Hip Hop and Snake Oil

Once upon a time there was an expressive and grass roots form of music that emerged from the streets of urban areas across America. This music was called hip-hop and its culture was centered on the lyrical mastery of emcees. Now, hip-hop has become a body of phony individuals — mostly male — that prefer to indulge in make believe rhetoric that is fostered by ignorance and a poor understanding of history. One example is the incessant reference to the "Illuminati," a secret and historical organization that many artists have no understanding of or ever read about.

Historically, the word is of Greek origin and was a reference to all who submitted to Christian baptism. Those who were baptized were called "illuminati" or "enlightened ones.” The Alumbrados, a mystical 16th-century Spanish sect, were among the societies that subsequently adopted the name illuminati. Finally, it was employed to represent a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt who desired to replace religion with rational thought.

In concert with groups like the Council of Rome, the Bilderburgers, and the Trilateral Commission, the illuminati’s single aim was to acquire wealth, power and influence, while developing a "New World” order free of religion. The easiest way to accomplish this goal was via the United States, its Constitution, world wars and world governmental organizations, in order to have total control of global monetary systems.

The query remains how does this concept relate to modern hip-hop music and the artists that proclaim their affiliation with this society? For starters, artists from Waka Flocka to Jay-Z do not understand what illuminati was about. Their knowledge appears to be in the form of metaphorical symbolism. Are these artists atheists socialists, or fascists as the organizations founder, Dr. Weishaupt? Are they working behind the scenes to take over the world secretly, or connected to the Knights Templar?

I suggest they are not. For these artists the term is just a tool to make money. Artists such as Jay-z, Lil Wayne and Nas are merely puppets used by the illuminati. Moreover, the rappers use the Illuminati as a form of snake oil, just to sell more records. The fact is that if you ask any one of them about the history behind the illuminati, they would not be able to tell you jack — maybe with the exception of Tupac Shakur.

no news is good news

Strange to me but it seems since his Inauguration, there has been little mention of Iraq, outside of the occasional statements made by Secretary Gates or the anticipated troop withdrawals Obama ran his campaign on. No more images even on the great cathode ray tube. When Bush was in office, seems that is all we read, heard and saw.

This says a few thing to me. First our media may be liberal in perspective and doesn’t desire to remind folks that yep, we are still involved in a brutal occupation In Iraq – even under the current administration. Second, that the media is not designed nor does it have a preference for informing the public via news. Last, it reinforces why I have to read newspapers from around the world, other than US papers, conservative or Liberal to get some objective information. I first noticed this when the day before his historic inauguration, no papers nor news stations showed or talked about Israel massive bombings of innocent folks, mostly kids in the Gaza strip (pics here).

If you didn’t know, April was the deadliest month in seven months with respct to US fatalities in Iraq. In fact the civilian death toll has also been steadily increasing . On April 29, 2009 in a news conference President Barack Obama was asked if recent violence in Iraq would affect his timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Strange thing was that same day three car bombs killed at least 51 people in markets in Baghdad. Although Obama answered by saying that we have not “ seen the kinds of huge spikes that you were seeing for a time” and that “the political system is holding and functioning in Iraq." True the number of deaths is not as great as it was in 2007 and 2008 the same time period, but the Iraq's government says that 435 civilians were killed in April, which means the count is likely to be greater than that reported. This by my math represents almost an 40% increase since March.

This is very disturbing because it as if since the number of deaths is lower from the past year that it makes it acceptable, putting in the context of the current President. Even stranger is that during his campaign his mantra was that “the war should have never been fought . But turned around on February 27, while addressing US troops at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina he said the US military “have fought against tyranny and disorder."

After just over 100 days in office, the current Administration is considering reversing course by leaving U.S. troops in Iraq, which makes me think , like all politicians, saying what the folks want to hear is all that count for following up on such actions are not as important as getting elected. But I understand that politics is a big old game. The real deal is that we seem not to be even able to trust our media to give us the real deal. And things may be getting just ready to hit the fan the way the Taliban is putting down and with these new images that the President has said he will not release to the public. Again I had to go to a foreign sources to see 16 of the 44 pics. But in the big picture the war, and folks dying in Iraq, political lies and the like are not as important as American Idol results, Mike Vick getting out of jail, Rihanna and Drake hooking up or Nas and his woman. So make no never mind about me. I guess no news is good news.