Hiphop Journalism (hard news fit to flow...)

PULLING THE PLUG

2005-01-01T13:03:00.000-06:00

Hip Hop Journalism will be discontinued while I construct my website and record my first profitable album. To those of you who have become regular readers, thank you for your patronage, and I hope you've found something worthwhile in the perspective I've sought to cultivate with these words. This blog began on the first day of Ramadan and came to a rather abrupt end on New Year's Eve, and although events have been anything but boring in recent weeks, I've arrived at a place where I simply have nothing good to say anymore about the state of the world. I've come to the conclusion that acting as a filter for world news requires spending an inordinate amount of time poring over the self-perpetuating evils of our sick societies, which is not a healthy personal trait for a cynical bastard like myself. Given the trends, the news is just going to get worse, and I don't want to be a delivery system for it... There are better uses for language than merely offering commentary on the pervasive idiocies of man, and I intend to pursue those uses in other media...

I will have something along the lines of a website up soon, with mp3s, writings, DJ mixes, videos, and maybe even a blog if i have time to kill...

Thank you for your time & support. Till we meet again...

yours
DhakFu

2004 - America In Review

2004-12-31T23:36:00.000-06:00

all the subtleties of what this year has come to mean
can be distilled down around one primary theme:
...the changing role of God's dogma in state & struggle...

...in retrospect it all seems so clear...
America splits along lines of what to fear
Those who refuse to believe in Evolution
will attempt to reinforce regressive institutions

the future is frightening
only if you frame your faith in order to EXCLUDE
only if you're offended by what the human body looks like nude
if you regard homosexuality as unnatural & lewd
then you might fit the profile
of America's current Red State mood...

the future is beautiful
for those of us beyond borders & above boundary lines
for those of us who laugh at the oxmoronic idea of "end times"
for those who see science as the semiotics of intelligent design
As Mark Twain once said:
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme..."

2004...
America willfully selects to bankrupt itself
it's public elects leaders who wage clandestine class wars
its supporters praying only that these men will keep safe our shores...
As if it is possible for a country to escape its own bad credit
The public treasury is a jugular vein, & these vampires bled it
These schemers even assert they can transform militant Islam
even though our own duplicitious foreign policy bred it
fed it
fueled it
financed it
refurbished it...
...the interest on our hypocrisy compounds...
...bad national karma determines where our democracy is bound...
the dollar diminishes
the state of our economy tied to oil supplies
America's decline parallels Asia's rise...
America's decline parallels Asia's rise...

the devout pursue the scriptural circumstances for Babylon to fall
rapturous hordes rejoicing at holding governments by the balls
Jihadis & Evangelicals & their hijacked past
seeking to ensure their strangehold on spirit lasts...
but more and more higher minds begin to awake:
the very character of human consciousness is what's at stake
some beliefs are so entrenched that they don't appear to break:
America doesn't desire a President:
It wants a Texan Pope who doesn't make mistakes...
we only ever seem to learn these lessons too late
to listen to the doves who support sanctions & debate
those who prescribe violence are not capable of healing hate
those leading jaded congregations
cannot transcend the motives of degraded nation states...

This is where we are:
Most of the planet believes in a single Supreme Being
they think the Word of God is encompassed in a single Book
the rest of us think these believers got bamboozled
the devout have been suckered, they've been conned, they got took
if you think you have a foolproof contract with God
you better check the fine print
because any contract is flawed
if written in something as mortal as language
if scripted on something as fragile as a page
it is impossible to capture the DIVINE in any unchanging form
all we ever glimpse is where God is at that particular stage...

2005
I'm grateful to be alive
Grateful to serve pagan powers & communities where they thrive
If we've arrived at a point where both Church & State are Jive
We must realize Spirit's destiny is to organize more transparent hives...

paradise lost (V - the perils of Aid)

2004-12-30T22:18:00.000-06:00

TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TOPS 118,000
The death toll from Sunday's tsunamis in Asia has jumped to over 118,000 with Indonesia reporting nearly 80,000 people killed in that country alone...
....
food for thought from "The Buddhist Conception of Immanence"
by Christmas Humphreys
from an Address to the World Congress of Faith (October 1964)

"There is no death. There is only the dissolution of the form in which some aspect or ray of the one Life has until that moment manifested. Life outlives the form and breaks it by its very power. You must realize that we die, not from want of life but from too much of it, because the form can no longer contain the one, unbreakable, eternal, timeless Life. Life breaks that form and moves on. It can no longer use that form. That form is abandoned but Life goes on, and that Life or Spirit is the manifestation of the force which the Indians call just THAT or Para-Brahman, which the Buddhist calls the Unborn, Unoriginated, Unformed; all names are useless. But in every single 'thing' there is something of this Life, or that thing would not be there. When Life passes on to its own high purposes, to create and use and finally wear out still other forms, that form can be put into the dustbin or the incinerator or the crematorium. It is finished and has had its day. But Life goes on."

.....
the Chinese symbol for "Crisis" is composed of two symbols:
"Danger" & "Opportunity"
...
AID can be DANGEROUS when administered by the wrong hands...
Example #1:
For 30 years the Indonesian military has been waging a brutal war of suppression against the people of the Aceh region, where separatists have been attempting to secede from Indonesia and create their own state. The Aceh province was the hardest hit by the tsunamis this past week, and the Indonesian military has commandeered the relief effort in the province. Given the Indonesian military's history of conducting brutal campaigns against its own people, this is highly questionable... The Indonesian army is patently guilty of extra-judicial killings, the widespread use of torture, and has been linked to the selective assassination of politicians, subversive priests, as well as professors & teachers who resisted the oppressive policies of the Suhuarto government and its successors.
For more information:
http://acehnet.tripod.com/military.htm
For information on the GENOCIDE the Indonesian military conducted in East Timor:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Asia/GenocideEastTimor_Z.html

The nature of AID requires a brief discussion
You cannot just send money without understanding the REPERCUSSIONS...
WHO ARE YOU REALLY HELPING?

Example #2:
In 1991 in Bangladesh, a cyclone killed 138,000 people.
The international relief efforts were immense and elaborate.
Assorted Bengali con men immediately descended on afflicted scenes:
hankering for free food, homes, & cash from hapless US Marines...
this is no joke:
the beggar Kings & pimps from across the nation
organized their friends and went looking for hard donations
A fresh start from sympathetic but clueless international troops
Moral of the Story:
RELIEF that actually works comes from NGO's with ROOTS...

Organizations already established in the afflicted communities
are far better equipped to navigate the local criminals
who arrive sensing lucrative opportunities
Corruption plagues any endeavor
where vast sums of money are collected:
make sure your compassion is not misdirected...

every group has an Agenda...
Pick a charity:
http://www.interaction.org/sasia/index.html#Details

I choose CARE
Cooperative for Assistance & Relief Everywhere
they know what they're doing cause they've long been there...

paradise lost (IV)

2004-12-29T20:55:00.000-06:00

Today's Numbers:

1,325 American troops dead in Iraq
2 Palestinians gunned down by Israeli tanks
3 Bombings in Riyadh staged to overthrow the Saudi government
4 Israelis indicted for selling forged biblical artifacts
....
80,000 & counting - the current asian Tsunami death toll
....
Relief workers arrive & start to take stock
everyone in sight in some kind of shellshock
a bidding war begins
built on guilt
which country gives the most?
who sends trained experts?
its tough to treat a tattered coast
that its own tempestuous tides have hurt
these agonized images will not go away anytime soon
more and more footage will fill our living rooms
portraits of dehydrated Cholera cases
doctors explaining the advent of Dengue
Malarial mosquitos breeding in stagnant pools
instant death is a mercy...
death by disease is cruel...

rotting bloated corpses floating by
the stench of decay delivers a contact high
90 degrees fahrenheit beneath heavy equatorial sun
water-born parasites spreading like drugs through slums

conscience dictates compassion
in this case, charity will soon become fashion
An SI swimsuit model sleeps sedated in a Thai hospital ward
The trendy will come out in force with the Hollywood hordes
give what you can afford
if you actually care
sometimes it takes a disaster
to remind us of what we share...

NOTE: If you're in Chicago, Bombay Beatbox is hosting a benefit concert for the Tsunami victims on January 12th @ Sonotheque, 1444 w.chicago ave. $5 cover, DJ Warp & Radiohiro will spin, all proceeds go to the relief effort. See you there.

Long Term Stories to Watch:

Castro Announces Crude Oil Discovery
AP - President Fidel Castro said a crude oil deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to 100 million barrels, good news for a country that imports about half the petroleum it needs. Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an exploratory drilling. He said production at the site could begin during 2006.

Paradise Lost (III)

2004-12-28T21:35:00.000-06:00

TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TOPS 56,000
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- The number of dead in Indonesia has risen five-fold to 27,174, almost doubling the death toll from the massive underwater earthquake and the equally massive tsunami that followed it. The latest numbers, confirmed by the Ministry of Health in Jakarta on Wednesday, push the final toll from Sunday's catastrophe to over 56,000.
Full Story:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/asia.quake/index.html

"all colors bleed to red
asleep on the ocean's bed
drifting in empty seas
for all my days remaining..."
sting

...the stories start to trickle out...

imagine your mother's hand ripped from your grasp
it all happens so fast
one minute you're running
in the next mama's gone
engulfed by her oncoming date with the beyond
imagine your little boy building castles in the sand
you watch the sea consume him on what was just dry land
imagine your lover wrenched from your grip
screaming your name as her fingers slip
imagine dangling for dear life from a utility pole
you will die if you let go: your life is your hold
one minute you're sleeping
you half-feel the room shudder
an eye cracks open;
sunlight peeks through the shutters
nothing seems wrong, so you retreat to sleep
soon you'll be just a sad statistic on a muddy heap
one minute you're in bed
recovering from a night on the town
you dream of a homecoming:
as you wake you drown...

what characterizes Drama is undeserved death
the tragically unreasonable departure of breath
when there's no discernable cause
our constructs break down
we only see the system's flaws
after its cracks have been found
exposed
those pundits on TV who say this could have been prevented
are implying that nature can somehow be circumvented
human intent only goes so far
human ingenuity only does so much
sooner or later everyone's due for a fall
why is life so important? Death comes for us all...
...again and again and again and again...
if i don't see you anymore in this world
i'll see you in the next one, my friends...

it comforts me
to think of this as a re-investment of souls:
those who have departed have now rejoined the whole
i mourn for the living
so cruelly robbed
seemingly betrayed by a whimsical God
there is no grief like unexpected grief
there is no pain like regret
the main lesson I see here is this:
i should live each moment fully
and learn to love without a net

Paradise Lost (Day II)

2004-12-27T17:16:00.000-06:00

Graphic Animation of the Sumatra Earthquake & Ensuing Tsunami:
http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif

...23 thousand dead...and counting...

mass grave fires on India's east coast
beachfront funeral pyres filled with Tamil ghosts
Ceylon & Burma
Somalia & Siam
Whole villages destroyed
corpses canvassing Thai sand
they say the entire island of Sumatra shifted south
three-story waves hitting multiple harbor's mouths
the footage is grainy & impossibly surreal
too dirty to be Hollywood
too concrete to be unreal
i have loved ones out there
in the vicinity of the floods
friends and friends of friends
possibly swallowed by the mud
what's scary
is how arbitrary
the way natural disasters arrive
there is no logic to who dies and who survives
every now and then the earth throws us a spitball curve:
she decides to remind mankind what its like to get SERVED
we are a feeble species standing on crumbling ground
our civilizations are slowly but surely sinking down
back from where we came
the ocean holds its claim
there are old powers we once worshipped
who've never been tamed...

