Political articles | Hip-Hop and Politics

Breakdown FM Podcast: Naomi Klein-The Shock Doctrine-from New Orleans to UC Berekely

October 28, 2009 By mrDaveyd

Naomi Kline

Naomi Klein author of the book Shock Doctrine came to last night (October 27th) UC Berkeley and spoke to an overflow crowd of 1200 people. 500 were turned away. Her message was on point and sobering as she laid out all the steps and triggers that have led up to the current economic tailspin many of us are feeling.

Klein went into detail about the Shock Doctrine and how certain tyrannical leaders look for or manfacture crises and emergencies with the goal of pushing through facist type agendas.. She laid out how this took place in New orleans and how it is currently manifesting itself here in California through Governor Arnold Schwatrznegger and his plan to raise UC fees by a whooping 32%

This is a must listen to interview.. Sit back and take notes.. Cause Ms Klein pulls no punches.. We are going to post the Q&A sometime tomorrow.

Breakdown FM: Naomi Klein podcast-The Shock Doctrine at UC Berekely

http://odeo.com/episodes/25383758-Naomi-Klien-the-Shock-Doctrine-From-New-Orleans-to-Cali

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Breakdown FM Interviews, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Breakdown FM Podcast: Naomi Klein-The Shock Doctrine-from New Orleans to UC Berekely, Naomi Klein, Shock Doctrine, UC Berekely fee hikes

Is Texas Going to Execute an Innocent Man Today? Save Reggie Blanton Call Governor Perry

October 26, 2009 By mrDaveyd

TexasDeathpenaltymarch2 The state of Texas since 1976 has executed more people than any other state in the country. With a population of that is 7.6% of the country, Texas has done almost 40% of the executions… 66% of those executions have been people of color… Since 1982 not one single white person has been put to death for murdering an African American. Meanwhile the overwhelming majority of executions have been bestowed upon African Americans who have killed whites.

Over the years a number of people who had strong claims to their innocence have been executed. These include people like; Ruben Cantu, Gary Graham aka Shaka Sankofa and most recently Cameron Todd Willingham. Some of the death penalty cases have been extremely disturbing. In one case, the prosecutor and the judge were sleeping with each other and tried to keep that sordid fact hidden. In another case a judge knowing that lawyers were headed to her office with a last minute appeal, decided to close her office early so that the execution could take place and not be stopped. In still another instance, the defense attorney fell asleep while in court defending his client.

In the case of Todd Willingham, evidence surfaced on numerous occassions including what the Texas Forensic Science Commission discovered, where they concluded that the fire he was accused of starting which resulted in several deaths, was not arson at all and that he may have been put to death wrongly. Complicating this is Governor Rick Perry who not only rebuffed previous findings that stated no arson was caused, but at the 11th hour of the Texas Commission investigation attempted to disband and replace 4 of the members to perhaps get a more favorable ruling. He is accused of impeding justice and people calling for him to be investigated.

TexasDeathpenalt3 Today the state of Texas the case around Reggie Blanton is sparking controversy as many feel he is innocent and was railroaded by the state of Texas. He has been on death row for 10 years and is scheduled to be executed Tuesday Oct 27th 2009 . His mother Anna Blanton and his brother gave impassioned pleas to a large crowd at the 10th annual Abolish the Death Penalty March in Austin, Texas this past weekend. She asked us all to take action and hold Governor Rick Perry and Judge Juanita Vasquez Garner accountable..She talked about how the family had been severely punished to the point of not even being allowed to her not even being allowed to see her son..She spoke about the treatment Reggie has recieved inside prison and how the corrupt system has not allowed her son to present crucial evidence. She asked that people call the Governors office at 512-463-2000

Reggie’s brother an Iraq veteran also spoke and talked about how he served in the military because he believed in things like our justice system. He noted that he is now angry and disillusioned. His speech was heartbreaking..

Here’s some more information of the Raggie Blanton case..

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/837705/

http://www.alternet.org/rights/143417/innocent_until_proven_dead:_will_texas_execute_another_innocent_man/?page=entire

http://www.petitiononline.com/reggie/

Save Reggie Blanton..

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Abolish the death penalty, An Innocent man Reggie Blanton may be put to death in Texas tomorrow, An Innocent man Reggie Blanton may be put to death in Texas Tues Oct 27th, Cameron Todd Willingham, Death Penalty, Governor Rick Perry, His mother & family put forth heatbreaking pleas for his life, Reggie Blanton, Reginald Blanton is Innocent, Ruben Cantu, Save Reggie Blanton, Shaka Sankofa, Texas Death Row, Tuesday Oct 27th 2009 execution

Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart, KKK Involved

October 22, 2009 By mrDaveyd

As folks read this story and peep the video, keep in mind some sort of law needs to be put in place to reign in the abusive power of District Attorney’s especially when they are in small towns, like Kenneth. Mo. There are literally hundreds of stories around the country of how DAs rule entire counties with an iron fist. One of the more notorious ones is the case involving Regina Kelly in Hearne Texas. Folks may wanna rent the movie American Violet to get a better understanding of how out of control things can get with ruthless district attorneys. We are including the interview we did with Regina to further illustrate our point.

-Davey D-

————————————————————–

Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart, KKK Involved

by Boyce Watkins, PhD

Heather Ellis of Kennett, Mo., has quite a story to tell. It all started nearly three years ago in a local Wal-Mart.

Ellis was shopping in the store with a cousin, and the two temporarily parted ways to find the shortest line. Seeing that the other line was moving faster, Ellis went to get in line with her cousin.

She was accused of cutting the line by a store employee, who then notified the security guard. According to Ellis, she was shoved by another customer, had her items pushed to the side and was shortchanged when she finally checked out. The police affidavit states that Ellis was belligerent, loud, abusive and cursing when she was told to leave the store by the assistant manager.

Ellis’ aunt, Lily Blackmon, received a frantic call from her son and claims that when she arrived, her daughter’s head was being repeatedly banged against the police car as she told officers that she wasn’t resisting arrest. Blackmon, who was a probation officer in the town for 11 years, asked the officers why her niece was getting such rough treatment.

“I said, ‘What is going on?’ And all [the officer] could say was, ‘She cursed,'” said Blackmon.

