BA Report 22 August 2012: Obama’s Left Apologists / Blasting the GOP / Massacre at Marikana

012 – Black Agenda Report - News, commentary and analysis from the black left

Fletcherism and Fakery: Guarding Obama’s Left Flank

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Obama’s key apologists on the Left have released their 2012 position paper, in which “the facts of the Obama presidency – his actual behavior on war, austerity, and civil liberties – are deemed irrelevant.” We need four more years of Obama, they say, to open up “space” for progressive action. In reality, Obama’s “great legacy has been to create vast political space for Wall Street and the Pentagon.”

Why We Don’t Spend As Much Time Denouncing Republicans As We Do Democrats

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Every now and then attentive listeners and readers ask why we at Black Agenda Report don’t spend nearly as much time denouncing racist, misogynist and downright evil Republicans like Romney and Ryan as we do detailing the failures of Democrats.

The Democrats Prepare for a Post-Election Grand Compromise with the GOP

 A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has withdrawn her objections to the Simpson-Bowles austerity budget – which is, in reality, President Obama’s plan. “The way is clear for the Democrats to move another step to the right and embrace Simpson-Bowles $4 trillion in spending cuts that will eviscerate what’s left of the social safety net.”

South Africa’s Unfinished Revolution and the Massacre at Marikana

 A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The massacre of 34 miners at Marikana lays bare the central contradiction of the South African “arrangement.” Back in 1994, “the ‘revolution’ was put on indefinite hold, so that a new Black capitalist class could be created, largely from the ranks of well-connected members of the ruling party and even union leaders.” The regime now represses Black workers on behalf of capital.

Scared and Silent: Censoring the Truth Under Obama

 by BAR editor and columnist Jemima Pierre
Legacies are built around what is known about a presidency. However, President Obama is amassing a legacy of secrets kept and whistleblowers punished. “The Obama administration has been after Wikileaks since that organization released classified military reports and diplomatic cables showing evidence of US war crimes in Iraq.”

Al Sharpton Says Biden’s Slavery Comments Were “Over the Top,” Then He Retreats

 
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
Barack Obama sends his number two, a white man, to tell Black folks that Republicans want to throw them back into slavery. You’d think Al Sharpton would object. But no, because “Black leadership has been effectively co-opted by the Obama Administration and the goal is to keep us doped up and afraid to use our Democratic voice.”

5 Ways Privatization Is Ruining America

By Paul Buchheit
A pernicious but popular myth holds that private businesses are more efficient at delivering services than government. It’s popular because corporate media have whispered and screamed it into our ears for decades. It’s pernicious because although it’s untrue it makes vast fortunes for a few at the expense of the many.

Deadly Fallout: How Obama’s Healthcare Law Provides Unaffordable Access to Health Insurance and Fosters Preventable Deaths

 by Dr. Reginald Clark
Despite the hype from Democrats, “the high rate of premature deaths in California and throughout America will continue” even after the Obama health plan is fully implemented, in 2020. “A poverty-level working California citizen… will personally be charged $7,200 for an average hospital stay” – far more than she can afford.

Something Demonic is Going On in Buffalo’s County Jail
by Chris Stevenson

Suicide seem epidemic at the Erie County Holding Center, where persons awaiting trail in the Buffalo, New York, area are confined. The corpses are piling up so rapidly, the place ought to be called Buffalo’s Death Row.

Euro-American Songs of Racism, War and White Supremacy: An African Perspective

 by Solomon Comissiong
The most insidious propaganda might have a really nice melody, or even a compelling beat, yet be “laced with untruth after white supremacist untruth.” America‘s propaganda machinery is awesome. “If we don’t respect America‘s propaganda beast it will certainly consume our minds, and therefore our humanity.”

KNOW FRACKIN’ WAY…

 by Raymond Nat Turner
Big gaseous capitalists are “Ejaculating Satin’s sperm into
Stolen Native American land, Mother Earth, Pachymama….”
 

 

012

 Texas Ten Percent Admissions Plan “Model for Country”
Texas provides a “model for the rest of the country” for boosting the numbers of Black and Latino students in state colleges, said Shanta Driver, of BAMN, By Any Means Necessary. BAMN filed a friend of the court brief supporting Texas’ policy allowing admission to state colleges of the top ten percent of each high school graduating class. “You don’t need an elaborate maze of criteria” to integrate higher education, said Driver. The ten percent plan works because it eliminates “all of the common variables that are used to make it much more difficult for Black and Latino and poor white students to gain admission into their state’s flagship universities.”
“Blow the Whistle” on Stop-and-Frisk
On September 13, the Stop Stop-and-Frisk movement will blow the whistle on police abuse in New York City, “figuratively and literally,” said spokesman Carl Dix. “People will gather with their whistles and cameras and be on the lookout for cops violating someone’s rights, and when they see it, blow the whistle to draw a crowd,” said Dix. “We are no longer going to accept this kind of abuse in silence.”
NAACP Called “Irrelevant”
The national and state offices of the NAACP have “sold out” to the Whirlpool corporation’s attempts to turn mostly Black Benton Harbor, Michigan, over to developers, said Rev. Edward Pinkney, the longtime president of the local NAACP. Pinkney publicly burned his NAACP membership card, on Sunday. “We have given them a free pass because of what they did 40 years ago,” said Pinkney, who claims more than 800 others joined him in burning their NAACP cards. “They’re just a shell of what they used to be.”
The Myth of “Progressive” Media
Since the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement issued its groundbreaking Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of 120 Black People, earlier this summer, it has met a wall of silence from media outlets and personalities that are generally considered “progressive,” said Rosa Clemente, co-author of the report. “Whether it is MSNBC or Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Sharpton or Mellissa Harris-Perry…Democracy Now, The Nation, In These Times – they haven’t covered it either,” said Clemente. “They don’t want to deal with the issue of race and systemic violence. They don’t want President Obama or his Justice Department put on blast” in this election year.”
Conference on Black-Led Development
The Uhuru Movement holds a conference to “Empower African Communities Through African-Led Development,” in Washington, DC, on October 13 and 14. The conference aims to “expand our knowledge base and skills base to the Caribbean, Africa and South America – wherever African people are,” said Ayesha Fleary, of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project. The project operates agriculture enterprises in Houston, Washington, and Oakland, California, and a nursing school in Sierra Leone, West Africa. “Whoever controls your food, controls your life,” said Fleary.