“Imagine a glass cage, inside it; you see two muscled law officers, a man and a woman, each of them carrying on their body and belt guns, hardware, instruments of repression, and telecommunications equipment that will make any law enforcement person envious. The woman officer is body searching a 3-years old girl. She is asking the child to standstill, raise your hands, and face the luggage that is pouring out of the bully of the x-ray machine in this security checkpoint at National Airport, in Washington DC.”

More than a generation ago, singer, poet, troubadour Gil Scott-Heron advised us sardonically: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Gil was right then. And, if I may be permitted to update his wise prophecy today through my lens I like to call “Obama-view,” I would add that now: “The Revolution is Over. Finis. Dead.”

With all the recent talk of “pay-for-play politics” we thought to re-post a discussion among those who have been investigating “pay-for-play media” for years. If you read it, see it or hear it someone paid for it. Access to our consciousness is an ever-increasing privilege of the wealthy and it is no different than when it comes to determining what ads we see, movies we watch or songs we hear on the radio.

“Well obviously what is happening in Zimbabwe is quite tragic and I would hope some of the sympathy that is extended to Zimbabwe could be extended as well to other African nations that do not have white minorities.” - Gerald Horne

How and why did Heru become Jesus and Aset become Mary? How is John Coltrane’s “Sheets of Sound” an extension of ancient African wisdom, specifically spiritual mathematics played out through music? All this and more as Dr. Charles Finch joined this week’s Jazz and Justice.

“Today I will engage in political sacrilege. Just three days after the event most pundits heralded as a watershed moment in American history; three days after we elected the first African American President in our history, I will criticize President Elect Obama’s angelical image and politics, his campaign, and his policies.”

… many within Hip Hop culture, like writer Greg Kot of the Boston Globe, entrepreneur Russell Simmons, artists Common, Jay-Z and P. Diddy, have declared President-Elect Obama the first Hip Hop president. In my humble opinion they are wrong, dead wrong. It does not matter how many Hip Hop pundits, non-profit organizations, and recognizable figures within the culture declare it. Much like an MC or B-Girl battle, I’m ready to challenge that declaration.

Given the societal need and function of mass media and popular culture all that is popular is fraudulent. Popularity is in almost every case an intentionally constructed fabrication of what it claims to represent. Too few who comment on the lamentable condition of today’s popular hip-hop seem to grasp this, the political nature of the nation’s media system, nor the political function that system serves.