Monthly Archives: December 2024

Jimmy Carter and his 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott

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The 1980 boycott of the summer Olympics in Moscow was contemptible hypocritical politics from Jimmy Carter. President Carter made this unilateral announcement in January 1980, just weeks before the 1980 winter Olympics were to be begin in Lake Placid, NY; where Soviet Union athletes were invited to compete, despite the 1979 USSR invasion of Afghanistan, which was US president Jimmy Carter’s pretense for the Moscow summer games boycott.

In Lake Placid, the 1980 US hockey team defeated the mighty USSR machine and miraculously won the gold medal. The best sports documentary on these events is the ESPN 30-for-30: Of Miracles and Men (2015).

The Lake Placid Games were held from February 13 to 24, 1980, with the Miracle on Ice game (US 4, USSR 3) played on February 22. Note: this was a tape-delayed ABC broadcast, meaning most viewers already knew the US had won, but everyone still watched. Also note that US athletes were competing against Soviet Union athletes, while Jimmy Carter’s “Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan” ultimatum on a summer games boycott was lingering over the entire competition.

At that point you couldn’t find an American who would have supported a Soviet Union boycott of these winter Olympics, as it would have largely invalidated the US hockey gold. And that’s the point of the Olympics, if you don’t like someone, then beat them (fairly!) in the athletic arena and you can cheer. That’s better than killing people. Olympic competition is international by nature, and any boycott for political reasons does violence to that egalitarian principle.

I’ve spoken with a former track athlete who was affected by the boycott. His response was to compete under another flag, which he did, saying it was probably his only chance at Olympic glory. Years later, he had no regrets about what he did. Reading comments from others on Reddit, I discovered much of that same sentiment from others. Here are a few samples of popular comments in italics:

I hate it. Don’t involve athletes in geo political BS.

Trash move. Athletes work their whole lives for that shot.

One of my gym teachers in high school was an older gentleman who had qualified for these Olympics (weightlifting). You could tell when he talked about it that there was still lingering disappointment and regret, decades later. And understandably so.

I understand the reasoning, but in reality it did nothing but harm innocent athletes. No international policy changed as a result, just a bunch of people who worked their whole lives just to not be given their shot.

Worked with a guy who was on the men’s field hockey team. Never got another chance. Edit: I should add that because he was officially on the Olympic team, he was given lifetime access to any Olympic training facility. He said “whoop-dee-fucking-doo”.

I hated it. Athletes have a limited window.

My father, a life-long Democrat, but also a longtime track & field and Olympics fan, never forgave Carter for this. There were certainly other ways we could have protested the Soviet Union’s actions without destroying the dreams and athletic careers of people who had done nothing at all to deserve to be treated that way.

Jimmy carter being disconnected to the feelings of the American people! Color me shocked. Athletes that have one chance of competing in the Olympics being pawns in international politics is awful no matter who’s doing it.

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Jimmy Carter completely disregarded all this, and unilaterally insisted US athletes would not compete in the 1980 summer Olympics. It was never held to any popular support litmus test in the media; it was presented as an ultimatum from an unchallengeable authority figure.

Today, Jimmy Carter’s decision wouldn’t hold up in court, but back in that day, Olympic athletes didn’t have agents. Today, top athletes are professionalized by high school. Back then, the Olympics were billed as the most prestigious international competition of amateur athletes. Eastern Bloc athletic training & doping programs made a mockery of that Olympic principle, and when the NBA ‘Dream Team’ conquered Barcelona in 1992, the Olympics officially became professionalized.

ESPN currently has Jimmy Carter’s death in their news feed, and their portrayal of his 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott is one of him being a courageous leader. ESPN is completely clueless on international politics and out-of-touch with how American working people & sports fans feel about Jimmy Carter. The Democrats needed Jimmy Carter’s death to serve as (yet another) a temporary distraction from their party’s collapse in November, their ensuing surrender to Donald Trump, and all the other political realities they are trying so hard to avoid.

Wrap-up: It is always questionable in bourgeois politics whether it’s worse to be a weak president (Carter), or a disgraced president (Nixon). In short, Jimmy Carter was a weak president capable of only the most limited reforms, who was crushed by reactionary forces & ruling class interests in November 1980. Jimmy Carter won in 1976 as a liberal humanitarian, just as liberalism was dying out as a political force. “Stagflation” came into the political lexicon under his presidential watch, while his environmentalism, commitment to public education, defense of workers rights to decent jobs & wages, etc, were crushed by the forces of Reaganomics in the 1980’s.

