Our banner week on Occupy the Microphone!

Occupy the Microphone is on every day, LIVE AT FIVE! In the upstate, you can hear us at 105.7 FM and/or 910 AM, or you can listen to the livestream HERE. You can also download the show at our website, at Spreaker or at Talk Shoe. We are also circulated by the Black Talk Radio Network.



We got a lot of hits on our Memorial Day show, which featured a half hour of excellent antiwar music, followed by a half hour of interviews with veterans who are now peace activists and veteran-advocates, including Wade Hampton Fulmer (of Veterans for Peace), and Kevin Alexander Gray.



Thursday's show highlighted the Detroit Police Special Response Team's murder of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in May 2010, during a home invasion, which was being filmed for A&E network's reality show, "The First 48". The jury was seated this week in the trial of Officer Joseph Weekley, who has been charged with the murder.
(This is an ongoing, harrowing tale that we will undoubtedly be revisiting many times.)

Victim-advocate Amelia Pena talked about domestic violence issues with co-host Double A (both in photo above).



Friday's show featured local activists Eric Wood and Traci Young Fant. (above, co-host Gregg Jocoy with Eric Wood, Traci Young Fant and Double A.)

Traci discussed several upcoming local events, including OUT OF BONDAGE, which will be held at the Empowerment Zone, 775 Woodruff Rd, Greenville, SC, this Saturday, June 8th at 6pm.

Amelia Pena (mentioned above) will be one of the speakers, along with Winn Freeman, former addict and founder of Wisdom In Living Life Ministry. Also sharing their stories and testimonies will be Torah Speech, Sharon Totherow, Tabatha Duck, Laura Calhoun, Taurice Bussey and Maurice Walker, with a special musical performance by Jeff Redmond.



This free, life-changing community event is dedicated to the memory of Natasha Kerns and Kacy Roberson. For further information, call Traci at 864-235-3592.



Also coming up is the 2nd Annual Multicultural Festival, which will be at McAlister Square in Greenville. (also the home of WOLI studios, where we broadcast Occupy the Microphone). Another free event scheduled for Thursday, June 27th at 3pm. Volunteers, vendors, sponsors and displays are still needed. Sponsorship packets start at $25, while vendor-tables run for $45.

Again, if you are interested, get in touch with Traci, the human dynamo, 864-235-3592. (Traci, it was such a pleasure to have you on the show!)

Tune in tomorrow!

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Kent State Remembered

Kent State student John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio discovering the slain Jeffrey Miller.


Originally posted here on May 4, 2008. (I read it on the air yesterday on our radio show, Occupy the Microphone.)

43 years ago on April 30, 1970, Richard Nixon announced that military operations would be expanding into the neutral, peaceful country of Cambodia, which had the bad fortune to share a border with Vietnam. Viet Cong insurgents were said to be hiding in the mountains of Cambodia. (In fact, the USA had already been conducting a secret bombing campaign, unbeknownst to the general public, engineered by Nixon and his butchers, named Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger.) These illegal, immoral, reprehensible acts were the acts of criminally insane men, who had just realized they were losing their filthy, insane, extremely expensive war.

The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."

On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.

I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.

No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.

The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.

From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.

The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.

In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.

~*~

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

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Glenn Greenwald verbalizes my worries about gay rights

Yesterday it was announced by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, that Wikileaks whistleblower/political prisoner Bradley Manning was selected as one of the Grand Marshals of the yearly San Francisco gay pride parade, considered a high honor in the gay community.

Almost immediately, Lisa L Williams, president of the Board of SF Pride, wrote a statement retracting his nomination:

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country.

Yes, you read that right. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is an insult to the military.

Glenn Greenwald (who is also gay, for the record) wasted no time in blasting Williams, calling her statement a "substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials, which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials." Greenwald correctly reminds us:

Indeed, it's the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform."

And then Greenwald underscores the incipient fascism (my label, not his) of Williams warning the organization's members that EVEN THE HINT of support for Manning, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED.

Wow.

