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The US-backed terror offensive
against the government of Haiti threatens to envelop the capital
city, Port-au-Prince. Very soon, Washington will begin the second
act of its gruesome political theater: “the rescue.” Having unleashed
Haiti’s former military and secret police from their bases in the
Dominican Republic, the U.S. now prepares to “step in to put the
pieces back together as it chooses,” as we wrote in last week’s commentary,
“US Goal: Declare Haiti a Failed State.”
Associate
Editor Kevin Pina began reporting on the Haitian “contra” buildup
in the Dominican Republic on April
3, 2003. In re-reading Pina’s
fall and winter dispatches, one senses the tiny economic elite’s
frustration that the US-led aid embargo had not succeeded in sparking
a popular revolt:
January
15, “Haiti’s Cracked Screen: Lavalas Under Siege While the
Poor Get Poorer”
December
18, “US-Backed
Haiti Opposition Emboldened: Student ‘Revolt’ Unmasked”
December
4, “The Bush Administration’s End Game for Haiti”
November
6, “The US
Corporate Media Distort Haitian Events”
October
30, “Propaganda
War Intensifies Against Haiti as Opposition Grabs for Power”
When it became clear that
Washington could not starve Haitians into turning against their elected
leader, the Bush men resorted to terror. Why is the US so determined
to crush democracy in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation? Margaret
Sawyer wants to know.
I agree
heartily with everything in Mr. Pina's article posted on your site,
but am desperate
for the last piece of the puzzle: what does the U.S gain by removing
Aristide? What's the real goal? Who benefits? Why? How?
Although pundits are eager
to compare the United States to the Roman or British Empires, today’s
Pirate-led superpower is in fact an entirely new animal. Our world
is wired. The planetary publics see and hear each other through mass
media. There are no remote or unimportant places. The very meaning
of the term “strategic” has been altered by the reconfiguration of
human connections. The Pirates require universal acceptance of their
template: global corporate rule through “free markets,” exalted to
a near-religion and governed by the whims of Washington. Deviation
from the template – anywhere on the planet – invites destruction.
Add to this the raw, frothing
racism of the Bush crew, and the Haitian outrage becomes understandable.
Democracy must be crushed in Haiti because the US wishes it so. The
act, the rationale, and the message are indivisible. Such is the
nature of Pirates-as-Superpower.
Art Flowers is the conjure-man
at the always interesting Rootsblog site. His columns read
well, because he’s well read.
Having
fallen for the media-based condemnation of Haiti and Aristide and
being chastised
for it by Rudy Lewis of Chickenbones, I decided to do
some research on the matter. In doing so I found your series
of articles by Kevin Pina last year on the media-based collusion
between
the US Administration and reactionary Haitian forces in their
efforts to delegitimize Aristide's government. These articles
now seem prescient in their forecast of events now coming to a head
in Haiti
and once again I am impressed with how well you do what you
do. May
you continue to play your invaluable role at this critical
juncture in our struggle and destiny. Keep the faith.
Michael Green writes from
the Left Coast.
Wonderful
stuff! I
heard Pina talk in Los Angeles summer/fall of last year but
his words to that gathering were far more muted. Sadly, I was
one of the few folk in the audience who knew enough to ask the right
questions
after the talk. I almost signed up for Pina's Global
Exchange Tour of Haiti scheduled for the last week
of February to
celebrate 200 years of freedom, but hesitated for the right reasons.
Alicia
Balassa-Clark is a scholar and activist from Vancouver, Washington.
As
always, you guys deliver. I was at a loss at finding articles
that fully explain what is going on in Haiti today. As always,
you guys deliver. Thank you for your excellence in providing
top notch analysis and perspectives that can give us readers a
better understanding of what is going on. Your newest issue
(Issue 78) with the in-depth article by Stan Goff, "Beloved
Haiti: A (Counter) Revolutionary Bicentennial," hits
the nail on the head. I am forwarding it on to all my colleagues
who are working for peace and in education.
Goff’s article was originally
published in the February
14 issue of Counterpunch.
John Lacny writes to remind
us that the corporate media serve as the Emperor’s trumpeters.
On February 11, the corporate citizens at the New York Times
penned
an editorial titled, “Haiti Erupts.” Lacny guides us through
the double-speak:
The Newspaper
of Record urged the Bush regime to "take constructive
action" and "not just drop hints that Mr. Aristide should resign." It's
hard to single out just one snakelike sequence of sentences in this loathsome
swamp, but probably the most poisonous – and the most characteristic of the
Times' style – is the double-attack on Aristide disguised as an effort at "even-handedness." Here
it is:
"Jean-Bertrand Aristide helped bring this crisis on himself,
with his encouragement of mob violence, politicization
of the national police
and failure to ensure fair legislative elections. Yet many
of the insurrectionists are former Aristide allies with even weaker
democratic
credentials."
