Mr. Kanye West LIVE on NBC: "George Bush doesn't care about black people!"

"My forte causes caucausians to say,
He sounds demented, car-weed scented,
If I said it, I meant it,
Bite my tongue for no-one,
Call me evil, or unbelievable..."

- The Notorious B.I.G., "Unbelievable"



Just chillin' with one of Scarlem's Finest, Mike Myers, who was unfortunately heavily sedated, Mr. Kanye West speaks the obvious brilliantly...

Kanye West Attacks Bush!

Kanye West used live TV to his advantage when he went into a tirade against President Bush (and the media) during NBC's Hurricane Katrina fundraiser.

(1 min 39 sec) | 23,528 Views
Yesterday at 7:31 PM (PDT)

Watch Now!

http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo



japantoday > world

Kanye West accuses Bush of ignoring black hurricane victims

Sunday, September 4, 2005 at 07:28 JST

WASHINGTON — Hip-hop artist Kanye West accused President George W Bush of not caring about black people on a live television fundraiser for victims of deadly Hurricane Katrina.

Visibly emotional, West broke from the script and attacked the president for the slow response to the humanitarian crisis in the majority black city.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people!" he said on the NBC show before the cameras cut to another host who put the fundraiser back on track.

West also slammed the media for how it had reported on the crisis.

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And, you know, it's been five days waiting for federal help because most of the people are black," he said.

In a statement released after the broadcast, NBC said the fundraiser "was a live television event wrought with emotion.

"Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks," the company said.

"It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

Sixty-seven percent of the population of New Orleans is African-American according to 2000 U.S. census figures. (Wire reports)

Japan Today Discussion

Alright!

enemy of tha enemy Click here to see all messages by enemy of tha enemy Click here to see profile of: enemy of tha enemy (Sep 4 2005 - 08:30)
Too bad NBC had no spine and didn't let him finish the rest, but he kind of summed it up in what he did get out.

You watch, the brownshirts will be in soon to say "Of course he cares about black people! Look at Condi Rice! He promoted her to a top position in his cabinet!"


So Sad

Jillj Click here to see all messages by Jillj Click here to see profile of: Jillj (Sep 4 2005 - 08:46)
You know what is happening in the West? It is total rudeness. Instead of raising funds to help the victims, West used this opportunity to spout more attacks against the President. He changed something that was so good into a political agenda and his moment in the sun. All is does is fuel the hatred in America of a few foolish young men who will follow him.

Login to post your opinion or register now for free.

SOURCE - http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=348159

Bush Golfs his way into Hurricane History. (sigh) "It's been a bloody Huey Long time, so, I'm telling you for Palast time: these guys are PRICKS!!!"

Bush Strafes New Orleans

Where is our Huey Long?
by Greg Palast

Friday, September 2, 2005

The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United States had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.

I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet.

There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," promised to rebuild the state. He didn't. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!"



Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.



At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. Governor Long taxed Big Oil to pay for the books. Rockefeller's oil companies refused pay the textbook tax, so Long ordered the National Guard to seize Standard Oil's fields in the Delta.

Huey Long was called a "demagogue" and a "dictator." Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house, and feed them and give every man or woman a job who needs one.

Government, he said, "We The People," not plutocrats nor Halliburtons, must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our heads. All we had to do was share the nation's wealth we created as a nation. But that meant facing down what he called the "concentrations of monopoly power" to finance the needs of the public.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society.

America and the party prospered.

America could use a Democratic Party again and there's a rumor it's alive -- somewhere.

And now is the moment, as it was in '27. As the bodies float in the streets of New Orleans, now is not the time for the Democrats to shirk and slink away, bleating they can't "politicize" this avoidable disaster.

Seventy-six years ago this week, Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his combat remains, from Social Security to veterans' mortgage loans.

There is no such thing as a "natural" disaster. Hurricanes happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that cut the heart out of public protection. The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one side has a general.

Where is our Huey Long? America needs just one Kingfish to stand up and say that our nation must rid itself of the scarecrow with the idiot chuckle, who has left America broken and in danger while he plays tinker-toy Napoleon on other continents.

I realize that the middle of a rising flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it's act up now or we all go under.

**********

A pedagogical note: As I travel around the USA, I'm just horrified at America's stubborn historical amnesia. Americans, as Sam Cooke said, don't know squat about history. We don't learn the names of a nation's capitol until the 82d Airborne lands there. And it doesn't count if you've watched a Ken Burns documentary on PBS.

I suggest starting with this: read "Huey Long" by the late historian Harry T. Williams. If you want to ease into it, get the Randy Newman album inspired by it (Good Old Boys) with the song, "Louisiana 1927." Listen to part of the song here. Do NOT watch the crappy right-wing agit-prop film, "Huey Long," by Ken Burns.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries or view his investigative reports for BBC Television at www.GregPalast.com.

SOURCE - http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=453&row=0


(...)


'Louisiana 1927'

A song and a tragedy

By Todd Leopold
CNN

Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 8:03 a.m. EDT (12:03 GMT)

(CNN) -- In 1926 and 1927, the Mississippi River, heavy from months of rain, started bursting its banks.

Land along the river flooded from Illinois on south. Memphis was overrun in the fall of 1926; the waters covered western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana in the months following. Seven hundred thousand people were evacuated or left homeless.

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it start to rain ...

New Orleans watched the Mississippi Valley floodwaters nervously. On a single day in April the city had received 14 inches of rain, which put parts of it were under more than six feet of water; the French Quarter had two feet. If a levee broke, the city would be doomed.

Eventually, fearful townspeople prompted the governor to dynamite a levee south of town to relieve the pressure on New Orleans. The city was spared. Others in the state weren't so lucky.

Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline ...

The flood, as chronicled in John M. Barry's book "Rising Tide," led to dramatic changes in the United States. It was a factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern industrial cities, and many of the migrants wrote songs and tales about the Great Flood.

Louisiana, Louisiana, they're tryin' to wash us 'way, they're tryin' to wash us 'way
Louisiana, Louisiana, they're trying to wash us 'way, they're tryin' to wash us 'way...

I first heard Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" while growing up in New Orleans. The local radio stations always liked playing songs with Louisiana references: Gary U.S. Bonds' "New Orleans," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born on the Bayou," Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans," Louisiana LeRoux's "New Orleans Ladies." I don't now if the radio stations knew the history documented in the song or were completely ignorant of it and just liked the title. Whatever they thought, "Louisiana 1927" created its own mesmerizing power.

The song starts with plaintive strings, something out of the 19th century. Then Newman's humble voice comes on, singing lyrics at once as basic as a newsreel and as majestic as Homer.

The river rose all day, the river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood, some people got away all right

New Orleans and I didn't fit; I left as soon as I could. But my heart breaks as I view the floodwaters lapping at building roofs, the city submerged as far as the eye can see.

The river has busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

My mother drove up ahead of the storm Saturday night. She's OK. But I worry about the house she left behind, about my old high school friends, about the avenues and architecture, about the people missing and homeless all along the devastated Gulf Coast. And my mind can't stop playing "Louisiana 1927."

Louisiana, Louisiana...

Godspeed.

SOURCE - http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/08/31/eye.ent.louisiana/


(...)


"Fuck "Fair and Balanced" Fox!!!
They ain't, being subtle,
When they go, hard-right,
They harder-right, for rebuttal!

And fuck CNN!!!
"You can't trust CNN"
Bum-rush, CNN,
Before they lie to us again!

- Black Krishna, "Chokin' on Chomsky"


(...)



BONUS: Where are we going? (Seriously. We've got to find the brakes. Now.)


"Katrina I can't stop looking in your eyes,
But my words dont come out straight,
I don't know what to say.
On Monday I tell myself you gotta wait Dave,
Don't rush it, Don't anticipate, take it slowly,
It's ok, It's ok..."

