"Talking About Mandela" with Netfa Freeman

Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Netfa Freeman of the Institute for Policy Studies. We talked about my recent Black Agenda Report column, Talking About Mandela. The interview will be aired on Tuesday, December 23rd on the Voices with Vision program on WPFW radio.

I would like to add that Netfa had a great interview with Rene Gonzalez, one of the Cuban Five. We linked to the interview in Black Agenda Report. Read it here.

Obama’s Phony Commutations

My Black Agenda Report colleague Glen Ford pointed out that Barack Obama is not the lesser of two evils. He is the more effective evil and all of his nefarious skills were seen clearly today with an important announcement. The president made a decision which is right and proper and that will be applauded by anyone who believes in justice. Unfortunately a grave injustice was recently done with Obama’s help and hardly anyone knows about that.

There is good news for eight fortunate people. The president will commute their drug conviction sentences which were determined by terribly draconian crack cocaine laws. Thanks to presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, 5,000 people languish in prisons across the country because the mass incarceration, prison industrial complex was brought to its fullest fruition on their collective watch.

The crack cocaine “epidemic” was a trope used to whip the public into a frenzy of fear. The media and politicians used justifiable concerns about drug trafficking to turn the United States into a gulag for black people.

Judges were stripped of discretionary authority and mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine were meted out at a ratio of 100:1. Possession of 5 grams of crack was treated like 500 grams of powdered cocaine.

We were told that only “kingpins” would do serious time but every black person was turned into a kingpin and all did serious time. After years of protest and lawsuits Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010 which lessened the ratio to 18:1. 

But an important question remained about those sentenced under the older guidelines. Would they be able to request resentencing based on the new rules? On December 3, 2013 the Sixth Court of Appeals answered in the negative.

Organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund immediately protested but didn’t bother to point out that president Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder also opposed making the new guidelines retroactive.  Another BAR colleague, Bruce Dixon, asks an important question. “Are establishment black  ‘civil rights’ organizations like the NAACP, the National Action Network and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund really opposed to mass incarceration and the prison state?”

“They claim to oppose mass incarceration and the prison state, although they've only just learned the phrase ‘mass incarceration’ and cannot fix their lips to say ‘prison state.’

But since their first priority is boosting the political fortunes and careers of their peers in the black political elite, who we affectionately call our black misleadership class, they are unable to call the devil in charge of mass incarceration by his name, if that devil has a black face.”

I have not read about Obama and Holder’s duplicity outside of the pages of the Black Agenda Report. The New York Times article I linked to doesn’t mention it, and neither do the rest of the corporate media. Obamabots are dancing for joy but most probably have no idea that Barack Obama could have begun the process of releasing 5,000 people unjustly incarcerated. Sadly, even if they did know they would still be in love with their idol.

Obama had an opportunity to fight for the rights of 5,000 people, but instead fought against them, and then makes a big splash about doing the right thing for just eight individuals. Well played.

I am happy for these few people who will soon be going home but I haven’t forgotten about the rest. I also haven’t forgotten that the first black president and first black attorney general chose to keep them behind bars.

Telling the Truth About Nelson Mandela

“Mandela, too, fostered crony relationships with wealthy whites from the corporate world, including those who had profited from apartheid. He saw this as part of ‘reconciliation’.” John Pilger
I am feeling very sad right now. I don’t feel sad because Nelson Mandela died today. After all he was 95 and had been ill for some time. Of course if he were my father or grand father I would not be so sanguine, but ultimately we all have to die and preferably in peace without physical suffering.
I feel sad because the hideous hagiography has already begun. The sickening mantra that he forgave white people. As I pointed out in a recent Black Agenda Report column, Black people are always lauded if they forgive white people. If Mandela didn’t forgive white people for what they did to South Africa, well, who could blame him? White people of course but I digress.
Mandela fought the good fight against oppression for many years. That is why he was imprisoned in the first place. But his release from prison and the direction the ANC took after he became president were intertwined with deals he made to keep white people on top economically and the country firmly in the grip of avaricious capitalism.
We at Black Agenda Report have reported numerous times on the betrayal of black South Africans by their own misleadership class. We were fortunate to meet with Ronnie Kasrils, a long time ANC member and Mandela comrade who has told uncomfortable truths about the end of apartheid.
“What I call our Faustian moment came when we took an IMF loan on the eve of our first democratic election. That loan, with strings attached that precluded a radical economic agenda, was considered a necessary evil, as were concessions to keep negotiations on track and take delivery of the promised land for our people. Doubt had come to reign supreme: we believed, wrongly, there was no other option; that we had to be cautious, since by 1991 our once powerful ally, the Soviet union, bankrupted by the arms race, had collapsed. Inexcusably, we had lost faith in the ability of our own revolutionary masses to overcome all obstacles. Whatever the threats to isolate a radicalizing South Africa, the world could not have done without our vast reserves of minerals. To lose our nerve was not necessary or inevitable. The ANC leadership needed to remain determined, united and free of corruption – and, above all, to hold on to its revolutionary will. Instead, we chickened out.”
Mandela need not be vilified completely, but he doesn’t need to be canonized either. While the Cubans must be given credit for bringing about South Africa’s military defeat, it is also necessary to talk about the deals that Mandela made to get out of prison.
Black South Africans are free to travel where they want but that freedom means little if going on strike means being killed by the police. It doesn’t mean anything if the country still supplies the world with  wealth which the workers will never enjoy.
I am feeling sad because the lies and dumbing down will be thick until his funeral takes place. I’m hoping that event will take place as quickly as possible. I don’t look forward to Obama claiming that he loved Mandela and he was inspired by him and blah, blah, and blah. I don’t want to see British royals looking solemn or celebrities who don’t much of anything suddenly claiming to know South African history.
I wonder how Fidel Castro is feeling now. He fought for decades to aid African liberation movements. How does he feel after seeing his South African comrades succumb so badly and so blatantly? Does he regret his decision to defeat apartheid? I wonder.
Let’s tell the truth, the whole truth about Nelson Mandela.

NFL is “Jail with money”

“The NFL is like jail with money. It really is. There is a culture of intimidation, humiliation and violence.  That makes you… You know they try to keep you in control.” – Terry Crews

“Hey, wassup, you half-nigger piece of shit. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] shit in your fucking mouth. [I'm going to] slap your fucking mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. Fuck you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you.” – Richie Incognito

I happen to be a fan of professional football. I come from a family of sport fans. In the days when we only had channels 2 through 13, it was a big deal when Ohio State games were televised and my dad made a very big deal out of watching his favorite team. I knew way more than I needed to about Woody Hayes (google if you must) and how brilliant he was. It was all a lot of fun and I have great memories about it.

My level of interest has waxed and waned over time but I’ve been a consistent football fan for the past couple of years and I’m a big fan of the New York Giants. It is a great sport and I admire the skill of the players. I enjoy having a kind of camaraderie with other fans who understand why I’m happy or sad or why I like or dislike a person or a team. It has been fun, but all that started to change for me recently.

Last week, Jonathan Martin, a black player for the Miami Dolphins, left the team after enduring insults, humiliations and threats to his family from team mate Richie Incognito. (Yes, that is his real name.) The story itself was pretty shocking, but the real shock came when black players defended Incognito and berated Martin. To a person they said the same things. Martin should just “man up” and ought to have “handled it in house.” He was called “weak” and “a coward.”

