Right-wing launches attack on Danny Glover

[Conghaileach]

TransAfrica Forum
News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TRANSAFRICA FORUM URGENT ACTION APPEAL:
Dial In For Democracy and to Support Danny Glover

Dear Friends:
Despite all the rhetoric from the White House and in
conservative political circles regarding freedom of speech and
human rights, the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq
demonstrated that it is all at best disingenuous. This is
becoming all too clear at this moment with the concerted attack
on TransAfrica Forum Board of Directors Chairperson Danny
Glover.

Danny Glover, along with millions of other citizens and
residents of the United States, dared to express their
disagreement with administration policy on Iraq, and in general
with the Bush Administration's rogue foreign policy. The
response has been an attempt to have the telecommunications
giant MCI distance itself from Danny Glover who has signed on
to a series of television spots. In fact, the political Right
is organizing a campaign demanding that MCI formally terminate
its relationship with Danny.

The attack on Danny takes place at the same time that other
courageous public figures are facing the wrath of the
administration and their allies on the political Right for
daring to challenge US foreign policy on Iraq, Cuba and
countless other situations. The attempt to isolate and destroy
political opponents is reminiscent of the McCarthy era. It
happened to the great Paul Robeson in the 1950s, and from that
lesson we should learn that this can NEVER be allowed to happen
again.

The Bush Administration and its right-wing supporters
have advanced a policy that allows no room for democracy,
diplomacy, or debate. It is in this climate of chilling free
speech and shutting down opponents that Danny is being
attacked. Letting MCI know how we feel is an important
statement against the campaigns to demonize, discredit and
destroy that has
characterized this administration and its supporters on both
international and domestic fronts.

TransAfrica Forum calls upon its allies, friends
and families, as well as friends and supporters of Danny
Glover, to contact MCI immediately. Let it be known that you
appreciate MCI for its commitment to democratic values which
are the bedrock principle of good corporate citizenship. Urge
the company to hold firm to those values by refusing to buckle
to pressure and continue to engage Danny Glover as a
spokersperson.

Let your voices be heard!

In Struggle,

Bill Fletcher Jr.

Here are the ways to contact MCI:

Anyone can call the PR office to comment:
800/644-NEWS or 202/736-6700

MCI Customers can call Customer Service at 800/444-3333

Email can be done through the website - there is an electronic
submission form:
http://consumer.mci.com/customer_service/ContactUs.jsp

[Exploited Class]

http://msnbc.com/news/914467.asp?0sl=-41&cp1=1


This is MSNBC proudly talking about how they ruined a person with opinions career.

Truly disturbing.

[Exploited Class]

I wish more people would get in on this an talk about it.

This is now, the Dixie Chicks, Glover, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and her husband Tim Robbins, Madonna and many, many others that have suffered at the hands of mob mentality.

[Urban Rubble]

Fuck Madonna, that whore is using the whole revolutionary image to sell records. Have you seen her new record cover ? It's a black outline of her face with a beret exactly like the famous Che picture, fuck that *****.

[Exploited Class]

Quote: from Urban Rubble on 2:36 am on May 20, 2003
Fuck Madonna, that whore is using the whole revolutionary image to sell records. Have you seen her new record cover ? It's a black outline of her face with a beret exactly like the famous Che picture, fuck that *****.

Out of all that, that is all you could contribute? You picked out the least important bit of information out of all of this. Come on, give it a second shot.

[suffianr]

Fuck Madonna, that whore is using the whole revolutionary image to sell records. Have you seen her new record cover ? It's a black outline of her face with a beret exactly like the famous Che picture, fuck that *****.

Granted, exploitedclass, Urban Rubble's comments might be crude and obtuse, but he does have a point.

"Danny Glover, and other
courageous public figures" is irrelevant. Most public figures are buying their own air time through such politically-sensitive issues. In most cases, it's more about smiling at the camera and waving to disenchanted fans than really trying to prove a point. Sure, actors and musicians are influential, but remember that their relationship with the media is symbiotic, and sadly in most cases, people like Danny Glover are disposable.

They are made to become redundant if their views start to get a little non-mainstream.

Look at Bono, sure he's a twat, but his outspokenness about Northern Ireland has votes on both sides of the fence. His emotional on-stage monologues during performances of Sunday, Bloody Sunday have great effect in mobilizing positive sentiments, but then again, if Bono drops out of the limelight or starts getting too weird, the media have no option but to bin him. Expendable opinion leaders. Think about it. Convenient, no?

