Mugabe's "Bull Shit" Performance at the UN

Is it me or is he getting voice lessons from Dark Vador? Is this not the same great Zimbabwe dream of the 1980's that liberals paraded but is now charging its people $412 bucks for a sheet of toilet paper. Mugabe rides around in fancy cars bashing Bush while he stays in office for life and watches his people starve to death.

This is Zimbabwe

From the blog this is This is Zimbawe

It is ten years since the original publication of ‘Breaking the Silence: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands’ (by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) and the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF)). We are delighted to let you know that the report has been re-published in book form by the South African publishing house Jacana under the title ‘Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe’.

Gukurahundi is a traditional Shona word, which means ‘the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains.’ It is the word chosen by the Mugabe regime to describe a military operation against a civilian population during the 1980s.

In 1980, a few short months after Independence Day, Robert Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President Kim Il Sung to have the North Korean military train a brigade for the Zimbabwean army. Training of the 5th Brigade lasted until September 1982. The objective of the 5th Brigade was to crush the people of Matabeleland, force them to submit to Mugabe’s Zanu PF and relinquish their loyalty to Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu).

The infamous red-bereted 5 Brigade were soldiers equipped with unusually cruel skills. We learn through the ‘Breaking the Silence’ report that the methods used to address “reorientation”, “change”, “unfounded grievances” - methods designed to teach a community to “accept defeat” - included civilian murders, civilian rapes, civilian torture and the destruction of civilian property.

The report describes in detail some of the techniques used, and it’s important to understand that all the techniques were calculated to maximise terror, pain, grief and humiliation. The soldiers, under Mugabe’s instruction, set out to injure and mutilate human beings, to kill them, but to do so in such evil cruel ways that the scars would be indelibly etched in memories for generations to come.

Mugabe intended to leave this civilian population with fear for the rest of their lives, for the horror to be so great that they would pass the fear down to subsequent generations. This is how he believed he would manage discontent in the region, and hold onto power indefinitely.

When the soldiers were first deployed in Matabeleland, the shock was significant and the impact immediately felt:

“Five Brigade passed first through Tsholotsho, spreading out rapidly through Lupane and Nkayi, and their impact on all these communal areas was shocking. Within the space of six weeks more than 2000 civilians had died, hundreds of homesteads had been burnt and thousands of civilians had been beaten. Most of the dead were killed in public executions involving between one and 12 people at a time.”

The book form of the report, ‘Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe’, has an introduction by Elinor Sisulu and a foreword by Archbishop Pius Ncube:

Sisulu recounts how she was horrified by the detailed account in the CCJP report of the “mass shooting of 62 young men and women” on the banks of Cwele River in Matabeleland. She contrasts the silence that greeted the 1983 massacre in Matabeleland with the shock and dismay throughout the world occasioned by the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa in March 1960. (The Sunday Independent SA: 27 May 2007)

One of the most difficult things for decent people to comprehend is that these perverse barbaric acts of cruelty were not the actions of psychopaths, but soldiers. Their ‘enemy’ was not an invading army from foreign borders, nor were they fighting for freedom against a repressive racist regime; the vast majority of the ‘enemy’ were our fellow Zimbabweans - men, women, children, and the elderly: the innocent and the defenceless; the helplessly isolated.

Donald Trelford, editor of The Observer (UK) at that time, recalled an interview that he had with Robert Mugabe in 1984 where he asked Mugabe whether he would ever consider a political solution to the Matabeleland issue rather then the military one. Trelford describes Mugabe’s response to his question as ‘blunt’ and ‘chilling’:

“The solution is a military one. Their grievances are unfounded. The verdict of the voters was cast in 1980. They should have accepted defeat then … The situation in Matabeleland is one that requires a change. The people must be reoriented.”

Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, carries another chilling quote from Mugabe in the early 1980s: “We eradicate them. We don’t differentiate when we fight because we can’t tell who is a dissident and who is not.”

The publishers of ‘Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe’ write: “the [Breaking the Silence] Report is offered again at a time when the events it describes - the Gukurahundi have acquired a fresh relevance”. They say that they hope “the reavailability of the Report will mean that more people will campaign for an end to human rights violations in Zimbabwe, and for restorative justice for the victims”.

‘Fresh relevance’ indeed. We only need to look at the language used by Zanu PF to see a recurring pattern in thinking: Gukurahundi (1980s) - ‘the early rain which washes away the chaff’, and, Murambatsvina (2000s) - ‘clearing out the trash’. The ‘chaff’ and the ‘trash’ being anyone who dares disagree or challenge the power of Robert Mugabe, or anyone that Mugabe thinks might one day in the future disagree with him or challenge his power.

This book – ‘Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe’ - is an essential book to read for anyone who wants to fully understand Zimbabwe’s history. Both the government enquiries - the Dumbutshena enquiry into the Entumbane battle and the 1984 Chihambakwe enquiry into the 1983 massacres - have never been made public and the Legal Resource Foundation’s attempt to get an order through the Supreme Court (on the basis of access to information in terms of the Constitution) failed. This book therefore stands as perhaps the most critically important record of the violations against the people of Matabeleland during the 1980s. It exposes Mugabe’s capacity for evil, and the enormity of the threat he and his party’s politics of violence presents for any hope that our country might ever enjoy a peaceful non-violent future where human rights are fully respected.

We are delighted that it is now easily available to a worldwide audience.

The book is available for purchase from Exclusive Books in South Africa (full details below). International readers can buy the book via the Exclusive Book website.

Please buy the book and read it and please encourage everyone you know to do the same. If you have a website or blog, please help publicise the fact that this book is now available.

Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe (Price: R189.00)
Sub-title: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980-1988

Exclusive Books website: http://www.exclusivebooks.com/

Publisher’s website: http://www.jacana.co.za/


Update: 6 June 2007

Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe is also available via Amazon (click here).

Hip-Hop's entry into the Ivy League

The blog The Ivy gate has two great stories about the influence of Hip Hop in Ivy league circles. Here are two recent post on the creeping influence of Hip Hops entry into America’s Ivy league schools. About a month back I posted an article about the absurd arguments presented by “if I speak so fast you will think I’m smart” AKA Professor Michael Dyson who just joined the Georegtowne faculty!

Harvard's Hip-Hopaissance

Larry Summers' amusing habit of antagonizing Harvard's African-American Studies Department is no more. Drew Faust has hired back Marcyliena Morgan, a scholar of hip-hop culture, along with her husband, Lawrence D. Bobo, a prominent sociologist.
The pair had left Harvard for Stanford after our friend Larry overrode the unanimous vote of the African-American Studies Department to grant Morgan tenure. Still, Summers had a strong case: Morgan had published just a single book and her classes received lukewarm reviews from students.

According to the Crimson, Faust made a personal appeal to the couple, and the African American Studies Department "wooed the pair this summer over dinners in Cambridge and Martha's Vineyard." Incredible! That's the same way Yale got Young Jeezy to lecture!

Morgan is the proud author of shining pseudo-scholarship such as this:

"Much more than CNN, hiphop brought back the search for reality and truth within a modern, highly advanced world of ideas, technology and modes of communication. For many youth, hiphop conducts its real business in the counter public where it is actualized through a central edict that is constantly repeated and reframed: represent, recognize and come correct."

Sometimes, especially if it's a cold, lonely night, I look at the moon and think I can hear the ghost of Larry Summers, howling in pain as Drew Faust, Spawn of Satan, undoes all his finest work.



Cornel West Drops New Album, Larry Summers Still Scared of Black People

The Ivy League's resident black radical and pop-scholar phenom Cornel West returns to hipster-hop with the release of his second rap album, Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations, featuring the likes of Prince, Talib Kweli, Andre 3000, KRS-One, Jill Scott, Rhymefest, and the late Gerald Levert. Which is impressive and all, but seriously, where's Kanye? This is totally up his alley. They even have the same last name!

Professor West's first album, 2001's Sketches of my Culture, predicated the professor's public spat with Harvard ex-prez Larry Summers and the professor's subsequent break from the university in favor of Princeton. Though his new boss, Princeton president Shirley Tilghman, has yet to comment on Never Forget, West thinks she'll be hipper to the project than Summers was. In a Boston Globe article West speculates,"I think she'll be much more open than Brother Summers," he says. "The hip-hop scared him. It's a stereotypical reaction."

