The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

It is interesting to note that the free enterprise system is entirely a byproduct of the state sector, a fact often looked over during the praise of the “free markets” the West is purported to have and required to adulate.

Pay attention young ones…

It’s interesting to note that United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (full text here) is the longest and most detailed Security Council resolution on record but has absolutely no proposed enforcement mechanism, setting it up to fail from the start.

Furthermore…

The resolution, along with the whole host of illegal matters surrounding the US and UK intervention in Iraq met criticism due to not only leaving the door open for unilateral justification of the right to use force against Iraq (at US, UK, and US-UK approved hands only of course) but for ensuring that sanctions would remain placed on Iraq as there was no way to enforce arms destruction and Iraq sanctions would only be lifted if arms could be destroyed. The very people self-appointed to enforce this law did not specify how they would do it and stood to gain everything from keeping sanctions on Iraq (control of access to Iraq’s energy resources).

The sanctions which were kept on Iraq would later go on to leave the country decimated and strengthen Saddam’s reign of terror. As many as 576,000 children died due to these violent sanctions, an untold host of adults follower. To the deaths, our Secretary of State at the time had this to say:

Hubris incoming…

The sentence was probably uttered without a hint of irony despite the fact that the United States and it’s nuclear-armed allies have made every effort possible to compromise the treaty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty unambiguously states that

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Quite simply, all nuclear-arms states must carry out active steps to rid the world of nuclear arms. Nations are not supposed to arm non-nuclear countries with warheads and doing so would be an egregious violation of the international law set by this treaty. Furthermore, an earlier article (Article V) poignantly explains that this Treaty should never be used to deny countries their right to nuclear energy as long as it’s not weaponized. They must be given the material and the technology with proper supervision, not accused of weaponization with little to no evidence backing such claims. Both Articles V and VI are being violated by all major nuclear states.

However, when you’re a hegemonic force then the laws don’t really apply to you. In fact, the treaty has now been used as another tool to punish “unstable” regimes, to borrow State Department lingo, regimes which resist Washington influence and pressure. The unstable regime of the day is Iran, having been accused of developing nuclear weapons for over almost two decades (never-mind we gave them nuclear refinement technology when we overthrew their democratic government in the 1953 and yet there has not been one piece of evidence they hold these weapons. Not one.

Upon Earl’s return from Samoa, everybody expected a shitload of music from him. The media was hungry for Earl interviews, and Adult Swim wanted more Loiter Squad. Earl is not about bending over to satisfy people just because they beg him to, if he does something then it’s of his own free will on his own terms.

Most importantly Earl is also saying that he never had any hand outs (it was all him forreal). Earl owes nobody anything, his fame or favors, and so if you ask for anything it’s on his terms. You better be offering something amazing in return.

All states want is more power as power justifies more power, a sort of intoxicating aroma. The state, to consolidate power, has to get rid of any possible threats. One glaringly obvious threat emerges from the fact that the inner cities, once bustling with manufacturing jobs in the post-war era, have been hollowed out in the name of free trade.

While the resulting Drug War/Industrial Complex affects all the poor citizens, serving as a method of “population control” (to borrow the phrase from the Kennedy administration), it disproportionately affects Blacks (both the Drug War and the Industrial Complex. From the point of view of someone in America’s slums, it’s not hard at all to see why Nas would think the government is “grabbing niggas up in this movement to rule shit”: it’s because they are.

The second line refers to how even children (“shorties” is slang for “the young” or “kids”) understand the police brutality and the system up against them, learning much like they would is school. But in the event they don’t, the cops will teach them with a false arrest or a brutal beating.

Cognac, named after the French town which birthed it, is a type of distilled wine spirit. Usually it’s consumed after a great dinner as it is thought to assist with digestion (plus get you shitfaced for bed).

Nas is the type of dude, however, to get drunk on Cognac whenever he feels like and “splurge” or otherwise spend large amounts of money on the alcoholic drink as he parties like a true mafioso.

Double entendre over here

• Snitching is silent murder not only because you are ending a person’s future, their life, by guaranteeing they go to jail but because you are killing a friend or partner’s trust in you. Killing one’s trust and betraying them can be just as powerful as actually stabbing them in the back

• If you snitch, chances are you will be silently killed in the night as retribution