connecting*the*dots

I highly doubt Ron Paul or Chuck Hagel will make it through the Republican primaries, but if one of them were to represent the GOP, I’d have a bunch to think about.

And Dave is right; what’s with the protective, uber-patriotic attitude projected by Wolf Blitzer? Who is he pandering to? Are there really Americans out there that still think that US foreign policy over the past 50 years — particularly policy regarding the Middle East — didn’t in the very least contribute to a perfect storm of blowback on 9/11?

It must be a comfy place to own a world view where the US government operates around the world (and at home) with pure, egalitarian intent.

UPDATE: Ron Paul was asking great questions regarding Iraq prior to Shock and Awe. (h/t to Doc Searls)

Artists: Mos Def - Immortal Technique - Eminem

=============

[Mos Def - talking]
Man, you hear this bullshit they be talkin’
Every day, man
It’s like these motherfuckers is just like professional liars
YouknowwhatI’msayin? It’s wild
Listen

[Hook - Mos Def]
Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]

[Verse 1 - Immortal Technique]
I pledge no allegiance, nigga fuck the president’s speeches
I’m baptized by America and covered in leeches
The dirty water that bleaches your soul and your facial features
Drownin’ you in propaganda that they spit through the speakers
And if you speak about the evil that the government does
The Patriot Act’ll track you to the type of your blood
They try to frame you, and say you was tryna sell drugs
And throw a federal indictment on niggaz to show you love
This shit is run by fake Christians, fake politicians
Look at they mansions, then look at the conditions you live in
All they talk about is terrorism on television
They tell you to listen, but they don’t really tell you they mission
They funded Al-Qaeda, and now they blame the Muslim religion
Even though Bin Laden, was a CIA tactician
They gave him billions of dollars, and they funded his purpose
Fahrenheit 9/11, that’s just scratchin’ the surface

[Hook - Mos Def]
Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]

[Verse 2 - Immortal Technique]
They say the rebels in Iraq still fight for Saddam
But that’s bullshit, I’ll show you why it’s totally wrong
Cuz if another country invaded the hood tonight
It’d be warfare through Harlem, and Washington Heights
I wouldn’t be fightin’ for Bush or White America’s dream
I’d be fightin’ for my people’s survival and self-esteem
I wouldn’t fight for racist churches from the south, my nigga
I’d be fightin’ to keep the occupation out, my nigga
You ever clock someone who talk shit, or look at you wrong?
Imagine if they shot at you, and was rapin’ your moms
And of course Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons
We sold him that shit, after Ronald Reagan’s election
Mercenary contractors fightin’ a new era
Corporate military bankin’ off the war on terror
They controllin’ the ghetto, with the failed attack
Tryna distract the fact that they engineerin’ the crack
So I’m strapped like Lee Malvo holdin’ a sniper rifle
These bullets’ll touch your kids, and I don’t mean like Michael
Your body be sent to the morgue, stripped down and recycled
I fire on house niggaz that support you and like you
Cuz innocent people get murdered in the struggle daily
And poor people never get shit and struggle daily
This ain’t no alien conspiracy theory, this shit is real
Written on the dollar underneath the Masonic seal

(I don’t rap for dead presidents
I’d rather see the president dead
It’s never been said but I set precedents)–[Eminem]

[Hook - Mos Def]
Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was you, nigga
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]
Tell the truth, nigga
(Bush knocked down the towers)–[Jadakiss]

(Shady Records was 80 seconds away from the towers
Some cowards fucked with the wrong building, they meant to hit ours)– [Eminem]

(originally uploaded by ConjugalVisitor)

McClatchy Washington Bureau
Rumsfeld, Ashcroft received warning of al Qaida attack before 9/11
By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The State Department’s disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don’t remember the warning.

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a “10 on a scale of 1 to 10″ that “connected the dots” in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again.

Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel’s executive director and the principal author of its report, who’s now Rice’s top adviser.

[…]

And people called Clinton’s interview with Chris Wallace “crazed?” Sounds much more like it was a factual explosion.

(photo by Jesus’ General)

Reuters
ABC Scrambling to Change 9/11 Drama

[…]

Officials at the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said they were still tinkering with the five-hour production, titled “The Path to 9/11,” which is scheduled to air without commercial interruption in two parts on Sunday and Monday.

But ABC declined to say how the movie was being reshaped or whether any changes would address specific complaints lodged by Clinton, his former aides and congressional Democrats that the film contained numerous inaccuracies and distortions.

The Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety, citing sources close to the project, reported the network was considering canceling the miniseries altogether.

The docu-drama, which ABC says is based largely on the official 9/11 Commission Report, opens with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and traces subsequent events leading up to the coordinated suicide hijackings five years ago that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Much of the controversy focuses on a scene depicting CIA agents and Afghan fighters coming close to capturing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, only to have then-White House national security adviser Samuel Berger refuse to authorize completion of their mission.

An unfinished version of the film circulated by ABC to TV critics for review portrays Berger as abruptly hanging up the phone while the CIA is pressing him to approve the raid.

In letters of protest to Disney President Robert Iger, Berger and former White House aide Bruce Lindsey said no such episode ever occurred.

The executive producer of the film, Marc Platt, acknowledged to Reuters on Thursday the Berger scene was a “conflation of events.”

