Gil Scott Heron: 4/1/49 – 5/27/11

Remembering Gil Scott-Heron

With the advent of television-as-distraction (coupled most recently of course, with My Space, FaceBook and Twitter), OUR revolution has certainly and most effectively been thwarted in the 40 years since Gil tried to get his point across.  But despite the Changeling (or maybe because of him), there still may be a chance.  These young heads - "on the right page and the right note" - give me reason to believe there is:



RIP, brother...(and thanks for the kick in the ass, Kitty!)

Trust me - "None of us are free..."

A little update (kind of):  I didn't give this sister all she deserved when I posted this video. That had more to do with me, than with her so, I thought I'd correct it.

From the 7:15 - 9:56 clicks:  I appreciated her explicitly owning her "asleep at the wheel," non-critical thinking regarding our "justice" "Just Us" system in these supposedly - United States.  But more importantly, her "awakening" story is as indicative of the larger problem kinfolk face, as it is instructive:

As with those who tend to measure a person's value based on appearances alone, she'd stereotyped him as her "dream plaintiff...!" by the 11:36 click.  But  just like those, who blithely and repeatedly see fit to admonish "Pookie" - because he, makes them and their important work look bad (in total disregard for the validity of anything Pookie has to say) - she shifted to, "Wait!  Did you say, did you just, did you just say you're a felon?  A drug felon" starting at 11:50.  Her recitation of all the usual, learned-from-supremacy, lawerly dog whistles, made it crystal clear that there was no "Just As I Am" (one of my grandmother's favorite hymns, and the title of one of my favorite books) going on in her heretofore, pseudo-privileged understanding of how justice is supposed to work.  And by the 12:15 click, she admitted she'd done, what many, if not most, of the privileged (pseudo- and not) among us do - "stopped listening," followed by excuses as justification.

Even after in frustration, the young brother let loose from the 12:44 - 13:30, she'd pretty much written him off, continuing to do her "important work."  Until that is, two unrelated-but-related things occurred:  1) Beginning at the 14:00 click, the brother brought his grown-up self back - with a peace offering and an apology  - for his behavior (Imagine that!).  He owned his frustration-led attack on her, while at the same time, acknowledging  what she had been doing, trying to make "Just Us" mean "Justice," and 2) the story - at the 14:40 click.

And at the 15:06 click, a "Vulcan Mind Meld" happened.  My sister reached - and spoke - some truths with the kind of 'nads people like the Changeling, Cosby, etc. can only dream about.  Not only did she own her shit, she acknowledged how the "Pookie Conspiracy" (of which she had been an active part) continues to not only disenfranchise millions, but - as Leon Kuhn's photo above suggests - continues to provide a limitless amount of capital enrichment for the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.

And the rest of what she says, is some "real" history (though for the last couple of months or so, I've been questioning how much WE, as a people, have "abandoned" and "veered off" from MLK's dream as she says at the 43:14 click - but that's a whole 'nother, once-I-work-it-out-in-my-head post).

I am so damned proud of my sister's "awakening!"  But let's be clear - unless many more like her, dare to own their inner "Pookie Conspiracy" - AND - acknowledge the reality of what's happening "on the ground,"  there will be no recognizable, substantive change in "Just Us."

Until then...

My, my, my...

The Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning head of "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" speaks...



...and plenty of exceptional, "we're-so-much-better-than-those-savages-over-there-celebrating-American-death-in-the-streets" Americans - celebrate.





Did you now?  Not what some folk are already saying (Warning:  photo is graphic, even if not real).  And really, after all this time hunting him, can you see them quietly disposing of the "trophy" - at sea?

And one other thing.  While I totally agree with what Messrs. Sirota and Hedges have respectively said in their pieces below - a common, seemingly inherent "white-American" hypocrisy reared its ugly head, stuck out its tongue and said, "Nah, nigger ya'll still don't count."

In his, "USA! USA!" is the wrong response, David Sirota says:

This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history -- the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed. (emphasis mine)

I've really had enough of whitewashed history (one of the main reasons we can't productively talk about race in this country). Somebody please tell me - how exactly has "America's psyche" changed?
From the time it accepted its first ebony cargo from Senegambia courtesy of the British  - via The Good Ship Jesus (apology from the captain's descendant notwithstanding), to the Indian Removal Act and the taking of Osceola's head, to the Ku Klux Klan, to Apache helicopter pilots and boots on the ground, to leading NATO's "humanitarian"/assassination mission that took-out a father and his children - America has BEEN a pretty "bellicose" society, cheering on killing with little or no assistance from anybody (except the "usual suspects") - least of all Osama bin Laden.

