Friday, November 7, 2008
"Patriot Act" Denizen Kane (Def Poetry)
And below at UC Berkeley SASC resiSTANCE benefit concert. Amazing spoken word and hiphop from Denizen Kane of Typical Cats
The honeymoon is over; GOP calls for impeachment of Obama
Satire by R J Shulman
6 Nov, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Just hours after an impressive win by Barack Obama over John McCain, Republican leaders are calling for the impeachment of the President-elect. "Obama has lied to the American public about change. Everything was change," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Do you see any change?" McConnell asked. "I don't see any change."
"Obama told the American people repeatedly that he was going to change things," said House minority leader John Boehner of Ohio. "This has turned out to be a lie. Anyone who stands in front of the American people and lies like that should be removed from office. How can we explain to our children the audacity of lying coming from this man?"
"Barack Obama's lying is the cruelest act in American political history," said Clifton W. Grotz, of the Heritage Foundation. "Instead of fixing the economy like he promised, an economy that has languished for the past eight years due to Bill Clinton, Obama is running off to do celebrity things like picking a cabinet. In fact," Grotz continued, "by now, Obama should have rebuilt New Orleans and rebuilt the Constitution."
"We have to hold Obama's feet to the fire," said Sean Hannity of Fox News, "and the only way to do that is to start the impeachment process. And another thing the American people need to know is why Barack Obama sat next to Sam Perkins -- a known terrorist -- when they both attended Harvard. Perkins, a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Virginia, seems to have ended up on the TSA's watch lists.
"I don't know why the government has listed me as a security risk," Perkins said. "Maybe it's because I once owned a Cat Stevens album. I think it was Teaser and the Firecat."
Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, suffering from painful splinters from pulling a possible impeachment of George W. Bush off the table too quickly, pointed out that impeachment was inappropriate as Senator Obama was not in office yet.
"Leave it to the Democrats to cover up and protect their own," said GOP strategist and Fox News contributor, Karl Rove.
~ Citizens for Legitimate Government ~
UK: Government black boxes will 'collect every email'
Internet "black boxes" will be used to collect every email and web visit in the UK under the Government's plans for a giant "big brother" database, The Independent has learnt.
Home Office officials have told senior figures from the internet and telecommunications industries that the "black box" technology could automatically retain and store raw data from the web before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government.
Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, described it as "step too far" and the Government's own terrorism watchdog said that as a "raw idea" it was "awful".
Nevertheless, ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year. News that the Government is already preparing the ground by trying to allay the concerns of the internet industry is bound to raise suspicions about ministers' true intentions. Further details of the database emerged on Monday at a meeting of internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal.
Whitehall experts working on the IMP unit told the meeting the security and intelligence agencies wanted to use the stored data to help fight serious crime and terrorism, and said the technology would allow them to create greater "capacity" to monitor all communication traffic on the internet. The "black boxes" are an attractive option for the internet industry because they would be secure and not require any direct input from the ISPs.
During the meeting Whitehall officials also tried to reassure the industry by suggesting that many smaller ISPs would be unaffected by the "black boxes" as these would be installed upstream on the network and hinted that all costs would be met by the Government.
"It was clear the 'back box' is the technology the Government will use to hold all the data. But what isn't clear is what the Home Secretary, GCHQ and the security services intend to do with all this information in the future," said a source close to the meeting.
~ more... ~
Worse than the Great Depression
The mainstream media and Wall Street have reached the consensus that the current credit crisis is the worst since the post-war period. George Soros' statement that "the world faces the worst finance crisis since WWII" epitomizes the collective wisdom. The crisis is currently the ultimate scapegoat for all the economic evils that currently plague the global financial system and the global economy – from collapsing stock markets of the world to food shortages in third world counties. We are repeatedly assured that the ultimate fault lies with the Credit Crisis itself; if there were no Credit Crisis, all of these terrible things would never have happened in the economy and the financial markets.
The most extraordinary thing is that the mainstream media has never attempted to compare the current economic environment to the one preceding the Great Depression. In essence, it is assumed outright that the Great Depression can never possibly happen again, ever, thus obviating the need for such a comparison. I actually believe that the macroeconomic fundamentals today are much worse, so that we are in for a protracted period of economic depression – a depression much worse than the Great Depression, a depression that would likely be remembered in history as "The Second Great Depression" or The Greater Depression, as Doug Casey has called it so aptly.
~ more... ~
Outrage over 'chastity belt' lingerie fitted with GPS tracking system
Feminists around the world have reacted with horror to a new line of lingerie that comes equipped with a GPS tracking system.
The 'find me if you can' range of underwear has been described as a modern-day, high-tech chastity belt.
