6 December 2012 — Black Agenda Report
This week in Black Agenda Report
The Shameless Vacuity of Susan Rice’s Black Boosters
by BAR executive editor Glen FordAfrica doesn’t matter, U.S. wars don’t matter, nothing matters to the Black Misleadership Class except the sickly prestige of basking in the (distant) glow of power. Susan Rice’s “Black boosters embrace an abettor of genocide and endless military interventions as one of their own – and indict themselves.”
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyLatinos make up barely ten percent of the electorate, and have only emerged as a major national political presence in recent years. Yet, they are outclassing Blacks at every political juncture. “The victory of young Latinos and Latinas did not come about because of altruistic motives from the administration, but because of a carefully planned and very courageous public campaign.”
Massacre in Cleveland: Lynch Law Was Never Repealed
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen FordAmerica’s “unwritten law” dictates that nothing unusual is happening when 13 cops shoot 137 bullets at an apparently unarmed Black couple in Cleveland, a Black-run city. Ida B. Wells, who fought and chronicled lynching at the turn of the 20th century, would feel horribly at home.
Sandy, the Storm from Hell – Unless You’re a Banker
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford“For Wall Street, every disaster is an opportunity to make debt slaves of the victims.” Federal disaster policy is built on “credit-worthiness” rather than need. Moreover, “federal policy has the effect of widening already existing
Parent Trigger Laws Coming To Georgia This Year – The Privatization of Education Marches On
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
The forces of education privatization scored a major victory this November in Georgia, thru passage of a cleverly written constitutional amendment back by a multiimillion dollar deceptive ad campaign, and the active backing or complicit silence of much of the black political class.
by Shozab Raza and Parmbir GillFresh from his winning debate at Oxford, Dr. Cornel West discussed a ranged of subjects with two graduate students. “More and more these days, race is taking a class form because you’ve got a black middle class that is often times indifferent to the black poor.”
by Antoine Roger LokongoIt’s now an “open secret” that the U.S. is plotting the dismemberment of the Democratic Republic of Congo, through Washington’s proxies Uganda and Rwanda. “This is not a Congolese civil war, but a continuation of a 16-year aggression by its two neighbors, financed and directed by the United States and Britain.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton: “Friends of Haiti?”
by Marty GoodmanThe Clintons’ crimes against Haiti go back two decades, making Bill singularly unsuitable to act as United Nations envoy to Haiti. “Bill’s friendly relations with Haiti’s current President Michael Martelly, who is linked to Duvalier-era thugs and their kin, is well known.”
The Death of Jordan Davis: Is it Open season on Negroes?
by Doshon FaradAnother unarmed 17 year-old Black male shot dead by a Florida white man. Are white men really so terrified by the presence of Black males, or “is black life, specifically that of black males, seen as valueless?” Or both?
I Remember Fred Hampton
Bruce Dixon, managing editor at Black Agenda Report recalls Fred Hampton, deputy chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, murdered by the FBI and Chicago police 43 years ago this week.
012
NAACP Image Awards Targeted for Protest
Benton Harbor, Michigan, activist Rev. Edward Pinkney plans to lead hundreds of pickets at the NAACP’s Image Awards ceremonies on February 1, in Los Angeles. “Our main objective is to wake up the NAACP, and show that they are out of touch with the community,” said Pinkney, longtime leader of the civil rights group’s local chapter. Pinkney charges the NAACP collaborated with a Whirlpool Corporation scheme to take over the Ben Harbor NAACP, in return for financial support. The Los Angeles protest will send the NAACP a message, said Pinkney: “We need you to stop taking these corporate dollars.”
White House and Republicans Play Fiscal Tag Team
The Obama administration and Republican congressional leaders “are pushing essentially the same solutions” to the so-called fiscal cliff problem. “Nobody on either side is talking about the military budget” or “serious taxation of billionaires; in fact, both sides are talking about cutting corporate taxes,” saidDavid Swanson, publisher of the influential website War Is a Crime. “You don’t really have opposition between these two parties, you have agreement,” he said.
Arne Duncan Must Go
Black and progressive educators should push for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to be replaced early in Obama’s second term, said Dr. Sam Anderson,of New York City’s Independent Commission on Public Education. The concept of education as a “human right is historically rooted in our struggle to be free in this country, as Black people,” said Anderson.
Bill Clinton Most to Blame for Congo “Holocaust”
Millions of Congolese have died since 1996 due to policies set in motion by President Bill Clinton, said Prof. Yaa Lengi, of the Congo Coalition. Neighboring Uganda and Rwanda “are always coming up with schemes to foment chaos in eastern Congo” in order to exploit the region’s mineral resources. “Cell phones, lap tops, flat screen TVs – all those gadgets need the minerals of the Congo,” said coalition organizer William Misezuel.
More Bad News for Congo: Oil
“Of late there’s been a major oil discovery in Congo, which makes it even more attractive” to outsiders, said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston. “The United States needs to put more pressure on the Rwandan and Ugandan regimes,” since Washington “is the puppeteer” of the relationship. Dr. Horne spoke on Regent Radio’s Saturday Morning Show, in Toronto, Canada.
UN Fails Haiti on Rights
A report by the Paris-based Federation of Human Rights charges the United Nations with failing to take responsibility for causing the cholera epidemic in Haiti, and with inflicting other human rights violations on the occupied nation. In addition to spreading cholera, UN troops have “violated Haitians’ rights in various ways, from rapes to extrajudicial killings,” said Dan Beeton, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington. The UN recently extended its occupation troops’ mandate for another year.
The New Dark Age 
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