This certainly is a long, long way from the San Francisco Gay Pride parade I once attended, decades ago, which tolerated (celebrated!) every bizarre, crazy activity and wayward political belief in the world. This had the wonderful result of making everyone feel welcome and giving off a warm, beneficent glow. This event was where I saw the revolutionary Tom Robinson Band, in 1981. (Robinson was an influential, radical gay punk rocker from the UK, who founded Rock Against Racism, a cause I was once allied with myself.) I suddenly realized that me and Tom Robinson probably do not belong in today's gay rights movement, which is now officially aligning itself with the government and trashing a courageous gay man who dares to speak out (and has had his civil rights violated as a result). Tom Robinson and Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald (and me) are OUT... apologists for right-wing warmongering like Lisa Williams are IN... it is the wholesale Lady Gagaization of gay rights; the defanging and neutralizing of a once-radical movement that asked the tough questions. Its all razzle-dazzle and the Bravo Network and Will and Grace reruns... nothing that asks participants to seriously question the status quo. (As it was for me, when I was young.)

Depressing.

Further, it isn't just the Lady Gagaization of gay rights, but the corporate sponsorship of gay rights... Glenn Greenwald ticks off the list of glitzy parade sponsors (HERE is the official list) which include AT&T, Verizon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Clear Channel, Kaiser Permanente... basically the same list of corporate shysters presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Greenwald carefully catalogs their sins against the people, and then sputters:

So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture. Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveyors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome.

And then, Greenwald starts making some interesting connections. Lisa Williams once worked for the political campaign of ... guess who?! President Hopey-Changey himself!* Greenwald reminds us:

It was President Obama, of course, who so notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks (which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms, Obama voted to immunize).

And finally, Greenwald voices the worries and concerns I have had for years... which it seems are finally coming to pass:

When I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.

Yeah. And I remember ancient arguments I engaged in, with wacky old reds like the RCP, who warned me that gay rights was cosmetic and would NOT upend the status quo the way I was convinced it would. Were they right, after all?

From Greenwald's piece last month, mentioned above, titled The gay marriage snowball and political change:

If anything, one could say that the shift on this issue has been more institution-affirming than institution-subverting: the campaign to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continually glorified and even fetishized military service, while gay marriage revitalizes a traditional institution - marriage - that heterosexuals have been in the process of killing with whimsical weddings, impetuous divorces, and serial new spouses (as Rush Limbaugh might put it: I'd like you to meet my fourth wife). And these changes are taking a once marginalized and culturally independent community and fully integrating it into mainstream society, thus making that community invested in conventional societal institutions.

Notably, Malcolm X also worried about the "buying off" of the black community, in just this same fashion. Some of us have probably forgotten that this was one of the tenets of Black Nationalism, that integration was also a form of neutralization ... and in the process of integration and assimilation, much intrinsic radicalism and core identity can be compromised.

Is the gay community being bought off and neutralized?

Unfortunately, I think so. Faster than you can say LADY GAGA. Or Bradley Manning.

~*~

*This perfect term for President Obama comes from Mister LarryE, aka Lotus, who has a cool blog you should all check out.

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Amazing Race lays Hanoi-sized egg

If you have ever watched "The Amazing Race" TV show on CBS network, you know the protocol. A diverse collection of two-person teams race around the world at breakneck pace, stopping at various tourist traps, landmarks and special events. At these colorful pit stops, they are usually required to participate in various contests and exercises: scaling mountains and walls and ladders into the stratosphere; dancing some intricate local tribal dances or engaging in some arcane ceremony; answering questions and quizzes about the history of wherever they are, and so forth. After they perform some telegenic activity (whilst inevitably arguing with each other about who is going to do it, who is right, etc)... they pick up the sacred clue to the next location, and off they go. The last pair to arrive at each locale is eliminated, until finally, there is one pair left, who are thereby proclaimed the winners.

Needless to say, it probably isn't easy to find distinctive, cool places to send the contestants. There is a bit of a travelogue on each show, as narrators quickly explain local history and customs, and provide interesting details, such as how many feet into the air they will have to climb, or how far away they are from such-and-such or so-and-so. It all tends to run together, so the challenge is to make each new location stand out and become uniquely interesting to the viewer.

Sometimes a locale is obviously chosen strictly for its emotional or political value, to stop viewers from getting bored and picking up that deadly remote. Or to get some drama going from the contestants' reactions to such a place.

On the March 17th show, it was Hanoi. HANOI.

H.A.N.O.I.

I was somewhat dumbfounded.

