Lily Salter's Blog, page 116
April 4, 2018
The Coca-Cola invasion is causing Mexico’s slow death by junk food
(Credit: AP Photo/Jim Cole)
A new Coca-Cola-run shop opens roughly every eight hours in Mexico. But despite this full-scale corporate takeover of Mexico’s cities, towns and diet, most people believe the severe obesity and diabetes problems here are down to local culture and individual choices. They would be wrong.
A block and a half from where I live there’s an Oxxo, a corner store owned by Coca-Cola that stocks chips, biscuits, soft drinks, nachos, cigarettes, beer, bottled water and sweets. There are two more Oxxos two and four blocks to the west, and another one a few blocks to the south. With predictable stock, bill-paying facilities and open 24 hours, even the most health-conscious and anti-consumerist people go to an Oxxo a few days a week.
The Coca-Cola colonization
Oxxos have grown from 300 shops in Mexico in 1990 to nearly 16,000, and FEMSA (Coca-Cola) claims it serves 10 million people a day. Ironically, in addition to its chain of retail service stations, and its real estate division which aids the block-by-block colonization, FEMSA also has a health division which includes four pharmacy chains, acquired in 2013 and 2015. The Oxxos stock their own brands, including Heineken beer (minority owner) and Santa Clara milk. Together with the 400,000 other corner shops around the country — which also stock Coca-Cola and focus exclusively on junk food — the Oxxos are a saturation strategy that makes no-nutritious fake-food the easiest product or service to obtain.
Reinforcing that is the growth in chain restaurants at twice that of independent ones, and the massive informal workforce that buy junk food at wholesale prices and sell it outside stations, at bus stops and on buses, throughout the streets, at schools, in plazas and parks, and outside hospitals. Many of the street food vendors get supplies like cheese, mayonnaise and ground beef from Walmart’s Sam’s Club.
This fake-food colonization is bolstered by aggressive marketing strategies where products are packaged with pictures of colorful natural foods, though little real food is left in them, and absurdly, U.S. brands are associated with high quality. A McDonald’s burger costs around double the price of a street vendor’s burger, and brands like Snickers cost double that of the local equivalent.
Though in 2014 the Mexican government banned junk food advertising during children’s television shows at certain times, there is still an intense campaign aimed at getting children addicted early — on the internet, radios, and in newspapers and billboards, with mascots a common technique to develop a child’s emotional connection to a food, and half of all advertising offering a gift or linking to a website where kids can play games with the personalities and products.
At the end of last year, multinationals participated in a forum called Mercakids in Mexico, where they analyzed how to better reach children. Participants included Kidzania, a company that uses games to plant brands in the minds of kids, and Bonafont, which has a line of kids’ drinks that are full of sugar and artificial coloring.
The U.S. and multinationals are dumping their junk food in Mexico
This Coca-Cola and mass-junk food distribution was facilitated by NAFTA, an agreement that came into effect in 1994. It allows the U.S. to send its junk food here, while the U.S. imports tomatoes, chilies, cucumbers, limes, avocados, mangoes, and more from Mexico. In the 1990s, NAFTA meant that Mexican family farms couldn’t compete with the U.S. agricultural giants, and five million Mexican farmers were displaced into the cities. It was a forced conversion of sorts, where U.S. fast food restaurants and corporations that specialize in selling cheap poison in pretty packets were given even more room to take Mexican resources and run the show. U.S. investment into Mexican food companies also escalated from US$2.3 billion before NAFTA to $10.2 billion in 2012.
Mexico also became Walmart World: from Walmart-owned and -run pharmacies and food distributors, to its smaller Aurrera supermarkets and its sprawled drab department stores, Walmart is now Mexico’s largest food retailer. Its billion-dollar purchase of Cifra in 1997, under NAFTA’s foreign investment guidelines, was a major part of converting Mexico’s distinctive streets into mall-land and its diet into mall-diet.
The transnationals don’t understand that Mexico is corn
Before the era of a bacon-wrapped hot dog and Coca-Cola for breakfast, there was corn.
“Corn is Nanj jm’e, which means mother provider,” Andres Martinez Garcia tells me. He is a Mazatec artist and art restorer who grew up in the community of San Andres Hidalgo, in Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca, where 82.5 percent of the population speak an indigenous language, and only 3 percent of the buildings have internet.
“Our ancestors learned to domesticate corn around 8,000-12,000 years ago. Experimenting, they found they could use its leaves and kernels to make all sorts of things and food. The process of growing and using corn taught us to organize, and corn was also the start of science, for us — observation and theories. Without corn we wouldn’t have developed as we did, we wouldn’t be who we are. So for us, it means history, identity, life, science, culture, and organization. It is a way of life, and a way of coordinating with the land and the gods,” Martinez said.
For many indigenous Mexicans especially, corn is like a flag. It’s a “living identity.… We are no one without it,” Martinez explained.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t taken into account when NAFTA was signed, nor are any transnationals concerned about what Mexico’s indigenous people need, or about their land that they are taking for themselves.
“Now, our corn comes from overseas. Most of it is transgenic. That’s the impact of these transnationals: you buy from them, and they give you their worst food. They don’t respect the rights of life and they don’t care that there’s a ritual behind the corn. They just want a product that makes them more powerful, gives them money,” Martinez said.
From a diet of corn, beans and zucchini to a forced dependence on rubbish
Today, Mexicans come fourth in the world for the amount of highly processed food they eat per person, at 212 kilos per year. According to Kantar WorldPanel, Mexican families or households spent 30 percent of their expenses on junk food in 2014, with the lower and middle classes spending the highest proportion. This sort of diet is a recent change, and not part of Mexican culture, as many people assume.
“Before the Spanish invasion, the food we produced was healthy, organic and natural, and planted according to the climate, the time of year. The food system was part of a long ritual. Food wasn’t about stuff that came in packets. It — and the planting and harvesting — was a structure that life was organized around. Food wasn’t just something to satisfy you, it was a mental state,” Martinez said.
The Mexican indigenous food pyramid — known as the “sacred trinity” — revolved around three key foods: corn, beans and chili. Now, Martinez’s indigenous community consumes soft drinks, candy and other junk food, he says, as that is what is sold there. “We used to eat healthy food like beans, herbs, corn, and meat… but now people ask for pizza and hamburgers. If you serve them a plate of beans, they throw it out.”
Even in urban areas, the food Mexicans consume isn’t so much their choice or culture, but rather it is the result of the lack of variety provided by the transnationals and of exploitative work conditions. Mexicans work very long days, six to seven days a week. My neighbors, for example, sell clothes in the street from 9am to 8pm, seven days a week. These sorts of conditions make it hard to find the time to cook, and a low income means people seek high-carb and sugary foods that make them feel full and that are quick to consume and easy to buy.
People are converted to a corporate U.S. diet early. Children are going to school with just soft drink for breakfast, believing it will give them energy for the day. In one study, 59 percent of primary school kids in selected rural and indigenous communities were consuming soft drinks at least three times a day, with coffee as their next most common drink, and the traditional and more nutritious atole only coming in fourth. The coffee is usually instant Nescafe, rather than from locally grown coffee beans. Most schools sell fried food and sweets, but provide no or few healthy food options, and soft drinks have become part of the family in these communities. Coca-Cola is the preferred drink, to the point where offering a guest a Pepsi is almost insulting.
