As King Dubya continues to proselytize his way across America on behalf of his destruction of government services, continues to defend the principles of economic and social justice. The cover story in this issue is our latest analysis of the hideous transformation of the USA into a "failed state" class.

Don't be hoodwinked by outright lies

On February 10, 2005 Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, Vice President of Research and Programs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation looked at the corporate hard right's plan from the perspective of Black history.

"...these are the people who have spent the last four years providing tax relief for the wealthiest Americans while laying the groundwork for dismantling the very programs that have helped blacks mitigate the effects of centuries of deprivation."

From the The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania Professor Bernard E. Anderson called Ms. Rockeymoore’s article on ”Black History Bush-style” a "10 strike!"

She pulled the cover completely off President Bush’s attempt to perpetrate fraud on the African American community through his promotion of private savings accounts funded by Social Security. I want to suggest several additional concerns black people should consider when listening to the President.

The critical question is whether the alleged benefits to black families in wealth accumulation from private savings accounts is likely to exceed the losses from cuts in retirement income, survivors annuities, and disability payments that will be necessary to pay for the private accounts. Weakening those features of the Social Security program, on which African Americans disproportionately rely, will impose great economic harm on African American families.

The retirement annuity for low wage workers is subsidized by the Social Security program, under rules that adjust the monthly payment upward to account for lower than average payments into the trust fund during the working years. Any diversion of the FICA tax toward private accounts will not only reduce the base for calculating the monthly payment, but also the upward adjustment in the annuity. Unless returns on the private account are greater than the recent investment returns on mutual funds, about 6.0 to 7.0 percent, retirement income under private plans will be less than low wage workers can expect under projections for the current system. To make the payments better than workers can expect under current rules, the return would have to exceed 12 percent per year.

Thousands of African Americans, especially single woman raising families, work in low and moderate wage jobs. They are unable to invest much in private accounts, and thus would benefit little even if investment returns are higher than average in the years ahead.

This benefit/cost assessment of private accounts demonstrates that African Americans would benefit less than virtually any other group form Social Security privatization. Which, of course, gives the lie to the specious argument President Bush is trying to foist on African Americans - suggesting that they can build wealth through private savings accounts and have something to pass along to their children. The argument that because of shorter life expectancy, black people don’t live long enough to claim from Social Security as much as they pay in, while true, is a non-sequitur as regards private savings accounts.

As Maya Rockeymoore rightly observed, black folk don’t live as long as others because of racial disparities in health conditions and economic opportunity. Eliminating those disparities should be the first priority for public policy if the President wants to do something useful in improving the economic status of black people. The fact that Bush has proposed nothing to eliminate racial disparities further demonstrates his real intentions. He is far more committed to protecting the economic interest of the rich than eliminating racial inequality in American life.

I hope black people will pay close attention to the Social Security debate, and not be hoodwinked by the President’s appeals, as some black preachers apparently were in the last election with the so-called faith-based initiatives. Black leaders, and the followers should inform themselves by listening to scholars like Rockeymoore, and reading your publication and other black oriented media to learn about the misinformation, half truths, and outright lies that are being thrust at them. The challenge is great, but the responsibility is clear to be well informed.

Blacks must confront unions

The cover story of March 3, 2005 - "No Real Labor ‘Reform’ Without Blacks" caused Lenny McBride of AFSCME Council 57 in Oakland, California to join the conversation.

I just wanted to add my voice to this systematic exclusion of African Americans from any power within the Labor movement.

I was the affirmative action officer of a major local with a hotel and restaurant employees union and had countless battles on the role of blacks within that movement.

First and foremost blacks had to sue to get higher paying bartending jobs and when we won, it took years for a black to get a position due to stalling by the Union.

I was part of that suit which was implemented in 1973 and I finally got a bartending position in 1977. Eventually I was hired by the Union first to run the hiring hall and later to the Action Officer position to enforce affirmative action within the Union. The position was court appointed to insure that blacks were dispatched and properly represented in the hotels and restaurants in San Francisco.

The Union resistance was unbelievable and when I brought this to the attention of the powers to be, I was ridiculed and vilified. My efforts were sabotaged.

I left this position in 1989 and when I was there, African Americans were roughly 11% of the membership and roughly the same on staff. Now the San Francisco local with a membership of over 7000 members and a staff of over twenty, has only one black on staff and and less than 7% membership.

When I was on staff, I approached several hotels about the lack of black workers. They were willing to work with me, but the Union nixed the idea saying if the hospitality industry didn't want blacks on staff then the union would basically reflect these numbers on the union staff, no matter how racist.

