Black Agenda Radio

Occupy! Occupy! Occupy! Comedian and social activist Dick Gregory had a “bulletin” for the protesters at the kickoff of the occupation of Freedom Plaza, in Washington, DC, last week: “President Obama endorsed what you all are doing here!” The crowd was skeptical, to put it mildly.  HYPERLINK "http://october2011.org/"October2011 organizer Dennis Trainor set the record straight. “We will endorse Barack Obama when he disproves Martin Luther King’s assertion that the United States of America ‘is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, today,’ when he brings home all the troops, and when he redirects all those resources to human and environmental needs,” said Trainor, who is also an accomplished political comic and satirist. “A whole generation of Gordon Gekkos has hijacked control of the three branches of government away from We The People.” People of Color Come Forward People of color are prepared to bring “our platform, our agenda” to the proliferating centers of protest, says Kanane Holder, a spokesperson for the People of Color Working Group at the Occupy Wall Street nexus, in Liberty Park. Some African Americans hesitated to join what began as an overwhelmingly white initiative for fear that “we are going to be the first ones to be brutalized by police” and “so many of us are already in ‘the system’ because of stop-and-frisk” and other targeting of Blacks, said Holder, a writer and performing artist. People of color will bring a perspective that “includes the prison industrial complex, racial profiling,” and other facts of Black life in the United States. Right Place, Right Time, to Stop Stop-and-Frisk The young white activists in Liberty Park are getting an education on the real nature of the police. “They don’t have the day-to-day experience with cops being on top of them 24-7,” said Carl Dix, of Stop Stop-and-Frisk. “You guys are in the right place,” he tells the demonstrators, “because Wall Street is a symbol of capitalism, and it is capitalism that is responsible for all these problems you’ve identified and for the horrors in the world.” However, the protesters must disabuse themselves of the idea that police brutality is a fault of “a few bad cops. It is a system that you are dealing with.” The Stop Stop-and-Frisk disobedience campaign kicks off on October 21 at “the worst” police precinct in Harlem, said Dix. Getting Ready for a Winter of Struggle “No one can speak for the movement at this time,” said David DeGraw, editor of  HYPERLINK "http://ampedstatus.com/"Amped Status online magazine, who was part of the relatively small group that set the stage for the Occupy Wall Street project. The “central theme” of protest is “breaking up the concentration of power” in the U.S., which is experiencing “the highest level of inequality ever.” Most people “don’t understand derivatives and CDOs, yet,” but they know that “the system does not work for 99% of the population,” said DeGraw. “Everyone that’s here is not planning on going anywhere. There are extensive plans go get us through the winter” in New York City. “We’re in it for the long haul.” Haitians Join the Occupation “We think that what is happening to Haiti is an amazing example of the beast that is destroying this country, destroying people of color, destroying working people,” said Ray LaForest, one of the organizers of a contingent of Haitians that marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to make common cause with the Wall Street protest. Capitalists “are willing to use any means to achieve what they want, including imposing wretched conditions on the Haitian people, incredible violence, malnutrition, denial of rights, and denial of education and health care,” said LaForest. “We think these kids are pretty brave. We have to seize the moment, we have to find the way to make the connection.” Have African Americans Turned Their Backs on Haiti? Black Americans seem no longer to be dependable allies of Haitians and other oppressed people, laments Dr. Jemima Pierre, an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report. Since Obama became president, Haitians have been forced to endure the “selection” of “Sweet Micky” Martelly as their president, the return of former dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, U.S. efforts to bar the return of ousted elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide, and the total takeover of the country by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, among other insults to their sovereignty. “I’m wondering where the outrage is,” said Dr. Pierre, who sees “a shift from the African American response to Haiti” in the past. “There’s less focus on international politics within the Black community. Look at Libya, look at what’s happening in Somalia. Back in the day, we used to think of all those struggles as linked.” A “Manufactured” Postal Crisis “It’s almost like they took a page right out of that book,” The Shock Doctrine, said Michael Paskon, executive vice president of the letter carriers union local, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Congress five years ago forced the Postal Service to make $5 billion in upfront yearly payments to pension funds – a hurdle union officials say has never been imposed on any company, public or private. Management now wants to “fix” the phony crisis by firing 100,000 employees – a classic case of what Naomi Klein dubbed “disaster capitalism,” said Paskon. “It bothers a lot of the free market ideologues that there is a potential to make a lot of money in what we do, and they can’t get their hands on it” – except through privatization.

