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To amuse myself, often times I will attempt to translate gangster and misogynist rap music lyrics into academically precise and excessively clinical language. The goal is to clarify the rapper’s intended meaning for the (imaginary) uninitiated, non-urban listener. I also engage in this word substitution game when I overhear people on the street employing urban slang or street talk¹.
Gangsta rap lyrics are immeasurably amusing to translate due to their depth of meaning and emotionally-charged content (often detailing acts of extreme physical violence and barbarous sexual assault crimes committed against women). The purpose of the game is to juxtapose the explicit savagery of the gangsta rap lyric against a sterilized and verbose restatement of the lyric’s content reworded to nullify the inflammatory tone.
As a way of contextualizing this mental activity, I pretend that I am a foreign visitor who is semi-fluent in English (but slang-ignorant). In order to comprehend what I am hearing, I must substitute a large number of the words in order to clarify the content of the gangsta rap lyric. Other times, I imagine myself as a pedantic English professor who is mentally critiquing the rapper. As the professor, I make it my duty to red-line the grammatically offending lyrics since they are an affront to all for which I stand. The professor then silently instructs the rapping dullard on the proper way that he or she should verbally express their tales of criminal exploits and women-hatred.
Below is an example of how I employ the rap music lyric word substitution/clarification technique.
The lyric below is from the Eazy-E song Still Talkin’ and is on the deceased Mr. E’s 1988 debut album, Eazy-Duz-It (the complete lyrics to Still Talkin’ and many other fine Eazy-E songs can be found here).
Psychopathic, but the hoes are attracted
Because, when I’m on hard, my dicks at least a yard
First line translation/clarification:
Despite the fact that I have a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal, prostitutes with little or no monetary focus find me sexually appealing.
Second line translation/clarification:
The aforementioned women find me sexually appealing for the reason that when the two tubular structures that run the length of my penis, the corpora cavernosa, become engorged with venous blood (due to a complex interaction of psychological, neural, vascular and endocrine factors occurring before and during exposure to sexually-arousing stimuli), the welling, hardening and enlargement of my penis results in an erection that measures a full three feet (thirty-six inches) in length.
ΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦ
¹ For instance, when I am in a bodega buying my daily lottery ticket and I overhear an urban outdoorsman request that the cashier “gimme a loosey”, I know that the gentleman is directing the store clerk to reach behind the counter and retrieve a single cigarette from a broken pack to sell him at an inflated price. Although this is an illegal act, the clerk recognizes that market forces of supply and demand in an underground economy will ultimately determine the store’s financial survival (and more importantly – his/her job security). The store clerk’s tacit agreement with the gentleman and his/her willingness to complete this illegal transaction occurs notwithstanding the minimal threat of a criminal conviction (with its attendant fines and/or period of incarceration).
Related posts:
https://dillsnapcogitation.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/in-loving-memory-of-eric-eazy-e-wright/
https://dillsnapcogitation.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/my-mind-is-playing-tricks-on-me-geto-boys/
My favorite propaganda poster from Terry Gilliam’s exceptional film, Brazil (1985).
Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret “kill team” that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.
Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.
(source)
Foreign news articles like the one above pose a grave threat to national security in a post-9-11 world and should be censored in the U.S. Not only does this type of propaganda stoke the fire of global anti-American sentiment, but our freedoms and safety are threatened when America’s moral high ground in the execution of the War of Terror® is undermined. Free speech must always yield to the greater interests of national security and idealogical unity.
America is fully justified in taking the battle to the Mohammadan terrorist menace wherever it hides. This justification extends to the killing of non-terrorist men, women, and even little Muslim babies. Though they may technically be classified as non-combatants under international law, those who dwell in and around hotbeds of regional terrorist activity are potential future terrorists, including offspring. The position of slaughtering “gentile babies” to eliminate future threats is fully supported under Talmudic “halachic” law as expressed by Israeli rabbi, Yitzhak Shapira:
“There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”
To some this may be an extreme position. I caution those of this mind to remember the events of 9-11 as we enter into the ninth anniversary of patriotic mourning for our fallen heroes. Almost 3,000 of America’s bravest and hardest workers sacrificed their lives when 19 Arab hijackers engaged in a conspiracy to outwit the most sophisticated air defense system in the World, defied previously accepted laws of aerodynamics by flying airplanes into buildings at impossible speeds, and accomplished the incredible feat of knocking down three NYC skyscrapers with only two planes.