...the earth convulsing...
...the Sea God's flatline starts pulsing...
i light a single candle for thousands washed away
i give thanks for the blessing of living another day

Killer Tsunamis in the Indian Ocean

2004-12-26T18:18:00.000-06:00

Killer Tsunami's
A huge underwater Earthquake
Devastation throughout the Indonesian Archipelago
Waves Falling Like Skyscrapers, Bodies Scattered like Legos
Trouble Near the Core
Our Mother Grows Irate
You Can Tell Her Every Mood
By How She Stacks Up Plates
tectonic disturbances
below the Bay of Bengal
Oceanic Resurgences
Force Communities to Fall
Washed Away Like So Much Refuse
Phuket & the Andamans
Sri Lanka & Madras
impossible to calculate
how much has been lost
Shorelines I've Frequented Swept Away
Beaches I've Burned On Suddenly Buried in Clay
Muddy Corpses
Cruddy Debris
When You Live On An Island
There's nowhere to flee
...
death
destruction
and disease
the day after Christmas
...damn...
stretches of coastline disappear
underwater twitches
along the planet's stitches
friction & fire & burning rocks
flooding & contamination
-suddenly submerged-
the waves wash away entire human flocks

.....damn.....
...11,000 dead...and that just the count so far...
full moon in cancer
a 9.0 on the Richter scale
the tides come in hard
and they don't go out

Life Is Beautiful

2004-12-25T16:35:00.000-06:00

unexpected gifts in hidden places
blessings extended from forgotten graces
the cold slows the blood to a stubborn trickle
this time of year the flow seems fickle
close to a full moon in the sign of Cancer
the most hardcore dancefloors are ruled by necromancers
every winter i re-learn how i ought to live right
how to survive inside through elongated nights
i'm only as good as my last piece
reconcile the warring factions within to achieve peace
weave the beats together, filter out the interference
surf the waves of shadow to achieve seams of coherence

scrooge's blues #2

2004-12-23T13:45:00.000-06:00

no wrapped gifts, no lavish tree
no church, no family...just me
10 degrees outside with vicious windy gales
another december spent growing hard scrabby scales
a cynic's heart & an artist's budget
a season of bad commercials...i deeply begrudge it
i must be a scrooge
i just feel such contempt
i have a list of 200 loved ones
but not a single one of those cds i've sent
stuck in a self-defeating cycle
overextended & undercompensated
emotionally drained & professionally castigated
improperly fed and inadequately self-medicated
broke & bitter...my better side's been deflated...
we celebrate
to help us survive
designate certain periods as sacred
to make us happy to be alive
i need to find a way to deal with this Christmas hype
it's something of a stretch...casting against type
transplanted Muslim man with ascetic tendencies
trying to buy into this elaborately crafted myth
that OVERCONSUMPTION somehow glorifies Christ's Ascendancy...
this is a contradiction i can't seem to deal with...

Mess Hall Massacre

2004-12-21T15:21:00.000-06:00

ATTACK ON US TROOPS IS WORST YET
Nineteen US soldiers have been killed in an explosion at a US military base in Mosul, making it the worst single incident for the US military in Iraq. Six Iraqi civilians were also killed in the attack which happened in a dining tent at the base at noon. The US military said there was a single explosion in the Camp Merez base, south-west of the northern city. US President George W Bush offered his condolences but stressed that troops had a vital mission of peace in Iraq.
Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4116487.stm

it doesn't matter if Iraqi elections are held
the long term damage has already been done
fighting a war against a practice you yourself employ
is fighting a war that can't be won
the contradictions will consume the enterprise
we can attempt to correct the fringes
but the crux is where the center lies
at the heart of every American military venture
is history we've censured
to make our troops believe their task
we deceive them by draping our reasoning in righteous masks
send them shadowboxing in sandlots beneath a desert sun
the consequences of the mess we've made haven't even begun

the only reason WARS exist
are for men to profit from them:
materially, spiritually, and communally profit
By projecting violence on demonized enemies...
Death is inflicted by the ruthless who want their tribes to rule:
We use scripture to justify murder: it's a simple coping tool...
we teach men to kill for hollow codes...
those who follow such false Gods will inevitably implode...

Rumsfeld & the Gun Runners

2004-12-20T23:58:00.000-06:00

Bush Defends Rumsfeld As 'A Caring Fellow'
WASHINGTON - Accused of being insensitive to U.S. soldiers in Iraq and their families, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld received a fresh endorsement Monday from President Bush, who called him "a caring fellow." "I have heard the anguish in his voice and seen his eyes when we talk about the danger in Iraq and the fact that youngsters are over there in harm's way," Bush said at a White House news conference.
Full Story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rumsfeld

understand:
Rummy's spent 30 years
selling weapons to every side,
to every kind of soldier of the sand people
supplying Arab warlords
with the latest 21st century swords
cleaving the entire peninsula
conceding power on the ground
while bleeding the whole region
by keeping its tribes forever bound
to the self-defeating illogic of lingering vendettas
he brings a businessman's indifference to the loss of life
he profits by investing in provincial strife
it's the oldest & newest of imperial tricks
arm the locals and let them kill each other for kicks
impose IMF shock therapy treatments by privatizing everything, quick...
Rummy's just a clumsy dealer selling guns,
the very dope that helped make the Middle East so irrevocably sick...

Friday Night Sights (#2)

2004-12-18T16:15:00.000-06:00

It's that time of the month
I need my fix
I need to let my body surrender
to my favorite turntablist's tricks
Ron Trent @ Sonotheque
the Egyptian Queen & her crew
a rhythmic lineage resurrected
in the African Gods monthly Chicago coup
video projections of Fela & Nesta
fleeting connections with first-time guests
flirtations with flyness, the air is thick with sex
navigating so much beauty becomes increasingly complex
a random stranger buys me a shot of tequila
if western civilization is sickly, this music is the healer
peeling off people's problems with subwoofer claws
every DJ worth a damn is versed in the Kosmic Bass Laws
when the frequencies drop the knees bend
when the sequences segue seamlessly heads start to bop
when the floor is shaking the movers collectively ascend
the DJ is the farmer, the dancers are the crop...

Capoeira Angola starts to play in the corner
the game is hypnotic, erotic & slow
yellow shirts in a semicircle, Brazil sweeps through the room
the mestre kneels to enter, he is a newlywed groom...
Beto and his new Bride begin to ginga
married earlier that day, now they circle the ring
the most exquisite love is not unlike controlled combat
unfolding in waves as berimbaus sing

God I love this scene...
God I love my friends...
I'm blessed by these beats
On which my sanity depends...

out of the crowd comes
Audlove & Hills
Hugs & Belly Rubs & priestess powers distilled
i think a man can only be as good as the women on his side
which means i'm destined for greatness
cause the divine feminine is my primary guide
soul sisters & matriarchs
the yin essence of the universe's heart
i am so fortunate to be where i am with my crew
we are fast becoming the future
this much is undeniably true

worship defines us
how you choose to trust
the mystery & the magic of creation
which path leads to salvation?
i used to be so confused about so much
but it's all becoming so crystal clear
the beats have been calling me my entire life
to serve the rhythms is the reason i'm here...
to service the rhythms is the reason i'm here...

Desi Brinkmanship

2004-12-15T19:56:00.000-06:00

Pakistan and India to Start Nuclear Hotline

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan and India agreed to push forward plans for a nuclear hotline after two days of talks but failed to reach a deal on advance warning of ballistic missile tests, officials said. The South Asian rivals said they would "operationalize... as soon as possible" the hotline between their foreign secretaries, which had been agreed on in principle at earlier talks in June. However, the meetings on so-called confidence-building measures did not produce an accord on giving each other prior notification of missile test-fires, officials said.
Full story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041215/wl_afp/pakistanindianuclear_041215173430

GREAT!
A 900-number for fanatics with their finger on the button...
That makes me feel SO much better about the future...

new arms races between ancient rivals
this is the age of rogue nuclear powers
more and more nations will make red-carpet arrivals
it's an exclusive club & everyone wants in
guns are leverage, & they always have been
it is only a matter of time before the technology is used
it is the very essence of man: knowledge is what we abuse
to acquire what we desire
to claim what we covet
we use the threat of violence to gain an edge
the ape with the biggest stick holds the advantage

the future of the Middle East
is written in the margins of India's partition
western civilization believes its destiny
is to manifest a singular vision
the quest for dominion underlies its acts
no military power can possibly best America
that is a simple reality: a cold hard FACT
only our own shadows can blot our own light
terrorism is colonialism's custom cultivated blight
the pathologies currently consuming the world came from hypocrisy:
watch how unreasonable paranoia begins to undermine democracy

the cold front is here

2004-12-14T21:10:00.000-06:00

and so it starts again
3 months of secluded self-examination
under the unkind lamps of a vicious white winter
the thumping beat of my body buried beneath lumpy layers of insulation
the extremities slowly going numb
the eccentricities quickly coming to the forefront
the simple joys of my existence slip away
buried beneath another icey shade of gray...

...too much of what i've become is due to this city's rhythms...

i love & despise you Chicago...
like a chronic ailment i've grown to depend on
you slip me luscious sonic fixes supposed to placate my needs
then you lock me up inside and let the frostbite feed

...too much of what i've become is due to this city's rhythms..

the annual hibernation
the glacial pace of progress at my occupation
the daily shifting of gears above the shudder of El tracks
the fear of loving the entire hostile world
and getting nothing back

you can take the boy from the tropics
but you can't wipe the mudstains from his shoes
you can take the sun away from the Deltachild
but you can't drown out his blues

Chicago is just Jazz & Gospel and a couple of their bastard chillun'
drinking something strong on a bitterly cold & windy night
all of us sinking into the grind of the Loop's collective mind
attempting to build a better base than the places we've left behind.

Media Jockeys

2004-12-13T11:59:00.000-06:00

My good friend Chris Andrew just stopped into Chicago for a few days in the midst of his busy life on the road as the VJ for DJ Tiesto's most recent concert tour. (www.djtiesto.com) Chris recently completed a short South America tour with Tiesto and has been bouncing back and forth across the country for the last year or so with similar artists. For those of you who like beautiful images and appreciate video art, I HIGHLY recommend Chris's website if you want to look at some gorgeous doctored images from a unique and evolving world-class artist. Stoptime341's work has affected my aethetic in more ways than I have space here to describe. His online portfolios are well worth a visit, check them out at:
www.stoptime341.com

we caught up over burgers & bourbon...

imperial ambitions manifesting through art
the trajectory of your career is scrawled across your birth chart
the story of an artist's true impact begins after recognition
those ahead of the curve will always be burdened by their mission...
beauty seekers in an ugly scene
Adept high priests delivering the dionysian dream
how to elevate the masses with projections on screens
how to illuminate the moment with the essence of what it means
doped up crowds seeking raw release
healing hands draw tapestries weaving peace through piece
whole by hole
only a handful are ever given the ability to control
consciousness
comes
in semi-complete circuits
you are the switch that makes the circle work
beneath your fingers, the faders fall
the creators & destroyers, you answer their call
the walls grow transparent
the bass is invasive
the ascendance is communal
the transcendence is pervasive
some of us are born to be mediums
for better or for worse
for you it seems a blessing
for me it feels like a curse
all of us second-hand merchants for the truths we've been sold
siphoning spliced spirit streams to youth as our lives unfold
this is the birthright & the ancient role
for all of us old souls on this karmic parole...

santa: the bastard child of heathens & christians

2004-12-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

christmas is a cash cow
a green-gold tapestry of shiny lights
multi-colored coats of christian glaze
covering up ancient pagan rites

Jesus wasn't born a Capricorn
the winter solstice Saturnalia predates our celebrations
it's funny how civilizations steal rituals
the early Church redefined "appropriation"

A bloated Red Demi-God squeezing down an impossible Chute
Is a hardly an image with scriptural Roots
strip away the stockings
and it seems we're just stockpiling for our annual winter rut
the way squirrels like to pile up the acorns & nuts
reaffirm the ties that keep us warm inside
give a little back to those happy you're alive
send out a little love to all the folks on your side
it'll help make the coming winter something we'll all survive

