Wu-Tang Clan nail political analysis: “Rambo was crazy!”

by | Aug 25, 2008 | Global system, North America, Off topic

Enough with the NYT op-ed page!  My main point of reference in the U.S. election will be the Wu-Tang Clan.  In an interview with New York magazine’s Denver bloggers, RZA goes places that Dowd, Herbert et al have never been…

What do you think of Biden?

I don’t know Mr. Biden. I just saw him on TV yesterday.

He got in trouble last year for saying Obama was the first “clean and articulate” African-American candidate we’d ever had run for president.

He got in trouble for that?!

I guess it was seen as stereotyping.

A lot of us ain’t clean and articulate, because we grew up in harsh conditions. So Mr. Obama is clean and articulate. I’m actually proud to watch him on TV, myself, as a black man, because I think we hold our dicks when we walk — know what I mean? — and he got something about him that’s really classy. It’s like in every nation and every race, you have some people that are born as a prince because of the natural way they are.

Do you support him because he’s the first black candidate or for other reasons?

I’m not really a political guy. Some of my friends were supporting Hillary in the beginning, and I do what my friends do. I was trying to help Hillary in the beginning.

Really? Why?

Because I thought, When the Clinton family was in office, my family had better food in their house. I could call my aunt up and she could say, “Yeah, things is good.” Now everybody calls me for money. So I thought that Clinton could help out families better. But when she moved out of the race and I started watching Mr. Obama, I actually became a fan of his. You know, this man has something elegant about him!

And I watched Mr. McCain, too, and I know he went through a struggle with the war and all that. But in all reality, if you’re a P.O.W., it means you’ve been locked up and in jail. And in our country, you can’t vote as a felon. A lot of people can’t vote because once you’ve been locked up and incarcerated, it changes your mentality. He did that for his country. That’s a great thing and a great sacrifice. But people I know have been making comments, saying, “You know, a man who’s been through that … Rambo was crazy!”

Texting rebels

by | Aug 25, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Economics and development, Influence and networks

From BBC Focus on Africa, via the excellent Chris Blattman:

Each morning the 36-year-old powers up a small United Nations radio transmitter and starts broadcasting from his mountain shack. His antenna points directly at the rebels in the bush. They know him by his call name “Mike India”.

…every so often, he reads out his phone number. Between the hours of 1am and 4am — when mobile minutes are free — his phone is deluged. Some rebels want to know where to demobilise, others rant about Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan president and former Tutsi rebel leader. Some just want Mike India to play different music.

These conversations are particularly extraordinary because neither the United States nor the United Kingdom- key Rwandan allies – have any official dialogue with the Hutu rebel groups (something diplomats from both countries complain about in private). Mike India not only talks to the rebels, he exchanges texts with them.