Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, April 13, 2007
Imus vs. Sharpton
Spot on Mickey! I too picked up on the Sharpton/Jackson lynch mob and their connections to Hillary Clinton (who Imus disliked). It’s looking more like a political hit than true outrage over IMUS’s stupid remarks.
BCP
http://beercanpolitcs.blogspot.comPosted by BCP on from Long Island 04/13 at 05:07 AMFirst, let me say I have never appreciated Don Imus’s brand of “shock-jock” humor nor have I been a listener to his show. Second, I have to say that what Mr. Imus said was mean, ugly, sexist, racist, and all of the other buzzwords the media and “concerned citizens” are shouting out. I do believe, however, that if you are going to despise this man and take away his means of making a living then you should be fair and unbiased. Despise all rappers who promote racism and sexism. Wail and scream to the music companies who pay and promote them and demand they drop their contracts. Don’t stop until these individuals are unable to make a living doing what they do. Despise all comedians who promote racism and sexism. Raise your voice to the comedy clubs and television channels who provide them access to our society. Demand they stop airing their shows and allowing them to perform in public. Despise anyone who promotes racism, sexism, or any other “ism”. Stand up, raise your voice, make a difference, but be truthful with yourself when you do and be fair when you start casting stones.
Posted by Damon on from Virginia 04/13 at 06:07 AMyou know what I think about Imus getting fired? It convienently overshadows Roves 5 million missing emails and Wolfowitz world bank thievery. They keep these vile people on air to distract and impair any kind of meaningful dialogue on air. Then they publicly crucify them for the same reason.
Its Anna Nicole Smith all over again.
captcha says why....fucking shamless greed thats whyPosted by frances on from bc 04/13 at 06:17 AMYeah, it’s odd how a bunch of these people continually say this stuff and almost never get pulled up on it.
Back in the UK, everytime something like this happens there is also the counter reaction. Commentators in the media lining up to defend the ‘victim’.
I read the Paul Mooney interview over at the Onion’s AV Club site recently. He was talking about Michael Richards. He was saying how with Richards it was a case of racist sentiment being so omnipresent in culture and life that it was progammed into some people’s minds even if they didn’t conciously practice it.
That reminds me of Ron Atkinson in the UK. As a football manager he signed and played the first generation of Afro-Carribean players in the English first division and stuck by them at a time where the club’s OWN FANS would monkey chant them and throw bananas onto the pitch. Then a couple of years back he is announcing a live game and mistakenly thinks his microphone is off in an ad break, gets caught calling Marcel Desailly “A f*****g lazy n****r”.
He was rightly gone from the job the next day. But I mean ..why????
Posted by Andy on from Shanghai 04/13 at 06:40 AM... by that I mean “why” say that, when you think about his history. It’s nuts.
Mind you, all racism seems nuts to me.
Posted by Andy on from Shanghai 04/13 at 06:43 AMFree speech? MSNBC and CBS hired and fired Imus.
General electric owns MSNBC they also donated 1.1 million to Bush for his 2000 campaign.
The “MS” in MSNBC means microsoft. The same Microsoft that donated 2.4 million to get GW bush elected.
Westinghouse owns CBS
Westinghouse Electric Company, part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
Thats who ‘allows’ the dems to have some kind of voice on radio and tv.
There is no free speech on commercial air waves.http://www.democraticmedia.org/
Posted by Frances on from bc 04/13 at 09:24 AMAll I have to say about this is that people threatened to protest every day here outside of MSNBC studios until Imus was fired...but that war had been going on for over four years and we haven’t stormed the Pentagon.
Go here and vote for MickeyZ.net for best political blog:
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/730
Might as well direct the Internet audience towards a site where go, learn, argue and think freely.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 04/13 at 09:39 AMIs it bad form to link to someone else’s blog in your comments, Mickey? Well, apoligies in advance if it is, but I thought the observant bystander (http://tinyurl.com/ytfnwg) brought up some good additional points, including (in the comments) that with the media focus the rutgers girls lost the opportunity to make bring to people’s minds the issue of slurs against women being about all women, not just this particular instance, against them.