I assumed that football players were not the most enlightened people, but I’m shocked that they do in fact live up to the worst stereotypes about dumb jocks. It is heart breaking to see these black men sound like old segregationists whining about their “way of life.” Football has its own culture we are told. That’s just the way it is. Everyone is first bullied and then bullies others.

In other words, they are a bunch of highly paid gangsters with the NFL locker room being like a prison yard. If that is the case they can play without getting more of my time, energy or attention.

In case you didn’t google Woody Hayes, you should know that he was fired after he punched an opposing player. Yup. I have been in denial for years.

It is hard to stop doing things we find enjoyable, which is we have rehab and weight watchers. Tomorrow is Sunday and will be the first day of my football reduced diet. Time for a different hobby.

Very Small of You, Jay Z

How lame was Jay Z’s statement about his collaboration with Barneys New York? It was so lame, that even the conservative New York Daily News took him to task. I did that when I posted yesterday. Today I’ll let the Daily News speak for itself.

“When he joined a partnership with upscale retailer Barneys, Shawn “Jay Z” Carter applied his celebrity, fashion sense and marketing savvy to raising large sums of money for his charitable foundation. All hail.

Certainly, Carter was shocked to read, via the Daily News front page, about mounting evidence of racial profiling by his chic collaborators.

First, he learned that store security had triggered the groundless arrest of a young African-American man who purchased a $350 belt with a debit card wrongly assumed to be fraudulent. Then, he learned that a similar false presumption brought detectives down on a young African-American woman.

Were he reading closely — and Carter and public relations aides surely were — he also saw that in 2013, Barneys had logged more than 50 calls to the NYPD alleging credit card fraud against specific individuals.

The store’s allegations produced a total of only 11 arrests, according to the police department, strongly suggesting that Barneys has overwhelmingly been siccing cops on consumers baselessly judged to have been criminals. How many were white, black or other? Neither the police nor Barneys will say.

None of this was Carter’s fault.

But it became his responsibility, because with power and the wealth that begets power come social obligations. These can be heavy for notables who become role models and even more onerous for those, like Carter, who rise to iconic stature. In this cultural stratosphere, he carries the dreams, allegiance and commercial support of the public, and the public, perhaps especially the black public, expects his allegiance in return.

Carter had long put forth the face of just that kind of generous, socially conscious figure. Now, in the aftermath of the racial profiling revelations, the public looks into the soul of a peevishly egotistical man who appears to have erased from memory his long-ago address in Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses.

After three days of why-are-you-bothering-me evasions, Carter on Saturday issued a statement that portrayed him — and not Barneys arrestees Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips — as the mightily wronged party.

Twice his name appeared in the statement; never once theirs.

He complained of being “demonized and denounced”; they were swarmed by cops and held in custody.

He imagined “negligent, erroneous reports and attacks on my character.” There were none, but Christian and Phillips suffered the very real fear and humiliation of being held and interrogated by police, wondering whether their only offense was skin color.

Finally, in the eighth paragraph of 10 paragraphs of bitterness, Carter said that he had been working “to get to the bottom of these incidents,” wanted a “solution that doesn’t harm all those that stand to benefit from this collaboration,” and empathized with anyone who had been profiled.

Carter’s cry of victimization must be taken as the measure of the man, for he issued it not in the heat of the moment but after three days of consideration and consultation. The tone deafness of a man so musically talented is all the more glaring in comparison with the words and actions of the NYPD and Barneys.

While neither has been remotely forthcoming with facts, both have recognized the gravity of the Christian and Phillips cases. The cops who arrested Christian apologized, and the department has launched an Internal Affairs investigation. Barneys quickly brought in a civil rights lawyer to review its actions and policies.

And Carter felt aggrieved that anyone might hope to hear his voice reverberate for justice. The smallness of a big man is most shocking.”

Jay Z’s Presence at Barneys

“It’s what I call the re-niggerization of the Black professional class, where you have fear, you have a tremendous sense of being intimidated even though you have big money,” said West. “So you say to Brother Jay-Z, What are you risking? We don’t want to just see you successful, we appreciate it, we want to see you faithful to something bigger than you, and faith has to do with risking something. The only way you become de-niggerized and free is when you are willing to risk, when you’re willing to go against the grain, to show you’re not fearful, you’re not afraid. Unfortunately, Jay-Z at his worst is an example of folk who get so elevated that they don’t show courage and take a risk for something that is bigger than them.”
Cornel West on Black Agenda Report TV

“I think one of the great abuses of this modern time is that we should have had such high-profile artists, powerful celebrities. But they have turned their back on social responsibility,” he accused. “That goes for Jay-Z and Beyoncé, for example. Give me Bruce Springsteen, and now you’re talking. I really think he is black.”
Harry Belafonte

"I’m offended by that because first of all, and this is going to sound arrogant, but my presence is charity. Just who I am. Just like Obama’s is."
Jay Z

Shawn Carter, aka Jay Z, is one of the most successful entertainers of this era. He is not only a top selling recording artist, but a businessman with stakes in sports, fashion and movies. He is also married to Beyonce Knowles, who is equally successful and a constant presence in every kind of media. They are a power couple, a brand in and of themselves.

Cornel West and Harry Belafonte sought in vain to engage the Carters in the kind of political activism which Belafonte and artists of his generation were known for. I admired the effort but knew that it was for naught. I never thought they had any interest in what West or Belafonte had to say and I've been proven right. Jay Z sold Occupy Wall Street themed t-shirts to make money, but didn't real think much of the OWS movement. He said he just didn't understand it.

He clearly didn't get it because he was quoted as saying that "we need less government" which is a strange statement coming from someone who directly profited from government intervention in getting the New York Nets a new stadium. The sad truth of the matter is that the day of the artist willing to take a stand on important issues has come to an end.

So unwilling is Mr. Carter, that he has been silent at a time when his name and reputation were linked to a business proven to have discriminated against black people. In the past week, two black people have come forward to report that after spending their money at the Barneys New York clothing store, they were stopped by and in one case detained by the police. They were both accused of using fake debit cards, asked where they got their money, where they lived and why they dared to cross the lilly white threshold of the luxury retailer.

The timing could not have been any worse for Jay Z. Barneys recently announced that their annual celebrity holiday shopping partner was, well guess who. A portion of the proceeds of the New York Holiday campaign would go to Carter's scholarship fund. The rest goes to Jay Z and Barneys.

Barneys was forced to issue not one, but two statements within 48 hours of the story breaking in the media. Jay Z took his time to respond on his website but when he did he sounded like the petulant injured party.

"I move and speak based on facts and not emotion. I haven’t made any comments because I am waiting on facts and the outcome of a meeting between community leaders and Barneys. Why am I being demonized, denounced and thrown on the cover of a newspaper for not speaking immediately? The negligent, erroneous reports and attacks on my character, intentions, and the spirit of this collaboration have forced me into a statement I didn’t want to make without the full facts. Making a decision prematurely to pull out of this project, wouldn’t hurt Barneys or Shawn Carter, but all the people that stand a chance at higher education. I have been working with my team ever since the situation was brought to my attention to get to the bottom of these incidents and at the same time find a solution that doesn’t harm all those that stand to benefit from this collaboration."

Defensive much? Despite Mr. Carter's assertions, the facts are quite clear. Black shoppers spent their money in Barneys only to be treated as if they were shop lifters. The only honorable thing for him to do is cancel his collaboration. If his mere presence is charity, then he can give scholarships without doing business with Barneys. All he has to do is write a check. Problem solved.

So Belafonte and West have been proven right. Jay Z is of the money, by the money and for the money. He has enough of it to give up this bad deal with Barneys but he won't. Jay Z doesn't care about black people.

Glen Ford Speaks about the Black "Mis-Leadership" Class

This is the first video from the Black Agenda Report fundraiser held on October 18th at the Riverside Church here in New York City. Glen Ford's opening remarks were followed by two panels which included Ajamu Baraka, Kevin Gray, Marsha Coleman Adebayo, Boyce Watkins, Bruce Dixon, Anthony Monteiro and yours truly. Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo spoke on the upcoming Congo Week and Raymond "Nat" Turner provided beautiful spoken word.

If you are wondering whether Cory Booker will make a good senator for New Jersey, listen up. Glen answers the question in no uncertain terms.

Thanks to Stan Heller for the video. More to come.

Solomon Northup Reboot

I hope to see the new film 12 Years a Slave within the week. I was excited when I first heard about this project, which is based on Solomon Northup’s memoir. Northup was a free black man living in New York state who was deceived by an offer to perform in Washington DC. Instead he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana.

I am however curious about why no one points out that this is the second telling of Northup’s story. In 1984 Solomon Northup’s Odyssey was presented on PBS. The film starred Avery Brooks and was directed by Gordon Parks. It was later released on video with the title Half Slave, Half Free.

Director Steve McQueen said this in an NPR interview.

“It was the only firsthand account of a free black man who went into slavery and came out the other end — who actually regained his freedom. But then Uncle Tom's Cabin came out the year after and obliterated it, and it was buried. And I was really upset with myself that I did not know about this book. No one knew about this book. And it just became my passion, sort of — make this book into a film.”

I find it hard to believe that neither McQueen nor anyone else in the film industry was aware that Northup’s story had already been told on film. By all accounts this is an excellent movie and I look forward to seeing it, but I’m curious about why there seems to be a need to claim that this story was unknown after it had already been told on film.

As for McQueen’s assertion that there is no other account of a story of this kind, well I’m not sure that is true either.

John Brown

"I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!"

On this date in 1859 John Brown set out with a small group and headed to Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His goal was to seize weapons from the federal arsenal and lead enslaved persons to freedom in the nearby mountains. He wanted this army  to grow until all of the enslaved persons in the southern states had gained their freedom too.

Brown's raid was considered a failure. He was captured and later hanged. Two of his sons were killed as were five others. His supporters denied him. One even committed himself to a mental hospital in order to escape punishment. Brown's captors included Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stewart and John Wilkes Booth was a witness to his hanging.

Despite those facts, Brown was a success. He started the civil war which was the only hope for the enslaved millions. This is a great day in history and must always be celebrated.

(It makes more sense than celebrating Columbus Day.)

“You’re all illegal. We didn’t invite none of you here.”

Watch the video. I have nothing to add. This man says it all. I wish I knew his name so that I could acknowledge him properly.

Help Kickstart World War III!

Help Obama Start World War III

Best line? "Why? Because Obama!"

Syria Street Meeting Sept 8, 2013, New Brunswick, NJ

I was invited to speak at an anti-war event in New Brunswick, New Jersey on Sunday. Bob Witanek was kind enough to invite me. Madelyn Hoffman of New Jersey Peace Action was also a speaker.

Obama's Accomplices to War Crimes

Such is the title of my most recent Black Agenda Report column. We are headed to war because the criminal in chief has lots of help from the corporate media, feckless politicians and war mongering democrats.

Colin Powell Busted

Two days ago I went to the High Line, a park located on what was once an old train line on the far west side of Manhattan. It is a lovely place surrounded by old and new architecture, beautiful views, plants, and works of art. One of those works is called Colin Powell and is part of an exhibit ironically called Busted. The bust shows Powell in that infamous moment at the UN when he used a vial as a prop and lied about the existence of WMD in Iraq. That is an important moment to remember as we are being told that there is incontrovertible proof of a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

The text description of the sculpture reads thusly:

“Goshka Macuga (b. 1967, Poland) presents Colin Powell, a sculpture of the former Secretary of State during his 2003 United Nations speech on weapons of mass destruction. The sculpture is inspired by the replica of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, the anti-war painting which usually hangs in the assembly, but was covered during Powell’s speech.”

I didn’t know that the UN chose to spare the super sensitive secretary from seeing an anti-war statement. I had never heard of  Ms. Macuga until yesterday but now I am a fan.

You can see the sculpture until June 2014. It is located on the High Line near 22nd Street. Busted indeed.

George Galloway Always Kicks Ass

British MP said what no American politician would say in the US Senate.

British MP George Galloway doesn’t play. In parliament this week he broke it down in the way that only he can about why the plan to start a war with Syria is so very evil.

I am reminded of his bravura performance back on May 17, 2005 when he sliced and diced senator Norm Coleman who accused him of profiting from the oil for food program. Coleman didn’t know that Galloway had already won a libel suit against a British newspaper regarding this very issue.

Not only did Galloway make it clear that he was innocent of the charges but he took the opportunity to give Coleman a piece of his mind about the whole corrupt enterprise.

Americans Will Support War Against Syria

Right now most Americans are opposed to any United States action against Syria. Too bad that won’t last. Mark Twain explains.

“There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one--on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

U.S. War on Africa

On June 8, 2013 I participated on a Left Forum panel sponsored by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), "The War on Africa." At the time the Susan Rice drama was front and center in the news but I made the point that it didn't matter if she was secretary of state or not. She and her bosses Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had taken actions which killed millions of Africans, especially in the Congo. Listen up for ten minutes.

Interview on State of the City

Last week I was interviewed by Daren Muhammed on his WFBR program State of City. I talked about the beauty of old R&B (his question) but mostly about my recent Black Agenda Report column Sex Tapes and Butlers. Interview starts at about 4 minutes 40 seconds and lasts for about 30 minutes.

Russell Simmons' Harriet Tubman Sex Tape

Where to begin? Yesterday Russell Simmons caused a disruption in the cosmos with a video called The Harriet Tubman Sex Tape. I was first in denial, not wanting to know how the words Harriet Tubman and sex tape could be in the same sentence.

Harriet Tubman is one of the greatest people who ever lived in this country. She was born enslaved in Maryland. She escaped slavery but returned numerous times to free over 300 men, women and children. She was the only woman known to have led an assault during the civil war. The Combahee River raid resulted in a confederate defeat and the liberation of 750 people. She was a union spy and nurse. 

No matter. The bottom feeder Russell Simmons thought it would be funny to mock her and turn her into a pornography character. Apparently Simmons has issues with women and even if they do empower themselves he sees them as only able to empower with sex. Fortunately most people on the planet with a brain and an internet connection thought otherwise. Despite originally calling his ill conceived opus "one of the funniest things I've ever seen" Simmons issued a half hearted non-apology and removed the video from youtube. 

I have so many questions. Who thought of this? What was the pitch meeting like? Did anyone think it might not be a good idea? What went through the minds of the actors and the crew? WTF is wrong with people?

You can't unsee the Harriet Tubman sex tape. It is out there in the universe still and it will live on, in a very bad way, in our memories. 

