In preparation for another annual "Netroots Nation" conference of virtually all-white bloggers from around the nation, Jill Tubman asks the Readers of Jack and Jill Politics to submit questions for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with whom she expects to meet during Netroots Nation.
I have the same question for Jill Tubman that I have for Nancy Pelosi. Netroots Nation is the new name for YearlyKos, a meeting of bloggers convened by a man who acknowledges that he was working at or "training" at the Central Intelligence Agency when he founded the DailyKos blog. That man, Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) remains on the Board of Netroots Nation.
My question for Jill Tubman and Nancy Pelosi is, "The founder and a board member of YearlyKos/Netroots Nation acknowledges that he spent two years training with the CIA between 2001 and 2003. Does that compromise the credibility and validity of the YearlyKos/Netroots Nation meeting in any way?
Here's a link to the transcript of the audiotape in which MAMZ acknowledges that he spent two years with the CIA, between 2001 and 2003, while he started DailyKos in 2002, while training with the Central Intelligence Agency.
I have a second question. Jose Antonio Vargas wrote while reporting for the Washington Post in 2007 that Yearly Kos was "a sea of middle-aged white males.". Meanwhile, Quantcast.com, a media analysis company, says that DailyKos has 5% Black participation among its participants and zero (0) percent participation of Latinos. Gina Cooper told the Washington Post reporter, "I hate to use the word diversity."
Why and how has a meeting that has so little Black and Latino participation gained so much traction in a Party which, in many electoral contests, cannot win an election without the votes of Blacks and Latinos?
And now a question for the readers of Jack and Jill Politics: Do you believe that JJP is compromised in any way by its close affilliation with the CIA-trained blogger, Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga through its collaboration with the CIA-trained blogger on the Netroots Nation conference and other matters?
Here's another question: Is it presumptuous and misleading for the meeting to call itself Netroots "NATION," when the group has absolutely no measurable Latino participation and only 5% Black participation?, according to Quantcast.com. In his writing, MAMZ has disavowed his own Latino heritage. See "MAMZ Denies Being Latino in Spite of "ZÚÑIGA" Maternal Surname."
Here's what MAMZ had to say about his relationship to Blacks and Latinos: He said he was blissfully happy in his "selfish detachment" from us and our concerns, this is a quote from an article he wrote:
"I was terribly happy to escape the ugliness of a racist world for the safety of my every day-to-day life. Sure, I could always talk against racism, fight ignorance and prejudice wherever I ran into it, yet I would always be looking in from another room and I could always close the door. My life, in my world, in my own detached selfishness. And as I left the ugly reality of racism behind, it struck me that what was such an easy and trivial exercise for me would be impossible for anyone whose skin color or religious persuassion made them the target of bigotry and discrimination. They would never be able to escape who they were. "
If you read the five articles he wrote, he clearly states that he prefers to live in "selfish detachment" from the very Blacks and Latinos whom he interviewed in order to write the articles about "racism" on his college campus.
OK I know that some readers will say that MAMZ has changed since he made those statements in writing. If MAMZ has changed, then why was he supporting and promoting "states' rights" (the "right" of states to discriminate without Federal Government intervention) as late as 2006? Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) Disavows Membership in Any Ethnic Group other than White Men
The sordid background information on this MAMZ character and his Salvadoran oligarchy family are all thoroughly documented with extensive links to Government, corporate and non-profit organization websites and documents in "The Indictment of Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (MAMZ) by Justice and History (Updated with Additional Information and Counts)"
Most importantly, MAMZ has never denied any of the above. And virtually all of the above comes directly from MAMZ own writings. Why did MAMZ oppose, in writing, ALL gay participation in the US Military, while declaring that working around gays is "inherently uncomfortable"?
How much more do you need to know about MAMZ to realize that he cannot be trusted?
4 comments:
Hi Francis --
thanks for this post. As you know, you and I agree on a lot of things and disagree on a few. Jack Turner and I were inspired in part by participating in the first YearlyKos to create Jack and Jill Politics. The air was electrical. I know Markos personally and I know him to be committed to equality for all. He's a good man. Someday I hope you two have a chance to meet. I'm guessing you'll have a lot to talk about!
I'm really looking forward to the keynote with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Thanks for your thoughts... Jill Tubman
Anyone who goes to the site knows it is controlled. So my question is why do people keep going there?
Jill:
Thanks for your personal perspective on MAMZ, which is clearly very different from my own.
Aside from lying about his Salvadoran oligarchy family in El Salvador; and their pollution of the Jaltepeque Estuary by his family hotel conglomerate; and his past opposition to ALL gay participation in the US military; and training at the CIA for two years ending in 2003, whithout ever acknowledging it to progressives until 2006; and having ZERO% Latinos and a mere 5% Blacks participating at DailyKos, I am sure that there are some nice things about Markos Moulitsas personally.
It's just that however nice he may be as a person, his personal politics and his family politics have been noxious in the United States and El Salvador.
I'm sure that if I met Justice Clarence Thomas, I could find something nice about him, and some endearing part of his personality. None of that would change the effect of his votes on the US Supreme Court, and that's what I am particularly concerned about. He is a Supreme Court Justice and so his decisions in that capacity are most important politically.
Likewise, MAMZ aims to "crash the gates" of the Democratic Party and politics in general in the USA. So, even if he is a nice and loveable individual, it's his participation in CIA training and his Gestapo tactics in the blogosphere that concern me.
Ronald Reagan had a personality that many found endearing, including MAMZ, as he said in his article called, "The Soldier in Me" in 2006.
I'm sure there's something to like about Dick Cheney personally, but that's irrelevant to me as a political blogger.
Janet, I can't explain to you what makes people continue to visit DailyKos. Many of them just want to have their ideas viewed by a large public. (They're wasting their time, since the comments on posts written by non-front-pagers are virtually nil.) Comments are a good measure of how much people got involved in the message, pro and con.
The national media keeps telling the public that DailyKos is important. I first went their because the Washington Post gave its op-ed page to MAMZ so that he could ridicule presidential candidate Hillary Clinton there.
In addition, MAMZ makes inflamatory remarks in public places, and then he gets news for these remarks, which makes people want to learn more about him. They'll learn MUCH more at Truth About Kos than at DailyKos.
MAMZ doesn't bother to include his two-years at the CIA in his DailyKos resume or in his wikipedia page, where the CIA connection is constantly removed when people like me insert it there.
Janet, I think it must be like Fox News. Everyone knows that it's run by a Republican campaign professional named Roger Ailes, whose name was notorious during the Reagan Administration, and yet people keep watching.
I think that if you have a strong enough narrative (leftist takes on the right)then some people will ignore the fact that the "leftist" has been trained by the CIA and comes from the Salvadoran oligarchy.
Oh, hell! Why did people re-elect Nixon in 1972? Go figure!
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