Following the 9-11 attacks, patriotic Americans fully supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. These military campaigns were necessary to exact brutal revenge on the Muslim people (a.k.a. potential future terrorists) wherever they lived to prevent another 9-11 type attack. Our brave political leaders and fearless generals delivered the Islamisists an undeniable message that terror is absolutely unacceptable under any circumstance. When the terror stops they might get their country back, it’s that simple people!
Some mistakenly argue that since a majority of the 9-11 perpetrators were Saudi Arabians (15 of the 19), including 9-11 terror mastermind Bin Laden (who methodically a plotted the brazen attacks on his laptop in an Afghan cave between his dialysis treatments), the U.S. should have instead bombed Saudi Arabia. Had the U.S. done so, diplomatic relations and countless high-dollar contracts would have been jeopardized. The Bush family, high officials in the Bush (and now Obama) administration, oil and gas corporations, and military defense contractors (who were supplying the Saudis with weapons, missile systems, and critical infrastructure protections) would have suffered severe economic harm as a result of a Saudi invasion. Invading Saudi Arabia would have also likely disrupted oil production leading to skyrocketing gas prices which would have negatively affected the U.S. economy. What’s good for business is good for America.
Muslim countries are pretty much interchangeable as each is a proxy for the overarching terrorist mindset that has infested their religion and culture, thus making it perfectly acceptable to invade any, or all of them. When the terror attacks stop, the U.S. soldiers and corporate mercenaries may or may not come home depending on the attitude of the Muslim people, among other factors (e.g., the full depletion of all natural resources, global opium demand forecasting, oil and gas pipeline completion timetables, and regional stability guaranteeing the safety and secured hegemonic status of our greatest ally, Israel.) In other words, don’t hold your breath, Achmed!
Like it or lump it Muslim people, America is in it for the long haul in the War of Terror®. President Obama has boldly demonstrated his commitment to forcefully restore peace in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and to protect the homeland from crazed jihadists. Through the implementation of innovative homeland security measures (i.e., increased government surveillance, restrictions on free speech, eroding terrorist friendly 4th Amendment protections, and the deployment of the Internet kill-switch), Obama has put every American back into the national security driver’s seat.
The Clash of Civilizations will result in an eventual victor, and it will not have an Islamic face. Osama bin Laden and his jihadist fly-boys should have thought of that before they single-handedly perpetrated the 9-11 attacks (without any help from the neo-con cabal, rogue members of the military-intelligence community, or foreign intelligence services and their domestic allies). Know this – the Christian/Judeo monotheistic religion tag-team can not, and WILL NOT, be beaten.
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Here is a link to a list of tin-foil hat conspiracy nuts who question the government’s official position on 9-11. Although they once held high ranking positions in the U.S. government and military, their hatred of America has muddled their critical-thinking faculties. The list of unpatriotic scumbags includes: Max Cleland (former U.S. Senator – GA), Louis Freeh (former FBI Director), General Albert Stubblebine (U.S. Army – Ret), Ray McGovern, and many other unhinged and reality-detached individuals. They put our country at risk by spouting off their idiotic hate America first nonsense. Have pity on their souls, as they are doing the Devil’s work by attacking the Shining City on the Hill (American Providence).
Johnny Peepers had the opportunity to snap a few photos at Dragon*Con this weekend. The annual Atlanta Sci-Fi/Fantasy freakfest is a scene to behold. Don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself. The following shots are from the parade on Saturday morning.
During the parade, your diligent and law enforcement-minded photographer witnessed a police officer repeatedly spitting tobacco juice in the street near small children. After reviewing Georgia law and local statutes, it appears that the officer was well within his rights to forcefully project saliva from his mouth onto a pubic street. The photo on the right is the product of the aforementioned bodily fluid expulsion.
Soon after the parade, I encountered a small unit of hardcore fundie holy-rollers. These cats were heaven-bent on saving some at-risk souls. The old dude in the photo below was screaming about how America’s leaders were going to hell because they were doing the Devil’s work. I asked him if George W. Bush was going to hell and he said “yes, but that he still has time to repent.” I got a real chuckle out of that. Also, for the record, Psalm 9:17 don’t say shit about no barbecues.
The following chaps were singled out for their individuality. I respectfully requested that they submit themselves to my camera for a permanent place in the historical record.
Boba Fett as a fat redneck and the ‘lil Aryan bootleg-era gangster deserve a shout-out.