Other notable Jimmy Carter presidential events include the Mariel boat-lift disaster in Miami, FL (April 15 to October 31, 1980), paving the way for reactionary anti-immigration reforms under Bush/Reagan. Cocaine Cowboys (2006) is a good documentary film with some insightful discussion on that.

Finally, no discussion of Jimmy Carter is complete without mentioning the hostage crisis with Iran. After the overthrow of the hated (US-backed) Shah through an Islamic-led revolution, 53 US diplomats & citizens were held hostage in Iran from November 4, 1979 until their release on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

A bungled military helicopter rescue attempt on April 24, 1980, in which there were multiple US fatalities, further sunk Carter’s popularity. In September 1980, the Iran–Iraq War broke out, further overwhelming Jimmy Carter in any attempt to find a diplomatic solution with Iran under his administration.

In the 1980 election, where an Independent candidate (John Anderson) was allowed to debate and be on the ballot, the incumbent Jimmy Carter lost to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan: 489-49 in the Electoral College. The Democrats didn’t recover politically until Bill Clinton in 1992.

Perhaps Jimmy Carter’s most celebrated diplomatic achievement will be the last to be discussed here, his Camp David Accords, signed in March 1979 by the US, Israel & Egypt–  explicitly excluding Palestinians. It was packaged by Jimmy Carter to the world as “a framework for peace in the Middle East”. Like other “humanitarian interventions” under Jimmy Carter, these feeble & myopic attempts at shuttle diplomacy were all quickly undone by monopoly capitalism & imperialism, and that is the legacy of Jimmy Carter.

The death of Jimmy Carter is an ironic reflection of the current political situation. President Joe Biden has ordered maximum effusive praise for the former Georgia peanut farmer who became US president. “He was a better ex-president than president,” is liberalism’s apologetic way of admitting Jimmy Cater was a failure, while conveniently & systematically overlooking those failures.

The collapse of Biden/Harris/Waltz in 2024 mirrors the political situation after Carter/Mondale got wiped out in 1980. Reactionary & predatory forces were/are working behind-the-scenes and licking their chops after the Democratic Party set the groundwork for the social, political & economic disaster to come. By Joe Biden’s order, through January 9, 2025, US flags are to fly half-staff in observance of this husk of liberalism that most Americans (rich & poor) despised.

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Pussy Riot reeks of provocation

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There’s a lot of fake political art out there: sophisticated propaganda that broadcasts liberal values to a liberal audience. Pussy Riot’s performance of A Punk Prayer (2012) occupies that pole: focusing on feminist-LGBT rights, while maintaining an explicitly anti-Putin line that dovetails with an undying support for the fascists in Kiev. It’s strictly identity politics & anti-Putin propaganda for these CIA cut-outs known as Pussy Riot.

Staged in brightly-colored balaclavas to conceal their identity, while punching & kicking the air in ‘punk defiance’, these feminist, pro-war phonies have existed under the protective wing of western imperialism for over a decade.  A Punk Prayer is nothing more than a provocative publicity stunt by a bunch of imperialist-backed puppets. After such a time, what is the balance sheet on their popular influence?

First, no one knows any songs by Pussy Riot. No kids have Pussy Riot content on any of their playlists, or seriously recommends their music. No members of Pussy Riot play any musical instruments or have any songwriting chops. No one can even name all the band members, or how they met, etc. Everything about Pussy Riot is shrouded in mystery. All their songs lyrics & political statements come straight from Langley, VA & the US State Department. Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon about Pussy Riot is they are so well known in the media, without having any real fans– or content.

Pussy Riot’s western support is entirely from a wealthy political class & the fake corporate media. Since being mercilessly exposed as nothing more than anti-Russian propaganda by myself in the late 2010’s, Pussy Riot were branded “foreign agents” by the Russian government at the end of 2021, confirming my political & artistic analysis. As a musical artist, these imposters never fooled me, as I smelled a rat with Pussy Riot from the start.

At this point in history, Pussy Riot now labels itself an “activist art collective”, because they are obviously not a band or even musicians. Their “concerts” are a joke— instead of performing music, they talk about their feminism/lesbianism at length, then chant anti-Putin vulgarities while dumping water on the crowd. In 2020, Pussy Riot was online promoting a fake tour that didn’t exist, due to venue lockdowns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting Pussy Riot as ‘punk’ is no longer tenable, as all they do now is issue NFT crypto and promote US State Department propaganda through their website Mediazona. Here’s a cozy photo of Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, with Antony Blinken in 2022.

