Citizen Harry

[e_dog]

excerpt from DemocracyNow radio program:


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl? ... /30/157217

Amy Goodman Interviews Belafonte


AMY GOODMAN: You call President Bush a terrorist?

HARRY BELAFONTE: I call President Bush a terrorist. I call those around him terrorists, as well: Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales in the Justice Department, and certainly Cheney. I think all of these men sit -- and women -- sit in the midst of an enormous conspiracy that has been unraveling America for the last eight years -- six years. It is tragic that the dubious way in which this president acquired power should have begun to unravel the Constitution and the peoples of this country. Yes, I say that there are people in this country who live in terror. Poverty is terror. Having your Social Security threatened is terror. Having your livelihood as an elderly person slowly disappearing with no replenishment is terror. Students who are dropping out of school because there are no resources to keep us in school is terror. You find people in the streets, watching drugs permeate our communities and destroy our young, it's a life of terror. And men who sit in charge of that distribution mechanism, which can help the American people overcome these problems and refuse to do so, while giving the rich more money than they've ever dreamt of having, while turning around our institutions and redirecting resources from those who are truly in need to those who are already generously endowed, if not hedonistically so, it's a great tradgedy. And I think most important is that we have words that attempt to give us moral cleansing, so that somehow we hold those responsible for crashing into the Twin Towers and killing over 2,000 Americans citizens in cold blood, which is an act of terrorism -- people who have done that should be sought out and brought to justice; there's no question of that -- but when we do what we have done, illegal war, going into the Middle East, bombing at will, and then hundreds of thousands of people get caught, who are either maimed or over 100,000 have already been killed, who are innocent men, women and children, and we chalk that off to a thing called “collateral damage,” as if somehow that murderous thing that we're doing so cruelly and so inhumanely has no judgment before world opinion, that we are somehow righteous and above criticism and above the law. That is unacceptable. And that's what I speak out against.

[mtmynd]

amen, harry.

[e_dog]

more from Harry Belafonte.

HARRY BELAFONTE: It is in culture that I think we come to know one another. And we are in countries murdering, killing, destroying people, and we have never heard their song. And perhaps if we had and perhaps if we would listen to their song, we might find that we are not capable of sending off our sons and daughters to murder.

It’s a great place to be, in the arts. It's a gift that's very hard to define. So many great practitioners of art have already said so much, but there is a spirit in it. There is an essence in it, that if it’s applied to the human heart, if it’s applied to inspire people to trust, I think the rewards from it are forever.

see: www.democracynow.org Monday March 20, 2006.


putting the 'art' in 'heart' and vice versa.

[jimboloco]

yeah he was on democracy now yesterday,

he tells the story of why he was disinvited to coretta s king's funeral


http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/ ... tart=37:16
here's the 126 k stream

includes musical interlude where harry is singing the old cottonfields at home to old film clips of civil rights marchers

dat man gib me hope

maya angelou spoke on his behalf
an old jimmy waz down dere too, mon
harryz sayin that the power mongers were up on the stage and the opposition was down on the floor, he was a friend of them long time, baby

[stilltrucking]

Not to be picky but I prefer the word JIHADIST. Maybe it is the same thing but there are differences I think. The republican party is now The Party Of God. A terrorist is not always a religious fanatic. Bottom line those Muslim Jihadists and the Christian Jihadists are birds of a feather. I think Bush has a body count that makes Hamas green with envy.

[e_dog]

i prefer the term "Crusader." It's the Islamic Jihadists vs. the Christian Crusaders. sort of a good hockey match, eh?

The War on Terror -- On Ice.