As soon as I saw the smashed-up B-52, I thought, oh shit. I saw that coming like a freight train.

And then I instantly wondered... who is working for CBS? Who is working for "The Amazing Race"? Do they not associate with regular people out here in the American heartland? Do they understand the emotional reaction to a downed American B-52 from The Vietnam War? Good Lord.

Well, John McCain did, and a bunch of other veterans did, too. The shit hit the fan in short order.

From Yahoo:

Usually, it is "Amazing Race" contestants with loose lips that stir up controversy for being insensitive, offensive, or ugly Americans while dashing around the less scenic or underprivileged countries of the world on the competition reality show. But with last week's Vietnam-based episode, it was the producers and network that found themselves on the receiving end of public backlash.

Veterans, conservative newscasters, politicians like Arizona Sen. John McCain, and plenty of the show's fans were upset that the show filmed at the site of a crashed U.S. B-52 bomber, and featured a segment where players had to listen to a pro-communist anthem being sung in front of a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and then find one of the song's lyrics in a sea of propaganda posters. Vietnam War veteran and American Legion National Commander James E. Koutz sent a letter to CBS Thursday, asking that the network apologize for "its disgraceful slap-in-the face administered to American war heroes. We only wish that the network would not be so eager to broadcast anti-American propaganda."

And yes, they got their official apology.

From the National Post:

Senator John McCain is among those who have accepted CBS’ apology for a passage on The Amazing Race where contestants visited the wreckage of an American B-52 bomber in Vietnam, writing on Twitter that the “issue is closed.”

The national commander of the American Legion, James Koutz, has also accepted the apology. Commander Koutz said said he believed it was sincere and heartfelt.

The segment aired March 17 and angered many veterans, particularly those who served in the Vietnam War. As part of its scavenger hunt game, contestants on the show had to visit the site in Hanoi, which Vietnamese authorities turned into a memorial.

Before this Sunday’s edition of The Amazing Race, host Phil Keoghan read a statement apologizing to veterans and families who may have been offended.

For my part, I continue to be amazed at the mainstream media's general cluelessness about such matters. I could have easily predicted this reaction, as everyone I know could too.

As I asked, above: WHO works for these people? Didn't anybody on the show's staff speak up and say, "Hey, ya think maybe this isn't such a good idea?"

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Bradley Manning nominated for Nobel 2013 Peace Prize

Political prisoner and free-speech hero Bradley Manning has been held under inhumane conditions for over 1000 days, and I am hoping this nomination means that the international spotlight will finally be turned on the conditions of his imprisonment. Since he is currently on trial, this is coming at the best possible time. Out of 259 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is probably the most well-known and 'notorious' name.



Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Bradley Manning statement (UK Guardian)

Bradley Manning, Malala among Nobel Peace Prize nominees (CBS News)

Opinion: Bradley Manning trial shows disconnect between transparency and treason (The Daily Reveille - LSU)

Bradley Manning called 'traitor,' 'hero' after Nobel nomination (MSN News)

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention (Salon)

We Must Not Fail Bradley Manning (Counterpunch)

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This is your cat on catnip

Internet connection woes have plagued me for days now. Days. Bah.

Sorry about that.

Here is our recent show on WOLT-FM, have a listen. After the show, we chowed down at The Red Bowl, which has the greatest sauce (for my veggie lo mein) in the entire universe. I regret to say I don't even know what it's called. If I knew how to make it myself, I would dump it all over everything and eat it daily.

Right now: enjoying the dapper Anderson Cooper and the spirited CNN discussion about women in combat. My mother once told me that if women were ever required to register for the Selective Service (military draft) en masse, you'd see a baby-boom the likes of which this country has never seen. I always wondered if she was right. But allowing women in combat is still a long way from forcing them to register for the Selective Service. (more discussion here)

Mr Daisy is currently listening to the namesake of this blog, UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR, and I am getting ready to join him.

But first, thought you should see this Public Service Announcement. I already posted it on Facebook, just to get the word out.

Get your cats and make em watch! The life you save may be theirs!

This short, seven-minute film (by Jason Willis) debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Truly inspired!

CATNIP: EGRESS TO OBLIVION?

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General Petraeus and the Neo-Con connection

This is like something from one of us crazy conspiracy theorists.