'It is outrageous to think that men can buy this, programme it and give it to their partners and then monitor them,' said Claudia Burghart, leader of a Berlin feminist group.
'It is nothing more than a chastity belt for insecure men.'
Lingerie maker Lucia Lorio of Brazil says her design targets the 'modern, techno-savvy woman'.
The lingerie combination set consists of lace bodice, bikini bottom and faux pearl collar, with the GPS device nestled in the see-through part of the bodice next to the waist.
~ more... ~
Repression escalates: Reporter Pedro Matías kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
Pedro Matías, a well-known reporter who writes for Noticias, a local daily paper, as well as the national weekly Proceso, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and robbed on Saturday night in Oaxaca. Reporters Without Borders states that,
Matías was kidnapped as he left the newspaper to go home on the evening of 25 October. His abductors beat him and terrorised him for hours, simulating an execution, asking him how he preferred to die and variously threatening to drag him along the ground behind their car, cut off his genitals, rape him or behead him. They also threatened his family members, saying they had been "located."
He was released the next morning some 30 km outside Oaxaca in Tlacolula de Matamoros, without his car and without his papers, which his abductors also took from him.
Matías does much reporting on the social movement in Oaxaca, usually giving it fair, if not occasionally favorable, coverage. According to Reporters Without Borders, he also is a contributor to a radio station and on it has criticized the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), the party which has ruled Oaxaca for almost 80 years.
This is not the first attack against Noticias or its reporters, which for several years has been the lone local mainstream media outlet which is critical of the state government. Mexico is also the most deadly country in the Americas for journalists.
On November 19, 2004, masked gunmen took over Noticias' warehouses and printing presses, holding it for several days and murdering a 19 year old.
On June 17, 2005, Governor Ulises Ruiz, with the help of a state congressman and a PRI-controlled union called the CROC (Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants), fomented a fake strike against Noticias in an attempt to shut it down. Union members, paramilitaries and local police blockaded the building with 31 Noticias employees inside, cutting off the electricity, phones and water. After a month, the thugs raided the building, dragging out the 31 employees and destroying the offices.
On August 9, 2006, during the rebellion in Oaxaca, two armed, masked men entered the offices of Noticias, shooting equipment and people, wounding two employees.
This year, on January 16, two Noticias reporters received death threats from Rubén Marmolejo Maldonado, aka "El Dragón," a leader of porros (paid thugs), who has instigated numerous conflicts on the campus of the state university in Oaxaca (UABJO) as well as organizing attacks against the APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca). He has been denounced by the Chair of the Law and Social Sciences Departments of UABJO of working for the state government.
And now Pedro Matías has been kidnapped and tortured. While this event should be seen as another occurrence of government repression against Noticias, it also has a place in the increasingly tense climate of repression against the social movement which has been escalating these past couple of weeks. Oaxaca has seen the October 16 arrest of three APPO members for the October 27, 2006, murder of Brad Will, the issuing of more that 300 more arrest warrants, and the October 25 warrantless raid and trashing of a house belonging to CODEP, a group aligned with the APPO, by the AFI, Mexico's equivalent of the FBI.
Things may only get worse as the anniversary-laden month of November approaches. November 2 marks not only the Day of the Dead but also the unsuccessful 2006 Federal Preventive Police (PFP) attack on the barricade of Radio Universidad. And November 25 is the two year anniversary of the massive and brutal PFP, paramilitary, state and local police attacks against the APPO. Clearly, the government of Oaxaca is trying to preemptively intimidate and frighten a rebellious populace that it still very much fears.
Credit-default swaps top $33 trillion, depository trust says
Credit-default swaps totaling $33.6 trillion are outstanding on companies, governments and asset- backed securities worldwide, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. said in a report that gives the broadest data yet on the unregulated market.
About $15.4 trillion of the contracts were linked to individual corporate, sovereign and asset-backed bonds, the DTCC said in the report released on its Web site today. About $14.8 trillion is tied to indexes. The report also lists the 1,000 most-traded contracts. The New York-based DTCC estimates it sees about 90 percent of all trades.
~ Bloomberg ~
Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut
Louder Than Words llc - www.loosechange911.com
Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas bring you the most powerful 9/11 Documentary yet. Updated!!!!
Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas bring you the most powerful 9/11 Documentary yet. Updated!!!!
“An Obama presidency: More of the same - only worse (Part 1)
Keeping it Real with Larry Pinkney
30 Oct, 2008
If the masses of people in this nation knew or had known the pertinent facts pertaining to the war mongering 'we can fight the war better,' pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama, it is doubtful they would have been so thoroughly bamboozled and hoodwinked to their own detriment and that of the world. Wall Street and the corporate media, however, have, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, engaged in a relentless, ruthless, and absolutely unprecedented campaign of corporate branding and marketing on behalf of Barack Obama, with the peoples of the United States as their targets.