What really bothers me is that these leaders are now national leaders and in the forefront of pushing the consolidation agenda. There needs to be confrontation and an explanation as to how they intend to bring us to the table.

Thank you publicizing this struggle as it's long overdue.

Making preemptive strikes more high tech

On March 16,2005, the Washington Post reported the Pentagon is working to develop a sub orbital space capsule within the next five years. The capsule would be launched from the United States and could deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within two hours.

While on the topic of preemptive strikes, reader Selena needs help figuring out Condi.

Perhaps an astute, insightful psychologist could give us some clue as to the motivating factors that drive high profilers such as the present Sec'y of State to commit the deeds that they seem impelled to carry out.

How in the world does a woman from Alabama, privy to the outrages of the murderous tyranny of white supremacy succumb to the lure of power to the extent that she would actually advocate preemptive strikes against anyone, let alone an entire region of the world?

Hope you will consider this question and illuminate me and perhaps others, as well. Thank you.

We cannot fathom the depth of Condoleezza's disease. For certain, it's much more serious than the Stockholm Syndrome.

America is number one in mental illness

David Podvin, writing for MakeThemAccountable.com took the following view of a report by the World Health Organization on mental illness.

The World Health Organization has released a study that verifies the United States is the undisputed champion in mental illness, dominating various pathologies ranging from anxiety to depression to poor impulse control. We easily vanquished underachieving Old Europe in post-traumatic stress syndrome, bipolar disorder, and bulimia nervosa. Additionally, our magnificent land trounced the supposedly productive Asian countries in both senility and agoraphobia, while coasting past Africa in pediatric hyperactivity. In fact, there would have been a gold medal sweep for America if Ukraine had not cheated by submitting doctored urine to edge us out in substance abuse.

In retaliation for Ukrainian treachery, “Chicken Kiev” will henceforth be known by every patriotic American as “Chicken Freedom”.

Distributing praise for America’s smashing victory requires giving the devil his due. Although liberals abhor complimenting the right wing, it is undeniable that without conservatives the United States would not even be one of the hundred craziest countries. This is especially true as it relates to the glamour categories of paranoia and psychosis.

Any nation that aspires to lead the world in mental illness requires a leader who is unabashedly mentally ill, and in this area America is truly blessed…

How not to become a Guest Commentator

A person we will call only Q J has sent us his idea for a commentary.

Greetings, I am a 30 yr old African-American male working as a private developer in Virginia. I am interested in writing a guest commentary on the recent increase of Blacks joining the Republican Party, how and why this is happening. Is this possible?

Thanks for your consideration.

responded:

As you know, we are interested in the subject. Please be advised, however, that is a political journal with a point of view. There will be no GOP advocacy in these pages, just as there is no socialist advocacy in the Weekly Standard.

Having said that, please send the piece.

We have not yet heard from Q J.

Slavery and the Making of America

Carol J. Brown applauds for publishing PBS producer Dante James' response to the critique of his film by Jonathan Scott.

I read Mr. James' response and was quite pleased with the content and I applaud you for publishing it. I would deem it an honor if you did publish my letter. Thank you - and might I add - I find your website quite informative and thought revoking. Please keep it up!!!

I read Dr. Scott's critique of Slavery and the Making of America, and the obvious attack of Mr. James as a filmmaker. Many people understand there are time constraints when making a film. This film had to tell a story that expands over 200 years of singular and collective events. Choices had to be made as to which story would make the most impact of the film's theme. Mr. James was telling a "story" from the slave's point of view of how they endured and rebelled against their enslavement. It was not a story of the "how's" and "why's" of slavery. We know that story - it was a story of resilience, not of passiveness; of an intellect that endured the absence of ones own culture and the education of a new world; and of strength to endure the most horrid environmental, physical, and emotional conditions. Not every story could be told, and although, Bacon's Rebellion would have been informative, the stories of Harriet Jacobs, Mum Brett, and the Stone Rebellion told the story well.

I just don't understand how Dr. Scott came away with the assumption that Mr. James says “American Slavery was Natural.” I came away with the knowledge that American Slavery was "Intentional.” The film clearly shows how the exploitation of enslaved people both white and black had a turning point in 1640 when slavery became a racial institution not a merely a class issue. I would suggest that Dr. Scott look at the film again not based on his agenda, but based on the film's intent and I am sure that being an English professor, he will then find the knowledge and the beauty that the film so skillfully displays.

Thank you - and might I add - I find your website quite informative and thought revoking. Please keep it up!!!

Professor Scott sent his rebuttal to James.