Blame the Music

2004-12-10T18:10:00.000-06:00

Heavy metal guitarist among 4 slain by gunman
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The man who shot former Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and three other men to death at a nightclub was obsessed with the heavy metal band and made bizarre accusations against the group, a one-time friend said. Nathan Gale apparently believed Pantera musicians were trying to steal his identity and the lyrics to songs he had written, former friend Jeramie Brey told The Columbus Dispatch in Friday's editions. Gale, 25, charged the stage Wednesday at a show by Abbott's new band, Damageplan, and gunned down four people including Abbott before a police officer shot him to death. Two others were wounded.
for full story:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/10/nightclub.shooting.ap/index.html

Dimebag Darrell's riffs altered my adolescence...
he was cut down last night on stage,
by a gun shot from his blind spot
i am one of the legions of juvenile wanna-be's
his Guitar World columns taught
Darrell was an elite priest of dark music
a repository for fury translated into tone
he worshipped at the altar of volume
he channeled the Gods of unleashed testosterone
some sounds are so heavy they sink into the cracks of broken minds
and begin to breed
some riffs are so raw they draw demons
as they shriek their way into your center till your ears bleed
watch the pundits blame the Music for this
not the killer, not the gun
distortion is how youth overcomes the limits of silence
it's how teenagers cope with a life not quite begun
i was 16 when i first heard the otherworldly solo
lacing Pantera's gorgeous cover of Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan"
certain songs color chapters of your life
whether you're just passing through or a rabid fan
the results are the same if the riffs are on point
guitarists are shamans
crowds are congregations they anoint
Darrell came from a dying breed:
a school of shredders that simplicity freed
they chose to deliver substance where the 80's used speed
Dimebag preached: "when in doubt, there's only a one note you need"
bend it till it bleeds
shake it till it moans
the entire universe encompassed in blistering unforgiving tone
they say a nutty fan killed Darrell
the guy claimed Pantera's music belonged to him
no simgle human could possibly contain that much anger
it would've boiled over till it spilled over the brim
gunshots on stage
a demented fan's misplaced rage
the collective anger broods slowly
into a lurking feeling on the streets you can almost guage...

the violence abroad is starting to echo within
the hidden darkness on the fringes is suddenly surfacing
murders & mayhem, riots & brawls
its just a matter of time before the illusion of a peaceful society falls

Bitter Troops

2004-12-09T15:21:00.000-06:00

Bush, Rumsfeld Try to Soothe Angry U.S. Troops

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Thursday U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed and he did not blame soldiers for raising the issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A day after he was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces. Meeting with troops in Kuwait on Wednesday, Rumsfeld heard several complaints, including one from Spc. Thomas Wilson that U.S. forces were forced to dig up scrap metal to protect their vehicles in Iraq because of a shortage of armored ones.

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing. I think it's a very constructive exchange," Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him on Thursday in India, another stop on a regional tour.

full story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20041209/ts_nm/iraq_usa_rumsfeld_dc_11

The Man In Charge of Our Armed Forces
Cannot frame a coherent sentence that contains the word "know"
He is uniquely capable of avoiding culpability
by questioning the facts
observe carefully how he avoids courting responsibility
with his peculiar syntax...
...all while the consequences of his mistakes grow...

there are no demands made of the head of this chain of command
we sweep over our errors with smokescreens of sand
where there's no accountability
there can be no law & order
in our own homeland or within someone else's borders
this is a simple fact red state America doesn't seem to understand:
this is NOT Desert Storm
this is: "Let's Grow Purrty Tulips On Barren Land!"

If you use Incompetent Unilateral Dogma to justify your Wars
you shouldn't be surprised at what this multidimensional conflict has in store

taking God to Court

2004-12-08T20:58:00.000-06:00

Muslim Groups Claim Injustice In Boim Trial
Judge's Denial Of Continuance Considered 'Attack On Islam'

A local family is suing a Chicago Islamic charity over the death of its son in the Middle East. NBC5's Charlie Wojciechowski reported that local Muslim groups on Monday said the lawsuit is putting their religion on trial. At least three Chicago Muslim groups say a federal judge is being unfair in forcing the Quranic Literacy Institute to proceed with a trial it says it's not prepared for. But the parents pressing this $600 million lawsuit say they deserve justice, too, for the 1996 terrorist attack that killed their son, David, when he was in Jeruselem.
for the full story:
http://www.nbc5.com/news/3975923/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65193

let us be clear here:
a country is not a secular nation
if it endorses one particular kind of salvation
if courts persecute people on the basis of their relations
the laws are effectively endorsing only specific congregations

these are THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY
take a good hard look
this is our future
if we choose to swear by corrupted holy books

dissing democracy

2004-12-07T23:41:00.000-06:00

"Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal."
Friedrick Nietzche, from The Will to Power

those of us who know better
grow weary of these charades
elections are nothing but puppet shows
yet their novelty appeal doesn't seem to fade...
nothing of consequence changes hands but the reins
century after century, the directors backstage are the same
it is not politics but commerce that determines the cast
structures remain in place, so power stays massed
concentrated
in certain selected echelons of society
it takes the most emboldened con men to proclaim piety
while stealing
dealing stacked hands from stacked decks
it's not about balances, it's about checks
made out to old friends
at the head of new outfits
it's about the channels through which currency is routed
the way resources are allocated
the way ideology is subtly touted
the way regulations are methodically flouted
if you strip away the suits & the media circus
the proud masks & the loud lies
governments are just pyramid schemes:
on the backs of wage slaves they rise

the puppeteers can stage whatever spectacle they please
the same circles will struggle, the same lines will feast
they can put a black queen at the helm
they can forcibly birth bastard children to populate the realm
they can declare victory in foreign escapades and depart contented
they can deliver more war until enough vengeance has been vented
elections are merely carefully orchestrated charades
politicians are inflated floats that certain coalitions parade
what you see is an illusion
a well-scripted procession of poses
real power is controlled from the shadows
those with the Will to Power know this...

scrooge's blues #3

2004-12-06T20:03:00.000-06:00

...i've somehow arrived at a state where i can't afford Christmas...
in this musician's life that is my lot
there's a vicious cycle of bills in which i'm caught
i have nothing to give
but beats
& text
there are limitations to how i must live
this realization leaves me vexed:
how to purchase safe passage
through an ugly orgy of mis-directed over-consumerism
disguised as something holy
i choose instead to celebrate the teachings
that my Jesus sold me

i need to make a list
there are loved ones i must address
if i can make it through this twisted season
i will have passed some kind of test
us lowly scribes serve our spiritual communities best
by sharing sustainable highs with the rest of the nest
maybe i'm just broke
but it seems to me
if you sing with my squalid carols
we'll get closer to free...

Shidokan: "The Triathlon of Martial Arts"

2004-12-05T15:46:00.000-06:00

J.Silva hooks me up with a free ticket to the fights
a tournament of open-hand, muay thai, and grappling sights
2 rounds of each, 3 takedowns are match
this crew of warriors is an elite batch
the kind of brothers who exude refined ability
who can take you down with quick civility
joint locks & throws
crippling leg blows
it is an open question
just how many techniques do these folks know?

kickboxing champions are exquisite operators
using mathematical precision to navigate interval divisions
with "the sweet science"
of surgical violence
the grace & power of a controlled fury
the proud embodiment of a lineage of teachers
watching them pick apart an opponent
is a legitimate prime-time feature...

first they assess the weaknesses inherent in style
the imbalances, the habits & tendencies
then they demolish the constructs
on which their opponent rests dependencies
this is the truth of the ring
you rise above the competition by clipping their wings
you break down your oppenent's rhythm with the way you swing
to survive you must strike as fatal as a scorpion's sting...

...i think i just found a new community to train with...

drunken monkey on a dance floor

2004-12-03T21:38:00.000-06:00

company christmas party
started drinking at noon
half of me wants to chase tail
half of me wants to swoon
am i so deviant that no woman wants to deal?
are the vibes i'm broadcasting a little too real?
every dance floor i'm a part of is a interlaced grid:
intersections of intentions and interwoved Ids:
a group choreography where i play a pillar of groove
my body rocks the downbeat on which everyone else bases their moves
the music is too loud
the bass violates my mind
my ears are still ringing
even though i left the club behind
women in skimpy dresses
skanks and players
i can't work the meat market
i have too many layers
damaged goods
an honest soul
i could make out with anyone
but i will never cede spiritual control
booze breeds bad decisions
it demolishes necessary inhibitions
pump enough alcohol into a social situation
and sooner or later everyone is on a biological mission
seeking someone to merge with
someone to drown in
i lose rational coherence
once the bass starts pounding
i wish i could navigate this minefield of ambitions....
what is my role here? what is my mission?
mercenary taking corporate money that's stained
strip away my contradictions and only friction remains...

afterparty musings

2004-12-03T01:47:00.000-06:00

do i feed the room or does the room feed me?
"Receive & Transmit" is the prime decree
beneath a glaring spotlight it gets hard to see
i come from the sounds: the sounds don't come from me
build it slowly
hold back and tease
the crowd's a spoilt lover
that takes time to please
music compounds its meanings when its shared
when folks sing along the songs become self-aware
you are only as good as your audience
you're skills are only as refined as your best mix
a dj is a delivery system
a slow-burning sonic wick
turntables are how today's high priests get their illicit kicks

the cost of living

2004-12-01T23:32:00.000-06:00

spent a bunch of cash today on externals
new threads
new shoes
a shirt embroidered with yellow hues
it costs money to visually impress
the internal realms are where i'd rather invest
in this shallow world we drape ourselves in riches
covering our naked souls with stylish sales pitches
if it was up to me i'd wear the same ripped rags
day after day, week after week
but we must inhabit the uniform of the rank we seek
i shift my shape to fit the life i crave
fashion is so inherently depraved
a game of masks
in the theater of caste
we craft the details of how we choose to be seen
no matter what robes we put on
no matter what cloth we don
we are merely veiling & demeaning the ghost in the machine...

dreamgig setlists

2004-11-30T21:24:00.001-06:00

i've got a PHAT gig on Thursday
Spinning softer seductions @ the Park West
in dress clothes & dredlocks dropping deliverance
dipping into the collective memory vaults
slipping on my salty slave mentality
flipping a dj set that alters my company's reality
without drugs
without profanity
a corporate cocktail hour soundtrack
giving the folks i work with a glimpse back
and a view forward
echoes of years past
in the samples i've massed
records & files
woven into my worldbeat styles
drop in some bossa early
then dZ&K's dancehall remix of Smile
things should go smoothly after that
some Art of Noise
issa & plaid & my SixDegrees boyz
people love you when you give them what they didn't know they needed
like standing in front of a freshly tilled field with a fistful of seeds
i'm getting better at guiding groups
whether they're butt-naked hippies or stiff suits
follow this bug-eyed piper with the amplified flute
i'll unearth buried treasures hidden in your own roots
serving this communal tree
slowly but surely paying my dues
these days i rock private House parties
where i used to play lonesome blues
i miss the bent notes
but the beats come first
i splice rhythms together
the way holy books weave verse
look & see
then come with me
it takes a drummer to set chained people free
hey Mr.DJ, will you please please me?
it takes a dancefloor to set the mainframe free
rhythms dictate to us where we're supposed to be
it takes a sound session to set chained people free

280 Million Dead Turkeys,..

2004-11-29T20:17:00.001-06:00

in the wake of a huge meal my mind starts to wander
i wonder about what this ritual has come to mean
feasting on a carcass embalmed with the American Dream
i'm so full of it my insides feel stuffed & unclean...