And in Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden's Death, he says:

I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight. (emphasis mine)

S-o-o-o, "we...have become the monster that we are attempting to fight."   Really?  And who was the monster during slavery, and the pursuant (and continuing) Jim Crow?  To paraphrase Pogo Mr. Hedges - as a country - "We have met the 'monster' - and he is us."

James Allen's introduction to "Without Sanctuary" is as relevant of America today (thanks to WikiLeaks and YouTube) - as the very American era it portrays:

Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience.  Part postal  cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of a mad citizenry.  The communites' best citizens lurking just outside the frame.  Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt.

After almost 45 years, Dr. King's, "Beyond Vietnam:  A Time to Break Silence" is still right.  And having a society-identified, Black man in the Big House - with an apparent penchant for assassinations and a serious case of Can't Remember Shit when it comes to them - hasn't changed a damned thing.  {smdh}

UPDATE:  This piece in Spiegel Online is an interesting commentary on how the Changeling has "upped our status" in the world (every bit of snark intended).  All I could think - upon seeing this photo #1 in the gallery of 13 (click on Photo Gallery: The Hunt for Bin Laden for others) was - "Natural Born Killers"...

US President Barack Obama and members of his national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden (left) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (second from right) watched the operation live in the White House situation room. (emphasis mine)

Art by Leon Kuhn - h/t Black Agenda Report

It doesn't matter how his faithful try to spin this one - let's just be clear - that megalomaniacal, little caramel drop amid all those white faces - sitting there, watching the carnage LIVE like it was a sequel to those "Saw" movies - is just like the rest of them.

UPDATE II:  Seems Obama & Co can't help but swirl down Disraeli's toilet of  'three kinds of lies':  "Lies, Damned lies and statistics."  I don't know whether to laugh at, or feel sorry for, Brennan (sacrificial lamb that he was) as he regurgitated this stupid shit:

Qualifying the narrative of the assault that he offered to reporters, Brennan explained that some of the information came from live video feeds of the raid. "I wasn't there," he said. (emphasis mine)

WTF??!!  Ask your damned bosses!!  Glued to the f*ckin' plasma as they were, it was surely as close to "being there" as being there could have possibly been!

Y'all really need to stop insulting "we the people's" intelligence because obviously - THEY certainly f*ckin' know!!

Ah-h-h-h-h, but our really "knowing" was never the intent of the Changeling's puppet masters was it?

My head's exploding, so lemme just leave you with this young brother's seasoned, through-an-across-the-pond, clarity:

If "they" killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad then "they" also bombed a large number of wedding parties in Afghanistan, "they" murdered 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha and "they" gang-raped a 14-year-old before murdering her, her six-year-old sister and their parents near Mahmudiyah. If "they" don't want to be associated with the atrocities then "they" need to find more to celebrate than an assassination. Vengeance is, in no small part, what got us here. It won't get us out.  (emphasis mine)

Amen.

UPDATE III (and final on this web of lies):  Somebody PLEASE tell my non-computer-wonk ass how they could be - Finding treasures in Bin Laden computers when, according to this:

"The compound had neither an Internet nor a telephone connection. According to the New York Times, the al-Qaida terrorists inside burned their rubbish themselves rather than putting it outside for collection." (emphasis mine)

Now, like I said - I'm no computer wonk - but I'm just finding it hard to believe that:

1.  U.S. Enemy #1, who eluded not only our military forces, but our "intelligence" analysts for damn-near 10 years, lugged "... five computers, 10 hard drives, and scores of removable media including USB sticks and DVDs" around with him all that time on the run - yet burned his trash!  But just for shits-n-grins, let's say he did.  How'd he use them?  Guess he had one of those super-duper-too-encrypted-to-track, wireless broadband Internet connection cards.  Or, as some media outlets are now reporting - fiber optics cable.
2. U.S. Enemy #1 would take the time to run and bury (they are buried aren't they?) some damned fiber optics cable and NOT dig a damned get-away tunnel for himself and his family!

Anybody wanna buy a bridge?