THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 57, VOLUME 87
KILL+TAXCUTS
by Malik Isasis






















On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 President Obama's stimulus package passed the House with 244 votes from Democrats (12 voted no) and 0 votes from Republicans (all 177 Republicans voted no). Zero Republicans voted for the bill. This vote came after President Obama kept his word on reaching out to the Republicans.

If you extend your hand they will slap your face. It’s what Republicans do. Zero support for Obama’s stimulus package was meant to humiliate him. The political tactics of the Right is simple: discredit the person, and then anything that person says will be discredited e.g. create black leaders (Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) for black folks, and go on to discredit those black leaders, then you can discredit the grievances of all black people. This tactic worked on Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party since the Reagan Era.

The Republicans are known for their lock-goose-stepping and will follow one another right off of a cliff. The corporate media refers to this hierarchical system as being organized, they are organized all right, and with a top-down leadership Republicans are primed for despotism. The main tenets of this party are loyalty and obedience.

THE OBSTRUCTION

One would think that in a highly technological Youtube society where things are recorded and archived, people like Republican Leader John Boehner and other shit throwers in his flock would care about what they’ve said three months, a day or a second ago, but they don’t because their arguments are distractions, meaningless, attached to nothing but pathology—ever notice that when Republicans’ arguments become unraveled, they develop sudden amnesia and argue the complete opposite with the same passion?

Republicans chose to join Bush at the table in drinking the blood and misery of the Iraqi, Afghani and American families. They’ve paved the way for Bush’s Messianic madness, and delusion. Now they must convinced themselves that the lives lost due to their cowardice and personal gain was worth it. They act as if the last 8 years on their watch didn’t happen. They ask for more tax cuts as if George Bush didn’t squander the economy on giving tax cut after tax cut to the wealthy. They ask for fiscal restraint as if George Bush didn’t wash billions of dollars away via war profiteering. The corporate media let’s them get away with the inconvenient truth, but as long as there is Youtube, cameras and other recording devices they can’t hide.

The Republicans are sociopaths, narcissists who believe all social crisis can be solved through tax cuts and war.

Here is the Republican record on obstruction since the Democrats have been in power:

Senate Republicans have obstructed almost every bill in the Senate – even ones with wide bipartisan support.

* So far, in the first half of the first session of the 110th Congress, there have been THIRTEEN cloture votes on motions to proceed – each one wasting days of Senate time. (110th Congress, Roll Call Votes #44, 51, 53, 74, 129, 132, 133, 162, 173, 207, 208, 227, and 228)
* In comparison, in the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined, there were a total of FOUR cloture votes on motions to proceed.

EIGHT times Republican obstruction tactics slowed critical legislation

* Fulfilling the 9/11 Commission Recommendations (Passed 97-0, Roll Call Vote #53)
* Improving security at our courts (Passed 93-3, Roll Call Vote #133)
* Water Resources Development Act (Passed 89-7, Roll Call Vote #162)
* A joint resolution to revise U.S. policy in Iraq (Passed 89-9, Roll Call Vote, #74)
* Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Passed 69-23, Roll Call Vote #173)
* Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Passed 64-35, Roll Call Vote #228)
* CLEAN Energy Act (Passed 91-0, Roll Call Vote #208)
* Funding for the Intelligence Community (Passed 94-3, Roll Call Vote #129)

FOUR times Republicans blocked legislation from being debated

* Senate Republicans blocked raising the minimum wage. (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
* Senate Republicans blocked ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
* Senate Republicans blocked comprehensive immigration reform (Rejected 45-50, Roll Call Vote #206)
* Senate Republicans blocked funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)

FOUR times Republicans stopped bills from reaching a vote

* Senate Republicans blocked funding for the intelligence community. (Rejected 41-40, Roll Call Vote #130)
* Senate Republicans blocked raising the minimum wage. (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
* Senate Republicans blocked ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
* Senate Republicans blocked funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)

TWICE Republicans blocked bills from going to conference

* Senate Republicans blocked appointing conferees on the 9/11 Commission Recommendations (6/26/07)
* Senate Republicans blocked appointing conferees on ethics reform (6/26/07)