280 million turkeys
sacrificed to feed a myth
"the pilgrims & indians were the bestest of friends"
this the mis-history we abuse our children with

plucked & feathered
stuffed & oiled
roasted & deep-fried
baked in tents of foil
280 million sacrificial birds
the price of keeping our retrospect blurred
to satiate our sense of belonging with ritual
we celebrate with a hypocrisy that has become habitual

ceremonial silver
crystal and glass
if overconsumption is America's religion
this meal is our country's signature Black Mass
feeding our families dead flesh to give thanks
the living rejoice as the departed circle the ranks
ghosts & toasts reinforce the righteousness of our arrival
we bear witness to the struggle of our blood's survival

wine & water
cider & beer
we honor the virtues that got us here
the Pilgrims were Puritans who claimed God for their side
their descendents claimed dominion till their greed was satisfied
the immigrants prospered: over 100 million indigenous died:
Thanksgiving is a ceremony reinforcing a collective denial of
GENOCIDE.

DC Museum of the Native American...

2004-11-24T19:07:00.000-06:00

...spent a few hours today at the new
Smithsonian National Museum for American Indians...
a DhakFu review:

Voices of Elders
Coalitions of Nations
One culture’s history
is another’s desecration…

such a cool building, so well designed:
a coherent vision in stone, multiple worldviews defined…
every level a story told in exquisite crafts
ancient cosmologies laid out in seasonal star maps

…dying languages in these native tongues
ceremonial circles where the old songs are sung…

ancestral lands & now polluted rivers
broken treaties scripted by suited & treasonous lawgivers
a singular identity a government has systematically undermined
a red man’s Gods overwritten by the white man’s divine

beads & flutes
warm blankets & bowls of sage
the paraphernalia of a marginalized & forgotten age
clay artifacts & bronze statues
long feathers, stained leather, skins used as shoes
elaborate headdresses & dugout canoes
entire civilizations robed in earth-bound organic hues...

circles & quadrants
jewels & wands
a harmonious bond with the earth & the worlds beyond
found a display that said in so many words
that grace is simply a state that the ancestors confer-
those who die go to a place where they forever dance
in a temple of clear light, soft winds, & pure trance...
Prayer is simply how we dance with souls on the other side
this awareness reminds us of the realization we've all already died...

so many healthy cultures have fallen to the wealthy cross
such a rich heritage so many indigenous have lost

we only make progress when we learn from those we've harmed
we only make peace with the enemies we've charmed
the vital myths of the Forgotten will return in time
the spiral continues to evolve even as its components unwind...

check out the Museum's website:
http://www.nmai.si.edu/

the folks at home...

2004-11-22T20:18:00.000-06:00

tomorrow i get on a flight that takes me to my parent's house...

i'll be showing up with yet another deviant hairstyle
the manipulative charms of a youngest child's wiles
politics and opinions that never fail to offend
and a set of neglected fences i have yet to mend...

ahhh....Family...

that old adolescent dread
revisiting all the skins i've tried to shed
dog-eared photo albums & soft familiar beds
the strains of surreal love fill the cradles i've fled

mirrors of myself in flesh
in a single spread generations mesh
tired stories of old glories lace predictable conversations
insecurities probed with careful insinuations
frustrations are built into the foundations of these structures
ambitions & expectations collide & rupture
we abide by the rules we've been taught
we confide reasons why we're thankful for our lot
the circle of my blood so rarely convenes
it's always an occasion colored with elaborate cuisine
i don't spend enough time with my siblings
i don't spend enough time with my parents
boundless guilt for my neglect manifests before i arrive
but after a week the reasons for my absence become readily apparent...

blood is binding
love is blinding
safe space is unnatural
certain places can be too comfortable
unconditional support erodes one's capacity to meet adversity
familial filters can limit the spectrum of life that a person sees...

but my mama's cooking is worth crossing oceans & continents for
and my sister throws down like she's got something to prove...
my family's recipes are steeped in rich ancestral lore,
if all i cared about was food i would have never moved...

i wish a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours...

friday night sights

2004-11-20T16:15:00.000-06:00

Friday
a night running through chi-town
africa hi-fi comes around
ron trent spinning Afro-House @ sonotheque
hosted by egyptian soul architects
building a brown crowd back towards the roots & paths
chronicling the orisha's wrath
couple by couple & track by track
precise blends cut through precarious stacks of wax
through visuals & dark continent residuals
wrapped in a narrow room
trapped in the marrow of rhythm
each time Ron drops that bass boom
i'm supposed to work
but i need to dance
there's no space to do anything but swiftly shift my stance
flirting footpaths lead me through circles & navels
elaborate movement ceremonies conducted by turntables
old friends have congregated
sly hips are gyrated
hours surrounded by strangers
booty shaking free rangers
all of us trying to forget & remember
the heat of our shared past
the steps connect us, the beats stoke the embers
dance now, cause the world up here gets cold come december...

certain celebrations sustain the deepest needs
when trusted priests are working vibrations
we hear the transubstantiation of sound through speakers that bleed
beats are sacraments in my culture
where do they fit in yours?
your holy books may be bridges to your past
but our rhythms are trapdoors
to transcendance
access to the Most High's descendants
a circle of dancers & drummers
is the oldest worship
in the beginning was the Beat
before the Mouth let the Word slip...

after the sounds,
i spend a few minutes inside a car with a lady
while her ex-boyfriend paces outside the window & stalks
i can't believe the bullshit this cat talks
he threatens, pleads, insults, & curses
a litany of jaded abuse spilling out in incoherent verses
"I called you 4 times tonight!"
is that statement not a clear indication
that your EX is not waiting on your invitation?

all i was doing was walking her to her car...
she asked me cause she knew he was there...
i witness a love that has left permanent scars
it seems this brother feels his EX is too much his to share

it seems i'm destined to defuse situations
between warring lovers & rival street nations
it takes a calm soul to disarm conflicts
something along the lines of buddhist jedi mind tricks

all this went down
because of a random conversation
with a random woman
a raspberry martini meets an ice-cold stella
a red-blue jealous man confronts a yella fella
it seems most of my women friends have had stalkers at least once
it's because they're all alpha-females:
the males who cross their path want the hunt
the sisters take one look and try to run
while the brothers are like, "but baby, I'm SURE you're the ONE!"

it takes two
why is that so hard to understand
when i see brothers so goddamn disrespectful
it makes me ashamed to be a man...

ecumenical inquiry

2004-11-18T20:43:00.000-06:00

does redemption come solely from being born again?
or must I atone somehow for what i did back then...?

i just want to live right...

...but with each move i'm repeating a recurring theme,
revisiting the same role in a different scene...

i find the ugly sides of folks
or they find me
i listen to twisted souls blow smoke
while they're trying to set themselves free...
i collect darkness in all its forms
my soul is the epicenter of communal storms
i take abuse but leave internal bruises
i steal love by weaving the crudest ruses
i use words
prophets use visions
politicians use policies
soldiers use missions
we justify our ends with our choice of means
we crucify ascenders with landlocked beams
we bend the world around us with the tools we've been given...
i want to find a reason why our species should be forgiven...

i don't believe it's possible to deny the rapture...
i don't think faith is something a government can contain...
i do believe we can shape awakenings,
and that higher consciousness is a state we can capture;
perhaps even a strata certain circles can sustain...

if the pursuit of the divine leaves us with an earth this scorched
what kind of communities are meant to carry the torch?

throw down #1

2004-11-17T20:07:00.000-06:00

4£L<4|?on:
-the pathologies around us have become self-perpetuating-
-the dependencies that bound us are progressively asphyxiating-
the cancer cells in this consciousness are aggressively satiating:
fear & paranoia spiral slowly in a sensuous mating...

from a book my friend Matthew lent me...

2004-11-16T20:15:00.000-06:00

i need to stop talking about politics for a couple days...i'm working on some tracks that capture what i have to say about the state of the world, so in the meantime, i'm going to digress for a bit and cover some less polarizing ground... The following passage is from a book my friend Matthew Dallman lent me that was written by his composition teacher, W.A. Mathieu. Mr.Dallman is a composer himself, as well as being the host of Integral University's Art Domain. check out his website, his incredibly insightful essays on art & sound, mp3s of his recordings, and his blog at: www.matthewdallman.com

"For a lot of us, though, certain music just goes too far. There are those who insist, for instance, that heavy metal music is dangerously aggressive and painfully loud. Similar claims are made against rap and free jazz and atonal music. But the truth is that every aggressive music is assuaging someone's deepest fear. No matter the style, you can hear the terror of alienation. In much rock there is a heaviness so sucked and drawn that it must be shocked into light - plugged in and cranked up. What is heavy sinks to the bottom of the world, it is true, but the sound of metal shines. Weighted strings can shimmer like light from a singing sword. Underground, a diamond is still a diamond.
Music is the mirror of our deepest longing. When you hear violence in someone else's music, you are hearing that musician's best effort to work out the longing to belong, even if it may not be the effort you would exert, or any belonding you might identify with. Underneath the harshness is the struggle for wholeness."
from
THE MUSICAL LIFE
Reflections On What It Is & How To Live It
by W.A.Matthieu

Eid Mubarak

2004-11-14T16:11:00.000-06:00

the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close...

a lunar month since this blog began
& nothing much has changed from where i stand...

a few notable deaths,
a couple hundred pages of text,
a few new offensives,
a nation divided and pensive,
a curse or two laid to rest
and another bleak 4 years ahead, facing the same caustic tests...

reassessing the rest of my stay here...
investing in my politics to further my artistic career...
will america ever be willing to hear a brown-skinned Muslim man?
is this hostile arena where i'm supposed to stand?
at what point is it better to cut your losses and run?
at what point does a diplomat decide he's done what can be done?
It's said that the wise general picks which battles to fight,
where, when, and how, and in what kind of light...
it might be wiser in these circumstances to escape & take flight,
but that would be giving up ground, and inherently not right...
in the midst of these culture wars, the resistance grows
as ghettos breed soldiers spitting the most righteous flow-
i find comfort & solidarity in the truth my peers know:
the nature of the guerrilla is to strike from the shadows...

what we become is not a matter of choice
discovering what you're meant to say is just finding your voice
it is only a matter of time before a complete counter-culture emerges:
our leaders will be the focal points where consciousness converges...

petitioning Greedy Officious Pricks (aka the GOP)

2004-11-13T16:47:00.000-06:00

"they keep you doped with religion, and sex & TV:
& you think you're so clever and classless & free
but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see..."
John Lennon, from Working Class Hero

the most practical way to punish politicians for their policies
is to punch holes in their personal profit margins,
by puncturing their portfolio's stock positions
& forcing them to plot investment revisions...

if our chicken-hawk technocrats are financing the business of war,
if our corporations are bankrolling foreign invasions,
we are paying for other people's death to keep us secure:
as if human sacrifice can somehow make us more pure...

our tax dollars are merely today's form of tribute-
we are peasants paying into our national prince's private loot,
his cronies use our funds to keep sharp their swords-
we are investing in our own serfdom by honoring feudal lords...

the ratio of individual/collective intelligence...

2004-11-12T19:16:00.000-06:00

the larger the group,
the lower the frequency of the Collective Mind:
the Folks who are really seeking higher knowledge
Are forced to leave the most friends behind...

Arafat's Ungracious Exit...

2004-11-11T21:47:00.000-06:00

The Lessons of Arafat:

1. Yasser Arafat's life and career represent a portrait of the moral and ethical ambiguity that results when people struggling for freedom embrace violent tactics as a means to achieve desired ends.
2. Acquiescing to the militant, vengeful elements of any communal body ultimately leads to the creation of pervasive negative karmic residue that paralyzes the progress towards authentic peace between communities in conflict.
3. A culture which permits the unchecked concentration of political power in the hands of a very small circle of officials is inevitably providing their leadership with the opportunity to siphon off public funds for private purposes.
4. Responding to the actions of rogue governments with rogue methods simply creates a self-immolating culture of lawless vigilantes: if you lie down with dogs you WILL get fleas.
5. The United States will not negotiate with Palestinian terrorists, but it will heartily endorse Israeli war criminals who are guilty of crimes against humanity.
6. A negotiator is only effective if his promises can be trusted. A leader is only as good as the people he represents.

