About the children...

So...first and foremost, because we must, let's mourn the fact that we can even post this.

Go read up at WAOD.

Then, let's mourn the fact that--yet again--we are faced with the options of "communal outrage" over the desecration of a Black female CHILD's body OR "communal sigh o'relief" over the Judge's decision to throw out the charges (implications of the System) against a 9-year-old Black male CHILD involved in the gang rape of the aforementioned 8-year-old Liberian girl CHILD. feels like a throwback to Oscar Grant.

i'm a little annoyed by how interested people were in the Liberian-ness of the family and the girl. ready to make it a sign of cultural decay and impoverishment that we're oh-so-above as Black folk located and...nurtured [*snicker*sneer*] in an American context.

puh-AND-lease.

but that's a sidebar.

i'm not sure we should be so ready to lock him in the PIC and throw away the key. no. he probably won't get rehabilitated. no. she, likely, DEFINITELY won't be rehabilitated.

uhh...

anybody see an opportunity?
call a Real Housewife and your friendly neighborhood socialites to launch some something.
because sadly--or not*--there's plenty'mo' where this came from. [*i'm sayin'...can we get over the melodramati-cizing, essentializing, woe-is-the-'hood-if-ication of life at the bottom of a first world empire? this ain't new news. it shouldn't come as a surprise either.]

i'm on a tangent, but last word: this is why i'm a fan of Precious. here is the return of state accountability to the Black film. enough of the boots and straps, feet and skin. yes, it was set in the 80s. But don't think that just because the White House changed skins in '08 Empire did, too. recessions are real. Goldman-Sachs bonuses are, too.

On yo' bailout dime.

I digress.

But all that to say this: catch your breath before you hold it any higher in the air, collect your coins and degrees--NOT hating, just saying--and establish the rehab these kids really need. and don't go feeling all...you know. like you've done anybody a favor. y'know? yeah...

Lord, have mercy.

Bernie Sanders on Colbert Last Night

Bernie Sanders appears to have a desire to say it, but he can't/won't.

Redistribution of Wealth

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Fed's Dead - Bernie Sanders
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Sally Sue, Jonny & Sex Tourism, Part 3

When Jonny hits the weekend—all worn out from Bingo—he might hit a low moment. Start feeling a little lonely. Maybe even wish Sally Sue was there. Any thinking man would agree: the next logical step would be…

A trip to the strip club!

But there have been one too many nights like this, and the strip joints are starting to get weak. (He dare not violate parole by visiting 110th Ave, either.)

So instead he loads up the car and heads for Rio!! Problem solved. He hits his easy button.

Meanwhile, Sally Sue is stuck in her apartment, watching “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” for the nth time. (And before that Oprah’s reinvention of “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” That Tea Cake.)

Every once in a while she pauses to re-scroll through her missed calls. 1-800, 1-866, 1-877, call center in India, Pammy Lou wanting to visit Man-Kini’s, 1-900…

There’s a 555 from three months prior—but no she did not happen to “accidentally” miss his call.


Quite frankly, Taye Diggs is getting old. She’s ashamed of herself and her Juris Doctorate. And while Angie B is her girl, she ‘bout sick of this chick scoring all potential booty without sharing the how-to.

She considers hitting the south side in an almost freakum dress>>said south side is the only place she can expect to get a free catcall in sweatpants, so imagine the revelry over a V-neck. She grew up in “da ‘hood” too, so she’s wize enough to navigate what would otherwise qualify as sexual assault and molestation.

Once the mental hits, she remembers…she just doesn’t have enough mace for all that.

And then, “the scene” appears. Angela Bassett on the phone with the Judge. Seeing herself on the beach. The horrendous fakin’-Jamaican accent overwhelming all common sense as the dreadlocked brotha offers her a smoothie sip.

Just as she’s at the height of frustration.

Wait! Sally Sue thinks to self…

And the counter “exploitation” of the social construct we call “The Black Man” outside of U.S. contexts begins. Soon enough, the pity-party-ed, financially ‘independent’ U.S. Black woman’s exploitation of the “ethnically ambiguous man’s man” begins, too.

