This is a thinking person. She recognizes the crumb Biden threw to Black voters, and she sees the manipulation. Absolutely Free Black Thought. Well done.
The Biden regime cares only about optics. This is one of many decisions that hurt black lives, yet Dems still win 90% of the black vote. LBJ was prophetic with his remakes about the welfare state...
I admire your contrarian approach but in Aug 22 Biden signed a $3Billion sale of missiles to Saudi, who have been slaughtering people in Yemen, I would encourage you to actually watch Lord of War where the core message is that there’s a “legal” arms trade too which results in the same atrocities you’ve put on Bout’s hands. I’m very happy for Griner’s loved ones seeing her back home safe, Bout’s business continued on whether in jail or not by legal or illegal means with many rich states actively involved in arms trading.
I agree with this. One reason the Russians have little respect for our moralising and our positions is that we profit massively from arms and use these sales for our own influence - we means US and its allies inc. UK, where I am
Thanks for the informative article. No doubt Bout will have agreed to repay the Kremlin by getting them as many weapons as possible to keep bombarding Ukrainian civilians and their essential infrastructure, not to mention continuing the African conflicts that the Wagner group are waging for Putin. A brilliant outcome for Putin and the Russian war machine.
Until reason and objectivity become the coin of the realm injustices like this will be the norm. Might I suggest that we take the attitude the Romans used to take - that any society that harmed one of their citizens would pay a thousand fold in return. You want to lock up Britney Griner for nonsense, we take out a thousand of your people starting with Vladimir Putin. This would end this kind of thing immediately, not to mention turning enemies into good friends. Look what 2 atomic bombs did to our relationship with Japan.
That kind of rough justice has a long history including with the USA and its allies since WW2. The problem is "collateral damage" i.e. innocent people killed just for being in the vicinity of the bad guys, which has happened on countless occasions in recent decades e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Israeli-occupied territories. As well as being gross injustices, they have fuelled revenge attacks and a cycle of violence.
I appreciate knowing the truth. Thank you for refreshing my memory of the how this man profited from and enabled these horrific atrocities and bloodshed. I grieve for the children and pray for their future. Education and awareness is the key to changing hearts and minds.
The deal will also make it more risky for black, gay, wealthy and/or high profile Americans (inc. Russian/Americans) to visit Russia in future. Planting a small amount of cannabis on passengers during questioning must be pretty easy.
Well-done. If only more folk would look through the obvious manipulations (often based on identity) and start thinking about costs and tradeoffs we'd be far better off. Grand "we", as in everyone.
Well put sister. And we should further understand there is a reason the US agreed to free Viktor Bout. And it ain’t because they care about Brittney Griner. White power can always find common ground when it comes to those committed to destroying Black life.
I would say it's not about black or white. The article says: "Bout wasn’t necessarily driven by racism, ideology, or any deep philosophy. Dealing weaponry was simply lucrative." His Wikipedia bio shows him linked to Gaddafi in Libya, delivering arms to Kenya used against an Israeli airliner, and supplying arms for Bosnia to use against Serbia. Putin's current priority is to kill Ukrainians. Brittney Griner's exchange for Bout is bad for everyone.
I bet you if he had dealt weapons to conflicts resulting in millions of dead White people, he wouldn’t have been exchanged...certainly not for an athlete. Would you take that bet?
I accept that most of the people in the world's most war-torn and poor countries are black and that this is partly a legacy of slavery and colonialism. But I don't agree with your point here.
The evidence seems to be that Mr Bout trades weapons that kill people in large numbers, both black and white. I would imagine that Putin's regime is one of his main clients, and that Mr Bout's next assignment will be to get more weapons to kill more Ukrainians, who are white. Biden surely knows this better than me.
We can expect Biden to have been briefed on the fallout of this decision before he took it. We can expect that the Ukrainian govt will have some hard words for Biden in private, not to mention western allies and even his own intel agencies, who would have worked hard for many years to get Bout jailed.
I think he's a cynical politician who knows the cost of his decision. Notice how the details of the exchange seeped out some weeks after Griner's release. I don't think that's an accident. Perhaps the US media are complicit too, in giving a low profile to this news.
I can’t otherwise see them exchanging someone who caused the death of millions, for someone who possessed a small amount of marijuana. Are you saying you do?
Victor Bout dealt arms to FARC the cite of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's fictional representations and of Roundup-ready Plan Columbia. He was instrumental in protecting the Columbian people and an anti-imperialist par extraordinaire!
I find that we would be much better off as a society, if my people were allowed, too, to speak with such candor of out interests. Only then could we find overlap without having to doubt each other's intentions.
This is a thinking person. She recognizes the crumb Biden threw to Black voters, and she sees the manipulation. Absolutely Free Black Thought. Well done.
The Biden regime cares only about optics. This is one of many decisions that hurt black lives, yet Dems still win 90% of the black vote. LBJ was prophetic with his remakes about the welfare state...
Yes indeed. Nice to see an article on here written by a Black person
In my view, and I'm sure the view of many others, the most racist people are those trying to "help" black people.
I admire your contrarian approach but in Aug 22 Biden signed a $3Billion sale of missiles to Saudi, who have been slaughtering people in Yemen, I would encourage you to actually watch Lord of War where the core message is that there’s a “legal” arms trade too which results in the same atrocities you’ve put on Bout’s hands. I’m very happy for Griner’s loved ones seeing her back home safe, Bout’s business continued on whether in jail or not by legal or illegal means with many rich states actively involved in arms trading.
I agree with this. One reason the Russians have little respect for our moralising and our positions is that we profit massively from arms and use these sales for our own influence - we means US and its allies inc. UK, where I am
Thanks for the informative article. No doubt Bout will have agreed to repay the Kremlin by getting them as many weapons as possible to keep bombarding Ukrainian civilians and their essential infrastructure, not to mention continuing the African conflicts that the Wagner group are waging for Putin. A brilliant outcome for Putin and the Russian war machine.
Seemed an absurdly bad trade on the face of it but I am well-and-truly horrified now that I have read this piece...
Thank You for writing and publishing this.
Until reason and objectivity become the coin of the realm injustices like this will be the norm. Might I suggest that we take the attitude the Romans used to take - that any society that harmed one of their citizens would pay a thousand fold in return. You want to lock up Britney Griner for nonsense, we take out a thousand of your people starting with Vladimir Putin. This would end this kind of thing immediately, not to mention turning enemies into good friends. Look what 2 atomic bombs did to our relationship with Japan.
That kind of rough justice has a long history including with the USA and its allies since WW2. The problem is "collateral damage" i.e. innocent people killed just for being in the vicinity of the bad guys, which has happened on countless occasions in recent decades e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Israeli-occupied territories. As well as being gross injustices, they have fuelled revenge attacks and a cycle of violence.
I appreciate knowing the truth. Thank you for refreshing my memory of the how this man profited from and enabled these horrific atrocities and bloodshed. I grieve for the children and pray for their future. Education and awareness is the key to changing hearts and minds.
The deal will also make it more risky for black, gay, wealthy and/or high profile Americans (inc. Russian/Americans) to visit Russia in future. Planting a small amount of cannabis on passengers during questioning must be pretty easy.
Thank you, Connie. This is an important piece and an important moment in our nation.
Well-done. If only more folk would look through the obvious manipulations (often based on identity) and start thinking about costs and tradeoffs we'd be far better off. Grand "we", as in everyone.
Well put sister. And we should further understand there is a reason the US agreed to free Viktor Bout. And it ain’t because they care about Brittney Griner. White power can always find common ground when it comes to those committed to destroying Black life.
I would say it's not about black or white. The article says: "Bout wasn’t necessarily driven by racism, ideology, or any deep philosophy. Dealing weaponry was simply lucrative." His Wikipedia bio shows him linked to Gaddafi in Libya, delivering arms to Kenya used against an Israeli airliner, and supplying arms for Bosnia to use against Serbia. Putin's current priority is to kill Ukrainians. Brittney Griner's exchange for Bout is bad for everyone.
Glad you wouldn’t say that.
I bet you if he had dealt weapons to conflicts resulting in millions of dead White people, he wouldn’t have been exchanged...certainly not for an athlete. Would you take that bet?
I accept that most of the people in the world's most war-torn and poor countries are black and that this is partly a legacy of slavery and colonialism. But I don't agree with your point here.
The evidence seems to be that Mr Bout trades weapons that kill people in large numbers, both black and white. I would imagine that Putin's regime is one of his main clients, and that Mr Bout's next assignment will be to get more weapons to kill more Ukrainians, who are white. Biden surely knows this better than me.
We can expect Biden to have been briefed on the fallout of this decision before he took it. We can expect that the Ukrainian govt will have some hard words for Biden in private, not to mention western allies and even his own intel agencies, who would have worked hard for many years to get Bout jailed.
Ah...so you are saying that Biden doesn’t care about Ukrainians as much as the Administration wants y’all the people to care for Ukrainians?
I think he's a cynical politician who knows the cost of his decision. Notice how the details of the exchange seeped out some weeks after Griner's release. I don't think that's an accident. Perhaps the US media are complicit too, in giving a low profile to this news.
I can’t otherwise see them exchanging someone who caused the death of millions, for someone who possessed a small amount of marijuana. Are you saying you do?
Victor Bout dealt arms to FARC the cite of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's fictional representations and of Roundup-ready Plan Columbia. He was instrumental in protecting the Columbian people and an anti-imperialist par extraordinaire!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout
I wonder how many people pushing for Bout's release read the Wikipedia article on him?
I find that we would be much better off as a society, if my people were allowed, too, to speak with such candor of out interests. Only then could we find overlap without having to doubt each other's intentions.
Great digging shows up flaccid, reflexive thinking in the black media.
Framing it this way is insane frankly.