LOVE YOUR ENEMY

2004-11-10T20:30:00.000-06:00

"Fear and love are contradictory terms. Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return. Love wrestles with the world as with the self and ultimately gains mastery over all other feelings. My daily experience, as of those who are working with me, is that every problem lends itself to solution if we are determined to make the law of truth and non-violence the law of life. For truth and non-violence are, to me, faces of the same coin. The law of love will work, just as the law of gravitation will work, whether we accept it or not. Just as a scientist will work wonders out of various applications of the law of nature, even so a man who applies the law of love with scientific precision can work greater wonders."
Mahatma Gandhi

it is hard to love your enemy,
but it is righteous and Godly to do so...
this is the message Jesus taught,
this is what Gandhi's story shows-
you must demonstrate the nature of those you oppose
by revealing their sins through the violence you expose:
by the lashes you receive for your virtues:
you try to love them & they try to hurt you...
sooner or later their sickness comes home,
they try to destroy your stand and end up eroding their own:
the hand that holds the whip grows weary,
the mind behind the mask begins to ask-
will my conscience forgive me?
how will this pain i'm creating work?
Non-violent non-cooperation is life-affirming
whereas orthodox obedience to power is overtly inert,
violence is a destructive force,
it's use is ultimately degrading-
civil disobedience is following a clean conscience's course:
regressing to violence is reverting to an un-Christian form of hating...

_________________________
note:
Distaste for Dubya does nothing to dispell his hold,
& the delusions he molds solidify into support for his base...
Folks should not despise or criticize the red-states so-called faith
until we demonstrate that ours is a higher form of grace...

How To Cripple the Corrupt (Part I)

2004-11-09T23:20:00.000-06:00

"The old order ends, no matter what Bastille's remain, when the enslaved, within themselves, bury the psychology of servitude..."
Martin Luther King Jr.

We cannot trust a sick, unnatural system to produce a solution to its own ills…
The most honest leaders emerge from outside of our institutions:
They always have, and they always will…

The best weapon you have available is your wallet-
They may have the keys to the engine,
but we have the power to stall it...
We have the ability to withhold, to starve the machine,
To enforce sustained fasts-
We must sanction the corruption of the corporation nation
And we must make these economic sanctions last…

The ability to withdraw currency from circulation
cultivates the ability to withstand market manipulations…
Our purchasing power is the best tool to voice our frustrations:
We must manifest the economy of our own alternative nation…

http://www.boycottbush.net/
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

Violence vs. Non-Violence (Part I)

2004-11-08T23:21:00.000-06:00

peep this passage I found... food for thought...

"Under the umbrella of violence there reside two distinctly different phenomena. First there is the violence of men and women who act out of frustration, hopelessness and anger in an attempted grasp at life-the act of the slave breaking the chains, which is understandable and inevitable as long as some humans are in bondage. The other type of violence is the violence of the respectable, the violence of the powerful that seeks personal gain and privilege by maintaining inhuman conditions. It is the violence of the board rooms, legislators and jurists-the white collar violence that pours surplus milk down sewers, robs workers of their wages, maintains prisons of infamy, lies to children, discards the weak and old and insists that some should half-live while other rape and ravage the earth. The latter type of violence is what we must become aware of and actively dismantle if the future is to hold any possibilities for peace and a world where all men and women have a right to live and develop and participate by reason of their humanity, not by reason of their class, productive ability, or shrewdness.

Nonviolence cannot then be understood as passivity or indifference to the dynamic of life (i.e., communication between men). It is not the posture of removing oneself from conflict that marks the true non-violent man, but, quite on the contrary, it is placing oneself at the heart of that dynamic. Non-violence means an active opposition to those acts and attitudes that demean and brutalize another, and it means an active support of those values and expressions that foster human solidarity. Non-violence, in essence, means taking a stand in favor of life and refusing to delegate individual moral responsibility to another person or group or institution; it means taking control of one's life and aiding others in doing likewise. Non-violence is an attempt to find truth and love even in the midst of hatred, destruction, and pride...

...The first signs of a violent society appear in its basic inability to communicate. Words lose their meaning and become hollow. They are twisted and deformed as tools of manipulation and servitude. Noble words such as truth, goodness and love may come to mean despotism, obedience, and death. Peace becomes another name for multi-headed war missiles, and non-violence is wrenched to mean silence, or lack or opposition to theivery, privilege, and the status quo."

Edward Guinan, from Peace & Non-Violence (A Compilation)

tactical considerations for 4moreyears...

2004-11-07T20:18:00.000-06:00

"It is an axiom of social change that no revolution can happen without a methodology suited to the circumstances of the period."
Martin Luther King Jr.

understand-
elections only alter the picture of what we've become,
the same power structure remains in place regardless of who won.
this system cannot be saved from within-
the honest voices amidst the mob are spread far too thin,
the only weapons we have against corruption are:
virtue
& vibrations,
volume
& communication innovations,
& venomous truths,
All laced with the idealism of youth...
Only those fighting evolution could claim victory
when they strive for static values-
their so-called leaders are actually vampires
sucking the vitality out of their follower's backwards views...

-something to chew on...
from Tactics, chapter 4 of The Art of War - Sun Tzu
"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Hence the saying: one may KNOW how to conquer without being able to DO it.
Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.
The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven. Thus, on the one hand, we have ability to protect ourselves; on the other hand, to gain a victory that is complete...
...What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease... He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position that makes defeat impossible and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterward looks for victory..."

Assertion #1:
blue meme armies will always defeat green meme armies,
because consensus has no place on battlefields...
that is precisely what a Chain of Command is for-
respecting pluralism hinders an army's progress in war...

Election Reflections

2004-11-03T22:46:00.000-06:00

...Shell-shocked by the sheer volume of American stupidity...
...i suspected, but still,
the spectacle of this debacle
is swiftly sickening,
until i suddenly realize where i've seen these symptoms before:
in the profile of a twisted child who keeps picking at an open sore,
preventing the cut from healing,
cause he's strangely fascinated by this sordid feeling-
the friction of hard nails digging up scarred, crusty skin -
self-sabotage is a submerged tendency all of us have within...

sometimes societies screw themselves
usually when they're susceptible to irrational fears
or on the cusp of a dangerous leap forward in understanding,
that's when the decrepit high priests of the old guard band together
to steer cultures in hard u-turns backwards,
to enforce boundaries with tried and tested themes,
by drugging obedient followers with threadbare dreams,
while claiming they're thinking of the best interests of the team...

these kinds of leaders embody the regressive principle,
in their refusal to incorporate new ideas,
their rejection of anything that threatens institutional foundations,
they preach the virtues of social structures rooted in discrimination
to preserve the privileges of those profiting
from the poverty of the congregation...

elections are not about trusting your leaders,
these days scheming strategists milk people's MIStrust of change,
which leads to retro choices,
the empowering of shrill reactionary voices,
forcing all progressive views to become alienated & estranged...

but this is me riffing,
offering no consolation
no comfort
& no solutions to the long slow haul of the next four years,
& that is not good enough for today, it won't help anyone here...

i tell you this-
George W Bush winning this election
provides us with an incredible opportunity
to demonstrate not a protest, but an ALTERNATIVE UNITY
that undermines every form of "american exceptionalism"
that this spoilt cheerleader endorses...
Dubya represents the kind of unilateral "moral values"
that have no place on a pluralistic planet,
and four more years of his policies
will force this country to understand this-
America will be bankrupt & broke-
we'll be drinking arsenic & breathing smoke,
we'll be unwelcome outside our borders,
our class system will be a rigid caste-like order,
our currency will be devalued,
our courts will be skewed,
big brother will be intruding into our private thoughts,
in a nexus of paranoia is where we'll be caught
we'll be a decaying civilization resented by a hostile world,
and our government will have set up a proxy state
in the womb of every american girl...

understand-
this is the last gasp of the Pharisees-
this is a dying breed of middlemen grasping for power,
bounded by their faith's own fallacies-
we must definitively demonstrate
that no one has a monopoly on Grace
by delivering a direct experience of divinity
by sharing the spectrum of One Taste-
the winners of this election used fear to make their case-
whereas the folks i run with are just as well armed,
because our primary weapons are Beats & BASS...
Besides, although these self-righteous evangelists claim to have found Jesus, that inherently means they were dumb enough to lose him in the first place...

the old codes are combusting
democracy is unraveling
staring at the vote margin
i get the urge to start traveling
i could get out of America & not come back,
i should move to Asia & change career tracks
i could leave these folks to suffer their self-induced fate
but that would be indulging a strange form of yankee self-hate...
besides, that's a cop out, a retreat, a surrender to rednecks-
NO - i will simply boycott all bible belt products
while hijacking the meanings from their holy texts
cause these cats might claim to by holy
but my crew is what comes next:
these are dying geriatric male power structures
that are scared of empowering the opposite sex...

spirit is evolving-
either get with the program
or get left behind
american paranoia is fast becoming a tumor
in the transcendental world mind....
consciousness expands or consciousness contracts-
our Pop-culture is regressing
and i don't think it can bounce back...

We Cannot Save Those Who Do NOT Want To Save Themselves...

this Kerry campaign was conducted by Bodhisattvas
brilliant but burdened souls
Betrayed
by the baser instincts
of the homophobes filling red-state precincts...

here's what I say-
Fuck the masses of the misled & misinformed,
my life will not be held hostage by the prejudices they've formed:
we've got a community of peers
far more powerful than we appear:
we will not buy what you sell
we will not listen to the lies you tell
we will instigate a sustainable circle
we will build a transparent transcendental Church
with sacramental agentic vibrations, a communion of beats
we will let your nation's corrupt priesthood
wallow in its own spiritual conceit
we will starve your system by withholding attention
we will use your slow decline as the stairway of our own Ascension...

Voting Impressions...

2004-11-02T19:43:00.000-06:00

Punching holes
Into the fabric of the future
amongst bitter proles
led to channel their Fury into Polls
and Booths...
Like voting ever really altered the equation
of who holds the accounts in this plantation nation...
This is just for show-
a spectacle for the parties to pimp their Hoes
On paper,
i guess i'm ungrateful
for the rights they say are written into ballot folds,
but there's no escaping the fact
that it feels like i just got gang-raped
by a series of incomprehensible correspondences....
let me get this straight...
These choices
these tiny little holes
somehow shape the course of how society's future commences?

election eve haikus

2004-11-01T19:08:00.000-06:00

forget what you think
take a look at the red ink
the debt is spreading...

Electing George Bush
will bankrupt America
for generations

voting your values
is like cheering pro-wrestling:
staged for the masses

corporate puppets
spouting crowd-pleasing stump lines
dancing harlequins

factionalism
divides and conquers this world
who makes a profit?

