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CounterPunch
October
3, 2002
Amiri
Baraka's Somebody Blew Up America
Poetry as Treason?
by KURT NIMMO
It seems you not only have to be careful what
you say, as White House spokesman Ari Fleischer warned last
year, but also what you write, especially if you are an African-American
poet with a Muslim name and Marxist politics.
On September 19, Amiri Baraka, an influential
beat poet and founder of the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in
Harlem, read a recent poem, "Somebody
Blew Up America," at the 2002 Geraldine R. Dodge
Poetry Festival at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey.
Note the following lines from the poem:
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna
get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home
that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
Since Baraka read his poem in September,
popular news commentators and powerful political organizations
have called for the revocation of his status as poet laureate
of New Jersey, an honorary title which pays him a modest salary
of $10,000 per year. Even though he wrote the poem last October,
ten months before taking on the title as poet laureate, New
Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey wants Baraka to resign and
apologize.
Obviously, McGreevey doesn't know Baraka
too well. "Amiri Baraka ain't never been your Polite Negro
Poet," writes Lee Bailey on EUR, a website covering black
entertainment and culture. "So you have to wonder what
the New Jersey powers-that-be were thinking when they named
him Poet Laureate of NJ?" In fact, Baraka warned the governor
something like this might happen. "I said, 'Governor, you're
going to catch a lot of hell for this,'" Baraka told the
New York Times. "He said, 'I don't care.' I said, 'If you
don't care, I don't care.'"
But the Anti-Defamation League does care
and is leaning on McGreevey to get rid of Amiri Baraka. It's
not so easy, however. Baraka was selected by a committee of
poets and New Jersey state law gives the group sole power of
selection. They can't oust Baraka, nor can the governor. Baraka
will remain poet laureate until July, 2004 -- that is unless
the state of New Jersey can find a way to strip him of the
title.
Regardless, Shai Goldstein of the ADL
said his organization will put the pressure on the state's humanities
and arts officials. The ideas expressed in Baraka's poem, according
to William Davidson, ADL chairman-elect, are "directly
linked with the anti-American xenophobia that caused such destruction
and the murder of so many Americans." In other words, Baraka
is not much better than Osama bin Laden.
The New Jersey Council on the Arts said
it "regrets" what Baraka chooses to think and write,
and they don't see how he can remain poet laureate. Baraka,
said the council members in a statement, is a "remarkable
poet," but also said his poem is "deeply hurtful and
painful." One has to wonder if the New Jersey Council on
the Arts knows anything about poetry or literature in general,
which is often "hurtful" and "painful."
Of course, when the "hurt" and "pain" issues
from powerful groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, not
even poets have an excuse. They must be purged for their unacceptable
political beliefs.
Before "everything changed,"
the media simply ignored poets, even when they said outrageous
things, even things now considered "anti-American."
Few people take poets seriously, even in New Jersey, home of
famous poets, including Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams,
and Allen Ginsberg. Now, instead of ignoring poets, more than
a few Americans condemn them, especially if the poets are Muslim
and hold views contrary to the US government -- and particularly
if those "anti-American" views are broadcast via the
corporate media, from the reactionary Bill O'Reilly on Fox News
to the pages of the New York Times.
As for Baraka's assertion that both the
US and Israeli government had prior knowledge of the September
11 attacks, there is clear, ample, and documented evidence they
most certainly did. Consider the following:
Newsbytes reported on September 27, 2001,
that employees of Odigo, an instant messaging company in Herzliyya,
Israel, received messages warning of the attacks two hours before
they occurred. Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales and
marketing for Odigo, confirmed that workers in Israeli received
the messages. The story was subsequently carried by CNN and
Ha'aretz in Israel.
On August 11, 2001, US Navy Lt. Delmart
"Mike" Vreeland, held in Toronto on U.S. fraud charges
and claiming to be an officer in U.S. Naval intelligence, gave
to Canadian authorities a sealed envelope. On September 14,
2001, Canadian jailers open Vreeland's sealed envelope to find
a letter detailing attacks against the WTC and Pentagon. Source:
The Toronto Star, Oct. 23, 2001, and Toronto Superior Court
Records.
On September 6-7, 2001, 4,744 put options
(a speculation that stock prices will go down) are purchased
on United Air Lines stock. There are only 396 call options (speculation
that the stock will go up) at the same time. Many of the United
Air Lines puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown,
a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director
of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. This is reported
in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
In June, 2001, German intelligence, the
BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists
are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons
to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."
The story was reported by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September
14, 2001.
During the summer of 2001, Jordanian
intelligence intercepts a communication indicating attacks are
planned on the WTC. The message is relayed to Washington. Reported
by John K. Cooley of ABC and published in The International
Herald Tribune on May 21, 2002.
Summer 2001. Russian intelligence notifies
the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training
for missions involving hijacked airliners. Reported by Izvestia.
On July 26, 2001, CBS News reports that
John Ashcroft has stopped flying commercial airlines due a threat
assessment.
In August, 2001, Russian President Vladimir
Putin orders Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government
"in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks
on airports and government buildings. Source: MSNBC interview
with Putin, September 15.
Also in August, 2001, Dubya receives
classified intelligence briefings at his Crawford, Texas, ranch
indicating that Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack
commercial airliners. Reported by CBS News and CNN, May 15,
2001.
August through September, 2001. French
intelligence services warn the FBI of imminent attacks. These
are ignored. Reported by AP, May 21, 2002.
In the week prior to September 11, a
caller to a Cayman Islands radio talk show gave several warnings
of an imminent attack on the U.S. by bin Laden. Reported by
MSNBC on September 16.
On May 31, 2002, FBI Agent Robert Wright
holds a press conference at the National Press Club describing
his lawsuit against the FBI for deliberately curtailing investigations
that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. He uses words like
"prevented," "thwarted," "obstructed,"
"threatened," "intimidated," and "retaliation"
to describe the actions of his superiors in blocking his attempts
to shut off money flows to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Source: the C-SPAN website.
(The above information provided by Jeff
Chelton of the Law Party.)
None of this, of course, was mentioned
in The New York Times article on Baraka, nor did the reactionary
O'Reilly mention it when he questioned Baraka's motives or patriotism
(and also called him a "pinhead") on Murdoch's Fox
News. The New York Times, ADL, and O'Reilly are simply providing
their state assigned service -- to engender public amnesia and
divert attention from the truth surrounding 9/11 and the role
played by US intelligence and the Dubya administration. Pay
no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Finally, the following lines of Amiri
Baraka's poem should be considered far more inflammatory and
indictable by the "powers-that-be" than any accusations
of anti-Semitism put forward by the ADL:
Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression
and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.
Click here to
read Amiri Baraka's Somebody Blew Up America.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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October 2,
2002
Uri Avnery
Manufacturing
Anti-Semites
October 1,
2002
Benjamin Shepard
On the
Road Again:
IMF/World Bank Protest
Reveal a Revived
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Contrary
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Rumsfeld
the Surrealist:
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