rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

rootsbag1210: reaching for higher ground

SATURDAY

Stone Cold Hearts

The Bush Administration today announced a new medal to be given to US soldiers in Iraq
Based on the once again popular Purple Heart, the Stone Heart said the President will be given to soldiers who commit mercy killings in Iraq.

There have been a slew of such lately, one Staff Sargent Johnny Horne claimed one but
was sent to prison by mistake.  "His case is still pending" declared the President.

Army Captain Rogelio Maynulet was given the first one yesterday for his mercy killing
on an wounded Iraqi soldier.  The difference was that Horne shot his own first before killing
him while Maynulet killed one somebody else shot. 

"Shooting your own mercy killing didnt quite seem fair." said the President "We prefer the soldiers to mercy kill Iraqis somebody else initially wounded.  Otherwise anybody can claim one if they use more than one bullet."

These mercy killings have become quite the thing in Iraq lately.  One mercy killing of a wounded Iraqi in a mosque during the Fallujah assault was captured on tape by an embedded reporter.  Hes a sure bet" says the President, "Weve got his on tape."

The President says this proves allegations about American brutality that have surfaced in complaints about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are baseless rumors.  This new medal is given to soldiers who represent the highest principles of military ethics reflected in Bush Administration policies said the President.  "As long as we have soldiers willing to carry out our policies in Vietnam in the spirit of this Administration reflects in everything it does, the evildoers will surely be defeated."

When a reporter pointed out that he had said Vietnam instead of Iraq the President replied somewhat snappishly "Okay, so I made a mistake, I hope youre satisfied"

 

okay okay, its weak but i enjoyed it
you can tell i was nervous cause i capped it

ima try it again tomorrow with the new guy
chosen to head the civilrights commission

hes classic bush colored conservative
he says hes never experienced racism
and hates affirmative action

where do they find these people

echo of the spirit

chester higgins new book is a joyous wonder
on so many levels

it is perhaps his most personal one yet

a pictoral/textual account of his journey
as a photographer and human being

and filled with images
that mean something to him personally

family images and images that reflect his
journey as an artist and chronicler of the spirit
accompanied w/text that speaks as much from the heart

as do the images themselves

it is a beautiful work and at 19 95 very
reasonably priced at amazon

 

check it out on his site
which is, as always, an experience in itself

then run out and buy one
think kwanza

FRIDAY

hey everybody

(i think for this week im riffing to buju bantons
the story never been told)

apologies for the sporadic posts lately
im in a strange space

end of semester got me humping
trying to maintain a little novel momentum
and just not feeling rootsblog lately
all the work that it entail

things been happening, i just aint been moved to account

(i notice that the support of the global community caused
the us rightwing (incl bush admin) to back off their attack
on kofi, that was good)

o things been happening but i aint been moved
i been concerned im burning out on this weblog thing

i still got those 3 nice pieces im working on
(sporadically) and all those other labor intensive projects
my online hoodoo manual
my online holybook
updating rootwork.com (which entail learning new software (flash,etc)

but i havent been doing hardly any online work
the last couple of weeks, i boot up my homepage and
see that old rootsblog post up there and cringe
but i just keep pushing

got a little miniwoodshed coming up
dont have to be back to work until january sometime
so maybe thats why im withdrawing

i go through these cycles of engagement in the world
and withdrawal to assess and manifest (produce)

but i been able to produce and weblog too so far
what im hoping is happening is that im about to reach for a new level

thinking about that end of the year report on the
strategic black posture i want to do every newyears

rickydocs annual report on the strategic posture
of the blackworld
or something like that but more graceful, hopefully

i want to be the cybervillage griot in the townsquare
everyyear strategically assessing where we been
and where we going

then this morning
i saw this column by Andy Borowitz,
that gave me some ideas for an approach i would like to master

it said that rumsfield was refusing to go into any more hostile
troop question and answer sessions without adequate body armor

"I felt totally unprotected out there," Secretary Rumsfield said, "You cannot send a Secretary of Defense out on a mission like that without full body armor."

It kept on riffing:  The President replies  "You go to war with the Secretary of Defense you have,"

and riffing:

"Elsewhere, congressional leaders expressed hope that the just-passed intelligence reform bill would provide accurate, up-to-date intelligence reports for the president not to read."

i really like that kind of political satire new report thing
im going to try to do that in a consistent manner

dont know that i will be that flip with my end of year report
but i sure would like to run satirical reports on the news like that

those of you familiar with my style know i can probably do that
if i put my mind to it - i like being funny and sharp too

so im hoping that maybe this roughspot in my blogging is
perhaps me reaching for some new ground

whatever, gotta go

gotta meet with a student
got to get my morning 3 novelhours in
gotta this and gotta that
gotta go

arf

rootsbag1202: hanging tough at the un

SUNDAY

cost of the war in iraq

(JavaScript Error)

more here

too bad i dont have a counter for
the dead and dying

it would be moving too

this is not a just war and
god is not on our side

 