Regardless who wins
the empire is declining
cultural decay

Watch Jerry Springer
And then tell me we're not fucked
by rule of the mob

democracy chokes
on forms of self-sabotage:
feudal tendencies

paranoid rednecks
determining the world's fate
something is wrong here

pomp and spectacle
slick facades we buy into
self-serving markets

kerry and edwards
cannot solve all our problems
but they're a good start

kerry and edwards
have the hardest job ever
cleaning up this mess...

somewhere in a cave
'evil-doers' are laughing:
"Dumb Americans!"

trick or treat

2004-10-31T20:19:00.000-06:00

apes dress up dark urges in masks & paint,
frame youth's virility in the shades of the fall season
embodying the truths of heroes, villains, & saints
costuming characters as angels and demons...
all of us actors
playing out foretold roles
those who hold power
are those souls on parole
they say secret societies
control who holds the keys
behind masks of false piety
ancestors forge conspiracies
we do not determine
we do what we're meant
we do not plot the future
we go where we're sent

this is the last shift before the winter sets in
this is the last stretch before the cold comes calling
the dead are weighing their options, all bets are in
the veils have been lifted & the scales are falling

the convulsions have begun
the siezures & runs
democracy is leaking
towards a messy outcome
regardless of the count
regardless of the courts
our system has been shook down
& Truth has been sold short
2 days till the next chapter
not an end but a beginning
this is where the story starts
regardless of who ends up winning
i will not stand aside again
if they say my side loses
i will not surrender to sleep quietly
i'll make sure to leave deep bruises
the boycotts begin
next week and beyond
voting is just the beginning
we have been submissive for too long...

www.beyondvoting.org

The Devil's Advocate part II.

2004-10-30T19:49:00.000-05:00

From the LA Times, October 30th
...In the tape, bin Laden's first videotaped comments in three years, he lacks any of his usual trappings of warfare, including camouflage clothing, a dagger or a rifle, according to a U.S. officials familiar with the entire tape. In fact, what has caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community is the strangely conciliatory nature of bin Laden's new message, according to some government officials and outside experts. These experts say bin Laden appears to be intensifying his campaign to "re-brand" himself in the minds of Muslims worldwide, and become known more as a political voice than a global terrorist.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-binladen31oct31,0,3539236.story?coll=la-home-headlines

how sad is it
that the elder statesmen of civilizations
have innocent blood all over their hands...
how sad is it
that we surrender the spiritual leadership of nations
to the posterboys of familiar brands
kitchen table names
business family claims
old fortunes frame our discourse
their interests shape the public's course
of action
or neglect
wealth & government intersect
it's the fine print of policy
that profit motives infect
in this fractured world
the muslim in me
finds myself trusting the fugitive hiding in a cave
as opposed to the black-suited rich men
seeking the endorsement of corporate slaves
we will not be safe
if we empower our crimson shadow royalty
the hour is too late
for us to not question our loyalties...
hear what the pundits are saying
see the spectacle of talking heads
there's a million motherfuckers praying
but where is it we're being led?

the sole quality i need from leadership is accountability.
the willingness to take responsibility.
everything else is a personal projection,
an attempt to insert my own perspective into a communal election...

The Devil's Advocate...

2004-10-29T20:46:00.000-05:00

(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden delivered a new videotaped message in which he told Americans their security does not depend on the president they elect, but on U.S. policy. In the video, bin Laden said he decided to attack the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1982 after the invasion of Lebanon by Israel. "In those dark moments, my soul was thinking about lots of things that are hard to describe but they brought a feeling to do something about the aggressors and punish them," he said. "When I looked at the towers that were destroyed in Lebanon, it occurred to me that we should do the same to them. And the towers in America should have fallen down in order for Americans to feel what we have felt." He underscored it was U.S. foreign policy that led to the attacks, saying, "Bush has told you that we do not like freedom. Then, why didn't we hit Sweden?"

For the full transcript of the video, which sounds distressingly like a reasonable man:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=210148
For an article about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/sab-f22_prn.shtml

All lunatics use logic
a skewed leverage
used to justify their actions-
i tell you this:
the only thing that makes us better than terrorists
is the nature of our subsequent reaction...

MONTOURSVILLE, Pa. - Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday the invasion of Iraq will go down in history, along with the war in Afghanistan, for its "brilliance." At an airport rally in Pennsylvania, Cheney said the U.S. invasions of "Afghanistan and Iraq will be studied for years for their brilliance."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041029/ap_on_el_pr/cheney

WE MUST RECOGNIZE
the same pathology at work here:
the megalomaniacal attempt to motivate people through fear-
when the spiritual figureheads of nations choose VIOLENCE as a means
there are natural negative consequences,
the cultures in question become unclean-
STAINED
by the course of instigating pain-
whoever resorts to force must share the blame
by that logic
we must atone for our nation's sins-
for the hypocrisy our foreign policy has historically been-
we can trust hawks to be hawks
with their favorite methods of persuasion
but only doves with claws
can bring sustainable peace to all nations...

every leader of men is eventually presented with a choice
about where violence fits in as a device of power-
we must censure the militant wings of organized religions
so that Gandhi's eternal message can begin to flower-
Martin Luther King Jr. once voiced:
"I know that it is true that Truth forever on the scaffold,
wrong forever on the throne..."
We will NOT achieve peace through violence
and we CANNOT achieve peace alone...
the scaffold of Truth is what sways the future
cultures cannot survive on lies-
we must cash in our antiquated convictions
that fell like asbestos ash from jaded skies:
our policies have faded into fictitious roads
our maps are ripped & we've let situations implode
until we confront our double standards
not a thing will improve
& if we choose to continue down this path we're on
we'll be irrevocably screwed...

Lost Ammo...

2004-10-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

from ABC NEWS:
Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control
Evidence Indicates U.S. Military Opened Al-Qaqaa Bunkers, Left Them Unguarded. Videotape shot by ABC affiliate KSTP indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq. (KSTP)

Oct. 28, 2004 — The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq. Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell.
Video: Explosive Evidence

The Bush & Kerry campaigns spent today discussing Iraq
& the disappearance of explosives
-it's as if thousands of pounds of dynamite
slipped through a very loose sieve
into the hands of an industrious few-
a well-informed Iraqi crew of criminal elements
is it just a coincidence?
Wow, how the insurgency grew
as more Improvised Explosive Devices
day by day they Blew
and we suddely realize now
that our civilian leadership
KNEW
ahead of time
they were warned the piles were there,
even told exactly where:
the international arms inspectors had already informed them:
"Sorry, We're Sure, No WMDs there"
but instead of guarding those gates
our soldiers surrounded the Ministry of Oil
i have to question if our priorities are straight
since IED's have started blossoming from the Sunni soil...

our administration's incompetence bred the iraqi insurgency.
our unacknowledged mistakes aggravated the hostility.
our lack of an exit strategy
is in fact the grand masterplan
of the MAN:
He wants property holdings
of that profitable persian sand-
the justifications for invasion may change by the day
but the neocon investors have every intention to stay...

Our system sacrifices troops like insignificant pawns,
then management pretends to care, it's such an old Con-
Royalty rarely gets dirty,
They send poor folks in their place
to do the dirty work of war,
this way the rich save face:
because appearances
are more important than facts
and if you stonewall all questions
the edifice doesn't look cracked:
Royalty sacrifices whole Regiments
If it suits their ambitions-
MAKE NO MISTAKE-
the corporations sent our soldiers
On this merciless mission
without caring about the consequences
because forcing open markets is part of america's defences
capitalism may have defeated communism
but has begun consuming its own core-
we are experiencing the corresponding cultural convulsions
and there are going to be a lot more...

THE CURSE IS OVER

2004-10-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

"You no help me now, I say fuck you Jobu,
I'll do it myself..."
Jose Serano, from Major League, the movie...

THE RED SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES!

there is a point where we must take our fate into our own hands
when we must Seize Control & Assume Command
over the conspiracies and curses
that inertia nurses
compounded through disinterest
things slowly get worse
on our watch:
are you not seeing what i'm seeing?
our leadership's holding its crotch
taunting everyone from europeans to koreans
everywhere i look
America's giving someone the finger
we're like clumsy bumbling crooks
our bad impressions linger
its the worst of insults
to disrespect your own team:
the world is living a raw nightmare:
while we're doped on our artificial dream...

let me ask you, America-
do you want to be the most hated nation?
i want a future filled with friends
we make our own destination
my country's salvation starts
once we crucify our sins & expose our lies-
you gotta destroy the sick temples
for something better to rise...

_________________________________________________
peep some flow from Eminem's new single:

“...No more blood for oil
We got our own battles to fight
On our own soil
No more psychological warfare
To trick us to thinking that we ain’t loyal:
If we don’t serve our own country
We’re patronizing a zero:
Look in his eyes, it’s all lies-
The Stars and Stripes
have been swiped
Washed out & Wiped
& replaced with his own face-
MOSH now or Die:
if I get sniped tonight
you’ll know why:
cause I told ya to fight…”

...from Eminem's new music video MOSH,
an animated diatribe on the Bush Administration
served up by the preeminent dirty conscience of hip hop...
-you can see it here, & although it takes about 15 minutes to load fully,
it's a visual delight of black hoodies & is WELL WORTH THE WAIT...
http://www.gnn.tv/content/eminem_mosh.html
and also at
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/wearetheworld/features/04-10-eminem-vote.shtml

an unlikely love letter to Ariel Sharon...

2004-10-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

from the Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) won a historic victory Tuesday when parliament voted to approve his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and parts of the West Bank — the first time lawmakers have authorized the removal of Jewish settlements from lands the Palestinians claim for a state.

an unlikely love letter to Ariel Sharon...

...if you follow through
on what you are claiming to do
i might even forgive you
the life you've lived
the strife your actions have bred
the pathologies you've spread
but i'm not the one you need to beg-
redemption comes from the people you've bled
we won't detail what you've done,
but WE ALL KNOW
you OWE THE DEAD...

if the brutal Bulldozer
can move backwards
perhaps the land he razed
will raise life again
instead of haunted hunted angry men...
let me say it again
so my ears hear this surreal promise i pen:
i will ignore:
Qibya, Sabra, & Shatila,
& Everything you executed in Lebanon
if you actually begin instituting this withdrawal
before the end of Ramadan...

excuse my cynicism
but i have learned the hard way
to have little faith in Israel
& less faith in Palestine
denial of both nations
is how both nations have been defined
But if you betray your own hard liners
& dismantle the castles of orthodox illusion
you will begin redeeming Israel's demons
by giving the Palestinians a badly needed blood transfusion...

we must admit our mistakes
for our future to take shape
we must concede our crimes
if justice is what we intend to find;
in the end peace is really just a whispered prayer-
it only has meaning if it's a sacrifice that's shared:
if we can't compromise
future generations will not be spared
and forgiveness-
FORGIVENESS HAS TO START SOMEWHERE.

ps...
The Boston Red Sox are 3-0 In the World Series,
the Israeli Knesset Votes to Withdraw from Gaza & the West Bank
-Unilaterally Without Restrictions-
& I Just came across:
www.republicansforKerry.org
Am I Seeing things Clearly?
Are We Suddenly Fixing the Contradictions
We've Been Cursed With For So LONG?

MISAPPROPRIATIONS

2004-10-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

From Playboy Magazine November 2004:

Misappropriations:

Budget allotted to the 9/11 commission to investigate the terrorist attacks:
$15 MILLION.

Amount spent on Kenneth Starr's investigations of Bill Clinton's sexual and financial affairs:
$70 MILLION.
__________________________________
This is the Country of Hypocrites
I live With
Puritanical Fanatics
satiated on their own pseudo-morality BULLSHIT
I'm so sick of this self-righteous bit-
All these officious Pricks
With their leaking contracts & reeking secrets:
Do you realize
the dealings of the Bush Administration are CLASSIFIED?
they're stealing openly through their sponsors
& Half the Nation is ON THEIR SIDE-
See,
It's like this:
When leaders turn patriotism into a form of persecution
fear becomes the currency funding the government's institutions:
corporate bandits bankroll plans,
then their politicians beat war drums-
then orders are given to armies
& footsoldiers start to run:
Leaders confuse the public,
until it can't tell where REAL threats are coming from,
this is what our supposedly "Advanced Nation" has become...

cornel west writes:
"Every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty & paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict; the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division."

Under The Bush Administration
for some very specific reasons
there's both more poverty AND more paranoia...
they endorse an economic practice nicknamed: STARVE THE BEAST-
it starts when taxes get cut
which makes government revenues DECREASE...
then you underfund social programs
and keep labor forces underemployed:
this makes the markets into manipulate-able toys-
then prices of certain products
& certain services increase...

