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Black Agenda Report for September 1, 2016: Black Self-Determination Matters, Hillary & Trump Agree on Israeli Apartheid, Russia & US Elections

1 September 2016 — Black Agenda Report

Why Black Self-Determination Matters

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Malcolm X correctly anticipated that narrowly conceived “civil rights” could ultimately be curtailed. He therefore urged Black people to demand their human right to self-determination. We are now living in the age of Black rights “give-backs” – or no Black right to life, at all. The Black Is Back Coalition’s newly formulated political agenda “insists that the principle of self-determination must be central to all arenas of Black struggle.”

Republicans and the Congressional Black Caucus Agree on Israeli Apartheid

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Whether it’s gentrification, privatization, environmental destruction, threatening the planet with nukes or maintaining global empire,
differences between the parties of the one percent are often less important than the bipartisan disasters upon which our masters agree. In the first of several installments, we look at the issues elite Republicans and Democrats agree on. This week it’s Israel, the world’s premiere apartheid state.

Don’t Let the Russians Ruin the U.S. Elections System! (Don’t Make Me Laugh)

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Hillary Clinton isn’t simply trying to beat the hapless and disintegrating Donald Trump: she wants a mandate to rule the world as she (and her bankers) see fit. To achieve this, she must run against the dreaded Russian “threat,” which requires entangling the Russians with Trump and spreading the nonsense that Moscow is attempting to rig the elections. As if U.S. elections haven’t always been hopelessly racist and corrupt.

The Blood-Spangled Banner: An Anthem for Slavery, Genocide and Empire

by Sam Husseini and Jon Schwarz
The U.S. was born in slavery and genocide, so it is no wonder that its anthem puts to music its claim to stolen land on behalf of the “free” – as opposed to the slave and the vanquished native. But the U.S. was also conceived as a White Man’s Empire, primed for endless expansion. Thus, the same anthem celebrates the defeat of the “turban’d head” of Muslims in North Africa. Two articles address the racist, imperial obsessions of Francis Scott Key.

fear–fear–fear–fear—

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
For a long time now, the politics of fear is all that Dems and Repubs have to offer us. But as Jill Stein observes, voting for what you fear a little less has a track record. It delivers still more of what we fear, not less.

The Obama Legacy Part IX: The Highest Expression of Counter Insurgency

by Danny Haiphong

After smashing the Black Liberation Movement, the U.S. ruling class” proceeded “to bury Black politics in the graveyard of the Democratic Party.” They met with great success in nurturing a Black misleadership class to counter the Black radical tradition. The Black caucus in Congress collaborated in mass incarceration and imperial war, offering not to slightest resistance to Wall Street’s Black servant in the White House, Barack Obama. 

What Does Black Lives Matter Want?

by Robin D.G. Kelley
“A Vision for Black Lives” is a plan for ending structural racism,
saving the planet, and transforming the entire nation—not just black lives,” writes the author, a noted Black public intellectual. The wide-ranging document, prepared by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) with input from 60 organization, “emphasizes community control, self-determination, and ‘collective ownership’ of certain economic institutions,” as well as police violence.

Provoking Nuclear War by Media

by John Pilger

Washington’s so-called “humanitarian” military intervention policy dates to its demonization of Yugoslavian socialist leader Slobodan Milosevic, who has since been judged innocent of war crimes. The corporate media is a tool of the War Party. “It is they who dispense the propaganda and videos that becomes news in the US and Europe, guarantee a one-sided ‘coverage’ of Syria,” and create a climate for war with Russia and China.

Western Corporate Media ‘Disappears’ over 1.5 Million Syrians and 4,000 Doctors

by Eva Bartlett

The corporate media claim there are almost no doctors in left in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. That’s a lie. More than 4,000 doctors actively serve the 1.5 million people in government-controlled Aleppo, and the Syrian government continues to pay doctors in the terrorist-controlled eastern area. Civilians die every day from jihadist attacks, but “nobody speaks about what is happening in the western part of Aleppo.”