Ellis was charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a police officer. She was then offered a plea deal by Dunklin County Prosecutor Stephen Sokoloff. The prosecutor offered to drop the felony counts to one misdemeanor of disturbing the peace, as long as Ellis signed the plea deal. Her aunt claims that the deal was offered so their family wouldn’t file a lawsuit.

Ellis refused to take the plea deal, claiming that she wasn’t willing to admit to something she didn’t do; however, 11 months later, the misdemeanor counts were dropped, which seemed to be good news. The good news, though, was replaced with something even more disturbing.

It turned out that the misdemeanor counts had been replaced by felonies. Ellis now faces 15 years in prison if convicted. When her aunt went to prosecutor Sokoloff to find out what happened, Sokoloff allegedly told her, “Mrs. Ellis, when you get through, I don’t care what you say. You may as well take my way out. My way was the plea bargain. If you don’t take that way, I can assure you, you’ll never win in here.”

Ellis claims that her pending convictions have cost her two jobs and the chance to enter medical school, but she still refuses to sign the plea deal. Racism recently entered in to the story when Ellis was handed KKK cards from a Kennett police officer warning her about her actions. The cards stated, “You’ve just been paid a social visit by the Ku Klux Klan; the next visit will not be social.” The officer claims that he only showed the family the cards to make them aware of the situation. Since that time, and after a dramatic plea for support, people have come to help Heather. The site www.SaveHeatherEllis.com has emerged, and her father appeared on CNN on the 15th of October to tell her story.

Dr. Towanna Freeman, a management consultant, argues that Walmart was to blame for the unfortunate sequence of events: “No matter what angle you take on this case, it all started when Walmart failed a valued customer and it’s Wal-Mart that owes Ms. Heather Ellis a written apology.”

Dr. Freeman goes on to argue that Walmart should have cleared up the disturbance as soon as it occurred, rather than allowing it to get out of hand.

When it comes to the trial of Heather Ellis, the bottom line is this: This young woman’s future should not be in jeopardy over this incident. If the prosecutor’s office could drop significant felony counts down to one misdemeanor, then they can drop the charges altogether. This may also be a case of what I call, “You got the wrong black person syndrome,” in which police treat a black suspect a certain way because they believe the person is either uneducated or without influence. Most cases of police abuse go unreported or without accountability by the police department. Once they found out that Ellis was a college student, this may have led to the surprisingly generous concessions made in the original plea deal. There appears to be a power trip in this case, in which the prosecutor (like the one in the Jena 6 case) seems to feel that he has the right to destroy this young woman’s life over an argument at Wal-Mart. I don’t think we should let that happen. Rev. Sharpton and I will have something interesting to talk about this week.

source: http://www.bvblackspin.com/2009/10/12/woman-faces-15-years-for-cutting-line-at-walmart-kkk-involved/

To watch video about the incident, please click the image below:

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Heather Ellis, KKK Involved, police abuse, regina kelly, Stephen Sokoloff, Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart

GOP on GOP Violence: Bill O’Reilly Underfire for Interviews w/ Marc Lamont Hill

October 21, 2009 By mrDaveyd

BillOreilly-225 By now most of you know the fate that has befallen political analyst Marc Lamont Hill. He was one of the few progressive voices that regularly appeared on Fox News. However, last week he was let go by after two conservative pundits David Horowitz and Cliff Kincaid started raising a ruckus about Hill’s support of political prisoner Mumi Abu Jamal and political exile Assata Shakur. Here’s what Kincaid said in his recent column…

Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, used his company’s annual meeting on October 16 to announce the firing of Fox News contributor and O’Reilly Factor regular Marc Lamont Hill. This is the left-wing cop-killer apologist that we have written about for weeks. We called him the Van Jones of Fox News Channel. We said Fox News was as bad as Obama on the matter of background checks for their employees.

Interestingly, both Van Jones and Marc Lamont Hill are public supporters of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Both were also associated with the George Soros funded Center for American Progress.

The announcement of Hill’s firing was made as I was questioning Murdoch about why Hill was hired in the first place. Hill’s support for cop-killers, had been highlighted on his own web pages. Hill had also spoken before a black communist group―something he had proudly listed in his official curriculum vitae

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/ckincaid/2009/ck_10201.shtml

Witch hunts aimed at progressive voices are nothing new. In this column, Kincaid goes on and on about Hill being connected to George Soros and the Center for American Progress and how Hill supports the Fairness Doctrine which will open up the airwaves for those who hold opposing views.-Blah Blah Blah. It’s the usual dribble and the usual suspects. However, this time around we have an interesting twist. Also in the line of fire is longtime Fox News Commentator Bill O’Reilly. The crosshairs are on him for actually having Hill on his show multiple times.

Critics of Hill are now demanding answers from O’Reilly and demanding that he come out of spinzone.. In Kincaids column he places a letter from a disgruntled viewer…

“I personally do not like Bill O’Reilly any more. He is too liberal for me. He has ‘sold out’ and I am disappointed in Bill. I am a hair designer in San Francisco, the most sick liberal city in America, and the few conservatives that live here are ‘banning Bill’ because he has gone ‘wishy-washy’ and we don’t like him anymore. His ‘cuteness’ doesn’t cut it! He doesn’t have the ‘guts’ that Glenn Beck has and I will bet you a dollar to a donut that Glenn’s ratings pass Bill’s in the very near future, maybe by next week.”

-Katheryn O’Shaunessy-

Industry insiders have long noted that inside the hallowed halls of Fox there is a war of egos. Bill doesn’t like Hannity, Hannity doesn’t like Beck etc. Funny thing is when you compare Hannity and Beck with O’Reilly, Bill comes off as a lot smarter and actually more reasonable. He doesn’t buy into all the birther conspiracy crap like his colleagues. He clearly understands that its all about showmanship. Hence his angle is to be crass and obnoxious. The big irony with O’Reilly is that if you watch him long enough you’re likely to see and hear more Black leaders discussing politics then you do on BET or TV One which goes to show you just how much we been lacking. In any case word on the street is that they are now gunning for Bill O’Reilly. They have some new sheriffs in town and they are crazier and nuttier than the old guy. LOL I can’t say I have any sympathy for any of those fools. GOP on GOP violence -well in this case its a good thing. May they all destroy each other.

