Northeastern University School of Journalism

Open Letter to 
Northeastern University School of Journalism

Against the taboo, I dared question and challenge Dan Kennedy, Associate Journalism Professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.  Unlike most writers, I always seek to push the envelope.  Truth, not career, is my modus operandi.   I criticized Professor Kennedy’s praise of Boston Globe columnist Renée Loth as “…one of the city’s most accomplished journalists…” and directed the professor to my criticism of Loth, “What Is a Journalist?”  “The fundamental flaw in journalist Renée Loth’s Boston Globe op-ed, “Julian Assange may be a hero to some, but he’s no journalist,” is its failure to define what precisely constitutes a journalist.  Does egregious bias define journalist today?”

To my surprise, the professor actually responded, though quite briefly, and not at all regarding my criticism.  The Boston Globe has yet to publish any of my critiques, regarding its editor, Renée Graham, Loth, Jeff Jacoby et al.  If the Globe were indeed such “powerful journalism on tap,” why can it NOT bear to be questioned and challenged, as I have done periodically?   In fact, the same applies to the School of Journalism and its professors!  

Well, I praised Professor Kennedy for actually responding, which in itself was quite rare in the buffered world of academe.  As a former professor, I am all too aware of that sad—very sad—world, where freedom of speech and real vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstones, are not at all cherished.  Part of our very brief debate concerned the lack of contact information for Loth.  The professor explained that absence, stipulating Loth to be a “freelancer.”  Well, perhaps one day all the columnists would be “freelancers” and thus fully buffered from outside criticism. The professor also argued, interestingly, that op-eds like Loth’s were somehow independent of the editor:  

Your comments about McGrory indicate that you have no idea how a large newspaper operates. The editor and the editorial-page editor (Shirley Leung, who's interim) both report directly to the publisher, John Henry. Good newspapers separate the news and opinion operations, which is why McGrory has nothing to do with what appears on the opinion pages. 

But I challenged that statement:  “However, does not the publisher have any say at all in the selection of the editor?” I wrote.  “And if indeed he or she does, then how can ‘op-ed’ism’ be truly independent, as you seem to indicate it to be?”  Clearly, for example, most of the op-eds appearing in the New York Times tend to be largely—very largely—in line with the editor’s points of view.  But again, this is a deflection from my criticism.  Why did Professor Kennedy choose to ignore the egregious faults I’d underscored in Loth’s op-ed (as well as in Graham’s racist op-eds)… and thus the conflict of his praise?  

Sadly, journalism seems to have become a milieu of backslapping and self-congratulating.  Does the School of Journalism even discuss that fundamental problem?  Why will Professor Kennedy NOT, as I suggested, expose his students to the criticism I periodically lodge against journalists, often in The American Dissident, a journal of literature, democracy and dissidence?  Silence was his response.  Will silence also be the response of the purportedly independent Huntington News?  [Indeed, that was the response!]

One major conflict of interest is rarely ever evoked, for evident reasons:  CAREERISM vs. TRUTH.  The two, far more often than not, simply do not mesh.  Because I have always chosen TRUTH, my CAREER as a professor eventually terminated… and I’d have it no other way.  Well, I put that quandary to Professor Kennedy:  “And if you think they can [go together], then please, oh, please, tell me why you don’t seem to give a damn about NU’s horrendous speech-code rating, issued by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.”  In effect, how can journalism thrive in such an ambiance?  The professor did not respond.  Does The Huntington News give a damn that NU was designated Speech Code of the Month in November?   [Apparently, it doesn’t give a damn!]  Did it even report on that?  

Sadly, it seems that silence is indeed golden at NU.  The old student newspaper did not respond to my 2005 email.  

Dear Staff, The Northeastern University Voice:  

Your student newspaper does not sound like a newspaper at all.  It sounds like an organ of NU propaganda.  Is that what they teach in your school of journalism?  Why not publish the attached cartoon I did on your president with this email?  Show some backbone!  Show an openness to criticism, free speech, and vigorous debate, cornerstones of democracy.  BTW, I am class of 1972.  I expect not even a response from you.  So, surprise me!  

In 2012, I sent the following:

To First Amendment Center at Northeastern University, Journalism Professor Walter V. Robinson:   

As an NU alumnus, class of 72, can you possibly help me?  Might you know of a pro-bono lawyer?  On June 19, 2012, I was permanently trespassed w/o warning or due process by Sturgis Library director, Lucy Loomis.  The library is publicly funded.  Loomis was apparently angered especially by two letters I’d sent to the directors in the library system the week before.  The letters were partially critical of Loomis, but were written as a last ditch effort to get just one library in the system to subscribe to The American Dissident.   Three police officers accompanied the director to escort me out of the building. One of the cops grabbed and twisted my arm then frisked me because I'd simply asked why three cops were necessary and stated I did not have a weapon.  No written document for the order was issued.  The police report fails to stipulate the duration of the order.   It is ever astonishing to me that a library director could be so scornful of free speech.  One of my subscribers set up the following page on his website regarding my case:  http://sturgisbansdissident.blogspot.com/.  Thank you for your attention.