- David Tao, "Katrina"


Chiggidy-check yo'self...




Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State (2005)

Evil has spread across the land. Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State exposes the high-tech control grid that is being set up across America.

Out of the ashes of the September 11th tragedy, a dark empire of war and tyranny has risen. The Constitution has been shredded and America is now a Police State. This film exposes not just who was behind the 9-11 attacks, but the roots and history of its orchestrators.

Downloaded: 5,152 times

SOURCE - http://www.archive.org/details/MartialLaw911


MARTIAL LAW 911: RISE OF THE POLICE STATE Information Resource Companion Web Site.

SOURCE - http://www.martiallaw911.info/index.htm

P.S. Here's an example of documentation from the Martial Law website...

SOURCE - http://martiallaw911.info/policestate.htm


TIME ARTICLES / DOCUMENTS / WEB SITES GOOGLE SEARCH

2:24:35 Bush says he intends to spend political capital - c|net News.com, November 4, 2004
2:25:06 Troops to Protect Washington During Bush Inauguration - The Washington Dispatch, November 7, 2004
2:25:51 Gonzales: 'Bush is above the law' - Google Search
2:26:33 USA PATRIOT Act (HR 3162) - USA Patriot Act - download a pdf version
2:26:50 SEC. 802. DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM. - USA Patriot Act
2:27:00 President Bush Calls for Renewing the USA PATRIOT Act - TheWhiteHouse.gov, April 19, 2004
2:27:03 COLUMN: Patriot Act 2 threatens personal rights - Kansas State Collegian, March 16, 2004
2:27:08 Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store - Associated Press, October 28, 2004
2:27:12 Trademark Infringement Threat to Domestic Security? - Law & Entrepreneurship News, October 29, 2004
2:27:16 HOMELAND SECURITY ARRESTS VET FOR COMPLAINING TOO MUCH - (Article not available) - Related article
2:27:20 EDITORIAL: Patriot Act knows no limits - Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 5, 2003
2:27:25 Ridge backs nat'l standards for ID - The Washington Times/UPI, January 30, 2005
2:27:33 Passports go electronic with new microchip - CSMonitor.com, December 9 2004
2:27:36 U.S. Homeland Security chief calls for international biometric standards - Associated Press, January 19, 2005
2:27:42 House Passes National Driver's License Standards - NACS Online, February 11, 2005
2:27:45 Driver's Licenses As National ID? - CBSNews.com/CSMonitor, January 24, 2005
2:27:49 The National ID Trojan Horse - house.gov, February 14, 2005
2:27:54 HR 418- A National ID Bill Masquerading as Immigration Reform - house.gov, February 9, 2005

2:27:58 Police State ID Card Bill Passes Without Congress Even Reading It - Ron Paul Liberty Committee, December 7 2004
2:28:23 Bush plans to screen whole U.S. population for mental illness - World Net Daily, June 21, 2004
2:28:32 New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Passes - Infowars.com, November 23, 2004
2:28:45 Congress Funds Psychological Tests for Kids - NewsMax, November 24, 2004
2:28:54 IL launches compulsory mental health screening for children and pregnant women - The Illinois Leader, July 19, 2004
2:29:06 Drugged Kids Investigation Sparks State Action - WOAI.com, November 13, 2004 (Article not available)
2:29:10 Lawmakers looking at drug use for foster kids - Associated Press, February 9, 2005
2:29:19 INFORMATION AWARENESS OFFICE - Wikipedia
2:29:22 They're watching on the street - even in the pool surveillance cameras are everywhere - (Article not available) - Related articles
2:29:26 City Unveils Hi-Tech Surveillance System - NBC5.com, January 4, 2005
2:29:30 Overton County schools sued over locker room filming - Tennessean.com, July 1, 2003
2:29:34 Parents demand limits for school cameras - Tennessean.com, July 9, 2003
2:29:35 Prepare to be scanned - Economist.com, December 4, 2003
2:29:39 Spy Cameras Track Drivers in Florida Town - Associated Press/USA Today, April 30, 2004
2:29:44 Tell-all license plates on the way - Drivers.com, December 15, 2002
2:29:48 License-plate scanners lead to recovery of stolen vehicles - toledoblade.com, January 5, 2005
2:29:52 Ford, GM, Honda and Toyota Spy on Motorists - NewsMax, December 29, 2004
2:29:56 30 million cars now record drivers' behavior - USA Today/CSMonitor, December 27, 2004
2:29:59 Big Brother Takes the Wheel to Improve Driver Safety - ergoweb.com, January 5, 2005
2:30:04 Listening Microphones Hit Streets of Rochester - Infowars.com/Democrat and Chronicle, December 15, 2004
2:30:08 Homeland Security Surveillance Cameras Hit Baltimore - Infowars.com/Howard County Times, December 16, 2004
2:30:31 Fingerprinting Plays Key Roll in Biometrics Boom - TechNewsWorld, January 18, 2005

2:30:37 VISIONICS CORPORATION - Article on aaae.org, October 17, 2001
2:30:44 Mobile Fingerprinting Services Give Ontario Law Enforcement an Edge - PoliceOne.com, July 7, 2004
2:30:48 Licence-plate cameras to trap criminals - TimesOnline.com, November 7, 2004
2:30:52 95.2% Opposed to California DMV Plan to Tax by the Mile - Infowars.com, November 17, 2004
2:30:57 Tax California Drivers by the Mile? - abclocal.go.com, November 17, 2004
2:31:01 DMV Chief Backs Tax by Mile - LATimes.com, November 16, 2004
2:31:04 Satellite to track new toll motorway - news.telegraph.co.uk, August 12, 2004
2:31:31 Students Tracked Via Radio ID Tags - (Article not available) - Related Articles
2:31:37 Under-the-skin ID chips move toward U.S. hospitals - CNET News.com, July 27, 2004
2:31:42 RFID chips may soon be implanted in hospital staff and health care workers - NewsTarget.com
2:31:44 EXCLUSIVE: Microchip Implantation of Club Going Trendies Expands to More Nations - Infowars.com, October 7, 2004
2:31:51 Microchips implanted in Mexican officials - MSNBC/Associated Press, July 14, 2004
2:32:28 The shadow of dictatorship: Bush established secret government after September 11 - wsws.org, March 4, 2002
2:32:32 Congress passes 'doomsday' plan - Infowars.com/BostonHearld.com, January 9, 2005
2:32:47 Cigar Aficionado's Interview with General Tommy Franks - Infowars.com/Cigar Aficionado, December 2003
2:32:51 American armed forces are assuming major new domestic policing and surveillance roles - Infowars.com/LA Times, November 23, 2003
2:32:54 Is Military Creeping Into Domestic Law Enforcement? - Infowars.com/Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2004
2:33:38 TV show is torture for participants - Infowars.com/Cox News Service, February 25, 2005
2:33:40 C4 lines up Guantanamo-style torture show - The Guardian, February 8, 2005

Please report any corrections or broken links

Truthout.org - 'To Me, It Just Seems Like Black People Are Marked'

'To Me, It Just Seems Like Black People Are Marked'
By Wil Haygood
The Washington Post

Friday 02 September 2005

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - It seemed a desperate echo of a bygone era, a mass of desperate-looking black folk on the run in the Deep South. Some without shoes.

It was high noon Thursday at a rest stop on the edge of Baton Rouge when several buses pulled in, fresh from the calamity of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Hundreds piled out, dragging themselves as if floating through some kind of thick liquid. They were exhausted, some crying.

"It was like going to hell and back," said Bernadette Washington, 38, a black homemaker from Orleans Parish who had slept under a bridge the night before with her five children and her husband. She sighed the familiar refrain, stinging as an old-time blues note: "All I have is the clothes on my back. And I been sleeping in them for three days."

