January 30, 2017

"As far as rihanna (who isn’t a citizen, and can’t vote) and all the rest of the celebrities who are using their influence to stir the public, you lot really REALLY need to shut up and sit down."

"Stop chastising the president. It’s stupid and pathetic to watch. All of these confused people confuse other confused people. Hoping the president fails is like getting on an airplane and hoping the pilot crashes. What makes you think, the the USA is going to enter the Middle East destroy a bunch of shit and pull out without any real repercussions ????"

Celebrities pushing back celebrities. That's Azealia Banks.

We'll see how things work out for Banks. So far....
Apparently in response to Banks’ rant, [Rihanna] shared a black-and-white photo of herself with the caption, “the face you make when you a immigrant #stayawayfromthechickens #iheartnuggets #saveourhens.” The hashtags are likely in reference to Banks’ controversial video where she showed herself cleaning up what she claimed was blood from years of sacrificing chickens in her closet. She claimed the sacrifices were part of her practice as a witch.

Banks promptly shared a screenshot of the star’s post — which she curiously decided to “like” on Instagram — and said, “What rihanna meant was ….”
What's at that ellipsis is too ugly to put on this blog. I don't picture Banks winning this fight. 

24 comments:

HoodlumDoodlum said...

The American public have made these two rich and famous.
The losers, accordingly, are us.

Robert Cook said...

"What makes you think, the the USA is going to enter the Middle East destroy a bunch of shit and pull out without any real repercussions ????"

What does Ms. Banks mean by this part of her statement? Is this her acknowledgement that we reap what we sow and that we will face repercussions for all the shit we have destroyed in the Middle East?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

I have no idea who these people are. Funny that certain kinds of ignorance have become an indicator of intelligence these days.

Kevin said...

The point is not to win but to begin shattering the illusion that everyone agrees with them.

The first to breach the echo chamber are certain to pay a price, no matter how well-armed.

Bob Boyd said...

Wow. That little voodoo closet ain't cuttin' it. Azealia Banks needs a workshop.
You know solving this chicken problem would make a great episode of Fixer Upper or Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

Curious George said...

"Robert Cook said...
"What makes you think, the the USA is going to enter the Middle East destroy a bunch of shit and pull out without any real repercussions ????"

What does Ms. Banks mean by this part of her statement? Is this her acknowledgement that we reap what we sow and that we will face repercussions for all the shit we have destroyed in the Middle East?"

What, all of a sudden you don't know it all?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

As far as rihanna (who isn’t a citizen, and can’t legally vote)

Fixed it for her.

wendybar said...

We, here in America are laughing at these imbeciles...Let them keep talking!! President Trump will get re-elected for 4 more years!!!

Birkel said...

Cue Henry Kissinger.

MD Greene said...

The intellectual sparring of dueling celebrities. Ho hum.

cubanbob said...

Two good looking you woman duking it out. What's not to like?

Balfegor said...

What is interesting to me is the extent to which public discourse in the US has deteriorated into competing cries of "shut up!" We had that DNC chair candidate who explained her job as:

"My job is to listen and be a voice and shut other white people down when they want to interrupt"

We had Steve Bannon telling the media that they:

"should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while."

And we have all these leftist White activists whose principal theme these days is that White people need to shut up. A couple of examples:

We need to shut up and listen. “Black lives matter” means—among many other things—that black voices matter. So white people need to listen to those black voices. In person and online, with friends and colleagues and friends-of-friends and in-laws and strangers, wherever there are conversations about racism, white people need to listen. And listening means not talking.

5.As white activists, we need to shut up and listen to people of color, especially when they offer criticism. We have to override initial defensive impulses and keep our mouths tightly shut, except perhaps to ask clarifying questions.

The theme of the era is no more dialogue -- shut up and listen to your betters. It's strongest on the Left, but it's leaking over to the Right and the mainstream too now.

Bill said...

Do I dare hope for Mutually Assured Destruction in this case?

William said...

I don't much follow popular music, but I recently saw the documentary Amy. It was about the brief, unhappy life of Amy Winehouse. That singer had a monstrous talent. She had a voice that was big and intimate and smoky. Her lyrics had unexpected barbs and some of the melodies she wrote were catchy or haunting. Had she lived long enough she would have been up there with Ella Fitgerald or Billie Holliday......,Unfortunately in every area of life that didn't involve music, she was a total fuck up. Bulimia, exploitive husband, alcohol and drug abuse. No block left unchecked. She was heard to remark when she won the Grammy that "None of this is any fun without drugs"........I don't understand why young people look up to such flawed human beings and think that they have any kind of insight into how to negotiate life's challenges. In fact, there seems to be a negative correlation between wisdom and musical ability. This is most pronounced in female singers who nearly all seem to end up in exploitive relationships with their managers and/or husbands, but male geniuses also seem fucked up. I would put as much trust in the political judgment of Springsteen or Dylan as I would in that of Wagner or Beethoven. Geniuses just aren't that smart.

buwaya said...

This is in a way an intra-black struggle, where nationality counts for a great deal. And this goes back quite a long way.
Caribbean immigrants are, as I have heard it from some, looked on a bit askance by the "native" black people. African blacks in the US simply need not apply and have no standing in the US black community.
Its no surprise that Obama had to bend over backwards to get his community bona fides, his marriage probably being key.

Ann Althouse said...

""What makes you think, the the USA is going to enter the Middle East destroy a bunch of shit and pull out without any real repercussions ????" What does Ms. Banks mean by this part of her statement? Is this her acknowledgement that we reap what we sow and that we will face repercussions for all the shit we have destroyed in the Middle East?"