Season of Protest

Three thousand Bostonians protested Bank of America’s predatory policies, resulting in two dozen arrests. “Two-thirds of Bank of America foreclosures have been in minority communities,” said Rachel LaForest, executive director of the Right to the City Alliance. “They targeted these communities from the outset with bad loans, and now they have more homes in foreclosure than any other bank in the city.” Grassroots activists’ analysis is “clearer and sharper” these days, said LaForest. “They are calling out who the enemy is.”

New Bottom Line: An Economy that Works for All

The Boston demonstration was part of a larger, ten-city campaign by The New Bottom Line, a coalition of 1,000 community organizations, congregations and labor unions, to challenge banking interests, according to co-director Tracy Van Slyke.  Activists blame “big banks for bankrupting our economy, draining wealth from the most vulnerable communities,” said Van Slyke. “We’re all fighting together for a new bottom line – and economy that works for all of us.”

Liberate Freedom Plaza Oct 6

The Wall Street occupation has spurred increased interest in planting the people’s flag in Washington, DC’s Freedom Plaza, starting October 6. The “core demand,” says national organizer Margaret Flowers, is that the U.S. “stop using our resources for war and exploitation of the planet, and start using them to serve human needs and clean up the planet.” Flowers said activists will address “about fifteen core crises” affecting the nation and world, and then try to design solutions at the Plaza or online, at www.Oct2011.org.

“Filibuster” Against Racism at USDA Oct 5

Minority federal employees kick off an open-ended protest against the U.S. Department of Agriculture on October 5, calling the agency “the last plantation” where “an ante bellum kind of culture” rules. Lawrence Lucas, president of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, said “this agency, even under the present administration, has been allowed to conduct reprisals, racism, sexism, sexual assaults, intimidation, and bullying” against agency workers and minority farmers. The daily filibuster, said Lucas, will not end until “someone from the White House or USDA comes out there and says, We’re willing to meet with you and fix the problem, once and for all.”

Prison Hunger Strike Renewed

Supporters of inmates on hunger strike against torture and inhumane treatment at California’s high-security prisons say 12,000 inmates in 14 facilities have joined the protest. Ed Mead, editor of Prison Focus magazine and himself a former inmate, said there is “some possibility that this might spread to the general population mainline in the form of a work strike.” Activist Clive Young, also an ex-prisoner, reported that “prisoners in Palestine who are on hunger strike have sent solidarity messages to prisoners in the California system.”

Obama Needs “Time Machine”

“The only way he could possibly get [his current ‘jobs’ bill] passed, is if he could go back in a time machine to when he had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate,” said South Carolina activist and writer Kevin Alexander Gray. Obama’s bill is actually a “poison pill” that bleeds payroll tax money from Social Security, said Gray. “In the end, you can claim there’s an emergency” in Social Security funding “and turn it over to Wall Street.”

UN Anti-Racist Process Affirmed, But U.S. Still Resists

Although the United Nations General Assembly has affirmed the language of the Durban Declaration and Program for Action against racism and xenophobia, worldwide, the U.S. and its “crony,” Israel, continue to resist implementation. Efia Wangaza, of the U.S. Human Rights Network, says America’s “toxic” influence led the UN to allocate only a “paltry” $97,000 for commemoration of the ten-year-long Durban process. The miserliness was doubly insulting, said Wangaza, in that the UN has proclaimed this the Year of Persons of African Descent.

AU Should Investigate "Barbarity" Against Blacks in Libya

Black Libyans, as well as sub-Saharan migrant workers, "have been treated barbarically" by NATO-backed rebels, said Prof. Vijay Preshad, director of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Three African members of the UN Security Council voted for the "no-fly" resolution that led to the NATO assault. Had Africa opposed the intervention, said Prof. Preshad, "I think the African Union would have come out of this with its head held high and said, We stood up to what was blatantly NATO's attempt to capture the Arab Spring." Even at this late stage, "It would behoove the African Union to take leadership" by sending a team to investigate atrocities in this "very racialized conflict."

No Oversight on NYPD Spies

New York City's intelligence and "counter-terrorism" budget is rivaled only by that of the FBI, said Faiza Patel, of the Brennan Center for Justice, yet "any rules that constrained them with respect to monitoring political activity have been gutted" and "there has been no oversight of what their intelligence activities are." The City Council has "never held a hearing" on police spying, and there is no equivalent to the FBI's inspector general to oversee the NYPD's 500-officer, $93 million a year surveillance program, said Patel.

