I always like this cat on the Comedy Central roasts.. he was funny..
Here’s a snippet of his bio..courtesy of wikipedia
Giraldo was born in The Bronx and was raised in Queens. He attended Regis High School. He is the oldest son of immigrant parents from Colombia (father) and Spain (mother) and was raised Roman Catholic. From early on, he excelled academically and was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation’s international summer scholarship program. Giraldo attended Columbia University.
Before becoming a comedian, Giraldo worked as a lawyer, having graduated from Harvard Law School. Giraldo spent less than a year as an associate for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom before deciding to change his occupation. Despite his prior career, Giraldo rejected that persona and very rarely discussed his days as a lawyer…
Notes of condolences can be left for Greg on his Facebook page
Ya gotta love comedian Wayne Brady. First of all dude is hella talented. Second because he surprises you as he seems to be always willing to push the boundaries and he has no problem poking fun of himself.
Back in the days when he was doing his variety/talk show folks used to clown and say Wayne was corny and very vanilla. In fact fellow comedian Paul Mooney remarked that Wayne was so white washed that he made news anchor Brian Gumble look like Malcolm X. Gumble also used to be criticized or bringing very ‘white washed’..
It wasn’t until comedian Dave Chappelle reached out to Brady and invited him his show to do the infamous Wayne Brady Terrorizes Dave Chappelle ala Training Day skit that folks really took notice and came to appreciate Wayne. Y’all remember this skit?
Now Wayne is back with a new skit.. This one involves him, boxer Mike Tyson and singer Bobby Brown.. Wayne remakes Brown’s hit song Every Little Step and does a video.. This is destined to be a classic..
Click HERE to see Wayne Brady and Mike Tyson video
STORY LINK: http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/… | For the first time, one of the men filing suit against Bishop Eddie Long is speaking out. In an exclusive interview with FOX 5 senior I-Team reporter Dale Russell, Jamal Parris tells a story of what he calls a love-hate relationship with a man he called “daddy.”
Following Bishop Long’s sermon on Sunday, Russell caught a plane to Colorado, which is home to Jamal Parris– the oldest of all the accusers in the case. In a parking lot, late at night, Parris told Russell a story of love, anger, and desire to protect other young men.
So after a turbulent week Bishop Eddie Long stepped to the pulpit of his New Birth Church this Sunday morning to address the allegations of sexual abuse levied against him by 3 young men. We recently gotten word that a 4th has come forward.
This is pretty much the entire sermon. Long doesn’t really start addressing the charges until 7 or 8 minutes into pt1.. In pt2 he’s pretty much letting folks know that he intends to fight back and that he’s under attack. Long notes that he’s not a perfect man and he never claimed to be, but he is not the man being portrayed on TV. He promises to fight the charges.
What I find interesting is that we don’t really hear about the young men who accused him. Let’s say they are lying, that would indicate a certain type of sickness that needs healing and prayer. Let’s say they are being truthful, well those young men were violated in the worse way and need love and prayer.
The other thing that’s interesting and this is not unique to Long, but so many seem to have an obsession with homosexuality. What I mean is that one can read scripture and conclude that sex before marriage is sinful, home sexuality is sinful, lying is sinful etc.. Yet at the end of the day lots of time and attention is spent on the ‘sin of being gay’. Why is that?
We don’t have folks picketing couples who co-habitat. We don’t have folks damning folks for lying or baring false witness even when pointed out. But have someone who is gay and all hell breaks loose. Long was one of those folks who really underscored why he felt this was such a sinful ‘behavior’ , why not the other things? His outspokenness on gay sex is what got everyone’s attention especially when he was accused of partaking in the very activity he so aggressively damned.
The other thing that was interesting was during the sermon, Long had his armed security kick ‘media’ out the church which holds 25 thousand. Spelman professor and author Jelani Cobb who frequently appears as a guest on CNN was one of those ‘media folks’ escorted out. That’s crazy when you consider that Long has had no problem being out there for the media. Now suddenly its an issue when he gets ‘unwanted’ attention?
