23 June, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
America Can’t Solve Crises Because It’s a Company-Owned Town
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Great Gusher in the Gulf is a political, not simply an economic and environmental, crisis. “No amount of public disgust at BP has moved Obama to behave as if he is beholden to the majority that elected him – for the simple reason that he is not.”
Freedom Rider: The Death of Black Politics
by BAR editor and Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley
New York Rep. Charles Rangel is among the many Black elected officials that make periodic political and physical pilgrimages to Israel, swearing undying loyalty. In a shamelessly groveling performance last week, Rangel took part in a Times Square press conference where he “claimed a bizarre connection between the freedom flotilla and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.”
Obama is “Utter Failure” in Halting Gulf Catastrophe
Locked in a dance of mutual culpability with BP, the Obama administration flounders while the Gulf is slowly murdered. Conveners of the Gulf Emergency Summit vow, “We must not allow the Gulf and oceans to be devastated. Our mission is nothing less than stopping this catastrophe.”
Violence Pushes Down Black Test Scores
A new study by sociologist Patrick Sharkey shows Black students’ test scores plummet in the days after a homicide in their neighborhood. Data gathered from the Chicago public schools shows no similar pattern among Latino students.
Chomsky on Haiti
Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky regaled a crowd at New York’s Riverside Church with a generation-by-generation chronicle of United States’ torture of the Haitian people. “In 1990, the Haitians committed a serious crime,” said Chomsky. “There was a free election, and they voted the wrong way.”
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey
Fascism Enters Through “Terror” Door
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The question is not whether fascists have held power in the United States, but why they have not yet been able to rule as fascists. The question may soon become moot, as the U.S. Supreme Court acts to further “dismantle legal barriers to actual fascist rule” – most recently through its decision on providing “material support” to “terrorists.”
In New York City, “a ‘people’s lawyer’ and civil liberties heroine, Lynn Stewart, faces re-sentencing on her conviction of giving material support to her client.”
The US Social Forum Must Become a US Social Movement
by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
The U.S. Social Forum is now underway in Detroit, with thousands in attendance. “Black America must work in solidarity with other people’s struggles, as has always been the case,” says the author. “However, in our current moment of malaise in Black ‘leadership’ we also think it necessary to remind this nation’s activists that many of the problems that they seek to address internationally need as much redress domestically.”
Kagan and Obama: Two “Race-Neutral” Peas in a Pod
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
President Obama is showing his own core conservative politics with his choice of Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. A New York Times investigation shows “Kagan as a devotee of so-called ‘race-neutral’ social policies that avoid solutions that directly target racial disparities.” This is not an example of Obama “reaching out” to the Right, but of promoting a lawyer whose views “appear to be identical” to his own. His choice ensures many decades of bad news for Black people.
D-Town: African American Farmers, Food Security and Detroit
by Monica M. White, Ph.D.
The Black metropolis of Detroit is, in many respects, a “food desert” where “both economic and physical barriers stand between people and their access to healthy and affordable foods.” But D-Town activists believe the people can grow and organize themselves out of the desert, through urban agriculture. “In the process of controlling the food supply, the farmers see themselves as developing self-reliance.”
Foreclosure Storm: Minorities Swept Up in Greater Numbers
by Doug Miller
The data are finally starting to come in, and the numbers are horrifying. The Great Recession inflicted wounds on Black America that will cripple communities for years to come. Depreciation of foreclosure-devastated neighborhoods will cause between $193 billion and $180 billion in wealth to be “drained from black and Latino communities.”
We Need ACORN
by David Swanson
The national grassroots organization ACORN, assassinated by corporate media and the Right last year with the help of many Democrats, is mourned by its former communications director. ACORN leaves a void that must be refilled. “Here was a community organization bringing together the poor with the middle class and members of all races around issues of economics and political power.”
Can We “Fix” the Oil and Financial Crisis Before It’s Too Late?
by Danny Schechter, author of Plunder: The Crime of Our Time
Corporate media pretend the U.S. economy is healing nicely and that Wall Street has learned how to run a more responsible casino. However, sober economists predict “another wave of foreclosures and future bank losses of more than $2.5 trillion vs. the government’s $599 billion estimate.” The “man-made assault” is certain to recur “unless we change the rules.”
Eshu’s blues: Launching a Teacher’s Fightback Newsletter in Seattle
by michael hureaux perez
If there is one organized force with the potential to resist Barack Obama’s corporate offensive, it is the teachers unions. Yet the multi-million-member American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association seem not to understand that they have been targeted for destruction by the man they fought so hard to elect. It’s up to rank and file teachers like Seattle’s Social Equality Educators to sound the alarm, before it’s too late.
Trial Delayed in New Fake Terror Case
by Carl Strock
The Obama administration manufacturers phony terror plots with just as much enthusiasm as its Republican predecessor. Prosecutors in the Newburgh, New York case of four Black Muslim men charged with planning mayhem have been ordered to turn over more evidence to the defense. The case for entrapment could not be clearer, so why not drop the charges? “Yes, it’s grounds for acquittal — except in cases of alleged Muslim terrorism, and then all rules are suspended.”
The New Dark Age 