Researchers found it was the corner stores in the communities making the difference, as they have shifted from selling fruit and vegetables to junk food over the last decade, with most of these stores also covered in Coca-Cola advertising and merchandise. In schools, such advertising is prohibited, but Coca-Cola finds ways to “sponsor” sports courts, decorating them in its brand’s colors, and in one example school, the unsubtle text “hydrate after exercising.”
The great profits from selling junk food to the poor
Mexico is facing a serious health crisis, with diabetes claiming 80,000 lives a year. That is largely a result of a greedy industry making money out of selling junk food to the poor. There are four transnationals in Mexico that hog 95.9 percent of the soft drink market and 89.4 percent of the sweet and salty snacks market. FEMSA (Coca-Cola) and Alsea dominate the food service industry, with Alsea managing and operating restaurants like Domino’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Chili’s, and the Cheesecake Factory. In 2017, Alsea’s revenue was MXN 43 billion (US$2.3 billion).
These industries don’t just determine what food we have access to; they are also instrumental in determining Mexico’s health policies. At least half of the members of the Oment — the Mexican Observatory of Non-transmittable Diseases, which is meant to be the organization overseeing and promoting policy to combat Mexico’s obesity and diabetes problems — have a connection to, or are financed by the food and drink industries.
“Capitalism has decided for us. They tell us what we’re going to eat. They don’t care if our food is healthy, they are invading us with their food… what they do interferes with our territory, our way of life, our way of thinking. They don’t respect what we’ve had and done for thousands of years,” Martinez said.
The junk food invasion has contaminated Mexico’s culture and identity
The consequences of an imposed junk food diet go beyond diabetes.
“These foods are… extremely tasty, sometimes almost addictive. They imitate (real) food, and they are erroneously seen as healthy… they are publicized and sold aggressively, and they are culturally, socially and economically destructive,” says the World Health Organization.
In Mexico, U.S. companies and other industry giants are displacing indigenous and Mexican culture while pretending to consume it within the U.S., and spurring racism toward Mexicans and Mexican immigrants. Even the children in the study of rural and indigenous communities were clear. They told researchers that the junk food invasion causes contamination through the media, “contaminates our land, the water, our culture, our delicious traditional food.”
It brings transnational abuse and market domination that benefits only the rich and affects the poorest people.
“Capitalists see NAFTA as a space for satisfying their desires, not their needs, and for extending their power. They don’t care what indigenous people think, or about our autonomy. They don’t respect our way of life, or care about where we get our water from or what we use the land for. These companies are dedicated to displacing us,” Martinez concluded.
April 3, 2018
Trump: “We are preparing for the military to secure our border”
A section of the US/Mexico border fence. (Credit: Getty/AP/Photo Montage by Salon)
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he is gearing up to order the U.S. military to police parts of the Mexican-American border. The president’s remarks intensified his recent rant regarding his desperate desire to see through his campaign promise to tighten border security.
“We have very bad laws for our border, and we are going to be doing some things. I’ve been speaking with General Mattis. We’re going to be doing things militarily,” Trump said at the White House, during a meeting with visiting Baltic leaders. “Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military. That’s a big step. We really haven’t done that before — or certainly not very much before.”
Trump reportedly reiterated to reporters on Tuesday: “We are preparing for the military to secure our border between Mexico and the United States. I think it’s something we have to do.”
The president also corroborated his remarks on Twitter:
WE WILL PROTECT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER! pic.twitter.com/Z7fqQKcnez
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
During the last couple of days, Trump has actively blustered about the need for stricter border control on Twitter, citing an increased urgency after hearing that a group of migrants from Honduras were traveling through Mexico. The story had been reported by his media outlet of choice, Fox News.
The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our “Weak Laws” Border, had better be stopped before it gets there. Cash cow NAFTA is in play, as is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen. Congress MUST ACT NOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
Mexican government authorities intervened and have agreed to provide humanitarian visas to some of the 1,200 migrants who were reportedly part of the “caravan,” including infants and elderly individuals, according to the New York Times. The caravan is an annual event intended to draw attention to the growing refugee crisis in Central America, the Washington Post reported.
This would not be the first time that troops have been deployed to the border. In 2010, then President Barack Obama’s administration sent 1,200 National Guardsmen to support Homeland Security’s CBP and ICE amid heightened concerns about drug trafficking.
Advocacy groups highlighted how such patrol is harmful to border communities on social media.
https://twitter.com/RI4A/status/981290747667206145
Trump’s latest remarks appear to be another attempt for the president to deliver to his base. Indeed, last week, Trump reportedly suggested in a private meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan that funding for the construction of the border wall could come from the U.S. military budget, according to CNN. Reports of that plan were met with derision from both sides of the aisle.
“First Mexico was supposed to pay for it, then U.S. taxpayers and now our men and women in uniform? This would be a blatant misuse of military funds and tied up in court for years. Secretary Mattis ought not bother and instead use the money to help our troops rather than advance the president’s political fantasies,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y., said in a statement.
Bill Cosby’s defense granted two huge wins ahead of retrial
Bill Cosby arrives for jury selection in his sexual assault retrial, April 3, 2018, in Norristown, Pa. (Credit: AP/Corey Perrine)
The judge in Bill Cosby’s retrial for sexual assault handed the embattled comedian’s defense team two huge wins on Tuesday.
The first ruling allows Cosby’s lawyers to call a witness who claims one of his accusers spoke of framing a famous person prior to reporting the alleged assault to police in 2005. In addition, Judge Steven O’Neill ruled that the defense can tell jurors the amount of the 2006 civil settlement that Cosby paid accuser Andrea Constand.
The ruling allowing Marguerite Jackson’s testimony is a reversal from Cosby’s first trial. The same judge previously blocked her testimony, ruling it as hearsay.
Both decisions are substantial for the defense, who is trying to depict Constand as “a greedy liar,” the Associated Press reported. Constand’s lawyers say Jackson’s testimony isn’t true. With the ruling, the judge added a caveat that he would be able to revisit it after Constand testifies.
The blows continued to pile up for the prosecution on Tuesday.
“O’Neill also hinted during a pretrial hearing last week that he could keep jurors from hearing Cosby’s prior testimony in a deposition about giving quaaludes to women before sex,” the AP said. “He said he won’t rule on that until it’s brought up at the retrial.”
Cosby was originally tried last year for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Costand at his Philadelphia home in 2004. Cosby admitted to having sexual relations with her but called the encounter consensual, and the first trial resulted in a hung jury.
Jury selection is currently underway for the retrial this week, with seven of the 12 jurors seated so far – four men and three women. All seven say they have read reports about Cosby’s case, but claim they haven’t formed opinions yet and can remain fair and impartial.
Aside from new evidence, how and if #MeToo will creep into Cosby’s retrial has been a topic of hot debate inside and outside of the courtroom. “With the current atmosphere, it’s going to be hard enough to get the jury to focus on the trial at hand,” defense lawyer Becky James said during a pretrial hearing last month, warning of a hemorrhage from #MeToo into the court proceedings. The defense argued the same in court filings.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele argued that Cosby, “after casting blame on everything but his own conduct and everyone but himself, now claims Harvey Weinstein is to blame for his continued prosecution.”
