I was shopping at the grocery store this afternoon and that song came on over the speakers.
Olivia Newton-John recently passed away. When she did, I thought of "Physical," "Hopelessly Devoted To You," "I Honestly Love You," "Xanadu," "You're The One That I Want," "Magic" and all the other big hits. I really had forgotten what a great job she did on this Bob Dylan song which was her first real hit.
Hearing it made me come home and look it up on YOUTUBE and really marvel over her vocal delivery. I then went in search of other songs of hers from those early years. She was probably country pop back at the start. At the height of her success -- late seventies through eighties -- she had come up with a new sound and it is those songs that I remembered the most when she passed away because they were such huge radio hits. But some of her earlier work deserves remembering as well.
"Let Me Be There" is another song that was an early hit that should be remembered.
Before she left her country pop phase, she recorded what is probably my all time favorite Olivia song from that period, "Please Mr. Please."
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:
Two defectors from Iraqi intelligence said yesterday that they had worked for several years at a secret Iraqi government camp that had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995.
They said the training in the camp, south of Baghdad, was aimed at carrying out attacks against neighboring countries and possibly Europe and the United States.
They also said they had no knowledge of specific attacks carried out by the militants. But they insisted that those being trained as recently as last year were Islamic radicals from across the Middle East. An interview of the two men was set up by an Iraqi group that seeks the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein.
The defectors said they knew of a highly guarded compound within the camp where Iraqi scientists, led by a German, produced biological agents.
''There is a lot we do not know,'' the former general, who spoke on condition that his name not be printed, admitted. ''We were forbidden to speak about our activities among each other, even off duty. But over the years you see and hear things. These Islamic radicals were a scruffy lot. They needed a lot of training, especially physical training. But from speaking with them it was clear they came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States. The gulf war never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States. We were repeatedly told this.''
Unfortunately, the story was an elaborate scam. The purported general had indeed met with American intelligence agents in Turkey, but unbeknownst to Hedges the agents had dismissed his claims out of hand. What the reporters also didn’t know, and what has never before been reported, is that it now appears that the man himself was a fake. According to an ex-INC official, the Ghurairy who met with the Times and PBS was actually a former Iraqi sergeant, then living in Turkey and known by the code name Abu Zainab. The real Lt. General Ghurairy, it seems, had never left Iraq.
That I should live as freely
As those who live outside
To the rights to be endowed
And when I've got something to say, sir
I'm gonna say it now
You'd like to be my Dad
And give me kisses when I'm good
And spank me when I'm bad
I've forgotten how to bow
So when I've got something to say, sir
I'm gonna say it now
You've twisted and you've turned my mind
Because of all the dark I find inside of you
'Side of you, got to let me lie
Burn your hatred out on someone else
I don't need the things you say
You're bringing me down every day
As well as you
We're at the crossroads wet with tears
And I don't want to spend my years hating you
Hating you, got to let me lie
The Final Deathblow to Imperialism Will Only Come Under The Leadership of The Organized Colonized Masses
Efforts to marginalize, disregard, and erase the presence of radical Black-, Brown-, and Indigenous-led anti-imperialist organizations, as well as our political positions, is proving to be endemic to the politics of too many who consider themselves radical anti-imperialist and anti-war activists. For this reason, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) reiterates that the peoples who bear the brunt of the brutal and lethal practices of U.S. imperialism are at the forefront of the struggle to dismantle the global system of white supremacist, patriarchal capitalism.
The colonized within the U.S. settler state see more clearly than the privileged the holistic nature of the system as well as the interdependencies between our domestic repression and U.S. wars abroad. Some forces that claim to be anti-war have an unsophisticated understanding of peace.
We understand that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement, by popular struggle and self-defense, of a world liberated from the interlocking issues of global conflict, nuclear armament, and unjust war. A condition for real peace is the defeat of global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy. Anyone with genuine concern for the well-being of humanity and the planet should be deeply concerned that some supposed “leftist” forces consider it easier to find common cause with right wing libertarian forces than with the Black radical movement, as BAP Coordinating Committee member Jacqueline Luqman writes in this Black Agenda Report piece.
And as Chair of the BAP Coordinating Committee, Ajamu Baraka points out:
“The white left in the U.S. is deeply delusional. Elements of the left actually believe a radical movement leading to revolutionary change will be led by white activists with Black & colonized people as backdrops. #AntiWarSoWhite”
We cannot afford any confusion, complicity, silence, or outright collaboration with some “liberal/left” forces on armed intervention into Haiti, the reactionary role of NATO, the intensification of state repression in the United States, the plight of the working class being subjected to an induced recession, and austerity. For BAP, all of these contradictions reaffirm why it is absolutely necessary for colonized people to be organized or face an inescapable subjugation and eventual annihilation. The comfortable will dismiss this as hyperbole.
We—the colonized, the exploited, the oppressed—are in the midst of a war. It is clear that the colonial-capitalist rulers will continue to deceive, mislead and co-opt to maintain their dominance. Our responsibility in opposition is to keep the focus on the imperialists and not be confused by the machinations of their supporters. That task and responsibility will continue to inform our work in 2023.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) denounced marriage equality as a sign that Democrats have “turned their backs on God.”
She then made comments about how 9/11 proves that an aircraft crashing isn’t dangerous for people on the ground.
She said that “these people in Washington” – a group that includes herself – have “turned their back on the truth and they turned their back on God.”
She then said that House Democrats voted twice to pass a bill legalizing murdering babies “up until the date of birth” as a sign of Democrats turning their backs on God.
“They passed a bill to make it a federal law to protect gay marriage,” Greene then complained. “Marriage is between a man and a woman, and that’s between God and a man and a woman.”
No one can say they weren’t warned. Mass opposition to wars tends to emerge only after they have been waged for some time, yet protests against the Iraq war reached unprecedented heights well before it began. On 15 February 2003, the largest demonstration in British history took place in London, attended by an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million people. It was also part of the largest ever international anti-war protest, with perhaps as many as 30 million people demonstrating across every continent.
The march itself was a carnival of resistance. There were people of every age, race, religion and nationality, from huge numbers of school students to members of the Muslim community and other faith organisations and trade unionists. There were tens of thousands of banners and placards ranging from “make tea not war” to “not in my name”. Part of the reason for the sheer size of the march was that people thought that being there in person, as individuals, really could make a difference and convince the government not to go to war.
This turned out not to be the case. The march and the wider anti-war movement did not stop the war. And we still live with the consequences of both the conflict itself, and the rejection of democratic accountability demonstrated by the government.
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lori harvey, lady gaga45 seconds ago
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This and that7 hours ago
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RIPLEY and UNCOUPLED8 hours ago
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Chase Rice!!!!!8 hours ago
