The New Dark Age

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Black people don’t need more “training” of the cops that patrol their communities. What’s needed is a new mission for the police – one that is radically different than the current armed occupation  – and Black community control over both the project and the personnel. U.S. police are already well trained – in containing, controlling, terrorizing and incarcerating Black people. “For decades, the essential U.S. police mission has been military in nature.”

by BAR editor and senior Margaret Kimberley

Everywhere the U.S. “pivots” to in the world, it spreads dehumanizing propaganda. President Obama has methodically demonized Russia, stoked fears of the “peril” from China, and fanned the flames of Islamophobia. The corporate media are eager accomplices in the imperial politics of mass death. “If a nation and its people are disparaged and dehumanized enough its enemies can attack in any number of ways without fear of debate or popular opposition.”

by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka

With their support for Bernie Sanders, much of the Left has decided that “lives in the White West matter more than others.” The Democratic presidential candidate encourages Saudi Arabia to “get its hands dirty,” when the Wahabbist monarchs are already killing thousands in Yemen, oppressing the people of Bahrain, and funding jihadists in Syria – all with U.S. support. The Sanders campaign “is an ideological prop of the logic and interests of the capitalist-imperialist settler state.”

by the Real news Network

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

With my appetite growing, while foraging for a reasonably-priced nosh—my black uniformed shadow, mirroring my movements, applied the kibosh!

Click view to read or listen to this item at Black Agenda Report.

by Danny Haiphong

The same imperialist powers whose proxy war created the Syrian refugee crisis claim a “humanitarian” responsibility to wage more war against the country – “a reworking of the centuries-old imperialist logic that US and European domination brings ‘civilization’ and ‘democracy’ to the native.
” Europe will now reap the whirlwind of blow-back, “this time in the form of uncontrollable migration.”

by Patrick Bond

An intelligence document has surfaced claiming that the white establishment through the private sector has a huge influence in the running of the South African National Treasury and that the history of this influence dates back to the early 1990s when the ANC and the white, apartheid-founding National Party were in negotiations. The white establishment felt it was too risky to leave the running of the government solely in the hands of the ANC.

Justice Department Blowing Smoke on Prosecuting Corporate Execs

“There’s nothing new” in a U.S. Justice Department memo that claims it will bring more criminal prosecutions against corporate executives, rather than merely fining their companies, said Russell Mohkiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. “The Department was under so much heat for not criminally prosecuting even one major financial institution or one executive from those financial institutions that led to the 2008 financial collapse, that it decide it had to ‘do something,’” said Mohkiber. “What it did was release a memo basically codifying” previous policy, while changing nothing. “Don’t believe the hype!”

Baltimore Mayor is “Rattled,” Won’t Run for Re-Election

Jill Carter, the most radical member of the Maryland House of Delegates, believes Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake decided not run for re-election, last week, “due to the stress of the last months and the lack of confidence that has been expressed across the board in the mayor.” Rawlings-Blake’s announcement came on the heels of the city’s $6.4 million settlement with the family of Freddie Gray, and a judge’s refusal to change the venue of the trial of the six police officers charged in Gray’s death. The mayor “appeared to be very rattled and off balance,” said Delegate Carter, a lawyer from a family steeped in the Black rights movement, who has herself run for mayor – and may run again. Carter said a “shadow government” of rich donors actually runs the city.

Movement in Need of an “Ideological Lens”

“What has been missing” from the current U.S. Black political awakening “is an ideological lens and guide that movements require to expose the contradictions of the system,” said Danny Haiphong, a contributing writer for Black Agenda Report and activist with FIST – Fight Imperialism, Stand Together, in Boston. Haiphong is author of an article in the current issue of BAR, titled “Why George Jackson Matters,” which explores the legacy of the former Black Panther leader who was killed by guards in San Quentin Prison, in 1971. In today’s activist circles, said Haiphong, “I think there is a fear and a relative hostility to the idea of socialism, to the ideas of the Black Liberation Movement, and I also think there’s an aversion to history.”

Uhuru Movement Gets Low-Power FM Radio Station

The African People’s Socialist Party, commonly known as the Uhuru Movement, won permission to operate a low-power FM radio station in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the Party is headquartered. “It’s going to be the only Black-owned station in the city” and will provide “a sharply defined format that deals with Black issues, and every aspect of Black culture,” said chairman Omali Yeshitela. “We’re talking about even teaching people how to do gardening.” Fundraising for the station’s broadcasting equipment begins on Sunday, September 20, at Uhuru House, with the goal of raising $50,000 so that the station can begin operations early next year.