Well, there was a response, though from Larry Laughlin.  We corresponded a bit, then Laughlin simply and totally disappeared.  Then in 2015, I wrote:

To Justin Silverman, Executive Director, New England First Amendment Center, 

Is there a reason why my alma mater, Northeastern University, would house an organization with your name when said organization proves apathetic to the following? 

Presumption of innocence, as you surely know, is supposed to be a fundament of justice.  Yet I was NOT even charged with anything.  Sturgis Library (Barnstable, MA) director Lucy Loomis simply sentenced me by permanent banning on June 19, 2012, one week after I’d disseminated a critical Open Letter to the directors of the Clams Library System of Cape Cod.  When I asked Loomis for a written document stipulating my crime, the request was rejected.  When I asked for due process, the request was also rejected.  (When I’d offered a free subscription to The American Dissident, the offer was rejected.) 

A FOIA demand made by a friend was approved nine months after the banning by the State Secretary of Records, who then mandated/forced Loomis to open her (i.e., Sturgis Library) records to the public. The only pertinent document in those records was an email Loomis had sent to trustee Ted Lowry, noting that her drastic action was “for the safety of staff and the public.”  Yet I’d NEVER threatened anybody and have no police record!  In fact, I’ve got a doctoral degree and have been a professor for much of my working life.  Almost three years later, not one staff member has been threatened by me and I have not set foot on Loomis’ fiefdom.  How easy it is for corrupt-minded people like Loomis to play the he’s- a-danger-to-society card—no proof needed!  

Today, my civil rights are being denied in Barnstable, since I am not permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library, the one my taxes help support.  Not one person in Barnstable County has expressed an iota of concern.  In vain, I contacted so many pathetic apathetic people from Town Manager Tom Lynch to County Human Rights Commissioner John Reed, state reps Cleon Turner and Brian Mannal, town councilor Ann Canedy, town attorney Ruth Weil, Susan Corcoran (ACLUM), and Karen Wulf (PEN New England).  Editors Paul Pronovost (Cape Cod Times) and Noah Hoffenberg (Barnstable Patriot) both refuse to publish anything regarding any of this.  Why?  Recently, I requested Loomis and library trustees reconsider the permanent trespass penalty for exercise of freedom of expression.  Not one of them deigned to respond.  

Now, would you please reconsider your past pathetic apathy regarding the above facts and help me regain my civil rights and thus prove that freedom of speech when pertaining to institutions that serve a public function must not be punished, especially without due process?  

Thank you for your hopeful attention.  

Well, Silverman responded, but eventually also disappeared.  In October of 2017, I sent the following:  

To Exec. Dir. Jack McCorkie, Office of Alumni Relations, and Amy Lewontin, Collection Development, Northeastern University:

A couple of years ago, maybe three or four, The American Dissident was put on your short list for periodical acquisitions.  Of course, I haven’t heard a word from you.  In fact, as an NU alumnus (Class of '72), it has almost been two decades of my periodically trying in vain to interest you in subscribing.  

How can NU expect me to donate money as an alumnus, when you will not even subscribe ($20/yr) to the unique 501c3 nonprofit literary journal I’ve been publishing since 1998?  Please do give that a thought next time you call me on the telephone asking for a donation...

No response was ever received.

Jeff Jacoby -- The Career Columnist Quandary

Needless to say, the Boston Globe would not publish, let alone respond to, the following cartoon and counter essay, regarding one of its own, columnist Jeff Jacoby.  After all, it broke a cardinal rule:  Thou shalt NOT criticize the journalists...

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Trolls Here, Trolls There, Trolls Everywhere!

Career Columnists vs. We, the People, uh, Trolls

Thou shalt not bite the hands that feed constitutes the fundamental problem confronting newspaper columnists, or any other so-called professionals, for that matter.  In the case of Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist, criticism of the Boston Globe, its editor, and, of course, other columnists constitutes that taboo.  For example, Jacoby will certainly not write a column decrying the egregious anti-white racist writing of his fellow columnist, Renee Graham.  And sadly, his silence serves, like it or not, to support the black good/white bad narrative pushed by the latter.  Over the years, I’ve submitted a number of highly critical op-eds, including several critical of Graham’s blatant racism (see Black Racists with Press Badges” and “Racism, Racism, Racism Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum, Ad Obscurum") to the Globe, all of which were categorically rejected.  After all, I, plebe, uh, troll, have no voice.  

