5 February 2015 — Black Agenda Report
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
When prominent members of the Black Misleadershp Class start ranting and raving against the new movement, you know it must be doing something right. Al Sharpton and Oprah Winfrey are attempting to “infantilize the young activists by framing the conflict as generational, rather than substantive.” In reality, it’s about Power. Sharpton is a servant of Power, and Oprah can only stomach a movement that reveres the opinions and privileges of Black billionaires.”
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
President Obama brought along his highest profile minions to honor the dead King of Saudi Arabia, America’s partner in creating the international jihadist network. U.S. corporate media enthusiastically joined in singing the praises of absolute feudal rule and oil-financed terror. “The media get their marching orders straight from the White House.”
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The disenfranchisement of Detroit and other largely Black cities in Michigan has gone so well – for corporate and banking interests – former emergency manager Kevin Orr is hiring himself out to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Orr’s next target: Atlantic City, an ailing gambling town whose residents are overwhelmingly non-white. Seaside property can be quite profitable – once you chase the poor folks out of town.
by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
The gears of racial repression are turning – loudly! New York City is creating a huge, machine-gun toting special police unit for dual use against “terrorists” and Black Lives Matter demonstrators, while the U.S. Justice Department will soon formally announce that the bar to indicting killer cops is insurmountable. The State is declaring that “it is now open season when it comes to policing and controlling the dangerous class of poor and working class black people.”
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Then comes this “Beast Mode,” this
Marshawn Lynch cat, unpredictable
Like Jazz, SILENCE, dead air stare,
“I’m here so I won’t get fined,” 29
Times, like a Coltrane lick, looped…
“Shout out to all my real Africans
Out there,”
Thandisizwe Chimurenga
It’s a fact that #BlackWomenAreMurderedByPoliceToo. This month in Los Angeles will be one of the rare instances a police officer comes before a judge for such a killing back in 2012. The victim was one Alesia Thomas, a mother of two who had earlier left her children at a Los Angeles police station.
by Chris Hedges
Malcolm X, who was assassinated on February 21, 1965, recognized a half century ago that capitalism is a dying social system. “As the nations of the world free themselves, then capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker,” said Malcolm. “It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.”
by Danny Haiphong
No matter how many heads the Saudi Arabian regime cuts off, its place in the U.S. imperial alliance remains secure. And, no matter how much Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh “gentrifies the city, militarizes the police, and impoverishes working class people, American exceptionalism gives his rule the benefit of being seen as a ‘lesser evil’ within the ‘civilized’ system of governance in the US.”
by Mark P. Fancher
Euro-American imperialism is now prepared to use raw military force to once again dominate the African continent – with Washington and Paris taking the lead. “In recent years, threats to western economic hegemony in Africa by China, new African self-determination initiatives, terrorism and other developments have prompted western governments to return to Africa with their armies.”
by Dr. T. P. Wilkinson
The director who made a mint from glorifying killer cops, two generations ago, cashes in once again on American racism and imperial pathology. “Is it accidental that a film about a white assassin hits the box offices on the weekend of Martin Luther King Day?”
by Ann Garrison
Brooklyn federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s choice for the next attorney general, took off a few years in early 2000s to serve as a prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. Lynch is proud of strong-arming Hutu defendants for a tribunal that failed to indict a single Tutsi – despite the fact that Tutsi invaders won the war and more Hutus than Tutsis died in the bloodbath.
NYPD Creates Machine Gun-Toting Anti-Protest/Terror Unit
New York City police commissioner William Bratton announced formation of a 350-officer, machine gun-equipped Strategic Response Group unit to deal with Black Lives Matter protests as well as terror attacks. “That’s outrageous.” said Carl Messineo, legal director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a DC-based outfit that has won millions of dollars in damages against police departments that abuse protesters’ civil rights. “The police always conflate terrorism and protest.” The mayor needs to “disband this unit before it is put into place,” said Messineo. “This is a mission that is doomed to disaster.”
Ferguson Protest Leader Speaks on Holder’s Tricks and Oprah’s Insults
Taurean Russell, one of the leaders of Hands Up United, has been a key protest organizer since the day Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown on a street in Ferguson, Missouri. Asked how Blacks in Ferguson reacted to word that Attorney General Eric Holder will not indict Wilson on civil rights charges, Russell said: “We really don’t care if the system brings charges or indicts him. The community has indicted him.” The protests “woke up a lot of people to the hypocrisy that is the system.” On media Tycoon Oprah Winfrey’s criticism, that young leaders of the new movement don’t know what they want, Russell said protesters’ demands have been widely circulated since August. “I assume that she has a billion distractions – literally,” he said.
Black Judas at the Justice Department
For months, the U.S. Justice Department has been telling selected media that there will be no federal civil rights indictment of former cop Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. The latest leak prompted whistleblower and BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo to author an article titled, “Eric Holder’s Final Betraying Kiss to the People of Ferguson.” “The symbolism is obviously the kiss between Judas and Christ,” said Coleman-Adebayo. In a sense, the leak liberates the Brown family from an eternity of waiting. “Trayvon Martin’s family has been waiting for three years,” she said. All the martyrs’ families “should know they’ll get the same response” from Holder’s Justice Department as Michael Brown’s family.
Marissa Alexander Out of Prison on House Arrest
After spending three years and 65 days in a Florida prison, Marissa Alexander has been placed under house arrest. The Black mother had faced as much as 60 years in prison for firing a shot to ward off her abusive husband. Her supporters convened a People’s Movement Assembly to welcome Alexander back to Jacksonville. “When we got rid of capitalism and the prison system, we also have to dismantle patriarchy,” said Aleta Alston-Toure, co-leader of the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign. “The National Rifle Association supports people having guns in their homes to protect themselves. But, why wasn’t Marissa in that equation? Because she’s a Black woman,” said Alston-Toure.
February 20 Event for Lynne Stewart and All Political Prisoners
On New Year’s Eve, 2013, people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart was released from federal prison on compassionate grounds, suffering from Stage Four cancer. “We are celebrating the year that Lynne has had out. The life expectancy was six months,” said her husband and lifelong comrade in struggle, Ralph Poynter. The celebration, at 6:pm on Friday, February 20, at St. Peter’s Church, 54th Street and Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan, will call for freedom for all political prisoners. “These are the people who gave their all, and we have to recognize them,” said Poynter. A new movement is afoot. But, how can young people be expected to put their liberty at risk, when the prisoners of two generations ago are still behind bars? “We cannot expect them to join in under those circumstances,” said Poynter. “So, let us do something about it, if we truly are a movement people.”
Three Arrested as Obama Tries to Ram Secret Trade Treaty Through Congress
Capitol Hill police charged three protesters with disrupting the Senate Finance Committee’s hearings on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge trade treaty that is being negotiated in secret. President Obama wants Congress to give him authority to sign the pact, sight unseen. “It’s going to strip jobs out of the country; it will lower wages and increase the wealth divide; it’s going to deregulate banking; it’s terrible for food and health and water – it’s just a monster,” said Kevin Zeese, of Popular Resistance. He urged opponents to go to StopFastTrack.com to pressure their congresspersons.
The New Dark Age 
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