Forget every stereotype they tagged to us (…except the licentiousness in this case.) Forget Martin’s Sha-Nay-Nay. Forget Jamie Foxx on In Living Color. Forget that po’ Black girl on that vampire piece of foolishness on HBO. Forget every mediated incidence of an unwanted but always wanting Black woman (outside of apparently…Halle Berry…according to Hurricane Chris…and Beyonce, according to Maxim and some other whitemanmade Top 100 Beautiful women list).

Right before Sally Sue’s eyes is the solution to her problem. Angie B—once again you’ve risen to the challenge of being a phenomenal Black woman, she thinks.

Sally Sue snatches up her cell phone like a woman possessed. First, she’ll take over Jamaica. Then Bermuda. Before you know it, the Samoan Islands. Next…THE ENTIRE MELANIN-IZED WORLD!!!

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

(Halle Berry, as much as I love you: eat your heart out.)

Sally Sue, Jonny & Sex Tourism, Part 2

I can recall rather vividly the first time Rio really began to mesh.

As a place, yes, it's in South America, more specifically the country of Brazil. A country name I know better than most in this Hemisphere. I know warmer weather must abide there.

I know there's a large amount of melanin thanks to the Middle Passage. I know there are beaches. I hear about enough to assume people 'vaca-y' there. I know there's something significant about soccer, or true futbol. I'm tempted to murder some poor athlete's name once I've made that connection to land, sport, and culture but beyond that there USED to be little emotional response to the idea of Brazil.

That is, until Essence.

Until T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting.

Until Pharrell. Snoop Dogg. And until "Blame It On Rio!" DANGIT!

Beautiful/I just want you to know/you're my favorite girl

Like any music video, this one irked me, but no more than any other video with videomodel chicks who look better, rotund-er, donk-ey-er and glossier than you. Unfortunately, however, feminist theory and Black feminist theories--the formal courses--would volunteer the vocab to decipher what heretofore had only been mild brushes of discomfort.

My brain heard something like this:

transnational sex capital ethnically ambiguous tourism sex tourism
crossingbordersexoticOtherfetishizefetishizationcrossingbordersforsexadvertisingfor tourismforsexforsextourismforexoticOtherethnicallyambiguoussexcapital

...DANGIT!!

"Beautiful" is no longer a song with 'video girls,' it's a dissertation prompt about Black male capital--via mainstream hip hop's enabling (another convo to itself)--funding transnational excursions to a very specific site (Brazil) where exotic Other, [postmodernist-friendly] 'ethnically ambiguous' women may be found (Brazilian women) for the purpose of sexual and capitalistic "exploitation"--because ain't nobody stupid...she won't come cheap.

And while the frenzy around this notion was enough to drive a notsoambiguously Black woman mad--hence the extended Essence dialogue--I'm extremely tempted to reverse the scenario for lil Sally Sue's sake.

You must understand how deep it goes--there are websites where men give advice about "how to" herd a Brazilian woman.

Something like, if you bring her back to the states, don't let her out of the house, lest she meet other Spanish/Portuguese speaking women and get her own life sans Teena Marie's romanticisms. (I'm paraphrasing but the actual is so much worse.)

If I put this in the context of centuries' worth of rape, decimation, violation, and thorough devaluing of Black female bodies, and if I re-remember the positioning of Black women as the original sex tourism attractions throughout and beyond acknowledged slavery, I'm left wondering how could BLACK men engage in such 'debauchery'?

The socioeconomic realities of the women in question is a salient point.

The irony of Black men engaging this transaction given their placement in terms of a racialized socioeconomic hierarchy, and the racialized economy of desire is a salient point.

We could definitely tag on the unmarriageable Black man statistics, and the middle class/elite Black woman's pity party as coded by the U.S. But I think the point is made.

Yes, "Beautiful" shows us how depressing a place Brazil can be if you're not an estadounidense Black male.

BUT it also shows us how in tact the sex industry is for the so-called heterosexual male consumer.

If Jonny ever gets tired of his computer (domestic), there's the local strip club (local)...or corner (illegal?). If ATL, Vegas, Miami or NYC eveer get old (national), he can always hightail it to Rio (global)!