The film also drew denunciations from Clinton supporters for strongly suggesting his administration was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to deal effectively with the gathering threat of Islamic militancy. Lindsey said the 9/11 Commission Report disputed that notion.

[…]

This is what you get when you try to cash in too early on a national tragedy.

Remember the films JFK and Pearl Harbor? Both films took tremendous license in their portrayals of actual events, but the difference is that they did so 28 and 60 years after the fact, respectively. And while each took accuracy jabs from critics, neither had to deal with this degree of criticism because the emotional scars of the American public had already healed and the people who were on watch during these tragedies were either retired or dead.

With the airing of The Path to 9/11 on the eve of the five year anniversary of the events of that day, we also happen to be stuck, knee-deep, in a war that has been proven to have no relationship to the events of that day. No matter what inaccuracies are found — from either side of the aisle — this production was bound to catch major flack for trying to feed a narrative to a still healing nation, ever so hungry for the truth, not some docu-drama version of the events leading to 9/11.

Who Made The Call To Produce This Film?

In my estimation, there are only two possible reasons why Disney/ABC would give the green light on this production at this time:

1. Karl Rove instructed his minions to write the narrative and convince Disney/ABC to produce the film
2. Disney/ABC is simply gambling on the old adage, “There is no such thing as bad PR”

As a firm believer in the power that human greed wields in shaping our world over back door conspiracies, I’m sitting pretty squarely in the second camp (though I couldn’t help using the above image of Mickey Rove; Gen. JC Christian, Patriot is a genius).

I’m betting that Disney/ABC figured that this would be business as usual, though blown up a bit due to the subject matter; you know the formula — create a controversy, sell the advertising, line the pockets and move on unscathed within a few weeks.

What they didn’t take into consideration is the age that we live in now — where blog reach is both gaining traction in the very same homes that their sugar-coated narrative is being presented, as well as influencing the presentation of popular shows on TV (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to name a few).

When a passive audience starts to become more active in their digestion of information, these old axioms of capitalism begin to start biting mainstream marketing strategies in the ass.

To make my point, let me perform a few minutes worth of Google research… Okay, I’m back (and my own thesis has shifted somewhat after only 20 minutes). Take this bit of information from HuffPost as an example of how nutritional facts for digesting reality can change a perspective in a matter of minutes:

[…]

In fact, “The Path to 9/11″ is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11’s director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to “transform Hollywood” in line with its messianic vision.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film’s director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father’s group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is “dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Television industry.” As part of TFI’s long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission’s in film industry jobs “so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out,” according to a YWAM report.

Last June, Cunningham’s TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled “Untitled History Project.” “TFI’s first project is a doozy,” a newsletter to YWAM members read. “Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!” (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).

The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series “under a shroud of secrecy” about the 9/11 attacks. “At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries ‘Untitled Commission Report’ and producers refer to it as the ‘Untitled History Project,’” the Post noted.

[…]

Hm… Maybe I was too quick to espouse my faith in greed over conspiracies? I highly doubt I’ll be going to Disneyland again. In any event, the chances of Disney/ABC walking away clean from this beaut of a mis-timed and shady production is slim to none.

The Future Of Market Accountability

As the ecosystem for delivering entertaining, informative and personalized information gains a new foothold of innovation each and every year, we’re becoming deeper and deeper immersed within the information age.

The people formally known as the audience are becoming more politically aware through osmosis these days. And the harder the mainstream, one-way channels are leveraged to message us with constructed narratives, the easier it becomes for us to unbundle the programming and filter fact from fiction — no matter our brand of politics.

An analogy: The addition of nutritional labels to food products years ago didn’t end up preventing obesity, but the presentation of nutritional meta-data sure as hell increased the potential for new forms of viable economic levers within the food industry.

As high-fat foods in the mid-nineties and high-carb foods over the past few years have taken a hit due to greater consumer awareness, low-fat and low-carb products have gained a place in the market at a higher selling point due to simple demand.

My point?

While a conglomerate like Disney/ABC can get away with producing a film with this level of empty calories here and there, as we move deeper into the online revolution, such blatant disregard for nutritious content could easily lead to the collapse of advertising arteries via brand corrosion, as an informed public is now armed with digital printing presses.

And man, is the web chock full of beating hearts willing to pump out blood or what?

Artist: The Coup
Song: Head (Of State)

==========

[Intro/Chorus]
Bush and Hussein together in bed
Giving H-E-A-D head
Y’all motherfuckers heard what we said
Billions made and millions dead

[repeat 8X]
Work it out; set it up

[Chorus] - 2X

[Boots]
In a land not very far away from here
George W. Bush was drinkin beer
His daddy was head of the CIA
Now listen up close to what I say
The CIA worked for Standard Oil
And other companies to whom they’re loyal
In a whole ‘nother land by the name of Iran
The people got wise and took a stand
to the oil companies, ay ain’t shit funny?
This is our oil, our land, our money
CIA got mad and sent false info
to Iraq to help start the Iran/Iraq wo’
Pronounced war if I have to be proper
The CIA is the cops that’s why I hate the coppers
Saddam Hussein was their man out there
They told him to rule while keepin people scared
Sayin any opposition to him, he must crush it
He gassed the Kurds, they gave him his budget
Said you gotta kick ass to protect our cash
Step out of line and feel our wrath
You know the time without lookin at the little hand
Time came for them to cut out the middle man
Children maimed with no legs and shit
Cause the “Bombs Over..” you know the OutKast hit
And they really want you to hate him dead
When just the other day they made him head
War ain’t about one land against the next
It’s po’ people dyin so the rich cash checks

[Chorus] - 2X

[repeat 16X]
Work it out; set it up

Oh my… Fitzmas does come twice a year!

truthout.org, Jason Leopold
Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove’s discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove’s indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove’s situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on “wildly speculative rumors.”

Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, did not return a call for comment Friday.

Rove’s announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation.

A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove’s role in the CIA leak, sources said.

That meeting was followed almost immediately by an announcement by newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten of changes in the responsibilities of some White House officials, including Rove, who was stripped of his policy duties and would no longer hold the title of deputy White House chief of staff.

The White House said Rove would focus on the November elections and his change in status in no way reflected his fifth appearance before the grand jury or the possibility of an indictment.

But since Rove testified two weeks ago, the White House has been coordinating a response to what is sure to be the biggest political scandal it has faced thus far: the loss of a key political operative who has been instrumental in shaping White House policy on a wide range of domestic issues.

[…]

Let’s recap the legacy of this Republican led government, shall we?

The People

• Karl Rove
• Lewis “Scooter” Libby
• Tom Delay
• Jack Abramoff
• Duke Cunningham
• Armstrong Williams
• Jeff Gannon

The Events

• Iraq War
• Hurricaine Katrina
• Darfur
• Illegal NSA wiretaps
• Illegal phone call data pattern anaysis
• Tax cuts for the rich

I know I’m missing some big ones. Feel free to add them in the comments.

(photo by Vincent44)

Donald Rumsfeld vs. Ray McGovern, former CIA (video)

McGovern: and so I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. (applause) Colin Powell didn’t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. the president spent weeks and weeks with the central intelligence people and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I’m not in the intelligence business. they gave the world their honest opinion. it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

McGovern: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and we were…..just…(crosstalk)

McGovern: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words…. my words were that …. no, no, no wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

McGovern: This is America, Huh.

(applause)

RUMSFELD: You’re getting plenty of play, sir.

McGovern: I’d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: I’m giving it to you.

McGovern: Well we’re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. Was that a lie? or where you mislead?

RUMSFELD: Zar…, Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That’s where he was.

RUMSFELD: He was also… (crosstalk) He was also in Baghdad.

McGovern: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.

RUMSFELD: You are… Le…,Let me, Let me give you an example it’s easy for you to make a charge, Um, but why do you think that the men and women in uniform every day when they came out of Kuwait and went into Iraq put on chemical weapon protective suits, because they like the, ah, style (laughter) They honestly believed that there where chemical weapons Saddam Hussein had used Chemical weapons on his own people previously, he’d used them on his neighbor the Iranians and they believed he had those weapons. We believed he had those weapons.

McGovern: That’s what we call a non-sequitur, it doesn’t matter what the troops believe, it matters what you believe.

(crosstalk)

Moderator: I, I Think, I think, I think mister secretary the debate is over we have other questions, that courtesy to the audience.

“I could squish your head if I wanted to… I squish your head!”

Murray Waas - National Journal
Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says

Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, according to Libby’s grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.
The March 2002 intelligence report was a debriefing of Wilson by the CIA’s Directorate of Operations after Wilson returned from a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims, later proved to be unfounded, that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation, according to government records.

The debriefing report made no mention of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, then a covert CIA officer, or any role she may have played in her husband’s selection by the CIA to go to Niger, according to two people who have read the report.

The previously unreported grand jury testimony is significant because only hours after Cheney reportedly instructed Libby to disclose information from the CIA report, Libby divulged to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper that Plame was a CIA officer, and that she been involved in selecting her husband for the Niger mission.

Both Libby and Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the vice president never encouraged, directed, or authorized Libby to disclose Plame’s identity. In a court filing on April 12, Libby’s attorneys reiterated: “Consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby does not contend that he was instructed to make any disclosures concerning Ms. Wilson [Plame] by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or anyone else.”

But the disclosure that Cheney instructed Libby to leak portions of a classified CIA report on Joseph Wilson adds to a growing body of information showing that at the time Plame was outed as a covert CIA officer the vice president was deeply involved in the White House effort to undermine her husband.

A spokesman for the vice president declined to comment.

[…]

Okay, so I’m to believe that Cheney told Libby to leak certain aspects of the CIA report, but nothing about Wilson’s wife? I’m sorry, but no man nicknamed “Scooter” would have the temerity to out a CIA agent all on his own, especially within the 2-hour window between receiving his marching orders from his boss and speaking with the press.

How dumb do they think we are?

Patrick Fitzgerald is getting deeper and deeper in this mess and one step closer to the truth. Payday has to be coming around the bend.

Photo by Emily Geoff

Associated Press (Newsvine)
Papers: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK’d Leak

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame’s CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Bush’s political foes jumped on the revelation about Libby’s testimony.

“The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put interests of his political party ahead of Americas security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said.

Libby’s testimony also puts the president and the vice president in the awkward position of authorizing leaks — a practice both men have long said they abhor, so much so that the administration has put in motion criminal investigations to hunt down leakers.

