Bernie Sanders' black problem

The rest of the world loves to laugh at America's never ending election process. Heck, Americans laugh at it. Jon Stewart for one. But those vaguely playing attention, especially those reading The Guardian, will have had their ears prick up at the campaign of one Bernie Sanders.

Senator Sanders is that rarest of things in the good ol'USA, an actual socialist. His rallies for the Democratic party's nomination have been massive so of course a Guardian writer, Mary O'Hara, is waving to get Brits attention yelling that "it’s invigorating to witness what’s happening in the US." My friends at Shiraz Socialist are no less dizzy saying that the Sanders' campaign is "probably the most exciting development in US politics since the 1930s."

Oh my.

Thing is the Sanders campaign just got knocked sideways by black activists. So much so that one of the largest grassroots progressive groups, Democracy for America, has now changed its nominating process. They "will ask how candidates will support the Movement for Black Lives and confront racism and our "culture of white supremacy"." Other groups are certain to follow. That is, that all the assumptions about why a self-proclaimed socialist would automatically win progressive endorsement have been changed. For ever.

Sanders has consistently polled low numbers with minority voters but things came to a head when he did not react well to a stage invasion by #blacklivesmatters activists at the Netroots Nation conference, a big leftwing shindig. Those theatrics drew the attention but the warning signs were already there, as Tommy Christopher points out in this analysis of an earlier interview with George Stephanopoulos.

Says Christopher:

Sanders decided to tell Stephanopoulos that black voters would love him if they just understood things better, an idea that is uncomfortably similar to the conclusion reached by the Republican Party’s infamous 2012 “autopsy report,” and an echo of the GOP’s point man on minority outreach, Rand Paul.

Sanders’ argument, that the policies he advocates for everyone should also be particularly attractive to black and Hispanic voters, is an approach that is favored by politicians who take minority votes for granted, as well as those who take for granted that they won’t get those votes. Sanders’ problem is that Hillary Clinton supports all of the policies he cites, but he has not taken up any of the issues that Hillary Clinton has used to solidify her support with the Obama coalition.This is no accident; Sanders has long emphasized winning white voters by deliberately avoiding what he considers “demographic stuff” in favor of economic issues.

Sanders problems are not just presentational, they're political. As one of the biggest black websites bluntly puts it "a job isn’t going to stop a bullet". Christopher:

Substantively, Sanders’ philosophy misses the point that many of those “demographic” issues are economic issues. For black Americans, the criminal justice and policing reforms that Hillary Clinton has advocated are directly tied to their economic well-being, or that of their close friends and relatives. And while Sanders decries the role of money in politics, the Obama coalition is much more urgently concerned with whether they’ll even be allowed to vote in the next election.

The political problem for Sanders is underlined in another area in this article by Jesse Berney on abortion access, which is a enormous issue in America where access remains under constant attack.

In an interview with Rolling Stone a few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders spoke about the economic populism driving his campaign. “Once you get off of the social issues — abortion, gay rights, guns — and into the economic issues,” he told writer Mark Binelli, “there is a lot more agreement than the pundits understand.”

This formulation isn’t uncommon, even among progressives like Sanders. It’s easy to ascribe the fierce debates on issues like abortion and LGBT rights to cultural differences, and to wish we could just push them aside and finally convince rural white voters to vote for their “economic interests.”

But putting abortion rights in a box separate from economic issues ignores the reality of the women who find it increasingly difficult to obtain an abortion in this country. Abortion is an economic issue: wealthy women will always have access to abortion, while restrictions and obstacles affect low- and middle-income women disproportionately.

Berney explains how Clinton is getting it right.

Sanders puts economic inequality and corporate power at the top of his agenda, and deliberately excludes reproductive rights from that list.

In a recent event in Iowa where she shared the stage with Sanders and the other Democratic White House candidates, Hillary Clinton made a point to say traditional “women’s issues” are actually “economic issues.” Clinton has mostly stuck to issues safer than abortion – like family leave and child care – when talking about the economic impact of issues that have traditionally been “women’s issues.”

But she’s doing the work to erase that distinction, while Sanders draws that line ever more clearly. These priorities matter, and the candidates’ words matter.

Berney warns that Sanders risks losing a whole other part of the Democrats base, the majority, women:

Abortion rights are under severe threat in this country, and exiling them to an imaginary “social issues”category necessarily relegates them to second-class status. 

Immediately after the Netroots Nation fiasco the Sanders campaign made some tweaks, as Imani Gandy notes in her fabulous, excoriating piece 'You’re White and Marched With Dr. King: So What?' - But Sanders' supporters are giving a very good impression of learning nothing at all from the exercise.

Progressives are complaining that the protesters were disrespectful and rude. They’re whining that interrupting a speech isn’t an “invitation for solidarity.”

I’ve seen some white folks complaining that they no longer feel safe at Netroots because—you know—unruly Black women. The horror! Still others don’t think the protest “looks good.” (Because as we all know, change comes when you politely ask for it, not when you disrupt and demand it, which, by the way, is what Dr. King did. White people tend to forget that Dr. King was a disruptor when they are using him as a Pokémon to shut Black people up.)

Rather than support these brave Black women activists in what is quite literally a fight for the lives of Black people, there you are in all your pearl-clutching glory talking about how disrespectful the activists were, and how it’s such a shame that the uppity Black people were being so rude to an obvious ally, and how the #BlackLivesMatter movement is so disorganized and is protesting the wrong things at the wrong time in front of the wrong people.

    “Why are you alienating allies?”

    “Don’t you know how much Bernie cares for you?”

    “What’s wrong with you people?”

    “Hillary would be worse!”

    “What are you going to do, vote for Donald Trump?”

    “Why won’t you ever be satisfied?”

    “You’re doing it all wrong!”

    “You’re going to make us quit caring about Black lives if you don’t shape up and act the way we want you to.”