The other day author Hadji Williams said something profound. He reminded us that we have made many of our pastors rock stars and perhaps we shouldn’t be viewing them through the lens of celebrity. He noted that to do so speaks volumes about our values. Are we praying to the pastor or to the God the pastor preaches about?
In recent days damning information has surfaced about the role a pioneering Civil Rights photographer namedErnest C.Withers played in the murder of Dr Martin Luther King. Withers who died in 2007 had long been rumored to be an informant for J. Edgar Hooverand the FBI even though he was very popular figure in Civil Rights circles. It’s been reported that under his guise as a photographer he was reporting on King’s movement up to the moment of his assassination and in the days that followed.
Like so many organizations that were fighting for Freedom including the Black Panthers, SNCC, The Nation of Islam then known as Black Muslims, SCLC to name a few were all under constant surveillance with orders from Hoover to disrupt and discredit their operations. Hoover considered many of them to be hate groups, terrorists and communist sympathizers.
Sometimes the surveillance came from FBI agents planting listening devices, recording phone conversations and following Civil Rights leaders in cars. Other times it came from sending Black agents into key organizations where they would earn positions of high rank and trust and later report back critical information. This was all done in addition to the FBI sending letters to various leaders where they would attempt to black mail, play one-off the other, make threats or play mind games like encouraging distressed individuals to commit suicide.
Martin Luther King
The murder of Dr King is especially troubling, because it demonstrated the lengths the FBI would go to stop a movement…. I think people should pause for a second before reading on and really think about this. Again the FBI operates from the money we pay to them via our taxes. They are here to serve and protect the people.
The second point is when you’re talking about an individual like Martin Luther King, you’re talking about a man who was calling for racially harmony and non-violence. He was challenging systems of Jim Crow and overt racial discrimination that I would imagine very few would support in 2010.
On the day of his death he was working feverishly on a Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice. How much more benign could one get? Sadly our government which to this day has buildings named after Hoover, the architect of these surveillance policies called Cointel-Pro stopped at nothing to get him. from the looks of things they got Withers to go along with the plan and several others.
Dick Gregory spoke about sinister forces at work that eventually killed Martin Luther King
Long time activist Dick Gregory spoke on the murder of Dr King and how there were all sorts of folks involved including the Black preachers in his entourage. I want folks to peep this video and pay close attention to the video he plays during his presentation. You can later on watch the rest of the lecture which is 3 or 4 parts. After you watch pt1, I want folks to read this excellent article from Margret Kimberly of Freedom Rider/ Black Agenda Report to get better insight into Withers and the damaging role he played.
Also as an added piece I am including the conversation Malcolm X had with the FBI when they tried to get him to turn on the Nation of Islam. I want folks to have richer context in which to understand the depth the FBI went in trying to compromise and intimidate our leaders.
The long and infamous history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its attacks upon black Americans in their struggles for human and civil rights are by now well-known. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover actively worked to destroy any and all black activists beginning in 1919 when he pursued the political and personal destruction of Marcus Garvey. That subversion of legal rights and the democratic process continued for decades but operated at its fullest extent in the 1950s and 1960s.
The purpose of the FBI Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO was, in Hoover‘s words, to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” what Hoover called “hate groups” but which were in fact organizations fighting for full citizenship rights. The most infamous COINTELPRO action was the murder of the Black Panther Party Chicago chief Fred Hampton. An informant, William O’Neal, joined the Black Panther Party under FBI direction, served as Hampton’s bodyguard, and was then instrumental in planning his killing.
Commercial Appeal, Withers was an FBI informant who gave extensive information on King and other activists in Memphis, their movements, and their conversations. Withers reported to the FBI on the day of King’s assassination and in the days following.
Unfortunately, Withers died in 2007 without ever being confronted with the longstanding rumors of his activities. His colleagues are left to their own devices in trying to understand why he acted as he did. They are also left trying to decide how and, in some cases, whether to judge Withers for his betrayals.
“He actively sabotaged the work of others and endangered their lives, livelihoods and a movement which was bigger than any one person.”