While hundreds of thousands of people have been dislocated by Hurricane Katrina, the images that have filled the television screens have been mainly of black Americans - grieving, suffering, in some cases looting and desperately trying to leave New Orleans. Along with the intimate tales of family drama and survival being played out Thursday, there was no escaping that race had become a subtext to the unfolding drama of the hurricane's aftermath.

"To me," said Bernadette Washington, "it just seems like black people are marked. We have so many troubles and problems."

"After this," her husband, Brian Thomas, said, "I want to move my family to California."

He was holding his 2-year-old, Qadriyyah, in his left arm. On Thomas's right hand was a crude bandage. He had pushed the hand through a bedroom window on the night of the hurricane to get to one of his children.

"He had meat hanging off his hand," his wife said. They live - lived - on Bunker Hill Road in Orleans Parish, a mostly black section of New Orleans.

When the hurricane hit, Thomas, a truck driver, said he came home from work, looked at every one of the people he loves, and stood in the middle of the living room. Thinking. He's the Socrates in the family - but time was running out.

"I only got a five-passenger car," he said.

"Chevy Cavalier," said his wife.

"And," Thomas continued, "I stood there, thinking. I said, 'Okay, it's 50-50 if the water will get through.' "

Within hours the water rose, and it kept rising.

"But then I said, 'If we do take the car, some of us would be sitting on one another's laps.' And the state troopers were talking about making arrests."

Instead, he pushed the kids out a window. They scooted to the roof, some pulling themselves up with an extension cord.

"The rain was pouring down so hard," Washington said. "And we had a 3-month-old and a 2-year-old."

The 3-month-old, Nadirah, was sleeping in her mother's arms. "All I had was water to give her," said Washington, her voice breaking, her other children sitting on the concrete putting talcum power inside their soaked sneakers. "She's premature," she went on, about the 3-month-old. "She came May 22. Was supposed to be here July 11. I had her early because I have high blood pressure. Had to have her by C-section."

Bernadette Washington was suddenly worried about her blood pressure medicine. She reached inside her purse. "Look," she said. "All the pills are stuck together."

Both parents had been thinking about the hurricane, the aftermath, the looting, the politicians who might come to Louisiana and who might not. And their own holding-on lives, now jangly like bedsprings suddenly snapped.

"It says there'll come a time you can't hide. I'm talking about people. From each other," Bernadette Washington said.

Thomas, the philosopher, waved his bandaged hand. He had a theory: "God's angry with New Orleans. It's an evil city. The worst school system anywhere. Rampant crime. Corrupt politicians. Here, baby, have a potato chip for daddy."

The 2-year-old, Qadriyyah, took a chip from her daddy and gobbled it up. Her face was covered with mosquito bites. But she smiled just to be in daddy's arms.

Thomas continued: "A predominantly black city - and they're killing each other. God had to get their attention with a calamity. New Orleans ain't seen an earthquake yet. You can get away from a hurricane but not an earthquake. Next time, nobody may get out."

In the middle of the storm, little Ernest Washington, 9, had grown into a hero.

Washington and Thomas consider Ernest, Bernadette's nephew, their own now. They adopted him after his mother, Donna Marie Washington, died not long ago of AIDS.

"She was a runaway," said Washington, able to sound sorrowful for the child even in her current straits. "She had run away when she was 14. We don't know how she got the AIDS."

While Thomas was figuring his family's fate that first night, little Ernest bolted to the rooftop.

He had fashioned a white flag on a piece of stick, and began waving. "That is one courageous boy," Thomas said.

A helicopter passed them by. A National Guard unit passed them by.

"Black National Guard unit, too," piped in Warren Carter, Washington's brother-in-law.

In the South, the issue of race - black, white - always seems as ready to come rolling off the tongue as a summer whistle. A black Guard unit, passing them by. Something Carter won't soon forget.

Before long the whole family, watching the water rise, made it to the roof. Three men in a boat - "two black guys and an Arab," Washington said - rode by and left some food on the roof of a van parked nearby. Ernest went and retrieved the food.

"A little hustler he is," Thomas said.

"Child [is] something else," Washington said.

It took two days for a helicopter to fetch them. They were delivered not to some kind of shelter, but to a patch of land beneath a freeway.

"I thought we were going to die out there," Bernadette Washington said. "We had to sleep on the ground. Use the bathroom in front of each other. Laying on that ground, I just couldn't take it. I felt like Job."

Then, somehow, a bus, and then Baton Rouge. At that moment, a lady - white - came by the rest stop and handed her some baby items.

"Bless you," Washington said.

That exchange forced something from Warren Carter: "White man came up to me little while ago and offered me some money. I said thank you, but no thanks. I got money to hold us over. But it does go to show you that racism ain't everywhere."

Under the hot sun, Brian Thomas was staring into an expanse of open air. They expected another relative to arrive soon and assist them in continuing their exodus.

SOURCE - http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205D.shtml


(...)


"Open your eyes and look within:
Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?
We know where we’re going;
We know where we’re from.
We’re leaving babylon, y’all!
We’re going to our father’s land.

Exodus, all right! movement of jah people!
Exodus: movement of jah people!
Movement of jah people!
Movement of jah people!
Movement of jah people!
Movement of jah people!

Move! move! move! move! move! move! move!"

- Bob Marley, "Exodus"

Plan BK: The Solutions - Katrina: Incompetence or Malice? (Don't get Bushslapped!)

Bush: Katrina Response 'Not Acceptable'

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 42 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Scorched by criticism about sluggish federal help, President Bush acknowledged the government's failure to stop lawlessness and help desperate people in New Orleans. "The results are not acceptable," Bush said Friday in the face of mounting complaints from Republicans and Democrats alike.

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050903/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_bush


(...)


Then why did you accept it you jerk?


(...)


I just had a chat with a buddy of mine, and he's in a trap.

He assumes that the criticisms he's read - which are unbelievably bad, are authoritative.

He's wrong.

Basically, the current bad guys in charge are so unbelievably bad, that even watered down mainstream media criticism seems like it's a brutal indictment.

It's a lie.


(...)


After all, what the hell does FEMA do?

What do any of these organizations do?

What was happening that kept them from reacting?

Anything? Anything at all?

Bueller? Bueller?


(...)


A highly educated and well-read young man with a great disposition, my friend went through a list of anecdotal gobbledygook about why the response was so poor, citing various factors and blaming the incompetence or inability of various levels of government, organizations, the city, the people, the levee, the...

However, I simply asked him: what would you do if you were President and knew a hurricane was coming?

He said obviously he wouldn't sleep until a solution was found.

I said screw that, the President loves to nap.

If I was President, I'd just order other people not to sleep until a solution was found.

In fact, don't even wake me up when you find one: Just Do It.


(...)


This is not the time to make excuses for any lack of power in his department, he's a "strong leader", and his people run the government like an evil kingdom. If he wanted to drop $100mm on solving the people-problem early he could have, and most people couldn't get out not because of a lack of buses - but because they couldn't afford them. With "$87 billion" increases in the mammoth defense budget, renting a couple of Greyhounds to haul people away wouldn't have broken the bank.

Instead you've got rappers and singers and actors pitching in with cash, and God love 'em all for their big hearts and big drops in the bucket, I just hope they understand that they are doing this because Bush is a prick.


(...)


A tragedy like this makes a response heroic - especially after people have forgotten completely about the inaction, and washes away one's plethora of sins like, well, a hurricane.

I mean, look at the picture above: doesn't your heart just bleed?


(...)


Actually, if you look again I swear the SOB is trying not to smile.


(...)


If you make a list of all the incompetence in dealing with Katrina, it resembles a smaller list of the massive incompetence in Iraq. As my boy finished up his gobbledygook, I asked him to look back at the impressive list of failures and the nooks and crannies that all of his various justifications neatly fit into, and suggested that at some point in this litany of failures you've got to call this a crime - it's just tough to know where.