...if you have the right portfolio you'll make a killing...

understand, America:
public office holders are predators,
and their primary weapon is DEBT:
they are fishing for personal wealth with their policy nets
they have leashes of red ink
wrapped around our unborn seeds
the titles & deeds of our children
are clutched in their grubby white fists:
they are mortgaging the public's future
to their private interests...

linear (male) vs. circular (female) consciousness...

2004-10-24T18:56:00.000-05:00

"On the global level, line consciousness has failed us as well. We live on the edge of unprecedented ecological disaster. The imbalanced ethics of "fill the earth and conquer" in Genesis, chapter one, is not innocent in this. The ecological disaster is driven by corporations who take advantage of the core emptiness in the heart of the West, by feeding it with an obscene overabundance of goods and foods. Corporations driven by line consciousness form the crux of our world's economy. Sadly, these corporations are driven by basically only one desire: accumulating maximal power through maximal profit. Unhappily, the natural result of this posture is a virtual rape of the environment for the sake of climbing higher on the line's ladder. It is the line consciousness of probably not more than ten thousand people that is having this devastating impact on the world's environment.
The driving force behind the corporate ethos is fear of emptiness. When we lose the sense of the world being divine and full of meaning, we risk falling into the void in which we "lose touch" with our own essential self-worth and value. In order to stifle those voices we work hard at producing and climbing in the line world. Somehow the eros of productivity and competition gives our lives a veneer of meaning, at least until a crisis when our vulnerabilty is exposed and we plummet into the void.
Only by raising a new generation on the eros of the circle can we hope to truly effect a transformation in the world. Only by internalizing the erotic experiences of interconnectivity, interiority, and the fullness of being can we move toward healing and change. This is the call of circle consciousness. This is the ethos of redeemed paganism. This is Temple consciousness."
Marc Gafni - from the Mystery of Love

Line Consciousness versus circle thinking:
feminine awareness is curved
whereas masculine linear consciousness is sinking
slowly-
into the desert of what it's jaded churches call Holy-
this theme colors recent chapters of the human story:
we are trapped by the tragic phallic trajectory
of failed lines:
our civilizations have been tapped dry by the greed of male iniquity-
these limits we encounter
when God gives Man dominion
over captive Woman
& over a ransacked Earth:
the inherent imbalances of this perspective warp us at birth-
the spectacle of chemical sterility & the biblical End Times
represent the core value of what this consciousness is worth:
-unsustainable-
it is a man driving without directions,
getting more lost with each moment
refusing to ask for help
because he thinks this wasteland tour is what his map meant...
but the path to the divine
is not straight-
'tis a spiral staircase,
a serpentine journey-
it is not just blindly following where a geriatric man points:
it is also winding down skeletal patterns that the Goddess anoints-
-it is not a dry disjointed journey, it's an oiled circuit-
a collective kundalini uncoiling the way blended genders work it-
consciousness curves
like space & time-
truth is not one-dimensional,
it is a spinning ladder we climb:
through evolution dreams merge
separate codes & genes converge
ascension begins when we choose to leave behind
corrupted conceptions & incomplete versions of the divine...

can i back that ass up?

2004-10-23T17:29:00.000-05:00

yesterday's post on Abortion generated some personal e-mails & comments...
in response:
sometimes i'm not fully invested in the raw words i spout
sometimes i just open the floodgates & let mixed emotions out
there's a distinction between the artist and the work he creates:
there's a fine line between factions i am seeking to skate
my logic may be skewed
-you should see my life-
but i'm always grateful for opposite views
because clarity is born in the crucible of intellectual strife-
Dialogue,
not the ranting of inflexible demagogues
is what forges the conversations that actually matter-
perhaps i'm inconsistent, perhaps my thoughts are scattered-
but it helps when folks help me sort out my own mental chatter...
cheers
to those who strongly disagree
i will try to steer my way clear
of contradictions and assymmetries-
but this is the place where i let all those fierce ideas bounce-
isn't that a core purpose of keeping a blog?
like you I am seeking out jaded illuminated voices
who pierce through the media's polluted gray fog...

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice on Public TV...

2004-10-22T17:47:00.000-05:00

"The battle to reclaim democracy is going to be a difficult one. Our freedoms were not granted to us by any governments - they were wrested FROM them, BY us, and once we surrender them, the battle to retrieve them is called a revolution."
Arundhati Roy

just watched republican Alan Keyes debate democrat Barack Obama
for the vacant US Senate seat from Illinois...
what a fucking TOOL Alan Keyes is-
he's a despicable sell-out, the posterboy of a republican racial ploy...
The man believes every evil in our society stems from:
the breakdown of the family, abortion, and individual moral lapses:
he thinks poverty is caused solely
because society doesn't follow biblical practices:
he drinks of the same cup as the pharisees & philistines
& then tells everyone suffering in babylon's sewers:
'you're just not trying hard enough to be clean...'

How is it this message finds fertile ears?
How is it the masses revere those who play on our fears?
Do we really consider the loudest preacher
the one who is the most devout?
Or are flocks simply so willing to be led
they listen to any tricky shepherd who stands up & shouts?

Alan Keyes claims a moral distinction
between enforcing the death penalty
and permitting abortion-
because its easier to electrocute criminal aberrations
than confront life's extortion
by mothers unwilling to let the unborn blackmail them
out of their lives:
to Alan Keyes life is sacred the moment it arrives...
(the moment he comes)
regardless of the circumstances...
regardless if it even has a chance...
regardless of how it will affect the lives of those who will raise it-
he simply throws down a moral absolute and claims:
God has already appraised it...
he believes children have rights at conception-
that creation warrants existence
that any interference with that is murder
and that roe vs. wade is "sanctioning genocide"
-the brazen blindness of this argument
almost leaves me tongue-tied...
...almost...
yo-
if the ghosts of those unborn babies could speak
i believe they would testify
it is better to reside in death's mystique
than to live out the excruciating lie
that they were welcome in the first place-
it is better to pass on a painful incarnation
than to spend a lifetime glaring into a hostile parent's face
it is always better to have an invitation
than to crash a party by mistake...

mothers will determine the fate of their eggs
with or without laws written by self-righteous men pounding holy books
it is a deeper crime to insist on bringing babies into the world
fathered by absent strangers and passing booty crooks -
Men would have women's futures mortgaged to the whims of dicks
to uphold an impossible ideal that's essentially a patriarchal trick
to trap partners into the contract of a cruel biological imperative
by insisting all the bastard children men father actually get to live
thus sowing the fields thick with your seed
and forcing motherhood upon unwilling women
solely because of your own evolutionary greed...

death is the flipside of life
and she who bestows it
deserves to taketh it away
and anyone who says otherwise
is part of a genetic gender power play...

these are observations and assertions
from what i've seen unfold
i don't claim to be righteous
but i recognize the bullshit i'm being sold-
men would keep the power of choice from women
to appease Abraham's severe God
so they can father yet another nation out of wedlock
born in bastardized fraud...

but no more...
or not for much longer...
the Goddesses are rising,
reconfigured & stronger,
steel-toed & armed
instead of submissive & soft,
and BOY OH BOY, ARE THESE BITCHES PISSED OFF...

Elegy for Brother Wayne

2004-10-21T20:42:00.000-05:00

nevermettheman
nevershookhishand
but the words i heard resonate
and from emptiness his echoes emanate,
even solely through screens
through synchronicity it seems
though ages apart we share similar dreams-
-sanyassi-
drawn from the pages
through many stages of One
staring at shades of the spirit spectrum
whose infinite colors run
into a river of illumination-
a sanctifying stream of primordial vibrations
we swim
we sink
-death-
-and then we surface again
the breath comes in waves
we perpetually ascend...
i met a priest on the currents
who knew my path so well
through rapids & rocks
and the eddies and swells
he patched up my leaky boat & blessed my flow
pointed out the pitfalls of where i wanted to go
by the time i figured out how he was telling me to row
the currents had carried me away, and he had sunk below...
i do not mourn for my teachers that the river has claimed
for we all eventually arrive where the whirlpools drain:
we waste so much energy trying to struggle upstream
when all we really need to do is let the waters wash us clean...

sometimes it takes a mystic to re-Mind the machine
what the circuits imply and what the programming means
sometimes it takes the absence of light to see
dying to the cycles is what sets the dervish free
there is so much beyond the curtains that we cannot perceive
all we can be certain of are the gifts we've received...

some souls leave holes in the seams of hate
they school us on the confluences of our fate
with each passing comes the challenge to manifest their wake
in the promise:
i will strive to BE the legacy this sage sought to create...

mystics & miracles...

2004-10-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

Brother Wayne Teasdale passed away this morning...

i never had the privilege of meeting the man,
but his writings, recordings, and his reputation still managed to inform my own journey, initially via the incredible portal of www.IntegralNaked.org... i honor the life Brother Wayne led, the truths he taught, and the communities he fostered... he remains an inspiration and his memory will continue to mentor those of us seeking higher knowledge and a better world...
...every now and then a priest comes along who seems to singlehandedly redeem the entire questionable history of the Catholic church by the way he embodies spiritual knowledge, and Brother Wayne was cut from that cloth... the world is less bright without him, but i don't mourn the death of a mystic, i celebrate the passage of his life force into the greater mystery from which he and all of us came. rest in peace and god bless...

"...everything started to dissolve, and i was no longer in the world, i found myself in this infinite expanse of light, with no structure, no form, no colors, no shapes... just this kind of active identity that i was united with, i was not aware of myself at all, just with what i call an active identity - the primordial active identity of the Godhead, seeing how God is God through the simplicity of an active self-relation, and what i saw was that the divine is a community of consciousness..."
Brother Wayne Teasdale, from a conversation with ken Wilbur

check some of his writings out if you feel inclined:
The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions
Toward a Christian Vedanta: The encounter of Hinduism and Christianity according to Bede Griffiths
The Community of Religions: Voices and Images of the Parliament of the World's Religions
etc...
_____________________________________________

on a separate tip, the RED SOX just WON THE PENNANT. a day of wonders, to be sure. now maybe that'll shame the Cubs into getting their shit together... a man can dream, right?

_____________________________________________
will hold off on the political commentary for a day, although I will say this: the director of CARE International in Iraq has been kidnapped by an unknown group. In Bangladesh I went to high school with kids whose parents worked for CARE, I played basketball & softball with CARE workers, and there is no way to convey how tragic it is that insurgents have begun targeting these folks. CARE is a respected and integral part of the expatriate community in developing nations, and has a long history of doing work that no one else wants to deal with. It's an organization of deeply committed people who are primarily working to end global poverty & hunger, and unlike the Peace Corps or various UN agencies, there's a very homegrown feeling to their organization - they're not imported technocrats, they have no ulterior motives, and they go out of their way to develop sustainable ties to the communities they operate in. The woman who was kidnapped, the director of their national office, has been in the country for 30 years, has an Iraqi husband and children, and is a fixture amongst the Iraqi NGO community. When forces in a warring nation begin to commit such blatant acts of self-sabotage, that's when you stop calling their actions an "insurgency" and start calling it a CIVIL WAR. Blowing up oil pipelines is one thing - infrastructure can and will be replaced. Killing off your own intelligentsia is a whole other category of degeneracy...

rehashing Vietnam in prime time

2004-10-19T23:15:00.000-05:00

Richard M. Nixon, 1969
Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Michael Herr, 1989
All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.

Today I want to talk about Sinclair Broadcasting, which issued an imperative to all its stations to forgo regular programming in order to air in prime time a film called "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal", a documentary on John Kerry's post-combat anti-war protests in the early 70's. It's hard to think of a sleazier move by a media outlet, but given the way things are going, i'm sure they'll find something worse in the years to come...