The human response of wanting to defend someone thought to be a friend may be understandable on a personal level, but should never be acceptable politically. The charges against Withers are well documented and in all likelihood he was an informer and was paid by the FBI. This means he actively sabotaged the work of others and endangered their lives, livelihoods and a movement which was bigger than any one person, even those who may still feel a personal connection to Withers.
Whatever the justification for their activities, informants like Withers should never be forgiven and their acts should not be justified. Sadly, many of the people personally victimized by Withers are defending and rationalizing his actions. He had a large family to support, he may have been threatened, the information he gave probably did little harm, etc. Andrew Young’s comments about Withers are the worst of all. “I don’t think Dr. King would have minded him making a little money on the side.”
Andrew Young has been the king of the cringe-worthy comment for some time now, but this remark is appalling even for him. As one of King’s closest confidantes, Young should know better than anyone the damage caused by FBI’s actions against King. They tapped his phones, recorded his conversations and encouraged him to commit suicide. Because there was no timely investigation into the King assassination, we will never know if the FBI was directly involved. The fact that Withers was located in Memphis and reported on King’s activities and movements up until the very moment of his death is in and of itself suspicious. The revelation of Withers’ activity should be a reminder of the extent to which the state dedicated itself to destroying any organized effort at black empowerment.
The muted response to the Withers revelation is sad proof of the lack of study of the movement, its fall and its aftermath. If this world-changing phenomenon were considered in the light that it ought to be, there would be unified revulsion expressed about Withers and a meaningful discussion of how the movement ended. The killing of Martin Luther King meant the effective end of one of the most successful mass movements in the history of the world. It is difficult to imagine that the information Withers provided to the FBI was not in some way connected with King’s death. For that reason alone, the outrage surrounding this revelation should have been loud and clear.
“It is difficult to imagine that the information Withers provided to the FBI was not in some way connected with King’s death.”
The Withers case should not be seen through the window of the past. It is a warning to us in the present and a reminder that the police state apparatus is ever present.
J Edgar Hoover may be dead but his legacy and damning Cointel-Pro policies live on today
The Withers case should not be seen through the window of the past. It is a warning to us in the present and a reminder that the police state apparatus is ever present. Should the civil rights movement be reactivated and organizing for change become the norm once again, there will be another COINTELPRO, under a different name no doubt, but the activities will be revived and some “friends” will turn out to be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
We now have a government which gives itself the right to order the assassination of American citizens and which claims the right to order anyone arrested and incarcerated without charge or trial. Black Americans have been entrapped in dubious, false flag terror cases created out of whole cloth by the government and its informants. The past is prologue and Ernest C. Withers will not be the last person used to sabotage his own people.
An energized, well organized movement for political change is what this nation needs most. That movement should learn the history of past movements, including the errors, and the betrayals that brought so many people and organizations to premature death. Individuals brave enough to speak truth to the powerful should be able to do so without repeating past mistakes or falling prey to the snares which brought down so many in the past. Ernest Withers should be remembered as a traitor. Yes his photos are iconic but they are now tainted and cannot be rehabilitated for the sake of sentimentality. The revelations about Withers are indeed frightening and rightly cause paranoia and anger. Those feelings cannot be submerged. They should be discussed openly. If they are not, then there are more Ernest Withers’ in our future and more destroyed movements.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
Sarah Palin is everywhere and causing havoc along the way. For the mid-term elections she has a number of Tea Party candidates vying for office who she endorsed and dubbed ‘Mamma Grizzilies‘… Here’s a break down of who they are.. They range from Star Parker to Carly Fioriona to Sharon Angle. We suggest you pay close attention to them..
This is a pretty good article penned by long time journalist Eric Arnold where he talks about the deliberate de-politicization of rap and the rise of gangsta rap..It was in response to an erroneous article that came out a a couple of months back where the writer claimed gangsta rap had gone mainstream..-Davey D-
Eric k Arnold
The story is an all-too-familiar one: On Labor Day weekend, a Guatemalan immigrant named Manuel Jamines was shot in the head and killed by LAPD officers. The police claim the man charged at them with a knife, but at least one eyewitness says he was unarmed. The killing has inflamed long-simmering tensions between the police and immigrant and minority communities in Los Angeles, resulting in protests and arrests. Adding fuel to the trash-can fires are reports that the officer was involved in at least two previous shootings.
