3 June 2016 — Black Agenda Report

There is No U.S. War Against ISIS; Instead, Obama is Protecting His “Assets”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Two years ago, President Obama said he had no strategy to combat the Islamic State. The U.S. is still not waging war against ISIS or “jihadists of any brand in Syria.” The international iihadist network is a U.S. imperial asset. “The general aim of the Obama administration’s jihadist policy, now deeply in crisis, is to preserve the Islamic State as a fighting force for deployment under another brand name, under new top leadership.”

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Freedom Rider: Who’s the Fascist?

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

The U.S. public loves fascists; they elect them, constantly. Donald Trump, who “says he would raise the minimum wage and stop the endless efforts at regime change,” is called a fascist by some. But Hillary Clinton “is happy to bomb Libya or Syria or any other country,” and played a major role in mass Black incarceration. Barack Obama is the war-maker and deporter-in-chief. “All of the major party candidates fit the F word description in some way.”

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South Africa’s EFF: Julius Malema and the Struggle to Continue the Revolution

by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

For many South Africans, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters are the answer to the neoliberal policies of the ruling African National Congress. The EFF charges that the ANC transitioned the country “from one phase of apartheid to another, neo-colonial phase where the majority of blacks are poorer than ever.” The Freedom Charter, says Malema, is “the bible” of the South African revolution. “Any deviation from that is a sellout position.”

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The Centrality of Africa in the Class Struggle to Come

by Danny Haiphong

Africa – it’s natural resources and the labor of its people – built the economies of the West, which has no intention of leaving. The West drains Africa of hundreds of billions each year, while strangling its nations in debt. The U.S. military occupies much of the continent. “The movement against racism and class warfare in the US must defend Africa from imperialist attack and condemn US imperialism wherever it rears its head on the continent.”

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Building a Socialist Movement in the Bernie Moment

by Ashton Rome

Some leftist organizations are betting that lots of Bernie Sanders supporters “will feel betrayed watching Sanders endorse a corporate Democrat,” Hillary Clinton, in Philadelphia this summer. Socialist Alternative, the party to which the author belongs, believes this election season provides an historic chance to build an independent political party to the left of the Democrats.“

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Is There a Cure for Wrongful Convictions?

by Lorenzo Johnson

The author has spent almost 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He asks, “Why has our government yet to intervene when there have been record numbers of exonerations for the past two years?” Incarcerating the innocent is a crime. “The main reasons behind wrongful convictions are ineffective assistance of counsel, false testimony, police and prosecutorial misconduct, misidentification, junk science, false confessions, and evidence suppression.”

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Silencing America as it Prepares for War

by John Pilger

The superpower that seeks to dominate the world won’t even discuss foreign policy in its national elections. Barack Obama has begun a “second cold war,” building more nukes than any other president. Hillary Clinton gets cash “from all but one of the world’s ten biggest arms companies.” And Bernie Sanders “supports Obama’s terrorism by drone, the provocation of Russia and the return of special forces (death squads) to Iraq.” War is normalized.

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Kenya Needs a People’s Revolution

by Henry Makori

Kenya is ruled by a “deep state” beholden to comprador capitalists, foreign interests, and ethnic-based politicians. “Nearly everyday there are fresh reports of mysterious murders, threats or arrests of human rights defenders, journalists, student leaders, bloggers, whistleblowers, social/political activists and dissidents.” A revolution is necessary. “No one is going to bring the citizen her share of the ‘fruits of uhuru’ on a silver platter.”

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Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 30, 2016

Jill Stein: U.S. Electoral “House of Cards” Coming Down

Presidential candidate Jill Stein has an answer tor those Democrats that accuse the Greens of offering themselves as “spoilers” who would throw the election to Donald Trump. “I will be horrified if Donald Trump gets elected, and I will be horrified if Hillary Clinton gets elected,” Stein told a panel at the Left Forum conference, in New York City. “I’m most horrified by a political system that gives us two lethal choices and says, ‘Pick between them, and that’s it.’” The two-party duopoly electoral arrangement is in trouble because of the “inherent disfunction of the system, and the fact that the house of cards really is coming down.”

Blacks Will Be Slow to Abandon Democrats

Bernie Sanders has no interest in creating a new political party to the left of the Democrats, because he “wants to strengthen the leftish faction within the Democratic Party,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford, speaking at the same Left Forum panel as Jill Stein. However, Ford predicted that millions of Sanders’ followers will choose to join or help form such a party. Although Blacks are the most left-leaning constituency in the country, they will be slow to support any new, “social democratic” political formation, for fear of helping the “White Man’s Party” – the GOP. Blacks will only break out of the Democratic “trap” in large numbers, said Ford, when they perceive that the Republicans are no longer “a kind of monolithic threat” to Black America.

Charter Schools Take Chicanery Online

Charter school companies are now operating so-called “virtual schools” that have no physical classrooms, but only exist on the Internet. David Cohen, executive director of the advocacy group In The Public Interest, said California Virtual Academies, run by K-12 Inc., graduates less than half its students and is accused of counting pupils as “present” if they log online for as little as one minute a day. The charter’s teachers are paid only about $30,000, said Cohen. The company “needs to make a profit, they need to pay their CEOs, they also need to do whatever they need to do for their shareholders on the stock exchange,” he said. The profits are produced by paying teachers less, hiring fewer administration people, and squeezing every way they can,” he said.

Rich Countries Drain Trillions from Developing World

Global banking expert James Henry said rich countries siphon more than $12 trillion a year from China, Russia and other developing nations. “Collectively speaking, the world has to worry about this because it means that, oddly enough, the developing world is actually a net creditor of western Europe and the United States.” Much of the huge cash outflow is diverted to secretive offshore banking outlets, but soon finds it way back into rich western portfolios. The loss of wealth is disastrous for the developing world, said Henry. “It’s a tremendous opportunity cost for developing countries.”

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