NOT EVERY ARTIST IS AN ARTIST (fROM DAVEY D'BLOG REPOSTED)

Not Every Artist is An Artist..Some Are Lapdogs & Spokespeople For Oppression

In response to Beyonce telling women they are B–tches and to bow down and Rick Ross rapping about date raping someone, there are some who tried to explain that we should leave such artists alone and that they have FREEDOM of SPEECH.. Lets get a couple of things clear..
If you are pushing oppression and have multinational corporations with million dollar budgets and vast resources, promoting destructive messages then YOU ARE NOT an artist.. What you are is a worker…You are a lackey for corporate interests and should be seen as such.. You are no different then Ronald Reagan when he used his acting skills to be a spokesman for General Electric..In this case you are a spokesperson for oppression. Your creativity and artistic talent is being pimped out for repression not liberation..
Spokespeople and workers for oppression look for huge paychecks, cheap fame and an ostentatious lifestyle so they can bury their shame, ease their guilt and distract us from the fact that their souls were sold and their principles forever compromised. A corporate lap-dog will make excuses for having their talent and art be marketed for young minds and used destructively. They’ll tell you about the importance of ‘sales’ and ‘staying relevant’ or how parents should raise their kids.. These are corporate talking points all designed to avoid responsibility.. It doesn’t change their wrong doings of spreading corporate poison and using ‘art’ as the validating vehicle
This is not about telling artists they don’t have freedom of speech or there is one particular party line they gotta adhere to..This is about waking up folks and making it very clear who’s imperialistic interests some who call themselves artists are furthering..It’s about shining a bright light on the deep pocketed nefarious forces behind the work being hawked to the masses..
Are you in the business of saving souls or selling souls? Are you leading us on to the plantation or off? Time will tell the side you choose to represent…
Davey D


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFN9f8q5g0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHnUFpCeGxQ

Earlier when I posted this.. I got an insightful response from former BLA (Black Liberation Army) leader and former political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad..Here’s what he added to my remarks..
I think maybe we should understand how the status of “Race Music” has been transformed in America by a combination of technology, social change, and the corporate globalization of culture. Once “Black” music, R&B, Jazz Gospel, Blues etc, were separate and apart from white corporate and popular music personified by “Tin-Pan Alley” top song listing.
In the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s Our music was patronized and confined (segregated) to our community therefore it reflected our communal reality (faults and all). But after the upheavals of sixties, the rise of the white Hippie “Love Generation” , the urbanization of white supremacist power to control inner city Blacks, mainstream White culture subsumed it’s Black sub-cultural counterpart. This process at once depoliticized Black music, dummed it down to nursery rhyme like songs (almost every popular Rap track, gangster, or “Dirty South” song sound like nursery rhymes appealing instantly to the adolescence generation that was never really taught what growing up means- but more importantly changed the nature of community musical introspection into gross expressions of sex, violence, money, and the values of misogyny.
Hence acting and behaving as backwards Niggers is acceptable.. authentic, the “Hood”. What we used to call “country” (Gold grillwork dressing like a clown in a bad circus act, is now glorified in videos and on stage) because the money corporate America can generate from ghettoized entertainment serves not just they’re bottom-line, but also the promotion of American values, mystique and material wealth – and most importantly the place of the Black man/woman in the overall scheme of things, we have the artists we do today making millions.
I may be wrong, but the last time I looked, white youth were the major consumers of Hip-Hop music and related paraphernalia. White girls don’t consider themselves “Bitches” in the street sense of that odious term – so what Beyonce says in this respect doesn’t resonate with them – what resonates is her outfits and style, so its not unusually for folks to admire stylish assholes, or that an entire generation of young Black women in the “Hood” have raised and are raising a generation of Shanniqa’s and children named after their Moma’s favorite perfume or club drink or luxury car. What does it say about one’s class status and values when waking up in a new Bugatti is a dream come true?

THE REALITY OF THE DRUG WAR

Recently a video was posted via Youtube of a former U.S. Marshall who headed up drug task force officers in various states for the.U.S. Marshall's. and the .D.E.A

Matthew Fogg

The revelation is clear . This is not a War about keeping our communities safe . It is a War to genrate profit for the various police agency's who are on the public dole.


Its clearly visible the intended purpose of the operations. The use , and distribution of drugs happen at a similar rate across various ethnic groups , and income levels; however African Americans are arrested at twice the rate of their White Male Counterparts.

JURY NULLIFICATION

In this day and age it most certainly is a rare instance where a formerly convicted ex felon is arrested again for the same charge, and is able to use a jury nullification defense to receive a
 
 

NJ Weedman AKA Edward Forchion did just that. 