...Sally Sue, on the other hand, isn't nearly as connected. Her greatest hope is the really awkward situation she could end up in with a hairless stripper in a man-kini.

And THAT'S the bottom line.

Sorry fellow fem-stars. But this isn't really about how outrageous sex tourism is. It's about how Black women feel inferior when discussing this foolishness. It's not about how anti-progressive, anti-feminist, or anti-anything sex tourism is, actually.

It's about how Black men, and men PERIOD (particularly 'heteros') get to reboot their esteem during these flesh sesh-es, and Black ('hetero') women find few--if any--such outlets for their unsunny esteems. Despite how 'oversexed' and 'lascivious' we--and our internationally coveted Brazilian sisters are supposed to be.

Man-kini's...

that is SO unfair!

Sally Sue, Jonny & Sex Tourism, Part 1

sally sue and jonny started to fall in lust right before sally sue moved away. now they live on different coasts, but it seems jonny wants things to work out between them--according to sally sue.

they couldn't be more different, but he still calls (once every other month out of 7). sometimes he e-mails (through the social networking site SpaceBook...once every third month out of 7). and at times he'll send (blank) text messages just to show he still cares.

sally sue's never really been in a relationship before. she is still a virgin. but she really lusts jonny. he's sort of a bad boy. he served time in Gitmo (!), he has a "baby-mama" (!!), and now he moderates Bingo Night at the local nursing home. it's just down the street from his grandmother's house--where he also lives (!!!).

sally sue really wants to give him a break. it's not like he's not self-motivated. he could be doing so many other things. after all, at least he has job. That's his only "baby-mama." and he did say he was falsely accused with that whole Gitmo thing--plus--come on, you know how the prison industrial complex works--locally and globally.

but there is one thing that gets under sally sue's nails...

as she reflects on her last encounter with jonny, she clicks through his profile.
lo and behold, yet again--new nu-nanny stopping by to blow kisses.

all those damn strippers on his SpaceBook drive her up the wall! forget the hypothetical baby-mama-drama, armed robbery, and living with Gramms--these heifas on his page make her lose her religion! (which he doesn't claim.) every time she visits, there are new bare T&A staring back at her from his wall posts inviting him somewhere to do something which can't be too Godly.

so many questions swirling in sally sue's mind. she gets overwhelmed. how come she doesn't have any ultra-sexy men leaving comments on her page? does he meet a new woman every weekend? WTH! UGH!!! SEXISM!!!!!!! she thinks SO UN-FRICKIN-FAIR!


sally sue screams inside: I WANT STRIPPER LOVE TOO!!!! she thinks i would've lost it centuries ago if we had the same undie-access!

.2 per cent...great. uh...and Detroit?

NPR's Michel Martin

Because Race is So Last Century...

(...and after Massa sets off bombs in Mumbai, Puff 'll make it rain from Wall Street's sky...)

(original appearance in The Black Voice, Syracuse, NY, February 2009)

I could’ve wasted my time digging up political cartoonists, FOX News reels and KKK addresses to prove we are nowhere near done with this ‘race’ thing, but it would’ve been too easy.

Even so, some deluded liberals would annoyingly maintain that that’s simply the work of an ignorant minority. Sean Delonas isn’t the tip of an iceberg. He is the iceberg. Calm down, Blackgirl.

So, instead of squaring up against radical extremists—the honest among us—I’ve decided to show down a more lukewarm cadre of thought control experts: the Fourth Estate and the Ivory Tower.

Leading up to Barack Obama’s inauguration, the New York Times pondered about the future of race relations: Does a Black man at the helm cleanse all our crimson stains?




(The hell.)

“During his campaign, Mr. Obama almost entirely avoided the topic of race (…) continuing a tacit understanding (…) that race is just too explosive an issue for public discussion,” writer Sarah Kershaw penned.

Syracuse University history professor, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, added, “This shakes up the status quo because here we have someone who is willing to talk about race, but doesn’t talk about it in the usual ways. Once we have one person doing that, we now have a model for how other people can do that.”