So in other words, the only bad thing about the counterrevolutionaries
is that some of them are former supporters of Aristide.
A more realistic assessment of the nature of the "opposition" is
not in evidence here: for example, that they are really
just a bunch of bloody-minded macoutes
who deserve to have their heads chopped off with machetes,
a fate they have avoided only because of the remarkable
restraint thus
far shown by the popular
masses who overwhelmingly support Aristide.
And how about this paragraph?
"Nearly a decade ago, the Clinton administration's dispatch of
American troops helped persuade a murderous Haitian military junta
to step down, paving
the way for Mr. Aristide to complete his first presidential
term, which had been interrupted by a coup. Unfortunately, Washington's
involvement wound
down before the kinds of steps that would have deepened the
roots of Haitian democracy – like creating a professional police force
and independent electoral institutions – were completed. That kind
of unglamorous institution-building would most likely have prevented
the current insurrection and much
of the political crisis that preceded it."
It's a failure, then, of the US in not pursuing "unglamorous
institution-building," something
for which the Haitians are just not ready on their own apparently.
Not a mention of the (glamorous?) institution-building that the US
has done plenty
of in Haiti – namely, the cultivation of the Duvaliers and
the macoutes over several decades, the setting-up and financing
of FRAPH by the CIA, and currently
the International Republican Institute's financing of the so-called "Democratic
Convergence" with money supplied by the National Endowment
for Democracy.
In the real world, Haitians' determination that they are
quite capable of building their own institutions – though glamour,
like most things in Haiti, is in short supply – is tempered
by their understanding that they first have to be rid of the
more glamorous institutions long imposed from
Washington with the enthusiastic connivance of the pampered
brats who now fancy themselves the "opposition." We
can trust that what the vast majority of Haitians can see for
themselves will be missed by the New York
Times, a paper that caught plenty of hell over Jayson Blair's
imaginative scribblings even as it gleefully reported the far
more pernicious fairy tale
that Hugo Chavez had resigned as president of Venezuela. Their
line throughout will be that the US should "mediate" between
the popularly-elected government it has been trying to oust
on the one hand and the thuggish "opposition" it
created and cultivated in the first place.
Thanks be to the Black Commentator for cutting through the bullshit!
We
thank Mr. Lacny for his diligence, as well.
Wal-Mart: Leader
of the pack
The
retail giants that control the bulk of the nation’s food
sales claim that Wal-Mart is the Devil that is forcing
them to break
the grocery workers union. Since early October, 70,000
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) have been on
strike or locked out
of Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons stores in southern
California, fighting to retain a tenuous hold on middle
class life and health
care insurance for their families. In reality, the companies
are eager to re-invent themselves, as we wrote in our
February 19 Cover
Story, “Remaking
America in Wal-Mart’s Image: Grocery
Strikers Fight for Us All.”
The
truth is, Wal-Mart does want to take over the world – but
so do the managements of its strike-provoking competitors, who
swallowed schools of smaller fish to control 70 percent of grocery
sales in the top 100 markets. Certainly, Wal-Mart is closing fast,
with $53 billion in grocery sales and 1400 “supercenters” in 42
states, but the “real problem” is much deeper than the folks at
Forbes can safely grasp without losing their capitalist minds.
In the world they have created for themselves in which corporate
death is avoided only through constant increases in dividends,
and having eaten nearly all of the smaller prey, the mega-grocers
have no one to feed on but themselves – or their employees. They
began chewing on the workers in the first week of October – all
the while blaming it on Wal-Mart.
Despite
$700 million dollars in losses in the last quarter, Safeway stock
prices rose, the result of collusion and stock hyping among Wall
Streeters anxious to break the union – any union.
Stephen F. Diamond is a
Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell Law School. His letter is
a fine example of why we publish an e-Mailbox column.