Most Black voters want the answer to one question: What is Sanders’ plan to address the police brutality crisis in the Black community?

And the answer to that question is never: “Bernie marched with Dr. King.”

I can vouch for this reality because even I got whiny tweets after retweeting Gandy, who tweets at @AngryBlackLady.

And it is not like there aren't black people trying to patiently explain what Sanders' may be doing wrong. Here's Roderick Morrow, who got so fed up with reaction from so-called 'progressives' that he started the joke hashtag. #BernieSoBlack.

It's like they're almost trying to outblack us. "Oh, you're a black person, what could you possibly understand about our candidate? He was marching before you were even born!" Okay, that's cool, but you gotta stay on top of it. So I made a joke that's like, "Bernie's blacker than us! Bernie's SO BLACK!" That's how it feels when they come into our mentions and tell us that we don't know what we're talking about, and even though [Sanders] doesn't talk about #BlackLivesMatter right now, we should just kind of shut up. So I was just like:

Honestly, the joke is not even on Bernie Sanders. That's what's so funny — the joke is on the defense of him, which is, if you extrapolate to the furthest extent, he can do no wrong on race. Like, we should not even expect anything of him, he put in his time already, we need to just shut up.

I'm sure it does happen, but I can't imagine people doing this to other constituencies, because you do rely on those votes. At Netroots Nation, you're going to be addressing a very diverse but very black-centric audience, and to not really be prepared to talk about race there is a little bit of a slap in the face. So for us — and when I say "us," I just mean black people, I'm not any level of an activist or anything — for us to just say, Hey, you kind of did a bad job, hope you do better in the future, and then get bombarded with "He marched in 1968!" it's like, All right, man, I don't know what to tell you.

That. That right there.


Edited to add: @BobFromBrockley has pointed out this socialist response, not to this but to the entire movement (I think)! A progressive I have followed for years, Martin Bowman, has also written despairingly here, comparing the movement to a marriage and fearing that we're heading for divorce.

I won't Fisk either but I would point out one thing. I'm a white gay man and I'm from the generation that lived through HIV/Aids. So there is a connection I have to a 'crisis' of people dying and there is also a connection to having to yell and scream to get attention - from everybody. So we had Act-Up and Peter Tatchell invading pulpits, but then we also had lobbyists and McKellan having tea with John Major. Movements always piss people off. From what I can tell the people supporting Sanders are pissed off and from my perspective, as another minority, then I don't know why that's a bad thing.

Edited to add: It's also worthwhile noting these comments (via Nancy LeTourneau) from Dara Lind:

There is a legitimate disconnect between the way Sanders (and many of the economic progressives who support him) see the world, and the way many racial-justice progressives see the world. To Bernie Sanders, as I've written, racial inequality is a symptom — but economic inequality is the disease. That's why his responses to unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore have included specific calls for police accountability, but have focused on improving economic opportunity for young African Americans. Sanders presents fixing unemployment as the systemic solution to the problem.

Many racial-justice advocates don't see it that way. They see racism as its own systemic problem that has to be addressed on its own terms. They feel that it's important to acknowledge the effects of economic inequality on people of color, but that racial inequality isn't merely a symptom of economic inequality. And most importantly, they feel that "pivoting" to economic issues can be a way for white progressives to present their agenda as the progressive agenda and shove black progressives, and the issues that matter most to them, to the sidelines.

So Sanders' performance at Netroots confirmed the frustrations that his critics felt. And Sanders' supporters' reaction to the criticism was just as predictable.

Edited to add: Here is an excellent critique of #blacklivesmatter by Oliver Willis.

Willis argues that as with Occupy Wall Street the demands of the movement are unclear and they need to be. He says that history shows us that demands must be concrete.

The American Wahhabists

The horrific image above, which I make no apologies for posting, comes from the Ugandan Parliament.

The Ugandan lesbian activist Kasha Jacqueline posted it on Twitter. It is an example of the sort of disgusting anti-gay crap being distributed to Ugandan Members of Parliament. Kasha said it left her "sobbing" and pleading for advice on what to do about it.

• Here's the larger version.

Kasha also just tweeted the cover of a Ugandan tabloid headlined 'Broke MP Sodomised For ShS900m' (about £200,000 / US$345,000). Her comment on that headline was that it was "dense". Unfortunately many Ugandans would believe it.

The idea that gay sex results in people requiring surgery and that gays recruit and target boys did not descend (from heaven) on Uganda, it comes from American dominionist (theocratic) Christian activists. Groups like Right Wing Watch and Truth Wins Out have long documented the sort of vile propoganda, which extends to deranged claims like that gays ran the Nazi party, circulating amongst anti-gay activists.

Back a couple of years and the activities of these people and their links to Uganda were all over US media. Coverage topped by that of MSNBC primetime host Rachel Maddow, who spoke many times with author Jeff Sharlet. His work has exposed the secretive American groups whose aims are internationalist, to spread their theocratic vision worldwide. Other writers like Chip Berlet, writing here for Alternet, have examined just how deeply such militants have infiltrated US conservative politics.

The media focus was on the infamous 'Kill the gays' bill, proposed in Uganda and whose contents are directly linked to US influence. One US Christian activist in particular, Scott Lively, is actually being sued in a US court in a groundbreaking case for inciting persecution. Last month the group sueing Lively, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), exposed links between the people behind the shocking literature distributed to Ugandan MPs and US group LibertyCouncil.

Writes Dan Littauer in GSN:

[The 'Kill the gays' bill] language echoes the false and hateful allegation by Lively and Liberty Counsel that a ‘sodomy’ and ‘homosexualists’ groups from the West ‘promote’ ‘perversion’ in Uganda, naming LGBT activists as ‘militant homofascisits’.

