O.K. class, show of hands…who here would like to give this woman, the right to shut the fuck up?
I’m glad someone caught this numbskull on video being a world class schitt-stain on humanity. The fact that she really thinks she has “a point”, is the scary part of this clip.
This, I can assure you is the kind of catty lippy schitt that I associate mainly with “assholes“… who are very delusional.
If she listened to this man, instead of reacting to the fact that he has an accent, an opposing viewpoint, and is Jewish,she might gain some perspective.
Instead she’d rather remove him from the rational point he’s making, and emotionally draw him into the very irrational bullschitt she represents thoroughly.
Well, Pamela Pilger (that schitt-stain of a woman in the video), You are what’s wrong with America.
Your idea of this country is based in and of the same divisive/über-capitalist fuckery that has driven this country into a confusing standstill flecked with bubbles that boom and burst, at the will of whom?
Whomever it is, you Pamela Pilger…want to be on their team so bad, you think you can taste it. Unfortunately it’s only the bile from your reptillian guts mixed with your Fox News cud, and that pinch of SKOAL ® stuck in your flappy jowls.
Understand folks, file this under “Illusion of Inclusion 101“, or “The Motherfucking Okey-Doke“.
Ma Kettle here is afraid that :
a.) The Niggers are taking over
b.) The Niggers are gonna get all the good seats & special favors that she (not even her wack ass husband with 3 jobs) is entitled to.
c.)It’s her tax money, Mexicans will buy exotic seat covers with it and drive around high on Oxy-Contin that is rightfully hers.
d.)Illegal Mexicans,Niggers & Liberals just want to have anal sex with you and your family during the inevitable home invasion.
e.)The sky is falling and it’s Obama’s fault.
I’d like her to explain this tedious and bloody Iraq war with my brother (U.S. Army,preparing for his 4thtour of duty).
I’d like her to explain to me why Wall Street got bailed out with taxpayer money, and why the U.S. government should step in and suggest and assist the Automakers in Detroit should try harder to make a car that can actually compete with import autos.
I’d like her to explain where the fuck all the jobs went? And who’s big idea was that? Obama? Liberals? Jew-media? Welfare Mothers (the lazy black ones)?
Then I need her to take a sock in the face from that Israeli guy (she had balls when she said that stupid ass “Hitler” schitt…he should be allowed to kick her in the ovaries).
What we know/What to do about it:
There are a lot of stupid bastards out there,strength in numbers is a fallacy (when dealing with stupid bastards). Stupid bastards only act out of fear/greed.
One rational thinking human being with a soul can elevate up to 20 stupid bastards into functionality,recidivism rates are high,but we must be dilligent if we are to have any reform.
This is bigger than partisan politics,race,religion or creed. This is the real us vs. them, and we must maintain focus…can you imagine how stupid these stupid bastards will be if they don’t manage to kill us all?
Georgia Anne Muldrow's Umsindo available now on SomeOthaShip
Sing my song,sister….
As long as I’ve waited for a Georgia Anne Muldrow type of artist, a young L.A. woman who has quietly been ushering in a true post Hip-Hop sound that is equal parts free expression and equal parts of the same stuff that gave Roger Troutman “more bounce to the ounce” I found myself on the fence until I learned a few things about Georgia Anne Muldrow and ultimately myself.
For one, in the words of the ancients “Why waste time on the microphone?” , I totally admire this woman’s guts & soul…anyone who can make you think of Chaka Khan one second then shift that schitt into Albert Ayler-ville without batting an eyelash or apologizing, is not wasting time on the mic, she’s blazing a trail that is serving up increments of relief from a generation of cooing, over-sexed, commodified moto-bots.
She wrote a song called “Master Teacher” that resonated out of her soul and mysteriously (like without her knowledge) onto Erykah Badu’s 2008 release New Amerykah.
And again this year The Ecstatic MC Mighty Mos Def himself swagger jacked & karaoke’d himself into Georgia’s soulful matrix by adding himself to her song “Roses”, and adding it to his album.
Eugene McDaniels is on line one for you Georgia, I hope the publishing and points has righted those wrongs for you. After reading this interview I’m making a point to spend some time with your latest release Umsindo.
Interview by Chris Ziegler (mobbed from the LA Record.com)
Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins left Stones Throw to do their own work and to teach and meditate in the mountains. They prepare now to release a solo album each—both produced by Georgia—on the same day this month on SomeOthaShip, and they speak from their home in Inglewood about war, love, power and Michael Jackson.
How did you two make so much music all at once? Soul power, man. Yeah. That much. Soul power, man. Do you think this is the most creative time in your life? I’d have to say so. It feels great. I feel like I’m the most creative because I have a new baby. It doesn’t really get better than that. That’s the best creation ever. I’m very inspired and it means a lot to me to be a relevant artist in the sense that there’s a lot of things going on that need to be addressed—that’s what keeps me inspired and that’s what keeps me going. I never run out of material. What’s something that inspires you instantly? That always makes you want to work? The children. Children and war and how they have to handle the effects of that. I think about this planet. I think about my people. I think about Africa. I think about a lot of different things and I never run out of things to say about it. I think about developing minds and that’s my main thing—developing minds. They have to pay for our mistakes. The things that we make with each other—like how to maintain clean water and air and things like that—they have to find a way to pay for that. They have to find a way to fix it. We’re trying to find a way to fix it. Every generation we hope is the one that’s going to fix it. But it takes more than just one generation to fix the problems and it’s a serious thing that stays in my mind because I’m not like an engineer or something like that—I have to go to the fullest capacity that I have in the chemistry of music and that’s what I do. That’s my inspiration. I don’t do a lot of night club gigs anymore because I’m home but I use that to my advantage and I have a lot of records out. Some people have said your work is overwhelming—shouldn’t music be overwhelming sometimes? I guess that’s better than being underwhelmed. I don’t know. I think that sometimes that some people are so keyed in and pre-programmed for a certain thing. Pre-programmed as far as tuning and all that stuff—I have a more indigenous approach to music. I do it digitally, but it’s a very much indigenous approach. I don’t deal with European tuning—sometimes that can jolt somebody’s system because they are so into it. And now in the realm of autotune—it’s very colonial right now as far as the attempt to wipe out people’s unique soul expressions. It’s like a new slave age in terms of androids and that kind of sound and that kind of mentality. As a result you’ve got something that’s called ‘business music.’ What do you mean by that? Business music—music that you do your business to. People are doing business by making a certain sound that corporations can support, instead of the corporations supporting the music that needs to be out. So you have a switcheroo there. It’s only a matter of time before people would start sounding like androids because after a while they actually will be androids. I’ve even seen that. I’ve seen a robot that can play ‘Giant Steps’ and that kind of scared me. I’m serious. But I do more organic stuff. I don’t think it’s really that hard to think the way that I think. What is the way that you think? I think it’s just to think with love and not to think from the self—being selfish. Music is something that can affect people all over the world and can always make people dance—why are you not going to use that for something positive? You’re going to use it to go over your own shit. And that’s not what I’m about because as an African woman I understand my duty to music—I’m the inventor of music. That’s my role on this planet. I’m born into that role. My heartbeat is the very first instrument of the human experience that anyone gets to hear. So it’s like I have to be true—that’s the way that I think. I have to be true to that model and I’m not saying you should think like me but to me logical. It’s natural. I don’t know how to explain it—it’s actually insane. It’s actually the lack of logic. Pop culture—I think it’s anti-human. I think it’s anti-Earth. I think you have to forsake your own self and the more you can forsake your own self, the more you will be successful. It’s crazy because that natural talent, that’s what the people will see—but you have to forsake so much of yourself to get there. Think about Michael Jackson—like a pure angel. A beautiful, beautiful musician. A unique talent. But look how much he had to forsake himself in order to be who he is. Was there a time when you didn’t feel this way? Absolutely. Growing up—you know what I’m saying? There came a time when I was really not impressed or thankful for the life I had and I was going on autopilot and not taking my life seriously because it was like—‘Don’t take it so serious!’ And then you end up not taking life seriously and it becomes a joke. Well, I didn’t get here by myself. I wasn’t a joke in my mother’s womb. These trees that grow, they’re not a joke—we need them. These birds that fly around, it’s not no joke—the clouds ain’t no joke. Then how come when it comes to somebody making music that actually has the capacity to heal themselves first and then the world community—why does it have to be a joke? That’s what makes me upset. I see black music being co-opted as a joke and everything is half-serious when we are dying right now—and we are dying as far as truly dying as well. We are having a cultural death—a physical death and I’m seeing that. And I’m seeing how these people just play into the hands of these leeches that will profit off of our death so that they can co-author it and call it whatever they want. When I think about pop culture and I see what pop is, it’s like—what is pop? It ain’t nothing. It’s R&B, rock ‘n’ roll—all of our black expressions get co-opted into pop and we can’t be there. It gets co-opted so that we can’t be there. Heavy metal. Heavy metal ain’t nothing but Parliament. You see that—the boots, the black, the growling—all that is Parliament. It’s funk. But they have to turn it into heavy metal so that people can be counted out and so that people can be put in a dangerous situation if they choose to support certain events. It’s very much ignorant what’s happening right now. And that’s my inspiration. I have to be the solution to that because it doesn’t make no sense. How do you and Dudley hope to stand against this? I don’t know. I think we have to have a deep love to tolerate it in the way that we do but seriously, the power of this world is going to have to be returned to the right place. If it’s not then we are not going to have nothing. The powers of this world have to be returned to the people who care for it. It can’t be to the people who can hurt the most people—it has to be to the people who are interested in its flourishment. It can’t be how it is and that’s what my music is for—it’s for returning the power to the people who love this planet truly. And it’s for the planet itself because I really do know the power of sound. I really do understand the power of music. I’ve understood it since I was a child. I just knew in my heart that you have power and when utilized correctly people can actually break through barriers that are making it hard to love their people. Because right now I look at society—I’m looking at somebody taking out their trash right now, Like we have trash cans? What the hell? I know that seems little but we really do think that we throw out the trash and it disappears. We really think that shit. And the methods of disposal are from the 1700s—just put it in a pile. They got mountains in Europe that ain’t really mountains. They got mountains in Europe that are just trash. There’s a whole long way for us to go. And if I just thought about things that are minute—because that’s minute of a level—I’m not even talking about how there is a war going on against black people all over the world all the time. People don’t understand that. They try to talk about black history and this and that but nobody notices how everyone is getting cheated out of the true history of this planet by not knowing about our true contributions to this planet. Everybody gets cheated by not knowing our contributions and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to contribute because if I just sit down and really look at what’s happening and think about it, I’ll really feel very unhappy because I’ll get all this input but I won’t get any solution. There won’t be any output for the input I’m receiving—there’s no conversion. That’s why I make so much music all the time—because that’s how deep I feel this. And I don’t feel like it’s going to be over ‘til it’s over and really that’s the truth. People get caught up in some spook that’s gonna save us all or end it all and it’s not going to be neither! It’s gonna be us and it’s us only. There’s no other shit happening. So if I can write a song that says ‘I pray one day you’ll find everything within’ and that’s all I have to say, then that’s what I do. I really have devoted my life—because I know we are in a war—to be a warrior. It’s on a sonic level. It’s a sonic war and I’m playing a part in it. It’s like when they said what they said with Uncle Jam’s Army and George Clinton—rescue dance music from the blahs, and right now the blahs are winning. The blahs are running the whole ship. How did that happen? I think it happened because it’s all military. I think when people think outside of that, it becomes confusing. But when you understand the history of oppression even on a surface level, it becomes very clear as to why somebody would want to rob music and rob the power of music and invest in destructive music. You will see why. People kill each other. People love money—it becomes their god. People talk about ‘secular’ meaning devoid of religion but I really think the opposite—I think secularism is a hidden religion and I think that if you say, ‘I’m a secular person and I go to the club and I go to the club and I wear my high heels and I put this weave in and I only listen to songs that talk about throwing up on people I hate or whatever to be cool and hip and following this trend or whatever…’ and I don’t know what’s happening right now in L.A. but it’s very strange. That’s a religion—that’s a hidden religion. Maybelline is a church because that’s coming from ritual make-up—they call it your morning ritual. They call it that. When you put on your make-up, that’s the same as putting on ceremonial paint, so a lot of my sisters over here are getting caught up in the ceremony so they gotta have music to go with that ritual and then you have the club. Where they talk about disunity and hurting somebody else—talking about how this man is no good and all this other stuff and then we wonder why, ‘Oh, I can’t find no man!’ It’s like—what? We don’t know how powerful we are. And how these cell phones—the crystals in these cell phones are mimicking what our brain has in it. Radios are mimicking our body structure. So we’re behind right now because we’re talking on a cell phone. Jon Langford from the Mekons quotes John Peel saying ‘society dehumanizes from the top down.’ Does that happen within music too? You know, I understand that. We’re copying the first niggers who was. The first niggers like Andrew Jackson—you know what I’m saying? That was the first nigger. George Washington and all them. Whoever sold the first slave boat to take my people away from where they belong. Yeah, we’re copying them—anybody who thinks that we can take other people’s hard-earned resources and call it theirs and be happy about it is a definite copycat of the forefathers of this nation. I absolutely agree with that. And I believe that change starts from the bottom up—ain’t no change happening from the top down. I feel like it’s déjà vu—Jesse Jackson or something—ain’t no change happening like that and everybody knows it. It’s really not popping like that—change has to happen—this shit has gotta get burned down. And that’s straight up. Shit’s gotta get burned down. The White House has gotta be turned—it’s called the ‘White’ House, you know? Shit is messed up. Do you think you and Dudley are starting that? We aren’t the only ones—there’s a lot of people who ain’t even musicians who dedicate their lives to our liberation. There’s a whole lot of people with different philosophies on that—we’re just trying to find the best solution so that we can just slide into a world without ignorance. Ignoring