(Though starting at the top is a good start.)

On a micro-level we can see a crime clearly, while the macro-size issues tend to hide evil in a dozens of fudgeable factors that act as release valves for culpability. For every justification we make by building upon these with our very own intelligence and theorizing, we provide absolution, and it's made easy since we receive a whole lot of excuses in the form of "facts". The game plan is laid out clearly for us to follow and discuss, as: (x) wasn't available, (y) didn't do that, (z) should've happened...

It started looking suspicious to both of us after the umpteenth failure, and we realized that the professionalism with which they execute their excuses and disseminate them through the mass media is unparalleled - and all too familiar.

He said: "Yeah, it's a shame what they're doing to them."

I said: "Nope, it's a shame what they're doing to us."

After all, we should know better...

We know what they've been doing to them.


(...)


You don't have to buy "malice" right away, but it's worth giving it a go and then going back to "incompetence" later if you'd like. It's still there and there's certainly a lot of evidence for it, and popular opinion that's safe and comfortable while ignoring obvious logic is in style anway.

Different readings of things can sometimes make more sense, for instance a movie like Napoleon Dynamite was tough to read, but those who read it correctly (taste notwithstanding) enjoyed it. Isn't it possible that someone could see the same movie again with a different mindset and change their mind? While still being intellectually honest?

Isn't it possible to see this tragedy for what it truly is: an absolute failure of the government's responsibility to protect the people because they just didn't care?

Why is that so tough?

Wasn't there a tonne of "poor" people there?

Wouldn't that indicate they didn't care before?


(...)


This is a tragedy, no doubt, but criticizing what has universally been derided as a piss-poor response isn't exactly dirty pool, and especially against people who've been proven to lie habitually. People pay taxes like insurance, and if stuff happens we supposedly paid you to handle it. The whole country has been supposedly prepared for a bloody surprise attack "dirty-bomb nuke" for 4 years now, and this nailed 'em?

What would you say if Clinton slacked off on his watch and let this happen?

He got impeached over a wet cigar for God's sakes.


(...)


Look for the malice: you'll find it.

Remember...

These are the good folks who brought you a huge tax-cut for the richest 1%, and now have black leaders ripping them for abandoning Katrina's poor. Plus of course, their classic hits: Abu Ghraib (Now playing!), Guantanamo (Now playing!), Iraq (Now playing... somewhere.)


(...)


We're in a trap, and it's driving me crazy.

I'm not sure exactly why we think this way; why we give them a thousand second chances; why we still take everything "straight" when we all easily admit they "lie"; why we forget that after every big PR announcement made, later (and quieter) the horrible truth comes out; why we decide not to blame them for anything but being idiots...

...but it's a cheap cop-out.

Karl Rove is smarter than me, he's smarter than you, and he's teaching us how to make excuses for his idiot puppet-President and their criminal regime. When they even control our criticism, we're in a bit of trouble here.

If Bush was found standing over a dead body with a murder weapon in hand, the mainstream Left criticism would be:

"President Bush should treat dead bodies with more respect. Standing there and not immediately attending to the needs of the recently deceased, not calling anyone to take away the body, not covering it up, and not even bothering to close the corpse's eyes is unforgiveable. Shame on you Mr. Bush, shame on you..."

And we would all say: "Shame on you Mr. Bush, shame on you..."


(...)

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

- Mahatma Gandhi

(...)


I'm looking forward to being laughed at...

And you're damn right I'm picking a fight...





BONUS: Truthout.org speaks the truth... (go figure.)

A Can't-Do Government
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 02 September 2005

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

SOURCE - http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205A.shtml


COMMENTARIAT...


The Military Option in New Orleans

SOURCE - http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/9/2/143312/4164


Katrina response from neo cons

The response from the Trent Lott society of Rascist, sexist, fascists is so predictable. Take the National guard troops and respond to a natural disaster with marshall law, and test the troops out on our own citizens. Does anyone else see this as Orwelian?

In 1995, Clinton created a program with the Army corps of engineers to rebuild the levees in the south to protect them from hurricanes. Bush junior cut the funding when his boys from the Project for a new American Century ( Cheney Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz )decided to sponsor 100 years of war. We won't have money for disasters or infrastructure because in 1992 these oilmen formed a pact to cleanse the world for Democracy.

In Hitlers Germany the disabled, the poor and the disenfranchised were slated to be removed, along with the Jews. Welcome to a new American Century; and we all thought it was going to be Y2K that got us.

by Daniel Venzon on Fri Sep 2nd, 2005 at 06:02:44 PM EDT

------------------------------------------------------------


To a man with a hammer

It's said that to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The Bush-neo-con administration has starved every other branch of the US federal government to the point that its first meaningful response to the tragedy in New Orleans is to send in troopers equipped to kill.

I am one of the planet's 'alien' ("not a citizen or national of the United States"--US Customs and Immigration Service) majority. We can look on in sympathy or horror but cannot vote in your elections.

Please, talk to your neighbors with the Bush/Cheney stickers on their SUVs, talk to your Republican co-workers. For your own sakes as much as ours, exercise your democratic muscles and topple these evildoers.

by Chris in Canada on Fri Sep 2nd, 2005 at 06:10:50 PM EDT

------------------------------------------------------------


New Orleans and Iraq War: U.S. as a Failed State

It's obvious that the New Orleans tragedy has revealed that urban areas, particularly those housing the poor and African Americans, are regarded as disposable by corporate and government elites. Yet, this development is far from new, only now revealed in dramatic media images for all to see. These urban areas that voted against Bush, these people who lack resources to flee natural disasters, these persons colonized in many ways by the system are now victimized by it.

The U.S. went into Iraq to "save it" and now can barely save itself. The gross incompetence of the Bush Administration should be readily apparent except for the most diehard apologists. We now must ask ourselves, isn't the U.S. a failed state?

In his book, "The Decline of American Power," Immanuel Wallerstein describes the attempts by right wingers and military hawks to use intervention in Iraq as part of an effort to regain the high ground, to reverse the decline in U.S. power, particularly military power, that could be seen in the U.S. loss in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam and Iraq war's reveal what historian Gabriel Kolko and economist Seymour Melman called, "the limits to military power." One such limit is that the resources used for war can't also be used for peace, civilian pursuits such as the needed rebuilding of U.S. infrastructure.

The infrastructure of the U.S. is collapsing and one reason why is that it has been serious depleted by spending for the permanent war economy and warfare state. This process is revealed in the outrageous military budgets that neither incumbent political party has challenged.

The political bankruptcy of both major political parties, the distorted budgetary priorities, the rotting infrastructure, the resulting violence and social anarchy are each indicative of a failed state. This failure is also marked by the superficial quality of American democracy. Where are the accountability structures? What does democracy mean to someone left stranded in New Orleans or shipped to some refugee camp in Houston, Texas? The large groups of poor and African Americans who disproporationately did not vote for George Bush are left litterly floating in the waters, nature mimicking the same disdain which Republican elites have had for the poor and disenfranchised. America is a failed state, with democracy and economic equality seriously eroded.

The solution to this crisis requires several forms of remedial action. One such action would be intervention by a consortia of European States who provided not only economic aid, but some kind of political intervention (in the form of think tanks, grants and other material support) to promote and extend democracy in America. The last presidential election revealed that large parts of the Southern U.S. resembled what we once thought of Eastern Europe, an underdeveloped region populated by reactionary elites, organized into party structures that sustained the political and economic impoverishment of the people.

Europeans looking at America on their television sets intuitively sense what many Americans themselves are slowly realizing. The United States--as both Seymour Melman and his colleague John Ullmann of Hofstra University recognized long ago--is slowly becoming a Third World country.

