Spectator Sports

The story about the oil tank truck crash in the Congo was on page eleven of the morning paper, sandwiched between the Wal-Mart ad and a story about American teenage girls risking eye damage as they use imported contact lenses to make their eyes look bigger.

A tank truck carrying fuel oil crashed while trying to pass a minivan in a remote village in the Congo. As the tanker started leaking oil the villagers rushed in with buckets to scoop up the precious oil. In the Congo desperately poor people often descend upon disabled oil trucks and cart the fuel away. It’s hard to find firewood for cooking and heating following years of war in which more than five million people have been killed. Fuel oil is precious.

As I am reading about the tank truck crash the CBS Sunday Morning comes on with a feature story about “new American Hero” Joey Chestnut. I’m transfixed. I’ve never heard of this guy, but it happens that this Fourth of July he is defending his world record eating 68 hot dogs in ten minutes.

There’s Joey, holed up in his Manhattan hotel room talking strategy as he prepares for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest today. He’s won the past four years in a row. Joey talks about standards for his sport. He won't eat just anything. Cow tongues are out. But he admits he might compete in a mayonnaise eating contest depending upon the prize money.

Apparently food eating has become a spectator sport. There are rules and a regular circuit of competitions throughout the year. And Joey Chestnut is the reigning champion. There’s even a sports book where you can bet on the outcome. Joey is favored.

Meanwhile, back at the village in the Congo it’s getting dark. A villager, hoping to scoop up some more fuel oil so she can cook a hot meal for her family approaches with a kerosene lantern. The spilled fuel catches fire and the tanker explodes burning at least 220 people to death.

The death toll, which includes 61 children, was particularly high because the village was unusually crowded yesterday. One of the few places in the region where there are televisions that can receive satellite signals, soccer fans had jammed into town to watch the World Cup.

Today, it's ready, set, eat for Joey Chestnut

220 die in Congo after wrecked tanker explodes

“The past didn’t go anywhere.”

Remember those FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina? You know, the ones built with cheap insulation that caused them to fill with poisonous formaldehyde gas making them dangerously toxic for use as long-term residences. I’d assumed they were all treated as hazardous waste and scrapped, but it turns out they are back and being pedaled to desperate workers forced to take jobs cleaning up the BP oil spill.

There’s a lesson in the power of the capitalism and the free markets here …

1. Over the course of a century or so we consistently select the lowest price bidder to build dykes in New Orleans that, it turns out can’t hold back the flood surge they were designed to prevent. As a consequence hundreds of thousands are left homeless, but generations of contractors profit from government contracts and politicians get re-elected based on their tight-fisted management of taxpayers’ money.

2. In order to provide shelter for those made homeless by Hurricane Katrina (A natural disaster, after all. Who could have anticipated such a thing?), we accept the lowest price bids to provide tens of thousands of trailers to house the homeless. It turns out that the trailers are designed for nothing more than a weekend camping trip and quite dangerous if you intend to stay in them for any length of time. Nevertheless, the manufacturers profit from the government's emergency contracts and politicians run on being both compassionate (providing housing) and conservative (tearing down the public housing that existed before the storm).

3. Not wanting to waste government money, the unusable trailers are not scrapped, but instead sold as government surplus with the buyers agreeing to maintain on each one a warning label saying it is one of those FEMA trailers and unfit for human habitation. Maybe you can use it for a storage shed or something, but don’t sleep, eat, or breathe while inside. Still, they’re a bargain, sold at a deep discount price since they’re not useful for much. And we can trust the purchaser to play by the rules and re-sell them only for their new purpose.

4. BP, seeking to keep cost down, accepts the lowest price bidders and cuts all manner of corners in order to save money, which leads to a runaway oil well that poisons the Gulf Coast putting tens of thousands out of work.

5. The out-of-work take jobs cleaning up the oil but need temporary housing near the spill sites. Next the new owners of the government surplus trailers step up and offer a selection of virtually unused trailers. Nice ones, if you ignore the glue smudge near the door where the FEMA safety warning was peeled off. Perfectly good trailers. “Why they’ve still got that ‘new car smell.’ ”

Utah Phillips was right when he said, “The past didn’t go anywhere.”

Will the circle be unbroken?

The British media reports that BP is preparing to suspend dividend payments to shareholders in order to placate U.S. public opinion:

BP plans to defer dividend after pressure from Obama

So let's see ...