Something to ponder

-Davey D-

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Bill O'Reilly Underfire for Interviewing Marc Lamont Hill and not being Conservative Enough, Center for American Progress, Cliff Kincaid, David Horowitz, GOP on GOP Violence Bill O'Reilly Underfire for Interviews w/ Marc Lamont Hill

Goldman Sachs is Giving Away 23 Billion In Bonuses…Where’s All the Tea Party Protestors? Why are they so Silent?

October 20, 2009 By mrDaveyd

DaveyD-Raider So last night I’m sitting here watching the news and I hear this crazy report about how all these companies that we helped bail out, first under former President George Bush and then later under President Obama, are on pace to make huge profits and give out record bonuses to their management teams. Note I said management, not your average Joe Schmoe worker who pushes papers or pushes a mop. While most of us can barely pay car fare to go to work (tolls are rising to 5 bucks here in the Bay Area), Goldman Sach’s management will be receiving a whooping 23 BILLION dollars in bonuses. 23 Billion dollars…I want everyone to sit there and think about that for a minute.

Think about that as I did and wonder why all these people I know who never paid a bill late in their lives suddenly had their line of credit decreased. My boy’s business had to let a few people go because one of the banks we helped bail out suddenly couldn’t give him and his business credit in spite of his stellar record and A credit rating..This scenario is playing out all over the country.

Meanwhile back at the Wall Street ranch-23 billion dollars for Goldman Sachs? 23 billion for a company that was failing and needed us to come to the rescue?

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The cynical folks that I tend to come across day in and day out have predicted this for months. They’ve said all along its not the President or the people who have final say so in this country, it’s the people who control the financial institutions..23 Billion dollars in bonus–keep repeating this to yourself as you find yourself putting in extra hours and avoiding taking vacations for fear of losing your own meager paying job.

23 Billion dollars-I’m sitting here listening to this crap and looking at a medical bill for 1400 bucks I have no way of paying anytime soon. I couldn’t afford it when I got severely sick a couple of months ago and had no choice but to visit an emergency room. My ‘great’ insurance-(privately owned and not government run) wouldn’t cover me for an emergency out of state. It was on me they told me. But hey thats another story. The point is I couldn’t afford to pay it in August and I can’t afford to pay it now. I needed a stimulus package and couldn’t get it. My job needed one-None was given. I needed some credit mine was cut. Thank you Wells Fargo. Meanwhile back at the Wall Street ranch- Goldman Sachs management are getting 23 Billion dollars..

Where are all the Tea Party protestors? Why aren't they in front of Goldman Sachs?

I guess the thing that really eats at me most was hearing about Goldman Sachs and thinking about all these ‘orchestrated’ Tea Party gatherings. I say orchestrated because when you went you heard the a lot of talk about greed and corruption and tax dollars being wasted. You saw all sorts of posters with demonic pictures of President Obama denouncing him. And I’ll be honest, if Goldman Sachs are his people and he has people from that firm all up in his inner circle and administration, some hard hitting criticism is due. You’ll get no defense from me about Obama and his relationship to Goldman Sachs… With that being said, based upon the supposed outrage and call to action to get this country back on track as underlined by the Tea Party folks, my question is ‘Where art thou?’ When’s the next Tea Party?

Where’s the tea party thats gonna be kicked off in front of Goldman Sachs Headquarters on 85 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan? Since its been said that President Obama really doesn’t run the country and he’s controlled by rich, powerful wall street bankers, where are all my shotgun carrying, ultra patriotic Tea Party folks now? Where’s the September 12th Protestors? Remember them? Didn’t they show up with “millions’) in front of the white house’? (Note: It really wasn’t millions it was more like ten thousand, but we’ll say millions to make them happy…Please keep in mind it would be real expensive for those drug industry marketing firms that were organizing the September 12th Protest along with the Townhalls and Tea Party gatherings to hire millions to come out to a protest-but lets not digress). Obviously we don’t see these people confronting the ‘real beast’ and the real criminals…

Memo to Glenn Beck: Goldman Sach's CEO Lloyd Craig Blankfein has done more harm to us than Van Jones ever did or could

So as I was saying where’s Sean Hannity? Lou Dobbs? Rush Limbaugh? Has anyone seen them? Are they directing their viewers and listeners to show and protest? Are they getting the tens of thousands of ‘honest, poor, hard working citizens who carried posters with Obama looking like Adolph Hitler to show up in front of Goldman Sach’s headquarters carrying Hitler-isque pictures of CEO Lloyd Craig Blankfein? Do their listeners even know who he is? Where’s the Fox News ambush team to jump in the face of a bonus receiving Goldman Sach’s manager demanding they give back tax payer money? Isn’t Goldman Sachs who we should be confronting? Where’s the outrage?

Are there any ‘Joker-like pictures of David A. Viniar the Chief Financial Officer of Goldman Sachs being posted around town? Weren’t well known conspiracy pundits like Alex Jones (The Obama Deception) just two months ago offering 50 thousand dollars to people who could post up Obama the Joker flyers? Is he offering anything similar for us to confront the ‘evil folks’ at Goldman Sachs who pull the economic purse strings not just for Obama but for many of us as well?

Where’s Glenn Beck‘s hunt for wrongdoers of this magnitude? Where’s the weeks worth of expose to take down those who are really doing ‘treasonous’ and treacherous things that harm the working class America? Does anyone think that Glenn Beck targets like; Van Jones, Mark Lloyd or Yosi Sergent are the ones disrupting American life or is it the dip shits giving out billions of dollars in bonuses to their management teams after we bailed them out? Will any of those billions be stimulating your economy anytime soon? 23 billion dollars in bonuses folks..23 Billion.

The Tea party protesters and their contradictory ways aren’t the only ones we need to take to task. Let’s talk about your everyday run in the mill hoodlum. Lets make sure he has his priorities straight.

Memo to Thugs: Stop robbing poor people in the hood-try Wall Street

Memo to Wannabe Gangstas & Thugs: Stop robbing people in the hood. You wanna rob somebody? Find a one of these Goldman Sachs bonus baby cats. You wanna show how gangster you are? Post up on 85 Broad street or 30 Hudson street in Jersey City . If not in New York there’s a Goldman Sachs in a city near you. Whatever you do stop robbing and terrorizing poor folks in the community who can barely afford a pot to piss in and bring the drama to the folks who have more money than our entire community combined.