Jamines’ story comes as part of what seems an unending line of police violence against black and brown folks, from Oscar Grant in Oakland to Aiyana Stanley-Jones in Detroit to systematic racial profiling in Brooklyn. At a time like this, when calls for police accountability are rumbling from grassroots activists coast to coast, our movement for justice needs a soundtrack. It needs music created from the same inner-city streets whose residents have borne the brunt of police brutality since before Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. It needs gangsta rap.
Some critics have hastily written gangsta rap’s obituary. But in 2010, the genre remains a commercial force; what has declined is its gravitas as protest music. Once outspoken on the subject of police violence, in recent years, hip-hop broadly has been all but silent on politics of any sort, at least from a mainstream perspective. Back in the days, gangsta rappers faced off against label executives in corporate boardrooms over freedom of speech; now they entertain marketing meetings over energy drink endorsements.
This change didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen on its own. The de-fanging of gangsta rap has paralleled the corporatization of hip-hop—and the resulting de-politicization of what was once an inherently political art form.
I’m not always one to come with the harsh language, but this sister here Cadillac Kim brought some serious heat to this Bishop Eddie Long situation where he is accused of coercing young men who at the time were minors in his church to have sex with him..A series of pictures he supposedly sent out of himself have surfaced and have been making themselves around the net.
Long denies the allegations and was set to speak about the issue on the Tom Joyner morning show the other day but at the last minute pulled out and had a lawyer read his statement. He intends to address his congregation this Sunday at New Birth. For folks who aren’t familiar, new Birth was the church that hosted Coretta Scott’s funeral where actor/activist Harry Belafonte a long time friend and financial backer of the King family was un-invited at the last minute. Many speculated because of Belafonte’s critcisms of Bush who was in attendenace and has been friendly with the church.
Cadillac Kim
Cadillac Kim talks about the importance of us to be able to discern and warns us not to fall for some Jim Jones type character. She says ‘even with my channel shades on I can see the light.’..Not sure if she’s a member of his new Birth church or not but she definitely goes in..*Warning do not play this at work unless you have headphones. and if you’re easily offended by language don’t watch.. .
For a more indepth breakdown of this situation.. peep the Colorlines article..
Lessons from Arizona: Direct Action Organizing from 1999 to Now
by Jesse Strauss
Arizona’s legislature passed the highly contested Senate Bill 1070 last
April. The bill targets people who have crossed our southern border
without documentation in a variety of ways. One example is that Arizona
law enforcement officers, if following SB1070 as it was written, are
required to obtain citizenship/legal residency information of anyone they
come across who could have crossed the border without papers. Essentially,
this rule requires officers to profile the people they see in daily
interactions. As undocumented immigrants are deemed ‘illegal’ by Arizona’s
power structure, the consequences of daily activities like shopping,
taking kids to school or taking a stroll could result in the destruction
of a livelihood or a family by arrest and deportation.
The passing of SB1070 occurred near the end of the eight month period from
September 2009 through May 2010, when the bodies of 110 hopeful immigrants
were recovered on the US side of the Arizona-Mexico border, many of which
were completely unidentifiable by the time they were discovered. As a
supposed method to combat non-legal border crossings, support for SB1070
spread quickly along southern states. Within a few weeks of SB1070’s
approval, eleven other states readied themselves to create and implement
copycat laws. News pundits jumped on the story and comfortably took their
places in the hype of the “immigration debate” that appeals to most of
their viewers, which is characterized by an Us versus Them approach.
What was broadcast over mainstream airwaves was a narrative that erased
many complexities of immigration in favor of a simple and stereotypical
polarizing approach. In those “immigration debates” it was rare to hear
any mention of why people might be leaving their homes, their families,
and their lives as they know them in order to be in the US. Also lacking
was any clear definition of ‘immigration’ in a context of two countries
whose borders changed barely 150 years ago with the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo (which is why the question of who crossed the border and who the
border crossed should be brought up as a major part of the conversation).