Besides, Danny Boy is old news anyway. In terms of Contemporary Black Cultural Icon, there are definitely greener pastures. I'm not being a bastard, that's just how the media works... :(

[Sabocat]

A few thoughts here. Danny Glover in particular, and actors in general, are using their bully pulpits here in the U$ because the voice of the left is being drowned out by the right wing media. MSNBC, which is owned by one of the largest defense contractors (GE) is now officially going to decide what we all can hear and who we can see? The warning sirens should be going off loudly for everyone right about now.

What's really alarming is that they are making it obvious that anyone with a contrarian opinion to rightwing mainstream is risking career etc. What happened in the U$ to freedom of speech without fear of recrimination?

This is how the right wing fascists are going to control thoughts and what people hear. This is putting us all on notice that any opposing view will not be tolerated here.

I honestly believe that Danny Glover is not using his views and speeches to get air time. Danny has long been an activist against war, aparthied etc. Now....sadly, he is being punished for it.

[Urban Rubble]

Exploited Class, the reason I only commented on Madonna ? 1. I really do despise her. I'm serious, she makes me physically mad. 2. I don't feel the need to comment on this topic. The thing is, sure, it's not o.k for these people to be denounced for their views, but who really cares ? Do you care if Susan Sarandon doesn't win another Oscar ? Do you care if Danny Glover lost his MCI contract ? I don't, I hate most celebrities.

[Exploited Class]

See, that is the whole thing, you are looking at a the pea but not the pea soup.

Do I personally care about these people? No, I could give a flying fuck as to what happens to them as people. Just like a person I know that said, "Oh that is so sad about Aliyah (sp?) crash in her plane) and I said, "Yah because she would be sad to hear about your death."

That is so not the point, the point of this is to silence everyone that is not on par with Capitalism and Republicans. Celeberties have an advantage that most of us ever will, to communicate to thousands of people at once. To silence that is a very big deal.

Do I care if Susan Surandon gets another Emmy or Oscar or whatever they get, No. That is not what this about, do I worry that the powers are so powerful as to be able to use tactics such as these to silence the opposition.

You and I can not communicate to the middle population the problems with the current administration, or with the media or capitalism or just any of the current state of affairs and how screwed up it is. But if somebody like Susan Surandon or Danny Glover gets 20 minutes on Charlie Rose to speak their mind, do it well and voice their opposition and explain rationaly why it is wrong, the impact of that reaching so many more people is what is important. If you remember Nazi Germany, how many celeberties left Germany because they spoke out. It is re-occuring, it is history repeating itself.

When you have the second richest person in the world say publicly, "Bush's tax plan is to screw over the working and poor class people of this country." It means a lot more than any of us saying it.

There is a bigger picture here, famous people that have the easiest methods to contact large groups of average citizens and to protest, state publicly and change the minds of others in mass is being halted.

If you read that link of mine you would see
He called the president of the United States a racist, he blamed American policy for the murderous acts of September 11th, and he signed a petition comparing American soldiers in the Gulf War to 9/11 terrorists. He called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” And most recently Mr. Glover signed a letter of support for Fidel Castro.

Those are pretty radical views, these are their beat up and smear tactics.

That’s when we took action, by asking you to call MCI and let them know what you thought of Mr. Glover’s extreme political views.

Its a media blitz, requesting for mob action.

You reached out and touched MCI, and other corporate heads listened. After two weeks of claiming that Glover’s ads were some of the most popular ever aired by MCI, we received an e-mail today announcing that MCI would no longer be using Danny Glover as its spokesman. Because of your calls, Danny Glover is being held accountable for his comments.

It is showing that the general public wants to punish people for their views. That they want to hurt somebody for just stating an opinion. Look at the Dixie Chicks, they didn't even say anything extreme and they were pulled off of close to 70,000 radio stations. It makes the other side feel powerful, feel rightrous in their attacks.

It makes them feel like, if you aren't with us, we can punish them and generally these things just start with removing people from jobs. These things tend to snowball, kind of like witch trials, call em out then execute them. Rember the trial that executed the "Traitor" communists in America?

This is a deterent to keep others in the future from speaking out against this wave of nationalism. This is to make those people who oppose the way things are, feel isolated and bad. Anti-american, unpatriotic.

There is a much bigger picture here.

[Urban Rubble]

I totally understand what you're saying there, I agree with you %100.

I wasn't really trying to enter into this debate. The thing about celebrities is, when they are speaking out they're usually just trying to get publicity. If you look at the Dixie Chicks sales, they're going up. Freedom of speech works both ways, if you want to speak out, be prepared for others (maybe others more powerful) to come after you. I agree that it sucks there are people with enough power to ruin you for speaking out.