When these Wall Street barons get their bonus checks tell them to ‘Ante up’. Tell them to ‘run’ their loot and don’t feel bad. After all, that’s what these bankers did to us. Late last year they strong armed tax payers and told the American people they better give them stimulus money or the economy would tank.

If folks recall, when Congress took their initial vote on giving a bailout the answer was ‘Hell Naw’. That’s when these Wall Street crooks ran around and threatened to destroy the economy. Film maker Michael Moore outlines this in his movie ‘Capitalism a Love Story’ The end result was Congress reversed its vote and we wound up giving away trillions. We gave away all that money and the economy is still tanking for far too many of us…

23 Billion.. do you know how many people can have their basic needs met with that money? It’ll be interesting to see how millionaire broadcasters in the media suddenly get quiet and won’t cajole the people into action. Expect more balloonboy coverage and beauty Queen breast plant stories. This is what they are talking about today on local TV news stations in NY home to Goldman Sachs this morning as I write this.. Expect outlandish excuses used to defend the bonuses received by these Goldman Sach numbskulls-23 Billion

Something to ponder..

-Davey D-

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Davey D-Words to Ponder Blog, Political articles Tagged With: 85 Broad street, Bailout, David A. Viniar, Glenn Beck, Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs is Giving Away 23 Billion In Bonuses...Where's All the Tea Party Protestors? Why are they so Silent?, Lloyd Craig Blankfein, Memo to Thugs & Gangstas: Stop Robbing the Hood-Try Wall Street, Memo to Thugs & Gangstas: Stop Robbing the Hood-Where's All the Tea Party Protestors?, Tea Part protests, Wall street bailout

Rush, Rams and Reverse Racism

October 19, 2009 By mrDaveyd

Rush, Rams and Reverse Racism

The Right’s Search for a Black Racist

by Paul Scott

PaulScott-225 With the announcement of Rush Limbaugh‘s failure to purchase part of the St Louis Rams football franchise, the Right went on a safari to track down the ever elusive, black racist. As usual, the race hunters came up empty. The best specimen that they could capture was Fox News Channel’s token black commentator, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill with a picture of former Black Liberation Army member, Assata Shakur on his website. Hardly, evidence of a violent plot to take over America by spear wielding black militants.

The reason why the Right Wingers have never been able to successfully cage a black racist is simple. They don’t exist.

Now this may be a hard pill to swallow for those who, wholeheartedly, believe in a warped version of the law of opposites.

If there is white racism, surely there must be black racism. If whites have ,historically, enslaved and oppressed blacks, there has to be some remote island out in the Atlantic where Bobby Whitman is being forced to pick cotton and sing Barry Manilow songs while Tyrone Jackson stands over him with a whip and a tall glass of Country Time Lemonade.

However, this Bizarro World of black supremacy only exists in the minds of Ultra Right talking heads and those who set their watches by the Glenn Beck Show.

For years, the Right has used the charge of “reverse racism” to hide their collective fears that they are losing control of America. Oddly enough, many people who scream racism don’t have the foggiest idea what the word means. While the definition of “racism” may be a doctrine of racial superiority, the functional definition is the power of a group to exercise this doctrine over others. Therefore, as author Nelly Fuller wrote “the only form of functional racism that exists among the people of the known universe is white supremacy.”

The doctrine of white supremacy is so entrenched in this society that even an African American president of the United States is not exempt.

So, sorry folks, by this definition, African Americans cannot be racist. We can be a lot of things; prejudiced, bigots, etc but the one thing that we cannot be, for social and economic reasons, is racist.

It must be noted that in order to find a black racist apologists for white supremacy have had to reach back centuries.

In his book, “The Ice Man Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man’s Racism, Sexism and Aggression,” Canadian author, Michael Bradley traces the foundation of the myth of black racism back centuries when the Bantu-speaking people conquered the Khoikhoi and the Saan. Because anthropologist CS Coon divided the Africans into two separate races, some have used this as evidence of “black supremacy.” However, Bradley also quotes anthropologist Ashley Montague as saying, ” The modern conception of race owes its widespread diffusion to the white man. Wherever he has gone he has carried it with him.”

America’s search for black racists carried into the Civil Rights Era when Mike Wallace introduced America to Malcolm X via the documentary “The Hate that Hate Produced,” which, like future programs ,confused reactionary racial rhetoric and calls for black self empowerment with black socio-economic supremacy.

This was also evident in the late 60’s and early 70’s, when those attempting to label the Black Panther Party as “racists” ignored the fact that Panther ideology was based on Marxism which downplayed race in order to organize the oppressed working class and also the fact that the party had many white supporters including celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando.

This frantic search for black supremacy continued into the 80’s and 90’s when black leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Minister Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Al Sharpton were labeled racists as well as entertainers such as the rap group, Public Enemy.

We see the same trend continuing over the last year as Conservatives tried to link black racism to the Obama administration by their attacks on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Even the Latino community was not spared as Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor was portrayed by the conservative media as a brown racist.

So, it is not black racism that is the problem, it is conservative talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity, Mike Savage and Rush Limbaugh who spew their hate filled venom across the planet via their satellite powered pulpits, 24 hours a day.

If Limbaugh and his ilk want to see a real racist, they need to look no further than their own bathroom mirrors.

Paul Scott is a self-syndicated columnist and author of the blog, No Warning Shots Fired.com. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles Tagged With: Paul scott, Race relations, Rams and Reverse Racism, Reverse racism, Rush

Bono of U2: Rebranding America-Barack Obama and His Noble Peace Prize

October 18, 2009 By mrDaveyd

Rebranding America

by Bono of U2

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18bono.html?pagewanted=1

BonoU2 A FEW years ago, I accepted a Golden Globe award by barking out an expletive.

One imagines President Obama did the same when he heard about his Nobel, and not out of excitement.

When Mr. Obama takes the stage at Oslo City Hall this December, he won’t be the first sitting president to receive the peace prize, but he might be the most controversial. There’s a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven’t a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be.

Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here’s why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration’s approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

All right … I don’t speak for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I do — but as my bandmates will quickly (and loudly) point out, I don’t even speak for one small group of four musicians. But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines.

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.

It is a strangely unsettling feeling to realize that the largest Navy, the fastest Air Force, the fittest strike force, cannot fully protect us from the ghost that is terrorism …. Asymmetry is the key word from Kabul to Gaza …. Might is not right.

I think back to a phone call I got a couple of years ago from Gen. James Jones. At the time, he was retiring from the top job at NATO; the idea of a President Obama was a wild flight of the imagination.

General Jones was curious about the work many of us were doing in economic development, and how smarter aid — embodied in initiatives like President George W. Bush’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Challenge Corporation — was beginning to save lives and change the game for many countries. Remember, this was a moment when America couldn’t get its cigarette lighted in polite European nations like Norway; but even then, in the developing world, the United States was still seen as a positive, even transformative, presence.

The general and I also found ourselves talking about what can happen when the three extremes — poverty, ideology and climate — come together. We found ourselves discussing the stretch of land that runs across the continent of Africa, just along the creeping sands of the Sahara — an area that includes Sudan and northern Nigeria. He also agreed that many people didn’t see that the Horn of Africa — the troubled region that encompasses Somalia and Ethiopia — is a classic case of the three extremes becoming an unholy trinity (I’m paraphrasing) and threatening peace and stability around the world

The military man also offered me an equation. Stability = security + development.

In an asymmetrical war, he said, the emphasis had to be on making American foreign policy conform to that formula.

Enter Barack Obama.

If that last line still seems like a joke to you … it may not for long.

Mr. Obama has put together a team of people who believe in this equation. That includes the general himself, now at the National Security Council; the vice president, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the Republican defense secretary; and a secretary of state, someone with a long record of championing the cause of women and girls living in poverty, who is now determined to revolutionize health and agriculture for the world’s poor. And it looks like the bipartisan coalition in Congress that accomplished so much in global development over the past eight years is still holding amid rancor on pretty much everything else. From a development perspective, you couldn’t dream up a better dream team to pursue peace in this way, to rebrand America.

The president said that he considered the peace prize a call to action. And in the fight against extreme poverty, it’s action, not intentions, that counts. That stirring sentence he uttered last month will ring hollow unless he returns to next year’s United Nations summit meeting with a meaningful, inclusive plan, one that gets results for the billion or more people living on less than $1 a day. Difficult. Very difficult. But doable.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, “Don’t blow it.”

But that’s not just directed at Mr. Obama. It’s directed at all of us. What the president promised was a “global plan,” not an American plan. The same is true on all the other issues that the Nobel committee cited, from nuclear disarmament to climate change — none of these things will yield to unilateral approaches. They’ll take international cooperation and American leadership.

The president has set himself, and the rest of us, no small task.

That’s why America shouldn’t turn up its national nose at popularity contests. In the same week that Mr. Obama won the Nobel, the United States was ranked as the most admired country in the world, leapfrogging from seventh to the top of the Nation Brands Index survey — the biggest jump any country has ever made. Like the Nobel, this can be written off as meaningless … a measure of Mr. Obama’s celebrity (and we know what people think of celebrities).

But an America that’s tired of being the world’s policeman, and is too pinched to be the world’s philanthropist, could still be the world’s partner. And you can’t do that without being, well, loved. Here come the letters to the editor, but let me just say it: Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.

And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift

Troubled Kids-Troubled Adults: The Only One Who Spoke Truth Yesterday Was 6 year Old Falcon-The Balloon Boy

October 16, 2009 By mrDaveyd

daveydbanner

daveyd-raider2 The only person who seemed to be honest during yesterday’s enthralling ‘Balloon-Gate’ scenario was 6 year old-Falcon who was at the center of it all. That little kid sat up on national television and told the world-‘We did this for the show.’ And what a show it was. It had all the ingredients; roller coaster action, teeth clenching drama, intrigue and mystery-It was all there.

On top of it, seemingly everyone was in on what appeared to be a grand exercise in mass deception. That includes the McGiverist/Inspector Gadget-like father –Richard Heene who’s ‘acting’ abilities’ were atrocious. His tears and supposed outrage had me taking notes-‘Do not take lessons from his acting coach’. There was the overly eager ‘friendly’ next door neighbor, Marc Friedland who was on every news channel seemingly going for his sot at 15 minutes of fame by extolling the virtues of what many of us were seeing as a wacky family.

But perhaps the most dishonest were the news agencies who quickly cut away from President Obama addressing folks in New Orleans about Katrina recovery and followed the runaway balloon for two hours. During those two hours news channels tripped over themselves pulling out charts and graphs to give us reports about wind currents, high altitudes, temperatures and speculation about possible lightning storms. It was done in such a way that everyone at the airport stopped what they were doing and gathered around the TVs to watch. The deception was realized after the balloon landed and little Falcon was nowhere to be found. That’s when our favorite news channels trotted out all these balloon experts who repeated over and over, there’s no way that a craft of that shape and size could’ve carried a 6-year-old boys to such heights (10 thousand feet was one estimate) and at such speeds(85 mph was another estimate). In fact most said the balloon wouldn’t have flown at all.

We also came to find out that law enforcement agencies in Colorado had early on suspected that Falcon had either fallen out of the craft or was never on it. That vital information was communicated at least a good 15 minutes before the balloon landing but was not broadcasted. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. What ratings seeking news outlet would want to stop their coverage after drawing everyone in and getting them to watch for two hours? What news outlet in 2009 would have the courage to sit up and say ‘Sorry folks-false alarm, we assessed this situation wrong?’

Apparently none of our ‘trusted’ new sources. Instead giving us the full scope of what was taking place, what we got was a breath taking narrative that had us all at the edge of our seats as we watched the balloon make a soft landing and an undercover officer heroically dash out to make sure it didn’t take off again. Poor guy, I don’t think anyone had the heart to tell him there was no kid in the balloon because dude was running like there was no tomorrow.

Little 6 year old Falcon spoke the truth yesterday

As for the throngs of people watching intensely at Oakland Airport, they seemed relieved, I heard a few claps, and even saw a couple of high fives as the wall to wall coverage concluded and damage control procedures of reframing the discussion kicked in. It started with news anchors acting like they were just as shocked as we were to discover the little boy was missing…As we say back home ‘Negro Please’-translation-Please spare me the drama.