The most recent instance is the administration’s launching of a probe into who disclosed to The New York Times the existence of the warrantless domestic surveillance program authorized by Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The authorization involving intelligence information came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for going to war.

If this weren’t such blatent and reckless disregard for our National Security, I’d be fun to watch the right try to spin this bombshell into obscurity.

Bush and Cheney consistently play to the American voter’s fear of a National Security breech, creating a hardline image of them being the “protectors” of leaking classified information to the media.

So when someone else leaks classified information (regarding the NSA warrantless wiretapping program authorized by the President of the United States) they launch a criminal investigation. Fair enough. They wanna play hardball and they have the Justice Department in their pocket to do so.

But I do hope they fully realize that they’ve now set a precedent. If they go after the “leaker” of the NSA program with any degree of vigor, they had better damn well be ready to accept accountability for this authorized leak of classified information.

The difference between the two?

This leak didn’t lead to the uncovering of a questionable government wiretapping program; it directly fed the propaganda machine that greased the skids for launching the war in Iraq.

All I want for Christmas is an article of impeachment.

UPDATE: It looks like the administration is going to argue that when the president tells someone to leak information, the process of declassifying the information is automatic and understood. Or some bullshit like that.

Artist: Public Enemy
Song: Louder Than A Bomb

==========

Professor Griff:
They claim we’re products from the bottom of hell,
‘Cause the black is back and it’s bound to sell.
Picture us coolin’ out on the fourth of July,
And if you heard we were celebrating that’s a world wide lie!
Yo Chuck!
The fed-dead-arals, man, trying to pull a 2-2-6 on ya G,
Yo man,
Show ‘em what you got!
Sh-Show ‘em what you got!

Chuck D:
This style seems wild.
Wait before you treat me like a stepchild!
Let me tell you why they got me on file,
‘Cause I give you what you lack,
Come right and exact,
Our status is the saddest,
So I care where you at, black!
And at home I got a call from Tony Rome,
The FBI was tappin’ my telephone.
I never live alone.
I never walk alone.
My posses always ready, and they’re waitin’ in my zone.
Although I live the life that of a resident,
But I be knowin’ the scheme that of the president,
Tappin’ my phone whose crews abused,
I stand accused of doing harm.
‘Cause I’m louder than a bomb.

C’mon, C’mon.
Louder! Louder. (C’mon, C’mon…C’mon)
Louder! Louder. (C’mon, C’mon…C’mon)
Louder! (C’mon Track Cut)

Professor Griff:
Hey yo D!
Show ‘em you on the block
Show ‘em you on the block, D!

Chuck D:
I am,
A rock hard trooper,
To the bone, the bone, the bone.
Full grown - consider me - stone!
Once again and,
I say it for you to know.
The troop is always ready.
I yell `Geronimo’.
Your CIA, you see I ain’t kiddin’.
Both King and X they got ridda’ both.
A story untold, true, but unknown.
Professor Griff knows…
“Yo, I ain’t milk toast!”
And..
And not the braggin’ or boastin’ and plus,
It ain’t no secret why they’re tappin’ my phone,
although I can’t keep it a secret,
So I decided to kick it, yo.
And yes it weighs a ton, I’ll say it once again,
I’m called the enemy - I’ll never be a friend,
Of those with closed minds, don’t know I’m rapid,
The way that I rap it,
Is makin’ ‘em tap it, yeah.
Never servin ‘em well, ’cause I’m an un-Tom.
It’s no secret at all.
Cause I’m louder than a bomb.

C’mon, C’mon.
Louder! Louder. (C’mon, C’mon…C’mon) (X6)
Louder! (C’mon Track Cut)

Professor Griff:
That’s right boy
The D is on the block, boy
Don’t forget it!
Kick that shit, D!
(It’s Yours)

Chuck D:
Cold holdin’ the load,
The burden breakin’ the mold.
I ain’t lyin’ denyin’, because they’re checkin’ my code.
Am I buggin’ ’cause they’re buggin’ my phone,
for information,
No tellin’ who’s sellin’ out or power buildin’ the nation so…
Joinin’ the set, the point blank target,
Every brothers inside - so least not, you forget, no.
Takin’ the blame is not a waste,
Here taste,
A bit of the song so you can never be wrong.
Just a bit of advice, ’cause we be payin’ the price,
‘Cause every brother mans life is like swingin’ the dice, right?
Here it is, once again
this is,
The brother to brother,
The Terminator, the cutter.
Goin’ on an’ on - leave alone the grown
Get it straight in ‘88, an’ I’ll troop it to demonstrate
The posse always ready,
98 at 98.
My posse come quick,
because my posse got velocity.
Tappin’ my phone,
Never leave me alone,
I’m even lethal when I’m un-armed.
‘Cause I’m louder than a bomb.

C’mon, C’mon.
Louder! Louder. (C’mon, C’mon…C’mon) (X7)

Professor Griff:
Tell ‘em what happened, D!
Prove ‘em, man
Go and prove ‘em, man
That’s right, go and prove ‘em, D
Show ‘em all what’s hot, D
Yeah.
Haha.
Tell ‘em how loud you is, D
They can’t mess with you, D
Yeah!
(All Right)

Chuck D:
‘Cause the D is for dangerous,
You can come and get some of this.
I teach and speak,
So when its spoke, it’s no joke.
The voice of choice,
The place shakes with bass,
Called one for the treble
The rhythm is the rebel
Here’s a funky rhyme that they’re tappin’ on.
Just thinkin’ I’m breakin’ the beats I’m rappin’ on.
CIA, FBI, all they tell us is lies.
When I say it they get alarmed.
‘Cause I’m louder than a bomb!