SATURDAY

hanginthere kofi

bush and the rightwing, full of confidence
have been moving true believers into
positions of power in the government
bureaucracy

what they call distributing
their dna throughout government

not satisfied with subverting the us
government to their nefarious plans
they have recently used the un oil scandal
to call for kofi annans resignation

kofi and the un have defied them too many times
we have already lost the bulwark we had in
the senate with the election of senator reid
as democratic leader

now they want to take away the un as an
independent voice, i shudder to think of who
they would put in there if they are successful
at replacing kofi

and what kind of mayhem they would be
capable of with a suppliant un

fortunately the international community
has expressed support of kofi in his hour
of need and i suspect that this little initative
will die on the vine

but even if they dont succeed in toppling him
they will cripple his effectiveness for awhile

reminds me of that country and western song
sometimes you the windshied, sometimes you the bug

hanginthere kofi man, this is bigger than you

in struggle

arf

rootsbag:nov20: vision:perspectives & priorities

TUESDAY

hello everybody
been in the woodshed
and not posting regular

didnt get anywhere near all
what i had hoped to get done
life do like to demand its pound
of flesh/time/energy, dont it

working on a couple of postings
i want to do longer more substantive postings
posting that when i reread them months later
it looks like it was worth the time invested

dont panic, ima keep them relatively tight

working on one kinda flip about the different
countries/populations of the blackworld
and the roles they play in a blackworld order

(that one is going to piss a lot of people who
wont agree with my assessment of said populations
strengths and weaknesses)

working on one about bush and the theocratic state

working on one about the bush domestic/foreign policy agendas
and the need for a progressive alternative vision

working on what will be an annual end of the year report
on the blackworld and a strategic posture for 2005

i want this to annual report be part of my afroam griotic thing
part of my prophetic aspiration, rickydoc in the village square

but they dont post right away, got to research and polish and so forth
(i wish i got paid for all the work that stuff entails, i spend as much
time on that as op ed folk do who do it for a well paid living
but no sense in me going there, ima do it no matter what looks like
cause things i think need to be said)

for instance, was reading about aids prevalance
in women growing around the world
apparently women are more susceptible
to infection and must be doubly alert
and insistent on proper precautions

blackwomen count for 72% of aids in
american women - 72%

women have traditionally been the voices
of responsibility in the black community and
once again women will have to take on
increased responsibility in combating this
affliction

gon have to insist on healthy sex practices

also saw this listing of  the 10 leading
killers of african americans

cardiovascular
cancer
stroke
injuries (the list said unintentional injuries but im assume they all are)
diabetes
homicide
hiv/aids
chronic lower respiratory disease
nephrities, nephrotic syndrome (i had to look this one up, sounded like some kind of death disease -  its a kidney thing)
septicemia (whatever that is)

looks like a long list of possibilities
to be concerned about
an overall general healthy attitude
diet, exercise, regular medical checkups
the ital lifestyle, will go a long way toward
covering all this ground

afroam men live 7.1 years less than other folk
these are some tired old statistics that
we need to redress

a little while back i made a comment
about noting what has killed off your
ancestors and addressing that in your
lifestyle because it will probably come
looking for you

and on that note, let me get myself
over to the gym and make that a habit

all my love
arf

THURSDAY

israelistine

i was reading an article about a one state
solution in israel and responses from israelis
appalled at the idea because its
demographics would eventually overwhelm
israels identity as a jewish state

and i was thinking that what the palestinians
need to do is push the one state solution

then the israelis would be eager to give the
palestinians a decent two state deal

rather than the joke being imposed upon
them now

WEDNESDAY

back in the house

obama got a lot of press last nov 2nd
but an equally important victory was
the re election of cynthia mckinney
down in georgia

an example to wavering democrats
of somebody who didnt compromise her principles
to win her seat back

no more free rides for maddog republicans
in the house of representatives

cynthias back

 

oldschool

this photo accompanied an latimes
article about closing the trauma ward
of king drew hospital

took me back to the good old days
and gave me goosebumps
to see that old grayhaired fist of power

folk want to claim we in a post soul period
but trust me friend, i feel struggle in the air

TUESDAY

big brother is inspecting your tax return:

well, this one jumped in my face
apparently repub representative istook of oklahoma
slipped a provision into an emergency funding bill
that allowed republican congressional leaders
and their delegated agents to inspect american
taxpayers returns

they tried to slip in into a big end of year bill
that generally goes unread before pasage
which it did

senator conrad of north dakota
caught it when it was sent to the senate
and publicized it

republican attackdogs said they are shocked i say, shocked
they would never inspect anybodys tax returns
in spite of pretty cut and dry language allowing it
they just wanted a vehicle for oversiting irs spending

but apparently this is part of the new republican drive to
discipline anybody who impedes their program

now they say they are shocked i say, shocked
and that they will remove it in conference

politically the goal for progressives these days is to
take back congress in the offyear 2006 elections

one thing progressive voices have to do
in our efforts to paint over the red states
is continue to point out republican tendencies
toward theocratic, police state governing policies

we have to keep pointing out the hypocrisy between
their populist rhetoric and their elitist/antidemocratic actions

we have to keep pointing out what a mortal crime iraq is

this puts me in mind of a conversation me and adam banks had
adam is a young rhetoretician here in the syracuse writing program
a mighty mackmaster trained by my boy keith gilyard over at penn

adams field is black spaces on the internet and we had an
enlightening conversation recently about 21st century
empowerment strategies and using the internet as an organizing tool

sometimes i be crying the blues about how much time
my webwork takes away from my novelwork
but in truth if i didnt think it was worth it, i wouldnt invest in it

its amazing to me sometime how it allows me to organize
under the radar and to promote my hoodoo based worldview

something i would not otherwise have a forum for promoting
and i know im still out of the loop as far as most folk are concerned

but if i can do this for about another 10 viable years or so my
strategic and spiritual vision will be an integral
part of the afroam discourse

i am impatient with most of the african american political strategies
of my day, in particular reparations (see reparations post)
and otherwise i dont see where blackfolks seriously organizing for
struggle in the 21st century