the beauty of our natural faculties—there’s a lot of different people. We didn’t start it—we’re just a part of it. A lot of the times it goes over peoples heads so I don’t know—if they ain’t ready, they ain’t ready, but I can give a hell about somebody who isn’t ready. My music is for the people who’ve already been living through some type of form of rebellion. My music—you can crip walk to it. Somebody who is already living as a warrior. I’m not asking you to change yourself, I’m not asking you to be rich, I’m not asking you to be mad—all we’re asking is to turn within and get the movement popping from the inside out so that we can just really come together and unite. Just clean up house on the inside so that everybody can unite. That’s the whole thing—it’s a process man and I think the process has already taken too damn long. How do you feel you fit into music in L.A.? There’s a lot of people with me—I can’t just say L.A. L.A. is like so small—I’m from L.A., but I know L.A. is only going to go as far as it can go. But who I am excited about in L.A. are the people who keep it real with their expressions. I know people who are trying to do this ‘80s bullshit and all that—I’m talking about the people who keep it real with who they are and their expressions and their timeless expressions and know what time it is. They have a revolutionary standpoint on where it is they’re coming from. Because really that’s all we have to talk about, really. I’m trying but I feel it so much—man, it’s just this is what needs to happen, and it feels like sometimes artists get caught up in the ego structure of a review how somebody else thinks of their music—but they know where they were at when they did it. There definitely need to be more who are not afraid to be themselves and try out new territory. You said pop is a joke—do you think people joke because they’re afraid? What are they afraid of? They’re afraid of being alone. That’s why people are afraid of dying—it’s not the death, it’s being alone. But isn’t music the exact way to not be alone? That’s the thing—fear don’t make no sense. There’s no logic in fear. That’s why it doesn’t work. How have you learned to deal with fear in your own life? By woman-ing up. I read at one point you almost gave up making music—why? It’s like I said earlier. When you don’t understand why you are feeling certain feelings and there is all this stuff that you can’t describe but you know that you’re being attacked—you can’t really describe it in words. I didn’t really understand where I was in this country—really getting back to the fundamentals of how I got here. That’s what I was feeling—why am I here? Muldrow ain’t my original name—why it ain’t my name? That’s not my name, Chris—that’s not my name! That’s somebody else’s name. You know what Muldrow means? It means mulled row—like mulled—like a row of dirt—that’s my name and that’s what I was feeling. That’s why I felt like I didn’t want to do music any more. That’s why I felt like that. Because I know that I’m not going to be this industry standard—I’m too real for that and I can’t do that and I can’t put on a wig and sell out like that. I can’t do that and that’s what it’s all about. That’s the whole thing. So if it’s war, it’s a decision to be a warrior? And some people decide against it when they’re faced with that and they have to pay. You have to pay with your life either way—you’re either going to have courage or fear and I felt like, ‘You know what? I’m not afraid of nothing—I’m not afraid of dying so I’d rather live my life doing something good.’ Inspiring somebody along the way and dedicating my life to my people—I can’t lose. Did it change your music when you became a mother? Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It really did. Becoming pregnant, the ancestors revealed a lot of things to me. I was in that portal for a long time between life and so-called death and understanding what life is all about. I got some motherhood humanity classes from the ancestors and it showed me what’s really important and what to keep my focus on. I think my stances became stronger and much more—not serious, but urgent. Why? Do you feel time is running out? No. I don’t think there is no time. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in time—time is fake. Time is perceived but it’s not true. You know—the sun goes up, the sun goes down. I don’t know about running out of time. I know that things need to start and things need to end. I know about what don’t work and what do.
What works and what doesn’t? I think what works is being who you truly are without hurting another person. I think it’s the lack of priorities that’s hurting us. Our priorities are not straight. We’re distracted by money and survival but the whole thing about it is if you know who you are it’s much easier to survive. Because there’s a war, okay? There’s a war going on. Dudley said these albums are striking back—what do they strike back against? All European structures of power—all of ‘em. All European styles of authority—all European styles of philosophy—because it’s too new to trust. It’s too new in the game to trust and the simple fact that it’s too modern to trust—not to say that new things aren’t good, but it’s something that does not have experience. Philosophy needs a little bit more testing time. But we live in a place where that is touted as the most ancient form of knowledge, the European mind—and it’s not. It’s actually the most disoriented frame for knowledge because it’s so young. They hit you with that Greek shit like that’s the first thing that ever was. They hit you with the renaissance and classical music and all of this—don’t you know they was painting like that in West Africa way before that? And that’s just to say—no bragging rights—that’s just an example of the minds that were already beyond that. We’re striking out against this whole whitenization—we’re striking out against that because it’s not the way. It’s not the way. If it was the way, I’d be gung ho. But it’s not the way. I see Franklin Roosevelt in the magazine and they’re talking about what Barack can learn from him. I’m like, ‘Homie, he put people in concentration camps—nothing can be learned from him. He was a racist bigoted pork-eating fiend.’ But no, no—he’s one of our greats. ‘His blue eyes penetrated.’ I’m like, ‘No, he didn’t know. He had no reference for knowing and for true knowledge. He could process information but he had no knowing.’ And that’s what I’m saying—we’re striking out against that. Because you know what? We can create something else. We just have to make a decision that something else can be created and that’s what’s going on with my folks right now is that we don’t believe in that. We don’t believe in somebody who knows less than us. I’m not saying that every black person knows everything—no. There’s a whole lot of negroes here that think more white than a white person—there are those people and I cry for them, too, but really honestly, it does come down to that. Because the bombs in Afghanistan, that’s on me. I know who lives there—I’ve done my research. I know who lives in Saudi Arabia. I know the Middle East is just a scam. That’s all Africa. And they just keep bombing—they keep bombing me. That’s me. So that’s what I’m saying. I’ve been to China and I saw myself there, you know? That’s what I’m going up against. Up against this individual fearful mentality. We don’t have to think like that—we have more equipment than that and now everybody got a little something. Everybody got a little something now. There’s a way to not think that way no more. So my music—I know that my music influences thinking. The thought is what creates the blade—I’m attacking it at that finer level. That’s what I’m seeking to do. If I don’t do that, I would have wasted my life expression. And really honestly, I have reincarnated too many times into slavery—I’m tired of it. Ever since I was little, I have had flashbacks of my past life experiences. When I was five years old picking cotton? I don’t think so. That’s not fun. That’s not fun and I’ve had to go through that and sometimes that would get so overwhelming you would want to give up. And yeah, you would want to give up but you know what? Not for long because it’s going drive you insane if you know what you’re really supposed to be doing. So that’s the whole thing—a lot of people don’t really have that reality to deal with but they’re not supposed to. They have to deal with another reality and I’d rather have those flashbacks because then I know that I can, perhaps, provide a solution instead of perpetuating the confusion, and that’s real, you know? Us putting so much faith in people who don’t believe in God, but then they believe in science—in European science. They calling stuff AIDS—they don’t know what it is. They call something a cold—they don’t know what it is but we listen to these people like they have the answer. They don’t know what the flu is—they just want to give you a shot. They want to shoot you. They want to shoot you so they can run tests on you and kill you. Under their supervision. These hospitals be assassinating people and they’ve been doing it for a really long time but until it happens to somebody like Justin Timberlake, they’re not going to be investigated—it’s really not. They gonna be looking at it like, ‘Oh you know…’ But that’s real—they’ve been killing my people for a long time. They’ve experimented on my people a long time. They’re like vampire style. My uncle—they talked about somebody coming every week to collect his blood, and I’m like, ‘He’s out the hospital—you guys are vampires in style? You guys are doing this in style?’ Can you believe Viagra has our brain matter in it? I’m not kidding you. You ever heard of melatonin—the pills? That comes from melanin which comes in a strong concentration in black people—that’s us in there. That’s cannibalism that’s happening right there. But then people don’t want to know the truth because then they have to make a decision. What’s the decision? Courage or fear? What you said. Frontin’. Being real or being fake. So what is the way out? Do you have hope for any solution? Absolutely. If there was no hope then I’d just have a gun and just shoot everybody—I really would. If there wasn’t no hope, I’d just kill ‘em. I’d drop a bomb on Europe if there wasn’t hope. What do you hope for? I don’t have no hope. It’s not like… hope. I have confidence. I’m optimistic. I have confidence in our equipment—in our natural equipment to be reclaimed. And I don’t think everybody is going to make it. So that gives me hope, too—because if it was everyone, then I’d really be sad about it. It ain’t everybody who is going to make it. It’s going to be the people who committed their lives to living in the true spiritual laws that govern this universe. To live in those laws—to live in the truth. And they’ll be fine and that’s the deal. I’m just tired of this dimension repeating itself—it’s getting real old and played out. I’m really not trying to be in this position like this. I’m really not. And the way that I get out of it is this music because I know it can activate another one. Does your music help others get out? Shoot man, you know what? As hardheaded as I am, I’m sure it would. I’m not sure who it is, but if it do then that’s what it’s meant to do because I decided to get myself out of it. I got a long way to go but that’s how I get out of it right there. You did an interview where you said it’s not about who inspires you—it’s about who you inspire. Do you have any sense of who you’ve inspired? The way I see it is—I don’t dwell in that realm too long so that I can keep working. That’s the deal with me. I’m inspired by a whole bunch of things. There’s certain people who have used the music in a way that is magnificent and it makes me know that it’s possible what I’m doing. So you got your Miriam Makebas—there are people who are out there who done dedicated their life to making it real and even though in their lifetime they are not able to witness the complete shift, they have invested their energy so that it could be that much closer. And that’s all that I’m trying to do there. My whole flip on it is that in my lifetime, I’m trying to witness some results—I’m trying to witness that. I’m trying to manifest myself and work my magic so I can have that. This reality is so paper-thin to me and that’s what frustrates me is that it is so paper-thin—and I have been able to witness that. Especially being pregnant. This reality is so thin. If you break through, what’s on the other side? Blackness. Blackness. Someone said John Coltrane’s music contains ‘the things by which the soul of man survives.’ Does that connect to any of this? I love Coltrane. Coltrane helped me. I cried to Coltrane, getting the stuff out. Alice and John. Coltrane inspired me on that making something out of nothing thing. I feel like he’s a school of thought, too—because people loved him and hated him at the same time and the more that he embraced his true essence, the more people turned away from him and I saw that. For me that’s what keeps me inspired—that’s what I tell Dudley about that. I say, ‘Man, if they hated on Coltrane…’ That’s like they want to say about Jesus or whatever but I don’t buy into that. Why do people react to art with that kind of hate? Because we’re in a war. We’re in a war right now. That’s why. You know Bob Dylan got away with murder—do you see what I’m saying? And that’s not to take away from what he got but he got away with murder. If Coltrane can’t live—a straight-up musician during the same time frame—and Dylan gets away with murder? That’s what I’m talking about. We’re in a war and the powers that think they have that, they utilize it. They don’t think with love—they’re not thinking like that when they get up in the morning. They thinking of winning and proving to the world that they have competent thought processes, but they don’t. And that’s the whole thing—that’s why dedicating the music to the ancestors and expressing the music in an African way can be kryptonite in itself because it can wake up the sleeping giant in people who had a normal idea and can’t identify it with words. I’m not looking for people who have learned the dictionary. I’m looking for people who have gone through it and have battle scars and understand how crucial this time is. That’s what it’s about—it’s not about all that other stuff. I’m sorry. Fools putting on some sunglasses and thinking that it’s a rap—I can’t do that. My heart’s too big. I’ll trust anybody—I’ll love anybody. That’s what makes me mad because now I know I’m in a war and I can’t love the way I wanted to and that makes me very upset. So that’s why I dedicate this music to love—that’s why I dedicate this music because that’s something that I can definitely devote myself to. But it makes me upset that everyone that I meet do not have the best intentions for me that I have for them. And it makes me upset that a group of people who front themselves as the administration of health associations—the FDA—it makes me sad that they are not seeking to heal. They are seeking to kill people. It hurts my heart that the board of education is not seeking to create scholars—they’re seeking to create prisoners and soldiers. That hurts me because I want to trust. I want to be able to not have to have second thoughts. I want people to be real and to love each other—that’s what I want. But I know it ain’t going to happen unless some other things take place. There’s going to have to be some other things such as people saying, ‘Cut the shit—stop being like that to me!’ It’s going to have to take stuff like that. It’s going to take Africans on the continent to give people the boot—Zimbabwe is catching a lot of flak for that but they are one of the only countries who are actually taking the measures to do what needs to be done. You know what? Cecil Rhodes wasn’t born in Zimbabwe. He wasn’t born there. He took and took and raped and raped and hurt and hurt. They got to go. Go home. They don’t know where home is? Well, gotta figure it out. I’m sure they’ll figure it out. I’m not from here. I’m trying to figure out where home is but I got a basic understanding of it because I cared about those who helped me to exist so they tell me where I’m from. Those are my ancestors and that’s what the album is dedicated to. Dudley’s album is dedicated to Africa. His is dedicated to Africa and mine’s dedicated to Africa and African awareness. I don’t ever think that it’s been different, no matter what I was doing—I didn’t go with the okie doke. I didn’t have the language to explain it but I knew that I couldn’t go with the okie doke. I would rather do it the underground-railroad style instead of just being a mainstream thing because I definitely had the option to do so. I definitely still have the option to do so. But I would rather create a separate infrastructure. I’d rather create another infrastructure that is pure with artists that care. I’d rather have my own operation. At the end of the day we need to see that if we’re not willing to learn from each other and we’re not willing to learn, then we’ll just impose one reality that’s incomplete. So perhaps that reality doesn’t need to exist anymore—that’s