Just one potential juror said they had never heard of the #MeToo movement, a rallying call that ignited in Hollywood to demand the entertainment industry address systematic sexual harassment and violence by some of the most powerful men in the business — a fraternity which Cosby once certainly belonged. It’s been a movement so widespread, that notably, the person who claimed they hadn’t heard of #MeToo was not invited back.
There is a chance that the social movement will have an effect on both legal teams by making some jurors more sympathetic to the idea that the mounting accusations against Cosby are a bandwagon phenomenon, but it may make others more convinced of his guilt.
In a potentially positive ruling for the prosecution, the judge will allow five additional Cosby accusers to testify, a fraction of the more than 50 women who have levied accusations against him, but four more than the one additional accuser that O’Neill allowed to testify in the first trial. The prosecution had asked for 19 accusers to be able to testify to demonstrate a similar pattern in the alleged crimes. The introduction of five additional accusers may carry weight in an era where a series of allegations have often made the difference between the presumption of guilt and the presumption of innocence.
“The Last O.G.”: Tracy Morgan’s unexpected fresh start
Tracy Morgan and Allen Maldonado in "The Last O.G." (Credit: TBS/Francisco Roman)
Tracy Morgan knows a thing or seven about second chances and starting over. Fresh off of a solid run in an NBC series, and on the verge of a production deal with FX, Morgan’s fame was at its height when on June 7th, 2014, an 18-wheeler slammed into the rear of a chauffeured van Morgan hired to drive him home from a gig. The accident left Morgan in a coma for eight days with multiple fractures, and claimed the life of his longtime friend. There was a very real fear Morgan would not recover, or if he did, he would be fundamentally changed.
That makes his new TBS series “The Last O.G.,” premiering Tuesday at 10:30 p.m., a miracle by its very existence. Not only has Morgan returned, he still has the chops to headline a half hour. Make no mistake, however — Morgan’s comedic style and presence has noticeably transformed whether due to or despite that terrible accident.
Expectations are high for “The Last O.G.” for many reasons, some based in a curious desire to see Morgan whole and in action again, and some stemming from a residual love for his memorable “30 Rock” performer Tracy Jordan. And the continued prominence of “30 Rock” in the sitcom pantheon could mean that Morgan’s character in “The Last O.G.,” Tray, may have a tougher time winning over anyone expecting see the same freeform foolishness Morgan employed in his previous work.
Tray’s life is nothing like Tracy Jordan’s. Rather, he’s a man frustrated and subdued by life, the opposite of the “30 Rock” star’s absurdist master of navigating fame’s rapids and tidal pools.
Morgan’s Tray is a born and bred Brooklynite fresh out of prison after a 15-year prison stint for drug dealing. Much has changed in the decade and a half Tray spent in the cooler, and the initial half-hours of “The Last O.G.” pull a great deal of fish-out-of-water humor out of that truth. When Tray went down his corner was ground-zero for dealing crack. In fact, he was the dealer.
Now its brownstones and stoops are clean and restored, and the only things making the block hot are the popularity of its nearby artisanal coffee shops, airy and overpriced eateries and designer boutiques.
Pulling apart of the irony of a Brooklyn’s hipster gentrification is far from fresh territory in TV or film. Spike Lee’s series version of “She’s Gotta Have It” explicitly explored the clash and merger of the old and largely black Brooklyn and the new version that’s been hipsterized into banality. It looked back with kindness, but it also viewed where Brooklyn is today with acceptance and celebration as well as bitterness.
“The Last O.G.” plays with this dynamic in an entirely expected way, commencing with jokes about the high price of coffee and the ways the local demographic script has flipped. The main shocker for Tray is that his great love Shay (Tiffany Haddish), the woman who was still very much his round-the-way girl when he went away, is now married to a white guy named Josh (Ryan Gaul) who’s been raising his two kids.
Within its first two episodes “The Last O.G.” deftly skips through all the predictably difficulties Tray faces upon his release. Getting used to the new neighbors takes a moment, and he soon realizes that the dreams and talents he nurtured during his time in prison don’t match up with his ability to be hired.
But once those are out of the way the series views Tray’s life through a wider lens, transforming “The Last O.G.” into a thoughtful story about what we leave behind when we make certain choices and the gains and price of adapting to change.
This makes “The Last O.G.” an atypical work likely to clash against common expectations of what a Tracy Morgan comedy should feel like. It looks like a standard single-camera affair, mind you. With Morgan on the marquee and Jordan Peele and John Carcieri in the creators’ seats, the bidding war that preceded the 10-episode comedy’s landing at TBS is understandable.
Seeing the final product also makes it clear why FX, the network that initially ordered the pilot, ended up passing on it: “The Last O.G.” is all compassion and heart and not at all outrageous. Indeed, it is a less of a sitcom than a weekly stroll with a guy with numerous strikes against him — he’s a black, middle-aged ex-con with no work record. The odds will never be in his favor.
Yet Morgan emphasizes Tray’s streetwise qualities and innate goodness, which runs counter to the image of the comedian’s superior ability to clown up his parts. Tray circumstances are nothing to laugh at even though his story is the hook for a basic cable comedy.
Instead, he is awkward and stubborn, an old-school nasty flirt in a “cleaned up” neighborhood where the flavor’s been watered down. In a new Brooklyn where white people feel safe, his aggressive overtures are laughed off as “authentic” color. But he’s slow to catch on to these strange social cues, galumphing his way into situations he’s not cut out for and refusing to accept that this this new Brooklyn may be a place that reared him but is no longer the home he once knew.
To make this show work, then, Morgan cannot play his character as a pure jester. The funniest person in the series, in fact, is neither Morgan nor Haddish, but Cedric the Entertainer, serving regular doses of comic relief as the head of the halfway house where Tray lands. Cedric the Entertainer is pretty much the same hilarious guy that he usually is, which “The Last O.G.” needs.
Haddish, too, may be perceived as coming up short in her portrayal of Shay to those who have fallen in love with her over-the-top stand-up style. While it does feel odd to see her in a comedy she’s not toplining — her career took a stratospheric leap between the time when this series went in production and now — the series writes Shay as a woman who has changed with the times and the culture and Haddish believably fills that role.
She’s stretching beyond her routine here, allowing the story to shape Shay instead of jamming her comedic persona into the form of a woman astride a past she can’t forget and the lucrative present of the new Brooklyn, where her kids attend private school and she can debate the merits of a fresh bruschetta recipe with her husband.
In the scenes they share, Haddish’s chemistry with Gaul works well enough for us to pull for Josh as much as for Tray when the ex-con inevitably sets his sights on winning back his girl. Their contrasting dynamic is the highlight of one of the show’s best episodes, in fact, a half-hour rooted in an examination of masculinity. Through Tray and Josh, seen in separate situations, the writers portray with simple finesse very different versions of what it means to be a man and a father without assigning greater or lesser value to either take.