Pops on the left (below) wanted to know why I wanted to photograph him because he was “just a taxi driver”. I told him he was so square that he was hip. I requested that he say “steel magnolias” right before the snap. He got a kick out of that. The fellow on the right had Hunter S. Thompson’s look and mannerisms down pat. He was a bit impatient with me, as he had numerous powders to snort and large caliber guns to discharge.
Niggers always goin’ through bullshit change
But when it comes for real change,
Niggers are scared of revolution
~ “Niggers are Scared of Revolution“, The Last Poets
The following is from this Guardian article:
After the Party: Music and the Black Panthers
One day last December, Umar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets attended a gathering in Chicago to commemorate local Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, who was shot dead by the police 40 years earlier. There were about 30 people, including the widows of Hampton and fellow Panther Eldridge Cleaver, and former members of radical groups such as Weatherman. “We laughed and drank wine and talked about what we all had been through,” Hassan says. “I’m glad I made it. It was good to see a lot of those people still living, you know?”
They were survivors of a turbulent period. In 1968, just two years after Oakland residents Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panthers, FBI director J Edgar Hoover called the party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and set about spending millions of dollars to infiltrate, sabotage and divide it. By the mid 70s, it was in terminal decline, and Hampton was far from the only fatality.
The Panthers’ legacy has been fiercely debated ever since. Some people claim the leadership, especially Newton, were their own worst enemies: paranoid hotheads prone to violence and cronyism. Others regard them as heroes who gave young African-Americans power and pride in the face of endemic racism, only to be brought down by Hoover’s machinations. A new project, Tongues on Fire, aims to accentuate the positive, bringing together the party’s official artist and minister of culture, Emory Douglas, with musicians such as the Last Poets, the Roots and jazz saxophonist David Murray.
When Newton and Seale were preparing the first edition of the newspaper in 1966, they listened obsessively to “brother Bobby” Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, especially Ballad of a Thin Man, which Newton read, rather fancifully, as a parable of racist oppression. At this point, black artists were still using code words such as “respect” and “pushing” when dealing with the subject of race. Even after blackness entered pop’s lexicon via James Brown’s Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud, Newton and Seale’s rhetoric, and Douglas’s artwork, only found their musical analogue with the arrival of the Last Poets.
Formed in Harlem in 1968, the Last Poets lost most of their founding members before they even recorded their debut album. The classic lineup on the Poets’ eponymous 1970 release consisted of Abiodun Oyewole, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin and Umar Bin Hassan. In his hometown of Akron, Ohio, Hassan had been an angry young man looking for direction when he saw the Panthers’ first televised action: their armed entrance into the California legislature in May 1967.
“Woah,” he remembers. “I was so excited to see some young black men do that. The Panthers were my first introduction to black militancy. About two months later I saw Huey Newton on the news, standing on the fenders of two cars and throwing down his fists at these white cops. I thought the revolution was going to begin and end in California. I ain’t never been in a gang, but if I was going to be in a gang I wanted to be in a gang that stood up and defended the black community from racist cops.”
Nobody had ever heard anything like the Last Poets. They combined the militant spirit of avant-garde jazz musicians such as Archie Shepp with the furious poetry of Amiri Baraka, who called for “poems that kill: assassin poems”. Their rage was aimed at both white America (“the Statue of Liberty is a prostitute”) and apathetic, unrevolutionary black people. Controversially, they called these people “niggers”.
“The Last Poets out-niggered everybody,” Hassan says with a throaty chuckle. “We had Wake Up Niggers, Niggers Are Scared of Revolution … Our thing was not to use that word as casually as the kids today. You got young kids who think it’s OK to be a nigger. Nah, it ain’t OK. We were trying to get rid of the nigger in our community and in ourselves. The difference between us and hip-hop is we had direction, we had a movement, we had people who kept our eyes on the prize. We weren’t just bullshitting and jiving.”
Despite zero airplay, the response to the album from those who heard it was “overwhelming” and the Panthers saw a fantastic recruitment opportunity in the Poets. “Everybody knew how much the people liked us and everybody wanted us to become a part of their thing,” says Hassan. “But we kept ourselves independent.” They did not need to be card-carrying members in order to be useful. “Music to [the Panthers] was something to get people’s attention so they could speak,” says David Murray, who was a teenager at the time. “Like a trumpet sounds and then there’s a speech.”
Very soon the party had a soundtrack, with such radical poets as the Watts Prophets, Nikki Giovanni and Gil Scott-Heron emerging almost simultaneously (although Scott-Heron was sceptical about “would-be revolutionaries” with “afros, handshakes and dashikis” in his song Brother). Sympathetic rock stars such as Santana and the Grateful Dead played fundraisers.