I just really despise most celebrities, they're using this war for publicity, that's good they're speaking out, but I hope Madonna never sells another record.

[RED FIRE]

Two thumbs up for you urban rubble,madoona is just a fucking cappie whore,trying her dam hardest to make money of the image of che.

[Exploited Class]

Quote: from Urban Rubble on 4:36 am on May 21, 2003
I totally understand what you're saying there, I agree with you %100.

I wasn't really trying to enter into this debate. The thing about celebrities is, when they are speaking out they're usually just trying to get publicity. If you look at the Dixie Chicks sales, they're going up. Freedom of speech works both ways, if you want to speak out, be prepared for others (maybe others more powerful) to come after you. I agree that it sucks there are people with enough power to ruin you for speaking out.

I just really despise most celebrities, they're using this war for publicity, that's good they're speaking out, but I hope Madonna never sells another record.


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country music trio the Dixie Chicks, who saw sales plummet and fans smash their CDs after singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was "ashamed" of President Bush, say they fear for their lives amid a backlash that has gone "out of control."

http://music.lycosasia.com/entertainment_n...00081080_C.html (http://music.lycosasia.com/entertainment_news/7000081080_C.html)

The remarks have had a resounding impact on the success of the group's latest Monument/Columbia Records release "Home." In its first full week of sales since the controversy began, the album sold 71,132 copies last week, an impressive number alone, however, a 42 percent drop from the week before. The decrease dropped "Home" three spots from four to seven on the Billboard 200.

http://www.thetartan.com/vnews/display.v/A...1/3e89d8fab4401 (http://www.thetartan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/01/3e89d8fab4401)

[Urban Rubble]

I don't know when those figures are from but I saw some about 6 days ago that said their sales are going up. I saw people on the news BUYING their cd's to go burn. I thought that was hillarious. "Here, let's pay them $15 to burn their CD, that'll teach em !!!".

No but seriously, I'm positive their sales have gone up. Even if they hadn't, they've gotten ALOT of publicity out of this and you know what they say, no publicity is bad.

[Exploited Class]

Yah there sales starting going back up after they basically denounced everything they said in talk shows, said how much they supported the troops, blah blah blah, because of the seriousness of plumetting sales and low ticket sales along with protestors planning to show up at events.

So it is kind of sad that the fascist mindset in America is so fucking powerful and scary, because she said she was getting death threats, this patriotism/nationalism can make people completely eat their words.

Then everybody is like, okay now we forgive you, now that we have used our brute mentality and mob like tactics and you saw how powerful corporate America was with instantly pulling you off the air, that you had to bow out and come to our side.

You know this whole clear channel buisness is scary, one company owning like half the radio stations in America. They dictate what they think is appropriate and that set the minds of the mindless sheep. They all say, "Look here, Dixie Chicks were instantly pulled from 70,000 radio stations they must be evil" nevermind that 69,000 of them were all owned by one company. The DJ's kept saying, "Due to the atrocious and anti-american remarks of the Dixie Chicks, we will no longer be playing their music."

And now they are treated as the born again christians, "oh well now we can accept you, you chose the right path." Godamn creepy, and you know that Clear Channel had a lot of pull for this type of mindset.

Hell a couple of DJs got fired for breaking the ban and playing the Dixie Chick's music during the black out, sending messages to everybody else, "Be a good corporate monkey and not act out on your own."

[Urban Rubble]

Ya, there is basically no point in listening to the radio in the U.S anymore. Sometimes I listen to community college radio but that's about it. People need to expand their musical tastes and turn off their radios anyways.

At any rate, if they are listening to the Dixie Chicks they deserve what they get !!! =)

[FabFabian]

This attack on Danny Glover is just plain facist thuggery. Shrub must be happier than a pig in shit with all the big gobs buying his you're either with us or against us crap. I have always been of the opinion that U.S. was a facist state on some level and recent history has only confirmed that.

As far as "celebrities" and their opinions are concerned, I think they have a right to whatever opinion they have with this proviso....that it is an informed opinion. Those who are on the defensive, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Danny Glover, Sean Penn have credibility and are not the average dime a dozen actor. They have long associated themselves with human rights, poverty and justice issues. If someone doesn't agree fine, but to try and destroy their ability to make a living is just plain EVIL!!! McCarthyism anyone???

Madonna, on the other hand, is a complete and utter fraud. The fact that she pulled her recent video to be sensitive to those who have family in the armed forces, speaks volumes about her level of integrity to her *ahem* art. A real artist, especially if their motivation is to question and challenge authority, says to hell with sensitivity. Why didn't she think of the public's sensitivity the last time she decided to make another movie. :P