15 June 2011 — Black Agenda Report

How the Corporate Right Divided Blacks from Teachers Unions and Each Other

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Charter school supporters are denouncing the NAACP for filing suit, along with the teachers union, against preferential – separate but unequal – treatment of charter schools in New York City. The charter activists claim the NAACP is dividing the community, but that division was orchestrated 15 years ago, when the right-wing Bradley Foundation created the Black private school voucher “movement” out of whole cloth.
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Freedom Rider: Weiner’s Indecency

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
American politicians don’t get in trouble for committing high crimes against society or murdering people in foreign lands. But they are pilloried when caught in a “scandal” that kills, impoverishes or maims no one. “The corporate media bear the blame for this endless telling and retelling of nonsense” because they “are not interested in reporting real news.”
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When India and China Scramble for Africa, Who Wins?

by BAR editor and columnist Jemima Pierre
China and Indian have both boosted their trade and investment in Africa in recent years, but “South-South” solidarity is not all it’s cracked up to be. The continent’s relationship with the Asian giants is lopsided. “Africa is quickly becoming the largest market for both countries to dump their cheap commodities.” Both countries are focused on “land and resource extraction, and new markets for manufactured products.”
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Hip-Hop and The Weakness of Liberalism

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by editor and columnist Jared A. Ball
The hip hop world is abuzz with rapper Lupe Fiasco’s branding of President Obama as biggest terrorist of them all. But Fiasco’s political views are not very different than many other hip hop performers. Rather, the suffocating liberalism of “mainstream” politics and corporate culture prevent radical performers from getting “room to breathe or airtime to occupy.”
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The Wire” Producer to Attorney-General Eric Holder – “End the War On Drugs”

Attorney General Eric Holder will tell you he has a lot of power. But will he use any of that power to stop or even slow down the futile and corrupt War on Drugs, the 40th anniversary of which falls this month? David Simon, producer of the HBO TV series “The Wire,” makes the attorney general an offer he should not refuse, but probably will….
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The West’s Obscene Demonization of Gaddafi

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The vilification campaign waged by the West against Moammar Gaddfi is just the latest chapter in a “massive U.S. psychological assault, a vast disinformation operation in which the corporate media act as megaphones for government liars.” In reality, there is no evidence for allegations that Gaddafi ordered his soldiers to rape hundreds of women, but “that does not seem to matter to a corporate media that are bent on glorifying the Benghazi-based rebels.”
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More NATO “Humanitarian Intervention:”The Bombing of Al Fateh University, Campus B

by Cynthia McKinney
The former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate led a delegation to Libya, where she witnessed some of the worst bombing of the besieged capital, Tripoli. “I’m still waiting to find evidence somewhere in the world that bombing poor civilian populations of the Third World from the air is good for their voting rights, democracy, medical care, education, welfare, national debt, and enhancing personal income and wealth distribution.”
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Return of the ‘Right Hand of God’

by Sikivu Hutchinson
The Christian Right and the Tea Party spring from the same white supremacist roots, “bellwethers of a deepening white nationalist movement whose ‘spiritual’ center is Christian fascism.” Fundamentalists are drawn to “the Tea Party’s ‘populist’ message of jobs, lower taxes, and small government.” In an era of diminishing opportunities, “many whites believe that they are now the primary victims of racism in the U.S.”
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Facing the Bombs of America and NATO in the Libya Jamahariya

by Randy Short
Just back from a fact-finding mission to Libya, the author reports that Moammar Gaddafi enjoys widespread support among the people. “All along the roads, people were chanting to those in their cars driving east to Tripoli and west to Tunisia that they supported the Jamahariya government.” Poor Black Libyans have a huge stake in this government. Despite the fact that western media are present on both sides of the war, “the atrocities committed against the Black Libyans and guest workers remains an under reported phenomena of the ‘humanitarian intervention.'”
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Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – week of June 13, 2011

NATO War Planners Underestimate Gaddafi Support
“I think there is some naivete among the war planners” at NATO regarding Moammar Gaddafi’s support among the Libyan public, says Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Connecticut’s Trinity College. “There are going to be very large sectors in Libya that will stand with Gaddafi” against the foreign-backed rebels. “There will be a big fightback, especially if there are European troops in Libya.”
Obama Has Reverted to Bush Foreign Policies
The assault on Libya is evidence of the profound crisis afflicting U.S. imperialism, says Omali Yeshitela, leader of the African People’s Socialist Party and chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. President Obama came into office spouting peaceful rhetoric, but has “resorted to the same kind of techniques as the former administration.”
Broad Mobilization in October
Protestors will converge on Washington on October 6 for a mobilization to “Stop the Machine, Create a New World.” Kevin Zeese, one of the organizers, says “It’s not just about ending the wars, but to bring economic justice, as well, and end the corporatism that is dominating our government.” Protesters are planning for a lengthy stay in Washington’s Freedom Plaza, similar to the demonstrations in Cairo, Egypt’s Tahrir Square.
Nurses Push for “Main Street Contract”
The National Nurses United union is spearheading a “Main Street Contract” campaign for jobs, good housing, public education, guaranteed health care and fair taxation. Jean Ross, a president of the union, says austerity hysteria is really designed to keep wealth concentrated among “the few people at the top.”
Anger Among Democratic Base
President Obama “is feeling the heat” from traditional Democrats and will have to shift course to keep their support, says Dr. Timothy Canova, professor of International Economic Law at Chapman University in Orange, California. If Obama’s handlers “are reading the polls, they’ll see that people are much more concerned about jobs than the deficit.”
Haiti Housing Unsafe
A recent U.S. Agency for International Development report shows that “hundreds of thousands of people are occupying buildings that could very easily collapse if there is another tremor or particularly bad weather” in Haiti, says Alex Main, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. However, the report’s other findings, that far fewer Haitians were killed or displaced than previously estimated, “are not based on strong methodology,” says Main.
Dr. Ball’s Mixtape Manifesto
BAR editor and columnist Dr. Jared Ball’s new book, I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto, celebrates the mixtape as a form of “21st century emancipatory journalism.” The genre “originated to circumvent state or corporate control over the cultural expression of a colonized population,” says Ball, who teaches communications at Morgan State University. Go to http://www.IMixWhatILike.com
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