Wall Street Protest is Good Omen

"One of the things I'm most excited about" at the protests on Wall Street "is the enthusiasm and radicalization of a lot of young folks," said Larry Holmes of Bail Out the People. "Targeting Wall Street was a shrewd and necessary idea; we live in a plutocracy," said Holmes. "I hope that, sooner rather than later, labor is compelled to join it." He thinks "2011 and 2012 is going to see a sea change in the level of mass protests and anti-capitalist political consciousness in this country."

Mother and Child Poverty Deepens

Even as poverty rates hit record levels, "the poor are no longer referenced in the national debate," said Timothy Casey of Legal Momentum, the country's oldest legal defense and education organization for women and girls. Female-headed households with children under six years of age are four times as like to live in poverty as married couple households, said Casey. What's needed is "real welfare reform" that would raise the level of benefits for poor families.

Higher Premiums, More Uninsured, Sicker Population

"For almost a decade we've seen the number of uninsured increase by about a million a year," said Dr. Garret Adams, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. Insurance companies continue to "siphon off about 30 cents on the dollar" while premiums get higher. But, because of the economy and high co-payments, "people are not going to the doctor as much and insurance companies are making even more money."

The GOP's Voter Suppression Offensive

Republicans used their 2010 gains in state legislatures to "pass a series of voter suppression measures" targeting traditional Democratic constituencies, said Brenda Wright, of Demos, the public policy outfit. " Republicans constantly raise the specter of individual voter fraud. However, "impersonation of another voter at the polls is so rare as to be nonexistent," said Wright.

BAR Columnist Dr. Jared Ball says Defying the Tomb, by incarcerated author Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, is "a programmatic ideological blueprint for us all."

McKinney: Ethnic Cleansing Spreads in Libya “Ethnic cleansing is taking place in Libya,” said former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. “People are being killed because of the color of their skin.” Atrocities like the virtual erasure of the mostly Black city of Tawergha by rebels have “spread to other parts of Libya,” said McKinney, who has visited the country several times since NATO began its bombing campaign and maintains contacts with people inside Libya. “We are under a massive psychological warfare effort,” said the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate. “Therefore, we cannot believe anything that comes from the mainstream media, because they have been part and parcel of the invasion, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Who is Next Target for “Responsibility to Protect” “The military action in Libya sets a dangerous precedent,” said Prof. Marjorie Cohn, of Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California. “What is to prevent the United States from stage managing some protests, magnifying them in the corporate media as mass actions, and then bombing or attack Venezuela, Cuba, Iran or North Korea?” NATO’s actions violate not only the UN General Assembly’s position on the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, but also UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which called for the exhaustion of all peaceful means of resolution, said Cohn. “Instead of immediately pursuing a cease fire, immediate military action was taken.” Durban Plus Ten at “Make or Break” Point Ten years after an historic United Nations conference in Durban, South Africa, the U.S. and its allies and Israel remain “hell bent on destroying” global efforts to fight racism, said Sam Anderson, of the Black Left Unity Network. The UN General Assembly is set to take up the so-called Durban Principles, this week. It’s a “make or break” moment, said Anderson, a New York City activist and educator. “The progressive movement, globally, has been fragmentized and atomized over the past ten years since the original Durban conference.” Capitalism Isn’t Working – It’s Just That Simple It makes no sense to keep throwing “incentives” and tax breaks at corporate America, in hopes of alleviating unemployment, since “this is a system that fundamentally isn’t working, and that’s the problem,” said economist Richard Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst. The demand for goods and services is low because “the real wages of Americans…are the same today as they were in 1978.” Those Americans that are employed are “working more hours than any working class in the world” and can’t borrow any more money. Favored Obama Jobs Program Doesn’t Work, and is Illegal The Georgia Works Program, praised by President Obama as a model for providing people collecting unemployment benefits with jobs and job training, “violates federal wage and hour law and federal unemployment insurance law,” said George Wentworth, of the National Employment Law Project. The program, which has since been largely phased out in Georgia, is a “bad model” that provided little meaningful job training or permanent employment. Workers “should be getting paid the minimum wage, and not an employment insurance benefit.” Olugbala Runs for Mayor of Philly Campaigning on a platform of inner city economic development and community control of police, Black activist Diop Olugbala said incumbent Mayor Michael Nutter’s imposition of a selective youth curfew is nothing but an election gambit. More funds are being spent on “stopping and frisking…and brutality against our people, than on overall economic development,” said Olugbala. BAR columnist Jared Ball celebrates William Parker, the free Black Pennsylvania man who killed “man stealers” attempting to kidnap his family to the South, in 1851