PIMP THIS |

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 57, VOLUME 87
DRUNKEN NEGRO FACE COOKIES

PIMP THIS |

A FILM REVIEW
WALTZ WITH BASHIR
by Malik Isasis


















The Academy Awards nominations were announced January 22, 2009, and Waltz with Bashir (Israel) was one of the films nominated for Best Foreign Film, deservedly so. But missing from the Best Foreign film category were Let the Right One In (Sweden), The Edge of Heaven (Germany) and Under the Bombs (Lebanon). Of course the nominating process makes no sense because it’s nonsensical, kind of like the college football rankings. For instance, how can Slumdog Millionaire be nominated for best picture, best director and not have any of the cast nominated for an award?

Waltz with Bashir is from Israel. It is a hybrid of a film; it is a documentary that is animated, a zoetropic memoir of one Israeli soldier’s experience during the Lebanon war of 1982. Ari Foreman, the writer and director chose animation to tell his story so to capture the dreamscapes, or nightmares that haunted him and other veterans of the war. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, beautifully animated sequences almost obscures the dark nature of the subject matter, making it palatable for a broader audience.

The film opens with a pack of feral dogs running the streets of Beirut, apparently during Lebanon’s civil war many dogs were abandoned, so it was quite common to see a band of wild dogs running the streets feasting on the charred remains of the dead. You ever wonder why fire departments no longer take their Dalmatians or dogs on the fire trucks? Well, after the dogs were found to be eating the burnt remains of fire victims thus the practice of bringing dogs along was stopped.

For twenty years, one of the veterans in the film kept having a dream where the pack of dogs would amass at his window and wait for him so to eat him. They numbered 26. When the protagonists, Ron Ben-Yishai asked how he knew it was 26 and not 30, the veteran answered that he knew the exact number because it was the exact number of dogs he’d shot during the war. The dogs at night would give away their presence and he would have to shoot them.



There was some unexpected eroticism in the film. One veteran dreamt of being taken away by a huge naked woman who carried him like a baby, and swam off with him, backstroking as he lay calmly in between he legs and breast. The protagonist’s own reoccurring dream is of naked Israeli soldiers in the sea near the beach, hypnotized by flares that lit up the night.

What is striking in the story is a veteran saying that they were all 19 and 18 year old kids who had no idea why or who they were fighting. In fact, the film perfectly illustrates these young men firing blindly into cars, bushes—anything that moved, out of fear. It also explains how the Palestinian massacres could have happened. The film delves into the root cause of the protagonist's reoccurring dream and memory loss of his time in Lebanon: witnessing the massacring of thousands of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Phalangist, a Christian militia group at the time (now a political party). The Lebanese civil war was a complicated war of factions; however, the Israeli army which occupied Lebanon stood by as thousands of Palestinians were killed.

The most powerful sequence in the film is when the grieving wives, mothers and sisters numbering in the hundreds, marched in grief. The animation melts into actual footage of the massacre in which dead bodies of men, women and children lie in waste. There is no music, no sound, just images of death and destruction brought on by the nonsense of war. Waltz with Bashir is about as close as the American media will get to balancing the coverage of the ongoing chaos of the Middle East, and it took an Israeli filmmaker, and veteran to do it.





Grade: A

PIMP THIS |

CALM DOWN PEOPLE. I GOT THIS.
by Malik Isasis























Dear President Barack Obama:


You have your work cutout for you. Georgie Porgie has left one fine mess. President Obama there must be no Clintonesque triangulation of your base for the appeasement of the corporate media and Republicans. Keep the Democratic Party from splintering like wood, for they are incorrigible, and Mr. President keep the Republican Party marginalized and fractured, they mean the country no good.

Mr. President, in 2003 I attended a lecture by Princeton Professor, Cornell West. West said something profound. He said that we no longer have leaders who would die for us. Leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi, Malcom X, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa--leaders who would not only die for their cause, but would die for their people. These people Mr. President are an example of leaders who were able to transcend to the next level of consciousness, the enlighten state of consciousness. Today our leaders lack sacrifice, they much prefer that others sacrifice for their political gain. It is personal gain over political responsibility.