Nationalizing a Local Movement
Soon after SB1070’s passing, people took to the streets all around the
country in protest (and in the case of some ‘Tea Party’ activists,
support). Leilani Clark is a community activist in Tucson, and a member of
a group now called the Capitol Nine. On April 20th, she and eight others
chained themselves to the state capitol building in Phoenix. In her words,
the group was “chained to this building just like our community is chained
to this legislation.” In that respect, Clark approached the action through
her responsibility as a community member. Action is all she could hope for
to create change in such a racially divisive legal reform, and the group
took action “as a massive call out to nonviolent civil disobedience, not
only in Arizona but all across the country.”
Soon after, fourteen young people in Los Angeles were arrested for
chaining themselves to an intersection in protest of SB1070. A few weeks
later, House Bill 2281 passed in Arizona, banning Ethnic Studies. A group
of fifteen Ethnic Studies students and alumni protested by occupying the
State Building in Tucson.
These are just a few examples of the nonviolent actions taken before
SB1070 was implemented on July 29th. What seems to fall through the cracks
too often in discussions of the actions, however, is their level of
coordination.
Movement Building Arizona Style
A few weeks ago, the Catalyst Project, a San Francisco organization
focused around building a movement against racism especially in white
communities, facilitated a report-back featuring activists who had been
organizing against SB1070 in Arizona prior to July 29th. One segment of
the report-back was an important analysis of the effectiveness of the
movement building process in Arizona. For context’s sake, the process was
contrasted with the organizing experience of the 1999 World Trade
Organization protests in Seattle.
Organizing against the WTO turned into massive street rebellions, where
activists clashed with police in virtually unprecedented ways, from
enormous levels of chemical agents being dispersed (tear gas, pepper
spray) to an incredible dedication by activists to continue fighting for
their cause of Global Justice. From the streets of Seattle to Quebec to
Miami and the beginnings of the World Social Forum process, the early
2000s seemed ready and ripe for a Global Justice revolution.
But Seattle’s organizing model was off. As described by the Catalyst
project, Seattle’s model followed a flawed logic that setting a date and
creating a public (and online) call to action with a specific list of
targets would itself engage a critical mass of activists to build the
movement for Global Justice. The point of those tactics were to be
anonymous, uncoordinated and spontaneous. In other words perhaps, this
could mean either that the approach was actually non-existant, or at best
did not allow for accountability from within the movement. For Seattle,
the magic was in the mystery of it all.
Eleven years later, the struggle for justice in Arizona created its own
model. While small groups like the Capitol Nine attracted media attention
and sent out a call to action around the country, community activists
around the country were working on coordinated campaigns. While the
headquarters of struggle found a base at Tona Tierra, a Phoenix community
organization for eco- racial- and indigenous- rights, it was hard to go
more than a few days in activist communities anywhere in the country
without seeing mention of SB1070 or the struggle against it. At the US
Social Forum for example, dozens of workshops and hundreds if not
thousands of people focused their energy on creating strategy for
immigration justice.
The Arizona model of organizing is articulated by direct action, but more
for the purpose of publicity than for creating change through action. In
Arizona, activists knocked on doors and facilitated community gatherings
to discuss the expected impact of SB1070 for months leading up to the
law’s implementation. Within the movement, there were known organizers and
leaders who were able to take critical steps and actions with small groups
as well as coordinate with other leaders and organizers who were
transparent about their roles and intentions. Whereas the WTO protests
focused on anonymity, Arizona organizing has allowed for accountability.
Additionally, there were many action plans with room for anyone to be
involved, no matter their level of commitment or amount of time they could
dedicate. This meant that while some folks were responsible for childcare
or finding food donations, others were writing press releases or
discussing tactics and effective actions. What is different from other
models is that people were able to participate in a variety of ways and
that space was created specifically for people to take action within the
legal framework as well as for those who were dedicated to taking action
outside of legal limitations.
What we saw in Arizona over the summer showed a new model of organizing,
wherein cooperation between people who are dedicated to different tactics
as well as space for accountability within the struggle takes center
stage. As opposed to Seattle’s magic being in the mystery, the Catalyst
Project described Arizona’s magic as in the coordination that allows for
resistance through action, both coordinated and organic. Perhaps the
organization that is embedded in the Arizona movement building strategy,
however, proves that the magic is nonexistent. Instead, coordination takes
priority, and all it needs is a niche within a movement of people ready to
take on collective action for collective liberation.