look to me sometime like im the only one wants to really play
some serious longgame up in here
ive tried to promote my theories of struggle before and am pretty
much ignored by the black powers that be (and my beloved people)
but with the internet and my little weblog/newletter/etc vehicles i am making a
bid to be the cultural hero ive always wanted to be

ima lead my people to the promised land

i know that sound like a joke to you but i swear fore god
and all thats holy i am
you have no idea how serious i am about this

i put up with a lot of embarrassment to do this
and there are times when i am uncomfortable with my very
personal approach to political commentary
my this is what im doing and this is how im doing it stuff

but basically what im doing is offering myself as a model
to both my and future geneations, of just how good longgame is played

a model of just what it is a wouldbe hoodoo prophet do
cause nobody knows but me, and im kinda figuring it out
as i stumble along

basically i am a sacrifice, perhaps a failure in my own time
but a model for what is to come, a model of future players to be

engaged in an ongoing dialogue w/afroam culture and destiny

with this internet i am able to
show the value of my strategic approach to our condition
allay the concerns of those uncomfortable with
my egocentric hoodoo based vision

and provide a vehicle for folk who agree with me to contact me
see if we can run a little longgame together
i dont have but about maybe 50 regular readers of my weblog
(by definition some of the most wondrous and significant forces on this planet
ie, folk who agree with me - folk who ready to play some 21st century game)
me and those 50 regular readers we gon change the world

my newsletter goes out to 1000s of influential blacks
all of whom dont agree w/everything i have to say but at least
im getting my vision into the cultural dialogue

trying to shape the struggle for black empowerment in the 2st century
or at least influence it

and trying to change the perception of hoodoo in the eyes
of african american culture

that oldtimey folk hoodoo was good enuf for when we were a folk culture
but we are a sophisticated urban people now and we need
a sophisticated indigenous spiritual/magical system

i want folk to trust the hoodoo way as a font of spiritual and strategic advice
i want the hoodoo way to be an instrument of spiritual and political redemption
guide and guardian of human destiny

im working on a piece now that william cobb jelani solicitied for an anthology
hes putting together called future blacks: blacks in the year 2032
or something like that

im calling my piece the longgame: organizing for struggle in the 21st century
im enjoying putting this piece together
another chance to promote my strategic vision

for i would you my people be masters of strategy:
the key that opens all locks

i call myself a visionary and an ideological orchestrator
as i was taught by the great visionary john o killens

and just as most folk dont know who john o killens is
being a visionary can be a lonely and unsung task

but it comes with the territory so to speak
if everybody could see it, it wouldnt be a vision would it
so i aint crying no blues about it

my truevision will be laid out in my novel more
than any other instrument
even the hoodoo book of flowers wont lay it out
like rest for the weary gon lay it out

but art is such a longgame instrument
and likely not to give me much play
in my lifetime

but  this internet is real here and now
and it makes being a visionary
a lot less lonely

hangingtough

rickydoc

MONDAY

hello world

ima be skating this week
got a week off school basically
i let my students 'convince me' to cancel
my tuesday class (i made them beg)
no class thanksgiving so i have
a whole week off

its woodshed time

what generally happens is school takes the week
and it takes me most of the weekend to get my groove on,
i fumble around but a real groove dont come down on me
till about sunday evening - but i got class tuesday
which means monday sometime i got to start prepping
(aint nothing worse than standing up in front of a class
and you dont know whats going on)

which means i get about a good days work in before
i have to lay it down - pissed - start cold again on friday

you get an hour or two here and there during the week
but that dont win no prizes, that just keep you in the game
barely

but this week ima be able to stay in a woodshed mode
the entire week
a whole week of full court press woodshed
god is good
ima try to finish my slavery section this week
god that would be such a blessing
walk with me babajohn

of course the woodshed gon cost me (always does)
mean i got to hump schoolhouse double next week
yall know what im talking about, got to pay for what you
want in this life

so this means i wont be doing much trolling of the internet
looking for interesting observations to make in rootsblog posts

except for something just jump in my face
any posts this week gon be personal and off the cuff

like this one

hangingtough

rickydoc

 

my boy got the eye

a buddy of mine, bob gates, is a photographer
i got this one hanging on my wall

check out his site when you get a chance
its unbelievable the way he see

as a conjureman, a seer of various sorts
my vision as instrument is
one of my most treasured skills

so its real interesting experiencing an entirely
different kind of vision that sees art in
the most commonplace reality

some of his pics tell stories
and some are little zen statements

check out sticks and stones

the boy in his very own space
im proud to call trebor setag
my friend

one visionary to the other

rootsbag:nov17:my god and big brother bush

maybe this time

peace treaty (the last of many) finally signed
(well actually its an agreement to sign a peacetreaty by late dec)
between the sudan and the southern rebels

six preliminary treaties signed, integrating military
dividing oil revenues, etc

i read that john garang, leader of the south,
is to be a vice president in khartoum

this i assume is a good thing, power sharing
and all that, hopefully it will make a difference
not only in how sudan conducts itself w/the south
but w/darfur too

i guess im just a cynic cause i dont really expect it to
and not at all  comfortable with garang being under the thumb of the
killers like that but i assume he knows what hes doing

i will keep an eye out for him

god and big brother bush

am i the only one nervous about
bushs moves over at the cia

his boy goss has gone in there and
begun cleaning house, getting rid
of the operatives they judge not to be
'loyal'

this at the sametime that he put his
girl condi in charge of state

another branch of government that
he felt impeded his iraqi adventure

this is problematic on a lot of levels
one taking control of the intelligence agencies,

they already have the executive branch,
congress and the judicial branch -
for all practical purposes they got media too -
they want it all

why - whats on their little evil minds

and two, the reason they are upset w/the cia
in the firstplace is because the cia insisted on a
reasonable reading of the iraqi evidence -

what do they have planned now

apparently colin offered to stay under x given
conditions - engagement w/iran and korea,
pressure on sharon, working w/un & allies
etc etc, but bush said see ya and
put his best flunky is there

they forced a little honor on colin
and made him go, kicking and screaming
any real honor and he would have been gone

things just as dicey on the domestic front

bush is talking about changing the tax
structure to protect investment income

says he wont raise taxes to do it but he has proposed
abandoning tax writeoffs for local and state taxes
(that means a tax increase dont it?)