So in the words of Ghandi, Mr. President Obama, be the change that you want to see in the world.



Sincerely,

Malik

PIMP THIS |

THE MEDIA EDITION: ISSUE 56, VOLUME 86
MISTAKES WERE MADE
by Malik Isasis






















“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” - Voltaire

Bush began his farewell tour just as he had his presidency, on lies and the rewriting of history. He is able to accomplish the whitewashing of history because of media malfeasance.

It was during the 2002-2003 build up to the Iraq invasion that the corporate media had begun folding itself into the Department of Defense’s propaganda wing by blindly supporting the Bush Public Relations Administration’s talking points and subverting opposition to the initial Iraq Invasion and subsequent Iraq Occupation. Like a virus in its host, the corporate media had methodically carried the neocons’ message to the masses, infecting the American people with fear and submission. The corporate media also has helped the Republican Party and its right-wing hate machine, to politically box in the Democratic Party with two choices: supporting the terrorists or supporting the troops.

The corporate media assimilation was not difficult after September 11, 2001. The corporate media was looking to create heroes, and in the age of smoke and mirrors, had found exactly what they were looking for in New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, playing it cool under pressure and President Bush with the bullhorn, standing atop of the rubble of the World Trade Towers.

The Trumpets

In a U.S. Army War College strategy research paper, Colonel Glenn T. Starnes wrote:
Margaret Belknap writing in Parameters in 2002 commented, “The fourth estate [the media] offers a superb mechanism for strategic leaders and war fighters to transmit operational objectives and goals, as well as to reinforce policy objectives.” Ms Belknap stated that strategic leaders must be proactive in leveraging the media in order to inform audiences concerning objectives and end-states. She warned that if the military failed to leverage the media, they risked having the graphic images of war shown to the world and the American people in a distorted manner. Inaccurate or deceitful reporting of military actions could drastically affect the will and support of the American people, which is the strategic center of gravity for the United States (US). Loss of public support for a war could also affect the decision-making process at the strategic level. Essentially, Ms Belknap echoed the sentiment of many others who recommend the military cease holding the press at arm’s length. Instead, the military should embrace the press and leverage the media’s technology and worldwide reach to further strategic goals.

On CNN’S “This Week At War”—isn’t that a peculiar title for a news program? The title alone makes me think that the show needs to produce pro war material in order to justify its existence. During the height of trumped up charges (WMDs) brought by the Israeli officials and US government during 2007-2008, the program asked the question, “What is Iran’s real role in Iraq?” And then proceeded to use pro war, retired generals as consultants on its panel—all of which supported and justified the escalation of the Iraq Occupation. Iran was framed in the discussion as a threat using only computer graphics of its weapons and on hearsay as proof Iran had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The program like its kin in the rest of corporate media, discussed Iraq in a parallel universe. A universe in which the effects of the occupation, the chaos in Baghdad, the financial costs of the occupation, and the death and lives of soldiers are discussed, but host, John Roberts at the time and his colleagues continued to disconnect the death and destruction from Bush’s policy.

Taken from CNN’s own transcript, here is an example of the disconnection:
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks John. Here is what is going on right now. Let's bring you up to date on some of the stories that we're following. More death, destruction, shocking even by Iraqi standards, 128 people killed all at once. Nearly 350 others were wounded. This one a suicide bomber in a truck targeted a Baghdad market with a huge explosion. __The U.S. military announced today the deaths of six more American soldiers in Iraq. According to the military's statement, two died from combat wounds Friday. Two more died in a roadside bombing and two others died from apparent heart attacks.

Presto! No culpability for George Bush.

After the occupation in Iraq went to shit, the Bush administration stated that mistakes were made, after the occupation in Afghanistan went to shit, the Bush administration stated that mistakes were made, after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration stated that mistakes were made, after the revelation of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo the administration stated that mistakes were made.

Damn, that’s a lot of ‘mistakes were made’ and big ones too. No one in the Bush administration has been held accountable for his or her actions and/or crimes; the Democratic Party nor the corporate media made Bush accountable either.

So, the illegal occupations of two countries, the sell of arms to various militia, mass murder of millions, the displacement of millions, and the total collapse of the US and world banking systems, the devalued dollar, torture, and domestic spying on Americans...Bush said it all was about keeping us safe, and the ruse worked.

