Thursday, September 27, 2007

Blackwater- Making a Killing in Iraq




On September 16 a heavily armed State Department convoy guarded by Blackwater USA gave orders for a vehicle to move off the road. Somewhere in the chaotic traffic situation that always happens when US convoys rush through Iraqi streets, pushing everyone else off, the vehicle mistook directions and veered back onto the road. The Blackwater USA guards immediately opened fire, shooting at the vehicle and indiscriminately into the heavily populated area. "I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot," said Iraqi lawyer Hassan Jabar Salman, who was shot four times in the back. "But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus--he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him. She jumped out after him, and she was killed." Some 20+ Iraqi civilians would end up dead; dozens more were badly wounded. Blackwater would at first claim a car bomb had gone off, and that they were in a firefight, and the initial vehicle was packed with insurgents. Turned out however that the only people firing were Blackwater; there was never a car bomb; and the drivers of the initial vehicle that was first struck were not insurgents, but an Iraqi man, woman and infant child. Witnesses say the bodies of the mother and child were melded together by the flames that had engulfed their vehicle.

Read More...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

AHMADINEJAD-A-PHOBIA




Anyone living in NY for the past few days has been treated to one big soap opera, in which a small president from Iran was turned into the incarnate of Satan, the chancellor of a respected University would embarrass himself in the name of not-so-very "free speech" and the image of the 'ugly American' would reverberate around the world.

Read More...

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Black Snake Moan vs Megan Williams




Okay... So by now everyone has heard of the ordeal of Megan Williams, the young black woman who police say was kidnapped, tortured and repeatedly sexually abused for a week long ordeal in Charleston, West Virginia. Williams mother says she was chained, sexually assaulted, doused with hot water, stabbed, forced to eat animal feces, and taunted with racial slurs (n*gger). Six whites, two of them women, were arrested and now face a multitude of charges. Wonder if Craig Brewer, the white guy who showed us a black pimp can cry in Hustle & Flow, and that the long-time southern fantasy of 'white woman slavery' does exist after all in the not-so-subtle symbolisms of Black Snake Moan, will tackle this in his next film?

Read More...

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps




I tend to write alot about the spiral into a police state of fascism in America. Most people scoff, thinking it's far-fetched. But that's what most people who are marching down the road to a fascist authoratative state always do--scoffing while all the while they are being spied on, having their rights stripped away, pressured into silence, fear-mongered into wars and lulled to sleep by a complacent media. Last April, Naomi Wolf wrote an article that appeared in the Guardian Unlimited titled, Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps. I reprint it here for careful review.

Read More...

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Morpheus Returns- And So Does Katrina...




Okay. So Morpheus took a litle longer to return than first expected. Hey, you try fighting Sentinels and Agents--taking 2nd billing to Neo no less--all the while trying to maintain a blog. Like our fearless leader George Dubya would say, "it's hard!" But! Like the prodigal son, I have returned. Due to time constraints, the Media Round Up will no longer be "weekly," though rest assured an eye will still be kept on the *failing* 4th Estate. So enough of that, let's start this hoot-nanny!

K A T R I N A- two years from this tragic event in U.S. history, the residents of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans in particular, have still not recovered. For those living in America's Disneyland of Lindsey Lohan and American Idol, the disaster of Katrina (both natural and man-made) highlighted not only the racial and wealth inequities that have long plagued this country, but exposed the Bush administration for the incompetent junta of cronies that they really are--more adept at spinning facts to their ends than actually running a functioning government.

Read More...