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

From Chris Matthews at MSNBC:

Fred and Kimberly Kagan are hawks. They share the ideology of those who backed the Iraq War. Why are they on the inside of an administration elected based on its opposition to the Iraq war?

I am one of those who believed from square one that the war in Iraq was an ideological war pushed from the outset by those who wanted us to overthrow the Iraq government and install ourselves in Baghdad. They got their way under a less-than-informed President, George W. Bush. Now we discover that a pair of them, the Kagans, have been right there in the room with the head of the Afghan mission, advising him every step of the way.

Why? Why did General Petraeus assume the right to allow people who represent the very opposite of President Obama’s philosophy to advise him? What agenda was his seeking here? What was he buying into? Was he buying into the hawkish agenda of those who advocated war on Iraq in the first place? If so, why was he working for President Obama who stood out there against that war?

I have to think that Petraeus either doesn’t understand politics and ideology or he shapes his ideology, or accepts the ideology of those who have stood against Obama from the beginning. This is really strange, really strange and someone in the administration better start paying attention to who is getting into the tent and who they are indeed working for.

Kimberly and Frederick Kagan are very interesting people indeed, close to the American Enterprise Institute and similar neo-con hit-squads. As Matthews asks, why were they "advising" Petraeus?

The Washington Post has the whole timeline of neo-con infiltration of the Obama administration:

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits?

Zero dollars.

Although Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted no pay in part to remain “completely independent,” the extraordinary arrangement raises new questions about the access and influence Petraeus accorded to civilian friends while he was running the Afghan war.

Petraeus allowed his biographer-turned-paramour, Paula Broadwell, to read sensitive documents and accompany him on trips. But the entree granted the Kagans, whose think-tank work has been embraced by Republican politicians, went even further. The four-star general made the Kagans de facto senior advisers, a status that afforded them numerous private meetings in his office, priority travel across the war zone and the ability to read highly secretive transcripts of intercepted Taliban communications, according to current and former senior U.S. military and civilian officials who served in the headquarters at the time.

The Kagans used those privileges to advocate substantive changes in the U.S. war plan, including a harder-edged approach than some U.S. officers advocated in combating the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction in eastern Afghanistan, the officials said.

The pro-bono relationship, which is now being scrutinized by military lawyers, yielded valuable benefits for the general and the couple. The Kagans’ proximity to Petraeus, the country’s most-famous living general, provided an incentive for defense contractors to contribute to Kim Kagan’s think tank. For Petraeus, embracing two respected national security analysts in GOP circles helped to shore up support for the war among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.

Fred Kagan, speaking in an interview with his wife, acknowledged the arrangement was “strange and uncomfortable” at times. “We were going around speaking our minds, trying to force people to think about things in different ways and not being accountable to the heads” of various departments in the headquarters, he said.

The extent of the couple’s involvement in Petraeus’s headquarters was not known to senior White House and Pentagon officials involved in war policy, two of those officials said. More than a dozen senior military officers and civilian officials were interviewed for this article; most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Petraeus, through a former aide, declined to comment for this article.

As war-zone volunteers, the Kagans were not bound by stringent rules that apply to military personnel and private contractors. They could raise concerns directly with Petraeus, instead of going through subordinate officers, and were free to speak their minds without repercussion.

Some military officers and civilian U.S. government employees in Kabul praised the couple’s contributions — one general noted that “they did the work of 20 intelligence analysts.” Others expressed deep unease about their activities in the headquarters, particularly because of their affiliations and advocacy in Washington.

Fred Kagan, who works at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was one of the intellectual architects of President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and has sided with the Republican Party on many national security issues. Kim Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War, which favors an aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The Kagans supported President Obama’s decision to order a surge in Afghanistan, but they later broke with the White House on the subject of troop reductions. Both argue against any significant drawdown in forces there next year.

Petraeus’s successor, Gen. John R. Allen, allowed the Kagans to stay at the headquarters for his first few months on the job last year and permitted them to return for two additional short visits. After the couple’s most recent trip in September, they provided a briefing on the war and other foreign policy matters to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

The Kagans said they continued to receive salaries from their think tanks while in Afghanistan. Kim Kagan’s institute is funded in part by large defense contractors. During Petraeus’s tenure in Kabul, she sent out a letter soliciting contributions so the organization could continue its military work, according to two people who saw the letter.