Assuming that the corporate Wall Street elite and its concomitant opinion-forming, omission, and misinformation machinery of the U.S. corporate media successfully installs their favorite choice - Democratic Party Republicrat Barack Obama - as the first colored President of the U.S. Empire, the majority of people in the United States are in for a rude awakening in the form of increased economic austerity, internal political repression, deepened racial disharmony, external U.S. military adventurism, and an endless stream of misleading disinformation from the corporate government. The peoples of the world will face intensified imperialistic and military assault and attempts at U.S. hegemony. This time, however, the imperialism of the U.S. Empire will be conveniently spearheaded, condoned and rationalized by its newest and most potent weapon: the dangerously double-talking 'Emperor' in black face - Barack Obama. Moreover, in one fell and foul swoop, the corporate / military elite of the U.S. Empire intends to utilize Barack Obama as the 'messiah' (created by none other than corporate America and its corporate media) to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people's liberation struggles throughout the world.
In relative short order - inside the United States itself - under a Barack Obama presidency, the living conditions of the majority of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples will continue to steadily and massively deteriorate while the corporate Wall Street barons prolong their glut of the every day people's finances, resources, hopes, and dreams. Under an Obama presidency those non Blacks who stand in opposition to Barack Obama
'I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin…'
-Malcolm X
After the Democratic Party Republicrats so-called election euphoria and celebrating is over, the Obama / Biden Republicrat regime will get down to the business of placing the ongoing exploitation of the every day people of this nation on fast track. The masses of Black Americans, along with the oppressed and exploited Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples of this nation will learn first hand that, notwithstanding the deceptive Obama rhetoric, exploitation nationally and internationally will be intensified. The 'clash between those who want freedom, justice, equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation' about which Malcolm X referred, will be intensified under Barack Obama, with Obama representing the interests of the oppressors. The political contradictions in this regard will also be increasingly obvious.
Those so-called leftist and progressives who were and are collaborators with U.S. Empire will, for a time, try to pretend that their support of Barack Obama was not a sell out, and that they simply need more time to persuade the U.S. Empire's colored corporate emperor to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples will be enduring an unprecedented rate of economic and social suffering. The anger of the people will ultimately peak and explode, as a result of having bought into false hope and raised expectations. This is precisely why the U.S. corporate government has already made military contingency plans to contain and massively quash dissention within the United States. Barack Obama will serve to provide his corporate / military masters with colored political cover for political repression in this nation; and he will have already provided a small respite of wiggling room for them in this regard. Nevertheless, as brutal reality forces the proverbial scales of blindness to drop from eyes of the masses, it will become crystal clear that the supposed 'change' to which Barack Obama referred in his campaign rhetoric, was nothing more than a vicious ruse of double-speak by him, backed by his corporate and military handlers. Indeed, the emperor will be shown to 'have no clothes.' But what of the fate of millions of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples inside the U.S.? How many horrible sacrifices will have been, and will yet need to be made by the people in order to get the boot of economic blood-sucking and political repression off their / our necks?
The 'clash,' to which Malcolm X referred, 'between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation' will deepen, as will repression and systemic contradictions. The 'clash' will have, by necessity, as Malcolm X suggested, gone beyond 'the color of the skin.' Notwithstanding his double speak rhetoric, it will become clear to people that a president Barack Obama supports and wants to 'continue the system of exploitation' at home and abroad. Despite continued double speak and corporate disinformation and misinformation, it will be become undeniably clear that a president Barack Obama is the servant of the corporate/ military / prison apparatus of U.S. Empire, and a key facilitator of exploitation and political repression inside and outside the United States.
Building a real, grass roots peoples' movement inside the United States will then, in some respects, be more challenging but by no means impossible. Notwithstanding the political repression and incessant disinformation that for a certainty will be emanating from the Obama / Biden Democratic Republicrats and their cronies, a genuine peoples' movement will be, of necessity, the order of the day.
It is no mere coincidence that Democratic Party Republicrat, Barack Obama, had the unheard of amount of approximately 600 million dollars in his political campaign coffer compared with fellow Republican Party Republicrat, John McCain's, approximately 100 million campaign coffer dollars. This fact alone should give some crucial insight into the despicable financial role played by corporations, and their outrageous, unacceptable, and massively inordinate amount of influence and control over the electoral system in this so-called democracy. Most of this money is blood money, based upon exploitation from the corporate Wall Street and military corporate elite. This fact alone gives yet another good indication as to what to expect under an Obama presidency. It is totally reprehensible and unacceptable and an utter mockery of democracy.
[See part 2 of this series in the upcoming edition of The Black Commentator]
—
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn].