In last week’s Cover Story, “Rangel Carries Clark’s Water for Clinton: Hype Trumps Facts in the Empire of Babble-On,” we called rookie Democratic presidential contender Wesley Clark “a poseur, a wind-up action figure in a suit – who belongs to Bill” Clinton. We were too kind. The retired general is either a dangerous pathological liar, or…a dangerous pathological liar. Take your pick.  

In the current issue of the Village Voice, reporter Sydney Schanberg examines Clark’s just-released book, “Winning Modern Wars,” in which the brand new Democrat claims to have learned in November, 2001 of Bush administration plans to attack seven nations over a period of five years, “beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." Apparently, gems like this are not to be shared with the public for free, so Clark kept the information to himself, even while turning out stacks of print pieces and CNN commentaries. Clark claims to have been “deeply concerned” by what he had learned at the Pentagon nearly two years ago, and that at some point in time he concluded that the U.S. was embarked on a “flawed strategy.” But the public had to wait through the invasion of Afghanistan, the long buildup to war with Iraq, his just-yesterday conversion to the Democratic Party, and last week’s presidential debate, for Clark to tell us what he claims to have known all the time in a book list-priced at $25!  

He could have spoken up at any time. "Nothing in this book is derived from classified material nor have I written anything that could compromise national security," says Clark. No, he simply compromised himself. Or maybe he made it all up. Or some combination of the two.  Maybe he’s not through revising his tall tale, yet.  

Funny, Clark never did look too disturbed by the prospect of endless killing. Rather, despite being “deeply concerned” about a “flawed strategy” of constant, rolling warfare (six more to go, not counting North Korea), the career soldier gushed like a girl scout on April 10 about the “scent of victory” in the air over Baghdad, and praised Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for their “resolve in the face of so much doubt.”  

It is impossible to believe anything Clark says. The release of Clark’s book reveals his mental condition to be clinical, not merely cynical. Before this campaign is over, at least one of the other nine candidates will wind up calling this man a dangerous loon.  

Our main concern last week was for Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel’s grip on reality. The highly intelligent, worldly, and politically masterful 73 year-old ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee lost all sense of decorum as he sang the praises of the man who can “challenge this president's policies without being called unpatriotic… I feel like I've gone back to get my big brother who's a four-star general."  

Bill Clinton’s sugary fingers are all over the Clark candidacy and Rangel’s less than dignified endorsement. As we wrote:

Clinton’s [Democratic Leadership Council] is in trouble. The Black, union and anti-war base of the Democratic Party has tagged the DLC’s candidate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, as the personification of betrayal, and he is finished. Rep. Dick Gephardt pins all his hopes on union endorsements based on his leadership in the losing 1994 battle with Clinton and the GOP over NAFTA. Massachusetts Sen. Jim Kerry is considered too close to Edward Kennedy, who is anathema to DLC leadership. And Senators John Edwards (NC) and Bob Graham (FL) no longer matter….  

Bill Clinton considers front-runner Dean a captive of the Left – a notion that some lefties also cling to. So Clinton pulls all the switches to light up his hologram, Wesley Clark.

Rangel is Clinton’s Black point man for Clark. We wonder if he’s read the general’s book.  

In Huntsville, Alabama, Eddgra Fallin surveyed the field and – shrugged.

Thanks for the revelations about Clark and Rangel.  I'm going to admit that I was buying into the frenzy until I read this article.  I think the strategy should be for black folks to stick with Al Sharpton and let white folks duke it out among themselves.

R.W. Dodson sends “kudos and congrats!”

This week's issue is a start to finish splendor. You have addressed a number of issues from Wesley Clark's candidacy, to the need for a greater recognition of global issues by Americans of African descent, in excellent depth and context.

I hope you other readers will find it as informative and eye opening as I recognize it to be.

Stephen Ewen also found the September 25 issue useful (“Thanks for digging up and piecing together that info about Clarke”), as did Cameron McLaughlin:

You're on target about Wesley Clark. Field military officers think he is a complete phony although he has apparently conned an endorsement from the influential David Hackworth. A colonel I know who served under him said he will say anything to anyone and is an indecisive, vain SOB.

That scathing piece on the Bush program written on the eve of the Iraq invasion is destined to become a sleeper classic. I have referred to it often and recommended it to many others. As the Village Voice said recently, you are always astute and acerbic – and truly unique. Thanks for that brilliant piece. Just watch – it will continue to be quoted years from now.

Mr. McLaughlin’s first reference is to our March 20 Cover Story, “They Have Reached Too Far: Bush’s road leads to ruin for himself and his Pirates.” The September 24 Village Voice article (“Left-Handed Compliments: Can Progressives Love a Military Man?” by Richard Goldstein) features comments from co-publisher Glen Ford.

A unique worldview

We were gratified to present Peter Hardie’s valuable piece, “Apartheid Still Matters: Framing an African-American Internationalism,” September 25. Mr. Hardie traced the progression of the African American worldview, and the imperatives of action that flow from that experience and insight.

Understanding the political arena as a global one is the best solution to the ongoing plight of African Americans today. We will not solve our employment problem until we understand labor as a global phenomenon, employers as global actors, and much of the wealth in our country (and the world) as the plunder of corporate thieves, rinsed in the blood of Africans and other indigenous peoples. The ability of the corporate agenda to dominate the American landscape is directly dependent on their strength as global competitors. Depressed wages, the increased gap between rich and poor, the sale of the public domain (schools, water and utilities, roads, prisons) to privateers, the lack of political challenge to the two headed beast we call a democracy – all these are features of the tableau before us. As corporate wealth and power grow unfettered, Africans throughout the world share a special place of exploitation, regardless of their nationality. African Americans need a much greater presence in the growing movement against corporate globalization; that movement could use some color. We need better and deeper connections to popular movements and organizations in other countries.

Peter Hardie is Vice-President for Campaigns and Labor Affairs, TransAfrica Forum. His piece struck a chord with Alanah D., in British Columbia, Canada:

Thank you for publishing Peter Hardie's excellent article on African-American Internationalism.  It resonated with me, particularly as I had just watched Walter Mosley interviewed on PBS on September 18th.  Mosley expressed a similar view, but in the context of the so-called 'war on terrorism'. 

His perspective starts: "Only African-Americans as I understand it, can really understand the issues and the nuances of the so-called War on Terrorism. Only we can, really on an every day level."

Mosley's defense of this strong statement was simply brilliant, and I thought some of your readers would be interested.

And by the way: thanks for your excellent journalism every week - I wouldn't want to live without it!

We at were also impressed with renowned author Mosley’s remarks on “Now with Bill Moyers.” From the transcript:

Mosley: The fact that people…hate America so much that they would want to exact this kind of violence upon America. They'll say, "Yeah we understand that. Because we come from a group of people who have been treated in this way that America treats other people in the world.

Historically in America white people have had racist notions of black people, racist notions. Notions that we are somehow genetically inferior or different. That we have slack morals and that we want to rape their daughters or rob their stores or whatever, you know, people think 'cause it changes over time….

Black people in America know what it's like to be among white people who don't like us, who hate us. That's been forever. And that's not it's not an issue. And it's a very important thing for the rest of America to learn. Because most of the world doesn't like America today. They're angry at us. They're afraid of us, and afraid of us for good reasons because of destructive power. And we have to begin to live with that, to understand how to live with that. Not to have too powerful a reaction to it. Because our survival is at stake.

The Race Eraser  

Keeping track of Black life prospects in California will become immensely more difficult if Ward Connerly and his Hard Right paymasters have their way, on October 9. Voters have the opportunity to recall the Governor, and to purge people of color from the official records of the state, the subject of our August 14 commentary, “Ward Connerly’s Crusade to Erase Black People.” Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative is a fully-funded project of the Bradley, Scaife and Olin Foundations whose larger object, we wrote, is “to impose yet another layer of unreality on the American body politic."

The intended effect of RPI is to make it nearly impossible to compile evidence of the existence of racism, or to create public policy that would counter the effects of racism, or to identify the victims of racism. A “color blind” society would be achieved by blinding citizens and government to the facts of bias. It is the equivalent of vanquishing crime by making it impossible to introduce evidence of lawbreaking, or conquering disease by eliminating the practice of medicine. Racial peace will reign in the land, the theory goes, since there will be no official racial facts available to argue about.