I wasn’t alone in my assessment as the twitter world was abuzz with folks pissed off that they were duped. One tweet summed it up best by noting the balloon escapade was phony and he wondered how many country’s were bombed while we watched this unfold. He noted that perhaps a bill was secretly signed reinstating slavery while we watched the balloon coverage…

What caught my attention in the aftermath was the instant psychological analysis that was quickly attributed to the little boy, especially after it was discovered he was hiding in the attic. These experts kept noting that ‘Little Falcon’ is a smart, precocious young man who may have been seeking attention. I heard words like ‘warm’, ‘loving’ and even ‘little genius’ being used to describe him. We heard police officers boldly assert that it’s not unusual for young kids to go hide in attics when people are looking for them after they caused a big mess. Empathy and understanding were the marching orders of the day and the themes directed at Falcon. And should they not? After all, he’s six years old and shouldn’t we see all six year olds with such loving gazes?

It’s hard not to think how the narrative would’ve been played out had it been ‘Lil Darnel’ or Lil Jesus from the inner city who caused this commotion. Would we have been as sympathetic and understanding or would we have seen him as a young uncouth troublemaker? Would the Nancy Graces and Gloria Allreds of the world been on TV calling for this child to be removed from the home and there be widespread condemnation of the entire community for the actions of one?

Before people get too bent out of shape and start rolling their eyes and mumbling ‘Oh brother here we go again’, keep in mind it was just a year ago that we had a spate of arrests and handcuffed placed on 5, 6 and 7 year olds all over the country for acts far less disruptive and costly then the ones caused by ‘cute, precocious’ Falcon. We even had one infamous incident in Pittsburgh, Pa where an officer saw fit to pull a gun and point it at the head of a 7 year old girl-Joshaly Lawton who wouldn’t stop crying when her mom was pulled over for a traffic violation. The mother Pamela Lawton was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct when she objected to the officer pulling a gun on her child.

Am I the only one who recalls the handcuffing and arrest of 7 year old Gerard Mungo Jr. in Baltimore for riding a moped on a sidewalk? Am I the only one who recalls school officials in St Petersburgh, Florida calling the police who then handcuffed 5 year Jiyisha Scott who they said was throwing a temper tantrum? Weren’t there similar incidents in places like Chicago and a couple of other cities that escape my mind? Am i the only one who recalls some of the same news outlets that encouraged empathy and understanding toward Falcon were justifying the arrest of these little Black kids who I guess weren’t seen as cute and precocious?

There’s many ways to look at what took place yesterday and attributed to larger societal problems. Lack of parental oversight, kids having access to too much, our society just getting more and more out of control are a few of the isms and schisms that can be conjured up.

Our kids are crying out and we keep failing them. We fail them with our less than stellar policies that suggest we won’t leave them behind, but in reality we do. We fail them when we require more and more in the workplace from overworked and underpaid parents, take away resources for support and then blame them for not being as responsible and ‘there for their kids as much as we would like them. We fail them when we grandstand and utter lofty phrases like ‘It takes a Village to raise a child’ and yet we don’t actively participate in the raising process by setting good examples for the young kids we say we’re raising to follow. In fact we don’t even take steps to childproof this proverbial village we like to talk about.

Sadly many of us can’t even tell when our kids are crying out for help. Was Little Falcon crying out for help yesterday when he hopped in the balloon, hopped out and hid in the attic while a massive manhunt kicked into gear looking for him? Most people including the newscasters who participated in this exercise of deception kept suggesting that Falcon’s actions were troubling and he needed help-and that’s probably true.

But lemme close by restating my initial remarks. The only person who seemed to be honest during yesterday’s enthralling ‘Balloon-Gate’ scenario was 6 year old-Falcon. Yesterday in front of a nationwide audience we heard him cry out for help and unfortunately I think it was ignored. So let me repeat his cry for help. Falcon said ‘We did this for the show.’ That was his cry for help.

Ladies and gentlemen our kids are not fodder for over-the-top dramatic news coverage, rating boosters for reality shows or poster children for fake ass politicians who use them as convenient backdrops while trying to push forth an agenda. Our kids are not show material. They are real, tangible beings who we all better be responsible for and I do mean all of us…

A troubled six year old today who’s issues aren’t adequately and lovingly address will one day grow up to be a troubled adult who will go to do things like shoot unarmed men in the back of the head at an Oakland BART station, look us in the eye and lie to us about weapons of mass destruction that don’t exist and send us off to war or violate our trust by raiding our banking system, tanking the economy and leaving all us in economic ruin.

A troubled kid one day becomes a troubled adult who will go on to do things like plow drugs and alcohol on an unsuspecting 13 year old, rape her, flee the country before doing jail time and will act incredulous and shocked when finally caught and forced to answer for his misdeeds. His equally troubled friends will actually defend him and claim he did nothing wrong. Troubled kids become troubled adults who lose all sense of civility and compassion and become hardened to the point of seeing no need for justice for those who have been egregiously wronged

A troubled six year old who is not fully cared for will one day grow up and become a troubled adult who will inappropriately use his kids to put on a good show…

something to ponder.

-Davey D-

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Balloon Boy-Davey D Hip Hop news, Falcon Henne, Gerard Mungo, Kids arrested by police, Marc Friedland, Pamela Lawton, Richard Heene, Troubled Kids-Troubled Adults: The Only One Who Spoke Truth Yesterday Was 6 year Old Falcon-The Balloon Boy, Troubled Kids-Troubled Adults: The Only One Who Spoke Truth yesterday Was the 6 year Old Falcon-The Balloon Boy

Lou Dobbs: Racist, Out of Touch-Stuck in the Past

October 15, 2009 By mrDaveyd

Racist is what many think when they see or hear the name of Texas born CNN host Lou Dobbs. His constant immigrant bashing and anti-Latino rhetoric has raised serious concerns

In many circles around the country when you mention the name Lou Dobbs, you think racist and anti-Latino before you think longtime and once upon a time revered CNN figurehead who helped launched the 24 hour news network . This Texas born son fancies himself as an ‘independent populist’ who uses that moniker as cover for his over the top xenophobic expressions. He’s been pimping the Latino community for the past few years by espousing racially biased remarks that have helped create a climate where fellow citizens are made to feel uncomfortable because of their ethnicity and there’s been a rise in Hate crimes.