Presto! No culpability for George Bush.

PIMP THIS |

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 54, VOLUME 84
THE THIRD WAY
How Obama and the Democrats will fail us
by Malik Isasis























If you were to go to the Democratic Leadership Council’s website you will see the headline from Politico displayed in prominent font: CABINET: Middle-of-the-Roader’s Dream. The DLC is a neoliberal organization (free-marketeers) meant to keep corporate interest ahead of the people and the website should be a testament to where the Democratic Party will take country in the next four years. Sadly, that ain’t saying much.

Obama has filled his cabinet with neoliberals, right of center Democrats who will expose a softer gentler corporatism. Obama has shot across the bow of his liberal base that he will be another Bill Clinton who squandered progressive legislation in return for bipartisanship in the form of compromising with Republicans. The sickness of Democrats needing Republicans’ approval runs deep, and often underestimated. It is Sisyphean task however, the Republicans hate the Democrats and will destroy them whenever the opportunity arises, and the Democrats will destroy the middle class to attain the love and approval of their conservative brethren.

Assimulate

The infiltration of corporate shills disguised as democratic consultants have driven the party out of the interests of the people and into the interests of corporate power. Just as the neoconservatives have subverted the Republican Party, neoliberals whose belief that the economy [think globalization] should be transferred from the control of the public sector to the private sector, has and is subverting the Democratic Party. Either way, we the people are left with our trousers at our ankles.

The Democratic Leadership Council was founded in 1985 to introduce a “third way” of winning by turning Democrats away from populism and toward globization. The DLC’s theory of winning was only reinforced when former President Bill Clinton, the council’s most well known neoliberal won two presidencies.

The DLC members read like the Who’s Who of Democrats. President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Representative Harold Ford, Jr., Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator John Kerry, well-known Democratic political operative Terry McAuliffe and many more—see the list for yourself, here. Investigate any of these Democrats' records and you will find broad support of globalization, support for the Iraq invasion and occupation and corporate interests. All of these Democrats have sold their souls to become meatpuppets of the corporate lobbyists. Al Gore has since defected from the DLC and deprogrammed himself.

The DLC’s “third way” hasn’t worked in two presidential cycles [2000’s election was stolen] and four congressional cycles, yet they’re like someone playing the same numbers because it hit once. Bush and his flying monkeys fucked up so badly that the Congressional election of November 2006 the Democrats were able to limp there way into power. The same can be said of the election cycle of 2008. The Democratic consultants have pushed the Democratic Party into nearly irrelevance. if it weren't for George Bush's unfathomable ignorance in governance the Democrats would still be on the sidelines. The leadership in the Democratic Party don’t make a move without first putting a finger to the wind. Almost every choice is calculated based on a cost benefit analysis.

Susan Estrich, Pat Cadall, Juan Williams, Tammy Bruce on Fox News and a host of other Democratic consultants on CNN and MSNBC are professional bullshitters, and sellout the party roots by sustaining political status quo, in order to sustain corporate interests. They puke their bile on the air waves day after day, after day like an airborne virus infecting, constantly infecting.

In a move to remake themselves into former President Ronald Reagan, members of the Democratic Leadership Council have created a Frankenstein monster who lacks identity. This Frankenstein monster has developed a co-dependence, it needs approval of Republicans for its esteem. The DLC and their political hackery have sacrificed the Constitution for the sake of power and the maintenance of power.

The Co-op of the Democratic Party by corporatism has completed the assimilation program by multinationals, and has illuminated the limitations of a two-party system.

PIMP THIS |

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 54, VOLUME 84
BUSH THE BUTCHER
by Malik Isasis



















When President George W. Bush was bequeathed the presidency in 2000 by the United States Supreme Court, he and a pack of neoconservatives came into office like the Guns of the Navarone with an overwhelming sense of privilege and entitlement.

After eight years of war, death, chaos and fiduciary corruption, George Bush and his neocon flying army of monkeys are finally ending their blood, and guts tour, but not without giving Israel one more crank at the gears of war by saying they want an enduring cease-fire. What does an enduring cease-fire mean? Answer: more time for Israel to create more chaos, flip the Palestinian government and set a shadow government.