An ironic persistent whine from anti-gay Ugandans is that they oppose homosexuality because it comes from 'foreign influence'. Uganda had no gay people before the whites arrived, they claim. Anyone reporting the ties of anti-gay activists to US funding is rigorously attacked despite a wealth of evidence showing the timeline between American missionaries arriving and anti-gay political action following.

That proposed law, which retains the death penalty (despite heavy spin claiming otherwise, a lie unfortunately bought into by much international mainstream media) is not dead, despite some non-Ugandan activists claiming 'victory!' over it. It still sits on the order paper of the Ugandan parliament, waiting for a vote.

Maddow hasn't covered Uganda for a couple of years now but neither have most others. Jim Burroway at the Box Turtle Bulletin, who do similar work to Right Wing Watch and Truth Wins Out, has been covering developments since Lively first appeared in Uganda. He thinks the bill could be revived for political reasons in Uganda and keeps a watchful eye.

The shocking tweets from Kasha show that anti-gay forces in Uganda haven't let up and, as Burroway has also warned, won't give up until their 'Kill gays' bill becomes law.

Wealthy, anti-gay, international fanatics

The activities of rich American religious fanatics are directly comparable to those of the rich Saudi Wahhabists, who also have their own 'by-the-book' proselytising brand of an Abramaic religion.

The new documentary 'God Loves Uganda' filmed US dominionist evangelical Lou Engel calling Uganda "ground zero" for American efforts.

Writes Peter Montgomery for Religion Dispatches:

It’s clear that much of the power American culture warriors have in Uganda comes from the money their ministries pour into the country along with their missionaries. At the massive Miracle Center Cathedral, the biggest megachurch in Uganda, the high-living pastor is quite frank that “American money helped us build this church,” adding, “whatever you see here is the fruit of American labor.” In another clip, a pastor marvels that aid from U.S. evangelicals increased threefold when they started attacking homosexuality.

Churches’ financial success brings added clout to anti-gay pastors like Martin Ssempa—who drives his congregation into a frenzy by showing explicit and extreme gay pornography—and the politicians allied with them, like David Bahati, the sponsor of the kill-the-gays bill.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is a multi-million dollar organisation, founded by US televangelist Pat Robertson (pictured on the cover of Time magazine). It is actively funding and organising anti-LGBT efforts in Zimbabwe, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and in Brazil.

Mirroring Uganda, reports Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian priest, and Jandira Queiroz, a Brazilian activist, in the Huffington Post, in Brazil:

The ACLJ typically hires local staff for its international offices to mask the U.S. origins of their assault on LGBTQ and reproductive rights, while hypocritically using that façade to attack human rights advocacy as a neocolonial enterprise imposed on the country in question.

In international bodies like the UN another wealthy US group, Family Watch International (FWI), works with the Vatican and Islamic countries against gay interests. It actively recruits and indoctrinates diplomats in the sort of propaganda Kasha found in Ugandan MPs pigeonholes. FWI President Sharon Slater has said that:

Iran is one of the strongest nations in standing up for family values at the UN.

In Zambia, writes Chivuli Ukwimi:

There has been an increase in the number of visits to Zambia by notable American evangelical leaders calling upon Zambian leaders to reject ‘anti-biblical’ practices like homosexuality and abortion and uphold and retain the status of Zambia as a ‘Christian nation’. Of course, many of them have come with sizeable cheques to ‘support’ various churches and religious institutions. And opportunist religious leaders – like Bishop Edward Chomba, who was actually ex-communicated by the International Communion of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church in the US in 2007 – are happily jumping at the chance to make friends with their wealthy peers from across the sea by trying to out-do each other’s anti-gay rhetoric.

If you think you have heard this process before, it is because you have – in Uganda. And we know where that ended up – in legislation calling for the death penalty for homosexual acts, vile and vitriolic press ‘coverage’, and the murder of an LGBTI activist.

The West turns a blind eye

In Ethiopia a building anti-gay campaign is being fueled by US funded religious groups. It is reaching the point of proposing laws -- death sentences -- similar to those proposed in Uganda.

According to Ethiopian activists, the developing wave of persecution is being ignored by the US State Department and the British Foreign Office.

"The U.S. and other countries don’t do enough to push for an end to such violations," writes Rainbow Ethiopia. "It’s not because the foreign governments don’t know what’s going on."

This is not the first time that those countries have been accused of ignoring serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia -- for geo-political reasons -- and the charge undermines the pro-LGBT shift in foreign affairs claimed by both the UK and the US.

Although some may see any actions taken by Western governments opposing persecution of LGBT as 'colonialist' -- and anti-gay forces would loudly agree with that claim -- Ugandan activists have cited international pressure as the reason why the 'Kills gays' bill is not now law. Activists in Malawi, Russia and elsewhere have also supported international pressure.

Richard Lusimbo from SMUG told Littauer:

We need to hold accountable those in the west who support and praise for the persecution of the LGBTI people in Uganda and other parts of the world. Their work imposes a denial of rights and a life of hardship and suffering for gay people in Uganda and elsewhere.

America's shadow foreign policy

According to activist the Rev. Canon Albert Ogle, American tax dollars are supporting many of those active in pushing for LGBT persecution internationally.

Ogle cites the invisibility of LGBT related services from the aid budgets of USAID, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) as well as in funds going to the United Nations Global Fund.

Organisations like the televangelist Billy Graham's family charity Samaritan’s Purse get millions for unscientific 'abstinence only' HIV/Aids programmes which exclude LGBT. And, Ogle notes, Andy Kopsa’s research shows that Samaritan’s Purse:

Brags about converting Muslims to Christianity through the distribution of "hygiene kits" and clean water projects in Niger. They have been found to be evangelising Haitians as part of their relief efforts.

But despite being censured previously for proselytizing with federal money, Graham's group still gets millions.