In 1970, the year the Last Poets began their album with the ominous phrase “time is running out”, it seemed to many US radicals, black and white alike, that revolution was imminent. But within a couple of years, the Black Panther Party was in disarray, largely thanks to the dirty tricks of the FBI. “Those who have the power always have the time and resources to get together,” Hassan says. “They took their blows for a minute but then they realised, ‘We gotta come back at this.’”
The agency fomented civil war between Newton and Cleaver, with bloody consequences. Douglas, who was regularly tailed by FBI agents, remembers seeing his artwork imitated on a forged pamphlet attacking another black organisation. “They tried to destroy and discredit the Black Panther Party by any means necessary,” he says. “We knew what was going on but you couldn’t put your finger on it.” The Watts Writers Workshop, the base of the Watts Prophets, was burned to the ground by a trusted employee who, it transpired, was an FBI plant. The Last Poets were constantly monitored, as Hassan discovered years later when he saw his FBI files. “We were on President Nixon’s list, the defence department list, the national security list. It kind of blew my mind.”
Not all the blame, however, can be laid at the government’s door. The Huey Newton who emerged from jail to retake the party leadership in late 1970 was a troubled, paranoid character who acquired a taste for cocaine and groupies and soon fell out with Cleaver. “Bobby Seale was the brains,” says David Murray. “Huey Newton was an action person. He would just go and do it. That might also be why he’s not alive [Newton was shot by a crack dealer in 1989].”
“We all thought we were moving towards bringing about something new, something good, for America – not just for black people, but for all people,” Hassan says. “But when you started seeing one brother go one way and another brother snitching, a lot of us went back on to the streets doing what we were doing before, selling drugs or hustling, because we were disappointed.” Hassan himself left the Last Poets in 1974 and became a cocaine addict, giving poetry readings in crackhouses. “Yeah man, there was a lot of disappointment.”
Asked about the Panthers’ balance sheet, Emory Douglas draws a long sigh. “I would say we did the best we could under the circumstances. You have to understand that never in the history of the country had any organisation stood up to the challenges in the way we did and at such a young age.” David Murray thinks the party has to be seen in context. “This was a time when California was changing the world. I was a hippie, I was a Black Panther, I was in the Nation of Islam. That was how you grew up during that time – you had to dabble in each one.”
The following is excerpted from this article written by Doug Yurchey:
The Marijuana Conspiracy:
The Reason Hemp is Illegal
They say marijuana is dangerous. Pot is not harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does not pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people. The truth is, if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb!
1) All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s. (Jack Frazier. Hemp Paper Reconsidered. 1974.)
2) It was legal to pay taxes with hemp in America from 1631 until the early 1800s. (LA Times. Aug. 12, 1981.)
3) Refusing to grow hemp in America during the 17th and 18th centuries was against the law! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769 (G. M. Herdon. Hemp in Colonial Virginia).
4) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers grew hemp. (Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.)
5) Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America, and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow’s export to England. (Jack Herer. Emperor Wears No Clothes.)
6) For thousands of years, 90% of all ships’ sails and rope were made from hemp. The word ‘canvas’ is Dutch for cannabis. (Webster’s New World Dictionary.)
7) 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc., were made from hemp until the 1820s, with the introduction of the cotton gin.
8)The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross’s flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp. (U.S. Government Archives.)
9) The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons. Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th century. (State Archives.)
10) Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.
11) Rembrandt’s, Van Gogh’s, Gainsborough’s, as well as most early canvas paintings, were principally painted on hemp linen.
12) In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs. (U.S. Department of Agriculture Archives.)
13) Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935. (Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before the U.S.Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.)
14) Henry Ford’s first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, ‘grown from the soil,’ had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. (Popular Mechanics, 1941.)
15) In 1938, hemp was called ‘Billion-Dollar Crop.’ It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars. (Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938.)
16) Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled ‘The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.’ It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
THE CONSPIRACY
William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst’s grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.
In 1937, DuPont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. DuPont’s Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of DuPont’s business.
Andrew Mellon became Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury and DuPont’s primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J.Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion-dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: ‘marijuana’ and pushed it into the consciousness of America.
MEDIA MANIPULATION
A media blitz of ‘yellow journalism’ raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst’s newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marijuana. The menace of marijuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.
Films like Reefer Madness (1936), Marijuana: Assassin of Youth (1935) and Marijuana: The Devil’s Weed (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marijuana laws could be passed.
Read the rest of the article here.
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