There is still no way to honestly discuss the ordeal that was Vietnam:
Almost 40 years later america is still being strung along
by elaborate misinformation campaigns,
which steal into the reservoirs
of raw unresolved emotions that remain
with the intention of triggering old traumas
slumbering in the collective brain:
the treasonous demons who ruled that age have never been slain
& everyone involved in the Vietnam War
is still a walking human stain...

in this climate
a network chooses to fund and then forcibly air
dusty footage of a controversial soldier
complete with his bad 70's hair
who took the only stand his conscience could dictate:
declare the whole national escapade a tragic mistake...
which it was,
but which no one was ready to hear
then or now
and regurgitating this footage plays on people's fears
How
this same man might somehow betray today's forces
by telling us painful truths which real experience enforces...

partisan hacks will rewrite the past in any crass exploitative way
if it will suit their sick agenda for tomorrow and today...

Vietnam is getting dredged up because we are reliving it:
the names have changed
the spotlights rearranged
but the nature of the exchange is essentially the same...
our leadership drugged on its own filtered press,
our armed forces mis-engaged in an ever-expanding mess:
i thought domino theory was discounted,
but the american public is still impressed
with deluded plans to reshape entire regions...
my my how we've regressed...

GWBush spent that entire era
As a spoilt playboy on a perpetual drunk
while John Kerry was forced to sacrifice & confront
Exactly how low his own country had sunk:
We give the chicken-hawks of this administration
a veritable license, a free pass-
cause they were too busy nurturing ideology
to participate in our own painful shared past...

i leave you with a quote from Henry Kissinger, from 1979-
i can't stand the man or his ideas but i respect his mind-
guilty as he is of unconscionable crimes
at least he's not parrotting around
Sinclair Broadcasting's BULLSHIT party line...

"Pyschologists or sociologists may explain some day what it is about that distant monochromatic land, of green mountains and fields merging with an azure sea, that for millennia has acted as a magnet for foreigners who sought glory there and found frustration, who believed that in its rice fields and jungles some principle was to be established and entered them only to recede in disillusion..."

american colonialism...

2004-10-18T11:49:00.000-05:00

relevant to the USA in Iraq-
a snippet of Jawarhalal Nehru's thoughts on the British Occupation of India, written from prison, circa 1942 after a lifetime dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience...
"Alien rule is inevitably cut off from the creative energy of the people it dominates. When this alien rule has its own economic and cultural centre far from the subject country and is further backed by racialism, this divorce is complete, and leads to spiritual and cultural starvation of the subject peoples. The only real scope that the nation's creative energy finds is in some kind of opposition to that rule, and yet that scope itself is limited and the outlook becomes narrow and one-sided. That opposition represents the conscious or unconscious effort of the living and growing forces to break through the shell that confines them and is thus a progressive and inevitable tendency. But it is too single-track and negative to have full touch with many aspects of reality in our lives. Complexes and prejudices and phobias grow and darken the mind, mental idols of the group and the community take shape, and slogans and set phrases take the place of inquiry into real problems. Within the framework of a sterile alien rule no effective solutions are possible, and the national problems, unable to find a solution, become even more acute. We have arrived in India at a stage when no half measures can solve our problems, no advance on one sector is enough. There has to be a big jump and advance all along the line, or the alternative may be overwhelming catastrophe."

over a half century later and the same equations are in play...

historically
colonialism begins with private corporations
canvassing foreign turf to make fresh investment inroads:
they stake out a lucrative penetration into virgin markets
where the local leadership has eroded,
and then claim natural resources, traditionally the first targets,
and siphon off a country's natural wealth,
they wear away its fiscal health
through blatant practices of capitalist appropriation...
...then currency begins to leave the country in question...

the colonial experience is essentially an ECONOMIC relation,
regardless of the political theater played out
regardless of who casts votes
regardless of what well-intentioned declarations
emerge from deceptive machiavellian throats...

..follow the money and you discover power's motivations...
It's an old formula:
Eventually the initial investment corporation,
after an agressive diversification of its stock portfolio over time,
after conducting a virtual liquidation of local competition
through corruption, coercion, & crime,
this foreign company
Is then bought out by the nation whose interests it serves-
and then a curious transformation occurs:
The corporation crystallizes into a government
Imposing an order & a hierarchy it seeks to preserve...

But GDubya,
with his infinite gift for expressing ideas ass-backward,
has turned the process of colonization on its head:
instead of the colonial process commencing with a private company,
it was initiated by a nation state that was meticulously misled:
first-
the military drops a vast array of bombs
for reasons any reliable source knows are phony,
then the chamber of commerce gets together
To deliver a fistful of no-bid contracts to big business cronies;
then you declare the victory of your supposedly superior principles
because "freedom is invincible," even in the midst of a bloody mess:
then just let the vicious hands of the free market sort out the rest...

until we confront the nature of our Iraqi misadventure
until we identify ALL OUR FOREIGN POLICY as primarily market capitalist ventures
we will continue to suffer from our collective american delusion
and the higher ground we sought out will dissolve into a distant illusion...

there are no moral justifications for what we've done,
there are no legitimate reasons:
there is no sustainable doctrine born from this that can outlast this sickly season -
there are only markets
the people who manipulate them,
and the people eliminated by them...

---------------
check out John Stewart's hilarious 12 minute appearance on CNN Crossfire at the link below. He RIPS on the hosts, the media, the pundits, the "partisan hacks," dude's tie, etc etc... :-)
http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/jonstewartcrossfire.html
or http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2652831

contemplating the candidates...

2004-10-17T20:42:00.000-05:00

Politicians:
Some of these cats are smooth
but most are just well-crafted puppets:
they dance on a flimsy platform
and make a badly choreographed ruckus-
rocking back and forth
between
evasions & smokescreens,
using powers of persuasion
to appease the mobs of the mainstream:
never saying anything that could be perceived as extreme
while pandering to their public with tried and true themes:
their cast & crew is comprised of campaign contributors,
conspirators behind curtains hatching the sketchiest of schemes:
the candidates are merely the bogus moral figureheads
of an increasingly rogue regime...

see
this is a war between
MEMES
-shadow pathologies manifesting out of the spiral's bad dreams-
Fundamentalist Blues
versus Progressive Orange/Greens:
the spectacle of america convulsing makes quite a colorful scene...
we grow and transcend
only by the fences we mend,
the alternative is regressing to fear
and permitting our higher selves to descend
into dark age superstitions
where we wage holy wars based on deluded visions
where we endorse leaders who claim to be sent
on heavenly-sanctioned missions
who choose to use force and violence
to consolidate spiritual positions...

across the board
faiths have been hijacked
and the fundamentalists are on an unrelenting attack-
the only way is forward,
because the old foundations have cracked:
The orthodox institutions are crumbling
and there's no going back...

____________
for a concise definition of memes & Spiral Dynamics, check out
http://www.spiraldynamics.org/learning/Intro_to_SD.htm
and also
http://www.integralnaked.org/faq-pdf.aspx?id=6

catch ya on the flip side

purge the minorities...

2004-10-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

5 church bombings in iraq today...

on the first day of fasting,
a terror group called Tawhid
targets the most besieged of Baghdad congregations-
most iraqi christians have already fled the nation:
after centuries of putting up with tyrants like Saddam
two short years of american rule later
-and suddenly most of them are gone...

yo america-
are you motherfuckers really stupid enough to believe
that a dyslexic pseudo-Texan surrounded by corporate yes-men
is the best choice to lead you in a war of civilizations?

this nation is regressing to some pseudo-religious subliminal belief
that we need a devout high priest as our commander-in-chief...
we can't seem to elect catholics yet we want our own pope-
an infallible folksy snake-oil salesman smoking creationist dope...

jesus h christ.

so this iraqi group Tawhid
is some new posse of jihadi freedom fighters
drunk on the spit of their own crimson propaganda...

the word Tawhid is Arabic,
a multi-layered Islamic concept defining the ultimate freedom of man
because of his incomparably intimate unity with a singular God...
in other words, Tawhid is a truth of a personal link to divinity
- a relationship that makes all human relationships you have seem flawed,
which frees a follower up for all kinds of questionable fraud...

that's a horribly skewed definition but i can't make it rhyme otherwise...
:-( there are degrees to Tawhid, each meaning something a little different, and interpreted by different people in different ways...

anyhow, I know the word cause i came across this amazing poem a long time ago-
entitled Tauhid,
by Askia Toure (1936 - ), an amazing African-American Muslim poet/scholar...
peep his poem:

Tauhid

For Pharoah Sanders and the youth of the Black Nation

Reach like you never reached before past Night's somber robes
into the star-crossed plains of Destiny.
Reach with hungry Black minds towards that bright Crescent
Moon
glowing in the depths of Malcolm's eyes.
Stranded within the coils of this most Evil of centuries,
holy with Change bursting from your spirit's loins,
reach the Sun of Nature's prophets: Ancient Magic
singing us to Love. Eternal Beauty Cosmic Rhythms flowing
in the sound of Pharoah's horn.
Reach past the death in your mama's religion-centuries lost
in the veil of jewish eyes-into the throbbing heart of
Africa flowing into Mecca, warm undulating blood vibrating
Truth
implanting JuJu in your mind above the plaster-death of zombies
rotting in the madhouse of the West.

Reach into the Womb of Time, past aeons of chains,
to find your Afro-Soul, that holy part of you connecting Harlem
to the roots of Timbuktu.
In this last great Voyage, walk togetha children, take my hand
Sister-Brother, take my heart my wisdom take, turn this Wheel
to Cosmic Order: Allah's Love vibrating in the Sunrise burning-
ghetto-winds-of-Freedom blowing, Angels calling Sunrise!
Lovers
Warriors Daybreak! Dreamers, reach the mountain of your
Rebirth
in the Whirlwind of our Rising in the West!

_______________
funny how the same word manifests different things to different people...

ramadan...counting down to the next american Don...

2004-10-15T10:45:00.000-05:00

quote of the day: "music is the weapon of the future..." fela kuti, born october 16th, 1938

the first day of a holy month and i am sickened by the spectacle i see on TV:
the corruption of the american media never fails to astound me...
the pervasive ignorance in this country discoloring our civil discourse
implies most americans are unable to ascertain that their crusade is off course...

yet there are warnings in every wisdom tradition
to be wary-
WARY
Of the vampires and the politicians:
Of the false prophets on shady money missions:
history is very clear, the books speak with precision
about the character actors who get rich while pretending to make decisions...
These are our leaders,
the ones we elect:
They are the false idols we worship on government altars we erect
Of bills our puppets pass just so their masters can collect:
this is the nature of the income for those who claim to protect...
the public chooses its politricks
to see them perform fancy tricks:
we pay for a show
and we expect a good flick...
in the flames and crucible fires
of the american empire
gods and civilizations are combusting,
our capacities rusting,
all because the masses are inclined towards trusting
tricksters
and thieves
who systematically deceive-
who are trying to control us
as they take from us with taxes:
they drug the public with lies and fear
so no one knows just what the facts is-
they talk down the speed of progress
so that their money can be worth more-
They hold ALL the accounts-
these are the puppetmasters of War...

This is the story of every nobility
of power and wealth, of strength and arms...
they steal from you in stealth by raising false alarms-
they make you think you need a security you ain't never had,
and bait you with promises that don't sound half-bad-
they warn you of a future filled with harsh circumstances
so they can turn the family of man into a fear-driven factory for their finances....

CALL THIS SYSTEM WHAT IT IS:
not democracy....but FEUDALISM.
Feudalism, where we pay princes for protection
and depend on their church connections
to secure our deluded sense of righteousness & our eventual resurrection...

Feudalism is a fact that will always exist
as long as the frightened masses of mankind feel the need to insist
on having forces in place to protect us from each other's fists:
the masses want to be ruled from above and fed with lies they can't resist...