I agree with what Andy was saying regarding racism (and sexism, classism, every other ‘ism) being so ingrained in the culture, the social consciousness, that people just don’t even recognize it. It is embedded in our justice systems, health care, the views on the news, in the sitcoms, the language we use.
Morning all.
Posted by Deb on from NoVa 04/13 at 09:45 AMI agree with Deb from NoVa...by the way what does NoVa mean?
We have normalalized all these ism’s...all these inconvient truths that al gore forgot to mention. America is an inconvenient truth for this planet, for the universe and beyond.
The talk show host forgot about the ratings he would get by blowing his brains out while live on the air...[ref: Network]
Posted by Joe of Maine on from 04/13 at 09:56 AMGreat K.Vonnegut quotes, thank you for posting that page, all very eloquent.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
The Imus firing is a very profound – and infamous - event in modern human history. The public has spoken insofar as the power structure elites are unable to further ignore this style of journalism. I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’. Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake, 1997
We can live in unity if enough public influence peddlers can speak to US, the public. If the public influence peddlers can convince US, the public, that Howard Stern’s commentary is played out, for instance. Stern is hell bent on intoxicating his fans with divisiveness and that’s just not a direction we should be heading in. If he or any other person of that ilk relies on disguising Free Speech as their bully pulpit then I say Free Speech also means being able to creatively and persuasively elevate all public discourse. It can be done. Look at how this “anarcho-syndicalist” website has remained in tact, great thanks to MZ and his crew for this. There are many others who do the same. Public support is finally showing signs of intrigue. AND us rugged individualists (thank you Lewis Lapham) have the opportunity to use common sense to our advantage for a change. Me could handle these circumstances long time. Oh, and, I’m sorry for all the ranting before. It’s way past the proverbial 30 days, if you’ll let me back in that is.Posted by d-dub aka dw on from O-H-I-O 04/13 at 10:18 AMfavorite Vonnegut quote: about catching young people at school, “before they become generals and senators and presidents and poison their minds with humanity.”
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 04/13 at 10:24 AMJoe, “NoVa” is just shorthand for “Northern Virginia” aka PentagonLand. I sometimes feel like it is another planet, so “NoVa” could very well be a place in a different solar system, and thus is a surprisingly fitting nickname for such an otherwise normal place.
Speaking of inconvenient truths, I just had to share something that I can’t stop thinking about: http://satyamag.com/apr07/moore.html
Posted by Deb on from NoVa 04/13 at 10:27 AMDeb and JOS: thanks for posting the bloggers choice awards link. I didnt even know they existed until yesterday. I voted for Mickeys blog last night.
sometimes I feel like I dont fit in here, or that I miss ‘the point’ of the conversation, or that I merely am being ‘tolerated’. But there is something about this group and the field of discussion and Mickeys viewpoint that keeps me checking in.
Thanks Mickey for keeping this space open. If I had a few extra dollars to pass your way I would.
CheersPosted by Frances on from bc 04/13 at 10:34 AMHello Expendables...from windy, overcast Astoria. Great to see some newbies here today (welcome, folks) along with the rowdy regulars. Frances, you fit in just fine as far as I can. I’m glad you’ve chosen to make this a regular stop and I’m sure the others agree.
Thanks for all the great Imus talk. Does anyone agree that it seems the mainstream debate is cofused more on race than gender?
JOS: I just mailed your book.
DW? From Cincinnati?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 04/13 at 10:44 AMhey frances...you seem to fit in just fine to me. I know that the blogger awards thing is BS (I think one of the categories is ‘hottest blogger mom’), but I think it might direct more people here and that would be a good thing.
I am looking forward to the book, Mick. Thanks a lot!
