28 December 2011 — Black Agenda Report • News, commentary and analysis from the black left
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Tag: Black Agenda Report
Decolonizing Our Occupations By Jared Ball
30 November 2011 — Black Agenda Report
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by editor and columnist Jared Ball
White privilege, the legacy of 500 years of European military and economic suppression of the rest of the planet, is manifest even in movements that purport to be transformational, like Occupy Wall Street. Beneath the politics of economic reordering lie notions that the ‘new’ and overwhelmingly white movement somehow supersedes the centuries-old aspirations of Europe’s primary victims.
Black Agenda Report: Occupying Wall Street: Demands VS Deeds, Iran in Crosshairs, BA Report for Oct 19, 2011
19 October 2011 — Black Agenda Report – News, commentary and analysis from the black left
This week in Black Agenda Report
Occupy Wall Street: What You Can Demand versus What You Must DO
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Occupy Wall Street activists are under some pressures to come up with demands to make of the powerful. However, “in many cases, there is no point in demanding anything from your enemy, except that he drop dead in a hurry.” If Wall Street is an unadulterated evil as many OWS folks claim – and they are right – then what is to be demanded of the banksters and their friends? That they commit suicide, forthwith? And how do you reform a cancer away? “Well before 1999, Wall Street power had passed the point where it could be controlled by conventional regulation.”
The Libyan Soldier: The True Heroes of NATO’s War By Glen Ford
24 August 2011 — Black Agenda Report
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Listen: http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20110824_gf_LibyaOne.mp3
NATO has proven it has the capacity to kill thousands of Libyan soldiers from the skies, but it cannot ‘convey honor and legitimacy’ to the rebels under its killer wings. ‘They are little more than extras for imperial theater, a mob that traveled to battle under the protective umbrella of American full spectrum dominance of the air.’ The incinerated bodies of her soldiers have secured Libya’s place in history. Continue reading
Black Agenda Report 10 August 2011: Barack's Satan Sandwich / Obama Slipping / Black Brits Revolt
10 August 2011 — Black Agenda Report: News, commentary and analysis from the black left
Barack’s Satan Sandwich Only The First Course: Will We Re-Hire the Chef in 2012 Anyway?
Bruce A. Dixon
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver pronounced the debt deal a Satan Sandwich. The CBC is conducting its own “jobs tour,” without any government jobs, and the House progressive caucus is denouncing the series of rolling raids on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that the debt deal sets in motion. But will this, or anything stop progressives from re-hiring Chef Obama again in 2012?
Black Agenda Report 15 June 2011: Charters Divide Blacks / McKinney in Libya / Lupe Fiasco and Obama
15 June 2011 — Black Agenda Report
How the Corporate Right Divided Blacks from Teachers Unions and Each Other
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Charter school supporters are denouncing the NAACP for filing suit, along with the teachers union, against preferential – separate but unequal – treatment of charter schools in New York City. The charter activists claim the NAACP is dividing the community, but that division was orchestrated 15 years ago, when the right-wing Bradley Foundation created the Black private school voucher “movement” out of whole cloth.
Read more
Black Agenda Report 25 May 2011: Cornel West's Mistake / McKinney in Libya / Obama and Blacks
25 May 2011 — Black Agenda Report News, commentary and analysis from the black left
Freedom Rider: Israel Reigns Supreme
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The corporate media pretend that President Obama is standing up to Israel, when in fact the rogue state remains the “third rail” of U.S. politics. “Israel’s untouchability has nothing to do with popularity amongst the masses, but everything to do with a well funded lobbying and propaganda machine.” Israel’s wars are America’s wars, fought with American weapons and financing. Obama is no “change agent,” and there has been no “reset” of the lop-sided U.S.-Israel arrangement.
How Cornel West Did the Obamites a Favor By Glen Ford
25 May 2011 — Black Agenda Report
Unable to defend the indefensible, Black Obama supporters have been ‘rendered all but mute on issues of policy.’ They got their chance to reenter the political conversation when Princeton professor and media celebrity Cornel West, a former Obama supporter who is now a harsh critic, speculated on the racial workings of the president’s brain. That was a mistake. ‘There is no need to inject racial psychoanalysis into the (public) conversation when straightforward political analysis is more than sufficient to the task.’