The idea of career columnists, who end up forming an elite group, is a bad one, because it demands one voice over and over each week, as opposed to different citizen, uh, troll voices.  It requires the career columnist to come up with something each week for his or her weekly column… and in the absence of a good idea, fluff is always a viable option.  And indeed Jacoby’s latest column is a good example of the latter, “Column-writing in the Internet age is much better. And much worse."  Sure, there’s the opportunity of plebe letters to the editor, but that venue demands very short critiques.  Also, there’s the opportunity of a guest editorial, but that demands the approval of the editor.  Try getting an op-ed critical of an editor published in the editor’s newspaper!

“I have made a living writing opinion commentary for mainstream newspapers since the 1980s,” notes Jacoby in his column.  In essence, that constitutes the very crux of the career columnist quandary because “making a living” (career) inevitably must conflict with truth telling.  Career is the crux of the professor problem, the politician problem, the lawyer problem, the journalist problem, the poet problem, and on and on.  Career vs. truth!  As a former professor, I was able to experience that problem first hand.  But unlike most, I chose truth over career.  In fact, I was fired from my last teaching job at American Public University because I disobeyed a direct order from my bosses to cease expressing my point of view regarding criticism lodged against me.  How many newspaper columnists would choose  truth over career?   Likely, very, very few… because money (and collegiality), for most professionals, always tends to trump truth.  Would Jacoby and other careerists be able to fully comprehend that quandary?  Have they ever even contemplated it?  Self-satisfaction (ego), of course, demands a failure to comprehend.  For those incapable of understanding, Solzhenitsyn’s powerful essay, “Live Not by Lies,” ought to be required reading.  

Jacoby does not, of course, address in his column the questions I address here.  What he does, instead, is address a more or less superficial issue:  writing columns in the age of the internet.  “I leave it to others to sketch the view of the digital landscape from 30,000 feet,” he notes. “Here’s what it looks like at ground level to one guy who has been in the opinion business since the era when opinions were crafted on typewriters.”  Well, opinions should not be crafted on typewriters… or computers, but rather in the mind and with TRUTH and FACTS always as the editor, not the BOSS as the editor.   

Careerists always cave.  Truth-tellers do not; they fight vigorously against the vague orthodoxy that tries always to get them to cave/to conform/to be collegial.  Jacoby cites an example, though to simply support his superficial account of the wonders of the internet, “In a 2012 column about vulgarity, I referred to a cable program that used the F-word 38 times in a four minutes. I wasn’t about to quote the scene—but I could supply a link to a video clip.”  Why does Jacoby write the F-word?  Why is that less vulgar than “fuck”?  For me, the two are the same, though evidently the former contains a touch of cowardly conformity and superficial politesse.  Careerists embrace word control.  Truth-tellers fight against it.  “Vulgar” is a subjective determination, made by faceless cultural apparatchiks and educrats, in an effort to control vocabulary and opinion, and deflect from truth.  

      Jacoby laments, “And while the extraordinary vistas opened up by the Web have made the job of a columnist so much more efficient and rewarding, the new norms of online culture are sour, angry, and tense.”  But “sour, angry, and tense” are simply epithets used to kill the messenger in an effort to deflect from truth, be it sour truth, angry truth, or tense truth.   The terms are used to denigrate truth or opinion, which the denigrator does not like and cannot, or fails to, challenge via reason and fact. For me, I’d rather speak the “vicious” truth, than receive an award like Jacoby:  the Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism…  or rather for Excellence in Turning a Blind Eye Regarding Bias Journalism!  

Jacoby laments, “the marketplace of ideas seems always at the point of exploding. The nastiness of social media, the bile of online comment sections, the viciousness of trolls—all are only too familiar. It is impossible to write these days without being aware of the online mob ready to pounce.”  Well, I surely must be part of that “online mob” because, well, I am a plebe, uh, troll, whereas Jacoby is an elite prize-winning journalist.  Unlike him, I openly express, for example, my full disgust against the platform provided by the Globe to egregious racists like Renee Graham.  

Elite career columnists, journalists and newspaper editors have grown thinner and thinner skin over the years just like academics and poets.  They cannot bear criticism.  How easy it has become for them and other establishment cogs to reject hard-core criticism with simple phrases like “go away troll” (poet Eileen Myles—see “Dyke Poet, Smyke Poet, Who Gives a Damn!”) or “the shrillness of your rants” (editor Chris Busa, Provincetown Art—See “BULLSEYE”).  In essence, just call the writer of unwanted criticism—no matter how factual and logical—a “troll.”  Jacoby’s entire essay is an anti-alt-opinion screed against so-called “trolls.”  He laments, “Too many readers have no interest in absorbing a column’s argument or weighing its merits. They read instead to validate beliefs they already hold. They desire not to better understand ideas they oppose, but to see those ideas denounced, refuted, and mocked.”  