Mediazona is a US-supported media propaganda outlet focused on anti-Putin opposition, founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova & her Pussy Riot cohorts in 2014. This has become Pussy Riot’s primary vehicle for “activism”, since their musical “popularity” has waned due to inconvenient facts coming to light. Once again, can you sing (or even hum) a single Pussy Riot song? Do you know ANYONE who can?

Pussy Riot has become a world famous “act” with no recognizable content. That’s quite remarkable, and reveals much about the state of art in today’s world. The art market has become completely corrupted by big money to the point where there is no art– only dressed-up propaganda narratives packaged as ‘art’.

In 2012, Nadya Tolokonnikova was listed as Time Magazine’s ‘100 Women of the Year’, while also receiving the LennonOno Grant for Peace. In 2019, Tolokonnikova received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Rhode Island School of Design – for being a “powerful voice in the fight against tyranny,” while The Guardian ranked her #4 in Best Art of the 21st Century, for her Punk Prayer video. In 2023, Nadya Tolokonnikova was awarded the Woodie Guthrie Prize, rendering that honor meaningless while muddying the name of that great original folk singer. And so it goes, as Hillary Clinton is a big fan of Pussy Riot.

Kathleen Hanna was The Punk Singer (2013), the unmistakable voice of Bikini Kill, the last great rock band (in this artist’s opinion). What happened to Bikini Kill is what happened to the entertainment industry overall. Kathleen Hanna embraced Pussy Riot around the time her (long overdue) documentary was released on Netflix, so clearly her support for Pussy Riot helped with the movie distribution. For what it’s worth, The Punk Singer is a good documentary film and that’s what happened to Bikini Kill & rock music.

No, Pussy Riot isn’t here to save humanity from catastrophe though their fearless activism. They are instead stooges of imperialism. Pussy Riot receives complete support from the corporate media and every other capitalist institution. A February 2021 Greyzone investigative article titled ‘Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal’, confirmed this. Pussy Riot’s role in this NATO propaganda campaign is discussed in it:

New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat… As a UK FCO contractor, the Zinc Network said it was “delivering audience segmentation and targeting support” not only to Meduza, but also to Mediazona, a supposedly independent media venture founded by two members of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot. One of Mediazona’s founders, Nadya Tolokonnikova, shared a stage with former US President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Foundation’s 2015 conference. The following year, Tolokonnikova trashed now-imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, claiming, “He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.”

For the record, Julian Assange is a heroic journalist, beloved by hundreds-of-millions worldwide, who was unjustly persecuted by the imperialist governments of the US/UK for years over phony sexual assault claims, for the crime of telling people the truth about government-approved war crimes, etc. Pussy Riot attacks Julian Assange (and anyone else who speaks for the oppressed masses) for inspiring revolutionary thinking & action. As reactionary puppets of imperialism, Pussy Riot reeks of provocation.

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Extended Play Singles (2024)

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This Extended Play project began in Sanford, FL before the COVID-19 pandemic, as a collection of ‘swan song’ singles. With the release of “The Electric Cat” this project is complete and has been re-named Extended Play Singles. Cover photo, artwork & production by Tom Pearce. It is now available on your favorite streaming platform.

I’m also pleased to announce that Magnified (2012) has been re-released onto the major streaming platforms. It’s very complicated how these songs are put up and then later disappear, but that’s a reality of the modern mp3 streaming market. Platforms for upload & distribution change their policies, get bought out, go out of business, etc. Independent artists are constantly being taken down, moved back, marginalized & de-platformed to make more room for Beyonce & Taylor Swift.

The current artistic situation is untenable, and talented artists in every sphere: music, film, arts & literature are being squeezed out in favor of mediocre corporate phonies. This is why popular music, film & culture are at such a low level. There is no money for real artists. The idea of Trump and his billionaire class cronies, including all the Democrats, is to silence & destroy all the artists. Everything from Trump’s anti-immigrant racism, to the #MeToo campaign’s false feminist hysteria is meant to divide oppressed workers with ignorance & false political narratives.

No serious artists are allowed to perform anymore, and the list of blacklisted talent is staggering. It began with Kevin Spacey being witch-hunted with false sexual assault allegations in November 2017, as the #MeToo campaign instantly became known to the world. Every bourgeois media news outlet was part of this reactionary feminist campaign to attack prominent artists such as Kevin Spacey, and effectively remove them from the entertainment industry. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, and countless others have been ‘cancelled’ by the #MeToo campaign, which is an identity politics prong of the CIA Democrats overall offensive on the working class.