The "Make Me Do It" Myth, Obama's Offensive, Black Moms Jailed — BA Report for May 18, 2011
18 May 2011 — Black Agenda Report
This week in Black Agenda Report
Harry Belafonte Explodes the Presidential “Make Me Do It” Myth
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Does President Obama really want us to “make him do it,” to organize and agitate and create the conditions that will let him end the wars, cut the military budget, create jobs and address the hyper-incarceration of black and brown youth? Or is the “make me do it” president an urban legend who lives only inside our heads? A recent presidential encounter with Harry Belafonte tells more than some of us may want to know.
A More Effective Imperial CEO By Bruce A. Dixon
27 November, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
“We are here because some of us and our friends voted for change. What did we get? What we got was a more effective imperial CEO.” — Bruce A. Dixon of Black Agenda Report, Chicago, 16 October 2010
http://blip.tv/play/hsZ1go_RdwI
Bruce A. Dixon, “A More Effective Imperial CEO”
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Video by Labor Beat (27 November 2010). For more information: mail@laborbeat.org; laborbeat.org; 312-226-3330.
Black Agenda Report 8 December, 2010: Obama: GOP Interlocutor / Celebrating Secession / Tyler Perry's Crimes
8 December, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
Obama: The Republican’s Reliable Interlocutor
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
It was an ugly performance by “an unrepentant, unreconstructed, center-right, corporate operative,” as President Obama defended his “latest grand accommodation with the GOP.” But it is incorrect to say that Obama “caves” to Republicans. His m.o. is far more aggressive – against fellow Democrats, whom he has relentlessly pummeled since his first days in office. With Obama in the White House, who needs Republicans?
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists welcomed the Civil War, and John Brown gave his life attempting to kindle the armed conflict as the only route to freedom for the slave. Rather than denounce the very idea of celebrating the 150th anniversary of arguably the only “good” war the United States ever fought, African Americans should be planning their own festivities. “It was not just Lincoln’s determination to preserve the Union that defeated the South, but the determination of black Americans to bring about their own liberation.”
Black Agenda Report 24 November, 2010: Fascist Skies and Streets / Selling out the Net / Haiti Colonized
24 November, 2010 — BAR
Congressman Bobby Rush, the Color of Change and the Color of Truth
by BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon
In the next Congress, Chicago’s Bobby Rush wants to the the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. While there is much to like and admire about the congressman’s long career, Color of Change’s James Rucker points out, putting Bobby Rush in charge of safeguarding a free and open internet is putting a corporate-funded fox in charge of the people’s henhouse.
Freedom Rider: Obama Style Fascism
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The germs of fascism infest both parties, thriving among Republican and Democratic hosts, alike. Barack Obama’s 2008 victory was also a new lease on life for George Bush’s foreign wars and strangulation of domestic civil liberties, most recently in the assault on travelers bodies at airports. The first Black president rules very much like the last white president, and “the absence of outrage directed in the right direction makes us more endangered now than in the days when Bush occupied the White House.”
If the Airport is a Police State, What is the Ghetto?
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
It is right to howl at the indignities inflicted on airline passengers – but hypocritical, if the howls come from folks who applaud or remain silent while police in big cities across the country subject hundreds of thousands of Black and Latino males to arbitrary stop and frisks. “As a Black male who is often perceived as Latino or Middle-Eastern, I expect to get stopped and questioned, pulled from the crowd and patted down.”
Black August and Crises of Hip-Hop as Euphemism
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR editor Jared A. Ball
Hip-hop has become a meaningless word – or worse, a word shellacked with so many saleable commercial and political meanings that it becomes a weapon against the very people that originated the genre. A new film is circulating, with clarifying impact. “The film forces a real conflict over who defines hip-hop, who uses it for what and what those of us who claim to know better are actually doing to address these and related concerns.”
Haiti Election: Theatrical Prelude to Colonization
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Sunday’s election is the last thing Haiti’s majority wants or needs. It is the United States that needs Sunday’s election in Haiti to provide “a veil of legality on the theft of Haiti’s sovereignty and independence by U.S. imperialism and its allies.” Haitians have been given a choice to validate their own re-enslavement. Most will choose No.
