2 March 2011 — Black Agenda Report – News, analysis and commentary from the Black left
Wisconsin: The End of Obama-ism
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The struggle in Wisconsin, and those to come, must shape a politics that is independent of the uniparty, the Democratic section of which is headed by Barack Obama. Significantly, “students and other protesters don’t want Obama to intervene in the fight with Gov. Walker because of the president’s cuts in Pell Grants and a whole range of social supports.” It becomes clearer by the day that “Obama-ism, rather than providing the new Democratic dispensation that delusional progressives and masses of Blacks imagined, is a straight-line path to defeat.”
Freedom Rider: American Murder in Pakistan
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The lies began at the very top, with the president’s own words.” The President of the United States went before the American people – and the world – lied about a U.S. spy held for killing two Pakistanis, and blatantly misrepresented the laws governing diplomatic immunity. U.S. corporate media knew the “diplomat” was really a spy, but misled their readers. If respect starts with the truth, then the U.S. and its corporate media have no respect for the community of nations or its own citizens.
Anti-Black Psy-Ops and The Propaganda of History
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR editor and columnist Jared A. Ball
America’s oldest psy-op is the centuries-long campaign to torture and manipulate the minds of Black people. “Anti-Black images are so prevalent that even ten year old girls in Baltimore are reduced to begging popular rappers to stop depicting women as they often do.” This “permanent psyop” is essential to [white] American “full spectrum dominance” – on sea, land, air and all the space inside captive skulls.
Washington’s Cynical Campaign to Keep Aristide in South Africa
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
With unbounded hypocrisy, the United States shrieks “democracy!” at the world while denying Haitians every political right of citizenship in their own land. Having deposed and kidnapped the popularly elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004, the U.S. now pretends not to be the main party standing in the way of his return from South African exile. But, “if South Africa gave its blessing to an Aristide flight to Haiti, the U.S. would then be forced to abandon the charade and give Aristide a yes or a no, in its own voice.”
U.S. Prepares to Make Its Lunge at Libya’s Oil Fields
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The U.S. government and media, are making all the familiar noises preliminary to an invasion of Libya. It is amazing how arch villains think themselves heroes. “The U.S. is the last country in a moral position to criticize Khadafi for his treatment of Arab civilians. Remember Fallujah.” Meanwhile, Americans express little concern that “hundreds of Black migrant workers have already been killed by anti-Khadafi forces.”
African Migrants Targeted in Libya
from Al Jazeera
Anti-Khadafi forces have already killed hundreds of sub-Saharan Blacks, supposed because Black “mercenaries” are fighting for Khadafi. About 1.5m Sub-Saharan African migrants work in Libya as low-paid laborers. Said one man from Mali, “”The most dangerous situation is for foreigners like us – and also us black people – because Gaddafi brought soldiers from Chad and Niger who reportedly killed Arabs.”
Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
by Gerald A. Perreira
The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. The struggle “is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi’s vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi’s vision of Libya as part of a united Africa.” The so-called Black African “mercenaries” are misnamed. “As a result of Libya’s support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed” which are part of the Libyan armed forces.
In Search of an African Revolution
by Azad Essa
Where is the line that excises the lands from Morocco to Egypt from the rest of the African continent? “We should not fool about with the attempts of the North to segregate the countries of North Africa from the rest of the continent.” Yet, the artificial division is maintained by powerful forces. “The problem is that most American media compulsively ignore everything south of the Sahara and north of Johannesburg.” Superpower politics reinforces the invisible demarcation. “When was the last time you saw Obama come out and make a statement on Ivory Coast?”
Challenging Western Distortions about Zimbabwe’s Land Reform
by Gregory Elich
Britain and the U.S. have railed for years that Zimbabwe’s land reform was a “disaster” that distributed farmland to political cronies and wrecked the economy. But two studies by prestigious western institutions show that “the claim that the land reform was dominated by politically well-connected ‘cronies’ is simply untrue,” that the reforms led to greater social equality, and that other factors contributed to the economic crisis.
Ending Poverty In Latin America: Interview with ALBA’s Amenothep Zambrano
by Netfa Freeman
ALBA, the Spanish-language acronym for the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americans, is a regional trade group of leftist Latin American governments determined to eradicate poverty in the region. That makes ALBA a clear and present danger to so-called U.S. interests in Latin America and worldwide. “Poverty is not a mistake of the capitalist system; it is the natural consequence of the system,” says ALBA’s Amenothep Zambrano. “We are committed to eradicating poverty among our peoples, and we are also committed to saving the planet, the rights of Mother Earth.”
Black St. Petersburg FL Under Siege
The Editors
Lawmen converged on St. Petersburg’s Black community in military-strength following the shooting death of a local policeman – the third in less than a month. For the cops, Black St. Pete was enemy territory, says Chimurenga Waller, of the African People’s Socialist Party, headquartered in the heart of the Black community. Waller was interviewed by BAR’s Glen Ford.
White Sports Writers: Raising the Volume on Unforgivable Blackness Then and Now
by Malik Russell
In many popular U.S. sports, Blacks make the game but whites tell the story. Sportswriting remains rooted in the racial past. “There might not be a less diversified group of paunchy, balding, middle-aged white guys anywhere in America.” Not so long ago, whites were so determined to keep a lock on the sport of boxing, they rioted and terrorized Blacks rather than accept an African American champion, Jack Johnson.
Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey.
African American Collusion with Religious Right
“An elite white, male lynch mob has targeted Planned Parenthood to strike at the heart of reproductive justice,” says Sikivu Hutchinson, editor of BlackFemLens.org and a frequent contributor to Black Agenda Report. “This is part of the far-right, religious agenda to implement patriarchal rule.” These “fascistic” forces have enlisted Black helpers. “We have people like Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King, proclaiming that ending abortion is a civil rights initiative,” says Hutchinson, a disturbing sign of “collusion between African American forces and the religious right.”
Wisconsin Governor Poses Threat to a Century of Progress
It’s not just teachers and other public employees that are targeted by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s Agenda, says Ben Manski, of Wisconsin Wave and the Liberty Tree Foundation. “Working people across the board, as well as the unemployed and the poor, are really hit by this agenda,” which threatens “everything the people of Wisconsin have created over the last 100 years.” Students, especially, do not favor intervention by President Obama, who has cut Pell Grants and frozen federal workers’ wages. “These people are saying to Obama, please stay out,” says Manski.
Public Unions Helped Build Black Middle Class
“The origins of public sector unions coincide with the civil rights movement,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “The most famous strike in American history is the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike,” in support of which Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Public employment, says Lichtenstein, has been “one of the main vehicles for making” Blacks and Latinos “part of the middle class.”
Dr. James Turner, founding director of the African Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, recounts the origins of Black Studies as a student initiative of the late 1960s.
Dr. Jared Ball, Black Agenda Report editor and columnist, explores the concept of African Americans as an internal colony of the United States.
The New Dark Age 