Volume 4 Issue 49…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…December 14, 2001

by Yohannes Sharriff Smith

By the end of twilight,

wild vice rides inside Chocolate City.

Instinctive needs slide

through the brilliant sights of the dense jungle.

On this Caribbean island,

well-endowed colonial insecurities

erect prolific phallic symbols.

Mercantilism religiously

stretch feelings of inadequacy,

like plastic surgeons artificially enhancing appearance.

Synthetic industrial scalpels penetrate deep into blue, scrapping the sky's open wound.

Oedipus ejaculates semantic Freudian dysfunction,

spreading deadly dis-ease and propagating symptoms of conditioned subordinate psychology.

But, now is Mother's time. Night children answer

her nursery's undeniable summons,

"Awh...mercy, mercy me."

Melodic haunting tribal rhythms

hint at the hidden power

beneath the concrete thick rush hour

traffic mix of a misty prayer from the inner-city.

Born of nocturnal elements,

the lonely tree stands dark and sharp,

against the bleak backdrop.

Black as the night,

despair super heats the hot atmosphere,

leaving the dire needs heavy with untapped energy.

Consumed in potential, the tree aches for a miracle.

And, like a prayer answered, the sweet moon arrives.

The silver flame paints the longing sky.. luminous,

sparking spontaneous cumulus.

Anticipating delicious radiance,

the limbs reach upward.

Screaming,

"Make me wanna holla throw up both my hands,"

his roots bathe in the deep luscious blue of midnight.

Yet...his great thirst remains unquenched,

held tightly by some unknown desire.

Suddenly, a faint rumble breaks the boisterous silence.

Then, a gentle voice beckons.

Flowing kinetic electric sounds, she sings fluidly.

Life holds the earth, and water washes away what was,

drowning the harsh world in her wet quiet noise.

Her supernatural conversation refreshes senses,

teaching Homo sapiens to be human.

Consciousness reigns playing hypnotic love,

as glistening drops of her feminine essence.

(Reprinted from THINC, 1997)

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is definitely a work in progress. A mass of constant change, at eight, he connects the dots, plays chess, takes initiative and assumes serious responsibilities. When asked about last Tuesday's homework, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro importantly declared, "I only have math; I did my synonyms at school, that's what big boys do."

Disgruntled says: Life is a modular curve. That is not to say, you will end up back where you started, but life is certain to bring you back pass places you have already been.

Disgruntled wants to know: In an interconnected global economy, the US could not escape the Asian economic flu indefinitely. Hidden behind America's relative affluence, like T-cells in HIV/AIDS that avoid detection, the bug disguised itself as something healthy. With recession a given and unemployment on the rise, will Bush see stagnation as just another opportunity to give corporate welfare to his wealthy friends and allies?

Disgruntled feels: It's all relative! Children can and many do leave home eventually, when the time comes. Parents want them to mature and assume adult responsibilities for themselves certainly. But, they are not gone for long. Some still raid their parents' pantry.

by Current, Williams & Friedel

During the New Deal and WWII, Communists and Communist sympathizers worked in the United States government. At that time, Russians were U.S. allies, so this seemed of little consequence. The Canadians discovered that at least 23 of its employees in positions of trust had turned over secrets, some of them concerning nuclear fission, to Russian spies. By 1946, Russia seemed more an enemy than ally.

To ferret out Communists, President Harry Truman established a Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty (1946) to recommend loyalty investigation systems. This led to loyalty boards (1947) to conduct sweeping federal employee investigations. In August 1950, the President authorized numerous employee dismissals in sensitive departments.

In September 1950, Congress overrode the President's veto and passed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which did not outlaw Communist organizations, but required them to publish their records. It barred Communists from employment in defense plants and denied them passports.

Already, in 1948, the Attorney General had obtained indictments against eleven key Communist leaders for violation of the Smith Act of 1940, which prohibited conspiring to teach the violent overthrow of the government. In Dennis v. United States, the Supreme Court in a 6-to-2 decision rejected their appeal. Chief Justice Fred Vinson held that advocating or teaching revolution in the existing state of the world, or even conspiring to do so, fell within Justice Holmes' earlier definition of what was punishable - that it constituted a "clear and present danger." In dissenting, Justice Hugo Black remarked: "There is hope that in calmer times, when the present pressures, passions, and fears subside, this or some later court will restore the First Amendment liberties to the high preferred place where they belong in a free society."

By December 1952, 6.6 million people had been checked for security. No cases of espionage were found. The outcome was an impressive testimonial to the public service, but it was purchased at a painful human cost. "It was not realized at first," former Secretary of State Dean Atcheson later wrote, "how dangerous was the practice of secret evidence and secret informers, how alien to all our conceptions of justice and the rights of the citizen. Experience proved again how soon good men become callous in the use of bad practices."

by Dot

Perhaps the clearest example of abuse of presidential power under the cover of responding to a "clear and present danger" is found in the Tom Clancy action-suspense-thriller by the same name. Directed by Phillip Noyce, Clear and Present Danger stars Harrison Ford as CIA Operative Jack Ryan, with Anne Archer, Willem Dafoe and James Earl Jones. Much like the James Bond 007 films with fewer toys and broads, but lots of killing, Clear and Present Danger opens with the brutal murder of a family at sea. The head of the family is a very good friend of the United States' President.

On the heels of this brutal slaying, Jack Ryan is appointed acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence when his mentor Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones) becomes gravely ill. His first assignment is to investigate the murder of the President's friend, who happens to be a prominent businessman. Ryan discovers the President's friend is involved with Colombian drug cartels, and he was most likely murdered because he had stolen a significant amount of the drug lord's money.

Rated PG-13, the 1994 film is now available on VHS and DVD at most video stores. Rent it today, if you have not already seen it, and you will understand what is meant when the United States' President declares a situation is 'a clear and present danger.' Watch the gloves come off. See high-ranking government officials, including the President, lie to Congress, engage in murderous covert operations on foreign soil in vigorous pursuit of the almighty dollar and justify their unethical and illegal behaviors in the name of national security.

by John Burl Smith

A disabled Vietnam veteran, I came home and joined the protestors. Like many, who witnessed J. Edgar Hoover's classic performances, watching US Attorney General John Ashcroft's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was déjà vu.

With bone-chilling arrogance, Hoover, the creator and, until his death, despotic director of the FBI, deferred to no one, except the President, but then only on occasions that suited his purposes. Most often Hoover typified the backroom politician. Holding an acrid Cuban cigar in one hand and puffing streams of smoke out of one side of his mouth, Hoover had his own agenda, no matter who was president, and everyone knew it. As dapper as a Baptist preacher on Sunday morning and filled with as much holy virtue, Ashcroft looked and sounded amazingly like J. Edgar Hoover.

Unlike J. Edgar, Ashcroft is a man on the move. He is building a political base, while veiling his fangs and the apple of his eye. Under Ashcroft, an uneasiness grows among Bush White House insiders, in that, there are several with presidential aspirations who have decided to use the present situation as an opportunity to establish their legitimacy as contenders. There are always Brutuses wherever the power hungry gathers.

Hoover insulated himself from all criticism by running the FBI like a bunker. He attacked his critics as 'un-American,' 'soft on communism,' 'homosexual,' 'Jew' and/or 'nigger lovers.' Hoover effectively used labels during the "red scare" and "black power" movement of the late 1960s and 70s. The Congressional Record bears witness to how Hoover used the power of the federal government against those who opposed him or those he wished to bend to his will. Terrorist show-trials will not give Ashcroft complete media control, whereas with tribunals, he controls the action, but the Pentagon catches the flack for whatever happens.

A cascading déjà vu, when Ashcroft read from his prepared statement: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends," I saw vintage Hoover justifying Co-Intel-Pro again!

From its inception, the question to be answered for the American revolutionaries was, "would the citizens of what was developing in North America live under the rule of men, such as kings, or the rule of law administered by men?" Although beaten to the ground most of the time, the concepts of equality among people and justice for all still live in the hearts of those who oppose John Ashcroft and fascism. Then as now, freedom to defend means freedom to criticize. Those principles or "phantoms of lost liberty" are what holds this nation together. The hope of attaining true freedom for all citizens can never be balanced on a scale tilted against foreigners, Muslims, black and less educated. Trading constitutional rights for the promises of men is a fool's bargain no true American will ever accept. John 2001

by Keidi Obi Awadu

I'm confused about your kudos. Is this the same David Satcher who lent his credibility to the cover-up of experiments on 711 black and Mexican babies in Los Angeles with deadly experimental immune-destroying vaccines, an experiment in which babies died. Satcher is silent about the unrelenting pace of black abortions and the use of aborted fetuses in pharmaceutical products.

Is this the same Surgeon General who allows the coverup of the murders of black postal workers with anthrax that was almost certainly purified in laboratories at USAMRIID? The same Satcher that allows numerous black women in housing projects in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Memphis and other cities to be recruited as human guinea pigs for the development of an "AIDS vaccine" that theoretically would never work?

