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Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left
Obama and the GOP Circus Show
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Having shown his hand over the last three years as an eager - although often spurned - partner in Republican austerity politics, and a war-maker who could make George Bush blush, President Obama will seek reelection with bankers' money while pretending to remain "infuriated" with Wall Street. The banksters are in on the scam, since "nothing can match Obama's crowning glory: the permanent bailout of finance capital." The Republican candidate, whoever it is, will certainly spout an unambiguously pro-business line. But, "a GOP gaggle that savages itself for the privilege of singing the praises of the rich can only bring down the wrath of the people on the bankers' heads." Wall Street knows Obama is their true "shining knight."
Freedom Rider: Is America Fascist?
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The classic government models of "fascism" are approaching 80 and 90 years old (Germany and Italy, respectively), regimes from a different world. Today, fascism looks like...us. And American fascism's leaders need not be Aryan, or even pale. "The Obama administration insisted on keeping the language which permitted American citizens to be detained by the military without trial." So, let's update the historical record: Obama is the First Black Fascist President of the United States.
Political Prisoners: Lessons for Occupationists and Us All
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR editor and columnist Jared Ball
Mumia Abu Jamal's life and work is testament to the need to put political prisoners at the top of the agendas of movements for change. "Political prisoners have much experience with the legal system, the police, the entire apparatus of surveillance and incarceration, all of which is essential knowledge for those now entering political activism for the first time." Besides, "We wouldn't do half bad by replacing some of the Dysons, Simmons and Sharptons with folks like Ashanti Alston, Mutulu Shakur and Russell 'Maroon' Shoats."
The Racist Roots of Obama's Preventive Detention
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
With his claim to the right to kill and indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial, President Obama "has crossed a Constitutional Rubicon that would have been beyond the capacity of George Bush or any white Republican." The groundwork for Obama's nullification of the rule of law was laid through federal "prosecutions whose sole purpose has been to establish that there exists an 'enemy within' U.S. borders, that it is largely Black as well as Muslim, and which requires a greatly expanded police state with extraordinary powers."
Lesson of the Arab Counter-Revolution: Syria Must Allow No Benghazis
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Arab Spring was not allowed to get very far before the Arab Counter-Revolution pounced, first on Libya, now on Syria, to reconfigure the region by military means and, thus, make it safe for the various members of the imperial club. The Americans and their European and Arab allies are seeking Syrian territory to place under their "humanitarian" shield - a "liberated" city like Libya's Benghazi for them to "defend."
The Dominican Republic Hates Black People
by BAR columnist Jemima Pierre
The indefatigable Dominic-Haitian activist Sonia Pierre died recently, at age 48, outlived by the deep racism that poisons her homeland's society. "Anti-Haitianism is deeply embedded in Dominican society and has spawned continued mob attacks and lynchings, as well as other sanctioned acts of violence against Haitians or Black Dominicans assumed to be Haitian." Dominican national identity is entwined with anti-Blackness and anti-Haitianess - which are the same thing. "To be Dominican, then, was to be Hispanic and Catholic, and anything but Black."
Shooting the Messenger and Rediscovering the Power in Faith and Activism
by BAR editor and columnist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, PhD
The messengers of truth are silenced in ever increasing numbers, with more journalists imprisoned this year, worldwide, than at any time since 1996 - a majority detained by their own governments. "If history provides a guide, the brutality of the oppression against the Occupy movement will only incite more rebellion perhaps laying the seeds for a second American revolution." As Malcolm X predicted, "There will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."
When White is Not Always Right: The Experience of Black Students at Predominantly White Institutions
by Ray Von Robertson, Ph.D
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) face formidable challenges, including disdain from large segments of African Americans. "Why does such a large proportion, approximately 85%, of Black students attend PWIs" - predominantly white institutions? There are many reasons. For example, "rarely do young adults of African descent who attend PWIs realize that most acts of racism tend to be more subtle, institutionalized, and systemic." There is also the persistence in Black communities of a "White is Right" ideology.
Haitian Cholera Victims to UN: Practice What You Preach
by Fran Quigley
The United Nations is the "the world's chief source of rhetoric about the rule of law," yet poor Haitians have had to sue the world body to provide redress for introducing cholera into their country. "Overwhelming evidence identifies the source of the cholera outbreak as Nepalese troops participating in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)." Six thousand have died and half a million sickened by the outbreak, which occurred when the U.N. "allowed reckless disposal of the troops' untreated waste into the Meille River."