European aid should be married to rebuilding of the foundations of democratic control: a) a national newspaper and media network supporting the interests of environmental sustainability, working people's economic and social interests, and equality in the workplace; b) a network of socially responsible and worker-community controlled firms sustained by cooperative networks, banks, and research and development laboratories (like the Mondragon cooperative in Spain); c) a new network of continual political mobilization linked to the Internet, face to face meetings, and local study circles (the kinds of networks represented in part by groups like Move On, the teach ins of the antiwar movement of the past, and town meetings that sometimes have linked experts and grassroots participation).

Anything less than such a comprehensive program is likely doomed to failure. Political alternatives in the form of new parties or social movements require the above as necessary first conditions of their success. The next dilemma is whether the current intellectual milieu has the language or interest to pursue and promote the obvious need for comprehensive reconstruction of America.

by Jonathan Feldman (jonathanmfeldman@hotmail.com) on Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 at 02:50:56 AM EDT

------------------------------------------------------------


The Last Straw

There are so many things wrong in this country right now. How much more are we going to take before we finally say enough? We are quickly turning into a third world nation. Where is the outrage?

Bush got away with the 9/11 disaster. Now he has seized an opportunity in New Orleans, an opportunity he created by stripping funds away from the repair of the levees only to use them for his dibacle in Iraq(I can't believe he has been allowed to proceed with this war). Where is the outrage?

Is this a covert practice in "ethnic cleansing"? Shocking isn't it? Don't kid yourselves, there is way more going on here than what the media allows us to see! He is more cunning than anyone knows (or would believe). This is a photo opp with all the hugging and crappy speeches, but it is covering something more heinous than the general public could ever accept. This is the beginning of the downward spiral that will go faster than ever now.

What we need right now is a Concert for Impeachment. Not so much for funds, but for awareness. America has got to wake up to this monster!

by fedup (slvrbtl@hotmail.com) on Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 at 05:18:10 AM EDT

PLAN BK: The Solutions - Katrina's getting Raped by Bush, and Strange Fruit is Falling from the Trees...

[Ed note: I was out with a friend from the deep South last nite, and she said she was shocked at the "Hurricane Relief" requests being handed out here. She said that if a hurricane took place anywhere else in the world they wouldn't hear about it back home, and that it's a selfish tragedy to reinforce the idea that "if it happens to America then the world is supposed to care". She was disgusted by it actually, and that's awesome. Another friend sent me variations on the article below, and my response to her is included.]


(...)


Katrina Response Angers Black Lawmakers

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Black members of Congress expressed anger Friday at what they said was a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

"It looks dysfunctional to me right now," said Rep. Diane Watson (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.

She and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, along with members of the Black Leadership Forum, National Conference of State Legislators, National Urban League and the NAACP, held a news conference and charged that the response was slow because those most affected are poor.

Many also are black, but the lawmakers held off on charging racism.

"The issue is not about race right now," said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio. "There will be another time to have issues about color."

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_go_co/katrina_black_lawmakers


(...)


the hurricane response is Bushit, they are trying to fuck up the country on purpose: it just polarizes it further. (see my blog a couple of blogs ago: Bush's first response was "the clean-up will take years", what an asshole...)

their "with us or against us" policy is being used to whip up military-style responses to criticism, and watch out: with a handful of "true believers" on their side they don't need the "will of the people" anymore...

and i feel bad for the black doods in Congress: everyone but me and a handful of others refuse to grade them on a curve, but of course, there's nothing especially "noble" about my isolated position since i don't have to get anything done with them.

i mean, i get it: if they won't listen any other way then a policy of appeasement is the only logical solution.

but, it still won't work: if they wouldn't listen before, what makes you think they'll respect you coming forward on your knees?


(...)


p.s. she responded "why?" is this on purpose? and why are the military more concerned with protecting property than helping people?

i responded...

it's simple: he's an asshole.

it's complex: he gets more power when we're okay with it.


(...)


Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

- Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit"

PLAN BK: The Solutions - Prologuing Progress

Okay...

I'm still messed up by that last blog.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe I wasted 4 hours on a date too.

(She bought me dinner, and she's a great girl, it's just...)

(I don't "date", I keep everything casual, every shortie's a homegirl, and I shoulda ran off earlier but was having fun. I guess individuals have issues to fix too, and I've been told by the strange voices in my head that I need to get out more...)


(...)


I just ran the story by my happy-go-lucky brown emigre coffee shop guy, a great guy really, and it took a couple of tries to calm him down from finding it "funny" to taking it and me more seriously. (Read "funny" as sympathetically absurd, not malicious.)

Hell, I even apologized for telling him.

I know we're not supposed to talk about this stuff today: it's "bad form" to discuss how fast the world is getting worse.


(???)


We settled on the understanding that it's something that - if not here and now, still at some point needs to be said. His smiling face darkened as he realized again through our conversation what we all know and suppress inside: they're going absolutely crazy, and appear to be unbelievably ambitious about it.

I did say analogously that next "they" may ask him for a blood sample to work at the coffee shop.

And no, it won't be George, Donald, Alberto, Condi, Dick or any of the other torturers and murderers: it'll be an American company that makes DNA kits inking a deal with the coffee shop. The same company that lobbied for laws in the U.S. will work in concert with the fascists in charge to push for those same laws around the world, ensuring future niche global domination.

This is not new: and that's why the world is a horrible place.

I mean sure, it's beautiful: I've seen far more than my fair share and enjoyed the hell out of it.

However, it's a pretty crappy party overall when 1% of the people control the vibe, the music, the food, and who gets killed at it; then they decide not to feed half, force the rest to constantly clean up, and sit back and set fire to a pile of booze and food while laughing like maniacs.

This. Must. Stop. Now.


(...)


"Qui bono" is latin for "Who profits?"

(Thank you for the term Alex Jones - consider this co-branded.)


It's always about this: nobody does anything without getting paid anymore.

(Thank you for the info Black Krishna - consider this a public service.)


Any cop or prosecutor will tell you to follow the money to find the crime, and that's exactly what this is. Money is the root of all evil, and the bigger the pile of money the better chance of finding evil.

"Why" they profit is just as important: what are they up to?


(...)


Make no mistake: money can't buy happiness.

But: it can do a great job of selling it.


(...)


All you have to do is understand they don't even bother using "logic" or public debate anymore: reality changes, and the "facts" are fixed around the "intelligence".

We're getting pretty stupid.

Stuff is coming at us so fast that we don't have time to process and understand it, and default to the widely disseminated construct of the context they're giving us.

The debate is pre-packaged garbage, designed to lead to two sides arguing for the same basic conclusion: we need to do "it", we're just dickering over exactly how...


(...)


They are selling us everything by making it either "normal" or "necessary", and we're too busy to figure out that:


a) They've been a bunch of liars. (Historically.)

b) They aren't really making sense. (Literally.)


Seriously, you can take wearing underwear outside your pants as making sense if you want to, because:


a) It will add a colour swash to monochrome pantlegs.

b) It's a good splash-guard against pee-pee.


And that's cool, however, if you don't want to then:


a) You've clearly got something to hide. (Like crappy underwear.)

b) You've clearly got some crappy underwear. (Like Wal-Mart.)


(...)


Money makes thoughts: that's what advertising is.

There is no doubt we believe that.


Money makes policy: that's what lobbyists do.

There is no doubt we believe that.


Money makes thoughts that support lobbyist policy.

There is some doubt we believe that.


There shouldn't be: we're doing half the work ourselves...

We're just not on the payroll...


(...)


We can argue with each other about stuff we don't care about...

But we gotta take the bile outta bitching about bullshit...

Or we'll forget what we care about...


(...)


BONUS: Where did we come from?


A message repeated from Google/Blogger...


There were errors during upload.
The following images were not uploaded.

* bush - $25mm reward for Osama and Saddam.jpg


(What the hell was that???)


