually remains an issue, that the idea of identity across Western Europe—in fact, not just in France, across Western Europe, in Germany, because, you know, when you see these sort of issues with the, quote-unquote, "refugee crisis" and everything, it’s actually the same thing. It’s very, very much the same thing—a continent that is becoming browner and struggling with the idea of who’s going to actually be protected by these safety nets. I’m really early in the process of learning about this. But it’s very, very clear that the United States is not necessarily different, you know, in terms of the issues it’s dealing with.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we were just in Paris for the U.N. climate summit, and it was right after the attacks of November 13th—
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —the state of emergency that was imposed, no protests and everything. And then immediately the authorities started raiding homes, businesses, mosques, thousands of them. The treatment of the Arab community in France?
TA-NEHISI COATES: It is brazen. You know, it’s tremendously, tremendously brazen. The minister of justice over there, Christine Taubira, just resigned because they are passing a law to strip you of your citizenship, you know, should you be convicted of a terrorist act. It is—you know, one of the cases I tried to make in the book was this notion that—you know, the idea that racism necessarily follows from race is in fact backwards—people decide to do something, there’s a relationship that exists, and then people are cast in a certain way. And I have to tell you, you know, again, just being at the beginnings of seeing this, just being at the start of experiencing it, I really feel like I can see it there.
You know, France has a particular relationship with its colonies—its past colonies. It has a particular relationship with Algeria. It has a particular relationship with West Africa. And that casts so much about how folks see each other. You know, so when I’m somewhere and I speak in my horrible French accent, you know, which automatically signals I’m an American, you know, the reaction is very, very different. You know, the way I’m treated is very, very different. What I’m saying is it’s a result of a system that’s already in place, beliefs that are there. It’s not just a matter of looking at somebody and deciding you don’t like them.
AMY GOODMAN: The recommendation on your book is by Toni Morrison: If you’re going to read one book, read this. And she talks about the hole that was left when James Baldwin died, and she feels that has now been filled by you, Ta-Nehisi. And, of course, James Baldwin also went to France. What is it about France?
TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, I have no idea. That’s the one—you know, I can speak about how Baldwin influenced me in terms of just his bravery, his courage, you know, in terms of him really being willing to go out on the edge, you know, the ledge, in terms of his political imagination. I can speak about him as a beautiful, beautiful writer and a beautiful craftsman of sentences. But in terms of France, it’s very, very hard. And I think it’s because I went through a different route. You know, I went through a more family route. My wife fell in love with the country, really wanted the family to spend more time there. And so, it wasn’t, in that sense—you know, certainly in Between the World and Me, but in that specific sense, I wasn’t so much chasing Baldwin; however, you know, I may have a different answer in 10 years, because maybe there’s something about that that’s working on a larger level. I just—I don’t particularly see it right now.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is it like? If you could say a little more about what it’s like to look at the United States from France, particularly these elections? I mean, you’re not getting the same 24-hour—
TA-NEHISI COATES: No.
AMY GOODMAN: —cable network—
TA-NEHISI COATES: No.
AMY GOODMAN: —inundation.
TA-NEHISI COATES: No.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the classic images just in the last 24 hours, you had Chris Christie at a town hall in New Hampshire, and they actually play a clip of this. It’s not usually substance; it’s all polls. And a woman says, "I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. I’d like to vote for you. But I need to know what you’re going to do about Social Security." And he gets down on his knee to beg her to vote.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow.
AMY GOODMAN: So, at the point where he gets down on his knee to say, "Please, I want your vote," before he answers the question, that’s when they cut away. And they don’t talk about his answer to what he’s going to do about Social Security.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow.
AMY GOODMAN: They talk about the kneeling part.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow.
AMY GOODMAN: And we never know the content—
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow.
AMY GOODMAN: —of what these people actually stand for.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow, wow.