Why has it become so difficult for columnists like Jacoby and Graham to brook, let alone encourage, alt-opinions?  That’s the real problem, not trolls!  As editor of a small literary journal, I always encourage and publish the harshest criticism lodged against me and the journal.  What’s the big deal?  Well, apparently, that is a big deal!  Jacoby concludes, ever lamenting, as if somehow he were forced to read comments about his columns:  “Opinion columns aren’t tweets, but we live now in a culture that conducts far more of its political conversation on social media than on op-ed pages. The norms of that culture have adjusted accordingly. The results haven’t been pretty. Just ask a columnist.”  

Well, if you can’t take the heat, get the hell out of the limelight, dear well-paid elite columnists!  Now, do you think the Globe and its editor, Brian McGrory, who I dared satirize in a cartoon, “The Journalists—Racism Here, Racism There, Racism Everywhere,” a year ago, will publish this counter opinion?   In fact, that summarizes the very crux of the Boston Globe problem, the one Jacoby will never address in a column…  

Renee Loth

What Is a Journalist?

The fundamental flaw in journalist Renee Loth’s Boston Globe op-ed, “Julian Assange may be a hero to some, but he’s no journalist,” is its failure to define what precisely constitutes a journalist.  Does  egregious bias define journalist today?  

Loth argues, “Full stop, please. Assange is many things: swashbuckling egotist, gleeful disrupter of the status quo, unwanted guest of the Ecuadorean government holed up in its London embassy. But a hard-working journalist he is not.”  

Does Loth believe that disrupting the corrupt “status quo” is a bad thing—is something “hard-working” journalists do not do/are not supposed to do?  Well, it seems so.  Ideology can blind  journalists like Loth to the point where they cannot see their faults, even when egregious.  A journalist like her ought to avoid using highly-subjective terms like “egotist.”  Journalists should stick to facts, reason, objectivity, and equality of treatment (e.g., for blacks and whites/for Democrats and Republicans).  Far too many do not do that!  Career inevitably trumps truth… for journalists and all other careerists.  

Loth argues, “Quite apart from the question of whether the United States should prosecute Assange for publishing classified government documents — and I think it would set a dangerous precedent at a time when press freedoms are under attack by the president himself — we need to draw some distinctions between his methods and those of mainstream reporters.”

Well, what about Hillary Clinton’s egregious, unpunished lying about the way how she handled classified government documents?  Equality under the law?  Equality in the eyes of so-called journalists?  Isn’t Trump justified in attacking the highly-biased journalists who constantly attack him?  

Loth argues, “WikiLeaks receives and distributes raw data, some of it damaging personal information of no legitimate public interest, and then sits back and enjoys the fallout.”  And yet who defines what constitutes “no legitimate public interest”?  The Democrat Party?  Journalist shills for the Democrat Party?  The concept of “public interest” is highly nebulous and can be highly partisan indeed.  Loth ought to be aware of that!  And if she is then why does she not mention it?
  

At least Loth stipulates a fact, though reluctantly:  “Although Assange is a hero to many who advocate government transparency, and although he won Australia’s highest journalism honor in 2011, to my (admittedly old-school) mind, he’s an activist.”  Does part of that old-school mind include biased reporting?  Are not most of the journalists at the Boston Globe essentially “activists” for the Democrat Party?  After all, the Globe openly endorsed Hillary Clinton!  How can journalists who endorse one political candidate over another possibly be objective?  Isn’t Loth an “activist” against Trump?  Loth seems to argue that journalists who are “activists” are not journalists.  In that sense, she self-incriminates! 

Loth argues, “Assange doesn’t generally do the tedious work of cross-checking documents, interviewing sources, seeking official responses, and providing expert analysis. That isn’t the WikiLeaks model.”  Well, apparently, it isn’t the Boston Globe model either.  Cite Assistant Editor Renee Graham’s highly racist rant against the white teenagers of Covington Catholic High School (see https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2019/01/renee-graham.html).  Did Graham bother to do any research at all?  In fact, it seems she purposefully ignored the research done by others and stands by her highly faulty account even today.  No apology at all was ever issued!   

Loth states, “Yes, WikiLeaks has been declared a media organization by a tribunal in the United Kingdom, strengthening the claim that Assange deserves protections afforded working journalists, but US laws regarding press freedom are different from Britain’s.”  And yet why should judges have the power to decide whether or not one is a journalist?  Loth ought to have posed that very question.  Corrupt, highly-biased judges exist!  Why should they have the right to make such a determination?  

Loth concludes, “This has been a brutal few weeks in a brutal decade for journalism."  Well, it has also been a brutal decade for free-speech advocates, due partially to journalists like Loth and Graham who choose to ignore the struggle of such advocates and not report on their many stories.  Amazingly, no result  on the Boston Globe website appeared, for example, when I searched “Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff.”  Do Globe journalists like Loth even know who she is?  And if not, why not?

Loth argues, “The tactics employed by Assange — which blur or eliminate the lines between news, propaganda, activism, and spying — only embolden true authoritarian regimes to imprison, torture, and kill journalists. Let’s focus on protecting them.”  Again, those very tactics are employed by Loth, Graham, and other so-called journalists of the Boston Globe!  Let the Globe clean up its act before criticizing others for doing what it does!  

