Friday, December 23, 2005

Transit Strike and Syriana Spoiler/Review

This post originally appeared on the now defunct blog, Team Sakib.

Saw Syriana recently. Great movie. Will review it below (more a polemical rant than a review). Also, quick take on the transit strike.

As for the transit strike, it was curiously worthless for the union, for the Transit Authority, and for the city. Really, the only person who benefited was Michael Bloomberg. He got the requisite political capital that comes from leading a people through some minimal hardship. The union struck for a retirement age of 55, not the proposed 62, with 100% for all new employees, and a approximately 6% raise in salary per year, instead of the proposed 3% raise. I'm a fan of collective bargaining, and generally screwing the man over, but for a group making an average salary of 50k per year with no requirement of higher education and a full pension, the transit workers sure raised a lot of hell. Well, to be fair, the transit workers had very little to do with it. Roger Trussant, the head of the local NYC Transit Workers Union, is probably to blame for the whole deal. In an effort to further his own political career (inside organized labor), Rog pulled classically unimaginative and out of touch tactics to create a cause of grievance where none existed. The strike hurt the labor movement, it hurt his career and it hurt the city. The city was hit by days of lost work, hours of gridlock, $$ not spend on shopping, and time spent driving instead of taking public transport. His career is dead; he led his union into a no-win strike, ruled illegal by the courts, ruled inappropriate by the international labor movement, and declared selfish by the new New York media (Post/Daily News/Fox). Lastly, this move is another in a long line of dumbass moves by organized labor that show absolutely no creativity or vision. At this point, the labor movement is simply another coopted tool of Corrupt Corporate America (the 'CCA'- more on them later). Get some frickin' brains and get yourselves to China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, Eastern Europe, Pakistan. Fighting NAFTA was stupid. If business can go multinational, shouldnt collective bargaining diversify as well? WTF is an "American job" anyways? Last I checked, the trade stiching soccer balls had no nationality. Niether does putting a rivet into a car or making tiny electronics or making Banana Republic pants. Imagine if the AFL-CIO represented workers in Mexico, Malaysia, and Michigan. What kind of contracts would Nike sign then? Wouldn't that help level the labor playing field across borders? No trade union will ever even dare to think along these lines. Its a shame. A DAMN SHAME.

switching gears to Syriana...

The hardest part of formulating a strategic response to the threat is defining Islam as a political and military enemy. Once that psychological barrier has been crossed, defense sources tell me, the development of countermeasures -- such as educating the public about the militant nature of Islam and exploiting "critical vulnerabilities" or rifts within the Muslim faith and community -- can begin.
~Fighting words from the Pentagon and David Horowitz.

Syriana is a movie about the other country that resides in these 50 states, Corrupt Corporate America, or the CCA. I distinguish the CCA because it is NOT the United States of America, the country of which I proudly call myself a citizen. The USA is the Bill of Rights, baseball, apple pie, etc. CCA is Enron, Rockerfeller, Iran-Contra, Halliburton, the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, Watergate, foreign aid to third world dictators, death squads in Nicaragua, the assassinations of Mossadegh, Malcolm X, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., crack in the 1980s, rigging of the 2000 election, detention, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent A-rabs and Pakistanis without charge, shadow deaths in unknown wars in Africa, billions of dollars of bloody diamonds sitting in DeBeir's warehouses in Canada, and perpetuated war in the Middle East to keep oil just inaccessible enough to keep prices high and production just below demand.

MOVIE SPOILER BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Syriana, an oil-rich Persian gulf state, the US has backed the ruling monarchy for at least a generation. The ruling family has become fat and somewhat distracted by its high-tech gadgets, Mercedes Benzes and $50,000 per night hotels. The aging king is somewhat old and dying, so the succession struggle between the elder son and the second born son is somewhat on. Both sons are western educated and have enjoyed the fruits of being rich beyond belief. The older son seems more ambitious than the younger and has ideas of reforming his nations economy, implementing parliamentary democracy, bringing an energy exchange to the Middle East and diversifying investment to allow Chinese contracts for oil distribution. All of this is disconcerting for recently merged Connex-Kileen, a massive Texas oil conglomerate. Connex-Kileen dispatches its Chief Corporate Counsel lawyer to talk to the second born prince. Meanwhile, the CIA puts a hit out on the first born prince, formulating a flimsy cover that he's some sort of terrorist supporter. A little wine and a little bravado is all it takes for the second born prince to hop on board and with a quick meeting with some more Connex-Kileen lawyers, the king is ready to work the first born son out of the equation and declare the second one the successor.

Meanwhile, Matt Damon becomes the first born son's economic adviser. He says that the kingdom is "squandering the greatest natural resource known to man" and that the nation's "number two export is second hand goods, and number three is dates, which lose $5 per pound". Damon says the business community's perception of the kingdom is that "you lived in tents and cut each others heads off 100 years ago, and that's where you'll be again in another 100" and that the monarchy would be better served investing in "infrastructure instead of overpriced airplanes" and luxury cars and what not. The first born retorts that every so often the government receives "a call from the American President, saying that he has unemployment in Texas or Arizona or Washington state" and that the monarchy must by some airplanes or televisions or American cars. He also points out that all it took was one contract with China and he was immediately both a God-less communist and an anti-business, Islamic fanatic.

The key to Syriana is that no elected official was ever really shown and no real government figure was ever involved in the decision making process. The CIA's involvement was mostly as an uniformed executive wing of the oil companies. The minute the Connex-Kileen lawyer secured the second born son as an ally, the CIA immediately had a hit out on the first born prince, and a director level one at that. The oil companies formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iran as a group to create chaos in Iran to block the construction of a Chinese pipeline through the country. As soon as that Committee started meeting, Hezbollah was already contacted about potential Irani targets to take out in Lebanon.

5:51 AM- Falling asleep
will finsih this post later...

Sunday, December 18, 2005

The Feds Don't Learn

This post originally appeared on the now defunct blog, Team Sakib.

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people...
The word "security"is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. the guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real secuirity for our Republic.
~Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, New York Times Co. v. United States; United States v. Washington Post Co., 1971
Hugo Black was refering to a Nixon administration case known as the Pentagon Papers. The NY Times had secured a top secret Pentagon report from 1967 detailing several US moves in Vietnam that were less than desireable for the general public to see. So Nixon had the feds sue the Times and the Post to try and keep them from publishing the papers. Nixon lost. Bastards don't learn, do they.
Almost 25 years later and the feds still haven't learned:
"Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."~Dubya

"The President's shocking admission that he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, without going to a court and in violation of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, further demonstrates the urgent need for these protections. The President believes that he has the power to override the laws that Congress has passed. This is not how our democratic system of government works. The President does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow. He is a president, not a king."~Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin)
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Democratic_senator_says_Bush_violated_law_1217.html

Good editorial piece out of Houston of all places:

Monday, December 5, 2005

Dubbed the American Qawwali

This post originally appeared on the now defunct blog, Team Sakib.

"Finally, “Chain Link” plays like a reverse “Juicy." ANT’s Mtume-like descending synths and pulsating bassline are sprinkled with high strums and another perfect soul vocal. Ali tells tales of the hardworking, honest Muslims in his community and contrasts their resilience in learning a foreign language in order to barely survive on convenience store wages with his sordid temptation to make a quick buck selling drugs. The underdogs are glorified, the flaws of society’s exalted are revealed by comparison, and a jagged religious pill gets coated with a sweet funk soul loop and a rare humble perspective."
~Aaron Newell in a review of Brother Ali's album "Champion" in September of 2004
(http://www.cokemachineglow.com/reviews/brotherali_champion2004.html)

My Brother has been in my ears all week, in my heart all month, in my soul all year. I only started listening to his words, his lyrics, his message, his niyaat a few weeks ago. Before I listened for flow, I listened for his style, his beats, his aesthetic. But I feel his content was always resonating with my soul. I felt what he was saying, without really knowing. I feel that way about much of what I know but have not studied. Much of my perception of Islam is furnished by that kind of feeling without study, without empirical certainty, a feeling without sight. But the Allah (swt) says in the Quran (repeatedly), "Do you not see?"