AMY GOODMAN: But you have—so, how do you absorb what’s happening there?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, in some respects, what it makes you realize is how little actual information is being conveyed, because, you’re right, you know, I don’t have the same sort of inundation anymore. And I think maybe I’m a better person for it. You know, just being able to look away for a little while, I think, has been really, really, really good. I am not surprised that, you know, you ultimately don’t get the content answer in that situation. But for me, for my own personal health, I think following this—I went through this in '08 a little too closely—too much can actually be unhealthy. So I'm happy to have something else to do.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you a clip of Hillary Clinton, also at the Iowa—
TA-NEHISI COATES: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: —Black and Brown Presidential Forum last month, when they were asked about reparations.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: She was asked by an audience member about what the term "white privilege" meant to her.
HILLARY CLINTON: It is hard when you’re swimming in the ocean to know exactly what’s happening around you, so much as it is when you’re standing on the shore perhaps watching. For me, you know, look, I was born white, middle-class in the middle of America. I went to good public schools. I had a very strong supportive family. I had a lot of great experiences growing up. I went to a wonderful college. I went to law school. I never really knew what was or wasn’t part of the privilege. I just knew that I was a lucky person and that being lucky was in part related to who I am, where I’m from and the opportunities I had.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Ta-Nehisi, to what Hillary Clinton said?
TA-NEHISI COATES: That’s about right. That’s about right. I think she was trying her best there. I think what is notably absent from that answer is history. It is not simply that Hillary Clinton had fairer skin and, you know, lighter hair, and therefore certain things were conferred upon her. Systems were in place. Long, ancient historical systems were in place to make her, as she said, lucky in the first place. If I could have anything—you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate—I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs. And I don’t mean, you know, a dry historical lecture. But it could have taken 30 seconds for her to maybe explain why she was a little luckier than other folks. It’s not that hard to understand. It’s not that hard to know. I’m not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton’s neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call privilege and about why it’s there. Black people in this country have no choice but to be curious. We have to know. I wish folks would do a little bit more investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, the issue, overall, in this country around the discussion of race, do you feel—how do you feel the Black Lives Matter movement has changed things? Very interestingly, we had a debate yesterday between Madeleine Kunin, the former Vermont governor, who’s for Hillary Clinton; Ben Jealous, the former head of the NAACP, who’s now come out for Bernie Sanders; as well, Darnell Moore, who is with Black Lives Matter in New York, and they have decided, as a network, not to endorse a candidate. But they’ve certainly played a role—
TA-NEHISI COATES: Mm-hmm.
AMY GOODMAN: —as they’ve interrupted forum, demanded answers from presidential candidates. They’re really helping to shape this debate.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, they are. They are. I mean, you know, if you want tangible evidence of that, New York City, where we live, you know, for whatever you think of this, has decided to change certain policies in terms of how it records officer encounters and violence that officers inflict on people. That’s a real thing that’s actually happened. This debate about body cameras, you know, would not be up there. There’s this push to have greater funding. That’s a direct result of the kind of attention that Black Lives Matter has brought to the issue. So they’ve had a literal tangible policy impact across the board. And, you know, I have to say, even my position on Senator Sanders in terms of reparations, they saw some things before I saw them. You know, I think—I didn’t write this, you know, and I wouldn’t have written this, but like a lot of other people, when I saw the interrupting of his platform, I didn’t quite get it, I didn’t quite understand it. And it was only in the course of, you know, working on the stuff that I’ve worked on in the past few weeks related to Senator Sanders that I came to understand in greater detail their frustrations.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised by the pushback that you got after writing this piece?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, a little bit. A little bit, I was. But it’s been a great opportunity, you know? I have been extremely, extremely fortunate, in the sense that I feel like I’ve been saying the same sort of caliber of things for the past 10, 15 years now, but I have been lucky enough to get a platform at The Atlantic that makes people pay attention to things that, were I writing in other well-respected platforms that may be a little to the left, the same amount of attention would not be granted. And so, yeah, I was a little surprised, but I plan to take as much advantage of it as I can to push this conversation about racism and white supremacy as close as I can to the forefront. That’s why I’m here.