[…]

Jan 6, 2006

Representative Howard Coble
United States House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0001

Representative Coble,

As an American, I look to leadership to represent my best interests through local representation. In divisive times—times of national crisis—I look for intelligent decision-making and when possible, for bridges to be built, not destroyed.

I lived in Brooklyn, NY on 9/11 and worked just blocks from the WTC. What happened that day shook me just as hard as my neighbors, my fellow Americans and the rest of humanity. The initial response of President Bush to go after al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a decision I 100% supported, but somewhere along the line, Osama bin Laden became an afterthought. The man responsible for thousands of homicides became lost in a decision to go battle an ideological war, against an enemy of Osama bin Laden.

The moment President Bush lost sight of the criminal act; I began to lose confidence in his leadership capabilities. Simultaneously, the rest of the world began to lose respect for us as a nation.

President Bush and his administration lied to Congress, and the people of the world, regarding the justifications for going to war in Iraq. The original Niger investigation came about through proven, falsified documents. Joe Wilson’s eventual investigative report, which disproved the threat of Iraq obtaining yellowcake, was then completely disregarded before reporting results to Congress and the UN. To top it off, a CIA covert op—Joe Wilson’s wife—was casually outed, as if our administration were passing loose gossip in high school.

And now it’s been revealed that President Bush, like Nixon three decades ago, has carried out an illegal wiretapping program against citizens of this country. I’m sorry, but this President does not represent the America I pledged allegiance to for 12 years as an impressionable child.

Is our Constitution not worth anything?

These are serious offenses, which constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors. I urge you to support impeachment immediately.

As a recently established resident of Greensboro, I’m looking forward to us building an open dialog moving forward.

Sincerely,

Sean Coon

Why I started my Chomsky indulgence with Understanding Power and not this digestible gem I’ll never know.

Uncle Sam is a brilliant pocket reference of Noam Chomsky’s world view, specifically his unflinching criticism of US foreign policy. His genius with linguistics provides him the means to absolutely tear apart the propaganda surrounding isms, bringing the conversation and arguments back to the table of reality. By comparing declassified government files, public policy and geopolitical events occurring between the early 1940’s to 1992, Chomsky cuts directly through the posturing of the US to frame cause and effect in the struggle for global power.

The man is fearless. He critically deconstructs policy from within the sovereign US to expose the post-WWII new world order policies of US planners — clearly describing how the Third World has been shaped to remain the peasant working class via neo-Nazi techniques of torture and intimidation, satisfying the needs of the US investor class.

His arguments are completely lucid and relevant in today’s world, even though it was published in the early nineties. Want an example? Keep an eye on the US propaganda regarding the “left-wing rhetoric” of Hugo Chavez. The BBC is already picking up the US talking points of Venezuela elections being rigged. Chomsky describes these US tactics in detail.

Chomsky’s take on US indoctrination of its citizens to contributing productively to pure capitalism is classic, as he tackles complicit participants from the mainstream media to academia. Just as stinging is his perspective on the marginalization of 80% of our population, which reminded me a bit of the 5% Nation, but without the optimism.

Here’s a section about the US in a Rent-A-Thug role (remember, this was written during the original Gulf War conflict with George H.W. Bush in charge):

[…]

“In any confrontation, each participant tries to shift the battle to a domain in which it’s most likely to succeed. You want to lead with your strength, play your strong card. The strong card of the United States is force—so if we can establish the principle that force rules the world, that’s a victory for us. If, on the other hand, a conflict is settled through peaceful means, that benefits us less, because our rivals are just as good or better in that domain.

Diplomacy is a particularly unwelcome option, unless it’s pursued under the gun. The US has very little popular support for its goals in the Third World. This isn’t surprising, since it’s trying to impose structures of domination and exploitation. A diplomatic settlement is bound to respond, at least to some degree, to the interests of the other participants in the negotiation, and that’s a problem when your positions aren’t very popular.

As a result, negotiations are something the US commonly tries to avoid. Contrary to much propaganda, that has been true in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Central America for many years.

Against this background, it’s natural that the Bush administration should regard military force as a major policy instrument, preferring it to sanctions and diplomacy (as in the Gulf crisis). But since the US now lacks the economic base to impose “order and stability� in the Third World, it must rely on others to pay for the exercise—a necessary one, it’s widely assumed, since someone must ensure a proper respect for the masters. The flow of profits from Gulf oil production helps, but Japan and German-led continental Europe must also pay their share as the US adopts the “mercenary role,� following the advice of the international business press.

The financial editor of the conservative Chicago Tribune has been stressing these themes with particular clarity (William Neikirk, “We are the World’s Guardian Angelsâ€? 9/9/90) We must be “willing mercenaries,â€? paid for our ample services by our rivals, using our “monopoly powerâ€? in the “security marketâ€? to maintain “our control over the world economic system.â€? We should run a global protection racket, he advises, selling “protectionâ€? to other wealthy powers who will pay us a “war premium.”