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 04/13 at 11:02 AMMickey Z,
Home of the walking contradiction vis à vi Queen city, etc., etc. Yeah, it’s some real Tom Sawyer shit here, not really. Anyways, it’s been awhile and after a few months it seems like things are still decent @ “Cool Observer” if not definitely evolving. I’m glad to see this. Second chance? Promise I won’t push you to see “WTF” I mean “What the…” well, never mind. See there, won’t even spell it out.Where would I rank on the Mudge factor scale? Not that bad I hope (I don’t even know if that’s good or bad – probably not good I’m guessing). Well, don’t know why I weighed in on this rather peculiar spring day but just thought to – welcomed or not.
FTR, my less than stellar blogging acumen says your site is up there as well. I’d place it in the top 10 best, for sure.
Have a good one all.
Posted by dw on from OHIO 04/13 at 11:10 AMI saw WTF, dw...I gotta say that kind of stuff has always interested me. I enjoyed it.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 04/13 at 11:19 AMalso - And not in the “Letterman” sense, necessarily. After recently coming back I still find the comments very insightful, refreshing, timely and forward thinking.
Posted by dw on from OHIO 04/13 at 11:22 AMstill remember the simul-typing problem, thanks Jos. But I honestly haven’t seen the film in several months, honest -
.
Posted by dw on from OHIO 04/13 at 11:23 AMImus as an individual is not the problem, atleast in my view. The institutional racism remains and the elite powers wouldn’t do anything to change it. May be because of the brouhaha Imus ceased to be ‘investment-worthy’; he possibly wouldn’t yield much return for the investors. So they dropped him. The corporate media, however, will use his firing as a propaganda tool and tell people how they constantly fight against racism and so on. These pathetic creeps!
Cheers.
Posted by Ehtesham on from Canada 04/13 at 12:07 PMDead on, Ehtesham.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 04/13 at 12:11 PMGreetin’s Expendables. The rain has stopped in MA, leaving bone-chilling cold. March and April have apparently switched this year, like April and May did in ‘06.
Sharpton vs Imus: this makes me old-fashioned, but I never ever EVER, not once, heard shock talk radio and thought it anything but rubbish. Finer points about who’s a racist/sexist/homophobe/enviro-dope might be interesting, but don’t add to the obvious.
Insult to Injury Department: Yes, the hair is a link, but Al Sharpton is just James Brown without the wisdom or talent. R.I.P. James. Al, a pox on your political house. http://tinyurl.com/3chznb
To the other James (#15 yesterday): CommonDreams is a joke editorially, as is The Nation, and a list of others as long as my mouse cord. Both serve as a clearing house for various articles, which is a good thing, but also unremarkable and does not shield them from scathing criticism. To wit: if CD didn’t have The Guardian and The Independent to crib from, or TN didn’t have Cockburn, each would probably wither.
Deb, thanks for the link to Satya. I’ve been waiting for someone to visually capture the enormity of the garbage patch(es).
Posted by Zen Prole on from Urth 04/13 at 12:17 PMYou are so right, Mickey! One wants to underline every word in this Imus post.
‘Does anyone agree that it seems the mainstream debate is cofused more on race than gender?’ I agree, Mickey.
And ‘hi’ to BCP, Damon, frances, Andy, JOS, Deb, Joe of Maine, dw from Ohio and Ehtesham.Here is JoAnn Wypijewski on Imus and the whole culture which supports him:
http://counterpunch.org/jw04122007.html
Here is a related interview with Richard Prince on ‘Counterspin’:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3085Have a good weekend, all of you.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 04/13 at 05:03 PMI never heard of Imus. In any case, whatever the motive for the outrage against his comment, it seems well placed.
I noticed that “free speech” came up, tangentially. A person on a major broadcasting program signs a contract. In that contract he agrees to represent the company, which means he or she has to watch what they say or they could get fired. It’s got nothing to do with free speech. It’s got everything to do with decency.
I little while back I remember a friend of mine talking about a baseball player who made a racist comment and was kicked off the team. He agreed it was an inappropriate comment but didn’t, apparently, think he should have lost his job on account of “free speech”. I pointed out that it was probably in his contract that he can’t say stupid racist shit like that because he represents the team and that hence I had no sympathy for him. My friend never thought of that, apparently, but I think I changed his mind.