I thought
your recent column on the southern California supermarket strike
was very good. Your
analysis of the relationship between the "threat" of Wal-Mart
and the rest of the grocery industry rings true. So does your
view of the "solidarity" shown by the three companies. It
might interest you to know what some of my research on the industry
has shown. There is, I think, a larger layer here and that
is the role of Wall Street. Did you know,
for example, that Safeway was founded by the investment
bank, Merrill Lynch, in the
late 1920s as part of their effort back then to
consolidate smaller stores? In fact it was Merrill's founder, Charles Merrill,
who led the effort and his son-in-law, Robert Magowan took over the
company in 1955. In the early 70s Magowan's son Peter took
over the company. In turn he led the management buyout that
was engineered by leveraged buyout firm KKR in the 80s. After
a dramatic restructuring that included thousands of layoffs they
took the company public again making tens of millions for their shareholders – and
millions in fees for KKR and other investment firms. In fact,
KKR at one point owned a significant part of the American grocery
industry, including Stop & Shop and Bruno's. Bruno's
went belly up.
In each
of these efforts the grocery stores take on massive debt as you
suggest and engage
in frequent transactions as they try to stay ahead
of the debt. Wall
Street, in other words, is "milking" the grocery
industry for as much as it can get and the interests
of customers and workers are secondary. This has long
been a standard technique of Wall Street. It was part of what
led to the break up of the banking and utility industries
in the 1930s and 40s as part of the New Deal's effort to "save" capitalism.
Keep up
the good work.
The Los
Angeles Alliance for a New Economy does some of the most advanced,
cutting edge work we know of in building coalitions to resist corporate
destruction
of communities. William D. Smart Jr. is a community
organizer with LAANE.
Your story
was very helpful for me today. I work for the organization in Los
Angeles that is
leading the fight to keep Wal-Mart out of Inglewood
California. We also work very close with the UFCW and in
a matter of two hours many of us will be getting arrested for civil
disobedience
in support of the striking workers. Something
about your article really touched me today. Thank you.
LANNE is suing to
stop Wal-Mart’s drive to build supercenters in
communities “without
any governmental or public review of the social,
economic or environmental impacts of their projects.”
Condoleezza’s orbit
Lloyd Cata has a certain
style about him, honed in real-life conversations
on subjects that really matter to people. Last week Mr. Cata
let us in on a talk
he had with his son, regarding “Condoleezza
Rice and the Politics of Personal Power.”
Now that
we're on the same page, you understand that Condi Rice “don't really have no power.” You
know damn well that she was appointed "national security advisor" to
Bush because of her ability to work as a mentor with “special” students.
Dr. Rice simply does Mr. Bush's heavy reading. Don't believe it?
How come Condi is not plugged into the national security apparatus?
If she really was then she should take the fall for 911, because
she failed to bring to the President’s attention the immediate threat
of terrorism. The National Security Advisor compiles the reports
of the CIA, FBI, and all other intelligence agencies and then briefs
the president. The National Security Advisor uses these reports to
prioritize the national security agenda. So 911 falls squarely on
Ms. Rice in failing the President and the people of the United States.
Of course, the “Politics of Personal Power” allows the President
to lend her some of his personal power and fill the position "according
to his needs."
Leutisha
Stills, our frequent correspondent in Oakland, California, enjoyed
the piece.
An insightful
article by your guest commentator, Lloyd Cata. I loved how he drew
the dichotomy between how the earlier generations were reared with
the global sense of community, respect for one's elders, and the
importance of being known by your personal conviction as opposed
to who you associate with. I also appreciated his articulation
of how we tend to give away our personal power through associations
with individuals who may lack credibility, dignity and honor.
We really should pay special attention to how one's association can
damage their credibility as Black Leaders. Once upon a time,
if Colin Powell had run for President, I would have crossed party lines
and voted for him
because he appeared to represent honor, truth,
integrity and intelligence, most highlighted by his military background. Today,
as a result of his association with the Bush gang (“administration” is
a word used for democratic operations), his credibility is shot to
the curb, he has been stripped of
his honor and dignity, and one can see that he's
aware of his reduction in status, as evidenced by his going off on
a Hill staffer who was shaking his
head during Mr. Powell's testimony as if to say "I
know this chump is lying..."
In the end, Mr. Cato reminds us that it's not about who you hang with;
it's about what you did to make a valuable contribution
to society, and how well you represented yourself through your convictions,
beliefs and values.
Expect less with
Bush
In last week’s Freedom Rider
column, “George
Bush: Master of Low Expectations,” Margaret
Kimberley tackled a double contradiction.
