Why Hip-Hop Is Better Than Government

Spits straight, gains weight, won't take your claim, shit on your game, take aim at your will.

No, hip-hop won't hate, won't comiserate with these fools at the gates with these cats, straight house cats not wiling to go and see the results of their elite complicity, the ghettos full of kids left behind and junkies in a bind, sleepin' on the streets while the politicians' daughters win track meets.

Hip-hop can't classify, identify, indemnify the causes of the american poverty, the highs in white houses spitting lies at black faces, forgetting the truth about people in places, constantly avoiding all incriminating traces, denying different races play a role when the dark-skinned ones are the only ones that they stole.

Hip-hop won't judge and won't budge, holds deserved grudges and has its own judges, taking cases to street over soul-inspired beats, speaks to those who listen and listens to those that speak, evolves of the mind and never abandons the grind, working hard for effortless flows, from the cypher to the show, takes you as you come and may never let you go.

Hip-hop is the meditation of the mind, a divine contraception of ideas and reception, the confluence of lessons learned in long private sessions, with friends and L's moving in procession to the beat, the beat, the beat of impression that never preaches down to the masses but comes up with the grasses between the concrete blocks of the world that walks.

Hip-hop don't charge taxes, it relaxes, the body and mind at the same pace, sayin' grace to the pioneers of street lure and emcees of rap galore, spreading the rhetoric of a new asthetic in rhymes and sayin' fuck it to the times, fuck it to the lines of propaganda bullshit, fuck it to the last of this too long BUSH-shit, fuck it to the congress and courts that try to save, all they've done is re-enslave.

Hip-hop is better than government.

The New Democracy: Government on the People, at the Cost of the People.

Get out the champagne, crack that bottle you've been holding on to, smoke that secret stash you've been saving. I figured it out. I figured out how to fix Iraq.

1). Invade the country for no reason, with no evidence, and with a wafer-thin authorization from Congress.

2). Create a Public Relations campaign the likes of which America has never seen; a propaganda circus that includes fake news, embedded censorship, and an unrelenting assault of false statements.

3). Proclaim a premature victory to rouse nationalism against the barbarians.

4). Send a whole bunch of able-bodied American men to be killed. (But try to take the poor, the brown, the uneducated, marginalized. We never liked the fuckers anyways.)

5) Award billions of dollars of military contracts to your buddies. Cuz fuck 'em, why not?

6). Try to institute a democratic, power-sharing government in a country that has never seen power-sharing, democracy, or government. Oh, and we destroyed the entire infrastructure. No more moads, policing, sewers, drinking water, airports, banking. Our bad. But hey, more contracts for your buddies.

7). When the American people find out what's going on, silence the dissenters. If the war is good against evil, only the hippies will pick evil. And remember, God Loves the Patriot Act.

8). Build a wall in the middle of Baghdad to separate the two sides. We know building walls to separate people works really well. Just look at Germany, Palestine, and Northern Ireland.

9). Fight to the death to keep the troops in Iraq, to the point of absurdity. 3,000 are already dead, what's another 500? Americans won't remember in five years anyways, right?

10). Get the hell out of dodge. Go find yourself a nice ranch in Texas. Smoke those Cubans the CIA stole from Fidel, blow that coke you extorted from the Medellin, drink that bottle of vodka you scammed from Putin and the Scotch Tony Blair gave you to let him suck you off. And while you're at it, fuck that 15 year-old virgin the bin-Ladens gave you to 'make this whole thing go away.'


What's that you say? It didn't work? Iraq is still a disaster? Well, fuck 'em. You're rich.

An Audience of One

From the start, let it be clear that any undue loss of life, no matter how small or large, is a crime and a tragedy. To force someone else to unwillingly lose their life is to rob them of their future children, their future loves, their future professions, their future hopes and aspirations - in short, the future.

