Category Archives: Bush Years

radio silence.

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I think I’m burned out from the news. Too much salt, not enough sweet.

I’m trying to catch up yet find myself sinking deep into a malaise, my eyes flood with too much information. It’s difficult for me to focus on a single item long enough to concentrate. I read somewhere that the internet is ruining our brains. Maybe that’s true. I can’t even remember where I read that. Could’ve been a blog, or a newspaper. I honestly don’t know. I think the midterms put me in a funk. For every forward progression I think we make in civil society, there are dogged forces that pull us back. This may be contributing to my malaise.

For me, I know that when I’m overwhelmed by bad news, I seek solace in art. There’s an urgent need to be in a sublime space, the quiet, the understood relationship between you as viewer and the artist. So this past weekend I checked out Wangechi Mutu’s latest work at gallery in Chelsea. Peeped a view of the Copley exhibit. For three weeks, I had been immersed in reading, editing, coding Union Station Magazine’s latest issue and our new blog. While I was doing that I listened to music over the internet, alternating between Pinna Storm’s October Playlist (h/t Shani!) and Kanye’s Runaway. I bobbled up to the surface to read postmortems on the elections, the Maddow/Stewart showdown, and Bush being …well a victim. But I returned to my inner space, which is to say, I really appreciate Ye’s latest effort (more on that later). He won me over with a brilliant appropriation Bon Iver’s Woods. And going up in the woods is what this girl from Wisconsin really feels like doing. As the world spins, I really need to maintain my center.

what narcissism means to me… a mixtape.

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1.
Clip from taped interview with George W. Bush for Matt Lauer Reports:

MATT LAUER:
Well, what he said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
That’s – “he’s a racist.” And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.” It’s another thing to say, “This man’s a racist.” I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency.

MATT LAUER:
This from the book. “Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust.” You go on. “I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low.”

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.

MATT LAUER:
You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Yes. My record was strong I felt when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And– it was a disgusting moment.

MATT LAUER:
I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this–

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Don’t care.

MATT LAUER:
Well, here’s the reason. You’re not saying that the worst moment in your Presidency was watching the misery in Louisiana. You’re saying it was when someone insulted you because of that.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
No – that– and I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well. There’s a lot of tough moments in the book. And it was a disgusting moment, pure and simple.

(emphasis is mine.)

2.
Later, Kanye West on 97.9FM Houston:

I definitely can understand the way he feels, to be accused of being a racist in any way, because the same thing happened to me, you know, I got accused of being a racist. For both situations, it was basically a lack of compassion that America saw in that situation.

With him, it was a lack of compassion of him not rushing, him not taking the time to rush down to New Orleans.For me, it was a lack of compassion of cutting someone off in their moment. But nonetheless, I think we’re all quick to pull a race card in America. And now I’m more open, and the poetic justice that I feel, to have went through the same thing that he went [through]-and now I really more connect with him on just a humanitarian level.”

(emphasis, again, is also mine.)

h/t Gawker.

the art of storytelling part 1.

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Confession: I love Auditorium.

Here’s the thing: I’m not really a hip-hop head. I don’t have a vast encyclopedia of knowledge of beats, rhymes and tracks of everything produce over the past 30 years. I know certain songs from memory because the beat was so sick it moved me, or the lyricism was so ill I couldn’t possibly ignore it. So I know some rhymes that are part of the basic lexicon of hip hop (Paid In Full, Rappers Delight, The Message, The Show, Children’s Story) as well as some recent classics from MCs like Black Thought, Eminem, Jay-Z, Biggie… I like what I like and I listen to it religiously.

For instance, I understood the importance of learning every single word to Lose Yourself and Lost Ones.  And I was so far from being a teenager but when the shit’s hot, you got act like you know, right?  But I’m really a girl from the Midwest and we love beats.  I like to believe this is a universal known about our creed. If the beat isn’t dope, I’m not really paying attention to it. Seduce my ear with a pulsing bass line that I can feel in my chest, and you got me. Lyricism is icing on the fucking cake. On the real, why I’ve listened to Mos Def’s Auditorium from his album, The Ecstactic, an embarrassing number of times simply stem from nostalgia for brilliant lyricism juxtaposed against melodic tones and break beats.

I geeked out about this with a couple of friends after brunch a while ago (What up Mara and Elon?) Have you heard Slick Rick’s (aka The Ruler) rhyme on this track (2:35)? Seriously, check it: Continue reading →

Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan – The Big Picture.

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via boston.com

All eyes on Afghanistan. Obama has authorized deployment of 13,000 more troops.

Although I haven’t seen the film yet, I plan to see Rethink Afghanistan as soon as I get a free moment. It has been said that wars are necessary to secure a lasting peace, eight years in, I’ve got too many questions unanswered.

Time to think differently.