But what is “the usual way”? [Lasch-Quinn]

In his remarks to SU’s African American Male Congress last fall, Tavis Smiley of the “Tavis Smiley Show”, shared his concern that Obama’s celebrity would minimize Black outrage to a so-called “politics of grievance.”

That means the racist expansion of the prison industrial complex, for example, becomes a moot point. If I acknowledge that one in nine Black men between the ages of 21 and 34 are already in prison, If I say that Black women have only recently been trumped by Latina women as the fastest growing prison population, If I simply state what the American Public Health Association already has, my utterances are regarded as nothing more than the rants of an embittered Colored person.

I might lament that Ivory Tower statistics only point to the Otherness of Black life—and, ironically, legitimize one’s lack of care. Case in point: media’s overuse of what, author, David Wilson calls an invented term.

“Black-on-Black violence” built the idea that such ‘savagery’ is somehow peculiarly Black and separate from State accountability, save hyper-surveillance and imprisonment (and cheap labor, CXW stock jumps…).

However, I’m afraid, without a body of information that reveals patterns of extra-oppression among peoples of the same raced heritage, without some bigmouths—Reverend Sharptons, Jacksons, Minister Farrakhans— to talk about race in Lasch-Quinn’s “usual ways,” we are bound to forget that this omission of ‘aggressive’ race-talking worked our country into a lull about racism—and difference, period—in the first place.



Because bleeding-heart liberals weren’t bringing revolution any quicker.

Kershaw called Barack Obama the “omnipresent icebreaker.”

Fine.

But if that means I can’t call attention to racial injustice without, God forbid, implying ungratefulness for my Black President—by all means, send me to last century.

Okay...look--Hug? Hug, Please?

Chocolate City wants to say yes to 'same-sex marriage.'

So does that mean we can put these ugly accusations behind us? (That-desperately-heinous-70%-statistic-when-a-ridiculous-trace-amount-of-Black-people-even-voted-at-all-in-the-California-elections-the-day-Barack-Obama-was-elected???)

I would love it if we could go back to the way we were.

Because this is just silly...

I can't keep divvying myself up like this. Female interests. Black interests. LGBTQ-Ally interests. Faith interests....it's a little exhausting.

The Advocate Wants to Know: Is Gay the New Black?

originally appeared in The Black Voice-Syracuse, Spring 2009

“We can’t all marry Liza Minelli.”

That’s what one sign said the night Proposition 8 failed—and the night President Obama won. No better climax, no better nadir, could have been penned to set up the question begging to be asked in the heat of the moment:

Is ‘Gay’ the new ‘Black’?

“Whoever said that, that’s the most ridiculous statement ever,” Chrystine Johnson says.

The Advocate, a notable magazine addressing the concerns of the mainstream LGBT community, would be the publication to pose such a provocative concern.

“I think before someone [makes a statement like that], they need to look at it historically; to see how [the struggles] are similar, but not the same,” Alexander Vessels told me. In an Obama era—where everyone so desperately wants to shut Black people up—such examination seems necessary.

But, first, Liza Minelli. If the name doesn’t click, it’s because the overwhelming perception from many on the outside of queer rights is the lack of Color. Even the fierce man’s sign on election night seems to confirm what mainstreamed representations of gayness suggest: For Whites Mostly.

Indeed, white privilege—as one ‘passes’ or doesn’t—can accrue capital, and while contested, it provides a degree of leverage in funding a movement whose mainstream face doesn’t even have to discuss ‘white privilege.’

In 1980, James Baldwin would say, “The Women’s Liberation Movement is a little like the Gay Movement in that it is essentially a white middle-class phenomenon, which doesn’t have any real organic connection with the Black situation on any level whatever.”

Angry Brown Butch, the Boricua blogger at AngryBrownButch.com expressed a similar sentiment in light of Duanna Johnson’s death. Johnson, a Black transgender woman in Tennessee, had been found “murdered on the streets of Memphis” only weeks after being brutally beaten by local cops in the tradition of Oscar Grant, and Rodney King.

At the fever pitch of much Prop 8 frustration—and in spite of a certain statistic that blamed “70% of Blacks” (2.3% of those voting on the legislation) for damning gay marriage—Angry Brown Butch dared to ask the question: “Can the LGBT community spare some outrage for Duanna Johnson?”