—————————- Born and raised in Oakland, CA, Jesse Strauss is an independent
journalist. His articles have been featured on Truthout, Common Dreams,
CounterPunch, Consortium News, and other sources. Reach him at jstrauss
(at) riseup.net.
These are indeed strange times we live in where even when we’re repeatedly told we should not be surprised as to what goes down, especially in the world of politics-goes down. It was surprising to learn that AT&T is one of the biggest backers of the Tea Party and together they are working overtime to try to get rid of the Democratizing concept that has made the Internet so powerful called ‘Net Neutrality‘.
I guess one shouldn’t be shocked at the hypocrisy of the Tea Party which claims it takes issue with big corporation but then generously supports their agenda. I’m more upset with Apple which uses AT&T and upset that my hard-earned money which pays for this Iphone is going to uplift a political party that many of feel are racist and in opposition to many of our concerns.
As for Net Neutrality, for those who don’t know about this concept, it essentially says all data is to be treated equal. This means the little blog in the middle of Iowa can be accessed just as easily as the NY Times in NY. All websites are essentially one click away metaphorically speaking.
What telecoms have been doing to the tune of over 100 million dollars in lobbying money in 2009 alone with AT&T leading the way is try to change the basic structure of the internet and re-create the very conditions that drove us away from traditional media to the internet in the first place. Instead of everyone being ‘one click away’ they want to create a tiered system where websites and companies who pay top dollars are one click away while everyone else could be 2, 3, 4 or not even on the system at all.
This means if I am living in Oakland, California and wish to present additional information to the rest of the country about some important event like the tragic Oscar Grant shooting from 2009 I would no longer be on par with the mainstream outlets. My information could be slowed down or even blocked.
Hence, someone in NY might click on the Oakland Tribune site and get the information immediately, but it might take a couple of hours or maybe even a day or two to be visible to on my website DaveyD.com or the websites Indy media SF, Colorlines, Youth Radio or the SF Bayview. The sad part is that person in NY might not even know this additional information had been slowed down or suspended by AT&T, Comcast or some other ISP that may have a political agenda that they want to carry out that is in stark contrast with your content.
The person on the receiving end of the information will do as they’ve always done since the internet been around and click on a link expecting to move seamlessly from one site to the next. When one site is slowed down or not accessible they move onto another. So again what AT&T wants to do is make sure the NY Times loads up quickly while the small blogger comes up slowly.
When one considers how so many people have been able to come up, challenge traditional media with other facts and various narratives to a story, net neutrality has leveled the playing field. Unfortunately the big telecoms do not want this..and apprently neither do the Tea Party and several prominent gatekeeping civil rights orgs and politicians they have spent money on.
AT&T sponsored National Urban League Centennial Celebration. Was that part of their strategy to reach out to Civil Right orgs and get them to echo GOP talking points on Net Neutrality?
Even more troubling is seeing members of the Congressional Black Caucus standing alongside the AT&T/Tea Party. How does this happen in 2010 where CBC members were just a couple of months ago complaining about racism where they were called ‘Nigger’ and being spat upon by the Tea Party members, are walking now hand in hand? Oh yeah that happens when big time lobbying money enters the picture. I guess folks can afford to buy a clean handkerchiefs to wipe away the spit and ‘let bygones be bygones’ as far as the racial insults are concerned as they all stand under the money tree-lined umbrella of AT&T. Peep this article called ‘Hey, Capitol Hill: Who’s Your Daddy ? AT&T‘ to get a better understanding the pervasiveness of this telecom giant.
NAACP head Ben Jealous
AT&T and the telecoms even got Ben Jealous and the NAACP which relied heavily on the freedoms of the internet to launch a campaign to try to save Troy Davis from being executed to take a ‘neutral position on Net Neutrality. Remind me to let Ben know they spelled the word ‘endorse’ wrong in their clarification statement.
