I am Bradley Manning…Today the Fate of this Whistleblower Gets Decided

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning

Today a military judge will decide the fate of whistle-blower Bradley Manning. He’s been locked up and tortured for the past 3 years..The ruling is predicted to have far-reaching impact on all sectors of society from journalists on down to folks who publish and post up information on-line.. All that needs to happen is some government official declaring what ever information you have as a threat to national security.

Now on the surface that may seem like common sense and in the age of us, the US being engaged in a long-lasting War on Terror, keeping things secret may be a price we all have to pay. The problem is that so much of our military and other institutions fighting these wars are privately owned companies who have a financial stake in the actions they take and not necessarily our collective freedom. This unprecedented partnership has led to severe abuses of power.

This shooting of Reuters news reporter Namir Noor-Elden and her driver Saeed Chmagh being shot at by the Apache a helicopter and a family with their kids is the type of info Manning brought to light..This is the type of atrocities being done in our name.. Not to mention we were in Iraq where this took place because of deliberate lies and misleading information, designed to make companies like Halliburton lots of money..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25EWUUBjPMo

The information that Bradley gave to the public has been a catalyst for pro-democracy movements in the Arab world, exposed the unjust detainment of innocent people at Guantanamo Bay, shown us the true human cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and changed journalism forever.

There is no evidence that anyone died as a result of the leaked information, yet Bradley faces life in prison or possibly death. The greatest charge against him is that of “aiding the enemy,” a capital offense. As the public who benefited from this information, does that make us the enemy? What price will future whistleblowers pay?

http://vimeo.com/68700092

Planting Seeds of Distrust & Seeds of Fear: The Boston Marathon Tragedy

Davey-D-yellow-225-frameYesterday was a sad day.. Who would’ve thought an exciting, highly anticipated and celebrated event like the Boston Marathon would turn to utter chaos and destruction.. 2 dead and over 150 injured.. yesterday caused us all to pause.. In looking at yesterday’s events  it was hard not to remember the emotions and disbelief that surrounded the 9-11 tragedies 12 years ago. It’s hard  to look at the bombings that took place in Boston without having a degree of caution and skepticism.. We saw a tragic event like 9-11 that was supposed to unite us and help us see the humanity in one another evolve to where we are divisive, uncaring and inhumane with our actions.. On top of that we moved to a point where we are willing to surrender our power and civil liberties to those we put into positions of power to further agendas that are Draconian ..

After 9-11, when we heard reports of police flowing out into the streets a thousand at a time to patrol stadiums and subways, we greeted the news enthusiastically and gave them a thumbs up.. Now when we hear such news we think of intrusion and unnecessary abuse..We think of stop and frisk and harassment before we think protection We hear about extra cameras being put up and we think undeserved surveillance and privacy invaded before we think a necessary sacrifice to catch those responsible for causing so much harm and terror.

NY Times Headline

NY Times Headline

They say one should not politicize a tragedy, and ideally one should not, but as soon as we turn on the TV, the politicking is in full swing.. It ranges from the wording the President uses to describe what took place to the music, signage and footage shown endlessly on news outlets to gratuitous headlines like the one put out by the NY Times designed to shock vs inform? What’s being presented seems designed to keep us agitated and in a constant state of fear, with politician after politician using the event to hold press conference to supposedly to ‘ease those fears’. Ironically their announcements about some mass security action they are going to order winds up stoking fears..

After the yesterday’s bombing I don’t think there was a city or town in this country where a mayor or police chief did not hold a press conference explaining how they were gonna ramp up security..For example, here in Oakland, I heard our police chief on the local media talking about how extra police were gonna be on hand making sure fans attending the Oakland As and the Warrior games were ‘protected’.

Boston bombingAfterwards they shifted to LA where we heard similar announcements of extra police in Hollywood and on the subways.. Then we saw press conference in New York where Mayor Bloomberg was talking about sending extra cops out on the streets to protect everyone.. Then it was back to the Bay Area to talk with officials in San Francisco where they were talking about beefing up security for next month’s Bay to Breakers race. After that we saw press conference in London to explain how security details were being tightened to make sure Margret Thatcher‘s funeral goes on without a hitch… As I’m writing this column the local news has just shown the SF police chief talking about extra patrols and now they switched over to the BART subway officials who are announcing they have extra police on deck, all designed to protect us..

Call me skeptical, but the first thoughts that ran through my head was; after 9-11 didn’t we create a Department of Homeland Security that was supposed to be keeping us safe 24/7?  Didn’t we open up the government purse strings and pour seemingly unlimited amounts of money to make sure all the right agencies and new technologies like face recognition cameras, bomb sniffing robots, x-rays, listening devices etc, are always in place at high alert? Such questions need to be asked especially when our recent history is showing that over the past 15 years all sorts of horrific upheavals have taken place around this time.. From Columbine to Virginia Tech school shootings. From Waco to Oklahoma City bombings. Hitler’s birthday and Tax day with more and more people with each passing year vocal in

Are all these police chiefs and officials just doing a dog and pony show, one that was replicated all over the nation? One might ask what’s the end goal? In almost every press conference we saw the request from officials to report anything ‘suspicious’, but there was no description as to what suspicious means? Is it Muslim, Latino? teenagers, white guys with shaved heads?  The seeds of distrust are being planted when we ideally should be coming together..