Taking full advantage of U.S. de-regulation which began with Ronald Reagan and the Bush tradition of weak enforcement of the few rules that do exist, BP drills a high risk well without adequate safety preparation which blows up creating an extinction level ecological disaster that pisses off the normally complacent and anti-government U.S. citizenry who demand that their government do something which threatens to boil over into an international incident causing BP to eliminate its dividends so that the British pensioner whose retirement nest egg is mostly invested in blue chip BP stock winds up eating cat food three nights a week while U.S. citizens continue to drive their 6,000 pound S.U.V.s to tea party rallies where they wistfully recall the Reagan era and loudly complain that their taxes are too high and that the Obama administration is killing jobs.

Is that about right?

Is it any wonder these people hate us? Soon we're going to have to expand the Global War on Terror beyond just the little brown people in the middle east with funny names.

Hadrian's Wall

Every so often I think about getting it all together and finally making a trip to England for a couple of weeks to walk the "Hadrian’s Wall trail." But, in the end, there’s always some obstacle: job transitions, kids getting married, statin myopathy, you name it.

My fascination with this part of the world and its history goes back to high school when I first heard Roger Waters’ "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" on the Pink Floyd album Ummagumma. Who knew what a “Pict” was?

Then, just a few years ago, there was Mel Gibson playing William Wallace in Braveheart noting that it was particularly good traveling weather because “The rain is falling straight down. Well, slightly to the side like.” Of course Wallace wound up painting his face blue and meeting a violent end.

Who wouldn’t want to visit such a place? And so, once again, I sat down to peruse Web sites and dream about the trip.

But enter “Hadrian’s Wall” and what do the Internets serve up this morning? The first listing is ”Hadrian Manufacturing" the foremost supplier of toilet wall partitions and lockers. (The current highlighted feature is their new high-tech powder coating that defies graffiti.)

And then, there it is, right on their “Our Story" page, a detailed homage to Emperor Hadrian explaining his attempt to wall off the barbarians and tracing the history right down through the centuries, a direct link to today’s public toilet stall.

What a relief! I need not travel all the way to England to experience Hadrian’s Wall, the trail is as close as the nearest Target store restroom. I may be able to make this trip before I die after all.

Sleep at last

Slept really well last night. Is it possible that something like this only costs you a couple of nights sleep? Then had breakfast this morning with a former colleague. We worked together ten years ago. She's still at the old place and has done very well for herself. And she's very affirming. With my reputation and name recognition she can't imagine I'll have any difficulty. I hope she's right, and I wish I was quite so optimistic.

She's also the first one I've told outside of the organization and my immediate family. But now there's no time to waste, so I start sending e-mails and leaving voice mails for people around the country. Almost nobody is available live when you call them anymore, and it's a blessing. Those few I do manage to talk to are disbelieving and generally critical of my employer for making such a huge mistake. It feels very good.

Peering round the corner

It's odd how you react. I haven't been to Starbucks in two days. In fact, I haven't spent a penny since Monday afternoon. I'm turning the lights off because I can't be sure how long I'll be able to pay the electric bill and I'm thinking two meals a day is doable several days a week. I know, as a rational matter, that these are obsessive reactions, but I think it must be a feeling that at least I'm doing something.

The organization is pissing me off now. It's sure seems like this decision was impulsive. HR has nothing and no one can tell me anything about details like possible severance arrangements, timing of transfers, nothing. If you're going to mess with someone's life like this, you damned well ought to have the details worked out in advance.

Late yesterday I sent an e-mail to our department reiterating what I'd told them at the meeting. As in all organizations, this departmental e-mail has now been circulated far and wide. A few people are calling and e-mailing. It's very nice and affirming. What's awkward are the ones who don't know what to say when they see me. I've taken to just naming the situation and then they're okay talking to me. This must be something like what happens when you've gotten a diagnosis of cancer or something.

This afternoon I'll start calling and e-mailing people on the outside. Sometime pretty quick here I've got to start looking for a job, and there's no sense what-so-ever in keeping this thing a secret.

Done.

Well that wasn't as hard as I'd feared ... that is if you don't mind out-of-body experiences.

My managers and I met this morning and quickly concluded that there was no reason to delay the announcement. Word spreads fast in this organization and rumours would be all over the place by the afternoon. Although I think we all were hoping that if we waited there would be some better reason or explanation, it was better to go with what we know: I'm leaving in a few weeks, most of them are staying for now.