“The Last O.G.” brims with such thoughtful notes, even if it takes a few episodes to settle into its soul and embrace what it aspires to be. It looks like a straightforward comedy, and the fact that is it not as broad and more restrained than what viewers may have been expecting, could work against it. But if nothing else, it’s a sanguine look at all the ways life changes us and the world around us; that’s true of Tray and the man who plays him. It’s good to have Morgan back. It’s even better to see him in a show that allows a glimpse at the ways that he has evolved.
Alex Jones hit with $1 million defamation lawsuit for false Parkland accusation
Alex Jones (Credit: YouTube/The Alex Jones Channel)
Alex Jones, who runs the far-right website Infowars, is facing another defamation lawsuit, this time for falsely depicting a 24-year-old man from Boston as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter who opened fire at the high school on February 14 and killed 17 people.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, lists Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems and the author of the article, Kit Daniels, as defendants in the case. Marcel Fontaine, a 24-year-old Massachusetts resident, is the plaintiff.
“The day the shooting happened Infowars published an article alleging that the Florida shooter was a communist and depicted a photograph of our client,” Bill Ogden, a lawyer representing Fontaine told Salon. “It was shared on Google, Instagram, and had millions of shares, because of that our client started getting pushback, responses and was contacted with death threats; it has emotionally affected him,”
The original article, which has since been retracted, displayed a photo of Fontaine wearing a satirical “communist party” t-shirt —adorned with communist leaders like Stalin, Lenin and Mao drinking from red Solo cups. In the original iteration, preluding the image, Daniels wrote, ”and another alleged photo of the suspect shows communist garb.” As the lawsuit explains:
“It appears that Mr. Fontaine was targeted by InfoWars due to the t-shirt he was wearing in his photograph. That novelty t-shirt, sold by online retailer Threadless.com, makes a visual pun on the phrase “communist party” by depicting 11 communist historical figures in a state of merriment and intoxication, complete with German economist Karl Marx wearing a lampshade on his head.”
Ogden isn’t sure where the photo came from, or exactly how Infowars obtained it, but he speculated that it originated from a post on a “Japanese cartoon image board, which was soon taken down after.”
Fontaine’s lawsuit concedes that it’s difficult to estimate how many people saw the false accusation, but contends that it likely reached “hundreds of millions.” Ogden told Salon that Fontaine is seeking emotional support and treatment following the incident, citing reputational damage.
“Due to Defendants’ conduct, Plaintiff’s image has been irreparably tainted. InfoWars’ story became a lie told ’round the world,” the lawsuit states. “Further compounding the defamation is the fact that Mr. Jones, Mr. Daniels, and other employees have used InfoWars’ various media platforms to cast doubt on the facts surrounding the Florida shooting, just as InfoWars has done with prior national tragedies.”
This isn’t the only defamation lawsuit Jones is currently facing.
In mid-March, Jones was also slapped with another defamation lawsuit, filed by Brennan Gilmore, who had captured footage of the car that killed Heather Heyer at the “Unite the Right” rally. Gilmore was painted as “being a CIA or “deep state” operative who helped orchestrate Fields’ attack as a “false flag,” according to the lawsuit.
In the most recent lawsuit, Ogden explained that Infowars isn’t a “mom and pop shop.” It’s a website that gets roughly 30 million page-views per month.
“Mr. Jones feeds his audience a steady diet of false information intended to convince them that a shadowy association of global elites are hatching countless insidious schemes to destroy their way of life or threaten their bodily fluids,” the lawsuit states.
“There has been a lot of talk about ‘fake news,’ and that we are trying to make a bigger change. We aren’t,” Ogden told Salon. “We hope it has that effect, but this case is about our client and the injustices that were done to him.”
LBJ vs. MLK: The truth about Johnson’s twisted approach to civil rights
President Lyndon B Johnson discusses the Voting Rights Act with civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr. (Credit: Getty/Hulton Archive)
Winston Churchill famously said, “History is written by the victors.” Truth is often the first casualty in the aftermath of conflict. The creation of mythological stories about real-life historical figures has become entrenched in every facet of American culture for a very long time. It can be argued that the legacies of many of the founders and early presidents—from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln—have been written in such a way as to hide or minimize their less noble acts and highlight their most glorious accomplishments.
Likewise, the same phenomenon has prevailed with modern-day politicians fortunate enough to succeed to the highest offices. In the case of mid-twentieth-century leaders, it has taken nearly five decades for truth-seekers to sift out the myths — composed of subtle deceits and brazen lies — from the basest pure truths. President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover are the clearest examples of how the tension between myths and truths is still being wrought, in a continuing cultural movement that has no end in sight.
Three days before the opening of the movie “Selma,” the self-described “historian” Mark Updegrove (the previous director — and recently named president — of the taxpayer-financed Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library), having seen a preview, then wrote a critical review, as if to prove Churchill’s original point. His article, published in Politico (“What ‘Selma’ Gets Wrong,” December 22, 2014), stated that the movie distorted the relationship between President Johnson and the civil rights leader. Ironically, Updegrove claimed that the movie misrepresented historical truth when in fact it is Updegrove’s narrative that repeats the sanitized, mythical “history” of what was, in reality, a highly fractured, poisoned, and extremely short relationship between LBJ and MLK as their narrow mutual goals briefly intersected with their individual pursuits. Updegrove wrote:
Selma misses mightily in faithfully capturing the pivotal relationship—contentious, the film would have you believe—between King and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. In the film, President Johnson resists King’s pressure to sign a voting rights bill, which—according to the movie’s take—is getting in the way of dozens of other Great Society legislative priorities. Indeed, Selma’s obstructionist LBJ is devoid of any palpable conviction on voting rights. Vainglorious and power hungry, he unleashes his zealous pit bull, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, on King, who is determined to march in protest from Selma to Montgomery despite LBJ’s warning that it will be “open season” on the protesters. This characterization of the 36th president flies in the face of history. In truth, the partnership between LBJ and MLK on civil rights is one of the most productive and consequential in American history.
Mr. Updegrove went on to describe how Johnson then instructed King on what steps he needed to take with his followers to inform the public about the worst cases of voter discrimination (as if King’s many followers had not already thought of that, and in fact had already spent much time informing the national public of such bigotry, widely and repeatedly). Throughout his article, Updegrove portrayed the Johnson-King relationship as uniformly friendly and positive, as when he quoted President Obama on that point: “Like Dr. King, like Abraham Lincoln, like countless citizens who have driven this country inexorably forward, President Johnson knew that ours in the end is a story of optimism, a story of achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this earth . . .” President Obama, a gifted wordsmith, can only emulate some of his predecessors, including the master debater himself, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
As with so many other “historical” stories, the narrative of the Johnson-King relationship has been twisted, parsed, and skewed over the years from what was originally described by the actual participants. One account of that came from Andrew Young, then working side by side with King, as described by Dr. Gerald McKnight in his book “The Last Crusade”: “. . . there were ugly scenes in the Oval Office late in the war-ruined Johnson administration when the president, in one of his Texas-sized towering rages, referred to King as that ‘goddamn n***er preacher.’ Young recalled the deceptive signals emanating from the Johnson White House: ‘on the surface we were being smiled at and granted grudging support; below the surface we were distrusted, resented and undercut.’” (Emphasis added.)