Boston bombing 2Whatever the case, this Boston Marathon tragedy seems  like field day for the media.. Reporters  and anchors seem more frantic than the people I see walking the streets outside.. It all seems manufactured even when they highlight the heart-wrenching story of the 8-year-old, Martin Richard being killed or the young 12-year-old  boy from the Bay Area who was watching his mom run and was seriously injured…..Absent from all this coverage is the human touch..

Absent from the coverage is the heroism from folks helping out in the mist of the chaos those 130 people injured. Absent from a lot of the coverage is the fact that people from over 90 countries run the Boston Marathon..It’s like a mini Olympics.  Were any of the international folks running or watching injured? Why no news about them vs showing the same video footage over and over again? But that might too much since we hardly cover the numerous bombings that take place sometimes daily in countries all over the world. There was hardly a peep of the bombings in Somalia where 30 were killed and Iraq where over 50 were killed over the weekend? Our outpouring of grief should be for loss of life everywhere…Why not show the first responders and doctors who were on hand tending to those injured and seriously saving lives in the most challenging conditions vs showing officials beating their chest talking about they got guns and firepower to deal with any sort of threat..Fear and Distrust is big business for many.

Bombing in Somalia

Bombing in Somalia

One of the hardest lessons we learned after 9-11 was during those times after 9-11 where many grieved that those with nefarious thoughts went to work and snatched away civil liberties and took us into wars that had nothing to do with the days horrific events..It wasn’t long before we wound up being no different from some of the countries we once criticized all in the name of fighting the new War on terror. In the aftermath of Boston one has gotta wonder, what’s in store for those seeking to game moments like these?

Writer Naomi Klein calls it shock and awe..so while we should keep our eyes and ears peeled for those who might wanna plant a bomb, we best keep our eyes and ears on those who wanna plant bombs of distrust and have us turning on one another. We best keep our eyes on those sitting in halls of power who will use this tragedy to plant legislative bombs that cripple our freedoms vs underscoring them.. All of this being done in the name of fighting the war of terror..

-Davey D-

The Prophecy of Hip-hop

The Prophecy of Hip-hop
by DJ Paradise Gray of X-Clan-Aug 21 2006

Paradise the Arkitech

Paradise the Arkitech

“Government Intelligence” is a misnomer. With at least a 30 some odd Billion dollar budget, the pre 911 “Intelligence” Agencies didn’t have a clue about what was going on. In spite of the reports of Arab men at flight schools asking to learn how to fly but not how to land. That was a clue that I would expect the lowest level security guard to alert on. How did they miss that? To borrow a line from Keith Sweat “Something Just Aint’ Right”. What I do know is that I’m very uncomfortable with the people who have their fingers on the red buttons. I’m no conspiracy theorist but Bush is looking more and more like Senator Palpatine to me
by the day.

Some people may think that rappers are no rocket scientists, but either someone’s lying about what they knew or rappers are clairvoyant, because they sure did a heck of alot better job than the government, understanding the danger and possibilities for terrorist attacks on The World Trade Center.

Eric B & Rakim’s song “Casualties Of War”, released in 1992 on the “Don’t Sweat the Technique” album, Rakim says:

“So now I wait for terrorists to attack,
when a truck back fires, I fire back,
I DUCK FOR SHELTER WHEN A PLANE FLYS OVER ME,
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR? NEW YORK WILL BE OVER G”,
Kamikaze, strapped with bombs,
No peace in the East, they want revenge for Saddam”.

Equally prophetic and kinda weird is this next one from Busta Rhymes who seems to stay in the news lately.
(Hip-hop Cointel Pro is on you Busta! Be very carefull, you are probably being set up for a big fall).

Busta rhymes song “Against All Odds” from the 1998 album: “Extinction Level Event (The Final World Front)”

Busta’s prophecy is two-fold here, a combination of both of the other examples.

First Busta’s E.L.E. cd cover features lower Manhattan (the area where the World Trade Center was located) going up in a large blaze of fire, then at 1.19 of the track (911 backwards) – Busta Says:

“DESTROY ANY ARCH RIVAL, OR ANY CHALLENGER,
MAKE YOU REMEMBER THIS DAY NIGGA, MARK IT ON YA CALENDER,
I’m showin’ you somethin’, you ain’t sayin’ nothin’,
My niggaz make noise like a bunch of volcanoes errupting,
NONE OF Y’ALL NIGGAZ REALLY WANNA WAR,
THE TYPE OF NIGGA TO CRASH MY PLANE IN YOUR BUILDING IN THE NAME OF ALLAH”

No wonder they keep hunting him down like his name was Osama Bin Busta!

And last (but not least), The Coup, their CD cover never got released to the public, however it is still pretty easy to find on the internet:

The planned cover art created in June 2001 for The Coup’s “Party Music” album depicts The Coup with an exploding World Trade Center in the background, Coup DJ Pam the Funktress conducts the proceedings with 2 batons as “Boots” Riley handles what looks like a detonator but is actually a guitar tuner. The Cd was released in November 2001 with a different cover after the actual attacks on the World Trade Center.

Could this all just be a coincidence?


Paradise Gray
Honorary Chairman, Pittsburgh LOC
National Political Hip-hop Convention
Grand Arkitech Of The BlackWatch Movement
Minister Of Arts And Sciences Millions More Movement
Director Of Almost Home Youth Ministries
One Hood
www.myspace.com/paradisegray

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