and abandoning tax writeoff for employers providing
emmployee health insurance
(that means more folk w/o health insurance dont it?)

and in iraq we got a spreading insugency
and american soliders killing wounded prisoners

ive said it before and i will say it again
this is not a just war and god is not on our side

there are some democratic voices saying we should
try to outbush bush and get religion

well i got news for them
i got religion

and my god does not approve of warmongers
or abusing the weak and the needy

amen

rootsbag nov09: mending hearts and post elections notes

a couple of post election notes

apparently the gop efforts to put gay marriage ban
initiatives on the ballot in many of the swing states was
a decisive factor in many of the defeats there

analysts now considering the lines of gayfolk waiting
to get married in san francisco a gop sucker punch

we may have lost more than we gained
but still they did look happy didnt they


also, latinos voted for george bush in highest numbers yet - 44%

analysts say its because the democrats approached them
as a block democratic constituency while republicans
attempted to peel off conservative latinos on the same
trigger isues they used to peel off conservative whites
abortion, samesex marriage, etc

and conservative blacks too for that matter but blacks are
still one of the most liberal constituencies in america

but apparently growing and more diverse latino vote can
no longer be considered a dependable democratic constituency

which is good for them because the parties will have to contend
for their vote

i guess we got to accept this little dose of geopolitical reality
but for someone who grew up considering latinos allies and
even family, its feeling a little lonely up in here


racial genetics and blackheart people

study of new drug, bidil, cosponsored by assoc of black cardiologists
was found to reduce heart failure among african americans by 43%
and reduce hospitalization time by a third

it has become first drug approved for a specific racial group

cardiologists hailed findings because blacks die from heart failure
at rate twice that of whites but some concerned because racial categories
considered problematic way of guiding treatment

some have expressed concern that conceding racial genetic difference
is one step away from pushing genetic infeority

some say there might be genetic predisposition among populations
but not necessarily racial as in say sickle cell which seems to be
environmental - malaria and all

and then there are those who say this is just a clever marketing ploy
by nitromed to extend its patent

this one is a little too twisty for me
dont feel like busting my head searching for the answer

im glad blackfolk will be getting effective treatment
for a fatal disparity and ima leave it at that


on the road again

going to be gone for the rest of the week
off somewhere licking my wounds
(no, actually i got family matters need tending)

been an interesting week on a lot of fronts

i have this mailinglist of some thousands of folk
that i put together a couple of years ago
and everytime i send my rootsletter out
i get some 'removes' from folk who dont care
for what i got to say

which is cool w/me

its theoretically a list of black influentials and needless
to say some of them probably dont approve of my politics
(we got our growing conservative bloc too)

i spent a whole summer trolling that list
and its folk on there who probably dont belong anyway
and i really really really want to whittle that list down
to point where its only folk interested if not eager
to hear what i got to say and willing to give me
benefit of the doubt when they dont agree w/me

and i really really dont want to impose on folk who
consider me some kind of internet pest

so when folk ask, i remove them w/the quickness

whats interesting is that i have gotten more 'please removes'
from last newsletter on hanging in there: a luta continua

than i got from previous one about holybooks and holywars
which i really  feared would turn folk off

ohwell, i guess it bes like that sometime

everytime i get a 'remove' i take it personal
and somefolk make little nasty comments that cut me
but i guess that comes w/the territory

and of course i also get those 'preach brother' responses too
and i live for those expressions of appreciation for what i do

so ima keep on doing what im doing
just like i advised other folk to do in the a luta continua post

anybody who want to be on my newsletter list email me
with 'subscribe' in the heading and you in the house

part of my little effort to build an alternative communication network
of folk who ready to knuck

21st century style

in struggle

rickydoc

a b flat blues for the 04 election: a luta continua

for best response to this post
put on curtis mayfields: back to living again
while you read it

got it on, okay, lets do it:

when the magnitude of our defeat
became apparent, i went into an immediate survival mode
we will survive this, i began telling myself, weve done it before

then one of my colleagues at the job said, yeah we will survive
but what about all those who wont

that rocked me - i hope i am never so degraded
that my only concern is saving myself

after a loss of this magnitude,demoralized progressives will be tempted to go
bush lite - in hopes of making themselves electable again

but rickydoc flowers vote for hanging tough, for standing on principle
and intensifying our efforts to mobilize a greater america

we cant compromise with bushs radical rightwing agenda
we cant pander to the reactionary politics
that have been essential for winning elections in america lately

this is only going to get worse

before you know it we will be at war with the world
living in a theocratic police state
and defenseless victims of corporate greed

and dont tell me it cant happen here
im watching it happen

we have got to take our country back and we got to do it like they did it
with bottom up organizing designed to permeate its way up the ladder
im talking full service politics here – im howling organize organize organize