Rather than focusing on protecting journalists, perhaps journalists ought to focus on eliminating their egregious biases and m.o. of constant backslapping and self-congratulating.  They ought to focus on facts and reason and not oppose facts and reason when facts and reason counter bias.  The Globe would not publish my challenge of Graham’s highly faulty reportage, nor would it respond regarding Loth’s.  And so again, one is left with the highly nebulous term, “journalist.”  What is a journalist?  Well, Dan Kennedy, Associate Journalism Professor at Northeastern University, one of my alma maters, regards Loth as “…one of the city’s most accomplished journalists…”  No definition needed, of course.

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NB:  Rather than swallow vacuous, undefined, and self-congratulating memes like “real journalism matters” (Washington Post), it is best that a citizen think and pose questions, as in what the hell is “real journalism”?  Is it biased journalism?  Is it identity-politics journalism?  Is it not-reporting-on-certain-stories journalism?  Is it rejecting of uncomfortable-facts-and- opinions journalism?  Also, it is best that a citizen gain experience by actually testing the waters of journalism reality.  The following are some of my tests.  When I was a professor at Fitchburg State College (now university), the student newspaper, The Point, and the local newspaper, The Sentinel, both refused to report on my fight with the university.  The Advocate refused to publish an account of my being attacked and robbed by three blacks in Baton Rouge.  The Barnstable Patriot refused to publish my criticism of its praise for a candidate for a local Public Works position. The Cape Cod Times refused and still refuses to report on the permanent banning without warning or due process in 2012 of me from my neighborhood library, Sturgis Library.  My very civil rights are being denied today because I am prohibited from attending any cultural or political events held there.  As a rare open critic of its editor, Paul Pronovost, my opinions will never be published in that newspaper.  The Provincetown Banner refused to publish my criticism of the Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown and its use of poetry and art as a tourist magnet.  The Boston Globe refuses to publish my criticism of its anti-white racist assistant editor/columnist Renee Graham, likely another "one of the city’s most accomplished journalists."  Regarding college student editors, rarely will they publish criticism I send regarding their professors.  Thus is the reality of journalism today...  

Renee Graham

Black Racists with Press Badges

Black Racism Thrives—Two Wrongs (Somehow) Make a Right in PC-landia

[Well, of course, the Boston Globe refused to publish this letter to the editor.  After all, it is not an anti-Trump screed like those regurgitated weekly by its assistant editor/columnist Renee Graham.  Far too many journalists cannot bear truths that counter their ideological bent, which is why many Americans today rightfully view them negatively. As far as I am aware, Graham NEVER apologized for her shameful op-ed!]  

Why does the Boston Globe continue to provide a platform for blatant racist and incessant anti-white stereotyper Renee Graham?  That in itself served to diminish the press and enhance the thought that it had indeed become the enemy of the people.  After all, wasn’t racism an enemy of the people?  And if so, then backing, via paycheck and job, a racist like Graham certainly supported that very notion!    

In her latest column, “White America, come get your children,” Graham stated:  “Of course, President Trump is defending those smug white teenagers who mocked a Native American man last week at an indigenous people’s march in Washington, D.C.”  Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Graham chose to ignore new information that essentially and clearly disproved that the white teenagers were the aggressors!  

The problem with a racist ideologue like Graham is that facts and reason become entirely immaterial whenever they counter the narrative; in Graham’s case, white bad/black good.  For her and those like her, freedom of expression, as in wearing a red Trump hat, is not a basic human right, but rather an expression of racism.  How, one must wonder, could Graham actually ignore the blatant hatred and violent racist taunts of those black adult males directed against those white teenagers, who did not utter any racist words at all?   

“Look at all these dusty ass crackers with that racist garbage on.  Look at these dirty ass crackers.  Can’t stand in the sun for 5 minutes.”  

“Y’all dirty-ass little crackers, your day is coming.”

“A bunch of incest babies!  A bunch of babies made out of incest!” 

“Yall got one nigger in the crowd!”   

“I’m warning you nigger!”  

“Why you got all these cracker hats on and your coon ass wanna fight your brothers?”

“You nigga, you nigga with all these racist-ass crackers with red hats on…” 

“Get your old uncle Tom ass outta here!”  (see https://vladtepesblog.com/2019/01/21/aaand-its-even-worse-than-we-thought-high-school-students-really-and-truly-harassed-and-bullied-by-fake-vets-and-leftist-agitators/)

Even left-wing SPLC argued that those blacks are “obsessed with hatred for whites and Jews.”  Might Graham be one of them?  After all, isn’t she obsessed?  “Like a white hood, that cap represents a provocation and a threat,” she stated.  In other words, anybody who voted for Trump was somehow akin to a KKK member.  Yet doesn’t Graham mirror the opposite:  a black supremacist?  “And, yes, I do equate MAGA gear with traditional Klan attire,” she emphasized.  How had a woman so “obsessed with hatred for whites” ever rise to the position of Globe assistant editor?  Affirmative Action?