This is Chicago, where the words are understood: if someone bothers you, you call on the Mafia to break their bones. And if you fall behind in your premium, your health may suffer too.

To be sure, the use of force to control the Third World is only a last resort. The IMF is a more cost-effective instrument than the Marines and the CIA if it can do the job. But the “iron fist� must be poised in the background, available when needed.

Our rent-a-thug role also causes suffering at home. All of the successful industrial powers have relied on the state to protect and enhance powerful domestic economic interests, to direct public resources to the needs of investors, and so on—one reason why they are successful. Since 1950, the US has pursued these ends largely through the Pentagon System (including NASA and the Department of Energy, which produces nuclear weapons). By now we are locked into these devices for maintaining electronics, computers and high-tech industry generally.

Reaganite military Keynesian excesses added further problems. The transfer of resources to wealthy minorities and other government policies led to a vast wave of financial manipulations and a consumption binge. But there was little in the way of productive investment, and the country was saddled with huge debts: government, corporate, household and the calculable debt of unmet social needs as the society drifts towards a Third World pattern, with islands of great wealth and privilege in a sea of misery and suffering.

When a state is committed to such policies, it must somehow find a way to divert the population, to keep them from seeing what’s happening around them. There are not many ways to do this. The standard ones are to inspire fear of terrible enemies about to overwhelm us, and awe for our grand leaders who rescue us from disaster in the nick of time.

That has been the pattern right through the 1980’s, requiring no little ingenuity as the standard device, the Soviet threat, became harder to take seriously. So the threat to our existence has been Qaddafi and his hordes of international terrorists, Grenada and its ominous air base, Sandinistas marching on Texas, Hispanic narcotraffickers led by the arch-maniac Noriega, and crazed Arabs generally. Most recently it’s Saddam Hussein, after he committed his sole crime—the crime of disobedience—in August 1990. It has become more necessary to recognize what has always been true: that the prime enemy is the Third World, which threatens to get “out of control.�

These are not laws of nature. The processes, and the institutions that engender them, could be changed. But that will require cultural, social and institutional changes of no little movement, including democratic structures that go far beyond periodic selection of representatives of the business world to manage domestic and international affairs.”

[…]

Exactly.

Okay, I’m off to read Cluetrain again. I call this “gray matter iteration.” ;-)

From the sound of his press conference today, it seems as though he’s ready to wrap up and move on, as his investigation was compromised by Libby. How bad do I want him to be the Eliot Ness to clean up this administration? I think he knows, as he kept asking the public to sit back and let the process of justice run its course.

Fitzgerald made an interesting analogy today when talking about the indictments served to Libby. He waxed poetic about a pitcher in baseball hitting a batter in the head, whether it was on purpose or the ball slipped. He mentioned that since the catcher kicked sand in his eyes (referring to Libby’s lies), as a prosecutor, he would have to interview people in the dugout to understand the mentality of the pitcher when the act occurred. Interestingly, he didn’t talk about finding out whether or not the manager ordered him to bean the batter.

I know this might sound strange to some "Americans," but this investigation is clearing up a lot of my blockage in trusting the ethical, moral state of our justice system. "Scooter" Libby lied for a reason, either his own or one from the administration. Fitzgerald handed down these lesser felony charges, because Libby committed a crime (perjury, obstruction and false statements) directly to his face regarding a breach of National Security.

As this errand boy is taken care of the truth will bubble to the surface… one way or the other.

America, can we all put down our Coors Light and X-Boxes for a moment?

Thanks.

Now let’s dig back into our collective Cowboys and Indians past and pretend that every injustice in American history didn’t occur.

That’s right, every atrocity from the Vietnam War to the destruction of the Native American population never happened; no Tuskegee experiment; no slavery; anti-women suffrage; industrial age child labor, etc.

Did you find your happy place yet?

Good.

Now let’s wallow in our newly formed self-righteous goodness as a nation and take a look at the chant we were all required to recite in school, specifically the last part of our Pledge of Allegiance”

“…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Are those words now fresh in your gray matter?

Good.

So, as an absolutely righteous nation with a Godly pledge, let’s take a look at one way our government reacted to the mother of all terrorist attacks.

So Much For “Indivisible”

Patrick Fitzgerald — the man who took down the 1993 WTC bombers, the 1998 bombers of the US embassy in Africa and John Gotti of the Gambino mafia family — is quite possibly going to hand out indictments to a chunk of the current administration for crimes of treason, including cover up perjury and obstruction of justice.

This is not an isolated case of misdoings; these charges have everything to do with the war in Iraq, and are even more telling of our government’s character.