Obama Kind of Sort of Thanks Edward Snowden

President Obama held a news conference today. That fact is now particularly newsworthy, but the first item on his agenda was.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, Americans know that their personal data is sucked up into the maw of the surveillance state. Obama huffed and puffed and tried to blow the house down but Vladimir Putin gave Snowden temporary asylum in Russia and the big bad wolf went home empty handed.

So today the president announced a task force and a web site and an ombudsman and a transparent thingamajig to "restore confidence" in the government's ability to spy on millions of people here and around the world. The question is why. After first going on Jay Leno's show to yuck it up a bit before telling us we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about this, he now gives a performance of charades. Of course Snowden's name came up and the slippery politician tried to have it both ways.

"And there's no doubt that Mr. Snowden's leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board to go through -- and I'd sat down with Congress and we had worked this thing through -- it would have been less exciting and it would not have generated as much press -- I actually think we would have gotten to the same place, and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways that we are able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country."

Less exciting? How about never would have happened? How about senators Wyden and Udall being stone walled at every turn when they asked questions about the NSA and the FISA court? 
Well anyway, he was forced to answer not only to millions of Americans but to foreign governments who now know that they were being spied on too. I can't say it enough. Edward Snowden is one of my favorite people. He did the right thing, he screwed our government, and then he got away. Obama and his crew are left sputtering and hoping Leno helps them out. How perfect is that?

August 6, 1945: A Date That Will Live in Infamy

"Very late the next night, however, something happened that did change the plan. The Soviet Union declared war and launched a broad surprise attack on Japanese forces in Manchuria. In that instant, Japan’s strategy was ruined. Stalin would not be extracting concessions from the Americans. And the approaching Red Army brought new concerns: The military position was more dire, and it was hard to imagine occupying communists allowing Japan’s traditional imperial system to continue. Better to surrender to Washington than to Moscow."

American propaganda teaches that Japan's surrender in 1945 happened only because Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated. That mantra is demonstrably false. They surrendered because the Soviets declared war and left them with no way out. The United States is still the only nation that has dropped atomic weapons on human beings and it didn't have to happen. Read here.

What Chris Hayes Said About Bradley Manning Sentence

On Tuesday, July 30th, PFC Bradley Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy but found guilty of 20 different counts of espionage by a military court.

I have written about the government’s zealous pursuit of Manning in my Black Agenda Report column. Manning is but one person who has been victimized by the Obama administration’s effort to punish whistle blowers with the utmost severity.  The 1917 Espionage Act has been Obama’s weapon of choice to make sure that no one considers joining their ranks. Of course, there will always be an Edward Snowden, thank goodness, but a potential 100 year prison sentence isn’t likely to inspire similar behavior.

Obviously a great deal was written about Manning on the day the verdict was announced. On Facebook I shared a post which claimed that MSNBC’s Chris Hayes advocated that Manning receive a 20 year sentence.

That is not what Hayes said. Here is the end of Hayes’s interview with Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice. Video and transcript can be found here.

Hayes - The final thing I want to get from you is this. You know, defenders of Bradley Manning have been quite vocal and active and very well organized, and I'm quite sympathetic in some ways to people's pointing out the absolute difficult to justify conditions under which Bradley Manning was held, ten months of solitary. The three years before he faced trial. The overkill of the prosecution. It also does seem to me the army isn't going to walk away from some private first class giving away 800,000 documents, right? My question to you is, as sentencing starts tomorrow and there is no minimum sentence , he faces 100 years. What do you think justice is in this case?

Goitein -  I think justice is to take in account those very things that were considered irrelevant. I think they shouldn't have been considered irrelevant, but they were considered irrelevant at the guilt phase. That is his actual motive and the actual harm that the disclosures caused, or in this case really didn't cause. Those factors will be relevant at the sentencing hearing and, you know, I think some sentence is appropriate. I actually believe that.

Hayes -  He has pled to a sentence that would give him about 20 years. I have to say --

Goitein -  Up to 20 years.

Hayes - Up to 20 years. I mean, I'm not a sentencing judge, but clearly that would be a disincentive for future actions if that's the thing the army is worried about. Liza Goitein from the Brennan Center for Justice . Thank you.

Early in the interview Hayes did explain why the government’s claim of aiding the enemy was so wrong and how it would have devastated freedom of the press. It is also very clear that neither Hayes nor his guest advocated for any particular sentence. His guest says that a sentence of some kind is in order, but she only mentioned 20 years as a way of explaining what a sentence based on his guilty pleas might be.

If it were up to me, Manning would never have been charged in the first place. If I could speak to the judge now I would ask for a sentence of time served so that Manning could be freed immediately. (I know. Won’t happen.)

Hayes gives the impression that while critical of the charge of aiding the enemy, he isn’t very concerned about what happens to Manning now. His words come off as a shrug of the shoulders. “Well, what do you expect when you break the rules?”

I have a lot of issues with MSNBC. Hayes is one of the beneficiaries of left leaning media which “… in creating media personalities who, in advancing themselves, have done significant damage to the left and its ability to communicate its message.”

He is not the worst actor in this drama but he showed his true colors with his remarks on Edward Snowden’s pursuit of his right to seek asylum. Hayes expressed “concern” about Snowden’s revelations of government surveillance of nearly every American, but when pressed could only wag his finger at Snowden for seeking asylum in Russia. The fact that he was forced to do so because president Obama violated his right to seek asylum in numerous other countries went unmentioned.

There are no true leftists in corporate media and that means critique of MSNBC is necessary. It is seen as being something it isn’t and can never be, which actually makes it more problematic to progressives than Fox news. We should point that out and still get the facts straight.

Snowden is Free

“So consider what has happened: we have a sitting President who is treating a journalist as a personal threat and is going to extreme lengths to stymie him providing testimony to Congress. That of course has not deterred Greenwald. One of the points of the testimony Wednesday (technically, not a hearing) was for Greenwald to rebut statements made by Obama, James Clapper, and Keith Alexander that the NSA programs were limited…” Naked Capitalism

At last. Edward Snowden left the Moscow airport today after being forced to take sanctuary there for the past five weeks. Russia gave him temporary asylum and allowed him to enter the country. The former defense contractor employee fled first to Hong Kong and was then en route to a third country when the Obama administration cancelled his passport as he landed in Moscow.

Liberal Obamabots wrung their hands and scolded Snowden for seeking refuge in evil Russia. They never bothered to point out that Snowden sought asylum in over 20 countries but was thwarted by American government interference. Absent the Obama temper tantrum he might have ended up someplace that liberals found more acceptable.

This news is huge. Vladimir Putin directed a very public rebuke to Barack Obama who was very ham handed in his appeals to the Russian president. Kerry, Carney and every member of the senate and house fumed and fussed. They called Snowden a traitor and all used the finger in the eye metaphor straight out of the Three Stooges. It was all for naught. Putin was already angry about Syria and about being made a fool of over the Libya security council vote. He also refused to give in on Russian law, which has no extradition agreement with the United States.

It isn’t coincidental that Russia made its decision official two days after Bradley Manning was convicted of espionage. The Manning case proved that Snowden had a well founded fear of persecution, which is the international standard for the granting of asylum.

Obama had gone to great lengths to get Snowden and to silence his critics. Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the Snowden story was scheduled to give testimony to congress on the NSA. Congress had narrowly defeated a bill meant to defund the NSA’s ability to gather and store information on our phone calls. The double whammy of Greenwald speaking directly to congress was too much for the president to handle  says Firedoglake.