Danté James wrote in the March 17 issue of BC a rebuttal to my critique of his PBS series, “Slavery and the Making of America,” in which he said my piece (“PBS Says Slavery was Natural”) offended him. As I noted in my article, James’s documentary does a great service to Americans by recognizing that slavery was not an exception to the central line of Anglo-American capitalist development but, rather, the foundation of it.

Thus, it is unfortunate to me that James seems to misunderstand the gist of my critique. In fact, he attributes to me a passage that I never wrote. James thinks that my critique is a call for people to acknowledge the suffering of European American bond-laborers. He is especially bothered that I believe his series “ignored…the plight of the poor and property-less European American.”

Yet I do not feel this way about his series, nor did I write the words he attributes to me. My argument is empirical and logical, not moral. James argues in the series, and in his rebuttal to my critique, that “There was a turning point in 1640 [The John Punch decision] that made slavery a racial institution.” James and the historians he features in the series are able to argue this thesis only by erasing a monumental event of early American history—Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, in which two thousand African American bond-laborers and six thousand European American ones took up arms together against their common ruling class oppressor, the Anglo-American tobacco bourgeoisie. For those such as James who want to see 1640 as the beginning of racial slavery in America, a historical lobotomy must be performed that removes completely any and all traces of Bacon’s Rebellion, since it is logically impossible for one to claim 1640 as the start of racial slavery when, in reality, a few decades later, the slave-owning tobacco planters were overthrown, if only for a year, by all bond-laborers who rejected in toto that particular system of rule.

James does not want to see that capitalist oppressors will always seek mechanisms, such as racial oppression, that keep under control an oppressed group of workers. But unless those workers accept the imposition of such a system, the mechanisms have no social, political, and historical significance. Bacon’s Rebellion showed unequivocally that all attempts by the planters, including the John Punch decision of 1640, to impose racial slavery on the American bond-laborers had been doomed to fail so long as the European American bond-laborers worked side-by-side as equals with African American bond-laborers. Bacon’s Rebellion, not the John Punch case, taught the planters this lesson, and from 1676, down to the present, the Anglo-American bourgeoisie has been engineering socially the inequality and segregation of black and white labor, to avoid a repetition of this epochal American labor uprising.

The machinations of Harold Ford

For some readers, does not go far enough. Anthony Flahert, of South Boston, Mass thinks this is the case with Congressman Ford ( cover story, March 17, 2005).

Congratulations on pointing out the machinations of Ford. The only mistake in your column is indicating that the machinations are obvious to all.

Ford is dangerous to both black and white poor... and indeed, a desired nation state of America. As does the republican media, Rush Limbaugh, et al - you have to continue to point out his chameleon like legislative behavior.

responded:

We meant that Ford's machinations are obvious to everyone on Capitol Hill, the national news media, and those who consider themselves stakeholders in a marketized Social Security - that is, the political players.

It is our job to make it obvious to the rest of the folks, which was the purpose of the article.

Lana Foyd wants to know how to stop Harold Ford.

In reference to your article regarding Harold Ford and not trusting him, what as an African-American who was encouraged and thrilled when she found this web page which speaks to me and advocates in a much stronger and articulate voice my concerns, can we do to inform the residents of Memphis, Tennessee about this back-stabbing, self-interested, tom-tom before he has an opportunity to do something truly awful?

What can we do to make the anemic Congressional Black Caucus stand up and call out these from among them who could care less about black folks and what they can get?

Your voice is strong and apparently is being read, how do we "spread the word" to let not only the folks in Memphis know about this wolf in sheep's clothing, but aid us in identifying others who would sell their souls and mine too for a buck?

Remain angry, impatient and militant. Speak out, organize and write to members of the Black Caucus and everybody else. We write to them every week. They all read BC.

reader Carlos Thomas has known Harold Ford for some time and agrees with our "opportunist" label.

Kudos on your work about Harold Ford, Jr. I'm a native of Memphis, Tennessee, and Harold and I have mutual friends. You are correct in your assessment that he is an opportunistic fool that seeks only to forward his agenda. This point can be substantiated with a quick analysis of his background.

Harold has not lived in Memphis since his 1st grade year at Double Tree Elementary. After his father was elected to congress he spent his formative years in Northern Virginia prep schools; then undergrad at U of Penn; then Law School at Michigan. The day after he graduated from law school he announced his candidacy for congress. Mind you, he had not worked one day in the community of Memphis and arguably was never "in touch" with his constituency.

