By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - Song - Review
LITERARY UN GATE, Feb 2 -- Two days before the Genocide Games opened, everything was being done to lightly name check but not focus on them, at least in the US and UN - including by USUN, the US Mission.
Guterres, it was announced at the last minute, would do a stakeout (about Ethiopia, apparently the conflict he thought he could be less blamed for, or the one speaking about which least angered China). Farhan Haq told the friendly room of scribes he had assembled that Guterres would not be taking any questions.
The goal, as usual with Guterres, was to do a rare faux-media hit just before he disappeared on travel, so that the few paying attention would assume he was still at work, and not flying half way around the globe to suck up to genocide.
Predictably, two softball questions were lobbed at his, with one "off topic" question being about Guinea Bissau, a former Portuguese colony that Portuguese colonist Guterres could manage to feign passion about. Nothing about the Genocide Olympics.
But then one of the more cynical of Tony's scribes, from Foreign Policy, came out with a double suck-up. He alleged, with unnamed sources, that the US Ambassador had urged - where? - Guterres not to go to the Genocide Games.
Then, as a swipe back, he reported that Guterres said No, he had already angered China by attending some Democracy meeting at which a minister from Taiwan dared to appear.
It did not mention that Guterres blocked all journalists from Taiwan from even entering the UN, and had ordered roughed up and banned the Press which asked about Guterres' omission in disclosures of his link to Chinese bribes. This was the state of UN reporting, in the long run up to the Genocide Games of Guterres.
Bigger picture, a poll came out that most Americans agreed with a boycott of China's Genocide Games - and most of those that didn't, it was because they'd never heard of the boycott. It had been quietly announced in Washington and then drowned out with other rumbling, other faux priorities. It was the ultimate in phoning it in. Taiwan got sold out; the Uighurs were a bargaining chip. Somewhere in the closed loop Xi and Big Tony were laughing -- socially distanced, perhaps, but laughing.
In the SDNY, Avenatti was no longer laughing. On Friday he had told Kurt that he would be having a beer, and not no comment on his jibe at Sean Macias about coke and pot. By Tuesday, after Judge Furman shot down most of his witnesses and his quantum meruit (how much was the work worth) argument, Avenatti was saying robot-like, I never want to anger you, Your Honor.
This time after live tweeting the charging conference, Kurt ran straight down to Worth Street, and did manage to catch Avenatti coming out. There were fewer print reporters competing for walking questions today, mostly camera people looking for saleable footage of the walking Avenatti. So what to ask him?
There was a strange comment by Judge Furman about a woman in the back row of the courtroom asking about jurors, with a business card that said NYS court and not SDNY. Bizarre, Avenatti said when Kurt asked. After silent walking and no one else asking, Kurt tried a second question, prefacing it with "I hate to ask this, but."
(Later a true believer would call him a sell-out for saying that, or leaving it in the video)
"If you are convicted, do you expect the US Attorney's Office to ask for remand?" Avenatti didn't answer, and Kurt could understand why. Maybe it was ghoulish. Only today he'd also live tweeted, during a lull in the charging conference, a proceeding in which a man in the MDC without legal visits, losing his mind, told an SDNY judge to service his private equipment, "Y'all ain't doin' nothing for me."
Some readers thought it was funny, the thread of the year. Others said it was sad, and it was. Kurt didn't label it one way of the other. Call it impartiality, at least on this. It was what it was. GenocideGamesOfGuterres.
From January 21, 2022: UNSG Antonio Guterres: This visit to the Olympics is not a political visit. We consider that the Olympic Games are an extremely important manifestation in today's world of the possibility of unity, of the possibility of mutual respect, of the possibility of cooperation, of peoples of different cultures, of different religions, of different ethnicities. And this is more important than ever when we see xenophobia, when we see racism, when we see white supremacy, when we see anti‑Semitism, when we see anti‑Muslim hatred proliferating all over the world... That is the reason why I am going to the Olympic Games. And it has nothing to do with my opinions about the different policies that take place in the People's Republic of China.
Spokesman Dujarric: Okay, sir, I think you're then off the hook.
Will Guterres be taking his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed, supportive of the killing and targeted detentions perpetrated by Buhari of Nigeria? See, Identity Thieves - and, forthcoming, Genocide Games of Guterres. For now, Belt and Roadkill.
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