we must rededicate ourselves to struggle 24/7 and not just
when the next crises bubbles up - then its too late and all we can do is
protest – and im real tired of protesting

no, we got to throw down - whatever it is you do
got to do it stronger, harder and smarter

and we must continue to ask the american people
to live up to their greater dreams - their greater destiny

the stakes are higher than ever
win or lose we got to keep fighting for whats right

the american people might not know it
but they depending on us like never before

i man have blind faith that humanity will always defeat
the bushs and bin ladens of this world

one thing about having been in the struggle as long as i have
is that you take these losses in stride

you win some you lose some - you keep on playing
its the longgame that counts

play on player

for 2 generations now the rightwing been bringing the fire
now its our turn - now we got to do or die

i am a shameless child of the 60s and i miss the movement

i have long pondered, finger to the wind, how to revitalize the struggle
in a manifestation suited to the 21st century

a brand new lick aint been seen before

and now i feel the winds of change coming
i feel struggle in the air

when the angolans won their colonial war
and everybody was congratulating them
they said cautiously - struggle never ends
it just changes

they said
a luta continua: the struggle continues

and so it does – win or lose – the struggle continues

i have looked many generations into the future
and this is what i see – i see struggle – i see generations of struggle
and in that struggle i see a great and wondrous people
with a great and wondrous destiny

hang in there yall and dont you get weary
aint nobody gon turn us around

in struggle

rickydoc flowers
 

rootsbagnov02: showtime

WEDNESDAY MORNING

not the end of the world

well it looks bad for the hometeam
looks like we lost this one

final tally isnt in but looks like bush has
won

but kerry put up a good fight
going to be a lot of recrimination and fingerpointing
but the boy did what we selected him to do
tried to ride the middle

did some things i wouldnt have done
him appealing to the hunters with the dead goose
was a waste of time, theyd have voted for
the dead goose before they voted for kerry

but we choose him to try to go down the middle
and when we thought we were winning we
were all for it

interesting how deeply i misread the vibe
i thought we had a shot
i had visions of all these fired up youth
assaulting the polls

i was a much a wishful thinker as bush neocons
on the eve of the occupation of iraq
i guess i believed what i wanted to believe

now we are going to be subject to media speculation about
a lasting republican majority
and some democrats saying we have to reach out to the rightwing voters

im not buying either

maybe the youth vote didnt turn out as we would have liked but
their response to this election bodes well for the future

and i believe the republicans are going to overreach and surely
the american public will reject this radical vision of theirs as
the bodybags keep coming home from iraq

and theres not enuf money in the budget to bury them

this administration is going to discredit itself surely

but im not going to sit around waiting for it to happen
they have proven themselves past masters of the okeydoke

rickydoc is going into the trenches

we need to buck up
stick together (except for nader)
lick our wounds and get ready
to knuck

hardtimes are coming
i can feel them coming

a luta continua

 

 

TUESDAY MORNING

whoa

disregard last post

ohio appeals court votes to allow republican
challengers in minority precints
its going to be a madhouse

im reminded of those pictures of south
african blacks voting for the first time

long snaky lines of folk determined
to vote no matter what

and im hoping thats what the gop
finds in ohio, and florida et al

we got a history of struggle too and
we aint gon let nobody turn us around

a luta continua

 

MONDAY

showtime: mon nov01:3:pm:

in ohio federal judges have ruled against
republican plans to place challengers in black precints
crippling blatant effort to intimidate black voters

one judge said pollworkers should determine eligibility:

"In light of these extraordinary circumstances, and the contentious nature of the imminent election, the court cannot and must not turn a blind eye to the substantial likelihood that significant harm will result not only to voters, but also to the voting process itself, if appointed challengers are permitted at the polls,"

i couldna said that no better myself

 

showtime

i guess im just going into a holding pattern
everything is conditional on what happens in the next
couple of days

the republicans have gotten shameless w/the dirtytricks
the democrats are determined not to be 'cheated' again

with the gop so ruthless about using the power
of the state unethically
one wonders if we will ever again be allowed
to really contend

its gotten down to by any means necessary
and its going to be ugly no matter which
one of them wins

if its not a decisive win its going to be war
up in these united states
and a test of democracys resilence

best to brace yourself,
we about to walk into the fire

arf

rootsbag:oct28:mackmasters in the mist

SUNDAY

gangleader rickydoc

somebody who objected to an ealier post
i made about holywar
implied that i am degrading the spirit of
blackfolk with that call

she called me a gangleader
this hit me where it hurts

i consider myself a beneficient force
a drummajor for righteousness
and i want to lead my people to a higher ground

but i do work with both hands
soft when i can and hard when i must

the history of afroam prophetic leadership
has primarily been one of war prophets
as befitting a people under seige

if i am a gangleader
so too was david walker, nat turner and gullahjack
nanny accompong and boukman dutty
and zumbi of palmares

i am comfortable in that company

though they were mostly failures
i love them for the effort

as a wouldbe prophet of the hoodoo way
i have to give the future generations of my people
a full complement of strategies

i have to prepare them to finesse any contingency

including when we are pressed against the wall
do or die

my most salient model is that of martin luther king
who turned me out as a soldier in the struggle back in 68
my primary premise is that if we would reclaim our legacy
as gods holy instrument we must stand on higher ground

the geas of rickydoc
envisions responsibility for humanitys evolution into
its ever greater self

but i aint gon be restricted to working w/one hand

i need a full complement of strategies
including, when necessary, total and absolute war footing

for those times when it is do or die
like in the sudan today

this aint no game and spiritwork aint no
flowerchild harmonic convergences, not while
blackfolk in darfur dying at the rate of 10000 a month
ongoing