So, we convened the group, three locations, two on conference call, and I just said it: "I met with the new CEO yesterday afternoon and he informed me that my position is being eliminated. March 6th will be my last day with you. The new CEO told me that he has great confidence in the work of our department and will look forward to meeting you as a group sometime next month."

Everyone was great. Most were sad, but they all were quietly relived. I surprised myself at how unemotional I felt.

Telling them the truth

I am ... or was ... or will be for a few weeks still ... responsible for a division with about two dozen employees at our organization. As recently as last summer there were more than thirty but in two rounds of last fall and winter I had to lay-off about ten people.

As hard as that was, each time it was a struggle to keep morale and spirits up for those who were continuing in their jobs. There was no hiding the fear in their faces as they filed in for a hastily called meeting. And then the strange conflicting relief and sadness as they realized it wasn't them but it was their friend in the next cubicle.

"There's nothing to be gained by worrying about what might happen. It's beyond any of our control. The best advice I can give you is to do what I'm trying to do: spend your time doing things to make yourself more valuable to the organization," I'd tell them. "And even that might not be enough."

I didn't realize how true that last part was.

This morning I'll meet with my managers group and we'll figure out what we want to say. Then we'll convene another of those hastily called meetings. And they'll leave with conflciting feelings again.

One of 50,000 laid off this week

Today it happened. To me. I should have known something was up when the Monday afternoon executive team meeting was cancelled with no reason offfered. I only began to get mildly anxious when three of the six Senior VPs, including me, had meetings scheduled one-hour apart in the afternoon with the new CEO. But honestly, I didn't really believe it when the first SVP came into my office with the news, "He's going to sack all three of us, March 6th is my last day."

But he did. Just like that. "I've decided to go forward without you. March sixth will be your last day. Please see HR for the details and let me know when you have." He said other stuff too, but the funny thing is, just like they tell you in manager training, I didn't hear a thing after the first sentence.

So, I've got a lot to do in the next couple of days. But I think I'll try to use this space to keep some sort of running commentary as this new adventure unfolds.

First is my wife of 30+ years. "He's decided to eliminate my position." It seems so matter of fact. I'm so fortunate. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through this alone.

Next a series of phone calls to my "direct reports." They're disbelieving. We make a plan to meet first thing tomorrow morning and decide how to tell the rest of the staff.

The tease for the late news is something about the number of unemployed. Yesterday those headlines were more hypothetical.

Articles of Impeachment

Yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced a 35-count impeachment resolution against President George W. Bush. The detailed indictment outlines a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors and shows why George W. Bush deserves to be impeached and removed from office for violating his oath of office and his Constitutional duty that the laws be "faithfully executed."

Kucinich's impeachment resolution comes after revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report that confirmed, once and for all, (and with the vote of two Republican Senators), that President Bush lied the American people into war.

Big news, right?

Not according to this morning's newspaper where the front page featured: plans for a suburban minor league baseball stadium; flooding in Wisconsin; poisonous tomatoes (though no cases of illness have been reported ... yet); a continuing series on sexual offenders; and a little piece explaining that it stinks to live next to a cattle feedlot.

Nope. You had to go all the way to Russia to find coverage of the articles of impeachment against George Bush: U.S. congressman moves to impeach Bush - Novosti (Russian news Agency)

Who ya gonna trust?

The United States is holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We've refused to even consider giving them their money until they agree to three conditions:

1) more than fifty permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq;
2) allow American forces to continue to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government; and,
3) guarantee legal immunity for American soldiers and contractors.

The Federal Reserve holds Iraq’s financial reserves as result of the international sanctions against Saddam Hussein.

What is more, U.S. negotiators are threatening to permanently remove tens of billions of dollars of Iraq’s money as settlement of outstanding court judgments dating back to the 1980s unless Iraq immediately accepts the highly controversial military deal.

U.S. holding Iraqi funds for security deal - U.P.I.

100% Disabled

John McCain is 100% disabled, according to the U.S. Navy, and collected a U.S. government disability pension of $58,358 (tax free) last year. He's drawn that pension for more than 30 years even though his net worth is in excess of $150 million.

Last week the Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee voted against veterans' benefits legislation explaining that, because a college tuition benefit would be available after three years of service, the legislation would "encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment... at a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars."

Of course none of that was front page news. Instead the big news was the Obama's fist pound, headlined on Fox News as "A terrorist fist jab."