Another group, World Vision, massively funded by US taxpayers, won't employ gay people and have been involved in the anti-gay activity in Ethiopia.

Says Ogle:

[My Ethiopian friend] was arrested and tortured as a direct result of this kind of shadow foreign policy by American-based evangelical organizations that receive multimillion-dollar contracts from the American government. They hide behind good works to orphans and widows while ignoring the devastation they cause for the LGBT poor of the developing world. As more and more light is shed on a very hidden part of American-funded evangelism in the global south, the American tax payer deserves more accountability as to where their gifts are going and what they are actually used to fund.

Who's fighting American Wahhabists?

The pro-gay foreign policy announced with fanfare by Hillary Clinton in December 2011 is already showing some fruit. One little noticed example is the American government's support for LGBT organisation in Mongolia, where that country's parliament just discussed the issues for the first time and where a first ever Pride march is planned.

There are people working hard to end US support for anti-gay forces and, Ogle reports, that on April 8:

USAIDlaunched a new initiative with the Astraea Foundation, The Victory Institute and the Williams Institute to create a $12 million superfund to help struggling LGBT organizations in the Global South to try to reverse the impact of this kind of discrimination and invisibility.

"It is a beginning," says Ogle. But "so much more is needed to repair years of discrimination and neglect and to stop funding faith based programs that are on the front lines of LGBT oppression in many countries."

Evangelicals like Warren Throckmorton, who has done hard reporting on developments in Uganda and has been cited by Maddow, are working within religious circles to expose the international theocrats. The producers of 'God Loves Uganda' are using their documentary to try to get American evangelicals to "consider the impact of their words and deeds", writes Montgomery. He says that the film's producers have had hundreds of inquiries from churches for screenings.

Polls show that there has been a huge, positive swing in the attitude of American 'born again' Christians towards LGBT over the past quarter-century. Perhaps within another generation the American Wahhabists attempt to impose 'biblical law' outside America will have simply died at its source?

Related articles

• Ugandan anti-gay pastors hold hate rally next to gay hero David Kato's grave
• Uganda 'Kill the Gays' bill remains a threat, just off stage
• "God loves Uganda," hates gays
• Getting Our Perspective Right on Our Fellow Africans

'Fairweather friends' and palpitating queer/ns

Today, Hillary Clinton announced her support for marriage equality in a video (see it after the jump). On any LGBT website below the line, in the comments, you will read - presumably - L,G,B or T people condemning her.

It is too late, why didn't she do it before, she's no real ally - you can guess the script.

When the first serving Republican Senator came out for marriage equality last week similar things were said. Same with the conservative British Prime Minister. And the sharpened poison aimed at President Obama by gays on his supposed inauthentic support for gay rights is everywhere.

In her video, Clinton notes her work on LGBT rights whilst she was Secretary of State. In particular, Clinton gave a powerful speech, introducing new policy, in Geneva in 2011 defending LGBT human rights, which she talks about today.

Following her speech, I published an explanation by Doug Sanders of how Clinton's new policy and outspokenness was actually a 'catch up' on the work of numerous other countries well before the US finally got to work. Yet that critique of Clinton is noticeably absent from any of today's criticism of her. The insularity of American gays who are today criticising her, and actually of those citing her State Department work in her defense as well, is telling.

What distinguishes Obama from Clinton is that he has been explicit on numerous occasions in acknowledging that, horror, he is a politician and that it is pressure from below, from movements, which moves him towards, say, openly supporting marriage equality. I've written about this numerous times, particularly in the context of the 2008 fight for the Democratic Party nomination where his statements on this subject contrasted sharply with Clinton's.

During the campaign he gave one interview to an LGBT publication in which he said the following:

Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, "Wait your turn." I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, "Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom."

A year after Obama's election he addressed the Human Rights Campaign and here is what I posted at the time:

Here's my tweets as I listened to his speech.

pauloCanning: #hrc dinner "I love you Barack" "I love you back"
pauloCanning:#hrc dinner Obama: "It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa"
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner He's referencing Stonewall as 'inspiring'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner simple message "here with you in that fight"
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'it's not for me to tell you to be patient' - as with civil rights - now I'm teary
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'you know - and I know - we don't want to be defined by one part of us that makes us whole'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'Do not doubt the direction we're heading +the destination we will reach'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we will put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we're pushing for a employee non-discrimination bill. we're ging to put a stop to it.'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we are rescinding the ban on entering US based on HIV status'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'I will end DADT, that's my commitment to you'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'I've called on Congress to repeal DOMA'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'It's about our common humanity, our ability to walk in someone else's shoes'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner now he's talking about PFLAG 'that's the story of America'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'tonight somewhere in America a young person ... ' THAT'S leadership
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner brilliant rhetoric, worried by the look on his face

The speech was amazing. Historic.

Like the audience, who spent most of their time on their feet, I was really moved to hear a US President say what he said. His last flourish, which stuck progress of LGBT equality firmly into the mainstream of the 'American dream', I couldn't capture quickly enough. It was his classic rhetorical end flourish and he stuck it firmly onto the LGBT cause.

My friend Tobias Grace, who edits New Jersey's LGBT newspaper, said: "Paul: I cried - not so much on my own behalf but thinking of all the young people who will grow up in a world shaped by this man's words and leadership."

But, but ... perhaps that's why I noticed the look. He wasn't smiling. He knew that outside the cheering crowd he faced weren't just pissed LGBT at the lack of actual progress on issue after issue but a mountain of opposition to everything he'd pledged.

Remember, this was the day on which he'd been awarded the Nobel. On what he represents he'd got that acknowledgment and that's a f*cking heavy burden.

I wish I'd captured that exact look as he walked off the stage because it seemed to me one of a man who believed what he'd said, every word, but understood fully what 'change' actually means.