Jan Attia read the commentary, and sent greetings from San Francisco.

Thank you for your wonderful website!  As an Arab woman of African descent, I am always interested in making the connections between Arab American and Black American struggles.  I just wanted to forward the following put out by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in San Francisco regarding why Arabs should vote no on Prop 54.  Our struggles are one!

Vote No On Proposition 54

ADC-SF urges Arab community to take a strong stance against “The Racial Privacy Initiative” and vote NO on Prop 54!

This misleading proposition, if passed, will have disastrous ramifications for the Arab community and all racial and ethnic communities of California.  This proposition prevents race and ethnicity from being used as criteria for education, health, government programs, and anti-discrimination/anti-racism resources. Prop 54 will have a detrimental effect on all the tireless work our community has devoted to civil rights for Arabs and Arab Americans. Also, since Arabs and Arab Americans are not yet a recognized minority in the state of California, the work of organizations like ADC-SF and others who have struggled for the recognition of the Arab community in our state will be greatly set back.

Georgia fruit

It’s been almost 60 years since Lena Baker was sentenced to death after a one-day trial in the town of Cuthbert, Georgia. "What I done, I did in self-defense, or I would have been killed myself,” said the 44 year-old Black mother of three, in the moments before her electrocution. ”I am ready to meet my God."

Ernest Knight, the white man Lena Baker killed in 1944, was a drunken savage who had beaten and imprisoned her as his sex slave. For a Black defendant, self-defense was no defense at all, as author Lela Bond Phillips wrote in her May 1 Guest Commentary, “The Lena Baker Story: Execution in a small town.”

At her trial, Lena explained how Knight approached her house and forced her to go with him on that Saturday evening of April 29. Baker had been warned by the county sheriff to stay away from Knight or that she was going to be thrown in jail; too, she was afraid of physical abuse by Knight (and once even Knight's son had given her a terrible beating with a warning to stay away from his father). Therefore, as soon as she could, Baker gave Knight the slip and spent the night sleeping in the woods near the convict camp. On her way back into Cuthbert the next morning, Knight cornered her again and this time took her to the mill house and locked her in while he went to a "singing" (a form of religious celebration in the South) with his son. Lena soon became fed up with spending the sweltering day lying on an old bed in the gristmill. When Knight returned, she informed him that she was leaving. They, in Lena's words "tussled over the pistol.”

Ms. Phillips is an English professor at Andrew College in Cuthbert, Georgia. Her book, “The Lena Baker Story,” helped generate calls for the State of Georgia to make partial amends to its victim. Phillips writes:

You may be interested to know that the Pardon and Parole Board has investigated the Lena Baker Case, and the investigator recommended her for a posthumous pardon.  The Board has not yet acted; their statement thus far is they have done this only two times in Georgia history.  We are waiting.

In praise of Mugabe

We continue to receive varied response to our July 31 Analysis, “The Debate on Zimbabwe Will Not Be Throttled,” a package of position papers, commentaries and open letters on the current crisis in that country. Dr. Horace G. Campbell’s paper, "Need for Debate on Realities of Life for the Zimbabwean Working Peoples" sparked by far the most controversy.  Campbell, a professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University, presented a scathing critique of President Robert Mugabe’s government:

In this context of repression and popular opposition to an unpopular government, there is a major need for clarity on what is going on in Zimbabwe. It is a contradiction in terms to repress the people in one's society and to act as a major force for peace and anti-imperialism. This is the concrete lesson of the recent manipulation of the symbols of anti-imperialism by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Those who support peace must oppose US imperialism and oppose the interference of the imperialists (US and European Union), but this opposition to imperialism must not provide blinders so that repressive regimes are supported.

This is the context for deepening the discussion of Zimbabwe by progressive humans everywhere and Black radicals in particular.

“Unfortunately,” said Campbell in his mid-June paper, “those who hail the anti- imperialist credentials of Mugabe are silent on this matter.”