“Since the teens are white, they’re being infantilized…,” argued Graham.  And so somehow ALL white teens are infantilized.  How does Graham know?  Where are the statistics?  “It’s also now known that Phillips is a Vietnam veteran who served in the Marines,” she stated.  Yet in reality who cares what he did in the early 1970s?  Besides, Phillips had not served in Vietnam and seemed to be a serial liar.  Why didn’t Graham do a little research prior to coming to such erroneous conclusions?  “Nathan Phillips’s Interview with CNN Is Full of Falsehoods, Inconsistencies, and Nonsense,” noted David French of the National Review.  Ah, perhaps that magazine is a wing of the KKK?  Moreover, nobody but a blind ideologue could look at the long-version video and argue that those students had approached Phillips. 

“Each day, we pay dearly, and the costs to a nation which imprudently ignores racism and excuses racists becomes exponentially higher,” stated Graham.  Sadly, she and so many others like her choose to ignore “racism”… whenever it concerned black hatred against whites.  “To indict these terrible boys,” Graham concluded, “swathes of white America must indict itself, and the racist viciousness they’ve passed on to their children like a warped heirloom.”  Well, perhaps privileged columnists like her ought to indict themselves for passing on their own “racist viciousness” to their black children.  Clearly, Graham seeks to increase the great racial divide in America, as opposed to trying to diminish it…  

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NB:  I'd sent Graham and the Globe a different counter op-ed last year.  Nobody responded.  It can be found here:  http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2018/04/renee-graham.html.  Graham is a flaming hypocrite, who more recently published a column,  "Dissent Is Democracy.  No Wonder Trump Hates It."  So, Graham likes it?  Horseshit!

Brian McGrory and Renee Graham

Renee Graham

Hypocrites at the Helm... of Journalism

--Let's Have a Monologue about Race--

From: George Slone

Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 8:50 AM

To: renee.graham@globe.com

Cc: mcgrory@globe.com; cathleen.cusachs@globe.com; Rosalyn Becker; Gary Goude

Subject: Racism! Racism! Racism! Ad Infinitum. Ad Nauseam. Ad Obscurum.

To Renee Graham, Assoc. Editor and Columnist, The Boston Globe:

Below is a counter-argument essay I just finished regarding one of your racist column essays on Trump.  Check it out.  Who knows?  Anything’s possible.  You might even learn something.  Would the Globe publish it?  Of course not!  Is the Globe “fair and balanced”?  Of course not!  Will you respond?  Of course not!  Thus is the state of the nation today…

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[Graham did not respond to the email and essay, which follows.  That is what she calls "let's have a conversation about race."]

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Racism, Racism, Racism 

Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum, Ad Obscurum

Firewalls that once strictly separated news from opinion have been replaced by hopelessly blurred lines. Once-forbidden practices such as editorializing within straight news reports, and the inclusion of opinions as if fact, are not only tolerated; they’re encouraged. 

—Sharyl Attkisson 

Reason and Freedom of Speech will always be the enemies of hard-core ideologues, left or right-wing, whereas double standards and ad hominem (racist! racist! racist!) will always be their friends.  Reason cannot defeat ideology.  Sadly, ideology throughout history has defeated reason (e.g., Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro).  Will left-wing ideology defeat reason in America?  It is certainly making progress in that darkness…

Normally, I do not read biased columns, that is, not unless I feel like writing a retort, underscoring the egregious bias.  Also, it is simply not possible to reason with a highly biased individual.  The Boston Globe, via race-obsessed black columnist Renée Graham, is ever pushing fake news and the Democrat-Party narrative.  Why?  Shouldn’t it/she be more concerned with evoking facts and writing objectively?  Well, evidently, fake news sells.  After all, the Globe is a business above and beyond anything else.  Its clients likely tend to be left-wing and want to eat fake news in the morning, every morning.  

So, what is fake in Graham’s latest Eugene Robinson-like column, “Donald Trump isn’t just a champion of white supremacists. He’s their leader.”?  Well, she did get one thing right:  “I was wrong” (the first sentence in the article).  Perhaps she needs to take a long look in the racist mirror… because she really does come off as a black racist white-hater.  “Trump was a racist long before he had a base to mollify, branded Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists,’ and tried to ban Muslims from entering this country,” she notes.  The reality is—and I am not a Trump fan, but rather an Anti-Liar-Hillary fan—that Trump never argued ALL Mexican immigrants to be rapists.  Why does Graham keep pushing that lie?  Why doesn’t Globe editor Brian McGrory tell her to cease pushing it?  Also, Mexicans are NOT a race, nor are Muslims.  What school did Graham go to?  Are there no fact checkers employed at the Globe?  Did she go to the School of Affirmative Action?  Also, a reason existed for Trump wishing to put a temporary halt on Muslims, though not all Muslims.  Why does Graham choose to ignore that reason?  Well, it counters the narrative pushed by the ideology.  That’s why.  One need only look at the EU to see the mess of un-assimilating, freedom-hating Muslims living in no-go zones.  One need only consider the increasing number of examples of Muslim/Islam terrorist attacks.  If one were to do that, then one might actually be forced to intellectually agree with Trump.  OMG!