For those of you that have been enjoying all the freedoms that this country provides, but with blind faith and limited involvement regarding our government, take a moment to review the following time line of our divisive leadership:

2001: An Italian intelligence report had Iraq purchasing uranium yellow cake from Niger, in defiance of United Nations sanctions. Dick Cheney contacted the CIA to look into its validity (since then, it’s become public knowledge that the report was forged)

February 2002: Unbeknownst to Dick Cheney, former-US ambassador Joe Wilson is dispatched by the operations unit of the CIA to Niger in order to verify the report provided by the Vice-President

March 2002: Wilson briefs the CIA and the State Department African Affairs Bureau to his findings, which turned out to be a complete contradiction of the forged Italian report; no such uranium sale had been made

September 2002: The British government publishes a “white paper” asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger, citing Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium from an African country

December 2002: The State Department publishes a fact sheet that mentions the Niger case

January 2003: Bush follows up his lies to Congress by addressing the American people and the world, stating that there was explicit evidence that Saddam had purchased yellow cake uranium in Niger

March 2003: The United States of America invades Iraq via Shock and Awe

June 2003: Discovered in October 2005, Scooter Libby’s notes show that Dick Cheney asked George Tenet — the post-9/11 decorated former CIA Chief — about Joe Wilson

July 6 2003: Joe Wilson writes an op-ed piece in The New York Times entitled What I Didn’t Find In Africa, which contradicts the administrations entire version of the Iraq, yellow cake and Niger story

July 14 2003: Directly following the printing of Wilson’s op-ed, Robert Novak identifies Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative in column titled, Mission To Niger. He attributes “senior administration officials” as his sources.

September 14 2003: On Meet The Press, Dick Cheney denies receiving any brief about Joe Wilson’s findings, adding “I don’t know Joe Wilson. I’ve never met Joe Wilson.”

October 1 2003: Joe Wilson tells Ted Koppel on Nightline that Washington reporters told him that senior White House adviser Karl Rove said his wife was “fair game.” Wilson “plans to give the names of the reporters to the FBI,” which is conducting a full-blown investigation of the possible leak.

Outing the identity of an unofficial covert CIA agent is not only a threat to the lives of the agent and his/her colleagues, but it is an explicit act of treason, as it potentially threatens our National Security.

So here we have an administration espousing American values left and right, yet crafting false evidence to justify war with a sovereign nation. The same administration then attacks Wilson’s wife — and our safety as a nation — because Wilson made it crystal clear that the administration disregarded his official briefing in order to back false evidence and rally support for the war.

Bully tactics, plain and simple.

Back to the anthem; where exactly does the term “indivisible” fit into the equation here? How about that “one nation” concept? I can see “under God,” “liberty” and “justice for all” at work over in Iraq…

There’s a lot riding on Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation.

Holding individuals accountable for treason, perjury and obstruction of justice will begin to show American citizens and people around the world that the promise of the American Republic is still alive. Exposing the motivation behind these actions would go far in exposing the criminal cabal responsible for launching this war.

Look, I’m a realist, I know accountability is tougher to score than a 70-yard field goal. Unfortunately, I’m also at a point of my life where I perceive the motivations of the federal government as being one and the same with corporate America: short-term growth at any cost.

So while the potential reality of my perception of our government could be dangerous to the environment, individuals rights, the national economy and the shores of any sovereign nation with natural resources, the perception itself is even more disconcerting; for it is this perception of reality that rages as the unlimited and intangible natural resource that powers terrorism from oversees.

I stopped crossing my heart and blindly chanting the American jingle a long time ago for these exact reasons.

Haven’t you?

It was around 1989 that I read Six Days of the Condor — a perfect story for an 18 year-old, chock full of deceit, murder, paranoia, sex, intrigue, spies. For some reason — possibly my attention span at the time — the end of the book threw me for a loop. So tonight, I kicked back with my Netflix choice of the week and watched the film adaptation: Three Days of the Condor.

Three words: Rent. it. now.

It was made 28 years ago, yet the plot line has come to life in eerie fashion over the last few years. I don’t want to ruin the movie for you, so if you are going to rent it, don’t read on.

Condor (played by Robert Redford) is a spy, and per chance, misses a hit on his office that leaves the entire office of seven dead. After some brilliant screenwriting, we come to find out that one of his previous reports, sent off to Langley as usual, hit a nerve within a secret faction of the CIA that just happened to be playing war games concerning the overthrow of an unstable regime in the Middle East in order to gain control of oil reserves.

Sure, the US has been meddling with numerous foreign spots over the past 50 years to keep a stranglehold on power, but shivers the size of nine inch nails traveled down my spine just the same.

The rogue CIA unit ordered the execution of the entire office after reading Condor’s spot-on investigative report, so he does the only thing he can and goes on the run to plan his next step. After outwitting numerous suits over the course of the film, he ends up confronting the CIA Director directly in front of the New York Times office in Manhattan.

After a quick verbal sparring over the morality of what our government was doing, Condor tells the Director that the story is out and the Times will be publishing it all. The film ends with the CIA Director asking Condor,

“What if they don’t print it, then where will you go?”

Redford’s face drops a bit as the last frame freezes on him.

Does Our Press Get Squeezed?

Forget the uncanny plot line that syncs up with the recent activity in Iraq (and the wild coincidence of the main NYC CIA office being in the WTC) all together. It’s eerie to see this on film, but I’m more interested with the final jab.

I often wonder how free our press really is. Our government has indoctrinated us to speak so harshly against media practices around the world, especially during the eighties and in the midst the cold war (when I was an impressionable teenager). The old “look, over there!” trick has done the trick to build a sycophantic capitalist society of productive worker bees.

Here’s something to ponder: Did you know that congress is on the verge of passing unprecedented legislation, allowing media entities to merge with minimal limitations? Can you imagine what this could mean in an Orwellian novel? Or in this capitalist society where an individual, like Bill Gates, has more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of American households combined?