I do not look, but I need to see. Alhumdullah, I have been blessed with the opportunity to receive a university education. I not only need to open by eyes and see, I need to go out and look, and I need to go out and read. Given the opportunity, I am remise in failing to do so. This university (and the American university system and liberal arts education in general) is one of the top places in the world to reform one's self from the path of feeling without sight, to a path of comprehensive seeing, reading, hearing and feeling. The academy forces me to challenge what has not been shown; challenge how accurately what has been told has been depicted. It challenges me to read, to write, to analyze, to compare, to accept and to reject. I write this blog to improve my abilities to do such in areas of religion, pop culture and my culture and identity, which are probably some amalgalms of the first two. And so I find myself, trying to reform. I want to change from the blind feeler to the alert reader, to the apt analylsist, to someone who can see what is in front of him as if it were in the light of day.

But why start with Brother Ali? Is a rapper really worthy of analysis? Of time? Of thought? At the risk of sounding like ESPN.com's Scoop Jackson, I think I will glorify a man not necessary worthy of high glorification. In contrast to the often ridiculous Jackson, I will do it not for a need to write for money or to sell sneakers, but I will take the stated niyaat (intention) of the highly annoying Jackson and do it for a love of the art. The product Ali produces is, at times, beautiful. I have downloaded (read: stolen) about 30-40 of his tracks. About 3-5 of these are truely good poetry and have deeper feeling than just lyrics put to a beat to film an album. Midway through Ali's probable functional career as an albino, underground rapper, he's managed to produce 3-5 more meaningful tracks than atleast 95% of MTV played rappers have produced in their entire careers. The man has done it representing and spreading the message of Sunni (as opposed to Nation of Islam, not Shi'a) Islam. His style has been most often described as simply "humble". For a critically acclaimed hip hop artist, that is the equivalent of being a green skinned person--virtually unheard of (I know horrid analogy). He's dealing with Islam using the art of the kuffar, a tactic used by Muslims in India with the Qawwali. My token Sufi friend said today that he felt that, after listening to Brother Ali, rap could be the "American Qawwali" in that Muslims are taken the art form, adding to it, improving it, and spreading Islam with it.

He also resonates with me. He deals with dunia (worldly) problems with the premise that Islam shows us the answer. To me, he falls very much within the speaking dialogue I have heard form the Muslim speakers/Muslim American intellectuals I have been most touched by--Rami Nashashibi and Jeffery Lang. After analyzing his lyrics and his subject matter, the tie together becomes obvious. Nashashibi, Lang and Ali all hold in common a point of emphasis that our (humanity's) flaws in being humans are our opportunities for being Muslims. The all do this very much in the American, local issue context, focusing on what is in front of us, the problems, the injustices, the opportunities to correct ourselves, to correct our world, to follow our Prophet (phub), to move closer to Allah (swt).

As such, I want to embark on an amatuer mission to give a commentary on a few of Brother Ali's songs. I am in now way qualified to give any scholarly commentary, my work will be purely from the heart, and not from any academic or authoritative stance. It should be read as my feelings and reactions to hearing and reading Ali's words. In wanting to keep with what I veiw is an awesome system for giving commentary, I will try and emmulate the stylistic elements of traditional Muslim scholarly commentary, red ink the original text, normal ink the commentary, blue ink for other insertions, highlighted points. I will, insha'Allah, attempt this not because I feel what I write is on that level, but out of pure emmulation of a form I admire.

Insha'Allah, I will begin with "Chain Link", one of his more recent songs, but one that I feel really capture's his style and potential. I've already written a lot for tonight, but Insha'Allah, I'll get to start commentating on it soon.

Sakib

"Chain Link" By Brother Ali, off of the album, Champion (2004)
Verse 1

I try to always buy final call from the F.O.I.
Even though that's not what Islam always signify
Y'all gotta love the struggle in 'em
They would get on their knees and shine shoes
'fore they ever let the drugs afflict 'em
Makin taco's and fuckin with McDonald's
Nickel and dime broke, but dignified with high hopes
Some people shoulder the weight of the median, make it look easy
Even though they walkin the tight roads
Immigrants, twelve deep in one bedroom
I'm too cool, I look at 'em like fools
Those fools combine forces and put the resources
And guess who the new owner of the corner store is
Shit, what's stoppin me from doin that?
I probably could with drug smugglers approve of that
Because if one dime sack in the time can climax
Into a billion dollar industry, then look at my abilities
But I'm a dreamer in alotta ways
I feel if you believe in God that you believe in brighter days
Keep my son's heartbeat in my sleep
I'ma walk the Planet Earth with his name carved deep in my feet