(Look... just watch the flick below, this stuff is driving me crazy...)


* The Money Masters - The Federal Reserve is privately owned by a few big banks. (Seriously. It's in the phonebook's "white" pages and not the "blue" government pages, plus, plus, plus...)

SOURCE - http://www.heartbone.com/various/RedPillVideos.html#D41


(...)


"Is it, money or women, the funny beginnings, tragic endings,
I can make a million and STILL not get enough of spending,
And since my life is based on sinnin, I'm hellbound,
Rather be buried than be worried, livin' held down,
My game plan to be trained at, military-
Mind of a Thug Lord, sittin' in the cemetary,
Caught, I've been lost since my adolescence, callin to Jesus,
Ballin' as a youngster, wonderin if he sees us,
Young black male, crack sales got me three strikes,
Livin in jail, this is hell, enemies die,
Wonder when we all pass, is anybody listenin?
Got my, hands on my semi-shotty, everybody's snitchin',
Please God, can you understand me?
Bless my family?
Guide us all, before we fall into insanity?
I make it a point, to make my beat-bumpin' warlike,
Drop some shit, to have these stupid bitches jaws tight..."

"'Til Makaveli returns, it's +All Eyez On Me+
And you can hate it or love it, but that's what it's gon' be
You shoulda listened, I told you not to fuck with me
Now can you take the pressure, that's what we gon' see..."

- 2Pac and 50 Cent, "The Realest Killaz"

EMERGENCY ALERT: Traveling to the U.S.? Prepare to be fingerprinted and photographed. Or: arrested.

[Ed note: Aw man, I was getting into the mood to write a tonne of fun and funny stuff, and this sucks. Oh well, to quote The Godfather III: "Every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in." Still, I sometimes wonder if it's worth it: my own links are disappearing from Google and Yahoo searches of "Black Krishna" despite the fact that I see more site hits.]


(...)

The Ballad of The Red Menace

Okay...

This shit really messed me up.

I know, I know...

"Why?"

Don't I research and write about it all the time?

Sure.

But...

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

- Josef Stalin

Now, don't beef with my quoting Stalin.

I'll admit he was an asshole, but in this case he's also right. In fact, any successful asshole will say or do smart things to become successful.

So: fear not the evil men.

Understand what they say, and don't let them say it again and again and again and again, and use it against us again and again and again and again and again...

"Only failure needs excuses: success speaks for itself."

- Adolph Hitler

Now, don't beef with my quoting Hitler: see above.


(...)


On to the emergency...

I ran into The Red Menace tonite at a bar, a rapper on the "hardcore" political tip, and he told me a tale that chilled my blood cold.

He was on his way into the U.S. to do a "free" concert with a few other artists, and they stopped him from entering because he didn't have a "work" permit.

It's bullshit, total and complete bullshit, and everyone knew it.

But hey, no problem.

Your country man, your party, so fuck it.

I'll gladly leave any party the people there don't want me at. I don't care, good, bad, ugly excuses be damned: it's your party. Thanks for letting me know before I got hated on and wasted my time.

But...

If I'm leaving anyway, no matter how much you hate me, you can't say:

"Hey, hold on a minit man: you need to come into the back room so we can kick you in the nuts. You know, just because you asked to come to the party. Now, don't blame me, that's just the policy of the party. Anyone who shows up that we don't let in gets held against a wall and kicked in the nuts. Oh, and don't try to run: if you do, then we'll kick you in the head too."

Hmph.

Wow.

Shitty.

Oh well...

So, I guess it's "nuts" or "nuts and head", is that it?

Fuck.

Alright man.

(sigh)

Go ahead: kick me in the nuts.


(...)


The whole camp was denied entry into the U.S., then fingerprinted, photographed and detained for 4 hours before they were finally allowed to turn around and go home.

(Next up: DNA samples. Seriously.)

Now...

Do you see any sanity to this policy?

"There is no sanity to the policy!"

- Seymour Hersh (on Iraq)


(...)


Go ahead, check his website.

He's got views that you'll completely disagree with, but he makes a lot of sense with them. Reactions to learning about the true evil running the world are varied, though almost inevitably honest and true. And really, I know dude: he's just a young G trying to make the world a better place for more people, and keep it from getting far worse for everybody.

Hear some shit. Read some shit. Buy some shit.

http://www.theredmenace.ca/

And...

If you justify ANY of this because his name is "The Red Menace"...

I'll kick you in the nuts.





They're not just doing it to foreigners...

They're doing it to each other too...

Hmph.

Well, it's small comfort...

Must be a version of affirmative international illegal action...


(...)


Google Search: "dna database"

USATODAY.com - White House seeks to expand DNA database
DNA profiles from juvenile offenders and from adults who have been arrested but not convicted would be added to the FBI's national DNA database under a Bush ...
www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-15-dna-usat_x.htm - 43k -

BBC NEWS | In Depth | Leicester 2002 | Privacy fears over DNA database
The inventor of genetic fingerprinting says he is concerned about the storage of DNA profiles on suspects cleared of crimes.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2002/leicester_2002/2252782.stm - 46k -

Wired News: DNA Databases Go Too Far
DNA Databases Go Too Far. [Print story] · [E-mail story] [Rants + Raves] [Reprint story]. Page 1 of 2 next » · Declan McCullagh | Also by this reporter ...
www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/19338.html - 31k -

Wired News: Canada Takes DNA Database Lead
DNA databases already exist in the United States, Germany, Britain, Norway, Finland, Belgium, and Denmark. But Canadian officials said the new C$10 million ...
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,37406,00.html - 31k - 1 Sep 2005 -

New Scientist Breaking News - DNA database "should include every ...
DNA database "should include every citizen". 15:12 12 September 2002; NewScientist.com news service; Clodagh O'Brien, Leicester ...
www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2792 - 41k -

The New Atlantis - Liberty, Privacy and DNA Databases - Christine ...
With startling swiftness we have also constructed DNA databases and storage banks to ... In the US, all fifty states currently have criminal DNA databases, ...
www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/rosen.htm - 68k -


(...)


BONUS: Where are we going? (And I'm fuckin' serious.)


"I'm worried 'cause I heard,
A Bush is in the White House,
His finger's on the button,
If he push it - it's lights out,
Prisoners,
Is on political charges,
'N the ritual targets,
Have the skin that's the darkest,
Global warming,
Deforming the ozone,
Transnational cash,
Is trashing the whole globe,
Still shook,
As I wake from the nightmares,
From reality,
I cringe at the life there...

I don't wanna wake up,
I don't wanna see the world around me,
I don't wanna get up..."

- The Red Menace, "I Don't Wanna Wake Up"


Chiggidy-check yo'self...




Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State (2005)

Evil has spread across the land. Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State exposes the high-tech control grid that is being set up across America.

Out of the ashes of the September 11th tragedy, a dark empire of war and tyranny has risen. The Constitution has been shredded and America is now a Police State. This film exposes not just who was behind the 9-11 attacks, but the roots and history of its orchestrators.

Downloaded: 5,069 times

SOURCE - http://www.archive.org/details/MartialLaw911


MARTIAL LAW 911: RISE OF THE POLICE STATE Information Resource Companion Web Site.

SOURCE - http://www.martiallaw911.info/index.htm

P.S. Here's an example of documentation from the Martial Law website...

