30 September, 2010 — BAR

President Barack “Midnight Raid” Obama: End Your Wars at Home and Abroad
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Last week’s FBI raids likely signal that the Obama regime has begun a major campaign to criminalize and crush the Left. Think COINTELPRO, 21st century-style. President Obama, the constitutional rights lawyer who claims the right to kill at will, seeks to strangle the activist opposition to his wars and pro-Wall Street policies. “For targets not marked for oblivion, there awaits a grand jury with boundless powers to ensnare anyone.”

I Wanna Be A Macho Man: The Prosperity Gospel According to Eddie Long
by Sikivu Hutchinson
Allegations that Bishop Eddie Long lured young Black men to become his sexual playthings should come as no surprise, since his brand of “faith pimping spiritual ministry translates into emotional manipulation, psychological control, and sexual exploitation.” Long, a “self-proclaimed ‘spiritual daddy’ to a nationwide army of ‘wayward’ sons,” is the inevitable offspring of religious patriarchy and robber baron politics.

Corporate-School Reform VS Democracy Is Still the Issue in DC’s November Election
by Bruce A. Dixon
The mostly black District of Columbia has been run like a plantation, a colony for as long as anybody can recall. Habitual defiance of the democratic will of DC voters and residents is safe for Congress, where DC has neither a vote nor an effective voice. But DC’ mayor was booted out after a single term for a series of sins, the biggest of which was his embrace of top-down, undemocratic corporate-style school reform. With at least one strong candidate for the District Council in the November 2 general election the DC Statehood Green Party has a shot at winning its first election.

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey
Yeshitela: Obama Was “No Community Organizer”
The First Black President has had a “free ride” in continuing the “war against the African community” because the U.S. government had already “destroyed the revolutionary movement on the ground“ decades ago, said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party. Speaking at a Day of Solidarity with African People, in Oakland, California, Yeshitela derided the notion that Barack Obama was once a community organizer. “The real organizers,” he said, “have been arrested and killed by the U.S. government.”
Plus…
Cynthia McKinney speaks at meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. peace activists.
Harlem celebrates the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between Fidel Castro and Malcolm X.
Atty. Chockwe Lumumba discusses the plight of his clients, the Scott Sisters, two Mississippi Black women serving double-life sentences for an $11 robbery.
And…
Black Agenda Report’s Bruce Dixon calls the Dream Act a “Trojan Horse” designed to provide immigrant cannon fodder for the U.S. military.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
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Natasha Pettigrew and the Recipe for Omission
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Jared A. Ball
She was young, Black, female, a dynamic political activist and Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from Maryland. Yet the corporate media and even many of those Blacks that gathered to mark Natasha Pettigrew’s death in a bicycle-car collision were oblivious to her political passions and commitments – a life arbitrarily edited by post-mortem omission.
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Cory Booker: A Clear and Present Threat to Public Education
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
What media call “philanthropy” for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private “market” in publicly-financed education – an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the “New Black Leaders” financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a “nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.”
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The Latin American Revolution, Part 3 of 4: Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador — Shaking Off The U.S. Empire
by Asad Ismi and Kristen Schwartz
The US waged bloody wars in the 1970s and 80s to confine Nicaragua and El Salvador to its colonial “back yard.”  Although the victories of popular revolutions were partially rolled back, new governments with deep ties to popular forces have allied themselves with Cuba, which extricated itself from US empire half a century ago.  In the third installment of this series by the producers of the groundbreaking “Ravaging of Africa” Asad Ismi and Kristin Schwartz bring us voices from Cuba and Central America as they endeavor to build new relationships that will enable them to prosper despite the unremitting hostility of the US.
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Rwanda Scrambles to Deny UN Report on Congo Massacres
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Rwandan strongman Paul Kagame is threatening to withdraw his forces from United Nations peacekeeping operations if a UN report persists in blaming his army for massacres of Rwandan and Congolese Hutus. “The regime’s defense is that it ‘saved’ millions from death in Rwanda, and then crossed into Congo to ‘save’ millions of Hutus there, too – presumably, from other Hutus.
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Cuba’s Fight Against Racism in Health Care
by Don Fitz
The best evidence for the Cuban revolution’s strides in dismantling institutional racism is found in medical data, which show both Black and white Cubans living as long and at least as healthily as the average American. Cuba’s health care system recognizes that social inequities lead to bad health outcomes. “Since poverty creates bad health, the Cuban health system is intertwined with reducing differences in housing, income and education.”

Ahmadinejad Meets With U.S. Peace and Black Activists
by Phil Wilayto
Iran’s president spent an evening with “some 130 members of the U.S. peace and social justice movements, including major figures in the Black activist community,” last week, in Manhattan. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad listened intently to his guests, and “called for a new world order in which profit-driven capitalism would be replaced with a system of mutual respect, cooperation and love for humanity.”