A bitter, bitter fight lies behind "don’t tell me to wait for my freedom". As always, it's accompanied by the background/backroom faint (to some) buzz accompanying it in the LGBT movement between those who would be inside and those who'd be outside, demanding.

Tomorrow's LGBT march on the Capitol is for the demanders and something tells me Obama is with them.

Watch Clinton's video released today after the jump:

Iraqi LGBT Press Statement: Iraqi gays condemn Obama/Clinton inaction on pogrom

Iraqi gays condemn Obama/Clinton inaction on pogrom
Embassy statement 'offensive and insulting'

03.06.09

For immediate use

A group representing Iraqi lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT) has spoken of their deep anger and offence at a statement by the Baghdad US Embassy concerning the violence and murder campaign against gays.

In a response to US Rep. Jared Polis, following a meeting with Iraqi government officials, chargé d’affaires Patricia Butenis said "We have no evidence that [the Iraq government's] security forces are in any way involved with these militias."

Iraqi LGBT has been reporting for four years on police involvement with the terror campaign.

Group members speaking from Iraq said that they are "fed up with such 'political' words" and that the Americans are doing nothing to stop the terror campaign against them. They believe that the priority for Hillary Clinton's State Department and Obama's administration is to not upset the Iraqi government as they have no other allies within the country.

They believe that no-one is trying to help them and feel that the current timid diplomacy "will not do much good".

"These words from the American embassy are insulting to us, our lives in Iraq and to those many friends of ours who have died. This statement is evidence that the Iraqi government is doing nothing to protect its citizens."

"They are responsible for these crimes through bringing no one to justice, refusing to acknowledge their police's involvement and providing no rights for Iraqi LGBT in law."

"People should not forget that what's happening in Iraq right now is a direct result of the unlawful US invasion."

Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Program, has also criticism the State Department. In an interview with EdgeBoston, responding to State spokesperson John T. Fleming's pointed statement that 'homosexuality is not a crime in Iraq', Long responded that the fact that homosexuality is not a crime punishable by death "would be an interesting fact if the law, or the rule of law, mattered in Iraq."

Long has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Iraq where he spoke to 25 survivors from Baghdad and other cities, including Najaf, Basra and Samarra.

As a consequence of what they found, Human Rights Watch has been organizing ways for as many LGBT Iraqis as possible to get out of the country.

Colorado U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who has spoken about Iraqi government involvement with the violence, has written with Reps. Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank to U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill.

"As LGBT Americans and cochairs of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, we are disturbed and shocked at allegations that Ministry of the Interior Security Forces may be involved in the mass persecution and execution of LGBT Iraqis ... The persecution of Iraqis based on sexual orientation or gender identity is escalating and is unacceptable regardless of whether these policies are extrajudicial or state-sanctioned."

The letter called on the U.S. embassy in Iraq to "prioritize the investigation" of the allegations and work with the Iraqi government to end the executions of LGBT Iraqis. Polis is drafting another letter that would be signed by more members of Congress and sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

ENDS

- - - - - - - - -

For futher comment please contact Ali Hili, Chair Iraqi Lgbt
Mob: ++44 798 1959 453
email: iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk
Website : http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

- - - - - - - - -

For further information on the situation of Iraqi LGBT please see:

Report: The Iraqi anti-LGBT pogrom: sourced from all media reports, agency, organisation and representative statements concerning the pogrom http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2009/05/report-iraqi-anti-lgbt-pogrom.html

• Edge Boston: Life Only Gets Worse for LGBT Iraqis
• Statement by Jared Polis
• Letter by Polis, Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank to Hillary Clinton

Does Hillary know this man?

Last week the Iraqi LGBT group reported that some of an upcoming batch of executions in Iraq, which had been reported by Amnesty International, were of gay men being executed for homosexuality.

The group has suffered severe persecution in Iraq. It runs safe houses for LGBT fleeing death threats and says that many of its members have been murdered by both death squads and police forces.

Iraqi police have been reported as being infiltrated by both insurgents and religious groups.

Iraqi LGBT claims that the government since mid December 2008 has "a mass campaign to [eliminate] homosexuality". They say they have "many eyewitnesses" and that "members of the police and ministry of interior forces is actually involved on the mass arrest and taking suspects of homosexuality off the streets to unknown destination".

Homosexuality was made a crime by Saddam Hussein in 2001 following pressure by clerics. Repeated convictions carries the death penalty.

In response to the report by Iraqi LGBT the Boston gay newspaper EDGE spoke to the US State Department and in an astonishing rebuttal a spokesperson, John Fleming, who has worked at their Iraqi Desk through the Bush presidency, denied that Iraq's government executed any people since 2007 and that homosexuality is a crime.

He told the EDGE that any criminals now awaiting possible execution are there for crimes such as "terrorism, insurgency and kidnapping." Their sexual identity is irrelevant to the charges, he said.

"None were convicted of the ’crime’ of being homosexual," Fleming said. "In fact, it’s immaterial to Iraqis."

This is the same State Department which in 2006, following horrific reports in US media, the issuing of a fatwa calling for the killing of gays by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, United Nations reports and pressure from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), declared itself ‘troubled’ over anti-gay violence in Iraq.

Fleming asserted that "the average Iraqi" had other issues to concern themselves with and that this issue was "a luxury."

This appears to contradict Hillary Clinton, who told European Parliament last month that the persecution of gays and lesbians is "something that we take very seriously".

She added condemnation of where persecution was "condoned and protected."

Fleming disputes the reports by organisations like the UN and IGLHRC of a 'deathzone' for Iraqi LGBT. In fact he denied that homosexuality was a crime punishable by death.

Despite this, the issue of 'individual rights' was something US forces "frequently raise with Iraqi leaders and officials," he said.

It is unfortunate that due to language issues and bad reporting (such as of all those on death row being gay) that the urgent calls from Iraqi gays for help have been lost in translation. It's essential that other groups like the UN and IGLRC urgently investigate and substantiate Iraqi LGBT's reports.