The Bush crowd complains that affirmative
action promotes persons of lesser competence,
yet
the President, a child of multiple privileges,
seems devoid of any particular competence,
himself. In the swirl of a rich man’s world,
what substance really rises to the top? “George
W. Bush has participated in a racial preference
program his entire life,” Ms. Kimberley wrote. “But
after all those years of entitlement and
connections to the best America has to offer,
George W. Bush has emerged as a man who can’t
put together more than two coherent sentences
and stumbles and pauses when attempting to
express very simple ideas.” Kimberley suggested
that Bush call in his advisors to help him
think, and then issue the following statement:
“It is painfully obvious
to everyone that I do not have the skills to be President of the
United States. I reached this point because of family connections
and sweetheart deals. Only the most qualified people in our society
should have the opportunity to reach the position that I have. Henceforth,
my administration will now declare that affirmative action is in
fact constitutional and also a benefit to America. If affirmative
action is guaranteed we will never again risk the presence of a low
achieving, disengaged, inarticulate man in the White House. America
can and must do better. Thank you and good night.”
Elliot Podwill was pleased.
I loved
your piece on Dubya and affirmative action. I sent it to several
websites and will
use the essay in a class that I teach.
(I'm an English prof. in CUNY). Your past essays are also terrific,
especially the ones attacking
the religious right.
Trust No One
“Paranoia is usually the
reserve of conspiracy theorists of every political stripe, fans of
science fiction, and Black people,” said Ms. Kimberley, in her February
12 column. “We are given a pass because of the horrific treatment
meted out to us throughout American history. Slavery, lynching, the
Tuskegee experiment and COINTELPRO give us paranoia rights while
others are mocked and dismissed for expressing their suspicions of
malfeasance by the powerful. But other Americans would be better
served if they acknowledged their own need to question authority
and to doubt the benevolence of their leaders.”
Mona Smith agrees with Kimberley, but advises her to watch her back.
I recently became a big fan of yours in reading your articles on Black
Commentator and Freedom Rider.
Your style shows that you are not a woman to be cowed
and I admire your straight-forwardness. Believe it or not,
you have
inspired me by opening up a consciousness that unbeknownst has
been under the surface. I
read your latest article, “Trust
No One." It was
completely on and deeply
insightful
on the pulse of what really
is
going
down in America. After reading
that particular article,
I had to do a Margaret Kimberley
search
to find more and came upon
the article on, 'The truth
about
Tulia'. Just keep it coming.
Basically, I want to say thank you for sharing your talent and
watch out because they definitely are keeping an eye on a truth-speaker
such as you.
The
evolving line on vouchers
New Jersey is a testing
ground for the Right’s evolving voucher
arguments. In a strategic shift,
voucher supporters now warn suburbanites
that, unless private
school vouchers are made available
to inner city students, minorities
will seek cross district transfers
to better schools in the suburbs
under the No Child Left Behind Act
(NCLB). Homeowner taxes will also
rise, the Right warns, unless urban
public school populations are
reduced through private school vouchers.
This is the alarming “New
Scheme to Sell Suburbanites on Vouchers:
Scaring whites with taxes and fears
of minority influx,” the subject
of our February 12 Cover Story.
The main voucher outfit
in New Jersey is E-3, Excellence
in Education for Everybody. The Wal-Mart family-funded organization
recently sent “surveys” to
191 school superintendents, demanding “the
master collective bargaining agreement
for your teaching personnel, and
any and all public records
that affect their terms and conditions
of employment.” Further, “the
term ‘records’ is construed as broadly
as possible under the statutory definition
of the New Jersey Open Public Records
Act.”
The surveys will be used
to as “evidence” in a campaign to paint urban education as a hopeless
waste of tax money, and teachers unions as leeches of the public
treasury. It’s a tricky strategy, since suburbanites are generally
pleased with the quality of their own schools and teachers. That’s
where the racial scare tactics come in.
To broaden
the appeal to the suburban political majority, E-3 and its rich masters
now
offer vouchers as a safety valve
to contain minorities in the inner cities, and as a means to avoid
higher taxes to pay for equalization
of public education opportunities.
They are about to play their race cards, big-time.
We got a welcome letter
from Daniel Pryzbyla, toiling in
the education activism vineyards of Milwaukee, home of the phony
voucher “movement’s” Hard
Right Sugar Daddy, the Bradley Foundation.
Great
article! You guys are 20 years ahead of present day political mentality
on this voucher
issue. Keep up the great work!