Regarding Graham’s birther criticism, Obama failed to present an authentic birth certificate.  Period.  The brouhaha was his fault!  Why blame that on Trump?  The document Obama presented has been proven to be a later-day computer compilation.  The fake news has chosen not to examine the objective facts with that regard.  Instead, it opts for ad hominem, friend of ideology:  Birther! Birther! Birther!  Moreover, Obama is not the St-Obama that Graham perhaps prays to every night.  He has been an opponent of free speech (e.g., Resolution 16/18), a liar (Benghazi and Obamacare), a horrendous opponent of the Freedom of Information Act, a friend of black racists and white communists, etc..  He, more than anyone else, has caused the great divide confronting the nation today.  

Graham needs to be informed that black people are NO LONGER in chains!  Constantly evoking slavery will only help increase the Obama Great Divide.  Graham is a privileged black woman who needs to get off the unreality “woke” bandwagon and wake up to reality!  It is that constant racism, racism, racism ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad obscurum that will only succeed in deepening and deepening the Great Obama Divide.  Graham argues, "White supremacists love him [Trump] because bigots always embrace one of their own."  Well, do black supremacists love her and/or Obama because bigots always embrace one of their own?  Graham further argues, “Trump wouldn’t have gotten to the White House without them and racists wouldn’t feel protected and understood without their personal president.”  Well, Obama wouldn’t have gotten to the White House if the majority of whites had been the racists, racists, racists that Graham, Robinson, Obama, and the bulk of other white-privilege-racist pushers wish everyone to believe they are.  

Egregious lies like the ones Graham writes in the Globe need to be corrected.  Graham conveniently forgets that Obama was even more reluctant to decry racist (since she wants us to believe Muslim is a race) terrorism attacks by Muslims.  Recall that he wanted to wait until all the facts were in before making a statement.  In fact, has he ever condemned Muslim supremacist terror attacks, as Muslim attacks?  Was it not shameful of him to state, “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”?  Clearly, that statement counters freedom of speech, since Muhammad was an enemy of it.  Recall also how Obama failed to attend with other world leaders the post-Charlie Hebdo march in Paris!  Double standards.  That’s Graham’s m.o.  

Finally, “Racism Judge” Graham lists a number of shaky accusations to support her racism judgement that Trump is a racist… just like every other white person in the country, which seems to be precisely what far too many of the nation’s indoctrination universities are teaching today.  Contrary to Graham’s false narrative, both sides in Charlottesville were indeed violent.  Antifa is a left-wing fascist movement, one that crushes free speech, one that demands fascist groupthink and groupchant.  Graham needs to be reminded that nazism and fascism were both left-wing socialist movements.  Mussolini was a devout Marxist and Hitler was a devout socialist.  The Black Panthers and Nation of Islam are both fascist black organizations.  Hopefully, affirmative action re-education will not succeed in erasing those realities from history, though it seems to be making progress in that endeavor.  “Hate” has become the new term to kill free speech and vigorous debate, democracy’s very cornerstones.  In Boston, it was recently used to kill the free-speech event which, contrary to fake newsers, was not a racist event.  Thanks mostly to the left, ad hominem is what it’s all about today, not reasoned debate.  Yes, as Maya Angelou once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”  Well, I do believe Graham, who ended her article with that quote.  It is highly unlikely that Graham is at all capable of heeding journalist Sharyl Attkisson:  “I’m commonly asked, ‘Can ‘the news’ be fixed?’ In simple terms, there are two components necessary to do so: We must correctly identify (and admit) our problem, and then take steps to correct it.  We have yet, as an industry, to take step one.”

Patricia McGuire

Editorial--Issue #34

Torn in Two

Firewalls that once strictly separated news from opinion have been replaced by hopelessly blurred lines. Once-forbidden practices such as editorializing within straight news reports, and the inclusion of opinions as if fact, are not only tolerated; they’re encouraged. […] I’m commonly asked, “Can ‘the news’ be fixed?” In simple terms, there are two components necessary to do so: We must correctly identify (and admit) our problem, and then take steps to correct it. We have yet, as an industry, to take step one.

