[Peace-discuss] Fw: [BA_Report] Nuked Out Black Leaders / U.S. Invading Africa / Obama Thrill Is Gone - BAR, June 13

Thu Jun 14 03:15:37 UTC 2012

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From: glen.ford at blackagendareport.com 
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Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 12:49 PM
Subject: [BA_Report] Nuked Out Black Leaders / U.S. Invading Africa / Obama Thrill Is Gone - BAR, June 13

Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left

Bankrupt Black Leadership, Nukes and Environmental Racism

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The same greedy corporations that have long funded white politicians now finance what used to be traditional civil rights organizations like SCLC and an entire new class of black politicians. The cutting loose of black political leaders from their constituencies has dire consequences for the entire American polity.

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U.S. Escalates Military Penetration of Africa

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Americans are preparing to establish a network of bases in Africa, initially to serve a 3,000-troop roving brigade to be deployed on the continent, next year. The brigade has all the markings of a permanent presence on African soil, while the bases are euphemistically called "safe communities." U.S. influence over African militaries is already pervasive. With the establishment of joint bases, "regime change will never be farther away than a drink at the officers club." All but a handful of Black African states routinely take part in military maneuvers staged by the Americans. 

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Freedom Rider: The Obama Thrill is Gone

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Few predict that Barack Obama will generate the Black turnout that propelled him to victory in 2008. "A small but growing number" of Black former Obama enthusiasts "have grown weary of the charade and know they have been played for fools." Race pride motivated them the first time around, but that is harder to muster for "a man who never saw them as anything more than saps who would vote for him no matter what he said or did." 

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A "Silent March" Against the Police Stop-and-Frisk State

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
After ten years of escalating police aggression on the streets of New York, a broad range of political actors have combined for a Silent March Against Racial Profiling, this Sunday. Under Mayor Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk regime, "every young Black and brown man in New York is treated as if he is walking contraband, and that he is 'too hot' to allow to walk about freely." In practice, the policy is little different from racist South Africa's apartheid pass system.

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Chicago Teachers Gear Up for a Fight

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Chicago Teachers Union has gotten permission from its membership to strike. If it comes to that, the local union's progressive leadership will also "confront the national leadership of their own union, the American Federation of Teachers, who are in President Obama's and Mayor Emanuel's pockets." Chicago's teachers understand that they can only win if the community views the teachers' cause as their own. 

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What Do Hollywood Executives Call Beyonce, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry? Nigger.

by Cynthia McKinney
Hollywood is usually described as a politically liberal place, but legal actions by two Blacks in the entertainment industry claim that vocabularies in Tinsel Town are routinely laced with words like "nigger," "spade," "colored," "monkey," "nigga," "uncle tom," "spook," and "coon." What's more, they've got the documents to prove it. 

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Hooked On Hopium

by Raymond Nat Turner
There will be no replay of 2008's greatest hits, but the reflux is debilitating in the extreme - for those who got hooked on Hopium. 

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Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey - Week of June 11

Black Politics Neutered by Corporate Democrats
The business-friendly African American politicians that came to prominence under President Clinton "prioritized electoral politics over mass movements and grassroots politics," said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, professor of African American studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. In more recent years, "a good part of the soft Black Left, the weak Black Left - they call themselves the 'pragmatic' Black Left - capitulated to the Obama movement," allowing corporate politicians to achieve unchallenged leadership among Blacks.
Inventing Security Threats
"In the wake of 9/11, we have made policing into a business," said Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce Dixon, speaking on Press TV. The Department of Homeland Security is mostly private contractors who are chiefly concerned with drumming up business. "It's a growth industry," said Dixon. "So, look out - you might be the next threat." The U.S. government has been inventing threats to internal security "for at least 100 years," said journalist Don DeBar, of CPRmetro.org. 
Servants of Empire in "Human Rights" Garb
"Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are, essentially, weapons in the imperial arsenal," said BAR executive editor Glen Ford. "Who better than self-styled human rights activists to justify 'humanitarian' war?"
Prof. Cornel West on Black Mass Incarceration
"If our precious white brothers and sisters were going to jail at the intensity" that African Americans are incarcerated, "it would be a national emergency," said Dr. Cornel West, speaking at a benefit for the Brecht Forum, at New York City's Hunter College. "If Black middle class brothers and sisters were going to jail at the same level of intensity" as lower class Blacks, "we'd have a different kind of Black leadership."
"Liberal" Contradiction: Support for Charter Schools
"Liberals" are seduced by "this virtuous narrative, that these 'reforms' are going to make things better for poor kids," said journalist Liza Featherstone. She singled out Black New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a "progressive" congressional candidate who is "at the forefront of efforts to open up the public school system to private interests" - a position that is "fundamentally at odds" with the progressive agenda. The fact that there's lots of campaign money behind charter schools expansion "doesn't hurt," said Featherstone.
A "Human Rights" Approach to Public Education
The "business model" of education holds that "the student is a product, the teacher is a production line worker, and the parent is a consumer who has 'choices,'" said Dr. Sam Anderson, of New York's Independent Commission on Public Education, ICOPE. The business model is an attempt by hedge funders and other business interests to "exploit the trillion dollar trough of public education." ICOPE advocates a "human rights approach to education that "promotes the intellectual development of children to their maximum capability," with "direct parental involvement in decision making at the public school level."

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