After every great victory, a great murder

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported on the Ohio ballot question to change the constitutional amendment approval threshold from 50% to 60%. Republicans put it on the ballot to block an amendment proposal for abortion rights that will be on the November ballot. Republicans put their proposal on an August ballot because of historically low turnout. Voting ends Tuesday. And turnout is setting records. It’s at the level of gubernatorial election. Polling places are scrambling for workers. As of last Wednesday more than 533K people had voted early or by mail, nearly double early voting numbers for Ohio’s last two midterms and more than three times the numbers for last year’s August election. Over the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine there has been talk of giving Russia an “off-ramp” to enable Putin to save face with his people. Kos of Kos explains in depth why that isn’t necessary.

He can feed his domestic audience whatever bulls--- nonsense he wants, at any time. It’s the kind of unfettered media control Donald Trump wishes he had. A humiliating battlefield loss is the only way Russia is ever leaving Ukraine. What Putin says about it afterward to his people is none of our concern.

Hunter of Kos explained how the latest nasty guy indictment is bad for Russia. Putin’s big hope is that his army can hold on until Ukraine is forced to negotiate peace with Russia still holding Ukrainian territory. And about the only way that can happen is if the nasty guy regains the White House, pulls US military aid, and removes US sanctions against Russia. Europe alone can’t take up the slack. No other Republican candidate will do so much so fast. So, yeah, Russia is paying close attention to the nasty guy’s legal troubles. Kos reported that while Russia still holds parts of Ukraine Putin has been holding “peace” talks, though I don’t know with whom (just himself?). He is trying to imply Ukraine is the real warmonger. And this weekend Saudi Arabia is hosting a gathering of 40 countries to discuss Ukraine’s peace plan. Ukraine’s plan is a wish list: safety around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor, safe grain exports, release of prisoners of war, Russia removed from within Ukraine’s borders, establish a war crimes tribunal, restoration of Ukraine’s damaged ecosystem, Ukraine joining NATO, a signed declaration ending the war, and a few more. While most of those things are possible there is one item that can only be a wish. Only a Russian regime change will get Putin to The Hague and its war crimes court. Also of interest is who is attending the gathering: China; the rest of the BRICS nations – Brazil, India, and South Africa (the R in the name is Russia); and key global South countries, such as Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Chile, and Zambia. Good to see all these countries on Ukraine’s side, but diplomatic isolation hasn’t affected Russia yet. In an update Kos reported that Ukraine has attacked a Russian oil tanker in the Black Sea.

By quitting the grain corridor deal, Russia just put its own shipping under the line of fire. And by hitting an oil tanker—Russia’s greatest source of foreign revenue—Ukraine just effectively shut down Russia’s biggest export through a key shipping lane. There’s no way Russia can protect those tankers once they leave port. Either Russia renews the grain deal via “good will measure,” or it better find other ways to get its oil out to market.

Tim Mak, posting on Kos, discussed a new documentary. It is 20 Days in Mariupol about the desperate and fearful days of Russia’s invasion of the city. Mak wrote:

I recommend this film for the same reason that I warn against it. It is searing. It lacerates your soul in the same way that war does with its pointlessness and its travesty. But it is necessary. “This is painful to watch,” acknowledges the narrator. “But it must be painful to watch.”

I think I’ll leave it at Mak’s description of the film. I had mentioned Jeff Sharlet, his book The Undertow, and some of his threads discussing the book. Here is one from April 25 of this year, about the time the book came out (if I understand other thread summaries right). In this one he discusses the 1959 TV special that Harry Belafonte made. He includes that special in the post, which is now on YouTube. Sharlet describes it as “one of the best hours of television ever made.” It was “also one of the most radical.” It is songs sung by both Belafonte and Odetta along with singers and dancers. Many of the songs deal with black oppression, others with general black experience, which is quite something for American TV in 1959. It’s not all bleak – there are songs just for fun. I watched and enjoyed it. The video includes a 4 minute commercial at the beginning and end, which is better than shorter commercials every few minutes. Many years later, perhaps just a year or two ago and not long before Belafonte’s death, he and Sharlet met to watch and discuss the special. That discussion became the first chapter of The Undertow, which Sharlet excerpts in this thread.

Belafonte deadpans: “Find out what the reward is for truth-telling.” He means, Martin found out. You get killed.

A very successful march and Medgar Evers is murdered. The March on Washington is followed by four girls dying in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. Belafonte sang at the end of a march in Montgomery and Klansmen murdered a mother of five driving marchers back to Selma.

“After every great victory, a great murder.” ... “They’re gonna let you know you didn’t win.”

That’s why Belafonte was angry. He channeled that anger into song.