What is clear is that Iraq's government has form. Plus that homosexuality is not just a cultural but a legal and political issue there. There are grounds to believe Iraqi LGBT reports that there would be a government organised pogram of LGBT.

What Iraqi LGBT are saying is that in Iraq we currently have the world's worst 'deathzone' for LGBT, far worse than Iran.

It may not suit the interests of western governments who support the Iraqi government to say this so it is up to others to hold Hillary Clinton to her words in Brussels as well as the fine words of David Milliband on LGBT rights.

And when she returns to Washington Hillary might want to look at what her spokespeople are saying in her name.

Postscript: Human Rights Watch (HRW) are reportedly trying to obtain corroboration of gay men on death row for homosexuality. HRW's Scott Long in an email circulated to the gayswithoutborders listserv said "we are trying urgently to determine who they are and what has happened."

• Iraq execution: Is there anyone to help me before it’s too late?

Postscript: Election stars .. and Doofuses

The election in one-liners. From This. Fucking. Election

Power concedes nothing without demand
Frederick Douglaas

The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.
Frank Rich

Stars

Nate Silver. And fivethirtyeight.com (it's a trio that does it, not just Nate). Proven with their on-the-money final calls on the electoral vote and percentages. Traffic went through the roof and the MSM came calling. And if he doesn't get a 'Webbie' award, there's no justice.
Rachel Maddow. A power butch dyke is now the most respected voice in US TV news. Wow! (as she might put it).
Hillary Clinton. Glass ceilings well and truly shattered. Redemption in Denver and, later, Florida.
YouTube. Ok, here's Huffpost's round up of the best. As Techpresident pointed out, just Barack's vids alone ammounted to $46m worth of free advertising.
Techpresident. By far the best place to follow how the Internet MADE Obama. Cannot emphasise this strongly enough - he would not be President-elect without the Internet - and glad to (finally) see some acknowledgment of this gamechanging fact in the MSM.
The web. Not only because without it there would be no Obama, and not just because of the bright light it shone on dirty tricks and lies (Arianna's point), but that the change it's brought will continue on - he himself has said that he wants to continue the momentum after he's elected and use the tools in government, this was in his half-hour infomercial. I'd also note that groups like moveon and sites like dailykos and huffpost will be used as tools to rally support for change. The dems don't have a filibuster proof senate majority so to get things like health care change they will use the web and all the tools. Here was Obama's email to his list post victory: "We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next."



Tina Fey. Who? You'll know soon enough. Here's her best SNL comedy sketch.
Jon Stewart. Yes, he's a funny guy but his clip compilations were absolute political genius and skewered consistently throughout the campaign.
Web news. Now the main source for the young and, as Pew just showed, now bigger than newspapers overall.
Mike Gravel. Mad, mad, mad. Brought a touch of Dada to the campaign. Bless.
Doris Kearns Goodwin. The historian always ready with an anecdote.
The Onion. For their perfect satire of network news.
Guiliani's drag. Remember that? And then he had the nerve to attack 'cultural elites' in Minneapolis?
David Axelrod. "The past is not prologue we've shattered that".
Romney's dog. Remember this? The one he tied to the car roof?
Red State Update. Just crawl-on-the-floor funny pisstake on 'Appalachia', here they go on the dog:




Doofuses

The BBC. And it all came to a ignominious end on election night itself. Did anyone watch? I have documented how, frankly, biased the coverage was but it was all to one end, the traditional one of pretending it's closer than it is just to make a story where there isn't one. In the primaries it was 'Clinton still might win' - when she had no statistical chance. In the general it was 'McCain still might win' - when the polls said otherwise. One of the key things i spotted was just who BBC America editor Justin Webb linked to - the MSM, consistently. This isn't the sort of approach the beeb has preached about.
"Here's the deal". The 'go to' line for far too many.
Clinton. She redeemed herself but the depths she and her supporters lowered themselves to needs recalling. This included her extensive gay following. Oh, and Bill.
The MSM in general. Keith Olbermann made this point well, if you look at McCain's gaffes vs Obama's it is clear that a different standard was being held. If Obama had made anything like as many (remember Lieberman wispering in his ear when McCain stuffed up to a camera in Iraq about who the enemy was?) he would have been toast.
Joe the plumber. Simply an idiot.
Matt Drudge. At the end he was touting his number's - but they'd been beaten months before by the web's new stars, led by Huffington Post. His major league screw ups and blatant bias can only damn his chief selling-point: that the MSM follows his lead.
PUMAs. Clinton's 'loyalists' damned and screwed by Clinton herself. Until September they screamed the same anti-Obama rubbish as McCain ended on (see image, right).
Capitalism. McCain condoms?
Lieberman. And now comes the reckoning.
Reverend Wright. When the shit hit the fan I actually listened to his speeches and he made a lot of sense. When he took his show to the national Press Club he was nothing but an egotistical showpony.
Green screens. As in McCain's weird appearance in front of one. Should. Be. Banned.
Voter suppresssion. Americans can but hope something will change but it likely won't, Robert Kennedy Jnr and many others leveraged the web to shine a spotlight on this year's suppression efforts. Plus Obama's teams were right-on-it. As I predicted, it counted for nothing in the end but it shouldn't take overwhelming numbers to just about win. (Plus to get on the ballot in the first place).
Six hour waits. For a Brit, this is madness. But Americans haven't yet done anything about what is actually an international shaming
Robocalls. Some reported getting literally dozens a day, more if you were unfortunate enough to live in New Hampshire. They got worse as McCain's campaign got more desperate and were the hollow centre to any claims he ran a 'decent' campaign.
Holograms. CNN's election night tecnowizzadry just highlighted for me the emptiness of their core content. The journalism I watched? MSNBC. Plus they were actually tomograms and the presenters couldn't see them.
Ralph Nader. There is always a space to the left of the Dems but Nader proved he's not it with his narcissistic final (?) run this time. To see how broke his political space has become check this interview where he calls Obama an "Uncle Tom".
Palin. n'est-ce pas, and all she represents for the future of the GOP. As the bloodletting begins on the right, former speechwriter David Frum has a very interesting piece 'Republicans face fraught choice between two roads to revival' and the parallels with 1997 and the Tories are ripe. The argument is that they need to ditch the social conservatism. One good thing though? Because of her we met the brilliant Muckracker and his Mudflats bog - and now we now lots more about the weird and wonderful world of Alaskan politics.