AMY GOODMAN: So let me ask you about two other issues. One is Bill Cosby. On Tuesday, Kanye West took to Twitter to defend Bill Cosby, who’s been accused of sexually assaulting and drugging over 50 women. West tweeted an all-caps, three-word message, that’s since generated much social media debate. Those words: "BILL COSBY INNOCENT." So, Ta-Nehisi Coates, you wrote an article called "Bill Cosby and His Enablers"—
TA-NEHISI COATES: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: "Even victims of discrimination can look away from—and thereby enable—other forms of violence." Lay out your article for us.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I mean, we’ve seen numerous celebrities, African-American celebrities, and to some extent, you know, a relatively large amount of people within the African-American community who automatically disbelieve this. And what folks will tell you is there is a long history of American forces conspiring against African Americans, and that’s certainly true. You know, you can look at the history of Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, whoever. Nevertheless, nevertheless, you know, that can’t be an explanation for not applying one’s critical faculties. And racism is not the sole power vector at work in the United States of America, just like, you know, as I was making the case with Senator Sanders, class is not the sole power vector at work in the United States of America. And so, when you have over 40, 50 women coming forth, a lot of them with stories that are remarkably similar about what happens to them, it takes some sort of—I don’t—particular mindset to say, "Oh, no, all of them are lying. All of them are in conspiracy." And I think that is related directly to that other power vector of sexism, which has historically been very, very, very strong. You know? And so I think that that can’t be ignored. And the fact that somebody has a boot on your neck, the fact that you, too, are a member of an oppressed class, does not mean that you, too, can’t, in some sense, cooperate with the oppression of other people.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, many of the women are African-American.
TA-NEHISI COATES: And that’s true. And that’s true. That’s exactly true, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, looking at this country from your perch in Paris right now, but also being here, the whole issue of the Oscars that are coming up, the Academy Awards, a growing number of actors and filmmakers pushing for a boycott of the Oscars after no actors of color were nominated for a second year in a row—in no category—supporting actress/actor, best actor/actress and director—was there an African American named. While movies about African Americans, like Straight Outta Compton and Creed, received nominations, they went to the white writers of Straight Outta Compton and white actor Sylvester Stallone for Creed. The African-American directors and nonwhite actors were excluded. Director Spike Lee, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, actor Will Smith—who actually starred in Concussion, was not given an Oscar nod—and others have said they plan to skip the Oscars. Last month, Spike Lee appeared on Good Morning America.
SPIKE LEE: I have never used the word "boycott." All I said was my wife, my beautiful wife Tonya, we’re not coming. That’s it. Then I gave the reasons. So I’ve never used the word "boycott." I never have said to anybody—it’s like, do you. We’re not coming, not going. This whole Academy thing is a misdirection play.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. How?
SPIKE LEE: We’re chasing the guy down the field; he doesn’t even have the ball. The other guy is high-stepping in the end zone. So, this goes—it goes further than the Academy Awards. It has to go back to the gatekeepers.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Studios.
SPIKE LEE: Yes, the people who have the greenlight vote. Have you seen Hamilton yet?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I have seen Hamilton. Unbelievable.
SPIKE LEE: You know the song, "You’ve Got to Be in the Room"?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah.
SPIKE LEE: We’re not in the room. We are not in the room. The executives, when they have these greenlight meetings, quarterly, where they look at the scripts, they look at who’s in it, and they decide what we’re making, what we’re not making.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How about your own experience? You get—you make your movies. Do you feel like you’ve been snubbed, like you haven’t had a fair hearing?
SPIKE LEE: What won best film 1989?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t know, actually.
SPIKE LEE: Driving Miss F-in’ Daisy.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And which film did you have in 1989?
SPIKE LEE: Do the Right Thing. That film is being taught in colleges, schools, all—no one’s watching this Driving Miss Daisy now. So it also shows you that the work is what’s important, because that’s the stuff that’s going to stand for years, not an award, not whether it be a Grammy, a Tony or whatnot.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So, even if you don’t get the Oscar, there is some success, but there’s still a huge problem in the whole studio system.