What drives Bush? Historians and mental health experts will ponder this for years to come, but for the purposes of this blog, it is painfully clear it wasn't the will of the American people. No, the hand that was up George Bush’s ass moving his foul mouth belonged to a small cult of neocons who are militarists, imperial capitalists, and right wing Israeli propagandists.

Bush and the flying monkeys saw a once in a life time opportunity after September 11th to scratch off all the objectives of the neocons’ manifesto: complete world domination by military force and capitalistic fascism. (click here to read this manifesto).

Like many superpowers before it, we are now witnessing the descention of American power; and like the decline of superpowers before it, the denial is thick. It’s interesting. Superpowers are delusional by nature because they believe that they can hold onto power and keep others from obtaining it. With superpowers come a sense of entitlement to dominate and control other peoples and lay waste to peoples’ lives through violence, oppression and destruction, which feeds a sickness for more violence, oppression and destruction. This lethal loop is usually the script that is followed to maintain power over others, and eventually, it fails.

The economic rise of Brazil, Venezuela, India, China, and Iran has sent Bush and his flying monkeys and conservatives into a tizzy. America’s economic and military slide down the bell curve has made conservatives and a like more and more, jingoistic. Bush, the giggling killer, and his cabal reacted liked cornered cats, lashing out at every shadow. For every international problem, the solution is military force. What makes Bush, Cheney and their ilk so lethal is the extremity of their childishness.

The neoconservatives in Israel’s Likud Party, for instance Benjamin Netanyahu have been on a non-stop campaign since Bush’s second term to convince not the American public, who gives a shit about them, but American officials in both the Republican and Democratic Parties, that Iran is a nuclear threat not only to Israel but the Unites States as well. The Israeli neocons have successfully triangulated the United States into an illegal invasion and Occupation of Iraq, a bombing campaign in Lebanon, a build up to war with Iran. American and Israeli neocons work in tandem to deceive both American and Israeli citizenry, through a campaign of dehumanizing Arab people, and discrediting progressive opposition.

The Great Benefactor.

In an article written by Mohamed Elmasry, he quoted Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."

One of Elmasry’s theses in his article, “Israel is the real winner of America's War on Iraq and Iran (If attacked)” is that Israel has effectively took away United States’ moral high-ground because the United States now occupies Iraq, therefore the Occupation of the Palestinian people can now be taken off the table when discussing Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. In Iraq, America's track record of torture, concentration camps, civilian detentions, killing of innocent citizens (even guests at a wedding), the siege of Iraqi cities, and the over-use of sophisticated killing machines in lieu of diplomacy, renders any criticism about Israel's treatment of Palestinians wholly hypocritical.

How can Washington now proclaim to Israeli leaders, "What you are doing to the Palestinians is wrong"? Ironically, the American siege of the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004 has served to evoke nostalgia over the Jewish state's siege of another Falluja -- the Palestinian city -- in 1949. In reality, the U.S. and Israel now share membership in the same elite and notorious club, that of occupiers of Arab countries -- theirs has become a comradeship as never before.

The Realignment.
Russia’s former president, President Vladimir Putin stated of the United States, “We are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of military force in international relations,' Putin said. 'One country, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.'” What was Bush response?

“We are surprised and disappointed with President Putin's comments.”

It would appear Obama’s deafening silence on the conflict between Israel and Hamas is one of continued lop-sided support of Israel’s method of solving its problems through violence and getting the same results—the very definition of insanity.

And yes, George W. Bush does eat kittens.

PIMP THIS |

THE MEDIA EDITION: ISSUE 53, VOLUME 83
IDIOTOLOGY
by Malik Isasis






















As I watch the corporate media cover the Israeli invasion of the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, I am sicken to my stomach as Israel is portrayed yet again as a victim, for occupying millions of Palestinians and expecting the Palestinians to be okay with the squalidness of their subjugation. As Malcolm X once said, you can’t stab a man in the back with a nine-inch knife, pull it out a few inches and expect him to be grateful. This is the short sightedness of white supremacy however, complete arrogance, military masturbation of power to show the world just how to domesticate unarmed, broken infrastructure, and military-less Arab people. What’s more, is that the world stands by giving Israel a freehand so as not to seem anti-Semitic for the cultural and slow-burn genocide or democide that is occurring in Palestine against another Semitic people.