But the Blacker side of mobilization was quiet, too. The repression of intersectional identity within Black communities only serves to justify those fed up with our so-called ironic ‘role’ in sex-gender-phobia.

Bayard Rustin, in fact, would technically agree with such a statement in 1986. Rustin told Open Hands:

“[T]he gay community today has taken over where the Black community left off in ’68 or ’69. (…) At that time if a person was prepared to accept Blacks then it followed that that person was prepared to look at Jews, Catholics, and other persons.”

In another setting, Rustin would note that, despite his being forced to the sidelines by his Civil Rights Movement colleagues, he didn’t try to add sexual orientation to the Movement’s agenda.

“[I]f people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. (…) People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.”

Still, the question of Black accountability to our kin—Duanna Johnson, Sakia Gunn, the New Jersey 4, countless others—remains.

“Maybe (a little over) 100 years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to get married, because of the color of your skin,” Vessels says.

Loving vs. Virginia in 1967 would outlaw ‘miscegenation’ laws in Virginia which prohibited multi-raced marriage.

“I Love Lucy” would never be considered violating the same rules that Mildred Jeter Loving and Richard Perry Loving were wont to break. Funny. Especially considering the U.S. on-again-off-again love affair with a certain island 90 miles from the Florida coastline.

So, if we really must be in the business of ranking oppression, let us take a moment to breathe. We must have forgotten how arbitrary these signifiers are in the first place; how political they are in the first place and how readily they are designed and assigned by the same Oppressive entity that generates all the mess we call ourselves fighting for—in the first place—‘gay’, ‘Black’, ‘Latino’, ‘Muslim’, ‘disabled’, and on and on until we discover: I’m just like you.

Old Freestyle: I Am Sooooo My Hair (Remix)

I believe freedom is overrated. The First Amendment is…nice. So is the rest of that red, white, and blue freedom talk in the Bill of Rights. But the F-word is starting to lose its sting. Understandable. It’s been used and abused over 200 years. And the way we gift-wrap it for the neo-colonized world—in- AND outside our borders? What does it truly mean to be greater than free?

Liberated?

The summer before trailing off to college, my mother asked, “What are you doing with your hair?” My yarn twists—yes, twists made of yarn—had grown out, and my thick, significantly browner roots were threatening to take over. “I’ll just get it done again,” I told her. That would buy me some time before I had to face another box of TCB permanent relaxer. If you’ve ever seen them, these beautiful Black women are smiling back at you through hair so full of body; so sleek, long, and STRAIGHT. Or they grin from beneath some short, sassy cut that took all manner of patience and pain to achieve.

I was proud. I had gone five whole months without falling for this chemical setting of fire to my scalp. Now, there was an alternative to this, but my mother didn’t want to hear it. Imus can’t say “nappy” like the women I know. Nappy can’t get you a job, a man, or a pillow in your own mama’s house!

But when my first semester ended, I had a 3.9 AND my first, real African-American Studies course under my belt. Not to mention, there was plenty of new growth under these kinky twists.

I figured I would fight that good fight again:

“Mommy, I’m 18!”

“But Mommy, it’s my head!”

“Ma, I don’t care what they say at church!”

“What if I already made the appointment?”

“Chaunté thinks it would be cute.”

Best friend confirmation works sometimes. But in my valiant efforts to convince my mother, I discovered I was losing confidence myself.

“Well…if I don’t like it, I’ll just get a perm…” I was in too deep to turn back now. And on January 4, 2006, as India.Arie sang “I Am Not My Hair” on the radio—no lie—I did it.

It wasn’t until the next semester in an African American Literature class that I learned about rememory. Time and experience have worn freedom down in my book. I can’t explain it. But oh, baby, I can. There are forces tied up in these dead skin cells. A remembering I don’t know with my mind’s eye, but there’s something familiar to me about the process of being colonized—and at long last unshackled.

The liberation I experienced that January afternoon was like 1863. It was like Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics. Mandela in 1990. My self-worth had still been colonized until that moment. What was mine—broad nose, thick lips, tightly coiled hair from an Africa I’ve never seen—felt new and familiar. For once, I felt at home inside my skin—even in a Top Model world.

