Is it really all that surprising that our government is royally fucking up the process in providing relief to the citizens who've been affected by Hurricane Katrina? While this disaster can't be directly blamed on George Bush, the re-victimization of these people by the government is undoubtedly an enormous failure of his administration. At this point, New Orleans might fare better if it were part of a third world country. Here's one of many articles detailing the criticism that Bush is currently receiving: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/01/news/prexy.php.
Recent events beg the question--- if it happened to be mainly rich white people who were dying, might that do anything to increase the response time?
If you haven't heard Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, express his anger about the situation, you can listen to some audio clips and read a detailed article here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9172420/. Through the same link, you can also watch a video of FEMA's director, Michael Brown, where you can witness (up close and personal) how much he really doesn't give a shit about any of this...
I've heard a number of people in the last few days suggesting that other countries are not doing enough to assist us during this crisis. Too bad we've burned a bridge or two. This widespread poll (taken and published by the BBC) may be relatively indicative of the current attitudes that foreign countries have in regards to the United States: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/wtwta/poll/html/default.stm .
Call me a pessimist, but...I am certain that George Bush has no intentions of handling this catastrophe appropriately. His next power move is simply to tell more lies, and repeat more idiotic slogans that he hopes the American people will memorize (and eventually believe). By definition, a logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that leads to invalid arguments. All politicians utilize them occasionally, but the Bush administration has made the fallacious argument a core foundation of their empty rhetoric and brainless ideology. Some of their favorite fallacies include (but are not limited to): argument by gibberish, weasel wording, argument by half truth, and hypothesis contrary to fact. If you'd like to become even more adept at deconstructing political spin, here is a pretty exhaustive list of arguments that are fallacious and illogical:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html You'll be hearing more of these in the near future, so make sure you get your mind right ahead of time.
Before I leave the political arena, have you ever visited WebPetitions.com? You can sign petitions that have already been posted, and/or create your own. There have been some really weird submissions lately. One guy is trying to get people to officially add the letter "c" to the beginning of the word rap. I'm convinced that this person is a complete asshole...and so is the idiot who wants your support in getting girls to fart more. I wish that I was making this up, but I'm not. Obviously, most people are kinda dumb, and as a result, this site ends up being a sad commentary on humanity....but interesting, nonetheless: http://www.webpetitions.com/.
Okay...enough sermonizing already. I'm hitting you with some music links, and I'm gone:
More Blackalicious tracks from the upcoming LP, The Craft: Download 2 tracks from the album ("My Pen and Pad" and "Give It To You") at Freemotion. Link, as always, is to your right. Marathonpacks is hosting another one of their new songs, "World of Vibration":
http://marathonpacks.blogspot.com/.
The Broke Bboys are hosting three tracks by Swindle, who mashed up Bob Marley's music with Mobb Deep's lyrics. The resulting project was entitled Bobb Deep. I decided in advance that I would not like this, but it ended up exceeding my expectations: http://brokebboys.blogspot.com/. See what happens when Queensbridge meets Kingston...
Alot of heads I know still aren't up on ClokWorx. Some recognition is beyond overdue, because these guys are fairly intelligent lyricists, and they've teamed up with a number of talented producers from hip hop's underground. At Download.com, you can cop a free mp3 of a track called "Robots": http://music.download.com/clokworx/3600-8543_32-100782862.html?tag=listing_song_artist.
Finally, there are a couple more mp3s that you can download from the upcoming album with GZA and DJ Muggs. Checkerboard Chimes has "Advanced Pawns (Royal)", a song that sounds like something you've heard before, but the beat is still undeniably knockin'. RZA also makes a guest appearance on the track, so I can't be too mad at it: http://checkerboardchimes.blogspot.com/.
And Spine Magazine is featuring a different track by the duo, "General Principle": http://www.spinemagazine.com/index.php?task=.
Be back at ya on the day of labor, or maybe even before...peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment