Issue Number 34 - March 20, 2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The pulsating horror of Shock and Awe is upon us. The Bush men manifest their monstrous act of will, intending to shatter the will of the human species to resist domination by Pirates. As we wrote in our "last pre-Event commentary," America is well cast for the role of crazed Crusader: "The criminal enterprise on which the United States is embarked - the ghastly equivalent of a live-fire, multi-megaton Fourth of July celebration of the New American Century - is the end product of a society shaped by genocide and slavery. White America sees the world through the eyes of the mass murderer and slaveholder." ("Racism and War: Perfect Together," March 13.)

White America is, in the majority, psychotic, living in a world of unreality based on facts imagined by themselves, alone. That's what happens when a people lie - and profit from lies - for hundreds of years. Now Bush attempts to bring the entire globe under the sway of the American delusion, with support from a majority of his white fellows. African Americans understand the true character of their compatriots.

The images that utterly defeat every exculpatory analysis, the scenes that are more searing to the soul than any medieval rendition of Hell, are the photos of white American families at lynchings. They laugh. They bring their children, and picnic baskets. They greet neighbors and kinfolk among the thousands who have been brought together for the festivities. Some have driven many miles to join in the camaraderie of shared experience, a bonding. The focal point of the gathering cooks on a pyre of hastily gathered planks and branches, mouth agape, eyes gouged out, extremities disintegrating like charcoal.

Bush counts on such a (white) national "bonding" to follow the Mother of All Lynchings that is Shock and Awe, and there is little doubt that, initially, he will get it. He will also get much more than he bargained for from the people whom he threatens to subjugate - an Earthful.

Ella Baccouche traces the genealogy of hate.

It does appear that a racist impregnated nation has produced the likes of our past and present leadership. America got pregnant back in 1492. From this illicit affair millions and millions of racist offspring were born. And what has nourished and sustained these millions of pregnancies over the centuries? Yes, you are right, superior weapons of mass destruction. For without this vital sustenance, the survival rate of these bullet-sucking, bomb-eating, missile-toting babies would have been zero.

I believe that notions of supremacy are so firmly embedded in the American psyche that, according to your polling statistics, those picnic lunching lynching White folks would have no problem (if they could without getting hurt) grabbing a blanket, their children, and some snacks and going to sit on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates to watch the "Really Big Shew," while ignoring the flying frying body parts since they were just part of the usual choreography. Unfortunately, there will also be some deluded Black folks attending unaware that they might play a major role in the next spectacular.

Polls showed that 72 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein "had something to do with" the events of September 11. No evidence was necessary, just as no proof of guilt was ever required to justify the lynching of a Black person.

New Jersey high school student David Marcus Rutherford digested our commentary, and expanded on it.

Your article, "Racism and War: Perfect Together" touches on the mental maladies that make this war possible. The whole war view (or at least the public's war perception) is founded on racism, or racial superiority. The news media takes both past and current events along with the administration's lies to produce their own false interpretations. Their misconceptions are molded to fit perfectly into the psychological holes that plague the brains of the racist white population - racism.

Almost seamlessly, the government and the media work hand in hand with racism to blur reality and form public opinion in order to accomplish their goals. You hit this right on the nose, and you have taught us all, reinforcing our knowledge of the disturbing racist ideology that Black Americans are all too familiar with.

The Media-Government marriage not only appears to be one of conscious mutualism, but also a convenient sharing of racist ideology believed on both sides.

It seems that a majority of White Americans accept the media's interpretations of world issues without question, and since their brains are quite often polluted with racist ideology, it happens pretty naturally. Considering that all the news networks say generally the same thing, it becomes evident how simple it is to impose these views on the general white population. While the viewer nods in approval of this garbage, they don't even know that they are quite easily as savage as the old mustached man that they want to kill. It's not media magic, just racist viewers having their appetite satisfied.

The least hawkish of the war party may say, "But, he killed his own people, and we must liberate Iraq." Ironically, Iraqis are exactly what they don't care about, and this is just their justification for feeling the way they do. They don't want to recognize that 800 smart bombs and a MOAB will kill far more of his people - and their denial is fine with Bush.

Mr. Rutherford's term, "conscious mutualism" is an apt description of the interaction between corporate media and the white public. maintains that, rather than force-feeding the audience, news producers and readers "share a common, white American worldview, shot through with native racism. They [both] believe what they want to believe."

Paul Whalen is familiar with the mindset.

I've often opined to my fellow white lefties that any society founded on the twin pilings of slavery and genocide is not worth saving, and that whitey will pay for centuries of slaughter. That's the point when I'm shown the door, or the letter goes unpublished. Even whitey's liberation movements are all about the death of innocents whose epidermal melanin content indicates non-European origins. I mean, the big issue to Gays - We won't be liberated until men wearing dresses are heaving cruise missiles at African pharmaceutical plants. Women's movement - Hey, Kelli Flynn is being denied her self-confessed "dream" of flying high altitude bombers - that's sexism. Or the women and children advocate, Hilary Clinton presiding over the gutting of AFDC.

You are right - White America is a cancer, a kind of socio-historical equivalent of the AIDS virus. The suburbo-fascist soccer mom knows precisely where the SUV juice comes from - the blood of Arab children. In fact, isn't the whole SUV craze a vehicular manifestation of whitey's wanton disregard for everyone else but himself? The justifications that it is safer works if you're the SUV driver/occupant, not the barely making it individual in the 10-year-old Toyota. It's your bad luck you can't afford to be safe.

In times like these, one takes comfort wherever one can find it. Regina Tillman is glad to know that she's on the sane side of history.

Reading this article was like food to my soul. All of the anguish expressed in it mirrored the anguish I have experienced personally as I have watched this country's steady, senseless, and immoral march toward war. Much of the historical material included in the commentary was new to my conscious understanding but not to my heart or to my spirit. I may not have known the specifics but I knew that evil had been perpetrated and it sickened me, as does this new evil menace that threatens the whole world. I will be forever grateful that you took the time to shine the light of truth into a dark world and for providing me with the comfort that comes from knowing that others share the burden of feeling helpless and devastated in a world gone mad.

The alternative to facing reality is to become wholly and helplessly lost - a lesson that progressives will be forced to learn in the coming twilight struggle.

has occasionally been accused of race-baiting and "hate whiteyism" - a charge that is, we believe, an insult to those white people who struggle mightily to overcome a culture of white supremacy - the kind of white people who read . Donald Call knows what we're talking about.

Another excellent article. I only wish that every white male would read it. I have sent it to all my grandchildren, who like their grandpop are white and liberal. They have been taught what they could not learn in our racist society. Unfortunately, the racists are the people who are in charge of the country.

Have you given any thought to this fact?: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, [Missouri Democratic Senator] Mel Carnahan, John F. Kennedy Jr., [Minnesota Democratic Senator] Paul Wellstone. All either assassinated, or victims of "bad weather, pilot error." Odd isn't it? Consider the fact that #41 [Bush Sr.] was the head of the CIA, has billions of dollars at his disposal - how hard would it be to put together his own covert team?

I put nothing, repeat, nothing past these right wing zealots.

Rick Anderson is a newcomer to . He writes to us from Bowie, Maryland.

I just visited your site for the first time, liked it, and will bookmark it for future visits. Although I'm white, I believe it is valuable to know what's on the minds of all Americans, especially minorities, and to hear it 'straight from the horse's mouth' instead of the lies and propaganda constantly spewed forth by the corporate owned media and several centuries of distorted U.S. history written by and for an increasingly dumbed-down majority.

Speaking of the media, I have all but stopped watching network and cable TV news, except for the BBC. I refuse to be entertained by the sanitized video images of war, death, and destruction viewed from 30,000 feet. Yes, we're living in very scary times, and getting the truth is harder and harder. I fear that whatever shred of moral pretense we as a nation had will soon be lost, as WW III will be pretty much a war against the Third World - akin to Manifest Destiny on a global scale.

"Manifest Destiny" - an American racial/political ancestor of Nazi Germany's demand for Lebensraum, ("living space") - reached its continental zenith in the Mexican War of 1846 - 1848. In Europe, Hitler's justifications for his march eastward are nearly identical to the rhetoric employed by American politicians - especially those from the slave states - a century earlier, as they whipped up war fever against Mexico. America needed space.

For it is not in colonial acquisitions that we must see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance the area of the mother country, and hence not only keep the new settlers in the most intimate community with the land of their origin, but secure for the total area those advantages which lie in its unified magnitude.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Following the Mexican War, the U.S. took possession of California and the Southwest and finalized its incorporation of Texas. Mexico shrank, accordingly.

The Mexican War sparked the nation's first, full-blown anti-war movement. Abraham Lincoln opposed the war as a young Illinois state legislator, and Ulysses S. Grant regretted his own involvement as a soldier in the war.

Like most abolitionists, Frederick Douglass was a fierce opponent of the Mexican War, which he saw as a naked attempt to expand the dominion of slavery. "The purchase of Louisiana, the annexation of Texas, the war with the Seminoles, and the war with Mexico, were all measures commenced and carried on for the purpose of giving prosperity and perpetuity to slavery, and for maintaining the sway of the slave power over the republic," said Douglass, addressing the Mass Free Democratic Convention in Ithaca, New York, in October 1852.

Three months earlier, Douglass had delivered his famous 4th of July speech to an anti-slavery crowd in Rochester, New York. Douglass denounced the celebration from the perspective of the slave. In last week's issue, we asked readers to imagine themselves as "Arab and Muslim citizens of our world, as they await The Event that is designed to herald American triumphalism."

To him... your boasted liberty [is] an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

reader Maddi Bee responded as requested, with slashing wit and burning truth.

Thank you, Frederick D. Forgive my additions and edits:

The feeling of the nation must be quickened ( Wake up Fools! ); the conscience of the nation must be roused ( Oh where did we leave it! ) the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed ( Take it Off, Take it All Off! ); and its crimes against God and man must be denounced ( You are hereby officially Denounced! ). I am sick of your swelling vanity. Your shouts of liberty and equality are hollow. Your parades are bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, hypocrisy. America Today, you are revolting and barbarous and shameless. You are pushers of violence and war. You are killers of children. You are War Criminals with your Shock and Awe Show.

And God said: What goes around comes around! Get a Grip!

Yes, Maddi Bee. Yes!

Keeping count at the rally

African Americans, historically the most anti-war ethnicity in the nation, show up at peace rallies in smaller numbers than even their proportion of the population. The fact befuddles lots of people on the left, particularly whites. Many believe that some deep contradiction underlies the phenomenon. doesn't think so. In our March 13 piece, "Why Blacks are Under-represented at Peace Rallies," we asked readers to reexamine their basic assumptions, to find out where the logic lies.

"First, there is a general perception among whites and Blacks that white people dominate the anti-war movement. To the extent that this is true, why should it be assumed that African Americans will come when white people call, for any cause? Have white people responded to Black-led movements seeking broad social change in anything approaching whites' proportion of the population?"

Black and white solidarity is by far the exception in America - and we all know where the historical onus lies.

raises the issue of racism on the Left because racism is the reason the U.S. Left is so puny. It's that simple. Black people don't need puny allies - we've got huge enemies.

Peace advocate and musician Carlos X Almond thinks and others make too much of a deal about race-based problems in the "movement." However, before we engage his complaint, we call attention to an open letter from Mr. Almond's group, Musicians United to Win without War. The signatories state: "We believe that this planned invasion might be playing right into the hands of Al Qaeda and others, who will use it as an excuse to rally anti-American and anti-Western sentiment despite no great love for Saddam on their parts."

Readers may click on the link to see if their favorite performer is on record in opposition to Bush's war.

Mr. Almond continues:

Please note the large percentage of black signatures: I am sending it to show that there are Blacks involved in the anti-war effort. But also, I believe African Americans are too caught up with the past to realize that they need to take control of the present. The war will adversely affect people of color and it's time for the excuses for not doing their part to stop. I am sick of hearing "we're too busy making a living," "it doesn't matter what we do," and other lame reasons. Any person of any color can use those excuses. Your four reasons:

  1. Sharing leadership with, and being willing to follow the lead of, people and organizations of color;
  2. maintaining an attitude of collectivity and not dominating discussion;
  3. challenging racist language and actions (especially within movement spaces), and
  4. prioritizing the issues, experiences and struggles of people of color.

...don't hold up as excuses. This isn't about who's leading who or what is politically correct language. It's not about someone white dominating the discussion. And it's not about prioritizing issues and struggles. It's about stopping the war! Now!

Mr. Almond is either 1) too busy to take note of who is making the statements that he objects to, or 2) has a general problem with Black people.

The answer is number two. Almond's statement, "African Americans are too caught up with the past" reveals everything we need to know. Since all Black complaints have something to do with the past, Mr. Almond rejects their relevance. Rather, he wants Blacks to jump, on command - "Now!"

Thank you, Mr. Almond, for unwittingly illustrating the problem. (Mr. Almond may be Black - we don't know. It doesn't make a difference.)

The four points Almond referred to are part of an Open Letter to Activists Concerning Racism in the Anti-War Movement, drawn up by a multi-racial group of New York City organizers. agrees with them.

A "wounded force"

The first and logical place to look for reasons behind the general downtrend in Black public protest activity is in the horrific effects of Black youth arrest and incarceration rates. As we wrote, last week:

There is a growing awareness that profound damage has been done to Black America's ability to mobilize itself for demonstrations or direct action. Young people drive activist politics. The overlapping, relentless assaults on urban America over the past three decades have fallen most heavily on Black youth. The cutting edge cultural cohort of the international youth market is, in political terms, a wounded force, far less available and less capable of organized, public confrontation with Power. And Power knows it

David Weiner, an adjunct professor of sociology at Austin Community College, Austin, Texas, has this assessment:

U.S. prison populations are overwhelmingly citizens of color. William Julius Wilson's observation that poor people of color tend to be the sad inheritors of structural conditions resulting from overt racism - structures that more or less impersonally deny them humanity much less upward mobility - is contradicted by Derrick Bell and other Critical Race Theorists who find no rational basis for viewing black and brown suffering as being anything other than local expressions of the same real-politics that anti-war activists associate with the imperialism that will soon most likely obliterate Iraq.

I find it peculiar when activists who claim to care about Iraqis being massacred fail to express - or ever to have expressed - similar concern about racial genocide in the U.S. Kind of like people outraged at child abuse at a distance while ignoring it at home. Could this paradox have something to do with the failure of the anti-war movement to recruit people of color? Is it possible that you really can't bake a decent tasting cake if even a couple of the eggs are rotten?

Whenever discusses racism in the anti-war movement, many more white readers respond than Blacks (although non-Blacks comprise no more than 30 percent of the readership.) That, too, is logical since "white people are the historical culprits in this matter of American racism. It is, therefore, appropriate that dedicated white people have done some of the most serious, nuts and bolts work in tackling the racial dilemmas that dog progressive organizers." We strongly recommended the Znet article, "Anti-War Questions and Answers," by Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom, and Challenging White Supremacy Workshops.

Linda Dann, from Philadelphia, is a person of great equanimity.

Thank you for clarifying for me, a white 53 year-old. leftist, on the reality of under-representation of people of color in the so-called movement.

However, I want to also add for you that A.N.S.W.E.R. is being vilified throughout the left and though people may say they welcome the African American left into the swarm, they are being told to distance themselves from the group because of their "Marxist" affiliations. Well, not much to say good about my people in this or other areas - these so-called modern, well-educated protestors are falling for the Red Scare crap? You are right of course, and I have nothing to say for my 'niche' except for: we need everyone. These peaceniks are hard to tolerate for many of us as well, but we've gotta get out there and people need to stand up to those Christianity spoutin' shock and awe propagandists who don't even have to work hard to make sure our people are split by color if not by point of view.

PEACE and Keep it Up

Gertrude F. Treadway sees through the smoke and confusion to light and leadership.

Statistically there probably is under-representation of blacks in the anti-war movement due to all of the factors you mention. However, let me say that I am impressed and thrilled by the Congressional Black Caucus. They speak for me and other progressive Independents and Democrats far more than our own representatives.

On that note: Rep. John Conyers, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, has taken the lead in exploring the matter of George Bush's impeachment. (See The Issues in this issue of .)

Powell's squandered "potential"

Stephen Billock writes a letter with a long title: The One Man Who Could have Stopped the War But Chose Not To Do So:

His name is Colin Powell. Just imagine how the Richard Perle-Paul Wolfowitz cabal that is in the vanguard would have been set back if he had the courage to resign rather than to follow them into this war which will be perpetual and unwinnable. I use the word "unwinnable" believing no nation, be it a superpower or Banana Republic, can successfully wage a war upon a billion plus people whether they are Catholics or Muslims. Many people throughout the world had confidence that Powell was a moderate able to exert some form of restraint upon the madmen now running this country. But his collusion with them by reciting their false statements and lying conclusions prove he is not the dove as many believed but rather "a dove in khaki clothing."

Guest Commentator Rocky Rockwell would disagree with Mr. Billock on whether Powell has ever been anything other than a mass killer. See "Colin Powell: A hawk with smooth talons," in this issue.

The Sharpton factor

The pretentious online opinion mishmash Slate recently published a "field guide" to 22 "Iraq War Pundits" - lily white. The closest the (clearly racist) editors got to acknowledging the existence of Black opinion on the war came in the form of an insult to pundit #22, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH): "Currently competing with Al Sharpton for 'fringiest candidate' mantle in the 2004 Democratic primary."

Thus, the white candidate most firmly opposed to the Bush war is relegated to the fringes, while the Black man who may pick up half the primary votes of the Democrats' core constituency doesn't even make the Slate cut except as a fringe footnote. Such is the contempt that elite circles signal to Blacks, "who are the progressive mass base of the party, and to anti-war voters, a majority sentiment within the ranks at this time, nationwide. (See "Al Sharpton's Battle to Transform the Democrats," February 27.)

Michael Jordan is one of the millions of Americans who don't show up on Slate's radar.

Thank you for providing so much thoughtful analysis and unique information on Al Sharpton. My dream ticket would be Al with Barbara Lee; Harry Belafonte as Secretary of State, Jesse Jackson Jr. as the Attorney General and Jesse Jackson Sr. as Ambassador to the United Nations. Maxine Waters and Shirley Chisholm and John Conyers would be great nominations for the Supreme Court.

Your educational focus at on class/character interests over pigmentation is very warmly appreciated because it puts the glare on the substance of the enemy whether it be Powell, Rice, Lieberman, Thomas, or Gore. The core issue needs to always remain, "the content of their character, not the color of their skin."

Skeptical about Al

The despicable, crypto-racist Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), "the standard bearer for all that is wrong with the Democratic Party," continues to poll near the top of the primary pack. As we wrote on February 27, should Lieberman and his DLC prevail at the convention - or emerge as kingmakers of the ticket - the national Democrats are doomed.

If the party cannot loosen the fatal grip of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) - the Republican wing of the party - it will die. Black voters and their allies will either purge the DLC from national influence this primary season, or leave the Democrats to spiral into deserved oblivion.

Disassociation from the national Democratic Party does not equal Black Republicanism. For the national Democrats to die, Blacks need do... nothing.

That is what the polling data actually foretell - not an incipient Black conservatism, but levels of frustration with the national Democratic Party so high among Blacks that one more betrayal will likely spark a massive exit, even if the destination is... nowhere, the negative alternative that has already been chosen by a huge chuck of younger African Americans.

Florence Morgan takes issue with our analysis.

Well, I guess I am not one of the "huge" numbers that follow Sharpton. It would be a relief I suppose if the perm was the "only" problem. I fear there are problems much deeper than the chemical agents found in the perm kit. I hope not.

Kenneth J. Sawyer signs his letter, "American Citizen, Vietnam Combat Veteran." As Sawyer sees it, the corporatists of both parties are rank incompetents.

I'm not black, but I'm with you every step of the way on what you say about that chickenshit fraud Lieberman, although I'd pay good money to see Lieberman debate Bush: if I had enough to drink, I might be able to enjoy seeing who could out-pious who.

An attack on 9/11 where SOP was not followed, and not one head rolled - except 3,000 in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, of course. A total debacle in the mid-term elections to a crew that makes the Marx brothers look like the professionals that they were, and not one head rolls at the DLC.

Seems as if the Peter Principle is back with a vengeance.

Funny GOP fronts

Racists live in a world of illusions. They are fools who mostly fool themselves. Reader Temeka Higgins shares with us a sidesplitting example of Black Tom-foolery and white minstrelsy.

I ran across this article and found it totally hilarious. It just goes to show how far Repugnicans (repugnant +Republican) will go to make it look like they actually aren't racist. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58238-2003Jan29?language=printer

Stockholm syndrome

Anthony J. Kennerson testifies to the variety of Black political tendencies to be found in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Words cannot even begin to express my reaction to finding your website!!! I first discovered you through your reprints in CounterPunch, and then I really began browsing through your site about two months ago. It is a blessing to finally find someone who is finally willing to name names, find facts, and kick the asses that need to be kicked!

Although I would probably describe myself as one of those "Swedish Social Democratic" Black folk who is well to the Left of even the common liberal-left Black consensus (I'm more of a Libertarian Socialist of the Nelson Mandela/Noam Chomsky school), I usually attempt to keep an open mind about politics. It is quite refreshing, however, to find a site that is not a paid affiliate of the Neo-Fascist/Un-Religious Right or the weak, puny, try-to-please-everyone, base-your-principles-to-the-latest-opinion-poll "opposition" which passes for liberalism these days.

I will say that although I do have some disagreements with your opinions on some issues - bringing back the military draft being one of them - I nevertheless admire your ceaseless efforts to bring forth a level of understanding and debate that most other so-called Black opinion sites couldn't touch if they dared to! I will look forward to your continuous updates on all things Black and progressive. Keep bringing the truth... with power!

The analysis Mr. Kennerson refers to, "Poll Shows Black Political Consensus Strong," was published November 21. We thank Mr. Kennerson for giving us an excuse to return to the subject of "Black Swedish Social Democrats," as coined by Dr. Michael C. Dawson, Harvard professor of Government and Afro-American Studies. According to Dawson, conventional polling methods tend to group the vast majority of Blacks in the broad, "liberal" category.

"However, there are several things that are 'masked' by that. For example, we [Blacks] could all look like liberal Democrats compared to the rest of them [whites], but among each other, some Blacks look like Mondale Democrats, some of them look like Clinton Democrats, and some of them look like Swedish Social Democrats - more of them look like that"….

It is at this point that Dr. Michael Dawson's Swedish Social Democrat-type Blacks become relevant. Black voters are not simply darker American "liberals." As Dr. Dawson maintains, African Americans express themselves in the same way as do white American liberals at the polls, because that is the only option available. When that option appears to collapse, as the Democrats did in fear of George Bush, substantial numbers of African Americans recoil in despair and disgust - as would any good, Swedish Social Democrat. In the end, however, they have continued to show up to vote against the GOP.

Dr. Dawson, author of "Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies" (The Chicago University Press), has measured strong currents of social conservatism - which does not translate to political Republicanism - within the Black faith community, including the Nation of Islam.

An NOI view

Ricky Muhammad writes from Denver, Colorado, where opinion manufacturers routinely malign members of his faith.

One of the sisters in the Nation of Islam sent us a link for your magazine. It was sent to her by her father who is also in the Nation of Islam. I myself am in the Nation of Islam.

I say all of this to say that I am a follower of the Honorable Min. Louis Farrakhan. I love him, and the Nation of Islam. I sometimes don't subscribe to black publications, because they sometimes have the nerve, and audacity to criticize, or even demonize the Honorable Min. Louis Farrakhan, and claim that they are so much for black people.

I like this publication, it seems to be very strong. I will be a subscriber, as long as your publication keeps it real, and keeps it strong. Sign me up for emails. If you are another weak, scared to death, negro publication, then please lose my information. However, I did like what I read thus far, it was informative, and well written. Thank You.

We hope lives up to Mr. Muhammad's standards, which we believe are broadly consistent with our own.

Overseas sensibilities

Fred Spare is anything but sparing in his appraisal of . Luckily, Mr. Spare likes us. Otherwise, the full weight of the English language might be turned to our institutional destruction. The man is a wordsmith.

I'm an English man of 50. Your site is fantastic. The best. This last year or so I've been trying to oppose this aggression by letters, marching and so on. I've also trawled the Internet for hours nightly and found many sites with anti-war views. 'The Black Commentator' is quite outstanding - head and shoulders above any other. Your perspective and analysis is easily the most radical and the best researched. The accounts you have published of the whole edifice of geo-politics and the full dimensions of that for which 'oil' is mere shorthand have no real rivals that I have seen - and I have been looking hard. And your contributors and editorial writers are the most stylish and sonorous.

I have long regarded black Americans as utterly special. How they have risen above one of the worst historical experiences imaginable and to achieve so much has always been a profound personal inspiration. I continue to learn of more lies in 'Amerikan' history as I get older as well as the current version of how blacks can really make it to the top in the US - no mention of the continuing oppression, the gigantic Gulag of US prisons, the extermination of black radicals and their replacement by the depredations of crime and drugs. Racism is masked by 'political correctness' and, as you expose, by the appointments of the likes of Condoleezza, Clarence and Colin.

Greetings to you who must live in the belly of the Beast, from one who must live in the fur of the Beast's attack dog. Congratulations and deep appreciation for your work - fine work and finely done, too.

We thank Mr. Spare, and choose to believe every one of his kind words.

David Turner hails from "the belly," but writes to us from Greece.

In these terrible times, I find great solace in reading your paper, one of the very few that seems to think clearly. You should be given full marks.

Gloria Parker, an "informationist" specializing in video production, sends collegial greetings.

Thank you for being one of the most complete, reliable and truthful sources of information, insight, and commentary especially from a black perspective that we have. Your work is much appreciated.

Keep Writing.

www.blackcommentator.com

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