SOURCE - http://martiallaw911.info/policestate.htm


TIME ARTICLES / DOCUMENTS / WEB SITES GOOGLE SEARCH

2:24:35 Bush says he intends to spend political capital - c|net News.com, November 4, 2004
2:25:06 Troops to Protect Washington During Bush Inauguration - The Washington Dispatch, November 7, 2004
2:25:51 Gonzales: 'Bush is above the law' - Google Search
2:26:33 USA PATRIOT Act (HR 3162) - USA Patriot Act - download a pdf version
2:26:50 SEC. 802. DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM. - USA Patriot Act
2:27:00 President Bush Calls for Renewing the USA PATRIOT Act - TheWhiteHouse.gov, April 19, 2004
2:27:03 COLUMN: Patriot Act 2 threatens personal rights - Kansas State Collegian, March 16, 2004
2:27:08 Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store - Associated Press, October 28, 2004
2:27:12 Trademark Infringement Threat to Domestic Security? - Law & Entrepreneurship News, October 29, 2004
2:27:16 HOMELAND SECURITY ARRESTS VET FOR COMPLAINING TOO MUCH - (Article not available) - Related article
2:27:20 EDITORIAL: Patriot Act knows no limits - Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 5, 2003
2:27:25 Ridge backs nat'l standards for ID - The Washington Times/UPI, January 30, 2005
2:27:33 Passports go electronic with new microchip - CSMonitor.com, December 9 2004
2:27:36 U.S. Homeland Security chief calls for international biometric standards - Associated Press, January 19, 2005
2:27:42 House Passes National Driver's License Standards - NACS Online, February 11, 2005
2:27:45 Driver's Licenses As National ID? - CBSNews.com/CSMonitor, January 24, 2005
2:27:49 The National ID Trojan Horse - house.gov, February 14, 2005
2:27:54 HR 418- A National ID Bill Masquerading as Immigration Reform - house.gov, February 9, 2005

2:27:58 Police State ID Card Bill Passes Without Congress Even Reading It - Ron Paul Liberty Committee, December 7 2004
2:28:23 Bush plans to screen whole U.S. population for mental illness - World Net Daily, June 21, 2004
2:28:32 New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Passes - Infowars.com, November 23, 2004
2:28:45 Congress Funds Psychological Tests for Kids - NewsMax, November 24, 2004
2:28:54 IL launches compulsory mental health screening for children and pregnant women - The Illinois Leader, July 19, 2004
2:29:06 Drugged Kids Investigation Sparks State Action - WOAI.com, November 13, 2004 (Article not available)
2:29:10 Lawmakers looking at drug use for foster kids - Associated Press, February 9, 2005
2:29:19 INFORMATION AWARENESS OFFICE - Wikipedia
2:29:22 They're watching on the street - even in the pool surveillance cameras are everywhere - (Article not available) - Related articles
2:29:26 City Unveils Hi-Tech Surveillance System - NBC5.com, January 4, 2005
2:29:30 Overton County schools sued over locker room filming - Tennessean.com, July 1, 2003
2:29:34 Parents demand limits for school cameras - Tennessean.com, July 9, 2003
2:29:35 Prepare to be scanned - Economist.com, December 4, 2003
2:29:39 Spy Cameras Track Drivers in Florida Town - Associated Press/USA Today, April 30, 2004
2:29:44 Tell-all license plates on the way - Drivers.com, December 15, 2002
2:29:48 License-plate scanners lead to recovery of stolen vehicles - toledoblade.com, January 5, 2005
2:29:52 Ford, GM, Honda and Toyota Spy on Motorists - NewsMax, December 29, 2004
2:29:56 30 million cars now record drivers' behavior - USA Today/CSMonitor, December 27, 2004
2:29:59 Big Brother Takes the Wheel to Improve Driver Safety - ergoweb.com, January 5, 2005
2:30:04 Listening Microphones Hit Streets of Rochester - Infowars.com/Democrat and Chronicle, December 15, 2004
2:30:08 Homeland Security Surveillance Cameras Hit Baltimore - Infowars.com/Howard County Times, December 16, 2004
2:30:31 Fingerprinting Plays Key Roll in Biometrics Boom - TechNewsWorld, January 18, 2005

2:30:37 VISIONICS CORPORATION - Article on aaae.org, October 17, 2001
2:30:44 Mobile Fingerprinting Services Give Ontario Law Enforcement an Edge - PoliceOne.com, July 7, 2004
2:30:48 Licence-plate cameras to trap criminals - TimesOnline.com, November 7, 2004
2:30:52 95.2% Opposed to California DMV Plan to Tax by the Mile - Infowars.com, November 17, 2004
2:30:57 Tax California Drivers by the Mile? - abclocal.go.com, November 17, 2004
2:31:01 DMV Chief Backs Tax by Mile - LATimes.com, November 16, 2004
2:31:04 Satellite to track new toll motorway - news.telegraph.co.uk, August 12, 2004
2:31:31 Students Tracked Via Radio ID Tags - (Article not available) - Related Articles
2:31:37 Under-the-skin ID chips move toward U.S. hospitals - CNET News.com, July 27, 2004
2:31:42 RFID chips may soon be implanted in hospital staff and health care workers - NewsTarget.com
2:31:44 EXCLUSIVE: Microchip Implantation of Club Going Trendies Expands to More Nations - Infowars.com, October 7, 2004
2:31:51 Microchips implanted in Mexican officials - MSNBC/Associated Press, July 14, 2004
2:32:28 The shadow of dictatorship: Bush established secret government after September 11 - wsws.org, March 4, 2002
2:32:32 Congress passes 'doomsday' plan - Infowars.com/BostonHearld.com, January 9, 2005
2:32:47 Cigar Aficionado's Interview with General Tommy Franks - Infowars.com/Cigar Aficionado, December 2003
2:32:51 American armed forces are assuming major new domestic policing and surveillance roles - Infowars.com/LA Times, November 23, 2003
2:32:54 Is Military Creeping Into Domestic Law Enforcement? - Infowars.com/Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2004
2:33:38 TV show is torture for participants - Infowars.com/Cox News Service, February 25, 2005
2:33:40 C4 lines up Guantanamo-style torture show - The Guardian, February 8, 2005

Please report any corrections or broken links

SUBJECT: Why did He say it?

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

- Matthew 16:26

CBC's The Fifth Estate Presents:

The Unauthorized Biography of Dick Cheney

"In Dick Cheney's World, what he says is frequently more fiction than fact"

This is the story of Dick Cheney's vision of America.


SOURCE - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1018.htm

SOURCE - http://www.middleeast.org/cheney.htm

SOURCE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney

SOURCE - http://www.answers.com/topic/dick-cheney

SOURCE - http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/111004unauthorizedbiography.htm

SOURCE - http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002143.html

SOURCE - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/27/11462/0203

SOURCE - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Cheney

SOURCE - http://www.undergroundclips.com/undergroundclips/2004/10/unauthorized_cb.html

SUBJECT: Why did he, he and she say it?

* Tomas Young, U.S. Army Specialist and Iraq War Veteran.

* Rahul Mahajan, independent journalist and author of a number of books including "Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond." He runs a blog at empirenotes.org.

* Cindy Sheehan, mother of soldier killed in Iraq and founder of Camp Casey in honor of her son Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq in April, 2004. She is also a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace.

* Photographs of Camp Casey by Kim Terpening can be found at AlaskaGyrl.blogspot.com


(...)


RAHUL MAHAJAN: Well, yeah. I mean, it's remarkable, I think. I was there only three days later in Sadr City talking to and interviewing the very people who were involved in these clashes, and it certainly – I do wonder several things. One of them being, really, what was the level of education about the specifics given to the soldiers? What were you told, Tomas, for example, about who you were fighting and why you were fighting them, and what they were all about before you were sent in that open, unarmored truck?

TOMAS YOUNG: I – me particularly, in particular, I was told nothing about who we were fighting or what was going on. The only thing I was told was that we were going to provide security for a rescue mission for two soldiers that were down from another company, and it was to my understanding that once that was done, for my particular truck, we were going back to the base.

RAHUL MAHAJAN: Well, of course when you go on a rescue mission –

TOMAS YOUNG: I didn’t know anything about why we were going towards the center of the city, or I had no level of education as to what was going on that particular day or what was happening.