Mr. Pryzbyla authored a
excellent article in Education News.org, that details how vouchers
vultures seek to profit from the chaos and confusion of NCLB:
Voucher
Carpetbaggers Blaze the Marketplace Trails
”With states
jumping through the 2001 No Child Left Behind high-stakes testing
hoops faster than
you can whistle Dixie, it
was a no-brainer for voucher carpetbaggers there would soon be easy
pickings. Knowing public schools and districts
couldn’t meet all the federal
education law’s hideous
accountability rules, resulting
in harsh
sanctions, this helped
facilitate the voucher
marketplace agenda.”
EPI’s vouchers conversation
Lawrence Mishel is president
of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in Washington, DC. We value
EPI highly, but Mr. Mishel’s tone is troubling:
I'm a
regular reader and you frequently discuss vouchers. One point that
you don't seem to
make is that there's
no evidence that vouchers benefit the students who get vouchers.
The new
argument for vouchers is that the competition will force public schools
to improve – that
those who don't get the vouchers will be helped:
Mr. Mishel directed us to
A
conversation on school vouchers, EPI,
June 12, 2003.
In fact, the argument Mr.
Mishel refers to – that competition fosters quality – has always
been part of the vouchers arsenal. Last summer’s fact-filled EPI
conference call among five educators is extremely useful in illuminating
this one aspect of the many-sided vouchers discussion. We don’t know
why Mr. Mishel is so keen to advertise this particular conversation
as the be-all-and-end-all word on the Right’s multi-layered voucher
offensive, which has a variety of political objectives. Such smugness
prevents anti-voucher forces from recognizing “new” lines of attack
from the Right, such as the race and tax fear campaign that is currently
unfolding in New Jersey. The vouchers fight is political. Not
only is the struggle not limited to educators, it is in some respects
not even about urban education, which is of no real concern to the
main actors behind vouchers: the Wal-Mart family, the Bradley Foundation,
and the Bush administration.
has
explored every aspect of the pro-voucher argument, dating from our
inaugural edition, April 5, 2002. Indeed,
we have written so many pieces on the many ways that the Right finds
vouchers useful as a political weapon,
we sometimes feel as
if we own the issue. Mr. Mishel also appears to feel proprietary
about vouchers, but seems to believe the conversation
begins and ends in the pages of his Economic Policy Institute.
We have not criticized EPI
for failing to explore in any depth the Right’s attempt to create
an alternative Black political leadership around the vouchers issue,
for example. We recognize that’s not their job, or area of competence.
EPI is an extremely valuable institution, and does great work. We
can forgive their excessive vanity, if it serves to make them more
productive.
P.S. Roberts sees the voucher
offensive in a larger context
I am not
surprised at the blatant and glaring futuristic racism that is
going on today,
from Ward Connerly's
need to send us back to the 40's and 50's via his neoconservative
viewpoint on African American issues (can we
say the new form
of Uncle Tom?) to Bush’s need to hide his (and his
administration's) glaring hatred of all things dealing with people
of color. And, to add to the mix, here comes the school voucher issue,
which is supposedly designed to "help students in inner city
find better schools" – which,
in the opinion
of this writer,
is nothing more
than a total
crock of fetal
matter.
We as a people need not
only to start getting
together on this problem, but also to start talking between ourselves,
and with everyone of color who has a child in school
to stem the threat
that this "no child left behind" represents.
We need to understand
that the present Administration does not have the child's best interests
in mind.
Something
has to be done; otherwise, our public education system will be
disbanded, and those who can afford to go to school (read: whites
and those
of color who
are considered the "good ones") will be the
only ones educated – not
the poor, middle
class nor those
of color in the
inner cities.
I shudder
to think of a future for children of color under this "no child left behind" crap.
There are only two options that I can see: either stand up, support
the public schools, and FIGHT for our children's future, or, consign
them to a government policy which would much rather they be in jail
(read: concentration camp) than guarantee their educational future.
John Smith says, keep your
eyes on the money.
Thank
you, thank you, it is about time that someone wrote about this
new process to divide
and conqueror
and cause hardships among black and Latino parents and their
children. The system (education) does not want to spend
funds to
upgrade inner city schools, so they have created a diversionary
scheme, of getting a few black and Latino children into mostly
urban
white schools.
Yes we all want the best education possible for our children but
it is going to take more than just a few millions to
get the
city schools up to par. People can make the difference
if they
work together, but this is where the difficulty comes in, because
their neighborhoods are segregated into enclaves of color.
We are
now back to segregated schools throughout the country, the same
as it was in 1969. Believe
it because
it is so. However the fight against this travesty of difference in
education dollars and commitments still are battles for those
who want their children to get a first class education.
“Jacklegs” and leadership
We followed up on our February
5 Cover Story
on the Sharpton-Republican revelations (“The
Problem
With Al Sharpton”) with commentary in the following week’s
e-Mailbox section. “Sharpton
never veered
from his
progressive
platform;
that’s something [GOP operative] Roger Stone could not ‘extract’ from
him,” we wrote.
A more fundamental question
raised by Sharpton’s symbiotic relationship with Republicans this
campaign season, goes to the processes through which Black “leadership” is
created – or,
the lack
of such
processes beyond
the ability
to grab
media attention.
Sharpton
told a New York radio audience: “I’m willing to play the game by
the same rules as everybody else does.” That’s fine and dandy but,
What is the “game” that
is being
played?
(Thulani
Davis
provided
some
frank
talk
on the
subject
in her
February
18 Village
Voice
piece,
“It’s
Time
to Call
for New Black Leadership.”)
Certainly, African American
leadership exists in the myriad organizations that spring from the
community; among those activists who struggle on behalf of The Race
in larger arenas; and in the ranks of politicians who have been directly
elected to represent Black constituencies. Yet pointing in many directions
still begs the question of the character and definition of “Black
leadership” in the United States, leaving us with insufficient commonly
accepted grounds on which to judge Sharpton and other aspirants.
Vernon S. Burton, of San
Leandro, California, knows what kind of “leadership” he doesn’t want
to be burdened with:
Just when
will the few progressive black media outlets stop allowing the racist
white community
to
select black leaders for black folks? These long in the tooth jackleg
preachers have long been an embarrassment to thinking black
folks.
Jesse with his love child and Al with his shilling for bigots in
the GOP should go away and stop impeding the struggle.
We have included the next
two letters because they are…interesting. Joel L. Lewis writes:
correctly
identifies many of the flaws of Sharpton and his candidacy. However,
most of
these flaws are applicable to most Black "leaders" and
politicians in the country. They are all "company" men
and women controlled directly or indirectly by the Democratic Party.
In the end, Sharpton is going to give a glowing endorsement to whoever
the Democratic nominee is, and he will be rewarded with large sums
of "voter registration funds." Other black "leaders" and politicians
will follow suit. To his credit, Sharpton has criticized the
Democratic party for many of its racists views and policies like
no other
candidate in recent memory. Sadly, Sharpton and most Black leaders
and politicians are used by the Democratic party to keep the
black "herd" within
the party without representing their interests.
We are quite sure we don’t
agree with the next reader’s “Trojan Horse” advocacy, but Sondjata
Olatunji does write an intriguing letter.
I knew
the article about Sharpton was coming and enjoyed reading it. I held
my cursor until
I saw the reader reaction to the article. I was not disappointed.
Unfortunately, but predictably, most of the cited respondents,
which I assume represent the majority of the
correspondence received, got it wrong. Let me explain.
Many of us should remember "sweat suit and medallion" Sharpton,
who after being stabbed became "suit" Sharpton. I knew when
I saw the suit, that Sharpton realized his days as outsider were over.
Sharpton
had bigger plans. Still, he stuck to his philosophical guns. Slowly
but surely he built NAN and became a force to be reckoned with in NYC
politics. He even, twice, extended his voice to police abuse visited
on white victims. Sharpton,
as far as I recall never aligned himself with Democrats. It was simply
that Democrats had a choke hold on black "leadership." Therefore,
it was (and is) assumed that Sharpton would be a "party man." It's
not his fault that this misconception took root. As pointed
out Sharpton was always there when the dirt went down in NYC. It was
Sharpton, not Calvin Butts,
Floyd Flake, or the other "leaders."
During the election that put [Mayor] Bloomberg in office, Sharpton
made it clear that party affiliation was not what mattered, but
being able to
have needs met, and holding elected officials accountable. He did not
allow himself or black people to be condescended to by [mayoral candidates]
Mark
Green or Fernando Ferrer. Sharpton is doing what many of us in
Garveyite circles
have long been saying. Blacks ought to Trojan Horse into the Republican
party and use whatever resources they can to forward the black
agenda. Isn't this
what Sharpton has done? I think a history lesson is due here. Toussaint
L'Ouveture sided with the Spanish against the French and then French
against the English
and then turned on France. Was Toussaint a sellout for taking
sides with his "enemies" when it was expedient to his ultimate
goal?
Many so called "black leaders" foamed at the mouth when
they found out that Marcus Garvey had a sit down with the head of the
KKK. Yet
in his philosophies and opinions it is revealed that he did so in part
to provide safety for blacks in his organization in the South. But
as usual,
the shortsighted leadership failed to understand that a temporary alliance
is no deep relationship.
So in my book, Sharpton didn't sell out. Black leadership sold him
out as predicted by some
time ago. Nothing strange nothing change.
We were not aware of this
particular defense of Garvey’s meeting with the Klan – a fascinating
angle on Sharpton’s relationship with Roger Stone.
Rich Cowan suggests that
groups seeking a wider reach attend his Grassroots
Use of Technology conference, March 13, at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology – and
learn how to avoid dependence on the moneybags. “Someone from
Sharpton’s
organization” attended last year’s conference, said Cowan. “We
have been providing free and low-cost technology to many African
American
led organizations for the purpose of doing political work and this could be used by a genuine grassroots
alternative. It
is too bad that Sharpton decided to sell out to people who aren't progressive.”
Death by media
’s
Website activity logs and letters show that our January 29 Cover
Story, "The Awesome
Destructive Power of Corporate Media,” continues to circulate on
the Internet.
It is
no longer possible to view commercial news media as mere servants
of the ruling rich – they
are full members of the presiding corporate pantheon. General media
consolidation has created an integrated mass communications system
that is both objectively and self-consciously at one with the Citibanks
and ExxonMobils of the world. Media companies act in effective unison
on matters of importance to the larger corporate class. For all politically
useful purposes, the monopolization of US media is now complete,
in that the corporate owners and managers of the dominant organs
are interchangeable and indistinguishable, sharing a common mission
and worldview.
Mary Pjerrou finds the corporate
media’s fingerprints at every major political crime.
Just read
Glen Ford and Peter Gamble's analysis of corporate media power
over the selection
of Democratic Party nominee for president, as it appeared
in Dissident Voice. I agree totally. Corporate
media is Public Enemy No. 1. No Bush Inc. in the White House
without them (illegal vote count in Florida '00). No Iraq
War without them (despite Bush Inc. lies about Iraq that were known
everywhere
else on earth, the American public had no clue as to
the false case Bush Inc. was making). No corporate looting
of the US federal budget without them. No tax cuts for the
rich without them. No
trillion dollar federal deficit without them. Corporate
media made all these things possible. And now they've
selected their Democratic
Party nominee – pro Iraq war, pro Patriot Act, pro NAFTA-GATT,
corrupt DC insider John Kerry.
I'm a
Californian, and my right to participate in my party's selection
of a nominee has
been taken from me, by this same corporate media that brought
us Bush Inc. and the Iraq abomination. I see it, too. I
see that THAT is the problem – corporate media monopoly over facts
and opinion – and if we don't solve it, our democracy is over. Fini. And
all those rights that we have fought for, for so many decades, will
be meaningless. Thanks for your insight. Please do more reporting
and analysis on this issue!
More such analysis is inevitable.
The media are the indispensable accomplices – passive or active – to
every crime worth noting.
Sex-A-Vision
Reynard Blake’s February
12 piece appears to have touched readers where Big Media
thinks we all live – that is, in the realm of “Sex,
Drugs & Cash:
The Hypocrisy of the National Football League and the Media.” Peter
E. Fowler is a friend of ours from Columbus, Ohio. He’s
not into all that stuff, but…
I'm writing
today in response to Reynard Blake's piece in the 13 Feb. edition
regarding the uproar
over Janet Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl's
halftime show. I didn't watch the game or see the incident in question,
but as a
news junkie I've followed the aftermath in the media.
It's been a media circus and the issue has been wholly overblown,
to say the
least. But Mr. Blake has been the first analyst (that
I've read) to articulate the racial undertones that made the incident
so repugnant
to conservative white America. Kudos to Mr. Blake for
making this plain, and to for
placing it prominently in the public dialogue. There's no sense
in denying the reality of this aspect of the issue.
Miss Jackson is harmless
as an entertainer. That's a stereotypical role that white
America has long used to keep blacks at a safe distance (the very
same device used on the "savage" black male athlete who
was on display in the Super Bowl). But begin to disrobe her, especially
in "prime time," and she suddenly becomes threatening.
Now add to that that it was a white boy (Justin Timberlake) doing
the disrobing, and the faux outrage ensued. White America is
still repulsed by the concept of inter-color relationships. It has
been a fascinating study to watch white fear, ignorance, racism,
and hypocrisy go off the charts these past 2 weeks. And more
so to see it go by without getting called out...’til now.
Chicken George
Kevin M. Clark, at the University
of Texas, gave lots of thought to an earlier article
by Reynard Blake, "But
He's a Chicken," a hilarious-but-heavy
piece from February 5.
I have
been reading your website for a few months now and am impressed
every week. I
am a white male. It has been wonderful
to discover a site that offers a perspective
I simply do not get in my every day interactions.
I found
the article "But
He's a Chicken" provoking and probably true in many instances. As
a white male born to an upper middle class suburban family I
feel an obligation to help those who society has consistently sold
short and pushed down. It's possible that there would not be
a need for affirmative action and similar programs if people would
take the initiative themselves and understand the privilege that
exists simply by being a white male. This is not apologizing
for how and what I was born, it is understanding how that status
has helped put me where I am. There is a huge need in our society
to each feel like a self-made person. That is the myth of our
system of economics: we can each succeed by pulling ourselves up
by our bootstraps. This desire to achieve that myth makes people
(generally middle and upper class white people) blind to the fact
that they did not succeed all on their own effort. Everyone
in the US has an advantage over most of the rest of the world when
it comes to being materially successful, no one would argue with
that. That calculus does not change once you get into the US. White
America has a head start and is applying a constant
stiff arm to anyone else who tries to catch up.
I have been turned down
by colleges and universities, but I don't care
to find out why. Is
it affirmative action (probably not since those programs have generally
been eviscerated), is it my grades, my experience? Who knows? What
I do know is that I am in law school now and must work to succeed. People
who complain that their spots are being taken by "less qualified" black
students have never known adversity and do not know how to respond
other than to complain. Sometimes things do not go your way
(ask any black person over the age of 40, and most black people over
the age of 10). Knowing adversity for the first time in your
life is an opportunity to improve yourself and succeed in spite of
something. For too long, middle and upper class white males
have succeeded with the help of their position. Being forced
to actually be self-sufficient is character building and also completely
and totally fair. The counter argument that blacks should not
get affirmative action because that is not being truly self-sufficient does
not work because blacks have been affirmatively held down and held
back for so long. It is only fair and just to help someone
you have kicked to the ground get back up and in the same position
as you before you keep racing.
I would also like to make
the point that I think the biggest problem
facing this country right now is the economic line dividing wealth
from poverty. Lower
class whites clearly have advantages that lower class blacks do not
have, but everyone in poverty in this country is being sold down
the river by George W. Bush. Blacks just happen to be in the boat
that is being sold down the river the quickest. I urge upper
and middle class whites to take affirmative steps to redress the
historical imbalances in our society. This is not being patronizing
or paternalistic, it is being just and fair. Children born
of privilege owe a duty to those who were not born as such. It
speaks ill of our character when we lie and say "we succeeded
on our own, so can everybody else." The time is now to
admit that we certainly had help getting where we are, and the time
is also now to offer a helping hand to those who are struggling to
get where we are. Middle class society is not a zero sum game. Every
black family that succeeds and makes it to the middle class does
not force out a white family. There is bounty enough for everyone
if the people with the privilege would understand the head start
they have, appreciate the injustice of the situation and do
something positive to remedy the injustice.
Thank you for your insightful
articles. You have a loyal reader and a friend in me.
The French
The French and, possibly,
the Germans and Russians may soon raise the issue
of Iraqi sovereignty at the United Nations. A reader’s letter gave
us the opportunity to call attention to our September
18, 2003 Cover Story, “What’s
Up with the French? The Not-American Strategy.” The
piece was keyed to Foreign Minister Dominique de
Villepin’s September 12 letter published
in the Paris newspaper-of-record, Le Monde. Our analysis, in part:
In the
face of the Bush regime’s assault against international order itself, France has chosen
the path of interposition, for which it is uniquely suited. However,
no one should imagine for a moment that the French business classes,
represented by President Jacque Chirac’s conservative government,
relish this confrontation with the U.S. (Only American – and a few
British – pundits are stupid enough to trivialize the current crisis.)
Every elite on the globe is threatened by the 21st Century version
of American Manifest Destiny. For this overarching reason, at this
moment in history France speaks for world, not just European, opinion.
Daniel Talero is
the fellow who brought the article out of the archives.
As a US
national living in Canada, I'd like to thank you for providing what
I consider some
of the sharpest political analysis to be
found on the web or anywhere else. The article on the current French diplomatic position "what's
up with the French?" was simply masterful, a refreshing bit
of critical thought on a subject that has become the favorite smear
of the American media. Yours is a unique publication – keep
up the excellent work.
www.blackcommentator.com
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