And finally ...

Rachel Maddow's brilliant take on the funniest moments of the campaign:



And some of my posts from the past (arrrrgh .. ) year and a half:

Great videos

Absolutely fabulous
Anonymous woman sets Palin to Lloyd Webber.
Cleese on Olbermann
One long cackle.
Wassup 2008
One of the very best virals came right at the end.
Red State Update With Joe The Plumber
Election funnies
Barack and McCain do a 'roast'.
Scary Americans
(and Less scary Americans)
Paul Canning hits New Hampshire for Obama
(He's a union organiser from the 'International' Union of Painters and Allied Trades in New England.)
Barack in the Virginia Rain
One of his top three speeches.
Michael Palin for President
Hilarious SNL Palin vs Couric skit
Barack Obama’s bold economic recovery plan
'Stop America's shitty jobs from going overseas'.
Palingate
Red State and others take a pop.
Harriett vs Hillary
Great Clinton video that I suggested Harriet Harman might want to take lessons from.
Dems 101
Comedy genius from Robert Klein on Olbermann.
"He will make Cheney look like Ghandi"
Strong anti-McCain viral.
Oh. Knarly
Paris Hilton weighs in.
NSFW: He Said It First
He called her a 'c+++'?!?
Genius viral
"I love cheap Chinese crap", "if people want clean water, buy it in a bottle".
The Empire Strikes Barack
'You're my only hope'.
Whilst Hillary and Obama bash seven types of crap ...
Early anti-McCain virals.
Don't Think of a Black Man
Clinton's campaigns 'never noticed his blackness ... '
More McCain comedy riffs
Featuring Letterman and Red State Update.
A message to Ralph Nader from anonymous
First as tragedy, then as farce ...
The audacity of hope
Another of Obama's great speeches - from the 'bully pulpit' at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
"I Got a Crush...On Hillary" (take that obama girl!)
"Fat and Dumb"
Mike Gravel as the Dada candidate.
"I Got a Crush...On Obama"; By Obama Girl
This was from June last year!
Vote Different
Very early anti-Hillary mega-viral.

Daily Show clips

The gift from heaven
Palin: she'll be missed (by comics).
Apropos
Stewart on 2008 'swiftboating'.
Behind the scenes at the conventions
The, er, 'gay' side of the GOP.
PUMAs meet child psychologists
Healing the Clinton supporters.
Barack has ladyparts!
John Oliver on the Primaries
Ralph Nader on the Daily Show
John shows respect; NB this was from March.
The CNN/YouTube Presidential debate
Jon sets the tone.


My analysis

Snatching victory?
My answer to Tatchell on vote stealing fears.
Landslide
"I should have laid a bookies bet when the odds were a lot better."
The only poll that counts
The electoral vote.
When in doubt .. (or losing)
Turn to fear - and race.
Will McCain drop out?
Got that one wrong!
Notes
Barry in Hawaii, BBC rubbish again and why Hillary lost.
BBC US election coverage - and another thing ...
Nothing but spin.
The Obama=Muslim smear: The London connection
Where it all started.
Obama: good for the gays?
Sky joins BBC in misreporting US Primaries
If it's not close, where's the story?
Great moments from the campaign trail
Obama and the Jews and how a DNC committee meeting turned into high drama.
Follow the worm
The history of the instant, on-screen voter reaction 'worm'.
Hillary's nuclear option
When Tomasky still thought she had a nomination chance.
Americans: don't look to BBC for unbiased election coverage
No Internet, no Obama
You betcha!
Could a British teacher ever do this?
A New York teacher discusses Obama in the classroom - this post sparked a lot of interest.
Turning web buzz into votes: how Obama does it
Going into detail on Obama's web roots.
Rewriting history over Rwanda
One of Hillary's lesser known 'misspeaks'.
More Obama speech reaction - it's positive but you won't read about it
His speech on race pushes up his polls but most of the UK media miss the boat.
Postscript: Obama addresses race: hear the whole speech, not the BBC's meme
More on the BBC's bias.
Obama addresses race: hear the whole speech, not the BBC's meme
Are Hillary's wins bad news for web campaigning fans?
Turns out not.
Climate Change nowhere in US Elections and the world should worry
Fetid pools mark the 'new America'
Some 'sub-prime' crisis coverage from January.
Web oiling US campaign, not so much in London
Comparing the primaries with the London mayoral race.
And so, the Macaca turns ..
Guiliani and Romney hit below the waterline by YouTube.
Evolution of a political web 'brand'
Another early analysis on the Obama and Hillary web ops.
Attack ads move onto YouTube?
US Prez election: Web Video Reviews Are Mixed

Moments

Postscript: Don't piss off Dave!
Don't piss off Dave!
Alaskans for Truth
Manipulation
Wassilians on Sarah.
Republikan police state
'Preemptive strike' hits activists at the GOP convention.
The West Wing analogy still holds
What Rev. Wright actually said
America's pompous journalists
When they collectively went for The Scotsman.
UK searching for Obama
Election viral video numbers go boom
Hillary is not the 'devil'
When AP tried it on.
Hillary mocks Obama
'The Sky Will Open, The Light Will Come Down'
The Tweety Effect
The sexism against Hillary.
Postscript: Obama and accessibility
The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace
Democrats drop Fox News

Harriett vs Hillary

Here's a benchmark Harriett. That's the intro, here's the speech. Top that.