President Obama has historically considered the Hill some lower bardo of hell.  One of the major complaints of congressional Democrats has always been that the President does not consult them or include them in shaping his legislative agenda, let alone stop by for a chin wag.

So imagine everyone’s surprise when the President suddenly announced he was coming to the Hill today to meet with all the Democrats –  right before the August recess begins.

Coincidentally, this forced Alan Grayson to cancel the hearing on NSA activity scheduled for today, at which the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald was to testify. Grayson’s bipartisan hearing was organized to give critics of the NSA’s sweeping surveillance programs a chance to air their concerns, and stem the tide of “constant misleading information” coming from the intelligence community, per Grayson.

Those who saw Glenn Greenwald on ABC’s This Week last Sunday heard him hint at reporting he would publish this week which would directly contradict claims made by General Keith Alexander, James Clapper and President Obama himself about the limited nature of the NSA’s programs (video above).

DSWright has more on XKeyscore, the NSA program Greenwald reports on today.  Suffice to say the Guardian publishes copies of training manuals that teach analysts how to search nearly “everything a user does on the internet.”  Of all the revelations made by Edward Snowden so far, these are by far the most explosive — and they directly contradict statements by the President that the NSA’s surveillance activities are limited to metadata.

Sadly, Grayson’s hearing has to be pushed into September because of the President’s sudden desire to drop by for a cuppa.  Coincidence?  Only those in the White House would know for sure.

I’ll say it. It was no coincidence at all. But it doesn’t matter. The U.S. can’t always succeed in telling the rest of the world what to do.

Thank goodness.

A Shout Out from Cornel West

"That’s why Brother Snowden and Brother Manning are the John Browns of our day, and the Glenn Greenwalds and the Chris Hedges and Glen Fords and Bruce Dixons and Margaret Kimberleys and Nellie Baileys are the William Lloyd Garrisons of our day, when we talk about the national security state."

Cornel West was a guest on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. He said many important things about Barack Obama's statement on Trayvon Martin but I have admit I was most excited about getting a shout out from Cornel West himself.

But enough about me. Dr. West did not spare Obama or his supporters.

"Well, the first thing, I think we have to acknowledge that President Obama has very little moral authority at this point, because we know anybody who tries to rationalize the killing of innocent peoples, a criminal—George Zimmerman is a criminal—but President Obama is a global George Zimmerman, because he tries to rationalize the killing of innocent children, 221 so far, in the name of self-defense, so that there’s actually parallels here."

"Then he tells stories about racial profiling. They’re moving, sentimental stories, what Brother Kendall Thomas called racial moralism, very sentimental. But then, Ray Kelly, major candidate for Department of Homeland Security, he’s the poster child of racial profiling. You know, Brother Carl Dix and many of us went to jail under Ray Kelly. Why? Because he racially profiled millions of young black and brown brothers. So, on the one hand, you get these stories, sentimental—"

"But the rage is going to hit up against a stone wall. Why? Because Obama and Holder, will they come through at the federal level for Trayvon Martin? We hope so. Don’t hold your breath. And when they don’t, they’re going to have to somehow contain that rage. And in containing that rage, there’s going to be many people who say, "No, we see, this president is not serious about the criminalizing of poor people." We’ve got a black leadership that is deferential to Obama, that is subservient to Obama, and that’s what niggerizing is. You keep folks so scared. You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they’re still scared. And as long as you’re scared, you’re on the plantation."

"Black people, we settled for so little, so we get a little symbolic gesture, we get a little identification, and like on MSNBC, which is part of the Obama plantation, they start breakdancing again: "Oh, isn’t it so wonderful? He’s really one of us. We can now wave the flag again. We can now support our mindless Americanism," in the language of my dear brother Maulana Karenga, intellectual that he is. No. We ought to be over against injustice, no matter what, across the board, and be vigilant about it. I don’t care what color the president or the governor or the mayor is."

America Still Ruled by White Supremacy

There is so much to be said about the verdict which acquitted George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin but I believe in keeping things simple. It is all about white supremacy. Period. The end.

Here is a link to my interview with Stan Heller of Economic Uprising. It takes me about 15 minutes to discuss it all, but the title of this post tells you what I said.

Justice for Trayvon Martin Rally Harlem, July 14, 2013

I was able to see one of the many demonstrations which took place yesterday after George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. Honk for Trayvon!

"It's a White Man's World"

I'm proud to have Forrest Palmer as a Facebook friend. He is a phenomenal writer and a very conscious man. Today he kept it short and sweet but he is always on point. He had this to say today about punditry and the George Zimmerman verdict.

"I saw a lot of black media types on the idiot box after the verdict...and I know could never make it on television because when George Stephanopoulos or Piers Morgan or Anderson Cooper or any of those other fuckwads asked me about it, I would just say one thing: "It's a white man's world. Thank you."...

Zimmerman Walks

Alas, all the cute white men in the world couldn't get George Zimmerman convicted for murdering Trayvon Martin in cold blood. I was hopeful, but in truth I knew it all along. The white jurors had no intention of convicting Zimmmerman of murder. One of them is already shopping a book deal and admitted as much in a CNN interview. This is what I wrote last week in my Black Agenda Report column.

Freedom Rider: If George Zimmerman Goes Free

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The corporate media have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We call them ‘extrajudicial’ because they happen without trial or any due process, against all international law and human rights conventions. Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings are unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic – meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national oppression.” – Malcolm X Grass Roots Movement

“Lynch law has never been repealed.”

Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. The 17-year-old was visiting his father in Sanford, Florida and left his home to buy junk food at a local store. This simple act made him the target of George Zimmerman, a 21^st century vigilante of the old slavery era patroller school.

The Zimmermans of this country have a very long history. The much debated Second Amendment to the Constitution gave the 18^th century vigilante the right to control the enslaved and Native American populations. The “well regulated militia” was nothing more than a means of making sure that the white population had every other group under control with the threat and use of violence. Slavery was a perfect means of doing that. When it ended, Jim Crow and lynch law ruled. As we previously pointed out in Black Agenda Report, lynch law has never been repealed. Trayvon Martin is just the most famous victim of recent times.

George Zimmerman is now on trial for Martin’s murder and expert legal observers agree that a guilty verdict on the charge of murder is far from assured. The case ought to be open and shut. Martin was minding his own business and breaking no laws as he returned to his father’s house. The unarmed Martin was attacked by Zimmerman and a physical altercation followed. Trayvon Martin had a right to defend himself from being assaulted and there was no reason for Zimmerman to have ever approached him. Zimmerman ought to be found guilty and pay the heaviest penalty possible under Florida law. Instead he stands a good chance of going free because the deceased and any other black person who speaks for him has been put on trial in the court and in the court of public opinion.

“Trayvon Martin had a right to defend himself from being assaulted and there was no reason for Zimmerman to have ever approached him.”

The defense claims that the man without a gun threatened the life of the man who did have a gun. Rachel Jeantel, the friend who spoke to Martin before he was attacked was herself attacked in and out of the court room. It couldn’t be otherwise because her words should be enough to put Zimmerman behind bars for a long time.