NATO Legally Liable for Ethnic Cleansing of Blacks In Libya The United States and its European allies are liable for prosecution for mass killings and ethnic cleansing of Black Africans in Libya under the principle of “command responsibility,” but “that’s not going to happen” at the International Criminal Court. The ICC, which has charged Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi with crimes against humanity, “is a joke and a fraud” and “nothing but an imperialist tool.” EPA Chief Challenged To Resign Over Obama Pollution Retreat Renowned federal whistleblower Marsha Coleman-Adebayo challenges Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson to resign in the wake of President Obama’s cancellation of new air pollution controls. “Blow the whistle on Mr. Obama,” urged Coleman-Adebayo, whose fight against corruption and big business influence at the EPA led to passage of the landmark NO FEAR legislation to protect whistleblowers, in 2002. EPA chief Jackson is now “in a position where there is a conflict between your conscience and what you’re called upon to do to save your job,” said Coleman-Adebayo. “This could be her Rosa Parks moment. Let’s see what she’s going to do.” Obama Jobs Scheme Inadequate The president’s jobs plan “is better than nothing,” but will not make much of a difference in the unemployment crisis, said Doug Henwood, editor of the Left Business Observer. “Obama never really articulated a new path, and therefore has a very, very weak political foundation,” said Henwood. “He fundamentally agrees with imperial neoliberalism.” The problem is not whether the president has backbone or not. “He is a fairly center-right politician” who is “facing an extremely rightwing party, but he is no progressive, himself.” $300 Billion Could Employ All of the Jobless Obama’s $450 billion jobs plan, weighed down with incentives for business, “is, at best, going to give us five months of what we need, and then it’s going to run out,” said Randall Wray, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Wray expenditure of just $300 billion in direct federal job creation would put every unemployed person back to work. Obama’s plan, said Wray, is based on the supply side economics that came into vogue under President Reagan. “We recovered jobs at a much faster pace during the 1930s Great Depression than we are doing under President Obama.” How to Challenge Obama in 2012 David Swanson, publisher of the influential web site “War Is A Crime,” has come up with a formula by which a progressive could run against President Obama in 2012 and escape being pummeled as a “spoiler” for the Republicans. Swanson has drawn up a list of eight executive actions that Obama could take on his own, requiring no assent from the Congress, including withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by October 2012, casting a veto against any reduction in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and introduction of new clean air standards. The challenger would agree to withdraw if Obama took these actions. If not, the Obama would bear responsibility for creating the progressive challenge to his presidency. Humanity of Attica Prisoners Remembered on 40th Anniversary “What Attica really showed was the humanity of the prisoners, as juxtaposed with the inhumanity and viciousness of the state,” said Atty. Elizabeth Fink, who helped win an $8 million settlement for 1,200 inmates tortured in the aftermath of the 1971 rebellion. New York State lawmen “mowed everybody down to show what happens when you rebel,” said Fink. Thirty-two inmates and 11 guards died in the massacre. “Our morality, the effectiveness of our society, is totally undermined by the prison industrial complex.” Mother Who “Stole” Her Child’s Public Education Wants Change of Venue The Black Connecticut mother who enrolled her five-year-old son in a suburban public school outside heavily minority Bridgeport is asking that her trial on theft of educational services be moved to another jurisdiction. Tanya McDowell’s attorney, Darnell Crosland, says statements by the mayor of Norwalk have made the venue “toxic” for his client. In addition, the prosecutor in the case is the mayor’s stepdaughter – “just like a hired gun in this particular case.”