It’s our hope that all of us stop and take a long hard look at what’s going on with Net Neutrality and not allow this important issue to get away from us the way it did when it came to media consolidation. If you recall, back in the days leading up to that landmark telecommunications bill of ’96 we heard similar arguments from the big media corps on how giving them all this power would be a good thing for consumers. We also saw there were handfuls of Black and Brown folks who tried to jump in bed with the Clear Channels of the world. They were told they would have better opportunities. Have things gotten better since the Consolidation? Turn on your local radio station and the answer is more than obvious-’Hell Naw’.
The ‘Clear Channeling of media has been horrific. Again, its the main reason so many of us fled to the Internet. We wanted something better. We wanted our individual voices to be heard. If we allow the telecoms to gut Net Neutrality with the help of the Tea Party and a handful of civil rights leaders leading the charge we will be talking about what a big mistake this was 15 years from now. Don’t let history repeat itself.
As the battle over a free and open internet rages on with telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast pushing and paying folks to allow an unequal playing field and get rid of Net neutrality, another more sinister tactic and player has reared its ugly head. There are now group of lawyers called Righthaven out of Las Vegas who are connected to the Las Vegas Review-Journal running around suing small non profits and individual bloggers for ‘copyright’ infringement. On their side is the Draconian, hastly done DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act ) rules and the fear people have of expensive litigation and subsequent judgement.
Eva Galperin of San Francisco based Electronic Frontier Foundation penned this recent article warning bloggers what’s at stake…
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to assist defendants in the Righthaven copyright troll lawsuits. Righthaven, founded in March of 2010, files hundreds of copyright infringement lawsuits on behalf of newspaper publishers against bloggers who make use of news content without permission. To that end, Righthaven searches the internet for stories and parts of stories from the newspapers that they represent. Once they find content that has been re-published, Righthaven purchases the copyright to the article and sues the owner of the blog.
Galperin goes on to note that this company is doing what amounts to a copyright shakedown ala the RIAA who ran around suing thousands of people for downloading songs and then settling for a 2-3000 dollars. The two people that tried to fight the lawsuits found themselves being hit with huge judgements totaling over 600 thousand dollars. Eventually the RIAA had to abandon its strategy as 1-downloading did not diminish and 2-Record labels spent a whooping 17.6 million dollars in legal fees to collect 391 thousand in settlements. That of course is just for one year 2008…Looking at the RIAA books the numbers get worse. For example in 2007 they spent over 24 million to collect around 500 in settlement fees.
So while the labels themselves lost money, the law firms who aggressively came after people made tons of it. In addition most of the people who got hit wound up settling with the 2-3 thousand dollars being quite a hit in the pocketbook for many.
With this group of lawyers coming after bloggers, there appears to be a few things to keep in mind. First they were specifically formed to make money doing this ‘lawsuit/settlement strategy. In a Wired article that that profiled Righthaven and their CEO Steve Gibson, he was pretty upfront and brazen with his key intentions. They say in the article:
Gibson’s vision is to monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the internet for infringing copies of his client’s articles, then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement — to compel quick settlements.
It was pointed out that the company was aggressively expanding its business trying to get other newspapers to sign on so they can sue on their behalf. They have over 70 newspapers on board.
The second thing about this group which is even more disturbing is that they are not issuing warnings or DMCA take down notices. They are just going out and suing folks which is seen as unprecedented in this industry. Many see it as abuse. Sometimes people quote from articles they gotten via email. Others pull from sources where no credit is given. Some think they are being compliant because they gave a link back and only used a quote or two. Apparently thats not good enough for this group.
According to Galperin’s EFF article, she points out that they are also going out and purchasing the copyrights to articles so they can go after folks. So maybe you copied something a couple of years ago and it was no big deal, in fact maybe it was from a local newspaper where they actually appreciated the extra attention you brought to their publication. Now with this group of lawyers they are going around and offering to purchase the copyright and then coming after folks. This is beyond chilling.