So yeah, I think freedom is stale, and overrated. But I think everyone could use a little liberating.

since we can't say bitc---

originally appearing on moretanthanmost.today.com, 6/22/2008

Oh to be young, angry, and a Black female.

Leave it to a certain news outlet we all know and deride to spark terror of imminent lesbian gang domination, and terrorist fist jabbing (good thing I’m too poor for court-side, and have always viewed exploding pounds as slightly corny). Now Rupert Murdoch’s pride and joy has taken on the inexplicable fury of Black women as personified in First Lady prospect, Michelle Obama. But, now that I’ve had a day to digest it all, I’m not mad at them.Ever since this really awesome (self-imposed) C-Span marathon in the primary season, during which she so eloquently addressed her husband’s candidacy, Mrs. Obama has become my homegirl. (Go ahead: MAKE THE T-SHIRT!)

One would be wise to chart her lifetime achievements. She’s done a whole lot more than idly stand behind or beside her baby-daddy. She’s Princeton. She’s Harvard. She’s a community organizer - and what’s more - she’s a wrap-and-go, press-and-curl acquainted Black woman from the South Side of Chicago.

In other words, she’s quite the anomaly. Much like Maxine Waters. Much like Cynthia McKinney. To get a little vintage, much like Shirley Chisholm–the original female firestarter in U.S. Presidential history. I should mention, these women are no shrinking violets. Recall McKinney’s tussle with Capitol Hill police in 2006. In 2007, I stood on the National Mall listening to thousands of protestors chant “Impeach Bush!” as Maxine Waters nodded in tune, “Yes.” And Shirley Chisholm’s campaign slogan, in 1972, was “Unbought and Unbossed.” So, to put it mildly: don’t try her.

You shouldn’t trip the threshold of any of these women without a valid reason, and Fox commentators did well to link Michelle Obama to this legacy of perceived brown-like-earth-crayons angst. Having said that, there is a tendency in Western culture to package Black women’s ambition and proclivity for advancement with anger. Mainstream may recognize this pairing as the alleged ‘assertivebitch’ conundrum facing (white) women (like Hillary Clinton) everywhere. and so the ABW, or Angry Black Woman trope, becomes a (more) politically correct space for Fox to call me, Shirley Chisholm, Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, and Michelle Obama by our right name, “BITCH(es)!!!”
Now, of course, it’s downright sacrilege to breathe the “B” word in the same sentence with such heavyweights, but Fox, even on a subconscious level, understands there are one too many epithets midway down the alphabet to launch the “B” word at Michelle Obama. So why in the world would I go so far as to commend them? Tina Fey called it the ‘new’ black. Really, being a ‘bitch’ as modernity conceives of it has actually always been a pretty Black ‘way’ to go. Need an undercover insurgency on the plantation? How about someone to actually organize that boycott? You have a dream? Well I have Ella Baker. But with the hyper-commodification of Black rage and ventilation (cough…hip hop..and jazz…and…), the increasing market appeal of being a “bitch” (as celebrated on SNL), I will eventually strike no fear in the hearts of many as a Black woman, dammit! When I bark, you’re supposed to expect BITE–because I will.

And that’s exactly where Fox went right. A firm woman+platform=? Actually, wait…she’s still kinda just laughed at as a bitch. Now a firm BLACK woman+platform=? Angry. At least if you remember we’re Black, we get to be angry. Maybe you still don’t know what Michelle Obama said in the course of 10,839 words BUT–you gotta love how angry she is. We know something’s wrong. We don’t know what. But she sure is Black. And angry! If you take that away, you’ve neutralized my moxie. It’s not (yet) hot for us to hear “Angry Black Woman” out of the mouths of pop culture conduits or commentators. So until then, I’d rather you didn’t make me what “bitch” is becoming. (At this rate, even the magazine will be in grocery stores…)

If you do, I’m no more than a Che Guevara popped collar shirt or a Bob Marley ringtone. You’ve made me the equivalent of Ginger Beer on ice - after the ice has melted! Once you take away my stereotypical right to be pissed off about something - God forbid it happen to be the current demise of our alleged democracy - you leave me as victorian as Leave It To Beaver if Leave It To Beaver met the Vietnam War. This is why it really pains me to hear news of expert advisors being assigned to Michelle Obama to “soften“ her image, even “feminize“ her (I love the subtlety of gender role definition). If Michelle Obama looks like a force to be reckoned with, it’s because she is.