Police Brutality, Black America, and the US Occupy Movement
by Solomon Comissiong
When those who claim to represent "the 99%" reject as "divisive" the grievances of the Black, red and brown minority, they are claiming a false mandate. "Until more so-called white liberals, progressives and activists take Black issues seriously enough to give them more than lip service; many black people will continue to see themselves as marginalized, even within the broader Occupy Movement." There can be no just society in "an apartheid state."
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey - Week of December 12, 2011
Mumia Being Set Up for Assassination
Pennsylvania authorities intend to have Mumia Abu Jamal killed if he is transferred to the general inmate population, said Pam Africa, of International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. The Philadelphia District Attorney agreed last week to no longer pursue the death penalty in the killing of a police officer, 30 years ago. "This is a devious trick of theirs," said Ms. Africa. "This is the same government that attempted to assassinate [American Indian Movement activist] Leonard Peltier, this is the same government that murdered [San Quentin inmate and Black Panther] George Jackson, and the list goes on."
McKinney: Preventive Detention to Quell Dissent
Former Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney denounced congressional moves to establish indefinite preventive detention for so-called terrorism suspects, including U.S. citizens. "What happens to a group of people who want to go to Libya and report the truth?" asked the former Georgia congresswoman, who led several fact-finding delegations to Libya before and during the NATO assault on that country. "Who will they put on the terrorist list, to be detained? It could be you, it could be me, it could be the young people of Occupy, it could be anyone who dares to dissent."
Blacks Must Return to Grass Roots Organizing
"The idea that protest politics is played out, or that it doesn't garner results, is completely ahistorical," said Newark city councilman Ras Baraka, a speaker at a People's Organization for Progress (POP) rally, last week. "Everything we have been able to do in this community and this country has always centered around our ability to organize to protest, to march, to sit in, to speak out," said Councilman Baraka, a school principle whose father is the poet and activist Amiri Baraka. Since June, POP has held daily demonstrations for jobs, housing, adequate education, social justice and peace, and vows to continue for 381 days, to match the duration of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Actions on Foreclosures
Organizations associated with the Occupy movement and The New Bottom Line launched campaigns against home foreclosures in dozens of cities. New York Communities for Change targeted properties abandoned by banks and "severely over-leveraged buildings that are not getting any repairs done," said NYCC legal and political director Amelia Adams. In Minneapolis, Neighborhoods for Change joined with OWS to send teams to live with families in two foreclosed properties. Out-of-work householder Monique White said she believed, mistakenly, that "the Obama [home foreclosure] program was for people like myself," while Vietnam-ear veteran Bobby Hull reported that when he tried to join the program with Bank of America, "they could never find my information, and then didn't converse with me."
Give the Broadcast Spectrum to the People
Members of the Georgia Green Party, local Occupiers and Atlanta community radio station WRFG demanded that the Federal Communications Commission halt auctions of the broadcast spectrum to private parties and make commercial media pay the cost of community broadcasting. "The FCC ought to give these frequencies back to the public, back to not-for-profit community broadcasters, who will be glad to provide access to local voices, local news coverage and public service that commercial broadcasters have refused to provide us," said Bruce Dixon, a Green Party activist and managing editor of Black Agenda Report.
Congo Elections Rigged
Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila engineered his own reelection by pushing through constitutional changes that eliminated a runoff vote and by appointing his own supporters as judges and elections officials, said Kambale Musavuli, of Friends of the Congo. "Kabila is supported by the United States," he said. Despite the election theft, "We Congolese can organize to make sure that we really achieve the independence that Patrice Lumumba dreamed of in 1960."
Jared Ball: J Edgar a "Horror Film"
In Clint Eastwood's new film J Edgar, the infamous "Hoover returns, even in death, to remind the liberal, the affluent, the white, that their place atop the social pyramid is legitimate and must be protected by any means necessary," says BAR columnist Jared Ball. "Black activists don't even appear.... We get nothing of his concern over the Black Panther Party, or the surveillance and deportation of people like Claudia Jones and CLR James, or culpability in the killings of Malcolm X and Fred Hampton, to name a few."
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