18 August, 2010 — Black Agenda Report

The Current Economic Crisis and the Way Out
by Anthony Monteiro

Wall Street rule has created a kind of “vampire economy,” a parasite on the “real” economy of work and production. Government acts as servant to the plunderers, deeming them “too big to fail” and bailing them out “to the tune of $12 trillion” of the people’s money. Although progressive white economists like Joseph Stiglitz often “don’t get it,” liberating the “masses of black folk from the plunderous combination of white supremacy and finance capitalism is fundamental to solving the crisis.”

Freedom Rider: Israel, Big Money and Obama
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Wealthy Americans whose paramount issue is unlimited support for Israel create huge distortions in U.S. politics, bending presidents to their will. Barack Obama’s career has long been nurtured by one such billionaire hyper-Zionist, who hopes to instigate an attack on Iran.

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Is Labor Ready to Challenge Obama?
The October 2 Washington march for jobs, announced by the NAACP and SEIU Local 1199 and now endorsed by the entirety of organized labor, “is an important shift” from labor’s “failed policy” of avoiding conflicts with the Obama White House, according to Alan Benjamin, of the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign. The WERC urges unions to demand single-payer health care, creation of 15 million WPA-type jobs and an end to U.S. wars.

The Ongoing Crime Against Black New Orleans
Five years after Katrina, the quality of life is worse for working people in New Orleans. Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research, Tulane University, reports that as many as 150,000 former residents have not been able to return. The “elite’s” plan to shut out and keep out much of the Black population, has been largely successful.

The Internet is Not a Movement
The Netroots Nation and others still drunk on Obama’Laid mistake the traffic on the Internet for a real political movement, says BAR columnist Dr. Jared Ball. “It seems not to matter whether or not Obama is good for us, or that the Internet didn’t prevent Oscar Grant’s murder from occurring or prevent his killer from being handed an unjust non-sentence.”

Wyclef Jean Serves Foreigners’ Schemes for Haiti
Haitian community activist Ray LaForest says Wyclef Jean’s presidential candidacy is part of the U.S.-France-Canada “grand plan” to transform Haiti into the “cheapest source of labor in the Americas.” The entertainer’s move has heightened interest in an election from which the nation’s most popular political party, exiled President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas, has been excluded.

Intimidating the Rich
Angered over a land grab by the giant Whirlpool Corporation, Benton Harbor, Michigan, activists led by Rev. Edward Pinkney spoiled the opening of a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course developed by the company. The demonstrators shouted “Jack Nicklaus, go home!” and caused Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and rich patrons to seek a side exit. “We intimidated them like they have never been intimidated,” said Rev. Pinkney.

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Obama Snarls at the Left, But Winks at the Right
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Obama’s press secretary’s assault on the Left also represents a presidential “wink” to the Right, “reassuring the corporate world that Obama will not yield an inch to the Left in this election season.” Once again, the president shows that he regards the Left as either his flunkies – or his enemy.

Housing Policy? Obama Leaves It To The Bankers
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

President Obama is pulling the same stunt with the housing crisis as he did with health care: packing his public policy events with corporate operatives while excluding the grassroots and progressives. “Only the bankers, the stock speculators and the academics that are paid by the rich, qualify as stakeholders at Obama’s housing conference.”

France, U.S. Must Pay Their Debt to Haiti
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Were it not for slavery and ruthless imperial exploitation, modern Europe and the United States – and global capitalism, itself – would not have existed. In that sense, all of the developed nations are fundamentally indebted to the formerly colonized world. But Haiti’s bill includes a very explicit $17 billion directly extorted by France (and the U.S.).

Shooting Cans: The Racist Assault on the 14th Amendment
by Kevin Alexander Gray

The Right is aiming at the “very foundation of U.S. civil rights law” with its attacks on the 14th Amendment. Repeal would “return the U.S. to the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision, the idea that one can never overcome the status of his or her previous condition: once a slave, always a slave; once undocumented, forever undocumented, down to one’s children and children’s children.”

Political Prisoners in America
by Stephen Lendman

Besides race – but inextricably linked to it – the existence of political prisoners is among the biggest taboos in American life. “The United States is very, very concerned when its citizens begin to raise questions in these international forums, because (America) still prefers to posture itself, including the Obama administration, as the leader of the free world and that they don’t have any human rights violations, and they certainly don’t have any political prisoners.”