Colour inside the lines
Posted by unbrand on 7 February 2006 | 0 Comments
In the late 1960’s the Black Panthers created a colouring book. Well, not really, but that’s what the FBI would have you believe. Just so you don’t think I’m making this up, here are some more links:
The Black Panther Coloring Book
Fake Letters and Bad Poetry: Highlights from the FBI’s Secret War on Dissent
And here’s a choice quote from COINTELPRO—Black Nationalist Hate Groups
“Shootings, beatings, and a high degree of unrest continues to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San Diego. Although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this over-all situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this program. In view of the recent killing of SYLVESTER BELL, a new cartoon is being considered in the hopes that it will assist in the continuance of the rift between BPP and US.” —Fragment of FBI Memorandum, Aug. 20, 1969
Why should we care about some cartoons that are created to stir up controversy? Am I assuming that the current brouhaha was created and didn’t just happen randomly? According to the Guardian, the Danish newspaper that ran the Mohammed cartoons refused to run cartoons lampooning Jesus.
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t random. Why would anybody do this purposely?
The Clash of Civilizations
When I saw Paul Wolfowitz speak in San Francisco, he was practically drooling over making Brzenski’s The Grand Chessboard come to life. These neocons have been literally planning world domination for a long time. It’s no coincidence that Wolfowitz is now head of the World Bank, which is directly responsible for the oppression of hundreds of millions of people globally through egregious and debilitating loans to poor countries which are thinly veiled payoffs to friends who provide things like privatised water to nations.
The Clash of Civilizations is a theme. It’s a book written by a neocon. It’s a technique used by the media to manipulate. and hey, it’s a goddamned TERM YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO GET USED TO, so you know, just accept it. Because there are no more real enemies now. That’s why they have to be invented.
Back to cartoons. Why? Several reasons:- A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
- It’s one of many mechanisms used worldwide to get Muslims and Christians to hate each other. How much of this crap has been happening in the past year? In France? In Australia? And these new cartoons which are causing so much unrest were from Denmark? 6 months ago?
- It’s easy to hide behind cartoons. Matt Groening of the Simpsons does this to good effect by getting his ideas out there in the world via the cartoon. He actually said as much in an interview once. If some entity wanted to capitalise on a cartoon that existed out there, it would be quite easy to point the finger at the cartoon and say “See! They hate you! They’re making fun of you, and worse, your god!”
There’s a quote from a Dead Milkmen song:
You’ve got a Methodist coloring book and you color really well, But don’t color outside the lines or god will send you to hell.
Indeed.