no, this is much too real
i may be a player but i aint playing
i speak for the conqueror and im in it to win it

and the first step in conjuring that strategic potentiality
the first step in putting the magic on that
strategic capability is to give it a name

demoja - i stand on it without shame

now i got to figure out how to work it
in a contemporary manifestation
whatever you got in mind when you hear the phrase holywar
is oldschool as far as im concerned

i have studied the history of prophetic black leadership
in order that i can learn from both their victories and their defeats
and ima find a new lick on it, something aint been seen before

or my name aint rickydoc flowers

 

brother jamie

i went to see ray the movie yesterday
and man you talking about an experience
jamie foxx put his foot in that one

but then of that living color crowd, jamie foxx
was always my favorite, im glad to see him
stepping out and getting away from buffoon roles

we need to turn out for this one

i expected the theatre to be full cause
it was saturday evening and it wasnt
it was in fact very sparse and thats not
a good sign

this is the kind of film we want to encourage
hollywood to do, we need to make sure it
makes money so they will do some more
of them

and they had a little hoodoo in there too
they had this bottle tree as one of the primary images
but it was different from the bottle tree i built out back
i put my bottles on the ends of the branches

they had their bottles hanging, it was a different effect
and when the wind blows they didnt whistle but they
did this wind chime thing that was just as cool

im going to try that one too

it was an extraordinary cinematic experience
an extraordinary music experience

and you got two stars for the price of one

o really o reilly?

o reilly settled his sexual harassment case
he still talking big trash about his innocence
but apparently he paid her big money to go away
2 to 10 million dollars i read

ida hung him out to dry myself

 

be very afraid

whats w/bin laden sticking his nose in our election
well if thats all we get, a video instead of a bomb
i guess we got to consider ourselves lucky

i fear it will hurt kerry by throwing him off his game
and letting bush masquerade is the big terror fighter
even though his incompetence has been legendary

and all the latest revelations are still on him
halliburton accused of gross contracting abuses
the rebublicans increasingly blatant attempt to repress voters
and so on and so forth

my concern is that they will steal it again
we have to vote in such numbers that their little tricks
dont make enuf of a difference for them to try to take
it to court

when i look at the poll numbers i fear the loss
but then i guess everybody in america is going thru that
right now

im putting my faith in all those new voters, both young
and minority, coming in under the polling radar

im hoping that most undecideds at this late date
will break for kerry

im hoping for a big november surprise

my other concern is if kerry does win
the mess that he has inherited from bush is going to
require some very unpopular moves on his part
no matter what

which means we are going right back into another
battle of the congressional election of 2006

ohwell, a luta continua all over again
at least this means we wont rest on our laurels
cause you can be sure the rightwing wont

hangtough

 

once more into the breech

100 died reportedly in clashes
between somaliland and puntland
its a long story, let me see if i can
give it to you quick

somalia has been a failed state ruled
by warlods since president said barre was deposed
way back when in 1991

in the interim two ministates broke off
puntland and somaliland
they are right next to each other and
they have had outbreaks of conflict before

recently, during peacetalks held in kenya
abdullahi yusuf, the leader of puntland, was elected president
somaliland objected and started hostilities
which have obviously just gotten hot

the warlord situation is so precarious that yusef is still in kenya
afraid to go back to somalia
and asking the african union for 20000 troops to put down
warlord resistance

if hes depending on the african union for security
brotherman got a rough row to hoe

previous attempts to reunite somalia have failed
we can only hope this one takes
there were hopes the warlords would accept
federal authority this time
in hopes of reconstituting a viable country
and they still might

i will keep you informed

FRIDAY

in that great gitting up morning

are we or are we not tired of being lied to by bush
and the gop

in florida the gop has accused the democrats
of the very same strategy they have been
blatantly and shamelessly using all across the country 
intimidating voters at the polls

they clearly trying to set up post election challenges
but the gall of these people is what infuriates me

used to be you always assumed that certain dictatorial actions
just wouldnt fly in america because the american people
would rise up and overthrow somebody who tried to govern
them dishonestly

but bush and the gop dont even try to give us a straight story anymore
they will tell us whatever they think we will buy

we have to vote them out with such a measure of victory that
they will have to slink back to their holes and give us our
country back - we need a landslide in the great gitting up morning
of nov 2nd

i went to this site of spirituals and got the words of that great gitting up morning - one of my favorite metaphors of struggle

i edited it down and ima sing my version when we win nov 2nd

that great gitting up morning

theres a better day a-comin’   
fare thee well, fare thee well
for de judgment day is comin’
fare thee well, fare thee well

in that great gittin up mornin’
fare thee well, fare thee well
in that great gittin up mornin’
fare thee well, fare thee well

de lord spoke to gabriel
fare thee well, fare thee well

gabe, go look behin’ de altar
take down de silvah trumpet   
blow yo’ trumpet, gabriel
fare thee well fare thee well

lord, how loud shall I blow it

blow it right, calm an’ easy
do not alarm my people
tell ’em to come to judgment

lord how loud shall I blow it

loud as seven peals of thunder
want you to wake de livin nations
place one foot upon de dry land
place de other on de sea

hear de rumblin of de thunder
and de earth shall reel an totter
den you’ll see de righteous marchin
see em marchin’ home to heaven

take de righteous home to glory
in that great gittin up mornin
in that great gittin up mornin

fare thee well

 

another morning gone - thanks to jeff parker

i look at all the noveltime i have spent on this thing sometime
and just shake my head - ima keep doing it because ima player
and the internet has become a major field of play on the board of destiny
but sometimes i curse jeff parkers name

he the one who turned me on to the internet as literary instrument
and has guided me through my various stages of net competency
he was supposed to be my student during my early years here at syracuse and turned out to be one of those special folk from whom you receive as much as you give

i love having this forum in which i can say what i really think & feel
without having to satisfy paymasters and/or editors
or even my beloved public

and i love being part of a network of fellow travelers like
chickenbones and black commentator
determined to forge an alternate reality to the one that has been
assigned us by the powers that be

a guerrilla in the mist, thats me

thanks dawg

my brother in that great fraternity
the mystic knights of the sea

and on that note, back to work
i had planned to do some book of flowers this morning
but its noveltime now -

hangingtough

 