Preeminent King biographer Taylor Branch, in his last book of a trilogy, “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965–68,” compared Martin Luther King Jr. to Moses, who saw the promised land, Canaan, from Mount Nebo looking across the Jordan River; Moses died there, as King died in Memphis, in both cases just after having “seen” the promised land. Branch stated that Johnson’s treatment of King was “unpredictable,” often going from “shared dreams” to a “towering, wounded snit.” Branch described the tension between them in August 1965, after a telephone conversation about the Watts race riot the previous week. Each recognized that the other man could not be relied on to achieve their own goals, yet to accomplish their narrow immediate objective, they had to get along and not let their distrust of the other become public: “Their skittish, intimate consultation left few clues that it would seal the last words on record between King and Lyndon Johnson. Unwittingly, they were saying goodbye.”
The fact that the period of their “collaboration” came to an end only months after it had begun, according to Branch, has not been widely reported, but it is essential for an understanding of the larger point regarding the short length of time that transpired before the “partnership” that Mr. Updegrove overly extolled came to an end. It had started in March 1965, shortly before King led the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery; it quickly chilled a few weeks later and was effectively over after only five months of existence in August, 1965, after the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.
Moreover, Branch wrote, after Johnson hung up the phone at the end of their last conversation in 1965, he and the aides who had attended and overheard all of it laughed about King’s refusal to back the presidential call for patriotic loyalty in the face of wartime conditions (the point had been discussed only briefly, as both seemed to walk on eggshells around that subject). They mocked King for “wobbly judgment and dubious political loyalty,” which, combined with the 1965 riots that had just occurred in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts, had raised the specter in their minds of an outrageous betrayal by the very group that should have been praising Johnson’s policies. In the days after that telephone call, White House aides leaked false stories to news reporters about how strongly the president confronted Dr. King on his Vietnam position. This narrative from Branch reveals more of the true nature of that “collaborative” period: it was one of distrust, derision, and mockery on the part of Johnson, whose real agenda was highly personal and selfish, never at all consonant with the noble aspirations of Dr. King.
On April 4, 1967, precisely one year before his murder in Memphis, when Dr. King delivered his speech at New York’s Riverside Church about LBJ’s Vietnam misadventure, they officially became bitter enemies. By that point, Johnson wouldn’t even talk to him and often referred to him in the most vulgar and derisive language imaginable, as referenced in the previous paragraphs.
Taylor Branch’s account, based upon his scholarly work that includes references to contemporaneous comments of Andrew Young as noted above, accurately portrays the real context of the Johnson/King relationship throughout the brief period of their collaboration to achieve their narrow and temporary mutual goals, but for opposite reasons. King’s motives were noble, pure, and righteous. Johnson’s goal was driven by his habitual cunning and guile, his basest instincts, which were anything but sincere or noble — because LBJ’s motive was derived merely from his desire to create a contrived “presidential legacy” that would hide his deepest secrets. It was the natural result of his single greatest trait, as described by his own preeminent biographer, Robert Caro, who wrote that Johnson hungered for power “. . . in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them, to bend them to his will . . . it was a hunger so fierce and consuming that no consideration of morality or ethics, no cost to himself—or to anyone else—could stand before it.”
Furthermore, Caro was told by a former aide to Johnson that there was never anything altruistic about Johnson’s motives and that he had no real empathy for any of the causes he espoused, certainly not the civil rights of minorities, whom he disparaged and ridiculed. That aide (who spoke to Caro on condition of anonymity) stated that above all else, Johnson was a pragmatist who would do whatever was required to accomplish his own highly personal agenda of the moment. The aide then added: “There’s nothing wrong with being pragmatic. Hell, a lot of us were pragmatic. But you have to believe in something. Lyndon Johnson believed in nothing, nothing but his own ambition.”
The actual, and historically accurate, Johnson/King relationship can only be understood if it is considered in the context of Lyndon Johnson’s lifelong record of being a racist and segregationist. Throughout his career, he had aggressively resisted numerous attempts to eliminate the poll tax and literacy tests during the twenty-three-year period he served in the House and Senate. He then blocked every piece of meaningful civil rights legislation that had found its way into the Senate when he was its powerful majority leader. It was Lyndon Johnson who neutered the 1957 Civil Rights Act with a poison pill amendment that required violators of the act to be tried before state (all white), not federal, juries.
Many contemporary liberals such as Joseph Rauh, the president of Americans for Democratic Action, and A. Philip Randolph, a black vice president of the AFL-CIO, called the bill worthless, and “worse than no bill at all.” As vice president, Johnson orchestrated southern congressional opposition to JFK’s civil rights agenda and repeatedly warned JFK to go slow on the civil rights, voting rights, and open housing legislation that Kennedy had promised in his 1960 campaign. There was a reason that Johnson had resisted this overdue reform all those years: he was reserving these initiatives for himself, as he repeatedly cautioned President Kennedy to wait “until the time is right.”
On Capitol Hill, throughout the years of his vice presidency, Johnson continued to lobby his “establishment” friends to stall that same legislation. This point was validated, ironically, in the November 22, 1963, issue of the Dallas Times Herald. The headline read: “Senior Senators Shrug off Attack—Thwarting JFK, Liberal Charges.” The article stated, in part: “Sen. Joseph S. Clark’s new charge that the ‘Senate establishment’ [of which Johnson was still in control, having upstaged the shy and professorial Mike Mansfield] is staging a sit-down strike against major Kennedy legislation left the targets of his attack unruffled today. The Pennsylvania liberal told the Senate that Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield, Mont. was not responsible for so many key bills still being in committees. Clark said the impasse should be blamed on a ‘Senate establishment’ of senior, conservative senators.” (Emphasis added.)
Immediately upon JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson made a 180-degree turn the moment he became president, as he began pressing his Senate “establishment” friends to finally pass the Kennedy slate of legislation that he had previously impeded. He did it because now that he was president, finally, “the time was right.” A record number of 104 bills had by then been stalled in Congress, some as long as twenty years in the case of Medicare for the elderly. As president, Johnson knew that his eventual “legacy” would require that his reputation be reframed with a visage similar to that of the “great presidents” like Washington, Lincoln, and his personal idol, Franklin Roosevelt; he wanted to be seen as a man of vision, whose name would reflect a character known for his brilliance, and as a generous, magnanimous, erudite leader of all American citizens. In other words, he wanted future generations to think of him as being a person who was opposite of his real attributes.
Yet in fact, Johnson only pressed Congress remotely and did none of the personal arm-twisting for the 1964 Civil Rights Act himself; he left it to Sen. Hubert Humphrey — then the putative vice-presidential candidate-in-waiting — to round up the votes, but he did give him detailed lobbying instructions by going through a list of every congressman and senator, explaining their strengths, weaknesses, and personal vulnerabilities. Hugh Sidey, the syndicated Time magazine columnist, had gotten the story from Humphrey and wrote about what he had been told: “‘Johnson knew how to woo people,’ remembered Humphrey . . . ‘He was sort of like a cowboy making love . . . He knew how to massage the senators.’ Johnson knew whom to nurture, whom to threaten, and whom to push aside. The whole chamber seemed subject to his manipulation. ‘He played it like an organ. Goddamn, it was beautiful! It was just marvelous.’” (Emphasis added.)
Even though they tried, neither Johnson nor Humphrey could deliver all Democrats to vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, arguably the most important legislation of the twentieth century. In fact, some of the most famed liberals of their day voted against it, including Tennessee senator Al Gore Sr., Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright, and West Virginia senator Robert Byrd (Byrd even filibustered the bill on June 10, 1964, for over fourteen hours in his passionate attempt to derail it). It only passed because of the vigorous support of Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and twenty-seven Senate Republicans; in the House, only 59 percent of Democrats voted in favor of the legislation, while 78 percent of Republicans supported it. Johnson had stripped the voting rights section—which had been in Kennedy’s original bill—out of the 1964 bill, saving it for still another bill in 1965 so it would add yet another “bullet” for his legacy.
Of the many statements that demonstrate incontrovertible evidence of Johnson’s true attitudes, none can match a comment he made to visiting governors, in explaining why the civil rights bill had become so important for him: “I’ll have them n***ers voting Democratic for two hundred years.”
Excerpted with permission from Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?: by Phillip F Nelson. Copyright 2018 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. Available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound.
Three victims hospitalized after shooting at YouTube, 1 dead
Officers at a YouTube office in San Bruno, Calif., Tuesday, April 3, 2018. (Credit: AP/Jeff Chiu)
Three victims were hospitalized for gunshot wounds after a female suspect allegedly opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, prior to taking her own life, authorities said on Tuesday afternoon. The alleged shooter is a woman. The critical inflicted male victim is believed to be the suspect’s boyfriend, although that hasn’t been confirmed, according to varying reports.
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said in press conference that the injured had been transported with gun shot-related injuries and that one subject was “deceased with a self-inflicted wound, who [law enforcement officials] believe is the shooter.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the situation, and tweeted his “thoughts and prayers” to everyone involved. “Thank you to our phenomenal law enforcement officers and first responders that are currently on the scene,” he wrote.
Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
Citing a spokesperson, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital told NBC Bay Area that it had taken in patients from the incident. City Manager Connie Jackson confirmed to CNN that San Bruno had issued a “massive police and fire response” in reaction to numerous emergency calls.
YouTube employee Vadim Lavrusik tweeted that there was an “active shooter at YouTube HQ” and that he had “heard shots and saw multiple people running while at my desk.” He said he was barricaded inside a room with coworkers, but about 20 minutes later he tweeted that he had been safely evacuated.
Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers.
— Vadim Lavrusik (@Lavrusik) April 3, 2018
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of the U.S. Senate’s strongest advocates for gun reform, took to social media to react to the event. “My stomach sinks with yet another active shooter alert. I’m praying for the safety of everyone at YouTube headquarters,” the California legislator wrote on Twitter.
My stomach sinks with yet another active shooter alert. I’m praying for the safety of everyone at YouTube headquarters.
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) April 3, 2018
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Democrat who survived being shot five times during the Jonestown massacre in 1978 and has devoted significant energy to the issue of gun violence, said: “I am shocked and saddened to hear about another mass shooting, this one at YouTube in my district. I am following developments and am sending prayers to the victims and survivors.”
“We must take action and #EndGunViolence,” Speier tweeted.
I am shocked and saddened to hear about another mass shooting, this one at YouTube in my District. I am following developments and am sending prayers to the victims and survivors. We must take action and #EndGunViolence.
— Jackie Speier (@RepSpeier) April 3, 2018
Ryan Deitsch, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting who has since emerged as an activist against gun violence, tweeted: “We will not rest until those deemed the tragic term ‘shooting survivor’ can live in peace, regardless of where in this country they may be.”
We will not rest until those deemed the tragic term “shooting survivor” can live in peace, regardless of where in this country they may be.#YoutubeShooting #NeverAgain
— Ryan Deitsch (@Ryan_Deitsch) April 3, 2018
Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords released a statement underscoring the need for stricter gun control laws.
“It’s been 48 days since 17 people were shot to death in Parkland, Florida. It’s been 101 days since 26 people were shot to death in Sutherland Springs, Texas.,” Giffords said. “It’s been 136 days since 58 people were shot to death in Las Vegas, Nevada. Every single day in America more than 90 people are killed with guns.”
“How much longer do we have to wait before Congress takes action to make our communities safer from gun violence?” Giffords asked.
The San Bruno Police Department said on Twitter at about 1:30 p.m. PST that it was “responding to an active shooter” near Cherry Avenue and Bay Hill Drive. Officials previously confirmed there was police activity at 901 Cherry Avenue, the address of the YouTube office, and warned people to avoid the area.
Police activity at 901 Cherry Ave, please stay out of the area. pic.twitter.com/H6iAj0g7ra
— San Bruno Police (@SanBrunoPolice) April 3, 2018
The San Francisco division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed on Twitter that it was also responding to the reported shooting on Tuesday afternoon.
The ATF San Francisco Field Division is responding to a reported shooting at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif. pic.twitter.com/l7XabZ5FpI
— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) April 3, 2018
This is a developing story. Check back in to Salon for additional updates.
Why is R. Kelly immune to #MeToo?
R. Kelly (Credit: Getty/Mike Pont)
Over just the past six months, the world has changed. The predatory behavior of powerful men — powerful men who often engaged in their abusive tactics for years — has come to light and there have been consequences in their professional and personal lives. Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Russell Simmons, Kevin Spacey and multiple others have felt the repercussions of the behavior they’re accused of. Yet R. Kelly continues to sail along seemingly unscathed. It’s been 24 years since the now 51 year-old singer married a 15 year-old Aaliyah. Since then, there have been multiple lawsuits and settlements and accusations of abuse and underage sexual relations. There are, by multiple accounts, women living in his home and being controlled by his alleged “cult” like behavior right now. Kelly, meanwhile, is playing at Chicago’s 9,500 capacity UIC Pavillon in May.
No journalist has been more dogged in his pursuit of the truth behind R. Kelly’s still wildly successful persona than Jim DeRogatis, the Chicago music writer who’s been following the story for nearly two decades. On the heels of the BBC’s recent documentary exploring Kelly’s lengthy and alarming history, Salon spoke to DeRogatis about his own relentless investigations, and why the superstar has still managed to dodge the reckoning that’s come for so many others.
I don’t understand how this has still been going on. I have a 14-year-old daughter myself, and I have been hearing about this for twenty years.
Forever. Because I’ve been reporting on it since 2000.
Is this because it’s about black girls and people don’t care as much about when black girls are being sexually exploited? Is it because he is so successful?
He is not as successful as Kevin Spacey or Harvey Weinstein or Matt Lauer. I wrote a piece about this for the New Yorker about why. And yes, I think it’s because these victims are not fabulous, famous white actresses. I think they’re black girls nobody cares about. They’re not even famous black girls. That’s part of it.
But I also think, if you look at the history of music, Jerry Lee Lewis marries Myra Gale. She’s 13. People, in the wake of David Bowie’s death, were pointing out his many affairs with underage groupies. And Jimmy Page and Steven Tyler.
And Don Henley was caught with an underage girl who’d overdosed after a party. That gets scrubbed out of Eagles history. But I think it’s wrong to lump this with groupie culture.
Because what this is, is a predator who has, for three decades, preyed on very vulnerable 14, 15, 16-year old girls. It crystallized for me early in my reporting when someone close to him who was part of the circle for years said that night after night after night there are twenty beautiful, half-naked women backstage in the room.