Damn, if this filthy accommodating dog is worthy of "kudos" what kind of credit do we give to David Duke and Jeffry Dahmer? Come on, do some research on these people before lending them your credibility. There ARE some so-called African Americans involved with the government who are worthy of respect, but the majority of them in positions of effective power are chief collaborators in the population war against our people. People gave kudos to nurse Eunice Rivers for her role in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, didn't they? (Comments? Email the author at keidi@7mac.com )

Email: www.mumia.org. Mumia sent this quote. "When fascism comes to the U.S., it won't be wearing swastikas -- it'll be whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy, and waving red, white and blue" -- Eldridge Cleaver

Email: keidi@7mac.com Thanks for your response. I don't ever want you to think that I don't appreciate your postings. I save nearly all of them because they are full of useful and accurate facts. You obviously DO conduct a lot of serious research. I do admit that I really don't have much admiration for Blacks who have had government positions over the past half-century. I do have a great amount of respect for two bold sisters, Rep.'s Barbara Lee and Cynthia McKinney. Thanks to you my bold fellow researcher.

by John Burl Smith

The justification America gives for its present illegitimate government is the vote, democracy, equality and representation are synonymous and they support the US Supreme Court-led Bush v. Gore coup d'etat. However, I have always been told, one is never too young to know the truth, and we are never too old to learn a lesson. Responding to Dot's question regarding some items I forgot I had moved, I was reacquainted with this truth. Convinced I was not the culprit, I accused her of throwing the items away. Dot found the items where I had put them. Speechless, I could only apologize to her and ask myself, what does this mean?

Unthinkingly, did I panic the instant the question was asked, because the answer was not clear and immediate? Was it like when the police ask a black person his or her name? "Uhummm." It is not that we do not know our names, yet we stammer.

The stammer is a common fear reaction in black men, a legacy of lynching. As slaves, blacks needed to know instantly all implications of any question a white person might ask. That is to say, blacks had to instantly know the correct response to anything whites may think at any given moment. Far greater than clairvoyance, blacks must be mind readers. They must be telepathic. Impossible you say? Not according to US Supreme Court and lower courts' rulings.

Even adolescents understand the lesson police killings teach. Courts consistently rule, if the officer feels threatened, simply retrieving one's wallet is sufficient provocation. Amadou Diallo could not have known four cops would simultaneously feel so threatened by his wallet that they would all respond with gunfire. Under such circumstances, his only protection would have been precognition, i.e., "I had better stay home." Whites are not required to possess supernatural abilities in order to avoid getting shot by police.

Police killings show slavery never ended. Article 1 Section 2 of the US Constitution is the law of the land, therefore blacks are still subject to Fugitive Slave Law. Such laws deny equality, therefore democracy, to blacks and give whites the power of life and death over them. This sweeping denial of humanity makes it necessary for blacks to know what is going on in the mind of every white person they encounter. Ipso facto, police killings, as lynchings, are legal today. One wrong guess leaves black men Without Sanctuary. The photographic collection gives new meaning to "a picture is worth a thousand words." It shows why trying to read minds became a second nature reaction in black men.

Although one recognizes their conditioning, one is never free of lynching's legacy. Lynching is emblematic of the 3/5 Compromise, and like The Matrix, it is everywhere. Telling people about its affects cannot inoculate them against it. Each individual must become conscious. Once awake, it is a daily struggle against your slave programming. But know this, like amulets and incantations, telepathy and precognition or any other magic will not protect black men against police killings. We must change the law! John 2001

DISHing It Up Hot!

The DISH is the only international independent medium dedicated to the dialogue on race. It provides bits and pieces of news and information you can use.

Generally, the information we provide is the best available at publication, but, unfortunately, like drops from Zion, all media sometime miss the mark. We are proud of our record of being on the money, and we promptly apologize for mistakes. Our most recent faux pas on Ollie North's Iran-Contra testimony was fiction. As our dedicated readers are well aware, we run some fantasy pieces - jokes, movie reviews and even the occasional phantom scribbler. But, we do try to separate fact from fiction and provide our readers with unique, useful and insightful information, so that when they connect the dots there is a clearer reflection.

As we close out another year, our 4^th for the record, we would like to thank you - our readers - for all you do to keep our feet to the fire of truth. You make our jobs interesting and worth doing. For you, The DISH family would like to take this opportunity to wish that 'the best of your past be the worst of your future.'

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