RAHUL MAHAJAN: Well, of course, when you are going on a rescue mission in an area where there's active fighting, there's a good chance that you will be fighting, as well. Another thing I wonder is that one gets a general impression that U.S. soldiers are told basically, “These are a bunch of bad guys. These are a bunch of terrorists,” given the impression that they are just sort of addicted to mindless violence, and that's why you have to go and fight them. Was that the sort of general impression you had or was there a feeling that there were some actual understandable reasons why, for example, these people might be fighting you?

TOMAS YOUNG: For me – I'm sorry, could you repeat that again?

RAHUL MAHAJAN: Did you get – were you sort of given the impression that these people you might be fighting were basically mindless terrorists addicted to violence, or did you have a sense there might actually be political reasons behind their attacking U.S. forces?

TOMAS YOUNG: Well for my – me, in particular, my understanding was that that was what I understood to be happening, was they had political reasons for wanting Americans out and all of that, again to be fighting us,

but from what the battalion level and all of the higher-ups were trying to tell us, that they were just mindless terrorists who, yeah, they wanted to come over and destroy the American way of life and that we were going to defend freedom and, you know, that was definitely the rah-rah, gung ho kind of attitude they were trying to instill in us so that we could, you know, feel more comfortable with going in and, you know, I guess killing them.

(...)


CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, it was an honor to meet Tomas and his wife, and I'm glad Tomas came out and shared the experience with us. I just disagree with him on one thing. It wouldn't be an honor for him to meet George Bush. It would be an honor to George Bush if he ever met Tomas, because Tomas has more courage and integrity in his pinky than George Bush has in his entire body. And we're – actually, our plans are now to find a piece of property right by George Bush's ranch and put up a veteran's rehabilitation center there. So, he – for the rest of his life, he will have to look – George Bush will have to look and see what his policies did. He will have to look at people like Tomas and know that he has devastated so many people in this country by his lies and his deceptions, and when I see people like Tomas, it just makes me resolve to fight even harder for our young people over there and for the people of Iraq and really for the people of the world.

And Casey was killed in an LMTV, like Tomas was in,. They didn't even have their armor from Kuwait yet. They didn't have their tanks. They didn't have their Bradleys. And they sent our children to be sacrificial lambs, to be slaughtered, you know, in the city. And it just really proves that our babies, our precious, precious children are nothing but cannon fodder to these people. I just want to encourage all of America to not give your children to these maniacs. When mothers stop allowing their children to be sacrificed for greed, that's when the wars are going to stop.

(...)


CINDY SHEEHAN:

We're getting on the bus. We're not letting up. But now we're going to shift part of the pressure on the Congress. You know, Congress is, as much if not more, culpable for the bloodshed in Iraq. And we're going to keep the pressure on the President, obviously. You know, we had 1,500 people in San Diego, while he was there the other day, protesting his policies. We will keep the pressure on him, but now we're going to go to Congress -- excuse me, I don't have a voice anymore -- and we're going to ask Congress the same questions we wanted to ask the President, but also we're going to put on top of it, “How many more people are you willing to let die for this mistake before you call an end to it?”

SOURCE - http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/31/146227





"I sit back, twist the best bud, burn and wonder,
When gangstas bump my shit, can they hear my hunger?
When the 5th kick, duck quick, it sounds like thunder,
In December I'll make your block feel like summer,
The rap critics say I can rhyme, the fiends say my dope is a nine,
Any chick I fuck with is a dime,
I'm like Patty LaBelle, homie, I'm on my own,
Where I lay my hat is my home, I'm a rolling stone,
Cross my path I'll crush ya, thinking I won't touch ya,
I'll have your ass using a wheelchair, cane, or crutches,
Industry ho's fuck us, in the hood they love us,
Stomp a bone out your ass with some brand new chuckas..."

"What up, Blood? (WHAT!)
What up, Cuz? (WHAT!)
What up, Blood? (WHAT!)
What up, Gangstaaa???"

- 50 Cent, "What Up Gangsta?"

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

WASHINGTON - President Bush pledged Wednesday to do "all in our power" to save lives and provide sustenance to uncounted victims of Hurricane Katrina but cautioned that recovery of the Gulf Coast will take years.

"We're dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history," he said at the White House after breaking off his Texas vacation and viewing the devastation from Air Force One.

With a vast federal relief effort grinding into operation — from food and shelter to spraying for disease-carrying mosquitoes — Bush cautioned that the effects of the storm will be felt far beyond Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

He said he had ordered steps to cushion the impact on the storm on the nation's oil industry at a time when consumers are paying $3 a gallon for gasoline in some regions. "This will help take some pressure off of gas price, but our citizens must understand this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and distribute gasoline," he said.

Flanked by senior members of his administration, Bush recited some of the actions already taken to help victims of the storm — more than 50 disaster medical assistance teams and more than 25 urban search and rescue teams, both from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

He said the Transportation Department has provided trucks to convey 5.4 million ready-to-eat meals, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 20 containers of prepositioned disaster supplies, 135,000 blankets and 11,000 cots.

"And we're just starting," he added.

While Bush offered no immediate estimate for the cost of the federal effort, administration spokesman Dana Perino said a funding request would be prepared quickly. Congressional leaders in both parties said they were eager to respond to a disaster whose full scope was still unclear.

Standing in the Rose Garden, Bush said, "This recovery will take a long time. This recovery will take years."

He said buses were on the way to help take thousands of storm survivors from the overwhelmed Superdome in New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston.

Bush said the Pentagon, as well, was contributing to the rescue and relief operations, and the administration would make road and bridge repair a priority.

Bush also said he had instructed Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to work with refineries to "alleviate any shortage through loans."

In addition to the government's efforts, Bush encouraged private cash donations to recovery efforts.

While Bush did not minimize the destruction left by the storm, he expressed optimism in words directed at the victims of the storm who have lost their homes, possessions and employment.

"I'm confident that with time you'll get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will get back on its feet and America will be a stronger place for it," he said.

"The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you," he said.

Bush stepped to the microphones to put a personal imprint on efforts his administration is making to cope with the disaster in the Gulf Coast. He also planned a rare live one-on-one television interview Thursday with ABC's Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America."

"Truckloads of water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarpaulins" are loaded aboard 1,700 trailer trucks in an initial emergency response, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said earlier at a news conference.

He pledged a "full range of federal resources" — a list that ran from bridge inspection and repair to restoration of communications networks to mosquito abatement in a region with vast stretches underwater.

At the same time, officials warned of continuing hardships across an area laid waste by the powerful storm.

Michael Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that he had declared a public health emergency in the area stretching from Louisiana to Florida. "We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions," he said.

Epidemic cholera and typhoid are not considered likely threats because they have become extremely rare in the U.S. population, said Richard Garfield, a Columbia University professor of international clinical nursing who helped coordinate medical care in Indonesia following last year's tsunami.

An HHS spokeswoman, Christina Pearson, said Leavitt mentioned the two diseases "to make a broader point" about illnesses that could be spread in conditions like those on the Gulf Coast.

Chertoff and Leavitt spoke at a news conference attended by an unusual array of department and agency heads, each of whom came equipped with a list of actions already taken by the administration.

In addition to steps designed to alleviate the suffering of victims, the administration moved to cushion the impact the storm might have on the nation's oil supply.

Bush signed off on a plan to release oil from emergency stockpiles, a decision intended to offset the loss of production from Gulf Coast refiners.

At the same time, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson announced a temporary nationwide waiver of certain pollution standards covering gasoline and diesel fuels.

Johnson had issued the waiver for the four storm-damaged Gulf states on Tuesday but said the broader move was necessary "to ensure that fuel is available throughout the country, to address public health issues and emergency vehicle supply needs."

Additionally, Bodman said the Transportation Department had waived rules governing trucker hours, a step he said would increase the supply of gasoline.

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050901/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_washington