CHUCK D said about New Orleans: "Hell No We Ain't Alright!" And... he's still right now. (Always has been.)

Yep. New Orleans is still busted.

It's too bad too, when I was there it was a blast even though it wasn't Mardi Gras, kind of like a smaller-sleazier-stinkier-funkier version of Vegas with it's own unpretentious charm and confidence.

(It was stinkier because it was below sea level; that's also why it's under water.)

This is so sad, really.

I mean, we heard all the right things said - albeit unconscionably late, and hoped that the same bastards who've lied and screwed everybody for 5 years would all of a sudden change their liver-spots. We could hear it, hope for it, and even see evidence of it on TV as a headline that made a deadline - but not News as Narrative. Any story followed would have revealed the banality of the same evil Nazi'ishly Normalized processes (and many have been on independent or "conscionably honest" media), as Big Government dicks with a decimated domestic population in need of help and shows their levels of corruption across the board.

Halliburton is reconstructing their balance-sheets, FEMA is shifting populations, the Army is driving around looking tougher and tougher, the cops are whupping-ass and stealing-shit... ech.

I can't believe this is happening so publicly in America on such a massive scale.

Foreign troops patrolling the streets for a handful of crackheads twitching on the sidewalks, looters arbitrarily arrested based on racial and economic profiling, journalists being threatened and assaulted into soft-selling their fear... ech.

Anyway, I gotta dap up Mr. Chuck D, the revolutionary O.G. is still holding it down now though much more quietly these days...

...aw hell, why am I biting Snoop-MMI-Style?

He's a Legend, with a capital Learn.

He's not getting the publicity he deserves as an "expert" or "guest" because he's saying what he needs to say in his way, and: it's good.

Dammit: it's necessary.

He's a man in his own right, but as "The Black Bono" (sorry for offending anyone, just play through the pain of Instant Lipton Cup O'Disdain...) he should be a far bigger celebrity in our minds today.

He's been putting in crazy work speaking, writing, hosting a show on Air America Radio, reaching people, making music, and building a community of acolytes that expand their minds and those of others to seeing a world we want to see.

Succeeding in commercial institutions is a benchmark, but not the exclusive arbiter of respect, and All Praise Due To The Most-Nigh:

Mr. Chuck D was the first to clap-back at the Bush-Slappin' for all of us...

Thursday, September 08, 2005

CHUCK D writes first Katrina song: “Hell No We Ain’t Alright”

Mr. Chuck D has been all right for 20 years, and he ain't wrong now...


http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/2005/09/chuck-d-writes-first-katrina-song-hell.html

Police officers subdue a man on Conti Street near Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans Saturday night, Oct. 8, 2005. At least one police officer repeatedly punched the 64-year-old Robert Davis, accused of public intoxication, and another officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Yahoo! News

Police Charged After Violent Arrest Taped

By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer 44 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.

After being questioned, the three officers were arrested late Sunday and charged with battery. They were also suspended, then released and ordered to appear in court at a later date, Capt. Marlon Defillo said.

"We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department will take immediate action."

The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.

The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street. The suspect, Robert Davis, appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers. Another of the four officers then kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.

Meanwhile, a fifth officer ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials and explained he was working, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.

"I've been here for six weeks trying to keep ... alive. ... Go home!" shouted the officer, who later identified himself as S.M. Smith.

Police said Davis, 64, of New Orleans, was booked on public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation. He was treated at a hospital and released into police custody.

A mug shot of Davis, provided by a jailer, showed him with his right eye swollen shut, an apparent abrasion on the left side of his neck and a cut on his right temple.

"The incidents taped by our cameraman are extremely troubling," said Mike Silverman, AP's managing editor. "We are heartened that the police department is taking them seriously and promising a thorough investigation."

Davis, who is black, was subdued at the intersection of Conti and Bourbon streets. Three of the officers appeared to be white, and the other is light skinned. The officer who hit Matthews is white. Defillo said race was not an issue.

Three of the five officers — including Smith — are New Orleans officers, and two others appeared to be federal officers. Numerous agencies have sent police to help with patrols in the aftermath of Katrina.

Under normal circumstances, it takes unusually offensive behavior to trigger an arrest on Bourbon Street. But New Orleans police have been working under stressful conditions since the hurricane.

Officers slept in their cars and worked 24-hour shifts after the storm. Three-quarters lost their homes and their families are scattered across the country.

"Our police officers are working under some very trying times," Defillo said. "So it's a difficult time, but it doesn't excuse what our jobs are supposed to be."

Many officers deserted their posts in the days after Katrina, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. At least two committed suicide.

Conditions have improved — officers now have beds on a cruise ship — but they don't have private rooms and are still working five, 12-hour days.

Compass, the police superintendent, resigned Sept. 27. Despite more than 10 years of reform efforts dating to before he took office, police were dogged by allegations of brutality and corruption.

On Friday, state authorities said they were investigating allegations that New Orleans police broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars — including 41 new Cadillacs — as the storm closed in.

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051010/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_taped_beating


[Ed note: it's a bit of a mind-fuck...

So... stop reading... here.

Okay...

The reason the link above is so wonderfully short and this story is written and sold as a prominent and thorough indictment, is it's part of a strategy to ensure the already poor reputation of cops is further weakened in our minds. If this happens, the military-police can take over without us putting up as much of a fuss under the pretense of being the only organization with the resources and forceful discipline to restore our beloved social "order" in the absence of cops. Huge numbers of police have already quit the New Orleans force, as will probably happen with the military pulling-rank across America after years of quiet integration. It's gonna take a minit to get this insanity rolling that far, but they have a foothold in a new-New Orleans that we perceive as so hopelessly screwed up that we casually accept any treatment of it seen on the news as better than what they just experienced or not as bad as it would be for us: as if dignity was denied by a deity.

This is insane, and a result of how it was first sold.

Here, check this AP bit from Yahoo! News even before Katrina Kame...

Thursday, September 01, 2005

SUBJECT: Why did your boy say it?


What an asshole...


Bush Says Katrina Recovery to Take Years

By DAVID ESPO,
AP Special Correspondent
1 hour, 24 minutes ago


SOURCE - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/2005/09/subject-why-did-your-boy-say-it.html

They say "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail."

I think that's a fairly solid cliche, it means what it say, and sounds okay.

As soon as I heard President George W. "Low-Expectations Means Failure Made Fun!" Bush suggest that the State of the Union about to get destroyed would take "years" to fix, I knew for sure they were pulling some crap. After all, Florida got hit by a hurrican and the Federal Government came and cleaned it up pretty quickly, they even gave a county that didn't get hit $31 million dollars just for the Jeb of it.

Anyway...

If it all sounds crazy, it's because it is.]