MLK As “Captain of Capital” America’s rulers “seem to want to King a captain of capitalism,” said South Carolina political activist and writer Kevin Alexander Gray. MLK’s new memorial on the Washington Mall is “sponsored by every corporate interest that is against Black and working folk’s interests,” plus people like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “who ought to be prosecuted as a war criminal.” None of the movement of King’s era any longer exists, while the multi-cultural, coalition based movement that must replace it “is not fully formed,” said Gray. Economy Resembles 1930s “The world economy is grinding to a halt,” said political scientist Thomas Ferguson, amid economic indicators that look eerily like those that prevailed in the 1930s. “The only people for whom the recession clearly ended were some parts of business and the banking community,” said the University of Massachusetts at Boston professor. “Everybody is being reduced to begging. I have a feeling it may be too late for the Obama administration.” Libya Latest Victim of U.S. Power Grab The West is determined to re-colonize the Arab world, according to Nasser Arruri, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “Libya is just another avenue for expanding U.S. influence in the region,” said Arruri. “Iraq was the precedent. Iraq was destroyed, just like Libya has been destroyed by the bombs of NATO.” Obama Shows True Colors in Garvey Pardon Denial The Obama administration’s refusal to grant a pardon to Marcus Garvey, convicted of fraud in 1923 and later deported to Jamaica, shows that the president “is not about Black empowerment, symbolic or otherwise, said Black Agenda Report editor and columnist Jemima Pierre. “Obama is making a clear political statement: Garvey is not the kind of Black leader he wants to memorialize.” In 2008, President George Bush posthumously pardoned an American convicted of violating the Neutrality Act by supplying military aircraft to Jewish fighters in Palestine. Honkala Runs Zero Evictions Campaign “If the politicians don’t have the backbone to step forward and keep families in their homes, and if the banks refuse to take the money that they’ve got and modify the loans, then damn it, I will refuse to throw any person in Philadelphia out of their homes,” said Cheri Honkala, a candidate for sheriff of Philadelphia. The veteran poor people’s activist spoke at the Convention for Democracy, in Madison, Wisconsin. Alabama Immigration Law Worst in Nation The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center considers HB 56 the “most draconian” of a rash of anti-immigrant laws recently passed in the South. The legislation would punish drivers who give undocumented people a lift, and revokes the business licenses of farmers that employ them. “HR 56 will devastate Alabama farmers,” said the Law Center’s Lecia Brooks. Tax Stock Trading, Say Nurses “The political parties have not really taken a side, but we’re telling them, Take a side, either Wall Street or Main Street,” said Theresa Harding, speaking for her union, National Nurses United. NNU held a nationwide day of action to demand that stock trading be taxed to pay for universal health care. “We believe that health care should be a right, not a privilege,” said Harding, a staff nurse at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Bill Quigley - Libya Center for Constitutional Rights, New Orleans. The U.S. government and corporate media tell Americans the attack on Libya was both legal and just. Quigley disagrees. Mark Weisbrot - Haiti Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, Just returned from a trip to Haiti. Sees no progress in alleviating the people’s suffering, and many setbacks in the cholera and housing crises. Bahati Jackque - Congo Africa Faith and Justice Network Omali Yeshitela - BIB Chairman, Black Is Back Coalition Larry Hamm - BIB President People’s Organization for Progress, Newark. Monami Malik - BIB Immigrants Executive director DRUM, Desis Rising Up and Moving. Karen Lewis - Chicago Schools President, Chicago Teachers Union

Dhoruba Bin Wahada - Mass Incarceration Dhoruba bin Wahada, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, speaking in Atlanta. Says mass Black incarceration is now a high profile topic. Marsha Coleman-Adebay The woman at the center of the movement that brought passage of the No FEAR Act to protect whistleblowers in the federal work force, is preparing to do battle, once again. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo says the man who fired her from the Environmental Protection Agency, and who was later promoted to head the agency’s civil rights office, Rafael DeLeon, is continuing to abuse women employees. Roger Wareham - Zimbabwe Roger Wareham, New York-base human rights lawyer, an organizer of the August 13 Millions Harlem March against the bombing of Libya and sanctions against Zimbabwe. Wareham says that, just as the U.S. and Europe have demonized Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, in the same way they have spread lies about Zimbabwe, over the years. Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. On August 20 International Day of Action Against the “Other Wars” – the ones waged against Africa and African people. How have preparations been going? Sanchez Garzoli - Colombia Free Trade Gemina Sanchez-Garzoli, Washington Office on Africa. A so-called “Free Trade” treaty with Colombia will likely come up for a vote in the U.S. Congress, in September. Sanchez Garzoli explains the many ways that the agreement will harm Colombians, especially Black and Indigenous people. Dr Finch - African Civilization Dr. Charles Finch III, scholar of African antiquity, medical doctor, and author, on Your World News with Solomon Comissiong, from College Park, Maryland. Dr. Finch is preparing for the second “Nile Valley Conference” at Morehouse College, in Atlanta. The first “Nile Valley Conference” was held 18 years ago, also at Morehouse. What would Dr. Finch says to those who claim civilization began, not in Africa, but in the “fertile crescent” of Asia?