If not for the courageous persistence of Trayvon’s parents Sabryna Fulton and Tracy Martin, Zimmerman would never have been charged. The local police didn’t arrest Zimmerman who they said acted properly under Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, an updated version of the 18^th century militia. Stand your ground laws have been repeated in many venues across the country. At first glance they seem just silly, a solution in search of a problem. They are in fact quite serious, giving white people the right to shoot anyone for almost any reason. There are long standing and universally observed self-defense statutes which made stand your ground unnecessary. But if one group of people is to successfully maintain its power over others, no means of control can be over looked.

From the beginning, the victim was made out to be the criminal. Martin’s body was tested for drugs. Zimmerman was not. Martin’s grades in school, his facebook postings and his temporary suspension from school were and are still made an issue. Zimmerman’s history, education and deportment were never issues to law enforcement, or to the media for the simple reason that they don’t think he did anything wrong when he killed Trayvon Martin.

“The deceased and any other black person who speaks for him has been put on trial.”

In 2012 the Macolm X Grass Roots Movement published a report which detailed the extra judicial killings of black people by the police, security guards and self-appointed law enforcers like Zimmerman. In the first half of that year they reported that 120 black people were murdered in this manner, one death every 36 hours. That report was report was recently updated to show that modern day lynch law takes place every 28 hours.

If Zimmerman goes free how will black people respond? There will surely be public expressions of anger and anguish, but there is a larger question. As a group, how will we react to the denial of justice for Trayvon Martin and the hundreds of others whose names we don’t even know? It wouldn’t be enough to tell people not to be violent, or to march in silent protest.

There must be very public, very outspoken acknowledgement that our system demands that black people be victimized by those in authority on a regular basis. A volunteer security guard qualifies as an authority if he kills a black person. The songs, parades and kumbayahs should be kept to a minimum. Anyone who speaks about the case should be unafraid to tell the ugly truth about the many ways in which black people are targeted in this country.

The well paid pundits and black misleaders should be called out if they aren’t willing to speak openly about why Trayvon Martin was killed. If the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is correct, some 300 black people have died in the same manner since the day Trayvon was killed. Their names need to be known and there should be a frank discussion about why they died. Mealy mouthed platitudes urging us to “talk about race” and silly questions about why black and white people see things differently are an affront to intelligence and to justice.

Trayvon Martin is dead because lynch law still lives. If George Zimmerman is acquitted that simple fact ought to be spoken loudly and often. If it isn’t then the injustice is magnified for Trayvon Martin and the hundreds of other unknown victims.

The Snowden Litmus Test

I was honored to once again be a guest on Doug Lain’s Diet Soap podcast. I spoke about my Black Agenda Report column on Edward Snowden.

This conversation is especially timely. Snowden has requested asylum from numerous nations but is still stuck at an airport in Moscow. The United States is threatening and bullying those countries and violating Snowden’s right to asylum. Not much of a right if the president decides you don’t really have it.

Thanks again Doug.

America’s Gangsta Government

‘’This is a lie, a falsehood. It was generated by the U.S. government. It is an outrage. It is an abuse. It is a violation of the conventions and agreements of international air transportation.” Ruben Saavedra, Bolivian Foreign Minister

Let’s get this straight. The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, travels to Moscow doing the kind of thing that presidents do. In this case he was attending a conference of gas exporting nations.

While in Russia, Morales said he would consider giving asylum to Edward Snowden. Because of this statement, his plane was denied permission to travel in French or Portuguese air space all because the U.S. suspected that Edward Snowden was on board. Morales was forced to land in Austria and his government was none too happy about that fact.

We should all be angry and very afraid. If the U.S. doesn’t respect the rights of a head of state, then Snowden’s goose is cooked.

This also proves that Obama flat out lied when he said he wouldn’t “scramble any jets” because of Snowden. There may not have been any jets scrambled, but a plane thought to be carrying him couldn’t go anywhere that America’s subservient allies wouldn’t allow.

Snowden has a right to request asylum and other nations have the right to give it to him. Presidents of Bolivia or Russia or Fredonia have the right to travel as they please.

At least they used to. But that was all before president nobel peace prize took office.

Edward Snowden

“One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.”

Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013'

Open University of the Left at Left Forum 2013, June 7-9, Pace Universit...

Black Agenda Report panel at Left Forum

On June 9, 2013, Black Agenda Report sponsored a panel at the Left Forum entitled "Black Politics at the Tail End of Obama - and Beyond." Nellie Bailey, Glen Ford, Paul Street, Bruce Dixon, Anthony Monteiro, and yours truly all explained in various ways how and why black politics must recover from the Obama delusion. Don't be afraid of the two hour length of the video. It goes by quickly and is well worth your time.

James Clyburn, Edward Snowden and the Surveillance State

At Black Agenda Report, we are giving full coverage to the Edward Snowden story. Glen Ford, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Wilmer Leon and yours truly all have much to say in the issue that went online today. The Snowden case represents for me a very simple litmus test. If you believe in freedom from government oppression, if you believe the constitutional gives protection against unreasonable search and seizure and if you just believe that the government's evil doing must be revealed, then you support Snowden and act to defend him from the clutches of the surveillance state.

I was particularly interested in what Glen Ford had to say about Congressman James Clyburn's reaction to the revelation that the National Security Agency is spying on millions of people. Clyburn is a long serving member of the congressional black caucus and a person whose opinions carry some weight. He did the world a great service this week when he commented on Snowden and proved once and for all that the black misleadership class has nothing to offer and ought to be ignored.

“If one good thing has come out of Barack Obama’s ascension to the White House, it is that his rise has exposed the appalling backwardness of the Black Misleadership Class – a petty and puny-minded cohort whose worldview is so narrow, it can accommodate only one issue: the political fortunes of the First Black President. Nothing else matters to these incredibly parochial political midgets – not issues of war and peace, nor the precarious state of planetary ecology, not even the economic well-being of the masses of Black Americans. Certainly, not civil liberties. Only Obama.

Congressman James Clyburn is supposed to represent the interests of more than half a million South Carolinians, the majority of them Black. One might expect a Black congressman to have more than a passing interest in the Bill of Rights and protection of civil liberties. The revelation that Uncle Sam is building up a dossier on everyone with a telephone and a computer connection should be at least mildly upsetting to anyone that calls himself a Black leader. But Congressman Clyburn has but one priority: to protect the image and legacy of Barack Obama.”

What upsets Clyburn so much? He thinks that Snowden is out to embarrass Obama. After all, how could a guy with a GED get a security clearance?

Unlike Rep. Clyburn I decided to get a few facts about security clearances. I googled. I discovered that 4.9 million people have security clearances. If there are nearly 5 million people with this designation then it isn’t odd that a handful would have GEDs. Booz Allen, the contractor that employed Snowden, has 25,000 employees and 48% of them have security clearances. That is at least 11,000 people at just one firm. There are a variety of clearance levels, but obviously it is not the rarified state we thought it was.

Here we were thinking that the president, the CIA director and James Bond were the only people with security clearances and instead it turns out that every Tom, Dick and Harry has one. And yes, many of them aren’t even government employees.

But I digress in responding to this asinine argument.  No, a black person with only a GED probably couldn’t get a good gig like Snowden. Being a blond white man never hurt anyone.  But in this case I have to ask, so what?

Do the Clyburns of the world care at all about the information that Snowden revealed? We are all under constant surveillance and Snowden proved it. But Clyburn doesn’t care. He only cares about Obama looking bad and grasps at straws to keep the conversation away from the main point, which is that the president and the congress have authorized spying on a massive scale.