Dobbs started out with CNN in 1980 as an economic correspondent. He later went on to found CNN fn (CNN Financial News). He left the network for a spell and then returned in 2001 and started hosting his own show Lou Dobbs tonight in 2003. It was on this show that Dobbs started out focusing on economic issues, but soon concluded that many of this country’s financial woes were due in large part to undocumented immigrants. He then used his talk show to be a central hub for all things anti-immigrant. If you was Minuteman or Texas Border Watcher than Dobbs had a home for you. If you were a person who held a different perspective that might explain the larger economic and political conditions that lead to people crossing over the ‘border in droves’ than Lou Dobbs’ show was the place where you would find yourself being ridiculed and abolished.

If you were a person who expressed concern about the rise in Hate crimes thanks to anti-immigrant rhetoric in broadcast spaces or if you had issues about how land was stolen from indigenous people or how treaties weren’t honored than Lou Dobbs show was the place where your assertions would be considered factually inaccurate and not worthy of serious news time. If you expressed concern about an increase in police brutality or the mistreatment of entire families because of overzealous and often racially biased law enforcement than Lou Dobbs would be the guy to scoff at such concerns.

Yes, this is the same Lou Dobbs who would put down other perspectives to the immigration debate , while at the same time seriously debating and in some instances leading the charge that President Obama is not a US citizen, a charge that has been repeatedly and comprehensivally refuted. Lou Dobbs might as well have been president of the so called Birther movement. Over the years Lou Dobbs has been allowed to gain notoriety and increased popularity by bashing immigrants in particular Brown ones.

Well it seems like many in the Latino community have had enough and have been mounting a campaign to have CNN dump Lou Dobbs. Its called ‘Basta Dobbs’ (www.BastaDobbs.com) Below is a video outlining some of the sentiments many are feeling.

-Davey D-

——————————————————————————-

It’s time to give Lou Dobbs the boot:

Add your name to AlterNet and CREDO’s petition, and send him to the sidelines.

http://www.alternet.org/story/142940/is_lou_dobbs,_cnn’s_resident_bigot,_on_his_way_out?page=entire

The heat on CNN to dump right-wing nativist news host Lou Dobbs has reached a boiling point.

Several grassroots and Internet campaigns urging CNN to drop Dobbs in response to his relentless hate-talk are gathering momentum and tens of thousands of signatures. Will Dobbs finally be stopped from using his on-air bully pulpit to bash immigrants and spread misleading and inaccurate information?

One major anti-Dobbs campaign, Basta Dobbs.com, calls Dobbs the “most dangerous man for Latinos in America.”

Just how dangerous is Dobbs? According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “The rise in hate crimes against Latinos coincides almost exactly with the time Dobbs has been propagating false conspiracy theories about Latinos on the air. He’s not urging people to go hurt and kill — but that is the effect of what he does.”

A recent poll of the top 100 Latino leaders, including members of Congress and business leaders, conducted by Bendixen and Associates for Democricia Ahora, showed that 89 percent had a negative opinion of Dobbs. Many believe him to be a racist and question his journalistic credentials. Seventy percent of those polled thought that a campaign aimed at ousting Dobbs was a good idea.

John Santore of Media Matters explains the position of DropDobbs.com, another coalition of groups, which include the National Council of La Raza, LULAC and the Southern Poverty Law Center, working for Dobbs’ ouster:

For years, Lou Dobbs has been one of the most dangerous hosts on cable news. He benefits enormously from the legitimacy of the CNN brand, which provides him with an unparalleled platform from which to mainstream the hate-speech and racially charged conspiracy theories normally relegated to Fox News and other conservative news outlets.

Dobbs calls himself an “advocacy journalist,” but he doesn’t even live up to that ambiguous standard. Good journalism enhances the discussion of serious topics, but Dobbs helps to undermine and debase that discussion, routinely infusing it with misinformation and fear.

Meanwhile, Dobbs has become even more unhinged.

In a rambling, bizarre attack on one of his critics, Roberto Lovato, a key leader in the BastaDobbs.com campaign, Dobbs resorted to juvenile name calling, going so far as to call Lovato a “flea” and a “bozo.”

Dobbs was set off by an AlterNet article in which Lovato chargedthat Dobbs postures as “the victimized defender of American virtue” in order to spread his bile.

A Big Problem

The intensity of the protests against Dobbs have made the news host a “big problem” for the network, sources inside CNN report. Closed-door discussions on Dobbs’ fate appear to be under way.

CNN executives have a lot to talk about. The cable channel is losing market share, and Dobbs is leading the way in the drop in viewers. Raw Story reports that after harping on the Obama birth certificate story, Dobbs’ ratings fell 15 percent — in two weeks.

Long-term, big-picture audience demographics should also figure in CNN’s decision. The Latino market in the U.S is exploding. Naturally, CNN has much invested in its Spanish-speaking audience, and it is well aware that Latinos are not happy with the anti-immigrant Dobbs.

The more Dobbs viciously attacks Latino immigrants, the more he alienates the very audience that CNN is trying to woo. One insider said off the record that they think Dobbs will probably be gone by year’s end.

CNN’s Big Contradiction: Marketing to Latinos While Dobbs Alienates Them

The message aimed at CNN by the drop-Dobbs campaigns is, “How can you seemingly embrace your Latino audience with marketing and special programming
on the one hand, while allowing Dobbs to spread hate with the other?”

The BastaDobbs campaign is spearheaded by Lovato, as part of Presente.com, an online organizing effort affiliated with the Color of Change. CoC is the group credited with getting more than 60 advertisers to drop Fox’s Glenn Beck Show.

I spoke with Lovato on Sept. 27, and he said this about the nationwide campaign against Dobbs’ hate:

For many years, Latinos throughout the United States have organized local street protests and press conferences denouncing Dobbs’ dangerous rhetoric. Think tanks have produced numerous reports proving the falsehoods and fakery that passes for “news” on Lou Dobbs Tonight. Yet, all we get are more silly outbursts from Dobbs — and silence from CNN.