—Sharyl Attkisson

Journalist ideologues do not like the First Amendment because it permits those outside of their ideological cocoon to openly question and challenge the absence of reason and fact normally inherent in ideology.  Authoritarians hate the First Amendment because it permits criticism. The ploy of journalist ideologues now seems to be to dismiss free-speech activists as haters and white-nationalist racists. It is mind-boggling, childishly simplistic, and downright stupid to bellow HATE, HATE, HATE, though in a far too often successful effort to KILL DEBATE.  Too much following!  Too much groupthink!  WANTED:  Individual free-speech activists!!!

    Fascists today in America seem content bellowing:  Hate! Hate! HATE! Racist! Racist! RACIST! Islamophobe! Islamophobe! ISLAMOPHOBE!  Nazi! Nazi! NAZI!  Yet such ad hominem is not a counter-argument and contradicts democracy’s cornerstone, vigorous debate.  Boston Globe Assoc. Editor and Columnist Renee Graham joyously and mind-bogglingly declares, in evident absolute lack of any semblance of journalistic objectivity, let alone integrity: “‘Free speech’ activists, greatly outnumbered, found no purchase here for their thinly-veiled hate.”  The title of her essay, “Trump Is White Supremacists’ Leader,” might lead an individual thinker into arguing therefore “Obama Is Black Supremacists’ Leader.” But double standards prevail and annihilate such a logical counter-statement.  On the nation’s college campuses, chanting choruses of children condemn free speech and vigorous debate.

       We live in darker and darker times. “Liberalism is white supremacy!” bellowed BLM protesters at William & Mary College and prevented, via the heckler’s veto, Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, from speaking. In other words, for those successful fascist protesters, freedom of speech, a core tenet of liberalism, must be eliminated. It has gotten to the point where one cannot express an alt-opinion without getting moderated (i.e., censored) into oblivion, as if one didn’t even exist. InsideHigherEd.com recently did that with several of my alt-opinions, which therefore inspired this issue’s front cover. For the censored alt-opinions, see wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/08/doug-lederman-and-scott-jaschik.html and wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/08/scott-jaschik-and-doug-lederman.html.  Both IHE editors, Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman, incarnate the shame of academe today. College president Patricia McGuire, also depicted on the cover, responded in full approval of the censorship of my response to her article, which I’d sent to her.  

     On another note, Poets & Writers magazine offers “Writing Prompts” in each issue. So, if you want a prompt for The AD, check out P&W’s website and write something critical, critical, critical on any of the amazingly inane featured articles, including “Writing Prompts” like the following:    

Last month, Crayola announced the retirement of one of their yellow crayon colors, Dandelion, which will soon be replaced by a blue crayon. Since Binney & Smith first began producing Crayola crayons in 1903, many colors have been cycled in and out. Some colors have remained the same shade but changed names over the years, such as Peach, which was previously named Flesh Tint, Flesh, and Pink Beige. Read more about the history of Crayola crayon colors, and write a poem inspired by some of the names you find most evocative, perhaps finding thematic potential in how the types of names have evolved over the years.

    Yes, let’s all write poems inspired by crayon colors! You cannot make this shit up, as the saying goes. Now, here’s an unabashedly racist, sexist and even ageist zine, though with the seal of approval of ideology (i.e., identity politics).  And, of course, if you’ve been sufficiently brain-washed (i.e., multiculti/diversity-indoctrinated), you will be compelled to disagree with my observation.  

Quillsedge Press is accepting submissions for our “50 over 50” anthology through September 22. Women poets over the age of 50 are eligible to submit. Translations welcome if the original poet is also a woman at least 50 years old. Discounted fees for women of color. For full guidelines, visit www.quillsedgepress.org.

    Now, how about submissions from men over 50 and discounts for white men?  Ideology with its inevitable double standards always trumps reason in our brave new world… Quillsedge ain’t the only anything-but-the-rude-truth mag out there.  In fact, they all seem to be thus. Here’s a few of the more inane amongst them, as listed in Poets & Writers:  

—Coffee Poetry Anthology edited by Lorraine Healy, published by World Enough Writers (imprint of Concrete Wolf). Send us poems that involve coffee in some fashion. 

—We need poems, short fiction, and creative nonfiction to fill an upcoming anthology with the theme “Tattoos.” Sponsored by Main Street Rag Publishing Company. 

—Common Ground Review is looking for wave-themed poetry for our 2018 Spring/Summer issue: New wave, sine waves, radio waves, tidal waves, hand waves, any wave function—surprise us! 

     Finally, since poets love to deify poetry and themselves, they ought to stand up—not in groupthink pussy-hatted clusters—but as individuals and speak truth to power, especially where it might actually be a wee bit risky for their lit careers.  Think of Villon, who spoke truth to the ruling theocrats of Paris in the 1400s and ended up in a medieval hole in the ground (“En fosse giz, non pas soubz houz ne may”), then forever exiled. Poets who don’t want to make waves will come up with all kinds of lame excuses and seek to belittle the rare ones who do, as in sour grapes, tired trope, full of himself or whatever…