Unworthy Victims: Houthis in Yemen and Hutus in Burundi

by Ann Garrison
The U.S. reserves for itself the right to decide which nations and peoples are worthy to exist. Washington gives thumbs down to Hutus, who make up the vast majority in Burundi and Rwanda, and condemns the Houthis, a significant part of Yemen’s population. “The U.S. and its allies have deemed the Tutsis to be ‘worthy victims,’ the Hutus ‘unworthy victims.’” The same goes for Houthis targeted for death by the Saudis.

Black Agenda Radio, Week of August 29, 2016

Rights Lawyers Target Arkansas Debtors Prison

The district court in Sherwood, Arkansas, is in gross violation of a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is unconstitutional to imprison people for debt, according to a class action suit filed by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Arkansas ACLU. Much like the pattern of abuse documented by the U.S. Justice Department in Ferguson, Missouri, Sherwood derives as much as 12 percent of its revenues from “imposing mounting fines or fees tied to very low level offenses,” said Lawyers Committee president Kristen Clarke. One of Clarke’s clients wound up spending 25 days in jail and owing nearly $3,000 to the courts because she bounced a $28.93 check. “Our hope is that we can bring national attention to this problem, and that we might inspire action by the Congress to breathe life back into this Supreme Court ruling,” said Clarke.
 

Reformers Hope Private Prison Phase-Out Will Spread

The Obama administration’s announcement that it will phase out contracting with private prisons in the federal system is “a real notable moment,” said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, in Washington. “It’s yet another indication that the growing critique and challenge to mass incarceration is really gaining ground,” said Mauer. The vast bulk of the nation’s 2.4 million inmates are held in local and state institutions, and most immigrants under detention are not affected by the  executive order. However, Mauer is “hopeful” that there will be a “spillover effect.”
 

Mumia: Trump or Clinton – Choose Your Poison

The nation faces “incredibly grim” choices for president, according to America’s best known political prisoner. Mumia Abu Jamal said Donald Trump is “an overt racist” while Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal that “supported one of the most poisonous public policies in decades: the prison industrial complex.” Neoliberalism, he said, is the “politics of repression with a smile.”
 

A Green Foreign Policy Against Permanent War

“Permanent war is a central part of the elite agenda,” said Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka, in an interview on Pacifica radio station KPFA. Since the presidency of George W. Bush, the U.S. has tried to impose “full spectrum dominance” over the entire planet, said the veteran human rights activist and editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report. “That policy was adopted and embraced by the Obama administration, and it is also embraced by Hillary Clinton.” Obama’s so-called “free trade” agreements are “the economic arm of full spectrum dominance,” said Baraka.
 

Confused Writer Claims Anti-War Movement is “Imperialist”

In an article in the leftish magazine In These Times, Terry Burke denounced activists that oppose the U.S. proxy war against Syria as being, themselves, “imperialist.” Burke lashed out at a long list of activists and organizations, including UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. “That’s illogical,” said Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report who serves on UNAC’s administrative committee. Burke and her ilk “are not opposed to U.S. intervention,” and are “pro any intervention run by a Democratic president,” said Kimberley, while UNAC “is steadfast in opposing American intervention abroad. That means we must oppose the 5-year-long war of terror waged against the country and the people of Syria.”
 

Philippines War May Be Nearing Resolution

The Philippine government and communist guerillas of the New People’s Army wrapped up the first phase of negotiations to end a 50-year-long war in the former U.S. colony. Bernadette Ellorin, chairperson of Bayam USA, which represents the above ground and armed resistance forces, said the breakthrough occurred because President Rodrigo Duterte “was not elected as the usual U.S. hand-picked candidate of the Philippines.” The country’s army and police, however, have “historically been a proxy army for the U.S…to kill off the longest armed revolution in the region against the U.S. – the Philippine revolution,” said Ellorin. Phase Two of the talks begins in October. In the meantime, President Duterte has ordered his armed forces to respect the mutual ceasefire.
 
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.
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