In Tim Burton’s (1989) Batman starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, a criminal named Jack kills Bruce Wayne’s parents, and when Bruce becomes the Batman and confronts the Joker for the first time, Batman says to the Joker, “You created me.” The Joker laughs because before he was the Joker he was just a thug named Jack that Batman threw into a vat of chemicals and disfigured his face, creating a permanent smile.
“What? You created me,” The Joker said back to Batman…or something to that effect. This is the impossible wound of the Middle East; and It seems that after eight years of George Bush and his neocon flying monkey army efforts to imperialize the Middle East for oil, the corporate media continues to support the US and Israel’s “War is Peace” propaganda making it clear that they, the corporate media are largely responsible for sustaining the chaos, and have a lasting damage on society with the lies they tell.

Tony Soprano Diplomacy and the Newton’s Law of Reality

During the first half of 2006 of the US occupation of Iraq, the death rate among the Iraqi civilian population was approximately 30,000 a month. How could this go nearly unnoticed? The death and destruction that has been brought against the Iraqi people is unthinkable, unimaginable—partly because the corporate media had become the public relations arm of the military, cheering on the mechanized way in which unarmed civilians can be killed with the latest and greatest incendiary weaponry. The pep rally was called “Supporting the Troops.” "Support the Troops" was an empty and non-sensical slogan used to suppress anti-war sentiment so that corporate raiders can colonize a sovereign country using the assets of the United States government. It was the collusion between the Bush Administration and their corporate base. It was nothing short of a money-laundering scheme hiding out in plain sight and with contempt.

The London bombings was an example of blowback from Britain's involvement in the Iraq Occupation; it was also an example of the corporate media's disconnect between the British occupation and the bombing. The occupation and the bombing were two ships passing in the night. The media portrayed the London bombing as if one thing had nothing to do with the other.

The correlation between blowback and the United States’ meddling in other folks’ business is clear as the big nose on my face. Here, let me count the ways:

1. United States support of President Mubarak in Egypt
2. Unmitigated support of Israel’s occupation and colonization efforts against the Palestinian people.


3. US supports the corrupt House of Saud
4. US is the number one arms dealer in the world: customers: Lebanon military, Gaza militia, Iraq Sunni dissidents, Israel and many more.
5. US uses the International Monetary Fund as system of controlling developing nations.

The United States and Israel is Tony Soprano, breaking knee caps, busting caps in asses and trying to convince the victim that they deserved it because it was in their best interest. If Tony Soprano got whacked, it wouldn't be unexpected, but the media pretends that Israel’s occupation of nearly 40 years is inconsequential, silencing the Palestinian people's suffering from the world by land, air, and sea is inconsequential, as if 10,000 eyes for an eye revenge is inconsequential, as if living in squalid ghettos and walled off like animals is inconsequential, as if Israel flipping the government every time it wants is inconsequential. Every action has a consequence, Newton’s Law most certainly proved that for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction.

The corporate media is out to transform the United States’ citizenry into pure consumers, unadulterated consumers who spend themselves into unrelievable debt. The corporate media has conflated consumer choices with political choices. The difference between having 26 brands of cereal to choose from is significantly different than having only one choice between two parties who are two faces of the same coin. It is in the corporate media’s best interest to keep the people ignorant, ill informed. It is why we can shop till we drop while occupying two countries, or shop till we drop when the economy has fallen apart, and it was why no one blinked upon Bush saying go shopping days after September 11th.

We are indentured servants to the banks, and corporate will. We’ve been conned into believing that we are informed with political choices. Every time we turn on the news it is propaganda to reinforce a worldview that keeps us idiots, to keep us from questioning policies that are not in our best interest. The fall of every empire is the idiotic belief that being an empire is sustainable...as history has shown, it is not.

Back to my question.