I think this is the perfect cover. Probably even better than being a Catholic priest. He is preying on the most vulnerable victims imaginable. Somebody nobody cares about, because if you’re a young black woman — even worse than rape culture and women in general — you are not believed. You are a gold-digger, a bitch or a whore. And you know, going after these girls who are seemingly vulnerable, some from broken homes, it can take as little as a pair of sneakers.
The girl on the tape, for which he was tried — it took six years to go to trial — and she never testified. Her mother and father never testified. But there were more than a dozen witnesses: her aunt, her grandmother, her pastor, her basketball coach, her best friend, and her best friend’s parents who did testify that, that was the girl and that was how old she was and that was R. Kelly. The jury believed a hundred percent that it was R. Kelly but, rape culture. They never heard from the victim and so they couldn’t indict. They couldn’t commit.
That’s another thing that I find so, so frustrating in this story. It’s unlike even the Larry Nassar case, where the victims are coming forward.
Well, yes. Some of the women have filed suit against him. Some of the young women who filed suit against him tried to commit suicide and were devastated by this relationship. That happened more than once. Jerhonda Pace said that she believed that these young women are going to need counseling. It’s as if they’ve been held captive.
“Cult” is what the parents and Jerhonda and women like Kitti Jones and Asante McGee who were in sexual relationships with him [say].
It’s a consistent portrait the women have painted since 2000. I’m baffled why Live Nation is currently selling tickets to an arena show here by Kelly in May. He’s still touring. He’s doing another show in North Carolina. Live Nation is the biggest corporate global concert promoter in the world. There are people on that board of directors who are significant and powerful people and why they are not holding the corporation responsible?
Sony Music has refused to comment. They have refused to comment to me, they’ve refused to comment when Buzzfeed and other reporters called. They refused to comment when the goddamn New Yorker fact checker called. You’re selling his music and you’re refusing to say anything. And that hasn’t washed not with Hollywood, not with media, and not with politics. Even Fox News turned on the two people who were accused.
[Kelly’s 2014 tour was called “The Black Panties Tour,” a particularly nauseating phrase, considering that goading young women to tell him what color panties they’re wearing appears to be a well-worn element of his predation.]
Why is he Teflon? Why?
I think it’s a weird combination of factors. Number one, the victims are people that society doesn’t care about, young black girls. Number two, I think, there’s something about the music world. This has happened forever; this will happen forever, we don’t care.” Number three, we have to remember that aside from “Space Jam” and “I Believe I Can Fly”, Kelly is a uniquely black star. The fan base is not as big as it is for Jay-Z or other black superstars. The white fan base is pretty ignorant of a man who sold 60 million records namely to black fans except — and here is another exceedingly troublesome aspect. In 2013, he headlined the Pitchfork Music Festival. He performed subsequently with Phoenix at Coachella and he performed as the headliner at Bonnaroo. Those are all craft beer drinking, privileged hipster white people, knowing that there’s something in his past. And here in Chicago, Pitchfork especially was inexcusable because they knew. And yet, they booked him anyway. And when he took the stage for 30,000 craft beer drinking bearded hipster graduate students, he was half a mile away from the home of one of those girls who sued him and slit her wrists because of a sexual relationship with him.
You know, we have the black world who grew up with him. Half of the black world despises him and half of the black world is, “My babies were conceived to his music and the man was acquitted and get off his dick.” But the white hipster world, I cannot understand or condone. It makes me sick to my stomach that they can listen to “Trapped In the Closet” and “Sex in the Kitchen” and “I’m your sexasaurus” and hear it as hypersexualized schtick. In fact, his entire canon of music is a documentation of his hedonistic desires, which, if you do any sort of examination of the context means, “I’m free to pursue underage black girls as I please because I’m R. Kelly, the Pied Piper of R&B, the sexual super freak.” Those are his words. That’s what he calls himself. It’s not like he has been guilty of a lack of truth in advertising.
I can’t get my head around it, that it bubbles up and people talk about it, and yet what in the actual hell will it take to hold this guy accountable for anything?
I don’t know. I don’t know. The thing that’s even more horrifying is most of those Weinstein accusations, the ones that have brought down powerful white men, Matt Lauer, Fox News. They all happened in the past. Remember the Lauer story? He had a button in his office that he could seal the door and harass a woman who is in his office. Imagine you’re walking by that office and you hear screams and you keep walking. Well, that’s what’s happening with Kelly, because if we believe these parents in Florida, these parents in Georgia, these parents in North Carolina, their daughters who are now of legal age are being held against their will. Mentally, physically abused, separated from their parents, told when to eat, when to sleep, when to dress, how to pleasure him in encounters that he records, and they’re punished if they break any of his so-called rules. These are women who are in trouble right now as you and I talk. Aside from well-being check in Illinois, one well-being check in Georgia, law enforcement’s done nothing. Live Nation has done nothing. Sony Music has done nothing. The activists in the new R. Kelly movement are trying to raise awareness, but these women are locked behind the door right now.
It’s also part of rape culture. Right? Why did you dress that way? Were you asking for it? Instead of examining what the man has done. And in this case, it’s thirty years of what the man has done. It’s always turned on the victim.
I feel like he is such a unique case. And maybe part of that is because it is the music industry and there is this history of sexualizing young girls. It’s part of the culture.
For someone who has been writing about rock and roll as my all-consuming passion since I was 14, it sickens me to the core of my being because I believe your life can be saved by rock and roll. But the thought that it also can be used for this other far more nefarious, soul-killing purpose, it makes me sick to my stomach. Curtis Mayfield sang songs and helped fuel the civil rights movement. R. Kelly sings songs that drive his alleged sexual predation.
I am continuously sickened by this and continuously baffled. Just absolutely baffled. I don’t know how to change it.
Well, I think we just keep on talking about it. I’m glad that other people are finally writing about it . . . . I welcome that. Bring them on. Women are in trouble right now and women have been hurt for thirty years, and aside from Aaliyah, no one has ever cared about any of them. Bring it on.
Laura Ingraham ad exodus incites conversation about free speech
Laura Ingraham (Credit: Getty/Photo Montage by Salon)
Every American knows of his or her right to freedom of speech. What exactly constitutes protected speech is a lot less clear, however — and it is a question that the U.S. Supreme Court has often struggled to answer.
When executed strategically, advertising can be an effective tool for brands to voice their purpose and values. Lately, it seems as though companies have been increasingly vocal about their willingness to pull their advertising dollars from platforms that are embroiled in controversy.
Last week, Laura Ingraham lost the support of well more than a dozen advertisers after she mocked David Hogg’s reported rejections from several universities. Hogg is a survivor of the Parkland school shooting and has helped spark a nationwide movement against gun violence. He responded to Ingraham’s taunts by calling on advertisers to pull their commercials from her primetime show, “The Ingraham Angle.”
After several companies yanked their ad dollars, Ingraham announced on Friday that she would be taking a week off of work. A Fox News representative later told The Washington Post that the host’s vacation was pre-planned. The primetime star will return to the network on Monday – and with the network’s blessing, too.