Media’s “Discovery” of the Scott Sisters
by Richard Prince
The case of the Scott Sisters cannot be said to have instantly captured the attention of the media, Black or white. The two Black Mississippi women have been in prison for 16 years, serving double-life sentences in an $11 armed robbery. The journey from incarcerated invisibility began with a small website, and may yet set the Scott Sisters free.
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Obama’s Deficit Commission “Shows the Hand” of Corporate Democrats and Their Republican Allies, says Nader
The recommendations put forward by the two co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission are so “over the top,” says consumer advocate Ralph Nader, “if there’s anything that ought to get the liberal left going, it’s this monstrosity, which Obama has to take some responsibility for.” The former presidential candidate says the assault on social programs “shows the hand of the corporate Democrats and their Republican allies in a very distinct way.” What’s not in the co-chairs’ proposal is as glaring as what’s included. “They didn’t say we should have a speculation tax on derivatives and other transactions of Wall Street,” for example, “which economists have estimated could raise $400 billion a year.”
Black Is Back Rally in Washington, DC
Eugenia Charles reports on the cholera epidemic in Haiti, where international aid “is not being used to support the Haitian people”; People’s Organization for Progress director Larry Hamm calls for renewed grassroots organizing to “build a movement stronger than the one we had in the Sixties”; and Black is Back chairman Omali Yeshitela says Barack Obama represents “white power in a Black face.”
Black Agenda Report 18 August, 2010: Blacks and Economic Crisis / Israel and Obama / Frances' Debt to Haiti
18 August, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
The Current Economic Crisis and the Way Out
by Anthony Monteiro
Wall Street rule has created a kind of “vampire economy,” a parasite on the “real” economy of work and production. Government acts as servant to the plunderers, deeming them “too big to fail” and bailing them out “to the tune of $12 trillion” of the people’s money. Although progressive white economists like Joseph Stiglitz often “don’t get it,” liberating the “masses of black folk from the plunderous combination of white supremacy and finance capitalism is fundamental to solving the crisis.”
Freedom Rider: Israel, Big Money and Obama
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Wealthy Americans whose paramount issue is unlimited support for Israel create huge distortions in U.S. politics, bending presidents to their will. Barack Obama’s career has long been nurtured by one such billionaire hyper-Zionist, who hopes to instigate an attack on Iran.
Black Agenda Report 12 August 2010: Time to Fight / Crumbling Empire / Digital Obama'Laid / Wyclef Pawn
12 August, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
Make Jesse Jackson, Ben Jealous and Big Labor Own Up to Their Words
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Established Black and labor leaders are compelled by the spiraling economy to at least pretend to make demands on the First Black President. However, “the Obama administration has no intention of supporting a direct government jobs creation program, the only measure that could begin to counter Wall Street’s decade’s-long jobs destruction policies.” The political crunch is coming.
Freedom Rider: Public Theft and the End of Empire
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
If it feels like this economic roller coaster ride is stuck on down, you’re right. At the same historical moment that the public sector is put on a starvation diet, the demands of the military reach record levels. “The height of brute force brings with it the nadir of support for human needs.”
Social Movement: Obama’Laid and the Internet
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
The recent Netroots Nation conference shows that Obama’Laid is easily dispensed in digital form, inebriating millions. What does it matter if 25 percent of Twitter users are Black, when “by 2012 75 percent of the country will have only one Internet service provider offering high-speed broadband Internet?” Clearly, the revolution will not be Twitterized. A real mass movement is needed.
Black Mass Incarceration, Unemployment, Unjust Wars, Corporate School Reform, Rampant Privatizations Are All “Off The Table” at CBC’s Annual Legislative Conference
For a generation, the CBC’s Annual Legislative Conference, popularly known as “CBC Week” has billed itself the penultimate gathering of Black America’s political elite, its best and brightest and most forward thinking minds brought together for our collective advancement. If that’s anywhere close to the truth, then why are there no workshop sessions on black mass incarceration or the unjust wars in Africa and the Middle East which are massively unpopular in black communities? Why no sessions on how to stop privatizations, or defend public libraries, public schools, public transit or the public sector?
