Black Agenda Report for September 17, 2014: Naming, Shaming the Black Caucus, These Joes Ain't Loyal, ISIS, Wayne Pharr

17 September 2014 — Black Agenda Report

Naming-and-Shaming the Black Caucus

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Silence implies assent, which is why activists in Washington, DC, will loudly and clearly denounce the Congressional Black Caucus for its collective crimes against Black people, social justice and the cause of world peace. The “Shame on the Congressional Black Caucus” will give the Black lawmakers the credit they deserve for supporting Apartheid Israel, working to end Net Neutrality, and militarizing local police.

 

The Black Political Class? The Congressional Black Caucus? These Joes Ain’t Loyal

 by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Why does the Congressional Black Caucus endorse Israeli apartheid? Why do our black mayors embrace gentrification, our civil rights organizations side with their funders, and our black generals and diplomats orchestrate genocide in Africa? Whoever, whatever they’re loyal to, it’s not the interests of African American or African people. What can we do about it?

 

 

Freedom Rider: Theodore Roosevelt and American Racism

By BAR Editor and Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley

As a settler state built with stolen labor on stolen land, the US has found it necessary to invent a fake history sanitizing and justifying its genocidal wars of conquest and empire. The currently airing PBS series Roosevelts: an Intimate History fulfills this need by mostly ignoring Teddy Roosevelt’s venal and vicious racism and the pervasive criminality of his family and class.

 

 

 

Who’s Your Daddy, ISIS? 

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Poor little ISIS, the orphan with so many fathers. President Obama is trying to assemble a coalition of parents to kill the wayward child, but some of the other baby-daddies are busy fighting among themselves over who is going to bring up the next generation of jihadists. Where did it all go so very, very wrong?

 

 

 

Red Salute to Cousin, Comrade Wayne Pharr

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

Living on 81st and 83rd Streets between Avalon and
Central we learned the Devil wore dark blue, not red,
Delivered hell up South, out South in black and white

 

 

 

“Celebrating Hispanic Heritage” is Latino For “No Democrat Is Safe”

by Roberto Lovato

Candidate Barack Obama promised Latino voters an accessible road to citizenship for the undocumented. He has delivered 2 million deportations, and with his Latino enablers, nearly as many excuses. Will Hispanic Heritage Month be the time to call out the Latino political class for being just about as venal, slavish and useless as the black political class?

 

 

Sign the Petition! We Demand the Congressional Black Caucus Denounce Apartheid in Israel & Endorse Network Neutrality

Despite its constant and relentless celebrations of our people’s historic Freedom Movement, the CBC’s claim to stand for the interests of African Americans is an empty brand, for lease to whichever corporate donor willing to pay the price. Demand that the CBC revoke its deal with the devil and stand against apartheid and ethnocracy in Israel, and side with the people over the telecoms by embracing network neutrality, the reclassification of broadband internet to a public utility available to all without corporate toll booths, or so-called fast and slow “lanes”.

Click here to sign the petition.

Unlike the petitions at causes.com and change.org, this petition is locally hosted. No giant Big Data firm will use it to map your contact patterns for marketing purposes. We just don’t do that.

 

 

And Then Came Sharpton: Helping Keep Blacks in Their Place 

by Paul Street

Al Sharpton polluted the air of Ferguson, Missouri, on a mission to restore peace and tranquility, i.e., the racist order. He castigated Blacks for indulging in self-pity, “as if engaging in days and nights of street battle with the forces of white supremacist order and marching in the street under the banner ‘No Justice, No Peace’ is ‘sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.’”

 

 

Cities of Opportunity? When Walmart and a Mayor Meet 

by Seth Sandronsky

The Black mayor of Sacramento, California, claims he runs an Opportunity City. But Kevin Johnson solicits big dollars from Wal-Mart, the anti-union megacorp, which is also a sponsor of his wife, Michelle Rhee, the fire-breathing hit-woman for school privatization. Opportunities for whom?

 

 

Globalization Advocates Were Wrong: The US-NATO Alliance is the Heart of Imperialism 

by Danny Haiphong

“Globalism” was a cute term coined as a cover for worldwide corporate expansion and penetration. With the U.S. has the sole superpower, globalism shows its true face: imperialism, a system that “is in permanent crisis and can only be maintained by the war-making capabilities of nation-state alliances.” Washington’s “coalitions of the willing” now wreak chaos, war and destitution around the globe.

