Black Agenda Report for November 22, 2016: Another High Place, Another Empty Black Face, How Not to Protest Trump

23 November 2016 — Black Agenda Report

Obama’s Musings on False Narratives and Fake Stories

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford So-called “fake news” has Obama shook up – probably because he and other presidents want to keep their monopoly on false narratives. “The ruling class, which Obama so faithfully serves, has lost control of the social and political narrative, without which it cannot ‘protect’ its wealth, privilege and power. It is a crisis of legitimacy, rooted in the crisis of capitalism, itself.”


Keith Ellison as DNC Chair: Another High Place, Another Empty Black Face

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In a decade on the House Financial Services Committee Keith Ellison hasn’t targeted the credit card racketeers, or the banksters who flooded the market with predatory home and student loans or federal officials who refuse to relieve underwater homeowners. Democratic party leaders need another empty black face to front the DNC, someone who blames Wikileaks and the Russians for Hillary’s defeat. Ellison will do just fine.


Freedom Rider: How Not to Protest Trump

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Donald Trump’s many evils are manifest and obvious. But let’s stop pretending that some historical line has been crossed in U.S. political and social relations. “The dictates of white supremacy are ever present and the numbers of white people who do anything serious about it are small.” Newly outraged Democrats act like they’ve never seen a fascist. “There is an ample supply of domestic fascists. They are the people who wear police uniforms.”


Obama’s Departure is One Reason to Feel Optimism for Trump’s Arrival

by Danny Haiphong

Fears of Trump should not obscure the fact that Barack Obama’s reign was a disaster. “Black America is in a worse condition than before, working class people as a whole have lost ground to a low-wage economy, and the world is closer to a World War III scenario than at any point prior.” The struggle continues, but “it is important to ensure that the protests against Trump are not allowed to be channeled back into the Democratic Party graveyard.” 

 

No More American Thanksgivings

by Glen Ford

“The core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.”


Trump Says Go Back, We Say Fight Back

by Robin D.G. Kelley

The author writes: “I am not suggesting that white racism alone explains Trump’s victory. Nor am I dismissing the white working class’s very real economic grievances. It is not a matter of disaffection versus racism or sexism versus fear. Rather, racism, class anxieties, and prevailing gender ideologies operate together, inseparably, or as Kimberlé Crenshaw would say, intersectionally.”


Congressional Hawks Rush to Intensify War in Syria

by Rick Sterling

Warmongers in the U.S. Congress — Democrats and Republicans – are in a mad dash towards war with Russia in Syria. A “No Fly Zone” resolution passed the House with little debate, cloaked in “humanitarian” language that blames the besieged Syrian government for the totality of the deaths in the U.S.-backed proxy war. The bipartisan regime changers are desperate to complete their mission before the regime change that will occur in Washington, on January 20.


Confusing Jihad with Hirabah Won’t Build a More Peaceful World

by Hugh Esco

The author, a reader and colleague of BAR, offers a corrective to our use of the word “jihad,” a term that, in “an Islamic conception, has nothing to do with ‘holy war.’” In this “appeal,” Mr. Esco warns: “When we fail to interrupt this abuse of human language, We lend support to registration programs and internment camps, to islamaphobic attacks and imperial wars of aggression.”


What Does a Trump Victory Mean for Africa?

by Patrick Bond

Donald Trump is mostly bad news for Africa, including reduced U.S. aid and possibly more support for “imperial African adventurism” – unless, of course, Africa uses Trump’s lemons to make lemonade. His isolationism “could give Africans a chance to recalibrate what is now an excessive, self-destructive reliance on export of oil and gas, minerals and cash crops.” On climate policy, Trump is an unmitigated disaster.


Can Kenya lead the African Union?

by Horace G. Campbell

From championing impunity for suspected masterminds of crimes against humanity, to frustrating African liberation and unity by working in cahoots with Empire; from publicly supporting Israel’s desire to join the African Union, to being a conduit for illicit financial flows from Africa; Kenya is fundamentally unfit to lead the AU. A deeply entrenched kleptocracy has ruined Kenya and actively undermined African interests for over half a century.


Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Put America First: A Response

by Tanya Golash-Boza

How will Donald Trump’s rhetoric on removing what he calls “illegal aliens” be put into actual policy? One thing is certain: It will take a lot more than even a tripling of the current ICE force of 5,000 to surpass President Obama’s record-breaking deportations.  “ICE would still rely on local law enforcement to do the bulk of arrests.” Congress would also have to revise existing immigration laws.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Calls For Hillary’s Pardon But Not Pardons for Leonard Peltier, Mutulu Shakur, Chelsea Manning or Rev. Ed Pinkney.
by the Real News Network
Glen Ford explains the perfidy of Rev. Jackson as typical of the black misleadership class, whose only loyalties are to themselves and their patrons.

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