We're all 100% disabled.

I wonder

Like the unfolding of one of those spy thriller novels, I can't help wonder what form it will take.

A plane crash? Dramatic and, initially at least, no one to blame for the sad tragedy. Of course there would be an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board that could drag on for years.

An assassination? What it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up in efficiency and effectiveness. And heaven knows the American people are all too willing to accept lone gunman cover stories.

What about a suicide bomber? Now there's a nice current events twist.

A crazed Islamofascist brings down the young, attractive, and energetic best remaining hope for change in America.

Then there would be a period of unrest, rioting in the streets all across the country.

Strong leadership would be required to restore order, to protect the citizens.

Indeed, the Bush administration's maneuvering to suspend posse comitatus and allow the deployment of military forces in the streets of American cities would seem down right prescient.

And the foresight to contract Halliburton to build detention centers around the country? Sheer brilliance.

But it's only a novel. Thank goodness it can't happen here.

The Power of Ownership

The system is broken. Most Americans understand it's broken. So let's quit wasting time and energy talking about whether or not it's broken. Instead let's get on with the important work of fixing what's broken.

Ah, but can the system be fixed? Are our pleas to those in power to "fix it" going to produce results?

"Please, Senators, could you create some better policies for the poor?"

"Congress, would you please try to create a little more balance between the rich and the poor?"

"Mr. President, sir, could you please stop sending our children to die in a pointless war and instead do something to get a few of our jobs back?"

Guess what. They're not going to do it. It really doesn't matter much whether it's a simple majority of Democrats, or a super majority, or total control. They aren't going to do it because they are a part of the problem. They're all beneficiaries of the way things are. John Edwards dared speak of "two Americas." As a consequence he was ignored and eventually run out of the race.

But even more importantly, even if by some miracle our elected officials did take bold action on these issues, it would not solve the problem. As important they are, the current issues framed by even the most progressive of our public officials are just bandaids.

We need to stop asking for bandaids after the wounds are inflicted. We need to stop being victims. We need to restore power to people. In order to do that we need to take power away from the corporations. The huge inequities of today will be repaired only when human beings make the decisions instead of those seeking only profits for the companies they run.

We need to purge our so democracy of every policy or law that gives more power to one citizen (or corporation) than any other citizen. What's wrong with America comes down to one real issue: Power.

Disowned by the Ownership Society - Naomi Klein

Poppin' Fresh

I wonder what the coverage would have been if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had said something like this:

"When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper - because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm - and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room."

But instead it was Republican Presidential contender Mike Huckabee, and so there was hardly a mention.

Mike Huckabee plays up charm in S.C.

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

H.R. 1955 creates a government commission to investigate Americans who "adopt or promote an extremist belief system" for the purpose of "planning or threatening the use of force" in order to advance "political, religious or social change."

Sounds reasonable enough, huh? But wait. In other words, you don't actually have to commit a violent act or other crime. Merely thinking about committing a future crime, combined with an ideology that falls outside the mainstream, makes you a criminal under this law.

And this is scary: H.R. 1955 was introduced by California Democrat Jane Harman and promptly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 404 to 6. Now it's off to the Senate where there is little opposition.

But have you seen any media coverage of this? Not a word. Search the Internet and you'll find only a few mentions on fringe web sites about H.R. 1955. And nobody is talking about this Orwellian thought crime law. Don't kid yourself, the commission created by H.R. 1955 will inevitably be tempted to exaggerate the extent of the homegrown terrorist threat in order to ensure increased funding, and its findings will be used to justify additional laws prohibiting Americans from engaging in whatever is determined to be "extremist" political dissent.

Don't take my word for it. Read the Library of Congress summary.

"The man who murdered Osam Bin Laden"

Watch how quickly this story gets buried over the course of the next few days:

Osama Bin Laden murdered? When did that happen?

In an interview last month with David Frost for the BBC, Benazir Bhutto named "Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden" as one of those conspiring to assassinate her. The interview is available (as of now) on YouTube. The statement is at about 6:10 in the 14:38 minute piece.

Osama Bin Laden murdered? If that's true, why in the world are we still in Iraq?

And hey, murdered by Omar Sheikh?

Isn't that the same guy convicted for murdering Daniel Pearle the Wall Street Journal reporter? And wasn't Pearle said to be investigating the case of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and links between Al Qaeda, the Pakistan intelligence agency (ISI), and our very own CIA?