“We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” Jack Abernethy, co-president of Fox News, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “We look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday when she returns from spring vacation with her children.”
The timing echoes the events of April 2017, when former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly announced he would be taking an Easter vacation amid an advertiser boycott. He was later fired by the network over mounting allegations of sexual misconduct. That same month, O’Reilly protégé Jesse Watters abruptly announced he was taking time off after resounding backlash to his inappropriate comment about first daughter Ivanka Trump, which he claimed was not meant to be a sexual innuendo. It was Watters’ first week in his new primetime slot.
While it seems that Ingraham’s coveted spot in the Fox News line-up is likely safe and the cable channel is ready to resume regular programming, a conversation about advertising boycotts – in the larger context of money and freedom of speech – is unfolding across the U.S.
Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter asked, “Are ad boycotts the right answer?”
“I’m personally pretty wary of this. I think it’s dangerous,” Stelter said. “My view is: Let’s not shut down anyone’s right to speak. Let’s meet their comments with more speech.”
Marwan M. Kraidy – chair of global media, politics and culture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication – called the idea of meeting speech with more speech “ideal,” but suggested it does not often play out in reality. In an interview with Salon, he argued that speech and money can be one in the same – at least in America.
“In the U.S. context, withdrawing advertising is speech,” Kraidy said. “It is a very powerful move. [Advertiser boycotts] hit companies where it hurts.”
Brad Gorham, director of media studies at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, echoed Kraidy’s thoughts.
When asked whether ad boycotts are the right thing to do, Gorham told Salon, “The right answer? Well, they are an answer. They’re a way for consumers and for brands to voice their disapproval with how a professional communicator has said or done something that they don’t like.”
“In this instance, the answer is it clearly was powerful,” Gorham continued.
At least 15 companies so far have pulled their ads from Ingraham’s Fox News program, according to Media Matters. Those include: Nutrish, TripAdvisor, Wayfair, Expedia, Nestle, Jos A Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Hulu, Stitch Fix, Jenny Craig, Office Depot, Honda, Liberty Mutual, Principal, Miracle-Ear, Ruby Tuesday, The Atlantis Paradise Island resort, Entertainment Studios and Bayer.
Fox News has faced a number of ad boycotts in recent years. After Sean Hannity supported embattled accused child molester Roy Moore in his campaign for U.S. Senate, five companies removed their ads from his program, including Keurig. In defense of the news anchor, Hannity fans launched a boycott of the company, posting videos of themselves demolishing their machines on social media. Keurig’s CEO later apologized, and Hannity urged his viewers to stop destroying their individual coffee makers.
Still, the impact of the advertiser exodus on Ingraham’s show remains unclear. The 15 companies who have fled her show are a small fraction of the 129 companies that ran ads on her program during the last ten days of March, Media Matters research reveals.
Despite being taken down by an advertiser boycott, Bill O’Reilly offered his own commentary on Ingraham’s brand fallout, warning the world that Ingraham is the target of “powerful, shadowy radical groups.”
“The tweet from [Ingraham] was ill-advised, and Laura has apologized,” O’Reilly tweeted. “But know this: The sponsor boycott is not some spontaneous upraising by companies. It is being directed by powerful, shadowy radical groups who want Laura Ingraham off the air.”
The tweet from @IngrahamAngle was ill-advised and Laura has apologized. But know this: the sponsor boycott is not some spontaneous uprising by companies. It is being directed by powerful, shadowy radical groups who want Laura Ingraham off the air.
— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) April 2, 2018
While the true power of advertiser protests remains unknown, one thing is certain: Money is essential to facilitating speech, as established by the Supreme Court in 1976 by Buckley v. Valeo. Since then, an on-going debate about the effects of money and free speech has ensued. Despite varying opinions, it’s clear in the U.S. that money is an accessory to speech just like gas is to a car — and there is reason for concern about the impact of spending on America’s political process.
Steve Bannon reveals plans to visit Sweden to “learn from” the nation’s far-right party
Steve Bannon (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
Steve Bannon revealed to a Swedish newspaper that he will be visiting the country to “learn from” the Sweden Democrats (SD), an anti-immigration, anti-Muslim party attempting to rebrand away from its neo-Nazi roots. In seeking alliances with Sweden’s most prominent right-wing party leaders, Bannon is trying to dig himself out of the political irrelevance his downfall has brought. But it appears that even the members of a party with neo-Nazi origins are embarrassed to be associated with him.
In a March 28 interview with Dagens Nyheter, a daily newspaper in Sweden, Bannon revealed his plan to visit the country in the next few months “to learn” from the Sweden Democrats, “some of whom we have studied closely.” When asked what insights would he share with SD members from his time at the White House (he was fired in August 2017), Bannon said he’d urge the SD to continue fighting, increase the party’s contact with the base, and stay away from the so-called “globalists.” He also called SD leader Jimmie Åkesson a “dynamic” politician and characterized SD as an example for “the whole world to study.”
Bannon’s interest in Sweden is neither new nor surprising, as he has long telegraphed his plans to export his far-right politics to Europe. During Bannon’s time at the helm of Breitbart.com, as well as during and after his White House stint, the outlet has shown an obsession with a mythical migrant crime wave in Sweden, particularly as the nation prepares for a general election (Sweden has become a gateway to the anti-migrant agenda in Europe). Bannon’s announcement of his plans comes on the heels of a series of embarrassing setbacks for him — ranging from a humiliating electoral loss by a Republican politician he championed in a ruby-red state to his ousting from Breitbart, which he helped build. It appears he is looking for a comebackwherever he can find it.
When asked directly whether the SD party invited him to visit Sweden, Bannon gave a vaguely affirmative answer, stating he didn’t want to make an announcement yet but that he would “definitely come to Sweden . . . relatively soon.” But just hours after the interview was published, the secretary of the Sweden Democrats party denied that anyone in the party arranged or even had knowledge of Bannon’s trip and refused to say whether SD will welcome Bannon to Sweden.
Though SD was born out of neo-Nazi circles in the late ‘80s, it has since attempted to enter the mainstream by distancing itself from the overt white nationalism of some of its past leaders. In 2006, the party changed its logo from the torch used by the U.K.’s fascist National Front to an innocuous blue and yellow flower. Now, Sweden Democrats is the nation’s most established right-wing party and boasts a thriving (if controversial) social media presence. But its polarizing message has pushed its supporters away from the party in recent months.
Though SD was polling as the nation’s second-largest party last June, a December 2017 poll showed support for SD has dropped to its lowest level since 2015. In February, a local SD member was forced to resign after posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on Facebook. Just last week, the party suffered another self-inflicted wound when one of its members was sentenced for repeated domestic abuse.
The recently created more extreme far-right party Alternative for Sweden (inspired by the German AfD) serves as an additional threat to SD. AfS hopes to curry favor with SD’s most extreme elements and has successfully recruited several SD parliamentarians in the past few months, including one who was expelled from SD for extremist ties.
It’s a testament to Bannon’s toxicity that the Swedish party that perhaps most viably embodies Bannon’s ideology has denied any contact with him, seemingly in an attempt to protect its vulnerable credibility. SD’s Åkesson has admitted that in the past, his party has been its own worst enemy, a problem which Bannon might find hard to resist, probably because he can easily relate.