what I’m about. Because I got too many children running around my house to just do my Nat Turner, I can’t do that. I’d be gone too quick. And there wouldn’t be enough of ‘em gone! So what I would rather do is instead of take some out, I want to save some. I want to save some of my own so we can all arrive to a conclusion that works out better. You look at the Sphinx, man—the shit has water marks on it. Different sea levels. The shit is older than what they say. Really, really old. We were old when Greece was being born—we were old. That was the cousin next door or whatever. Trying to bring some civilization—but for real, if we don’t understand that element—if we don’t understand that crucial element of knowing the true story of this planet’s people—if we don’t understand how important that is to study it for ourselves and not rely on any institution to do this—then it’s going to be very tough. There’s a lot of people who don’t know how to read. So what I’m trying to supply is something for them. Something for people who cannot read. Something for the people who do not read but feel very deeply about this planet and they will know by the tone of my voice what I’m talking about because I have devoted my every cell to this. Do you think they’ll find you? Yeah—one by one. And if they don’t find me the sound will keep reverberating. That’s why it’s so precious—it never stops. It changes in form but it doesn’t stop. So through the wind through the air, through the trees, through the homes, all of that—I’m counting on all of that, I’m using all of that. And that’s what I’m going off of that and you know people say what they want to say about that, but I know it’s true. What I want to say is—take some time to meditate. Take some time to listen to that inner voice. Stop following all this shit. Stop following somebody else and thinking that it’s cool to be frivolous and petty, man. Stop thinking that it’s cool that you are what you wear. That’s really sad. Stop thinking you are how you’re perceived. You are not what you’re perceived as. I’m way bigger than that. And I think that people understood that we had a higher quality of artist. Everything is like a damn picture—everything is an image. I’m just tired of seeing people go out like that because I know that there is so many people who have dedicated their lives and died broke so that we can know a better truth and don’t think that we gotta die broke. I don’t think that’s how it has to end. But if you ain’t gonna be broke, don’t waste it on showing somebody how much you got. It’s supposed to be devoted to your nation—it’s supposed to be sent to Africa. You send your ass to Africa. I’m talking to black people. You send your ass to Africa and be there. Not sending a little mail envelope on behalf of some Christian foundation. I could keep going but yeah—I think that’s all.
I was having a good time too…not worrying about you and all. Enjoying all of that “nothing to say”.
Enjoying all of that silence. Tranquility. Spinning up to 14 plates at once. The fresh air and possibilities (some reached,some in sight). Righting the wrongs. Enjoying the scenery on the wrong turns.
You wouldn’t be having these problems if you listened to me.
I will not eat the bag of dicks. Not in any of it’s many configurations.
Do not try to sneak the bag of dicks onto my plate.
Enjoy
Let’s turn it over now to Dr. Micheal Eric Dyson and his “Barbershop Talk Minute“
and then…my other brother from anotha motha (Flint,Mi. a.k.a Autoworld):
Monday, June 1st, 2009 Goodbye, GM …by Michael Moore
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented “planned obsolescence” — the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one — has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh — and that wouldn’t start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the “inferior” Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to “improve” the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company’s body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with — dare I say it — joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know — who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let’s be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is “reorganized” by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made “Roger & Me,” I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war — a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn’t give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true — that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don’t put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce — and most of those who have been laid off — employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades — and we don’t even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven’t used it, is criminal. Let’s hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we’re going to have automobiles, let’s have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories — that simply isn’t true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that’s a start. Please, please, please don’t save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don’t throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front — and the back — seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it’s over. It’s a new day and a new century. The President — and the UAW — must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
It brings back memories of Detroit’s WGPR TV 62 (America’s First Black Owned Television Station…s’what they said). All of the programming had a distinct flava (as they say).
I don’t know if I’d eat at this place though. I wonder if their chicken is good? Ribs?
I recently visited Texas and literally got sick from either too much b.b.q. or inhaling too much b.b.q. smoke or both.
But I’ll share this photo with you from Ted & Kate’s wedding feast:
BBQ Porn
Yeah…man,not as good as my Uncle Leroy’s ribs (word to Big Bird), but I did make myself ill. And even three weeks later the smell of smoked meat makes me a little nauseous.
Pimpin’
Now let me drop that new nu joint by Martin Luther the King Jr. called, “I Have A Dream”, he outta A town,y’all.
Let’s get it poppin’:
I think my head is going to explode everytime I hear this
“You think it’s over now…this is only…this is only…this is only,THE VERY BEGINNING”
************************************
If you’re going to sing a song you should mean it. If you don’t mean it, you should shut the fuck up.
************************************
Hey, look at me…I’m on twitter!!!
-spoiler-
Psyche!!!
Will I ever be able to read a book again? I’m addicted to the internet/e-mail/electronic gadgets in my pockets that bring me closer to thee.
I feel like I have the concentration of a flea.
I want. I want. I want. I want.
I want to turn that voice in my head off…the one that demands an update from the rest of the world every 15 minutes.
All you need to know is this:
You’re soul may or may not already be dead.
Hey, you can lie to yourself, but DO NOT lie to me. o.k.?
“I’mma Put It On Her” is my unofficial jam of the summer (I hate you Diddy).
I’ve tuned my heart strings to some fly ass Joni Mitchell schitt.
That bitch is the devil,yo. The devil. Who loves the devil?
Time Travelers love rediscovering the lamest schitt in their nostalgia safari’s.
You may not be smarter than the average bear. You o.k. with that?
Seed+Sunlight+Dirt+Water=New Life
Ideas+Positivity+Work+Skill=New Juice
"I asked for water...and they gave me rosé wine"
I miss talking to people that actually know stuff. Wikipedians sound like jackhammers with their limited arsenal of facts scoured. Conversations nowadays are similar to fucking arm wrestling…dumb fuckers so hell bent on being “right” or “knowing more” that they are void of the good social graces that make having a conversation in the first place worth a damn.
Hey Paul Sternberg, this ones for you…and all the schitt I learned at your heel. Hey Matt Mapes, this ones for you…and all the schitt we discovered being baby eagles not afraid to fly off that cliff.
I’m going to smoke a whole lot of ganja and eat a whole lot of ganja food now. I’m going to get completely out of my head today, and once I’m there I’ll let the musical instruments available to me teach me 3 songs I REALLY like (originals & covers).
nytimes.com
The Steady Optimist Who Oversaw G.M.’s Decline
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
DETROIT — In recent years, despite many challenges to his leadership of General Motors, Rick Wagoner had managed to keep a firm grip on his job, like hands wrapped tight around a steering wheel.