Seems like front page news.

But other than Mike Malloy and a few others dwellers of the lunatic fringe, nobody's talking about this.

"Murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy." That's who President Bush said did this.

No doubt, he's right.

It's absolutely huge

Representative Michele Bachmann on her recent visit to Baghdad:



"It’s absolutely huge! I turned to my colleagues and said there's a commonality with the Mall of America, in that it's on that proportion. There's marble everywhere.

The other thing I remarked about was there is water everywhere. He had man-made lakes all around ... "

Without a single shot

I remember, a couple of years ago, when I came back from dinner with an economist fired of mine who'd scared the willies out of me talking about how easy it would be for the developing nations to launch an economic war on the US and how utterly defenseless we'd be. But my economist friend was an alarmist by nature and, after a few weeks, it was easy to dismiss his ravings about international currency exchange.

But now, this story: OPEC to Consider Non-Dollar Reserves (which, by the way, received little to no coverage by the mainstream media).

What if, let's just say, a couple of nations like, maybe, Iran and Venezuela for example, were feeling threatened by George Bush and the United States? What could they do? Launch a military attack on the US? Not likely. But they might be able to convince the OPEC oil ministers that "They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," in the form of US dollars.

And what would happen then if OPEC decides that henceforth it will only accept Euros in payment for oil. Probably nothing. In fact not a problem at all. Just as long as long as my employer also agrees to pay me in Euros instead of worthless pieces of paper.

But I'd still get paid in US Dollars, of course. And the US would be brought to its knees without a single shot fired.

Oh no! Not another story on global warming!

Last Saturday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a Nobel Prize winning worldwide collaboration of the best earth scientists on the planet, released the culmination of their five-year study of causes, effects, and solutions for climate change.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of college football games on Saturday and the President had already decided to use his weekly radio address to attack various of his domestic enemies for moving too slowly to provide more funding for his war on Iraq and for having the audacity to try to restore some measure of progressivity to the U.S. tax system.

And so the IPCC report got buried on the back pages ... at least in America:

The fair and balanced folks at Fox news didn't cover the IPCC report at all, instead carrying an AP wire story letting its viewers know all they needed to know, that the liberal "
UN Panel Gives Dire Warming Forecast."

Meanwhile, here in what's left of America, that bastion of the liberal media, the New York Times, toned it down for domestic audiences, saying "U.N. Chief Seeks More Climate Change Leadership." (Curiously enough, the NY Times used the same colorful photo of the Greenland ice sheet breaking up as did the Herald Tribune.)

But this headline, "Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy many say," in the International Herald Tribune (London), was fairly typical of the way in which the rest of the world heard the story.

The report itself is as clear a warning as can be:

1) global warming and the resulting climate change is a fact
2) the primary cause is carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels
3) conditions are getting worse even faster than we imagined
4) only if we start now is there a chance to save the planet

Justice can be black ... or white

Thank heavens they finally indicted Barry Bonds <black man> for lying to Federal prosecutors and a grand jury. It's about time! And, what is more, they released Bonds' trainer <white man> who had been jailed for refusing to testify against Bonds. Barry Bonds Indicted on Perjury, Obstruction Charges (San Jose Mercury News)

Perhaps now we can finally start indicting a few members of the Bush Crime Family <white men> for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Oh, wait! We already tried that, didn't we? And what happened? Yes, that's right, after he was tried and convicted of the same crimes of which Barry Bonds is now accused, Scooter Libby <white man> was pardoned by George W. Bush <white man>.

If convicted, do you suppose George W. Bush pardon the black man? Don't bet on it. Instead there will be a speech about role models and the importance of justice.

But all of this is probably missing point. Between the Bonds story and the pending trial of O.J. Simpson <another black man> there'll be little time for the mainstream media to focus on other news like the spiraling tragedy in Iraq, the meltdown of the credit markets, or the fact that the Bush administration appointed the brother of a Blackwater officer <white men> to investigate Blackwater's fraudulent dealings.

Ignorance is Strength

And now the Bush administration wants you to believe that although "anonymity" is a quaint and old fashioned idea, you can rest assured that your privacy will still be protected because the government and corporations will carefully guard all of your information.

"Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity, but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity - or the appearance of anonymity - is quickly becoming a thing of the past," according to Donald Kerr, the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.