Yes, Snowden embarrassed Obama and I’m glad he did. He also embarrassed Clyburn and his colleagues too. Anytime a president, whether Bush or Obama, wants to go to war or spy on us all congress says yes without hesitation. That means Clyburn said yes too. Maybe that is why he has his nose so firmly out of joint.

Left Forum Panel “Black Politics at the Tail End of Obama–and Beyond”

Black Agenda Report also sponsored a Left Forum panel yesterday. Nellie Bailey moderated Glen Ford, Bruce Dixon, Paul Street, Anthony Monteiro, and yours truly as we talked about Obama’s exit and what it should mean.

January 21, 2017 should be celebrated as the day of jubilee for black Americans, a modern day Juneteenth. It will be the day that Barack Obama will no longer be president of the United States.

Before Obama was elected black people spent decades debating whether they would ever see such a thing. Could a black person be elected? Would he be assassinated? Would it be a he or a she? Would a republican or democrat be able to win? So you see Obama took up mental space in the black American brain before he was ever heard of, and that meant his ascension was a very bad thing.

The years of the Barack Obama administration have been the nadir of the political life of black Americans. Black politics had been on life support for some time, but Obama’s ascendance marked the day that the plug was finally pulled.

Black politics was killed by everything from COINTELPRO, to mass incarceration and to the power of money which destroyed the once progressive spirit of the congressional black caucus. But the supreme irony of the election of a black man meaning the end of black politics cannot be overstated.

The joy of black America in witnessing this sight cannot be overstated either. Their levels of voting participation reached record levels in 2008 and 2012, and it was all because the goal was to get Obama into office. I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that the vast majority of black Americans are addicted to Barack Obama and the extraordinary sight of seeing a black president. It is a very sick relationship.

We all know from personal experience and anecdotes that nothing good can come from a relationship in which one party puts him or herself at a disadvantage to the other. Battered wives and sometimes husbands come to mind. The relationship with Obama is much the same.  Simply put, black people are addicted to Obama and will need to go into a period of recovery after he leaves office.

Will the end be like a happy ending of a reality show about a recovered addict home from rehab or will it be a sad story about the person who didn’t even finish the program because of fear of change? I am being partly humorous but recovery from addiction is the best model I can think of to describe this phenomenon.

The damage done to the cognitive abilities of black people is immense and can’t be undone by typical means. The love for Obama defies logic and his absence will be difficult to take. Obamaphiles are of 2 minds about their idol. When he has a political success they sing his praises and speak endlessly of how smart he is, and how high he will rank in the presidential pantheon. On the other hand, when even they can’t defend him, this “genius” suddenly becomes weak and hapless, unable to do what he really wants because of republican obstruction.

By the way, success for Obamaphiles means only that he gets his way. It doesn’t matter if his initiatives end up hurting them. Republican unhappiness is reason enough for their joy.

Our panel is titled the Tail End of Obama but there are a couple of points to keep in mind. One, that he has 3 years 7 months and 12 days left in office. He did a lot of damage in the first 4 years, and he has a lot of time left to do more.

In four years, Obama has turned the political world on its head. The so-called Obamacare program may be anathema to republicans now but it wasn’t always so. It is essentially the same program Richard Nixon proposed 40 years ago. It is now official. The democrats of today are the republicans of the past.

Obama has been praised as “born again neo-con” by the likes of William Kristol. Since the story of NSA spying on Americans came to light, it is republicans who have gone out of their way to praise him. Yet his absence will cause withdrawal symptoms for people who previously would never have had common cause with Kristol and the neo-cons.

Before he became president, social security was the third rail of politics, untouchable to anyone who wanted to survive a term in office. It was the lowest hanging fruit for the democrats. Now the republican dream of eviscerating the safety net has come true and during a democratic administration no less.

Now it is completely “touchable” and can be changed or turned over to wall street like any other public asset and instead of being outraged, democrats spend their time obsessing over the latest racist and/or asinine statement made by some republican congressman whose name they never heard previously.

That should not be true of anyone who attends an event called Left Forum. We should have been speaking out against this man all along. (We certainly have done so at the Black Agenda Report.) Our goal should be to re-create black politics from a black left perspective, which is not, I hasten to add, the same thing as having black politicians in office.

The joy of seeing a black commander in chief and first lady presiding over state dinners comes at a very high price for 30 million people. Senate candidate Barack Obama made his first appearance to the majority of Americans when he spoke at the 2004 democratic convention before a prime time audience. He famously said, “There is no black America, there is not white America…” The statement was obviously absurd and a lie. It was a lie meant to make him palatable to white voters. There in lies the danger of wanting to see a black president in the first place. Of course there is a black America and asserting that fact should be the essence of true black politics and an undisputed fact for people who call themselves leftists.

We will have a lot of work to do from now until January 21, 2017. We must continue our fight against the people who choose the presidents. They act against the interests of the masses of people on the planet and the occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or 10 Downing Street or Elysee Palace must always be taken to task or humanity is in grave danger.

These facts which we here know and accept to be true are not known by people who love to see Barack Obama, even when he goes on television to tell them that he isn’t listening to their phone calls when he in fact is.

In January 2017 we will have to find a way to drag millions of people kicking and screaming from their delusions. Some of them may see the light on their own, but too many of them will be wistful as the replay in their memories the moments of seeing Obama sworn into office or meeting the queen of England or emerging from air force one or dancing with the first lay. They will not want anything to challenge the fulfillment of their fantasy.

We will be stuck with Obama for a very long time, but his specter, like his physical being shouldn’t shut us up, not if we claim to be on the left.

This is the left forum, not the democratic party forum. One of Obama’s means of escaping blame for the NSA public relations disaster is to say that congress knew all about it. We have a chance with his exit from office to point out that the democrats, before and during the Obama administration, have been happy to throw us all under a bus. Maybe the people who make good use of their stint in recovery will be able to see some of the light about the corrupt nature of our entire political system.

Obama’s exit provides an opportunity to move the masses away from the democratic party and towards a discussion of alternatives. Perhaps seeing the rotten nature of American politics will keep leftists from quaking in their boots when they are told they will be spoilers if they vote green or just dump the democrats once and for all. The system needs to be spoiled after all, and perhaps Obama’s exit will make that clear.

I want to add that some people are just drugged up Obamabots. They just don’t have the language to talk about what they have experienced. They have vague unease or speak of disappointment but that is where we come in when we continue to speak boldly about the nature of our system.

Thank you.

Left Forum Panel “The War on Africa”

Left Forum 2013 just ended. I was pleased to present at two panels. On Saturday, the United National Antiwar Coalition sponsored “The War on Africa.” My fellow panelists were Joe Lombardo, Abayomi Azikwe, Anna Edwards and Patrick Bond. I’m hoping to post the video soon. In the meantime, here are my comments.

The stand down of progressive forces to the Obama administration has had many disastrous consequences in the U.S. and around the world. There is so much evil to expose, and so little time to talk about it all.

But today we are talking about Africa and I want to talk about the terrible role that the U.S. has played in causing suffering for millions of people on that continent, from Libya to Congo to Somalia.
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that Africa would be able to prosper were it not for the interference of the western world. Somalia was emerging from years of war when the Bush administration used Ethiopia to invade that country and kill hundreds of thousands of people. In 2011 alone 250,000 Somalis died of starvation as a direct result of the warfare which was instigated by the U.S.