During his tenure as chief executive, beginning in 2000, the company’s stock has fallen from $70 a share to less than $4 now, and its market share has fallen roughly 10 percentage points.
There have been many challenges to his authority, most notably from the investor Kirk Kerkorian in 2006 and from angry members of Congress during hearings last fall. Throughout the attacks, he had managed to retain the unwavering support of his board.
For a time, it seemed he might become the rare chief executive who gets another chance, this time to try to fix many of the problems that occurred on his watch.
But he appears to have met his match in President Obama, whose calls for sacrifices from all sides apparently included a call for Mr. Wagoner to step down.
In a statement early Monday, Mr. Wagoner said he had been urged to “step aside” by administration officials, “and so I have.” He thanked G.M. employees for their support. “G.M. is a great company with a storied history.” Mr. Wagoner said. “Ignore the doubters because I know it is also a company with a great future.”
The United Automobile Workers union had no comment on Mr. Wagoner’s departure. But Michigan’s governor, Jennifer M. Granholm, echoed an fledgling sense in Detroit that Mr. Wagoner may be viewed as an auto industry martyr. Speaking on MSNBC, Gov. Granholm said Mr. Wagoner was a “sacrficial lamb.”
During his nine years in charge, Mr. Wagoner never appeared to waver from his determination that G.M. would reclaim its spot as the unrivaled leader of the auto industry, despite steadily falling sales.
Through three major restructuring plans enacted on his watch — eliminating dozens of plants, tens of thousands of jobs and jettisoning hundreds of dealers — Mr. Wagoner maintained a stolid confidence in himself and the company’s strength. Only recently did he acknowledge the need to significantly pare the company’s brand and model lineup, to better match the company’s bloated infrastructure with the shrinking market.
Only at the second round of Congressional hearings last fall did Mr. Wagoner start agreeing that the company had made mistakes, and that its problems were not all attributable to outside forces like the weakening economy and tightening credit markets.
Mr. Wagoner joined G.M.’s financial operations in 1977 out of Harvard Business School, and, like generations of executives before him, worked nowhere else during his career.
Mr. Wagoner vaulted into Detroit’s consciousness in 1992 upon another resignation during a financial crisis — that of Robert C. Stempel, the chief executive at G.M. at the time.
Then only 38, Mr. Wagoner became G.M.’s chief financial officer. Two years later, he was named president of its North American operations.
His mentor, the chief executive John F. Smith Jr., named Mr. Wagoner president of G.M. in 1998, and he succeeded Mr. Smith in the top job in 2000.
Like Mr. Smith, Mr. Wagoner aggressively expanded G.M.’s operations outside the United States. The company now sells 65 percent of its vehicles overseas, thanks to Mr. Wagoner’s push into markets like China, Russia and Latin America.
However, G.M.’s sales slump at home led to it losing its longtime title last year as the world’s largest auto company, replaced by Toyota.
“It’s a pretty unceremonious ending,” said John Casesa, an industry analyst and managing partner of the Casesa Shapiro Group. “G.M. lost its way in the ‘70s, but the company didn’t know it until 20 years late. The hole was much deeper than he realized when he became C.E.O.”
And, Mr. Casesa said, Mr. Wagoner’s finance background might have been a poor fit: “The most successful auto companies are run by people who came out of the revenue-generating functions — manufacturing, design, marketing — making cars and selling cars.” Mr. Wagoner, the analyst said, “skipped the whole apprenticeship that most auto C.E.O.’s experience.”
Mr. Wagoner presided over some of the biggest losses in G.M. history. In 2002, the company had predicted that it would earn $10 a share by the middle of the decade.
Instead, G.M. lost $30.9 billion in 2008, when its per-share loss translated to more than $50 a share. G.M. stock, an economic bellwether that sold above $35 only three years ago, closed Friday at $3.62; it has fallen as low as $1.27 in the last year.
In 1994, when he took charge of G.M.’s North American operations, the company made up 33.2 percent of auto sales in the United States.
Last month, G.M. represented only 18.8 percent of American car and truck sales, according to statistics from Motor Intelligence, which tracks industry data.
Under pressure to stop G.M.’s sliding market share, Mr. Wagoner hired Robert A. Lutz, a longtime auto industry executive, in 2002. Mr. Lutz reorganized G.M.’s product development operations, and introduced a number of new vehicles, including sporty models like the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky.
Both Mr. Lutz, who had previously announced his plans to retire by year’s end, and Mr. Wagoner have championed the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric car that G.M. plans to introduce in late 2010.
Mr. Wagoner has said that one of the moves he regretted most was G.M’s decision to kill the EV-1, an electric car that it leased to customers in the late 1990s. Although the vehicle was not profitable, it helped G.M.’s image with environmentalists, which in 2006 Mr. Wagoner conceded he had understood too late.
Only six months ago, Mr. Wagoner stood in front of hundreds of G.M. employees in the atrium of the company’s Detroit headquarters, celebrating the automaker’s 100th anniversary.
Dressed in a gray suit and a yellow, blue and white striped tie, Mr. Wagoner said: “So, what’s our assignment for today and tomorrow? Above all, it’s to demonstrate to the world that we are more than a 100-year-old company. We’re a company that’s ready to lead for 100 years to come.”
Yo’, I’d like to put any and all of the Jewish readers in the audience under the spotlight for a moment.
I passed on copying & pasting A LOT of fucked up bullschitt related to Israel’s most recent bully-ass tactics in Gaza (this past winter).
You know.
We know.
But now…I need you guys to huddle up and figure out why the Israeli governments bullschitt don’t make a lick of goddamn sense. For all the marzipan pride rattling around in your heads and hearts, I’d like to stare down the most pig-headed of you into a puddle of hominy.
Stop making me sick with all of this selective reasoning and piss drivel. Your homeland is on some Suge Knight/Gangsta Rap manifest destiny. The influence it has on my own homeland (hey, stars & stripes) is very “spoiled gay uncle”.
Rahm Emmanuel…you can be a closet Zionist in your closet, but don’t come to the dinner table in your funky brown shirt and stormtropper boots, okay player?
*(start swipe)*
Durban II: Politicizing Racism
By Ramzy Baroud
13 March, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Many countries are set to participate in the Conference against Racism, scheduled to be held in Geneva, April 20-25. But the highly touted international meet is already marred with disagreement after Israel, the United States and other countries decided not to participate. Although the abstention of four or more countries is immaterial to the proceedings, the US decision in particular was meant to render the conference ‘controversial’, at best.
The US government’s provoking stance is not new, but a repetition of another fiasco which took place in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
Israeli and US representatives stormed out in protest of the “anti-Israeli” and the “anti-Semitic” sentiments that supposedly pervaded the World Conference against Racism (WCAR), held in Durban in 2001. The decision was an ominous sign, for the Bush Administration was yet to be tested on foreign policy in any definite terms, as the conference concluded on September 8, three days before the 911 terrorist attacks.