A vocal opponent of misogyny and hedonism in contemporary hip-hop, West portrays his music as a "danceable education" reaching towards the genre's socially progressive roots. "We'll go from the bling-bling to Let Freedom Ring" Brother West raps in "Bushonomics," before giving a shout-out to militant beat poet Gil Scott-Heron. The track features New York MC and black progressive Talib Kweli denouncing "voter registration with no scope of education," "whore-mongerers," and "war-mongerers" alike. Listen to it, and Prince collaboration "Dear Mr. Man," below.

Pro Israel "Hip Hop" ...The Real Occupation....

You are in for a treat for years the left has hijacked music particualy Hip Hop to advance its own ideas, Today thise days are over. There is no better example of that than the new hip hop artist on the block who defends Isreal. Sit back and listen to this..."The Real Occupation"

This is amazing!

Ands after you stop nodding show him some love by visting
his website and purchasing his cd.

www.myspace.com/koshadillzinyomouf

Free Israel from the Muslim occupation.

The Real Occupation- by Kosha Dillz




hereis the link for his you tube video...

the real occupation ( a song i performed at israeli day parade in central park! in front of thousands!)

the link below takes you there.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0RiBwxpmXeY&autoplay=1"

My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir

A few weeks ago I posted about a liberal author who trashed Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas; in the the book entitled Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas Kevin Merida the author showed no mercy in trying to paint a negative picture of the Justice.

Well pay backs a bitch and the judge himself wants the floor. In his new book My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir the Judge will no doubt set the record straight.

To order the book go here

YOUNG BLACK REPUBLICANS EXPECT MORE.

Just in: Young Black Republicans upset over candidates faliure to adress there
issues

Washington, D.C. - September 27, 2007 - Young Republicans National
Federation's Office of Minority Outreach released the following
regarding tonight's Republican debate in Baltimore:

"We were encouraged that during the week of the 50th Anniversary of the
integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, several of
our candidates joined tonight's debate which focused on issues important
to the African American community. Candidates in attendance tonight, are
furthering the dialogue between the Republican Party and our community at
large."

In regard to the debate, Marcus Skelton, National Director of Minority
Outreach and Chairman of the D.C. Young Republicans said, "Addressing
issues like economic empowerment, equal access to quality education,
and continued support for faith-based initiatives will contribute
positively to this important dialogue." Additionally, Mr. Skelton
noted that, "I can't make excuses for all of our candidates not
attending this debate."

The grassroots level shares similar concerns. "Black Republicans
expect presidential candidates to embrace opportunities to reach the
millions of people of color, prior to the general election," said Sam
Bright, an Ivy League graduate student.

Looking forward, "Our work will focus on finding venues to advance the
participation of young African Americans in the process," said Sean
Conner, National Deputy Director of Minority Outreach. He continued,
"Our communities have to be willing to listen, and candidates must be
willing to talk."

For More Information, Contact:

Marcus Skelton, Marcus.Skelton@yrnf.com (240) 462-2674
Sean L. Conner, Sean.Conner@yrnf.com (907) 738-4131

###

The Office of Minority Outreach was created to engage communities of
color in the political process. The Young Republicans (YRs) are the
oldest political youth organization in the United States. Since its
creation, the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF) has
established itself as the premier Republican grassroots organization
in the nation, providing essential grassroots support for Republican
candidates and issues on the local, state and national levels.

The Madmen of Africa

These men are the cream of a large crop of megalomanic and psychotic 'leaders' that have plagued the African continent for the past forty years. The heartache, misery and suffering caused by these men is truly appalling.

In order of appearance:
Mobutu Sese Seko, Sani Abacha, Idi Amin Dada, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Siad Barre, Jean Bedel Bokassa, P.W. Botha, Gnassingbe Eyadema, Muammar Gaddafi, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Robert Mugabe, Macias Nguema, Jonas Savimbi, Ian Smith and Charles Taylor.

The $300,000,000 Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro represents the squandering of the continents resources by these lunatics.

Info:

1. Two acres of hand-blown French stained glass windows.
2. Individual air conditioning ducts at each of the 7000 seats.
3. On the average Sunday about 200 people attend mass in the largest church on earth.
4. Four of the basilica's 272 gargantuan columns contain elevators that can carry 10 people to a balcony beneath the dome.
5. 7.4 acre marble-floored courtyard

UN Watch vs.UN

Talk about biased!

UN Watch vs. Mugabe Regime

Quote Of The Day

“Look who they are surrounding themselves with. Who are they listening to? Where are the African-Americans in their inner-circles? Where have the Republicans been on the Jena Six case?....Where are those same people that were crying fowl in the Duke rape case? Why have they not cried fowl in the Jena Six?”

— J.C. Watts, conservative Republican and former Congressman, taking top Republican presidential candidates to task for planning to not show up at the upcoming PBS-Tavis Smiley debate at historically black Morgan State University

Bill O'Reilly Vs Media Matters"

Bill O'Reilly a few days ago had a discussion on Fox News with Juan Williams about the negative influences gangsta rap has in fueling inaccurate perceptions about black culture. Some how the liberal group Media Matters spun the discussion into a hate diatribe! The blogger La Shawn Barber went on to CNN to debate a liberal blogger about the merits of such an accusation. Below is a summar of the information from her blog.


Here’s the clip. And this is what started it all.

Bill O’Reilly and black journalist Juan Williams were discussing the vileness of the rap subculture, and O’Reilly was trying to make the point, albeit awkwardly, that whites who don’t know blacks or aren’t exposed to blacks may get the impression that the rap subculture represents black America. I was putting his remarks — “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea’” — in context. I’m no Bill O’Reilly apologist, but come on.

O’Reilly also said he couldn’t get over the fact that people in a black-owned restaurant behaved no differently than people in any other restaurant. Again, I believe it’s the same awkwardly expressed idea about the rap subculture. Whatever he meant by it, I promise you this: the sky will not fall.

However, some blacks see it differently. It’s a shame that certain black Americans, circa 2007, are so darn sensitive. With no more klansman to defend against or whites-only signs to knock down, they look for racism under cable news rocks. But hey, this is what cable news and the “civil rights” industry are all about.

Chaka Khan - Love You All My Lifetime

Album Review: Chaka Khan - Funk This

It's amazing that after decades as one of America's great R&B-pop singers, Chaka Khan is still at the top of her game. But at the top she is, and she still has an incomparable voice that's miles ahead - and soars far above - many of the contemporary R&B singers half her age. Funk This isn't just an album, it's a clinic for singers, showing vocalists the world over how a true diva handles her business in the recording booth. For more, click here to read the full review of Chaka Khan's Funk This, which will is in stores today Tuesday (Sept. 24)..you got that today!!!!!!

The new video

Protesting Ahmadenijad at Columbia

Yesterday I attended the rally against Ahmadenijad at Columbia University,I was interviewed by CNN and a few media outlets. I had the opportunity of meeting many bloggers and even Michelle Malkin. She has a great run down on the vents of the day. To those of you who I met thanks for coming and feel free to drop a suggested post.

Muslim Demonstrator: 'May Allah Make a Mushroom Cloud Over Israel'



In New York City today, as Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University:
Only Columbia students were allowed to attend the speech and the Q&A that followed it, so many people who wanted to challenge Ahmadenijad were kept outside. We spoke to some of them, along with Columbia students and others who turned out to protest Columbia’s decision to give Ahmadenijad a forum on its campus. Here is the first of our video reports on the events outside the speech.




NO GAY PEOPLE IN IRAN???



Ahmadinejad on the treatment of women and homosexuals

Quote Of The Day

"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing? kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing? I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there — ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists."

— Colin Powell, moderate Republican and former Secretary of State on terrorism and society

Artist of the Month:Chaka Khan

Alfonso Ribeiro AKA Carlton and Chaka Khan


Okay so you have been asking and I apologise for skipping last months artist of the month but the artist of the month will be Chaka Khan. I think there will never be another voice like this to ever grace the radio channel. The girl has been doing her thing for 20 years and still hits her notes!

Chaka Khan (born March 23, 1953) is an American singer known for her 1984 cover of Prince's "I Feel For You", for her smash hit "I'm Every Woman" and as a member of the funk band Rufus, with whom she recorded the legendary soul record "Ain't Nobody". In her career she has earned many accolades, including eight Grammy awards. Though regarded an R&B singer, she has in fact explored numerous musical genres including funk, disco, jazz, ballads, hip hop, adult contemporary, pop and blues standards.