Paul Kagame: America’s Genocidaire in Central Africa
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Precisely like his predecessor, President Obama empowers a pro-western Murder Inc. in Black Africa, a roster that includes the most vicious mass murderers and assassins on the continent. One of them, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, who is culpable in the death of millions in Congo, recently held an election in which he got 93 percent of the vote. But you won’t hear any complaints from the White House.
Wyclef Jean Godsend for U.S., France; NYPD Top Cop is “Rogue” / Cynthia McKinney Bikes for Peace / Blacks Get Little News Coverage
Wyclef Jean Godsend for U.S., France; NYPD Top Cop is “Rogue”; Cynthia McKinney Bikes for Peace; Blacks Get Little News Coverage
by Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Wyclef Jean’s “Divisive” Role in Haiti
Should we take entertainer Wyclef Jean’s candidacy for the Haitian presidency serious? “In normal times, in a country that was functioning normally,” said community activist and radio host Roger Le Duc, “it would be a joke.” But with the state that Haiti is in today, Jean’s role could be to “divide the popular masses” to the advantage of American, French and Canadian overseers.
Roosevelt Offered the New Deal, Obama Launches the Old Deal
by michael hureaux perez
Since Barack Obama has clearly reneged on any new dispensation for Black and working people in America, we may soon see him pitching an Old Deal as the Best Deal. Need affordable housing? “Please know that if a barn was good enough for Secretariat, it’s good enough for you. You’re an American.”
President Obama Meets African Youth Leaders
by C. Uzondu
President Obama appears to be avoiding any real discussion of the biggest challenges facing Africa. At a White House forum for young African leaders, there was nothing on the agenda about AFRICOM, climate change, or international economic justice. With the U.S. rapidly militarizing much of the region, “Africans inhabiting the richest continent will necessarily become terrorists whenever they resist US corporate-state plunder.”
Race and Redemption: The Shirley Sherrod Debacle
by Dr. Ron Daniels
Often ignored in discussion of the Shirley Sherrod affair, was the question of whether Sherrod was actually obligated to give assistance to a white farmer in danger of eviction. After all, Sherrod’s not-for-profit job was specifically to help Black farmers. “Had she simply stopped at making a referral (as she initially did) that would have been above and beyond the call of duty under the circumstance – but she chose to do more.”
South Africa Loses Its War On Poverty
by Patrick Bond
The African National Congress government in South Africa claims to be engaged in a life and death struggle with poverty, but there’s little evidence of it. The government’s strategy and tactics are considered state secrets, to be concealed especially from the poor, themselves.
Black Agenda Report 7 July, 2010: Peniel Joseph, Courtier / Nadir of Black America / Roots of Anti-Black
8 July, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
Dr. Peniel Joseph: Peoples Historian or Establishment Courtier? Part Two of Two: Peniel Joseph vs Hubert Harrison on Democracy
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
It’s not that hard to tell an honest people’s intellectual from a brand name huckster. One is engaged in making and propagating brands, terms with no fixed meaning of their own crafted to evoke unanalyzed, but useful feelings in an audience. The other is about the business of helping clear the cobwebs, cutting through received wisdom and official deceptions, explaining how the lives of ordinary people affect and are affected by the lineup of social forces, and what we can do about it. A quick look at how Dr. Joseph treats the word “democracy” in his latest work illustrates which side of the divide he is on.
Black Agenda Report – Duncan: Katrina “Best Thing That Happened” / Blacks and Net Neutrality
3 February, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
How Corporate Dollars Dominate the Black and Latino Conversation on Network Neutrality
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
The utter dependence of our “civil rights” organizations like the NAACP and LULAC upon corporate donations from Big Cable and the telecom industry has caused them to weigh into FCC rulemaking processes against network neutrality and for the continued digital redlining of black and brown communities. They are joined by a substantial cohort of black and Latino elected officials on the federal and other levels. What does this mean for minority communities, whose economic development depends on the availability of cheap, accessible broadband and a relatively free and open internet?