Memory Chirere is anything but silent in defense of President Mugabe. We offer Chirere’s response, in full and without comment:

Horace Campbell's article "Need for Debate on Realities of Life for the Zimbabwean Working Peoples" distributed within the American-based Black Radical Congress (BRC) on 20 June 2003 and later posted on Internet is in many ways a gross misreading of the situation in Zimbabwe, past and present. As will be shown here, Campbell is ahistorical, recklessly emotional, biased and drags in conflicting varieties of isms. Campbell is sadly confused and confusing, regardless of suggested erudition and claims of a personal knowledge of Zimbabwe.

Like a person who is putting on rightwing gumboots with a leftist hat, Campbell has no proper cultural grounding. There are noticeable confused, variegated leanings to leftism, liberalism, humanism, Christianity, postmodernism, etc. There are traces in Campbell that show him to be angry against the nationalism and patriarchy of the African leadership, which he cynically refers to as "militarist," "masculinist," etc. There is a clear war against African Nationalism and its tendency to derive ethics from indigenous cultures of Africa. Campbell suggests that Nationalism, African culture and patriarchy are insensitive. In that regard Campbell typifies the permissiveness in our brothers in leftist groups. Being culturally ungrounded themselves, they think and act out of playful postmodern radicalism. We say no to that. We cannot afford to do without a center or a point of cultural reference. We are Africans and as Amilcar Cabral will have it, our culture(s) is/are both our life and our defense. Without it we cannot identify ourselves and our own.

Campbell looks at the Zimbabwe land issue with very simple expectations. He thinks it could be neatly and bloodlessly done like rearranging furniture in a conference room. Lost to Campbell and his keen disciples is the idea that even if the land reform had been conducted by God himself - there was no way the Anglo-Saxon community in Zimbabwe would tolerate the mere movement of land from their grip to the ordinary people. Giving away five of your six farms and settling on one is not an easy geo-psychological move. Therefore the blood that has been let so far, undesirable as it could be, was/is inevitable in a kind of exercise as the one we have in Zimbabwe. This is a massive agrarian shift that tends to invite all emotions, blast barriers, challenge ages old traditions etc. Campbell’s apprehension amounts to a simplistic desire for order without action. He assumes and believes too much in the goodwill and the cooperation of the landed whites of Zimbabwe. The whites prior to the land reform knew that they, 4,500 farmers, owned 70% of the best arable land in the country. They knew that they were to protect not only egos but some of the richest lands south of the Sahara.

Campbell argues that the white settlers have been replaced on the farms by African capitalists. That is not totally avoidable, of course, but Campbell does not acknowledge that such a glimpse is only part of the picture.  First, Campbell, a leftist, should know that for reasonable infrastructure to develop in Zimbabwe there need be Africans with capital, proper capital. No African economy can prosper if its capital is not in the hands of its sons and daughters. The more monied Africans we have on arable land and in all industry the faster we move towards indigenization. We need to be captains and not little service men.

Besides, many so called farm-workers and peasants have also received land in various schemes of a scope that suits their level of infrastructural development. Campbell needs to visit the case study of Chief Svosve and his clansmen who have physically received better land all over Mashonaland East today. Campbell can take the register and will find many of the so called peasants now properly settled with their wives, children, cattle, goats, chickens etc. on soils richer and more spacious than the previously colonially created Svosve Tribal Trust Land.

But Campbell will always argue, "the landless workers and poor women in Zimbabwe are no better off today than they were working for white settlers." First the erroneously racist impression above is that Africans should only work for whites and that blacks are not good employers of fellow Africans. Campbell needs to go round the resettled areas and see for himself. Those of the commercial farm-workers who do not wish to apply for their own piece of land do not consider themselves as victims, no! They are proud skilled workers who know how to raise crops like flowers, tobacco, cotton, maize, soy beans etc. and the majority of them will like to work with anyone who ensures them their jobs and salaries. These are not cynical, dubious or ignorant people. For generations they have amassed skill and knowledge of the crops, animals, climate, soils, politics etc. of Zimbabwe. Only know-it-all vaguely leftist characters like Campbell can hope to speak for such workers.