One thing I don’t quite get is that it seems to me people agree with his firing. But at the same time there’s this criticism about his being fired.
Well, if we agree he was properly fired for his racist and insulting comment, why should we find cause to criticize the firing? Would we prefer he had not been fired?
I don’t see the sense in it.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 04/13 at 09:34 PMEugene Robinson says in the Washington Post today that it’s simply a matter of “white men can’t say, ‘nappy headed hos’”. Now that’s getting into the territory of free speech and I disagree that Imus should have been fired because he was WHITE. In fact, that’s a form of racism itself (Robinson is black).
He should have been fired regardless of his skin color. If Imus was black, he still should have been fired. If he was in a contractual arrangement by which he surrenders his free speech, he was properly fired. And if public outrage pressured the company to release him, then he was properly fired. Whichever the case, he had to go, regardless of the fact that he is a white man, and it’s there that I differ with Robinson.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 04/13 at 10:04 PMHi Jeremy: my reference to free speech (#6), is in regard to the democratic party saying that because Imus was fired they had lost a valuable radio platform from which to garner potential party supporters and voters. I am refering to the corporate ownership of radio and television in general and how this shapes and controls speech and the sharing of information at all levels.
I agree with you free speech does not entitle a person to use racist, sexist, or degrading language, ever. I have no qualms with Imus getting canned, except it should have been the first or second time he slagged someone and not the hundredth time. How come it took so long for his employers to can him? Ehtesham #20 answers that very well I think.
I think its interesting that the media chooses to focus on Imus rather than Professor Walter F. Murphy who has been placed on a terrorist watch list for critizing Bush.
http://tinyurl.com/yo7ljcPosted by Frances on from bc 04/13 at 10:24 PMDON IMUS, host: They’re [Palestinians] eating dirt and that fat pig wife [Suha Arafat] of his is living in Paris.
ROSENBERG: They’re all brainwashed, though. That’s what it is. And they’re stupid to begin with, but they’re brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill ‘em all right now.
BERNARD MCGUIRK, producer: You can just imagine standing there.
ROSENBERG: Oh, the stench.
IMUS: Well, the problem is that we have Andrea [Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent] there. We don’t want anything to
happen to her.ROSENBERG: Oh, she’s got to get out. Just warn Andrea, get out, and then drop the bomb, kill everybody.
MCGUIRK: It’s like the worst Woodstock.
ROSENBERG: Look at this. Look at these animals. Animals!
http://mediamatters.org/items/200411190009
Posted by KF on from San Diego, CA 04/14 at 04:36 AMFrances, I always read your posts.
Ehtesham. Spot on. It’s like the New York City leaders annoucing they want to combat racism by banning words. A pathetic polictical move that does nothing to address structural racism or the roots of the problem.
Posted by Andy on from Shanghai 04/14 at 05:51 AMThanks Andy for reminding me of the NY city council vote to ban the word ‘nigger’. What could be more farcical than that? That story made my day man, I laughed a lot while reading it!
Cheers.
Posted by Ehtesham on from Canada 04/14 at 10:39 AMI agree with JoAnn (and Howdy to you too). I had not really looked at this as a racial matter. I had naively seen this as a man saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Jeremy also brings up a poignant point, a person of any ethnicity (or gender or religious belief) can say anything about their own block of society but apparently once they cross into the taboo zone of someone elses “zone”, they set themselves up for public backlash. For a country that prides itself on ethnical diversity, we do a very poor job of accepting others and accepting the comments of others outside of our realm of existence.
Posted by Damon on from Virginia 04/14 at 12:43 PMA case of lame shifting of the blame. So easy to do and get away with, it’s done every day in almost any sticky situation; “You said what?”, “No I didn’t”, “Ya you did!”, “I did not”. The point in question is soon forgotten in the stand-off, and another smoke covered issue insues. (OK, we are safe now, you don’t win). The GOP and some minority reps have mastered this technique. See the child mentality come out. (I’m telling!)
Posted by Kev on from San Antonio TX 04/26 at 03:40 AM
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