But now, Latinos and others come to realize Dobbs is not going to change. So it’s time for us to take our fight to the real source of the problem, CNN itself.

We are going to make Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN, one of the most famous TV execs in America [Klein is responsible for management oversight of all programming, editorial tone and strategic direction of the network].

I’m encountering this disposition to fight in the 25 cities our campaign is organized in, and on the Internet. Dobbs and CNN are bringing unprecedented alignment and agreement between working-class and elite Latinos.

I asked Lovato about his approach to pressuring CNN and the economics of the Latino audience. Lovato said:

CNN’s moves to capture a segment of what many in media consider the “mission critical” Latino market are no secret. Latinos understand why we’re seeing more of Rick Sanchez and other Latinos on CNN. We take note of the inclusion of Latino analysts, including Alex Castellanos and Leslie Sanchez; and we are curious about how CNN will treat us in its upcoming Latino in America series.

And we wonder why CNN isn’t translating Lou Dobbs in Spanish for inclusion on CNN Espanol, which, by the way, is quite popular with Latinos at this point. But to watch sunny Soledad O’Brien singing the praises of Latino contributors to American society, while just a time slot away the dark, dour Lou Dobbs continues infecting the airwaves with deadly misinformation about “criminal illegal aliens” is just too much hypocrisy.

Regardless of CNN’s big-money efforts to target the Latino market, the continuation of Dobbs’ program guarantees that, for Latinos, the name “CNN” is synonymous with “anti-Latino hatred.”

Ultimately, Dobbs’ vicious attacks on immigrants — often combined with bizarre red-baiting — is not doing great things for the CNN brand. In fact, Dobbs’ antics harshly distort its tag line: “The most trusted name in news.”

For example, take a look at Dobbs’ response to the national protest day, “A day without Immigrants” in 2006, here described by Daphne Eviatar, writing in The Nation:

… on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, it was a different story: “Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and their supporters today failed in their attempt to shut down most of our cities to support amnesty for all illegal aliens,” the network’s 6 p.m. news anchor reported that evening.

Dobbs elaborated in his online column: “It is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist and even anarchic organizations. … No matter which flag demonstrators and protesters carry today, their leadership is showing its true colors to all who will see.

You might expect that sort of McCarthyesque description from Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or some other famously right-wing provocateur on Fox or talk radio. But Lou Dobbs, on CNN? These days, the network once pilloried by conservatives as a leading voice of the “liberal media” is offering an expansive platform to the nation’s leading spokesman for anti-immigration hard-liners.

There are countless other critiques of Dobbs, dating back more than three years. The charges, listed by the DropDobbs campaign, and documented by Media Matters, include:

Dobbs spreads leprosy falsehood in claiming “invasion of illegal aliens” threatening Americans’ “health.”
Dobbs has close ties to “hate group” Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Dobbs smeared U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as “interested in the export of American capital and production to Mexico, and Mexico’s export of drugs and illegal aliens.”
Dobbs advanced racially charged conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth certificate.
Dobbs said Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination was “absolute pandering to the Hispanics.” Dobbs declared “Mexico has become our enemy.”

A more thorough listof Dobbs’ hate speech can be found on the DropDobbs site.

It’s time to give Lou Dobbs the boot:

Add your name to AlterNet and CREDO’s petition and send him to the sidelines.

Return to the Southern Shift

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Border patrol, Immigration rights, Lou Dobbs, Lou Dobbs: Racist, Out of Touch-Stuck in the Past

Jasiri X: What is Peace? (Not Another Hate Letter to Obama)

October 13, 2009 By mrDaveyd

RealTalkXpress-JasiriX-450

“What’s Peace?”-This Week With Jasiri X-Episode 21 is commentary about the meaning of peace and the audacity of giving out a “Peace Prize” in a world so violent. This Episode was Produced Pittsburgh’s own legendary super producer Black Czer and Directed by X-Clan’s Paradise the Arkitech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA3V-VS6XwU

The Audacity of the Peace Prize

by Jasiri X

twitter/jasirix

This isn’t another hate article about how President Obama doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, in fact the Republican Party just reinforced how even the slightest success from Barack drives them completely crazy. But I do have to say that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is….ironic. Even he looked kinda embarrassed accepting it.

I mean the Brother’s first act after his celebratory weekend was to order 13,000 additional troops to Afghanistan . And if that wasn’t ironic enough he received the Peace Prize on the weekend where all over America there were celebrations and parades, dedicated to one of the most violent men that ever lived, Christopher Columbus. Which begs the question can America even exist without following through on her founding principles of murder, rape and genocide?

Also ironic is the President’s adopted home town of Chicago is arguably the most violent city in the United States, as witnessed by the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, one of the many young black children that have been murdered far to prematurely. And we haven’t even mentioned police brutality or how this countries corporate corruption has lead to intense poverty and the lack of health care reform which lead to even more violent deaths.

But of course none of these problems are strictly American- nor caused by President Obama, the entire world is a cruel wicked place were violence, corruption and evil dominate. So to even award a Peace Prize when the world isn’t getting better (it’s getting worse) to me is crazy. It’s like giving a movie an Oscar before it’s even finished casting.

Now, I know why they gave it to President Obama and I appreciate it, because I feel the same way. Like us they want to see hope and change turn into concrete policies that can produce well…hope and change. Really we all need to get more active in pushing our President towards REAL change. It’s like we thought because he won the presidency so easily and convincingly he would do the same when it came to reforming the government.

Yes, it was cool to see President Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize, but ultimately it’s symbolic. Real peace means mobilizing against powerful lobbys to prevent a impending war with Iran and further escalating one in Afghanistan. It also means organizing in our communities to prevent our children from shedding each others blood. Until we can stop the tide of rising violence worldwide, nobody deserves a Peace Prize.

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Black on Black crime-Jasiri X, Derrion Albert, Jasiri X-what is Peace?, Jasiri X: What is Peace? (Not Another Hate Letter to Obama), Noble Peace prize, What is Peace-jasiri X video-Davey D Hip Hop news

Categories

Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart, KKK Involved

by Boyce Watkins, PhD

The Audacity of the Peace Prize