Early life

Khan was born Yvette Marie Stevens in Great Lakes, Illinois to Charles Stevens and Sandra Coleman. Her sister is dance music diva Taka Boom. She was raised on Chicago's South Side, and at the age of 11 formed her first group, the Crystalettes. While still in high school, she joined the Afro-Arts Theater, a group which toured with Motown great Mary Wells. A few years later, she adopted the African name "Chaka" while working as a volunteer on the Black Panthers' Free Breakfast for Children program, taking her name from the historical figures of either Chaka Bey or Shaka (Chaka) Zulu. Khan attended Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. After quitting high school in 1969, Chaka joined the group Lyfe, soon exiting to join another dance band, The Babysitters; neither enjoyed financial success, but her fortunes changed when she teamed with ex-American Breed member Kevin Murphy and Andre Fisher to form Rufus. In the meantime she had married bass guitarist Hassan Khan, hence her name became Chaka Khan.

Barbara Jordan 1976 Democratic Convention

I have always admired Barbra Jordan her life story was on of the first books I have ever read on a political figure. She is often said to have the "voice of god" for her ability to spellbound audience's by her powerful voice! She is and remains one of my greatest political hero's.

Barbara Jordan, former Congresswoman from Texas who was on the Judiciary Committee during the Watergate Hearings, is the Keynote Speaker at the 1976 Democratic National
Convention.

From Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons.

Bill Cosby on Parenting

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

“Payday” Loan Sharks

By Brad Rourke

As I recall, it was a Thursday and I needed to eat. While gainfully employed in a student job, my check wasn’t due for another week or two. I had nothing in my bank account. The slate clouds threatened that cool, morning drizzle northern California is known for. After a night of debauchery, I was unsteady. In my book bag was a high-end personal CD player, a gift from my parents. Before me was a shop window backed by metal bars. Above the doorway was that ancient symbol: three golden balls. I screwed up my nerve and entered.

I walked out with a pair of twenty dollar bills in my pocket. Far less than I’d hoped. This had to last me. You know how the story ends: By Sunday, I had not much more than lint in my pocket and was digging for some other funding source. I honestly don’t remember how I made it until my paycheck. But I did; here I am, my financial ship basically righted.

Thank God I had not met a “payday loan” operation. They did not yet exist. Here’s how a payday loan operation works. Say I need $200, but payday is nine days away. I go to a payday loan outfit, and if I can prove I have a job by showing a pay stub, they will give me the two C’s in return for a check post-dated two weeks from now, for $230. Between now and then, I need to pay off the loan at $230, or they cash the check. No money in my account? In some states, no worries: I can “flip” the loan, buying another two weeks for another $30. (In some states this is illegal.)

That adds up to about a 390% annual interest rate on the loan. Most folks pay back the money. Indeed, payday loan operations serve in many ways as a de facto banking system for the poor. That’s how they bill themselves, helping working Americans just make ends meet and handle unforeseen emergencies. But, of course, that’s not where they make their money. They rake in the dough from poor saps like I was, in that pawn shop: desperate, feeling out of options. People in that state will often do anything. Indeed, I can bet that, had there been a payday loan shop available, I would have jumped inside in a shot. And two weeks later, I would have been hoping to flip that loan.

Payday loan companies comprise a $28 billion industry in terms of loan volume — roughly comparable to the gross domestic product of Jordan. They make their money the same way loan sharks do, by squeezing people who don’t pay their debts on time. Lots of people get taken in, driven by desperation. The problem was big enough that the defense department pushed for a law capping the interest rate payday lenders can charge. The Pentagon said that service members were paying, on average, $827 on a $339 loan.

On October 1, payday lenders won’t be able to charge more than 36% to service members. They are getting out of that business, saying that rate of return just doesn’t make them enough to justify the work. Other places are trying to do away with these loan sharks, too. Washington, DC just voted to cap rates at the 48 payday shops in that city. Georgia banned them in 2004. Word is that Ohio may be next on the agenda.

Some see this as a liberal-vs.-conservative issue. Those bleeding hearts are out to coddle the poor. But to me, it’s a moral issue that has nothing to do with that. We’ve already agreed, as a society, that it’s wrong. Since Old Testament times, people have agreed it is wrong to charge exorbitant interest. And here on American shores, there were interest rate caps between four and seven percent in the colonies of the New World. Loan sharks, who charge in the neighborhood of 125% interest, are prosecuted under RICO laws.

And, there are other, far less exploitive, options for people who really just need a bit extra to cover an emergency, from bona fide advances from their employer to working out payment plans with legitimate creditors.

No, it’s not that pawnshop’s fault I had burned through all my money back in college; it was my own. We all have a responsibility to live within our means. But we also have a responsibility not to prey on the weak. An industry that can only survive on poor decisions made in desperation doesn’t deserve a place in our colonies.

Brad Rourke writes a column on public life called Public Comments, produces a videolog called Taxonomies, is a founder of the Maryland neighborhood blog, Rockville Central, and is in a band called The West End

AverageBro Blogs Live! From Jena, LA

~Great post over at AverargeBro who is giving some context to this complicated case!


Well, okay, not quite live. And not quite Jena either. I've actually been following today's proceedings, not on CNN or any other corporate owned juggernaut, but at a more bootleg level, listening to Radio One's live coverage of the event on wolam.com most of the morning here from my Day Job. You gotta love technology.

I've been pretty critical of this whole Jena Six phenomenon, not because I don't agree with the cause (I totally do), but because I think it reveals the inherent issue with modern day activism in black America. It seems like we can only organize on a large scale when there's racism involved.

Translation: Unless there's a white person doing harm to blacks, we just don't really care.

To read more link here http://averagebro.blogspot.com/

Bloggers tackle the Jena 6"

By Richie

I have posted different views on this topic and my view is simply that Jena has undealt with racial tensions and this incident simply exposed this. I also think that the media is provoking the
story to create a circus like atmosphere, I do however think that considering what these boys did the sentence imposed on to them is not justified. They should not have taken the law into there hands and beat this guy.

This is the reason they are behind bars for assault, but to give these boys so many years is an injustice. The white kids provoked these boys and knew very well that such a sensitive weapon like a noose hanging in the yard would create a backlash. The fact is you have a city and a district attorney with there head in the sand on the racial tension occuring in there city. There ignoring it has lead to this moment and should be a warning to any town big or small who prtetends that all is well.

UN Human Rights Council Opens Permanent Indictment of Israel

Egyptian ambassador interrupts UN Watch speech on biased agenda

Geneva, Sept. 20, 2007 -- Today the UN Human Rights Council launched a special agenda item singling out Israel for permanent indictment. The special debate criticizing Israel allowed the Palestinian representative to take the floor and accuse Israel of "atrocities", Syria to charge Israel with "Judaising" the Golan, and the Islamic group to protested Israel's entry of Syrian airspace. Cuba on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement complained Israel was excavating around the Al-Aqsa mosque. Iran, Kuwait, Algeria, and Venezuela and others also joined in condemning the Jewish state.

When UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer spoke out in the council plenary against the biased agenda, Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukry interrupted with objections. Israel and Syria then entered the fray, but finally UN Watch was allowed to finish. Watch video selections from the debate above, or see the text below.




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

UN Watch Remarks to UN Human Rights Council
September 20, 2007

The Agenda Item Targeting Israel
Delivered by Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch

Mr. President, we meet today in the council's first debate on specific countries. The agenda item is "the Human Rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." The rest of the world only gets treated next week - in the same amount of time allotted for one country today.
Let us consider the title of today's item. Should we judge this book by its cover?

Not if we listen to the United Nations' own Department of Public Information. It published a chart last year called "Commission on Human Rights versus Human Rights Council: Key Differences."

The chart addresses the infamous agenda item from the old Commission -- virtually identical to the one today, titled "Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine."

What is so interesting, however, is that this is not what the UNDPI called it. Instead, it did something rather brave. It recognized the item for what it really was, calling it, and I quote, "the Agenda Item Targeting Israel."

Mr. President, the chief promise of reform was to end the bias and double standards that ultimately destroyed the old Commission-the chief example of which was this item.

Yet today we reconvene under the same infamous item -- in the plain words of the UNDPI, the "Agenda Item Targeting Israel." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

In the same chart, the UNDPI promised a key difference with this new Council-that it would "start with a clean slate."

Mr. President, where is the promised "clean slate"? And if it is not a clean slate, what kind of a slate is it?

Here's what the leaders of the UN think. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced "the Council's decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range of human rights violations throughout the entire world." High Commissioner Louise Arbour condemned this item as "selective."