It's not like toff £100k holiday Cameroon should offer much of a problem? What's he done for women?

Imagine Labour ever introducing Harriet Harman, let alone any other woman, like this.

Imagine Labour ever capturing millions of women as Hillary has.

Look on Labour on YouTube and weep.

“Women hold up half the sky”

PUMAs meet child psychologists

Oh god y'gotta laugh.

The alternative? He might lose ;{{{{

Watching from a distance, no vote and comment actually being a big, bad thing (they don't like us Brits, shutting up might help) but stuff like global warming action, ending the war depending on it ... er, LAUGH!

The meme about the convention is 'where's the teeth?' and - absolutely - they have to get dirty, but the word I've read is they're saving it up, literally, along with all the money for ads (raised online). Stuff like Muhammed Ali will be @ Thursday's acceptance speech ....

They've learnt something from Kerry's swiftboating. McCain is full of gaffes - the 'seven kitchens' is a start on a rich vein. "Let them eat cake! Whiners!"


From 'Countdown: McCain's homes

I still think theyll' win:

1. don't forget the base organisation for O'bama - because of the web. This was Karl Rove's real genius, turning out the base for Bush. + There's record numbers registering Dem.
2. no guarantee the anti-choice evangelists will turn out - McCain's in a bind with them, as the vicepres choice is showing.
3. Bush is a lead weight, Dems need to hang it on McCain, which shouldn't be difficult.

The real counterweights are:

1. racism not showing up in polls
2. Repubs are evil, they will do anything to retain power (Iran invasion? not just a scenario)
3. the media are pro-McCain (aka "the maverick") - none of the gaffes are getting play
   

It is bound to be nail bitingly close - just as it was in the West Wing when Jimmy Smits won.

So laughing is a good option.

HT: Marbury

Notes

Barry in Hawaii.

When Barry visited London, Cameron gave him a box of CDs including albums by the Smiths, Radiohead and Lily Allen. Er, this is not Obama's taste. (Head. Hands ... )

Interesting ... The BBC's crap US election coverage last week had Hillary Clinton atop its list of possible 'Obama running mates'. Now it's flipped to Joe Biden atop and Hillary a-bottom.

Shameless.

As you may have noticed I'm a bit interested in the US election. So the coming week in Denver at the Democrat national convention has especially drawn my interest, in particular what Hillary and her fans will do. Maureen Dowd thinks she'll shit stir and I think she may be right - given that she's yet to slap down her more rabid supporters, aka PUMAs ('party unity, my ass'), and despite them being very few in number and turning into a Roveite Republican black-op.

The reason she lost has been analysed and the internal memos leaked: it was an incredibly badly run campaign.

Dowd's killer quote:

“A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.”

Biden has a mouth on him. See Huffpost's video highlights.

According to this article in Africa Confidential, most of the Mugabe regime's ill-gotten gains are being ferreted out of Zimbabwe via UK and South African banks, ending up in either Malaysia or China.

It is this outflow of capital that is more than anything else destroying Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe's capital exporters have intensified their operations as political and economic conditions have deteriorated, promoting a cycle of decline.

Regarding the talks, Zimbabweans have just 'a small measure of weariness and a massive dose of wariness'

Meanwhile, Mugabe's supporters latest tactic is poisoning.

In Haiti people are eating mud cakes.

Israeli civic organisation B'tselem has been giving out camcorders to people in the West Bank to record attacks by settlers and the IDF. Says more than a thousand words and some have already had play on Israeli TV with subsequent slaps on the wrist to soldiers shooting people in the foot and the like.

Here's one. 'Settlers attack shepherds in Southern Hebron Hills'.



Salon's Glenn Greenwald has been the best source on the really odd story about the so-called anthrax attacker. This is ongoing.

UPDATE: Nature, the preeminent journal of science, has an Editorial today (headlined: "Case Not Closed") echoing Sen. Grassley's demand for "a full congressional or independent enquiry into this case"; arguing that "the absence of such a full disclosure can only feed suspicions that the FBI has again targeted an innocent man in this case";

How much public money is a gold medal worth?

In Beijing, each gold medal has cost Australia at least $50 million, says Kevin Norton, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia. Or, to put it another way, $12 million came out of the public purse for each medal of any colour. Now we're told these sums are a pittance compared with what is needed to maintain our ranking in London.

What is it with Liverpool? The only big UK city not to host a gay pride and, says, one councillor "homophobia is endemic". This comes in the wake of a underreported killing of a gay teen where the killers got bail.

This story perked me up. I'm out of touch with the state of HIV drugs but according to The Indie cocktails are such now that takers can expect something approaching a normal life expectancy. This isn't everyone and like many of my generation who lived through the worst I fear for the young who are seroconverting in record numbers. But this is progress.

Aw yeah. We can destroy the world and we can be funky whilst doing it!



Quote of the moment:

'It is one thing, and a good thing, to arrest the man, Karadzic,' [Fikret Alic] says. 'He was the big war criminal, the man with the idea for all that happened. But it is another thing to arrest the idea. Karadzic's ideas live on in the existence of Republika Srpska, and if this is all about joining the European Union, for the Republika Srpska to join the EU would be like Europe admitting a part of Germany that still agreed with Hitler, just because it is in Europe. I have rebuilt the house you are staying in now, but in 1992 it was burned while my grandmother was inside - she is one of the 3,205 people still missing - and I was taken to Omarska. No one has ever said sorry for what they did, no one has ever helped us to return and the authorities oppose outright any monument in Omarska to what they did.'

And on a much lighter note when asked 'How do you relax?' sez Dizee Rascal 'A blow job relaxes me'.