Campbell, like all habitual President Mugabe-bashers, insists that "Mugabe's cronies" got the land. We will not go very far for any answer than President Mugabe's, given in a New African magazine of May 2002: "the giving of land to cronies is a theory...  But who are cronies and who are not cronies – members of the (ruling) party? And we have lots and lots of people, we have got support across the country, and should they be denied land anyway? They are part of the population?"

To read Campbell go on and on about President Mugabe, the monster, who sanctions violence you would think President Mugabe was not in Zimbabwe until 1998. Indeed, Campbell ignores the fact that President Mugabe has been tolerant, sometimes too tolerant to the snobbish and rich white farming community. Often President Mugabe has restrained the Africans from taking impromptu action of land, until recently when the whites were ganging up with the British-backed opposition. In addition, both the willing-seller-willing buyer system and the first 10-year constitutional requirements in Zimbabwe partly tied President Mugabe's hands on the land issue. The act of declaring reconciliation when his colleagues thought it was time to settle scores is something lost only to Campbell. The professor is either openly lying or he is ignorant.

In an act that casts doubt on Campbell's professorial standing, he equates President Mugabe with Charles Taylor, Jonas Savimbi, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin laden and Milosevic. Is this selective memory or cynicism gone sour? President Mugabe both fought in the bush and agreed to wear a jacket and tie and come to many negotiating chambers in Africa and Europe.  President Mugabe demobilized a full guerilla machine to come and fight in an election he could have lost.  President Mugabe won and continued to conduct elections as per demands of the constitution of Zimbabwe. President Mugabe's victories have not been the fairest but they have arguably been cleared by the majority of regional and international observers. When we have gone as high up as professorial levels we have more reason to be objective, clear and level minded. Principals and principles need proper placing. We can only bunch up people into vague stereotypes to our detriment.

In addition, President Mugabe is not Castro, of course, but I do not see why Campbell cannot be persuaded to see that President Mugabe like Castro has defied the West, suffered sanctions, been media bashed, travel banned but keeping his head up in his own territory. Talk of Presidents Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Samora Machel, did they stand as much pressure as President Mugabe has done? Does Campbell fail to see how Mugabe has become a pathfinder of economic emancipation in Africa? Zimbabweans and President Mugabe have shown Africa that flag independence should be transcended as Africans march to an even more painful way of rearranging the economic face of Africa. Campbell only needs to read into the signals being sent by the settler farmers in Namibia and South Africa to know that President Mugabe has authored a new genre in the liberation discourse.

It is difficult to believe that Campbell could afford to write against virginity tests in African societies of Zimbabwe. At least the societies are proudly continuing this respected tradition of remaining virgin until the wedding night in the hope that girls are safe from infection. Campbell will be amazed that even the girls like the tests. The tests assert their positions and are not necessarily degrading. Campbell, as noted before, sneers at African culture because, he has no specific culture to hold.  He is "a man of the world." By that he means, maybe, American. He would rather we belong to the global village where the Western permissive ways rule and ruin.

Campbell yearns for a happy Zimbabwe. That is commendable but it saddens to know that Campbell is ill prepared for the struggle to bring about such a Zimbabwe. He strangely believes Zimbabwe is a world of make-believe where the changes could be smooth, bloodless and God-given.  Nowhere has that occurred. Campbell belongs to the slave traditions himself and the 300-year painful journey of the African-American is there for him to read. Freedom is fought for. The fighting has its drawbacks, of course. The Zimbabwe agrarian reform, like the war of liberation before it, has to be a process, not an event. This is a phenomenon much larger than President Mugabe and it has been instigated by history and not an individual. The process could have been less painful had the white community been more cooperative, engaging and involved since 1980.

Come to think of it, Campbell enjoyed the hospitality of Zimbabwe for six years. Nowhere in his monthly articles in the Southern African Political and Economic Magazine (SAPEM) did he sound to be so vitriolic.

Keep writing. 

gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for sending visitors our way during the past week.

BuzzFlash

Black Voices

Daily Kos

Black Electorate

Black Planet

Liberal Oasis

The Final Call

AntiRacismNet

October 2, 2003
Issue 58

is published every Thursday.