So when we come face to face with death on such a large scale as the recent events at Virginia Tech, we must, absolutely, take pause to reflect upon the state of a world that allows such things to go on. We must examine the structures that support a worldview like the one that caused the death of 32 innocent students. And of course, we must grieve over the loss of a pool of human resources so wide and deep it can never be recreated. But in this reflection we must be honest about the ways of the world and try to look at the underlying causes and power structures that harbor violence within their ideological walls.

As the media coverage has rolled on, nearly ubiquitously, the solutions to problems like this have been simple: increase security, provide counseling, try to screen for disturbed youth. In short, the answer has been more guns, not less. The answer has been to increase security, not to decrease hate. The answer, American as America gets, is more and more and more instead of simply better. And as the media continues to broadcast from Virginia Tech and continues to show the manifesto tape of the killer, we are confronted with yet another truth: this is exactly what he wanted.

The shooter credits the two young men from Columbine High School as "martyrs" in his taped remarks, a sign of the increasing allegiance to violence as the means of escape from a culture of hate and degradation that follows many adolescents. What made this student so angry was the affluence and entitlement that surrounded him, the feeling of unnacceptance that comes with being a brown person in a white country, the sense that everyone around him was the recipient of a divine grace that he missed. In short, he was seduced by the great American myth of more and not better, unaware that many of the affluent and entitled students he was seeing through angry eyes were the victims of the same dissafection.

But the point here is that he had a model to follow. Columbine, as the firestarter that ignited a trend of school shootings, painted a picture of the rebels that stuck in the minds of others. All over the country, students from high school to elementary school were bombarded by the images of the two shooters in trenchcoats, enacting their revenge upon the popular, the wealthy, the entitled, the authorities. All over the country, students watched blueprints and timelines and examined every aspect of the incident, from the weapons technology to the manifesto to Marilyn Manson. And suddenly, all over the country, students who felt the same way had an example.

As we are faced with a tragedy that matches Columbine in scale, why are we doing the same things? Instead of diagramming the hallways and remarking the shooter's expert marksmanship, why are we not interviewing students who aren't letting this violence affect their lives? Why, instead of silencing the voice of violent oppression, are we giving it primetime media coverage. The end message is this: "if you feel silenced, or oppressed, or disenfranchised, and you want to do something about it, violence will give you a voice. Violence will lead the way. Violence will help you reach an audience of half a billion people." Thirty-two students later, this shooter got what he wanted all along: a voice.

By all means, we must protect ourselves. But we must do so in the manner that makes the most sense: by listening. There are other student out there who are watching and learning, others who feel the way this student did. And though there is a difference between feeling and action, that difference can be erased by a single hateful comment, a single act of ignorance or malice.

So in honor of the fallen students, and in hope for the future, turn off your television and open your eyes and ears. With an honest desire to listen and learn instead of fear and loathe, you might just stop the shooting.

Maybe it's time to go home.

Bush-Shit

Congress today approved another $95.7 billion for the continued efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This appropriation, were it to stand alone, would put it just ahead of Egypt for the 52nd largest GDP of any nation in the world. Stand and think about that for a second. In the stroke of just a few minutes, a bunch of old white guys just gave away the 52nd largest economy in the world.

President Bush - who should, by now, have been given another title, something closer to Furor - has threatened to veto the bill because it involves a timeline for troop withdrawl. Likely, he will veto it. His remarks today, as quoted in the New York Times, are stunning: "We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we’ve got a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded. And we’ve got commanders making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders. And that we expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money."


I have this to say: FUCK YOU, Mr. Bush.

In the last seven years we've seen you constantly undermine the workings of American government and subvert all it means to be the democratic leader of a free state. We've seen you rig elections. We've seen you steal from the American people to profit your cronies. We've seen you dismantle the Geneva Convention, Social Security, free speech, and habeas corpus. We've seen you lie to us time and time again. We've seen you do nothing while thousands of people were stranded in an unlivable swamp. We've seen you hand out positions to those who were willing to take your word as law, and we've seen you summarily terminate all those who don't. We've seen you smirk, and smile, and chuckle about "the haves and the have mores." We've seen you turn your head away from torture and poverty. We've seen you and your cabinet circumvent the judicial and legislative branches in agregious breaches of the Constitution. And we've seen you make us embarrased to call you our President.