UPDATE.
I think Frank Rich’s column covered most of my concerns and objections to the escalation. The same congress that voted to divert resources from Afghanistan to pursue the threat of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, is responsible for the hot dusty mess in Afghanistan. I’m not a paid policy wonk on this, but I’ve maintained this position in private conversations with friends over the years that Afghanistan suffered from benign neglect. And that neglect has allowed the Taliban to seize control over the region and the years have taken its toll on our soldiers and the Afghan population. I understood why we went there in the first place, but our mission was muddled. We can topple regimes, but can we build nations?

Civil society can thrive with infrastructure. There’s no infrastructure in Afghanistan. There are barely roads that lead from mountainous terrain to towns, or cities. I’m not even sure how they’re able to gain access to water. Water is an under-reported political issue. I can only imagine that the geopolitical interests of powerful men who control these small provinces and villages have huge sway over people to secure their cooperation with Taliban leaders. It’s evident that to untangle the grip of Taliban has over Afghanistan will require more than 13,000 American soldiers that may have already served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to date.

McChrystal’s assessment of the foothold of the insurgency aside, what are we going to do after that? What are we going to do to preserve the peace? The State Department was severely underfunded during the Bush Administration, a significant partner in preserving any military gain we make in any conflict we’re engaged in. And for those of us who believe that stability magically happens with a wave of a pen or at the barrel of the gun fail, it’s time to recognize that peace also comes from the hard work of civilians it takes to repair or build civil society. I’m remembering a scene in Charlie Wilson’s War, where Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson presented a plan where our government had denied his request to fund school construction in villages in Afghanistan after we supplied copious resources to the Afghanis to help them drive out the Soviet army.

Obama’s Nobel Prize win presents the obvious paradox. How can he escalate a conflict and still be honored with the highest award in the world? Simultaneously, the global recognition of an American leader that’s asking the world to be accountable in their own fate is crucial. And on the heels of that recognition, will the Afghan people secure their own future and achieve a lasting peace without a civil war? How do we in the West support a people’s desire in self-determination?

And I’m still left asking the most important question, how can we be the change we wish to see in the world?

In The Shadow of No Towers.

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I’m talking here about being a child of my time.

When I think of September 11th, 2001, I am thinking more of the days just before it. I am remembering Sunday, September 9th. It was a light Sunday afternoon where Lynne, Bassey, Seed and I met up in Fort Greene, had brunch and then not quite ready to part ways  —there was so much more for us to say to each other— we went to Fort Greene Park, hiked up a hill to the highest summit in the park to the Prison Martyr’s Ship monument, laid out a blanket and took in all that was beautiful, young and full. Seed was visiting town from Knoxville and had a gig at the Nuyorican. We talked about writing and music. I brought my camera along, for no particular reason. I had stopped taking pictures for a year after college, but I was getting serious about it again. Seed had an idea for a musical. I think we talked poetry, nationals, dreams, plans… always, always about writing and art.  I don’t remember the details of what we talked about. I do remember feeling content and connected. We felt possibility with each other. We were all together. For no particular reason, I looked over my right shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you can see the World Trade Center from here.’ I don’t remember if it was Bassey or Seed or Lynne or if they all said ‘Yeah, you sure can.” I snapped my shutter. We were in the park for hours until the September wind chilled and we decided to go to Chez Oskar for dinner. There are gaps in my memory; they bleed into the following night. That night before, it rained so hard. A punishing and wrenching rain. I thought to myself, God is weeping. I remember earlier in the day that I couldn’t see the towers from the window of my boss’s office at work. The sky was muddy. And my memory flashes to a bar, and there we were again, together. Al had joined us. He had just finished a show at PS122 and we all went to a bar on University Place that wasn’t Reservoir. Al and Bassey spontaneously broke into characters, our private comedy improv group. Seed, Al and Peter took turns wearing my glasses, and goaded me to take their pictures. Elana mocked Al and Bassey’s schtick. Everything was lively and our conversations glittered. We were fully present in our innocence. Before the collapse of towers, before two wars, before Bin Laden, before cancer, before tumors, before…

I was up so late that I barely slept, Seed crashed at my apartment and kept me up talking about his grand idea for a musical he was writing. My dreams were a mashup of Moulin Rouge and Stevie’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. I still woke up at my usual time. And the only thought in my head that morning was that I had been meaning to go to the World Trade Center for days to pick up something I ordered at one of the stores.  I remember saying to myself, if I don’t go today, I’ll never go. How was I to know the truth of such words?

I remember listening to the radio because the TV signal was out. Answering my phone to tell everyone that I was home in Brooklyn, that I hadn’t left my house yet. I remember Bassey telling us to come to her apartment. I remember that night we left Bassey’s and went to Park Slope to eat. I had an inexplicable craving for tabouli. I remember that we ran into Matthew who was comforting a friend who worked in the Towers. I remember that Al, Bassey, Lynne and Seed were my family for those days and will always be family because of it. I can’t remember now if Al had worked for American Airlines as a Flight Attendant, but I do remember him saying that he could’ve been working one of those planes because it was a route he’d worked frequently, and if he hadn’t had the gig at PS122, pursuing his art…

But all I know is that we felt blessed to be with each other. We were all where we needed to be, holding each other, waiting for the new world to begin.