[Ambassador Sameh Shoukry of Egypt interrupted on a point of order: "I think somebody should stand to defend the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner. Because I do not believe the Secreatry-General used the expression 'denounce', nor Mrs. Arbour used the expression 'condemn.' I stand to be corrected." (Please see UN Watch ed. note below.) Ambassador Isaac Levanon of Israel then chided Egypt for its repeated interruptions of NGO speeches.]

[UN Watch then continued:]

When this was adopted in June, my country, Canada, pointed out the Council's breach of its own principles: universality, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity. Targeting any UN member state, said Canada, is "politicized, selective, partial, and subjective."

Canada asked to call a vote, but was denied the right to do so. In July, Canada, the United States, and Poland -- a member of the European Union -- filed official proceedings to challenge this violation of the rule of law.

Soon this item and the package under which it was adopted will go before the General Assembly. If member states heed the voice of the Secretary-General, of the High Commissioner, and of principle, they will restore the promised clean slate by voting to remove this biased item.

Thank you, Mr. President.


http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.3418907/k.337A/Permanent_Indictment_of_Israel.htm

Dr. Ron Paul on Intervention and War

Despite my disagreements with Dr.Ron Paul the man is die hard classical libertarian and knows the constitution like the back of his hand.The Republican party needs more Ron Paul's just not right now as we fight global Jihad. To see teh counter to Ron Paul at the bottom I added a speech my Dinesh Dsouza who makes a better argument for my deeply held veiws.

Enterprise Website: Africa Unchained

There is a growing number of African-oriented business blogs on the Web. One such blog is Africa Unchained by entrepreneur Emeka Okafor, a Briton of Nigerian descent.

The blog focuses on development, innovation, and political issues and solutions raised in Africa Unchained by George Ayittey, a Ghanaian-born libertarian economics professor at American University.“It is very encouraging to see Africans talking about development and innovation as much they talk about the politics and the fighting”, Mr. Okafor told The African Executive, a libertarian website.In his own life, one of Mr. Okafor's current endeavors is Caranda Teas and Coffee in New York City and projects that focus on infrastructure and SME development in Africa.

50 Cent Is Back

Hatip to the folks over at http://ulmann.blogspot.com/

50 Cent is back. Until the released of the new song and video for "I Get Money" it seemed if 50 Cent's reign at the top would soon end.

Just as 50 Cent's acting career has taken off, his career as a music businessman appeared to be slipping.

50 Cent changed the name of his new album from Before I Self Destruct to Curtis. After setting on a name 50's new album has been delayed in release several times this year including past the peak summer record sales season. Previously leaked/released songs "Amusement Parks" and "Straight To The Bank" set to be on the new album seemed to be of a much lower quality for an early single than from other 50 Cent releases. The failure of Lloyd Bank's "Rotten Apple" can be viewed as a sign of the partial downfall of the once great G Unit empire.

This seems to have changed with the release of "I Got Money" in song and now in video form by 50 Cent. This song has everything a rap song needs: Electronic sounds, samples of a recent hit, samples of an old school classic, bass and treble heavy production and a fake ass gangsta talking about his wealth. Finally a summer rap hit other than the remix of "Umbrella." I'll take my Audio Two anyway I can get it, even if it is from 50 Cent.

John Stossel's Sick in America

And Michael Moore has the gall to say to John that he's so 13th Century. Go figure.

African American's for "Rudy Guliani 08"

Rudy’s Race Rights

His is not a lefty’s record

Like a stack of scratched records, pundits repeatedly dismiss Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential prospects because of his :social liberalism.” True, the former New York mayor’s views on abortion, guns, and gays (despite his opposition to same-sex marriage) clash with those of many socially conservative Republican primary voters.

However, socio-cons care about more than just these three important matters. On school choice, welfare reform, adoption, and quality of life, evangelicals cannot quibble with Giuliani’s achievements. His Bush-like immigration proposals are no more liberal than the president’s. Socio-cons also like to see violent criminals incarcerated and terrorists incinerated. No Rightist calls Giuliani Leftist on that.

Significantly, Giuliani can hold his head up high as the GOP hopeful with the finest legacy on racial preferences ‘ a key issue to conservatives of every hue.

In 1993, Giuliani ran and won on the slogan “One Standard, One City.” These words guided his administration.

In his first month, Mayor Giuliani scrapped New York’s 20 percent set-asides for minority- and female-owned contractors, and a 10 percent price premium that City Hall let such companies charge above the bids of white, male competitors.

As Giuliani told me at a December 3, 1997 Manhattan Institute forum:

“I, number one, thought that was very bad public policy. The city shouldn’t be paying 10 percent more. Remember, I was dealing with a city that had about a $3 billion deficit at the time. How we could possibly pay 10 percent more for anything seemed incomprehensible to me.”

“And second,” Giuliani added, “the whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination. It has exactly the opposite effect on people who support quotas think it would have. So, I did away with it.”

Instead, Giuliani offered all contractors workshops on how to prepare more competitive applications. Some projects were subdivided to qualify newer, less-capitalized bidders.

Giuliani also padlocked the city’s Balkan-style offices of African-American/Carribean Affairs, Asian Affairs, European-American Affairs, Gay Community Affairs, Jewish Community Affairs, and Latino Affairs.

Through these actions alone ‘ in Gotham, not Green Bay ‘ Giuliani enacted more equality before the law than the GOP Congress even debated in the 12 years between the 1994 “Republican Revolution” and 2006’s Republican Rout.

“I have focused on people as people and not had the sense that their first claim on me is because of the group they belong to,” Giuliani told Jonathan Capehart in the March 2, 1999 New York Daily News. “They have a very, very strong claim on me as human beings.”

Giuliani promoted other policies that happened to benefit minorities while advancing his colorblind philosophy.

Giuliani privatized 69.8 percent of some 33,000 apartments the city previously had confiscated from tax-delinquent landlords. Families and individuals, many of them minorities, now occupy these roughly 23,000 private homes.

Primarily, but not exclusively, Giuliani helped minority students by launching his Charter School Fund. He visited Milwaukee’s mainly minority voucher schools and forcefully advocated that Gotham adopt “vouchers.” (He actually uses that word.) Last June 13, he told a Manhattan Institute luncheon: “The only thing that I believe is going to change dramatically public education in this country is to go to a choice system and to break up the monopoly.”

Giuliani and then-City University of New York chancellor Herman Badillo (whose new book, One Nation, One Standard, I helped edit) ended non-selective “open admissions” and increased graduation requirements and other academic standards.

Then-Borough President Fernando Ferrer (D., Bronx) on January 19, 1999, very specifically warned CUNY’s Board of Trustees that Giuliani and Badillo’s reforms would mean, “that 46 percent of black and 55 percent of Hispanic students would not be able to enroll in the senior colleges.” Contemplating these proposed changes, City Councilman Helen Marshall (D., Queens) said that June: “I get a feeling of ethnic cleansing.”

Despite these calamitous predictions, CUNY’s minority enrollment and graduation rates grew after Giuliani and Badillo raised, not lowered, what they expected of students of all colors:

The total number of first-time freshmen at CUNY’s seven senior colleges rose from 7,104 in fall 1999 to 9,576 in fall 2006, a 34.8 percent increase. Among blacks, such students simultaneously increased from 1,655 to 1,765 (up 6.65 percent), while Hispanics climbed 37.1 percent higher, from 1,771 to 2,428.

At the other end, bachelor degrees earned by blacks grew 5.15 percent, from 3,843 in 1999-2000 to 4,041 in 2005-2006. For Hispanics, the equivalent figures were 2,456 and 3,032, a 23.45 percent boost.

According to CUNY, these figures increased steadily, through the late Giuliani years, right through today’s Michael Bloomberg administration.

“Not only was there no hemorrhaging of students, but the opposite was the case: The CUNY senior colleges became more attractive,” says Jay Hershenson, CUNY’s senior vice-chancellor for university relations. “The scare tactics turned out to be, at best, smear tactics.”

As part of Giuliani’s now-legendary anti-crime crackdown, homicides plunged 67.9, mostly in formerly crime-plagued black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Asked once what he ever did for minorities, Giuliani replied: “They are alive, how about we start with that?”

Indeed, the New York Post estimated that, absent Giuliani’s law-enforcement initiatives, 2,299 additional black New Yorkers would have been murdered between 1993 and 1998. As Giuliani told police cadets on February 16, 1994, “the right to public safety”; was that era’s “single most important civil rights struggle.”