We see you, Mr. Bush, for what you are. And we've seen enough.

Banana Republicans

What would you say about a country whose GDP growth rate stands at 10.3%? Whose poverty rates have dropped by 10%? Whose leader has offered aid to minorities and those in poverty in foreign countries? Sounds like a good deal to me.
Now what would you say about a country who is stockpiling Soviet weapons and aircraft? Whose leader is regarded by some as the most dangerous and divisive pundit in the Western hemisphere? Who stages protests and speaks out vigorously against the most powerful country in the world?

Enter Hugo Chavez. Part revolutionary, part drama queen, part politician, the Venezuelan leader is both loved and loathed – but he rarely goes unnoticed. During President Bush’s recent visit to Latin America, Chavez made nearly as much news as the leader of the free world, staging demonstrations and events, often in close proximity to Bush’s, as a counterweight to the president’s rhetoric of human rights and strengthening relations with Latin America.
Of course, President Bush had nothing to say about Chavez, whose name he refuses to speak out loud. Chavez, who has taken to calling Bush “El Diablo” has been essentially erased from the president’s official language. After all, if you his name isn’t spoken, then he must not exist, right?
Unfortunately for the administration, Chavez does exist, and his voice is getting louder. Far from the criminal the Bush administration would like to portray him as, Chavez is the leading voice in a growing contingent of Latin American countries that are fed up with the dominance of American-based corporations in their native lands.
As most countries in Latin and South America continue to struggle to provide basic human needs for a large percentage of their citizens, the anti-poverty rhetoric of a corporate-heavy American policy becomes more and more transparent. The privatization of natural resources such as water, oil, natural gas, and (perhaps most famously) fruit has led to a trend of rising prices and constricting access for native citizens. But Chavez, working with other leaders, has begun to spread the rhetoric of change, relying on nationalism and anti-American sentiment to help incite a movement back toward national ownership.
Venezuela has nationalized its oil industry, one of the largest in the world, and it appears that others are following suit. Last year, Bolivia made the decision to nationalize its own natural gas reserves, and Colombia, despite outward statements that may suggest otherwise, has expanded production of cocoa, its largest cash crop.
But what makes Chavez and Venezuela unique is the oil. Unlike other third world leaders, Chavez is sitting on an enormous reserve of petroleum – that magic black substance the US seems to be willing to go to all ends of the earth to procure. What’s more, Venezuela remains the fourth largest importer of oil to the United States. So while the Bush administration can dismiss Chavez now as they dismiss all the others who denounce its policies, Chavez remains in control of a resource that becomes more valuable every day, especially to his gas-guzzling American opponents. It is his always ready and rarely mentioned trump card.