 

 

Ethiopia: Desalegn’s distraction?

by FikreJesus Amahazion

Ethiopian strongman Hailemariam Desalegn, like the late dictator (and darling of Washington) Meles Zenawi before him, threatens to overthrow the government of neighboring Eritrea. The regime in Addis Ababa has plenty of reasons to divert attention from its internal problems: ethnic rebellions, grinding poverty, scandalous land giveaways and forced relocations, and upcoming elections that few will regard as fair and legitimate.

 

 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of 9/15/14 

“Shame on the Congressional Black Caucus” Rally

The Israeli bombing of Gaza “was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back,” said Asantawaa Nkrumuah Ture, an organizer of a “Shame on the CBC” rally set for September 24 in front of the Washington Convention Center, where the Black Caucus opens its annual legislative conference and gala. “It’s well past time for us to hold them accountable.” The protesters want to “start a conversation, nationally,” said Nkrumah Ture, “not only regarding the Black Caucus’ support of apartheid Israel, about also their position on Internet neutrality, their ties with corporate America,” and the CBC’s overwhelming vote, in June, to continue militarization of local police forces.

Motive: Black. Penalty: Death

When Duane Buck faced sentencing on a murder conviction in a Houston courtroom, the judge allowed “expert” testimony that Blacks were inherently more dangerous than whites. On August 29, a federal judge called the testimony “repugnant and dangerous,” but upheld the death sentence, anyway. “It is absolutely shocking, it is stunning, it is appalling and it sets a terrifying precedent,” said Christina Swarns, litigation director for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is handling Buck’s appeal. “This is asking a jury to rely on race to impose a death sentence.”

New York City Needs Justice, Not More Police Training

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton defended his “Broken Windows” policing policies before the New York City Council, claiming there’s nothing wrong with the NYPD that $30 million in training and 1,000 more cops can’t cure. Josmar Trujillo, of New Yorkers Against Bratton, disagrees. “The police department is one of the most trained in the world,” said Trujillo. “Training isn’t the issue. The systemic culture of brutality, which is reinforced by institutional racism, is really the conversation we need to be having.”

Obama Targets Syria, Not ISIS

President Obama’s bombing offensive in Iraq and Syria “brings humanity closer to world war than we have been, maybe, in 80 years,” said scholar and activist Dr. Anthony Monteiro. Although purportedly aimed at ISIS, Washington is actually targeting the Syrian government, Iran and, ultimately, Russia. Obama’s arming of so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels is a farce, said Monteiro. “There is no ‘moderate’ opposition to the Assad government. It is all extreme, gangster, thuggish militants who are funded by some of the very nations that are part of the ‘coalition of the willing.’” Dr. Monterio is fighting his termination from the African American Studies department at Temple University, in Philadelphia.

U.S. Proxy Wars Empower Jihadists and Nazis

 

“The United States is essentially contracting out its wars” in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, said Eric Draitser, an independent political analyst and publisher ofStopImperialism.com. “The proxy wars that the United States has begun all over the world are part and parcel of a larger imperial agenda” dating from U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Central America. The Islamic State “is a by-product of U.S. foreign policy, just as the Nazis in Ukraine are a by-product of U.S. foreign policy,” said Draitser.

September Surge in EEOC Case Dismissals

Every year about this time, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dismisses tens of thousands of discrimination cases, citing “lack of evidence” and a perennial backlog. “There is no backlog,” said Ricardo Jones, a former chief investigator for the EEOC in New York. “There’s been 15 years of not paying overtime” to deal with legitimate complaints, while the money “has basically gone to managers.”

Black President Doesn’t Respect Black Culture or History

Dr. Donald Smith, a founder of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, will be honored at a conference on Education for Liberation in the African American Tradition, in New York, October 10. Dr. Smith said Black history and culture is disappearing from classrooms around the country. “The major challenge begins in the White House, with a president who does not believe in Black culture as being essential to the education, not only of children of African descent, but of all American children,” said Smith.

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 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
Click here to download the show, about 52 minutes.


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