In 2006 there was a stretch of time where 30,000 Arabs a month died in Iraq. How can 30,000 deaths a month go unnoticed in America? It is clear that Arab lives are not valued, and it is perfectly clear to Arabs of how inconsequential their lives are in the eyes of the United States; it is not that they hate our freedoms or, are jealous of our lifestyle as the corporate media would have you believe, rather it is the sheer amount of death, destruction and colonization over decades caused by the United States and other Western powers that has set forth the manifestation of violence that has consumed the Middle East, which drives their anger with the United States. The imagery of Arabs and Muslims as savages is used to justify what we do under the guise of National Security, or Democracy, or in the case of Israel, their right to exist.

What the United States and Israel does has nothing to do with Democracy, but everything to do with colonization—the taking of people’s wealth, land and resources. It is why the US is picking on Iran and scouting the Horn of Africa for oil. The shit we do to others comes home to roost and when the times come, we shouldn't be surprised if we get whacked.

PIMP THIS |

A FILM REVIEW
UNDER THE BOMBS
by Malik Isasis















Recently Israel dropped a hundred tons of bombs (or 90 metric tons of bombs) on Gaza to which the Israeli government said its intention was to completely destroy Hamas for lobbying rockets into Israel. Hamas is a group the United States and Israel has labeled as a terrorist organization. It is often not reported or under reported that Hamas is actually a democratically elected government in Gaza. This fact doesn’t matter to the media or the world because the moment Arabs are labeled terrorists they are instantly robbed of their humanity and the dismemberment, and disbursement of their guts, brains and limbs by Israel or the United States is justified as Israel’s right to defend herself, but it's never the other way around.

Just as the United States in the early 1980s created Al Qaida to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, Israel created Hamas to fight Yassar Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization or (PLO). When these Frankenstein monsters US and Israel creates began to develop their own agenda, they are labeled as terrorists, but under US and Israel‘s definition of a terrorist organization and their actions, both US and Israel can also add themselves to the ranks of a terrorist organization. Look no further than the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the 2006, 33-day bombing campaign in Lebanon by Israel.


Under the Bombs

In the summer of 2008 I attended the annual Human Rights International Film Festival in New York. It was there I discovered a little known film titled, Under the Bombs. The film never received theatrical distribution here in the United States (heaven forbid that there be another side to the Jewish and Arabic conflict). When Israel began raining bombs on another country, I wanted to rewatch the film. It just so happened a friend of mind from Lebanon got me a dvd copy of the film for my collection.

Under the Bombs takes place in Lebanon on the day after Israel’s 33-day campaign and follows the strikingly beautiful Zeina (Nada Abou Farhat), who is searching for her missing six-year old son and her sister in the rubble in Southern Lebanon. She arrives in Beirut desperately trying to hire a taxi driver to take her to Southern Lebanon in search of her family. Tony (Georges Khabbaz), a Christian is the only taxi driver who will agree to take her south, for a price.

Director and writer Philippe Aractingi incorporates real footage of the bombings to create a hybrid, a surreal experience. The destroyed bridges, and roads that halted Zeina and Tony’s search were real, not special effects. The destroyed buildings were real, not special effects.

The filmmaker takes a straightforward view as he lets the pain, and chaos speaks for itself. Zeina and Tony come across victims who’ve lost family, and it's pretty clear these moments are unscripted as the victims tell the horror of having to dig out the limbs of relatives from collapsed apartment buildings and homes.

Even amongst the chaos and destruction of war, love goes unabated. Tony, a working class driver who has dreams of moving to Berlin and starting a restaurant with his brother, initially repulses Zeina an aristocrat but their relationship develops slowly and over time as the search brings them across Southern Lebanon and their collective loss Zeina understandably lets down her guard. She is grieved and finds she needs to be comforted by Tony. Along the way, Tony realizes that the search is no longer about the money; he just wants to help her find her family.

Under the Bombs is a story of loss, and regret, but also about not missing the opportunities before you. It is a powerful, and well-told story that is neither dogmatic, nor overly sentimental. It strikes the perfect balance of showing the burdens of war and its true effects on the human psyche.

This film may not have received theatrical distribution in the United States but it will be available on dvd in March of 2009 at Amazon.com.


Grade: A

PIMP THIS |