She's echoing what Trump says all the time about Iraq: We shouldn't have gone in, but having gone in and done what we did (with Bush), we had a responsibility to do more and not simply to withdraw (with Obama).

Each President has to deal with the conditions that exist when he comes in. It doesn't matter that he would have done something differently in the past. He must act now and look toward the future.

n.n said...

The Iraq war began with a response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It was suspended but did not end with a ceasefire agreement. It was sustained under the Clinton administration. It ended with Bush's invasion of Iraq, and concluded with the capture and trial of Hussein. The dictatorship was successfully replaced with honest brokers, soldiers on the ground mediating between factions, and diplomats at higher levels negotiating political compromise.

buwaya:

Institutional racism, etc. was legally resurrected with the unqualified "diversity" policies under the Pro-Choice (i.e. selective, opportunistic, unprincipled) quasi-religious/moral doctrine. A clear case of negative progress that has exploited bias and nurtured prejudice.

Anyway, round and round. These news cycles are renewable if not actually sustainable. The press and other special interests chew and regurgitate their cud with daily and weekly frequency. It's a means to the end of defeating competing interests, it's a progressive condition, and it's becoming personal.

Robert Cook said...

"The dictatorship was successfully replaced with honest brokers, soldiers on the ground mediating between factions, and diplomats at higher levels negotiating political compromise."

So everything's fine in Iraq!

Hahahaha!

n.n said...

Robert Cook:

Everything is not fine in Iraq. There was no quick resolution to deposing a dictator, but there was positive progress with honest brokers including security on the ground and a competent diplomatic corp. The war was resurrected with the Obama administration's premature evacuation, then metastasized throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Robert Cook said...

"Everything is not fine in Iraq. There was no quick resolution to deposing a dictator, but there was positive progress with honest brokers including security on the ground and a competent diplomatic corp. The war was resurrected with the Obama administration's premature evacuation, then metastasized throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe."

What you call Obama's "premature evacuation"--years after Bush claimed "Mission Accomplished!", was a withdrawal date negotiated by Bush with the Iraqis. Obama didn't want to leave Iraq--much to his discredit--but the Iraqis would not agree to conditions for us to remain, (namely, that American troops be subject to the Iraqi judicial system if they violated Iraqi law). In short, the Iraqis invited us out. Also, the metastasizing of the war in the Middle East was our doing, as we seek to further destabilize and dominate the region for our purposes.

There were no "honest brokers" in post-invasion Iraq anymore than there were "honest brokers" in the American government who had illegally invaded and destroyed Iraq.

Balfegor said...

Re: buwaya:

Its no surprise that Obama had to bend over backwards to get his community bona fides, his marriage probably being key.

It might have been, but there's a long, long lag time between his marriage and when Black voters actually started supporting him reliably. Early in the 2008 primary, I recall, Clinton was actually at least at parity with him in support from Black primary voters, until his supporters started a nasty whispering campaign about covert racism that successfully drove Black voters towards him.

Robert Cook said...

Speaking of "honest brokers" (sic)

n.n said...

Iraq was under our jurisdiction with a transfer of power to a virgin government. The terms of evacuation were our choice.

Metastasizing of the war was indeed our doing through both direct and collateral means, not limited to the Middle East, but extended from Africa to Eastern Europe, and with the refugee crises, globally.

The security on the ground and the diplomatic corp were indeed "honest brokers" in so far as they aided stabilization and negotiation between the factions that were previously suppressed by the dictatorship.

The conclusion of the war in Iraq (i.e. end of the ceasefire agreement) was not illegal, the nation was not destroyed through removal and trial of a belligerent dictator, and there was positive progress with subsequent efforts to restore stability and inter-faction communication channels.

Balfegor said...

Re: n.n:

Iraq was under our jurisdiction with a transfer of power to a virgin government. The terms of evacuation were our choice.

In retrospect, we returned sovereignty very quickly, as these things go. We instituted a military dictatorship over Japan in 1945, and returned partial sovereignty in 1949, after 4 years of occupation. The occupation ended in 1951. Similarly, in Germany, the Allies subjected Germany to military rule until 1949, after which we returned partial sovereignty and transitioned to civilian occupation, ending in 1955, ten years after the war. And these were sophisticated industrial powers, with a long and semi-organic experience of democracy. Japan had last held elections in 1942, actually, in the midst of the war -- while the Imperial Rule Assistance party (大政翼賛会) won an overwhelming majority, seeing as it was a national unity government welded together from most of the major pre-war parties, there were a nontrivial number of diet members from outside, e.g. Ichiro Hatoyama, later PM, whose grandson was also PM a few years ago. The first Korean representative elected to the Imperial Diet (Park Chun-geum) lost his seat in 1942, though.

In Iraq, meanwhile, we rushed to institute civilian government, with a transitional government in 2005, two years after the invasion, and the rapid collapse of the dictatorship. We tried to transition in less time, even though we were trying to build on a much shakier foundation. This did not work out so well.

In all honesty, we also probably lacked the human capital necessary to govern a remote territory effectively for five years. In 1945, we had personnel who had been involved in the governance of our Philippine colony (like, um, MacArthur, whose father had been military governor). In Germany, our administration cooperated with the administrations of the French and the English who had been governing vast swaths of colonial territory for centuries. In 2005, on the other hand, I don't think we had anyone in government with any practical experience administering a colonial government. Frankly, if you had dropped in a bunch of people from the British Imperial Civil Service from 1900, they'd probably have done a better job. It would have been old hat. They were required to learn a local language to boot (I think their primary choices were Hindi, Persian, or Arabic), so they had a corps of civil administrators reasonably familiar with Arabic.