Until there is revolutionary change in global society– meaning our economics & politics– there can be no substantial art & culture allowed into the mainstream. Only more football. All significant art taking place today is happening ‘underground’, meaning outside the corporate sphere. Thus, underground art is cut off from a mainstream breakthrough by every tentacle of monopoly capitalism & imperialism.

Those performers advocating for political reforms, while defending the Democratic Party, are lazy liberals. As proof: What impact did they have on Election 2024? The fascist Donald Trump steamrolled the imperialist flunky Kamala Harris, and now the Democrats & corporate media are looking forward to working with Trump in attacking the working class. On that, they are always united.

For real artists, the art is about the art. It’s not a vehicle to make money or a pathway to “stardom”. It’s about what you put into it and how it affects people– including yourself. It was fun to make this music, and certainly worthwhile, but when you’re all out of songs and no one in control will let you have the stage, then you move on to something else. That’s what I’ve done.

The music still lives, and that’s the point. As long as people care about music, film & art, it will live on. I had ideas I needed to express to the world in musical form and I hope it will inspire listeners & fans to do the same in their own creative way. That’s all an artist can do.

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CIA-backed Al-Qaeda terrorist militia overthrows Syrian government

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An open conflict with Syria broke out in March 2011, with the US-imperialist objective being the overthrow of president Bashar Assad for his “crime” of having a favorable relationship with Russia. That goal has now been achieved with widespread reports that President Bashar Assad has fled Damascus and left the country.

A CIA-backed shock offensive that began on November 27, quickly swept through Syria as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist militias took the northern city of Aleppo, then the central city of Hama, and finally surrounded Damascus forcing Assad to flee for his life. The Syrian Army melted away, and offered little resistance to the CIA-backed terrorists.

Police headquarters in Damascus was apparently abandoned, with no officers. The Damascus airport has been evacuated and all flights cancelled. Popular support for Assad had eroded to the point where no one would defend him anymore, and with no organized working class resistance, this allowed imperialist-funded Islamic terrorists to take over the Syrian government in a 10-day military offensive.

Note that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are referred to as the “rebel opposition” in western propaganda. HTS controlled much of northwest Syria throughout the conflict, and in 2017 set up the Syrian Salvation Government in political opposition to Assad. HTS used this CIA-backed political cutout to run day-to-day affairs in the region which included stealing Syria’s oil and terrorizing its population.

According to propaganda reports, “HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought in recent years to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaida, ditching hard-line officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance.”

US imperialism accepts this hogwash entirely as truth, as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that the United States should avoid engaging militarily in Syria. Separately, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration had no intention of intervening there, presumably since the CIA had already done the job.

Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a top ally of US imperialism in the Middle East, criticized Assad for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems, stating “Assad didn’t seize this opportunity to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people.”

Bashar Assad threw in his lot with Vladimir Putin long ago, and now he is a president in exile. All this conflict in Syria is just another expanding front of the initial stages of WWIII. Joe Biden’s provocation & escalation of his NATO-led proxy war using Ukraine to fight Russia weakened external support for Assad in Syria. Imperialist backing of IDF genocide in Gaza, along with Israeli military aggression against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and also Iran, has put the Middle East on a knife’s edge.

Trump is only preparing for an escalation of all this, particularly by bringing China into the global conflict. The trade tariffs Trump is threatening are direct attacks on foreign national economies, and with be met with sharp responses. China has already banned the export of critical rare earth & hard metals, vital for computer chips & AI technology.

The truth is, there are no “Made in America” products anymore. Everything you buy & consume is produced by a globalized economy. Inputs & resources come from all over the world, and products are manufactured & assembled, then shipped across the seas to markets all over the world. Inflation will only get worse under a trade tariff regime and violent conflicts will only increase. The threat of nuclear Armageddon is very real, yet it is being minimized & ignored in all political discussions.

No bourgeois political in the world has a plan for peace, much less prosperity for the working masses. All they have are bankrupt ideologies & empty slogans, backed by a corporate-military-intelligence complex that rules the world as an untouchable class of elites. This billionaire class supports fascism, which is why Trump won on November 5.

The only political force that can stop fascism is an internationally united working class armed with a revolutionary socialist program. Political censorship is here to stay and it’s only getting worse. If the American working class doesn’t organize a resistance to domestic fascism, then we will eventually suffer the same fate as the people of Syria.

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