“America’s Mayor” did not manage all this in lily-white Provo, Utah, or right-wing Colorado Springs. Rudolph W. Giuliani courageously accomplished these things in a largely minority city notorious for its liberalism. That’s leadership.



This article originally appeared in The National Review Online on January 11th, 2007.

Now if you are African American and support RUDY go here Group URL:

http://groups.myspace.com/Blacks4Rudy08

"HIP HOP HIPOCRAZY AND ITS ACADEMIC APOLOGISTS"

Great article thanks to the blog Assault on Black Sanity

I wrote this little essay during the course of 2006 and kept messing with it from time to time. It has been out in cyberspace in various versions. So some of you might've seen this thing already. In any case, this (I think) is the final version...

The second installment can be found here.

I am beyond concerned, I am alarmed. So I decided to write.Hip Hop is destroying our children’s minds. Hip Hop has taken hold of what is now the second generation of young adults and as far as the eye can see has produced adult bodies inhabited by children.When Hip Hop culture came into being in the mid-seventies many thought and hoped that it would be a culture of renewal and peace. At the outset it sure appeared that way. It was a way for gangs made up of young black people in the Bronx and later in other sections of New York to lay aside their violent rivalries and compete on artistic grounds.

The early Hip Hop culture wiped out the gang culture. That was the golden age of Hip Hop.Today we have descended into a kind of Dante’s Hell. Hip Hop has instilled the worst of values in our youth. All the values we fought against for decades, all of the values we identified as the legacy of slavery have returned like a virus to infect our black body politic. The delivery system of these slave-memes has been Hip Hop. Hip Hop today is a white supremacist’s dream. And just as in the olden days when house-slaves roamed the plantation to do their master’s bidding, that white supremacist dream has found its black apologists.The House Negro of yore has long been discredited. He/She is easily recognized.

Today’s House Negro, to be effective, must come in a progressive, even a revolutionary guise. One branch of this club is the black academic hip hop apologist.These black academic apologists, the modern-day House Negroes, are busy constructing a theoretical framework for the supposed revolutionary and progressive nature of today’s Hip Hop.

Spearheading this academic House Negro club are three individuals celebrated by certain types of white folks throughout the land: Cornel West, formerly of Harvard and presently Professor of Religion at Princeton University and an almost-member of the “Greatest Generation”, notable author and Humanities Professor Michael Eric Dyson of the University of Pennsylvania a late 1950’s “Baby Boomer”, and the newest, youngest and “hippest” member of the three, Imani Perry, Yale and Harvard graduate and currently law professor at Rutgers University, representing “Generation X”.So, that’s my introduction. Who the hell am I? What qualifies me to criticize these illustrious academics?

Well, I’ve helped create, design, market, and made money off Hip Hop for some twenty years.As far as the latter is concerned, in my defense, at first got I involved with this business because I thought I could make a difference and create capital to build progressive businesses. As time went by, I became pretty influential as a “grey eminence” in the business. I became one of those quiet guys in the background that pull a string here and make a deal there. One of those guys that does this again, and again, and again. As time went by I saw things develop that made me uneasy, but I bought the refrain hook, line and sinker: “Hip Hop Is the CNN of The Streets.” Mainly I bought it because the money was pretty good.Just as many of my peers in the business side of music, I had Hip Hop feed my family and kids, but I would never, never ever, allow my child to watch BET or MTV. Crack dealers don’t consume their own product.Recently I took some time out to finally read Imani Perry’s “Prophets of The Hood”.

It seemed enticing. Here was a young sister, I was told, who finally told the truth about Hip Hop in a coherent way. An African-American woman who had grown up with the culture. A Hip Hopademic so to say with the finest credentials: B.A. from my alma mater, Yale University, PhD and JD from Harvard. In sum: exuding intelligence and an academic black activist to boot. So, I sat down one afternoon recently at Borders and read her book (admittedly two years late as it was published in 2004).First I skimmed the book. Hmmm… ok, Biggie Smalls helped her peers through law school. Ok? Curious. But hey. What do I know…This is a new paradigm, ain’t it? Ok. Skim, skim… What’s this? “Hip Hop is a masculine music”. Is it now? And what is this?

I need to quote at length here:“I argue”, says Ms. Perry, “that masculinity in Hip Hop reflects the desire to assert black male subjectivity and that it sometimes does so at the expense of black female subjectivity and by subjugating women’s bodies, while at other times it simply reveals the complexity of the black male identity.”I was a little stumped at the verbiage at first, but then I understood: Black males in Hip Hop assert their manhood by playing Pimp “subjugating women’s bodies”. Ok. I get that. It’s not correct, but I get what she says. What she means by the “complexity of the black male identity” I’m not sure, but, ok.Now I’m reading in earnest: “The assertion of black male subjectivity achieves its most problematic manifestation over the bodies of women. In order to understand this phenomenon, we first must think about black masculinity in relation to white masculinity.

It is, in fact, a sense of powerlessness in the face of white masculinity, and the fear of being pimped at the hands of the wealthy white recording moguls, that guides the hyper-masculinist moment, and the heterosexist moment as racial anxiety is articulated through a patriarchal lens when fear of being “bitched” finds artistic expression.”What the heck is this? Lemme see: I need to translate this.

The choice of words reminds me a bit of Theodor Adorno and Juergen Habermas (now-obscure Marxist intellectuals attached to the German Institut fuer Sozialforschung, more popularly known as the Frankfurt School) so I had to go waaay back to the mental archives of my youth.The translation I came up with is thus: “Black males in Hip Hop assert their manhood by playing Pimp. That is troubling. But we’ve got to understand that the reason this is so is the existence of white men and their masculinity.” Is that so?

The translation continues: “These black Hip Hop MCs sense the might of the white man and his overpowering masculinity. In fact, they fear that they are being rented out as whores (pimped) by wealthy powerful white men.” Oh? Hmmm…. “Yep, and basically,” Ms. Perry continues (in my translation) “these black males, who are afraid not only of white men’s power, but the white men’s masculinity, seek to cure their white man induced fear neurosis by demeaning black women”.Ah, yes. That one I’ve heard before. It’s the good old “the black man is a whimp in the face of the white man and therefore victimizes the black woman” a/k/a “A N**** ain’t sht!”. Mr. Mr. and Celie in Hip Hop so to speak. I guess that’s what she means by the “complexity of black male identity” thing.Now to reality. First, Perry’s whole initial premise is wrong.

Hip Hop, particularly the “gansta” variety has nothing to do with “asserting black manhood”. It solely has to do with selling little plastic disks called records (today, downloads) and little pieces of card board called “tickets”. What was on these little things didn’t matter. What mattered was that someone bought them. Millions and millions of them.Around 1990 a conscious decision was made by a small number of record executives and artist managers out of Los Angeles that the best way to get young black men to buy records (black women were already buying tons of records featuring R&B) was to appeal to the most powerful fantasy alive in the average young heterosexual male: Unfettered access to attractive, sexy, young women.

The reality is thus: Swagger or not, the average of young adolescent boys, including black boys, feel wholly inadequate in facing young women. The more attractive these women are, the more inadequate they feel. Society teaches them that the most direct way to access women is material wealth. Money=Power=Respect FROM YOUNG SEXY GIRLS.The entertainment business is about selling dreams, about selling fantasy. Nice ones. Sexy ones.

Watch the average Hip Hop video. What is it about? Some ugly guy to whom the average girl in the street would not give the time of day is sitting in a mansion throwing money at beautiful black women who coo-coo all over him.This fantasy in reality is attainable only by older established men after a lengthy successful career of some sort. But we’ve got to sell plastic and cardboard and we’ve got to sell them to young males who want this lifestyle NOW. So it has to be shown as achievable by the young male who is supposed to buy the plastic disk.

That means a short-cut of some sort. The most logical short –cut? Rob someone or sell drugs or both.An added bonus: the young kid can revel in the adolescent male fantasy of having power over other boys. Thus the fantasy of the thug as hero who gets all the girls. Any kid can now be Al Pacino in Scarface (not without accident the most popular movie in Hip Hop culture). Heck, even a fat ugly, cross-eyed guy like Biggie Smalls can become a sex symbol. All he has to do is sell drugs and display thug swagger. Now that’s a powerful fantasy.This is a potent and attractive proposition to the average unformed and unguided adolescent male. Particularly when this male has little in terms of mature and manly male role models around the house.These music videos and rhymes are mini-Scarface movies.

