By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - Song - Review
LITERARY UN GATE, Jan 25 -- Kurt Wheelock began by asking questions, as he had all the way back to his days covering housing or the lack of it in the South Bronx. Why were so many buildings abandoned? In this case, why was the United Nations even more hypocritical than usual, when it came to China?
There was more than enough other work to do. Ten days before the Genocide Games, US political clown figure Michael Avenatti had a second trial starting, for stealing the book advance of his then client, porn star Stormy Daniels. It was a quintessentially American case, all about hype and decay and division. Kurt would of course cover it.
But he got to the courthouse late, when already Stormy's literary agent Lucas Janklow was on the stand as the first witness. Kurt dove right in, live tweeting the direct examination by the prosecutors, how Avenatti had repeatedly told Janklow not to tell Stormy anything about money. This went on until the lunch break.
Then Kurt stopped and emailed his questions to UNSG Guterres and his spokespeople, including :
"On SG Guterres' attendance at the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics a/k/a Genocide Games, please immediately confirm knowledge by the UN of, and SG Guterres' response to, this letter." He linked to a letter by dozens of Uighur and human rights groups. Then he took his laptop out into the courthouse fire stairs to watch the UN noon briefing, to see if his question would get answered.
Things were even worse than usual. Stephane Dujarric came in late and cracked jokes with his state media favorites, from Qatar and Turkey. The Chinese state media, Dujarric treated more solemnly, as if they were diplomats. Dujarric had given a rate questions to Dujarric, only last week, to China Central Television, which had first gotten Guterres to gush about the Genocide Games.
Then Guterres had delivered a quote against what CCTV called America's trade war. It was a one-two punch with the UN's flaccid nightstick.
Today there was no mention of the Uighurs' open letter, which concluded "as the highest representative of the UN, your attendance will be seen as credence to China’s blatant disregard for international human rights laws and serve to embolden the actions of the Chinese authorities. We therefore urge you to reconsider your decision to attend the 2022 Beijing Winter Games."
Fat chance of that, under Fat Tony. But Spokesman Dujarric did brag that Guterres would leave in the "middle of next week" - February 2? - and would go "to Korea and then taking a plane to Beijing and then flying out commercially out of Beijing." So the plane to Beijing would not be commercial.
Kurt asked, if only to himself: A CCP private jet like UN briber Ng Lap Seng, or Patrick Ho?
Ng Lap Seng, a CCP member from Macau, had been sentenced to four years but then lobbied to get out early due to COVID in the jails. The irony was not lost on Kurt, but the SDNY judge bought into it. There were letters of support from the same rented family members who had attended the trial on SDNY Courtroom 110.
Ng had been released and was immediately flown back to China in a private jet, as the Huawei heiress later would be. Patick Ho upon his release was also quickly spirited away. Ho had been a pro-mainland bigwig in Hong Kong prior to coming to New York to bribe the UN. Now he returned to the reconquered Hong Kong as a hero.
Meanwhile his boss Ye Jianming, who had moved from the diamond to Hunter Biden to being an adviser to the Czech president, was nowhere to be seen, like a certain tennis player. In Xi's China you could just disappear.
In Guterres' UN, they just didn't let you in, and ignored all of your questions. In Kurt's case he was put on the photo array of crazies, to not be let in at any gate even with an invite from a member state. And those were less and less frequent. Guterres and China had gotten the word out. Like a journalist from Taiwan, there would be no entry.
During the Genocide Games, Guterres would be "in the loop" and would, Dujarric said, meet with Xi Jin Ping. No one they let into the UN briefing room asked, Will Guterres bring up Xinjiang? They would just take the canned press releases, like the ones PGA Abdulla Shahid was now sending out via Paulina Kubiak from Bahrain, and run then as news.
Here at the SDNY courthouse things were more chaotic. When the Avenatti trial day ended, with his Federal Defender grilling the literary agent Janklow about his sexist jokes about Stormy-the-stripper, Kurt went out onto Worth Street with the other journalists, to wait for Avenatti's exit.
There were cameramen, both video and still but yes, all male, waiting in front of the courthouse. One of them greeted Kurt and said, Will I ever see you back in the UN noon briefing? It didn't seem like it. Kurt launched a live stream and zeroed in when Avenatti came out, after his three Federal Defenders. The scrum followed Avenatti west to Foley Square, while he talked trash about Michael Cohen.
Kurt asked Avenatti what he'd thought of Janklow's testimony, had it been truthful, how CNN's Anderson Cooper introduced Avenatti to Janklow to strike the book deals. This, Avenatti didn't answer.
Perhaps he recognized Kurt from having tried to get his financial affidavit unsealed and partially succeeding. Kurt had then exposed COVID-relief PPP loans Avenatti was linked to, while he lined up for free lawyers. Avenatti had DM-ed him on Twitter then stopped. It was another war but one that was fine with Kurt.
He turned back into the courthouse and caught the tail end of the trial day in the opioids prosecution of Larry Doud of Rochester Drug Co-operative. It too had a China link, with the fentanyl that China flooded the US with. If this had happened earlier when Kurt was young, would he too have OD-ed? Probably.
Having life, you had to use it. Kurt wrote a song, Genocide Games of Guterres, and put some open source video with it, two minutes and twenty second, the Twitter maximum at least for his account. Then he uploaded it to YouTube too and quickly got a message that it would be demonetized, as having "inappropriate" content. Inappropriate to whom? #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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