The US justified its denunciation of the international forum, then on the very same, unsubstantiated grounds cited by Israel, that the forum was transformed to a stage for anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
But was “the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerance” indeed transformed into a stage for racism and bigotry, as Israel’s friends, lead amongst them the Bush Administration, charged?
What indeed took place at the conference was democracy in its best manifestations, where no country could defy international consensus with the use of a veto power, or could flex its economic muscles to bend the will of the international community. The result was, of course, disturbing from the view point of those who refuse to treat all United Nations member states with equity and impartiality. An African demand for a separate apology from every country that benefited from slavery, to every African nation that suffered from slavery was considered excessive, and eventually discounted.
But the main “controversial” issue that led to the US representative’s departure from the conference was the criticism by many countries of Israel’s racism against the Palestinians. A majority of countries called for reinstituting UN General Assembly resolution 3379 which in 1975 equated Zionism with racism.
The conference, then, was not meant to only address the issue of Palestine and Israel. However, the strong American resistance to any criticism of the racially motivated practices of the Israeli state – the extreme violence, the land theft, the Wall, the settlements, the protracted military occupation, etc – pushed the issue to center stage.
The Palestinian struggle is not meant to overshadow the struggles of oppressed nations around the world, but it rather compliments the calls for rights, freedom and liberation that continue to echo around the globe. However, the fact that the illegal and violent mass oppression of Palestinians, as practiced openly by the Israeli state continue unabated – and is rather defended and justified by the United States and other European powers – highlights the historical legacy championed by former colonial powers throughout the so-called third world for so many years.
There are hardly many international forums that are held and governed by principals of equality and fairness amongst nations. The World Conference against Racism is one of very few, indeed. It was not a surprise, therefore, to witness the international solidarity with the Palestinian and world-wide repulsion of the racist and Apartheid policies carried out daily by Israel.
But the mere censure of Israel’s unfair, undemocratic and racist policies – let alone taking any action to bring them to a halt – is mechanically considered anti-Semitic from an Israeli standpoint and US administrations.
The US conditioned its participation of the April conference in Geneva (Durban II) by removing any specific censure of Israel, and ensuring that Israel is not ‘singled out’ for criticism. Although US sensibilities constantly expect, but demand the singling out of any country, leader or group it deems rouge, war criminal, or terrorist, Israel is treated based on different standards. “A bad document became worse, and the US decided not to participate in the conference”, Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported in reference to the draft documents being finalized before the conference.
The original “bad” document apparently dubs Israel “an occupying state that carries out racist policies”, a description which is consistent with international law, UN resolutions and the views of leading world human rights defenders – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, John Dugard, the former UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk,the current UN’s envoy, among many others.
The ‘bad document’ might have ‘became worse’ with new references to the Gaza bloodbath, which killed and wounded nearly 7,000 Palestinians in 22-days.
From an American – and unfortunately, Canadian and Italian, so far – viewpoint, such inhumane practices don’t warrant a pause or mere words of condemnation. The same, of course, doesn’t apply to Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba and other ‘unfriendly’ nations. The US decision must be particularity disheartening to African nations who saw in the advent of Barack Obama some vindication. The US first black president, however, saw it fit to boycott a conference that intended to discuss the issue of slavery and repatriation, to once again prove that race alone is hardly sufficient in explaining US internal and external policies.
A day after rebuffing the conference, US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton arrived on her first visit to the Middle East, where she admonished Iran, Hamas and Hizbollah – for largely posing threats to Israel – and praised the Jewish state and its ‘moderate’ allies.
She remarked in a joint statement with Israeli president Shimon Peres, on March 3: “It is important that the United States always underscore our unshakeable, durable, fundamental relationship and support for the State of Israel. I will be going from here to Yad VaShem to pay respects to the lost souls, to remember those who the Holocaust took, to lay a wreath, and to say a prayer.”
(Editors Note: Never forget what propaganda looks or sounds like - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1067508.html)
Needless to say, Mrs. Clinton refused to visit Gaza, where 1.5 million people are trapped in one large concentration camp, denied access to food, medicine, political and human rights.
—————————————————————————————–
President Obama, please don’t let Israel’s bully tactics be the schitt stain in your drawers.
As the paradigm shifts, y’all looking at me like “What’chu Talkin’ Bout Willis?!”, and I’m stuttering and stammering…tryin’ to told y’all brickhead motherfuckers that that toilet was full and no more schitt was gonna go into it without a fight. And y’all keep fighting to put more schitt on top of schitt, making a big schitty mess.
Chill lames.
Everything you had faith in turned out to be bootywack.
I have faith in this struggle, fool. The destination is more important than anticipating another thousand rounds of choreographed Janet Jackson head fakes, Thriller neck twitches, and crack-tastic booty popping.
I address a generation that took the fun out of titties, and put a stink on film and music (recognized only as worthless celebrity) that’ll take 200 years to wash out of those art forms.
You’re cute alright,baby. And you don’t realize you’re cuteness is a cell that keeps you from realizing your real beauty.
So what have you done with that time?
Do you realize it’s slipping through your fingers?
Or are you so smokey, so desirable, so on point that you’re just tuned in to your montage?
“Slow-mo, go youtube the promo, get in the know…sign up for Twitter,bro. You got the balls to wear your heart on your facebook walls? But you can’t do the jitterbug, let alone cut a rug… Life is a dance, you’re here for the drugs Who you gonna lean on when you pull my plug? What you gonna say, when you can’t get in? When you’re all alone where are your lame ass friends? ”
You’ve got this spring to make a man/woman out of yourself.
Find a mirror without looking for your reflection everywhere.
Find someone in that mirror and figure out what’s really going on.
U.S. Attorney General Eric "I Ain't no Punk" Holder
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama – who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana – will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.
Obama ends raids at medical marijuana dispensaries:
Great move
Shows he’s soft on drugs
Now let states legalize pot entirely
Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.
“What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement,” he said. “What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”
Bill Piper, national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a marijuana advocacy group, said the statement is encouraging.
“I think it definitely signals that Obama is moving in a new direction, that it means what he said on the campaign trail that marijuana should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue,” he said.
Piper said Obama has also indicated he will drop the federal government’s long-standing opposition to health officials’ needle-exchange programs for drug users.
During one campaign appearance, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He told an interviewer in March that it was “entirely appropriate” for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana “with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors.”
After the federal Drug Enforcement Agency raided a marijuana dispensary at South Lake Tahoe on Jan. 22, two days after Obama’s inauguration, and four others in the Los Angeles area on Feb. 2, White House spokesman Nick Schapiro responded to advocacy groups’ protests by noting that Obama had not yet appointed his drug policy team.
“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws” and expects his appointees to follow that policy, Schapiro said.
The federal government has fought state medicinal pot laws since Californians voted in 1996 to repeal criminal penalties for medical use of marijuana.