That’s all.Plying young women with gifts and money or a wealthy life-style is not exactly pimping in the traditional meaning of the word: It’s being a John, a Trick. Being a Trick is not a salable notion. So the concept of “Trick” or “John” (i.e. paying women for sex) was turned on its head and the term for John now became “Pimp”. So now you can call yourself a “Pimp” even though in actuality you are a “John”.

Thus, in Hip Hop black males don’t “assert their manhood”. Tricks in reality and Pimps in their minds in music video after music video they can comfortably throw money at beautiful scantily clad women at strip clubs. In fact, the only Hip Hop artist playing the “real“ Pimp role is Tracy Morrow, better known as Ice-T (after legendary pimp-turned author Iceberg Slim). All the others, as their music-video behavior shows, are money-flashing thuggish Tricks.The fantasy is a powerful one for young black males. It has become enticing for young black females as well: The epitome of sexiness to many a young black girl today is the thug. Even young adult women in their twenties and thirties look for a thuggish romance: witness the increasing popularity of the “ghetto” romance novel. Thug Love is the theme. Find a thug, love a thug, change a thug, and make him yours.

It has become a vicious cycle. Boys live out their thug fantasies in order to get girl after girl to spread her legs, girl after girl spreads her legs to the enticing thug.No wonder Biggie proclaims on his first album on Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records Ready to Die: “the landlord dissed us/I used to wonder why Christmas missed us/Damned right I like the life I live/Cause I went from negative to positive”.Biggie, of course, got to show just how truly ready to die he was only a few years after the release of this record. His “negative to positive” actually was a negative - he went from negative to negativer.

That’s the thug life, ya know.How does Michael Eric Dyson assess Biggie? Referencing the above lyrics, he’s got the following to say in one of his latest books, Open Mike: “Biggie’s lyrics, like those of Tupac, speak directly to the question of black suffering and what’s known in theological circles as 'the problem of evil.' Biggie shares honors with Tupac in the articulation of a grassroots secular urban theodicy.”“Theodicy”? “Idiocy” is more apt.Dyson lifts Biggie and Tupac into the realm of the metaphysical:“So it seems to me that hip-hoppers, and hardcore rappers in particular, are trying to confront the discontinuity between destiny and merit, between social evil and the contention that God is good, a claim they hear from intellectuals and preachers like me.

I think these hardcore rappers and their fans, are attempting to negotiate the dominion of death and the sovereignty of suffering by rejecting its ultimate logic – of the utter finality of existence – and insist on an immortality of expression that is undiminished by physical displacement."This stuff sounds really smart. It sounds so smart that if one doesn’t understand this it would tend to induce self-doubt in any individual who reads this. “Negotiate the dominion of death”, “Sovereignty of Suffering”, “Utter finality of Existence”.

Fact is, the verbiage can not be understood in the context of daily, concrete, reality.What Dyson does here is use an old trick: Make an assertion about the going-ons of real life in abstract metaphysical terms which, by their very metaphysical nature, can not be logically challenged in terms of physical reality.The end result? Biggie Smalls, Tupac et al are not only secular “revolutionaries” in the Imani Perry sense, but now have become tainted with the theology of sainthood. Thugism thus becomes a matter of faith and theology rather than what’s really at issue: cold hard cash.Plain and simple: Dyson operates via obfuscation and gobbledygook. This is a time honored tradition among “radical” African-American “ethno-philosophers” who in the 1960s and 1970s could be found on any corner of Harlem’s 125th Street and in many “New Afrikan” cultural centers which sprung up throughout Black America during that time.

The type was best satirized by Damon Wayans’ deranged prison philosopher of Fox’ “In Living Color” TV show.Getting back to Biggie: Christmas missed a whole lot of people (though certainly not the vast majority of consumption-addicted African-Americans), but even if this were so, that did not give anyone the right to glorify thuggism and the pushing of drugs onto the black community. Nonetheless, Biggie was no idiot. He was mercenary. Dyson, unfortunately, is not an idiot either. So what’s up? Open up, Mike…Making revolutionaries and saints out of thugs does not serve the African-American community.

Whom then does it serve and what does all this have to do with white supremacy?White supremacy historically was the paradigm that provided a physical, legal, ideological, sociological, cultural, and above all psychological blueprint and mechanism both for the maintenance of a slaveholder caste as well as for the maintenance of a slave caste.In the last analysis, any system of slavery and American race-based slavery was no exception, can not be maintained without the cooperation of the slave. There is a profound difference between a psychologically free person who has been imprisoned and forced to labor and a slave.

The resources needed to keep a large number of such free persons in imprisonment are immense and tend make such a system unprofitable and therefore relatively short-lived. Slaves, on the other hand, operate under a slave paradigm – they are inculcated with the consciousness that they are creatures of servitude and thus so inculcated can be put on automatic pilot and allowed to roam God’s green earth without too much fear of their escape.Thus, by definition, the very longevity of a system of slavery, particularly one based on race or ethnicity, is evidence for the existence of the slave paradigm, or, as it is more popularly known, the slave mentality.

The operative principle in this slave paradigm is not really the acceptance by the slave of the slave’s condition of servitude. Rather it is an ingrained psychological notion of inferiority that serves as the complement to the slave master’s notion of supremacy.Consequently, without the slave paradigm there can be no slavery and, above all, there can be no supremacy. Without the slave paradigm there is only freedom or death.Interestingly enough, of the two psychological components of race-based slavery, the slave paradigm is the determining one: Remove the legal and cultural structure of the slave master’s supremacy, and all you have is a slave without a master.Now that is a condition which will not prevail for long.

There is no such thing as a slave operating in a social vacuum. A slave will attract a master, regardless of the origins of that new master, whether white, black, old master or new.The modern music business (as well as the movie industry), particularly its Hip Hop branch is the epitome of this syndrome: Slaves who, not quite knowing that they still operate under the slave paradigm, attract, by their very existence, new masters.

And who should blame the new masters? If it not they, it would be someone else – a slave who remains a slave in mentality and demeanor will create a master for himself. Always.Thus we’ve got the recreation of the plantation system of old under a “new” paradigm: This time the “Niggaz” are not picking the cotton, they are the cotton. This time no slave drivers are required to beat them into subservience. This time they do it all by themselves, enriching their new masters and debasing themselves and their kin while their “revolutionary” leader-intellectuals, in the time honored tradition of the slave eunuchs of the past, give them and their new Massa cover and cheer them on from the sidelines.

"Hip Hops Apologist ...Dr. Michael Eric Dyson"

Michael Eric Dyson, the acclaimed author and noted thesaurus abuser “hip-hop intellectual,” moved on to Georgetown University Tuesday to teach religion, culture, and society, Georgetown University said in a statement.

“I am not leaving the University of Pennsylvania as much as I am going to Georgetown,” said Dyson during a phone interview yesterday. Dyson was in New Orleans getting ready to speak at the Essence Musical Festival, a multiday event that attracts rappers and politicians alike.

Dyson has become a superstar academic within hip-hop circles and the pop-culture arena. Most hipsters know his name from his 2001 book about rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur, “Holler If You Hear Me,” which thrust Dyson into the public eye.

DAILY NEWS: Are We The Only Ones Who Think This Guy Is A Shameless Media Climber Who’s Hoodwinked The Gatekeepers Into Believing His Insufferably Stilted Five-Dollar-Word Statements Of The Obvious Are Somehow Profound Or Insightful?

~Michael Dyson may be a great preacher but as a professor he's more of a hip-hop apologist than a true academic. 95% of hip-hop (so is most popular culture) is crap and for Michael Dyson to try and venerate this misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-intellectual genre only demonstrates his shallowness as an academic.

I agree that the Democrats need more backbone but most of the Democrats policies don't lend themselves to the "fire and brimstone" of the Republicans. Abortion, and role of religion in public life are just two areas where Democrats and Republicans disagree, and while they deferrer the Democrats arguments are not the polar opposite of the Republicans (i.e. Democrats will not force women to have abortions or outlaw religion). These differences from the Republicans can explain some of the "milk toast, soggy kneed and jelly spined" nature of the Democrats. You have to be firm when denying something from an individual or group, but when offering a choice being dogmatic is silly to say the least.

Just focusing on the "low-rider pants and tattoos" misses Bill Cosby point: just because you are poor doesn’t mean you have rob and kill each other. I find it sad that Michael Dyson doesn’t preach more about improving educational opportunities for Blacks rather than attacking Bill Cosby because he says Black parents should be ashamed of the way their children behave. Yes, Whites and others have problems but Bill Cosby is addressing African Americans because our situation is grimmer than other groups.

