The Voudon Gnostic Workbook

Vote Malik Rahim (If you live in Louisiana) Dec. 6th

A Conversation with Malik Rahim
BY ADAM FLEMING
Pittsburgh City Paper, November 13, 2008
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A55307

Malik Rahim has been many things. He's been a Black Panther, an armed robber and a social activist. He is currently a Green Party congressional candidate in New Orleans; the election cycle for some Louisiana districts was delayed because of Hurricane Gustav. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Rahim co-founded the Common Ground Collective to provide assistance to low-income residents. This week, the Thomas Merton Center honors Rahim at its annual award dinner, on Wed., Nov. 12.

[Q] What was your reaction to Barack Obama's victory?

None, other than to say that history was made. And now it's: How we can really come up with a plan to clean our environment, and then second, do something to save our economy without just giving bailouts to the rich?

[Q] Are you upset that New Orleans wasn't mentioned during the debates?

I don't fault [Obama]. I fault our city's administration for not really pushing that we are still really in dire need of assistance. The Saints are winning and Mardi Gras was a success, then hey, you're going to have a lack of enthusiasm from any politician. It's a city that's based upon tourism, and they believe that telling the truth would be bad for tourists. [But people need] to see our school system and the deplorable situation that they're in. To see the health-care agencies, and how in dire need the city is for hospital beds. If you look at the lack of opportunity in the midst of a construction boom. The tough questions that need to be asked aren't asked.

We can't talk about just building levy walls. We've got to talk about, how can we restore our wetlands? We've got to talk about some alternatives for when we have to evacuate. We need to constantly teach and train the residents of New Orleans about disaster-preparedness. We can't go on living in New Orleans as if we're living in Arizona.

[Q] What needs to change in the reconstruction of New Orleans?

We have to move into a clear direction of hope: How can we assure people that, hey, you can come back. You will be able to rebuild. That we're not just concerned about the French Quarter or the Superdome. That every citizen in this city is important. Once we start doing this, then we will get the people's involvement. Right now, if we had just the resources that we are spending on incarcerating non-violent offenders, the Ninth Ward would be rebuilt.

[Q] Do you consider yourself a radical?

Yes, indeed, I consider myself a radical. It pushes those who are not about peace and justice away, but for those who truly have made a stand for environmental peace and justice, I believe they gravitate towards the ideas that I have shown. It's not like something that I'm saying is wrong. People have [come] and seen this.

[Q] You say the Common Ground Collective has organized thousands of volunteers in New Orleans. Are you upset that New Orleans wasn't mentioned during the debates?

I don't fault [Obama]. I fault our city's administration for not really pushing that we are still really in dire need of assistance. ... The Saints are winning and Mardi Gras was a success, then hey, you're going to have a lack of enthusiasm from any politician. ... It's a city that's based upon tourism, and they believe that telling the truth would be bad for tourists. ... [But people need] to see our school system and the deplorable situation that they're in. To see the health-care agencies, and how in dire need the city is for hospital beds. ... If you look at the lack of opportunity in the midst of a construction boom. ... The tough questions that need to be asked aren't asked.

We can't talk about just building levy walls. We've got to talk about, how can we restore our wetlands? ... We've got to talk about some alternatives for when we have to evacuate. ... We need to constantly teach and train the residents of New Orleans about disaster-preparedness. We can't go on living in New Orleans as if we're living in Arizona.

[Q] What needs to change in the reconstruction of New Orleans?

We have to move into a clear direction of hope: How can we assure people that, hey, you can come back. You will be able to rebuild. That we're not just concerned about the French Quarter or the Superdome. That every citizen in this city is important. Once we start doing this, then we will get the people's involvement. ... Right now, if we had just the resources that we are spending on incarcerating non-violent offenders, the Ninth Ward would be rebuilt.

[Q] Do you consider yourself a radical?

Yes, indeed, I consider myself a radical. ... It pushes those who are not about peace and justice away, but for those who truly have made a stand for environmental peace and justice, I believe they gravitate towards the ideas that I have shown. ... It's not like something that I'm saying is wrong. People have [come] and seen this.

[Q] You say the Common Ground Collective has organized thousands of volunteers in New Orleans. What's so radical about people flocking to save a city in need?

Because of the fact that it has never been done: In the history of America, never have you had 18,000 predominantly whites come into an African-American community in solidarity. Not as exploiters or oppressors. This is the first time this has been done. And they have lived in those communities and have helped to rebuild. ... Yeah, some people might call it radical, but there are people who classify Christ as being radical. Mohammad was a radical. I'm in good company.