Just as in the 19^th century when European nations carved up African spheres of influence at the Berlin conference, in the 21^st century the U.S. and other western nations decide who will control the destiny of Africa.

They may decide to overthrow a government as they did in Libya, or pit one country against another as they have done by supporting Uganda and Rwanda in their invasions and plundering of the eastern Congo that have killed 6 million people.

As he has done all over the world, Obama has accelerated the pace of U.S. intervention in Africa, and he has legitimized practices which previously would not have been acceptable to people who attend events called Left Forum.

The 1% committed the perfect crime when they chose Barack Obama to be president back in 2008. They have been able to hide their evil doing behind a brown face and Africa would be exhibit A if there were true justice on this planet and the crimes committed against Africa were ever prosecuted.
The U.S. African Command, Africom, began in 2008 but has reached its peak of influence under the Obama administration. Drone bases exist in Ethiopia, Niger, Burkina Fasso and the Seychelles. Special forces are stationed in Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic and the South Sudan.

Africa holds a special place in the hearts and minds of black Americans, but as with every other issue that Obama touches, the urge to defend the president outweighs every other imperative and makes a mockery of the word African in the term African-American.

The saga of Susan Rice is a perfect example of how this tragicomedy plays out. Rice began her career in the Clinton administration serving on the National Security Council. She and her boss should forever be scorned as they watched the genocide unfold in Rwanda but did nothing. They did nothing because Rwanda was then, as it is today, a U.S. client state.

Rice climbed the diplomatic ladder, and was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration. In that position her name became a house hold word, but for all the wrong reasons.

Susan Rice was one of the administration’s strongest advocates for regime change in Libya. She helped to concoct the worst lies about the Gaddafi regime in order to make the case for U.S. and NATO intervention.

She was among those who spread false tales about Gaddafi supplying his troops with viagra in order to commit rape on a mass scale. It was a lie and someone as smart as Rice had to known that. While Libya descended into chaos and African migrants and dark skinned Libyans were targets for rape and other atrocities, Rice said nothing.

Of course, the chickens do always come home to roost, and that is what happened at Benghazi where the US ambassador and others were killed. You see Rice and her boss bet on the jihadi horse to take out Gaddafi. They won their bet, but then had to deal with an unwieldy marriage of convenience.

The ambassador was killed by some of the very same people who Rice and Obama put in power. Republicans made enough hay out of Benghazi and Rice’s public statements about it that she was thwarted in her ambition to be nominated as secretary of state, but not before the black misleadership class and sadly, popular black opinion was foolishly directed in her favor.

The lack of good reporting, especially as it relates to Africa, or even any basic knowledge of African history, combined with the desire to protect the black face seated in a high place, gave Rice cover, despite the terror she helped American presidents wield against Africans.

Senator John McCain not only criticized Rice’s much discussed Benghazi talking points but also felt compelled to add that she was “unqualified” and opined “I don’t think she is that smart.” Those were fighting words for the black misleadership and for the average black person too.

It was galling to many people to see the old right wing white man who made his career from family ties, entitlement and marriage to a rich woman, criticizing a black Rhodes scholar who works for the beloved black president.

The Rice defense league leaped into action, writing online petitions, irate op-eds and inspiring an outraged citizenry. Of course the Rice explanation was phony, because the Obama administration didn’t dare tell the truth about what it had done in Libya and how the chaos they created ended up killing an American diplomat.

There was no massacre in the very same Benghazi, no viagra laden troops, just a voracious U.S., and its partners Britain and France who decided they ought to take out a militarily weak oil but oil rich nation because they could get away with it as the Arab spring unfolded with unknown consequences for the west. And they got away with it because they made common cause with gulf monarchies and jihadists, and some of those jihadists didn’t as the saying goes, stay in their place.

The righteously angry didn’t talk about what Rice had done to Rwanda or the Congo. As U.N. Ambassador she actively worked to delay a report on human rights violations in Congo committed by America’s friends in Uganda and Rwanda.

We described this phenomenon in BAR in the November 28, 2012.

“The first document, a ‘Mapping Report,’ described human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1993 through 2003. Finally published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in October of 2010, after long delays, the document specifically charges Rwandan troops with engaging in mass killings ‘that might be classified as crimes of genocide.’ The more recent report by a UN Group of Experts concludes that M23, the Congolese ‘rebel’ group that captured Goma, is actually “a Rwandan creation,” embedded with Rwandan soldiers that take their orders from Paul Kagame’s military. Uganda also supports M23.”

No matter. The congressional black caucus couldn’t find the time to condemn U.S. actions in that region, but they publicly upheld Rice as a symbol of the virtues of black womanhood, her career ambition having been derailed by those mean old republicans.

Rice and her boss Barack Obama ought to be condemned for what they did in Libya and for what they continue to do in the Congo. It is just one of a long list of crimes that Obama has gotten away with and sadly with the support of people who once would have stood up for the mother land.
Obama’s ability to lie so well is always dangerous but particularly so as his policies relate to Africa. Needless to say, he wouldn’t have been chosen to serve as president if he hadn’t promised to continue the imperial project in the first place.

Now Rice will serve as National Security Adviser where she will continue all the evil doing demanded by the U.S. government. The problems go deeper than Susan Rice, who after all is acting like mid-level managers the world over and doing what her boss tells her to do.

As we said in Black Agenda Report, there is now no constituency in the U.S. which acts to protect Africa interests. Before money took over black politics and before there was a black president for people to rapturously rally around, there was at the very least lip service of concern expressed for Africa.

At the very moment when the noose tightens around the continent the misguided love for a black president trumps all else. Concern for the career success of ambitious but unscrupulous people is allowed to trump every other concern. In short, the black community’s love for all things Obama has proven disastrous yet again.

Today I read online an article on Doctors Without Borders website. It told the story of a woman names Victorine and her family trying to survive in the Congo.

“Victorine and her family fled their home near Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during four days of violent clashes in late May between the Congolese army and the M23 rebel group. She is now one of up to 5,000 people taking refuge in Sotraki Stadium, on the outskirts of the city.

This was the third time since 2008 that the family had been forced to flee. The last time was just six months earlier, during the M23 attack on Goma in November 2012, when the family spent two weeks sheltering in a school as they waited for the fighting to die down.”

But I would be remiss if I didn’t connect the reaction or lack of reaction to what is happening in Africa to the larger issue of the crisis in left wing politics. Here at an event called Left Forum we must ask ourselves why the role of the U.S. and NATO in destroying Africa isn’t more widely known. 

Yes the corporate media have done their usual terrible job in either ignoring or outright lying about how the deeds concocted in Washington, London and Paris have caused such suffering.

We cannot be shy in calling imperialism imperialism or genocide genocide. There is no reason to distinguish ourselves as being on the left if we go along with terror if it is committed by a democratic president.

The war on Africa now is primarily an American one. As Americans with claims of conscious we must be the ones who expose the wrong doing which comes straight from Washington.

Thank you.

Obama Hates His Father

If he can be an amateur shrink I can too. He hates his father who left him to be raised by white people. He probably hates his mother too. He must be a very angry man. I guess that is why it is easy to drop drones on little babies.

That is why he and his wife spent the weekend insulting black college grads. He hates them and the rest of black America. Besides, there is a political benefit in insulting black people. It makes white people happy.

Five cents please.