John McWhorter on Slang These Days

The moderate-liberal commentator and former linguistics professor responds to some people's charges that the English language is being undermined by slang:

"One hears this a lot, but it's easy to miss that today's slang can become tomorrow's grammar. Exactly this is happening under our noses among young brown folks. I speak of yo. Time was that yo was used as in 'Yo! Get off of there!' But nowadays, yo has floated to the ends of sentences and lost its shouting intonation. Listen to young black men, in particular, talking casually and you hear sentences like 'The party was really off the hook, yo.' This is a brand new yo. The pronunciation here is not '… hook, Yo!' The 'hook, yo' in that sentence is pronounced with the same melody as on ice cream. The new yo has no accent. It has become what linguists call a pragmatic marker."

He continues: 'Interestingly, this 'yo' makes Black English more like Chinese than standard English. In Cantonese, instead of 'yo' there is 'lo,' which has the same feel and function. If you say 'Ngoh gokdak keuih m-ngaam lo,' it means roughly, 'He's not playing fair, yo.' There are little words like this with this function in countless languages around the world. As spoken among America's young and brown, English has joined them. An English with what linguists would call a persuasive pragmatic particle is more complex in that regard than Standard English. However, because nonstandard speech is perceived as 'wrong,' Standard English will never have a persuasive pragmatic particle like Cantonese does."

And more: "Between Ignatz and Lucy, then, we see that in America before about 1950, vernacular speech in at least New York included a use of 'hey' as a pragmatic marker just like the 'yo' baggy-pants teens are using today. Thus the 'yo' that the woman would dismiss as slang is in fact something that adds to the grammatical apparatus of the language. It makes English more like, say, Japanese, where a little word 'ne' is used in the exact same way. In Japanese you can even use it alone and ask someone 'Ne?' which means, basically, 'Are you okay? Is everything all right?' And no one calls it slang, hey."

Angela Winters, a black moderate blogger, writes about a recent move by almost all of the Republican presidential candidates: "Tavis Smiley is not ple

Hatip Bookerisng

Angela Winters, a black moderate blogger, writes about a recent move by almost all of the Republican presidential candidates:

"Tavis Smiley is not pleased with the GOP candidates who turned down invitations to debate at an HBCU in Baltimore later this month. Smiley: GOP candidates ignore minorities - USATODAY.com. It was going to be sponsored by Univision, who I think sponsored the recent Democrat Hispanic but-you-can't-speak-any-Spanish debate. Only John McCain agreed, but he obviously has nothing else to do. When the Democrats were invited to debate at Howard last June, all top 8 candidates came."

My response: Why was Univision - a Hispanic channel - and not Black Entertainment Television or TV One going to sponsor the debate? I assume the candidates (except Sen. McCain) are not going because they don't believe that their presence is a good use of their limited time, given low black support for Republican presidential candidates. This makes some sense from a political standpoint. However, I believe that this is not a good move by the Republican candidates and only reinforces the view among many black folks that the GOP hates blacks. They should've accepted the invitation and explained how their center-right policies will benefit black folks. If these candidates can slightly increase their black support (as President Bush did in Ohio during the 2004 election), they have a better chance of getting into the White House should any of them become the GOP nominee.

Six Held In West Virginia Torture Horror

Cops: Black woman raped, beaten, abused during week-long captivity

SEPTEMBER 11--A black West Virginia woman was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and tortured while being held captive by her white abductors, one of whom told her, "That's what we do to niggers around here." The 23-year-old victim was freed Saturday after cops responded to the home of Frankie Brewster for a "welfare check on a female that was reportedly being held against her will." When cops arrived, Brewster claimed she was the only one home, but then the victim limped to the door and said, "Help me."



According to six harrowing criminal complaints, the woman, who apparently had been held for more than a week, had four stab wounds in her left leg, bruised eyes, and had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and humiliated. The woman told police that she was forced to lick Brewster's "toes, vagina, and anal cavity." Brewster's son Bobby forced the woman to eat dog and rat feces, according to one complaint filed in Logan County Magistrate Court.

The victim, who is now hospitalized, was raped at knifepoint, choked with a cable cord, and had her hair pulled and cut during the ordeal. Police, who have arrested six defendants for their roles in the abduction and attack, are looking for other suspects who may have lured the victim to Brewster's home.

The arrestees are seen in the below mug shots. Pictured clockwise from the upper left are Frankie Brewster, 49; Bobby Brewster, 24; Danny Combs, 20; George Messer, 27; Alisha Burton, 22; and Karen Burton, 46. (11 pages)

My Reply:What fucking barbaric racist scumbag beast some people
can be, I hope they go to jail for a long time and that there cell mates
are all black.

Tuesday Morning, 6 Years Ago

D.C. Thornton, a black libertarian blogger, writes about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America by Arab Muslim extremists: "I remember it well. So well, I can point out in detail how the day went. Some would prefer that I just forget about it. However, forgetfulness leads to history being repeated. I can’t afford to forget about it. My mind, body, and soul won’t allow it to happen. If you happen to be reading this, I hope you feel the same way too. For the men, women, and children who died that fateful day, remember them for history’s sake. Never forget Tuesday morning, six years ago."

Dinesh D'Souza on U.S. Foreign Policy and the War in Iraq

FreedomFest is an annual festival where "free minds meet" to celebrate "great books, great ideas, and great thinkers" in a liberal, open-minded society. It is independent, non-partisan, and not affiliated with any organization or think tank.

Libertarians Ron Paul & Doug Casey vs. Conservatives Larry Abraham & Dinesh D'Souza

Founded and produced by Mark Skousen since 2002, FreedomFest invites the "best and the brightest" from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty. FreedomFest is open to all and is purely egalitarian, where speakers, attendees, and exhibitors are treated as equals.

Quote Of The Day

"My view is that nations pursue their self interest. The West and China are doing what is expected of them. For Africa, the challenge is how to fit itself into the game for the benefit of its people. International trade is not a zero-sum game where one's gain is another's loss.

But alas, Africa has failed to take advantage even of the preferential trade arrangements granted to it under the Cotounou Agreement and under AGOA. Aid is bad as aid - whether it comes from the West or from China or whether it comes with strings attached or not. It changes the incentives of recipients. Instead of developing institutions through which governments can negotiate with the citizens for tax revenues to meet their public expenditure needs, governments look to external patrons for money.

We all know that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Governments that depend on outsiders for revenue will be more inclined to listen to them for the design of policies and for the structure of institutions the country will adopt. This way, aid makes it difficult for recipient nations to evolve policies and institutions that are relevant and sensitive to domestic needs, modes of conduct and beliefs.....The mistake people make is to project African leaders as hapless victims of World Bank and IMF manipulations. In fact African leaders are adept and manipulating donors to get money to sustain themselves in power without ever changing their ways. For as long as Africa remains depend[e]nt on aid, there will be less incentive to search for internal solutions."

— Andrew Mwenda, Ugandan libertarian journalist, arguing how government foreign aid undermines Africa's potential

Book Review--Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul Of Clarence Thomas

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

There are a great many things wrong with this book. For starters, it is insulting to the intelligence of its readers. We are told that Clarence Thomas has perfected the art of victimology despite the fact that he is a Supreme Court Justice and yet, the authors, Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher don't seem at all willing to acknowledge that because of the many astounding public efforts to besmirch Justice Thomas's character, perhaps the Justice might actually have the right to be a little aggrieved concerning the way he has been treated in public.

We are repeatedly told of some strange prejudice the Justice supposedly has against light-skinned African Americans, but to the best of my recollection, no one is actually quoted for the record as saying this (even if they are, the vast majority of quotes on this bizarre issue are anonymous).

We are invited to express incredulity over the fact that liberal African Americans reach out to Thomas and invite him to social events . . . only to see the Justice continue to vote in favor of conservative positions on the Court, and yet, Merida and Fletcher don't seem to understand that a Supreme Court Justice is not some sort of a super-legislator open for lobbying and he is certainly not supposed to change his voting styles simply because someone, somewhere, throws a nice shindig in his honor. Opinions with which Merida and Fletcher disagree are basically dismissed with intimations that Thomas is a meanie. Jonathan Adler proves he is a master of understatement when he notes that the book "devotes less space to doctrinal analysis than some of us lawprofs might like." Orin Kerr notes similar problems with the lack of legal analysis.