If anonymity is no longer an option, then what? Well, according to Mr. Kerr we've got to "take into account national security concerns" first but, after that, we can all rest assured that we'll still have our privacy protected by government and corporations' strong commitment to keep citizens' personal information secure.

Oh. Good. So, not to worry that they are gathering all this information about me, I can count on them to never ever share it with anyone.

But then, I've got to wonder: If they'll never use this information for anything, then why collect it in the first place?

Oh. That's right. We've got to "take into account national security concerns."

Which gets us back to where we started, doesn't it? Someone somewhere is watching.

And it's probably coincidence that this week or next the Democratic controlled legislature is going to pass the Bush administration's bill granting Comcast, Verizon, and all the other telecommunications corporations complete immunity from legal liability for sending customers' private information to the government, thus putting an end to an unknown number of pending lawsuits accusing the companies of doing just that.

But I've nothing to worry about, right? I just need to keep these seditious questions from invading my mind.

Just keep chanting over and over again:

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

No More Turning Away

New York Times story House Fails to Override Child Health Bill Veto:

"Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, told Republicans: 'You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.' "

White House press briefing:

"We won this round on SCHIP. ... I actually think that -- maybe I'm just -- it's like Alice that's fallen down a rabbit hole, I see the world in a different way. I think Republicans who stayed with the President are actually going to be very protected because of their strong stand about sticking to the principle of, one, poor children first and making sure that we're not raising taxes and that we're not having a program that's supposed to be for poor children be used to expand to government-run health care. I think that that bodes well for Republicans. "

Pink Floyd:

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Dont accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others suffering
Or youll find that you're joining in
The turning away

Its a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that were all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
Its not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

When the Revolution Comes

"When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV with chicken hanging from our mouths ... Some might even die before the revolution comes"
--Abiodun Oyewole, 1970*

"I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."
--George W. Bush, 2007

* When the Revolution Comes
The Last Poets

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV with
chicken hanging from our mouths
You'll know its revolution cause there won't be no commercials

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Preacher pimps are gonna split the scene with the communion wine stuck in
their back pockets
Fagots wont be so funny then and all the junkies will quit their noddin and
wake up when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
Transit cops will be crushed by the trains after losing their guns and
blood will run through the streets of Harlem drowning anything without substance
when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Our pearly white teeth froth the mouths that speak of revolution without
reverence
The cost of revolution is 360 degrees understand the cycle that never
ends
Understand the beginning to be the end and nothing is in between but space
and time that I make or you make to relate or not to relate to the world outside
my mind your mind
Speak not of revolution until you are ready to eat rats to survive

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems
and essays
Black cultural centers will forts supplying the revolutionaries
with food and arms when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes
White death will froth the walls of museums and churches breaking the lies
that enslaved our mothers when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes Jesus Christ is gonna be standing on the corner
of Lenox Ave and 125th St trying to catch the first gypsy cab out of Harlem when
the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
Jew merchants will give away matza balls and gifilta fish to anyone they
see with afros
Frank Shieffin will give away the Apollo to the first person he sees
wearing a blue dashiki when the revolution comes

When the revolution comes afros gone be trying to straightened their heads
and straighten heads gone be tryin to wear afros

When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
When the revolution comes
But until then you know and I know niggers will party and bullshit and
party and bullshit and party and bullshit and party and bullshit and
party...
Some might even die before the revolution comes

Bush Wants You -- in Jail

George W. Bush has proposed legislation that would give his administration the power to lock-up ordinary Americans in the prison at Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key. In draft legislation prepared in response to last month's Supreme Court decision against the use of military tribunals for US prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Bush proposes to extend the practice of indefinite detention and summary trial by military commissions to include ordinary American citizens.

The Washington Post reports, based on leaks from those with access to the draft, that the bill would legalize military tribunals as decreed by Bush in 2001, and, for the first time, make US citizens subject to such summary proceedings.

The tribunals, "courts" consisting of active-duty military personnel under orders of the President as Commander-in-Chief, would have the power to impose death sentences based on secret evidence and in proceedings from which the defendants could be excluded whenever military judges decided this was "necessary to protect national security."

This morning's front page of my daily news included stories on: the war on Lebanon, the continuing heat wave, a missing Alzheimer's patient, and the news that the local baseball team is switching radio stations after 40-odd years. Oddly, nowhere in the entire paper will you find the news that George Bush wants Donald Rumsfeld to be able to arrest and jail you and then convict you in secret.

White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts - Washington Post