On Aug. 8, 2011, a month after he relinquished command in Afghanistan to take over at the CIA, Petraeus spoke at the institute’s first “President’s Circle” dinner, where he accepted an award from Kim Kagan. To join the President’s Circle, individuals must contribute at least $10,000 a year. The private event, held at the Newseum in Washington, also drew executives from defense contractors who fund the institute.

“What the Kagans do is they grade my work on a daily basis,” Petraeus said, prompting chortles from the audience. “There’s some suspicion that there’s a hand up my back, and it makes my lips talk, and it’s operated by one of the Doctors Kagan.”

Now, why would we think that?

What an interesting turn of phrase.

Hopefully, we will be getting more on this... in the meantime, read the entire investigative piece by the Washington Post, which is stellar.

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Military Fakes don't help Veterans

At left: My father, who was not a fake veteran.







I first started reading blogs in 1998, when the USA was still at relative 'peace'--in terms of war and military interventions. In the past decade, I have witnessed the increase and escalation of military activity in several countries... and with this escalation, an astronomical increase in online trolls and fakes, claiming all sorts of bogus military experience.

Yes, you read that right. Fakes.

On this Veterans Day, I am hereby calling out the fakes.

A real military veteran is usually not afraid to name themselves, or at the very least, share a significant part of themselves online: their photograph, their blog, their location, their Twitter or Facebook profile. Like all real people, pseudonymous or not, their experience rings true, because it comes from the heart. They don't always make themselves look good, or certain, or without ambivalence. Like the rest of us, pseudonymous or not, real veterans have a social-media presence that is believable and consistent. People know them, and there is genuine proof of their ongoing interaction in the world, including their military service.

By contrast, the fakes are anonymous troublemakers and the tellers of tall tales. They often claim to be signature bad-asses, such as Marines or Navy Seals (as the Vietnam Era fakes could not refrain from claiming to be Airborne Rangers or Green Berets). They always claim the violent, romanticized, movie-magic aspect of war; the fakes never claim kitchen duty or the boring grunt work of checking in thousands of uniforms. They claim to have seen lots and lots of carnage. They tell stories of car-bombs and how they breezed through such events, unblinking. They brag about drinking coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed.

And this is how we know they are fakes. Nobody drinks coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed, unless they are monsters. I simply refuse to believe our veterans are monsters.

For this reason, the fakes are a blight.

The posturing phonies who brag about their fictional service are doing actual harm to genuine veterans, making up bullshit-bad-ass stories, thereby claiming sympathy, expertise and respect that simply does not belong to them. The arrogance and superiority that is frequently obvious in their online personas (undoubtedly reflecting feelings of inferiority and unimportance in real life) creates antipathy in people who would otherwise feel great empathy for veterans. The fictional crap they constantly spew forth (and I have caught them in countless contradictions and lies) aggravates existing negative feelings that many of us have about war; it doesn't do the military any favors.

The stories of well-known Vietnam-era fakes (or 'partial fakes'--such as historian Joseph Ellis and recent congressional candidate Kenneth Aden) have been part of our culture for a very long time... and due to the endless war of the past decade, we can now expect to see a whole new crop of them. The problems with these fakes will be never-ending. There is already enough trouble tracking down the frauds who dare to name themselves and claim jobs they do not deserve.

The online versions are fast-becoming the same sort of plague--and there seems to be little we can do to expose them.

My advice to one and all, is, do not readily assume someone (especially an anonymous online person repeatedly blowing his/her own horn) is automatically telling the truth about military service. The internet has made it exponentially easier to research the specificities of war, as well as the in-depth details of various actions and incursions (and their casualties). There are more photos, facts and figures online than ever before in history. Any of us, gifted enough in story-telling and accompanying ego-driven motives, could likely pull this off with enough effort. Americans typically want to honor and believe the best of veterans, and are unlikely to call someone a fake, unless that evidence is literally staring them in the face.

But in the case of anonymous commenters and people hanging out on blogs, be skeptical. Just as anyone can claim to be a model or cheerleader or actor or math-genius, anyone can claim to be a veteran. When that person decides to show their ass or treat people in a deliberately unkind, nasty fashion, they tarnish the reputation of ALL veterans, while using their supposed (nonexistent) military service as an excuse to be a first-class asshole.