President Bill Clinton’s administration won a Supreme Court case, originating in Oakland, that allowed federal authorities to shut down nonprofit organizations that supplied medical marijuana to their members. Clinton’s Justice Department was thwarted by federal courts in an attempt to punish California doctors who recommended marijuana to their patients.
President George W. Bush’s administration went further, raiding medical marijuana growers and clinics, prosecuting suppliers under federal drug laws after winning another Supreme Court case and pressuring commercial property owners to evict marijuana dispensaries by threatening legal action.
The Bush administration also blocked a University of Massachusetts researcher’s attempt to grow marijuana for studies of its medical properties. Piper, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said he hopes Obama will reverse that position.
“If you removed the obstacles to research,” he said, “in 10 to 15 years, marijuana will be available in pharmacies.”
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
OH YEEEAAAH-pass that homie
And furthermore…
Friends Don't Mooch or Bogart!!!
Everybody must get stoned
By Katharine Mieszkowski
March 3, 2009
A new plan to legalize marijuana in California would create a $1 billion tokin’ tax and thousands of green jobs. Now that’s a stimulus plan!
Can Californians help dig themselves out of their historic fiscal crisis by getting high? Tom Ammiano thinks so, and he isn’t smoking a thing.
On Feb. 23, the California State Assembly member introduced legislation that would regulate the cultivation and sale of marijuana, and then tax it. By legalizing pot, the San Francisco lawmaker argues, the state could reap huge new revenues. Currently pot is California’s biggest cash crop, with annual sales reaching $14 billion. Vegetables, the state’s second hottest agricultural product, take in a mere $5.7 billion. And California’s famous grapes? A piddling $2.6 billion.
If passed, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act would give California control of pot in a manner similar to alcohol, while prohibiting its purchase to citizens under age 21. The state’s tax collectors estimate the measure would bring in about $1.3 billion in new revenues a year.
Ammiano, a former schoolteacher and stand-up comedian, has been one of the most famous activists and politicians in San Francisco for decades. In the late ’70s, he jump-started the movement against the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay teachers in California (he appeared as himself in the film “Milk”), served on the San Francisco Board of Education, and later was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Salon recently spoke to him about why he thinks making pot legit would have California smiling.
Why legalize marijuana in California now?
There’s gold in them thar hills! We have one of the worst budget situations we’ve ever had, and it’s a $14 billion industry that’s not going away. Everybody knows this and nobody has wanted to go after it. I, frankly, think the time has come.
Even if California did regulate and tax selling marijuana, wouldn’t it still be illegal at the federal level?
Federal law preempts a lot of things we’ve done in California, anyway — domestic partners, gay marriage, the medical use of marijuana. Certainly the Obama administration has been telegraphing they’d like to revisit the failed war on drugs. New Attorney General Eric Holder just issued an edict: No more raids on medical marijuana dispensers. And, man, if that doesn’t reinforce what I have been saying, I don’t know what does. Of course, everyone likes to be in the position of saying, “See, I told you I was right.”
In many ways, it’s common sense. You have drug cartels growing marijuana in our national parks. It’s no more the hippie-dippy guy or woman in Humboldt. This is organized crime with no morality and no value of human life. Look at the money you would save in law enforcement by regulating marijuana, decriminalizing it and putting those resources into serious crimes. The black market and the street sales would decline. Pumping $1 billion into our economy is going to provide a lot of green jobs. No pun intended. Obama seems to be a bright-enough guy to realize that.
How would your legislation affect the people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses related to marijuana?
That would be another cost savings. If it’s decriminalized, the source dries up, and you stop the flow of people into prison.
How do you imagine marijuana being sold? Would it be in bars and restaurants and corner stores?
All of that is to be determined. We don’t want it to be for anyone under 21. You still can’t drive under the influence of it. But the broader thing for me is getting it decriminalized, through the law, and then coming up with the regulations.
Do you think legalizing it endorses its use?
It’s use is there anyway. People do it everywhere. It’s better if you have a situation, like with booze, when you regulate it. If you’re smoking the legal product, you’re an adult, and it’s not full of pesticides, additives or other crap. The environment would benefit because a lot of these rogue plantations pollute the water source and deplete the soil. The growers pull up and walk away without any kind of remediation. You have to admit to reality here. I think everyone has been on this big denial trip.
Don’t you think you’re going to see resistance because of the idea that pot is a gateway drug that leads to other illicit drugs?
A lot of those issues came up around medical marijuana, and most of them were put to rest. But there are always going to be people who believe that no matter how many statistics you give them.
Would legalizing pot create new smokers?
I have no idea. But I know there are a lot of statistics around marijuana usage, and a lot of the reefer madness fears are not substantiated.
Do you really expect this bill to pass? Or do you want to spark a debate and get a conversation going?
Getting the conversation going is definitely part of it. But getting it passed is my goal. I do have support from a lot of colleagues, who say: “Oh my God, I think this is great, but I don’t think I can vote for it.” So it’s going to be my job, even in conservative areas, to say: “Vote for it. This is something that will help your community. You may be a Republican, you may be conservative, but your health clinic just closed, your husband just go laid off.” These are the kind of bread-and-butter issues that are going to be very seductive to people.
Have you smoked pot?
I certainly experimented. But I’m more of a martini guy.
What do you say to the Bill O’Reilly types who will protest that “San Francisco values” will infect the whole state and even the country?
We’re a city that has done a lot of progressive things that have been beneficial on a social justice level, and the world did not end. So we have nothing to be defensive about. In fact, other countries laugh at us for our drug laws. Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and most of Europe have very liberalized drug laws in and around harm reduction.
God knows what Bill O’Reilly does. I’d hate to see his pharmacy bill.
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer
Featured Topics: Dealing With Cowards & Chumps
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing awkward racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” said Holder, nation’s first black attorney general.
Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
He urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education, and economic disparities.
Race “is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation’s history, this is in some ways understandable,” Holder said. “If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”
He told hundreds of Justice Department employees gathered for the event that they have a special responsibility to advance racial understanding.
Even when people mix at the workplace or afterwork social events, Holder argued, many Americans in their free time are still segregated inside what he called “race-protected cocoons.”
“Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad,” said Holder.
As a presidential candidate last year, Barack Obama gave a landmark speech on race relations during the hotly-contested Democratic primaries as he tried to separate himself from the angry rhetoric of his then-pastor. Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking about race.
“If we’re going to ever make progress, we’re going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified,” Holder told reporters after the speech.
Holder is headed to Guantanamo Bay early next week to inspect the terrorist detention facility there. Obama has assigned Holder to lead a special task force aimed at closing the site within a year.
Holder’s Justice Department will have to decide which suspects to bring to U.S. courts for trial, which to prosecute through the military justice system, and which to send back to their home countries.
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Saul Williams presents: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! *double vinyl in stores*