THURSDAY

blooddebt

a john hopkins study has estimated civilian deaths in
iraq at a 100,000 since the war started

nuff said

shameless dogs

yesterday a us district court judge ruled against efforts by
ohio republican party to challenge the eligibility of 10s of 1000s
of voters in this closely contested swing state

this is one of many efforts nationwide by republicans
to challenge and repress the black vote by intimidating black voters

across the country they have arranged for
thousands of poll watchers whose mission is to challenge
minority voters in the hope not only of keeping them from voting
but also to generate long lines and waits that might
discourage other voters

shameless dogs

nevada rejected a request to challenge 17000 voters
and denvers election committee said the gop denver strategy
is "a very organized, very intense effort,  If it becomes abusive,
we may have to step in and say this is out of hand."

shameless dogs

in florida the gop has arranged for 5000 monitors
most of whom will be sent to minority communities
not because they black neighborhoods said gop spokesperson
mindy fletcher but because thats where the democracts
were most likely 'to try and steal the election"

shameless dogs

there are some things you can do to make sure you have a hasslefree vote:
know your your polling place beforehand
know your rights as a voter
have official photo id w/you especially if a new voter
accept provisional ballot only as last resort
vote in the morning and beat the rush (or do like i did and get an absentee ballot next time)

if you do get interference

first document it

its a felony offense to interfere w/your vote
record what happened and get the operatives name and pertinent info

then report it:

1-866-MYVOTE1   (common cause)
or 1-866-OUR-VOTE  (election protection)

moveon.org has a walletsized card
with all the info you need in case somebody tries to interfere with your right to vote,

we need to turn out so strong november 2nd that they wont ever try this again

(and who is this 18% of blackfolk i been hearing about supposed to be voting for bush
what planet are they on)

 

macks in the mosh pit

let me say upfront I am not a eminem fan
but I read about his new video - mosh
read that in it he uses rap to assemble
an army of youth to go after bush
and oust him at the polls

w/lines like:

Strap him with an AK-47 / Let him go fight his own war / Let him impress daddy that way,"

and:

"Let us beg to differ / As we set aside our differences / And assemble our own army / To disarm this weapon of mass destruction / That we call our president ."

and:

Maybe God is telling us something / That we are responsible / For this monster / We have empowered

sounded intriguing so I went to guerillanews.tv to look at it

now ima a practicing black cynic slash curmudgeon and I aint no eminem fan
so this gon embarrass me to say this but the damn thing brought tears to my eyes
i wish I had done it

i consider myself a rabble rousing mackmaster myself and I got to give props
where props is due, the boy stone macked that one

whats interesting was when we yoked sinclair for trying to influence the election w/their documentary
and i thought how that was going to jam michaels moores efforts to have his played the night
before the election, because if sinclair wasnt allowed to blatantly propagandize, they surely werent going to allow moore to do it

but eminems video i think is stronger than mooores piece in terms of mobilizing folk
and its already playing number 1 on mtv, boy wielding the power of art on them
guerrilla mobilizing under the radar - mackmasters in the mist

check it out

 

the gops shameful vote strategy: washpost article by harold meyerson

this piece was so good and right on i couldnt even rephrase it
like i like to do without losing something
i just cut and pasted it, hope they dont sue me

The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy
By Harold Meyerson: Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A25

With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.

Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.
For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.

In Ohio, Republicans have recruited 3,600 poll monitors and assigned them disproportionately to such heavily black areas as inner-city Cleveland, where Democratic "527" groups have registered many tens of thousands of new voters. "The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters -- I call them ringers -- have created these problems" of potential massive vote fraud, Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman James P. Trakas recently told the New York Times.

Let's pass over the implication that a registration drive waged by a liberal group is inherently fraud-ridden, and look instead at that word "ringers."

Registration in Ohio is nonpartisan, but independent analysts estimate that roughly 400,000 new Democrats have been added to the rolls this year. Who does Trakas think they are? Have tens of thousands of African Americans been sneaking over the state lines from Pittsburgh and Detroit to vote in Cleveland -- thus putting their own battleground states more at risk of a Republican victory? Is Shaker Heights suddenly filled with Parisians affecting American argot? Or are the Republicans simply terrified that a record number of minority voters will go to the polls next Tuesday? Have they decided to do anything to stop them -- up to and including threatening to criminalize Voting While Black in a Battleground State?

This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms.

Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights.

For Bush and Rove, the domestic war predates the war on terrorism. From the first day of his presidency, Bush opted to govern from the right, to fan the flames of cultural resentment, to divide the American house against itself in the hope that cultural conservatism would create a stable Republican majority. The Sept. 11 attacks unified us, but Bush exploited those attacks to relentlessly partisan ends. As his foreign and domestic policies abjectly failed, Bush's reliance on identity politics only grew stronger. He anointed himself the standard-bearer for provincials and portrayed Kerry and his backers as arrogant cosmopolitans.