I worked on his initial campaign and saw first-hand how manipulative he is. He summoned all the 20-somethings from middle-class families in Memphis together and gave a pitch that he was running to change the community and help the people of Memphis and wanted us to be involved in making immediate changes. I thought he meant grass-roots community service. Instead, it meant passing out yard signs and handing out bumper stickers. Needless to say I didn't stay long.

....But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His father did very little during his time in Memphis and his uncles are all buffoons in the state and city government. It is widely known that his father and uncle both have open affairs with women from the community and have abused their power (like their white counterparts) while in office.

Harold is a well-spoken opportunist that wouldn't last a day in the shoes of the common man in Memphis. Every time I see him I get sick to my stomach because he represents the failures of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. To think that this is what my grandfather worked for?

I love your paper and please keep up the great work!

Putting what counts on the table

Yvonne Hilton reads this column and follows up on another reader's comment.

The points made by the "white guy" who "loves what you do" were well taken. Your response in analyzing how ineffective blacks are within the Democratic Party was harshly accurate.

Nevertheless, those of us who pay attention to progressive/environmental issues do need to help black people see how our interests are impacted when we ignore progressive and "green" platforms. Maybe you've hit on the beginnings of a solution in your statement of the problem.

If we're going to support environmentally sound programs, we should be up front and vocal about the fact that we're doing so as black people. And if we're going to be Democrats, then we need to put our money, time and progressive opinions on that table, as well.

You do great work. Keep up the righteous indignation!

Our cover story, Bush’s Grand Plan for Blacks - Put ‘New Leaders’ in Charge (March 10 2005) rang Douglas Weeldreyer's bell.

Great article!

Pretty sweet deal, eh? You starve the government agencies and empower Faith Based Leadership by passing the tax dollars and government access through them.

Guess who has the power? Guess who you vote for. Why Republicans of course. They're the ones who care about you. Passing out money and influence works for terrorists and the Mafia. Works for the Republicans too. Sweet!

Now that you're beholden you will support tax relief for the embattled rich and all those other wonderful compassionate Republican programs for the powerful corporations.

Keep it coming.

Radio BC

You can visit the Radio BC page to listen to any of our audio commentaries voiced by Co-Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Glen Ford. We publish the text of the radio commentary each week in this column.

Some people need to be scared out of their wits before they will do anything. That’s a fact, and for that reason, I’m ambivalent about what I’m going to tell you. Black people will not lose the right to vote if provisions of the Voting Rights Act are not renewed when the issue comes before Congress in 2007. Black people have had the legal right to vote everywhere in the United States since 1870, when the Reconstruction Congress amended the Constitution. But the Constitutional right to vote, and the actual ability to vote, are two very different things. Reconstruction was halted in 1877, and federal troops were withdrawn from the South. Blacks still had the right to vote in Dixie, but they did so at the risk of their lives. Rights don’t mean much, if you can’t enforce them.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 didn’t give Blacks the right to vote. That was something they already had. What was lacking were enforcement mechanisms, targeted at those states that had suppressed Black people’s ability to vote for nearly a hundred years. The case against these states was very clear. So clear, that the Voting Rights Act requires they submit to the Justice Department any changes in the way they hold elections. The burden is on those southern states to show that they aren’t up to their old tricks, trying to find ways to weaken the Black vote. That’s one of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act that comes up in 2007. If it is not renewed, Black folks won’t lose the right to vote, but the racists will win the right to devise all kinds of schemes to make the Black vote, meaningless.

Ahh…but I hear you saying, the Bush regime has hijacked two elections in a row, and not just by stealing Black votes in the South, but everywhere and anywhere they can, from whoever they can. Why not make the Voting Rights Act national, covering all the states of the country? And that’s just what the Republicans want you to say. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is putting out that word the Republicans are preparing to endorse making the Voting Rights Act national – a very slick and cynical move, because a national version of the Voting Rights Act would probably be struck down as unconstitutional. Remember, the legal basis of the 1965 legislation was one hundred years of easily provable, systematic violations of Black people’s right to vote in the South. No similar record exists for the nation as a whole. A idea of a national Voting Rights bill is a Republican dirty trick. It would likely be shot down by the Supreme Court.

We will have a hard time keeping the Voting Rights Act, as it currently exists. But the constituency for the Act now also includes the millions of non-Blacks who saw their own votes effectively stolen in 2000 and 2004. Jesse Jackson Senior, the Reverend, is seeking one million signatures on petitions by August 6, the 40^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. You can put your name on the petition by going to www.RainbowPush.org. Do that, now. There’s a lot more Voting Rights work to accomplish in the next two years. For Radio , I’m Glen Ford.

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