In These Times

Latest Comments view all 6

• • 10 Feb 08
  • 8:01 pm

  Couldn't making a group like America Votes highly publicized simply open it up for criticism? Can't it do its coordinating job without being heavily publicized? It seems to me that to play a real role, and one worth publicizing, America Votes needs an ideological identity. It has to be clear that it is organizing groups to do something in particular for it to be useful for everyone to start identifying with it rather than the smaller groups they are a part of. So of the two things you call for I think that ideological clarity has to come first. There has …

  Posted to A Two-Track Strategy For 2008 And Beyond

• • 07 Feb 08
  • 2:02 am

  "There ain't no in between, we either niggers or kings we either bitches or queens." Mos Def and Talib Kweli aka Blackstar (real MC's with real lyrical skill) Relevant to Nas are some Kweli lyrics "I'm looking for my people cause you ain't here and your hero's using your minds as a canvas to paint fear" Or "These cats toast death and pain like slaves on the ship rhyming about who got the flyest chain" If Nas thinks hip hop is dead, maybe he should get out of the game to make way for some serious socially conscious rappers. I am …

  Posted to Nas: Whose Word Is This?

• • 07 Feb 08
  • 4:11 pm

  The point is that there isn't any point in between having self-respect and not. They clearly do not literally mean that all black men are monarchs. And on the actual meaning of the line, I think it is pretty close to the truth. As for the other two lines, from Talib Kweli, he is right on. There is a difference between telling people how it is in the ghetto and glorifying it. NWA were doing the first more than 15 years ago. At this point all Nas is doing is the second.

  Posted to Nas: Whose Word Is This?

• • 10 Feb 08
  • 12:31 pm

  Don Corleone, First your name doesn't speak much to your maturity. Second, the fact that you don' t think anyone can not like Nas after listening to his music is really silly. Three, I have listened to about two albums worth of songs and I listen to all his singles as they drop. Nas is simply not on the level of some of the underground and semi-mainstream rap artists. No commercial rapper like Nas is. This shouldn't be surprising. It is really rare for the commerical artists in any genre to be among the best that genre has to offer (Nickelback …

  Posted to Nas: Whose Word Is This?

• • 15 Jan 08
  • 2:53 am

  I want to preface this expression of frustration with some qualifications. The sense I get is that I am farther left than most. Also, being a graduate student in philosophy I am not prone to anti-intellectualism, but if I have to read one more article giving us empty headed fancily regurtitated conventional wisdom mush from Lakoff I will scream. If you want to read a linguist with interesting and informative things to say about American politics, go read some Chomsky. The problem with American politics is not politicians getting caught in linguistic traps. It is that there are significant centers of …

  Posted to Mr./Ms. Change Goes to Washington