They don't deserve your indulgence, they deserve to be exposed.

Or at least ignored.

Happy Veterans Day.

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Five of Wands

Five of Wands: Conflict, competition, discord








The Boy Scouts of America were selling some sugared-up substances outside my local grocery store this weekend... and I really really really wanted to walk right up to them and ask, do you let the transgender scouts in? The Girl Scouts do! But I lacked the nerve; the scout-leaders on duty had that hyper-masculine, super-patriotic Toby Keith vibe going on. I could easily see it all escalating into a heated argument, and possibly culminating in a call to Greenville's finest.

Those guys love cops. Some of them ARE cops.

I used to relish that sort of thing, but now I get weary and tired just thinking about it. (sigh) Do we get less radical as we age, or just more sensible? I mean, it would all be a huge waste of time, and could get me locked up besides.

Then again, IS it a waste of time? Could one of those unassuming, plucky little boy scouts be gay or transgender and therefore: silently cheering me on? Could I make a good impression by accident? (I know I have in the past, but I usually only find that out years later.)

Well, I'll never know now. I passed them by and pretended not to hear them when they politely addressed me as ma'am and asked me to buy their sugar-treats. If I had stopped, even for a second, the argumentative questions WOULD have tumbled right out of my mouth. I am old enough now, to Know Thyself well.

Therefore, I know when to keep on walking... unless I have the strength and wherewithal to deal with the various Toby-Keithesque-characters of upstate South Carolina. And at that time and place, I just didn't.

I hope some brave young person, with energy and time to burn, does.

One of those little scouts needs to hear you speak up.

~*~

We watched the whole first season of HOMELAND on DVDs, which was terribly enjoyable but politically disturbing.

Is the CIA really this much of a mess? I shudder to think.

And do we accept this fact without question, just to have some mind-twisting entertainment? Are government-sanctioned, covered-up drone attacks on masses of children now just another plot development?

Saints preserve us.

As when I watched Standard Operating Procedure, I had nightmares after one of the episodes, the one about the drone attacks.

Observations: Nobody plays crazy as well as Claire Danes. Her stream-of-consciousness mania/complaining about not being able to find a green pen (Not blue!) was fantastic. I highly recommend the show for sheer class and talent on display, and yet... I resent the fact of the war, the tortures, the devastation they are dramatizing. But of course, that is all some genuinely high-stakes stuff, isn't it? This makes for some honestly gut-wrenching drama and challenges to the moral sensibility. One's conscience is suddenly thrown into high gear, and how many TV shows can manage to do that?

On the other hand, the danger is that horrifying, harrowing military realities are reduced to the status of a Tom Clancy thriller. I find this disorienting. It leaves a decidedly-unpleasant taste in the mouth. More psychologically sophisticated than John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima, to be sure... but still presented as entertainment. And is there any way the CIA does NOT come off as a glamorous occupation, with Claire Danes madly running around risking her life to save the unsuspecting populace? Or, as Peter O'Toole noted in that obscure cult movie, The Stunt Man: "I know a man who made an anti-war movie; a good one. When it was shown in his home town, army enlistment went up six hundred percent."

Is it possible to portray something, anything, in movies and TV without somehow making it interesting and cool?

On the political flip-side, conservatives have often asked this same question about drug abuse. How can one properly dramatize drug abuse and its accompanying devastation, without inadvertently glamorizing drug use as dangerous and edgy?

Because it if weren't, on some level, we wouldn't bother watching.

We don't get the Showtime network, so I will probably not see the second season of HOMELAND in its entirety until it comes out on DVD. (I hope I can resist Googling the spoilers, as I have been known to do.) If the second season can keep up the dramatic tension, it should be excellent. The second season will debut on Showtime at the end of this month.

The nasty snipes at Dick Cheney are obvious, at least. And well-deserved.

~*~

Saturday's radio show podcast is online. Hope you will give us a listen.

Speaking of radio... Bob Jones University has sold their radio station, which had the cutesy call letters of WMUU: World's Most Unusual University. (Nobody ever argued with that.) It will now be converted into still another conservative talk-radio station here in town. Certainly, we know that is a DIRE NEED here in the upstate! (snark)

Swimming upstream, but we are still afloat. One slim hour of lefty-radio in a sea of constant and endless right-wing blather.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

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Governor Haley's husband deployed

Developing story, just breaking statewide and nationally.

