29 December, 2010 — BAR

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

Haiti: No Sovereignty, No Justice
Haiti has been a less than sovereign nation since 1825, when France saddled the young Black republic with the equivalent of billions in debt to compensate for the colonial power’s loss of its plantations and slaves. Foreigners imposed the recent elections on Haiti, bringing into question whether “these elections were really Haitian, at all,” says Alex Main, policy analyst for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. All three of the top vote-getters “have very close ties to the business elite,” and “none have endorse an agenda that would lift Haitians out of poverty.”
Paul Pumphrey, of Brothers and Sisters International, notes that half of Haiti’s ruling Interim Commission is made up of foreigners. Haitian commission members recently complained that they are not even consulted on how reconstruction and development money is spent.
Finance Capital Hegemony is Cause of Crisis
Western finance capital is “not interested in productive investment – they’re interesting in spreading debt among nations and people and keeping wages as low as possible,” says Anthony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. Americans and Europeans will ultimately have to choose, “not whether they can reform finance capital, but how quickly they can undermine the hegemony of finance capital over their national economies and a good part of the world economy.”
The Dead-End of Liberalism
Comfortable liberals don’t really believe that the fascist barbarians are at the gate. If they did, they would be radicals. “Black, Brown, indigenous and working people need to abandon the conventions of the conventional Left and develop their own politics, says BAR columnist Dr. Jared Ball.
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Obama War Budget Breaks All Records – But When Will Black America Break with Him?

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Republican House majority hadn’t even taken their seats yet, but their presence wasn’t necessary to pass the biggest military budget since World War II. Not only can’t Obama blame his wars on George Bush, but the First Black President has dramatically outdone his predecessor in expenditures on the machinery of death. “Yet only 12 Black members of Congress can bring themselves to vote against Obama’s wars.”
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Thanks 2010? 2011: The Hate That Hate Produced!

by BAR editor and columnist Jared A. Ball
Righteous hatred of injustice is a very good thing, no matter what the pacifiers and accommodators (get paid to) say. And if injustice fuels determined resistance, then 2010 should have been a gusher year. 2011 promises to provide even more cause for righteous hatred. For example, the NAACP is taking big bucks from Wells Fargo, the destroyer of Black neighborhoods and whole cities, to teach Black people how to be responsible with (what’s left of) their money. Who deserves our hatred most, the giver or the receiver?
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Let the Bones of Cecil Rhodes Rot Somewhere Else

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Europeans and Euro-Americans are proud of their heroes, even if – especially if – they are mass murderers and mega-thieves. Some are incensed at African demands that the bones of the infamous imperialist Cecil Rhodes be dug up from his Zimbabwean grave and shipped back to England. But “no people have an obligation to respect the graves of their murderers.”
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