Mirror Error

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Some other thoughts on the ‘T’ word from Andrew Sullivan and blogger Hussein Rashid.

Literature has often been a teacher of humanity for me. As this subject is debated over various outlets, my memory takes me back to IB English in 11th grade. Our reading list included Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Wikipedia has a decent synopsis.

My memory of the novel is fragmented. It’s sort of a mash-up between other things I was reading, junior and senior year of high school. I was also reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and The Pendulum and Elie Wiezel’s Night. These stories stayed with me. They were stories of the individual versus the state. Maybe it was my first literary encounter with torture and why I think of it now. The Pit and the Pendulum, Night, and Harrison Bergeron along with Darkness at Noon form this dystopic nightmare for me. The lines where these stories overlap in my brain comes to this point: totalitarian regimes suppressing the rights of individuals and systematic murder of citizens. The Spanish Inquisition was torture. Rubashov in Darkness at Noon was tortured and was compelled to fake a confession. Harrison Bergeron was murdered for not conforming to the rules of the State that suppressed his individual freedom. Elie Wiezel survived living in a concentration camp while Nazis methodically murdered Jews, gypsies and others.

Isn’t it odd that the conservative movement fears Obama Administration’s policies on social entitlements and tax code versus the Bush Administration’s sanction and codification of a torture program? Where’s their fear of losing the rule of law?

Not everyone has read these stories. They’ve read others, perhaps. Maybe it didn’t affect them as much as it has affected me. Maybe they can’t see how these stories were written so that we remember to do better. Maybe they can’t see how at this moment, art and life are thisclose. That is not a typo. We still have time. We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Not In Our Name

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‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ – Martin Luther King

I’m not sure if enough people are talking about this.

I’ve been avoiding it myself. Looking at the issue straight in the eye. See the character of the American people through the actions of our leaders. Honestly, I don’t want to. But much like that nagging small voice inside your head, you must relent and deal with it.

Part of the strategery in releasing these memos is that it forces us to talk about it. Everyday people, beyond the mainstream media. Some would like to frame this debate as ‘leftwing’ issue. Some have even attempted to phrase the conversation in this way:

It’s hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, ‘Oh, much good will come of that.’ Sometimes in life you want to keep walking… Some of life has to be mysterious.

– Peggy Noonan

On the interwebs, populist outrage seems to be simmering. Andrew Sullivan and Ta’hesi Coates for the Atlantic Monthly have written about it.And again, we have Shepard Smith, with his flashes of outrage. This guy’s done a song about it, Jon Stewart reported it satirically on the Daily Show, Nick Flynn wrote a brilliant essay about it in Tin House last year, George Saunders wrote satirical story about it for the New Yorker, and yet, I sort of get the feeling that we’re not angry enough.

We are avoiding talking about it. It’s ugly. It’s ugly like lynchings, serial killers, interning Japanese American citizens, rape, police brutality, eugenics projects, and slavery. It’s the dark side of the force that everyone tries to forget.

For what good is this great republic if we can’t be honest and be held accountable for our crimes? How dare we say that we’re the moral compass to the world when we’re unwilling to prosecute crimes committed by our leaders? When did we let our fear forfeit the rule of law?

The most damning realization in my reading these memos, the Red Cross Report, the Senate Arms Services Committee Report, and other sources to deconstruct the issue is this: Torture became policy. Torture suborned confessions to support the invasion of Iraq. Torture was policy and vehicle to support a political and agenda.

And that realization sends chills down my spine. It makes me weep. I hope I’m not alone.

Torture is wrong. Waterboarding is torture. There, I said it. And I will say it again and again. We all should. And we can’t stop until officials of the previous administration are brought to justice and are held accountable for their crimes against humanity and the republic.

photo: © syreeta mcfadden 2009

Fellowship of the Ex-Presidents

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Oh, to be a fly on that wall for that conversation…

But my absolute favorite is sitting president W’s excitement in counting himself as a member of the ex-president’s club.

But body language says a lot. I’m not sure why Obama and W. were centered the way they were. Carter the furthest away from Clinton for the photo op. Bush Sr. far away from Bush Jr, seperated by Obama. Like a child separating bickering divorced parents to keep the peace. In another video, as the photographers start to leave, and questions hurled at the presidents past, present and future, the awkward family dynamic persists, Clinton comments to W. about how much he liked the rug in the Oval Office. Carter stands and smiles longer, and is off to the far left of screen. Bush Sr. and Obama smile at each other. In the theater of American politics, it’s nice to know that you can never really escape the awkward and dysfunctional family drama.