He summarily used NJ's own  newly enacted Medical Marijuana laws against  decades of old laws regarding the criminal prosecution for distribution/possession of Marijuana.

Edward Forchion is a dual resident in NJ , and CA. 

He argued that the he is licensed to posses marijuana in CA ,and that it was not for 
distribution, but for medicinal reasons.  He argued that the jury has the right to effectively nullify a law.

He has a form of cancer that produces painful bone tumors.  He uses cannabis to ease the pain.

 In pretrial motions, which were subsequently barred from being argued before the jury, 

Forchion challenged the constitutionality of the state’s criminal code ; because New Jersey now has a Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana law that recognizes the benefits of cannabis.

 
 The decision came after Forchion was almost held in contempt of court Thursday morning as he delivered his closing argument.


 NJWeedman tried to introduce his jury nullification argument into the closing, but Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, who had already barred any discussion of it, quickly stopped him.

 "If you want to make a martyr of yourself, the court will deal with you," the judge told Forchion, who was wearing a "Marijuana... It's OK" t-shirt.

 "You've done everything you can to disrupt this trial."

The state claimed that because a pound of marijuana was involved, Forchion intended to distribute it. 

Perhaps sensing the tide turning against him, Burlington County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Luciano tried to convince the jury that the case was not a "political referendum" on medical marijuana or cannabis legalization.

"It is not a litmus test on the War On Drugs," Luciano claimed.

The assistant prosecutor also claimed that "numbers and common sense" should result in a guilty verdict, claiming that Forchion had enough weed on him when he was stopped by police in Mount Holly on April 1, 2010, to smoke "for months."

Luciano claimed Forchion would have to smoke two to three joints an hour nonstop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to get through the pound of marijuana in six months. 

NJWeedman disputed the prosecutor's math, saying it didn't accurately portray how he uses cannabis.

 

Ultimately the Jury rejected the prosecutors claims, and issued a "Not Guilty " Verdict. 

I guess they didn't want to waste 30-40 thousand a year to incarcerate NJ Weedman for having a pound of natural vegetation with medicinal properties.   

 The state wouldve recommended upwards of 5 yrs in this case.

  Leave it up to fiscally conservative juries.
 

MASS INCARCERATION A HISTORY

The topic today is Mass Incarceration, and how it effects the black community as a whole.

Im writing this blog from the prospective of an ex felon who has experienced the ramifications of bad choices coupled with a overly aggressive judicial system.    With that being said more than a decade has passed after my prior trangression ,and the institution of the Prison Industrial Complex has continued  to explode.

 In 1970 Richard Nixon implemented the official " War on Drugs "














Future presidents Reagan ,and Clinton all piled on "Get Tough on Crime' bills that ushered in harsh sentencing guidelines for repeat ,and first time offenders.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr3355


Soon opportunism takes over, and the "Drug War is seen as a cash cow for all involved.

As evidenced here  the strategy in the 80's ran a dual fold agenda. While mounting a vigorous campaign against "Crack Cocaine" Reagan was making sure Sandanistas were being funded from sales of the drug in inner cities.

Which brings us where we are today. We have quadruped our prison population , and have earned the dubious title of the Worlds most Incarcerated  .
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx


 Prison is big business  now ......
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/dividendchannel/2012/10/08/corrections-corporation-of-america-larger-than-sp-500-component-owens-illinois/

Recently the CCA  offered 48 cash strapped states the opportunity to privatize their prison systems with the agreement that the jails be kept at a 90% capacity rate over 20 years. There's only one way to accomplish that seemingly insurmountable feat. States would most likely have to enact stiffer penalties for existing laws and enact new legislation with increased penalties for different crimes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/private-prisons-buying-state-prisons_n_1272143.html

The need for profit drives this industry just like any other, however the commodity that the Prison Industrial Complex trades in is human bodies . Prison labor is also big business, as prisoners are forced to labor for mere pennies.

The need for a constant flow of prisoners is fueled , and fed by the 40year old "War on Drugs" which is essentially a war on American Citizens with no reasonable end in sight.
The impact this profiteering trend has had on the black community is devastating. From 1970 on you can see the decline of black fathers in the household , and growing numbers of single parent households with a generational recycling of the same problems. The targeting of the black community is blatantly obvious.

Even though its well known that whites ,and blacks use , and sell drugs at the same rate, but some how blacks make up more than half of the entire prison population . Something is wrong , and has been wrong for a very long time.

My summation is this. If we do not tackle the "Drug War " the problems within the black community that are cyclical in nature will continue to repeat itself.

The feel good integrity, and family value speeches will not rectify the damage perpetuated by years , and years of deliberate racist policies to profit, and subjugate young black males to the whims of private prison profiteers.