Less and less competitive news media = a singular perspective.

• Advertising revenue begins to drive editorial premise and journalistic objectivity.
• Agendas are set and met.
• A top down, targeted media push (via news, marketing, advertising, programming, etc.) becomes the mainstay of communication operations.

Our society has evolved from watching the news on TV at 6 and 11 (1970’s) to digesting news 24 hours a day on TV, radio, and the internet (1990’s) to having access to thousands of individual perspectives blasting on blogs (present). So with all of this newfound access we should feel both informed and empowered, right?

To quote Mel Gibson from Conspiracy Theory, “That’s what they want us to think.”

For even the most advanced netizen, information technology is still a hindrance when trying to decipher noise from news, and fiction from fact. Simple to use, individually operated publishing channels are now available to the masses through blogging, but the reach to the majority is minimal at best as they’re presented in a non-digestible ecosystem.

I can easily imagine the power structure in this country thinking:

Let the kids play with their toys — be it bloggers broadcasting opinions based on theory or fact — no one will be able to tell the difference. No one will ever connect the dots even if they do find “truth.” The sheer amount of posts and opinions projected outwards will make all opinions null and void.

Our organized, top-down messaging is so strong via advertising, marketing, media, etc., that the bottom-up representation of the people will become lost in the noise of the the mainstream media, as well as in it’s own scattered presentation.

We’ll then use their information as data to feed our strategic messaging.

Americans have turned into thought veal over the past twenty-years. We’ve been tenderized perfectly to be devoured oh-so-nicely in an economic system that is set up to succeed only if the masses over-consume everything from food to entertainment to material goods to political punditry.

This is the boogie man that lives under my bed. I step on his throat when getting up each morning.

Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair… since this war is much more about winning the hearts and minds from within Iraq, the Middle East and the watchful eyes of (former?) allies around the world than finding WMDs, maybe we should try a few new tactics. Well, of course I have a few ideas! I’m expecting you to take notes, but don’t worry, this won’t hurt too much.

1. Instead of placing American flags on fallen statues, roofs of buildings we occupy or on bridges we take over, etc., how about placing traditional Iraqi flags with a corresponding one that reads "freedom" in Arabic in it’s place? It promotes the idea of liberation not occupation. That is your stance, isn’t it?
2. Kill the radio broadcasts in Arabic that are making fun of Saddam. As much as these people hate him, you’re only patronizing their intelligence. It may work with Leno or Conan for our retarded American public, but it’s viewed as an insulting tactic around the world. The Arab world, specifically, gets a tad bit uptight when you make fun of an Arab leader… even if he is/was a dictator. We don’t need any more people with hate in their hearts against us. It’s a dumb move. Dumb and classless. Oh my bad, the CIA is in charge on this one… no wonder.
3. If we’re dumping billions into the war budject, we should have at least a few billions set aside to immediately move in and provide medical assistance. Temporary to begin with, perminant within a year or so. Build new, modern hospitals in strategic areas of the country in order for all people to get assistance. This, along with an irrigation system to provide fresh water throughout the country, would be the greatest investment towards the future of peace in the country.

See? That wasn’t so bad. You’re such big boys! Ok, now get out of my office and go fix the world. If you don’t no one will… right?

So I ended up watching PBS Frontline last night about the Saddam/Iraqi crisis going back 25 years.

Either our government is perpetually run by a bunch of short-sighted morons or we’ve always had long-term vision for conflict and strife. I really don’t know which one is more frightening, but at least one is the truth.

The CIA gave Saddam power. Our tax dollars went to overthrowing the previous Iraqi government (which in the process led to close to 1,000 executions by Sadaam on coming to power) and handing the reigns of a strategically important country in the Middle East to a wanna be dictator, who frequently and vociferously declared that he longed to be the “Sword of the East” to destroy the West.

Now please answer this question for me: Were the men running this nation at the time so stupid to think that this wouldn’t come back to haunt us? OR were they so obsessed with overthrowing Iran that putting a maniac like Saddam in office was just an afterthought as long as he could do the job? That seems to be the standard operating procedure for our government; insert dictator in land a to accomplish disputable goal b so our hands don’t smell like c.

I went to art school, but hell, even I took Algebra. If a=b and b=c then a=c. Karma is fuzzy math, our actions are not.

So now we swoop in to “defend the safety of Americans.” Oh yeah, we also want to end an era of human suffering in Iraq. I guess it only took us 12 years to realize that there were human beings there, and not just brown people. I mention that because after we kicked the shit out of Sadaam the first time around in Desert Storm, we urged the Iraqi people to overthrow the government… from the decks of our aircraft carriers.

And what happened when the people actually rose up to take back their country? General Stormin’ Norman gave the Iraqi’s permission to fly armed helicopters in the just established “no-fly zone,” leading to the systematic killing of the resistance movement.

All the while the Iraqi people are pleading for us to come in and finish the job of taking out Saddam, Colin, Daddy Bush and the rest of the world sat back in containment mode.

Look, I’m not against removing Saddam, but this country has made so many blunders in Iraq since the 70’s, I’m just discusted how we’re attempting to storm in there and sweep the proverbial dirt under the proverbial rug.

Sadaam is our Frankenstein. Where’s the accountability?