[Q] What do you think of people calling Obama a radical for associating with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weatherman Bill Ayers?

I believe it would take a small-minded person to tell anyone that has met with those individuals that "You are a radical." ... This is a nation that was made by radicals. It came into existence by radicals. What's the difference between Obama meeting with those individuals or someone meeting with George Washington? Who could be more radical than the founding fathers of this country?

[Q] After leaving New Orleans in the 1970s, you were arrested for armed robbery in California. What happened?

That's what it took to save my life and to change the direction I was heading. At that time, just like most young black men, I was full of rage and felt like the movement had abandoned us, and we did some things that we are no longer proud of. ... I didn't come out of prison asking anyone for any hand. But I had a support mechanism, I had a family.

[Q] How did your time in prison shape your role as a prison-rights activist?

I know the plight. I know what is needed to turn people around. I know what is needed to do to build a better tomorrow. ... We have to understand, we cannot jail everyone. It's not the idea that people are born criminals. I'm a firm believer that that's folly. I believe in conditions. We have to talk about cause and effect. What causes a person to resort to crime?

[Q] From your perspective in New Orleans, what's missing from the current national political dialogue?

How can we transform this nation into the nation that it once was? At one time America was a great nation, and it wasn't great because we were the most powerful or the richest, it was our ability to reach out and help people in need. And I believe we can do it again.

Everyone should read this

a poem on a tired autumn day...
lazy kitten sleeps in the piles of the leaves
waking only when a squirrel goes by
and i trudge through
hearing the crackle of the leaves beneath my feet
what colors! what excitement!
but a paradox inside
fall is the harbinger of winter
and it's gonna get cold very soon
but now i'm just wearing sweaters
feeling the wind on my cheeks
and the canal might start draining
so i walk along the edge
never to fall

IWW? Aren't they a historical reenactment society?

29.
The gods who wielded bolts of lightning were not gods, but men
who used the atom, as we did, to wreck the world again.

- Moondog

"Fascism ought more properly be called corporatism because it is theperfect merger of power between the corporation and the state." --Benito Mussolini

Where's Kenny Rogers When You Need Him?:
The Big Boys Got Their Bailout,
But the Elected Leadership and the Voters
Meet at the Election Day Showdown

Cynthia McKinney

October 6, 2008

At the precise moment when we couldn't imagine it getting worse, it does. After all, the Democrats, since they acquired majority status in the Congress, delivered funding for George Bush's wars several times. They authorized retroactive immunity for telecoms that helped Bush's Administration illegally spy on us. And they never really considered any alternatives to the basic bailout wish list given to them by Bush and his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson.

Sadly, I must say that this failure on the part of the Democratic leadership is by far the greatest perfidy of the Democrats yet. I shudder to think what betrayal of the Constitution and the people of this country yet awaits us. I am forced to ask, "What do they stand for?"

I think they have shown us time and time again what they stand for, what their values are, and that they are willing to leave the people behind in their quest to acquiesce to what Bush's base asks for. And remember, Bush told us that his base were the haves and the have mores! So, if the Democratic leadership is more loyal to them than they are to the working people in this country, then a new political alignment of historical proportions is taking effect that the working people of this country must recognize. By their policy choices, it should now be clear that the Democratic leadership in Congress must be removed and a political party that reflects the people's values must be built. Not only do the people need a party of their own, it should now be clear to a vast number of people that the people in this country need a movement that places our values on the political agenda. This was what I said in my remarks accepting the Green Party's nomination as their candidate for President of the United States.

In 2000, when there was clear evidence that the election had been tampered with, and that particularly, black voters had been disfranchised, the Democratic leadership did nothing to recognize and correct this fact. Criminal behavior was met with de facto acceptance, a failure to investigate, and ultimate acquiescence by the Democratic leadership.

Through my Congressional office, on my own initiative, I investigated and discovered one of the mechanisms used to disfranchise voters and put my findings on the Congressional Record. Sadly, because of inaction by the Democratic Congress, the basic mechanism used by the Republicans to steal the vote in 2000 could, in fact, be used today to further disfranchise voters. Further, one million black votes across our country were not even counted, 78,000 of them in Florida alone.

What kind of election is it when the votes don't get counted!