Eva Galperin of Electronic Frontier Foundation says EFF is helping fight those who are victim to Righthaven Lawsuits
Galperin continues in her article on Righthaven where she points out that one of their main targets are the non-commercial, political leaning websites and people and organizations written about by the newspapers. In other words, the newspapers that this group represents may do an article or profile on you. You like what’s written and thus want to share it with folks and post it up on your site and along comes these lawyers with no warning issued. They sue and push you to settle.
Just like the US Copyright Group shakedowns, and the RIAA shakedowns of the recent past, Righthaven relies on the threat of enormous statutory damages associated with the Copyright Act to scare defendants, often individual bloggers operating non-commercial websites, into a quick settlement, reportedly ranging from two to five thousand dollars. The Righthaven lawsuits are of particular concern because they sometimes target the operators of political websites who re-publish newspaper stories, chilling political speech. Righthaven has also targeted the newspaper’s source for the very articles allegedly infringed.
So basically what I did with this article from EFF where I reprinted parts of what they wrote might get me in a whirl of trouble with this group of lawyers. might get me caught up I guess on one hand folks should not be surprised at what’s going on especially during these hard economic times. The tactics folks are using are increasing ugly and causing or the threat of economic distress is one way to really shut things down.
One has to wonder who’s next? Will they now go after restaurants for posting favorable reviews on their websites or movie houses for highlighting good reviews? Will they come after parents who highlighted the sporting or academic exploits of their kids which may have been covered in a newspaper?
Tea Party Candidate Sharon Angle was recently sued by Righthaven for posting articles of herself on her website
We know that in recent weeks they launched a lawsuit against Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle for posting up material about herself on her campaign website. They want 150 thousand dollars and her domain name. Although I’d be the first to say I disagree with everything this woman stands for on a political tip, she shouldn’t be sued. After all aren’t these outlets making money off her via their coverage? If they have an issue ask her to take down the articles-end of story.
Righthaven has also sued Ron Paul‘s Daily Paul newsletter and Alex Jones of Infowars.
Jones asserted that the lawsuit is without merit and that he intends to fight back and not be squeezed for money.
Some are saying this is a coverup to the groups main tactic of going after small bloggers. Whatever the case these lawsuits can and are already having a chilling effect. If the stories about President Obama being connected to Gibson and Righthaven because they worked at the same law firm Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago that is also disturbing if he agrees with their tactics
Eva Galperin points out in her article that EFF is seeking out people who have been targeted by Righthaven. You casn drop her a line at eva@eff.org or visit their website http://www.eff.org/
Could you imagine if President Obama was found to have gone to some outing where he toyed around with the practices and rituals with a religion like Santa Muerta,Santeria or any number of Native Americanspiritual traditions? Folks would’ve had a field day..
It’s bad enough that Tea party types have focused in on his Kenyan background and have resurrected every stereotype in the book. It’s bad enough that we’ve seen numerous placards of President Obama dressed as a witch doctor (which he wasn’t) and because the stereotypes are so ingrained there’s no way to even look at the true history of the practice and glean better understanding. Such is this place called America where the slightest of things can be made into total condemnation of ones character.
While all these attacks are taking place, we have Christine O’Donnell the ultra religious Tea Party candidate who is now holding it down for the GOP in the fall contest for US Senate out of Delaware. A tape was put out via comedian HBO talk show host Bill Maher with her talking about how she was at some Satanic cult practicing witch craft. She din’t use the word Wicca she said Satanic and witchcraft.
Now she’s catching hell, but no one has showed up with nasty ‘witch doctor’ signs and I wonder why? We don’t have thousands of people outside O’Donnell’s front door with signs demanding that she go away the way we had thousands running around telling us to get rid of Islam.. And while I definitely disagree with the protest and outraged launched at our Muslim fellow American citizens, what was not lost on me was those who protested equated Islam with Evil aka Satan.. Here you have a candidate who said she was at an altar where they worshipped Satan…How much more evil can you get?
If they could stab Muslim cab drivers and urinate in Mosques and have sitting congressman and stand alongside angry mobs demanding a Mosque not be built in lower Manhattan, I fully expect them to demand that O’Donnell not run..If not than I think we should shine a light on the hypocrisy of the Tea Party zealots and their supporters.