OIL

Last September, Chavez made a push to solidify his stance in the United States. Acting through Houston-based Citgo Corp. and in conjunction with Joe Kennedy’s Citizen’s Eneregy project, Chavez promised to provide Venezuelan oil at low cost to about 450,000 low-income families in the United States. Promoting the program at the United Nations General Assembly, he made strong remarks denouncing the consolidation of power in the highest office in the land. Responding to the claims of extremism often made by his American critics, Chavez had this to say: “The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.”
Yet the response to this seemingly benevolent act has run the gamut from praise to damnation, both from ordinary citizens and political figures. Arguing that the subsidies amount to nothing more than an attempt to curry favor in a disenfranchised demographic, his detractors have called for outright refusal of Venezuela. Supporters, on the other hand, praise Chavez for his ability to see human need ahead of financial gain.
Despite the contentiousness of the action, Venezuelan oil, subsidized or not, continues to pour into the United States. According to PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm, Venezuela plans to expand production to nearly 3.5 million barrels a day this year, with an estimated 50% of the total yield flowing directly into the United States.
“If discounted fuel from Venezuela is somehow unfit for the needy, the full-price Venezuela oil shouldn’t be enough for the cars, boats, jets and furnaces of the wealthy,” said Kennedy. In the U.S., where federal assistance for programs like Citizen’s Energy that provide low-cost heating fuel has been cut drastically during the Bush administration, the incentive for refusing Chavez’s oil seems low.
But in Alaska, another targeted location of CITGO’s low-cost oil initiative, some citizens are speaking out. Letters in the Anchorage Daily News express the sentiments from those who are less than grateful for the donation of Venezuelan oil. One resident called for those who accept the oil to “no longer be accepted as U.S. citizens.” Others aim for the heart, like Alexander Clark of Homer, Alaska: “There are many brave and proud rural Alaskans wearing the uniform of this country who are engaged in combat with the very enemy that Chavez supports. How proud of you will they be?”
Clark’s admonition is a common one, and the belief that Chavez is allied with destructive forces around the world is not entirely unfounded. He has developed relationships with both Syria and Iran and defended the rights to nuclear armament of the latter. He is widely known to revere Fidel Castro as a model of anti-American resistance, and was the sole world leader to visit Saddam Hussein in 1991. Though there appear to be no explicit links between Chavez and known terrorist organizations, the implications abound. Marked by dense vegetation and a lack of organized government presence, parts of Venezuela, especially those along the Colombian border, are suspected areas of “narco-terrorist” activity stemming from the production of cocaine and other narcotics. Despite the irony that these activities are fueled primarily by demand from the United States, these connections have prompted the U.S. State Department to label Venezuela a “liability” in the “international community’s fight against terrorism.”
Yet in the era of an administration that has used strangely similar language as a basis for the invasion and sanctioning of other resource-rich countries, the admonition bears little weight. The oil industry and its handmaidens in Washington have together created a rhetoric of terrorism against democracy, socialism against capitalism, extremism against determinism. In this light, Chavez seems only one of a multitude of targets of U.S. criticism.
“If objections to Venezuelan oil are about democracy,” said Kennedy, “then critics should look at the December elections won by President Hugo Chavez with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Venezuelans have now spoken four times in his favor.
“I'm not going to defend or demonize Chavez for his moves toward socialism, but it does seem like we favor selective socialism here in the United States for big corporations that get to socialize risks and privatize profits.”

Real Quick: On Jazz

It is a strange brand of man who can appreciate the innuendos of a trumpet, muted or not - the intricacies of a well-driven bassline, soft and subtle but always present; the nuanced touch of hammers on strings created by deft hands. But the synthesis of these diversified sounds appeals, sticky sweet and musky, to the rookie and the connoisseur.

This is America's music - the precursor to soul and funk-rock, the grandfather of hip-hop, pinned up high and tight in a suit like you knew he would be but never far from his whiskey glass. This is the beat of a movement that has always existed in America and always will, the steady pulsing of a silent oppresion and the creativity it spawns. Make no doubt about it, this is Black music - but it belongs to all of us.

Miles and Yardbird, The Duke and his damsels, a Monk and a piano, Fats Waller, and the rent. Together they tell the story of generation arriving before its time, a single perfect rosebud emerging before the last frost. Destined, in a sense, to stall and die. But the jazz movement was better than that - is better than that. It makes no demands on the music, imposes no social constraints. Listen to it. It's for itself, the pure expression of an emotion no words can match. Listen. Brushing symbols and snare drums, a bass walking with swagger in its step. And then the sax, piercing and clear, just barely this side of cutting, whining and droning at the edge of the register and then coming back down to earth, setting nicely next to the drummer and setting the trumpet free. It does work.

The thing about evolution is that it doesn't necessitate the death of the formerly evolved. Jazz morphed from ragtime and be-bop and morphed into soul, and R&B, and funk-rock, and hip-hop, but it never died. It speaks still from the immortal, the heartbeat of a people and a nation, an almost forgotten but never mistaken confluence of hope and despair, solace and solidarity.