In addition, in the late 1990s, electronic voting machines were introduced into the U.S. election architecture. From that time until today, where they are used, voters and inexperienced or untrained election staff have had to cope with machine meltdowns; screen freezes; dead and dying batteries in th e middle of the voting process; deployment of untested machines, particularly in the South, that failed repeatedly due to heat; vote flipping (usually in only one direction); ballots that don't list all the candidates without manipulation of the machine -- which could be problematic for some voters; incorrect ballots being displayed on the machines so that voters are allowed to vote in elections for which they are not eligible; machine sleepovers in insecure places where they could be tampered with; meaningless recounts in the absence of a paper trail where only bits and bytes previously entered can be counted; and the absence of a paper ballot that allows for accountability and transparency during and after an election.

Later, it was learned that these machines were not only hackable, but that the instrument used by the voter, the PCMCIA card, could be programmed to change the outcome of the election! Some of the machines were found to have wireless adaptations that opened the election to an additional level of insecurity due to wireless capabilities in everyday blackberries, treos, and other handheld devices.

With all of these defects known, electronic pollbooks were allowed to become an additional part of the election architecture and they produced an additional layer of disfranchisement when incorrect voter information was loaded into them and voters had no means to contest it. In too many cases that took place in my own 2006 election, voters were turned away from the polls only because the pollbooks contained incorrect information!

Elections in this country are now firmly in the grips of electronic voting machine technicians, inexperienced and poorly trained official poll workers , and computer companies using secret software. Sadly, the Democratic leadership has done nothing to eliminate this potential source of fraud, even in this -- an election year!

In 2004, the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, promised that the black vote was not going to be disfranchised as it had been in 2000. John Kerry conceded the election the day after Election Day, even as reports were coming in of massive black voter disfranchisement. It was the Green Party and the Libertarian Party that went to Ohio and sorted out exactly what happened and pressed for criminal prosecution of those guilty of election fraud. Sadly, in 2004, after the experience of 2000, an estimated three million votes were not counted.

The Green Party's Bob Fitrakis in Ohio is sounding the alarm again for this year's election. Some blogs like Bradblog, and organizations like Black Box Voting continue to sound the alarm now, even more urgently, and press for election integrity.

Last week I became the first Presidential candidate to sign the StandingForVoters.org pledge to not concede the election unless all votes are counted, and all challenges to the results have been adequately made. We really need the Democrats to sign such a pledge because they have caved in the past two Presidential elections.

In addition to that, the Democrats now have the power of the majority. They are in control of the Congress. And the way the Constitution is written, power flows up from Capitol Hill to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenuei -- not the other way around. But even while in control, the Democrat leadership has done nothing to prepare the way for election integrity in this election. Even in the face of massive preparations for theft again by the Republicans through the use of the same techniques used in 2000 and in 2004 and adding to them voter caging (removing targeted voters from the voter rolls) and enforcement of new voter ID laws. Even judges appointed by Democrats have helped to thwart citizen legal action on behalf of election integrity!

It should be clear that even in an election year, there are serious issues that should be on the table; the Democrats control the Congress and can mak e public policy to their likingi -- reflecting their values.

And that's where I want to begin my discussion of the bailout.

Nancy Pelosi is the third most powerful individual in the United States government as Speaker of the House -- third in line for the Presidency of th e United States. She controls when bills are scheduled for consideration in the House of Representatives, or even whether they are considered or not. The people of this country and her colleagues in the House gave her this position because the people hunger for change and they thought that the Democratic Party would deliver that change to them.

The people of this country want peace, not war and occupation; justice, not fraud; community, not hooliganism. And so, the people of this country voted the Democratic Party into majority status to attain all of that, public policy that ireflects their values. Nancy Pelosi, by virtue of her position, has been dealt a royal flush.

By now, Nancy Pelosi could have used that winning hand to stop the funding for war and occupation--$720 million every day -- and decided, instead, to subsidize education so no university student graduates one hundred thousand dollars in debt just because he or she wanted an education.

Pelosi could have insisted on reflecting the people's values and our Constitution by repealing the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, and the Military Commissions Act. But she did not.

She could have used that royal flush to provide a single-payer, Medicare-for-all, type of health care system for this country, consistent with the wishes of the Democratic Party's base, particularly organized labor and an increasing number of health care professionals. But she did not.

In light of the tremendously important election this year, she could have insisted on enacting some measure of election integrity to prevent another election being held where the announced outcome is truly in doubt. But she did not.

