I’m not a huge fan of Jackson for a variety of reasons, but he has been a persistent voice on mysogeny in the African-American community and the need to change behavior in that community.

It’s here:

…an anti-rap movement … began in March [2005], soon after shots were fired by the rival entourages of 50 Cent and the Game outside a New York radio station. Al Sharpton demanded that the Federal Communications Commission ban violent rappers from radio and television, and he launched a boycott against Universal Music Group, which he accused of “peddling racist and misogynistic black stereotypes” through rap music. Sharpton expressed special concern about white perceptions of African Americans. Rappers and their corporate supporters “make it easy for black culture to be dismissed by the majority,” he said, and the large white fan base “has learned through rap images to identify black male culture with a culture of violence.”

Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition signed on to the boycott….

Where is the self-ritous indignation of Rev Sharkton and his ilk when the hip hop artists (who have a major impact on young black women I might add) publish their racist, sexist, and totally degenerating form of music? Is that acceptable because they are Black (sorry two questions)? If we are to be non-racist then we must fire everyone who uses such tasteless language, and Im quite sure Imus has far less impact on young black women than any rapper.

As far as being called a “ho”, I served in the military for four years between 1968 and 1972. I don’t know what it is like today but back then any woman who served in the military was either a lesbian or loose, i.e. a “ho”, so yes I have been called that. Did that make me either? Of course not. It is best learned young that there are, and will always be, ignorant people who say ignorant things and if that is how you determine your own self worth your life will never be your own.

To the women of the Rutgers basketball team, kudos for a job well done, but please do not give your power away to Imus or anyone else.

As far as Imus goes, I say let the punishment FIT the crime, a jerk yes but a jerk with a heart of gold who, through his philanthropic work, has impacted directly far more lives, in far greater ways, than any damage done to the women of the Rutgers team.

Re: the Iraq war in general

(also see this post)

Ever since the months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there have been a few reports in the newspapers that the Central Intelligence Agency was casting aspersions on the intelligence the White House was relying on to justify the war. The CIA has never given a position on whether the war is needed or justified or said that Bush is wrong to go to war. But doesn’t it seem much more likely that the CIA is an extremely right wing organization than a left wing one? After all, even if the people working for them and at least a lot of the leadership really wanted a war for their own reasons, there are a lot of reasons for them to not want to tie their credibility to what they know is faulty information. They and their personnel, present and former, could use other means of promoting the Iraq war, and still be motivated to make the statements in the media. If the CIA got behind faulty information, they would have to make a choice between whether they would be involved in scamming the American people and the world once the military had invaded Iraq and no weapons were found- so: 1) Imagine the incredible difficulties involved in pulling off a hoax that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Imagine all the people you would have to be able to show the weapons to- the inspectors from the UN / the international community, the American press, statesmen, etc. Then imagine the difficulties of substantiating that story to people who would examine it- the lack of witnesses to a production plant that made the weapons or to transportation operations or storage of the weapons during Hussein’s regime of them. 2) If the story fell apart upon inspection or the CIA tried not to hoax it at all, imagine the loss of credibility they would suffer. The CIA, it is safe to bet, does not want to be known to the American people as a group that lies to them to send them to war. Even within the CIA there could be disagreement among people about how involved they should be in promoting the war or the neo-con agenda more broadly, so the CIA would have to worry about lying to and managing its own people after trying so hard to get them to trust their superiors in the agency, and perhaps there simply might be too many people in the agency who knew enough about what was going on in Iraq to know if someone was deceiving people to promote this war.

So there is a lot of reason to be cautious against being seen as endorsing what they knew was false intelligence even if they were very strong supporters of going to war.