This is gully, son. This is gully.

So, thanks Fox News: way to restore my rage. Everyone else? You betta start reckoning!

Apocalypse Now…No! Wait!…not yeeeeet NOW

first appeared on moretanthanmost.today.com 6/23/2008

So this has been circulating in the blogosphere following remarks Sunday morning that President Bush will indeed finish the Warmongers’ Trifecta he set out to accomplish after the [florida recount] 9/11. At this point you may think I’m a Fox News stalker, but really–wait, no. maybe I am. BUT I’ll lay off after this post (unless, of course, something even better whets my palate)!

“i want the special–yeah with ahmadinejad. might as well give me an africom while we’re at it. yeah–oh, and dickie wants the one that comes with the m-16…no, not the toy one…”

Bill Kristol, editor at the Weekly Standard suggested that should the White House turn blue after November 4th, President Bush will, likely, drop bombs over the [U.S.] Tehran himself - a move many don’t anticipate coming from a President Obama. (Cuz diplomacy is fo’ suckas!! We amurrrrrrikaaa, snitches!!) Meanwhile, Israel entered the weekend stretching her pimp hand: 100 F-16S and F-15S in the same airspace. But Iran isn’t exactly whimpering on the corner.
As the debate for Iran’s right to nukes expedites the Second Coming, one should take the time to revisit not so ancient history. For your viewing pleasure, or hopefully, discomfort, I present to you a short list of excellent ‘propaganda’ covering the U.S. case for blood under new millennium conservatives–and you don’t even have to leave your laptop!

Byte One: Gen. Powell Goes to the U.N., Dick & Bush, 2003*
(*Goes great with the 2006 read The Manifesto of Ascendancy…and just last week alJazeera chuckled at Condoleezza Rice’s Neo-Colonial Manifesto.)

Oh, John Ridley and Esquire.
With all due respect, Gen. Powell and Sec. Rice ought to be lauded for their respective stations in the Big White House under this Administration, but I must say the day the General left was much more venerable than the day he made the case for Iraq. And if I recollect right, Secretary Rice failed the domestic ‘hearts and minds’ bit miserably during the Gulf region’s levee explosion in 2005. Bottom line is: they know better. Brilliant as they are, John Ridley found himself hard pressed to find a sympathetic Negro for their cause, as Powell and Rice have been effective overseers messengers of the State as it spent the last eight years on American-as-apple-pie perf enhancements (a.k.a. The Patriot Act…a.k.a. before a couple of weeks ago, denial of habeas corpus to detainees…a.k.a. encouraging Israel’s trigger-happiness…).

Call me when the Blahniks break in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Oh wait.

It may already be gentrified.

Better yet, let Belafonte speak a word. Until then, this un/successful mediation of Biblical prophecy–at the behest of the big, bad State–will continue to earn its conduits nothing but scorn from the rest of us brownfolk.

about.com

Byte Two: Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, 2004

After this one, Michael Moore darn near evaporated. He clearly did…said…something right. But then there was SiCKO. And Cuba. And the Department of the Treasury?

Byte Three: The Fog of War, Errol Morris, 2003
Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
McNamara served as Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. I would encourage you to give special attention to McNamara’s argument about each player in 1962 - the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba - being a ‘rational’ entity as getting nuclear danced about everyone’s options. Castro said no one feared death–it was just a matter of when it would come. And how.
If the ’60s were rational, we can reasonably expect our leadership to be rational, too, right? Kristol’s off base, isn’t he? We have to talk it out before we bomb it out, don’t we?

guardian.co.uk

Well, look at the bright side: who can afford to discriminate against permanently tanned people or lgbtq people or poor people or disabled people or any people when everyone’s running for their lives? I knew we’d find equality sooner or later.