via

President Obama has decided to abandon the Bush administration’s so-called “missile-defense” system in Eastern Europe. The Wall Street Journal reports the White House based its decision on an assessment Iran’s long-range missile program hasn’t significantly progressed. The move marks one of the Obama administration’s sharpest reversals of a major Bush administration foreign policy to date. The Bush White House claimed the missile system was intended to thwart a potential Iranian attack. But critics widely denounced it as a first-strike weapon for hitting Iran or other targets. Although it’s halted the program, the White House is reportedly open to a revival if Iran’s capabilities improve.

Barack Obama talks to students about taking personal responsibility for their education and not falling back when things get tough. Don’t let failures define you, let it teach you. I’ll definitely cosign that. Strong message to the youth of America (even with the horribly out of sync video). link

Any lip readers in the house? LOL at the song someone set for this video.

So what significance, if any, do you see in the fact that the Obama administration employs the same design studio that has been used by Ecko? Should we be concerned that our National symbols are developed by the same minds that develop cliche urban (I’m being polite by saying urban, we could also call it commodified hip-hop) commercials for a whore of a company? Or maybe the real concern here is what this connection symbolizes?

How much influence do commercial institutions like these have on Presidential elections? Should public relations firms be hired by public offices? What does it mean when our President wins the Association of National Advertisers’ Marketer Of The Year Award? If CIT stops lending money to Ecko, will Complex continue to post pictures of half-nekkid women? I mean, why else would we subscribe to their rss then (except for maybe MF Grimm’s comic book column)?

Noam Chomsky gave a presentation recently that covers a lot of these issues. Listen or read in its entirety. Here’s an excerpt:

And notice incidentally on the side that the institutions that run the elections, public relations industry, advertisers, they have a role — their major role is commercial advertising. I mean, selling a candidate is kind of a side rule. In commercial advertising as everybody knows, everybody who has ever looked at a television program, the advertising is not intended to provide information about the product, all right? I don’t have to go on about that. It’s obvious. The point of the advertising is to delude people with the imagery and, you know, tales of a football player, sexy actress, who you know, drives to the moon in a car or something like that. But, that’s certainly not to inform people. In fact, it’s to keep people uninformed.

The goal of advertising is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. Those of you who suffered through an economics course know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices. But industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to undermine markets and to ensure, you know, to get uninformed consumers making irrational choices.

Sort of. Kanye made the cut, Ludacris didn’t. Link

Obama’s official compilation is a mixture of old and new tunes, but one of those tunes is a cover: John Legend’s version of U2′s “Pride, In the Name of Love.” The rest are taken from rock, gospel, R&B and pop, as one scan of the cover image above will tell you. But some of those songs are wanting, especially Dave Stewart’s “American Prayer” and Sheryl Crow’s “Out of Our Heads.” And while there are some incredible tunes, like Jill Scott’s “One is the Magic” and Ozomatli’s “Love and Hope,” the disc’s vibe is sometimes too contemplative and mellow to fully honor such a galvanizing moment.

via wired

…wishing we could all be out there. This was filmed earlier tonight uptown.

Courtesy of filmmaker and activist, Byron Hurt. Peace to the Hip Hop Chronicle for the heads up.

A short documentary film examining the contrasting styles of manhood exhibited by Presidential Candidate Barack Obama and Rapper/Mogul Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent.

NYOIL speaks on the upcoming election and his support for Barack Obama as a black presidential candidate and Cynthia McKinney as a black presidential candidate that’s down for the people. Link

More videos @ youtube.com/grandgood.