We get, of course, a reprise of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill wars with intimations that because Thomas--along with a number of his fellow Yale law school classmates--frequented blue movies, he must have done the things that Hill said he did. We even get some people stating that the comments Hill attributes to Thomas are comments they themselves have heard Thomas make. We are also told that Thomas made himself available to a lovely TV reporter for an interview and laughed about the controversy one time in a way that made an onlooker think he was taking pleasure in the fact that he got away with harassing Hill, so he must have been guilty as charged. With such hearsay on hearsay, anonymous sourcing and record-breaking jumps to conclusions, the nasty implications are laid out for the reader to conclude that Clarence Thomas was indeed A Bad Man.

I suppose that one can be outraged by all of this, even if one is not particularly a fan of Clarence Thomas. This is literary dishonesty at its worst and a case against a Supreme Court Justice should not be as weak as the one Merida and Fletcher make out against Thomas. In the end, however, Supreme Discomfort is less outrageous than it is insubstantial. For all of the supposedly pathbreaking interviews with Thomas's associates and others, we learn very little about the Justice that we would not have learned through close attention to the news. If one did not know anything about Clarence Thomas, one would find Supreme Discomfort as valuable as a traveler in the desert would find a drop of water. But if you know even the littlest substantial thing about the Justice, the book is entirely predictable, entirely boring and quite meanspirited in certain places.

One hoped for a better biography of a consequential public figure. Alas, Supreme Discomfort is a disappointment on multiple levels.

Hirsi Ali debates Islamist Apologist

She destroyed him with out even breaking a sweat!

Ronald Reagan On Democrats!

It seems as if few things have changed since the Cold War!!

Zimbabwe acquires food group HJ Heinz Co's

Yesterday in a day when Americans were celebrating the working man and women our nation witnessed a terrible abuse of corporate greed and power in defiance of every American value this nation holds.

I hope that every citizen will contact the Henz Corp. and tell them to go to hell!

And to make the job a bit easier here is there contact information.

Lets also pray that Theresa Heinz who claims to be African
will also speak out on this abuse of power!

Please contact them 1 (800) 255-5750.

Welcome Pajama Media readers!

~The Zimbabwean government has taken control of one of the country's leading food processors by buying out US firm HJ Heinz. The state will buy Heinz's 49% stake in Olivine Industries, which makes cooking oils, fats and soaps, for $6.8m. Rampant annual inflation of more than 7,600% has crippled the economy and firms failing to reduce prices face the threat of possible nationalization.
Heinz has been present in Zimbabwe for more than 25 years.

Goods shortages

The firm, best known for its baked beans and tomato ketchup, was one of the first foreign businesses to invest in the country after its independence in 1980. Zimbabwe's ever-spiralling inflation, the highest in the world, has put basic goods beyond the reach of much of the population and made life perilous for foreign investors.

In an effort to try and get to grips with the economic crisis, the government intervened last month to prohibit any future price rises and freeze public sector pay.
The change in Olivine's ownership will see Cottco, the state-controlled cotton buying and processing enterprise, take control of the business.

"This acquisition will add critical mass to the company while allowing the company to diversify from its traditional revenue streams and operating risks," said Pius Manamike, Cottco's company secretary.

The government-controlled Herald newspaper said Heinz had been scaling back production over the past year to comply with US economic sanctions against Zimbabwe.

However, company executives said it had been forced to reduce its output and focus on exports because of Zimbabwe's worsening domestic situation.

New laws which would force foreign-owned businesses to sell a majority stake in their operations to black-owned Zimbabwean firms are set to come into force within months. Officials said the Olivine deal had been under discussions for some time and pre-dated the planned shift in ownership rules.


ZIMBABWE AND THE LAWS OF ECONOMICS

Here is how the principal laws of economics determine Zimbabwe's episode of hyperinflation.Sources: New York Times (link), Greg Mankiw (link)

Denying Darfur: UN Watch Confronts Sudan Regime

www.unwatch.org

Sudan and its friends -- Syria, Saudi Arabia, China -- deny the atrocities in Darfur, and attack the members of the mission on Darfur as headed by Jody Williams. UN Watch confronts Sudan and its allies.

Johnny Allen Hendrix (later re-named James Marshall Hendrix) was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA. Hendrix's parents divorced when he was nine years old, and in 1958 his mother died. He went to live with his Cherokee grandmother because of his unstable household. At age 12, he received his first guitar, an acoustic to replace the broom stick he would strum like one.

Learning quickly, he played in many local bands, playing as far away as Vancouver. Hendrix did not graduate from high school. Hendrix later claimed that he was expelled for holding hands with his white girlfriend, but when questioned later,
his principal insisted that it was due to poor grades and frequent absences.

Hendrix got into trouble with the law twice for riding in a stolen car. He was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing boot camp, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

His commanding officers considered him to be a sub-par soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations and showed no skill as a marksman. He was given an early release from military service in Fort Campbell, Kentucky for claims of "homosexual thoughts.

After his release, Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called The King Kasuals. Playing in low-paying gigs at obscure venues, the 'band' eventually moved to Nashville. Playing and sometimes living in the clubs along Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene offered some sort of 'existence' In November 1962, Hendrix participated in his first studio session, where his wild but still undeveloped playing found him cut from the soundboard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix

Is African Fashion Besieged?

Asks Antony Odeo, a fashion designer based in Nairobi, Kenya: "Duracoat, one of Kenya’s leading paint manufacturers, has its punch line: 'colours inspired by nature, perfected by Duracoat.' Fashion borrows the same concept.

It is inspired by nature and perfected by individual creativity. Sadly though, Africa lags behind in making firm its grip on creativity on fashion. Most Asian nations have stamped their cultural authority by adorning garments that reflect their own oriental touch. Nothing seems to threaten the deep cultural dressing codes they have had for centuries. Our neighbours in Europe and Asia Pacific stick to conventional practices of summer – winter wear, where the dress code is influenced by environmental factors.

Even in this, their classic styles have always been upheld. Africa does itself a disservice by discarding its sole role of perfecting its fashion. Whenever there is a dinner party or cocktail in the African corporate scene, guests are always reminded of the dress code. 'Strictly African' is always shouting loud on some invitation cards.

It is no surprise that sometimes, one or two guests skip the occasion for lack of African attire. Do we have to be reminded that we are Africans?"Mr. Odeo continues his commentary: "Every time Africa shies away from displaying its cultural values, it gives more room to other cultures to express theirs.....Does Africa have its own fashion?

With beautiful landscapes, breathtaking forests, amazing skin colours, wonderful black hair, water bodies, the beautiful sunset and non-apologetically ‘African’ silhouette, what else does Africa need as fashion inspiration? With teeming wildlife: zebras, giraffes, cheetahs, leopards, alligators, lizards, polished bird feathers and classic artifacts, who else matches Africa in sources of inspiration? Africa stands at a strategic position to take its fashion industry to a higher level.

The fact that we are swamped with imports of fashion items is no strong reason to lose pride in our local products."And more: "Africans ought to promote and aggressively market their dress codes. It is through the same way that the non-African styles pitched tent in Africa. With the African media frowning upon cultural productions, indigenous African fashion is bound to go no farther. However, a renewed understanding of our heritage and the realization of the need to front an African agenda will make a big difference. All of us have a part to panel beat our fashion: inspired by nature, perfected by Africa!"

Bootsy Collins - "Be With You"

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!

Life Is Fine

by Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love
--But for livin' I was born


Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

The Banning of Sagging

By Keith Boykin

One day last summer I was walking home from the gym in Harlem when I noticed a young shirtless man walking slowly in front of me.

He was walking with the familiar side-to-side swagger of young men in hip hop as I followed far behind. By the time I approached him, I realized the reason he was walking so slowly. His pants were sagging so far down that the full length of his boxer shorts were exposed. He must have heard my footsteps as I approached from behind because he turned around just as I got closer. He scowled a look that could kill, pulled up his pants and then stood on the edge of the sidewalk until I walked by.

What was that all about? If you’re going to walk around half naked in the streets, don’t get offended when people stare at you like you’re crazy. And as much as I appreciate the right of all people to dress the way they want, I have to be honest. I certainly would not want my kids to dress like thugs, and I’m glad that my two teenage godsons don’t. I once had a prospective intern (who I later hired) who dressed this way to his job interview with me, and I had to warn him that he would never get a job in most places dressed like a thug.

But having said all that, I am still troubled by the new trend, reported in today’s New York Times, of cities that are outlawing sagging pants.

For the rest of the story, click here.