The cynic in me wonders if this is all a deliberate PR effort to make Nikki look good, as her political support drops dramatically in the polls.

Ya think?

(CNN) - South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's husband received orders from the South Carolina National Guard on Monday and is expected to deploy to Afghanistan in January, a spokesman in her office said.

1st Lieutenant Michael Haley will deploy to Afghanistan, spokesman Rob Godfrey said.

Michael Haley said in a Monday statement that "this deployment is the reason I joined the National Guard."

"It is important to me to be able to give back. So, in that regard, I am looking forward to the opportunity to serve with a great team from South Carolina," he continued.

Gov. Haley said it is an "an honor to watch him serve our country" and said it is natural to worry about her husband's well-being.

"There's not a military spouse that doesn't worry," she said. "But there's not a military spouse that doesn't have an amazing amount of pride for the fact that these men and women, it's what they do. It's what they love. It's just an amazing willingness to put country over self. And so It's hard to feel anything but pride and, you know, do you worry? Yes, of course you worry.

"But I also know that we've got a very strong military force," she continued. "I know that our training is second to none, and it's like I tell all my military spouses when I speak to other deployments: all needs to be well on the homefront. And so we will be fine here and he just needs to take care of himself when he's there."

She was elected in 2010 with tea party support and has been suggested by some as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In an April interview, however, she said that she enjoys her job and "would not accept" the spot.

Michael Haley added that "the only thing that gives me pause is the year long deployment away from family.

"But in the end, I can't help but to think giving one year along with my fellow soldiers, as many have done before me, to secure a life of freedom for my family is well worth all that comes with it," he continued.

I guess this is just the beginning of the local media torrent about Nikki and Michael Haley. Ugh.

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Weekend update

Today's radio show podcast is up!

Some of what we covered this morning--

[] The South Carolina primary is Tuesday, June 12th... and we currently have a HUGE political mess with about 200 candidates thrown off the ballot. There appears to be no end to what Governor Haley has called a "sham"--a sham that (it should be noted) occurred totally on her watch.

More about this issue:

Palmetto State Ballot Mess: Who Got Decertified? (FitsNews)

SC Senate could see major changes with primary (The State)

Court’s latest ruling complicates ballot issue even further (Palmetto Public Record)

[] I also covered the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rally, held yesterday at County Square, on taxpayer-supported property.

[] We discussed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"--as well as the New York Times story reporting that more soldiers are currently dying of suicide than of actual warfare. On the average, one death every day this year.

And I got off onto a rant about Opus Dei, which was somewhat unplanned, and then I played David Bowie. It is the 40th anniversary of the legendary Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which I used to listen to every day before I went to high school. (I'd say that explains plenty.)

~*~

On my way home, I tuned into the indispensable Piedmont Blues radio show on WOLT FM, and heard John Lee Hooker's Frisco Blues.

It just doesn't get any better than that, folks.



Hope your weekend is good!

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May 4th: This Day in History

Kent State student John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio discovering the slain Jeffrey Miller.


Originally posted here on May 4, 2008.

41 years ago on April 30, 1970, Richard Nixon announced that military operations would be expanding into the neutral, peaceful country of Cambodia, which had the bad fortune to share a border with Vietnam. Viet Cong insurgents were said to be hiding in the mountains of Cambodia. (In fact, the USA had already been conducting a secret bombing campaign, unbeknownst to the general public, engineered by Nixon and his butchers, named Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger.) These illegal, immoral, reprehensible acts were the acts of criminally insane men, who had just realized they were losing their filthy, insane, extremely expensive war.

The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."

On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.

I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.

No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.

The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.

From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.

The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.

In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.

~*~

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

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The Funeral of Pfc. Justin Whitmire

At left: Pfc Justin Whitmire, age 20, upstate soldier killed on December 27th, only 19 days after arriving in Afghanistan.






I had planned on titling this post "Up close and personal with the Westboro Baptist Church"--but instead, I witnessed an amazing sight. I saw about 3000 members and associates of the Patriot Guard Riders stand in loose formation outside the Simpsonville Baptist Church. They stood quietly and respectfully during the funeral of Justin Whitmire. (No smoking or cell phones, conversation kept to whispers.) And then, as the honor guard departed, the bikers lined Main Street (Highway 14) in Simpsonville, holding American flags aloft. The phalanx on both sides of the road was impressive, as the Patriot Guard provided an escort for the funeral procession.

The line of people stretched for miles, all the way to the cemetery. It was astounding.

The infamous Fred Phelps and his equally infamous Westboro Baptist Church was nowhere to be seen, although they had threatened to picket Whitmire's funeral. There were copious rumors they had already arrived in the upstate, including (if you heard my radio show this morning) a local sighting at Walmart. I had heard of the Patriot Guard and knew they were attending, but I had no idea there would be so many of them. The rumble of thousands of Harley-Davidsons in downtown Simpsonville, echoing off the old buildings, sounded like the engines revving at Talladega. (Apparently, this is one way they drown out Westboro's noise, when they confront them.)

It is puzzling to me (to say the least) that WBC continues their evil deeds. Nobody likes them. Nobody agrees with them. Certainly, nobody appreciates their picketing of grieving veteran families. They are mostly a grim and disturbing sideshow, at this point. This morning on my radio show, we discussed at length why they continue these bizarre shenanigans... and it was during this conversation that one of my callers used the word ASSHOLE, the first cuss-word on my show to date (unless you count "dumb-asses"--and I don't). I'm just glad *I* wasn't the one to say it!

(Yes, it took Westboro Baptist Church to finally break the no-cussing rule on The Daisy Deadhead Show.)

Apparently, WBC makes money every time they open their whack-ass mouths. SOMEBODY must be buying what they are selling, since they continue to travel all over the country for these anti-veteran protests. In fact, they are majorly lawyered up, so one of their shakedowns is goading people into hitting or hurting them, and then suing them for damages and denial of their civil rights, etc.

The way the Patriot Guard stood so firmly and with such dignity, was heartening. Many of them were wearing Christian-oriented biker wear, and I realized, they feel responsible for confronting WBC as Christians. They will not let these people do this nasty stuff in the name of Christianity, at least not without their own Christian witness alongside them. I have a great deal of respect for that.

They were beautiful.

I am so happy that Justin's family had such dignified, dedicated escorts for their son. My thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time.

Photos below--as always, you can click to enlarge. My dastardly camera-battery ran down before the Highway 14 formation, but at least you get an idea of how many folks turned out.

The radical transformation of a moment of fear and hate, into a display of respect, solidarity and love, is a lesson we all can learn.

~*~

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National Museum of the Pacific War

Back from Texas! And my internet was down upon my return, so a bit late in checking in. Sorry about that, sports fans!


Below, photos of the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, birthplace of Admiral Nimitz.

Some of the displays can make you cry. :( The Pearl Harbor segment is loud and unnerving in the extreme, imitating what it might have been like for the residents that day.

Most photos are self-explanatory, but for the historically-challenged, photo #5 was a short film about the Rape of Nanking, too horrific for words, reducing our plucky narrator to sobs. Photo #8 was an account of the Battle of Midway, where we settled some hash.

Photo #6 is actually rather amusing now, especially when you are standing amidst all the artillery and gun-fetishism of central Texas. Really General Kanji, I hardly think so.

The next-to-last photo is of the SACO flag. And similarly, there were oodles of uniforms, flight jackets and other wartime paraphernalia, but unfortunately, those photos didn't turn out so well. (I don't know the makes and models of those fighter-planes, but if you do, speak up!)

Daisy concludes: War is bad.

Truthfully, I came to that conclusion before I ever went in.

~*~

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May 4th: This day in history

Kent State student John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio discovering the slain Jeffrey Miller.


41 years ago on April 30, 1970, Richard Nixon announced that military operations would be expanding into the neutral, peaceful country of Cambodia, which had the bad fortune to share a border with Vietnam. Viet Cong insurgents were said to be hiding in the mountains of Cambodia. (In fact, the USA had already been conducting a secret bombing campaign, unbeknownst to the general public, engineered by Nixon and his butchers, named Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger.) These illegal, immoral, reprehensible acts were the acts of criminally insane men, who had just realized they were losing their filthy, insane, extremely expensive war.

The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."

On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.

I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.

No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.

The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.

From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.

The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.

In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.

~*~

Originally posted here on May 4, 2008.

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

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