SPIKE LEE: From top to bottom.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Spike Lee being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC. We were at Sundance. We interviewed Dawn Porter, the documentarian, Stanley Nelson; they’re both supporting a boycott. Spike Lee’s just not going. Your response to all of this?
TA-NEHISI COATES: [inaudible] actually, there’s a lot of wisdom in all of that. You know, I—this is personal; this is not, you know, a grand political statement. I appreciate the not using the terminology "boycott" and going for the "Listen, do you. I’m staying home. Just out of, you know, personal pride, I’m just going to stay home. I just don’t have to stand for that." And I think he’s exactly right, because what he was pointing to, when he was talking about being in the room, was systemic issues. In other words, by the time you get to an—and, you know, you begin to see formulas across the whole—the entire system in terms of racism. And one of the things is, people shout, and everybody gets upset by the time you get to the end result, which in this case is the Oscars. But what Spike is saying is there’s like five other things that happen before that.
AMY GOODMAN: Acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. To see Part 1 of our conversation with the author of Between the World and Me, the National Book Award winner, you can go to our website at democracynow.org.
The Media Continues to Ignore This Country's Most Serious Issues
Saturday, 13 February 2016 09:50
Stone writes: "When it comes to this election, several people have asked me, 'what do you think'? My answer is, what is there to think about? It's so frustrating."
Oliver Stone. (photo: Getty Images)
The Media Continues to Ignore This Country's Most Serious Issues
By Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone's Facebook Page
13 February 16
hen it comes to this election, several people have asked me, ‘what do you think’? My answer is, what is there to think about? It’s so frustrating. In an endless media loop that has barely mentioned global warming, the bulk eavesdropping of the National Security State, or the militarism of our garrisons and wars worldwide (50 plus percent of our budget), we’re primarily debating how tough we must be against the ‘threats’ we’ve created in our paranoid minds.
One patient explanation of this phenomenon is enclosed below by Robert Parry, the essence of which is how we’ve become such an uninformed electorate. In that vein, I’m adding a recent blog by Jeff Sachs that reminds us, forcefully, who our leading candidate, Hillary Clinton, really is.
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oor ISIS. Try as they might, the men in black still can’t out-terrorize their enemies or, more pointedly, even their patrons. For the past three years, decapitations have served as the money shots for ISIS’s theater of cruelty. Then on New Year’s Day the Saudis upstaged ISIS by audaciously chopping off the heads of 47 men, including a prominent Shia cleric.
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cclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates made headlines this week when he said on Democracy Now! that he would be voting for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Coates had previously penned a widely read article criticizing the Vermont senator for saying he did not support reparations for slavery because it was too "divisive" an issue. But on Wednesday, Coates said he is voting for Senator Sanders anyway. After his appearance was picked up by news outlets, from CNN, MSNBC and BBC to The New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a follow-up for The Atlantic titled "Against Endorsements," writing that his "answer has been characterized, in various places, as an 'endorsement,' a characterization that I’d object to. Despite my very obvious political biases, I’ve never felt it was really my job to get people to agree with me." In Part 2 of our conversation with Coates, whose book "Between the World and Me" won the National Book Award, Coates elaborates on who he would like to see elected, and much more. "If I could have anything—you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate—I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs," Coates says. He also discusses the Black Lives Matter movement, Bill Cosby and the growing number of actors and filmmakers pushing for a boycott of the Oscars after no actors of color were nominated for a second year in a row.
hen it comes to this election, several people have asked me, ‘what do you think’? My answer is, what is there to think about? It’s so frustrating. In an endless media loop that has barely mentioned global warming, the bulk eavesdropping of the National Security State, or the militarism of our garrisons and wars worldwide (50 plus percent of our budget), we’re primarily debating how tough we must be against the ‘threats’ we’ve created in our paranoid minds.