And so here we are, improbably enmeshed in a latter-day version of the election of 1928, when the Catholicism of Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith bitterly divided the nation along Protestant-Catholic and nativist-immigrant lines. To his credit, Smith's opponent (and eventual victor), Herbert Hoover, did not exploit this rift himself. Bush, by contrast, has not merely exploited the modernist-traditionalist tensions in America but helped create new ones and summoned old ones we could be forgiven for thinking were permanently interred. (Kerry will ban the Bible?)

Indeed, it's hard to think of another president more deliberately divisive than the current one. I can come up with only one other president who sought so assiduously to undermine the basic arrangements of American policy (as Bush has undermined the New Deal at home and the systems of post-World War II alliances abroad) with so little concern for the effect this would have on the comity and viability of the nation. And Jefferson Davis wasn't really a president of the United States.

After four years in the White House, George W. Bush's most significant contribution to American life is this pervasive bitterness, this division of the house into raging, feuding halves. We are two nations now, each with a culture that attacks the other. And politics, as the Republicans are openly playing it, need no longer concern itself with the most fundamental democratic norm: the universal right to vote.

As the campaign ends, Bush is playing to the right and Kerry to the center.

That foretells the course of the administrations that each would head. The essential difference between them is simply that, as a matter of strategy and temperament, Bush seeks to exploit our rifts and Kerry to narrow them. That, finally, is the choice before us next Tuesday: between one candidate who wants to pry this nation apart to his own advantage, and another who seeks to make it whole.

---------------------------

PLEASE VOTE
PLEASE HELP IN SOMEBODYS GET OUT THE VOTE CAMPAIGN

i have a magazine cover on my door at the job
one of those faces made out of many small photos
it is a picture of george bush composed of dead us soldiers in iraq
the inscription is: stop me before i kill again

PLEASE VOTE MY PEOPLE
I BEG OF YOU

in the aprtheid 60s we werent allowed to vote
our ancestors suffered and died for this fundamental right

AND NOW THE REPUBLICANS HAVE RETURNED TO THOSE DAYS
OF POLLTAXES AND BLACK LAWS WITHOUT SHAME

they have obviously decided that black folk are fools and subject to trickery
we need to vote like nobody ever voted before and show these suckers whats what

GOD HELP US IF THIS MAN WINS
GOD HELP US ALL

demoja - i name it so - on genocide, vengeance and holywars

janjaweed taunting darfurian woman as they gangraped her:
“this year we are your god, there is no god except us”

was sitting in the doctors office
and picked up a beatup times magazine
a special on genocide in the sudan

seems the word genocide was invented
by a holocaust survivor who wanted to
ensure that the world would never again
stand by and watch the attempted
extermination of a people

this guy raphael lemkin forged the word from
greek geno = tribe and latin cide = killing
first he waged a campaign to get websters and oxfords to accept it

then in 1948 he went door to door at the new united nations
and got them all to sign the genocide convention
the un’s first human rights treaty

which obligated them to come to aid of any people
declared in danger of extermination

but of course presidents and the like hate
being obligated to defend people in ticklish situations
carter refused to call the cambodian killing fields genocide
nor  did bush 1 in serbia or clinton in rwanda

colin powell was, somewhat ironically,
the first senior us official to present congress
with a formal finding of genocide

"when we reviewed the evidence, we conclude – I concluded
that genocide has been committed in darfur”

but again, the powers that be, awash in realpolitic, just wont act

the united states is wary of another islamic engagement
the un went from threatening sanctions to ‘considering’ threatening sanctions
(100s of 1000s dead and no punitive un actions whatsoever have been taken)

the europeans, wary of alienating a recalcitrant sudan, observe the diplomatic niceties
china, pakistan and others have oil deals that cause them to abstain
the african union begging for permission from the sudan to send more observers,
not to stop the killing mind you but to monitor it
and the islamic block backs the sudan fully and without conscience

so everybody wrings their hands over the killing and the suffering
and nothing is done
its not actually genocide say some, they arent actually trying to kill them all

but lemkin distinctly avoided total extermination as criteria
on the premise that by the time the killing got totalized it was too late

and so the killing goes on
and burning out villages and raping ‘to make light babys’
a systematic effort to erase african peoples from their world
10000 a month dying in darfur while the world nervously fiddles

well I know ima catch flak for it
but this what rickydoc flowers got to say

its about time we stopped depending on the world to handle this
its about time we started supporting the militarization of darfur

them janjaweed dont go hullygullying down south
cause down south they have learned how to bring smoke

took them a generation or two but they figured it out

ive said it before, ima say it again
as long as blackfolk have to depend on others to save them
its going to be nothing but one crises after the other w/them people

this reminds me of another killer in the sudan - muhammad ali
one of the most efficient killers of blacks that ever was
depopulated entire areas of the sudan after his son was killed on a slaving raid

just like they doing now

anybody rename himself muhammad ali as a statement of black pride
has misread his history and does not understand our destiny as a people

this has gone on long enough

apparently this must be a time of weeding and weaping
but one day the sudanese will reap what they have sown

we must make it clear to our enemies that there is a price to be paid

god knows we too weak to piss in a pot right now
folk kick our ass and dare us to whimper

they dont fear our vengeance and rightly so
but that will no longer be

i am rickydoc flowers - I speak in the name of the old gods
and I swear before god and all thats holy, vengeance will be ours

they want holywar then by god we will show them holywar - demoja

i name it so