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/how-corporate-dollars-dominate-black-and-latino-conversation-network-neutrality
Freedom Rider: Show Trial
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
In order that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be denied even the formalities of American justice as we once knew it, the system itself must be eviscerated. “Phony concerns about security costs and whipped up fears of impending terror attacks are used to subvert the legal system that was once held up as a model for the rest of the world to follow.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/freedom-rider-show-trial
Glen Ford on Black Realities and Delusion in the Age of Obama
video:
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/glen-ford-black-delusion-age-obama
Haitians in the Bahamas Harrassed, Hunted and Scapegoated
video:
Two centuries after the world’s most successful slave rebellion Haitians are still being punished, both in their own country and in the nations to which they emigrate. In the Bahamas, Professor alex Morely explains, Haitians are an underclass, over-policed, over-exploited, underpaid and under surveillance. The Bahamian ruling elite have learned to blame Haitians like Lou Dobbs blames Mexicans.
blip.tv/file/3169031
Omali Yeshitela at Black Is Back: Creating A Broad Social Movement Based in Our Black Communities
video:
Omali Yeshitela of the Uhuru Movement, convenors of the January 2010 Black Is Back conference in St. Petersburg explains that the 21st century successor to the Freedom Movement must be a broad social movement firmly rooted, among other places, in black America, and describes a little of what that looks like.
blip.tv/file/3168275
Eshu’s blues: An Open Letter to President Obama on Haiti
by BAR columnist michael hureaux perez
Even when claiming to speak to the nation and world about Haiti, Barack Obama winds up talking about America – and himself. The author writes, “Mr. President…”I am always astounded to see just what a shallow and pretentious presence your elevation to the national scene has become, even at this moment of colossal tragedy.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/eshu’s-blues-open-letter-president-obama-haiti
Obama Sec’y of Education Says Katrina “the Best Thing to Happen” to Education in New Orleans
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
If obscene utterances were a crime, education secretary Arne Duncan would be jailed for life. Like all disaster capitalists, he views poor people’s catastrophes as his own golden opportunities. In Haiti and New Orleans, Black lives were a small price for (someone else) to pay for the chance to create a new order “more advantageous to the rich.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-secy-education-says-katrina-best-thing-happen-education-new-orleans
Ruling Provides New Hope for Felon Voting Rights
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
In what is being hailed as a landmark ruling, a federal court found that the criminal justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination. As a result, said the judges, disenfranchisement of felons is a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/ruling-provides-new-hope-felon-voting-rights
War Looms in Nigeria’s Oil Fields
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
A headless Nigerian state braces for renewed civil war in the Niger River Delta, where guerillas threaten “all-out” assaults on oil facilities. Attacks on vessels off the Nigerian coast are already comparable to Somalia.
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/war-looms-nigerias-oil-fields
Mainstream Media’s Tea Party Tryst
by Sikivu Hutchinson
White nationalism is the permanent American “populist” movement, one that never truly goes away. “Thinly disguised as saber rattling against big government, race-baiting propaganda has been revitalized as the Republican strategy for taking back the country.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/mainstream-media’s-tea-party-tryst
Protecting Haiti’s Interest
by John Maxwell
The “Big Three” tormenters of Haiti – the U.S., France and Canada – now posing as the quake-struck nation’s benefactors, ponder how to rebuild Haiti without Haitian input or permission. “France, the United States and Canada owe the Haitians billions in damages. It is not for them to tell the Haitians what to spend it on.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/protecting-haitis-interest
What Next for Haiti as “Recovery” Replaces Relief?
by Danny Schechter
The U.S. corporate media, the Empire’s mouthpieces, blame the powerless people and feeble institutions of Haiti for their plight. ”Few reviewed the history of Washington’s occupations and support for dictators as a reason for why the country was kept so poor and unable to run a relief effort when they needed to.”
www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/what-next-haiti-”recovery”-replaces-relief
Glen Ford: Triumph of right-wing nationalism
8 January, 2010 — The Real News Network
Glen Ford: Rise of right nationalism in US and abroad is the danger, Obama admin part of it
Paul Jay speaks with Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report about Obama’s foreign policies.
http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/ExternalVideo.913814
more about “Triumph of right-wing nationalism“, posted with vodpod
Bio
Glen Ford is a distinguished radio-show host and commentator. In 1977, Ford co-launched, produced and hosted America’s Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television. In 1987, Ford launched Rap It Up, the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio stations. Ford co-founded the Black Agenda Report. Ford is also the author of The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion.
The New Dark Age 