She could have taken her seat at the table as the one player in the room with the winning hand, but she did not. Instead, she assumed the position of the beautiful girl in the short skirt holding the platter of drinks, serving the men at the table. She could have been the leader and spokesperson for us all, but she is not.

It is clear that our country is at a financial crossroad, and the times call for courageous, daring acts on behalf of the people from those gifted with leadership positions. That, too, is not happening.

From the myriad writings that I have read, including those of former Comptroller General David Walker, it is clear that the financial status of our country is subject to get worse before it gets better. The Bush-Pelosi-Reid bailout exacerbates the situation because the fundamentals of the economy were not dealt with in what is perhaps the most massive transfer of wealth in our modern history. And while the money could have gone to people in need and for programs contributing to the public good, preparing our country for the future, it did not.

I published two papers outlining fourteen points that the Congress could have implemented even without a bailout, but most certainly should have implemented with one. The second paper, written on my son's birthday, was entitled, "A Birthday Gift for a Generation: A U.S. Financial System of Our Own."

Taken in conjunction with the Power to the People Committee's platform available on the campaign website at ( http://votetruth08.com/index.php/resources/campaignplatform), those fourteen points are as follows:

1. Enactment of a foreclosure moratorium now before the next phase of ARM interest rate increases take effect;
2. elimination of all ARM mortgages and their renegotiation into 30- or 40-year loans;
3. establishment of new mortgage lending practices to end predatory and discriminatory practices;
4. establishment of criteria and construction goals for affordable housing;
5. redefinition of credit and regulation of the credit industry so that discriminatory practices are completely eliminated;
6. full funding for initiatives that eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership;
7. recognition of shelter as a right according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which the U.S. is a signatory so that no one sleeps on U.S. streets;
8. full funding of a fund designed to cushion the job loss and provide for retraining of those at the bottom of the income scale as the economy transitions;
9. close all tax loopholes and repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners; and
10. fairly tax corporations, denying federal subsidies to those who relocate jobs overseas repeal NAFTA;
11. Appointment of former Comptroller General David Walker to fully audit all recipients of taxpayer cash infusions, including JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, and to monitor their trading activities into the future;
12. elimination of all derivatives trading;
13. nationalization of the Federal Reserve and the establishment of a federally-owned, public banking system that makes credit available for small businesses, homeowners, manufacturing operations, renewable energy and infrastructure investments; and
14. criminal prosecution of any activities that violated the law, including conflicts of interest that led to the current crisis.

Michael Ruppert recently wrote on his blog ( http://www.mikeruppert.blogspot.com/):

"There is no victory until the paradigm is broken. Until we change the way money works, we change nothing. Right now, the entire economic paradigm of infinite growth is vulnerable, weak, and exposed. The dribble being offered by Obama and McCain only exposes the fact that everything is broken; that the system itself is the enemy."

Everyone can see that the system is broken: a system that was not created to serve the people of this country. It was totally within Pelosi's purview and that of the Democratic Party to change all of that, but they didn't. In fact, I'm shocked by some of my former colleagues who voted for this bill, particularly the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus who supported this. With this vote, and the failures of the Democratic Party up to now, it should be patently clear that the Democratic Party cannot reflect our values because it is in complete obeisance to someone else's.

The elected leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties should resign.

That's why I can hear Kenny Rogers's sweet voice wafting through the air now:

"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Now ev'ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
Cause ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

However strong the Big Boys might appear after the October 3rd bailout vote , they still have a "leak" in their game: the people get to vote on November 4th. And that's the biggest "scare card" in the entire deck!

Power to the People!

http://www.cremaster.net/

10/12 Dubland
There might be another show this weekend too.

the red ring whistles in the nettle wood
a round thing on fire in the quiet nest
rolling around on the needles and cones
a special song for you is sung
you were my wife in my mind
but my mind was clouded
i once loved, but now love lorn
a white tailed deer passes by
the red ring burning on the stand
cutting circular scars in the wood
and then i prayed
you were the one i adored
but only ever from afar
always clouded and never clear
i wanted to marry you when i didn't know you
now the leaves turn red and brown
and the roots keep solid the foundation
a fiddle head fern and an owl coalesce
everything becomes everything else
in a giant ball of sleep
it was getting saved
and i was in a grave

David Icke

Narwhals are totally cool. The unicorns of the sea.

Fuck Jeff Buckley. I don't care if he did kill himself. His music still sucks.